“Oh, shit,” Maggie said. “Everything is wrong. It’s all yellow, gray, sick-looking. Is this what the real world looks like?”
“I think so,” I said. “Everything is so much worse than the illusion we’d been enjoying.”
“Well,” Maggie’s mom said, “much as I like all the greenery, you’d better take mine out. Just don’t kill me, please.”
Maggie’s knife work wasn’t as efficient or neat as her mom’s, and Dr. Gooding grimaced a few times, but eventually Maggie produced a pellet the size of a bean.
Maggie’s mom kept her eyes closed throughout and seemed reluctant to open them afterward. Finally, she did, taking in the room, me, and her daughter.
“Well,” she said, “everything sucks right now, but you two are still beautiful.”
“Aw, Mom,” Maggie said, and gave her a hug.
I took Maggie’s hand and gave her a look. She knew what I was thinking and gave me a sad nod.
“Dr. Gooding,” I said, “there’s one more thing you should know.”
Just then there was a knock on the door.
“Anybody want some coffee?” came the smooth male voice from outside.
“Oh, shoot me now,” Maggie said. “It’s Bud Fucking Winkle.”
CHAPTER 51
Maggie
MOM LOOKED LIKE I’d slapped her in the face and took a moment to compose herself and put on a welcoming smile before opening the door to Bud Winkle, who was holding two cardboard coffee cups.
“If I’d known it was a party, I’d have brought more,” he chirped in his cream-colored linen shirt and matching linen pants. Every strand of his blond hair was running parallel back to front.
“Bud, that is so kind,” Mom said, and took a cup.
“Latte with one sugar, just how you like it,” Bud said.
“Thank you,” Mom said.
“You should try a cortado sometime,” Jordan interjected. “Still smooth but evens out that milk-to-coffee ratio.”
I shot Jordan my most unsubtle “WTF!” look.
“Thanks, son,” Bud said.
“So Maggie and Jordan were just about to tell me something important,” Mom said.
“Later, Mom,” I said.
“No, why don’t you tell me now?” Mom said, with a look on her face that indicated she was digging in. “Anything you want to say to me you can say in front of Bud.”
I looked over at Jordan. He scratched the back of his head. I was on my own on this one.
“Oh,” Bud said, “I truly don’t want to get in the middle of family business. I can come back at a more opportune time.”
“No, Bud, that’s okay,” Mom said, and wrapped her arm around his back, prompting him to drape his arm over her shoulder.
“All right, then. Fine,” I said. “I have cancer.”
“Let me get some paper towels,” Jordan said after Mom’s latte with one sugar hit the floor and splattered everywhere.
I explained it all, deciding that Bud could hear this, especially since his precious “folks down at the plant” might be at fault. Mom asked questions. Bud said nothing. Eventually she inspected my X-rays, and although this wasn’t a mammogram and she wasn’t an oncologist, she thought she saw something not good. She took me into an exam room and felt around to confirm what I was talking about. I felt, not happily, that my self-diagnosis had been valid.
“I ought to be going,” Bud said when we came out.
“Okay,” Mom said, and gave him a stiff hug. At least my news had knocked her out of her frisky mood.
“I hope that your suspicions about this turn out to be incorrect,” he told me, his pale blue eyes locking with mine.
“Me too,” I responded. “But if not, hey, I know whom to call.” I flashed a big insincere smile his way. He offered almost a courtly bow before he left.
“You should have told me,” Mom said as we got into her pickup, with her behind the wheel, me in the passenger seat, and Jordan in the back.
“What would you have done?” I asked.
“I would have gone to the army,” she said, her eyes beginning to well up. “I would have gone to the highest commanding official at the camp, and I would have gotten you to the hospital. People go to the hospital here. It’s not unheard of.”
I shook my head. “The army wouldn’t have let us out of here because you were worried your daughter had a lump.”
“Maybe,” she said. “They helicoptered Jordan’s family out of here because they were injured.”
“But we don’t know where they went,” Jordan said.
I turned to look back at him.
“We don’t,” he said. “We saw them being taken away in a helicopter, but that’s all we know. If I had to put money on it, they’re back in the sick camp, prisoners who can’t leave or communicate with anyone back in town, even the son and brother they left behind.”
“Why do you assume they’re prisoners?” my mom asked.
“We can’t contact anyone outside of town,” Jordan said. “Don’t you think there’s a reason for that? Ishango can’t let the world know how bad it is here. She would be shut down if the news reached anyone at the state or national level. So we’re quarantined, captive, whatever you want to call it.”
“There are still people working around here, and they’d help Maggie if she has cancer,” Mom insisted.
“No offense, but I don’t think so, and I’ve been working this through my head for the same reason you have,” Jordan said. “I doubt the sick camp has mammogram machines, and I really don’t believe they’d take her to an outside hospital. I just don’t.”
“You’re saying they’d leave her to die?” Mom said.
“Mom!” I said.
“Well, not die, sweetie,” she said, patting me on the thigh. “But, you know, going untreated if there actually were anything to treat. Which, the more I think about it, there probably isn’t.”
I’m not sure which was worse, the brutal truth or the blatant sugarcoating.
“This is a sick town,” Jordan said. “We’re probably all getting cancer.”
“Don’t talk like that,” Mom said. “We’ll be fine.”
We drove in silence, terror building in my chest at the sound of that lie. Things would get worse before they got better. Ishango had access to a huge military force. We could all be dead. If anything happened to Mom or Jordan, I didn’t know how I’d go on.
“Dr. Gooding, you can see what things really look like now,” Jordan said. “Look around. This forest is sick. The animals are raging. The paint is peeling, and buildings are crumbling. Mount Hope looks like a town that’s been abandoned after a disaster, except we all came back with rose-colored brain stems. The military and probably the town government are hiding what’s going on and have been doing so for decades. Plenty of people working at the plant had to know that the power supply was only fueling a single, massive supercomputer. And those in charge are shutting up everyone who questions it. They shut down the newspaper. They bought off the police. And they no longer will let anyone in or out of this town.”
Mom smiled and looked at me as she guided the car down a bumpy, rutted hunting road. “Funny, you were always the rational one, and I was the one with the conspiracy theories. You always talked me out of them.”
“Well, seeing my boyfriend attacked by a sword-armed freak and insane supercomputer had a way of opening my eyes.” I heard a muffled guffaw from the back seat. “Yes, I said ‘boyfriend,’ Jordan! Jesus!”
The smile left his face as he reached his hand between Mom and me to point out the windshield.
“We’re here,” he said.
CHAPTER 52
Jordan
ONCE AGAIN WE were ready to hike up Mount Hope. It was Maggie’s idea to return for the explosives—she thought if we could drop them down the construction hole that led to Ishango’s chamber, we could create an extinction event for that Bible-quoting computer bitch. I argued that the chances were slim to none that we’d ever again
get that close to Ishango, with or without the explosives. Ishango was at war, and by now she no doubt had more security protecting her than the president of the United States.
Still, we’d be better off with the explosives than without them. I’d just have to rely upon my strategically enhanced mind to come up with something at whatever the right moment was.
After parking as close to the trail as possible, the three of us hiked toward the cliffs. I wanted to go alone, but Dr. Gooding insisted we stick together. I led the way.
We hadn’t been hiking long when Maggie whispered, “Stop.”
We froze, listening. The wind blew through the pines, and there was some rustling in the undergrowth.
“It could be another wild hog,” I whispered.
“Or nothing,” Maggie’s mom said.
I looked at Maggie, and our eyes locked. “If it’s something bad, we’ll just deal with it,” I said. “Let’s hurry in the meantime.”
We turned back to the trail. We were close.
“I just can’t believe that this is real,” Maggie’s mom said as she trudged up the trail. “I feel like I should be waking up from this any moment.”
“I feel that way all the time—and I really do have dreams: about Alpha, about the nuclear meltdown,” I said. “I don’t know whether they’re dreams or memories or something else triggered by the implant.”
“We think he’s still connected to Ishango in some way,” Maggie said.
Maggie’s mom looked at me as if for the first time. “Are you seeing visions or anything like that?”
“No,” I said, “I just know things, like how to fight in different ways. If a boxer showed up in front of me, I’d know how to box back without ever having taken a lesson. It’s weird.”
“Do you know other things, too?” Dr. Gooding asked. “Like biology or how to make an omelet?”
I smiled. “I already make a mean omelet. And I’ll know how to put this bomb together.”
The cliff tops came into view, and the trees and dirt gave way to a round outcrop of granite.
I located the Hogan Construction bag and picked it up gingerly. C4 was supposed to be stable if you dropped it—it was supposed to detonate only with a blasting cap or some other explosion—but I felt the weight of it in my hand and wasn’t taking any chances.
A shot rang out, and Maggie’s mom let out a cry and tumbled to the ground, clutching her stomach, a red patch spreading beneath her fingers.
I hit the ground and pulled Maggie with me as she screamed, “Mom! Mom!” I crouched and scanned the area and saw no one. I ripped off my shirt and handed it to Maggie to press against her mom’s wound.
“Shhh, I’m okay,” Dr. Gooding said softly, reaching out to run her hand down Maggie’s hair. Damn, even now she was trying to make Maggie feel better.
She’d become like a second mom to me, and now she had taken a bullet because I’d gotten her tangled up in this crazy conspiracy. Was she going to die? Maybe I should’ve let Alpha fix the jarred implant in my head, so I could be as unfeeling as the rest of them.
I looked back and spotted two men now standing behind an outcropping. The tracking device on me must have been working after all.
As they stepped forward, I saw that both men were wearing those telltale black suits.
And one of them was my father.
Maggie gasped.
“It is regrettable,” Dad said as he approached me, “that you would try to stop the work of Ishango, who improved you so substantially.”
“Do you have any of my father left in your body?” I asked, standing up to my full height, a sense of terror and despair coming along. I knew he was controlled by the implant, but it still devastated me to see him like this. “You’ve helped kill so many for the sake of a computer’s crazy scheme to take over the world.”
“Omicron and I are part of Ishango,” he said. “As are you, Rho.”
“You named me Jordan.”
“That was your mother. I was not involved in the procedure on your mother or your conception as you may have been led to believe,” he stated.
“What do you mean by ‘procedure’?”
The suit named Omicron spoke. “Rho, your selection was not accidental. Ishango began experimentation on the consciousness transmigration process approximately twenty years ago. One solution involved breeding a host with a particular set of non-rejecting antibodies. Your mother was chosen to gestate the host: you.”
I shook my head as Maggie clutched my ankle while using her other hand to continue applying pressure to her mom’s wound. None of this was making sense. I turned to my father but found no comfort in his cold brown eyes.
“Dad—”
“It is true.”
“You’re lying,” I seethed, infuriated by his matter-of-fact tone.
“Ishango has authorized me to confirm this information,” he droned on. “The fertilization and embryo implantation occurred when your mother was ostensibly hospitalized for fibroid cyst removal.”
Tears welled up and spilled out, and I grabbed my head with both hands, wishing I could rip out whatever had become woven into my brain. Even if that took me down, at least the nightmare would be over. “I know Ishango is making you say this,” I cried, not caring that Maggie was seeing me break down.
“I regret to verify you are not my son.”
“But I am, Dad,” I whispered. “No matter what Ishango says. And I know there’s a part of you that doesn’t want this to happen: for me to lose my life so she can live and take over the world.”
“No,” he said, “she has no need to destroy unless humanity poses a threat. Currently, humanity does not.”
“Um, Dad, did you hear the me-losing-my-life part? This conversation is beyond depressing.”
Dr. Gooding let out a cry of pain behind me, and Maggie ran her palm over her mom’s forehead. Now Dr. Gooding was the one who needed medical attention. My being held at gunpoint wasn’t doing her or Maggie any good. I needed to get them out of here.
“Maggie,” I said, “take care of your mom.”
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“I’m going with them.” I’d let Omicron and my dad take me back to Ishango, where she’d take over my body, but they might leave the bag of explosives, allowing Maggie to detonate it later.
“Jordan,” she said, her voice shaking, “we have to stay together.”
I stared at her, then let my eyes flit over to the yellow bag. She got it.
“I can’t take care of her,” she said warily. “I don’t know how.”
Shit. Of course she didn’t know about blasting caps and det wire. Why would she?
Checkmate.
“Jordan, don’t go with them,” Dr. Gooding croaked.
Omicron pivoted toward her and lifted his gun—but then turned and fired toward the woods. There was a yelp and some rustling, and out staggered Bud Winkle with blood streaming down his face.
“Renee!” he said. “I’m sorry …” He collapsed face-first onto the dirt.
“Bud!” Maggie’s mom shouted as Omicron turned back toward her, pointed the gun at her forehead, and—
Bang!
It was loud, but Dr. Gooding looked intact. I turned to see a hole in Maggie’s T-shirt.
No!
But then Omicron dropped to the ground with a nickelsize hole in his forehead, out of which poured that carrot ketchup.
Maggie removed her hand from under her T-shirt. It held the Magnum.
The next ninety seconds happened in slow motion as my adrenaline surged, my brain kicked into gear, and I operated like the machine I’d been programmed to be.
Dad reached for the gun in his waistband, but I crouched low and swung my leg to sweep his. He stumbled and fell, and I moved swiftly to snatch his pistol out of his belt, giving him a powerful jab to the midsection at the same time.
I looked up at Maggie, and she had her gun trained on him. I held out my hand, and she gave it to me. Damn, it really was heavy
.
“How can I bring you back?” I asked my dad, pointing the Magnum at his face.
Instead of answering, he rolled behind a boulder. I couldn’t shoot, despite all he’d said and done to turn me against him.
“I got him,” I called back to Maggie. “Stay with your mom and keep applying pressure.”
I stepped slowly around the boulder, gun in both hands.
“You’re human, Dad,” I said. “You’re a human with an implant, like me. Don’t let Ishango tell you what to do.”
I heard a moan from beyond the boulder. Maybe I’d broken his leg with my kick. I followed the sound, but he got the drop on me and fired his gun.
I felt the bullet hit me in the chest, right in one of my metal ribs.
My father had shot me.
CHAPTER 53
Jordan
I STAGGERED BACK, and Dad advanced, limping.
“Father, Father, we don’t need to escalate,” I said, raising my gun, but he shot it out of my hand, sending bullet fragments into my wrist and arm. Ouch. I dropped the pistol and fell to my knees. I’m still not sure I would’ve been able to fire it at him anyway, but I also wasn’t confident that he’d take any mercy on me.
“Jordan!” Maggie screamed, and started running toward me, but I held up a bloodied hand.
“Stay back!” I roared. My chest burned, and I could feel blood spreading on my shirt. I thought of Alpha, who had survived so many of my bullets. Could I shake off a gunshot wound and get back in the fight, too?
A line from that western Cat Ballou came to mind: The old gunslinger Kid Shelleen tells a younger man, “At first you don’t think you can stand to get hit, then you realize you can take it ’cause the blood don’t matter, and you know you’re gonna live. It’s a great gift I’m giving you—to know it don’t hurt to fight.”
The blood don’t matter and you know you’re gonna live.
Or as Patrick Swayze put it in Road House: “Pain don’t hurt.”
Despite the blood, I felt like this wound wasn’t bad. The bullet hit a rib, but these metal ribs were pretty sturdy—or so I assumed.
The Warning Page 23
