by PJ Manney
Veronika must have caught it, because her eyes went slightly manic. “You do know. So why don’t you want to, like, help him? Is it me? Are you jealous of me? That I get to spend time in the church with him? Where he has a body? Is that it?”
He wondered how long Veronika had known Tom was the troubadour. “Veronika, please get back on track.”
“No, she’s got a problem with me and I wanna know why,” said Veronika.
Talia’s jaw set, and she sat forward. “Get out.”
Veronika shrugged, grabbed her pack, and skipped out of the room with visible relief.
“Why the hell did you provoke her?” said Tom. “We need her information.”
“Me provoke her?” said Talia. “I don’t want her here again.”
“Don’t tell me she touched a nerve,” said Tom, “when it’s Dr. Who’s life on the line.”
“She’s crazy,” she said. “If you can’t see that—”
“I see she’s immature and frustrated because she does know things. And I see your resistance, so I have the same questions she does. Why in God’s name are you threatened by her? You’re probably her hero.”
“I don’t want to be a hero. Not anymore.”
An unidentified videochat got Major Tom’s attention. “Wait a moment.” He tried to trace the source of the transmission, but even with his extreme speed, it appeared that the location was many places at once. Was that even possible?
He accepted the videochat and immediately saw Dr. Who, tied up and propped on a bunk on some kind of naval vessel. He didn’t see a window. She had a hard time focusing her eyes, like they had been recently unbandaged. Or she was drugged. A small red laser light shined off her forehead. The implication was clear.
The scene matched the vision he had had months ago while singing in TCoMT.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“Don’t know . . . Can’t think straight . . . They’re lettin’ me contact ya.”
“Why?” he asked.
“So ya know I’m alive, child. Don’t know how much longer. Gotta gun pointed at my head, so I can only say so much. Ya have no idea how hard that is with these motherfuckers.”
“Careful.”
“I’m tryin’, hon,” said Dr. Who. “Good Lord knows I’m tryin’.”
The last location of the transmission was a satellite that supplied data to an abandoned moon base, once financed by a Chinese billionaire developing lunar tourism until the market crashed when the United States and Europe dissolved. But that was impossible. There was no way she could be on the moon. No rockets had launched in months. The construction had never been finished and was exposed to the vacuum of space.
“What will they let you say?” he asked.
“All they say is, ‘History is a set of lies agreed upon,’” said the Doctor.
“Napoleon Bonaparte?”
“Glad you knew that, sugar. I didn’t.” She sighed, shifting uncomfortably. “Don’t know much right now, ’cept I don’t wanna die. Hard to think . . . Drugs . . . ”
Major Tom examined the connection and had the oddest sensation, the feeling of being observed, scanned, and recorded in his entirety. But there was no sense of creation or surge of energy, like when he lay dying during his upload. It felt like a snapshot. He tried to isolate the sensation to analyze later.
Was the observation coming from her captors? Or from somewhere else? It felt too complete to occur over a videochat. But he was concerned about Dr. Who and didn’t disconnect the call.
“Anything else you can say?” he asked.
“Yeah.” She was breathing heavily now, and her eyes watered. “Pray for me . . . ”
The transmission cut off. He repackaged the chat data so it couldn’t be traced and sent it to Talia’s monitor.
She watched in horror. Tears formed but didn’t drop. She mouthed, “I’m sorry.”
Tom spoke softly, “Dr. Who needs us. Now.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Major Tom withdrew from Talia to consider the options. He still felt fear, but now the strangest sensation occurred, like a heavy curtain had lifted from him. His usual lack of interest, distraction, and low energy disappeared. Terrified and invigorated, he didn’t understand the sudden change in his emotions. He sent energy and engagement data to Ruth and Miss Gray Hat to figure out and, desperate to talk to someone who might understand, hurried to Carter’s door. He knocked.
There was no response.
“Carter?”
Silence.
He pounded on the door. “Carter!”
He threw open the door and barged in, triggering an audio file, a live version of David Bowie’s “Hallo Spaceboy,” performed by Bowie and the Pet Shop Boys. How narcissistically appropriate. In college, they had bonded as friends over Bowie, and Carter had often been compared to him in looks. Carter knew it would dig at him.
The plantation was as it had been when he visited before. Right down to the singing slaves. Tom scanned Carter’s digi-scape. Carter wasn’t home. But there was no other place he could be.
He compared this scan to his memories of his previous visit. The only difference was on the fireplace mantel. A Victorian calling card of ecru paper sat there, Carter Potsdam engraved on it in an elegant cursive. The bottom left corner of the card was bent, which, according to Major Tom’s instant research, meant the person was saying goodbye to go on a trip. Tom picked it up and turned it over. In Carter’s neatly flowing prep-school script, it read, Adiós, muchacho.
If the song was to be believed, the chaos was killing Carter, and he was quite literally saying bye to Major Tom. But was the moon dust a musical reference to “Space Oddity” or connected to the moon-related transmission he had just received?
Rushing out of the plantation and into the Memory Palace’s foyer, Tom threw open all the other doors. Anthony Dulles still sailed the American Dream ∞ on an endless sea and viewed Tom with alarm as he stormed the deck, scanned the environment, and retreated without a word.
Chang Eng worked in the shed of an idealized 150-year-old Chinese home. It would have been owned by someone successful, before Mao’s revolution. Tom could see Chang’s mother cooking in the open kitchen, gnarled hands kneading dough for Chang’s favorite vegetable-and-egg dumplings. Here, there was no global politics. No anxiety. No want. Just peace and small engineering projects in a shed outfitted only with hand tools, next to a vegetable garden.
“Is Carter here?” Tom asked as he scanned.
The passive expression on Chang’s face betrayed the limited mind that had been left after his torture and murder. There was little of his intellectual or emotional essence there.
“No,” Chang said.
In the impeccable re-creation of his now-destroyed Malibu beach house, Bruce Lobo paced in tight caged circles, like the predator he had been in life. Beautiful naked women were draped over furniture like silky throw pillows and blankets. He simply growled at Tom’s brief presence.
Josiah Brant had once run the United States of America in secret, and in the Memory Palace, he had replicated his gracious Virginia home at the height of its Southern beauty and comfort. Tom burst through his door.
“Where’s Carter?” he demanded.
No longer an elderly man, a Josiah of about forty years’ age had constructed a tower of wooden blocks on the Aubusson carpet with two young children. The girl, about six years of age, chased a kitten around the room, and when the pet careened too close to the unstable structure, Josiah swatted it away. A small blind boy of eight fumbled with the loose wood pieces. Josiah rose from the floor of a living room overlooking the Potomac.
“Get out,” he said. His face might have been forty, but his eyes betrayed a lifetime of disappointment, pain, and betrayal. Tom could see himself and his great negation of Josiah’s dreams in that agonized glare.
“Not until you tell me what you know about Carter.”
“Such manners!” spat Josiah. “So the benevolent dictator wants to chat?”
> Tom tried to find any data that would link Josiah and Carter in a plan. He found nothing. But that didn’t mean Josiah was innocent. “Well?”
“Boy, how in tarnation would I know? I’m locked up here for eternity with a little girl and a blind boy.”
“Thought you might get parenting right for once,” said Tom.
“And I thought you’d finally get smart,” said Josiah, reaching for a cold beer in a frosted glass mug on the coffee table.
“Enough Southern charm. You’re the only one who might know.”
Josiah bowed. “You give this former public servant more credit than I deserve.”
Tom didn’t believe him. Once the most powerful man on earth, Josiah was going to make Tom suffer for his fate.
“So our boy’s left the nest and you’re off like a herd ’a turtles, huh?” Josiah smirked.
“I will stop Carter,” said Tom. “And that means stopping you, too. Doesn’t it?”
Josiah stared unblinkingly, his eyes almost empty of emotion. Almost. “You’re not man enough to run with the big dogs anymore. You’re dumber than a sack o’ hammers. We all are. And if it all goes to hell in a handbasket, it is, as always, your own damned fault.”
“But Carter isn’t dumb, is he?”
Josiah didn’t speak, and continued that unnerving, unblinking stare.
An invitation arrived from Veronika, along with a link and an urgent message: HELP!
CHAPTER NINE
Major Tom watched through Veronika’s MR glasses as her autonomous, electric Fiat 500 sped south down the 101 Freeway from Palo Alto to Santa Barbara in the far lane. It wasn’t a fast lane anymore. All vehicles drove the same speed.
Traffic was light and steady. Gridlock no longer existed. Driverless car services and private autonomous vehicles streamed live government traffic data, overruling human decisions. Those who couldn’t afford the cars used public robotransportation.
He checked the gauges. Speed: a steady and legal 65 mph. As Veronika’s head turned, Tom saw a late-model black Chevy Suburban pulling up alongside on her right, then weaving into her lane. Suburbans were still a ranch house on wheels, the biggest damn roadhogs around.
Her little car’s sensors anticipated the possible impact and accelerated slightly, dancing the Fiat onto the left shoulder, half an inch from the concrete barrier dividing southbound from northbound, then back into her lane.
“The fuck, dude! I told you someone’s following me,” said Veronika.
Major Tom analyzed the Suburban’s movements. There was no one in the car. The dodging and weaving would be impossible with the SUV’s factory-built autonomous system, unless someone was driving by remote control or had programmed the car to misbehave. The car had no license plate that he could see. No registration he could run. Had Veronika been followed from Prometheus? Or before like she had claimed?
The SUV didn’t accelerate or cut in front of her. It obeyed the same 65 mph limit as all the other cars on the road, except for those directly behind them, which slowed down in programmed anticipation of the swerving autos ahead. It was weird, nerve-racking, and hilarious to watch, like Keystone Kops putt-putting but never reaching the criminals. A high-octane car chase this was not, but lives were still at risk if the Suburban decided to slam the Fiat.
He looked for the Suburban’s location on the California DMV traffic flow site. There was no car next to the Fiat. It was all open lane. So there was no ID and no way to hack in and stop the car.
But the Fiat wasn’t on the traffic site, either.
“Neither car’s on the grid. Give me control of yours,” said Tom.
Veronika tried to touch the steering paddles but flinched back like she was afraid. “No!” she said.
“You blacklisted your car. How can I help you?” asked Tom.
“Just tell me what to do.”
He watched her awkward movements. “Do you even know how to drive?”
“I passed the test.”
“And never fucking drove again. What’s with you kids? Okay, I’ll talk you through. Get to an exit now. Take Moffett Boulevard, drive through Hangar One, then back to Prometheus.”
“Can I do that?” asked Veronika.
“Let’s hope,” said Tom.
“Autopilot? Reset—”
“No,” said Tom. “Autopilot won’t speed. Turn it off.”
“But—”
“Put your right foot on the accelerator and your hands on the wheel. Then turn it off!”
“Oh shit.” She did each movement deliberately, like touching a snake for the first time.
“You got this,” said Tom. “Now, don’t signal. Just put your foot gently but firmly on the break . . . I said gently! Slow . . . get behind the SUV and keep going to the right . . . Fast. Don’t give them a chance to brake and hit you.”
Shuddering fast-slow-fast-slow, the Fiat slid behind the SUV and passed to the right. The SUV tried to slow to match her speed, but its programming seemed confused by the order to stay in top-speed pursuit. Veronika struggled to keep the Fiat in a single lane.
“Keep merging right. Moffett exit’s a half mile away. Get into the exit lane fast and get ready to hit the gas.”
“Gas!” said Veronika in half terror, half irony.
“You know what I mean,” said Tom.
The Suburban recalibrated and changed lanes to follow. There was an opening ahead of the Fiat with no cars for a quarter mile until the exit.
“Okay, accelerate. Now into the exit lane and go. Top of the ramp, turn hard right . . . Other right!”
As soon as the car’s speed exceeded the posted limit, the internal warning system went berserk with beeping, warning lights, and dire buzzing.
“What the hell’s that?”
“Nanny car. Calm down.” My God, thought Tom, how the hell do these young people have fun with cars anymore? It made him miss his 1968 Corvette Stingray.
The Suburban’s program figured out it needed to speed to keep up.
She looked in the rearview mirror. “It’s coming. And there’s a stop sign . . . ,” she said.
“Intersection’s clear. Mostly. Punch it.”
An autonomous tour bus full of space fans was rumbling to the stop on NASA Parkway and would cross right in front of her.
“No!” She closed her eyes, hit the accelerator, and missed the bus by a foot.
The Suburban was stuck until the bus recalibrated from a near crash, puttering through at a legal fifteen miles an hour.
“Wheel straight. Wheel straight!” said Tom.
“Guard post!” yelled Veronika.
“Ornamental. Keep going. Slight right on Akron, then get to the hangar and make a left on Cummins. Follow it to the north entrance.”
Veronika let out a huge breath. “Read the link I sent?”
Tom opened the link: a complete copy of his famous message, detailing his story from the moment of the 10/26 mass murders to the time of his death and uploading of his memories, located in the archives of the New York Times.
“I wrote it,” said Tom.
“Read it again.”
He quickly scanned the document. And it made no sense. He scanned it again, then looked for other copies, on message boards, in e-mails, in the Library of Congress, on media websites. Many were the same as the New York Times. And none was his original story.
The message had changed. In this new retelling, Peter Bernhardt admitted to being a terrorist. Everything that happened was rooted in his aggression. His insanity. The Phoenix Club had only defended itself and failed. The weight of the entire world’s woes was dumped onto him. He had often blamed himself in his lonelier moments, but here was proof for the uninitiated.
The only copy of his writings that he knew for sure was still completely his own was in TCoMT.
He contacted Miss Gray Hat. Please, I need your help. As soon as you can, lock down the Memory Palace. All of it. Only I can be let in to the meta structures that remain. Not even Dr. Who. And ask Veronika for
help freezing TCoMT’s archives into a blockchain.
He received a checkmark in reply.
Veronika looked in the rearview mirror. The Suburban was gaining fast. “It’s coming! Now what?”
“Just get into Hangar One,” said Tom. “Don’t see on board weapons trained at you, so let’s try to shake it.”
“Holy shit,” she said, craning her head to look up.
In front of her loomed one of the largest freestanding structures on earth, built in 1933 to house airships, including the biggest blimps and zeppelins in the world. Enclosing eight acres of ground space, it stood without a single interior support, held aloft by curved walls 1,133 feet long and 308 feet wide, with a ceiling almost 200 feet tall. It was a marvel of twentieth-century engineering. Even more remarkable, it was built at a time when people still designed with slide rules, pencils and paper, and the belief that anything was possible with enough mathematics. Stripped of its aluminum and insulation shell years earlier in an attempt to eliminate hazardous materials, all that remained were steel ribs and a metal latticework that stretched into the distance. Even without its art moderne exterior, it was magnificent.
Major Tom had searched Moffett Field’s servers for access into Hangar One. The building was long ago decommissioned and hardly top secret to begin with. It couldn’t still be operated by an ancient, manual Bakelite switch near the door, could it?
The Fiat rolled through the open orange-peel doors. Inside, covered in giant lace shadows, sat the Potsdam Boeing Super 27.
“Pull in more to let in the Suburban,” said Tom.
The Fiat crept forward. The Suburban rolled in behind it, then paused. In an open-source NASA Moffett Field training system, Major Tom found an old program to operate the doors remotely. The building rumbled to life. Behind them, the doors shuffled shut. The far doors moved an inch, then another inch. The steel frame shook so much, he wondered whether it was specced to operate both doors at once.
“Isn’t that Carter’s jet?” asked Veronika, her voice quavering.
“Yeah,” said Tom. “Now drive around the hangar.”
“Why?”
“Trust me,” said Tom.