by Marcus Sakey
The lawyer ignored her completely. “Please, have a seat. Erik will join us in a moment. Can I get you anything? Coffee?”
“I’m fine, thanks. Allison?”
Shannon shook her head. Instead of sitting, she glided to one of the windows, stared out at the view.
“Hi,” Cooper said to the little girl. “My name’s Tom.”
She looked up from the datapad. Her eyes were a green almost as startling as her hair, and far too old for her body. “No it isn’t,” she said, then went back to her game.
He felt a snap of embarrassment laced with anger, swallowed it. The girl was obviously a reader; even beyond her casual callout on his lie, she had all the signs: antisocial tendencies, a hunger for nonhuman stimulus, the need to physically express her difference. And it wasn’t really a surprise to think that Epstein would use the abilities of the gifted around him. He just hadn’t expected a child.
She must be exceptionally powerful. The thought came with a wave of discomfort. To a tier-one reader, the whole world was naked emperors. Her knowledge would go beyond knowing that he was lying about his identity; within a few minutes of listening to him, watching him, she would know things that his ex-wife didn’t.
It was one of the few gifts that he really considered curses. Every moment, every human interaction, readers swam in the river of lies that made up everyday life. Worse, they picked up on the darker elements of personalities, the universal Jungian shadow of the human mind, the part that relished torture and pain and humiliation. Everyone had that shadow. For most people, it was controlled, expressed in subverted ways: pornography, aggressive sports, violent daydreams. It was part of the human animal, and most of the time, a harmless part. Thoughts were only thoughts, after all, and these were held close.
But readers saw them all around, in every person. Every kindness was underscored by it. Daddy might protect you, but a tiny part of him wanted to hold the babysitter down and do things to her. Mommy might wipe your tears, but something in her wanted to claw your arms and shriek in your face to shut the hell up. Unsurprisingly, readers ran to madness. The healthiest usually ended up shut-ins, locked in a tiny controlled world where they could count on the things around them.
Most committed suicide.
Robert Kobb coughed into a closed fist and said, “You’ll have to forgive Millicent. She says what’s on her mind.”
“Nothing to forgive,” Cooper said. “She’s right.”
“Yes, I know.” Robert Kobb gave a bland smile and settled himself on the couch beside Millicent. She shied away from him without glancing from her game. Kobb said, “You’re actually Nick Cooper.”
“Yeah.”
“Erik asked me to clear the time as soon as he heard from you this morning. He didn’t tell me what this was in reference to.”
Cooper flopped in one of the chairs, measured the lawyer. Something about the man bugged him. The pose of authority, calling his boss by his first name. That and his veneer of aw-shucks normalcy. “He didn’t know. Ask you a question?”
“Certainly.”
“What’s it like helping to build New Canaan when you’re not gifted?”
By the window, Shannon swallowed a laugh. The lawyer’s smile curdled slightly. “A privilege. Why?”
“Call me curious.”
Kobb nodded, made an unconvincing it’s-nothing gesture. “What we’re doing here matters. It’s an incredible opportunity. Never in history has there been an initiative like this. A chance to build a new world.”
“Especially with someone else’s money. Sounds like a no-lose.”
Millicent smiled into her game.
“Hmm.” The phone at the lawyer’s belt vibrated, and he unclipped it, read the message. “Ah. Erik is about to arrive. He’s in Manhattan.”
“He flew in for this?”
“No,” Kobb said, the smugness back. “He’s in Manhattan now.”
“Then—”
Before he could finish the question, Erik Epstein appeared behind the desk.
Cooper was halfway out of his chair with realizing he’d moved, his body on full combat alert. His mind spinning, analyzing the situation—
A gift like Shannon’s? Has he been here all the time, somehow?
No, Epstein’s gift is for data.
Some unheard-of piece of newtech? Cloaking? Teleportation? Ridiculous.
But there he is. Live and in the flesh…
Got it.
—and realizing what he was looking at. “Wow. That is something.”
Erik Epstein smiled. “Sorry to startle you.”
Now that he’d had a moment, Cooper could see the faint gauziness at the man’s edges, as if he’d been smeared. The shadows were off, too; wherever Epstein was, the lighting was different from here. He looked like a special effect from a movie in the eighties, completely convincing until you really looked.
“One of our newest developments,” Kobb said. “Fundamentally similar to the technology in a tri-d set, only significantly amplified.”
“A hologram.”
“Yes,” Epstein said. He grinned. “Not bad, huh?”
“Not bad at all.” That’s a decade past the best the DAR has ever managed. Even with the academy graduates.
In person—well, sort of—Erik Epstein looked a little less polished than he did in broadcasts. He still had the boyish good looks, the raffish hair, but he seemed less stiff. Dressed in a summer-weight suit with no tie, he’d have been at home in an expensive country club. “I’d shake your hand, but”—he lifted one arm, flexing the fingers—“One of the limitations. Still, it beats a speakerphone.”
“Thank you for meeting us on short notice,” Shannon said. She was somehow beside him, settling into a chair.
“Your message made sure of that, Ms. Azzi. I don’t like being connected to John Smith that way.”
“I understand,” she said. “Forgive me for imposing. It was the only way I knew to get your attention.”
“You have it,” Epstein said. He laid his hands on the desk. The fingertips penetrated the surface, ruining the illusion a bit. “You must be Cooper.”
“Agent Nicholas Cooper,” Kobb said. “Born March 1981, second year of the gifted. Joined the army at seventeen with father’s consent. Detailed as a military liaison to what would become the Department of Analysis and Response, 2000. Joined full-time in 2002. Entered Equitable Services with its foundation in 2004. Made full agent in 2005, senior agent in 2008. Generally considered the best of the so-called ‘gas men,’ sporting an unmatched clearance rate, including thirteen terminations.”
“Thir-teen?” Shannon raised an eyebrow.
“Yes,” Cooper said, “that’s me. On paper.”
“Went rogue following the March 12th attack on the Leon Walras Exchange.” Kobb looked up from his datapad. “Now the lead suspect in that bombing.”
He shouldn’t have been surprised. Though part of the agreement with Director Peters was that they wouldn’t publicly reveal his identity—a fanatic might have gone after Natalie and the children—most of the DAR would know he’d been designated a target. And the world’s richest man would have access to pretty much any information he wanted. Still. It jarred him. He glared at the lawyer, but spoke to Epstein. “I had nothing to do with that.”
“Did you, Ms. Azzi?” Kobb asked.
“No,” she said. “Not the way it happened.”
“But it was John Smith’s organization that planted the bombs.”
“Yes. But we didn’t trigger them.”
“How do we know that?”
“Enough, Bob.” Epstein spoke with easy command. “They’re telling the truth.”
“But, sir, we don’t—”
“Yes, we do. Millie?”
The girl looked up. “They’re both lying. They’re lying to each other, too. But they’re telling the truth about that.”
“Thank you, sweetheart.”
The lawyer opened his mouth, shut it. Cooper could see the man sim
mering, his frustration. A leader in his field, no doubt a powerful political player, overruled by a child.
Kobb’s not the only one. Cooper felt like a tennis ball hammered back and forth across a net. Lying to each other? What did that mean? If nothing else, the girl had clearly made him for what he was, and the nakedness came with fear. She couldn’t read his mind, wouldn’t know about his mission, but picking up on the subcutaneous cues of his loyalty response to the agency, that would be simple for her. No telling how much deeper that could go.
To make it this far and be at the mercy of a ten-year-old girl…
Lock it down.
“So.” Erik Epstein smiled, holding out his hands. “With that out of the way. What are you doing here?”
“Shannon and I had a deal. There was an incident in Chicago, a few days ago, and she needed help. I got her home, and she got me a chance to meet you.”
“I see. Why?”
“As you know, my former agency is hunting me.” Stick to the facts as much as possible. “I’m not safe anywhere.”
“Mr. Epstein,” Kobb said, “you should know that we’re on tenuous legal ground. Now that Mr. Cooper’s identity is out in the open, we can’t claim plausible deniability. This is verging dangerously close to harboring a fugitive.”
“Thank you, Bob,” the billionaire said dryly. “We can take the risk for a few more moments. I don’t think Agent Cooper is here to entrap us.”
“No, sir. In fact, I need your help. I’d like to start over here. In New Canaan.” He forced himself not to look at the girl. She would know he was lying, or at least not telling the whole truth. The best he could hope was that she wouldn’t interject, that she offered an opinion only when asked.
Epstein steepled his fingers. “I see. And for that you need my help.”
“Yes.”
“Because you have a lot of enemies.”
“Yes. But I could be a good friend to you.”
Kobb said, “Mr. Epstein, this is a bad—”
The billionaire silenced him with a look. To Cooper, he said, “Would you give us a moment? I’d like to speak to Ms. Azzi and Mr. Kobb privately.” He turned to face the girl. “Millie, would you bring Mr. Cooper to the executive lounge?”
Cooper shot a glance at Shannon, couldn’t read her response. They’d formed something of a bond over the last days, but she didn’t owe him anything. For a moment he considered refusing. But what would be the point? If he was caught, he was caught.
With exaggerated nonchalance, he stood. “Sure.” Millie slid off the couch, her d-pad clutched tight to her chest. She walked to a blank wall. Part of it slid aside as she reached it, a hidden door he hadn’t noticed. How much else had he missed?
At least the girl was going with him. Whatever she had figured out, she wouldn’t be able to tell. He followed her in and found himself in another elevator. There were no buttons, no control panel. The muscles of his lower back tightened. He wondered if “executive lounge” was code for something.
Something like “interrogation cell.”
You bought the ticket. Time to take the ride.
The last thing he saw as the door slid shut was Shannon looking over her shoulder at him, something inscrutable in her eyes.
Standing in the tiny box, he had a sudden vision of himself as though from a satellite. A close-up that quickly zoomed out: man in a box in a building in a complex in a city in a state in a nation—and an enemy of all of them. Panic slid slick fingers through his stomach. He took a breath, rolled his shoulders. Only way out was through.
Millie stared at the middle distance, her face hidden by bright green bangs. She looked so lost that for a moment he forgot his own situation. He wondered how many meetings she had sat through, how many billion-dollar deals. How many times her insight had led to someone’s death. The weight of it would have been a lot for a soldier to bear. And she was just a child.
“It’s okay,” she said.
Cooper started. He wondered if she meant his situation or hers. “It is?”
“Yes.”
He blew a breath. “All right. If you say so.”
Again, he couldn’t feel which direction the elevator was going, but it could only be down. And given the length of the ride, lower than the ground floor. Odd. And why a private elevator with a hidden door? What kind of executive lounge was accessed through the boss’s office?
Ten more seconds, and the door slid open. Another hallway, but no sunlight or botanical garden here. They were in the basement, huddled beneath the humming power lines that drove the building.
“Go ahead,” Millie said.
“You’re not coming?”
She shook her head, still staring at the floor. “Go to the end. There’s a door.”
Cooper looked at her, then down the hallway. Shrugged. “Thanks.” He stepped off the elevator.
“You should be careful,” Millie said behind him.
“Why?”
For a moment, he thought she wouldn’t answer. Then she raised her head, swatted a lock of green hair behind one ear. Took him in with those strange, sad eyes. “Everybody’s lying,” she said. “Everybody.”
The elevator door slid closed.
Cooper stared at it. Slowly, he turned back and faced the dim hallway. He flexed his fingers. Wondered how deep he was right now. At least as far underground as he’d been above it a moment before. Something nagged at his subconscious, that hint of a puzzle piece that hadn’t fallen into place yet, a pattern he could sense more than see. A hidden door. A private elevator. A child for an escort. A gifted, troubled child.
What was this place?
If this is the executive lounge, I’d sure hate to see the regular one.
He started down the hall. Thick carpet muted his footsteps. He could hear the rush and whoosh of air, ventilation systems of some sort. The walls were undecorated. He ran a hand down them: carbon fiber weave, very strong, very expensive.
At the end of the hall, a door swung open. There was no one standing there, and the room beyond it was dark.
With the feeling that he was entering some sort of a dream, he walked in.
CHAPTER 27
Data. Constellations of numbers glowing like stars, neon swipes of sine-curves, charts and graphs in three dimensions, hovering everywhere he looked. It was like walking into a planetarium, that darkened silence and sense of wonder, only instead of the heavens, it was the world hanging in every direction, the world broken down into digits and sweeps and waves. Cooper blinked, stared, turned slowly on his heel. The room was big, an underground cathedral, and in all directions, 360 degrees, luminous figures hung in the air. Things cycled and changed as he watched, the light seemingly alive, the correlations bizarre: population figures graphed against water consumption and the average length of women’s skirts. Frequency of traffic accidents on nonrural roads between the hours of eight and eleven. Sunspot activity overlaid on homicide rates. A chronology of deaths in the 1941 German invasion of the Soviet Union mapped to the price of crude oil. Explosions in post offices from 1901 to 2012.
In the center of this circus of light stood the silhouetted ringmaster. If he was aware of Cooper, he didn’t show it. He raised a hand, pointed at a graph, swiped sideways, and zoomed to a micro level, red and green dots plotted like a map of the ocean floor.
The air was cold and smelled of…corn chips?
Cooper walked down the ramp in front of him. As he passed through a graph, the projections glowed in his peripheral vision, a neat line that swept across his body. “Ummm…hello?”
The figure turned. The ambient light was too dim to make out his features. He gestured to Cooper to come forward. When they were ten feet apart, the man said, “Lights to thirty percent,” and soft, shadowless illumination sprang from nowhere and everywhere at once.
The man was thick around the waist, the beginnings of a second chin sprouting off the bulwark of the first. His skin was pallid and vaguely shiny, hair a rat’s nest. He ran a hand thr
ough it with the jerky speed of a regular twitch. Cooper stared at him, the pattern beginning to come together, the truth of it huge and shattering and suddenly obvious.
“Hi,” the man said. “I’m Erik Epstein.”
Cooper opened his mouth, closed it. The truth slamming home, obvious. The structure of the face, the shape of the eyes, the breadth of the shoulders. It was like looking at the pudgy, nervous double of the handsome, assured billionaire he’d just left.
“The hologram,” Cooper said. “It’s a fake. It’s all you.”
“What? No. Huh-uh. Reasonable intuitional leap based on limited data, but incorrect. The hologram is real. I mean, the man is real. But he’s not me. He plays me. He’s been me for a long time now.”
“An…actor?”
“A doppelgänger. My face and voice.”
“I—I don’t—”
“I don’t like people. I mean, I like people, people don’t like me. I’m not good at people. In person. They’re clearer as data.”
“But. Your…doppelgänger, he’s been on the news. He eats dinner at the White House.”
Epstein stared at him as if waiting for him to say something else.
“Why?”
“For a while I could just be in the data, but we knew people would want to see me. People are funny that way, they want to see, even when seeing isn’t the point. Astronomy. The important information scientists get from telescopes isn’t visible. Radiation spectra, red-line shift, radio waves. Data. That’s what matters. That’s what tells us something. But people want to see pictures. Supernova in vivid color. Even though scientifically it’s useless.”
Cooper nodded, getting it. “He’s your color photo. What was he, someone who looked a lot like your high school yearbook?”
“My brother. Older.”
That couldn’t be. Epstein had had an older brother, a normal, but he’d died a dozen years ago in a car crash. “Wait. You faked his death?”
“Yes.”
“But that was before anyone knew about you. Before you made your fortune.”
