Her sky-blue eyes were so full of warmth, affection, and hope that I wanted to pull her into my arms. The first time I'd ever thought of her that way, at least when I was awake.
"Just hang in there and try to be patient," she said. "And please, Hayden – I'm asking as a personal favor – no more escape attempts. You'll be free soon enough. So will the rest of the world. Freer than it was, anyway."
I would've thought Lilith was completely delusional, if not for the rescue operation and this place itself. And the intelligence and analytical capabilities they'd brought to bear in my assignments. Not to mention her and her father's intelligence.
Her organization was for real. Yet I still thought she was delusional. The forces arrayed against the changes she was describing were massive and multilayered beyond belief. Even if I had godlike powers myself I wasn't sure where I'd begin. It wasn't just profit that drove wars. Some part of us just fucking liked violence and dark shit. How do you reverse thousands of years of social evolution?
"I know what you're thinking," said Lilith. "It's all bullshit." She squeezed my hand. "But it will be okay. I promise."
Without thinking I reached across and cupped her face. She placed a hand over my hand and leaned forward, her red hair spilling over my arm. A wave of emotion I didn't think I had – and wasn't sure I should have – burned through me.
I withdrew my hand. Lilith straightened up.
"I may hold you to that," I said.
I AWOKE to alarms. At least I thought they were alarms: my room lights blinking and this weird, pulsing dolphin-in-distress cry sounding through the walls. I rolled off my bed and stuffed myself into my jeans. My door was still locked. I couldn't do anything but pace and listen. I heard a few shouts but not much else. I'd noticed before that this place was unusually well insulated and sound-dampened. You could barely hear people's footsteps ten feet from you.
Time, which already had a warped aspect when you're alone in a room for twenty-four hours a day, got even more deviant when something important was happening outside your view. Could this be the response to the message I'd sent with Urnina's cell? I wasn't sure that my two-sentence message had even gotten through or if it had been enough to generate a response.
The sirens stopped. I jammed my ear against the door. At first I heard nothing, but after a few minutes – long enough for my ear to go numb – I heard faint cries of "Clear!" I hammered on my door, wondering if that might be a mistake. Footfalls approached. I stepped back from the door.
"Hayden Hunter?" a deep male voice called.
"I'm here. From my side the door's locked."
"Please stand clear. We're cutting through the lock."
I backed into the bathroom. Flame flared through the door jamb at doorknob level. Metal vapor torch? The door flew open with a well-placed kick. Men in Army uniform stormed through the cloud of smoke. I quickly clasped my hands behind my neck. Two soldiers swung my arms around and ratcheted on a plasticuff.
"Is that necessary?" I asked. "You're here because of me, aren't you?"
"It's a formality," said a man with a short-cropped beard. I noticed his uniform lacked insignia. That and the beard suggested Delta Force or some other special operations group where personal grooming and insignia were flexible. Not all that surprising. "We're asking you to say nothing about that call to the others. You'll be briefed back at the facility."
"Okay. I wasn't planning to brag to them about that. Though they might already suspect it."
"We've been instructed to transport you with the others to counter that suspicion."
My rattled thoughts played their usual stumbling game of catch-up as I was led out. They were planning ahead to – what? Did they think I could be an informant?
"What facility are we going to?" I asked.
The bearded dude gave me a sparse smile. "Let's just say it's gonna be a homecoming."
Chapter 22
WE DROVE FOR HOURS in a large DHS bus with darkened windows. The raid on the building had been a joint military and civilian law enforcement operation, presumably under the authority of the United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM). The line between DOD operations and civilian law enforcement, already blurred by official DOD doctrine statements such as JP 3-28, had apparently vanished into the foggy mists much like those we were now emerging from on Highway 70 just outside Denver.
I didn't recognize any of the forty-odd passengers, with the possible exception of a dude who might've been one of my security "greeters." They were a subdued and despondent bunch. I didn't blame them for not wanting to chat under the watchful eyes and ears of M4-toting guards behind steel grills on either end. I had no idea how many people occupied the building, but I counted six buses behind us and two ahead. Quite a haul, and I guessed close to a battalion was involved in the takedown.
"Do you know if anyone was hurt?" I whispered to the older woman sitting next to me. I had no idea who she was, but her grave self-composure and aloofness signaled someone important.
"No one personally," she said. "We won't know until we arrive at wherever we're going, assuming we are permitted communication with the others."
I chose to stay mum on what I knew about the destination or anything else. She didn't seem to know who I was. My impression was that these people didn't know each other well if at all – perhaps because they'd all come together only recently?
We parked inside a receiving bay of my own detention camp alma mater, Colorado Resettlement Facility 3451-A. Guards armed with M4s and armored vests ushered in the passengers one busload at a time. When it was my bus's turn, we were led past cells occupied by glum-looking individuals and then deposited in cells of our own. I was the last in line, but instead of tossing me in a cell, the guards led me on down the hall through a door and then down another hall to the same room I'd originally been interrogated in and the same man who'd done the interrogating.
"Corporal Hunter," Colonel Jack Collins greeted me with a dry smile, "how good of you to join us again."
The guards retreated from the room at his nod. I dropped down in the same chair.
"Thanks for the warm welcome, Colonel," I said.
"Keeping busy as usual, I see."
"I was actually in solitary confinement. Guess it's becoming a habit."
Collins chuckled. "You seem to have a talent for pissing people off."
He sat back and studied me with that vintage superior officer's stare, his face growing serious.
"First question," he said. "Did you know about the rescue here beforehand?"
"Yes. Not any details – just that a sleep gas was involved." The Colonel's chilly blue-grey eyes introduced a slight chill in me. "No one got hurt, did they?"
"Several of my men were sick for a couple days, but they recovered. If they hadn't, we'd be having a different kind of conversation." His eyes met mine for a few moments of cold emphasis. "Still, materially participating in the assault of federal officers is a serious crime which I don't take lightly."
I resisted an urge to protest. Colonel Collins obviously had something more to say, and I figured it might be wisest to let him say it before I commented.
"However, given your assistance in locating an enemy base, I'm inclined to make allowances." He scowled, noting my smile. "Do you find this amusing, Corporal?"
"You just remind me of our former neighbor. You'd do him a favor and somehow he'd always turn it around so that you owed him for it."
Colonel Collins' expression had turned flinty.
"We both know," I continued, "that my being taken to that site was the best thing that could've happened for you - given that I contacted the DHS with its location."
"When did you decide to contact DHS?"
"When I saw what looked like a war map in one of the rooms. I couldn't make out any details, but it was definitely a map of North America with a lot of ominous markings."
The fact that Collins showed no reaction told me that they'd located that map and were probably breakin
g it down as we spoke.
"I'm glad you finally decided which side you're on," he said. "You made the right choice. The patriotic choice."
I hoped so. I gave the Colonel a nod and small smile.
"Speaking of choices, I have a proposition for you. I would like you to rejoin the people you were brought here with. Be our eyes and ears inside."
"I thought this whole place was already filled with electronic eyes and ears."
"Which proved inadequate, obviously."
"What are my other options?"
"You could rejoin the general population. That has increased considerably since you were here, by the way."
"I noticed the government's been doing a lot of housecleaning lately."
"Apparently there's been a lot of trash to pick up."
"I also noticed you didn't list 'you're free to go' among the options."
"You're very observant." Colonel Collins leaned forward, his dry smile reappearing. "Look, Hayden, let me lay it out for you. Your country, along with most of the world's governments, is under attack by elements within and without. Many of our institutions, public and private, have been infiltrated – including this one. Hopefully, that's past tense, but I'm not counting on it." His eyes hardened. "My point is that we face a powerful, determined, remarkably resourceful enemy, and nothing less than our entire way of life is at stake."
"Who is the enemy? And please don't say 'ourselves.'"
"I wish I could." His smile was bleak. "The details are classified. I'm only just now learning some of them myself, and what I've learned frightens me more than I'd ever expected. I can tell you this: we are dealing with a cabal that has been working to defeat us for a very long time. And it's all going to come to a head soon."
"The mysterious apocalyptic event I've been hearing so much about but no one will say what it is."
"I guess we'll see how apocalyptic it is." Colonel Collins waved a hand as if tossing that subject aside. "What do you say about my proposition? Are you willing to go undercover with these people?"
When I heard 'undercover', I couldn't help thinking of Lilith. I scowled at myself, which Collins interpreted as resistance.
"There's still a lot we don't know," he said, irritation edging into his voice. "This is your chance to continue helping your country, Corporal. And when it's all over, your service will be counted strongly in your favor."
"Assuming our side wins."
"I see no point in assuming otherwise."
I shrugged. "Okay. I'll see what I can dig up. But I don't expect them to be particularly trusting. They must suspect that I fingered them."
"We'll work on countering that. In the course of interrogating them, we'll provide an alternative explanation for the raid."
"Like what?"
"We'll think of something." He offered me a dyspeptic smile. "As you said in your last website post, we are the 'all-seeing surveillance state,' after all."
THE 'PEOPLE' were a closemouthed bunch. They didn't even talk much among themselves, except in select groups which didn't admit outsiders. My sense was they only trusted people they knew.
Over the days that followed, I hung out with Lilith and Hank when I wasn't brooding in some corner by myself. Mainly with Hank, who could talk the paint off a wall but clearly knew nothing substantive about his organization. I looked for and never saw Urnina, the pilot. Had she and some others escaped the raid?
I did stumble on some chess players, and managed to inveigle my way into a few games by virtue of my respectable skill-level. I was rusty as hell, but after a couple of weeks was able to hold my own against the stronger players. Still couldn't get them to say shit, though, except on the subject of history's most talented chess players (most of them thought Magnus Carlsen was overrated and would lose to Fischer).
Professor Killian wasn't much more forthcoming. He was polite enough, as always, but now there was an added distance. He chose his words with more care and he was often preoccupied if not downright pensive. But then his countrymen seemed tense. They stood around, firing furtive glances at the sky, stiff with anticipation. Waiting for Godot with a cast of hundreds.
People were regularly removed from their cells on no particular schedule that I could see. Some returned hours or even days later, noticeably worse for wear. Others didn't return at all. The removals broke the prisoners' tightlipped stoicism on occasion. I never saw anyone lose or show any overt emotion, but at night I heard voices arguing, low and ragged with fear or anger.
The guards took me sometimes, too. I met with Colonel Collins in our usual room. After two weeks, I didn't have anything to tell him – which didn't make him happy - and he wouldn't tell me what if anything he was learning through the interrogations. But the fact that he didn't seem surprised I hadn't learned anything, combined with his comment "these people are tough sumbitches," left the impression that he wasn't getting much useful intel, either. That confirmed my sense of an almost cultlike loyalty in the cabal. They seemed completely convinced that theirs was the right path and would prevail. I wanted to believe they were self-deluded, that they overestimated themselves or underestimated us, but certainty wouldn't come. Just not enough to go on.
The nip of fall now took on a bit of bite in the late-afternoons and early evenings. Sunlight assumed a modest, muted glow. Spending most of my life in Southern Cal and Phoenix didn't prepare me for an actual Colorado winter. I'd experienced snow and cold weather in Afghanistan and the Sierras skiing, but that was about it. I wondered if we'd even live long enough to see winter. I chose to be optimistic.
Now I sat atop the yard bleachers with Lilith one late-afternoon. The sky was a crazy blue, so clear I thought I could see dust marks on the moon. Hank had made himself scarce as normally did when Lilith and I hung out. Lilith herself ran "hot and cold": sometimes warm and tantalizingly affectionate – happy to talk about anything except her clan – while other times she was distant and cool and had nothing to say. I was content to sit with her for hours, neither of us speaking.
We weren't exactly an item, but something had changed between us. Not only had I stopped seeing her as a shallow, self-entitled "baitch," but I'd begun to appreciate that she had depths and very likely the classic cliché of a good heart. I saw her softer side and how growing up in a culture that isolated her from normal guy-girl relationships – any normal relationships, really – had caused a lot of her negative attitudes. If I hadn't been allowed to socialize with people, especially girls, I might've ended up serving lutefisk in a high school cafeteria.
Today was one of those times when we weren't speaking. She sat less than an arm's length away – just close enough that I could feel her body heat through the cool breezes – contemplating the horizon and the luminous blue sky along with me. I imagined stepping outside these walls and living a normal life again, and wondered if that would be possible any time soon.
I sensed Lilith stiffen before I noticed anything else. I traced her rapt gaze to where a cluster of tiny dark objects like a swarm of gnats blossomed in the southern corner of the sky. I shaded my eyes for a better look. A soft murmur started among the people in the yard as they turned one by one – dominos falling into place - toward the insectile shapes. When I scanned the sky I spotted another cluster of dark objects descending high in the sky ahead.
"It's too soon," Lilith whispered, wonder and apprehension in her voice.
"What’s too soon?" Goosebumps shivered too life on my forearms. This had to be it! Finally. But what exactly was it?
I stood up, performing a full-circle search of the sky, spotting another bunch of objects to the east. Now everyone in the yard was pointing and covering their mouths and hugging one another – the murmur building to a roar.
The roar broke in a collective gasp as the sky suddenly turned the deep, dark blue of near-twilight with an electric hiss. The closest comparison I could think of was some form of aurora. But I'd never seen one take up the whole damn sky.
Terrified cries rose from the
crowd. I assumed it was the abrupt transition in the sky, but people were pointing toward the objects.
The objects were falling. Even not knowing what they were supposed to be doing, the change in their pattern of descent was obvious. I'd watched soldiers and objects dropped from planes in freefall, and that's what seemed to be happening now.
"Oh, shit," Lilith whispered.
Guards sprinted into the yard, weapons at ready. "Return to your cells!" the loudspeakers blared. It was all happening way too fast for me to process. My sole intuitive flash - I was witnessing a weapon or defensive system against meteorites? – sputtered out on my original impression of controlled flight.
Only as I was being herded into the building did it occur to me that maybe the indigo sky had been a defense against ships. I exchanged a look with Lilith – her eyes wide with fear, she shook her head at me – before we were swept away in opposite directions. I was hustled past the cells and people down a quiet corridor and into a huge elevator.
"What's going on?" I asked.
"Colonel wants to see you in the sublevel," a guard replied.
The elevator descended at stomach-loosening speed. No indications of floors on the control panel, which bore exactly two buttons. I guessed from the three or four minute descent that a lot of floors were involved.
The elevator decelerated – hard enough to cause knee-buckling – and the doors opened. We entered a cavernous room cast in dim light. My entourage escorted me down a dark hall to an amphitheater. Rows of computers curled around a central stage dominated by a huge, curved IMAX-type screen. The image on the screen seemed out of a popular space movie: thousands of brilliant stars suspended in velvety darkness. A closer look revealed something large and dark blotting out stars near center-screen.
I was ushered down a flight of stairs toward a group of uniformed men gathered around a large, computer-festooned table. Colonel Collins was among those men. So was at least one four-star general.
Colonel Collins turned as I was led up to them.
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