by David Beem
“Maybe it’s time we take this conversation inside.” Sarah gestures for them to go first.
Anna loops her arm in Fabio’s, and the pair sets off for the tent near the lion. Caleb takes a centering breath and squares his shoulders again.
“It’s okay,” says Sarah. “Mufasa won’t bite.”
Caleb frowns. “What have you done to him?”
Sarah holds his gaze and raises her hand, gesturing for him to follow Fabio and Anna. Swallowing further questions, Caleb trudges past Mufasa and ducks inside the tent.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Caleb enters the command center to the steady hum of quiet conversation, soldiers studying maps, and reports strewn across three long tables. His gaze sweeps the room. No phones. No electronics. Not even a ham radio. He arches his eyebrow at Sarah.
“I need the room,” she says. The soldiers exit, leaving everything behind.
“Don’t worry.” Anna nudges Fabio’s arm. “I smuggled some old Game Boys in. Do you like Tetris?”
“I love Tetris!” Fabio exclaims. “Game Boy, huh? That was the generation before they did the one with the infrared communications port for wireless linking, right?”
“Something like that,” Anna replies. “We can’t be online. Any technology here has to be pretty old.”
Caleb suppresses a laugh. “Telegrams and Morse code?”
Sarah ushers the last soldier out of the tent before gesturing for their group to take seats. Anna and Fabio sit together. Caleb takes his seat across from Sarah.
“Nostradamus, the organization, has been monitoring all electronic communication since the nineteenth century,” says Sarah. “So, no. Anna’s not joking.”
“All communication?” he asks, and Sarah’s forehead creases. “How would you even do that?”
Sarah scans his face. “You think it’s impossible?”
Caleb shrugs fractionally.
“You know he’s immortal, right?”
Caleb nods.
“You know he can see the future?”
Caleb nods again.
Fabio raises his hand. “Question: If we chop off Nostradamus’s head—”
“—will light shoot out his neck hole?” Anna finishes.
Fabio slouches into his seat, a lopsided grin coming to his bearded face as he shakes his head in apparent admiration. “Man. It’s like we share the same brain.”
“There can be only one.” Anna high-fives him, and they shift in their seats to face Sarah.
“Um, no,” Sarah replies, facing them. “No, I think we can safely rule that out.”
“You’ve been operating independently this whole time?” asks Caleb, drilling down on his patience and addressing Sarah. “Since your disappearance?”
“Independent from governments, yes,” she replies. “This is my group. Joining is a one-way ticket. Once you’re in, there’s no out.”
“No out,” Caleb repeats, his gaze tracking to Fabio, who’s still admiring Anna.
“We can’t risk information escaping,” says Sarah.
“I don’t see a medallion on you.”
She frowns. “Medallion?”
Caleb reaches into his shirt and lifts out the Celtic-knot-themed disc hanging around his neck.
“Ah,” she says. “An ATD: Anti-Telepathy Device. Only four of us have them. Mine is my wedding ring.” She thumbs her ring. “ATDs are hard to acquire. We use a field around the camp.”
“Field. As in force field?” asks Fabio, directing the question to Anna, who nods.
“It won’t help if he gets inside,” Anna replies. “But it helps keep him from detecting us.”
Caleb scratches the back of his head and shifts in his seat to peer out the tent door. “So if I tried to leave now, what happens to me?”
Sarah shakes her head. “Don’t try.”
“Do you have an ATD?” asks Fabio, addressing Anna, who wags her eyebrows.
“In my belly button ring.”
Fabio swallows with a loud gulp. “You have a belly button ring?”
“Who are these people?” asks Caleb, addressing Sarah. “How did you find them?”
“They escaped,” she replies. “They’re survivors.”
“Escaped what?”
“Internment camps. Cloning facilities. The Deep State—”
“Oh, puh-lease,” he says, despite his efforts at keeping his cards close to the vest. “The Deep State?”
“What?” says Fabio. “You, the card-carrying HARDON spy, believe in an immortal prophet growing a cabal since the sixteenth century, but the Deep State is a bridge too far?”
“HARDON?” asks Anna.
“High-risk Agency for the Regulation and Defense Of the NFL,” replies Fabio.
“The O gets capitalized?” says Anna. “And the N should be—”
“HARDON-F-L,” Fabio finishes, and this time, it’s Anna shaking her head in apparent admiration.
“All this…” She sighs. “And intelligence too…”
Caleb clears his throat into his fist. “Lookit, I don’t believe in unicorns either, little bro.”
“The Deep State is real.” Anna’s eyes widen. “But it’s not what you think it is.”
Fabio leans forward. “Okay. Let’s hear it.”
“The Deep State is an underground Nostradamus facility guarded by S-A-L-Bees.”
“S-A-L-Bees?” asks Caleb.
“Sheep with Abnormally Large Butts,” Anna replies.
“You’re right,” says Fabio. “That’s not what I thought it was.”
“Abnormally large butts,” repeats Caleb, eyeing Sarah, who gestures for Anna to continue.
“What can I say?” says Anna. “He likes big butts.”
“And he cannot lie,” offers Fabio and Anna snorts.
Caleb’s eyebrows rise. “Sheep butts.”
“Don’t look at me like that,” says Anna. “I’m not the one with a thing for S-A-L-Bees. Not that there’s anything wrong with that,” she hurries to add, casting a sideways glance at Fabio, who shakes his head.
“I don’t have a thing for sheep butts.”
Anna loops her arm through his again, raises her shoulders, and drops them. “Oh good. Because there is something wrong with that.”
“Yup,” says Fabio. “S-A-L-Bees. HARDONFLs. Next, you’re gonna tell me there’s a government agency called BADGAS and they’re in charge of regulating cow flatulence.”
“Don’t be absurd,” replies Anna. “BADGAS regulates how many restaurants in the country are allowed to serve brussels sprout salads. There might be a cauliflower or cabbage dish clause too, I can’t remember.”
“Beans, I bet,” adds Fabio.
“The government loves its acronyms,” Anna replies, lowering her eyebrows at Caleb, like all this is somehow his fault.
“Getting back to the debriefing,” says Sarah, rising and laying both palms on the table between them. “After Ladder Day, we knew our time had come.”
“Wait-wait-wait,” says Caleb. “Ladder Day?”
“Yes,” says Sarah. “At Notre Dame. Ladder Day. That was the marker.”
“What do you mean the marker?”
“I mean Nostradamus prophesied Ladder Day five hundred years ago.”
“That thing with the monkeys?” asks Fabio. “Space Chicken David Hasselhoff, Pirate Gary Busey, and the Buck Rogers’ Jollies? Nostradamus prophesied that?”
Sarah nods.
“Wow.” Fabio blinks. “He’s good.”
“Very. And he foresaw this final conflict.”
Fabio raises a finger again. “Question: Will there be S-A-L-Bees in the final conflict?”
“I’m sorry, I don’t know the answer to that,” Sarah replies, and Fabio’s lips twist in apparent disappointment.
“Nostradamus does everything for a reason, though,” says Anna. “I’m guessing there will be.”
“What if the reason is he just likes big sheep butts?” asks Fabio, and Anna shrugs.
“Sara
h,” says Caleb. “Did Nostradamus foresee who wins?”
Sarah nods again, this time her face casting a grim tone. “Zarathustra.”
Caleb sits up straighter, a smile stretching his cheeks, but then faltering when it fails to affect Edger’s mom, whose expression is unchanged. A creeping suspicion settles into his gut. He can’t remember the last time his smile had no effect on a beautiful woman. “What am I missing?”
“Mr. Montana, Zarathustra is Nietzsche’s Überman. A single cataclysmic individual meant to make the rest of us obsolete. Nostradamus sees Zarathustra as an evolutionary leap forward. One which puts humanity on a journey the rest of us aren’t supposed to take with him.”
Fabio shakes his head. “But that doesn’t sound like Edge at all. That sounds more like what Nostradamus is doing.”
“Mm-hmm.” Sarah’s eyebrows rise. “And that’s because Nostradamus is Zarathustra.”
Chapter Thirty
The soul-stars rain over our bodies, pooling like liquid mercury at our feet. The universe brightens into a sheer white canvas, and the Tree of Life rumbles through the nothingness, rising to dominate the horizon.
I collapse onto the bench. “It was in front of us the whole time. Mike Dame. Michel de Nostredame.”
Mary collapses next to me. “If it makes you feel better, I’m a spy and I didn’t figure it out.”
“He killed my dad. Mary, Mikey killed my dad. And I felt sorry for him when I saw him on that ship!”
“We’re gonna kill him.”
I push her hand away and face her. “I don’t want to kill him. I don’t know what I want.”
“Edger, he needs to be put down.”
I meet her gaze, and a golden light issues inches from her forehead before snapping back. I stumble backward. Our shared connection explodes with shock.
“What’re you doing?!”
“I’m sorry!”
I probe her confused overlapping thoughts. She’s testing how difficult it is to do what we saw him doing. “You think this is the only way to defeat him. You’re convinced I’m going to have to…”
Her lips part and turn down. “What are our options? We know we can’t kill him inside the Collective Unconscious, and he’s too powerful in the real world. If you use me, you can get close. He can’t read clone minds.”
I lean away from her, revulsion sapping my ability to think. “But…you’re not a clone. Not really.”
She shakes her head. “He doesn’t know that. If you put your soul in my body, you can approach him with your mind blocked.”
Dread cements in my stomach. “You’re forgetting the part where that obliterates your soul.”
“Edger, I know. But it’s the only way.”
I meet her open gaze, my face prickling. “I’m not doing that to you. I’m not doing that to anyone, most of all to you!”
Her shoulders slump. “Think. It’s brilliant. He’ll never see it coming.”
I expel a burst of sardonic air. “He foresees everything. That’s what he does.”
“Not everything. He can’t have. Otherwise, why give you the Zarathustra serum in the first place? And why didn’t he kill me when he had the chance in San Diego?”
Another wave of shock crashes over me. This one’s my own shock, I think. Because, really, why did he give me the serum in the first place? And how didn’t he know Mary wasn’t Blythe when she was working for him in Emerald Plaza? Come to think of it, how did Blythe not know Mary was running around pretending to be her?
“Uh-huh,” she says, reading my thoughts and wagging her eyebrows. “Mikey doesn’t foresee everything.”
Her forehead tenses as I try to telepathically pry everything out of her at once.
“It’s okay,” she says. “I’ll explain. When Mikey sent Blythe to the Über Dork, I knew that meant Nostradamus was putting you in play. Five years had passed since Notre Dame. I knew it was time I make my move.”
“Wait-wait-wait.” I concentrate on her train of thought. “It was Blythe who came into the Über Dork that day?”
She nods. “He set it in motion, sending her to you. I had to be discreet. I popped in and out wherever opportunity presented itself.”
Her memories flow into me and fill in the missing pieces. Mary waiting while Blythe and I trained on the mats that first day, then sneaking into the men’s changing room to talk to me while Blythe was still showering; Mary arranging for Blythe to be called away so she could steal my booster shots and help me escape; Mary deleting security camera footage, then sneaking into my bedroom while Blythe caught hell from Mikey back at Emerald Plaza.
“Dang. You’re sneaky.”
“I know.”
“So after that day you snuck into my room, it’s been you since then?” I ask. “No more Blythe?”
She nods. “I knew the only way I was going to keep you alive was to hide in the open. Nostradamus would see a Blythe clone had gone rogue, but it was the only way I could keep you under twenty-four-seven protection. I expected Nostradamus to recall Blythe from InstaTron after that, since leaving her there would unnecessarily complicate his plans and arouse Mikey’s suspicion. Boy, was I wrong.”
“Wait, so you didn’t suspect Mikey?” I ask.
“I suspected everyone because I knew Nostradamus could read minds. But I never suspected Mikey was Nostradamus. My number one goal at that time was to get you your booster so you didn’t die.”
My temples begin to ache. I press my fingers into them and rub. “Dad must’ve known about Blythe. That’s why he left that note on the bottom of the seat at Qualcomm Stadium telling me I couldn’t trust you.”
She shrugs. “He would’ve assumed I was her.”
I grab my head with both hands and slump over. “Ugh. So complicated.”
“But don’t you get it? This proves Nostradamus can be fooled.”
“Maybe,” I reply, sitting up and facing her again. “But it still doesn’t explain why he gave me the Zarathustra serum. Why didn’t he just take it himself?”
“There was a missing catalyst, I think.” Her forehead scrunches up, and I probe her thoughts as she tries to put the pieces together. “The Zarathustra serum wouldn’t work without it. But everything came to a head when your dad stole InstaTron Tron from Mikey’s lab and dart-gunned it into a cow butt.”
“Yeah, that’ll never not be weird.”
“Mikey needed to flush your dad out to get it back,” she continues. “With you in jeopardy, your dad resurfacing was inevitable.”
“Oh, man. Fred, that clone scientist who worked for Mikey, he basically told me the same thing after those agents kidnapped me and took me to South Bend! He said by putting the serum in me, Nostradamus all but guaranteed he’d be able to get it back. I didn’t know what he was saying then, but it makes perfect sense now. Mikey wanted me and Dad out of the way. Two birds with one stone. Phoo, he really is a long-range planner.”
“Edger, face it, I’m your best chance at winning. You can get close to Mikey undetected if your consciousness is in my body. His inability to read clones’ minds is his weakness.”
I meet her clear-eyed gaze and push back mentally against the resolve pulsing through our connection.
“I’ve fooled him before,” she says. “You can do it now.”
She scrutinizes my face like she’s honestly expecting me to consider this!
“No.” I press my hand into my stomach to stem the tide of nausea, but the horror, dread, the revulsion, it’s too much. I straighten, try to open up my airway and breathe, even though I know we’re not really breathing air here. There’s no way I’m ever doing this. She’d have to mind-control me into doing something that crazy!
“Mary, the answer is a flat no. Never. I love you. I would never hurt you. Not even a little.”
Her shoulders slump. Her head tilts, and a tiny smile fans across her cheeks.
“Anyway, you’re looking at this all wrong,” I hurry to say. “In computer engineering, we learn to start at the end and
work our way back.”
“Okay. Let’s do it your way. Right here, right now. Let’s play it out. If we got ourselves into a room with him, and I tried to shoot him—”
“He’d stop the bullets with his mind,” I finish for her, thankful for any diversion she’ll let us take.
“But if I snipe him from far away?”
I shake my head. “As much as I don’t like guns, that was the first thing Fabio and I discovered after World Peace Day. He locked everything up. There isn’t a weapon on the planet he isn’t guarding.”
“Then we annihilate his soul. What? Don’t look at me like that, you know he’s got it coming. Think of the souls he’s annihilated over hundreds of years.”
I shake my head, and she arches an eyebrow.
“Why on earth not?”
Oh, man. This is going to sound so lame.
“What?” she presses.
“It’s something Bruce said when I first met him. He said you can let others set the rules, or you can change the rules. He said it’s how we fight that defines us—”
“Oh, puh-lease.”
“He said what we do in life echoes in eternity, Mary! Our soul-lights shine brighter through the right choices we make.”
She smacks her forehead and drags her hand over her face. “Oh my God, I can’t even with you right now.” Her hand comes down, and her eyes cross. “Edger, that’s sweet, and it’s sincere, but it’s also unbelievably dumb.”
“Mary, I’m not doing this. I’m not doing it to you; I’m not doing it to him.”
She flings her hands up and lets them fall into her lap as she collapses into the seat back. I blow out my air and stare off into the white nothingness. She can mock me all she wants. It’s a stupid idea. Kill the woman I love! No, not kill her—annihilate her soul! That’s the unbelievably dumb thing.
“Then come up with something better,” she says, reminding me she’s always in my head in here and listening to my every thought. “Mm-hmm.” She arches her eyebrow. “Look. I told you we could try it your way. And your way was our soul-lights shining brighter through the right choices we make.”
“The rebels, then,” I reply, and a hole forms in my stomach as Mary’s brain neatly pops that balloon with her unspoken appraisal: Maybe we find them and they’re waiting for us to have the brilliant plan.
