Cole reached up to grab the door handle. The President of the United States was smiling up at him. It looked neither false nor forced, as if she’d found something inside herself that would keep her going. What that might be Cole did not know, but he was thankful for it nonetheless. He realized that he was in the same situation as his father; he would have to help her without really understanding why.
He smiled warmly in return, his body tingling with deep respect and growing affection. This beautiful soul needed him to trust her. He could do that.
Cole pushed the hatchback shut and climbed back into the car. He looked up at the clock. It was going on nine. Slightly more than a day since that old Cutlass burst out of his rearview mirror and smashed into his life. He shook his head with wonder, then slipped the Subaru into gear and pulled out onto the road.
He drove north.
6.6
She couldn’t quite figure it out. Sometimes when she looked at her hand it looked like a hand. But sometimes it looked like it was made of fuzzy white light, like a rabbit she’d once seen, or like a cloud, or a wad of cotton. And sometimes it shone so brightly it was like looking at the sun. She was thankful that when she needed a hand, she had one. That was all that mattered, really. There was a scary person here, a beautiful woman whose face would sometimes melt and distort in hideous ways, and she was threatening her new friend, Linda. Already she’d had to push the scary woman away. She would need her hands.
She drifted downward, toward the pulsing heart that stood alone in a field of glowing grass. She knew this to be her grandfather, who watched over her body in the dense level below. Nearby was the building from which she’d just come. And inside were the glowing hearts of the two souls she knew to be her brother and sister, with whom she felt deeply coupled. The tough, flexible cord she could sense at her back kept her tethered to a body lying in a bed inside this building. And more lacy filaments reached out to these three souls, and between them, and back again, and outward. It occurred to her that this network of connections was what some would call love. She glowed with satisfaction at this knowing. There was so much to remember here.
She sent her grandfather a shimmering parcel of courage for the times ahead. Casting outward, she discerned that her father and Linda were nowhere near. They must have departed without her noticing. Concerned for their safety, she was about to go find them when something bumped her from behind. The world became swirling colors and stars and music as she whirled and rolled in reaction. She righted herself, twisting to see what had hit her, but found she could see without turning. It was a dazzling orb of light, smaller than she but bright with the tendrils of love.
“Dennis!” she called out, the greeting flowing from her like laughter and cool water and the joys of bees. The little ball of light became the dog she knew and wrapped himself around her legs, wagging his tail. She could feel his fear evaporate like rain on a summer sidewalk and knew, in that moment, that she had been afraid as well. Dennis disengaged from their embrace, dancing around her as he always did. He had no words, but she knew love when she saw it. And she knew it would make her stronger, that love. She was glad of that. Her new friend Linda would need her to be as strong as she could be.
She called her dog, beaming an image of the two of them walking in the woods, sending him a vibration of consciousness and memory from their life together in the physical realm. “C’mon Dennis! We’ve gotta go!” Together, without even knowing how, they flickered out and back in, traversing the distance between where they were and where they wished to be in an instant. The tugging sensation at her back held firm, and she knew that that was good. Below them moved a white, boxy something speeding noisily through what looked like a thick sludge. It took her a moment to realize that this was a car on a dusty gravel road. Until that moment she’d forgotten all about cars and dust and roads. She darted in for a peek, leaving Dennis behind in the sky that was not really a sky at all. They were in the right place. Her father’s unyielding love, and Linda’s fierce courage, could not be mistaken. She beamed her own love at the two of them, bathing them in the vibrations of her being. Then she rose through the ceiling to take her post just above the car, side by side with her beloved Dennis.
She remembered then that her name was Grace and that she lived in the body of a five-year-old girl on the planet Earth. She smiled. Yes. Grace. That was right. That’s exactly who she was.
Chapter Seven
7.1
“She’s in a car. A white Subaru, I think. So we know she’s on the move. Alice flashed on the word ‘squirrel’ and Random kept chanting ‘beach, beach, beach’.” Bob stuffed another handful of potato chips into her mouth. She’d earned it.
“Alice says. Random says. What about you?” Rice’s voice was rich and full in her ear, the product of alien technologies she no longer questioned. The fact that he sounded like he was breathing over her shoulder didn’t even creep her out anymore. Bob noted the irritation in Rice’s voice. That she had not reported her own experiences had not escaped him. They both knew she was the best.
Bob smiled. “I got the ocean, the sign, the boat, the dock, and the cottage,” she answered, swallowing, taking her time. She loved to make Rice squirm. “I think Ma Kettle’s on her way to the island. Her intent is clear.”
“You think. C’mon, Bob, did you get in or didn’t you? And if you got in, why the fuck didn’t you blow her mind? And where the hell was that guardian you were so worried about?”
“The guardian was a no-show, boss. Must’ve just been a tourist. As for the Prez, she’s got those fucking pills in her system, Teddy.” Bob had a sharp edge in her voice. “I don’t think you understand how disorienting that is. And she’s learning to say ‘no.’ It was all I could do to get what I got. But it’s clear enough, I think, given what Alice and Random got.”
“Alice is a newbie and Random’s half crazy, Bob. You’re the lead here. They’re just support. Don’t send me to fucking Maine unless you know.”
“I—”
“And don’t call me fucking Teddy.”
Bob sat down in the chair next to Mr. Random’s crib and closed her eyes to think. Both Alice and Random worked with externals. Helpful but rarely conclusive. What made Bob so valuable was her ability to sneak inside without being noticed. Nothing like thoughts and memories to give you the real dirt. But the benzos in the President’s bloodstream fucked everything up. Even when Bob could get in, it was like snorkeling in mud.
Bob tallied the evidence. Alice and Random both had her in a moving car. They got ‘squirrel’ and a beach. Add her impressions of a ferry ride and her match of the dock and the cottage, both of which she’d visited less than two months ago, and it seemed to fall together: the President was bolting for her favorite summer getaway. Bob opened her eyes and stepped away from Mr. Random, not wanting to disturb him any further, forgetting that she could not disturb him at all. “I’m pretty sure, Rice,” she said. “That’s all I got.”
“So why the hell would she run to Squirrel Cove? I mean, it’s not like we wouldn’t think to look there. She’s gotta know that.”
Bob shrugged, then realized that Rice was not there to see her gesture. As good as this technology was, it was still voice-only. “Who knows? I’m guessing it’s just Fred there right now. Late-season and all. She and Fred go back a long way.”
Rice laughed. “Yeah, that’s who’d I’d turn to if I had the Life and the People on my ass: a seventy-two-year-old ex-hardware-store clerk.”
“It’s what we saw, Rice.” Bob stepped to the room’s single simwindow and looked down on the image of a manicured lawn. It was so quiet down here. She grabbed the bag of chips from the table and dug out another handful.
Rice sighed and Bob could almost feel his hot breath on her neck. “Okay. Fine. There’s nothing here anyways. It’s gone cold.”
“So where are you?” Bob packed the chips into her mouth.
“Some little bookstore-slash-bakery thing in Rochester,” he answer
ed, derision in his voice. “Watering hole for the local cattle.”
“Nothing in the car?”
“Well, there’s blood, so you were right about the injury. How the fuck she got out of that car and all the way to fucking Maine on her own with a bleeding whatever is anybody’s guess.”
“She is a day ahead of us, you know.”
Rice snorted. “Golly, Bob, I forgot about that. She must’ve hobbled up to the road and flagged down a bus. Nobody would’ve recognized her. It’s not like Americans watch television or anything.”
“Screw you, chief. You know what I mean. She’s got help.”
“The Subaru.”
“Not just the Subaru, Rice.”
“Yeah, what the fuck is that all about anyways? Spud says ‘bring her in’ and then he helps her escape?” Bob heard the sound of Rice’s fist pounding what sounded like a cafe table, that unmistakable jangle of a rattled coffee cup and spoon. “This is fuck-all hard enough as it is without getting jerked around by the bugs….”
“God, Rice!”
“Fuck ‘em, Bobby-girl! I’m tired of this. They want my help they’re gonna … oh fuck.”
Bob stopped chewing so she could hear. There was the sound of glass breaking, as though somebody had tossed a brick through a window. And was that a table toppling over? She couldn’t tell.
Rice did not answer her hails.
Bob crossed the room and stared down at Mr. Random for a time, waiting to see if Rice would come back online. When he didn’t, she reached down to adjust one of the leads attached to Random’s temporal bone. On the way out, she switched off the sim, revealing the raw rock behind it.
Dead men did not need a view.
7.2
Cole turned into the gravel parking area next to an abandoned gas station, stopping parallel to the road, with the driver’s side of the car closest to the pavement. He peered up at the rusted sign, which insisted that a gallon of regular was only four thirty-nine. He smirked. Those were the days. He unbuckled his belt. He’d been driving for well over an hour without a word from Linda and, whether it disturbed her or not, he had to stop. His coffee was ready to be released on its own recognizance. He stepped out into the cool October air and inhaled deeply, then headed toward the tree line. After relieving himself, he made his way back to the car and sat down behind the wheel.
“Cole?” Linda’s voice was faint and careful.
“Yeah?”
“Can I come out for a bit?”
Cole scanned the area. There wasn’t a house or car in sight. And he hadn’t seen a single cop since turning onto Highway 2 back in East Montpelier. “Yeah,” he said, turning around. “I think it’s safe enough for a bit.”
He popped out and hurried to open the hatch. Linda shielded her eyes for a moment, letting the light soak in, then smiled and swung her legs out to stand. Without a word they both hurried to their respective front doors and climbed in. Linda reached out and grabbed Cole’s hand from the steering wheel, squeezing it for a moment with glad greetings, shared danger, and warm affection. She let go of his hand and glanced up the road. “Where are we?” she asked.
“We’re heading into a little town called Marshfield, if my map is right.” Cole noticed how the late morning sun reflected off Linda’s hair, how her eyebrows rose when she asked a question, how her ponytail bobbed as she spoke. It made him a little giddy. He reached out and gripped the wheel tightly, clamping down on the impulse to touch Linda’s face. What was he thinking? This was the President! And they were on the fucking run. Cole relaxed his hands to his lap, forcing himself to take this break from driving. He’d been white-knuckling it since they left. He searched the President’s face. “You, uh, have any luck?” he said.
Linda nodded. “I think so.” She rested her head on the passenger-side window and looked up at the sky for the span of a few long breaths. To Cole, she seemed a bit dazed, as if she’d spent the last hour sleeping.
“Can you tell me about it?”
She nodded and closed her eyes. “One day … I had an hour between meetings. So I laid down for a brief nap. And I got to thinking about Earl and the good times we’d had. And I … I kind of imagined him lying in bed with me, like he was still alive. Like he was there with me in the White House. I don’t know, it was just … nice. To feel him with me. Even … well … you know. It was nice. And I fell asleep and dreamed about him some more.” Linda glanced cautiously at Cole, as if it felt risky to speak of this. She closed her eyes again and continued. “Then there was a knock at the door. It was Mary, the agent who’d been assigned to ‘watch over me.’ This was a few weeks after I’d been brought in. And … it was strange. She came in all sweet and helpful. Saying it was time to get ready for my meeting, as if I didn’t already have people that reminded me when to take my next breath. She walked around the room, checking things. She even looked into my closet. And then she asked me if there was anybody else in the room. I told her no and she left.”
Linda’s eyes flashed opened and she sunk down into her seat as an old Honda passed them from behind. The car sped by without slowing and she sat back up as it faded from view. She looked at Cole. “There’s so much I haven’t told you yet,” she said, her eyes soft and haunted.
This time Cole reached out and took her hand. “I know. Just keep going.” His reassuring touch told her that they were going to be okay. Believing because she had to, she squeezed his hand, let go, leaned back again, and closed her eyes.
“That stuck with me. I mean, you have to understand how out of it I was. I was a basket case. We buried Bickle, and Rice and Bob pretty much disappeared, and this Mary shows up dogging my heels. Every attempt I made to find some answers met with a blank wall. At the funeral Rice comes up to me and puts a gun to my side. Right there in fucking public, though he kept it hidden. And he whispers into my ear that if I tell anyone at all, they’re gonna kill my mother.” Linda stopped long enough to choke back the memory of it, whether rage or grief or both Cole could not tell. “I was … frantic. And it just stuck with me: Mary asking if there was anybody else in the room. For days, that scene played over and over in my mind. Finally it fell into place. Somehow, they were seeing into my thoughts, or into my dreams. They’d gotten into my head and seen Earl lying there next to me and they came in looking for him, wondering what the hell was going on.” Linda looked over at Cole. “Does that sound crazy?” she asked, as if she truly didn’t know.
“It might have. A day or two ago.” Cole smiled, to soften his words.
The President took a long, slow breath and continued, her confidence somewhat revived. “I started looking for it. Noticing it. Trying to figure out how it worked. One night I had a dream about being sick and throwing up. I remembered it because it reminded me of how sick I’d been with the flu during the campaign. The next morning, while escorting me to a meeting with some Senators, Mary asks me if I’m feeling better. But she had no reason to ask that. I hadn’t been sick the day before. Another time I sat at my desk. I’d decided to start writing some things down. You know, notes about what was happening. To help me think. But then I thought better of it and crumpled them up and tossed them in the wastebasket. Soon enough, there’s Mary again. Comes in all smiles and greetings to tell me about some meeting or another, then kneels down and snatches the crumpled notes from the trash as if it were the most natural thing in the world for her to be doing. It was things like that. Eventually I figured out that they could somehow ‘watch’ me at any time, day or night, but that it was only when I was sleeping, or nearly so, that they could get into my head, my thoughts.”
“That’s why the pills?”
Linda nodded. “That’s why the pills.” She gestured with a nod toward her shoulder bag in the back. “I think the pills fog my brain up so much that they can’t see inside.”
Cole twisted in his seat to get more comfortable. “And all of this has something to do with what you were doing?” He gestured toward the cargo compartment.
“Ye
ah. I think Mary genuinely likes me. It’s made it easier to get things past her. So I started teaching myself to get really calm. I remembered a phrase my mother picked up at a workshop she’d gone to, some astral projection thing. ‘Body asleep but mind awake,’ she said. Something like that. So I started playing with that idea. As I said, I was frantic. I didn’t want these monsters getting in my head. I didn’t have the pills yet. I figured if I could control my thinking, or my sleeping, or something, I could find some way to keep them out.”
“So you were asleep back there?”
Linda smiled, as though proud of herself. “My body was. So they could get in closer. But not my mind. My mind was filled with thoughts and memories of the summer retreat I go to in Maine. Thoughts of the cottage and the boat.” She allowed a slight chuckle. “I’m pretty sure I got ‘em.”
“They think you’re going to Maine?”
“I think so. I hope so. I mean, they must know we’re in a car right now, but they probably can’t tell where we’re headed unless they get into my thoughts. I just spent the last hour believing we’re headed to Maine. If they picked up on that, and I’ve got this gut feeling that they did, then maybe they’ll focus there for a while. Give us a chance to shake them.”
Cole thought about his kids back at his father’s house: Grace, asleep in her bed; Emily, worried about her dog; Iain, wanting to be strong but not yet trusting himself. He allowed himself to hope that Linda was right, that maybe Rice would now leave them alone. His shoulders loosened and dropped and his chest filled with the first full and easy breath he’d taken all day. Unbidden, a stream of tears spilled down his face, as though his inhalation had opened a spigot in his heart.
Linda put a hand on Cole’s forearm. “Tell me,” she said.
Cole sat for a full minute, staring down at his lap, letting the tears flow. It took him that long, to feel his way down to the source of his sobbing. He looked up at Linda with wet, red eyes and forced a brave smile to his face, as if hoping not to add to her problems. “I left my kids,” he said at last, his voice a mere whisper.
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