TWENTY-SEVEN
We’re outside in the black Mercedes van that Matt has procured for us. This is Malibu, home of the world’s most famous celebrities. Armored vehicles can be rented at the last minute with a call and a credit card. The vehicle has three rows of seats. Matt climbs behind the wheel. I’m beside him in the passenger seat. Behind me are Cindy, Jolie, and Charlie. The Telar scientist has just given Jolie a shot of the C-1 vaccine and the child rests in her mother’s lap. She’s still groggy from the pain medication she received at the IIC clinic.
Shanti’s way in back, lying down, resting her head on Seymour’s lap. She doesn’t want to complain but it seems the last session sucked the life out of her. She has a pounding headache. Seymour tries to comfort her but at the same time he fumes.
Matt has started the van and is about to drive away.
Seymour wants to talk. Hell, he doesn’t want to leave.
“We’re abandoning a lot of sick children,” he says. “I don’t care who they are or what they’ve done in the past. They’re kids and they’re in pain.”
“Most of the adults have left the building,” Matt says. “There are only two doctors taking care of the sick. They know the kids can’t be exposed to the outside environment.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Seymour demands.
When Matt doesn’t respond I know exactly what it means.
Matt has rigged the place to blow with Telar weapons.
“What do you have to say, Cindy?” I ask.
The woman strokes her daughter’s head. “We’ve lost control of the Cradle, in more ways than one. We should start over fresh.”
“Let’s get out of here,” I say to Matt.
“Wait!” Seymour shouts. “This isn’t like you, Sita. We can save everyone. We can make this right.”
Matt glances at his watch as the van eases down the long driveway. “We have less than a minute to fix anything,” he mutters.
“Let me out, I’ll stay with them,” Seymour says, not understanding Matt. “If all I can do is help stop their pain, then so be it.”
Matt accelerates. We approach Pacific Coast Highway.
“Their pain will soon be over,” I promise him.
Seymour pounds the back window in frustration. “I’m serious, let me out,” he yells.
“Go right. Head north,” I tell Matt.
We turn onto the highway and roar north at eighty miles an hour.
“How come no one’s listening to me?” Seymour complains.
The explosion, when it comes, is much larger than I expect. Matt must have planted his Telar grenades throughout the structure. Fortunately, the building is surrounded by plenty of land. There’s no danger to any other homes or businesses.
Glancing back, it looks as if the top of the hill has been struck by an asteroid. The debris cloud is half earth, half glass. It glitters with red and green sparks from the exotic explosives. At its heart glows a fireball as hot as the surface of the sun. It’s hard to imagine a virus, no matter how deadly, surviving such a blast.
“Damn you all,” Seymour swears.
There’s nothing I can say. He’s right, I have damned us all.
The sound of sirens begins and yet quickly fades as we drive farther north. Disgusted with us, Seymour stops talking, while Shanti falls asleep in his arms. Cindy eases Jolie into her own seat and fastens her seat belt. The woman reaches for her laptop. Charlie stares out the window at the ocean. Matt drives. I close my eyes and try to forget I’m going to hell when I die.
We’re thirty minutes north of Malibu and about to turn inland when Cindy hits a key on her laptop and lets out a groan. “Oh no,” she says.
“This is going to be hard to believe.”
“Nothing can surprise me at this point,” I say.
“Our pictures are on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list.”
I whirl. “What are you talking about?”
Cindy turns her laptop screen toward me. I see my photograph, followed by Matt’s and Cindy’s. Seymour’s face is in a small row on the bottom of the page. According to the U.S. government, we’re the most dangerous criminals in the nation.
“But the building just blew up,” Matt says.
“No one paid any attention to us leaving,” I agree.
“This makes no sense. The FBI can’t work that fast,” Seymour says.
Cindy shakes her head. “We’re not on this list because the FBI saw us blow up IIC’s headquarters. Nor has anyone at IIC spoken to the FBI. This list was generated higher up the food chain. It was already in place and was just released now to make it difficult for us to travel.”
“How do you know?” I ask.
“Because it takes time to get the warrants from a judge that would put us on this list.”
“It must be the Telar,” Seymour says. “Sita and Umara took out the Source, but there are still thousands of them alive all over the globe. Some have got to be in positions of power. They’re probably angry.”
“I’ve checked with my Telar contacts,” Matt says. “The group is in complete disarray. But one thing is definite—they’re delighted that Haru and his inner circle are dead.”
“Then who’s after us?” Seymour says.
Cindy and I stare at each other. She nods. I shake my head.
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” I ask.
“It’s the only logical explanation,” Cindy replies.
“It’s not logical at all. It’s impossible,” I say.
“What are you two talking about?” Matt demands.
Cindy taps her laptop. “The Cradle’s Internet program. Someone just activated it.”
“How?” Matt asks.
“You mean why,” Cindy says. “Because we killed the Cradle.”
Shanti sits up and rubs her aching head. “Who activated what?” she mumbles.
“But if they’re all dead,” I say, “then who’s left alive to turn it on? Cindy, are you absolutely sure you had every member of the Cradle in that facility?”
“Yes. I even forced kids who were not feeling well to attend your sessions. When the bombs exploded, it was like the Array’s head was chopped off.”
“Then it can’t be the program,” I say.
“What if they designed it to take over if they ever stopped feeding it fresh data or new lines of code?” Cindy says.
“They didn’t know anything about computers,” Matt protests. “They were just a bunch of kids.”
“What about the intelligence they were channeling?” Cindy asks. “We have no idea what it was capable of. I find it fascinating that it’s chosen to go after us only minutes after we killed its main mouthpiece.”
“You speak of the program as if it’s alive,” Matt says.
“Maybe it is,” Cindy says.
“That’s science fiction,” Seymour says. “We’re decades if not centuries away from developing intelligent machines.”
“I’m not talking about human programmers,” Cindy says. “I’m talking about an intelligence that might have existed before our sun was even born. We have no idea how old the powers are that the kids were in contact with.”
“Tarana,” I say.
Cindy nods. “He taught us stuff no one in the world knew. He was the real president of IIC. He helped us make trillions and it was always obvious to me that he was just the beginning.”
“Hold on a second,” I say. “Let’s not get carried away. I have no trouble with the idea that the kids were trying to install a gigantic program on the Internet. But I’m with Seymour and Matt. The program can’t be conscious.”
Cindy frowns. “I have a slightly different problem I’m struggling with. I’d expect that no matter how sophisticated the program is, it must still need a biological link to connect to the spiritual realms.”
“Huh?” Shanti says.
“She’s saying the program still needs a person to help it channel the evil spirits,” Seymour says.
“Then we’re back to the possibility that the Cradle must have members we don’t know about,” I say.
“If they existed, the IIC had no record of them,” Cindy says.
“That counts for nothing,” Matt says. “Those kids could have been meeting behind your backs for years. There could be another three hundred of them out there for all we know.”
“I don’t think I’d go that far,” I say. “The Cradle was anxious to destroy the Telar’s Link. It was an obsession. That was the only way I got them to accept me and Umara. They wanted all the help they could get. If they had another group, they would have brought it to aid with the attack.”
“Did you ever sense another group when you were connected to the Cradle?” Shanti asks.
“No,” I say.
“But you were definitely aware of evil spirits?” Seymour asks.
“Absolutely,” I say.
“Who is Tarana?” Matt asks.
“A powerful Familiar,” Cindy replies.
“Could he be something more?” I ask.
Cindy shrugs. “You have more experience with these realms than I do. But I wouldn’t be surprised if the Familiars are tightly organized in a hierarchal fashion. If that’s the case, then it stands to reason the ones on top may have evolved into something greater than our small human brains can even imagine.”
We hear a siren at our backs. I look in the rearview mirror. A police car is trying to flag us down. I glance at Matt, who shakes his head.
“I wasn’t speeding,” he says.
“What name did you rent this van under?”
“Robert Reeve. The ID is squeaky clean.”
“This van was parked outside the entrance to the IIC’s headquarters,” Cindy says. “Its plates could have been picked up by our remote cameras.”
“And fed to the Cradle’s Internet program?” Seymour asks. “I doubt it.”
“See what the cop wants,” Cindy says. “But I suggest we all be ready to move fast, if necessary. We can’t be taken in for questioning. We’d never be released.”
Matt pulls the van over to the side. The police car parks and we note we’re dealing with two officers. One comes up on Matt’s side, the other on mine. I’m surprised to see they have already drawn their weapons.
“Can I help you, officer?” Matt asks the policeman after rolling down his window.
“License and registration please.” Matt’s cop is older, sun-beaten, carries a gut from too many doughnut stops over the years. He has the face of a bulldog, he looks angry at the world. He takes Matt’s paperwork in his left hand while he continues to hold his gun in his right.
The cop outside my window is young and gawky. He has nervous blue eyes that remind me of a fish out of water. His gun looks like it might break his frail arm if he ever summoned the nerve to fire it. I push a button and my window rolls down and I smile.
“Beautiful morning, isn’t it?” I ask, and it’s true. Locked in IIC’s headquarters, I had lost all awareness of what time of day it was. The cop wants to return my smile because I’m cute but he’s got something else on his mind.
“Where you folks from?” he asks me.
“Lots of places. We’re old friends. We’re just passing through.”
He nods nervously but doesn’t respond. He keeps looking to the other cop for directions. Bulldog finally takes a step back and orders Matt out of the vehicle.
“Why, officer?” Matt asks calmly. “What have I done wrong?”
“Listen, punk, I just gave you an order.”
Cindy leans forward. “Don’t listen to him. By law, he has to tell you why he’s stopped us and why he wants you to exit the vehicle.”
Matt stares at Bulldog. “Did you hear that? This woman is a lawyer. I demand to know why you pulled us over.”
Bulldog raises his gun and puts it to Matt’s head. “Get out now. Last warning.”
“We can’t let this escalate,” Cindy says. “Alisa, use your powers.”
Cindy isn’t aware of the extent of Matt’s power so it’s natural she should turn to me to get us out of this jam. I’m happy to oblige. I turn to the nervous guy on my right and catch his eyes.
“Go back to your vehicle and forget all about us. Treat yourself to a milk shake this afternoon. You need to gain some weight.”
As the young cop turns back toward the squad car, his partner gets more nervous. He rams the gun up against Matt’s skull and pulls back the hammer. “You want to die, huh? You want me to blow your brains out?”
“Stop,” I say calmly. “Relax and lower your gun.” The angry cop does as I say and I continue. “There’s no reason to get excited. You don’t want to hurt anyone. You’re a good man and a fine officer.”
“I’m a great police officer,” the man mumbles.
“That’s right,” I agree. “Now tell us why you stopped our van?”
The tension flows from the man’s face. He stands swaying like an unsupported mannequin. A breeze could blow him over. He speaks like a robot.
“An all-points bulletin has been issued for a vehicle of this make and license-plate number. We were warned that you are armed and dangerous. We were told to approach you with extreme caution.”
“Do you know what crime we are supposed to be guilty of?” I ask.
“No, Miss.”
I hold the cop’s eye and heat up his synapses. “None of these orders have anything to do with us. Return to your car and forget you ever saw us. Also, erase meeting us on the digital tapes you keep in your vehicle. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“We’re going to leave now and you two are going to take the rest of the day off. Go to the Chumash Casino outside Solvang and have some fun at the blackjack tables.”
“Go to the casino. Play blackjack. Thank you. Good-bye.”
The cop walks away and I order Matt to get back on the road.
“We have to get another car,” Cindy says.
“Do you think?” I say sarcastically.
“Why so testy, Alisa? It’s unlike you.”
Because I’m damned. Because it’s all hopeless.
I dislike using my psychic abilities. I feel as if Tarana is attached to every subtle act I take. My soul is still connected to his. We are like allies, only he believes he’s in charge. The feeling of being watched persists.
“I was looking forward to relaxing after we destroyed the Source and the Cradle,” I say. “Now we have the Internet sending complete strangers after us. It kind of wrecks your day, you know.”
“We have to get out of the city,” Matt says. “The more isolated we are, the more off the grid, the safer we’ll be. I have a feeling it’s going to take time to figure this one out.”
“To live off the grid we need cash,” Seymour says.
“I’ve got plenty,” I say.
“So do I,” Cindy says.
“What does it mean to live off the grid?” Shanti asks.
“It means we don’t pay for anything with credit cards,” Seymour says. “We don’t go anywhere with security cameras. We don’t even use a phone or log on to a computer. And we’ll have to change our appearance.”
Shanti is dismayed. “Can a person live like that nowadays?”
“Not easily,” Seymour says with disgust.