“What about the moon?” he asked. “Why so many there?”
Jack didn’t turn to identify the deadly red icons dotting the lunar surface. Mykl guessed he knew the location of every one.
“When it comes to the moon, one corrosive philosophy now dominates every political authority in the world: If I can’t have it, then no one can. It doesn’t apply solely to the moon, either. You almost became a victim of that philosophy with Lori. Her records show that she was recently forbidden from having children.”
“That’s stupid,” Mykl said. Kids acted that way with ratty old toys. For adults to behave the same way was simply moronic. “So, what idiots put the ones way out in space?” He pointed to the tiny glowing balloons above.
“I put those there,” Jack said with a hint of amusement.
Mykl raised his hand as if he were in a school classroom. “May I have permission to embarrass myself further by asking more stupid questions?”
Jack chuckled. “Of course.”
“Very well then.” Mykl lowered his hand. “Why did you put nukes in deep space?” The answer to this question should be quite interesting.
“They have been strategically placed from within the orbit of Mars to outside the heliopause as a counter to threats from comets and asteroids. Their fusion rockets are designed to intercept and nudge dangerous targets into a more desirable trajectory. It’s one of our most effective operations and has been used at least five times since its inception to prevent devastating impacts. Unfortunately, it’s not perfect. The volume of space to monitor is massive, and the odds of something getting through undetected are still relatively high.”
“So, how many times have you saved the world?”
“Enough,” Jack said wearily.
Mykl scratched the back of his head. He had only asked about one icon and had already discovered two threats capable of destroying the planet. There were hundreds of other mysterious symbols to choose from.
Picking at random, he pointed to a weakly glowing pink flower-shaped icon hovering over South America. “What’s this one?”
“That’s a biological weapons facility, still under construction,” Jack said. He selected a sandwich from the tray.
Mykl rubbed at his eyes with the heels of his hands. “Can we go on that tour now?” he asked, taking a sandwich as well.
CHAPTER 33
A low rumble reverberated throughout the City cavern. James halted his stride to locate the source. He had been walking fast, with purpose, and enjoying the feeling of freedom. Too many years he had been burdened with the need to hide under a lead cloak of deception. With that weight now removed, his spirit soared. It didn’t matter that he had no idea what was in store for his future. What mattered was that he now had one.
A city of diamond glistened under the glow of an artificial sun. For all the City’s mysteries and secrets, the few people he encountered were generous with waves and easy smiles. He couldn’t wait to describe this new world to Dawn. Being her eyes would be so much easier now. That is, if I can survive her tumultuous temper—or worse, outright rejection—after revealing my deception.
As if on cue, another angry rumble echoed in the City.
The light dimmed, and the shadows around James softened. Casting his gaze above, he saw a white mist developing all along the ceiling. He turned in a slow circle with his head tilted back. It couldn’t be. Clouds?
A strobe-like flash around the simulated sun strip punctured the mist, followed by another thunderous rumble. The distinctive smell of moisture permeated the air—then the sky fell.
As if trying to embrace the sky, James bent backward, his arms extended, under a cool rain. Within seconds, his clothes were soaked and stuck to his skin. Had he been at the Box, Mykl would have been tugging on his arm by now to drag him back inside. James laughed at the thought. He loved the rain.
As the water cascaded off the buildings, it made the ingenuity of their designs clear. Elaborate collection troughs redirected water to trees, flower gardens, and lawns. The remaining flow cleansed sidewalks and eventually made its way into a simple gutter system. James marveled at the complexity involved in this one link in the City’s ecosystem.
It wasn’t long before the rain gave way to a gentle breeze. It made him shiver. But then the misty cloud dispersed, and he felt the warmth from the overhead sun. It left a rainbow circling high above the City.
Combing his fingers through his saturated hair, James resumed his hike to see Dawn. When he’d left Jack’s office, his mind had been overflowing with thoughts he wanted to share. But now that he was faced with the imminent conversation, his words evaporated like the clouds above. His confidence eroded with every step. The sandwich in his stomach ran laps around his spine. He had never felt like this before. The old James had no problem at all shuffling up to Dawn and professing his joy at seeing her. The new James… The new James was a mess.
How hard can it be to tell someone that you love them?
James’s soaked shoes squished noisily down the quiet hallway. Through her open door, he saw Dawn sitting at the computer desk, hands in her lap. She looked sad, but still so beautiful… so vulnerable. James ached to hold her.
With a shaky hand, he rapped lightly on her door frame.
“Yes?” she said, her voice sounding as if she were much farther away.
James’s mouth felt as dry as the last time he chewed several sticks of colored chalk in the Box. “D-Dawn…” he stammered.
“James? Why do you smell like a wet dog?”
“It was raining outside.” He didn’t stammer.
Dawn started to reply, then her face lost all expression and the silence between them swiftly wound with tension. James wondered if her sensitive ears heard his heart hammering away against his ribs. The thundering flow of his blood echoed in his head, making it even more difficult to think. He dared not breathe, and steeled himself against the verbal lashing about to be unleashed by the woman he loved to the depths of his soul.
But she just clenched one hand into a tight fist and remained silent.
He shifted his weight. His shoes squished in the strained silence. “I… I…”
A smile as bright as the fusion-driven sun lit Dawn’s face as she erupted into laughter. “James,” she said. “You’ve finally dropped the act, and now you’re afraid of me?”
James didn’t know what to say. “You—you knew?”
“Of course I did. I’m blind, not stupid,” she said haughtily. “You slipped in your way of speaking, ever so slightly, too many times over the years for it to be anything but an act. It was subtle, but for someone who lives in a world of sound, it was easy to catch. I even tested you a few times to be sure. Sometimes, when you were escorting me, I would pretend to trip to see if you’d react fast enough to catch me. You always did. I knew the whole ‘big clumsy dummy’ thing was a show.”
The warmth from her radiant smile melted the cold cable of doubt constricting James’s chest. He took a tentative step toward her.
“Why didn’t you say anything?” he asked.
She stood and unerringly reached out to touch the book lying on her desk. As her delicate fingers caressed its battered border and frayed spine, her smile faded as if she fought some inner demon. “I was afraid.”
“Why?” James closed the distance between them and took her hand in his.
She turned her face to his voice. “I didn’t know why you were hiding. I was afraid if I called you out on it, you might truly disappear, and I… didn’t want to lose you.” Her last words came out in the barest whisper.
“You could never lose me. The only reason I pretended to be someone else was to get off the streets and into the Box. I wouldn’t have stayed so long, but… but since the first day you arrived, I knew I could never leave without you.”
Dawn smiled up at him, and he drew her into an embrace.
“Geeyaaah!” Dawn squirmed away from him. “You’re soaking wet!”
Bubbling with laughter, J
ames said, “I told you it was raining.”
“We’re a half mile underground! How can it rain?”
“Well, I think it—”
Dawn reached up and placed a finger on his lips. “Go change into dry clothes first. Then you can tell me all about it.”
“Good idea. I’ll be right back.”
James took her hand again and gave it a warm squeeze before he left. He had lost the moment to tell her the words locked inside him for so long, but another moment would come. He had all the time in the world now.
***
As James’s footsteps retreated, Dawn slumped into her chair. She trembled from the effort it took to appear strong. She knew James loved her. Until today, she would have been elated to have him hold her, free of his pretending. Sadly, this only served to complicate her life. However long it might prove to be.
Dr. Lee had explained her treatment options, but they were very limited. An experimental procedure might make a difference. But Jack had to approve the procedure before Dr. Lee would even be permitted to give any details.
Sixty days. That was longer than she would have had in the Box—if Mykl was right that Lori had targeted her as the Ass Angel’s next victim. But it wasn’t much. And now a man called Jack the Ripper held her fate in his hands. Dawn hated the fact that someone else determined her fate. It rankled every fiber of her being.
But with one choice, one final choice, she could regain control of her own fate. She didn’t think of that choice as giving up, but as taking control. And that choice was exclusively hers to make.
For now, however, she wanted to be strong for James. If only for a short time. She owed him that much.
Dawn pulled open the drawer in front of her and picked up the container of pills that Dr. Lee had prescribed. A potent painkiller to keep the monster at bay. There were enough left inside to put the monster to sleep for good. But for now, she took only one. She swallowed it without water, closed the drawer, and bargained with the fiend for a few more moments of happiness.
CHAPTER 34
“Why the rain?” Mykl asked as the last of the drops fell into the palm of his outstretched hand.
“As with light, water is critical to the City ecosystem. We could generate it less dramatically, but rain, with a touch of simulated thunder and lightning, makes for a more visceral feel. It’s also the most efficient way to manage dust.”
“Interesting. I hope James has the good sense now to not dance around in it like some fool,” Mykl said.
They traveled about the City, stopping briefly at points of interest, while Jack narrated its history. The cavern had originally been much smaller but had been expanded along with the needs of the City. With the invention of matter-manipulation technology, the need for heavy machinery to dig, and human labor to build, had become obsolete. Creating tunnels was a simple matter of programming the needed dimensions; within a few days, the job was complete. More advanced applications of the technology configured raw materials for living and work spaces. It turned out that the technology didn’t apply exclusively to carbon, but to all elements and compounds—carbon just happened to be cheap and readily available. So why not make buildings out of diamond?
With each new technological revelation they passed, a question grew more pronounced in Mykl’s mind. He held on to it in hopes that Jack would answer without his asking. It seemed too obvious a question for Jack to neglect bringing it up, but the more Mykl waited, the more he feared the answer. So he skirted his taboo question with others that danced around the issue.
“Do you sell diamonds to pay for all of this?”
“If we tried to fund this operation entirely from our matter technology, world diamond prices would plummet to the value of charcoal briquettes, and people would become very suspicious very fast,” Jack said. “In fact, we’ve never sold anything we produce by our technologies, simply because it’s that important to us that we maintain our secrecy. If we began marketing raw materials, we would become an immediate target for scrutiny from any number of businesses and government agencies. No, our funding comes from millions of untraceable investments.”
“You’re telling me nobody outside the City knows about any of this?” Mykl asked with a sweep of his arm.
“As far as the United States government knows, we are a highly classified consulting agency with unlimited security clearance. The single person outside our agency with limited knowledge of us and authorization to contact me is the president. Within a week of a new president taking office, he or she is briefed on our service and given instructions as to where, when, and why they may contact us. For a long time, presidents had the wisdom to listen and act appropriately to our suggestions. But recently, they have been keeping their own counsel and ignoring our recommendations, leaving the hard decisions for the next person, in order to retain power and voters. This does nothing to deter an impending crisis. When the time comes to act, it may be too late. Blood tends to be the solvent of choice to wipe away inconvenient truths.”
They were now approaching the largest structure in the City. It jutted into the center of the lake at the far end of the cavern, its architecture reminiscent of the Sydney Opera House, but more squat and egg-shaped. Chevron patterns on the pearlescent white surface gave the appearance of a reptilian skin stretched tightly over a curved dome.
This is our Operations Center,” Jack said.
Mykl rubbed his thumb up and down on a section of tiny chevrons, It felt rough when rubbed in an opposing direction to the scales. Like everything he had seen in the city, this building demonstrated astounding creativity.
A curious sound came from behind him, like the lid of a cooking pot being lifted and then clattering closed. He turned to find Jack near the rail at the water’s edge, holding a clenched fist toward Mykl.
“Hold out your hands,” Jack said.
Mykl obliged, and Jack opened his fist to release a cascade of tiny green pellets into Mykl’s hands. Dozens escaped Mykl’s grasp and rained down about his feet.
“Throw a handful in the water,” Jack said with a grin.
Puzzled, Mykl tossed some of his small payload over the rail.
The water below immediately erupted into a boiling frenzy of hungry fish. White bellies, silver sides, and flashes of color slithered to devour the tasty morsels. With a huge grin, Mykl heaved his remaining pellets as far as he could, creating a long plank of feeding fish so thick that he thought he could walk across them. A few bits of the fish food had stuck to his palm, and he flicked them into the water, causing minor eruptions wherever they landed.
“What kind of fish are they?” he asked.
“Rainbow trout. We keep a supply of food for them by the rail here for those that enjoy their feeding spectacle.” Jack tapped a miniature Operations Center-shaped box mounted on the rail.
“I can’t reach that,” Mykl said.
Jack flipped down a built-in step, apparently made so children could help themselves to the fish food. It served as a reminder that Mykl had yet to see a single child since his arrival. Maybe they were all inside?
“Would you like to see inside the Ops Center now?”
“Sure.”
The Operations Center lobby offered cushy couches arranged around low tables to create intimate islands for conversation. But there was no one around, and once again, Mykl found that more disturbing than if there had been a hundred people milling about. In this new realm, it appeared that nothing was predictable and no one was quite as they seemed.
A wide high-ceilinged hallway curved beyond Mykl’s line of sight. They followed it to a flat-walled dead end.
Jack stood with his hands in his pockets and looked down at Mykl. “What do you think?” he asked.
“I think,” Mykl said as he raised a hand, “that you are going to have to do better than that if you want to trick me.”
He placed his palm on the wall. It split down the middle, and the two segments slid and disappeared to the sides. One thing Mykl understood clear
ly now was that any flat surface could be a passageway.
Jack gave Mykl’s shoulder a companionable squeeze and said, “It’s not my intention to trick you. I think we learn things better by doing rather than showing. And it’s much more rewarding.”
Ahead, the pearlescent hallway split into two carbon-black openings leading in opposite directions.
“Left or right?” Jack asked.
“I don’t think it matters.”
“Why?”
“The color. It reminds me of a movie theater entrance designed to trap light and keep it from getting inside. Both entrances most likely lead to the same place. Unless one is a devious trap leading to a machine that grinds up little kids into fish food?”
“I think you were in that asylum much too long,” Jack said.
“Agreed. You go first.”
Jack laughed. “Incidentally,” he said, taking the left opening, “the fish don’t eat little kids, but the chickens are quite fond of them.”
“Uh-huh. Did you grow up in an asylum too?”
“No. I never grew up,” Jack said. He gave Mykl a wink.
CHAPTER 35
An eerie, hushed twilight filled the massive auditorium as Mykl entered. Hundreds of plush reclining seats, on the large size even for an adult, filled the concave floor, facing in seemingly random directions. A blackened ceiling arched high overhead, barely visible in the darkness.
Jack took a seat near the center and beckoned for Mykl to join him.
“How often is this place filled with people?” Mykl asked. He winced at the loudness of his voice. The acoustics were amazing. He was willing to bet he and Jack could carry on a conversation in hushed tones from opposite ends of the room.
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