“I have some important information for you, and a request. First, you should know that the quarantine zone is about to experience a major storm, and we suspect it will sweep east over Shire and your site. I’ve already notified the police in Shire. You may wish to take precautions as quickly as possible; I understand that your trailers are not the best shelter.”
Zechariah returns carrying a large bundle of envelopes, which he dumps on the desk. Lucas lowers the phone and whispers, “Pull up the radar.” He frowns but nods, moving to the computer on the other desk and booting it up.
“I haven’t received any alerts from the NWS,” Lucas continues.
“We ourselves only detected it minutes ago. We expect it to impact your area around eight a.m. — less than an hour from now. There might be some flooding and wind. I just thought you shouldn’t be caught unawares.”
Zechariah finally loads the National Weather Service radar image for northwest Arkansas, and twists the screen around so Lucas can see. The animated progression shows no clouds other than a spattering to the south, toward Fort Smith.
“I appreciate it, Director,” Lucas manages skeptically. “You mentioned a request?”
“Has anyone new arrived in your camp recently? Say, in the past few weeks? A young woman, to be as precise as I can.”
Ice water pours down Lucas’ back. His jaw moves without sound.
“Mr. de la Mora? Have I lost you?”
“Sorry. I’m pulling up the radar. Give me a moment to look at it.” Lucas mutes the phone and sets it on the desk, stares at it like a dangerous animal.
(Zechariah watches him. “What’s wrong? Who’s that?”)
All Lucas’ instincts warned him not to trust her, and now he knows why: She’s involved with the quarantine. What does that make her? A scientist? A soldier gone AWOL? A spy?
That mace, with the strange, glowing ball. And he let her walk out with it still in her backpack!
(“Lucas! Earth to Lucas!”
“Shut up. I’m trying to think.”)
And yet.
He doesn’t trust this deep-voiced Director any more than he trusts Io. For all her lies, her terror was genuine — bad things will happen if they catch up with her. Lucas already knows they’re lunatics, to have left his people — and himself — adrift without answers this long. Now this ‘Director’ calls him out of the clear blue sky and feeds him bullshit about a storm. He won’t even give Lucas his name.
But what if she’s dangerous, and these lunatics are—
The Director will be getting suspicious at this point. Lucas can always call him back later and tell him about Io; there’ll be no putting that genie back into its bottle.
He picks up the phone, unmutes it. “I don’t see this storm, sir, but I’ll definitely keep an eye out and warn my people. Sorry, what did you say about a request?”
“Please keep me informed if anything anomalous happens at your site — any strange people, suspicious activity, et cetera. We’re here to help, and I expect to have a lot more contact with you than my predecessor did.”
Hooray. “Glad to hear it. Until then.”
“Good-bye, Mr. de la Mora.” The call ends.
Lucas slowly sets the phone down on the desk, then leans back and stares at the popcorn ceiling as if it has personally wronged him.
Zechariah clears his throat. “Uh, Lucas. There’s a new radar image.”
Lucas sits up and rolls his chair to where he can see the monitor. The last hour of images animate slowly, with nothing but chunky little green-blue clouds down by Fort Smith. Then the most recent slide loads—
The quarantined city of Gothic is engulfed in a red and orange blob.
“Get on the golf cart and start in Row A,” Lucas orders. “Go door-to-door and tell people to evacuate to the community center immediately. I’ll get the truck, start in the last row. We’ll meet in the middle. If someone doesn’t answer the door, go to the next trailer. We’re short on time.” He swipes a hand toward the door. “Go on!”
Zechariah jumps to his feet and rushes for the door, fishing the golf cart key out of his pocket.
Lucas is right behind him. “And if you see Io, bring her straight to me.”
Condy, with Io in tow, stops at the long row of mailboxes and finds a package waiting in his slot. “Ah, finally.” He waves the little box vaguely at her. “Cheap Chinese computer parts. Only downside is, takes a month to get here. Well, and half the time, they don’t work. But still, cheap.”
She smirks. “You’re a sucker for a deal, huh?”
“Guilty as charged.” They start walking back up the row of trailers. “Like I was saying, I might make a run into town tomorrow for groceries, if you’d like to come along and help carry the bags. Oh, and you should know, the water heater only holds ten gallons, because FEMA is run by masochistic psychopaths, so I hope you like short showers—”
“I’ll be fine. I really appreciate all your help.” She shudders. “Especially with Mr. de la Mora. He scared the shit out of me.”
“He’s ‘Lucas’ — don’t fall for his big-dick attitude.” He laughs softly. “God forbid anybody tell him ‘no’. And he wonders why he doesn’t have any friends besides the cretin.” He steps around a puddle in the dirt road. “So, ‘s ‘Io’ your real name?”
“It’s as good as any other name.”
Condy smirks at her. “One of the moons of Jupiter, right?”
“I guess. I was more thinking of Greek mythology.” When he gives her a questioning look, she continues, “Io was a mortal, and Zeus, the king of the gods, was in love with her. He changed her into a cow so his jealous wife, Hera, wouldn’t be able to find her. But Hera sent a fly to chase Io all across the world, tormenting her with its stinger.”
He whistles softly. “Hope you’re not really hiding out from a Greek goddess. I’m no good with psychopathic women.”
Io laughs. “Nah, don’t worry about it. Nobody knows I’m here.”
They reach Condy’s trailer; he leads the way to the front door, unlocks it, and holds it open for her. The interior is messy — empty ramen bowls and used tissues cover every flat surface. He’s papered over the windows and placed floor lamps that cast an unhealthy yellow glow over all. The air is warm and cloying.
“Make yourself at home,” he says as he enters behind her and shuts the door. “Sorry for the mess. Maid hasn’t been by in a few months.”
“I don’t mind. Back when I had a home, it usually looked just like this.”
He pulls open the refrigerator, revealing an array of half-empty packages and several highly-suspect bowls of leftovers. “What do you like for breakfast? I’ve got eggs, some frozen sausage, purple stuff, maybe some orange juice—”
“Do you have water?” she asks, taking off her backpack and setting it on the floor. When he shoots her an odd look, she adds, “I’m on a special diet. Doctor’s orders.”
He closes the fridge, staring at her. “What kind of doctor says to drink only water?”
“Not only water.” She looks uncomfortable. “Orange juice sounds good, I guess.”
He digs around inside the fridge and finally produces a nearly-empty carton of orange juice, hands it to her. “Grocery shopping just moved up to today.”
“You really don’t have to go to too much trouble.” She empties the carton in two gulps and sets it on top of the already-full garbage bin. “I might stay overnight, but that’s it. I have to keep moving until I’m sure I haven’t been followed.” She notices a stack of DVDs next to the microwave. “Oh, you like movies?”
They chat amiably about Hollywood for a few minutes as they clean up the kitchen. Soon, the sink is full of sudsy water and soaking dishes; two frying pans on the stove host eggs and sizzling sausage.
Io stands back, letting the old man cook, and has her first chance to look around the trailer. The bedroom door is closed, and she doesn’t yet feel welcome enough to snoop inside. But just before it — where a table and benches had once b
een bolted to the floor, and should have remained, according to the rules printout in her pocket — a wide computer desk takes up most of the spare room in the hall. Centered on the desktop is a closed laptop surrounded by chaotic bundles of wire, computer parts, and half-disassembled smartphones.
From the little kitchen, Condy tells her, “Listen, I don’t mind saving you from Lucas, and I don’t mind helping you out for a few days. But I need you to be straight with me.” He looked over his shoulder at her. “Are you in trouble?”
She meets his eyes and frowns stubbornly. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
“As if I don’t have some weird stories of my own.”
“Nothing this weird.”
“Try me.”
She rolls her eyes and approaches, leans heavily against the refrigerator. “Look, I appreciate you covering for me and letting me stay, but I can’t tell you anything. It’s a cliché, but the more I tell you, the more danger you’re in.”
“Like I mind.” He tips the frying pan, making the sausages roll. “I am the poster child for ‘curiosity killing the cat’.”
“Doesn’t matter. I don’t want you on my conscience.”
Condy stares at her, but she doesn’t flinch, just frowns more deeply. At last, he sighs and returns his attention to his breakfast. “I’ll drop it . . . for now.”
She stretches, joints popping. “It’s not even eight yet and I’m already pooped. You mind if I lie down?”
“Yeah, go ahead. Bedroom shouldn’t be too much of a horror show. Though—” He disappears into the room; after a minute of sorting around, he emerges with a grocery sack full of trash. “Okay, now it’s not. Anyway, get some shut-eye, and I’ll wake you up for lunch. Then we can head into town.”
“Thanks. And thanks again for everything.” She disappears into the bedroom and shuts herself up inside.
He stands at the stove for a long moment, silently thanking his lucky stars. Io has forgotten her backpack; it sits near the door, half-hidden under her jacket. He turns off the burners, leaving the eggs and sausage to grow cold. He kneels next her backpack and all but tears open the zippers.
After a minute of sorting, he holds the mace in his hands. With a flick of the switch, the glowing blue orb is revealed once more. He wastes precious seconds staring into it, entranced.
“You,” he whispers, “are going to change everything.” He gets to his feet, knees popping loudly, and rushes to his computer desk. He gently sets the mace down in the nest of wires and opens his laptop . . .
. . . revealing a mess of command-line windows and diagrams in garish, unpleasant colors. The text is a liberal mix of English, Greek, mathematical symbols, and whatever other random icons he thought represented the ideas he was assembling. The laptop is not running either of the two major consumer operating systems, nor is it based on any open-source distribution. Condy has spent years custom-writing it from the kernel up, every line of code meticulously controlled.
Across the desk, accessories and bits of half-disassembled hardware beep and whirr, but he ignores them as he furiously types. They serve only as diagnostics; everything he really needs is in the laptop itself.
. . . except for this gently-glowing marvel on his desk. He pauses to stare into its blue depths, and its light washes into his soul. He has forgotten what it feels like to be so happy, so ready.
He hasn’t dared activate the laptop’s true function ever since the Disaster. But now, the key has been brought to him. The transponder. The faster-than-light transmitter.
He can fix it all now. He can make it right.
Precious minutes flow past him and they do not matter. He codes as fast as he can, building a new interface for this new component. When he’s done, his work will finally be perfect. He silently curses himself for rising this morning without fanfare, without cleansing ritual, and now there is no time left. But how could he have known that today would be the day he would see his greatest work completed?
Condy’s hands fly over the keyboard. He can no longer feel them. Inside his own head, he swims in a disconnected euphoria. His weak, human self is melting away, and something other is taking its place. His vision fills with a black grid, an infinite lattice. It moves him, moves through him, supplants him—
It occurs to him to worry that Io will awaken and take back her blue miracle. But sad, strange bearer that she is, she has been afraid of it. The moment it came alive in his hands, the moment he knew in his soul that this was the last day of his old life, he also sensed her discomfort, saw her back away. Maybe she’ll thank him for relieving her of its burden.
Food is burning on the stove; he curses frantically and runs the few steps into the kitchen — a journey into a greasy, smoking pit of Hell. He turns off all the burners with shaking hands. But didn’t he turn them off before? Or did he only mean to? Stupid! Worthless!
Sitting back down in front of the laptop is a relief, like a blast of cold air in the desert. His pale, wrinkled fingers resume their flight over the keyboard, pausing only to backspace and correct his small, human mistakes. So close now. So little time left.
Someone bangs on the front door and shouts, but the words are muffled by the trailer walls. Condy shoves on a pair of headphones and blasts whatever music plays first on his phone — he doesn’t care what, as long as it’s noise.
The software interface is nearly complete; now for the hardware. With a little fussing, he figures out how to release the orb from the black metal mace. It rolls across his desk, releasing little pulses of energy as it goes.
He picks it up and cradles it against his chest, reveling in its cold touch. Io lied about its fragility; in his palm, the glassy surface feels more like everlasting gemstone.
Where did Io find this little miracle? No wonder she’s on the run. It occurs to Condy that he, himself, should make plans to leave soon. No more life as a refugee, no more nights spent either racked with guilt or stoned off his ass or plugged into as many distractions as possible. He feels drunk with joy, with relief — and it makes the future seem closed-off, an abstract pinprick. He’ll run, and a path will open for him and take him into a glorious new world.
Somewhere, his music has been replaced with an incessant ringtone. He barely notices; he’s too busy with wires and tearing apart an aluminum can and propping up the orb and connecting the whole setup via USB and checking his software interface and—
He doesn’t miss the music until it’s gone again, and now his phone is ringing again. The sound irritates him. He looks down at the screen — he’s absentmindedly set the phone on his thigh — and sees that it is Lucas calling him.
Probably snooping after Io. Condy decides he’d better answer, or the nosy fuck will be driving up to his door next. “Yeah?” he answers distractedly, propping the phone between his shoulder and ear as he frets with the wire chassis he’s thrown together for the orb.
Lucas babbles on for a full minute, something about Zechariah and Io and a storm. Condy sets the phone down on the desk and goes back to checking over the code for the software interface. A missing bracket added here, a zero changed to a three there, and the phone is buzzing angrily at him, and then it goes quiet.
A second later, it starts ringing again.
Condy barely contains a scream, then picks it up and answers. “What?”
“—must have lost you. Are you there?”
“I’m here!” Dammit, another missing bracket . . .
“—big storm bzz bzz clouds are bzz bzz bzz from Gothic bzzzz bzz neighbors to the community center— Hello? — there?”
“I’ll have to call you back.” He hangs up the phone without looking at it; his eyes are glued to the scrolling code in front of him. Nearly there.
The orb shimmers enticingly in its makeshift chassis. He loses himself gazing into it, thinking it is the sexiest thing he has ever seen.
Out on the very edge of his hearing, there comes a high-pitched wail. Sometimes it bursts into waves of static, the babbling
of a human in pain. Then comes the wail again.
He ignores the noise and focuses on the code.
Nearly done.
Io awakens to her body ripping itself apart. Every muscle and organ fights to get away from her feet — from something beyond her feet—
An intense blue glow shines under the bedroom door, illuminating the dirty carpet. She screams in terror, shoving herself up the bed, against the headboard, fighting off violent flashbacks of her body being torn apart, of her head falling, of her every cell reassembling, of the soulless madness of amnesia—
She shrieks and shrieks, and yet the glow will not stop—
Desperation takes over, and with it, instinct. She claws across the bed, leaps—
Her shoulder connects with the bedroom window and she falls through. Shattered glass follows her down into the gravel below. She lands with a crack in her spine and the side of her head bleeds, but it is such sweet relief to be away—
Condy sits back, closes his eyes, and braces himself.
Now or never.
In a flurry of hotkeys and typed commands, he activates the main code.
‘hello world?’ he asks the universe.
The orb’s glow intensifies, filling the trailer with harsh blue light. Somewhere in the distance, he hears glass shatter and thinks it might be the sound of the old world finally falling apart.
Then the message finishes sending, and the orb goes dormant once more. He stares at the gibberish output on his laptop’s screen, and his heart judders in his chest.
With a loud crack, his front door swings open. Condy looks over his shoulder and finds Io standing in the doorway, breathing hard, teeth bared in rage. Wind whips around her, somehow warmer than the cloying air inside the trailer. Her shoulder and the side of her head bleed sluggishly.
“Put it back in the hammer case and close it!” she orders, though she doesn’t approach.
“I’ve done it,” he says softly, and returns his gaze to the laptop screen. “It sent. After all this time, it finally sent. I made a test communication and it sent—”
New Night (Gothic Book 2) Page 3