by Roland Smith
He danced a couple of steps.
“Coop and I can wait here for you,” I said.
“Let’s stick together,” Alex said. “We’re getting close to them. Safer if we’re in a group.”
“What do we need in the library?” Coop asked, still tapping, getting happier with each click on the asphalt.
“We need to look up something on their computers.”
I pointed to the coffee shop across the street from the parking lot. “I bet they have free Wi-Fi.”
“I’m sure they do,” Alex said. “But it won’t do us any good without a computer.”
How about we fire up the massive laptop in your pack? I thought.
“I could use a walk,” Coop said, giving us another little tap.
“Even if we had a computer,” Alex continued. “Library computers are safer, more anonymous.”
He started walking. Coop and I followed, but not far enough behind to have a private conversation.
It was cold but clear. The moon was full and bright. Students carrying small backpacks walked the paths with their earbuds in, tapping on their smartphones. None of them glanced up to look at us. Coop was right. No one was paying attention to where they were going or who they were with. They had eyes and ears only for their phones. Coop picked up his pace and we caught up with Alex.
Tap … tap … tap …
“Brings back memories,” Alex said.
“I thought you didn’t like it here,” Coop said.
“I didn’t say that. I said that my parents sent me here because they couldn’t afford to send me to Stanford.”
“Because they spent their money on Larry,” Coop said.
Alex frowned. “That’s right.”
It almost seemed like Coop was trying to get under Alex’s skin, but he didn’t have time to push him any further because we had arrived at the library.
“We can wait out front,” I said.
“Let’s go in,” Coop said, completely missing the point that I needed to talk to him alone.
Tap … tap … tap …
Up the stairs to the library.
Alex hurried through the door and made a beeline for the computer room as if he knew exactly where he was going. I doubted they had a computer room when he was going to school here, or even computers for that matter.
The computer room was about the size of a broom closet. Three computers sat on three tiny desks. No one was there. And why would anyone be there? Everyone carried a laptop, a tablet, a smartphone, or all three with them at all times. No point going into a closet.
Alex sat down and started typing. Within seconds the reservation site for state park campgrounds came on the screen. He clicked a link, scrolled through the screen, shook his head, closed it, then opened the next one.
“I doubt the reservation is going to be under the Pod, or Lawrence Oliver Dane,” I said.
“The site doesn’t list names,” Alex said, still typing. “Ah, here it is!”
He was on the Humboldt Redwoods State Park reservation site.
“That’s where they are?” Coop asked.
“Absolutely. Fifty miles southeast of here, just outside of Eureka, which I’m sure has some kind of ironic significance for Larry.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Word games. Larry loves them. Take the name Cloud’s Mushrooms. He was wild about the irony. Although I thought of that name, not Larry. Eureka means ‘I have found it.’ The phrase was coined by the ancient Greek mathematician Archimedes in a bathtub. It would be just like Larry to have his final destination near a town called Eureka.”
“But how do you know they’re at the park in Humboldt?” Coop asked. “There are a half dozen state parks around here.”
“Because there are fifty-three campsites reserved right next to one another in the dead of winter. Hardly any other people at the other parks.” Alex pointed at the screen. “It’s them. All together at the same spot. Some of them must have taken different routes across the states. That’s why Larry was slowing down the group we were following. He wanted them to arrive at roughly the same time. I think their final destination has to be in this vicinity.”
“But you said his final destination would be somewhere more populated,” I said.
Alex shrugged. “The sudden radio silence convinced me that Larry’s old stomping ground was the place.” He slumped in his chair. “I need to tell you boys something.”
Coop asked.
Alex gave him a slight grin. “I’ll admit that I’ve left some things out, but it wasn’t to deceive you. One of them is between Kate and me, and has nothing to do with you. I didn’t have time to tell her in New York or Portland. But now that we’re so close to catching up with them, I should tell someone. In case I don’t get a chance later. In case something happens to me.” He let out a resigned breath. “I’m Kate’s great-uncle … and her grandfather.”
Apparently I was a little slow in the genealogy department because I didn’t understand what he was saying. Coop got it right away.
“Larry’s son married your daughter.”
“The Deep’s version of marriage, yes.”
“You mean your daughter married her first cousin?” I asked.
Alex nodded. “Not the normal thing to do, but in a closed society with a limited population it isn’t uncommon. My wife died a few years after we went into the Deep. Lung cancer. We had a girl named Rebecca. She and Larry’s son, Tom, grew up together. They were inseparable. No one was surprised when they committed to each other.”
Committed must have been the Deep’s version of marriage.
“So what really happened to them?” Coop asked.
“Rebecca and Tom were both Shadows. A few weeks after they had Kate they decided that they didn’t want to raise her in the Deep. They came to Larry and me and said they wanted out. Of course, no one gets out of the Deep. We told them no. They took our refusal pretty well — too well, because their intention was to leave regardless of what we said. Three days after we met, they left. Larry took two Guards and went after them.
“I caught up with Larry and the Guards a couple of hours after they got above. Larry was in a rage. He could not believe that his son would leave the Pod. He blamed Rebecca, and to a lesser extent me, saying that if I had raised her better Tom would not have been poisoned against him. Rebecca had never been a big fan of Larry. She had told me many times that she thought we should leave the Deep and expose the Pod, which I’m sure Larry was aware of. Rebecca was a lot like Kate. She wasn’t good at keeping her opinions to herself. It was well known in the Pod that she wasn’t happy living in the Deep. These bad feelings only intensified after Kate was born.
“Anyway, the Guards cornered them in the alley. Larry demanded that they come back with him. They, of course, refused …”
Tears formed in Alex’s eyes. He wiped them away.
“The alley was dark that night. There was a total lunar eclipse. A blood moon. Larry took a gun from one of the Guards. I tried to stop him, but he shot me in the leg, then tried to finish me off with a head shot.” He parted his gray hair and showed a scar. “The second shot grazed my skull and knocked me out. I don’t know what happened after that. The next thing I knew was that the moon was back and Terry Trueman was tending to my wounds. He got me to a private doctor. You know the rest.”
“We don’t know the rest,” Coop said. “Why did you wait so long to contact Kate?”
“Because as soon as I recovered, I got out of town. The newspapers didn’t mention me being found with Tom and Rebecca. Larry was looking for me, and it wasn’t to invite me back into the Deep.”
“The articles didn’t mention finding a baby either,” I said.
“I know. But that didn’t mean that Larry had taken her back into the Deep. The only way for me to find out was to return to the Pod, which would have been a death sentence. The Originals are loyal to Larry.”
“Even if they learned he murdered his son and daughter-in-law?
”
“Probably. Larry has a lot of power over them.”
“What about the Guards?” Coop asked. “They witnessed the murders.”
Alex nodded. “I’m sure he swore them to secrecy. I’m also sure that he eventually murdered both of them. When I finally hacked into the Deep’s cameras, I never saw them again.”
I was confused. “Are you saying that the Originals didn’t know what happened in the alley that night?”
“I doubt it. I don’t know what Larry told them. For all I know, he pinned Rebecca and Tom’s murder on me.”
“What did he say about Kate?” Coop asked.
“Probably that her parents left her behind in the Deep because they knew their escape plan was so dangerous. That would tie in perfectly with the ridiculous cover story about Tom and Rebecca getting lost on their way above. As Shadows, they would have never gotten lost, but spreading that rumor would have had its advantages. If a trained Shadow got lost and died Beneath, there was no hope of a regular Pod member escaping. That’s how we controlled people. The mush room being the best example.”
“There’s no mush room?” I asked.
Alex shook his head. “No. People who caused problems were quietly killed, dumped into the underground river, and washed out to sea.”
I remembered the bullets in my pocket. “Did you ever kill anyone in the Deep?”
“I did not. That was Larry and the Guards’ deal. But I’m just as guilty, because I never asked about those who disappeared. None of us did.”
I hadn’t spent much time thinking about what it must have been like for Kate and the others living in the Deep with Lod and the Originals deciding what people could read, what they could say, where they could go, who would live, and who would die.
Coop broke the silence. “Where did you go?”
“Tallahassee, Florida.”
“Why?”
“No particular reason. It was just a place to go. A place to get away. I established a new identity there. I got a job waiting tables. Good tips. Cash. No trail. In my spare time, I hacked into a few university computer systems and came up with fake transcripts. I couldn’t use my own credentials. I enrolled at the University of Florida and got my master’s in library science. After living in the Deep so long, I wasn’t very good at being social. Waiting tables almost drove me insane. I wanted to get a quiet job, and I figured working as a research librarian would keep my interaction with people to a minimum.”
“Wasn’t it risky coming back to New York?”
“It was a risk, but when I came back I had no intention of staying. My idea of the perfect research librarian job was somewhere in the Midwest. Chicago, or maybe even Kansas City. I came back to New York to check on Kate. To see if she was still alive. There wasn’t much hope, but I had to give it a shot — I owed Rebecca that at least. I couldn’t go back into the Deep, but I knew some of the places Larry and the other Originals visited when they went above. I staked them out, disguised as a homeless person. I kept waiting for the one or two Originals I might be able to approach without them freaking out or telling Larry I was back in town. They never showed. I was about to give up and head west when I saw Kate, or at least a little girl who I thought might be her.
“It was late at night. I was watching an apartment building where we had a couple of people who helped us above from time to time. First the Shadows came down the street, then a couple of Guards. I knew Larry would be next. And he was, but he wasn’t alone. A little girl was with him, or near him. She was fifteen feet ahead, dressed in black, moving like a wraith down the empty street. She was the right age, and I thought she looked a little like Rebecca when she was that age. When they reached the apartment building, Larry gave her a pat on the shoulder and had her sit down on the stoop. It was all I could do not to run across the street and take her in my arms. Maybe even take her away. But there was a lot of security lurking around. I wouldn’t have gotten half a block. And then there was Kate. She sat on that stoop scanning everything in sight, including me. I was slumped against a wall in filthy clothes with a bottle of cheap wine in my lap, acting like I had passed out. Kate was well on her way to becoming a Shadow. If I’d grabbed her, even at that age, she might have gouged my eyes out. Ten minutes later Larry stepped out of the apartment building. He never spent much time above, and the group floated back down the dark street, disappearing as if they had never been there.
“The next day I went to the New York Public Library and asked if they had any volunteer positions. I made myself indispensable. Eventually they hired me. I set up shop in one of the subbasements and started watching the Pod, but mostly I watched Kate.”
Alex got to his feet, bones creaking as he stretched.
“So what do you think Larry is up to?” I asked. “Why is he stopping here?”
“I’ve been thinking about that. I have a pretty good idea of why he’s here.” He looked at his watch. “I’ll tell you about it as soon as I get back from the restroom. Wait here.”
And with that, he hurried out of the computer room.
Coop said. “I might have misjudged him.”
“You were right about him holding things back.”
“But he filled in the gaps.”
“Not entirely.”
I took out the satellite phone, the six bullets, the box with the flash drive, and my digital recorder.
“Backpack?”
“Yeah, except for the recorder.”
“I assume there’s a pistol for those bullets.”
“I left it in the pack. He’s out of ammo.”
“And he had a cell phone all along?”
“It’s not a cell phone. It works off satellite signals. Doesn’t need a cell tower. He also had an industrial-grade laptop with a built-in DVD drive.”
“So he made us buy the DVD thing so we wouldn’t know about his computer.”
“That’s what I figure. The laptop is huge. That’s why his pack is so heavy.”
“So we didn’t have to come to the library.”
“No. Although there’s a possibility he thinks the Pod has somehow hacked into his computer and he’s afraid to use it. But that doesn’t explain making a special stop to get a DVD player when he had one in his pack. You don’t need to turn on the Internet to play a DVD. Your computer can’t be hacked unless it’s connected to a network.”
“How’d you learn this stuff?”
“You’re the only person on earth who doesn’t know this stuff, Coop.”
He smiled, picked up the little aluminum box, and opened it.
“What kind of flash drive is this? Looks fancy.”
“I don’t know. The question is, what kind of information does Alex have on it? It was in a pocket all by itself in that box.”
Coop looked at the computer. “Could we —”
“Maybe,” I said. “That depends on how long Alex will be gone.”
Coop went to the door and looked out. “I don’t see him. Library’s empty. I’ll let you know when he’s coming.”
He tossed the flash drive to me. I almost stuck it into the USB port of the computer Alex had been using, but thought better of it. All we needed was for him to walk in and see his data splashed all over the screen. I chose the third computer down instead. I looked over at the door. Coop gave me a thumbs-up sign.
“Let me know as soon as you see him. I’ll need time to yank the drive and blank the screen.”
“Will do.”
I put the flash drive into the slot. The screen went immediately dark. I waited for something to happen. Nothing. I was staring at a black hole.
“Well?” Coop asked.
“Hang on. Keep looking for Alex.”
I checked the power cord, thinking maybe I had kicked it loose when I sat down. It was plugged in and the surge protector light was on. I hit the restart button on the computer. Nothing happened. I unplugged the computer, plugged it into another socket, and hit the restart button again. Nothing.
I looked o
ver at Coop.
“Coast is clear. They’re starting to turn lights off. I think the library is about to close.”
“Keep watching,” I said.
I pulled out the flash drive and repeated every combination. Nothing worked. The computer was as dead as a doornail.
“They’re definitely closing up, Pat. No sign of Alex. He’s been gone a long time.”
I went over to the other computer and put the flash drive into the slot.
The computer went dead.
“A security guy is coming this way,” Coop said. “But I don’t see Alex. I wonder what’s keeping him.”
I pulled out the flash drive, scooped up the bullets, grabbed the phone, the recorder, and jammed everything into my pockets.
“Hey, guys,” the guard said. “We closed up ten minutes ago. The doors are locked. I’ll have to let you out.”
“Sorry,” Coop said. “Guess we lost track of time.”
The guard gave him an eager, forgiving smile. “No problem. It happens.”
“We’re with our grandfather. He said he had to find a restroom.”
“Dressed in gray?”
“That’s the guy.”
“He left twenty minutes ago. Seemed to be in a hurry.”
“He gets forgetful sometimes.” Coop smiled like this was no big deal. But of course it was a huge deal. Alex had apparently ditched us.
The guard unlocked the front door and we stepped outside.
Coop stopped on the top of the steps. “What did that flash thing do?”
“I don’t think it’s a flash drive. Forget it! What about Alex?”
“Tell me about the —” Coop persisted.
“It killed the computers.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means that as soon as I inserted it, the computers went blank. Gone. Poof! Dead.”
“Why?”
“How do I know? I’m not a computer expert.”
“But Alex is. At least that’s what he studied in school before he became a librarian. He’s probably going to want that flash thing back.”
“Yeah, and his ammo. We need to catch up with him.”
I hurried down the stairs, thinking Coop was right behind me. I should have known better. I turned to check and saw he was in the exact same spot, looking out onto the campus as if he didn’t have a care in the world.