We sat on the balcony staring at the night sky, full of dinner and tipsy from the villa’s good wine, going over the G8 agenda. Billy arranged a five-minute preliminary meeting with the head of credentials; Max walked out with full access to all events and the run of the island for the four of us. Billy handed me $100 on the spot. “Don’t bet against Max,” I told him. Now we were going over the details.
“They won’t wait long,” Tauber said.
“What do you mean?”
“Think about it. They wanta kill hope. She’s only hope till she’s made her pitch. After that, either they’re all in it together or more’n likely they knock it down and she’s over. So if they’re gonna kill hope, they’ve gotta take her out early.”
“In public,” I added.
“What’s not public now?” Kate asked. She was as tipsy as the rest but she was on the same couch as me, with her head on my shoulder. “There’s a hundred events this week and you need one cell camera to record it forever. So almost anything qualifies.” She stabbed at the agenda without looking. “’Pediatrics for Africa, twenty minute event, ten children who’ve survived traditionally-fatal diseases. With Heads of State, entourage and Media Pool.’ There’s twenty more like that tomorrow and that many more every day to the end.”
“Shit!” Tauber groaned. “This is no good. We can’t sit around guessin’.”
“I can’t start probing,” Max said. “The one advantage we have is if they think we’re dead. I can’t blow that without a reason.”
“Why’s it always probing?” Tauber spat. “ Kidnap somebody, knock ‘em on the head and sodium pentothal ‘em, do something! Drag some information outta somebody!” Kate took a step back, involuntarily. “I’m sorry but it’s time ta get our hands dirty or admit we’re fakin’ it. You’re not stoppin’ these guys politely-they’ll walk right over ya.”
“I don’t think-” Kate started and fizzled out.
“So who do we kidnap?” Max asked. “Pietr Volkov? Marat? Surely they know the plan but I don’t want to try taking them. The drones don’t know anything. I could feel it when we were filing out of L Corp headquarters; they send out a message, they don’t know what they’re sending and it vanishes as soon as they’re finished.”
“ Somebody’s gotta know,” Tauber snarled. “They’ve got a system-they don’t have all those people beamin’ out all those messages without somebody riding herd on ‘em.”
“Well, there’s the question,” Kate said. “Their own men are with security, right at her hip. If they’re going to shoot her, why beam anything out at all? I can feel the humming all night long. They’ve got crowds of drones on it right now! What are they beaming out? To who?”
“We’ve got to narrow the possibilities,” Max said, “and be ready to defend her at a moment’s notice.” He blinked at Kate. “You’ve got to work on making shields.”
“ Now?” She was blinking too. We were all fried, braindead. It had been three days since that morning.
“We’re not getting a second chance.” He turned to me. “You’ve got to work on blocking yourself and reading danger when it’s near. You could be an early warning.”
“I don’t know what I’m doing; I‘ve got no power.”
“But you’re not preoccupied with twenty other things. Concentrate on that.” He turned to Tauber. “And you can-”
“I can get zapped in the head or run over or otherwise beat the shit out of because we don’t have a plan,” Tauber said. He was boiling over finally, after simmering for days. “Because we’re too pure to start a fight.”
“We’re here to prevent damage,” Kate said. “ First do no harm.”
“I’m not a fuckin’ doctor, sweetie. I’m a spy. Nice people put the garbage in the can; my job’s takin’ out what nobody wants. If it stinks, it’s mine. And if I don’t take it, ain’t no molelike son-of-a-bitch comin’ up behind me to do it.” He headed for the door.
“Where are you going?” Max demanded.
“Out!” Tauber replied, slamming the door behind him.
We stared at the door like the answer was written in the wood. The air was thick now-nothing felt right.
“Okay, let’s get to work,” Max told Kate. “Make a shield.”
Kate sunk into the chair. “I don’t think I can make coffee right now,” she replied, head in her hands. “What if they attack and we’re so worn out we can’t respond? Does that help anyone?”
Max sighed. “Let’s try these things once or twice- just get the feel of them-then sleep if you need to.”
Kate constructed an energy shield. Max tested it with his hands-it gave and pushed back. Then he held up his fingers, sitzing and sparking. He tried to throw a lightning bolt but the spark only went a couple inches before fading out. He zapped the shield and Kate flinched.
“Once you’ve made it, let it go,” he instructed. “It grows from energy but then it has it’s own life. If you try to retain control, you only make it weaker.”
“So Tauber was right-it’s alive?” she asked.
“The Universe is alive. Children, birds, mosquitoes, those are reactive forms of matter; rocks, not so much.” Renn’s voice was firm. “I’m only comfortable with a philosophy that develops out of what I know-which is not necessarily what I can prove. What I know is, the same little things make all the big things. Electrons are electrons-everything is one thing.”
“You’re working on lightning bolts,” Kate murmured-it was a reproach, though a polite one.
Max shrugged. “I don’t have a plan, so I have to prepare for everything. Mark is right-at the moment, they’re running the table.”
When I woke, Kate’s face was inches from me. Which would have made me very happy, except for the look on her face, which was alarming.
“You were crying out in your sleep.”
Her hand was on my chest. When she took it away, I could feel the absence like a memory. The sky was still black outside the window-the clock on the night table read 4 in the morning. And then Max was in the doorway behind her and the way he looked at us on the bed together cut my heart out. Jealousy didn’t become him but I knew the feeling myself.
“Do you remember anything?” Kate asked. She’d glanced over at Max and had to have seen what I did, but she didn’t budge. “Do you remember the dream?”
“Touch me again,” I said. That took her by surprise so I added, “It’s how I felt when I woke up. Maybe I can use it to get back there.” She laid her hand down-it fit right where it had been. I closed my eyes and, in two seconds, I was in a room, a tiny room. In the toilet. Literally. I had locked myself in the toilet, avoiding the knock at the door and the voice calling, “Are you alright?” My mother. My mother? It was supposed to be my mother but I couldn’t see her face or pinpoint her voice. I knew what she was saying and how I was expected to answer but I was overcome by her memory being so close and the fact that I still couldn’t see her face. And then I was in the living room in uniform, ready to ship out, and here was an older face straining to be younger-but this mother’s face didn’t go with the voice in the bathroom. This face came accompanied by another voice, more musical and familiar. And then I was back in a living room decked with party hats, a huge cake and kids waiting for a party-waiting for me. Waiting while I hid in the bathroom, refusing to come out. Not wanting them or the party.
I opened my eyes and blushed because I could see, looking at Kate, that she’d seen everything I had. And Max as well. But what did it mean? I’d been in combat-I’d killed men and seen my friends killed. What was the trauma about a birthday party?
“How did you feel?” Kate asked.
“Confused.”
“That’s it? You were panicked when I woke you.”
“Maybe the problem is, it’s not his memory,” Max said. “It’s mine.”
Kate swiveled on the bed like someone had kicked her.
“You’re a receptor,” Max told me quietly. “You’re picking up bits and pieces of memories and thoughts around you.”
“I didn’t at Dave’s,” I protested. I wasn’t sure why I was against this idea; it seemed obvious as soon as he said it.
“Dave was against all this,” Max said. “He stopped emanating a long time ago. If he’d kept it up, maybe he’d still be alive. Since Florida, everyone around you’s been getting into your head, making connections. You’re responding. Just not always as expected.”
“So it was your birthday party?”
He nodded. “Remember, my parents were never together-nor my grandparents, for that matter. They mated for the state and disappeared, expunged so I shouldn’t go looking for them. I grew up in a collective of teachers and parents. When I got to be 3 or 4, the program became concerned I should have American memories of childhood. So I suddenly acquired a split-level house and a room with a television and a father and mother from the film academy in Moscow. I’m not sure they loved performing for an audience of one in Novosibirsk but they were patriots and did their duty. To no good end. I saw through them in days-it was my first out-of-laboratory invasion of someone else’s mind. Not that mindreading was really called for in this case. I longed for family enough to know this wasn’t it. I could sense what was missing even though I’d never had it.”
He stared at the floor now, embarrassed. I’d seen Max do things that would embarrass most people but I’d never seen him embarrassed before.
“Russians don’t have cake, pizza and ice cream at birthdays. In the Soviet, you had a sit-down dinner, very formal. After the meal, the adults started drinking and the kids lay waste. That morning, the dining room-which was odd to me anyway, since we’d just moved in-was surreal, paper party hats, balloons, banners and cupcakes. I was a Taliban prisoner hauled into Disneyland. It was the moment of separation-the moment when, even that young, I understood my life wasn’t real, that I was a fiction.”
“So you locked yourself in the bathroom?”
“I locked myself in the bathroom. And listened to the kids pretend to be American in the next room. Not my most effective rebellion-but my first, and the first anything is always memorable.”
“It still bothers you?” Kate asked.
“It comes back to me in times of stress. I have no anchor. I resent it. Greg is the lucky one.”
“Me?”
“Of all of us, you’re the most concentrated self. You’ve lost your memory, your habits, your training. You’ve forgotten all the messy entanglements. What’s left is the essence of your self. You’re getting the chance to rebuild from scratch. I envy you that.”
“I don’t know what you’re envying.”
Kate stared at Max like she’d never seen him before. “You listen to people your whole life without knowing a thing about them,” she said. “We find ourselves in others, in those messy entanglements. Our family, our lovers, they force the doors open. That’s what you need, maybe-somebody who can read you like you read everyone else. Someone you don’t have to fear you’re controlling.”
“That’s…a good answer,” Max smiled, and this was a different smile, a smile of admiration for such a thought. He smiled at the floor for a moment and then raised his head to look her straight in the eye. Kate flushed red. I felt embarrassed watching, like I was intruding. You’re the entanglement I need, is what the look on his face said. Kate was as strong in her way as he was. He wouldn’t have to worry about forcing her. Whatever she felt for him, it would be for real. She might be his only chance at real, ever.
I realized now why he’d looked so torn up, seeing the two of us on the bed together.
And I realized, in that same rush, that I hadn’t just divined this information out of thin air. I hadn’t miraculously gained the ability to crack the mindbender of mindbenders, the man who could block the universe. If I’d received this message, it was because Max had sent it. He’d made himself vulnerable, but, as always, with a purpose, an end in mind. Maybe his tragedy was that he didn’t know any other way to be with people.
I understood. I even felt a little sorry for him. But, looking at Kate, whose hand was still on my chest, I knew there were limits to my loyalty. I had hopes of my own.
That was the moment I consciously began to block the two of them.
And then the phone rang and we all flinched-who was calling at 4 in the morning? The answer was obvious by the time I picked up the phone.
“I should be pissed ye’re not all running around searchin’ for me already,” Tauber said. “Meet me at the Stefano Rotunda.”
“What’ve you got?”
“Nuthin’ much. Just a guy who knows what they’re plannin’.”
The Rotunda sat on one of the Roman hills. Round and squat, with columns arrayed in overlapping arcs, the Rotunda would have been a showstopper anywhere else; in Rome, it was just another church. But it made the Top Ten spy-friendly locations list; Tauber stepped out from behind a pillar, taking us all by surprise, when we were already right on top of him.
He led us to the far side of the building, which looked down on a complex of low office buildings, six narrow rows running off a central courtyard but only two of them lit at 4:30 in the morning.
“Once I knocked the vinegar out of myself,” Tauber said, grinning, “I realized this was prime time. If ye’re gonna send a message-and they didn’t bring the drones for nothin’-yer best worktime-”
“-is when your subject is asleep,” Max completed the thought.
“So I went over to the Island and waited for the eager salarymen with the lapel pins. I followed a group of ‘em back here. They’ve been hummin’ away all night.” He was really pleased by his own accomplishment. “I figgered I was better off up here, seein’ as how I’m not as dead as I’m s’posed to be.”
“Good thinking,” Max muttered and they both smiled. This was their common ground-any tension between them dissolved as soon as there was action.
“There’s two offices down there with twenty drones apiece; they took a break three hours ago so they should be close to the end of the shift. I can’t read the stream but I can feel it. Things are coming back to me. They’re working ‘Emerald’-and I found another stream too, a different head, like a 10 Hz vibration. You feel it?”
Max listened for a few seconds. “Yeah,” he said. “Is that your man?”
“He’s got to be the leader. The others are locked in, focused on the message-”
“-and he’s focused on them, making sure they’re sending together, no disruptions, beaming to the right location. Supervising.”
“He puts ‘em under suggestion so he has to know the message.” Since we’d first met him, he’d been a cranky, nasty old guy, someone who always found the mold in the yogurt. Now he was twinkling like a three-year-old boy bouncing on his parent’s bed.
Max nodded. “You’re right. That’s got to be right.” He clapped Tauber on the shoulder and almost knocked him over. “That’s good shit, Mark.”
“I’ll be useful to ya yet,” Tauber murmured to no one in particular.
“Does that mean they’re attacking her now?” Kate asked.
“They’re not trying to assassinate her now. But feel the stream coming out of there! They’re working somebody pretty hard.”
“Can you read it?”
“I guarantee that’d raise the roof. But Mark’s plan is, we wait till they shut down and then pull it out of the supervisor. Am I right?”
Tauber nodded, grinning wide.
“ Pull it out?” Kate said. “I don’t like the sound of that.”
“You’ll have a chance to test your scruples,” Max told her. “I want you to do the pulling.”
Jerry Lowery was mulling the velocity of boredom. From his table at the front of the classroom, he had a good view up the skirt of the brunette in the front row and apparently she didn’t mind. She kept crossing and uncrossing her legs and squirming in her seat, offering a varied but ever-more-enticing view of the pumpkin orange thong underneath. After a year at L Corp, Lowery had developed his skills to the point that he was certain the brunette knew exactly what she was showing at each moment, even under suggestion. Which only made his boredom in the face of this display more infuriating.
When he’d signed up, three weeks before graduation, choosing L Corp over the CIA, DIA and Livermore Labs, he’d told himself he was making the brash move, taking the unconventional, daring route. L Corp might not be as recognizable on his resume but surely he wouldn’t be bored.
Wrong. Sitting in Rome in the middle of the night, keeping watch on the girl with the pumpkin thong and a room full of less-gaudy colleagues, he was bored to the teeth. Bored bored bored bored bored. The rumors said this was the big one, the operation that would put the company over, make their stock options gold. Of course, if they told you how, they’d have to kill you, haha. He’d told himself the job was undercover work, duties he’d never be able to confide, changing history (in a small way, of course-Lowery was not a boastful man), betrayal and intrigue. Just like Wall Street but legit. And now here he was, making sure the vectoring was right, checking it against the instrument readings every five minutes (or so-Jerry wasn’t the most exacting of souls), making sure the stream of suggestion maintained its consistency, that the message was reaching the target coordinates at full strength. The truth is, a teenager could learn to implant a suggestion and, after that, you might as well be giving an algebra quiz. The brunette kept moving her leg in and out now, popping the skirt up and down as though waving it at him. Ho Hum. In the end, she wouldn’t take him home; she probably wouldn’t even remember the tease.
Life was a tease. Hang in there, Jerry, it’s not challenging work but, if you do your bit, if this is the Big Hit, there’ll be promotions and raises and bonuses. That was the tease. In the end, he’d still be at a desk in front of a group of post-grads doing invisible work with invisible consequences. He’d get more out of tasking the brunette with a few suggestions of his own. Even if they caught you, the first time was just two weeks lecturing from HR.
The watch he’d laid across the desk in front of him began to beep. “Alright, that’s it for tonight,” he announced and the group began to sit up straight, rub their eyes, filter back in stages to the real world. “Straight to your apartments and to sleep. Sleep. We need you back here, rested, 7pm sharp. No wandering around, no parties-we’ll be monitoring everyone, so don’t get cute.” He threw a sad-eyed glance at the brunette, mourning the loss of possibility. The girl didn’t seem to notice the gesture.
As they wandered out, Jerry scrubbed the whiteboard. Spies, teachers, brokers or Mafiosi-all jobs were routine. Consistency, do the job reasonably well, reasonably the same, time after time. No wonder he was bored. He checked in with the cathedral by cell-they were closing up as well. Managers meeting 530p. Stay sharp tomorrow.
He flipped off the lights and walked out into the warm night. Was there someplace to eat? He was hungry. There was a waitress at a place near the Pantheon who’d flirted with him the night before but she couldn’t still be working at this hour. And he refused to eat based on sex that might possibly maybe happen someday if he got ridiculously lucky. Not.
He headed in that direction anyway. There were lots of restaurants and he wasn’t ready for sleep, no matter the company line. L Corp wouldn’t be monitoring managers. At least, not him specifically. At least, he didn’t think so.
The Coliseum shown through the dark streets like the world’s grandest jack 0’lantern. Lowery cut through a grove of trees across the street and under brick arches extending from one of several hundred local churches. From God’s power to man’s-that was the progression of the human race.
When Rome was the center of the European world, it built three churches a block to God’s glory-now the cathedral on Tiber Island was decommissioned, a conference center for businessmen and politicians to hold polite dinners and divvy up their worldly scraps-financial aid, military assistance, the strings-attached charity of the World Bank. The early Christians had received communion in church; so had his mother, probably last week. Lowery, a man with no active God, had gone to the center several times in the past few days to receive his suggestion, the mental image that he passed on to his charges in the viewing room. An image was all it took, in the Information Age, to conquer the World-an image and the power of the mind.
As he crossed the next street and worked his way around the remains of Palatine Stadium, he didn’t feel much like a conqueror. Rome was a big city; wandering dark places alone at night wasn’t particularly brilliant-but then, what mugger would be looking for a muggee at 5 in the morning?
The ruins had weathered smooth like skulls, the clay red like everything else in this furnace of a city. In June, Rome remained hot all night. The arches of Domitian’s Palace towered in deep shadow, the lights at the Forum nearby placing everything else in silhouette. Jerry wanted a beer. A couple of beers. And maybe a cognac. Tomorrow was the day.
Jerry had walked this way at least twenty times, day and night, since arriving in Rome but somehow, this time, the sightlines looked different, the landmarks springing from the ground at odd angles and odder locations. Where he expected to break out of the Emperor’s overhanging confines, instead he found himself more deeply withdrawn, walled-in. Rows of bone-white pillars stood against the red clay wreckage, pointing skyward like missiles. When he looked up for stars, clouds were gathering, swirling, too quickly and very specifically too close to him. The wind kicked up, gusting through the cavernous gaps between pillars and arches and ruins, whipping his jacket from his hands. He ran after the stupid thing, ending up even deeper in the labyrinth of ancient passageways. Ripples of lightning pulsed through the clouds-this felt just about obligatory, with all else that was happening-next had to be ghosts of Emperors long dead, Lowery both joking with himself and admitting real fear simultaneously. The atmosphere had gone deathly way too fast for real life.
And then there was Pietr Volkov, advancing on him like a general across a battlefield, lit up like he’d swallowed a neon tube and marching right through the bars of the fence surrounding the ruins. What the hell did he want? Lowery had only met the man once, which was plenty. He’d heard the rumors-or the rumors about the rumors-that surrounded Volkov. Lowery thought back-had he missed a cue somewhere? Nobody had missed session tonight or last night. He’d checked them all in. He hadn’t checked the clarity of the transmission as often as the regs demanded, but nobody did, except Vlada, the toadie-every time he’d checked, everything had been to spec.
Volkov should have reached him by now but he was still marching and Lowery’s panic kept rising. What about check-out? Making sure none of the drones carried any of the suggestion out of the room after they were done? Had he checked everyone? Oh Jesus-the girl with the pumpkin thong! She’d seemed so disinterested, even disdainful-maybe he hadn’t…Shit! Shit! Now…?
“Is it possible,” Volkov bellowed, still a few yards away, “that our enemies know our plans?” The last words exploded inside Lowery’s skull like someone was pounding with a hammer.
“Not from me!” Lowery cried immediately, trying halfway through to drag his voice down and exert some kind of control. Volkov was right on top of him, the two of them alone in the center of the center of the Ancient World.
“Alright, not from you! Maybe from one you were responsible for!” Volkov drilled at Lowery. “Maybe from this girl you have the stupid infatuation with. Is it possible?”
“How can they?” Lowery blubbered, desperately trying not to think of the pumpkin-colored line between the girl’s legs, even though-especially because-Volkov clearly knew about it already. “That’s the whole idea, isn’t it? We each had our portion. I only had Emerald. If they don’t have them all-?”
“Don’t quibble with me!” Volkov bellowed into Lowery’s face. He was backing him into one of Domition’s ancient walls. Behind Volkov, an ancient alcove rose skull-like five stories above them, flashing blue now in the sudden lightning. “You got your instruction at the same time as the others, yes?”
“Y-yes!” Lowery admitted, not sure what infraction he could have committed there.
“So you had Emerald. Who sat next to you?”
“Ruby.”
“How would you know that unless you paid attention to that portion as well?” Volkov thundered. All Lowery had seen was the identifying logo on the screen as they started feeding the images to them-that was all. He was sure. He clung to that denial, repeating it over and over like a mantra. If Volkov was going to read his mind, let him read that, please.
Maybe he did. Instead of ripping his skull off, Volkov held back now a moment, still only half a foot away but regarding him with at least a little detachment. Maybe this was how they looked at you just before they turned you to dust, Lowery thought. It wasn’t like there was any point resisting. An odd thought occurred to him as lightning struck the skull arch behind Volkov and the light seemed to gleam through him.
“Are you here?” Lowery asked, unable to think of a more elegant way to ask the question.
“No, I’m not here, you idiot,” Volkov swiped.”I can’t administer every lazy mid-level in person.”
So he was a projection-Lowery had heard of that, too. The old mindbenders were full of tricks. This Volkov didn’t blink-yes, he did. Now he did, that is, though Lowery swore he hadn’t until just then. He wondered if the projections only blinked once you noticed they weren’t blinking. “That won’t keep me from disciplining you in any method that strikes me as appropriate. Do you understand?”
A second later, the tree in front of them erupted with a lightning hit. Lowery felt the charge in the air and went deaf for a few seconds after the crack. A tree branch the size of a Fiat came down a foot away and Volkov was in his face again.
“Yes, yessir, I understand,” Jerry stammered, trying with difficulty to make eye contact.
“Charge me with tonight’s suggestion,” Volkov ordered.
“What?”
“PLAY IT BACK. NOW! I want to see what you gave your charges tonight, what they sent out. Or shall I just extract it from your frontal lobe?”
“No, no, that-” It was not the easiest time to put himself into a meditative state but at least the lightning seemed to pause while he closed his eyes. Maybe Volkov was just gathering a big bolt to smite him if he didn’t like what he saw. Jerry tried to concentrate. When he opened his eyes momentarily, Volkov was standing, tapping his feet in exasperation.
Finally, Lowery was able to put himself back in the tasking room in the convention center, the place where they all received the images for their shifts. He felt himself in the chair and saw the ruby logo on the screen. He could see the flash of ruby on the next screen but only for a second, see, it’s just peripheral vision and my eyes go right back to my own screen and that’s it! And then, in the air around him, filling the space between him and Volkov, here was his image, his message-the grainy, jagged, useless image he’d given his team to send out. Flashes of close movement, the grunting noises of a struggle and cries for help, jerky shards of picture skimming across the air between them, the desperate movement in the pictures heightened by the frenzied shrieking of the orchestra in the background. And rain-he hadn’t noticed the rain when he learned the transmission but now it was everywhere and he realized it had come off the video image. Everything was just as he’d been given it, he was sure. All the control bytes showed in proper order, the color bars were correct, the control tone was accurate. He’d remembered it objectively, without coloring it with any of his own input. It was an successful tasking, he was sure of it.
Several seconds had passed since the image ended. He was still there. Volkov hadn’t said anything. Lowery convinced himself it was alright to open his eyes-at very least, his transmission couldn’t be held against him. When he did, Volkov had stepped a little further away. He seemed to be concentrating elsewhere. When he saw Lowery’s eyes were open, Volkov said, “Go about your business. Say nothing of this to anyone. We still have a leak. It wouldn’t do for them to know we’re looking for them, would it?” He took a few steps, then turned back just for a moment. “ You don’t know who to trust,” Volkov warned. Then he stepped into the swirling wind embracing the arches and was gone, disappeared, vanished.
Lowery touched his coat-it wasn’t even damp. No rain. He took off toward a street, anyplace with cars and other people. Anyplace he could find several-no, many-cognacs with breakfast.