When the Dust Fell, page 24
The actual and exact translation of Sarah’s seven-word prayer was:
Starting.
Sound.
Picture.
High follow.
Transmit Home.
34
The prayer chains hung from the chapel ceiling like slender stalks of silver reed growing down from the sky. Trin took his usual seat on the aisle just behind the front row. As a boy there had never been a need to force him to pray. He’d looked forward to his time in chapel, in fact. Prayer had been how he’d coped with the ridiculous burdens of the adults in his life, the scientists and teachers, and even his parents.
He had been a curiosity. He understood that. Nevertheless, the constant questioning and tests and endless probing had felt unfair. They had taken valuable time away from the things he loved. It was all justified, the adults had said, because these efforts were entirely for his benefit. Only by understanding his special abilities, they had all claimed with warm eyes and big smiles, could he make the most of them. Even if that were true, it hadn’t seemed worth it.
In chapel, though, Trin had found respite. There he’d been free to think what he wanted, to say to God, the ultimate adult, what he wanted to say. And what he had loved most about God was His absolute silence.
He put his hands in the heavy grips suspended from the ends of the chains and the cold of the metal seeped into the muscles around his fingers and palms. He spread his hands and pulled on the chains, letting them carry as much of his weight as was possible. The stretch across his chest and shoulders pushed a grunt of relief from his throat. He looked up at the ceiling, at the geometric latticework of metal that connected each set of chains to one another and the whole of them to a single vector in the center of the room, like a perfectly proportioned spider web of silver silk. On the other side of the ceiling a vast network of polished metal straps ran throughout the ship between floors and walls and linked each chapel’s vector point to a single gleaming metal spire at the top of the ship, just aft of the pilot’s house. The Reach, it was called. It, and countless others like it throughout the universe, acted as conduit to the cosmic threads of God’s mind.
If he were still talking with God, there’d be a lot he’d have to say and more he’d have to ask. That conversation, one sided as it always was, had ended when he’d seen the damage the Correction had been allowed to do. Did it have God’s approval beforehand? At this point, he’d rather not know. Either answer would be the worst possible thing he could hear.
Still, he loved the chains, the architecture, and the quiet of a chapel. It had become a place where he could figure things out. The thing he had to figure out now was what Wildei had told him about the Code. He had fought her on it, not because he was sure she was wrong, but because he’d needed a fight. Unfortunately, he didn’t always pick the right time, or place, or person, to fight. It was time to fix that. Time to give her argument the attention it deserved.
Trin closed his eyes and let his head fall back. He repositioned his knees on the cushioned floor and let the grips bite into his hands and the chains work the anger out of his body. When he felt the peace take over, he began his work. He replayed in his mind, one by one, every Code Dive he’d had since Sarah went missing. It took most of the night and left him exhausted.
It was worth it.
35
It was the thick of the early morning and night still ruled. There had been some traffic in both directions, though nothing approaching anything comparable to life on the road as she’d remembered. For the last half hour or so, there’d been no cars or trucks at all in either direction. Only their SUV and its powerful bomb in the back seat.
Even under the anxious circumstances of her capture, it had been hard at times for Sarah to keep her eyes open. Those moments cautioned her to keep a watch on the kidnapper. Twice, in fact, she’d had to jab him in the arm when she noticed his eyes close. If she fell asleep it would be bad. If he did, it would be over.
“Time for a break,” she announced.
The kidnapper looked at her suspiciously. “Keep driving.”
“Sorry. I can’t use a bottle. We need to stop.”
“We’re only a few hours out. You can hold it.”
“Look, if I was going to try something stupid, don’t you think I’d have done it by now? Where are we going to go?”
He looked out the window, but she could see his jaw working. He was entertaining the idea.
“Okay,” he said, “here’s how we do this. You pull over, stop the car, keep the lamps on, and give me the fob. Then you two go out in front of the vehicle where I can keep an eye on you. You run into the grass I’ll blow you up. You start running period, I’ll blow you up. Deal?”
“Really? You’re going to watch us pee?”
He shrugged. “It wasn’t my idea to stop.”
Sarah slowed down and steered the big car to the side of the road. She followed the kidnapper’s instructions and she and Margaret walked round to the front of the vehicle, undid their pants, and squatted. Margaret’s eyes were downcast, her face an expression of pure sadness. It wasn’t the best time to start a conversation, but Sarah didn’t know when there’d be another.
“I shouldn’t have left you when I did,” she said. “I should have stayed. None of this would have happened.”
Margaret didn’t answer right away. She sucked her upper lip under her teeth. The wet in her eyes was lit to gold by the yellow of the car’s headlamps. “No,” Margaret finally answered, her voice hoarse and phlegmy. “You had to go. We always knew you would.” Margaret’s tears spilled over. “I’m just so sorry.”
“For this? This isn’t your fault. It’s mine.”
“Not this. Everything.” She wiped her nose and took a deep breath. “I’m your big sister, Sarah. I was supposed to protect you. But it was always the other way around. From the moment you could walk it was the other way around. I never wanted you to know how much I needed you, how much I depended on you. That’s why when you did things I didn’t have the courage to do, like date a certain kind of boy, or dream of being someplace else, I’d shut you out. I’d punish you for it. I had no right, Sarah.”
“It’s okay, Margie.”
“No, it’s not. It’s not okay. Look at us. Look at this…mess.”
“We’re alive. And we’re going to stay that way. You have to believe me.”
“I’m scared, Sarah. And so tired of being scared.”
“We’re both scared.”
“Ha,” she said softly with a sad smile. “You’ve never been scared. Not really. Not like me.” She looked out to some point beyond Sarah, some point past the influence of the car’s headlights. “Maybe I should run. You know? He can’t let go of the trigger until I’m a safe distance, right? He said that. He’ll have to wait. Then this will be over.”
“Margie, no, that’s crazy. Besides, you dying won’t end this.”
Margaret grabbed Sarah by the shoulders. “It’ll help you if I run. Don’t you see? You won’t have the bomb to worry about. You’ll have a better chance against him.”
Sarah took her sister’s hands in hers. “We have a better chance together. We’re supposed to be together. That’s why I’m here. Do you understand?”
Margaret took another deep breath and offered an unconvincing, “Sure.”
“We should get back in the car now. Can you do that?” Margaret nodded and stood up to button her clothes.
Before Sarah slid back into the front seat, she looked up for the bot she hoped was flying overhead. She saw the infinite blackness of the sky and the false hope of the stars. The recorder, though, was far too small and the night much too dark. She’d simply have to believe it was there, doing its job. She knew for certain the signals from recorders like the bot following her could travel miles with perfect fidelity. In her own experience in monitoring the planes, at least one hundred miles. While those were slightly different units, the underlying tech was the same. Could the signal travel nearly five thousand miles? She had no idea. NASA was able to send signals from Mars, and the Kalelah had made technological miracles seem ordinary. Pulling floats from thin air, transports that could disappear, an arc the size of a small city that could sustain life through the time and distance of intergalactic travel. The bot was the best shot she had. Her trick now was to stay alive long enough for it to work.
She had just navigated the series of quick exits and merges around Harrisburg that wound them to I-78 and the last leg into the Kingdom when she saw the lights. They were faint, mere dots hovering over the entire width of the highway in both directions and darting about like quick moving fireflies. At first she thought they might be figments of her imagination. Road fatigue. She glanced over to the kidnapper to see if he saw them as well. He had.
“Slow it down,” he said.
“You see them too, the lights?”
“I swear, you better be worth this shit.”
“What are they?” she asked.
“Trouble.”
“What kind of trouble?”
“Bad trouble. Mercs or bandits. Doesn’t really make a difference which.”
“We should cross over—get to the other side.”
“Won’t help.” He turned around in his seat to look out the rear window. “The road curves behind us so it’s hard to see, but if there’s a block ahead of us, you can be sure they put one in behind us. They’re not idiots. They’ll seal it off between exits.”
The lights grew larger and more articulate. It became clear they were men with flashlights.
“Can we blow through?” she asked.
“The road will be chained with spikes.”
“I have gold in the bag. A lot of it. We’ll pay them.”
“No,” he said, the sound of experience in his voice. “They’ll take everything.”
That this Kino asshole had her guns made her sick to her stomach, but at least she still had her eye on them, which meant there was always the chance, however slight, she’d get them back. These bandits, though, or whatever they were, if they got them, who knew where’d they go.
“Now listen to me,” he said. He looked at her with the same look he had during her pat down, when he went from her hips and stomach to her arms, bypassing her chest. “When I said they’ll take everything, everything included you. If this goes sideways, they’ll kill Margaret because they have to. They’ll kill me because I’m worthless to them. But you? They’ll make you beg them to kill you.”
She studied his face and looked for something to trust about it. She hated this creep. But now, for better or worse, she needed him.
“Then what do we do?” she asked.
He pulled his gun from his coat. “Stop the car.”
She stopped and the kidnapper opened his door. “Pop the hatch and remember, if you leave me here, I’ll blow the vest.”
When he returned to the passenger’s seat, he gave a duster to Sarah and his pistol to Margaret.
He turned to the back seat. “You ever shoot a gun?”
“No,” Margaret answered, her voice small.
“It’s not big a gun. It won’t kick too bad. You aim, take a breath, hold it, then squeeze the trigger, okay? Roll your window down. When we get to the block, we all keep our guns low where the flashlights can’t find them. Under your legs if you have to. Wait for my word. And remember what happens if I die.”
He held up one of Sarah’s guns. “How does this work?”
“There’s no trigger. Flip that switch to start. You’ll feel the grip change to tell you it’s communicating. Aim and think shoot.”
“What?”
“It connects with your head. I don’t know how. You picture it in your mind and it happens. Just be ready. As fast as you think is as fast as it shoots.”
They rolled up to the roadblock. The asshole was right. A long strip of metal spikes angled for tire damage was stretched across the road. Behind it, she counted at least ten men with guns. There could have been more. It was still so dark. A large man with a ragged beard walked up to the driver’s side window and worked to keep the flashlight out of Sarah’s eyes.
“How are you tonight?” he asked pleasantly.
“Fine,” Sarah replied as casually as possible.
“We’re taking up a collection to keep the roads safe.” As he talked, he moved the flashlight through the cabin. When the light moved to the back seat. Sarah watched the man’s eyes widen when the understanding of Margaret’s unusual fashion statement hit home. He backed up a few steps.
“Bill,” the man called out into the darkness. “Over here.”
Bill, another large man with a square jaw and a tattered Phillies cap joined the first. The two conferred quietly among themselves while the first man kept the flashlight trained on the car, illuminating areas of the cabin and cargo hold as he spoke. After a moment of this conversation, Bill took a radio off his belt, said something Sarah couldn’t hear, and walked to her window.
“Who’s got the detonator?” he asked without a trace of alarm. Just another day at the office.
The kidnapper raised his hand. Bill looked at Sarah then aimed his light into the back seat. Sarah glanced into the rearview and saw Margaret’s blanched and swollen face go bright.
“You two related?” Bill said to no one in particular.
“Sisters,” Sarah said.
He shone the light back on the kidnapper.
“Well, you sure as fuck ain’t the brother. I’m gonna go back a few steps and think about this for a minute. Sit tight, okay?”
It was a long minute. Sarah looked to see if she could read anything on the kidnapper’s face. Something felt wrong about this whole thing. The men around the car, at least the two that had spoken to her, seemed more like cops than criminals. They were organized and professional. Had the kidnapper misjudged the situation?
Bill came back to the window. “Okay, here’s what’s gonna happen. You’re all gonna get out of the car. The driver is gonna walk my way to the north side of the road. Bomb Girl and Trigger Boy are gonna go to the south side of the road and sit. Are we clear?”
Before anyone could reply, Sarah heard a loud bang from behind her and something wet sprayed across her cheek and mouth. The man outside her window stood still for a moment, one half of his face gone, the other half frozen in a look of astonishment, then collapsed from her view. Almost instantly pops sounded and barrels flashed from a dozen places. The windshield exploded away, the side mirrors tore from the A pillars, and bullets from multiple directions pounded the Cadillac so forcefully it began to rock on its springs. A second later the kidnapper had his gun out in the void. He toggled the switch like he’d done it before. Sarah saw the gun’s casing pulsate and the night turned brighter than day.
All was quiet then except for Margaret’s winded and rattled breathing. One headlamp remained lit. Sarah watched as the dust of the men and their clothes and their guns, glassy and radiant in the light, turned the colors of the world as it gently drifted to the ground.
36
He had been an asshole not to connect the dots. As Yorn Darnol was retrofitting 18 for weapons, Trin had asked the Code if she’d temporarily place the engineer’s material requisitions in a private file until the project was finished and he could properly announce its purpose. At the time, he had been thinking about how to manage Wildei’s reaction to the idea of arming a transport, which he was more than certain would have been summed up in three simple words: “No fucking way.” So, he’d gone with the better-to-beg-for-forgiveness-than-ask-for-permission school of boss management. His usual approach. On replay, however, the audaciousness of what he’d asked the Code to do had struck him all over again.
For the record, it hadn’t been an illegal ask. He wasn’t requesting the destruction of data, only the movement of it. A short-term one at that. But it most definitely crossed the line into a kind of protocol no-go zone. The proper functioning of the ship and its parts were the Code’s most important work. Material tracking, especially that which was related to the construction or installation of plasma technology, was highly prioritized. If anyone else on board had made that request, except for perhaps the captain herself, the Code would have said, “No fucking way.” Okay, not those words, but their meaning for sure. It was also possible she’d have reported the request. Still, Trin knew it was worth the asking. After all, it was him asking.
He’d been right.
What he hadn’t imagined was that others might be capable of receiving similar favors from the Code. Now he was kicking himself for it. Even when Forent had told him his theory about the missiles, how whomever was launching them must be getting help from both within and without the ship, Trin had flatly rejected the idea of material or people leaving the ship unnoticed by the Code. He was right, of course, that was an impossibility. What he hadn’t considered in that moment was that the Code might simply allow it and then cover the tracks. If she wanted to, she could.
“It means, you pathetic child, we have no idea what she’s capable of.”
Staring at the open storage space in his pod and discovering the missing Bridge Maker, it hit him like a bolt of lightning. He’d been looking for Sarah in all the wrong places. Maybe she hadn’t been found anywhere on ship because she wasn’t on the fucking ship. Which meant…maybe she was still alive.
He closed the panel to the pod storage and set off for the CC.
37
The sun had come up by the time they reached the Holland Tunnel checkpoint only to be plunged back into darkness again. If the tunnel was equipped with lights, they weren’t on. The SUV’s sole headlamp lit one side of the dirt-covered tile walls of the tunnel, and they drove in that half-moon light for what felt to Sarah an interminable amount of time. She didn’t know what would be waiting for her at the tunnel’s end and she didn’t know who or what might leap into her path before she got there. When they finally burst out into the daylight again at St. John’s Park—in what was once called Lower Manhattan—she wished the tunnel had simply gone on without end.
