“It’s because of you my Johnny is dead,” the woman said, then spat in Elizabeth’s face.
“It wasn’t me,” Elizabeth said.
Before Elizabeth could explain, the woman kicked Elizabeth in the groin. Elizabeth had been hit there before, but as a woman. Now she understood why men were so vulnerable to a blow between their legs. The pain was paralyzing. Her knees buckled, but hands kept her from falling. She had an urge to put her hands between her legs, as if touch could lessen the pain, but with her hands tied she could only squirm and moan, each motion and sound sending cackles of glee through the mob.
“Kick him again, Lucy,” a man shouted.
Lucy was taking aim when a guard stepped between them, proving that there were limits to the crowd’s abuse. Pain still wracked Elizabeth’s body, broadcasting from her groin through her midsection. She couldn’t walk without support. Slowly the pain subsided and she could stand erect again. Ahead, she could see a metal platform built on the stern of the ship. Mounted on the back of the platform was a large cross. A podium sat in the middle. In front of the platform were chairs and benches arranged in a semicircle. The Crazies had been using this part of the Nimitz for a church. Then Prophet sprang to the platform and shouted to the crowd.
“Bring the heretics forward!”
Robbed of her revenge, Lucy stepped up to Elizabeth, putting her lips close to her ear.
“Prophet promised to roast you slowly,” Lucy said. “He promised me you would die screaming. We’re going to start at the bottom and burn your toes off and then your feet. We’re going to blacken every bit of skin on your body, and I’m going to personally roast these,” she said, jamming her hand into Elizabeth’s groin.
The squeeze revived the pain, and Elizabeth nearly collapsed. Lucy’s obscene hold elicited chuckles from the crowd.
“We’re bringing you out, Elizabeth,” Shamita said.
“No,” Elizabeth said, at the same time wishing that the pain would end.
“I’m dissolving the integration,” Shamita said.
“I want to help,” Elizabeth protested.
Pushed through the crowd, she found herself next to Jett at the base of the platform. She and the others were pushed to their knees. Roberto was next to Compton, and the wounded sailor was on the far end, the blood on his shirt now crusted. Prophet strutted on the platform, arms in the air like a politician on election night. His face had the rugged look of a boxer who has stopped too many punches with his face. His hair formed a gray fringe around a shiny scalp. He looked fifty, but moved and talked with the energy of a younger man.
“Elizabeth, can you hear me?” Shamita said in Elizabeth’s head.
“Yes,” Elizabeth said.
Now Prophet came to the edge of the platform and thrust out his hand, offering it to Compton. Taking his hand, Compton stepped up on the stage. Standing next to Prophet, she beamed at him as if he were a god.
“She came to us from the outside world to do us harm,” Prophet said, touching the gun in Compton’s holster. “Like Eve in the Garden of Eden, she came to destroy the paradise God has given mankind, to ruin God’s plan for his chosen people. But we won’t disobey God again. We won’t listen to the serpent. We won’t turn our back on the God who has given us eternal life again!”
The crowd erupted in cheers and shouts of affirmation. When they quieted, Elizabeth heard Shamita again.
“Elizabeth, are you still in the dream?”
“Yes. I’m on a different ship. There’s a crowd of people,” Elizabeth said. A slap on the head and a hissed, “Shut up,” made her cringe.
“Something has gone wrong,” Shamita said. “We’ve dissolved the integration. You should be back with us.”
With mounting horror Elizabeth realized that she and Dawson were now permanently linked. They would live out their lives fused as one person until death parted them.
“This one was saved because she heard the voice of God calling to her and she answered,” Prophet shouted.
Prophet’s arm was around Compton, who was giddy. Her face was as bright as her silver suit.
“But these would not listen to God’s Prophet,” Prophet shouted from his pulpit, indicating the kneeling captives. “These turned their back on God and the gift of his salvation.”
“Elizabeth, I don’t know what to do,” Shamita said. “I can’t get you back.”
“God punishes those who turn their back on him with everlasting fire. Can we do any less?”
“No!” came the shouts of the crowd.
“Wanda is separate and awake,” Shamita continued, “but we can’t wake Anita. The only step left is to disconnect from you. I don’t think it will make a difference, but we have to try. Once we do, we lose contact.”
Shamita’s voice in her head had been a security blanket for Elizabeth, as had been the knowledge that she could go back to her world at any time. Now she was losing both of those.
“What is God’s punishment for unbelievers?” Prophet roared.
“Burning!” the crowd returned like a Greek Chorus.
“I’m disconnecting you now, Elizabeth.”
“What should we do with these heretics?” Prophet shouted.
“Burn them!” the crowd shouted in reply.
“Elizabeth, I’m afraid,” a child’s voice said.
Elizabeth felt a touch on her arm and looked down. Anita was there, eyes open wide, face white with fear. Gone was the pretty dress with the bunnies on the front, as was the perfectly combed and curled hair. The Anita who was with her now wore overalls and her hair in pigtails, and was missing her two front teeth. This Anita’s face was haggard, her eyes baggy and sunken, her lips trembling.
“Hold me,” Anita begged, leaning against Elizabeth.
Elizabeth struggled with the cord that tied her hands.
“Burn them!” the crowd shouted around her.
GENERATORS
They were close to the generators now. His guide’s behavior had changed. The sailor was more cautious now, never speaking, moving more slowly as they worked their way through the bowels of the Norfolk. Four times Evans and his guide had hidden as Crazies passed. Most of their close calls had been brief; the Crazies had been hurrying to some destination. Once, they had been forced to hide in a storeroom near the mess, among crates of canned fruit, while Crazies milled around. Finally, someone had hurried in, shouting, “There’s going to be a trial!”
The Crazies stampeded from the mess then, and once again Evans and the guide crept through the corridors. Emerging out onto the deck, they were shocked to see the Nimitz directly astern of the Norfolk.
“I’ve never seen such a ship!” the guide whispered.
Evans wavered for a second, enough of the agent left in him to remember his mission—but the Nimitz had never really been his goal. He had come for revenge, and if that meant destroying the Nimitz as well, it couldn’t be helped.
The Crazies were gathered on the stern, lining up single file to cross a bridge built to the Nimitz, so it was easy to slip along the deck, keeping under the gun turrets, and then descend below decks again near the bow.
Finally, his guide led him down to a small compartment where he whispered, “This has got to be the level.”
“The generators?” Evans replied softly.
“It’s through these compartments,” the sailor said, pointing.
They were on the lowest deck of the ship, just past a series of powder magazines, and just outside the first of two boiler rooms. If there weren’t any space-bending tricks on this level, there should be an engine room and two more boiler rooms past that.
“You’ll never make it,” his guide said.
“We made it this far,” Evans told him.
The sailor shook his head.
“I just hope I get to see you die before they get me.”
“Then you better be lucky, because you go first,” Evans said, shoving the sailor into the first boiler room.
Evans hung back, letting
his guide get a small lead—small enough so that he couldn’t sprint away. The sailor paused inside, eyes busy. The room was filled with two massive oil-fired boilers and what looked like miles of pipe. There was an infinite number of places where guards might be hiding. When no crossbow bolts whistled out from dark crevices, the sailor took a deep breath and inched deeper into the compartment. Evans stepped in behind, keeping close. Suddenly there was a loud thump, and his guide flew toward him as if lifted by an invisible hand. Whatever force held him in the air quickly expended, and he fell to the ground, tumbling over and then rolling into a bulkhead. He lay still, his neck broken.
Evans jumped back through the hatch and flattened against the bulkhead. Then, reaching inside himself for his own power, he stoked the furnace that was its source until he felt his full strength. Listening for movement, he waited, keeping his power at full. When he heard footsteps, he leaned around the corner, letting go a wide push. Five people were emerging from hiding. His power knocked them down like tenpins. He jumped in before they could get up, his weapon firing.
His Teflon bullets found three of them, killing two sailors and a woman dressed in hip-huggers and a polyester blouse. One man managed to fire his crossbow, but his aim was spoiled by fear. Evans killed him just before he himself was struck by another invisible blow from the last man—the Special.
The Special hit him hard; his face felt as if it had been struck with a board. Evans rolled with the blow, coming up running, then flattening against a boiler before he could be hit again. Quickly he recharged his own power, then leaned out and pushed, catching the Special as he was sneaking closer. Evans fired and the Special rolled instinctively. Evans’s bullets stitched along behind him. With a wider compartment, the Special might have made it, but in the equipment-packed boiler room he ran out of space. He slammed against a control wheel, Evans’s bullets ripping through his shoulders and back.
Evans waited, listening. Would there have been only five guards? With Crazies out searching for Jett and the others, and the trial underway, they might have spread themselves too thin. If so, it was a mistake he was ready to exploit.
He worked through the next boiler room slowly, unchallenged. An engine room was next. He paused outside, listening. He heard nothing. Time was on the side of any guards hidden inside. Soon someone would find the dead guide, or the guards Evans had killed. Once the alarm went out they would forget their trial and he would be overwhelmed.
He risked a quick glance, snapping his head back from the open hatch and then picturing what he saw. There was nothing but the steam generators. Now he leaned around the corner and studied the open hatch at the other end—no movement. Pulling his head back, he took a deep breath, dropped into a crouch, and stepped in. He moved quickly, ready to shoot at the slightest movement. It took only a few seconds to travel the distance to the bulkhead by the next compartment, but it was high-risk and exhilarating.
Now flat against the bulkhead by the hatch, Evans readied himself for the next move. He took another quick look around the corner, then flattened back. The field generators were there, two dome-shaped tandem machines about six feet high. The boilers had been removed to make room for the generators, but the piping and fittings for the boilers still filled part of the space. He had seen no one.
He planned his next move. The best cover was to his left, behind a row of pipes that ran from where one of the boilers had stood to near the bulkhead, and then turned forty-five degrees, disappearing into the ceiling. There would be a passage between the pipes and the bulkhead. He would begin there, working through the room, sweeping it clear of any guards. With a deep breath, he jumped through the hatch and sprinted left. Two bolts whistled from above. He dove, the bolts passing high. Flat on the ground, he spotted two men on steam pipes near the ceiling. Both men were getting up, moving to new positions. He killed the slowest with a shot between the shoulder blades.
Behind him there was movement; he turned to see a sailor charging with a spear. Evans’s first shot punctured his stomach and the second his chest; he dropped a few feet away, the spear clattering across the deck. The man was still alive, but dying. Evans ignored him, hurrying to cover behind another rack of pipes closer to the generators. If the sailor with the spear had made his move sooner, it would have been a better ambush.
There was at least one more hidden man ready to die to protect the generators. Evans hoped their fanaticism would work to his advantage. If he got close to the generators, they would panic and get reckless. With his superior weapons he would make short work of them.
Evans found the passage between the bulkhead and the pipe racks and worked his way along it. He finally came to a space in the plumbing that led straight to the twin electromagnetic generators. Sitting on square bases bolted to the deck, the generators looked like giant hand grenades mounted lengthwise. Between them sat an enclosed metal box connected with heavy cabling to both generators. Someone had chopped through the cables. Other cables ran from the electromagnetic generators to their power source. These cables had been cut too. Still, the twin generators hummed, generating the force that kept Pot of Gold in existence. Boldly, Evans trotted toward the closest generator.
TRIAL
Cobb shoved Wes from behind at the slightest provocation, making his back sore from shoulder to shoulder. No matter how close he walked to those in front, Cobb found reasons to punch him. Hesitate at a ladder and Thump! in the back. Turn a corner too wide and Thump! again. Slow to keep from running into Monica and Thump! It was petty torture designed to provoke him, so Wes took the abuse stoically.
Travel through the ship was confusing, and Wes soon gave up memorizing their route, counting on Ralph to know the way out. Ralph walked with Gertie, chattering away, telling her about Wes and Elizabeth and Dr. Birnbaum. Gertie listened, amused. Eventually, they emerged from the ship near the biplanes. In the desert behind the Norfolk was an aircraft carrier. It was twice the size of the Norfolk, and judging from the ship’s size and the aircraft on its flight deck, Wes guessed that it was a supercarrier. Then he remembered Dr. Birnbaum saying there were rumors about something happening to the USS Nimitz. Now Wes knew that the Nimitz had been hijacked to this neverland.
A primitive rope bridge had been rigged between the Norfolk and Nimitz, and Wes and the others were dragged to it. Guards crossed first, then Monica and Gertie. Next it was Ralph’s turn. Fascinated by the bridge, Ralph watched how the others crossed. The bridge swayed and bounced, and those crossing matched their rhythm to that of the bridge. When Ralph’s turn came, he started to cross with the same stride he used when walking to the 7-Eleven. After just three steps he was out of rhythm and fell against the side.
“Help him,” Wes pleaded. “He can’t do it with his hands tied.”
Gertie came back, taking one of Ralph’s arms, steadying him.
“Thanks, Gertie. It’s harder than it looks, isn’t it?” Ralph said.
“It is, Ralph,” Gertie said. “Maybe we should hold each other up while we cross?”
“Okee-dokee with me, Gertie,” Ralph said.
Thump! Cobb hit Wes. Stepping up, Wes started across, matching the rhythm of the bridge. Wes was slow, and a gap opened between him and Ralph and Gertie. Cobb kept his distance now, having his own difficulties with the bridge.
As he crossed, Wes saw another set of cables rigged above the bridge to one side. Ahead, on the carrier, he could see that the cables were attached to a pulley system and a winch. Below in the desert he could see two machines with cables leading from them. Ahead was a heartbreaking sight. There were men hung from the deck of the Nimitz, decorating the ship’s perimeter like bizarre Christmas ornaments.
Once they were across, they were held on the flight deck while Gertie ordered a man to run ahead. Wes could see a crowd and a man on a platform at the far end of the carrier. Behind the man was a large cross. The crowd cheered occasionally, and when Gertie’s runner reached the platform the people turned as one and looked down the deck at Wes an
d the others. Then they cheered, sending chills down Wes’s spine. A drum boomed, and the guards fell into a double column, marching in rhythm with the drum. Gertie walked in front of the captives and Cobb behind. They marched past bodies of sailors embedded in the deck to the waiting crowd.
Kicks, blows, and curses were heaped on them as they passed through. All around Wes were angry, tattooed faces, spitting and cursing. A fist caught him on the side of the head and he stumbled and fell. Quickly he curled up to make himself less vulnerable. Wes took a dozen kicks before the abuse stopped. He was hauled to his feet by Cobb and pushed after the others. Bound and abused by the mob, Wes felt like an aristocrat being led to the guillotine.
Monica received the same treatment and took it stoically. Ralph, however, repeated “Hihowyadoin” to everyone he passed; the people stared at the peculiar man, many smiling and responding.
The platform was near now, and Wes could see a man standing center stage, wearing the uniform of a chief petty officer. It was Prophet. A woman in a silver suit stood next to him, her hand resting on a holstered gun. She was wearing a suit like Ralph’s, and Wes recognized her from the sketches Dr. Birnbaum had made of Ralph’s kidnappers.
“This day is rich with the Lord’s blessings,” Prophet said.
Then Prophet’s voice sounded in Wes’s head.
“My name is Prophet. Come forward and be judged.”
As if everyone in the room had heard, the crowd erupted with screams of affirmation. The captives were shoved forward, Gertie clearing a path and Cobb following.
“Well done, Gertie,” Prophet said. “Well done, John.”
Gertie smiled at Prophet’s compliment, and Cobb nodded his head.
Pushed to the base of the platform, Wes could see others kneeling with their hands tied. One was a wounded sailor, another a Hispanic man. There was one man in a silver suit; when he turned, Wes recognized him as the other of Ralph’s kidnappers. The last man was young and wore his brown hair oiled, neatly parted, and combed to the side. He wore a blue shirt with cut-off sleeves, and his eyes widened in recognition when he saw Wes.
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