A Better World (The Brilliance Trilogy Book 2)

by Marcus Sakey

  Except felons are allowed to keep their names.

  Cooper caught a glimpse of the man he had been talking to, a scrawny kid almost hidden in his embrace, the guy squeezing so hard it was like he was trying to push his son inside his own chest.

  Amidst the crowd, armed commandos became the eyes of miniature hurricanes, people crowding around them to slap their backs and shake their hands, women kissing them, people offering them money, love, faith. But Shannon waited atop the stairs until the last child had disembarked.

  Then, staying out of the fanfare, she strolled down, skirted the edge of the crowd, and started to move away, the little girl in her arms. No one seemed to notice them.

  Cooper dug out his phone and dialed.

  The girl squirmed in her arms. “You can put me down now, Aunt Shannon.”

  “I know, sweetie,” she said, but didn’t. Even tired as she was, the weight was sweet.

  But man, was she beat.

  Honey, you’ve been beat before. This is different.

  Bone-weary. No, not just bone—soul-weary. It wasn’t simple exhaustion, although she had that in spades. Shannon was going on forty hours awake, some of that high-adrenaline time, and the world was bleary; her muscles ached, and her head hurt, and her eyes felt like sandpaper.

  All of which she’d expected. She’d just also expected to feel . . .

  What? Redeemed? Cleansed of your sins?

  Well, yeah.

  Killing people is a strange way to accomplish that.

  Whatever. They were bad people, and Charles Norridge hadn’t been her first. If there was an afterlife and the people you’d murdered were waiting, she was going to have a pitched battle to make it through the gates.

  No, it wasn’t the killing that was bugging her. It was something more abstract. A feeling of . . .

  Pointlessness?

  There it was. All the time she’d been planning this op, she’d imagined the moment when they returned triumphant, and in that imagining she’d been at the center of the celebration, champagne spraying and everyone laughing. But when the moment had arrived, she’d just stood at the top of the stairs and watched.

  It didn’t matter. Thread through the airport, snag a cab, find a hotel. Sleep for a week. Then dig into the problem of finding—

  “Hey.”

  The voice froze her. She set the girl down, then turned slowly.

  Nick stood ten feet away. He looked a little haggard, but still good. Homey, which was a strange way to think about a man she barely knew. Shannon stood locked for a moment. So many things she wanted to say, but she didn’t trust herself to speak. He was a government man, and she had just led an attack on a government building. She knew the raid had been right, but she was so tired. If Nick started a fight, she might just lie down on the concrete and weep.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’ll never doubt you again.”

  It was the last thing she’d expected. She felt her throat tighten, and just nodded.

  “Hi, Alice,” Nick said. “I don’t know if you remember me. I’m Cooper. We met at your parents’ house a couple of months ago.”

  Oh, don’t say that. A squad of soldiers stormed their building because we were there. Alice spent the last months being called “Mary” and crying herself to sleep because we were at her parents’ house . . .

  “I know you’ve had a long day,” he said, “but I’ve got someone who wants to talk to you.” He held out his phone. Alice Chen stared at it, her expression blank.

  “Go ahead. It’s okay.” He put it in her hand. Slowly, she lifted it to her ear. Said, “Hello?”

  And then, “Mommy?”

  And, “Daddy!”

  Something in the girl gave, and she started crying and babbling, a mix of Chinese and English, and even the words Shannon couldn’t understand she understood. And for a second, just a second, she felt the emotion she had imagined she would in the first place, a pure joy thumping in her chest like a kick drum. There was the meaning she’d been missing, and Cooper had been at the heart of it.

  “When I saw the news,” he said, “I woke Bobby up and gave him a direct order from the office of the president to find and release her parents. Lee and Lisa are being processed now. They’ll be on the first flight in the morning.”

  “You can do that?”

  “It’s done.”

  “Won’t you get in trouble?”

  “I’m going a little bit rogue.” He shrugged. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine. Tired.”

  Nick stepped closer. He needed a shave, and his eyes were red, something manic in them. He cast a quick glance over at Alice—sitting on the cold ground clutching the phone in both hands and cry-talking—then said, “I need to clarify something.”

  “Yeah?”

  “I was wound up last night. Saying things I didn’t really mean. You and me, we may not see things the same way. But I know you don’t want biological weapons. I was being stupid.” He reached for her hand, and she let him take it, warm against the cold. “I know the things you won’t do.”

  She didn’t trust herself to speak, just nodded.

  “Listen,” Nick said. “What I want more than anything right now is for us to check into a really expensive hotel and spend a week talking.” He smiled. “And not talking.”

  “But?”

  “But right now we can’t. And I need to ask you about something.”

  She sighed, pulled her hand away. “Come on, you know I’m not going to—”

  “Wait,” he said. “Just hold on. I’m going to tell you what I know. After that, speak, don’t, it’s up to you. Okay?”

  She rubbed at her eye with the heel of one hand. “Sure.”

  “You broke into the DAR to get classified information on bio and genetic research labs. But you didn’t take information on one place or one project; you took most of what we had nationwide. That means John Smith believes that a laboratory is creating something he wants, only he didn’t know which lab. I bet he does now: a place called the Advanced Genomics Institute, run by a scientist named Dr. Abraham Couzen.

  “Couzen is by all accounts a genius. His work has offered new ways to look at the genome. Which means new ways to look at humanity.” He cocked his head. “Last night when I asked what you were after, you said a magic potion. I thought you were being a smart-ass. But you weren’t, were you?”

  She kept her gaze level and her breath steady.

  He gave her that smile, soap-opera scruff, the one he knew was charming. “You’re not going to help me here?”

  “Your rules.”

  “Right. Okay. I’m guessing here. But I’ve been patterning it, and I can only find one thing that fits. Only one thing important enough for you to risk breaking into the DAR; only one thing that Dr. Couzen could develop that John Smith and Erik Epstein would both want desperately.” Cooper paused, laughed. “God, this sounds crazy.”

  “So go crazy.”

  “I’m thinking that Dr. Couzen has figured out what makes people abnorms.”

  It was a struggle, but Shannon kept her poker face up. You wouldn’t have gone for the guy if he were dumb.

  “He’s discovered the genetic basis behind the gifts,” Cooper continued. “Not only that, but he’s found some way to . . . to . . .”

  Say it, Nick. Say the thing that no one dared hope.

  “Shannon, has he found a way to give gifts to anyone? A magic potion that turns normal people into abnorms?”

  It was her turn to watch intently. She wasn’t a reader, had no gift to tell if someone was lying to her, to cobble together their unspoken thoughts. But it wasn’t hard to see the incredulity on Cooper’s face. She remembered having the same feelings herself when John had told her why he wanted her to break into the DAR.

  But what does it mean to you, Nick? Is it exciting? Or terrifying?

  Because your answer determines so much.

  Picking her words carefully, she said, “If that were true, what would you do about
it?”

  “The opportunity for anyone to be gifted? It would be a hundred thousand years of evolution in a blink. The status quo would vanish. All our systems, our beliefs.” He shook his head. “The government would want to keep it quiet, control it.”

  “Yeah,” she said. “But I asked what you would do.”

  “What you’re really asking,” he said, “is whether I would do the same thing I did last time. Because when I shared the truth behind the Monocle, behind President Walker and Drew Peters and Equitable Services, it had massive consequences. I was trying to do the right thing, and in the process I pushed the world closer to disaster. And you want to know if I would do the same thing again.”

  She waited.

  “Absolutely,” he said. “Without hesitation. This can’t be a decision made behind closed doors, by people who have agendas. This belongs to all of us.”

  A glow started in her chest and spread out through her body, a tingle of warmth that the cold Wyoming night couldn’t touch. She stepped forward, put a hand on his cheek. Looked him in the eyes. “Good answer.”

  He sagged, not as though weight had landed on his shoulders, but rather like something rigid within him had fallen away. Like he could breathe for the first time in a long while. “It’s true, then? It exists?”

  “Yes.”

  “My God.”

  “Yes.”

  “This changes everything.”

  “Yeah,” she said. Then smiled at him. “Don’t think it means I’m done being pissed at you yet, though.”

  Nick laughed. “Never dreamed of it.”

  We are plugged in all the time now. As we work, as we drive, even as we read a book or watch the tri-d. Our lives are partially virtual, lived in the digital space.

  It’s the great equalizer: black or white, male or female, norm or abnorm, the first thing most people do in the morning—before they even brush their teeth—is reach for their d-pad.

  You want to change the world? Forget politics. Learn to code.

  —JENNIFER LAURENS, CEO OF BRIDGETECH, TO MIT’S GRADUATING CLASS

  * * *

  CHAPTER 27

  The woman in the projection field was slender, and the tactical blacks made her seem even smaller. But she carried herself with the grace of a ballet dancer, each gesture assured as she slipped past a guard, the man’s eyes elsewhere, his weapon coming up. There was a muffled bang, and a hole appeared in the center of his head. He had barely crumpled before a second commando stormed in. She forced the other guard to his knees and dug the barrel of a submachine gun into his neck.

  Leahy said, “Pause.”

  The two women froze, their expressions locked in the in-between of an awkward photograph.

  “That’s Shannon Azzi,” Leahy continued. “Her friend is Kathy Baskoff. They’re both abnorms, known terrorists with strong connections to John Smith.”

  Senator Richard Lathrup stepped into the display field, his body casting shadows as he blocked the projectors. “This one doesn’t look like a soldier.”

  “Shannon’s not, usually. A spy and an assassin. She’s the one who broke into DAR headquarters last week.”

  The senator whistled. “And now Davis Academy. Busy girl.” He turned. “Taking out the guards I can understand. But how did they disable the security protocols?”

  “Part of what she lifted from the DAR was the academy IT package. They used it to put the alarms in a loop and black out the facility.”

  Mitchum said, “Another failure.”

  “Yes, sir,” Leahy said. “Worse, while ordinarily we could have kept this quiet, the terrorists released the footage to the media. Our presumption is that the public impact was the real purpose; freeing a few children has no tactical value.”

  “This plays into our hands, doesn’t it?” The senator gestured at the frozen footage. “Attacking a government facility, killing teachers and administrators, blowing up buildings. It’s a clear indicator that the gifted can’t be trusted and a perfect reason for the president to move up the timetable on the Monitoring Oversight Initiative.”

  Leahy shook his head. “When Cleveland rioted, I pushed Clay to do just that. He refused.”

  “That’s not all he did,” Mitchum said, “is it?”

  “No, sir.” Leahy took a breath. “Clay wants to deal with the gifted directly. He hopes to broker a deal with Erik Epstein, a full partnership between the NCH and the United States to end terrorism, starting with the Children of Darwin.”

  “That’s correct. And as an envoy, he sent Nick Cooper, the DAR agent who killed Drew Peters and released the evidence against President Walker. Evidence that could lead back to our involvement.” Mitchum paused. “Would you say the situation is under control, Owen?”

  Leahy forced himself not to wince. You knew he was going to make you eat that. “Clay has turned out to be weaker than I thought.”

  “A dangerous miscalculation. And now we have an abnorm of uncertain loyalties negotiating with Erik Epstein.”

  “Yes, sir.” He gritted his teeth, said, “I admit, the situation is out of my control.”

  The senator said, “Is it such a bad thing that Clay is talking to Epstein? Cleveland, Tulsa, and Fresno are under siege. Maybe Epstein can end this.”

  Good Christ, man. Are you even clear on what we’re trying to do here? The senator was a useful ally, no question. While the Monitoring Oversight Initiative had been Leahy’s idea, it was Richard who had proposed it in the Senate and served as the public face. But at the end of the day, he was a politician, not an intelligence agent. Leahy said, “I’m concerned about how far Clay will go to be liked.”

  “You should be,” Mitchum said. “Yesterday our president authorized Nick Cooper to offer the New Canaan Holdfast the opportunity to leave our fair nation.”

  Leahy’s mouth fell open. “Secession?”

  “Indeed.”

  “My God. How do you know?”

  Mitchum didn’t respond, and Leahy cursed himself. A boneheaded move, admitting surprise. Secrets were power. Worth noting, though, that even the president can’t keep secrets from Mitchum. He said, “Clay is losing it. That will never work.”

  “My concern is what happens if it does.”

  The senator looked puzzled. “Why? Surely ending terrorism, not to mention the siege of three American cities, is worth some scrub land in Wyoming.”

  Leahy was about to respond, but to his surprise, Mitchum wheeled on the man, all the careful meter gone from his voice. “ ‘Scrub land in Wyoming’? Senator, we are talking about sovereign territory of the United States. Our job is to protect our country, not give it away.”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Dreaming of a better world is for poets. Men in our position can’t afford to think that way. Surely you wouldn’t want your constituents, not to mention your caucus, to know that you’re willing to parcel out America as party favors.”

  The senator paled. “No, sir. Of course not.”

  Leahy almost smiled. Nice of Richard to step up to the whipping post, take some of the heat off you. But don’t get complacent. “I think we have to acknowledge that the Monitoring Oversight Initiative is dead. Events have spiraled past that point.”

  Mitchum said, “Resume, full mute.”

  The two terrorist women slid back into motion. Shannon Azzi pulled out a roll of duct tape and began to bind the guard with it. Leahy had seen the footage more than once, and so he turned his attention to Mitchum. For twenty-five years he had worked for Mitchum in one capacity or another, sometimes directly, sometimes simply because he owed his position to the man. He knew how Mitchum’s mind worked, and admired it.

  Intelligence work was about collecting mountains of information. There were three components to success. The first was spotting which minor detail was the important one. The second was deciding what to do about it. The third was having the stomach to carry out those actions ruthlessly.

  Mitchum was very successful indeed.

  In the
footage, Shannon Azzi patted the guard on the cheek, then pushed his chair toward the bank of monitors and walked out. The view jumped to the area outside the guard hut, heavy trucks rolling into sight.

  “People who disparage the status quo have never experienced the opposite,” Mitchum said. “Maintaining order, keeping the system running, flawed as it may be, is a sacred duty. It’s not about words on a piece of paper. It’s about our children. America may not be perfect, but it’s closer than anywhere else, and preserving it for my children is my highest calling.”

  Leahy had never heard Mitchum wax so poetic. The senator was doing the sycophantic thing, nodding sagely, but Leahy knew better. Terence Mitchum didn’t need to be loved, didn’t rationalize his actions. That speech was a message.

  He flashed back to that moment, more than two decades ago, when he had sat outside Mitchum’s office, holding the study announcing the arrival of the gifted. His hands sweaty and his thoughts scattered. It had been a bold, even reckless maneuver, and it had made him. If he hadn’t caught Mitchum’s eye, Leahy would probably be a midlevel manager at some private military contractor instead of the secretary of defense.

  Perhaps it’s time for another bold maneuver.

  “One of the things I’ve always found concerning,” Leahy said slowly, “is that the New Canaan Holdfast is quite peaceful. There’s no greater refutation of the argument that abnorms are a threat than that happy little enclave. Normal and gifted coexist there. It’s a problem.”

  Richard looked at him. “Son, you have a strange worldview.”

  “I’m not your son, Senator. I’m the secretary of defense of the United States of America.”

  “I didn’t mean—”

  “It’s a problem because it’s false. The NCH is about as self-sustaining as a two-week-old puppy. They are able to function as a city on a hill because of us. We shield them and support them. And meanwhile, abnorms work together there, with limitless funding and little regulation. They pile advantage on advantage, leapfrogging science and technology, and then doling it out at a pace that pleases them.”