“He wants to see the Wizard? Who’s the Wizard?”
“Man—or woman—behind the curtain. I thought he meant the president at first, but the second message is clearer. Through the ‘Wild Hedges’—WH—the White House—is the path to the Wizard; I think he means the Alphas. He needs to get into the Emerald City—the mountain—to talk to the people behind the Washington Monument incident. The Alphas.”
“And of course,” said Lanfen, smiling a little, “there’s a message from Brenda for Dice.” She looked at Chuck. “You’re going to answer him, right?”
Chuck turned back to face his keyboard. After a moment of thought, he typed:
Saw the news. All fired up. Witch is dead? Did you mean that in the general and literal sense? Tell pretty blond lady we have her dice. Hope to return them to her at our earliest opportunity. Let me know how it goes with the Wizard. Signed, Cowardly Lion.
“Cowardly Lion?” asked Lanfen.
“Well, he signed himself Tin Man. I figure that makes me either the Cowardly Lion or the Scarecrow. The Cowardly Lion seemed more appropriate. I am the one that ran, after all.”
Lanfen put her hands on either side of Chuck’s head and turned him to face her. “Neither is appropriate. You’re far from cowardly, Chuck. What you did saved all of us from . . . whatever it is the Alphas have been through, and you’ve already got one of the best brains I know.” She hesitated for a moment, before quietly saying, “And one of the best hearts.”
Chuck fell into her nearness, the dark tilt of her eyes, her spicy scent. He wanted to kiss her. She smiled and beat him to the punch, kissing him full on the lips.
In his glass-walled office.
Where everyone could see them.
He found he didn’t care.
She pulled back a moment later. “Was that out of line?” she asked softly. “Did I read you wrong?”
He shook his head, savoring his very unscientific response to her kiss. “No. Definitely not. Not out of line. And you read me very well.”
“Good. Now, are we going to go talk to Lorstad about this?”
There was something in her expression—in her energy—that brought Chuck into sharp focus. “You didn’t just come in here to show off or kiss me, did you?”
She sobered and shook her head. “I’ve been edgy all morning. That ‘someone just walked over my grave’ feeling, you know? I figured, you’re the one with the Internet connection. Maybe you could . . .” She trailed off. “That sounds silly, doesn’t it? I probably just have cabin fever.”
“No, not silly. I have to admit to some of the same antsiness. But here’s the thing: if we go to Lorstad, he may just cut off our Internet access again. I’m sure he’s monitoring it.”
“Are you saying we shouldn’t go to him?”
“No. I’m just saying maybe we need to think of another way of staying connected to the outside world.”
As if following his train of thought, Lanfen turned her head to look out through the glass walls to where Dice and Joey worked to ready the system components for Lorstad’s first session.
“Think we can trust Joey,” Chuck asked, “or do I need to have you distract him while I talk to Dice? You could ask some questions about their modifications to Pippin.”
Lanfen peered at the Sho-Pai engineer. “I think we can trust him. He’s not exactly what you’d call a ‘company man.’ He tends to view Lorstad and the others as . . . well, ‘other.’”
“The feeling is apparently mutual,” Chuck observed. He thought back to their meeting with a half dozen of Lorstad’s Benefactor cohorts. He hadn’t felt that nerdy and out of place since high school.
“I was in the hospital for a broken wrist when I was in middle school,” said Lanfen. “The result of a tactical error during a martial arts competition. When Lorstad introduced us to his friends, I flashed back to having my doctor come through my hospital room with a bevy of medical students.”
Chuck laughed. “I was thinking the same thing. Not about being in the hospital, but that feeling of being . . .”
“An object of curiosity.”
“Yeah. That.” Chuck took a deep breath, let it out, and said, “Okay. Let’s go talk to Dice and Joey.”
Lanfen followed Chuck out into the lab to where Dice and Joey were bent over the new BKKI that Dice had laid out on one of his workbenches. The robotics engineer looked up as they approached and pulled off his safety glasses.
“What’s up?” he asked.
In answer, Chuck handed him his iPad, which displayed Matt’s LinkedIn messages. He frowned, reading the two texts from Matt. Chuck caught his reaction to Matt’s reference to Brenda. All the tension seemed to go out of him in a rush. Chuck imagined he could almost feel it.
“She’s all right,” Dice murmured. “She’s okay.”
Lanfen laughed. “True love. We show him a dire message about the Alphas’ activities and he focuses on the love note from Bren.”
Joey looked from Lanfen to Dice and back again. “The Alphas—you mean those other Zetas—the ones that you think blew up the Washington Monument?”
Chuck nodded.
“What do you think this means?” Dice asked softly.
“I think General Howard is dead and that the Michaux Preserve is on fire and that Matt is in contact with the White House. He wants to get to Sara and the others. Talk to them. Maybe figure out what they want. I think Deep Shield has been knocked out of the picture.”
Dice stiffened. “Then Bren’s not safe back there. Lorstad needs to bring her in.”
Lanfen took a step closer to the table and gestured at the interface cabling as if that were what she was discussing. They all did stuff like that. It was an adaptation to living and working under surveillance.
“No one’s safe back there,” she said urgently. “Not Matt, not anyone. I mean, think about it. The Alphas are cornered. They’ve already done some pretty serious damage—probably more than we know. It’s not just a matter of getting Brenda out.” She turned her gaze to Chuck. “I think we need to think of a way to get in.”
“We need to talk to Lorstad.” Dice all but growled the words.
Chuck nodded. “I agree. But we need to be prepared for him to—”
“To sermonize about us getting distracted,” said Lanfen. “He’s not going to like that we’re focusing on this right as he’s getting ready to start his training.” She glanced at her watch. “In fact, he’s due here in less than fifteen minutes.”
“What Lanfen is leading up to,” Chuck said, “is that we need to explore alternative ways of keeping abreast of what’s happening outside these walls. You two have the skills to maybe accomplish that. Are you up for it?”
“Absolutely,” Dice said without hesitation.
Chuck turned his attention to Joey. “You don’t have to help Dice if you feel it would put you in an awkward position. The Benefactors are your employers, after all. I promise we will do nothing to harm or even inconvenience them, we just—”
“I’m in,” Joey said. “Hey, I live on this planet, too. Sometimes it seems like the Royalty forget that they share it with us.”
Lanfen patted the wiring harness. “Better button this up. Here comes our student.”
Chuck glanced out into the main concourse to see Lorstad approaching. Alexis was with him. It struck him just how like a gigantic fishbowl “his” lab was. He was relieved when Alexis separated from Lorstad as they neared the lab. She seemed uncomfortable with Chuck’s team. The feeling was mutual.
“You’ll talk to him about Brenda?” Dice asked.
Chuck did not miss the urgency in the younger man’s voice and eyes. He rubbed at the bridge of his nose, massaging away a prickling sensation. “No time like the present.”
Dice flipped his safety glasses back into place. “Then let’s get this interface put back together. Give me a sign if you need me to stall.”
Chuck and Lanfen met Lorstad at the door of the lab. “Before we begin your first session,” Chuc
k told him, “there are a couple of things we need to discuss.”
Lorstad’s expression did not change. This did not surprise Chuck as much as it disturbed him. He described the intel he’d just gotten from Matt, explained the insecure position that put Dice’s fiancée in, and ended with an appeal to bring Brenda Tansy to the Center.
“I’m not asking this merely on humanitarian grounds,” Chuck added. “Brenda was Dice’s brightest protégé and the head of the robotics team at Forward Kinetics. Having her here would increase Dice’s productivity significantly. In the time it took him to create one remote unit, he could have done two or more. For you,” he added, knowing this is what Lorstad would probably care about, “it would also mean we could work with your people in larger groups. And that, I assume, would aid all of us if the situation in the east continues to deteriorate.”
Lorstad met Chuck’s gaze at last. He had, up until that point, stood with a curious but distracted expression on his face, as if he were listening to music only he could hear. “You are unduly concerned about the ‘situation in the east,’ as you call it. Were anything truly dire to happen there, we would—”
Lanfen, standing shoulder to shoulder with Chuck, made an impatient gesture. “You didn’t tell us about the fire at Pine Ridge. I’d call that dire.”
Lorstad turned his imperturbable gaze to her. “A forest fire?”
“Please, we’re not stupid. Chuck told you: it’s more than a forest fire,” Lanfen said. “It’s part and parcel of what’s happening with the Alphas. Weren’t you listening? General Howard is dead and Deep Shield has been compromised or possibly destroyed—”
“Ms. Chen, calm yourself. Yes, things are in a state of flux at the moment. Yes, I understand your concern, not just for Ms. Tansy, but for Dr. Streegman and for anyone caught up in what is happening in proximity to the Alphas. But our best hope of dealing with them is to harness the power that you have discovered. To train up as many of the Learned as possible so that we may use our abilities without need for repeated immersions.”
“We understand that,” said Chuck. “But if we don’t get a better idea of what’s going on back east we will be in no position to seize opportunities to intervene when they arise. There’s no reason not to do both at the same time.”
“Charles, I assure you, I would recognize any opportunities—”
“No. I don’t think you would. You don’t know Sara and Tim and Mike the way I do—the way we do.” He included the entire lab team in his gesture, and was absurdly pleased that the expression on Lorstad’s face at last showed surprise.
“You believe you can assess the situation better than I can?” Lorstad’s bemusement seemed sincere.
“Yes, I do. I’ve worked with these people closely over time. I’ve watched them develop their zeta abilities. I’ve watched them interact with each other and interacted with them. I—or any member of my team—would be able to catch things I don’t think even you could, regardless of how closely you’ve been watching us. Because you’ve been watching from the outside. We’ve all been on the inside. We need to know what you know when you know it, Kristian. You keep us in the dark at the peril of everything you’re trying to accomplish here.”
Lorstad raised a golden brow in as close an approximation of Mr. Spock as Chuck could imagine. “I will consider what you’ve said and I will take it to the Learned Council at my earliest opportunity. I will do this if you will continue to focus your attentions on quantifying how and why your process works and on making it work for us.”
“You needn’t even ask, Kristian,” Chuck said. “In fact, I think we’re ready to begin your first driving lesson.” He gestured to where Dice and Joey were now attaching the neural net to the kinetic converter for Lorstad’s first session. Stationed several yards away at the end of a slim fiber-optic tether was the simple rolling robot he was to work with—Roboticus Mark II. Returning to the hardwired system was something in the way of an experiment. Chuck had wondered if being able to visualize the movement of the signal from brain to bot was a factor in the learning process.
“Will I need that?” The Benefactor indicated the glittering cap of positron transceivers that would read his brain waves and translate them into impulses the machinery could act upon.
“We won’t know,” Chuck said, “until we start working with you. Besides, any data helps lead to your ultimate end goal.”
Lorstad seemed to accept that and moved to seat himself in the chair Dice had drawn up next to the brain wave monitor.
“The Learned Council,” Lanfen murmured quietly, as she and Chuck followed him across the lab. “That’s new. Makes you wonder how big this organization is.”
Chuck was definitely wondering the same thing, then focused on the task at hand.
They began working with Lorstad just as they had with Lanfen, Mini, and their other subjects, though with one significant change, introduced by the student himself.
“I have seen Ms. Chen working with her own powers in your lab, but only in small snatches. I would like a demonstration of her progress, if you please.”
Chuck and Lanfen exchanged a glance, then Lanfen shrugged and asked, “What would you like me to do?”
“Several of our staff have reported seeing you doing a form of parkour that they find awe inspiring. I would like to see a demonstration of it.”
Lanfen looked around the cavernous lab. “In here?”
“If it suits you. You have been practicing here, after all.”
Chuck knew that Lanfen had also been practicing in deserted corridors, in her quarters, and on the balconies overlooking the rocky incline on which the Center’s aboveground silhouette was perched. He had once observed her flipping herself from balcony to rooftop and suspected that she was probably capable of escape. He looked at her now, wondering if she would allow Lorstad to see the full scope of her abilities.
She met his gaze and shook her head slightly, then moved to the center of the long room, facing the backlit surface of Mini’s studio wall.
“Hey, Mini!” she called. “Heads up. I’m coming through.”
She started to run then, lightly, on the balls of her feet, floating down the broad central aisle. She gathered speed as she reached the far end of the room, then leapt gracefully into the air . . . and continued to run up the radiant walls to the ceiling. She kicked off from the top of the wall and went into an arcing backflip that caused everyone around Chuck to draw in a breath, Eugene to look up from his workstation with a squawk of surprise, and Mini to laugh in delight.
Suddenly, Lanfen was wearing a blazing pair of wings—half-angel, half-fairy—that dripped multicolored glory onto the floor below, where it pooled and faded. She carried the arc of her flight toward the distant ceiling, then turned a series of somersaults so fast that her body became a blur.
She burst out of the tuck position high in the air before descending, feetfirst, toward her audience. One hand moved as if beckoning to the people below and a workstation chair glided across the floor into the center aisle mere feet in front of Lorstad. Lanfen’s descent slowed dramatically and she settled into the chair cross-legged. Her wings folded, then vanished.
“Ta-da,” said Lanfen mildly.
Mini ran toward them laughing and applauding. “Lanfen, that was wonderful. I hope you didn’t mind the wings.”
Lanfen gave the other woman a brilliant smile. “Is that what that was? I wondered where all that light was coming from.”
Chuck looked at Lorstad. The Benefactor spokesman was frowning thoughtfully, glancing from one woman to the other as if something in the display bothered him. Did he realize Lanfen was understating her abilities? Were they not as impressive to him as they were to his ordinary staff? Or was it something else?
“I am humbled. You did all of that—both of you—with these zeta powers you have developed?”
Mini nodded and Lanfen said, “Of course.”
“And Minerva, how did you cause your wings to keep up with Ms. Chen’
s movements?”
Mini seemed surprised by the question. “I—I don’t know. I just . . . I don’t know.”
There was a moment of uncomfortable silence, then Lorstad said, “I have a request to make of you both. I would like to have you examined by our doctors. Have them run some diagnostics—MRIs, whatever they feel would shed light on any physiological changes your growing powers may cause.”
Both Lanfen and Mini looked to Chuck. He cleared his throat. “If the ladies have no objection, neither have I, but . . .”
“Yes?” Lorstad regarded him curiously.
“They received full periodic workups at FK.”
Lorstad answered plainly. “We no longer have access to that data and new records must be created. Surely you understand that.”
“Fine . . . but nothing invasive, right?”
“Drawing blood?”
“Is fine,” said Lanfen—and Mini nodded. “It’s for a good cause, after all.”
Lorstad seemed happy with that and they went to work on his learning session, getting a baseline for his brain waves as a first step. They had a series of simple tasks set up that made use of their Roombot as well as some computer-based activities. Chuck explained the process, wondering all the while what had prompted Lorstad to inquire about physiological changes.
The session did not go well, though Chuck supposed in hindsight that he should have suspected it might not. The reason it did not go well was precisely why he’d expected it to go very right—he expected Kristian Lorstad to be well ahead of the curve when it came to kinetic manipulation. Far from facilitating his work with the kinetic interface, Lorstad’s externally generated abilities impeded it. They interfered with his attempts to produce a clear, “unflavored” brain wave of any kind, let alone enter a gamma state. If he exerted any will toward something, his brain seemed to involuntarily draw on the powers it had been imbued with via immersion.
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