The Crescent City at the Edge of Disaster
by Emily Short (2001)
Genres: Alien Visitation
Travel

New Orleans, Emeril, and armed hamsters.

action: %
response: Saint Louis Street. 7:30 pm. Three and a half hours from the end of the world.

Mostly deserted. The shops on either side of the street have closed down, though that's not really enough to keep you out if you wanted to go in -- considering the shape that they're in. The most disastrously torn-open one is the shopfront of NOLA, to the west.

North, where the junction with Chartres Street should be, there is only a hastily-erected barricade of wire fencing. Beyond that, forest impenetrable.

To the south, Decatur Street, the last narrow strip, humanity's tiny remaining purchase between the forest and the river.

Nearby stands Brutus the Chihuahua, watching you grimly.
action: About yourself
response: You look like shit, if you could see yourself, which you can't. Your costume's torn at the elbows and knees, you've got bruises and abrasions and contusions on every exposed skin surface, and there's a general sense of foreboding located somewhere behind your left eyesocket.
action: You look at what you're carrying with you
response: You are carrying:
a black velvet cape (being worn)
a tattered note
action: You read the note
response: Since you asked, this is ABSOLUTELY YOUR LAST CHANCE to prove that there's something worth preserving in your puny civilization. Otherwise you will be CRUSHED LIKE AN EGG. [This is scratched out and in scarlet letters it says instead, LIKE YOUR OWN SKULLS.]

Build a scale replica of the Taj Mahal out of food products at the center of Jackson Square. And we'll think about it.

Signed, the Bright Coalition.

[ Rat bastards -- literally, mutant crossbreeds out of NIMH -- it took you twenty hours of non-stop negotiation to get even this concession out of them. They were laughing like hyenas by the time it ended. ]
action: You examine the cape
response: A little damaged by your recent adventures, but it still hushes reassuringly around you when you walk, and the tassel on the hood still swings jauntily. It was all worth it, all the years of training, all the effort, just to get to the moment when you first put it on... when your mother's daughter became the Dark Avenger... but those glory days are behind you.

Unless you can save humanity from the grip of the Bright Coalition, that is.
action: You look at Chihuahua
response: So named by someone with a keen sense of irony and no personal fear. Brutus stands a good 6 foot 8 inches, with the girth of a tree-trunk and an affinity for leather gear. As you look at him, he breaks into a toothy grin.
action: You go to the west
response: Once a rather chic restaurant -- one of Emeril Lagasse's lesser spinoffs, it's true, but still, not bad.

Now it looks like a bomb hit. The brushed alumninum decor is black with soot. Tables are overturned, the windows shattered. The elevator-in-a-cage that goes up to the second floor emits a perpetual high-pitched whine.

Swinging doors lead deeper into the restaurant.

A single menu lies twisted among the wreckage.

Brutus follows you faithfully.
action: Examine menu
response: Tattered and burnt almost beyond recognition.

You can pick out words here and there -- duck liver pate, sweetened corn beverages, something about sorghum flour and something else about candied hazelnuts...
action: Go inside
response: Once a monument to culinary art and ergonomic efficiency; now a temple of destruction. The stainless counters are dirty and warped, the gas stoves burnt out, the ovens gaping doorless maws.

But most disturbingly: a rotting heap of Stuff.

Brutus follows you faithfully.
action: You examine the stuff
response: The pile itself was made by human, not animal hands, one huge assemblage of garbage that someone must have hoped to be able to burn or get rid of. Who knows what might still be in the middle of it.
action: Search stuff
response: Success! In the form of a single box of croutons, not even opened.
action: You keep going
response: You've plundered the heap for all that it will likely yield.
action: Inventory
response: You are carrying:
a crouton box
a black velvet cape (being worn)
a tattered note
action: Examine box
response: Close inspection of the box shows why it has survived. The contents are pretty much entirely artificial. How embarrassing for Emeril.
action: You look around
response: Once a monument to culinary art and ergonomic efficiency; now a temple of destruction. The stainless counters are dirty and warped, the gas stoves burnt out, the ovens gaping doorless maws.

Nearby stands Brutus the Chihuahua, watching you grimly.

But most disturbingly: a rotting heap of Stuff.
action: You go outside
response: Once a rather chic restaurant -- one of Emeril Lagasse's lesser spinoffs, it's true, but still, not bad.

Now it looks like a bomb hit. The brushed alumninum decor is black with soot. Tables are overturned, the windows shattered. The elevator-in-a-cage that goes up to the second floor emits a perpetual high-pitched whine.

Swinging doors lead deeper into the restaurant.

A single menu lies twisted among the wreckage.

Brutus follows you faithfully.
action: Go upwards
response: You can go only east, out or in.
action: You get the menu
response: Taken.
action: Go outside
response: Mostly deserted. The shops on either side of the street have closed down, though that's not really enough to keep you out if you wanted to go in -- considering the shape that they're in. The most disastrously torn-open one is the shopfront of NOLA, to the west.

North, where the junction with Chartres Street should be, there is only a hastily-erected barricade of wire fencing. Beyond that, forest impenetrable.

To the south, Decatur Street, the last narrow strip, humanity's tiny remaining purchase between the forest and the river.

Brutus follows you faithfully.
action: Go south
response: To the north is the tiny remaining habitable stretch of Saint Louis Street. Toulouse and Wilkinson have been given over to the enemy, fenced off.

Decatur itself continues east to Jackson Square.

Brutus follows you faithfully.
action: Go east
response: Jackson Square, south side
Decatur Street runs east-west here, and time was that carriages did too, ferrying tourists around. To the south, the concrete mass of the MoonWalk. North, the center of Jackson Square -- the statue of old Andrew has been pulled down to make room for a seething mass of bodies where the young and soulless are dancing like it was 1999.
(Apparently that occasion failed to live up to expectation. Dumbasses.)

Brutus follows you faithfully.
action: You open the box
response: Better safe it until it's time to use it.
action: Go south
response: A somewhat oddly named strip of concrete overlooking the street on one side and the river on the other, mostly useful for walking back and forth at times of tribulation. Preferably, times of tribulation when no time limit is in force.

The enormous memorial cannon has been turned to point towards the Mississippi.

On the river itself, the paddleboat calling itself the Ark drifts, reeking of menace.

Brutus follows you faithfully.
action: You examine the paddleboat
response: Sinister, barely lit: through the windows and the drapery of flags that used to adorn it for tourists, you can make out the moving silhouettes of Them, the Bright Coalition. Hamsters the size of yaks, mockingly costumed in monocles and spats, celebrating the end of humanity...
action: You look at your surroundings
response: A somewhat oddly named strip of concrete overlooking the street on one side and the river on the other, mostly useful for walking back and forth at times of tribulation. Preferably, times of tribulation when no time limit is in force.

Nearby stands Brutus the Chihuahua, watching you grimly.

The enormous memorial cannon has been turned to point towards the Mississippi.

On the river itself, the paddleboat calling itself the Ark drifts, reeking of menace.
action: You go east
response: That way's pretty much a stinking mess: the market has grown over into something truly vile.
action: Go north
response: Once a handsome spot, now a garden of Bacchanalian abuses. The gates open north and south.

From side to side of the august park, a group of people -- some drunk -- are dancing to the vibrating tunage of an artist you mentally refer to as Squiggle.
action: You look at the people
response: A motley collection of people, some well-dressed, some less so.
action: You go north
response: Jackson Square, north side
Here under the august shadow of the Cabildo it is (almost) possible to believe that nothing has gone wrong or ever will. The old building still stands, untainted and from here apparently undamaged, the signs for tourists in their places, as if anyone were traveling for pleasure today.

Along the street is set up a table from which someone was selling souvenir posters and other junk.

On the table is a picture of the Taj Mahal.

Brutus follows you faithfully.
action: You look at picture
response: Just what you were looking for. Never say that Providence doesn't smile on you, and I'm not talking about when you're interviewing for the Rhode Island tourist board, either.
action: You get it
response: Taken.
action: You look at the table
response: Abandoned, but there is still a thing or two on it.
action: Search table
response: There is nothing on the table.

There is nothing on the table.
action: You describe your surroundings
response: Jackson Square, north side
Here under the august shadow of the Cabildo it is (almost) possible to believe that nothing has gone wrong or ever will. The old building still stands, untainted and from here apparently undamaged, the signs for tourists in their places, as if anyone were traveling for pleasure today.

Nearby stands Brutus the Chihuahua, watching you grimly.

Along the street is set up a table from which someone was selling souvenir posters and other junk.
action: Go south
response: Once a handsome spot, now a garden of Bacchanalian abuses. The gates open north and south.

From side to side of the august park, a group of people -- some drunk -- are dancing to the vibrating tunage of an artist you mentally refer to as Squiggle.

You clear your throat a few times. "Excuse me, excuse me!"

No one pays any attention. The artist who is sometimes known as Prince and sometimes not continues to blast your eardrums.

"OKAY THEN," roars Brutus.

All fall silent.
With a degree of articulateness that most would not expect from your intimidating sidekick, Brutus explains to the crowd what must be done. The picture of the Taj Mahal is prominently displayed. The crowd parts reverently, then gathers again, an almost worshipful calm settling over them as they begin to work peacefully, in unison, constructing the beautiful building anew out of bread products. It is perhaps the most perfect moment of your life.
After that it's all a blur -- the reconsultation with the Bright Coalition, their embarrassed retreat down the river by boat (as a concession you agree to give them St. Louis, which could not be considered much of a loss), and the rescue of the French Quarter (and the rest of the world, while you're at it) from its process of rapid re-Edenization.

And when it's all done, you get your cape washed and pressed, and you and the Chihuahua take a vacation. A long one.