by Layton Green
“Like a dog in the desert.”
The big man handed him the can, popped another, and took a sip. “After the two men who grabbed you went inside, I ran the plate on the van. It belongs to a man in Topeka, Kansas.”
“Who?”
“Someone named Frank Lietzer. He died two years ago.”
Cal gazed out the window as they entered the frenetic, palm-lined streets of Hollywood. He had the sense they had just poked a grizzly bear in the eye in its own den.
“I don’t think that van was going back into the corporate fleet,” Dane continued. “I think it was going off a cliff with you in it. My advice is to back the hell off this thing.”
“When you can do nothing,” Sefa added, “what can you do?”
“Thanks for the Zen,” Cal muttered. He lowered his window and took deep draughts of air, the caffeine and the fresh oxygen helping to rid his system of toxins. “Where’d you learn to fight?” he asked Dane.
The big man chuckled. “That was a combination of martial arts movies, Australian rules football, and me being bigger than the next guy.”
Cal put a hand to his temple. “Goddammit, thanks for saving me, but these people are killers. We got extremely lucky back there, and they won’t make the same mistake twice.”
The two of them exchanged a glance. “Which is why we’re holing up at the café from now on,” Dane said.
“That’s a good idea.”
“And you’re banned from coming in.”
“I’d never put you at risk like that.”
Dane turned to level his intense stare at him. “Tell me you’re skipping town for a while.”
Cal considered the question, realizing his throat was still very dry. “Got any more liquid poison?” After Dane tossed him another can, Cal took a long drink and said, “That’s probably the best idea.”
“You might need some help with that, depending on where you’re going.”
“I can’t put you in danger.”
Dane belched and crushed his can. “I researched your dad. He was fired from the airline and lost his pension, just like you said.”
“I never said I lied about that. Just that he was a dick.”
“I don’t get it.”
“That’s because while you may be a tech genius, you suck at understanding people.”
After a moment, Dane said, “I won’t intervene again. Not in person. But I might be able to help in other ways.”
“I said I don’t want to—”
“I’m not doing it for you, kemosabe. I have my reasons too. You’re a fool if you don’t back off, but . . .” He held out a palm, not to shake hands, but as if requesting an offering. “I’ll help where I can.”
Cal regarded the outstretched hand. “Do you want something?”
“The USB drive.”
Dane had surmised that someone had hacked Cal’s email, intercepted his communications with his source, and catfished Cal into going to the observatory. On the way downtown, they stopped at a random café while Dane cleansed Cal’s computer and gave him a different USB drive loaded with internet-anonymizing software, to help defend against surveillance. Dane also gave him a dark web onion address to log into in case they needed to talk. Cal planned on involving him as little as possible, but it helped to know he was out there.
Three hours after dropping Cal at a rattrap hotel near Skid Row, Dane had called to inform that the USB drive Cal had inserted into Elias Holt’s computer was absolutely worthless. Cal hadn’t understood all the jargon, but the gist was that Elias’s desktop had extremely complicated antivirus software installed, designed to derail just such an attempt.
Cal supposed he should have expected nothing less from the CEO of an internet security company. But that was okay. As much as it hurt to lose the physical proof on that computer, Cal had seen the evidence for himself.
Evidence that could set him free.
He knew he had to go underground to fight these people—and not just online. As Dane said, it was time to leave LA.
The knowledge pained him. He didn’t like being driven from his home. He also wasn’t sure how he would survive. His mortgage was upside down, his emergency savings dangerously low. He might have enough on his single remaining credit card for a couple of plane tickets and a few weeks of bare-bones living, and that was about it.
For all of these reasons, his voice was grave later that night when he sat with his laptop on the frayed bedspread, logged on to Twitch, and addressed his listeners for what could be his final broadcast. He skipped the intro and went straight to his prepared speech.
“Tonight’s episode will be a very short one. In fact, it isn’t an episode at all. It’s a warning. You may not hear from me for some time, and if things go poorly, perhaps never again.” Cal paused for a sip of bad coffee as he let that sink in. “I have no doubt tonight’s broadcast will be erased from the internet. Wiped from the collective digital memory. But no one, no matter how powerful, can take away what we hear and see for ourselves. They can try to subvert, and confuse, and manipulate, but they cannot erase our minds. For those of you who are listening right now, you will hear. You will be awake. I know for a fact the Leap Year Society is real and very dangerous. I don’t know what it is yet, or how far it reaches. I do know Elias Holt and Aegis International are involved, and that they’re trying to silence me. I suspect that if I survive long enough to find out more, one of the world’s most powerful conspiracies will be exposed. A new world order that is trying to control our information networks and silence opposing voices and determine the course of history. So far, I’ve seen precious little. The tip of a dirt-encrusted fingernail reaching out from a grave in a forgotten cemetery, hidden from the world at large for years untold. But now I’ve seen the evidence with my own eyes. They exist.”
As Cal paused to catch his breath and consider his final words, a moment of emotion overcame him, rage and fear and a confusing stab of melancholy for a lost innocence, a way of life that could never be recovered—both his own and society as a whole.
No, the world was not all right.
“We’re lab rats, friends. Everything we eat, everything we hear in the news, everything we think we know about history and the nature of our world and the universe—everything is filtered down to us from someone, somewhere, something. We are born into ignorance, and so we remain. Enough, I say. We may never know the whole truth—I believe that as human beings we are damned to exist in a middle ground of self-aware ignorance. And I know we all have our unassailable belief systems, our political views, our religions. Our battlefields we draw from reading the same things we have always read and listening to the same voices we have always heard. It’s far too easy for those in the shadows to hold us in thrall, especially those of us with warm beds and full stomachs, those who enjoy worldly success, those in the First World who cling to belief systems and societal structures that preserve the status quo. But for those of you who yearn to know as much of the truth as possible, who desire to take the red pill, who desire to wake from that long, dark sleep and drop the scales from your eyes and stare deep into the abyss of reality, then I implore you to never stop searching. Never stop believing in a better world. Stay alert, stay aware, stay focused. And never forget what I’ve told you tonight, for it may be the only record of an essential truth.”
The chat line was exploding. Cal logged out of Twitch, shut his computer down, shoved a chair in front of the door, and closed his eyes to get some long overdue rest.
He had a feeling he would need it.
London
15
As far as Andie could tell, no one had followed the double-decker bus as it wound its way through the jam-packed streets of London. Eventually, she moved to the top and hunkered near the enormous front window, hood pulled low, catching a chill from the sweat clinging to the back of her T-shirt, her jumbled emotions reflected in the ceaseless urban tableau unfolding in Piccadilly Circus.
The river of time might flow in one
direction, at least in human perception, but the current very much matters. Hunter-gatherers migrating across ancient lands to an emerald isle in the Atlantic, war, empire, colonization, art, ideology, religion, plague, industrialization, technological change: a few thousand years of history had resulted in this one neon-strobed night, trillions of neurons on a single street corner sparking hopes and fears and dreams, a cauldron of quarks and leptons bubbling away in a sea of consciousness, the very fact that any of it exists at all a wondrous and terrible and unbelievable thing.
With no idea where to go, she was content to ride on the bus as she considered her options. Thinking of Professor Rickman made her tremble with fear and rage. Was the woman she had seen leaving his apartment Zawadi, and had she known about the meeting? If so, why kill the professor and not Andie? To stop him from talking?
But if that was the case, why had the dark-haired man been so surprised to see Andie on the street? Maybe they hadn’t known about the meeting.
Before she and Professor Rickman had parted the previous evening, he had said he was going to talk to someone about . . . what exactly?
Had that conversation gotten him killed?
She shivered, racked with guilt and uncertainty, as she considered the implications.
More in the dark than ever, all she really knew was at least three people were hunting her, and probably Zawadi as well. London had its advantages to someone on the run, but it was also teeming with people and CCTV cameras. Andie felt a desperate need to leave the city, but she didn’t know where to go or who to trust.
She was committed to following the clue on the Star Phone, but how? The scroll and the string of alphanumeric digits—stt38—had stumped her. Her only real theory was that it was a GPS code or some other type of coordinates. It had that look about it. But no matter how she turned and twisted the cipher, trying to transform it into a location, it got her nowhere.
She had an idea for a place where she could make some inquiries in the morning. She liked the idea of consulting someone in person, to avoid leaving a digital footprint as much as possible.
First she needed to sleep.
Going back to her old hotel was out of the question. It would be easier, and safer, to stay on the bus and drift until morning. What would happen if she did?
She decided to find out.
Curling deeper into her seat, she put her backpack against the side window and leaned her head against it. The soporific drone of the engine, even the wheeze of the brakes and the creak of the doors opening and closing, lulled her quickly to sleep.
Deep into the night, a chorus of raucous shouts from the lower level of the bus awakened her, followed by the sound of someone retching. The clubs must have closed. She returned to sleep until the bus stopped moving and a well-mannered robotic voice called out over the loudspeaker.
“This bus terminates here, please take all of your belongings with you as you leave.”
Andie sat up and blinked, disoriented. She peered through the window and saw a cityscape of lamplit streets and tall gray buildings with shuttered shops on the ground floor. She could be anywhere in London.
“Hey. You must get off.”
The heavily accented voice, young and feminine, had come from her right. Andie turned to see a young Muslim woman standing in the aisle. The woman’s beige hijab framed a pretty but tired face with no makeup, thin eyebrows, and sunken cheeks.
“Thanks,” Andie said.
The woman hesitated. “You are homeless?”
“I am tonight.”
“We can’t stay. The driver walks through.”
“Okay.”
“Follow me. It will be better together.”
Andie looked back and saw a handful of men in grubby clothing shuffling toward the stairs. One of them stared at Andie with a hungry look in his eyes. With a grim expression meant to ward them off, she slipped on her backpack and followed the Muslim woman onto the street, then to another bus stop three blocks away.
“This one runs for two more hours,” the woman said. She was carrying a large drawstring bag full of clothes. “One more after that and the sun will rise. Do you have enough fare?”
“I do. Thank you.”
“It’s okay. Safety in numbers.”
When the bus came, Andie paid for both of them, causing the woman to grip her hand in gratitude. They found an empty pair of seats on top and sat across from each other. They had not even exchanged names. As Andie drifted to sleep again, she felt buoyed by the silent companionship, the spark of light in the darkness.
Soon after a feeble morning sun teased Andie awake, the final bus of the night pulled into a cavernous central station. Her companion was still with her. As they exited together, Andie said, “You don’t have an extra hijab, do you?”
“I have several.”
“I’ll pay you for one.”
“You are Muslim?”
Andie shook her head. “It would be helpful,” she said quietly.
The woman bit her lip as her eyes slipped downward in understanding. She dug into her bag and pulled out an olive-green scarf. “This is okay?”
“Perfect. I can’t thank you enough. For this and last night.”
“Do you know how to tie it?”
“No clue.”
Gently, the woman wrapped the silky material around Andie’s head, gathered the folds under her chin, and inserted a pin to hold it in place. Explaining as she went, she took the longer side of the hijab and wrapped it around Andie’s head, pinning it again near the temple. Finally she tucked the shorter length of material under the neck, completing the process.
Andie had no idea how much a hijab cost, but she took out three twenties. The woman refused her, but Andie pressed them into her palm and closed her hand over it.
“Allah yusallmak,” the woman whispered.
Pulling the hijab even lower on her forehead, Andie slipped on her oversize sunglasses as she walked away, feeling confident her face was hidden. London awoke around her as she got her bearings at an intersection, realizing with a start the bus had terminated at Victoria Station, a block from her old hotel. She hurried away, passing through Saint James’s Park on the way to Covent Garden. The lush gardens, beautiful in the morning light, smelled of lavender and rose and made her think of Duke Gardens. Commuters on foot and bicycles hurried past in both directions.
Deciding to avoid Piccadilly, she walked a bit farther north, into the maze of streets and shops in Soho. She chose a nice-smelling bakery and sat as far from the door as she could, tucked into a drafty corner for a coffee and a pastry, perusing a daily paper as she waited for the map shop to open.
Professor Rickman had made the front page.
The death was ruled a suicide.
Andie knew she needed help of some sort, sooner rather than later, or she was going to get herself killed. Before she made any major decisions, she had decided to follow this hunch and see where it took her. London was huge, she liked her disguise, and with any luck the people chasing her would presume she had fled the city instead of returning to its beating heart.
After another cup of coffee, she walked into Covent Garden again and down a different side street radiating out from the main arcade. Squeezed into the high-end retail was a shop called Stanfords, which had stuck in her memory. It billed itself as having the world’s largest collection of maps and travel books, and as far as she could tell, it was not a false boast.
Along with the eye-popping collection of maps and guidebooks, Stanfords sold globes and atlases, travel literature, travel games, compasses and other navigational aids, maritime and constellation guides, and travel accessories of all sorts. Even some of the walls and floors were giant maps. The place was catnip for anyone who had ever had an itch to put on walking shoes and explore a foreign shore.
As soon as the register was free of customers, she approached a pasty-faced clerk with a double chin and asked him if the store carried anything on GPS coordinates.
“What do
you mean exactly?”
“I don’t know, books, coordinates, maps?”
“Hmm . . . you might do better online.”
Along with the retail selection, one of the reasons Andie had chosen to visit Stanfords was the promise of “travel specialists who aid our customers.”
“Really?” she said. “You want me to shop at Amazon?”
“I just thought it might be—”
“I’ve tried online. That’s why I came here.”
“Well, can you be more specific?”
“Can you see if you have anything?”
Looking flustered, he consulted a computer, then turned it around to show her the results. There were various GPS guides for walkers, one for boaters, a coordinate map, a road atlas, and a logbook.
“Where do I find these?” she asked.
“Most are on the bottom level, along the far wall. Let me know if I can be of further assistance.”
Further assistance? Maybe switching to a career in data entry would help.
Stanfords had three levels, all of them sizeable. She took the stairs to the basement and made her way to the scant section of GPS-related titles. After an hour of flipping through the books, she considered the historical tidbits she had learned.
GPS had originated in the Sputnik era, when American scientists learned they could track the Russian satellite using its radio signal. During the Cold War, the Department of Defense refined the technology for military purposes—wasn’t that always the case?
The first GPS system was called Navstar, and the first official satellite launched in 1978. The modern iteration employs dozens of satellites that use trilateration to pinpoint a location anywhere on Earth within three meters. The standard positioning service is available to anyone worldwide, and found in everything from cars to mobile phones to GPS shoes.
There were limitations, such as dense forests, canyon walls, and underground spaces. But it was remarkable to think that for about fifty bucks, anyone could buy a GPS device—or simply download an app to one’s phone—that accessed a space-based navigation system with a built-in atomic clock for time correction, utilizing radio waves traveling at the speed of light.