“Who must I protect?” I asked.
“You already know what you should not,” said the man.
“The woman clothed with the sun,” added the woman. “Nations rise and fall, but the word is truth about what is to come. But oh, how he will twist it.” She sounded deeply sad, on the verge of tears. “You must go, and you must protect her.”
The woman’s sadness infiltrated me. It had power over me. I would have done anything to make her smile. “I will try,” I said, “but how can I protect her if he will touch her?”
“You cannot go.” The man placed his fingers under my chin and gently turned my face to his. “She will die if you go. Her blood will be on your hands. Why would you give up all that you have before you in this life?”
He was right, or at least his words made me want to believe he was right. His presence was like an invitation to swim in the pleasures of my existence, to live a life of only the finest happiness on earth.
“You must go,” the woman repeated. She was drifting away from me, into the infinite white space. “Do not let him touch you.” Her words grew faint.
“Do not go.” Now the man was drifting away, too, in the opposite direction of the black. “Think of what you will lose.”
Then I was alone, straddling the divide of black and white. I felt compelled to take a step, but I could not decide which direction. The weight of the decision was more than I could bear. I didn’t even know what the decision was.
I opened my eyes. I was on my bed in the hotel room. Someone was knocking on the door. I stood and walked to it, my mind still stuck in the strange space between the man and the woman.
The knock came again, insistent. I pulled the door open.
It was Naomi.
She took me into her arms before I had a chance to think. I leaned my head on her shoulder and closed my eyes. Her shoulder was the perfect height.
“I’m so sorry,” she was saying. “I know you will pass next time. How are you?” She wore real concern on her face. “You turned off your precept.”
I looked into her eyes. The eyes that were just like the woman’s eyes. Had it really been just a dream?
“I’m fine,” I said.
“You’re a terrible liar. You’ll need to work on that if you want to rise to the top of ISA.” She took my hands in hers. “Here, let’s practice. Tell me a lie.”
“You’re ugly,” I said. “I don’t like being around you.”
“That’s two lies! But, yes, that’s good.” She paused. “Here’s one: I would never invite a boy to a wedding if he failed the ISA-7 exam.”
“I could never date a spy.”
“And I could never date a Jew.”
“Christians freak me out.”
“I win!” she announced. “That’s no lie. I know my friends freak you out.”
That was true enough. I suddenly thought of the man in black from the dream. You cannot go, he’d said. Maybe he was right. Maybe I was falling too fast for her. I needed time to think.
“I’m leaving tonight,” I said.
“Won’t you stay for the team dinner?” She squeezed my hands in plea.
“I’m not on the team anymore. Maybe next time.”
“Okay.” She took my face in her hands and looked deep into my eyes. “When will we see each other next? I don’t want to wait until April.”
“I’ll visit you.” The words came out of my mouth without thought. You must protect her, said the woman in white. Great, now I was hearing voices. I tried to stay calm. “When works for you?” I asked, as casually as I could.
“How about in February? Second weekend?”
“February it is.”
“And we’ll be in touch before that.”
“Every day,” I said, “once I reconnect my precept anyway. We’re synced.”
“You make that sound sensual.” She leaned closer to me. “You’re an interesting boy, Elijah.”
She pecked my lips, lingering a blissful moment and making me forget for a moment all about ISA-7 and exams and dreams and the world. When she pulled back, I realized I was smiling for the first time all day.
“This week has been—” she began.
“Something,” we said together.
MY FIRST WEEKS back at boarding school were like a long hangover. I made it two days before I reconnected V. I talked to Naomi every day after that. I could check her location and her body temperature any time, but it was not the same. Our week together had come and gone and left in its wake my failure on the ISA-7 exam.
Classes and senior-year parties were not much help. That one week with Naomi felt more important than all of it. I wondered if such a small stretch of days could outweigh the rest of my life. I wondered why my dreams had gone blank. I wondered whether they had meant anything after all.
At least today I had a new distraction. It was the first Sunday of February, Super Bowl Sunday. I didn’t care about football, but if I was going to attend a game, it might as well be the hundredth Super Bowl. The World Football League was making this more than just a football game. It was a party, a festival, and a worldwide extravaganza to celebrate the centennial. No other city but my hometown could have been fitting as the site, especially with the New York Giants playing.
I’d stayed in my family’s place the night before. My dad was in Geneva on some urgent business. Nothing new there, but that’s why he’d given me his two tickets. I probably could have bought a parcel on the moon with them, but I already had one of those. Might as well go and see the spectacle.
Now I was waiting for Charles, which was odd. He was never late like this. I had a lot of valid reasons for inviting him. He was a friend. He was fun. Like me, he didn’t really care about the football. He’d be interested to watch the Shanghai Dragons play. This was the first time a Chinese team had reached the Super Bowl since they joined the league years ago. I was hoping Charles could also tell me more about where’d he been and what he’d been doing with ISA-7. I’d barely seen him since returning to school.
Those were all valid reasons, which made it even easier to hide the true reason for giving Charles my other ticket. I needed to understand the warning about Naomi. I still had no clue why Charles had passed the message through Aisha, or why he’d wanted to warn me in the first place. The two times I’d tried to bring it up, he’d come up with some excuse to leave. I figured the Super Bowl was a great way to make him sit beside me for a few hours. It was a promising sign that he’d accepted without hesitation.
But now he was late, really late. The crowd around me was getting smaller, with almost everyone already in the stadium or on their way. I checked with V again. No messages. Naomi was still in North Carolina. Nothing unusual about her stats.
I blinked the screen off and gazed out toward the new stadium. It was across the water, on Governor’s Island just south of Manhattan. Thin bridges like spider legs connected the stadium to the surrounding boroughs. A rainbow of neon lights lit the bridges, making every ripple of water shimmer in green and orange and blue, as if a layer of oil floated on the surface. It gave the water a dream-like feel. If I’d had any dreams since the ISA week, I hadn’t remembered a single one. I almost missed them. At least they’d brought something unexpected and unexplainable into my life.
“Elijah!” shouted Charles from behind me.
I turned and saw him rushing towards me. He was wearing a red jersey with an ornate golden serpent on the chest. His hair was matted as if he’d just taken off a helmet. The smile on his face did not reach his eyes.
“So sorry I’m late,” he said, out of breath. “I grabbed dinner with some cousins in China Town. Once they found out I was going to the game, they wouldn’t let me go until they found a jersey for me.”
“No problem.” I pointed to the Giants logo on my blue jersey. “We’re going to look a bit odd sitting beside each other, but I still got your back if someone picks a fight.”
“Ha, thanks!” he said. “If someone wants to pick a fight, l
et’s trade jerseys. You know better than anyone, my good Asian looks don’t mean I actually cheer for the Shanghai Dragons.”
“You think that’ll stop these fans?”
“I thought the real fans were priced out of this game.”
“Good point,” I said. “This is a different crowd.”
“Well, whoever starts something with me, I’ll give them a Kung Fu ass kicking.” He boxed at the air, followed by a high kick. His movements were sharp and strong, particularly for a guy like Charles. Maybe ISA-7 included some Kung Fu training.
“So very American of you,” I joked. “Come on, let’s go or we’ll miss the whole game.”
It was almost halftime when we entered the stadium and made our way down to our seats. We were about ten rows up, on the fifty-yard line.
“What do you want to drink? Any food?” I asked Charles as we sat.
“No food, but something Chinese and potent to drink.” He smiled as the Giants fan beside us gave him a questioning look. “Looks like the Dragons need to rally.”
I checked the score hovering over the middle of the field. The Giants were up 28-24. “Remember Charles, it’s go Giants tonight.” I pressed my wrist to the side of my seat and ordered two beers. The drinks showed up moments later, rising on a platform through a small hole that opened at our feet. We took the cups and the platform dropped back through the floor.
The lights suddenly dimmed for the halftime show. Lasers of color began beaming around the stadium. A section of the grass slid open, and a stage rose to the sound of deep rumbling bass. Hundreds of scantily-clad dancers sprang into motion over the entire field. In the center was a Chinese boy band paired with America’s newest pop diva. They started some sort of sing-off, dance-off. The tune was catchy.
I turned to Charles, ready to make some quip, but his face stopped me dead. He looked pale.
“What’s wrong?” I asked. I wondered for a second whether his beer was poisoned.
He slowly mouthed the words, “precept off,” without a sound leaving his lips.
I commanded it off. “What’s going on, man?” No one around was paying us any attention.
He leaned his head close to mine and whispered in my ear, “Don’t go.”
“Where?” I asked. “What are you talking about?”
“Quiet,” he demanded. “They’re listening.”
“Who?” Even if someone was listening, they weren’t hearing anything. I could barely hear Charles over the music, even though he was speaking straight into my ear. All the other fans were staring at the performance on the field.
“ISA!” he snapped. He pulled my head lower, into a huddle, and spoke fast. “Listen to me, Eli. The Chinese agents are pulling back, even from their strongest bases in the Middle East. They’ve left no one in Iran. They know something we don’t, and ISA knows pretty much everything. ISA-7 has a few tricks up its sleeve, but I can’t risk telling you too much. You’ve got to retake the test and get in. Then you’ll know. But for now, don’t go anywhere with Naomi. Not North Carolina, not Rome. Got it?”
I most certainly did not get it, and the fact that he knew about Rome put me on edge. I’d never heard Charles talk like this. It didn’t even sound like him. “Why not?” I challenged. “You cheered me on. Now you tell me to stay away? That’s like staying away from oxygen.”
Charles cut me off. “This is no joke!”
“I’m not joking,” I said. “You know how I feel about her. She and I are synced, man.”
“Then sever the sync, and stay away from her. You know about her cult?”
“Yeah, I met some of them. They’re weird, but from everything I’ve seen, they’re harmless.”
“Then you haven’t seen enough,” he said. “They’re a huge threat, mixed up in a dangerous game. They’ve got agents in China and everywhere else. They’re playing every side, meddling with rulers, working against the UN. Whatever the Chinese agents know, whatever they’re retreating from, you don’t want to be around when it hits.”
“When what hits, and around where?” I asked. He wasn’t making any sense.
“Around Naomi!” His face twisted into rage, then it was blank an instant later. “Trust me, for your own good.”
I met his blank stare with my own. The last thing he was doing was earning my trust, but it was no good telling him that. I figured I might as well make him think I believed him. “Alright, man. But what is the danger? What’s going to hit? Can’t you give me a little more info?”
“I’m telling you all I can,” he said, with too much conviction. What was he holding back? “You’re my friend, Eli. I had to warn you about Naomi and her order. They’re playing you, like everyone else. Don’t go to Rome.”
Rome again? Had Naomi told him? Was the order really a threat? As the questions raced through my mind, I nodded at Charles with my best attempt at sincerity. “I’ll think about it,” I said, leaning back in my chair.
“Don’t think. Act on it,” he insisted. “This is the most important game ever.”
As if on cue, the stadium lit up and the crowd burst into applause. Whatever had impressed them, I’d missed it.
“Some show!” Charles said as if we’d never had the conversation a moment before. He didn’t bring it up again, and neither did I.
He had revealed more than I’d hoped, but everything about it was odd. Nothing about it was concrete. Just veiled threats and risks. It would take more than that to keep me away from Naomi. Even if she gave me some doubts, couldn’t I trust her more than Charles?
We watched the rest of game like normal football fans. I pretended to enjoy the beer, cheerleaders, and competition. The Giants won 45-38, but I felt like I’d lost a friend.
A WEEK AFTER the Super Bowl, I was in my dorm room packing my bag. The ancient furnace was rumbling as always. The old wood spoke of legacy, but my thoughts were in the future. I tied my shoes, put on my overcoat, and walked out.
My driver was holding the sedan’s back door open for me. I stepped in, and then his black gloves took the steering wheel like a man holds his wife. We drove in silence through the early dawn mist. The Massachusetts hills were green and wet. In one of my classes I’d been learning how, not long ago, blankets of snow covered this area most of the winter. There had not been a single flake since my freshman year.
We pulled up to the private airport where I boarded my family’s jet. I’d asked my dad about it during our monthly video chat. He’d smiled one of his rare, intrigued smiles and asked me, So you like this girl? I told him yes and began to say more, but a business call had pulled him away—same as always. At least I had the plane and its pilot.
I finished a tomato juice, an egg sandwich, and a few minutes of reading for class by the time we landed in North Carolina. The sky was clear and blue. It was warm enough to take off my coat. No wonder most of the country lived in southern cities. Only DC was important enough to justify a shield and its warming side effects.
I got into another black sedan that was waiting for me. This airport was within the auto-grid, so the car needed no driver. It moved with mechanical precision, but there was not the same rhythm as when a black-gloved maestro manned the wheel.
The car turned off a highway and into a neighborhood of little brick houses. They were all the same, with one story and black shutters. I figured the neighborhood had looked just like this when they built it a hundred years ago, except for the solar panels gleaming on their roofs.
After a few identical streets, the car came to a stop in front of one of the nondescript homes. I swiped my wrist to pay and stepped out.
The house’s plain black door swung open an instant later. Naomi stood in the doorway, looking like a goddess descended to the pits of suburbia.
“Welcome to Durham!” she said.
“Thanks!” I moved toward her, or maybe she pulled me closer. “It’s good to be here.”
She grabbed my hand and tugged me into the house, sparing me of having to decide whether to hug her.
“Daddy and I spend a lot of time in DC, but this is our home.” She gestured to the tiny space as if it were a mansion’s parlor. Three old couches ringed the room and dozens of books were scattered around the floor. “Come on.” She dragged me further inside. “I convinced everyone to take a walk, so it’s all ours for now.”
The tour of the house took maybe three minutes. There was a kitchen, four bedrooms, and that was pretty much it. Three of the bedrooms had bunks. None of the rooms were as big as my bathroom in our Manhattan apartment.
The tour stopped in a tiny bedroom. “This is my room.” Naomi pointed to a desk in the corner. There were three holographic screens and a precept-syncing station. It was like mine, only an older model. “This is where I do my work, and where I talk to you. Notice anything different compared to the rest of the house?”
“You live in the twenty-first century?”
“Exactly!” she replied. “Daddy noticed early on that I liked technology, so even though he gives away most of his money, he has always gotten me the best and the newest stuff, as long as it pushed me to be better. You gotta follow your calling,” she said, copying the low voice of her father.
She made me smile, a real smile. Something about her forced the rest of the world to disappear behind me. The sound of a door opening interrupted us, but she stepped closer to me. “Let’s go meet my family,” she whispered.
I put my hand on her cheek and kissed her. Just another peck, but nothing about a sync, no matter how good, could compare to real touch.
She smiled at me. “I was kind of hoping you’d do that.”
She led me into the living room with the three couches. I knew she had a big family, but seeing them standing there was surprising all the same. Her dad was beside her four younger brothers and her older sister.
“Welcome to our home,” her father said. “I’m not sure if you remember, but I’m Moses. We met before.” He held out his giant hand, which swallowed mine in a firm shake.
“Of course. It is good to see you again.” Did he really think I could forget him?
“This is Rachel.” He stepped back and she stepped forward. She was taller than Naomi, almost as tall as Moses.
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