The Fisherman's voice was in her ear now but Linda could not turn her head to see him. "On behalf of the Evolutionary Element of the Seven Families of the Great Consortium,” he said, his voice filled with obvious delight, "let me welcome you to the planet Mars."
1.10
Ted got up and walked to the door, rattled the knob, pulled. The door would not open.
"Would you stop with that?" said Carl, rolling his eyes.
Ted sat back down and glanced at the board, then up at Carl. "It's your turn," he said.
Carl sighed his irritation and returned his attention to the game.
Chapter Two
2.1
Gabrielle lay on her naked stomach on the cold, hardwood floor of her dorm room, furiously scribbling in a spiral bound notebook. She clutched the pen so tightly that her fingers were red with strain. She did not feel the cold or pain. She was not awake.
From outside came the laughter and shouts of other students as they walked across the quad, most of them likely headed back from the bars. Gabrielle gave no sign of noticing. She came to the end of the page, flipped over the notebook, and continued to write. The only light in the room came from the tiny green glow of her tablet charger. She did not need to see.
Her phone rang but Gabrielle did not move to answer it. She continued to write as her father left a message. He still wanted to talk, he said. When Gabrielle was ready. Until then, he just wanted her to know that he loved her. His voice was sad. His words contrite. But Gabrielle, unmoved, ignored him.
She flipped the page again, wrote a bit more, and then stopped. She dropped the pen on the floor next to the notebook. Rising slowly to her knees and grasping the edge of her metal desk, she pulled herself to her feet. Slowly, careful not to make a sound, she slipped back into her bed and pulled the covers to her chin. She held her strained fingers to her breast to soothe them. Eventually her face, hard and tight with anger, relaxed and softened. She began to softly snore.
The notebook and pen, still on the floor where she had left them, listened to her heavy breathing, and waited patiently, for morning, to be noticed.
2.2
Keeley stood outside the front entrance to MaineCentral Hospital and gazed up at the sky. The night, despite the haze and heat of the day, was clear, the stars crisp, the moon a mere shard. That damnable Grid still sectioned off the heavens: a cage, a fence, a prison, or a shield. Nobody really knew. Some said that the Grid, shimmering blue-white lines that sliced the night sky into diamond shapes from horizon to horizon, with a tiny, glowing wok at each intersection, had been constructed to keep humanity Earthbound, so that the insanity of human beings could not infect the Cosmos. Others claimed the Grid was actually intended to keep something out, be that evil lizard aliens, wayward asteroids, or disasters even worse. Some believed the Grid would save them from the climate catastrophe that was upon them. Others called it a message from God. Or the Devil. But at this point, most did not seem to care. The Grid had appeared in an instant on the night of November twelfth, just six weeks before the Christmas Crash. It was the Crash that had commanded the lion's share of people's attention ever since. The Grid, unchanging, impenetrable, and so far seemingly benign, no longer seemed to much matter.
Mike Portnoy, Keeley's Deputy Chief of Staff, returned with a glass of cold tea. Keeley accepted it with a mumbled thank-you. "Any word?" she asked. She took a large swallow of tea and wished for ice cubes.
Portnoy wiped the sweat from his large, bald forehead with the cuff of his sport coat. "She's resting comfortably," he said, making a joke of the nurses’ repeated assurances. He smiled. His thick, heavy glasses danced and winked in the Gridlight. “Otherwise, no change,” he continued. “They just want to keep her for the night. Observation. Routine. Nothing to worry about. All that crap.”
Keeley drained her tea in another huge gulp, set the glass on the stainless steel ashtray post by the doors, and surveyed the area around her. Her personal Secret Service bodyguard, Agent Sanchez, stood between her and the street. Just beyond him was the security fence that now surrounded MaineCentral on all four sides, installed when the military took over hospital operations after the Crash. Beyond the fence, soldiers manned their posts. Another grid, this one made of human beings, rifles, and armored vehicles. The same questions applied: were they keeping something out, or in? All of this security was supposed to make her feel safe. That's why they called it "security." So why did she feel so afraid?
“You’ll understand if I just go on worrying anyways,” said Keeley.
Portnoy bowed with respect. “Of course.”
“You’ve got extra people on Cole and the kids.” It was not a question.
“You know I do.”
Keeley smiled grimly. “Yes. I do. Thank you, Mike.”
“It’s what I’m here for, Chief.”
A low-flying jet screamed overhead and Keeley reached out to take her Deputy’s arm. In seconds the jet had passed, leaving behind a low, rolling thunder that faded into the night. "A message from the opposition?" asked Keeley, letting go of Portnoy's arm. Her heart was pounding. She noticed that the soldiers at their posts seemed not to have given the jet so much as a glance.
Portnoy chuckled softly. "Probably. Their version of an email to Stan. The answer is undoubtedly 'no'."
Keeley glanced at her watch. It was just after midnight. "It's late. You should get some sleep."
The Deputy Chief of Staff checked his own watch and inhaled deeply. He glanced at his boss. "You'll be okay?" he asked.
"With Sanchez here?" she said with a grin, motioning toward her bodyguard. "Are you kidding me? We're drinking buddies." Sanchez glanced at Keeley at the mention of his name but did not otherwise react.
Portnoy leaned out and kissed Keeley on the cheek. "You get some sleep too," he said softly. "Promise?"
"Promise," said Keeley. She reached up and pulled off the elastic band that kept her ponytail together, freeing her long, chestnut hair to move in the breeze.
Portnoy headed back into the hospital to get his things. Keeley glanced up at the Grid, shook her head in wonderment, then followed.
The support bar of the sleeper chair pushed up into Keeley's spine. She rolled over, making another futile attempt to get some rest. It felt good for about a minute before the pressure began to hurt again. Damn! She'd never sleep this way. And she'd developed this strange, tickling sensation in her throat and chest that made her wonder whether she was coming down with something. With a muttered curse, Keeley crawled out of the tiny bed, grabbed her laptop, crept out of the room, and headed down the hall to the lounge.
What she wanted was coffee. She'd have a cup, work for a couple of hours, and then maybe stretch out on one of the lounge's sofas. But she did not expect to find any of those marvelous roasted beans in the visitor’s lounge. Not these days. Not even in Augusta. Tea they could have, thanks to Linda’s friendship with Senator Jackson in South Carolina. But coffee? If it was still being grown somewhere in the world, none of it was making it into the shipments that reached Augusta. Which came as a bit of a surprise, when Keeley thought about it. If the American military machine could not procure a little coffee for their Commander-in-Chief and her staff every now and then, how could they still claim to be the most powerful military force on the planet?
The lounge was empty. That made sense. There were so few people in Augusta now that the hospital probably saw little action. The television, flickering down on her from its room-dominating position near the ceiling, was thankfully muted. The camera cut rapidly between two men and one woman, all young and beautiful and vivacious, engaged in some discussion or debate. No doubt bickering and pontificating about Linda's announcement. There was nothing in Keeley that made her want to turn up the sound.
As expected, the coffeepot was empty and dry, but there was hot water and black tea. A pale substitute, in Keeley's opinion, but it would have to do. She made herself a cup and took the chair under the television to avoid the eye-catching mono
tony of the screen. The hot liquid soothed her throat and she exhaled a heavy cloud of exhaustion and worry. It was times like this that Keeley was glad she had developed an immunity to guilt and shame. Or perhaps she was simply too damned busy to indulge in such things. She'd done what she'd done, with good reason and the best intent. The fact that she'd been absent when Mary had fallen was nothing more than the result of those actions and intentions. There was no need for blame in any direction. There was no guarantee that, even had she been there, she'd have been able to prevent the fall. And there was no real way, in the end, to even know that Mary's fall was "bad." Painful, to be sure. Disturbing. Even frightening. But maybe it will end up being a "good" thing. Perhaps Mary will start resting more. Perhaps the doctors will find something they'd previously missed. In any event, it appeared that Mary was fine. The fall hadn't done any damage, and seemed to be nothing more than a fainting spell. For now, Keeley's love was unthreatened.
That was Keeley's darkest fear: that having found Mary, she would lose her, just as she had lost her first husband, Ken, and her second, Pooch. Just as she had lost… others. There was a delicacy about Mary that sometimes took Keeley's breath away, as if Mary had been granted a short secondment from the world of the dead to complete her work here before being whisked away again. And there were nights, in those restless, early-morning hours of fitful dozing, when it felt as though the countdown for her departure was ticking away. Agent Rice's blow to Mary's nose had pushed sharp shards of bone up into her brain, closing down some things, opening up others. She was prone to dizzy spells and balance problems. She often had a weird taste in her mouth. She needed little sleep and often found it difficult to find the words she wanted. And she had no filter whatsoever on her expression of emotions.
But the blow to Mary's brain severed something more essential, in Keeley's opinion. Somehow, it had cut her connection to her solid, flesh-and-blood-and-bones physicality, if such a thing were possible, leaving her little more than a ghost. It felt, at times, as though Keeley should be able to see right through her.
And yet it was Mary who could see right through people. The bone shards had opened up a new ability: Mary could see the human aura, the soul, what she, following the lead of Rupert Sheldrake, called, simply, "the field." And these fields were not just namby-pamby new-age rainbow light shows. Mary saw things. Real things. Thoughts, memories, desires and intentions. She saw futures and pasts and might-have-beens. She could feel right into the hearts of other human beings. She could know you completely. Like a goddess. Like a faerie. Like some advanced being from another galaxy. And sometimes what she saw scared the hell out of Keeley.
Keeley sipped at her tea. Perhaps this was what had pushed her out of her sleeper chair: Keeley was terrified by what Mary had told her. In her short time awake, before the sedatives had forced her to "rest comfortably," Mary had described what she'd seen in the kids' fields: the darkness reaching out, the pain, the fire, the falling. Neither of them knew what those images meant. But both of them knew that something huge and horrible was now approaching them from the future.
2.3
Cole was ashamed, and he was ashamed that he was ashamed. Their lives were falling apart and here he was, hiding in his room, sobbing uncontrollably. These fits, these spells, these "hops," were taking over his life, coming at any hour of the day or night and leaving him emotionally drained and lost. But, dammit, he could not afford to be lost. Not now. Linda was being held in a maximum-security medical facility, and she was getting sicker by the day. His kids were confused and afraid. The world had gone to shit. And people were looking to him… to him!... for guidance and help. Cole, knocked to his knees by these soul-shattering trips across space and time, was too raw, too disoriented, and too overwhelmed with grief and pain, to offer much assistance. This was not who he knew himself to be.
This last hop still stung, like a knife stuck in his gut that he feared to remove. He'd been a lawyer. In some town out in the Wild West, it felt like. The cowboy days. He'd been sitting at his desk, reading a newspaper, when he heard a click behind him and felt something cold and hard push firmly against the back of his head. In the next instant he was floating free, looking down from above at his dead body sprawled on the floor, blood and brains spattered across his desk. And standing over him, a small, dark man with a missing eye. The man held a smoking gun. But the pain. The pain. Not his own, but the pain of that one-eyed man, the pain that had driven him to such anger and desperation. It was almost unbearable.
Cole grabbed an old cloth napkin – paper tissues no longer qualifying as an essential item - and dabbed at his face. He shuddered again, one last dry sob, then wiped his hands on his shirt and pushed himself to a sitting position on his and Linda's bed. The shame washed over him again. Christ! Lying in the dark and crying. He was of no use to anyone. The strength and calm he'd enjoyed these last few years had become a thing of the past.
The phone rang. Cole, startled, his heart pounding, called out into the darkness, a yelp of pure helplessness. When he realized what it was, he stood, walked across the room, found his phone in his jeans pocket, and answered.
"Yeah?" he said. He was the President's husband. He did not need to identify himself. Whomever had this number, and there were not many, knew exactly who he was.
There was a short pause and a single, delicate click. "Mr. Thomas?" came the voice at last. The voice had a warbled, buzzing quality. It was being electronically disguised. Cole was fairly certain it was a man.
"If you have this number then you know who this is," said Cole, his grief and shame fading as his irritation grew. "Why don't we start with who you are?"
The man cleared his throat. "Uh... that's one thing I can't tell you, Mr. Thomas,"
"Can I assume by the fact you have disguised your voice that I would know who you are if you hadn't?" asked Cole. He ran a hand absently over his smooth, well-muscled stomach.
There was a long pause. Cole considered just hanging up, but didn't. Linda was gone. There was too much he did not know. "I can't see it serving my purpose to answer that question one way or the other," said the man at last. The voice was so overlaid with buzzing that it took Cole a moment to register what he had said.
"I see, " said Cole. "And what purpose would that be?"
"To reunite you with your wife, Mr. Thomas."
Cole sat down at his desk and inhaled sharply.
"Are you that Fisherman guy?" asked Cole angrily. "Because if you are..."
The man on the phone waited for Cole to go quiet. "I'm afraid I have no idea who you are talking about, Mr. Thomas," he said. "What I can say is that I'm a friend, and that I might have a way for you to see the President."
Cole listened intently. There was something familiar about the voice. About the words used. Something. But Cole couldn't place it. He rubbed at his eyes and spoke again. "Okay," he said. "You've got my attention. So what's next?"
"For now, you simply say 'yes.' Then you wait. I will call you again."
Cole closed his eyes. "Okay," he muttered. "Yes."
"This will not be easy, you understand?" the man said. "And it may not work. I'll be putting myself at considerable risk."
"I understand," said Cole. "You must know that, should this succeed, we will take every measure to guarantee your safety."
"I'm counting on it," said the man. The phone clicked twice more and Cole thought the man had hung up, but then he spoke again. "I need you to know something else," he said.
"What's that?"
The man paused for a long moment, then spoke. "I think they're going to kill her, Mr. Thomas," he said at last. There was real fear in his voice. Or guilt. "I think... Cole... I think they're going to kill us all."
With that the man hung up. Cole closed his phone, tossed it on the desk, and buried his face in his hands. He knew he should think something. He knew he should feel something. But his heart and mind were both blank.
2.4
The words "have courage" lingered in
Linda's mind as the virtual screen that had appeared overhead went dark and then vanished. Once again she was staring up at the yellow-pink Martian sky. She turned her head to the right, the only movement her body would make, and gazed out over the horizon. The distant mesa rose up from a flat plain, dark and shadowed. She had the feeling that she should know what it was she was looking at.
"They're very good, don't you think?" said the Fisherman.
Linda rolled her eyes toward the sound of the voice but saw no one. The Fisherman had yet to show himself. "I doubt they'll get away with it."
The Fisherman chuckled softly. "That, of course, is one of the more entertaining facets of this entire enterprise," he said, his voice that of a kindly English uncle. "The Directorate decided the technology was ready. A few remain doubtful. We'll soon enough see who was correct."
"And how will that be determined?" asked Linda.
The Fisherman's voice came close to the President's ear. "Your middle child, Emily, has already found them out!" he said, his voice filled with glee.
Linda's heart began to pound at the mention of the kids. Where were they? How were they? How was Cole? And how would they ever get back together again? By calling Emily her "middle child," the Fisherman had reached in and grabbed her heart at its most tender spot. Her child? Were they really her children? She'd tried. She wanted that so badly. And yet she'd been gone so much. There'd been too much to do. The needy, unraveling world had swallowed her up and spit her back out, used and exhausted and near despair. And now she'd been taken away...
Rumi's Field (None So Blind Book 2) Page 5
