“Let’s say I don’t agree.”
I shrugged and reverted to normal first-person voice. “I’ll find another place to train. The money stops. You never see me again.”
And we will make sure you don’t remember a thing.
And there it was again! What was up with the disturbing plural voice?
Doug looked aside, thinking. “Another hundred?”
“Yup. It’s good money, Doug. Why blow it off?”
The nanomites whispered again. In my head.
Stranger and stranger.
“Oh. And I might request some sparring practice with you from time to time.”
He winced. “Not sure you need any practice, Emily.”
I extended my hand to Doug. “Come on, then. Deal?”
He looked at my hand first, then shook it in a perfunctory manner. “Yeah. Deal.”
I drove away from the school reflecting that Doug was the first and only person to have seen me, the actual me, in months. But what occupied me more was the rehash of our short fight.
The ease and swiftness of movement I had experienced, the foresight—the foreknowledge of what Doug would do before he did it—and my ability to act on that knowledge just as fast? It was more than me, more than I could do by myself. Every aspect of that fight spoke of a synchronicity with the nanomites I hadn’t believed possible.
Yes. Things between us were still evolving.
***
I arose the Sunday morning of Thanksgiving weekend with “Zander on the brain.”
He’d told me he would be leading the service at DCC today, and I wondered how he would prepare and what he would (gag me) preach on. Despite my best efforts to block them out, bits of our recent conversations—especially the part about God calling me—repeated like song fragments that get trapped in your head and won’t quit.
Sometime after breakfast, I dressed to leave the house. That’s when I realized I had decided to peek in on the service. It hadn’t been a conscious, considered decision, but after spending hours with Zander’s voice stuck on replay inside my skull, I was about ready to pound a stake into my own brain.
Anything to change the tune. Even more Zander.
I parked a block away and walked to DCC. From across the street, my gaze tracked up the church’s tall, brick front until I fixed my eyes on the round stained glass window high above the doors. After our parents died and Genie and I came to live with Aunt Lu, the image of Jesus with a lamb laying across his shoulders had both intrigued and puzzled me.
I was less intrigued today, but just as puzzled.
When the crowd pressing through the two sets of double doors under that window began to dwindle, I followed them inside and made an abrupt right. I knew where I was going.
Back when I’d attended DCC with Genie and Aunt Lu, a few teens would hide upstairs in the choir loft, choosing the loft’s farthest-back seats, almost behind the old pipe organ. The kids squabbled over those seats because they could get away with goofing off or necking during service—especially while the organ was blasting away during the singing. Genie managed to snag those “prime” seats a few times when we were teens.
I had planned to go up the back stairs to the choir loft—except, as it turns out, the narrow staircase to the loft was cordoned off.
Huh? What about the organist? Maybe he’s the only one allowed up there these days?
Well, that worked for me. With no competition, I would have my choice of seats. I stepped over the thick cord and headed up. But when I reached the top of the stairs, the organ’s heavy wooden cover was closed and locked over its three keyboards. A coating of dust told me how disused the organ was!
Weird.
I was the only one in the loft—and down below me unfolded a bewildering scene.
Modern instruments occupied most of the platform at the front—drums, guitars, bass, electric keyboards. A team of musicians and singers led the singing.
Loud singing. Loud music. With a beat.
I couldn’t miss the words: A data projector plastered them in foot-high letters across two screens mounted on either side of the platform. The congregation below me was on its feet, singing, swaying, and clapping along.
Clapping in church?
I pulled one of the old wooden folding chairs toward the edge of the loft and plopped down on it. Leaned on the railing overlooking the sanctuary. Stared and listened and shook my head. Nothing could have been more different from the church of my childhood.
This was not the Downtown Community Church I knew.
I searched for Zander. Below, in the front row, on the left side, I spied him. He was singing, too, one hand in the air, lost, I guess, in his own worship experience.
After twenty minutes of exuberant song, followed by another twenty of slower, more intense tunes—none that I recognized—the congregation sat, and Zander walked up to the platform.
His bruises were almost gone; the most visible remainder of Mateo’s attack was the sling that kept his collarbone immobile. He smiled.
“It’s great to be back in the house of the Lord, and I’m grateful for this opportunity to share from God’s word. Our text this morning is found in Luke, chapter 15.
Now the tax collectors and sinners
were all gathering around to hear Jesus.
But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered,
“This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.”
“In the first two verses of this short chapter, Jesus is accused of welcoming sinners and eating with them. Jesus responds with three parables in quick succession, each different, but all three designed to dispel a wrong understanding of God—not that God condones sin, but the perception that God does not care about the sinner. In contrast to what the Pharisees and teachers taught, the three parables speak a single truth: Our God is a seeker.
“In the first parable, Jesus speaks of the Good Shepherd. The Good Shepherd, Jesus said, will leave his entire flock—ninety-nine percent of his flock—to pursue the one who has wandered or run away. In John 10, Jesus tells us clearly that he is the Good Shepherd, and we are the sheep. The Good Shepherd goes after the lost sheep, because our God is a seeker.
“In Luke 15, verses 8-10, Jesus tells of a woman who owns ten silver coins. When she loses one of those coins, she expends precious and expensive oil to light a lamp. Why? She lights a lamp to illuminate her entire house while she sweeps it and searches all the dark corners until she finds that lost coin.
“Silver is valuable, my friends. So is oil to light a lamp. Those ten silver coins represent people, people who are made in God’s own image and likeness. We are valuable! When God sees us, he sees something of value. The oil for the lamp represents the Holy Spirit. Like the woman in this parable, God will spend money to search high and low for you because you are as valuable as silver to him. He will expend his Holy Spirit to woo you, to convince you, to chastise you, to illuminate your life. He will do all that is necessary to bring you to himself, because our God is a seeker.
“In the final parable of Luke 15, Jesus tells the tale of a father and two sons. One son is good and obedient; the other son is selfish and demanding. He demands his inheritance—before his father is even dead.
“Can you imagine it? The kid might as well have said, ‘Hey, Dad. Kick the bucket already, will you? I only care about your money.’ His father must have been so hurt!
“You know the story. The father gives him the money, and the son goes on his way and wastes it all—half of everything the father has worked for his entire life. The son wastes it all on parties and pleasure. When the money is gone, and the son is starving, he remembers that even the servants in his father’s house have enough food. So, he decides to go home and beg for a servant’s position in his father’s house.
“In the meantime, what has the father been doing? Verse 20 tells us, But while he (the son) was still a long way off, the father saw him. What has the father been doing? The text tells us that the father has been wa
tching for his son to return. Hoping against the evidence, for a long, long time, the father has been watching for his son to come home, believing he will come home. Why? Because the father loves his son, even as ungrateful and hurtful as the son has been.
“Of course, the father in this parable is God the Father, and we are the son who has behaved in such an ungrateful, hurtful manner. God still watches for us; he still waits for us. No matter how hopeless or how long it has been, he is watching and waiting. Why? Because our God is a seeker.
Zander warmed to his subject. He stared with love around the congregation. He even glanced up into the choir loft—and paused, a curious look on his face.
What was that? Even though I was certain Zander could not see me, his puzzlement made me pull back. Had he . . . had he glimpsed the sparkle of the nanomites that Emilio said he sometimes saw?
Zander blinked and looked down to his notes. “Yes, our God is a seeker. Jesus said it this way, speaking of himself: For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost. We know from the three parables in Luke 15 that God values people, but not merely ‘people’ in a general sense: No, God values lost people. Now, let’s make it personal: God values you.
“How valuable are you? Let me repeat: Our God will expend precious resources and even risk loss—that’s how valuable you are to him. And our God will watch for you! No matter how long you’ve been gone or how much you’ve wasted, he will, in hope of your return, watch for you. Does this sound like a God who does not care? Not a bit.
“Let me take the lessons of these parables even further. A normal shepherd, when a sheep has strayed, does not know in which direction his lost sheep has gone. He may have no clue. While he searches, he may grow weary and discouraged. Not so, the Good Shepherd! He sees you wherever you are, whether you are hidden, trapped, injured, or damaged. He knows exactly where you are. You cannot hide from God! No room is so dark that he cannot see you. You are not . . .”
Here Zander’s eyes, again puzzled, drifted up to the choir loft. “You are not invisible to him.”
At those words, the hair on my arms, neck, and head prickled and crawled. I pulled away from the rail and fell against the hard back of my chair. Zander’s next words reached me anyway.
“In closing, I want to draw your attention to two more facets these three parables have in common. First, each parable ends with rejoicing. The father pulled his son to his bosom and threw a banquet for him; the woman clasped her lost coin and called all of her neighbors to celebrate; Jesus, the Good Shepherd, placed the lost lamb about his neck, and the angels in heaven rejoiced.”
Jesus placed the lost lamb about his neck? In an instant, my lifelong puzzlement over DCC’s stained glass window vanished.
“The last facet deals with ‘proximity’—each parable ends in close relationship between the one who was lost and the one who sought and found him. When we are lost and God finds us, he does not merely tolerate us: He draws us close. Don’t stand far back from him! Our great God is a seeker. He will call to you. He will search high and low for you. When he finds you, he will draw you close—and he will rejoice over you.”
~~**~~
Chapter 23
I was in a whole other mental place Monday afternoon, unprepared for the news the mites announced.
Gemma Keyes, we have pinpointed Dr. Bickel’s exact location.
Adrenaline surged through me, washing everything else away.
Dr. Bickel! Were the mites as excited as I was?
“Where? Where is he, Nano?”
We will show you, Gemma Keyes.
I dropped into the warehouse to see what they had uncovered, and it was a lot. I didn’t ask how many networks and satellite feeds the mites had hacked into, and they didn’t offer the information. They produced their “take,” overhead views of the site of Dr. Bickel’s incarceration—both video and stills shot from different angles—and I kept my questions to myself.
As I studied and memorized the aerial images, I was puzzled to see how small a footprint the place had: a single rectangular building on a lot about the size of an acre? Something about its size bothered me, but I was distracted from pursuing that concern when the mites zoomed in on the pictures.
I focused on the physical security measures: The site was surrounded by what was certainly a tall chain link fence. A wide and familiar swath of dirt banded the outside of the fence line.
“Oh! That’s a network of pressure sensors buried under the dirt, Nano. An intrusion detection system.”
Yes, we agree; however, we can defeat the sensors if our approach goes unnoticed, Gemma Keyes.
I pulled back from the image and followed the single gravel road leading away from the site. The road ran a couple miles north and east and terminated at a tall gate just shy of the highway.
“All right, but how . . . how do we get from the highway to Dr. Bickel, Nano? I don’t see how our approach will ‘go unnoticed’ if we use the access road.”
We will start in the town of Alamogordo and leave the highway 700 yards east of the access road. We will cut through the fencing along the missile range boundary and proceed overland. We will guide you.
I zoomed in and scanned along the highway. The faint lines marking the range’s boundary looked like an ordinary barbed wire fence. It was going to prove less difficult to get onto the range than I’d thought.
But getting off the range without getting caught?
“How far is it from where they have Dr. Bickel to the highway?”
His location is 3.4 miles inside the perimeter of the White Sands Missile Range along State Road 70, 31.8 miles from Alamogordo and 36.2 miles from Las Cruces.
“Those distances might be clear when looking at a map, Nano, but how will you know where to leave the highway once we’re out in the middle of nowhere?”
We have ordered a high-end smart phone equipped with mapping and unlimited data.
I laughed to myself. Getting awfully liberal with my credit card, aren’t you, Nano?
My credit card? Since the merge, the mites had begun to include me when they used terms such as “us.” More and more, their speech was shifting in this direction. More and more, my mental and physical functions were tied to the nanocloud.
To them I asked, “So, um, we’ll use the mapping GPS to direct us from, er, Alamogordo?”
Yes. In addition, we have ordered a selection of electronic parts to customize the phone. We will modify it to receive a strong signal even if we are out of optimal service range.
Optimal? Again?
We have plotted the route from the highway to Dr. Bickel’s location, Gemma Keyes. The journey across the desert terrain will require a vehicle optimal for off-road travel.
I sighed. If I never heard the word “optimal” again . . .
“Um, okay . . . another vehicle. Like you said—something that can handle rough roads.” A rig that could handle an eight- to ten-mile, round-trip jaunt through uncharted desert. Just another piece of logistics to be “figured out.”
I hadn’t intended to take the Escape onto the missile range anyway. Sure, now that I knew the plan, my car wouldn’t serve us as well as, say, a pickup or a Land Rover. But on a more important note? I could not allow Kathy Sawyer’s legally registered vehicle to be seen or confiscated: The Escape (aptly named) was our ride out of New Mexico.
So, kinda essential.
Gemma Keyes, where will we take Dr. Bickel upon the successful completion of our mission?
Good question. East to Texas? South to Mexico? North to Colorado? “Um . . . I hope Dr. Bickel will suggest a place to hide.”
It is true that Dr. Bickel owns many properties.
“Nano, do you know where his properties are?”
Yes, Gemma Keyes. We know the locations of all his properties.
“Well, then, we will head toward the one he says best fits our needs.”
This part of the plan is not as well-devised as we would wish it to be, Gemma Keyes.
“Yea
h. I know.”
They were making me nervous—and I didn’t need any assistance in that area. I turned back to the aerial shots and zoomed in. The shadow of a lone figure near the perimeter fence caught my eye.
“Nano, how many guards do you estimate?”
We do not need to estimate; our surveillance and research has provided us with accurate information. The fence is continuously patrolled by a single armed guard. During the day, the building has four personnel. At night, only two.
They paused. We recommend going at night.
I shrugged. “Sounds right. Better odds than during the day. Do you have a layout of the building?”
It appeared before me.
“But this looks like a house. Just a plain, ordinary, old house!”
Records we retrieved indicate that it was, indeed, built as a domicile. It has been repurposed: The walls of one room in the house have been reinforced with cinderblock and rebar.
“Then that’s where they are keeping him.” I memorized the layout, all the rooms, doors, and windows.
That is our conclusion also.
“What’s that weird stuff on top of the garage?”
We also observed the modifications to the garage roof—vents and pipes unnecessary for the storage of automobiles.
“Could they have fitted the garage as a lab for Dr. Bickel?”
A logical assumption, Gemma Keyes.
The niggling returned. “But the house and its yard . . . are so much smaller than I assumed they would be. Less . . . I don’t know . . . less intimidating? Or prison-like?”
Less “official.”
The mites went quiet. I wondered if anything about the site gnawed at them like it gnawed at me. When they spoke again, it was to shift the topic.
Gemma Keyes, we will assist you when you breach the intrusion detection system and fence, but our assistance over the course of the night will be governed by our power consumption. To conserve our power, you must be prepared to disarm and incapacitate the guards and personnel.
I rubbed my eyes. Sure, pal.
***
That night, Gus-Gus concentrated my workout on techniques I would use to disarm and immobilize an adversary. After rehearsing the specifics with me, Gus-Gus stepped aside, and a second avatar appeared. In his black uniform, with M4 rifle slung from his shoulder, the guy looked just like the special forces who’d rushed my house only weeks before.
Stealth Power Page 26
