Brilliance

by Marcus Sakey

  “We recover it?”

  “Nah. Probably in the sewers.” Quinn shook his head. “She whupped us good, boss. Twenty agents, an airship, cameras all over the place, snipers, and she strolled right in and blew up our witness.” His partner didn’t explicitly mention that the girl had stood beside Cooper while she triggered the bomb, but that was only because the words were in parentheses.

  Cooper sighed. Crushed his d-pad into a square and jammed it in his pocket. “Well, one thing’s for sure.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Roger Dickinson is having a better day than I am.”

  By one o’clock they were rolling through Elizabeth in a black Escalade commandeered from a DAR tactical response team. Bobby Quinn was expanding on one of his theories, and Cooper was driving and trying not to listen. The truck had been rebored and given twin turbochargers, and the result was a roar of muscle Cooper was digging on.

  “So I finally figured out those anti-Wyoming people,” Quinn said. “I used to think, you know, why not? I mean, who needs Wyoming? You ever been there? Of course not. No one has. And maybe it would take some of the pressure off things if abnorms had a place they knew was safe. No big surprise Erik Epstein named the place New Canaan, right? Tap into the Jewish sympathy, parallel the situations.”

  “Mmm,” Cooper said. He glanced at the map on the Escalade’s GPS. Outside the window Elizabeth looked exactly the way he had imagined. The houses were mostly two stories, small but tidy, nestled close. Older domestic cars were parked in squat driveways beneath crisscrossing power lines. The kind of neighborhood where a nurse and a plumber could own a home, raise a family.

  “But then I figured it out. It’s like Risk.”

  “Like risk?” Cooper asked, drawn in despite himself. “Who likes risk?”

  “No, Risk. You know, Risk, that board game, the one with all the little plastic pieces and the map of the world? Risk.”

  “Oh. Okay.” Cooper paused. “Yeah, still not getting it, Bobby. What’s like Risk?”

  “You ever play it?”

  “I don’t know. A long time ago.”

  “My nephews were in town, we’d done the zoo already, the Mall, and I was going crazy for something to entertain them. See, the goal of the game is to take over the world—”

  “That’s your revelatory realpolitik understanding of New Canaan and norm-abnorm relations? ‘The goal is to take over the world’?”

  “Just listen. You start with a certain number of pieces in different countries, and you attack the countries next to them. You get more armies every turn depending on what countries you hold. Well, continents, really, you get armies for continents, but anyway, the point is, you get different amounts for different continents.”

  “Okay.” Cooper turned onto Elm Street. Evans was at 104 Elm. He checked his mirror; no sign of police cars, nothing to startle the man. The sky was white.

  “So say you own Australia. And you feel pretty good about yourself, right? You took it over a bit at a time, and the rewards are coming in now, a few armies every turn. And you’ve got all that water between you and the rest of the world. You’re rolling.”

  “Right.”

  “Wrong. Because someone out there has Asia. And they get like three times the armies you do. Every single turn, bam, you get two armies, they get six or seven. Over one turn, it’s not a big deal, right? You started out equal, so the few extra armies make a difference, but not a crucial one. Australia is still in the game. But after a few turns, things get dicier. Asia has a lot more power already. And Australia can see that it’s going to get worse. Given ten or twenty turns? Forget it. There’s no comparison between the two. They may have started at the same place, but now one is totally at the other’s mercy.”

  98, 100, 102, 104. A single-story house of no discernible architectural style, painted the color of old cream cheese. A Ford pickup was parked in the driveway. The license plate matched. Cooper drove past, then pulled the Escalade to the curb half a block down and killed the engine. “So brilliants are Asia in this. We do all the growing and advancing.”

  “Yeah. Thirty years ago, humans were all basically the same. I mean, sure, try telling that to a kid in Liberia, but you take my point. Then for whatever reason, vaccinations or livestock hormones or the ozone layer, you guys come along. And wham. I mean, it’s not an opinion that you’re better than us. You empirically are.” Quinn shrugged. “Better at everything. All the technology, the software, engineering, medicine, business. Hell, music. Sports. No straight can compete. The absolute best normal computer programmer in the world, could he match Alex Vasquez?”

  Cooper shook his head as he checked his Beretta. Habit; the load hadn’t changed since this morning.

  “And it’s only going to get worse. Right now we’re only a few turns into the game. But in another decade? Two?” Quinn shrugged. “And the problem is, it’s hard for Australia not to do the math. Not to see that if things go on, they will become totally irrelevant. We, normal humans, will become totally irrelevant.”

  “Ready to go?”

  “Yeah.”

  The opened the doors and climbed out. Cooper took the lead, giving the streets a quick glance as they walked east. Bobby unbuttoned his suit jacket, took out a cigarette, spun it between his fingers. The air was cool but pleasant, more fall than winter. Not far away, someone was playing basketball.

  “Here’s the problem with your theory,” Cooper said.

  “Hit me.”

  “You said Australia and Asia, right? But there are only, what, forty thousand gifted born every year in the US. So across the last thirty years we’re looking at 1.2 million, give or take. Two-thirds of those are under twenty. Call it four hundred thousand adult abnorms.”

  “Right.”

  “Meanwhile, there are three hundred million straights.” They came to Evans’s house and started up the walk. Cooper kept his stride calm and his eyes on the windows. “We’re not Asia, my friend. We’re not even Australia. We’re a tiny minority surrounded by a very freaked-out majority. A majority that’s desperate to own a newtech TV so they can watch Barry Adams stroll through a defensive line in tri-d, but wouldn’t want their daughter to marry him.”

  “You kidding? Adams’s contract with the Bears is a hundred sixty-three million dollars. When my ex and I have the Talk with my daughter, it’s going to be, ‘Sex is only for when two people are really in love, or when one of those two people is Barry Adams, in which case remember what we said about always giving your very best effort.’ Hell, I pray my little girl will marry him.” Quinn spread his arms like a television preacher. “Lord, please, I say puh-lease, bestow upon your faithful servant a rich twist son-in-law.”

  Cooper turned, laughing, and that was when a hole blew through the front door in a hail of splinters and a boom that muffled the world, and Quinn staggered back, the front of his suit shredded and a look of childish confusion on his face. Another hole punched beside the first and somewhere behind them glass shattered, and then Cooper clotheslined his partner across the sternum while kicking out the back of his knee, Bobby not falling so much as dropping and Cooper still spinning, his right hand pulling the Beretta and leveling it at the door and taking three shots and then two more, best-guess suppressive fire. The first crack was the loudest, the others seemed farther away. He didn’t give the man on the inside a chance to collect himself, just took two quick steps, yanked open the door, and spun in, adrenaline driving him forward. His nerves screamed at the move, but fight was better than flight, and he needed to see the shooter; he couldn’t read him if he couldn’t see him.

  A living room, sparsely decorated, couch and coffee table. A man was standing next to an arch that looked like it might lead to a dining room. About six foot, long hair, and a black T-shirt, a shotgun in his hand, the barrel swinging and—

  Shotguns are bad news; the wide spread of buckshot cuts down your edge.

  But the holes in the door were small, fist-size.

 
He’s firing double- or even triple-ought shells. Call it six nine-millimeter pellets in each. Incredibly lethal, but intended for tactical operations, which means a full choke in the barrel for precision. The lead will only spread about eighteen inches over fifty yards.

  And he’s not even ten feet away.

  —his finger tightening on the trigger, and Cooper stepped sideways ten inches as a blast of fire bloomed from the barrel of the shotgun and metal shards hurtled through the space he had been standing in. He raised the Beretta and sighted down it. The man in the T-shirt leaped back into the dining room, taking cover around the corner. Cooper tracked the motion, lowered his aim about two inches, and fired. The bullet tore through drywall like Kleenex. The man screamed and collapsed. The shotgun clattered on the hardwood floor.

  Cooper moved fast, came around the corner with his weapon up. The man was on the ground, weeping and moaning and squeezing his thigh. Thick streams of blood pulsed between his fingers. The room had a card table and two chairs; there was another archway through which he could see the kitchen. No other targets. He picked up the shotgun, locked the safety, tossed it back toward the front door. “Where’s Dusty Evans?”

  “My goddamn leg!” His face was pale and sweaty as he rocked back and forth. “Jesus, oh Jesus Christ, it hurts.”

  “Evans. Where is—”

  A sound from the other room, a squeak and then a bang. Cooper jumped over the man’s extended legs and the growing pool of blood and sprinted into the kitchen. A wooden door stood open; the sound had been the storm door slamming. He shouldered his way through into a small backyard. A tangle of rosebushes, all thorns and no flowers; a small toolshed; a grill beside a picnic table. The whole thing was framed by wooden privacy fencing eight feet high, which Dusty Evans was in the middle of hauling himself over. Cooper grabbed his leg and yanked.

  The man landed on his feet, came up ready to fight, six foot two inches of pissed-off bar brawler. Cooper still had the gun in his hand, but the thing with guns, they had unpredictable consequences. Bullets didn’t necessarily stop in flesh, and in this neighborhood, that flesh could belong to a kid. He waited until Evans made his move, a feinted cross that concealed a jab, then stepped where the punch wasn’t and brought his gun hand into the side of the man’s neck in a brutal chop. Evans collapsed like his bones had vanished. By the time he could move again, Cooper had patted him down and cuffed his hands behind his back.

  “Hi,” Cooper said, then jerked the man to his feet by his bound wrists.

  “Ow, shit.”

  “Yes.” He pushed the man forward. “Walk.”

  The inside of the kitchen had the burned smell of gunfire. Cooper pushed Evans ahead of him. “Bobby?”

  “Yeah.” The reply sounded heavy, forced. “Here.”

  He marched his prisoner into the dining room. The wounded shooter flopped on the floor, pushing down against his thigh with cuffed hands. “Jesus Christ, oh Christ.”

  Cooper ignored him, looked at his partner, who leaned against a wall, one hand holding his sidearm, the other hugging his chest. “The vest catch everything?”

  “Yeah.” Quinn forced the word through clenched teeth. “Broke at least one rib, though.”

  “Messed up your suit, too.”

  His partner barked a laugh and then winced in pain. “Shit, Coop, don’t.”

  The adrenaline was beginning to fade, leaving Cooper with that rubbery-limbed feeling. He holstered the Beretta, then flexed his fingers, took a deep breath. “You check the house?”

  Quinn nodded. “Clear.”

  Cooper took another deep breath and a look around. The place had a dorm-room feel, everything cheap and secondhand. The couch was Salvation Army. There were no pictures on the wall. Shelves of cinder blocks and boards were packed with books, mostly politics, some memoirs, a row of electronics manuals. The tri-d was the only expensive thing in the place; it was a recent model, its hologram field sharp and unwavering, the colors vivid. It was tuned to CNN, tickers and ribbons hanging in midair, the head and shoulders of an anchor ghostly as she talked about the grand opening of the new stock exchange. An open bag of Doritos sat on the coffee table, along with half a dozen beer bottles.

  Cooper turned to his prisoners. “You guys having a party?”

  “You have a warrant?” Evans glared. “Some ID?”

  “We’re not cops, Dusty. We’re gas men. We don’t need warrants. We don’t need a judge or jury, either.”

  Evans tried to lock down his expression, but fear flashed across it like a spotlight.

  Quinn said, “Still think this lead is thin, boss?”

  Cooper laughed and pulled out his phone. They’d need to let the cops know what the gunfire was about before some local got twitchy and rolled in. And Director Peters would want to know that they had their targets. Not only that, but the first credible recording of John Smith’s voice in three years.

  Of course, the bad news was that meant an attack was likely to happen today—

  Wait a second.

  The beer. The Doritos. The tri-d tuned to CNN.

  Oh shit.

  A horn blared. Cooper yanked the Escalade hard right, the tires popping up the curb shoulder, gravel spitting behind them, clearing the pole of a streetlight by inches. The man in the passenger seat screamed. They’d tied a kitchen towel around his thigh, but the blue-checked terrycloth was crimson now. He was trying to keep pressure on it, his hands still bound, fingers and handcuffs covered in gore. In the backseat, Quinn grunted, but said nothing. Beside him, Dusty Evans had recovered his screw-you face.

  Cooper jammed down on the gas, cleared the van in front of them, and then bounced back into his lane. He had both the siren and the flashers going, but he also had the accelerator nearly to the floor, and it seemed like they were outrunning the sound.

  The clock on the dashboard read 1:32. He glanced at the GPS. A thirty-minute drive, and they didn’t have thirty minutes. He pushed the accelerator a little farther down, the speedometer breaking 100 now, Highway 1 a blur of concrete barriers and low warehouses. Airplanes bound for Newark International cut crosses from gray skies.

  “Hey,” Cooper said. “What’s your name?”

  “I need a doctor, man, I need a doctor bad.”

  “We’ll get you a doctor soon. I promise. What’s your name?”

  “Gary Nie—”

  “Don’t tell them nothing,” Dusty Evans said from the backseat. “This is Gestapo bullshit. This is what we’re fighting against.”

  “Listen, Gary,” Cooper said, ignoring the outburst, “we don’t have a lot of time.” The back of a semi loomed, brake lights flaring as the trucker tried to pull over, but Cooper was going too fast, had to skim between the lanes, the left mirror inches from the concrete barrier, the right almost touching the truck panels. He was good at driving fast, enjoyed the dance of hurtling steel, but the circumstances were making it tricky, the chaos of sirens and lights and horns and screams and blood, not to mention the stakes, a vision of what he feared was about to happen. “I need you to answer some questions. First, where exactly is the bomb?”

  “How do you know about the—”

  “Don’t say anything, you hear?” Evans again. “You hear me?”

  There was the snick of metal against leather. Cooper spared a quarter second to glance in the rearview. Evans had turned into a statue, his eyes rolling but muscles locked. Bobby Quinn didn’t look away from the pistol he held to the man’s temple. “Go ahead, Coop. I think the backseat is out of opinions.”

  “Thank you.” Cooper put on his best mild grin. “Now. We know you planted the bomb.” They hadn’t, of course, until Gary confirmed it a moment ago, but there was no point saying that. He pulled past a sedan, saw a patch of blessedly empty straightaway, and floored it. “These are the things I need to know. Where exactly is it? What kind of bomb? How powerful? How is it detonated? When?”

  Gary moaned and rocked forward, his hands clenched over his left thigh. The backs of his
hands were caked in dried blood. His features were pale. “Jesusgod this hurts. I need a doctor.”

  “Elevate it.”

  The man looked at him, and Cooper nodded. “Go ahead.”

  Gary fumbled to undo his seat belt, then spun so that he was leaning against the side door. He raised the leg awkwardly, bracing a boot against the console and moaning as he did.

  “Better? Good. Now listen. Where exactly is the bomb? What kind is it? How powerful? How is it detonated? When?”

  “I don’t.” He gasped as the Escalade hit a pothole at 112 miles an hour, bouncing on the heavy shocks as they blew past a tour bus. “Goddamn it! Take me to a hospital.”

  Cooper glanced over. Gary Nie-whatever’s long hair was scraggly and matted with sweat. His body was broadcasting agony, all of his muscles tensed, and trying to read the subtleties beneath that was dicey at best. One thing was for sure, though: the man looked smaller when he wasn’t holding a shotgun.

  Slowly and carefully, he asked again. “Where is the bomb? What kind is it? How powerful? How is it detonated? When?”

  Gary looked over, his eyes glossy with tears. His lips quivered, and then he whispered something.

  “What?”

  “I said.” The man fought a breath in. “Screw you, Gas Man. I am John Smith.”

  The road was two lanes of blacktop in each direction under steel-gray skies. Half a mile ahead, a bridge stretched across the listless brown of the Passaic River. Cooper checked the side mirror. Clear.

  He leaned across Gary Nie-whatever’s chest and yanked the door handle at the same time as he jerked the steering wheel left. Centripetal force and the weight of the man’s body threw the door open.

  For a fraction of a second, Gary hung weightless as a balloon, his mouth open, arms in front of him, the chain of the handcuffs still swinging between them as a roar of wind filled the world.

  Then Cooper jerked the wheel to the right, narrowly dodging the lane divider. The door slammed shut. In the rearview mirror Gary’s body hit the pavement at a hundred miles an hour, smearing and bouncing. There was a squeal of air brakes as the tour bus behind them fought to stop, and then his body vanished beneath its wheels.