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Johnny Rockfort was fucking Blessed.
Ask anyone, that’s what they would tell you, right? The guy was just too crazy not to be, the way he acted like he didn’t give a damn whether he lived or died; the way he got himself into the diciest situations you’d ever seen, targeting the richest, most influencial motherfuckers out there, taunting the police, practically begging to be shot at.
And yet, somehow, he always waltzed out with not a scratch on him, smiling like the cat that got the cream.
The City favored him, that’s what they said. He spilled blood onto the pavement for her, and she protected him in return. The bitch was thirsty, always.
So, yeah, Johnny Rockfort was Blessed. If you believed in that stuff.
***
When Johnny was a child, he started dreaming. He could see the City from his bedroom window, and that meant She could see him too, right? He watched Her when he was awake, wishing he could escape this shitty suburb and join Her. She watched him as he slept, and sent him dreams. He didn’t understand them; they were strange, a riot of color, sounds and smells, but when he woke up he knew what they meant: I see you, I love you, I want you. Come to me.
It was too early when he ran down the metro stairs, limping and bleeding, looking over his shoulder frantically, but the train came for him anyway just as the other guys were jumping the turnstiles, and the doors closed in their faces. As soon as he entered Her perimeter he relaxed, sliding sideways onto the bench and falling asleep. Nothing would happen to him, because She had him now. She would protect him.
She’d brought him to the Café, and it was full of others like him: those who needed Her, who lived for Her, who were chosen by Her. Those who’d come, like pilgrims, to swear Her their allegience; those who needed Her like children need ther mothers; those who loved Her like addicts love their dealers.
Johnny made his home there, and there he thrived, under Her watchful, caring eye.
***
Whatever Janvier was doing, anyone could see the City was fighting him every step of the way.
There was an arrogance to him, and he stank of ambition, ego and modernity. Everything he did defied the old order. He gutted entire blocks, digging where he pleased without regard for anything; he built without care, towers high enough to poke at the sky. But whatever he achieved, he did against the odds. Everything that could have gone wrong always did, and a few more things beside. The soil under his towers never turned out to be what studies had predicted. Foundations collapsed under the force of unexpected subterranean rivers. Electrics were fickle; the water mains always burst once a project neared completion, just late enough in the game that the expensive interiors had already been fitted.
And yet, Janvier kept digging, razing, building. He didn’t believe in the City, in the old rules, in things that couldn’t be seen. He believed only in himself and what he could put in the bank.
***
Sometimes, Johnny thought the City had delivered Cristal to him as a reward. It wasn’t a very nice way of thinking about it, it wasn’t like Cristal hadn’t decided to come, hadn’t decided to stay. But Johnny knew enough about how She operated to see Her mark on everything that had happened. Cristal making it to the Café from the surface, alone but unscathed? Their mad escape through the Tunnels, the deepest parts of Her? Fuck, they’d been hiding in plain sight for weeks as the search for Cristal went on and on, and yet the sirens never stopped on their block, no one ever burst through their door.
Cristal didn’t understand what he meant, when he said they were under protection. He’d tried to explain, to check if maybe she also had a special relationship with the City, but he didn’t think so. That scared him, a little bit, but he didn’t really know how to introduce her. If She hadn’t taken notice of Cristal by now, then he didn’t know how to get Her attention. Not in the right way.
***
You know Stella Spotlight made a deal to be famous, right? No, not with the devil – well. Depends on how you thought about these things.
Her face on every billboard, on the side of buses, posters high as houses hanging from skyscrapers. Stella was a socialite, the life of the party. For a while, it was like she kept the city alive single-handedly, kept the champagne flowing in the bars, kept the music playing and the party roaring. Money, drugs, sex, she was at the center of it all, and that’s the kind of stuff the City likes, right? That’s the kind of energy it feeds on.
And then, she forgot. Got tired and moved out, a nice villa somewhere quiet, somewhere secluded. No more noise, no more people, no more parties. She'd paid her dues, she thought.
Yes, Stella forgot the City, but the City never forgot her. Dangerous, that. Ask anyone.
So to those who believed? Not such a surprise to hear the woman ended up watering the pavement, if you get my drift.
***
When Cristal fell down, Johnny had his answer. He’d thought, maybe – because things had gone so well up to this point, their travel through the streets going unnoticed, the doors to the Tower opening for them... Maybe She cared about them both. They were working together, after all. Whatever protection Johnny benefited from, he’d tried desperately to pass onto Cristal, with his sweat, his saliva. Etc. But he thought, maybe the City didn’t understand things like that. It was old and tired and it probably didn’t care about human things any more than he cared about the feelings of ants.
Or maybe She was just jealous. Maybe She wanted him to Herself.
Worse: maybe She'd heard his thoughts, about leaving Her for Cristal.
So when the Tower blew, the only fear left in Johnny’s chest was that She wouldn’t let him die. He closed his eyes and prayed to Her. Please. I respect you, I love you and I’m thankful for everything you’ve done for me. Please, let me go now.
No, She answered, implacable. It was the first time She’d spoken to him directly since the dreams.
When he opened his eyes, he was on a sidewalk somewhere. It couldn’t be too far away from what was left of the Tower, because the smoke was everywhere, his eyes stinging from it, his mouth gritty. He’d still been clutching Cristal, his hands locked tight into the fabric of her dress.
You don’t understand, he told Her. I don’t want it. Not without her. Not like this.
The City shook dangerously then, an old god’s version of a shrug.
Please, he tried again. Please. Anything, but not this.
He prostrated himself over Cristal’s body and cried, his tears falling onto Cristal's vacant eyes and sliding down her cheeks, washing away the dust, taking on a faint rosy tinge from the blood at the corner of her mouth. Falling onto the pavement, soaking into it.
Please.
The world shook once more and whatever was left of the Tower collapsed, sending up another massive cloud of dust, the force of it upending cars, bending lightpoles, uprooting trees.
Johnny could have kissed the ground.
***
There were a few survivors from the earthquake, you know. That DJ guy, from the party. A few guests. City rats, all of them. The tower was the epicenter, and yet they made it out, white as ghosts from all the dust, almost unbelievably unscathed.
Of course, nothing is unbelievable, when you have faith.
That waitress from the Café in the lower levels, too. That one was more of a surprise – she used to tell everyone how much she hated the City, how much she wanted to leave. But we’ve all said stuff we don’t mean, right? Sometimes the ones who complain the most are the realest ones. The belligerant ones, the curmudgeons; those whose love has a little bite, a little texture. The City doesn’t deal in words, anyway. It knows what’s in your heart.
Johnny Rockfort and his girl, they walked out of the cloud holding hands, can you believe it? What they were doing in there in the first place, nobody knows. Somehow all the security footage from that day got erased in a freak accident, an electromagnetic pulse, they said. I hear they can happen, with earthquakes.
You're not surprised, are you? I told you from the start: Johnny Rockfort was fucking Blessed.
You believed, didn't you?
***
The end!