After they had driven another fifteen or twenty minutes west, Will knew there was absolutely nothing but abandoned countryside here. The farms a hundred miles west of Chicago had been turned into waste-disposal sites, stretching out for thousands of acres of flat, dry country with hard soil capable of growing very little if anything on it. On a highway that was crumbling from neglect, no longer used in lieu of the federal byways occupied by Autovehs, they drove for an hour, the surrounding land as black as the cloudy night above them. They didn’t talk much since Will didn’t want to hear another blast of preaching. He was tired and wondered what Hutchence was going to show him.
The glowing lights on the immediate horizon seemed to appear all at once, as if someone had turned on a switch that lit ten thousand bulbs in the ground, all spaced out several feet from the others in straight lines. Will let out a curse in shock and amazement.
“What is this?” he asked, feeling as if he had suddenly stepped onto the set of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001.
They soon began passing lights on each side of the highway, warm and golden and covering everywhere he could see. Like strands of Christmas lights decorating the cold countryside. An endless land of illuminated speckles. For a moment Will wondered if they slightly trembled in place.
I feel like I’m in a dream.
“Amazing, isn’t it?” Hutchence asked. “It’s not something you can see during the day. Or on our wonderful mapview on the network where we can pinpoint anything we want in the world.”
“What are these lights?”
Hutchence didn’t answer but continued to drive, the occasional potholes jolting them in their seats. No other headlights could be seen either coming toward them or driving behind them. The brilliance painted the fields as far as Will could see facing the north or the south.
“Play ‘Dollars and Cents,’ ” the driver said, filling the car with a tapping drumbeat and a hushed, warped guitar with haunting strings just before a screeching, high-pitched voice began to sing.
“Are you trying—”
“Sh,” Hutchence said and told Will simply to listen.
Will had a hard time making out the lyrics and making sense of the song being played. It certainly wasn’t uplifting or hopeful as it circled downward in despair.
The glimmering they were smothered in now seemed to set the landscape ablaze in every direction.
“It’s spectacular, right?” Hutchence said above the music. “Seen for the first time, it’s miraculous. But change the context—like set it to a different song, something more ominous like this—and it suddenly looks different, right?”
A mile passed, then another, and the lights still remained. Everywhere.
As the song faded away, Hutchence slowed the car down on the side of the road and turned it off. Then he got out, leaving Will for a moment until he did the same.
The shimmering dots began about fifty feet away from the edge of the road. Outside in the cold night air, they appeared even more crisp and vibrant. Will scanned the exact lines that resembled grapevines running along the side of the hills in Northern California. Hutchence stepped up beside him, his face lit bright enough to see bumps underneath his beard.
“These are the SYNAPSYSes that belong to everybody, including you and me. Look at them. Each light represents more than a thousand of them. So what you’re seeing is perhaps a whole country’s worth of SYNAPSYS data right here. In this wonderful little state of nowhere—glorious Illinois.”
Will felt a wave of cold even though he was nice and warm underneath his coat. “Are you serious? I’ve never heard anything about this.”
“Of course you haven’t.”
“But you could see these lights from Mars,” Will said with an incredulous sigh. “How can these be hidden?”
“It’s the first time you’ve ever driven out here, right? These highways are no longer used. Autovehs transport people working in the garbage dumps out here on their own highways. The supertrains now carry everything the truckers used to transport.”
“But surely people have seen this and wondered—”
“Of course. Officially, they are a new type of solar power. They supposedly absorb the sun all day—even on the cloudy and rainy days—so they remain lit at night. People who have questioned and probed further…They’ve been quieted. A handful have even disappeared. It’s amazing how many people have disappeared over the course of the last decade, and nobody is paying attention.”
Will took a breath and ran his hand through his thick hair.
“Now you see why Illinois was able to suddenly stop being bankrupt and has become so financially viable. California collapsed, so the country needed a new Silicon Valley. With Incen Tower in Chicago, it makes sense these are here since the two are connected.”
All these things Hutchence had been talking about…
“Look,” Will said as he turned to the stranger who was enveloped in this warm glow surrounding them. “I don’t want to be rude, but I don’t get it. All these things you keep talking about. You keep telling me and showing me things, but I don’t know why. It’s like I’m waiting for a sales pitch that’s never going to come.”
Hutchence turned to him, nodding to say he understood Will’s confusion.
“On March 29 of this year, a month from now, this area will be wiped out by God. His wrath and righteousness will come down hard on Chicago and its neighboring towns. All of this will be gone.”
The tiny, illuminated stars all represented millions of lives, surrounding them, appearing to want to swallow the two men whole.
“God told the prophet Zephaniah, ‘I have wiped out many nations, devastating their fortress walls and towers. Their streets are now deserted; their cities lie in silent ruin. There are no survivors—none at all. I thought, “Surely they will have reverence for me now! Surely they will listen to my warnings. Then I won’t need to strike again, destroying their homes.” But no, they get up early to continue their evil deeds….Soon I will stand and accuse these evil nations. For I have decided to gather the kingdoms of the earth and pour out my fiercest anger and fury on them. All the earth will be devoured by the fire of my jealousy.’ ”
Everything inside Will wanted to simply accept that the man in front of him was a bona fide lunatic, but he couldn’t. He wouldn’t.
The words made sense to him.
Maybe I’m fed up and tired of this world. And tired of being fed up.
“What are you planning?”
“Will, listen to me. I was sent not only to deliver this message of God’s coming wrath to the people of Chicago, but I was also meant to tell certain people. Like you.”
“So God told you— He said, ‘Go find Will Stewart’? Is it because of who my father is?”
“I understand your skepticism, your urge to consider this irrational and ridiculous.”
“I didn’t say that,” Will said.
“I can see it on your face. In your eyes.”
“Yeah, well, I’d be a lot more skeptical if I wasn’t standing in the middle of a gazillion sleeping fireflies.”
“God told Abraham about His plans for wiping out the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. And after Abraham pleaded for mercy, bargaining with his own creator for the lives of the godless heathens in the cities, God told him He would spare His wrath if only ten righteous were found. But there weren’t even that many in those cities.”
“This is a Sodom and Gomorrah thing, then?” Will asked.
“God’s judgment is the same in the Old Testament as it is in the New Testament. The difference is Jesus. I’m no Abraham, and I didn’t think of bargaining with God. I was terrified and I’m still terrified. Like so many of the people God has called to do His work, I’m messed-up and broken and trying to do the right thing.”
The wind picked up as if spurred into activity by their conversation.
>
“So what does this place have to do with all that?”
“This is why I showed up the day you closed the door on your former life,” Hutchence said, his grin showing through his dark whiskers.
“My ‘former’ life?”
“Yes. The one before you heard the call of God in your life, urging you on to something bigger and better. To something far bolder than simply and quietly selling and giving away Christian books and Bibles.”
“What is it I’m supposed to do, then?”
“Warn the world of God’s judgment. And deliver a message of the hope of Christ.”
“And how are we going to do that?” Will asked.
Hutchence pointed all around them to the glowing lights.
All these lights…“So you want to—”
“I don’t want to,” Hutchence said. “I will do this. There’s a message that needs to be communicated clearly and precisely to every single person represented here.”
“To people’s SYNAPSYSes? How are you going to do that?”
Hutchence laughed, shaking his head, staring up at the sky and then back down at Will.
“That is why I need your help. Why you’re the only one who can help me, Will Stewart Heyford.”
8.
Late at night in the playroom/entertainment room in their basement, Will started to watch the movie Hutchence had told him to check out. It was an odd suggestion, but everything about the man had been odd. Or perhaps not odd. That felt like too simple a word, too safe. There was something dangerous about this man since he was talking about God and demons and an apocalypse on the horizon, all having to do with Will’s father.
March 29 was only a month away.
Will all of this be gone?
Naturally he didn’t tell Amy or anybody else about this prophet and fortune-teller he’d met. It would have been easy to simply write off Hutchence as another crazy political junkie. Someone who spent the entire day chasing conspiracy theories. Yet he was a fellow believer, a brother. Plus, he somehow had discovered that Jackson Heyford was Will’s father. Very few knew that, not just because of efforts on Will’s part but also because of his father and brothers. It was one thing to be cut off. In Will’s case the knife had not only severed the family cords, but it had also dug deep into his own skin and bones. Hutchence was planning to expose some of his father’s dirty laundry, and Will couldn’t help wanting to be a part of this.
Before leaving, Hutchence had given him an assignment of sorts. “I know how this all sounds coming from someone like me,” Hutchence said. “But do me a favor. Watch or rewatch Tarkovsky’s Stalker. And consider what the stalker tells the writer and the professor when they reach the room.”
He had watched the movie during a college course on foreign films, but all he could remember was something like three hours of trying to stay awake. It probably was a bad idea to start a movie like this at midnight, but Will knew he didn’t have to be at work at seven in the morning as he used to do with the bookstore, arriving a couple of hours before opening time.
Rewatching the film was fascinating, revealing the difference between the twenty-year-old Will and his current self at more than twice that age. First, the artistry of the film felt otherworldly. Everything wasn’t crystal clear as in every modern film, and it obviously wasn’t perfected like the shimmery movies these days. But the long shots and the lack of plot and the long diatribes all made sense in this picture. They also felt somewhat relevant.
The story premise was so simple, involving a “Stalker” taking a writer and a professor into a sealed-off place guarded by armed security called “the Zone.” Supposedly they had to get past all these dangers to reach a room in a building that could grant them their deepest wish. The story line sounded like the outline for an action film, and the 2030 remake had indeed taken so many liberties that its name had been changed to Stalk, because it was basically a scary, shoot-’em-up thriller.
This time he didn’t drift off but found himself mesmerized by this whole other world he watched on the cinema wall in their basement. He had forgotten what happened when the men reached the room. So after they arrived and had endless conversations, Will finally heard what Hutchence wanted him to hear. The bald-headed and quite strange-appearing Stalker talked to both of the men, encouraging them to go inside the room since that’s what he’d been paid by them to help them do. Yet he gave them a warning as well: “I know you will be angry…Anyway, I must say to you…Here we are…standing on the doorstep…It’s the most important moment…in your life; you must know that.”
The Stalker continued to talk. “And, above all,” he said, pausing as he headed to the room. “The most important is…to believe! Okay, and now you can go. Who wants to go first? Maybe you?”
The Stalker looked at the writer, waiting for his response.
EIGHT
Nighthawks
1.
“I believe,” Dowland said with all the conviction and soul he could muster.
The woman across from Dowland—young enough to remember what it was like to be wild and free and accepting in her twenties but old enough now to know better—looked down at the table once again, brushing her brown hair back behind her ear to continue to read the article on the screen. He had dropped in on Lucia Gonzales’s lunch at the dining hall on the 56th floor of the Incen Tower, where she could be found every day around one o’clock. A loner, a studious type behind thin glasses, always reading or analyzing data.
“Yes, I’ve seen reports of some of these things,” she told him. “But what does this have to do with me?”
Dowland looked around the cafeteria as if he were worried someone might be watching him. It was something he never ever did in real life.
“I know you’re connected with these people. With whoever did this.”
The tight lips and searching eyes and fingers twisting a gold band on her finger all revealed the truth. Sometimes Dowland came in and simply put a gun down someone’s throat. Other times, like now, he acted out a part, telling a lie to get more information. He couldn’t care less about this woman, but he knew she could lead him to someone up the food chain.
There’s always a food chain. Always a pecking order. Always that chain of command. Always a pyramid rising to the heavens above.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said. “Are you a cop or something?”
He shook his head and chuckled. “Do I look like a cop? What do you think this is?”
He pointed to the bandage on his earlobe. It was too obvious to miss, yet her choice to ignore it told him she didn’t want to talk.
“What happened?” she asked.
“I was prying into some things, and it turned out someone didn’t like it. They snipped off a chunk of my earlobe. Told me to stop snooping around where I didn’t belong, that the next time it would be one of my eyes.”
She made a grimace looking at his wound. “What sort of things were you prying into?”
“The Reckoner. He reached out to me, but when I tried to find him, he’d disappeared. Along with Regina Daigle.”
“You know Regina?”
Dowland told her he did. “All she said was I could trust you.”
This time it was Lucia who scanned the half-full set of tables in the hall.
“We can’t talk here,” she said.
“That’s what we’re doing right now.”
She gave him a blank stare. “We can’t talk here.”
“Okay, then where?”
She took a matchbook out of her purse and gave it to him. It had two red circles on it.
“When the sun sets,” she said, picking up her plate and other belongings before leaving him alone.
Dowland examined the matches, turning them over to see the name and address.
He had never been to the Art Institute of Chicago.
Between hunting people down for a living and dating mentally unbalanced supermodels, things like hanging out in museums never really fit his agenda. He could experience some culture this afternoon.
Hopefully he wouldn’t have to leave a dead body behind.
2.
The wind froze his face as Dowland waited on the sidewalk by one of the two bronze lions guarding the entrance steps to the Art Institute. Lucia arrived as daylight started to dim, making Michigan Avenue even colder.
“Interesting to see which of the lions you decided to stand beside,” she told him, pausing to look up at the two-ton statue.
“Why’s that?”
“The lion over there on the northern side of the steps was made to look like it’s on the prowl. This one has the attitude of defiance.”
“Yeah, that would be fitting.” He rubbed his face, trying to feel his nose again.
“These have been around since 1894,” Lucia said, still admiring the creation.
“Will you be giving me the guided tour?”
This got her attention. She looked at him with the same apprehension she had in the cafeteria earlier that day, her humorless eyes examining him behind the stylish spectacles.
“We can talk while inside,” Lucia said. “I know the museum has strict regulations about recording and photographing. At least we know we can’t be photographed or recorded.”
You are always seen by someone. But the less she realized that, the better for him.
“I was told to trust you,” she said to him as she began to walk up the long steps toward the towering portico. “It’s hard to trust anyone these days.”
Dowland scanned the impressive limestone blocks of the building, knowing they didn’t make structures like this anymore. The Art Institute was truly a work of art itself. Once inside, Lucia held out her hand at the two pillars that scanned guests for paid tickets and also for any weapons on them. Dowland hadn’t brought the Beretta. Instead, he carried the H-38 synthetic polymer handgun, the sort that went undetected by most of the machinery designed to find it. Like the government, Dowland had very special tools he used for very special assignments.
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