City of Shadows

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Roald Waldstein stared at the Manhattan skyline. The pallid sky above the south end of the city was still smudged with a faint pall of dust. The thin twist of smoke, coming from where the Twin Towers had stood just two days ago, looked like the careless rubbing out of a pencil drawing, a ghost of the towers that had once been there.

‘God,’ he said. ‘And it’s still burning.’

‘My dad said it might carry on burning for weeks.’

Roald turned to look at Chanice Williams. ‘Really?’

‘Uh-huh.’ She nodded confidently, working gum in her mouth almost mechanically. ‘Said so on Fox News too.’

Like everyone else at Clinton Hill Elementary School, Chanice had become something of a news-station junkie, tuning in before and after school, the cartoon channels completely forgotten for now.

‘You think anyone’s alive in there still?’ asked Roald.

‘Dunno. I heard they lookin’ just in case, tho’.’

He watched the puffs of dark smoke rising lazily. ‘I hope there’s no one trapped in that… alive. That would be horrible.’

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