Chase stood up and followed him. “How…Why did you do that?”
The cop turned around. “You must be new around here. He’s a cylon—an old model. Easy to mess with. I put a program disk under his shirt almost two years ago. When I call him, he comes. And I turn him off. He regenerates in ten hours. Gives the people inside time to come out and make their rounds, newbies like you time to go in and get acquainted.” He headed for his car. “So, go on in. The old entrance is covered over with refuse blocks, all except for two tunnels. Boards over the second tunnel come off easily.”
“Are you one of them?” Chase asked.
“Me? No, I got too much blood on my hands to join their group. I just look out for them.”
“Nobody ever comes to check on the guard? What about cameras in the area?”
“They come the second Thursday of the month. The night before, I take my disk. The night after, I put it back. And the guard lets me. He seems to like me.” He pointed to the top of metal pole. “As for the camera, I shot it out before I started messing with the guard. Nobody ever came to fix it.”
“That’s amazing.”
“Yeah, yeah, it’s a miracle. That’s what you people say. By the way, I don’t care what guard you took that face shield from, but you can’t walk around the city like that and expect to go unnoticed.
“I’m protesting.”
“The people underground—at least the ones I know—don’t protest. They’re real quiet. You might want to think about that before you go in.”
“Thanks.”
The officer drove away, and Chase went to the closest tunnel entrance and pulled the boards loose. He stepped inside and put the boards back. And then he turned around.
“Hello?”
No one answered. Chase hid the flight pack behind an old metal trash can. He started walking.
The night vision allowed him to see the boarded-up store fronts covered with graffiti. Some of the writing was old and faded. And vulgar. But some seemed newer and orderly. And purposeful. This was a school of some sort. Simple sentences and math problems filled a fifty foot section of plywood. After that, the work got harder, and farther down the walk, harder still.
“People teach their children here.” Chase rubbed his hand over a poem written on the wall where kids must study their lessons.
The wicked draw their sword and bend the bow
To bring down the poor and needy,
To slay those whose way is upright;
But their swords will pierce their own hearts,
And their bows shall be broken.
Better the little that the righteous have
Than the wealth of many wicked.
Ps. 37:14-16
More writings covered the wall. He stopped before one that was only a line, really, and not a poem.
You are my hiding place; you will protect me from trouble and surround me with songs of deliverance. Ps. 32:7
Chase studied this one. He repeated it aloud. He uttered the numbers. The code. “Thirty-two, seven. A hiding place.” The exoself had hidden itself when Chase used the code. And here was a message of some kind about hiding, about being kept from trouble. And it had the code written beneath it.
“P-s—what is that? Post script?” He walked back and forth in front of the verse. “No. It’s from the Psalms.”
He went farther into the dark chamber. If anyone were hiding there, they didn’t show themselves. The walls and boarded-up storefronts here contained more writings, but the farther he got, the less the place seemed like a classroom. It became more like a conference room. Maps of Atlanta were taped to the walls, locations marked in red. Chase studied the routes and roads the people he was looking for might travel. But where were the people? He walked a little farther. And then he saw words written on a board that made him stop.
Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge.
Ps. 19:2
Underneath this was an instruction.
Listen and learn.
And a name.
Mel
Chase touched her name. No one called her that but him. She’d left him a message. A key. A code. But why leave this for him when she was here somewhere?
He sparked the nineteenth processor and pulled the number two. Another message flooded his mind.
Four S’s—sympathizers, supplies, safe travel, secret houses. Search the Psalms.
That was all the code got him. It wasn’t much. But he smiled under his darkened mask. He turned to go farther down the walk, but his hearing enhancers picked up a sound. A whisper.
Somewhere nearby, someone prayed.
45
Chase followed the low resonance of the man’s voice back toward the tunnel’s beginning. He’d passed them. A store boarded up and covered with writing—potential code, he guessed—was where he stopped. He pulled a board loose and dropped it, and the praying stopped. He tore another board free and stepped through to the other side. A few lit candles lined the walls where a dozen people were on their knees, their heads bowed. Some were shaking. Some of them peered at him. One of them screamed.
“It’s OK. I’m not here to cause you any trouble. I’m just looking for someone.”
A huge man, deep black skin and all muscles, stood from the group. “Drop the mask. Show yourself.”
Chase hesitated, and the big man lunged and tackled him to the floor. More by instinct than anything, Chase turned the man over and pinned him.
More than one scream went up at that. Chase quickly got off the man and stood with his hands in the air. “I don’t want to hurt anybody.”
“You’re stronger than you look,” the man said. “Now drop the mask. I won’t go so easy on you next time.”
He untied the cord and pulled off the face shield. And waited.
The big black man was the first to laugh, and soon they were all laughing. Some fell to their bottoms. Some stood. One of the women who’d screamed came to put her arms around Chase.
“Chase Sterling.” The woman seemed to weep now more than laugh. “Thank God. We’ve been praying for you.”
Chase returned her hug with a pat on the back, and then he pulled away. “Were you expecting me?”
“We only hoped you’d end up somewhere in the underground,” she said. “A message went out that you escaped. We’re just so glad to see you.”
“Melody Reese,” he said. “That’s who I’m looking for. Is she here?”
“No, Chase. She was here, but she’s gone back up north.”
The news sank deep, even into his manmade heart. “She’s gone?” He turned to the wall and then turned back. “My mother?”
The big man came near. “Melody said she met your mother in New York, but I don’t know if they’re together now. Last we heard, Melody was gathering supplies to take to the Far North Territory.”
“I can’t believe she didn’t wait for me.” Chase rubbed his eyes and then crossed his arms.
“She didn’t know you’d come here. She thought that you thought she was in New York. She said you called her there.”
“I did, but I didn’t get a chance to talk to her. Then someone told me she was here.”
“Communication is difficult. But it’ll be easier now.” The man smiled.
“How so?”
“Because you tapped into Melody’s database. Right? How else would you have ended up here?”
“I’m only just getting into Mel’s programs. A kid at the train station told me where to find you.” Chase looked over the crowd. “He said this was the place in Atlanta to find the Underground Church.”
The woman who’d hugged him handed him a glass of water. “How’d you end up coming to Atlanta? Who told you Melody was here?”
“A nurse named Patty. Do you know her?”
“Melody never mentioned a nurse,” the woman said. Chase drank the water in one long series of swallows. He slid down the wall until he sat on the cold floor with his elbows on his knees and hi
s head in his hands.
“I’m sorry you’re disappointed,” the woman said.
He looked up. “Isn’t there any way to reach Mel? Don’t you have VPads or, I don’t know, two-way radios or something?”
“No—too much chance of getting caught.” The big man sat across from Chase, and the rest of the group moved close and settled around him.
“If it’s any consolation,” the man said. “She left you a message just in case you ended up here. It’s written on a board down the walkway. It may seem kind of cryptic, but she said you’d know what to do with it.”
“I found it. She left me a code, and I used it to get to another message. But I don’t know what to do now.”
“What was the message, Chase?” Someone in the crowd spoke up. The voice was young and feminine. Chase looked up to find the girl he’d seen get hauled off by the guards at the station.
“I saw you earlier today,” he said. “They let you go?”
“We’ve got a friend at APD. We don’t usually stay in too long.”
The young man next to her poked her arm. “We don’t usually get caught.”
The girl poked back and made a face.
“I met your friend a little while ago,” Chase said. “He found me hiding behind the dumpster.”
“It’s been an hour since he shut down the guard,” the big man said. “Now’s the time we go out of here.”
“Where do you go?” Chase asked.
“To church.” The man stood and gathered a few books and some empty sacks. “Listen up, people,” he said. “You go without me tonight. I’m staying here with Mr. Sterling.”
“Chase Sterling was just a stage name. Those days are over. It’s Redding. Charles Redding. But my mom nicknamed me Chase, so that’ll do.”
“All right.” The man held out his hand. “They call me Bear. I guess that’s my stage name. This is my stage.” He looked around. “Only name I go by since I got saved.”
Chase knew what he meant by that, sort of, but it struck him as funny that the man would consider hiding in the underground anything close to salvation. “You don’t have to hang back on my account,” he said to Bear. “I just need time to figure out what to do next.”
“I might be able to help you. I’ll stay.”
Bear gave instructions to the group that seemed to be under his leadership. Some of the followers introduced themselves on their way out. The blonde girl was Emmy. The lady who’d hugged Chase was Beth. A sad-looking young man with tattooed arms called himself Van Gogh. Not all of these people used their real names, it seemed.
When the last of the group had left the tunnel, Chase walked with Bear back to the message from Mel.
“Emmy asked you what the other message was,” Bear said. “You didn’t answer her.”
“I’m not sure I understand it.”
“Well, let me hear it. Maybe I know something you don’t.”
Chase sat on the floor and leaned against the wall. “Four S’s—”
“Sympathizers, supplies, secret houses, safe travel.” Bear recited it without hesitation. “Underground lingo. Melody was telling you what we need. People on the outside to help us. Food, water, clothing. Shelter, hiding spots. And last, transportation to get from place to place unnoticed.”
“Basic stuff. But it’s not easy to come by, is it?”
“Not at all, Chase. And the lack of communication makes it more difficult. Somebody still in the system has access to data banks. But we don’t. No electronics allowed in the underground. Too risky.”
“But you have people you can count on, believers in the system. Mel was one until she went under. They help you, right?”
“That’s where my people went tonight. Church houses are up top. Good working WR citizens stay there as long as they can, and they help those of us who’ve gone under. Others are out of the system but managing to stay up top for various reasons.”
“Why do they go under?”
“In the past it’s been to stay free, to stay out of prison. Or the crazy house. But now…things are changing.”
“Augmentation?”
“Yes. More people will be joining us if it happens.”
“Strange,” Chase said. “Some people want it, and some people don’t.”
“I can’t speak for anybody but myself and, I think, for those with me. We don’t want some lab-grown enhancements giving us life. We got life. Nobody’s turning me into a wired-up, death-defying freak.”
Chase looked to the ground.
“Man, I’m sorry. I got a mouth on me that doesn’t quit. I didn’t mean that you’re a freak, Chase. Forgive me.”
“It’s nothing—forget it. I know what I am.” Chase looked the man in the eye. “I’m here to learn how to use what’s in me to help your people. That’s why this happened to me. Not to make money for SynVue, or to lead the world into the future, or to take an evolutionary leap. I’m just here to help people. That’s all.”
“Melody said as much. She said there was a reason God allowed this to happen to you.”
“God and I haven’t really talked that out. If it were up to me, I’d have found another way, Bear.”
“It’s not always easy for us when God makes up His mind to do something.”
“There was something else after the four S’s,” Chase said.
“Study the Psalms.” Bear stood and rubbed his hand across Mel’s message. “This verse—‘Day to day pours out speech. And night to night reveals knowledge.’ I think Mel was telling you to take some time. Listen and learn. You see? Speech and knowledge.”
“So, she wants me to get some help to study the Psalms to find the rest of the code. Why? Why didn’t she just write it down? Why didn’t she just tell you the code so you could tell me?”
“Suppose the WR raided this place. They’d have the code if she’d written it down. They might give me something to make me talk. Surely they can access the systems they put in you. Then all that information would be theirs.”
“Not anymore. The exoself is all mine. I’m disconnected.”
“The what?” Concern showed on Bear’s face. “Chase, they’ve got to be tracking you. How long before they come in here? Will you know when they’re near?”
“They’re not coming. At least not because of me. Like I said, the stuff in me is no longer connected to the system. But I have to say, your security is lacking. You’ve got a cop who knows where you are, and at least one kid. A boy named Thomas pointed me right to you.”
“I know the cop. We call him Cruiser. And I know Thomas. Others know we’re here. Wouldn’t be surprised if the mayor knew where to find us.”
“You don’t seem worried about it. Why are you so concerned about me being here?”
Bear went a distance down the walkway, then turned and looked at Chase. “Good people still exist in the world. But the WR—the people who run it and the puppets at SynVue—are far from good. They want us gone. For the most part the cops don’t care. Local government—what’s left of it—they don’t care. Poor folks sure don’t care. We feed them and they look out for us. But the WR is another story, Chase. My concern is that you’ll lead them right to us. Surely they want you back.”
“I wouldn’t have come here if I thought that would happen. I’d know if they were tracking me. My doctor unhooked me. He set me free.”
“Why would he do that?”
“Guilt, I think.”
“A change of heart can be a good thing,” Bear said. “Let’s hope nobody forces this doctor of yours to go back on his plans to free you.”
Chase thought about Robert hiding the truth while WR higher-ups tried to make contact with the exoself. “The woman, Beth, said you all heard I went missing. Is the world looking for me?”
“We heard it from our sources within the church houses. But it’s not public knowledge, as far as I can tell. It’s not news. You got any idea why they’d keep it quiet?”
“So they can find me first,” Chase said.
“So you don’t fall into the wrong hands.”
“Too late. You would be, in their opinion, the wrong hands.”
Bear smiled. “Let’s find what we’re looking for.” He pulled a small book from his pocket.
46
“Earlier I saw that you had real books. Bibles? I haven’t seen a paper Bible in years.”
“WR stopped the sale of electronic Bibles nine years ago. Of course, you can still get it that way. You can get just about anything if you try. But since we don’t allow electronics in the underground, we keep these old paper copies coming in.”
“Your people went up to the church houses,” Chase asked. “What do they do there that they can’t do here?”
“They collect supplies. They trade. What we’ve got, we give. What people in the system have got, they give. Somebody up there needs a Bible, we give them one. It’ll get us enough food for a week. All of us.”
“You trade Bibles for food?” Chase asked.
“They need the Good Book up there, we need food down here.”
“There are no children here. I saw lesson plans written on the boards. Where are the kids?”
“We’ve got work to do, Chase. I’ll answer your question once we spend some time listening and learning.” He opened the little book. “This is a New Testament and Psalms.” He held it out for Chase to see. “Here’s the verse from the wall. See? ‘Day to day, night to night.’ Now, what’s the first S?” Bear asked.
“Sympathizers.”
“OK, we find a verse that might tell us something related to getting the help we need.” Then he started reading. Out loud. From the beginning. Chapter one, verse one.
Chase settled back against the wall. He expected to find the words confusing, and some of them were. He also thought this process would put him to sleep. And while he did find the ancient text and the smooth tone of the big man’s voice relaxing, he didn’t once close his eyes. While listening for a verse that might lead him to the first code, he learned some things about these people.
Maybe they’d always been in trouble. Maybe they always needed rescue.
Maybe they always got it.
Wake the Dead Page 22