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COUNTDOWN TO DOOMSDAY
Cassandra and Jake survived in the
urban wasteland that was Chicago. Waiting in constant readiness for the day
when war would break out again … with New York, Washington, perhaps Dallas.
Then the attack came without
warning. A limited atomic bombardment that threatened worse devastation.
With the Government of Chicago
crippled by panic, betrayal and murder, Jake and Cassandra were forced into
action alone.
But if it was too late to save their
city, it was not too late to save their love.
Thrive,
cities—bring your freight, bring your shows, ample and sufficient rivers,
Expand,
being than which none else is perhaps more spiritual,
Keep
your places, objects than which none else is more lasting.
—Walt
Whitman
“We are each of us cities,” the Scholar sang.
George Weston spent the last minute
of his life waiting in line at a hot-pretzel stand in the middle of a crowded
Chicago intersection. He’d just given his order—two pretzels, hold the
mustard—when a cry from somewhere behind him made him look back.
The
crowd of people dispersed almost immediately, some shouting and shoving their
way off the curb, others merely shrinking back against gray-walled buildings,
huddling together and making no sound and looking up at the sky.
George
Weston took his lunch and turned away from the vendor’s stand. He squinted in
the midday light. Where had his wife gone? She’d been only a few feet away.
He
was aware suddenly of the scream of a woman, and, from somewhere a few blocks
away, that of a shrill siren.
George
Weston finally looked up, just in time to see the dazzling whiteness as it
descended.
How
absurd, he thought (for he was a man of some irony). How absurd I will look, a
smoldering husk with a ruined hot pretzel in each hand.
He’d
no more time to reflect on this particular image. The white heat enveloped him
now, first searing off his skin, then vaporizing the majority of his internal
organs.
He
was dead before the thing that had once been George Weston hit the pavement.
A
few minutes later, a Chronicler scurried up the walkway, dragging a thick
tarpaulin. Wordlessly, he covered the smoking remains; then, taking out his
notebook, he filed the death for Census.
The
crowd, over its initial fear, ventured closer to the body. Some averted their
eyes; most didn’t. A few went so far as to say a prayer. Only one among them
seemed near the point of hysterics, a pale gangling woman later identified as
Mrs. George Weston.
The
Chronicler looked up from his notebook and motioned for the citizens to move
on. Then, bundling his cloak of office about him, he disappeared among the
shadows and shapes of the dead buildings.
A
few blocks away, the siren’s whine grew faint.
Jake Bowman was in a lousy mood.
Even tonight, fully tilted on crazydust, with some bills in his pocket and food
in his stomach, Bowman found an excuse to look dissatisfied.
“Music’s
too loud,” he said, finishing his drink with a long swallow.
His
friend Meyerson stroked his beard and grinned, showing the NuPlaz caps he’d
blown most of his Service pension on.
“Music’s
too goddam loud,” Bowman said again, slamming his open palm on the counter top.
The bartender regarded him coolly, shrugged.
Meyerson
swung his good leg off the bar stool.
“Why
don’t we get a table, Cap? Away from the band.”
He
gave Bowman’s sleeve a tug, then hobbled across the crowded room. Bowman took
his glass and followed.
His
eyes glared through heavy lids. The bar was dim, and his brain seemed dimmer
still for the drugs and the anger. He was having trouble keeping the room in
focus. Keeping his life in focus.
He
took a seat next to Meyerson and leaned back in the chair.
Bowman
looked at his friend’s clay-ruddy skin, the points of his eyes, the gray
streaks in his beard. Meyerson was a dozen years older than he, and a real
warrior, if only half the stories were true. They’d met in a bar much like this
one a couple years before, with Meyerson doing most of the talking. The cobalt
had gotten him once, outside of Detroit, and that accounted for the withered
leg. Bowman didn’t know what accounted for the rest of him.
“Been
down the Center again,” Meyerson was saying. His head was drawn in between his
shoulders, and he was trying hard to look conspiratorial. “Doc says maybe next
month, Jake. I’ve been savin’ every damn nickel I can, but they practically
gotta smuggle the ’Plaz outta them labs, ya know? But Doc says maybe next
month. What do ya say to that, eh, Cap?”
“Sounds
fine, Phil. Sounds fine.”
“Fine,
he says. Jesus Christ!” Meyerson swiveled his head, laughing. “I’m talkin’
about gettin’ hold of a new leg, and he says it sounds fine!”
Bowman
was wondering how many customers the bar would hold. The place seemed filled
with Urbans, most of them young, many female. He found everything intriguing.
Shouldn’t
have blown all that dust.
Meyerson
rapped on the table.
“Hey,
Cap, I asked ya a question.”
“What?”
“I
said I got a question. How long ya been on this streak?”
“Goin’
for a record, Phil. Four straight nights so far, all piss and vinegar.”
“Christ,
you mean you been blowin’ four nights runnin’?”
“I
got a bet goin’ with One-Up Hansen. Bastard says I can’t blow a week’s worth.”
He grinned. “I say I can.”
“An’
I say you’re gone for sure, Cap.” Meyerson got up from the table, leaned across
on thick forearms. Bowman could read the scars. “You listen to me, Cap. You
just listen to Meyerson.”
Bowman
waved his glass absently, then stared, as though just remembering that it was
still empty. He lifted his head, searched through the noisy throng for a
waiter.
Meyerson
sat down again.
“Look
at you, for Christ’s sake, Cap. You’re still a young guy. I’m tellin’ ya, I
seen guys—”
Bowman’s
head was turned away.
“Shit!”
Meyerson kicked back from the table and got back to his feet again. Without
another word, he began walking awkwardly toward the exit.
Bowman
saw Meyerson’s lumbering form disappear among the dancers clustered on the
raised middle floor. He tried to watch them for a while, make the jerky
movements of their limbs meaningful against the harsh din from the bandstand.
He thought he could hear snatches of conversation from the floor, and the
nervous laughter of contacts made; and then there was the music, and all the sounds
seemed to come together, to bounce off the floor and the walls and strafe him
as he sank his chin into the cushion of his crossed arms on the tabletop.
Strafe
him.
He
saw the bodies of the young dancers become the bodies of young soldiers, saw
their limbs twitch in the rhythm of their own deaths, saw them flying—
He
looked up.
The
band was taking a break. He watched them place their instruments carefully on
wire racks. The dancers were leaving the floor, heading for tables, for the
long dark counter against the far wall.
Bowman
tried to remember if he’d been in this place before. The last few nights …
Four.
Four nights. Three more to knock off and he’d collect. Three more with the dust
burning inside him and giving him tilts, and then One-Up would be counting
fivers into his open palm.
Bowman
looked at his hands, clenched them into fists. He thought he could hear his
veins contracting as blood flowed.
He
was tilting. Full tilt.
The
pain would come later, and then remembrance.
The
warring …
He’d
never know what brought him to it, or why it turned out that he was so good at
it. There was the War, and everybody went into the War. But for him it had been
different. A discovery.
His
talents had not gone unnoticed. While still a relatively young man, Jake Bowman
had risen to the highly respected position of Assistant Tactics Coordinator in
the Chicago Service. Those had been the glory days, when the fighting was more
close-in, when the boundaries had yet to arrive at their present rigidity.
Moving
men and machinery for the purpose of achieving a specific goal was what Jake
Bowman had lived for, was what had made him whole.
But
to keep that wholeness would take more than memories. Which was all Bowman had
left.
He
glanced at the empty glass on the table before him. Alcohol on top of the
crazydust. Stupid bastard!
He
ordered another drink.
He
didn’t see the whore until she’d sidled up next to him. Bowman’s glance was
reflective. The whore was standard bar fare. Beaded designs on her tits.
Embedded turquoise. She was totally bald.
“The
only crime is inhibition,” the whore said with a smile. “I’ll have a gin and
tonic.”
Bowman
signaled for the waiter.
The
whore sipped at her drink.
“Are
you nice?” she said.
“I’m
told,” Bowman said. He finished his drink and pushed back his chair.
“Where
are you going?” the whore said.
“With
you.” He took her by the arm.
The
room upstairs was small and warm, womblike, with muted colors and muted sounds
filtering through the walls.
The
whore sat back on her ankles on the carpeted floor and drew him down to her.
Bowman fumbled with the clasp of her robe, cursing under his breath.
The
whore reached up behind her and flicked a switch. The room filled with an
aromatic mist. Bowman felt the sting of hundreds of crystalline prickles on his
bare chest and arms. Soon he would feel the sting everywhere, and with it the
desire, and the will.
He
tried to douse it with anger.
“Aphrodisia
Clouds are for lunks,” he said between tightened lips.
“Lunks
need love, too,” the whore replied, remembering a poster she’d seen once.
Bowman
didn’t want to hear about lunks then. Or about love. With the whore beneath
him, the stinging mists all about him, Bowman wanted only one thing.
He
wanted to get laid.
The
crystals turned to drops of silvery liquid and ran in rivulets from his body.
He wiped the wetness from his eyes and got up on his elbows.
The
whore rolled over beside him, making small sounds. Her hand smoothed the
sweat-matted hair on his chest, then drifted to his waist and began tracing
circles just below his navel.
Bowman
felt as though he’d swallowed his own bitterness. He made his mouth work.
“How
much?” he asked, reaching for his trousers.
“You
were wrong.” The whore took her hand away. “You’re not nice. Fifty will do.”
“It’ll
have to.” He tossed her the bills. “I need the rest to get stoned or drunk, and
to find someone to help me decide which.”
“Maybe
I’m for sale.”
“Maybe
that’s the trouble.”
She
sat up, her small breasts jiggling. She noticed the insignia on his belt buckle
as he dressed.
“Hey,
I know your thing now,” she said. “Why don’t you just find yourself a nice war
somewhere and climb down off the dust?”
Bowman
thought about hitting her.
Then,
thinking again, he walked out of the room.
The
Chronicler pulled back his hood and rubbed his eyes. His ledger lay open beside
him.
The
day had not been uneventful.
The
Chronicler undid the bindings of his cloak and began preparing for bed. Like
every Urban, he could not be in a room for very long, even one with which he
was familiar, without making a judgment as to its size and comfort. Urbans
craved space, and he was no exception, though he tried to keep his feelings
about such matters in check.
It
would not do for a Chronicler to crave very much of anything.
Still,
the prospect of advancement pleased him. He sat at his regulation desk, the
desire for sleep having passed inexplicably with the donning of his nightrobes,
and evaluated his chances. There were many Chroniclers. And so much depended
upon mere luck.
He
opened the ledger on his desk. The filing had been important, yes; but how much
more impressive had it been the only one.
He
looked down at the name written in the farthest right-hand column.
George
Weston.
That
was the problem. His had been the first death, but unfortunately not the only.
The Chronicler sighed, and had he a larynx he might have chuckled at the irony
of his own misfortune. Three deaths, three Chroniclers, three separate reports.
Just what Census needed. More paperwork.
Of
course, these deaths were different. Very different.
He
glanced down again at the name in his ledger.
George
Weston
No
matter how he’d lived his life, Citizen George Weston had achieved his true
notoriety in death. He and the other two Urbans. If nothing else, the
Chronicler reflected, history would remember them as the cause of Government’s
first emergency session since the War.
With
practiced ease, the Chronicler bound the ledger in Census-green ’Plaz and
affixed the seal of his office.
Then
again, he thought as he made his way toward the bedroom, who could say with any
certainty exactly what history would choose to remember?
Cassandra
Ingram’s lover had been lithe and inventive, and in retrospect ideally cast in
the role. He lay now in a tangle of sheets, hair straggling and black on his
shoulders. She had remained in the harbor of his arms, ignoring the insistent
buzz of the table clock, until duty forced her to rise.
As
she padded across the carpet to the bathroom, Cassandra had the fleeting
impresson of having walked out of the second-to-last chapter of a bad novel:
how to say what had to follow, from what well of sorrow and pain to dredge the
necessary tears.
She
leaned over the sink and splashed cold water and rubbed at her cheeks.
She
looked up. The daily inspection, a ritual that usually brightened her, failed
this morning. Cassandra Ingram was one of the few women who truly enjoyed
looking at herself; not out of vanity, but rather some unconscious recognition
of the rightness of her features—an evaluation that some constants remained
just that.
Cassandra
was almost tall, with hair dark and thick and often untidy, and deep dark eyes.
Of her body she was justly proud: well-formed breasts, high and full; a
slender, rounded stomach; near-boyish hips. The night before, her man had
called her a fine animal.
She
had let the remark pass, as befit her training.
Cassandra
heard his moans coming from the next room.
They’d
known each other less than eleven hours, she and this man, eight of which
they’d spent in bed. But still it would tear at her, the mutual parting, the
casual thank-you’s and goodbye’s. The breaking off of things was something she
handled badly, and probably always would.
She
shrugged and waited.
The
man had gone, and she was dressed in the light blue tunic of her Order. She sat
sullenly over her second cup of coffee, the early sun hazy through the lattice
of her kitchen window.
It
was a nice apartment, easily one of the best in the city. She’d had to use her
influence to get it, of course, though few Urbans could have afforded the rent
anyway. It had more space than she really needed, but she’d managed to fill the
rooms well with things that reflected what she was.
She
felt herself frowning.
What she was. Not who she was. For one such as she, they
meant the same thing. In most people’s eyes, at any rate. Perhaps in her own as
well.
She
held the emotion, the irritation, for just a moment. Then her being released
it, and it was gone from her thoughts.
She
got up from the table and went back into her bedroom. She pulled soft white
boots over her bare feet and calves.
Cassandra
had been on her current assignment for over a year now, and still it bothered
her. As far as she was concerned, Government was made up of crusty old men and
women whose decisions had next to nothing to do with her life, and yet hers was
the task of guarding one of its highest-ranking members. The job was both
unexciting and confining. It also involved adherence to a routine, another sore
point with her.
But
there was little she could do. Assignments in general were hard to come by,
especially in such peaceful times as these. Often she was reminded how grateful
she should be that she was working at all.
After
securing her apartment, she took the pneumatic down to the garage and signaled
for her car. In a matter of minutes, she was entering the Loop.
Traffic
was always bad this time of morning, but still she found herself unusually
edgy. It was as though the city were charged throughout with a kind of nervous
excitement, to which she was acutely attuned.
Chicago
was noisy. Diffused sunlight made ambient the gray shadows in which busy Urbans
walked and ran and worked. Buildings stood squat and brick-faced, many of them
unfinished, piles of raw material often crowding pedestrians off the curb. Very
few vehicles were new, of course, and every couple of blocks a stalled car
brought the already-slow procession to a halt.
Cassandra
braked at yet another blocked intersection. She hadn’t tinted the visors of her
Government vehicle; and though it was unmarked, a few passing citizens could
still spy her through the glass. Often they’d point. It was something else
she’d have to grow used to.
Cassandra
Ingram was a member of a unique sub-organization of the Chicago Service, the
Order of the Guardians. She wore, as she was required to do in public, the
light blue tunic that identified her as such. That marked her as one of an
elite group of men and women trained under strict and near-legendary procedures
for special duty in service to Chicago. That warned of the terrible instrument
of her body.
That
named her as the killing thing that was a Guardian …
A
few blocks up ahead, a group of Urbans finally succeeded in pushing a stalled
private sedan into the long-neglected brush of a vacant corner lot. Traffic
lurched into motion once more. By which point, Cassandra had already pressed
the stud on her dash that veiled the design and significance of her uniform
from view. She drove the remaining two and a quarter miles to Government Access
unmolested by the stares of Urbans.
There were few Scholars left in
Chicago. Most of them had been old even at the beginning, and singing of the
glories of History had proved too taxing during the War. And since that time,
there seemed less need to remind citizens of the reasons for their pride, the
source of their passion for Urban unity. These things they had, and seemingly
would for a long time, and now the reasons didn’t appear so important.
Reasons
were only important to Scholars, and of these there were few enough.
Clemmie
Della Sala looked up from her modest lunch to watch her son eat. William was
only thirteen, but already he’d grown man-sized and eager. His movements were
filled with impatience, even to the performance of such mundane tasks as
eating. Clemmie almost cried out at the relish with which he attacked his soup.
“Didn’t
they feed you in school this morning?” Clemmie asked, putting aside the lyre
she’d strummed absently during lunch for her son’s amusement. “It’s only barley
soup, and too runny anyway.”
“I
like it,” the boy replied, spoon poised in mid-journey. His hair was long, and
yellow rather than blond. As had been his father’s. “Besides, you know they
always ram a lot of food down our throats at school.”
“So
you tell me. God knows what’s in it, though.” Clemmie shook her head. When
she’d put William into the academy, she figured at least he’d eat well. It had
taken most of her savings, and what little remaining influence she had as a Scholar,
to get him enrolled.
William’s
eyes flashed knowingly. “Mrs. Filburn was at it again during break, Mom. You
woulda loved it.”
“Not
another flag-waver?”
The
boy nodded gleefully as he sat upright in his chair, wielding his spoon as a
wagging finger of authority. Clemmie had seen Mrs. Filburn in action; her son’s
impersonation was accurate.
“
‘You listen to me, boys and girls,’ ” he said, trying to keep his voice high
and thin between giggles. “ ‘The little children in Washington and New York are
starving. Every day, day in and day out, more little children just starve away
to nothing and die. So don’t you dare leave one single thing on your plate!’ ”
Clemmie
joined in as her son broke into hearty laughter. She reached across with thin
arms and hugged his shoulders. Her love for William was a constant that never
lacked for new discovery, and in moments such as these she felt totally happy.
Later,
as she cleared the table, she could hear him talking to himself as he sat
before the wallscreen, selecting entertainment tapes. She already regretted
having to leave him tonight, but she’d promised Phil Meyerson she’d meet him
after she’d sung for Citizen Clairmont and his guests.
Clemmie
Della Sala was in her early forties—slim, ivory-skinned and dark-eyed, and with
a kind of ebullient grace in her manner. She’d been one of the last schooled in
the singing and recitation of History, and one of the few women. The prejudice
for male voices had outlasted almost all others; had her father not been a
Scholar before her, Clemmie doubted now that she’d ever have been one herself.
On
more than one occasion since then, however, she’d seriously considered leaving
the art. She no longer felt the need to sing, and she was beginning to doubt
her ability to express the History in terms modern Urbans could understand and
appreciate. And soon there would be the universities Government promised, and
teachers to separate truth from myth, and present the result to more
sophisticated ears. The songs would end. Scholars would not be called by that
name any longer. They would become merely singers, old and distracting singers
with long, uncertain memories.
Clemmie
finished in the kitchen and settled once again in her chair. She stroked the
fragile lyre carefully, as always thrilled with the crystal tones of its
strings. What more fitting instrument to accompany a singer of History in the
telling of the glories and agonies of the city-states?
As
always, too, the joy returned then. The simple joy of melody and lyric, and the
forming of the two into song and remembrance.
Clemmie
waited until her son had sped out the door to return to school before lifting
her voice to its performance level, her head bending often to the curved arms
of the lyre, her eyes closed.
The
Scholar sang of the cities, and sang for herself.
The
people had been coming back to the cities for decades. As early as the 1980’s,
sociologists were calling the rush to the suburbs a failure. The urban problems
from which so many had run—crime, race, metropolitan decay—had merely followed
the runners into suburbia.
And
in their wake, urban redevelopment opened up both employment and residential
opportunities in areas where none had existed before.
Federal
funds were drawn off from suburban districts and channeled back into the cities.
Housing
and education, suddenly economically prohibitive in the suburbs, had become
standard commodities in the new cities.
Crime
dropped in most urban areas, to begin rising with the same immediacy in the
suburbs.
The
rush to the suburbs had left behind a vacuum which was filled—slowly at first,
and then with sudden swiftness—with Federal and state monies; there followed
widespread financial redevelopment, increased social services, and marked
technical and social innovations.
The
major cities became models of reorganization. Laws were revised, restructured.
All commerce was zoned to a specific sector; so was Environmental Control; so
was Pornography.
For
the first time in a centennial of this country’s history, the cities began to work.
And
the people came back.
Soon,
what the politicians had begun calling the New Alternative became instead the
new goal.
Suddenly
it was important to be called a citizen, to have urban pride; to become, in
fact, an Urban.
And
it was only natural that Urbans would wish to protect their cities, their
collective homes, what had come to be their great fortresses against ignorance
and want.
And
so, one by one, each city drafted plans to create a civic force, a militia, an
army.
And
each city’s government became stronger, more independent, autonomous.
Until
finally, the great metropolis of Chicago extended its boundaries, seceded, and
became an independent city-state near the turn of the second decade of the
twenty-first century.
What
recourse the now-fragmented Federal government might have had was undermined by
the subsequent rapid secession of other major cities—Dallas, Seattle, New York,
Boston—cities eager to guide their own destinies, rule their own territories,
answer to no foreign body.
The
warring started much later.
Scholars
would never come to agree as to the exact date the warring began; or the exact
reason. The pact formed earlier between Los Angeles and San Francisco was
understandable, though no cause could be given for their unified attack upon Dallas.
Most
of the city-states fell in the Great War.
The
devastation was complete, and unprecedented. Whole areas of terrain were
altered, destroyed. Natural and man-made boundaries crumbled. Mountains fell,
valleys filled with dead earth, flooded rivers swept away the forests. The
continent lay stripped of life.
No
monuments stood.
Later,
when Scholars were charged with the task, they would sing of such a war and its
fury.
They
would call it the Leveling.
After
forever, it ended.
Only
a few cities remained. Chicago, New York, Washington—perhaps Dallas and
Seattle.
Communication
among the surviving city-states was sparse. Each was only vaguely aware of the
condition of the others. Each could only guess the others’ populations, states
of repair, military capabilities. The only knowledge they shared was fear.
The
reign of the city-states had ended.
The
first reign.
For
the rebuilding had already begun …
Chicago
lay squat and shrouded.
Much
of the cityscape remained buried in rubble. Most streets were impassable.
Buildings were bent giants, hulking shadows of burned brick and sagging beams.
The
air was leaden, and filtered the sun, and its haze cast the city in an amber
halo.
The
skyline was jagged, alien.
But
then—
Organization
came.
Government.
Militia. Commerce.
The
urban machinery lurched haltingly back into operation.
Men
and women were treated for their wounds, mustered into service. Children were
rescued, cared for, educated.
The
dead were buried.
The
scientists and doctors and engineers and politicians were gathered. Plans were
made. Decisions were reached.
There
would not be another Leveling.
Chicago
must make ready, must build against the threat of the future. The threat from
the other city-states half a continent away, who even now might be stockpiling
arms for another war.
Government
spoke to the people on undamaged holoscreens throughout the city.
Chicago
must make ready!
The
Urbans responded.
And
in the years following the War, Chicago’s prime activity became the escalation of
its arms and the development of new weapons and defense systems.
And
urban pride grew stronger again, and with it standing armies, where those
trained in the tactics of large-scale warfare waited along with the
masses—waited as their fellow Urbans waited, in their city, in their homes, in
their offices and multilevel dwellings and great concrete halls.
Rumors
flourished continually, though Government did what it could to quell them.
Rumors about the intent and military potential of other cities. Rumors of
secret alliances, horrifying new weapons, traitors from within.
The
Urbans couldn’t be sure. So they had to be ready.
Chicago
was ready.
Isolated,
gorged with weaponry and animosity, primed for confrontation.
All
that was necessary was a catalyst. The first strike. The first extension of the
might of one city into the domain of another.
The
death of George Weston was that catalyst.
Cassandra Ingram stood before the ID
module and awaited verification. When she’d been cleared, she was mildly
surprised to learn that she was to report to Tactics.
“What’s
the big excitement?” she asked the sentry.
He
smiled and shook his head.
“You
know Gilcrest. Everything’s an emergency. Somebody probably spotted a kite
flying over the Lake.”
Cassandra
smiled back, as warmly as a Guardian may to a sentry. Then she stepped into the
pneumatic and descended to Main Level.
Government
existed in an underground labyrinth, six-tenths of a mile beneath the surface
streets of Chicago. Very few citizens ever saw the interior of Government, or
its subsidiary branches of Commerce, Tactics, Census, Environment and Police.
It was enough for the people to know that the city was governed, that the
machinery would continue to provide for their comfort and well-being.
The
pneumatic opened slim double doors onto the luminescent corridor of Main Level.
Cassandra got out and went the short distance through lighted bulkheads to
Tactics.
The
chamber was a large octagon, high-walled and flushed with the cold luminescence
of the labyrinth. A great oaken desk—and one of the few natural wood pieces
Cassandra had ever seen—stood in the middle of the room. A dozen chairs circled
the desk, the chair furthest from where she stood at the entrance to the
chamber occupied now by an old man in a vivid purple cloak. He was alone.
Copyright © 2012 by Dennis Palumbo.
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be
reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or
mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage
and retrieval system, without the express written permission of the author.
Story Merchant Books
9601 Wilshire Boulevard #1202
Beverly Hills CA 90210
