But the professor just stood there, arms crossed, smirking away. Cowboy was no better. Fact is, as he watched Anderson grab and grope, he got ideas of his own. Inspired, he turned and headed for Andi.
For the briefest second Anderson left himself open. I made my move. I jerked my knee into his groin. He groaned and stumbled away. He wanted a scrapper, he got a scrapper.
I threw a look to Daniel. He just sat on the floor, lost in the screams and explosions of his game app.
“Daniel!”
He ignored me.
“Daniel!”
He scooted around till his back was to me. He couldn’t be bothered.
I spun back to the monitors.
00:02:28
“I told you,” Andi said, “I’m not interested!”
I turned to see Cowboy had backed her against one of the terminals. He leaned over her awkwardly. “One little kiss ain’t gonna hurt nothin’.”
The professor laughed, and I shot him a look.
He shrugged. “Quite a show.”
I might’ve hit him again, just for spite, if Anderson wasn’t coming at me. He arrived just in time for me to land a good fist to his jaw. Probably broke my hand, but it sure felt good. Too good. Like hitting every man who’d ever hurt and abused me. Anderson swore up a storm. I answered by punching him again. This time his nose. It began bleeding. A real gusher. He backed up. Too bad, ’cause I really wanted to keep going.
And I wasn’t the only one.
“C’mon.” Cowboy hovered over Andi, practically drooling.
But she wasn’t backing down. “What about no doesn’t that hick brain of yours get?”
“Lotsa girls want me,” he said.
She laughed.
“I’m serious. But I ain’t ever given in.”
“Trust me, your record’s safe with me.”
Another alarm went off. A piercing buzz. I looked back to the monitors. The numbers at the bottom had turned red:
00:02:00
The buzzer stopped just in time for me to hear Daniel shouting, “Yes! Yes!” I turned to see him hunched over his game, totally lost in it.
Off in the distance there was a police siren. More than one.
The professor chuckled. “Should be another busy night.” I turned to him and he continued. “I believe Andrea said all phones within the proximity.”
“Professor McKinney! Brenda!”
I spun back to the monitors. The digital readout continued at the bottom of the screen, but above it was a face I’d not seen in months.
“Sridhar!”
“Yes, it is I.” He glanced over his shoulder, then back to the camera. “Please, you must put an end to this behavior at once.”
“Where are you?”
“I have but only a moment. You must overcome your impulses and shut down the equipment in the room, and you must do so immediately.”
“Actually,” the professor said, “it’s proving to be quite the entertainment.”
“In just over a minute, the entire central portion of your country will be exposed.”
“To what?” I said.
“To what you are now experiencing. The loss of inhibition. People will become subject to their desires with little regard of the outcome.”
“That’s their problem,” Andi said.
“Please,” Sridhar said, “you must find the strength to restrain your desires. You must overcome your impulses and shut down the equipment.”
The professor snickered. I grinned. We both knew the chances were next to none.
But the kid continued. “Andi, inside the panel to your left are several cables. If you would disconnect them—”
Andi cut him off. “Do you have any idea how sick I am of people always telling me what to do? Just because I’m brilliant I’m expected to fix everything at their command.”
The professor countered. “Maybe if you had some backbone, people wouldn’t feel compelled to take advantage of—”
“Shut up!” she snapped. “For once in your life just shut up!”
“Ooo.” It was my turn to chuckle. “Look who’s growing up.”
“And you.” She turned on me. “You think all that sarcasm makes you cool? Well, here’s a little wake-up call for—”
The alarm went off again. Only this time it didn’t stop. The numbers below Sridhar blinked.
00:01:00
“One minute,” Anderson shouted over the alarm. “This should get interesting.”
As he spoke two other men showed up on Sridhar’s monitor. They grabbed the boy and he shouted, “No! Let me go! This is not right! You must—”
“Sridhar!” I yelled.
“Let me go!” For a little guy, he put up quite the fight. “Let me go! You must not—” One of the goons slammed his head down onto the console. Hard.
“Sridhar!”
But it would take more than that to stop the kid. He was back up, blood streaming down his forehead, and shouting, “You must destroy that equipment. You must—”
The men yanked him out of his chair. He cried out until they hit him again. This time he went limp. Goon One dragged him off as Goon Two stuck his face into the camera. He fiddled with a switch and the screen went blank. Except for the readout below:
00:00:47
“This ain’t good!” Cowboy yelled. I turned to him in surprise. His face was twisted, like he was fighting something. “Sridhar’s right,” he said, “we gotta do something.”
“Actually, it’s really quite amusing,” the professor said.
“No. It’s gonna get real bad. Out there, everywhere. It’s going to get real bad for everybody.”
Anderson smirked. “And that concerns you because?”
“Because? Because it ain’t right. Because they’re people. Kids, moms, dads. Everyday people, just like you and me.”
The sirens continued to approach.
Cowboy’s face had grown shiny with sweat. Whatever was goin’ on inside him was fighting hard. A real war. He looked to each one of us like we could help. Like we should want to.
“Are you telling me you don’t want to see a little violence?” Anderson asked. “A little action?”
Cowboy closed his eyes, clenching his jaw, trying to drown out Anderson’s words.
Anderson motioned to Andi. “You were pretty interested in a little action a second ago. I bet you still are.”
The big guy looked to Andi. You could see the battle raging inside him.
Anderson continued. “I’m sure your God wouldn’t mind. Just this once.”
And that did it. Something inside Cowboy snapped. Switched on. The fight was still there, there was no missing it, but now there was something else. A tiny spark. A light that quickly grew. A strength. Brighter by the second.
Finally, he turned to Andi. “Those cables, where did he say they were?”
“You’re not serious,” she said.
Anderson agreed. “For the first time in your life you’re free. Free to do anything you want. And you’re trying to hold back, trying to hold us all back with some lame religious—”
“No, sir.” Cowboy continued growing stronger. “I know what freedom is, and this ain’t it.”
I glanced to the professor. He was looking down, scowling. Whatever Cowboy was saying, whatever he was doing, was obviously having an effect on the old man.
But not Andi. She stepped closer to Cowboy. “Maybe you just haven’t experienced enough freedom.” It was laughable, hearing her pretend to come on to him.
But it worked.
Cowboy swallowed. He shifted his weight.
She continued. “Isn’t that what you want, Tank?” She stepped closer. “Isn’t real freedom what we all want?”
He swallowed again. It looked like he was about to cave when, at the very last second, from who knows where, he found the strength to look away.
“Hey.” She took his arm.
He ignored her and looked to the computers. “It’s this panel here, right?”
>
I glanced to the monitors.
00:00:20
“Maybe.” Andi stepped back in his way.
Cowboy took another breath. Then he reached out to her. As carefully as if he were holding an armed bomb, he took her shoulders and gently moved her to the side.
It was touching. And somehow, in a way I can’t explain . . . inspiring. Enough for me to feel a little of my own resolve starting to return.
He stooped down and looked into the back of the computer.
00:00:14
“There’s so many cables,” his voice echoed from inside. “Won’t you help me?”
Andi must have felt something, too. Like the professor. Like me. Somehow his strength was feeding ours. She looked over to us. I didn’t know what to say. And for once, neither did the professor. Andi frowned. She looked down at Cowboy. Then she knelt to join him.
00:00:09
“Could be those wires there,” she said.
“These?” he asked.
“Yes.”
00:00:05
“No! I’m wrong!” she said. “Try those. Those right there!”
He gave her a look.
She nodded.
He reached further inside—
00:00:01
—and gave a yank.
Nothing.
He yanked harder. Suddenly the console exploded with more sparks than the Fourth of July.
Everything went dark.
And there in the darkness, as embarrassment over our words and our actions washed through us, we started coming back to our senses.
Police lights flooded through the windows. A moment later, police officers burst into the room. But it didn’t matter. It was over.
It was over and, somehow, some way, we had won.
Epilogue
The next day gave a new meaning to the word awkward. Yeah, the police showed up that night with lots of arrests around the area, including busting us for breaking and entering. And, yeah, Anderson had to pull some strings and do some fast talkin’ to get us free. (Like he said, he’s good at what he does.)
But the real truth is, it’s like we all caught each other naked. Like we saw what we could really be like if you stripped away all our niceties. ’Course, we all apologized to each other, sayin’ it really wasn’t us. And, of course, we all knew we were lying. Because somewhere inside, some part of us really was feeling all that junk.
Anyway . . .
By late the next day, we were all loaded in the limo and headin’ back to the airport, pretending everything was normal. Daniel was back to playing his apps, despite (or because of) the professor’s criticism of my parenting skills. Andi was on the phone. I’d busied myself finishing up the sketch of that octopus monster thing. And the professor, as usual, was hiding behind his puffed-up intellect.
“A remarkable experience when you stop to think of it objectively,” he said. “The possibilities when one’s inhibitions are completely removed, when one is unfettered by moral restraint.”
“Whatever it was,” Cowboy said, “I didn’t like it.”
“You seemed fine with it for a time.”
The big guy threw a nervous look to Andi, who was still on the phone. “God didn’t make morals for us to go around breakin’ ’em,” he said.
“Yes, well, I’m afraid God had little to do with creating morality,” the professor said. “Morals are merely the logical extension of man’s attempt to keep our race from destroying itself—seeking what’s best for the community rather than our own self-centered desires.”
“I don’t know about none of that,” Cowboy said. “But I do know if it wasn’t for God, I’d never have had the strength to do what was right.”
“Maybe,” I said. “But seein’ what you did sure helped the rest of us.”
The professor agreed. “Witnessing proper behavior can, indeed, instill and promote proper behavior. While witnessing improper behavior can often—”
“Make folks do bad,” Cowboy said.
The professor nodded. “Which is precisely why The Gate wishes to control the media.”
“They want to show folks doin’ bad so others start doin’ it.”
I pointed at Andi. “What was it she quoted? Any moral can be changed through the media?”
“Leviathan,” Daniel said.
I turned to him. “What’s that?”
He didn’t bother to look up from his game.
“Leviathan,” Cowboy repeated. “It’s in the Bible. Some sort of sea monster.”
“With tentacles?” I asked.
Cowboy shrugged.
“With arms that can slither undetected into every mind and household in America,” the professor added.
Daniel’s game blasted with another burst of gunfire followed by the usual screams and explosions.
I glanced to the professor. He gave the usual disapproving arch of his eyebrow.
“Daniel?” I said.
He didn’t hear.
“Daniel?”
Still nothing.
I sighed. The professor had been right way too many times on this trip. But I had to give him another one.
I reached over and took the game out of Daniel’s hands.
“Hey!”
“Leviathan,” I said.
He reached for it. “That’s mine.”
“You’ve played enough for now,” I said.
“That’s not fair.”
“Welcome to life.”
He folded his arms and slumped into a sulk. I did my best to avoid the professor’s eyes.
A moment later Andi disconnected from her call. “Well,” she said, “that’s encouraging.”
“What?” Cowboy asked.
“Anderson has shut down the show.”
“That’s fantastic,” Cowboy said.
“Good news,” I agreed.
“And the LAPD is investigating the placement of all the equipment inside the church and the generators around those pillars.”
“Will it do any good?” I asked.
She shrugged. “Norman says the news channels have already gotten wind of it and—”
The professor chuckled. “Oh, Norman, is it now?”
I glanced to Cowboy, who pretended not to hear.
Andi continued. “Mr. Anderson casts a pretty big shadow in the town. More importantly, he has offered his services to us. He understands The Gate’s influence, especially in its use of the media, and he’s promised to do all he can to help stop them.”
“That’s great,” Cowboy said, overdoing the enthusiasm a bit. “That probably means we’ll see him again.”
Andi nodded. “I hope so.”
Cowboy looked out the window.
The professor took a deep breath. “And so, another battle has been won.” Musing, he added, “Almost in spite of ourselves.”
“But we still got the war,” I said. “A big one. Seems there’s nothing The Gate isn’t messin’ with.”
Cowboy turned from the window. “But it ain’t our job to worry about it, Miss Brenda.” I looked over to him and he nodded at my sketchpad. “We just keep cuttin’ off the tentacles that we find. That’s all we can do.”
“What’s the old riddle?” the professor asked. “‘How do you eat an elephant?’”
We turned to him and he answered, “‘One bite at a time.’” He looked back out the window as our limo pulled up to the curb. “That’s how we shall destroy them.” He repeated, as much for himself as for us, “One bite at a time.”
We sat there in silence. Despite all we’d said and done to each other the night before, we’d never felt closer. Could be all the battles we’d been fighting together, the impossible enemy we were up against, or who knows what. Whatever it was, for that one brief moment, like it or not, we were family.
Finally, the professor opened his door and stepped out. The others followed. I lagged behind to get Daniel and all our stuff.
“Let’s go, Barnick,” the professor barked.
“Han
g on.” I turned to Daniel. “You got your hoodie? Those planes get cold.”
He nodded and pulled out his sweatshirt. I checked the seats and floor for anything we might have left behind.
“Barnick.”
“Hang on.”
A moment later we crawled out. But the professor didn’t let up. “Have you ever, for once in your entire life, been punctual?”
“You try lugging a kid around,” I snapped.
“A kid?” He motioned to the nearby porter to handle his suitcases. “Don’t tell me about children. I have four of them to look after. And there isn’t a one of you who isn’t more trouble than you’re worth.” He turned and started for the terminal. “Let’s go, people. The plane’s waiting.”
I slung my backpack over my shoulder and turned to Andi. “And . . . we’re back.”
She grinned and took Daniel’s hand. “It sure looks that way.”
“Yes, it does,” I muttered. “Yes, it does.”
Soli Deo gloria.
Contents
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
Epilogue
CHAPTER
1
A Broke Broker
Adrian Pugh, Wall Street broker, offshore investor, and one-time multimillionaire, paced nervously around his huge office, muttering, shaking his head in horror and disbelief. He turned and looked once again at the computer screen on his desk. The columns of figures and the totals at the bottom were still there. His first appointment was in ten minutes, and he would be eye to eye with one of the names on that computer screen.
After that, he’d be eye to eye with an arresting officer.
Outside the wall-sized windows, the skyscrapers of New York stood waist-deep in smog. The street was twenty stories below.
Twenty stories. More than enough.
CHAPTER
2
Andi the Pirate
The Probing: Leviathan, The Mind Pirates, Hybrids, The Village Page 6
