by John Purcell
Chapter 13
10.23.2173.9:29PM
I booted up at 5:30 AM and sat up, reassured to find the Three sleeping soundly in their beds. Careful not to wake them, I arose and headed for the South Lawn.
Droogie and Schmoogie were sound asleep, too, heads tucked under their wings. The Three had done well rustling up food: the gryphons were surrounded by breadfruit husks and bits of shay.
I had neglected to ask Geff where he lived, so I jogged across the Mall toward the Lincoln Memorial, hoping to meet someone there who could tell where to find him. As I approached the monument, though, I spied Geff himself at the foot of the steps, slumped in his wheelchair. To my surprise, he was all alone.
When I reached him, his eyes were closed. It took me a moment to figure out that he was actually inside, meeting with Cassius. Not wishing to disturb him, I waited.
A couple of minutes later, Daniel emerged from the Memorial chamber and started down the steps. As he reached the foot of the staircase, Geff opened his eyes. He stared at me for a moment. “Funny, we were just talking about you. You weren’t in Baltimore very long.”
“It seemed long to us. We’d like to see Cassius today, if at all possible.”
Daniel took his place, behind Geff. “He wants to see you, too. Can the four of you be here at 8 AM?”
This didn’t seem right. I said, “I feel like we keep cutting in line.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“But I thought all men were created equal.”
“Yeah, sure. But you underestimate your own importance.”
“Does Cassius ever let other people cut in line?”
Geff sounded impatient. “No, that’s the whole point! You’re the exception to the rule!”
I still didn’t like it.
I said, “We’ll be here at 8 AM.”
The time was 5:47 AM. I couldn’t see any reason to hurry back to the White House, so I wandered east, across the Mall, with no destination in mind. Monday morning in DC didn’t seem any different than Sunday morning. The whole world was asleep.
As I passed the Smithsonian Castle, I considered dropping in on King Wen, but I wasn’t sure I wanted my fortune read again. Hexagram 13 had been astonishingly accurate, but what good had it done me? And it wasn’t my real fortune, anyway. I thought back on Hexagram 9, the one that had predicted my past.
It rained and it cleared.
A carriage picks you up.
Danger for a woman.
After the full moon,
Misfortune for a gentleman.
The realization brought me to a sudden halt: Hexagram 9 had predicted the future. In hindsight, the lines clearly referred to yesterday’s events. We had waited out the thunderstorm on the John Phillip Souza Bridge. When the skies had cleared, Humphrey arrived to take us to Baltimore. And the woman in danger was obviously Luma.
The last two lines weren’t so obvious. Were they a reference to my own capture and near-execution? Or even to the fact that we had failed to find Dogan’s father? Or did after the full moon mean that misfortune for a gentleman was still off in the future?
As I drifted further east, toward the Capitol Building, Thomas crossed my mind again. I tried to imagine what it would be like to never sleep. My life had always been structured by school and work and 8 hours of shutdown. My free time, such as it was, had been spent watching TV. Now, I was experiencing what Thomas had spoken of. With nothing specific to do, I felt a sense of pointlessness creeping up, and there was no television to distract me.
I was approaching the eastern edge of the Mall. In my father’s memory, the Capitol Building was a magnificent marble edifice with a majestic dome and sweeping rows of columns. Studying it for the first time, I discovered that the memory didn’t quite match. All the columns along the façade, and the dome itself, were oddly puffy and featureless, as though wrapped in bandages.
At 5X, I got a closer look at these wrappings. It must have taken days on end and thousands of rolls, but the Potomac Clan had swaddled the Capitol Building in toilet paper. Fixed to the edge of the roof was a simple message written in gigantic letters. It read: NO LEADERS. At 10X, I could see that these letters had been fashioned out of cardboard tubes, empty toilet paper rolls joined end-to-end and side-to-side.
I turned around and headed west, walking with a sense of purpose now. It was 6:51 AM, about the time the Three would normally get up for school. Assuming they hadn’t stayed up all night, they were probably beginning to stir.
When I got back to the South Lawn, Bim was sitting with Droogie and Schmoogie. The gryphons were awake now, as well, licking salt from the stewpot Bim had filled.
As I approached, Bim looked up. “What time is Cassius expecting us?”
I sat down facing him. “8 AM. He’s putting us first.”
Bim nodded. “He knows he owes us an explanation.”
“He sent us there to kill Queen Scarlett, didn’t he?”
“So it seems.”
“But why?”
Bim shrugged. “There’s no denying the world’s better off.”
“No, I mean why now? She’s been causing misery for decades.”
“That’s fairly obvious.”
“It is?”
“Yes, Teo. It’s because of you.”
That didn’t make much sense. “But I didn’t kill her. I couldn’t do it. I almost got my head chopped off.”
“Those were the choices you made. The fact remains she was no match for you. You could have killed her a dozen times if you’d wanted to.”
“What are you trying to say?”
“You were designed by Joseph Clay, Teo. You can do things no one else can do, not even MediTrons. You’re stronger and faster and smarter than anyone else on earth.”
“Bim, please. Enough. All I’ve done is make mistakes.”
“You don’t seem to realize how much potential you have.”
This had a familiar ring.
I said, “Wait a minute. Did Cassius tell you that?”
Bim paused, looking embarrassed. “Either way, it’s true.”
I hadn’t meant to put him on the spot.
I changed the subject. “Did you get that salt at the cafeteria?”
He nodded.
“Is that where Luma and Dogan are?”
“Yes. We found a tub of blue pudding. Dogan’s gorging himself on it.”
“What did you guys do last night, after I shut down?”
“We found the cooks and told them about the gryphons. They asked how they’d gotten here and Dogan almost spilled the beans, but Luma stopped him. She told them the gryphons had escaped on their own.”
“And they believed her?”
“More or less.”
“Do Luma and Dogan know Cassius set us up?”
Bim nodded. “They knew it before we left Washington.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Cassius came right out and said it.”
“Said what?”
“That they should be prepared to kill Queen Scarlett in order to save Dogan’s father. He swore them to secrecy, of course, but they talked about it last night.”
This explained why they were so out of sorts after the meeting.
I said, “Given what you know of Cassius, aren’t you surprised he would say such a thing?”
“Not necessarily.”
“But you agree Cassius is a man of peace.”
Bim shrugged. “Under normal circumstances. When it comes to Queen Scarlett, all bets are off.”
“Do you think Cassius knows she’s dead?”
“Well, the fact we returned is a pretty good indication.”
“But how did he even know that?”
“He probably watched us fly home.”
“Watched us? How?”
“He watches drone transmissions whenever he wishes. He sees whatever they see. He can even take control.”
“Really?”
“That’s how he planted all the trees and underbrush and grass. He would land GR drones and load them up with seeds and send them back into the sky.”
I found this surprising. “The GR didn’t stop him?”
“They never even knew it was happening. It’s not unusual to lose contact with a drone for a few minutes, and they have thousands of them. Little glitches are overlooked or ignored.”
“Cassius engineered all the blue vegetation, correct?”
“Right.”
“So he must know a great deal about horticulture.”
“Don’t forget you’re talking about the original Cassius. The planting began right after the Great Starvation.”
Just then, Luma and Dogan emerged from the East Room doorway and started toward us, down the stairs. Dogan was holding his stomach, looking a little green. We got up and went to meet them.
As we approached, Luma said, “Hey, Teo. Where’d you run off to?”
“I went looking for Geff.”
“How come?”
“To set up a meeting with Cassius.”
She made a sour face. “Did you find him?”
“Yes.”
“And…?”
“Cassius is expecting us at 8 AM.”
“What time is it now?”
“7:17. We should get going soon.”
She held up her hand. “Not so fast! What if I don’t want to see him?”
Dogan spoke up. “Yeah, what if I think he’s a total jerk?”
I said, “I can’t blame you for feeling that way, but I don’t think you understand who Cassius is.”
Luma gave me a look. “Who he is? Nobody knows who he is!”
“I mean you don’t understand what he’s done.”
She crossed her arms. “Okay, then. What?”
“For the past 100 years, he’s been providing everyone Outside with food and water and medicine, without asking anything in return.”
Luma frowned. “100 years? Then he has to be more than one person. That’s even weirder.”
“The point is, we should at least give him a chance to explain himself.”
Dogan said, “Why? So he can lie in our faces again?”
“We don’t know for a fact that he lied, and he’s still our best hope of finding your father.”
As Dogan was trying to absorb this, Luma said, “All right, fine, I’ll go! But on one condition: we all see Cassius together. No more of this one-at-a-time, swear-not-to-tell nonsense! Okay?”
We were all in agreement on that.
There was just enough time for me to run back into the White House and wake up Moto, who was still asleep at the foot of my bed. I hurried into the Green Room and got out her remote, reminding myself that she’d been shut down in the heat of battle.
As soon as I hit the power button, she leapt to her feet and crouched, preparing to spring. Then she looked about the room in confusion.
I said, “It’s okay, Moto. We’re back in DC. Queen Scarlett is dead.”
She relaxed somewhat, coming out of her crouch, but she checked the room a second time, just to be sure. Then she jumped down from the bed and trotted over to me. When I knelt down to greet her, she licked my face.
I said, “Come on, Moto, it’s back to the Lincoln Memorial.”