Maddy shook her head. Of all of Dillon’s gifts, she was most impressed by his ability to divine truths in the patterns of minutiae. “Birthdays don’t mean much to me,” she said.
“Still I’d like to give you a present.”
Maddy grinned, nervously. “The slot machine’s finally going to pay off?” She could see that hint of his eyes now; feel them reaching through the metallic squint of the mask, like an octopus willing itself through the breach of its tank. Maddy tried to resist that intrusive gaze, but found she could not. She had once commented to him that sitting before him was like playing a game of strip poker, where he held all the cards. But until now he had kept his hand to himself.
“I see a maze of mirrors when I look at you, Maddy. You’ve spent a lifetime raising the mirrors, confident that no one will get to the center. That no one will ever truly know you. You find lots of power in reflecting everyone away, don’t you?”
She tried to speak—to say anything to deflect his gaze, but he would not let her.
“Listen to me carefully Maddy,” he said . . .
“I know you. I know you down to the thoughts you tell no one.
I know you down to the dreams you can’t remember. I know you.”
She tried to speak, to make light of his words, but found she couldn’t. She could only slowly exhale, feeling the last vestments shielding her soul fall free.
“There. Happy Birthday, Maddy.”
She knew at once that he had begun some work in her, and she didn’t know how to accept that. He was uninvited, and yet welcome.
A few minutes later she wheeled the tray out and left him, trying to shield as best she could how deeply his words had touched her. But even Bussard was able to pick up on it.
“He’s getting to you, isn’t he?” Bussard asked when he next saw her, later that day.
“He’s a very powerful personality, sir.” Then she added, “All the more reason to keep him here.”
Appeased, Bussard congratulated her on what a fine job she was doing, and Maddy hoped to God he didn’t have a window to her soul the way Dillon did.
That night she went for her evening run to clear her mind, only to find that it was already clear—uncongested enough for her to appreciate all the sights and sounds of the run. All of her senses had been tuned to a more resonant idle.
“I know you,” Dillon had said. Three simple words—anyone else could have said them, and it would have meant absolutely nothing— but with no one else would it have been true. And until he spoke them, she had not realized how much she needed to be known.
* * *
Elon Tessic, however, was not yet prepared to be known. He was a complex man to be sure, but held no illusions about himself. Given enough time, he knew Dillon would decipher him as well. This is why Tessic made a point of making his visits to Dillon brief, and only moving into his line of sight when there was a specific point to it. In this way, Tessic held his own in Dillon’s poker game.
Bussard did not allow Tessic a moment alone with Dillon. This was alright, because although he didn’t have an ace to play against Dillon, he had several to play against Bussard.
A half mile from the plant’s outer gate, the bells above the door of Bobby’s Eat-N-Greet jangled their merry tune as Tessic entered. The waitress, who was jabbering with some locals in a far booth, didn’t notice, but Bobby did. He stiffened as he always did when he saw Tessic, but this time, he came practically bounding over the counter like a man half his age to greet him.
“Such enthusiasm,” Tessic said, “for the man who practically stole your prize recipe!”
“My granddaughter’s with her mother at Princeton, already looking for an apartment,” Bobby said. “I can’t tell you how much your generosity—"
Tessic put up his hand, cutting him off. “I was hardly generous. I payed you half of what I felt that recipe was worth to me, so there! You can now call me a stingy bastard.”
Bobby laughed. “If there’s ever anything I can do for you—anything at all . . .”
Tessic nodded, and put a hand on Bobby’s shoulder, leading him to the counter. “First a piece of pie,” he said. “Then we’ll talk about what you might do for me . . .”
Half an hour later, Tessic returned to the plant, his private summit meeting with the grateful restaurateur unobserved. Although Bussard had the guards keep track of Tessic’s comings and goings—his trips to the Eat-N-Greet never made the slightest blip on Bussard’s radar.
* * *
Maddy and Dillon had been talking about Lourdes, the only surviving Shard who was completely unaccounted for. “I don’t think things are right with her,” Dillon had told Maddy. “I can feel her out there, and it scares me.”
It was just the kind of thing Maddy would want to listen to—to help her understand the strange relationship Dillon had with these other powerful spirits, but she found her thoughts elsewhere. It had only been one day since her so-called birthday present. That night, for the first time in years, she had found her sleep untroubled, and woke with the enthusiasm of a child on her way to camp. The acuity of her thinking the night before had not been her imagination. Now her idle thoughts that had always seemed filtered and astigmatic had a clarity so pronounced she could almost hear herself think—and could almost see the images those thoughts evoked. She found herself hyper-focused to distraction. If this lucidity was Dillon’s gift to her, it would take some getting used to.
When Elon Tessic entered the room unannounced, it pulled her focus so completely the fork flew from her hand.
Although Dillon’s chair was facing the other way, he said, “That’s not Bussard.”
“Good afternoon.” Tessic sauntered in as if he owned the place, which wasn’t far from the truth.
“I’d smile for the camera,” Tessic said, “but unfortunately no one will see it. Some unforseen glitch in the system has left the control room picking up a local broadcast of I Love Lucy. That gives us several minutes of quality time until Bussard finds out and makes his way down here.”
Maddy looked down to the second button of her uniform, angling it up so she could see. It gave no indication that the camera hidden there was out, but then there was never any indication that it was on, either.
“I knew exactly where it was,” Dillon said. “Why Bussard needs a camera is beyond me; I don’t move.”
“He’d put a stone under surveillance if he thought it might crack,” she said. It occurred to Maddy that this was the first time— perhaps the only time—she’d be able to speak to Dillon out of Bussard’s sight . . . and with all her lucidity of mind, she had no idea what to say. So she just fed him another piece of pot roast.
Tessic came up behind Dillon, keeping out of his sight line.
“I’d invite you to join us, Elon, but there are no extra chairs,” Dillon said.
Maddy glanced at them both. “You’re on a first-name basis with the man who locked you in this chair?”
“I just built it, Lieutenant Haas, I didn’t apply it.” Tessic moved closer, putting a hand on the head of the metal monstrosity. “And besides, we are kindred spirits, Dillon and I. Oh, perhaps my voltage is not as high—but, like Dillon, I once believed I had a spark within me that could save the world—and now I find myself making weapons of war. Just like Dillon, I don’t know if my efforts will, in the end, destroy more than they will save.”
Maddy stood and strode to the threshold, glancing out into the containment dome. No one was coming. Good. No doubt the sharpshooters were on their perches, but they had no authority to prevent Tessic from being here. The best they could do was report his presence to Bussard. “Do you plan to make something of this quality time, Mr. Tessic?” She asked. “Or is this just a social visit?”
Tessic only grinned, then ran his hand over the titanium ribs that curved across Dillon’s chest. “I’m really proud of this entire restraint system,” he said. “You see, given a minute or two Dillon can jiggle his way out of any lock, so I had t
o create a lock he could not break. It was quite a challenge—the first systems we developed proved useless. Then it came to me; it wasn’t a stronger lock we needed, but a key that was never the same twice!”
Tessic became animated as he explained his device, looking more and more like the wunderkind he had once been. “The electromagnetic lock on the chair is linked to the lock on the vault door, which in turn is controlled by a subcutaneous chip we’ve implanted behind Dillon’s ear. The chip changes the combination three times a second, based on randomized algorithms from Dillon’s own brain waves.” Tessic gave a broad smile. “It was the only way to create truly random numbers, because any normal randomizer would start spitting out chains of consecutive numbers in Dillon’s presence.”
Maddy glanced at Dillon, who said nothing. “Looks like you win the science fair,” she said.
“I always do.”
She wondered what Tessic cold possibly gain by further demoralizing Dillon with the nuts and bolts of his cage. Then Tessic took a glance toward the open vault door, and sat down on the edge of the bed. “Of course the system’s not without its bugs—after all we never had a chance to test it, and daylight saving time never occurred to us.”
Now he had caught her interest, and although Dillon didn’t as much as flick a finger, she knew he had zeroed in on this as well. “Daylight saving?” Maddy said.
Tessic shook his head, and sighed. “Sadly, the locking mechanism has no protocol for dealing with the extra hour next Sunday. When its internal clock falls 60 minutes back, the vault door just stays stuck on that same electronic combination for the entire hour.” And then Tessic smiled. “You would think with all the money the government paid me, I wouldn’t make mistakes like that.”
Then came the sound of clattering on metal stairs, then the click of feet on concrete. “Bussard!” Maddy said, and took her seat across from Dillon.
Tessic leaned one arm on Dillon’s chair, and stood. “Yes, I’d recognize that goose-step anywhere.”
Through all of this, Dillon hadn’t said a thing—but Maddy could see his eyes. They were full of hope, and focused on her.
Bussard hurried into the room, and double-took on Tessic. “What’s this all about?”
Tessic was so smooth, it assuaged the tension. “We were just discussing television viewing habits.”
Bussard Looked from Tessic, to Dillon, and his gaze settled on Maddy for corroboration. “Lieutenant Haas?”
“It’s true, sir,” she told him, borrowing some of that semi-gloss that Tessic so smoothly painted on the situation. “Mr. Tessic wanted to know if there were any specific videos Dillon would like added to his library.”
“I asked for some Bond flicks,” Dillon added. “The Connery ones.”
Bussard judged the response, and accepted it with the same reluctance with which he accepted any unverified information. “I see. Lieutenant Haas, I’ll have to ask you to cut your meal short today. Elon, I need your help with a technical problem.”
Tessic was more than happy to comply. “Your problem is my problem, Dr. No.” He turned to Maddy. “Lieutenant, it’s been a pleasure, and Dillon, I look forward to our next encounter.”
As they made their way across the floor of the containment dome, Maddy considered what Tessic had said. To keep the information to herself would be an offense worthy of a court martial, or worse.
The sound of the slamming vault door peeled around the dome with the finality of a tomb. Having become so accustomed to Dillon’s presence, she could feel the absence of his powerful aura the moment the vault sealed. It was only a moment of void until her senses adjusted to a world without Dillon—but she found that void harder and harder to live with.
12. Dream lightning
The open clamshell of Dillon’s chair sat in the corner of his room. He always pushed it there after the vault door had closed, and the chair released him. Sometimes he threw a blanket over the chair, so that he didn’t have to look at it, but now he left it unveiled. He wanted to see it now, so that if his nerve began to fail him, he could look upon the chair’s waiting clamps, and know that death was a better alternative than lingering in this purgatory for one more day.
The TV played an old Bond film, delivered a week after it was requested. Goldfinger was being sucked through the shattered window of his private jet. Not a bad way to go, all else considered. Dillon watched the TV but was only passing time. It was midnight. Hesperia, Michigan had just rotated its way into Sunday, and in less than two hours, American time would hiccup itself back one hour. An end to daylight saving; the early tidings of winter.
Dillon lay on his bed, trying to focus his thoughts. He was no stranger to slim chances and narrow escapes, but now he had a sense that everything hinged on his actions over the next few hours. Not just his life, but the lives and futures of far more souls than he could ever hope to count. The many psychiatrists who had analyzed him would call him delusional, to think that his escape from this place was the fulcrum on which the world hinged. And he would agree with them; after all, a generic label of insanity made perfect logical sense. Except for the fact that it was wrong.
He tried to put his mind through a regimen of drills and contingencies for his escape. He was at a disadvantage, because he did not know the layout of the plant. All he knew was his cell, the cooling tower, and the corridors in between—none of which led to the outside. Even what he did know was limited by the tunnel vision imposed on him by his chair’s unyielding face-plate.
He wondered if Elon Tessic truly believed he would escape, or was just curious. Perhaps the rich industrialist was taking wagers on Dillon’s escape.
As his thoughts often did in moments of stress, Dillon’s mind drifted to Deanna. She was the first of the other Shards he had met. They had been a duo, before they became part of a sextet.
Time had not made her death easier, and his love for her had not diminished in the two years since she died. He could still see her expressive Asian eyes. He could still see the sheen of her long black hair. Moonlight on water. He could still feel her dying in his arms. He had no pictures of her beyond these images he held in his mind.
They were fifteen, then—both too young and too damned screwed up to do anything but cling to one another, Dillon thriving on her intense fear of the world, and Deanna thriving on his anger and need for absolution. In the end she had purged herself of her serpent of terror, and had discovered her gift, even before Dillon discovered his.
Her gift had been faith. Nothing so tangible as Dillon’s gift of creation, or Lourdes’ gift of control. Nothing so utilitarian as Winston’s gift of growth, Tory’s cleansing aura or Michael’s control of nature. Deanna’s gift of faith was a simple bridge over fear, but she had died before she could cross that bridge and explore the ramifications.
“Lend me an ounce of your faith, Deanna,” Dillon would pray when fear and futility teamed to overwhelm him. “Just one ounce to get me through this.” He would pray with the intensity with which he had once prayed to God, before his fall from grace. And he prayed now that somehow he would find the faith to bridge the gap between his cell and the outside world.
The film ended. The TV timed itself off, and he was left in the dark to knit the seconds into the minutes for more than an hour, until 2:00 a.m. was finally upon him.
When his digital clock hit the hour, nothing seemed to change. The clock, of course, wouldn’t. Like most other clocks, it would need to be reset by hand. He reset the alarm clock back to 1:00, stalling. He listened, but there was nothing beyond the usual soundproofed silence of his cell, where any sound made was made by him. 1:02. He stood, flicked on the light by his bed, and stepped into the dead-end alcove, firmly plugged by the titanium vault door.
Hadn’t he broken into a vault once? One of many things he had done early on, when his powers of order and cohesion had first begun to emerge. It had been a game back then. But breaking into a vault was much different from breaking out of one—especially on
e as sophisticated as this.
Tessic had said the combination changed three times a second, and with all of Dillon’s powers there was no hope of cracking a code that was in constant flux. But if Tessic was right, and the combination was now stuck in one place for a full hour, it leveled the playing field. Still, how could he access the locking mechanism from the inside?
He ran his fingers along the brushed metallic inside surface of the door. It was cold to the touch. He tapped on it with his fingers like a physician palpating a patient’s lungs. There was no echo at all, no resonance. This door was too solid to give anything back to him. He pressed his fingertips against the line of the door jamb that was so well sealed, there was barely a line at all. 1:16.
Damn it! What was he expecting himself to do? This wasn’t the physics of Hoover Dam, where he could zero in on a resonant frequency, and use it to rattle the thing apart. This alloy was too well tempered for that. By design it had no resonant frequency that could destabilize it.
Will this door be foiled by virtue of what I am . . . or by what I do?
He had an understanding of his power now—as much as a human mind could understand such things. His power was a dance between being and doing. His mere presence had a profound effect on the world around him, but he could also use his power like a tool, actually molding it to his will. Opening a lock was a little bit of both. He could actively push his mind into the mechanism, and feel the pattern of movements that would open it, but more often than not, the lock would pop open even before he was finished, his presence greasing the mechanism into alignment. The military didn’t care about the things Dillon actively willed. His will was a variable. But his passive presence was a constant.
Combinations. Codes. Random numbers. A series of symbols.
Who knew how many numbers were in the combination? Even if he could focus his mind and divine each number in its proper order, what good would it do him on the inside?
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