The Footprints of God

by Greg Isle

  "You know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky," I told them. "Why do you not know how to interpret the present time? I have cast fire upon the world, and I am guarding it until it blazes."

  I watched the faces. Words meant different things to different people. Men seized upon what they wanted, discarded the rest. Someone asked from whence I came. Better to answer in riddles.

  "Split a piece of wood and I am there. Lift up the stone, and you will find me."

  I left the temple and walked the alleys of the city. I wanted privacy, but I was accosted from all sides. Priests came to me and questioned me. Blind men could see more.

  "By what authority do you say and do these things?" they asked.

  I smiled. "John baptized the people. Did his authority come from heaven or from men?"

  The priests answered out of fear of the mob. "Of this we are not certain."

  "Then I shall not tell you by whose authority I do these things."

  I left them seething in the street, but it did no good. They came to me upon a hill and questioned me at length. My answers drove them mad.

  "Only a little while am I with you," I said. "Then I go back from whence I came. Whither I go, you cannot come. You shall seek me and not find me. You are of this world. I am not."

  They called me a liar.

  "Yet a little while the light is with you," I said. "Walk while you have the light, lest darkness come upon you. He that follows me shall never walk in darkness."

  Even as I watched them, I saw my doom in their eyes. Yet I could not turn from my path. In one priest's eyes I saw hatred, and also the death that he saw for me . . . a Roman punishment. But pain was not my greatest fear. A strong man could stand pain. What I could not endure was to be alone, alone again for all time—

  Rachel was screaming. I blinked in confusion, and then the door at my left shoulder was yanked open. I tried to turn and see who was there, but sleep closed over me again like quicksand.

  Chapter 22

  Geli Bauer rubbed her eyes with one hand and poured strong coffee into her mug with the other. She was waiting for John Skow's wife to bring him to the phone. She had slept three hours on the cot where she and Ritter had made love last night. She almost never dreamed these days, but an old recurring nightmare of pursuit by soldiers had returned. In the dream she always killed herself before they reached her. The terror before that act of release was nearly unbearable.

  "Geli?" Skow said in her headset, his voice exhausted.

  He had spent all night with the Godin Four supercomputer, piecing together a threat to the president from digital recordings of Tennant's voice. Geli had already awakened him once, to tell him she'd received a report of a man missing from one of their SWAT details. At that point there had been no proof that Tennant had been there, but now . . .

  "The SWAT team at Frozen Head found their missing man," she said. "He'd been dumped into a creek bed from a highway bridge. He had an arrow in his throat."

  "Did Tennant do it?"

  "I think so. I've been reviewing his background. He did a lot of hunting when he was a kid. Probably bow-hunted in the early season."

  "Where the hell would he get a bow and arrows?"

  "We're checking the security tapes of stores along the routes between the ferry and Oak Ridge. He was obviously planning to hole up for a while on that mountain. What I want to know is this. How did you know where he would be?"

  "I told you, I can't give you that."

  "Your secret source is Dr. Weiss, isn't it?"

  "Geli—"

  "Who else could it be? How else could you know about Frozen Head Park?"

  "If it was Dr. Weiss, you'd know it already."

  Geli knew better. "That's why you were so skittish about a shoot-to-kill order. You knew your informer might be killed. What I don't get is why you didn't tell me she was helping us. I could have protected her."

  "You have a habit of asking questions above your pay grade."

  "I don't have a fucking pay grade! I make ten times what you do."

  "But you still take orders from me."

  She wanted to reach through the phone and crush his windpipe, but self-discipline slowly reasserted itself. "When did you last talk to Godin?"

  "It's been longer than I'd like," Skow admitted. The NSA man sounded nervous, and he wasn't trying to hide it.

  "What are the extended trips Godin and Nara have been taking for the past few weeks? They fly west and disappear for three and four days at a time. Where are they going?"

  "You must have dug deeper than that."

  She would not be drawn in so easily. "Whoever's handling security on that end is very good."

  A dry chuckle from Skow. "You have no idea."

  "Why aren't you with them?"

  No answer.

  "How is all this related to Fielding's pocket watch?"

  "I'm sorry, Geli."

  Things she had noticed over the past few weeks began to push themselves to the forefront of her thoughts. "Zach Levin and his Interface Team were laid off five weeks ago. They seem to have dropped off the face of the earth. Why would a whole technical team be dropped?"

  Skow didn't reply.

  She searched for a question he could answer. "Does the person handling security wherever Godin is control your ultrasecret source?"

  In the ensuing silence, she realized that Skow's reticence was not meant to offend her. He had the paralysis of a man trapped between duty and fear.

  "Has this secret source told you where Tennant is going next?"

  "You'll get another list of destinations soon. I'll get it to you as soon as I have it."

  "You do that." She tried to push the mystery of Peter Godin's location from her mind. "How public is our deranged-assassin story now?"

  "It's still inside the Beltway, but it'll spread fast. The D.C. police will get it this morning. I didn't want to go wide with it until I finished last night's project."

  "I listened to the recording again a few minutes ago. It's rock solid."

  "It better be. What are you going to do now?"

  "Wait here for something. Anything. A whisper of where Tennant might be."

  "And then?"

  "I'm going to go there myself. I don't trust anyone else at this point."

  "Go there how?"

  "Godin's JetRanger is still on the helipad. You have any problem with me taking it?"

  "No. I'll keep the pilot on standby for you." After a pause, Skow said, "Getting Tennant is personal for you, isn't it?"

  Geli took a sip of hot coffee and held it in her mouth.

  "I think you cared more for Ritter than anyone knew," Skow added.

  She swallowed. "You're a shrink now?"

  "Something just hit me. If you're so sure that Weiss is my secret source, Tennant may conclude the same thing. I mean, as you said . . . how else could that SWAT have been waiting at Frozen Head?"

  "Go on."

  "If Tennant decides Weiss is informing on him, he'll dump her. We should put out an APB on her and cover the phones and homes of everyone she's close to."

  "I've already covered everybody she might call, but not for that reason. Tennant won't leave Dr. Weiss anywhere."

  "Why not?"

  "He's in love with her."

  "He can't ignore logic that obvious."

  Geli laughed softly. "Of course he can. People do it all the time."

  Chapter 23

  I snapped awake with a rush of terror. Rachel was behind the wheel of the pickup truck, and we were moving. I lay crumpled on the floor on the passenger side. Pulling myself onto the seat, I saw that we were racing down a deserted rural highway. There was nothing behind us but empty road.

  "How did you get in?" I asked. "Did I not lock the door?"

  She didn't look at me. "You locked it. There was a piece of heavy wire in the truck bed. I made a hook and pulled the lock from inside the doorframe."

  "Where are we?"

  "Almost to Caryville. Fro
m the signs, it looks like I-75 runs through there."

  I shook the remnants of the Jerusalem dream from my head. How long had I been unconscious? "Where's the SWAT team?"

  "Looking for us, I'm sure."

  I was certain that Rachel had betrayed our destination to the NSA. So why was she driving me down a deserted road? Maybe she was driving back toward Frozen Head.

  "I know what you're thinking," she said. "But you're wrong. Someone else had to know about Frozen Head Park. Maybe you told someone at Trinity about it. Ravi Nara? Before you started hating each other?"

  "No. You're the only person alive who knew about that cave. At least about its connection to me."

  I rolled down the window, leaned out, and scanned the sky. I saw nothing, at least in the space visible between the trees that lined the narrow blacktop. Was there any reason Geli Bauer's people wouldn't move in if they knew where I was? I couldn't think of one. Anything Geli wanted from me she would get quicker by torturing me than by following me.

  "If you're not helping them, why are you still with me?"

  Rachel looked at me then, her eyes filled with sadness. "I'm not even going to answer that."

  I wanted to believe in her, but I'd be a fool to do so. "Look ... if you didn't tell them about Frozen Head, they could not have been waiting there."

  "You're missing something," she insisted. "You have to be."

  "No. My father and brother are dead. The NSA would have to be able to read my mind to know—"

  I froze with my mouth open. Revelation had stunned me like a blow to the head.

  "David? What's the matter?"

  "They've done it," I whispered. "Good God."

  "Done what?"

  "Trinity. They've got a prototype up and running."

  "How do you know?"

  I put a shaking hand to my forehead. Somewhere in America, the Super-MRI scan of my brain had been loaded into a Trinity computer. And that neuromodel now existed—at least to some degree—as David Tennant. I felt as if the people hunting me had discovered I had a twin brother, an evil twin who shared all my memories and would betray me on demand. The feeling of violation was absolute. My mind was my most sacred refuge from the world. I felt raped in some incomprehensible way, robbed of my individuality.

  Where else are they waiting for me? I wondered.

  "David, don't shut me out," she pleaded. "Talk to me."

  "They have my memories, Rachel. They have me, loaded into their computer. That's how they knew to be waiting at Frozen Head. They don't have to chase us anymore. They know what I'll do before I do it."

  "That's impossible."

  "No. That's exactly what they've been working toward for two years. I know these people. I know Peter Godin. And I know it's true."

  She slowed the truck for a hairpin turn. "You're saying that Fielding was right? They've been working on the computer somewhere else all along?"

  "Yes. While Fielding and I screwed around trying to figure out the MRI side effects, they were building the goddamn thing at some secret location." I slapped the dashboard. "That's why they laid off certain teams during the suspension."

  "What are you talking about?"

  "After we suspended the project, groups of engineers were told to take paid leave. Sometimes there were only skeleton crews in the building. The team most conspicuously absent was the Interface Team, led by a guy named Zach Levin."

  "What's the Interface Team?"

  "The team responsible for trying to communicate with the neuromodels once they're successfully loaded. Remember what I said at the amphitheater? If you download a human brain into a computer, what do you really have? A deaf, dumb, blind, and paralyzed human being, scared to death. Half the battle is giving that brain eyes, ears, and a voice. That's the job of the Interface Team. With the project suspended, it made sense for them to be laid off. But now I see. God, I wish Fielding were here."

  Rachel glanced at me. "But if they were that close to success, why kill Fielding? If Godin actually made Trinity work, would anyone really care about medical side effects or anything else?"

  "You've got a point. If they've really done it, Godin will be almost invulnerable. We don't have enough information. Maybe—" My hands went cold. "Oh, God."

  "What is it?"

  "I know why they killed Fielding."

  "Why?"

  "They could afford to."

  "What do you mean?"

  "Yesterday, John Skow announced that he wasn't going to replace Fielding. I thought he was crazy. But now I understand. If they have a prototype computer up and running, Fielding isn't dead."

  Rachel turned to me in confusion. "What does that mean?"

  "I mean they can load Fielding's neuromodel the same way they've loaded mine. They'll have Andrew Fielding's mind at their fingertips. He can solve their remaining problems for them!"

  She drove for a few moments without speaking. "Okay. Let's just say this is possible for a minute. Why would Fielding help the people who murdered him?"

  An eerie feeling of admiration came over me. Peter Godin was more ruthless than I ever imagined. "Fielding's neuromodel will help them because it won't know he's been murdered. It was made six months ago, when Fielding was scanned by the Super-MRI. It has no memories of anything that's happened since then. That Andrew Fielding doesn't even know he married Lu Li."

  "David, this can't be happening."

  "Sure it can. We just happen to be standing close to a revolutionary leap in science. Splitting the atom. Unraveling the human genome. Cloning a sheep."

  "What you're talking about isn't like those things. Liberating consciousness from the human body?"

  I thought about it. "You're right. This is bigger because it will give us the ability to make those kinds of advances at an exponential rate. Or not us, exactly. Whatever you call the new form of consciousness that Trinity will evolve into. And it will evolve very fast."

  "You don't know for sure that they've done it."

  "They're at least part of the way there. Maybe they just have a crude version up and running. Maybe they can access my memories—pull out images, for example—but not actually operate the model as a functioning mind. Human memory is Ravi Nara's specialty, and they made a lot of progress in that area early on. There's just no way to know."

  Rachel touched my arm. "If you're right, what do they know about what we're doing now?"

  "Nothing, I hope. They can't read my mind in any mystical way. They probably have my memories from childhood up to six months ago, when I was scanned by the Super-MRI. As for my thought processes, my judgment, my personality—that would take a fully functional computer. And if they have that..."

  "What?"

  "The president won't care what happened to a couple of doctors. The nation accepts more casualties to build a skyscraper or a bridge. You and I are a negligible price to pay for the strategic superiority Trinity will bring. If they've truly completed Trinity, we're dead."

  She pointed through the windshield. "There's Caryville. And I-75. Are we going north or south?"

  "Pull over."

  She slowed gradually, then turned the wheel and stopped on the shoulder, just short of the northbound on-ramp.

  "I'm trying to escape from myself," I thought aloud. "To do that, we have to make utterly random choices. But how random can my choices be? I suppose we could flip a coin every time we come to an intersection like this."

  Rachel was shaking her head. "They don't have a scan of my brain. They can't predict anything I would do. I'll just make the choices from now on." She saw doubt in my eyes. "You still don't trust me?"

  "It's not that. But by now Geli Bauer knows everything there is to know about you. She knows things even you don't remember."

  Rachel's lips compressed into a white line. "I hate her. I hate her, and I don't even know her."

  "I know. But hate's not going to save us."

  "Why can't we just disappear into nowhere? Pay cash at a no-name motel in a no-name town? Back
this truck up to a fence and go to sleep for three days. America is a big place. Even for the NSA."

  "You ever watch America's Most Wanted? They catch criminals every week who try what you just suggested. Television makes America a lot smaller than you think."

  I leaned back in my seat and tried to let instinct take over. Cars and trucks passed in both directions, some slowly, others shaking the truck with the wind they threw off. As I sat there, the situation began to clarify itself.

  In three days, we would get a chance to see the president. Our problem was staying alive long enough to talk to him. The odds of that were long and getting longer. Even if we did reach Matthews, I'd have to convince him that I was telling the truth and that everyone else involved in Project Trinity was lying. To do that, I needed hard evidence. And I had none. My other option—going public—would only convince the president that I was the loose cannon everyone at Trinity claimed I was and alienate the one man who could save us. Three days . . .

  "How long are we going to sit here?" Rachel asked.

  "Give me a minute."

  Hiding was not the answer. Running wasn't either. Not in any conventional way. We needed to take a step so radical that no entity in the world could predict it. But what?

  As I stared through the windshield at the oncoming traffic, I realized I was sitting here with Rachel for one reason: my dreams. My dreams had brought us together. Without my dreams, we would both have been shot back at my house. Yet I was no closer to understanding them than I had been on the day I first walked into Rachel's office.

  For months they had progressed, like a persistent message being sent from a distant radio source. In the beginning, the incomprehensible images had troubled and even frightened me. But over time—and especially during the past three weeks—a conviction had begun to crystallize within me that something important was being communicated to me. Of course, schizophrenics felt the same conviction. What separated me from them?

  I closed my eyes and tried to blank my mind, but the opposite happened. I suddenly saw a walled city on a hill, its stones glowing yellow in the sun. There was a gate set in its face.