The 4400® Promises Broken

by David Mack

  In the uninflected, eerie monotone that she often reserved for her precognitive prophecies, Maia replied, “For now.”

  FORTY-FIVE

  TWO MINUTES SHY of midnight, Tom was the first of the NTAC agents to reach Shawn’s office. Tom had been about to go home when word had reached him of an actual phone call from someone authorized to speak on behalf of the United States.

  “What’s going on?” he asked as he stepped through the door to find Shawn and Jordan waiting behind the big desk.

  Shawn tilted his head at the phone. “We’ve been asked to wait until you’re all here.”

  Impatient for an update, Tom replied, “Asked by who?”

  Jordan lifted two fingers to his lips in a shushing gesture that made Tom want to kick him in the groin.

  The door swung open behind Tom. Diana hurried in, followed closely by Jed and Marco. Diana asked, “What’s going on?”

  “Funny,” Jordan replied, pointing at Tom. “That’s exactly what he said.” Before Tom could tell him to shut up and get on with it, Jordan reached down and tapped a command into a computer keyboard.

  A flat-screen monitor mounted on the wall to Tom’s right came alive with an image of the secretary of Homeland Security, a round-faced, balding man named Andreas Ziccardi.

  “Mister Secretary,” Jordan said, “they’ve arrived.”

  “I can see that, Mister Collier,” Ziccardi said. Turning his attention to the NTAC agents, he continued. “You four have had one hell of a long day, haven’t you?”

  The others all looked at Tom. As the ranking agent on the scene, the responsibility for answering to the Department of Homeland Security fell to him. “Yes, sir,” he said.

  “Would you care to guess the reason for this call?”

  Tom felt his face tighten with anxiety. “Not really, no.”

  The ghost of a smile haunted Ziccardi’s fleshy countenance. “Did you ever think that maybe I was calling to commend you all for a fine day’s work in the middle of a war zone?”

  “No, sir,” Tom said, spotting the rhetorical trap that Ziccardi was so artlessly setting for him. “The thought never even crossed my mind.”

  Ziccardi’s mien turned fiery. “You’re goddamn right it didn’t, Baldwin! You four had direct orders to board that evac plane and report to D.C. for your new assignments. The minute you bailed from that jet you were all officially AWOL.”

  Unable to suppress his ire, Tom shot back, “Yeah, ’cause that’s what’s important here. No need to thank me for saving the planet at Yellowstone, by the way. All part of the service, right? After all, you can’t let a little thing like Armageddon get in the way of slapping my wrist for going AWOL.”

  The secretary frowned and nodded. “Ah, yes. I heard about your little stunt at Yellowstone. Some tourists even got video of it. Didn’t know that, did you, Baldwin?” He held up a piece of paper packed with small type. “Know what this is? It’s a federal warrant for your arrest, for the illegal self-injection of promicin.” He quaked, as if overcome with fury. “This, I could’ve fixed. And if this had just been about going back for Skouris’s kid, I could’ve pardoned you. But guess what one of our long-range recon teams recorded earlier today?” With a joyless smile, he added, “Let me patch it in for you.”

  The secretary typed some commands into his own computer. Seconds later, a shaky, grainy image replaced his visage on the wall screen. It was handheld video footage, shot with a long-range zoom lens, from an angle that suggested the camera operator had been on the roof of a low building.

  The scene that played out was one that Tom recalled all too vividly: his and Diana’s altercation with the soldiers outside the Beacon Hill Library. The video showed the soldiers shooting the p-positive child and her family, as well as Diana killing three of the four troops responsible. It also showed Tom quite clearly firing the fatal shot at the fourth soldier.

  As it played on, it documented Tom and Diana turning away from the carnage outside the library to face in the direction of the scout’s camera—making their faces unmistakably recognizable.

  Tom bowed his head in shame as the recording ended.

  Ziccardi reappeared on the monitor. “Are either of you going to try to tell me that wasn’t you?”

  Before Tom could reply, Diana shouted, “Are you gonna try to tell me those soldiers didn’t murder children in cold blood? They just gunned them down, unarmed civilians in broad daylight! Last time I checked, that’s called a war crime!”

  “And if you’d wanted to file charges against those men, the case would have been investigated through proper channels,” said Ziccardi. “But instead, you both attacked uniformed American military personnel in an occupied territory of the United States. The second you did that, you became illegal enemy combatants. Along with your two accomplices, you’ve been declared enemies of the United States of America. If any of you ever sets foot on American soil again, you’ll spend the rest of your life at Gitmo, in a pit with no windows”—he shot a pointed look at Jed—”just like your carbon copy.”

  Leaning so close to his webcam that it distorted his face into a grotesque caricature, Ziccardi added, “Enjoy your stay in Promise City. Because the day any of you steps even one inch outside of it, your ass is mine.”

  The screen cut to black. Stunned silence filled the office.

  The NTAC agents turned in unison as Jordan cleared his throat. “Let me know if any of you are looking for jobs,” he said.

  FORTY-SIX

  IF THE PAST NIGHT had taught Dennis Ryland nothing else, it was that it was always easier to drive into a war zone than it was to drive out of one.

  Because fools rush in, he chided himself. He shambled down the corridors of the new Haspelcorp headquarters in Tacoma. Morning sun slanted in through the southerly facing windows, bathing the hallway in golden light. It made him wince. Thanks to the tribulations of escaping from Promise City after dark, he’d had no sleep the night before, and now his eyes itched. Fatigue made his arms and legs feel rubbery and weak.

  He was looking forward to a cup of coffee. Maybe a Danish.

  Instead he opened his office door to a reception of stern faces and three men with drab suits, badges, and sidearms.

  “Don’t tell me,” Dennis said in his best deadpan voice. “You’re here for an intervention?”

  “That’s one way of putting it,” said Miles Enright. The gaunt, middle-aged man stood in front of the window with daylight at his back, and Dennis glimpsed his own reflection in the man’s black glasses. Miles cracked a cold smile. “Dennis,” he said, gesturing at the man to his left, “this is Agent Brill of the NSA.” Of the man on his right he said, “This is Special Agent Roel of the FBI. The man by the door is Agent Wilson from the CIA. They’d like to ask you some questions.”

  “Actually,” said Special Agent Roel, “we’d like to arrest you first, then ask you some questions.”

  Agent Wilson added, “Which might or might not involve your head spending long periods of time being held underwater.”

  “Depending on how well you cooperate,” Brill said with a menacing smile.

  Roel stepped forward. “Mister Ryland, face the wall please.” Dennis did as the man said, and continued following his instructions. “Spread your legs, lean forward, and place your palms flat on the wall.”

  The agent frisked Dennis quickly but thoroughly, then snapped a pair of handcuffs shut on Dennis’s right wrist. The steel was cold and cut into his flesh almost to the bone as Roel pulled Dennis’s right hand behind his back, forcing him to stand straight and take his left hand off the wall. Roel grabbed it and in quick, practiced motions, he had Dennis in cuffs.

  “Dennis Ryland,” Roel said, “you have been charged with compromising the national security of the United States of America, misappropriating federal funds, aiding and abetting terrorist enemies of the United States, and illegally transporting radioactive materials into the United States.”

  Miles interjected with more than a small measure
of visible schadenfreude, “Oh, and Dennis? You’re fired.” To the men in suits he said, “Get him out of here.”

  The worst part of being perp-walked out of the Haspelcorp building, as far as Dennis was concerned, wasn’t the gawking stares of the middle managers or the smug nods of the rank-and-file underlings who took such glee from seeing him in custody. No, for Dennis, the real disappointment of this turn of events was that he had been denied his coffee and Danish.

  A few dozen cars—some marked as Washington State Police, some not marked at all—had converged outside the front entrance of the building. Dozens of uniformed state troopers were there to make sure that Dennis—with his flat feet, bad back, and desk jockey’s physique—didn’t make a run for it. Overhead, a pair of black helicopters pounded the morning air with the thumping of their massive rotors. It was such an exhibition of overkill that Dennis almost had to laugh as Roel pushed him down into one of the unmarked cars and took pains not to bump Dennis’s head.

  This is the one thing the government’s always good for, Dennis mused. The one thing they do best: a circus.

  Every window at Haspelcorp that faced the street framed one or more faces staring down at Dennis. He looked up and smiled back at them. He’d been down this road before.

  He’d be back.

  FORTY-SEVEN

  KYLE STOOD AT the closed door to Jordan’s temporary residence in The 4400 Center. He felt Cassie appear behind him. Her breath was warm on his neck. Her perfume was delicate and floral.

  “This is it,” she whispered in his ear. “He’s alone. We’ll never have a better chance.”

  His sweaty right hand closed around the grip of the pistol tucked into the waistband of his jeans at the small of his back. With his left hand, he knocked on the door.

  From the other side, Jordan replied, “Come in.”

  Taking his hand off the weapon, Kyle pushed open the door and stepped inside Jordan’s living room. Its furnishings were spare but comfortable.

  Jordan stood in front of a long window that looked out on the Center’s landscaped garden. In one hand he held a saucer, in the other a teacup. He wore loose-fitting, unbleached linen pants and a matching shirt, and his feet were shod in plain leather sandals. Outside the window, the sun was setting behind the lush boughs of Interlaken Park.

  He turned and regarded Kyle with a serene expression. “What can I do for you, Kyle?”

  Cassie’s voice was sharp with anger. “Do it now! While his hands are full!”

  Beads of sweat traced paths down the side of Kyle’s face as he forced himself not to react to Cassie’s malevolent commands. To Jordan he said, “We need to talk.”

  Perhaps reacting to the urgency in Kyle’s tone, Jordan furrowed his brow and asked, “What about?”

  “About Cassie,” Kyle said.

  She stepped between him and Jordan. “What are you doing, Kyle? Don’t wuss out on me now. Shoot him!”

  Jordan set his cup and saucer on a ledge in front of the window. “Is something wrong with her?”

  “She wants me to kill you.”

  Cassie slapped Kyle’s face. His eyes blinked in shock and his head snapped sideways from the blow.

  Looking confused and worried, Jordan said, “Kyle? Are you all right?”

  Ignoring his dark muse’s hate-filled stare, Kyle said, “She just hit me.” He touched his tingling cheek and grinned. “Guess I wasn’t supposed to tell you that.”

  Furious, Cassie retorted, “Gee? You think?”

  Folding his hands together and steepling his index fingers, Jordan began to pace in front of the window. “Did she tell you why she wants you to kill me?”

  “She said the Movement’s falling apart. That you’re not the leader it needs in wartime. She wants me to take over.”

  Jordan nodded. He looked calm. Pensive.

  “I see,” he said. Then he examined Kyle. “Did you bring a weapon, or does she want you to kill me with your bare hands?”

  There had been no anger or sarcasm in Jordan’s question. His strangely sanguine reaction horrified Kyle and put an evil smirk on Cassie’s face. Kyle reached behind his back and drew the pistol. “I brought this,” he said, showing it to Jordan.

  “Good. At least it’ll be quick.” Jordan stopped pacing, faced Kyle, and let his arms fall at his sides. “I’m ready.”

  “Well, I’m not,” Kyle said.

  With a push of his thumb, he released the ammunition clip, which fell from the pistol and clattered across the floor. He kept the weapon pointed away from Jordan as he pulled back on the slide and ejected the last round from its chamber. Then he hurled the unloaded pistol past Jordan, through the window. It fell in a flurry of shattered glass to the garden below.

  Cassie glared at him. “That was stupid of you, Kyle.”

  Jordan looked out the shattered window, then back at Kyle as he asked, “Why did you do that?”

  Kyle understood Cassie’s reaction, but Jordan’s baffled him. “What’re you saying? You really want me to shoot you?”

  “If that’s what Cassie told you to do, then she must have a reason,” Jordan said. “She’s never been wrong before.”

  “Listen to him, Kyle,” Cassie said with a smug sneer.

  “There’s a first time for everything,” Kyle said. “The sinking of that ship? The use of force on Harbor Island? Cassie told me to make those things happen.”

  She punched him in the gut. He doubled over, unable to inhale for several seconds. As he forced himself upright, Cassie said, “Shut up and do what I tell you, Kyle. There’s a knife in the kitchenette, in the drawer next to the stove.”

  “Right now she’s telling me where to find a knife,” Kyle said. “Sometimes she uses me as a puppet. She speaks, but the words come out of my mouth.”

  Her foot slammed into the back of his knee, and she pushed him forward. He fell on his knees in front of Jordan. “You’re weak,” Cassie said, circling like a shark. “You make me sick.”

  Jordan said, “Kyle, if I need to die for the Movement to go forward, then we should accept that.”

  “No,” Kyle said, shaking his head. “I think she’s lying, Jordan. Killing you has nothing to do with the Movement.”

  Stepping closer, Jordan asked, “Why do you say that?”

  “Something my dad said. He told me that promicin gave him powers that seemed to reflect who he was inside. The real him. And I thought about other people’s powers. Shawn was always trying to make things right between other people; now he heals. Heather wanted to teach people; now she brings out their hidden talents.”

  Jordan nodded, apparently understanding. “And what was it you wanted, Kyle?”

  “I thought I wanted answers,” he said. “But now I see that what I wanted was attention. I wanted respect.” He glowered at Cassie. “But not like this.”

  She locked one hand around Kyle’s throat and squeezed. “You need to stop talking now, Kyle.”

  He tried to pull her hand off, but she was stronger than him. Choking out his words, he said, “You have to stop her.”

  Jordan moved to Kyle’s side. Cassie let go of Kyle and retreated. Jordan said, “What are you asking me to do, Kyle?”

  “I want you to take away my power,” Kyle said as he fell forward onto all fours, gasping for breath. “Please.”

  Jordan covered his mouth and sighed through his nose. Lowering his hand, he said, “I don’t know, Kyle. Cassie’s been vital to guiding the Movement. Without her—”

  “Listen to me,” Kyle said, looking up. “She’s more than a little crazy, and she’s got a mean streak. But what scares me is that she’s stronger than me. One of these days she’ll use me to do whatever she wants. I’m begging you: don’t let that happen.”

  The request seemed to leave Jordan taken aback. “Kyle, I need to make sure you understand what you’re asking for. If I neutralize your power, it’ll be gone forever. Cassie will be gone forever. You’ll never be able to get your power back, and you’ll never be able to ge
t another one. Is that something you can live with?”

  “Yes,” Kyle said. Recalling his possession years earlier by an agent of the Marked, he continued. “I’ve already been used once by a nutcase living in my head to try to murder you. I’m not letting it happen again.”

  “Fair enough,” Jordan said. He placed his hands on either side of Kyle’s head. “I won’t lie to you: this will hurt.”

  “That’s okay. It ought to.”

  From across the room, Cassie shrieked like a terrified child then screamed, “Kyle, stop! Don’t do this! We can make a deal! I’ll behave! Please … !”

  Crushing pressure seized Kyle’s skull, and all his thoughts turned red. Cassie screamed like a heretic being burned at the stake. Her howls of agony sent a chill through Kyle, who wept not only in pain but in mourning.

  Cassie ceased her doleful wails long enough to cry out, “Kyle! Please! I love you …”

  He shut his eyes and felt Jordan’s exorcising power knife through his mind, cutting away every trace of Cassie with the subtle violence of a surgeon’s scalpel. Her frightened cries diminished to a pitiful whimpering.

  As Jordan released him, Kyle thought he felt Cassie’s hand on his back. He turned his head as the sensation faded away—

  There was no one there.

  Wiping the tears from his face, he picked himself up and nodded once to Jordan. Then he shuffled in trembling steps to the door. As he opened it to leave, Jordan called out to him.

  “Are you okay?”

  Kyle looked back. “She’s gone.”

  “That’s not what I asked.”

  He gave a small nod. “I know.”

  He left and shut the door behind him.

  Walking away down the empty corridor, Kyle felt the difference in his soul: Cassie was dead, and he was alone.

  FORTY-EIGHT

  TOM FLOPPED ONTO Diana’s couch with a satisfied sigh. “Great dinner,” he said. “When did you learn to cook like that?”

  “I’m not totally useless in the kitchen,” she protested. “Though, to be honest, rigatoni Fiorentina’s kind of easy. It’s just pasta, chicken, fresh baby spinach, and vodka sauce from a jar.” Holding up the mostly drained bottle of Pinotage, she asked, “More wine?”