Nomad

by Matthew Mather

  “About what I got, too.” Roger rubbed his shaking hands together. “I guess that explains it.”

  It all made sense.

  They couldn’t see anything because Nomad was a black hole, and not only that, but a binary pair of them. No visible microlensing, at least not the sort they were looking for. Two smaller black holes, rotating around each other at high speed, would create a flickering microlensing that might be impossible to detect, even at close range. It wasn’t what the Gaia team was even looking for.

  And the reason why it seemed to come from nowhere: eight thousand kilometers a second. Like Roger said, nothing was supposed to move that fast. Especially not something that massive.

  But there was no arguing with the data.

  Only in the last decade or two, humans had devices sensitive enough to perform radial velocity searches of distant stars. And in that time, scientists had measured Nomad’s presence, but the data was subtracted as some unknown dark matter mass in the nearby spiral arm of the Milky Way. And they might have been right—this might actually be a chunk of the fabled dark matter.

  Like a train on a straight track that stretched to the horizon, it seemed almost stationary as it approached, but take your eye off it for a second—and only in the last few hundred yards do you realize how fast the train is coming. In this case, the last few hundred yards was the last few hundred billion kilometers—the distance Nomad had traveled in the past year—just a fractional distance in cosmic terms.

  Nomad was heading straight into the center of the solar system at eight thousand kilometers a second. A cosmic runaway freight train on a bullseye course.

  And it wasn’t twenty billion kilometers away.

  It wasn’t even ten.

  Nomad—two tiny invisible objects spinning around each other, each barely ten kilometers across yet with a combined mass forty times that of the entire solar system—was already inside the orbit of Uranus, halfway from there to Saturn. Less than three billion kilometers away, and Ben and Roger were the only people on the planet who knew.

  But not for long.

  Tomorrow morning, Uranus was going to look like a toy grabbed by a dog and thrown around the sky.

  His mouth dry, Ben glanced at the TV. “…the United States and NATO are preparing for a retaliatory nuclear strike…”

  In three days, Nomad would destroy the Earth.

  If we didn’t destroy it first.

  NOMAD

  Survivor testimony #AR84;

  Event +112hrs

  Survivor name: Ain Salah;

  Reported location: Al-Jawf, Libya;

  Rain, so much rain. Where are you again? Italy? (coughs) Yes, it is dark here now as well, days of darkness, but also rain. I’ve worked in oilfields deep in the Sahara for ten years. In all that time I’ve seen it rain here, one day of rain in ten years. There are mud brick buildings in the old town that have stood for a thousand years in the baking sun, and now they’re gone. Washed away. It hasn’t stopped raining in three days.

  The temperature here? Usually forty degrees—a hundred and ten in your Fahrenheit—but now it’s cool. Maybe fifteen degrees. But so much water, I’ve never seen so much water…it’s as if God…rivers, lakes forming in the depressions…

  Transmission ended in static. Freq. 7442 kHz/NSB.

  Subject reacquired pgs 15, 24, 38…

  OCTOBER 21st

  22

  CHIANTI, ITALY

  “LET ME OUT!” Jess screamed, her face pressed against the cold metal bars of the door. She had worried about ending up in jail, but could never have even imagined this. Her mind reeled, skidding off the tracks of reality. A bile of anger rose inside her, how can he treat us like this? What were they doing to her mother?

  This couldn’t be happening. But what was happening?

  Through the metal bars of the stable door, she watched the crescent moon rise. She was left in the stable all night, freezing cold, in near pitch-blackness. It smelled of damp stone and hay. She didn’t pace around. Balanced on her crutches, with just one foot swinging between them, she didn’t want to slip and fall into a pile of horse manure. So when she got tired of yelling, she sat on a bench against the wall, in the dark, or stood, resting her armpits on her crutches, and looked out the window to stare at the stars. The sky was calm, serene, but every hour was another hour Nomad approached.

  This was a complete clusterfuck.

  “Giovanni!” she screamed, her voice hoarse from hours of pleading. She leaned against the stable door, her face against the metal bars, her thigh burning from supporting her body. “Why are you doing this?”

  There were no lights on in the courtyard, no lights in the castle. And apart from the rustle of the oak trees, no movement or noise in the empty blackness for hours. On the horizon, the stars began to wash away in the pre-dawn twilight, only Venus remaining, its yellow disk burning bright.

  “Wrong?” The words floated from the darkness, poison in them. Ghost-like, Giovanni’s face appeared in the faint light, a few feet from Jess. “Have you done something wrong? I think, perhaps, that is a matter between you and God.”

  He stared at her, his eyes piercing Jess’s soul. What was he talking about? And then—did he know her secret? But how would he know? Did he talk to Celeste? Did she even know?

  Gripping the metal bars, her knuckles white, Jess turned her fear inside out, transformed it into anger. “What the hell is wrong with you?” she spat. “If you hurt my mother, I’ll kill you.”

  “That might be the first thing I believe from your mouth all night.”

  “What…? Have you been listening?” She’d been ranting for hours, alternating between threats and begging for help.

  In the gathering twilight, the outlines of the courtyard became visible from the blackness, with old L’Olio, the ancient olive tree, the eldest Ruspoli, standing in the center—judging her—its gnarled roots digging into the hard earth. Giovanni dragged a wooden bench from beside the wall in front of the stable door and sat on it.

  “Most of the night, yes.” Giovanni adjusted himself on the bench, leaned over and lit a cigarette. He faced her, his face lit orange in the glow from the burning tip of the cigarette. He took a puff.

  Jess ground her teeth together. Taking a deep breath, she released the metal bars, unclenching her fists. Calm. Ranting wasn’t going to solve anything; wasn’t going to get her any information. But first things first. “I don’t know what’s going on, Giovanni, but I need to call my father, tell him where we are. All of our possessions were stolen in Rome.”

  “Stolen? From you?” Giovanni scoffed. He puffed on the cigarette. “And I saw your father on television, saying Nomad might be nothing. Seems a different story than the one you told me. Who should I trust?”

  Jess shook her head. “I think he’s trying to calm people down.” She took a deep breath, and her lungs filled with a pungent whiff of the cigarette smoke.

  Her father used to smoke when she was little, in his study at the cottage in the Catskills. She loved the smell, even though she knew it was bad for you. The same odd way she loved the smell of gasoline. Someone said it was a sign of an addictive personality. She loved it just the same.

  “I don’t understand why you’re acting like this,” Jess added. “You’re the one that texted me, asked me to come back here if we had problems.”

  Giovanni stared at her, took another puff and dropped the cigarette, coughing. Still sitting on the bench, he ground the cigarette out underfoot, crunching the gravel back and forth.

  “After Nico dropped us at the airport, you and I exchanged text messages,” Jess explained. “Don’t you remember? I even told you where I was staying.” She narrowed her eyes. Did Giovanni send Enzo? Why would he do that?

  “And can you show me this…” Giovanni waved a hand in the air. “…text?”

  “Like I said, everything we had was stolen in Rome.”

  Giovanni raised his eyebrows in mock surprise. “Convenient.”

  �
�You think this is convenient?” Jess growled, wrapping her fingers around the cold metal bars again, wishing she could wrap them around Giovanni’s neck. “They stole my leg.”

  Clenching her jaw, she tried to fight it, but a tear spilled down her cheek. She wiped it away, turning her head to one side. When she looked back—just for an instant—Jess saw the tenderness she’d seen in Giovanni’s eyes before, but it flashed away.

  His brows came together in a scowl. “Something far more precious has been stolen from me.”

  Stolen? Jess exhaled and shook her head. Was he really so fixated on material possessions at a time like this? Staring at him, she waited for details about what was stolen, but he just stared back at her. She frowned. “Wait, are you saying you didn’t text me?”

  “The police were here again.” Giovanni ignored her question. “Asking about Rome.” He paused to take out another cigarette and lit it. Taking a drag, he let the smoke curl out slowly. It wreathed around his head. “Were you involved?”

  Jess pressed her forehead against the metal bars, letting their damp chill seep into her head. Why would the police still care about her selling that car? Didn’t they have bigger things to worry about? She shrugged aggressively. “Yes, I did it.”

  “So you admit it?” Giovanni shot to his feet, his hands flying wide.

  “I didn’t think you cared—”

  “About destroying Rome?” Giovanni demanded incredulously.

  “WHAT?” Jess let go of the metal bars, backing up into the recesses of the stable. “I sold a car, that’s all I did. You think I had something to do with the bombing in Rome?”

  Giovanni stared at her, his face stony. “That’s what the police were here for, looking for you. A terrorist connection. Said they had a video.”

  The air sucked from Jess’s lungs. She felt disembodied, the opening in the stable door floating away in the blackness. “That’s insane.” The words, barely more than a whisper, seemed to come from someone else’s lips.

  “On that we can agree.” Giovanni took an aggressive pull from his cigarette, the tip glowing, bathing his face in an angry red. “You come here, prophesying about the end of the world, telling me to protect myself. So I bring in security, make preparations…then I see your father on TV, saying not to worry. And then Rome is destroyed.”

  Jess shook her head. “I just think he’s—”

  “And the police are back here looking for you, after I protected you, and then here you are again.” Taking a deep drag from the cigarette, he erupted in a fit of coughing. Shaking his head, he dropped the smoke and stamped on it. Breathing deep, he returned to staring at Jess; angry creases brought the frown in his face into high relief, even in the dim light of dawn.

  “I know this is crazy,” Jess pleaded. She tried to think. “You did text me, though. Go and check your phone.” She pressed her face against the metal bars, reached one hand through them. “And what was stolen from you? I had nothing to do with that.”

  The muscles in Giovanni’s jaw rippled. “Hector.”

  “What about Hector? What did he do?”

  “He did nothing,” Giovanni said from between gritted teeth. “It is Hector who was stolen.”

  Jess blinked, pulled her hand back. “Hector was kidnapped?”

  “He is gone, that is all I know.” Giovanni slumped onto the bench. He put his face in his hands. “I called the police yesterday, before you arrived, but they have more on their hands right now.” He looked up at Jess. “Perhaps I should call them again, tell them I have you. That might get them back here.”

  Jess let go of the metal bars again, retreated a step on her crutches. “No, don’t do that.”

  Stuck in an Italian jail, interrogated for terrorism? As much as it didn’t make sense, she believed what Giovanni was telling her. But if the police took her now, she’d never get out. She glanced at the brightening sky. How much time was left? She needed to get out of here.

  “Why shouldn’t I?” Giovanni demanded, getting to his feet. “Tell me everything. No more lies.”

  “Christ, Giovanni, I don’t know what’s going on.” Think, come on, think, Jess urged in her head. “The people you brought here, for security—is anyone else gone? Who could have taken Hector?”

  “Nobody else is gone.” Giovanni took a step toward the door, toward Jess. “I sent Leone to follow Massarra, your new friend that drove you here…and Enzo, we sent him into Rome to collect some things, but we haven’t—”

  “Enzo?” His face flashed in Jess’s mind. When their things were stolen. Half-glimpsed, she wasn’t one hundred percent sure before. But now Giovanni was saying that Enzo was in Rome? Sent by Giovanni? “Did you send him? He’s the one that stole our things.”

  Giovanni took two more steps to the door, his face inches from Jess’s. “Why would he do that?”

  Enzo had creeped Jess out the moment she met him. Something in his eyes. Still, a creepy feeling wasn’t proof of anything. Then she remembered his eyes, staring at her in the staircase, when she came down from the observatory. Jess cursed. “He heard me, when I was talking to you, saying that Nomad was coming.”

  “In the observatory?”

  “Yes.” Jess nodded emphatically. “After we talked, I came down the stairs, and he was there.”

  She hadn’t made much of it at the time, but the enormity of it now weighed on her. Revealing that death and destruction was coming, but keeping it a secret? “Did you talk with him about it later?” she asked Giovanni.

  “No.” He shook his head. “You said not to tell anyone. I closed the castle, made preparations and asked Hector’s mother and father to return, but I didn’t tell any of the staff, not except for Nico.” He pointed to his right. “He’s the only one I trust.”

  Jess followed his hand and peered into a dark corner of the courtyard to see Nico sitting on another bench. She hadn’t seen him before. She looked back at Giovanni. “You closed up the castle after I told you about Nomad? And you didn’t tell Enzo why? Don’t you think he might have…I mean…”

  Nico stood. “I’m afraid Jess might be right.”

  Giovanni’s head spun to look at him. “What? Why would Enzo attack Jessica?”

  “He might not be stable.” Nico walked toward them. The sun broke over a mountaintop on the horizon, spilling bright light into the valley. “Your father hired him as a favor to a friend. Enzo was in jail. A new start is what your father was trying to offer him.”

  “Why did you never tell me this?” Giovanni slammed the door with his fist.

  “Your father asked me to keep it a secret, but I’ve been watching him. For the past three years, he’s been perfectly faithful and reliable…but now Jess is saying he attacked her in Rome.” Nico joined Giovanni at the door. “I believe her. And Enzo hasn’t returned our calls since he left.”

  “Rome is a mess,” Giovanni countered.

  “Yes, but I did some digging on Enzo when we hired him. He doesn’t come from where he said he did.”

  “And you never told me?” Giovanni’s face reddened.

  “Your father, he died, and I promised…”

  Giovanni closed his eyes. “Hector is the last in an unbroken line of a thousand years of the Ruspoli family. We need to find him.” He turned to Jess. “Excuse us, I need to talk to your mother, confirm something.”

  Giovanni put an arm on Nico’s shoulder. “Could you get Jessica something warm?”

  Nico nodded. “Of course.”

  Shaking his head, Giovanni walked away, past the twisted branches of L’Olio, and up the castle’s exterior staircase.

  “I am very sorry,” Nico said as they watched Giovanni disappear into the main building. “This is just…”

  Jess shivered. “Crazy, I know.”

  23

  CHIANTI, ITALY

  A FLY BUZZED through the cool morning air, darting between the bars of the stable door to zigzag above Jess’s head. Slumped against the stone wall, sitting on a cold wooden bench, she watche
d the fly climb toward a spider’s web bejeweled with dew drops that dazzled in the slanting rays of sunrise.

  One wrong zag, and the fly ensnared itself in the web, ejecting a spray of droplets. The spider appeared, darted forward and sank its fangs into its hapless prey. In a moment, the struggle was over, the spider wrapping its prize to eat later at its leisure. The fly never realized a predator lurked in its midst—not in such a beautiful, quiet space.

  Metal scraped against metal. Ancient hinges groaned. The stable door opened and Giovanni’s grimacing face appeared. “I am very sorry, I must apologize—”

  “I told you never to apologize.” Grabbing her crutches, Jess stood. “I would have done the same if I were you.”

  Even so, relief washed through her. And it was the truth. If she'd been him, she might have done worse—if someone stole her child in the middle of these strange coincidences piling up. How would she react? Violently, if she had to guess.

  Giovanni tried to offer her a hand. “Yes, but…”

  Jess ignored him and swung forward on her crutches, letting the brown woolen blanket Nico had given her an hour before fall to the hay-strewn floor. Exiting the dark and damp into bright sunshine, Jess shivered. What a relief to get out of the overpowering stench of horse manure. Two nights in these clothes. She stank, her hair a matted and tangled mess.

  His head hung low, Giovanni backed away. He took off ahead of her and jogged up the stairs to the main building. “This way. Your mother is waiting.”

  “So you believe me now?” Jess followed and grabbed onto the stair’s railing to hop up. “What about the text messages? You didn’t send them to me?”

  “No, I didn’t.” Giovanni stopped at the top of the stairs. “My phone was stolen. It must be Enzo.”