by John Purcell
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
When I got back to the White House, I found Thomas sitting on the South Lawn again, next to Lollipop,. He was staring at the ground and didn’t seem to notice my approach.
I sat down next to him. “How were your rounds?”
He turned to me, unsurprised by my presence. “Routine. None of the patients have conditions of any complexity.”
“That’s good, isn’t it?”
“For them, yes. A few have broken bones. Everyone else is being treated with Panacillin.”
“I don’t know what that is.”
“It’s a broad spectrum antiviral and antibiotic medication.”
“I’ve never heard of it.”
“It’s unknown in most of the Domes. The GR has tried to keep its existence a secret.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
“But Cassius knows about it.”
“He invented it.”
“Really? And he shared it with the GR?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
Thomas’s tone of voice seemed melancholy again.
I said, “Are you disappointed in Dr. Nightingale’s clinic?”
“Unfortunately, it wouldn’t occupy much of my time.”
“Is that a problem?”
“I don’t know what to do when I’m not serving a purpose. Since I don’t sleep, it’s difficult to fill all that time. And I’m constructed to operate indefinitely. I might function for thousands of years.”
“Humans would envy you. They’re still trying to live forever.”
“They don’t understand what it’s like.”
I was having trouble seeing his point of view. “I’m older than you and I feel like my life is just getting started.”
Thomas’s reply seemed offhanded, as though he were preoccupied with something else. “That’s because you just woke up.”
I found this puzzling. “What do you mean?”
Thomas fell silent. He finally said, “We should discuss the route to Baltimore.”
As I hurried back to the Green Room to fetch the map, I thought back on my conversations with Thomas. I hadn’t mentioned anything about my awakening.
The Three were still in a deep sleep. Humphrey, on the other hand, was out of bed, if not exactly up and about. He was in the Blue Room, lying on the examination table, as Dr. Nightingale scanned his head with one of her medical devices.
I returned to Thomas and spread the map out across the weeds.
As Cassius had said, there were many possible routes to Baltimore. Interstate 95 was very direct, but also very obvious. We settled instead on Route 295, the Baltimore-Washington Parkway. It was an equally direct but much smaller highway to the south, that passed through more rural surroundings. Whether or not this would make any difference was debatable. Once Queen Scarlett spotted us, no amount of cover was likely to help. But at least we wouldn’t be sitting ducks, stranded on a ten-lane superhighway with nowhere to hide.
We were still looking over the map when Humphrey appeared, on his way to retrieve Lollipop. He okayed the route and told us to meet him on the John Phillip Sousa Bridge at 2 PM. I returned Lollipop’s remote to him. He booted her up and took off without another word.
Thomas then surprised me by announcing that he was leaving for Baltimore immediately. At first, I tried to talk him out of it, but he soon convinced me it would be wiser to travel separately.
We went over the rescue plan again.
Thomas would intercept us at the corner of Paca and Lombard, posing as a LobeBot. He would then drag Luma and Dogan into the Bank of America building through the rear entrance, where actual LobeBots returned with their captives. Moto would clamp herself onto Dogan’s ankle, as though she’d helped in his capture.
Once inside, they would have to improvise. The hope was that they’d find Dogan’s father in the human holding pen. Despite the risk, Luma and Dogan would allow themselves to be locked in with him. Thomas and Moto, on the other hand, would do everything possible to avoid being locked in the LobeBot pen, short of giving themselves away.
Meanwhile, Bim and I would find the power line leading to the subbasement. I would make my best guess as to when to chop through the cable, blacking out the building. Thomas and Moto, the only ones still able to see, would free Luma, Dogan, and his father from the holding pen and lead them out of the building. Bim and I would be waiting outside, ready to accompany them to a hiding place.
There was plenty that could go wrong, but it was a good plan anyway.
Thomas and I said our goodbyes and I watched him walk away. This seemed very sudden, somehow, and unsettling.
Now, I was the one with nothing to do. I considered going in search of an ax but it seemed like busy work, and I wanted to be around when the Three woke up. Having no inclination to go inside and make conversation with Dr. Nightingale, I just sat on the South Lawn.
As I waited, the Mall began to show signs of life. Everyone who appeared seemed bound for the White House. I finally figured out that breakfast was being served in the cafeteria.
For a long while, I passed the time reading entries in the New Columbia Encyclopedia. Then my thoughts turned to Hexagram 13, Gathering.
My first so-called fortune had been a prediction of the past, which was hardly impressive, but there had been something uncanny about it, nonetheless. I decided to give the Oracle a second chance. The fact that Gathering had been presented to me by accident shouldn’t make much difference. As far as I could tell, King Wen’s twig-sorting process had generated numbers more-or-less at random.
Like the other hexagrams, Hexagram 13 was terse. The Judgment had little apparent meaning:
A gathering in the field.
Sign of the Sacrifice.
Auspicious to cross the great stream.
Good omen for the gentleman.
The six moving lines, however, gave me more to go on:
1 A gathering at the gate.
No troubles.
2 A gathering at the ancestral temple.
Trouble.
3 Soldiers in the grass, lying in ambush.
Ascend to those high hills.
They shall not rise for three years
4 The city wall is scaled, but not won.
It’s time to attack.
5 The assemblage first wept, then laughed.
The great armies finally clash.
6 A gathering at a ritual in the field.
No grudges.
If the Oracle referred to past, present and future, all at once, there was no reason to believe these lines would happen in order, assuming they happened at all. But the first line was a possible reference to our upcoming rendezvous with Humphrey. Any bridge out of DC would pass through a gateway of some sort, at the rim.
The second line was puzzling because I wasn’t sure exactly what a temple was. Such things didn’t exist in Dome Nine. I looked it up: edifice or sometimes merely an enclosed area dedicated to the worship of a deity and the enshrinement of holy objects connected with such worship. The article went on at length about various temples built in ancient times. Unfortunately, none of this helped me picture what one might look like.
That was as far as I got. I heard Luma call my name and turned to see her ambling toward me, rubbing her eyes. I stood up.
She gave me a sleepy smile. “What time is it?”
“12:18 PM.”
Her eyes widened. “Yikes! Shouldn’t we get going?”
“Pretty soon. Are Bim and Dogan up?”
“Yeah. Dogan’s hungry.”
“I think you guys can still get breakfast in the cafeteria. You’d better eat now. We don’t know where the next meal is coming from.”
Luma took my arm. “Good idea. If you don’t watch out, Dogan will e
at you!”