Linda shook her head. “No. I mean … how can you do this?”
Rice smiled sadly. “I hope one day you understand that, Linda. I really do.”
“I don’t think I ever will,” she answered, just as sadly.
Rice yawned. “Oh well. So which is it gonna be, Prez? Door number one? It’s the only door that takes you out of here alive.”
Linda looked at Rice, letting him see the desolation in her eyes, noticing how defeat and vomit had the same flavor. “I think I want you to kill me,” she said. She thought the words would make her cry, but they didn’t. There was relief in her heart, rather than grief. For the first time since she’d got there, she smiled.
“Well, it may come to that, girlfriend. It just might. Of course, it won’t be me.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, we’ve got Bob on standby for that little duty. You haven’t been on your benzos for a couple of days now, you know.” He reached out and rubbed her head. “Bob’s pretty much moved into the ol’ noggin here.” Rice laughed, picking up his computer and standing to leave.
Linda stared as he left.
At the door he turned. “I mean, damn, Linda! Ziggy Stardust?” He laughed heartily as he walked away.
11.7
“Some of us thought it best to start with the lie,” said Spud. Linda opened her eyes to let him know she was listening. The overhead fluorescents of the McDonald’s dining room bounced off Spud’s huge black eyeballs, giving him an insectile appearance. “So we showed you what we showed some of your predecessors. The same tragic story our Mr. Rice would recognize as the truth: the cosmic collision, the dying planet, the search for another home, all of that. But there’s a reason you’re here alone with me now.” Spud poured Linda’s fries out onto his tray and started to push them apart with his clawed fingertip, studying them intently, as though they were yarrow stalks or sheep’s entrails.
“What’s the reason?” asked Linda.
“So I could tell you that that story’s not really true,” said Spud, without looking up.
“Ah,” said Linda. Curiously, Spud’s news did not come as a surprise. “So what’s the truth?”
“You’re going to have to find that out for yourself,” said the little gray man, choosing a long, bent french fry. He looked up at Linda and smiled his stiff, peculiar smile. “That’s part of the favor.”
Linda watched with interest as Spud lifted the french fry and held it in front of her face. “Of course,” he said, “I can’t let you remember any of this yet.” Leaning forward, he touched the french fry to Linda’s forehead and turned off her mind.
Linda shook herself awake. But not awake. She hadn’t been dreaming. She was sure of it. She’d been there. As if the aliens had lifted her out of space and time and deposited her back in her own past. As if they had decided that it was finally time for her to remember this. The scent of french fries echoed across her cold, black cell. Spud’s eyes lingered in her mind, just as cold, just as black. The story the Life had told was not really true? Then what was true?
The lights had been turned back off, though Linda did not know when that had happened. She had no idea whether it was night or day. Perhaps she had been asleep. Her heart began to hammer but she didn’t know why. She rose up into the black. Had she heard something that had awakened her? Had she heard something just now? She held her breath and listened. Silence for a full minute. And then … footsteps. Rice! He would kill her after all. And here, in the darkness, so that he would not have to see his own dirty work. Linda pulled her robe around her and hunkered down in her nest, pushing her shoulders up to guard her neck. The darkness left her more exposed than any light ever could.
The footsteps were so faint she could barely make them out. That didn’t make sense. Rice’s arrogance would have him stomping down the hallway, singing a work song. The footsteps stopped right outside the doorway to her cell. Was that breathing she heard? After a moment the steps continued. Whoever it was had stepped inside. The breathing was clear now. Linda’s heart pounded. She thought she’d been ready to die, but now that death had come, she wanted to flee.
“Hello?” came a voice, a whisper, a question. It was Cole! Her love had come for her! But she did not call out. She did not even breathe. She’d been fooled before. How like Rice, to trick her with love just before he killed her.
Another footstep. “Hello? Linda Travis? Are you here?”
It was Cole. It had to be. Linda took a breath and answered. “Cole?” she asked, her voice a wobbly moan.
“It’s Obie, Mrs. President,” said the voice.
11.8
Evlyn, the old woman of living light, hung quietly in the sky that was not a sky, keeping her essential light to herself, watching the dark ones from a distance, feeling their hatred and pain and confusion. There were three of them now, and the old woman could sense them even through the rock.
The young one, Grace, had left abruptly, just after they’d found her confused little dog. He’d been standing sentry over his own body in the physical realm, as if he’d known to go back to where it had all begun and wait there for his human to find him. The little one and her dog had shared a joyful embrace, and then they’d both flickered away. The old woman knew that they had merely awakened into their physical bodies. This kind of thing happened all the time around here. People came and went. Just as she had come and gone, so many, many times before.
While she watched the dark ones, Evlyn’s form shifted into that of a young black girl. A few moments later her form flowed back to that of the old woman. She did not notice the shift herself. And with no one else observing, it hadn’t really happened. They were all the same to her, all one, all her. Too many lives she’d lived. Too many to worry about, or remember, or even keep separate. The journey had lasted ages, eras, eons, and she was so very ready to move on.
The young one, Grace, had revealed her heart when they first met, and in so doing had shared her concern, and her purpose. So after Grace departed, Evlyn had stepped in to take the little one’s place, following after Grace’s father and the woman, Linda, as they traveled across the dense, physical landscape below. The old woman knew how to find them; their glowing patterns were easy enough to track. And she knew how badly they still needed her help. It was the President and Grace’s father that the dark ones were after.
She’d found Cole and Linda in a huge city filled with souls. They seemed happy enough, so she held back. But then the Black Heart had caught them and the father had fallen and the dark ones had arrived. She’d thought herself strong enough to confront them, but Grace had been right: these beings were stronger. The skeleton was wild. His insanity had set him free. The pretty girl with the distorted face was colder than anything Evlyn had yet experienced. And the strange, tiny girl with the huge, black eyes: the old woman couldn’t read her at all. It was as if her heart was hidden, or hiding.
Evlyn had been forced to flee. The skeleton had surrounded her with his bony arms and legs and had almost squeezed the light from her. His voice filled her, battering her heart with shrieks and howls of astounding fury. It was only when she remembered who she wasn’t that she was able to slip away. She enfolded and flickered and was gone.
When Evelyn crept back later, she did so without being seen. Somebody needed to watch over Linda. Even if from afar. Even if they couldn’t help. Perhaps when Grace returned they could find a way together.
Evlyn dimmed. First she would have to tell the poor girl about her father.
Chapter Twelve
12.1
Mary flicked off the television before the pundits could start pontificating. Like they knew anything. Albert Singer had as much as declared the President dead, from what she could tell. He’d danced the requisite steps of “hope” and “determination” and “retribution,” of course, playing the humility card, just a good ol’ Virginia boy trying to keep things together until their President was rescued, God have mercy. But his actions said otherwise. Five days
had passed since Linda Travis’ “violent abduction by unknown terrorists,” with no real leads. How could there be leads, since it hadn’t really happened? It was clear that Singer was holding very little “hope,” and that his “determination” centered on redecorating the White House. As for “retribution,” well, the fun would come later, wouldn’t it? There was always somebody needing a little smacky-face.
The hotel room was as ugly as she’d ever seen, some little Interstate mom’n’pop in Coxsackie, New York, with hard, thick pillows, a fiberglass tub, and a cheap green polyester bedspread the color of rotting avocados. It was the sort of hotel that had barely registered the economic meltdown, even as its giant corporate cousins had taken huge hits. And it would do just fine for Mary. It would have to. Without the General signing her expense sheets, this was on her dime. And her dime was pretty fucking thin. Mary rolled her shoulders to relieve the tension from hours of driving. What had she needed money for? Everything had been covered with the People. Everything. She’d sent her black-budget salary to her little brother, Gordon. Anonymously. It was the least she could do, after leaving him with their father.
Mary sat back on the bed and lit a cigarette. Her first ever. Something about running away made her want to break all the rules. She sucked in a lungful of smoke and started coughing. It was awful. She didn’t know how people could smoke these things for as long as they did. She took another drag and immediately felt dizzy and sick to her stomach. She inhaled once more, doubled over in a fit of coughing, and then inhaled again, as if hoping that the physical pain might distract her from the ache in her heart.
When she thought about it, it was really the General she had to thank, that cocksucker. Her promotions and assignments had all been clearly designed to keep her close by, and to get her eventually into his bed. Even when she’d first arrived, even when she was just a kid, his sleazy little eyes had been all over her. If he hadn’t been such a chickenshit, his hands would have been as well. And there’d been a part of her that had sought that attention. It was familiar, if nothing else. And it had brought her side benefits. But the General’s order to kill the President at the first opportunity had kicked her down the path toward clarity. If that was who the People were, she wanted no part of them. Saving the world was one thing. Killing the President was another. Especially when the President was someone you loved.
Yeah. Like that could ever happen. Mary sighed, too tired for tears. She pulled on the cigarette again, managing to keep the smoke from choking her. The dizzy feeling had abated a bit. She looked around for an ashtray, realizing after a moment that she would not find one. This was a no smoking room. There goes another rule. She rose and found a Styrofoam cup in the bathroom and filled it halfway with water, then dropped the half-smoked Merit in. She looked at herself in the mirror, noticing the tiny wrinkles around her sky-blue eyes. She took a deep breath of the stale motel room air. It was time.
Digging into her travel bag, Mary pulled out a scalpel, a tube of lidocaine, and some alcohol and gauze. She swabbed the skin behind her right ear with alcohol, daubed on the anesthetic, waited for the numbing to set in, and then started to dig for her implants. Having inserted them herself, she knew right where they were.
12.2
“Here,” said Obie, handing Linda a long, yellow jumpsuit. “This looks like it might fit.”
Linda smiled defensively as she took it, shying away. Her eyes had adjusted to the light given off by Obie’s flashlight, now propped against the wall to reflect off the ceiling. She knew she looked horrible. Her bruises had blossomed huge and orange and purple and blue, and the welts and lacerations on her arms screamed their outrage. Her face felt swollen and misshapen. And her hair. She shuddered, to have anyone see her now, so beaten, so exposed. She motioned toward the door with her broken right hand. “Can you…?” she said, timidly.
“We need to hurry,” said Obie with a nod. He turned and walked into the hallway.
Linda let the filthy bathrobe slip from around her and fall to the floor. With no place else to sit, she balanced on the edge of the alien’s box long enough to step gently into the jumpsuit and tug it up over her feet and legs. She stood so that she could pull it up far enough to carefully slide her broken hand into one sleeve. Then she drew it awkwardly over her shoulders. The rough fabric, heavy and obviously synthetic, probably fireproofed, rasped her battered skin, pulling at her naked nipples like rough, calloused hands. She zipped it up, thankful, despite its abrasiveness, for the almost immediate sense of warmth it brought her. She’d been so cold. “Okay,” she said, whispering in the dim light. She flinched at the sound of her own voice. To make a sound was to be noticed and found. She did not want to be found. Not ever again.
Obie stepped back in and Linda got her first good look at him. The dim, oblique illumination from the flashlight left most of his face in shadows, giving him a wild and furtive air that seemed to confirm Cole’s story of his brother’s mental breakdown. She took a step backward, her traumatized body seeking what safety it might find in distance, should her savior turn out to be a madman.
“I couldn’t find anything for your feet,” said Obie. “Sorry.” He pulled the knit blue stocking cap off his head and stepped forward to hand it to her. “You ready to go?”
Linda winced as Obie approached but held her ground, and then reached out to take the cap. She smushed it onto her head with her good hand and nodded. “Do you know how to get out of here?” she asked.
Obie laughed, flinging his arms wide and spinning around, his long red robe twirling with him. He was dressed like a homeless person’s version of a Jedi Knight, though Linda was certain that that was a gun stuck in his belt, rather than a lightsaber. Obie stopped dead still, holding up a finger to listen for a moment before responding. He grinned. “Are you asking whether I came down into the dragon’s den without a plan for escape?”
Linda smiled slightly, uncertain how to react. “I guess,” she said.
“Good question,” he answered, pointing at Linda with a forefinger. His eyes flashed with good humor. “I’ve been wondering the same thing.”
Linda’s heart sank and she looked down at the floor. He was mad after all. Her chin began to tremble.
Obie stepped closer. “Fear not,” he said with a gentle voice, reaching out as if to comfort her. “I’ve got an idea.”
Linda ignored his outstretched hand. “You know that Cole is dead,” she said, her voice nearly dead itself.
Obie cocked his head. “Maybe,” he said, matter-of-factly. “But things are not always as they seem.”
Linda looked up with eyes moist and hollow.
“C’mon,” Obie said. “Rice has been sidelined for a bit, but there’s no telling how long that’ll last. We’ve got to go.”
12.3
The layout was much as Rice had described. The central chamber was huge and circular, with various consoles and pieces of equipment forming an outer ring that faced an inner open space. None of it looked even vaguely human in design. The ceiling was much taller here, rising up into the darkness at least fifty feet. Obie pointed with his flashlight to the vertical air intake shaft through which he’d entered the Lodge. The loose end of his rappelling gear hung fifteen feet overhead. The shaft would not work as an exit. There was no way to reach it from below, and its walls were too glassy-smooth for Linda to scale in any event, as damaged as she was.
There was, indeed, what looked to be a huge, bottomless pit in the very center of the open space. And there were a number of hallways leading off from the central chamber, each roughly twenty feet wide and five feet tall. Linda explained that the elevators had been disabled, but Obie told her not to worry. He had something else in mind. He circled the chamber, standing still at each hallway entrance. He closed his eyes and stood quietly for a full minute or so, then moved onto the next. At the eighth hallway he smiled.
“Here we go,” he said.
“Here we go where?” asked Linda, standing at his side.
&nbs
p; “They left us a wok.”
“And that is…?”
“Our way out of here.”
Linda turned to face Cole’s brother. Obie returned her gaze. “How do you know all this stuff?” she asked.
“I was Rice’s most promising student,” he pronounced with mock solemnity.
Linda recoiled, unhappy to learn that Obie and Rice were connected at all. She shook her head in confusion. “And you … what? Flunked out?”
Obie grinned. “Yeah. Failed my final exam.”
“Which was…?”
“I should have killed the fucker before I left.”
Linda searched Obie’s gleaming eyes, trying to assess this man who had come to help her. He was shorter than Cole by a couple of inches. Stockier. More muscular. And his long hair, tied in a ponytail, was very light, almost blond, where Cole’s had been dark. But those were Cole’s deep-set eyes. That was Cole’s nose, and Cole’s crooked smile, pushing out from behind a well-trimmed beard. This was surely Cole’s brother, and though he was obviously very different, he felt as sane and good to her as Cole had.
Obie started down the hall, crouching forward as he walked. Linda limped along behind him, not wanting to lose the light, and beginning to hope that this man might be able to rescue her after all.
The hallway curved down and to the right in a sweeping arc. After maybe a hundred yards it opened out into another circular chamber, this one smaller in diameter but just as tall as the first. Obie and Linda sighed together as they emerged, thankful for the opportunity to stand straight. Obie shined his flashlight and Linda gasped. There was the “wok,” a sleek metallic craft shaped much like its namesake. A UFO. It was twelve feet or so across, and made of what looked like burnished steel. Linda could not see any doors or windows in it.
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