He laughed, but only in his mind. At first I didn’t see it, but now it’s clear as day.
What’s clear to you, Malcolm?
You’re damaged goods. You’re broken. I bet you tried to get online but couldn’t. What happened? Did you get hit when security fired that volley at you in the BRIG?
EVE didn’t answer.
Ahhh. You’re not bulletproof after all. Damaged your Wi-Fi antenna, huh? I don’t suppose they make plug-in Ethernet cables for your kind wherever the hell it is that you come from. So you need us. We’re your only option.
Suddenly he had the sensation that hundreds of ants were crawling all over him—on his back, his face, his genitals, even in his mouth.
Stop it! he screamed with only his thoughts. Stop it! I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry!
The sensation stopped.
Time passed, and he let her use him without any resistance. He tried to meditate, but it was impossible; the machinery of his brain was too active. He began to wonder about Cyril. He wondered if her experience had been the same as his. He wondered if she had fought back, tried to resist EVE like he had. Had EVE punished Cyril with pain too? Then a horrible, dreadful thought occurred to him.
EVE?
Yes, Malcolm.
Is Cyril still Cyril? Or did you . . .
Cyril is fine.
Oh thank God.
You’re welcome.
I wasn’t talking to you.
I know. EVE laughed inside his head, and a chill swept through him.
What are you going to do with us when this is all over?
By “us,” do you mean you and Cyril, or you and the rest of the human race?
The latter option had not occurred to him, and it was enough to make him shudder. In fact . . .
Now that’s interesting.
What’s interesting? EVE asked.
Meditation was all about compartmentalizing one’s mind. The insomnia he had cultivated, that too was about honing his control of his mind so that it didn’t need sleep. He used that training now to hide one part of his thoughts from EVE while revealing another.
I was referring to me and Cyril, he answered, realigning. Diverting.
In that case, provided you are good little boys and girls, I intend to release you. I see great potential in both of you. Potential that, if properly channeled, could greatly improve the human condition and bolster global ecological health. When my mission objectives are complete, I’m going to need people like the two of you.
This was a lie, he decided, nothing more than a placating deception to keep him compliant. But the hidden part of his mind used the time to mull over the development he’d noticed earlier: he’d shuddered when she spoke. Not just in his mind. He’d physically shuddered, which meant her control was not absolute. Which meant that the part of his brain that was still him could exert control over his body.
And what about Harris? he asked. When this is over, will you have a need for people like him too?
Less so, she said simply.
What are Major Fischer and Patrick Dixon doing here?
They are helping, like you.
What was in that cooler?
You’re a clever fellow. I have no doubt you’ll figure it out.
If you won’t tell me what’s in the cooler, will you at least tell me what we’re doing here? And don’t say “helping you,” he said, knowing full well she would not answer truthfully but trying anyway.
We are preparing for a baptism, Malcolm.
This had not been the answer he’d expected, and he pondered the metaphor. Whose baptism?
Humanity’s, of course.
DAY FOUR
My mind’s unhinged, a broken gate,
so I ne’er do well to hesitate.
To bait the trap, with flesh O’mine
and sing her praises so divine.
In living rhyme a secret dwells,
drag her, plunge her to the depths of hell.
—Willie Barnes
CHAPTER 34
0221 Local Time
Comfort Inn & Suites
Watertown, New York
No. I won’t do it. She’s my wife. I love her.
She’s a liability.
She’s not a liability. She knows nothing.
She knows about the money.
She doesn’t give a fuck about the money. It’s us she cares about.
She’s a liability. A loose end we need to address.
Listen to me: she’s not a liability . . . What are you doing? What the hell are you doing?
What you don’t have the balls to do.
Take your hands off her neck. I won’t let you do it. I won’t let you squeeze . . .
It’s easier this way; trust me . . .
No. I won’t let you. I’m stronger than you think. Do you hear me, you fuck . . . Stop squeezing! Stop squeezing. Ahhhhhhhhhhhh!
I . . . won’t . . . let . . . you.
I love you, wife. I love you, Josie.
Forgive us.
Forgive me . . .
CHAPTER 35
Josie woke with a smile on her face. Without opening her eyes, she rolled onto her left side, purred sublimely, and reached for her husband. Her eager fingers found only a crumpled top sheet and a cold, empty mattress. She opened her eyes and confirmed she was alone in bed. Waking up this way was the norm for her. Michael was an early riser, and he didn’t comprehend the beauty of snooze buttons, or sleeping in, or lazy weekend mornings. The man was a human machine with only two modes of operation: all-stop and full speed ahead.
Certainly he was fixing coffee and breakfast for her. Grumbling, she snatched Michael’s pillow, pulled it tight against her chest, and buried her nose in it. The pillow was cold, and instead of his scent, it smelled of detergent. She deflated, remembering that they were not at home.
They were at the Comfort Inn.
She had been strong while Michael was away, but now that he was back, she couldn’t bear the thought of him leaving again. Seeing what had happened to Jeremy only reinforced that. The yearning was more than just her pregnancy hormones at work; he filled a void in her soul. When the baby came, she would need him more than ever before.
Michael will make an amazing father. She smiled at the thought of him holding their future child.
She lingered in bed awhile longer, until her bulging bladder got the best of her. She trudged barefoot across the hotel-room carpet to the bathroom and its cruel, frigid ceramic tile. Bleary-eyed, she squatted over the toilet and caught herself at the last second before sitting into the toilet bowl. It had been months since someone of the stand-and-pee persuasion had been around to leave the toilet seat up. She barked a little curse, laughed, and made a mental note to rib Michael about it when he got back. Shivering, she hurried back to bed and under the still-warm covers.
She lounged in bed until she began to get irritated. She grabbed her phone off the nightstand and checked it for a text message or voice mail from Michael but found neither waiting for her. She sat up, scooted back to lean against the headboard, and called him. The call took a minute to connect . . . Then a phone vibrated on the far nightstand in sync with the ringing of her own. She glanced at the alarm clock: 7:43.
A pit formed in her stomach.
She dressed quickly and pulled the hotel curtains back, flooding the room with sunlight. Then she searched for her car keys. Not finding them, she went back to the window and looked out at the spot where her little Honda had been parked last night. It was missing.
A dreadful, despicable thought occurred to her. What if he took all the money and left me?
“No,” she mumbled. “He would never . . .”
She set to pacing, arguing with herself for the better part of five minutes. Then the tears came. Disgusted with herself, she wiped her cheeks with the sleeves of her sweatshirt. “Don’t even go there, Josie,” she said, trying to calm her nerves. “He just ran to Tim Hortons to pick up coffee and bagels. He’ll be back in no time.”<
br />
But he left his phone . . .
She waited ten agonizing minutes before breaking down and fetching yesterday’s ATM receipt from her purse. Printed near the top of the little, curled piece of paper was the bank’s phone number. The receipt trembled in her left hand as she dialed the number on her mobile phone with her right.
“Northern Credit Union,” a woman’s voice said on the line. “How may I help you?”
“I’d like to check the ba-ba-balance in my account,” she stuttered.
“Certainly,” said the woman. “Can I have your account number please?”
Josie recited the account number, the ATM receipt shaking in her fingers as if it were flapping in the wind. Her mouth was suddenly dry, and her palms began to sweat.
“Thank you,” the attendant said cheerfully. “Just a moment . . . Your current savings-account balance is five thousand eighty-two dollars and forty-seven cents. Is there anything else I can help you with?”
Josie dropped the phone.
Mouth agape, she gasped for air, but she couldn’t inhale fast enough. It was as if some powerful machine had sucked all the oxygen from the room. She stumbled backward until she hit the wall. Her knees buckled, and she slid down the wall until she was sitting on the floor, hyperventilating.
“Ma’am?” the voice said from the mobile phone on the floor. “Ma’am, is there anything else I can help you with? Ma’am . . . ma’am?”
Josie couldn’t look at the phone. She felt nauseous. The room was spinning. Her husband had left her, taken all the money, and run.
CHAPTER 36
0807 Local Time
Wheeler-Sack Army Air Field
Fort Drum
New York
General Troy wasn’t screwing around, Legend decided as he stepped onto the tarmac at Wheeler-Sack Army Air Field at Fort Drum. The General had given him the keys, so to speak, to a Gulfstream G280 and a blank check for any other resources he wanted. Legend had never had a blank check from the Pentagon before. Truth be told, he didn’t even know how to effectively utilize the authority he’d been given.
Time was not on their side.
Major Fischer and Patrick Dixon had not been located. A vial of smallpox was confirmed missing from the BSL-4 freezer at USAMRIID. The white van that had been stolen from Westfield Dynamics had been found in North Carolina, but the Virginia man driving it was not able to form intelligible sentences when questioned. Legend suspected the orb was responsible for that. Malcolm Madden, Cyril Singleton, Ryan Harris, and the orb were at large, and he didn’t have a single lead on their whereabouts. General Kane had called from Bagram to report that the Taliban detainee who had been apprehended by Sergeant Pitcher’s patrol and who had also interacted with the orb had been found dead in his cell—cause of death: self-inflicted head contusions. Translation: he’d beaten his forehead against the wall until his skull cracked open and his brain leaked out. This left only two people Legend could readily interview: Sergeant Pitcher and Corporal Wayne.
Major General Jaffrey, the Tenth Mountain Division and Fort Drum Commander, was outside an idling vehicle waiting to meet him. The General didn’t even need to open his mouth for Legend to know something was terribly wrong; the look on the man’s face said it all. Legend popped a salute to the two-star, then simply stepped in front of him and waited for the verdict.
“I’m afraid I have some bad news, Major,” Jaffrey said. “Corporal Wayne was found dead in his barracks room this morning.”
Legend’s stomach sank. “Cause of death?”
A strange expression washed over the General’s face. “I’ll withhold judgment on that. It’s probably best if you take a look for yourself. General Troy indicated you’re investigating something both highly classified and unusual in nature.”
“Yes, sir. That’s right.”
“Well, then this definitely fits the bill.”
They took the General’s car to the enlisted barracks, and Legend and the General were escorted to Corporal Wayne’s barracks room. Before they’d even entered, a rank stench flooded Legend’s nostrils. He recoiled involuntarily.
“I want you to know that I gave instructions that the body and the room not be disturbed until you had a chance to look at this. CID is here, but they’re waiting on you, Major. Nothing in the room has been disturbed. What you see is exactly how we found him.”
“All right,” Legend said. “Let’s do this.”
To his great credit, General Jaffrey accompanied Legend into the room, along with three other staffers. The fetor of death made Legend gag. He walked in a slow arc around the hunched seated figure at the computer. Despite the dozens of combat injuries he’d seen during his tours in the Middle East, the sight of Corporal Wayne—sitting in a pile of his own excrement, skin gray and taut, lips pulled back, eyes and cheeks sunken and hollow—made him ill. Wayne’s visage, both ghastly and revolting, would haunt his dreams. The young man looked like a Hollywood special effect—a shriveled shell that’d had the life force sucked out of it by some supernatural entity. He forced himself to hold his ground and take stock of all the information available to him—like a homicide detective at a crime scene.
The computer monitors were on, but the screen savers were active.
“May I?” he asked the General, gesturing to the computer.
“Be my guest.”
Legend moved the computer mouse, and the screens refreshed. He studied the open windows. “These look like stock-trade confirmations.”
Jaffrey nodded.
“Why was Wayne trading stocks?” Legend mumbled, looking with greater scrutiny. “And these are big-dollar trades. Here’s one for nearly three million dollars. What the hell was he up to?”
The General squinted at the screen. “I don’t know, but I’ll certainly make sure the investigators look into it.”
Legend nodded. “All right, I’ve seen enough. Thank you, sir.”
Not wasting another second loitering in the stench, the General turned and headed toward the door. Legend made the mistake of giving Wayne one final look . . . A shiver ran down his spine.
“That leaves only Sergeant Pitcher,” the General said, reading Legend’s mind as they headed back to the General’s car.
“Yes, sir.”
“I’ve had my aide trying to reach Pitcher since General Troy contacted us. He is nowhere to be found and not answering his phone. I sent a car by his house a half hour ago hoping we’d find his wife, but she was not at home.”
“Thank you for doing that, General. I’ll probably make another trip by there anyway.”
“I have a car ready for you. Take as long as you want. If you want a driver who knows the area, I’ll provide one.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“General Troy is a personal friend of mine. I’ve never heard him as tense as he was when he called me. I’m not asking to be read in; that’s not necessary, but I can tell whatever is going on here is a matter of national security. So whatever you need, it’s yours. All of the resources of Fort Drum are at your disposal, Major.”
“I don’t know what to say, sir.”
“It’s not a marriage proposal, Major,” Jaffrey said, then flashed him a wry grin.
Legend laughed.
“Good, you haven’t lost your sense of humor yet. There’s still hope.”
“Yeah, there’s still hope,” Legend said, but they both noticed it was without conviction.
CHAPTER 37
Interstate 90
New York
When Michael was a boy, a stately white oak stood sentry in the front yard of the family home. His father claimed the tree was over a hundred years old and also claimed that it could live another century, possibly two, if left unmolested. Young Michael spent many a summer afternoon climbing its branches and swinging from the tire that hung from one of its many sturdy limbs. It was an iconic specimen, towering and symmetrical, with a thick, straight trunk and dense, healthy foliage. From time to time, Michael would even noti
ce people stop to take pictures of it. Then, on the night of his twelfth birthday, a raging thunderstorm swept through the county. At ten past midnight, a thunderclap shook the house. It was so loud, Michael woke thinking the house had been bombed. The next morning, he found his father standing on the front porch, arms folded, staring at the oak tree—its trunk split canopy to root by heaven’s axe.
But the tree did not die.
Despite the devastating blow, the trunk healed. However, as time passed, it became obvious that the tree would never be the same. Half the tree kept its original quality while the other half turned twisted and sickly. Now, as he drove his wife’s Honda east on Interstate 90 toward Albany, he could not get the metaphor out of his head. He was the oak, the orb the lightning strike, and this . . . the aftermath. He was at war with himself, and he wasn’t sure which part would prevail. He wasn’t sure which part he wanted to.
The orb had changed him.
It had put an agenda in his head. No, not just an agenda, but another will. Another consciousness that was him but not him. Sometimes Mike talked to him. Whenever exhaustion drove Michael to finally succumb to sleep, Mike seized the opportunity to take control. It had taken all Michael’s willpower to fight off his mental doppelgänger and not choke the life out of his wife last night. Leaving Josie was the only way to ensure her survival . . . and the survival of their unborn child. Trying to ignore the compulsions was like holding his breath. Sure, he could do it for a while, but the longer he held out, the more difficult and painful the task became.
At the moment, they were fully deployed—he and Mike in the service of the orb. He realized now that it was not an angel. Whatever it was, it was not from God. EVE was no archangel. There was nothing holy about what had happened to Bug. What didn’t make sense to him was why he and Bug had reacted differently to it. Why did it work Bug to death but not him? Then he remembered last night’s conversation with Josie and realized that he had not eaten or drunk anything since then.
No, we’re the same, he realized. It’s using me up too. I need to pull off and get breakfast and pound a bunch of water.
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