by John Darnton
"I can't say you were raised in the lap of luxury," he said.
He walked to the other side of the room and sat on a bunk, which—by pure chance—happened to have been Skyler's.
"They may have given you the best medical attention science can provide, but they sure as hell didn't care if you were comfortable or not."
It felt strange to Skyler to hear Jude making pronouncements upon his upbringing. He felt an odd need to defend it; it hadn't all been misery and heartlessness. But he remained silent.
Jude stood up and kicked something, sending it scuttling across the floor. He walked over and picked it up, then handed it to Skyler, who looked at it with amazement.
"This was Raisin's," Skyler exclaimed. "This was his toy soldier. He always carried it with him."
He put it in his pocket. Then he walked to the door.
"Let's go to the Big House," he said.
¨
Riding the subway to her apartment on West Eighty-seventh Street, Tizzie was lost in thought. She wasn't especially proud to admit it, but she was turning out to be a good spy—rather, a good double spy, which was twice as hard. You had to be always thinking in two heads at the same time.
Uncle Henry had been impressed by her "report" of their trip to Arizona. She'd included enough true events—like their harrowing visit to the mine, the cave-in and Skyler's illness—to make it credible. But she had not, she hoped, given away anything of importance that could tip their hand. That meant walking a thin line indeed.
For example: should she include the car chase from the roadhouse? It depended upon who she thought had been chasing them. If it turned out to be enforcers from the Lab and she omitted the chase—such a dramatic occurrence—then Uncle Henry would know she was duplicitous and never trust her again. But if the villains were some renegade FBI men—and happily she had talked to Jude since his near encounter with Raymond at the Hoover Building—then including it might be giving Uncle Henry some useful information. Why should he know about the FBI's involvement? Or if he already knows, why should he know that they know? Wheels within wheels.
Finally, she had left the incident out. And Uncle Henry, as far as she could tell, didn't seem the wiser. That, in turn, told her something—namely, that Uncle Henry hadn't in fact known about the car chase, which helped point the finger of suspicion away from the Lab. On such crumbs do double spies build their edifices of knowledge.
Certain things she never wrote about. Where Jude and Skyler were staying, for instance, or what their immediate plans were. They were too afraid of phone taps to talk about such matters, she explained. Another area that she shied away from—despite urging to the contrary from Uncle Henry—was her emotional life. He seemed to want to know a great deal about her feelings for Jude and for Skyler. But this was the last thing she wanted to put on paper. Partly, the reluctance came because she was revolted at the thought of that man poring over her innermost secrets, partly because she knew him well enough to fear what he might do with the information, and partly because she herself was confused about what she was feeling.
Her goal now was to turn active. She needed to move from information collection to operations. Uncle Henry had talked about research. That's what she wanted to do, and she had been pestering him to do it. She needed to find out about her mother's death and about her father's illness. If they were truly working on a vaccination, then she wanted to be part of that effort. He was right—she was good at it. And as any scientist knows, you can't come up with a vaccine unless you know what disease you're fighting. Maybe she could finally get some answers. And maybe those answers would help Skyler and Jude.
She got out at her stop, picked up some groceries and walked home. She had put the key in her mailbox, when she saw a figure waiting in the vestibule, and she knew at once that it was Uncle Henry. He was taking up more and more of her life.
She led him up two flights of stairs, noting how fatigued the climb made him. Once inside, she offered him a cup of tea or coffee, which he declined. He got right down to business.
"Your reports have been excellent," he said. "We have decided to let you into our laboratory. There is much to be done and little time to do it. There are three rules you must obey: Follow instructions. Do not ask questions. And remain at all times within your restricted area. Do you understand?"
She did. She also thought of many questions, but figured now was not the time to pose them. She imagined she'd be allowed one, though.
"When do I start?"
"Tomorrow."
¨
Jude and Skyler did not approach the Big House by walking up the front drive lined by the ancient oak trees. That seemed too brazen. Instead, they walked in the shadows of the trees, keeping their eyes glued on the windows and door for any sign of life.
Not that they expected any. The place was a mess and gave every indication of having been abandoned. Most of the windows were knocked out, several metal gutters were hanging loose and swaying in the breeze, and a large tree had fallen on a section of the roof, collapsing it. One of the front columns had toppled backward, causing the small balcony above to sag dangerously.
The place looked used, decrepit, shrunken—not at all the majestic palace that Skyler had constructed in his memory.
When they reached the front steps, he went first. He treaded lightly upon the old wooden steps and tried the front door. It was stuck. He tugged, then took the brass knob in both hands and pulled with all his might. The door flew open, crashing against the outer wall with a force that shook loose a shower of rainwater trapped on the balcony above.
They exchanged looks and froze. When a half minute passed, they relaxed. If that sound didn't arouse a response, it was likely the place was deserted. They stepped inside, no longer worried about making noise.
First, they went to the basement room in front, the very one that Skyler and Julia had snuck into so long ago when they were spying upon Rincon and trying to hear what he was saying. Jude went down the staircase first and watched Skyler come after him, looking at his face, which was strained and breaking out in perspiration.
This has to be hard on him, thought Jude.
They went next to the Records Room, which was mostly empty. Two filing cabinets were there, but their drawers were missing. A table with nothing on it had been shoved into a corner. Half a dozen pieces of paper lay on the floor. Jude turned them over; they were blank.
"Nothing," said Skyler. "This is where it all was, all the records."
Jude's heart sank. What could they possibly hope to find now?
He barely noticed that Skyler had moved over to the other door, the one that led to the morgue. By the time he realized it, Skyler was gone, having disappeared through the door into the operating room. Jude tore after him.
Mercifully, this room too had almost nothing in it, nothing to indicate its former use. There were some empty cabinets affixed to the walls, a stanchion, and the floor slightly angled toward a central drain.
The stainless steel table, where Julia's body had been, was also empty.
They went back upstairs, searched the first floor and found nothing. The couches and chairs near the open windows were waterlogged, and branches and leaves had blown inside. Even the ashes and cindered logs in the fireplace were wet.
They climbed the stairs to the second floor, where Skyler had never been before, and split up. Jude walked through two rooms that were mostly empty, retaining only a few pictures on the walls and rugs. He came to a small hallway and knew he was entering the master bedroom.
And there inside was a four-poster bed, a bureau, and a night table. But what caught his eye was an object lying on the floor, incongruously on its side, spilling sand and bits of cactus onto the carpet.
It took Jude some time to realize what it was—a terrarium.
How bizarre.
Jude almost yelled out. He was tempted to share his find with Skyler, to ask him what it meant. But Skyler wasn't there any longer, for he had made a discovery
of his own. He had run out of the house. For peering out a window on the second floor, he had spotted the old oak tree, the one that he and Julia had used for sending messages.
And looking at the base of the tree, he saw that the rock had been moved. It was positioned, according to their code, to arrange a rendezvous at the old lighthouse.
Chapter 26
Skyler ran back into the Big House, yelled to Jude that he would be back, and disappeared under the oak trees. He ran across the Parade Field and past the barracks and into the meadow. He kept running even on the path on the other side that led to the woods, and then finally he had to slow down to catch his breath. From then on he mostly jogged, but when he came to a downhill stretch, he ran again.
He knew it was foolish to exhaust himself like that—he told himself to conserve energy, for he had no idea what awaited him in the lighthouse—but he couldn't help it. He felt driven by a force over which he had no control.
Then he rounded a bend, past the sand dunes and the ruts in the road, and he saw the familiar sight, the old tower rising up with its faded red and white stripes, so incongruous amid the brushed green of the loblolly pine and the pale blue of the sea. He stopped for a moment, squinting in the sun, looking at it. It hadn't changed—there was no outside sign as to what momentous surprise it might hold for him.
He reached the base of the lighthouse and pushed open the door, which sent the birds to flight, a frenzy of beating wings and loose feathers that drifted down slowly to the concrete floor. Then he mounted the spiral staircase, moving with a kind of hunter's stealth, as if he might scare away the prey above, whatever it was. He came to the gap in the stairs, stepped across it and moved higher, his eyes continually on the small passageway at the top. When he reached it, he paused, trying to calm himself.
Then came the moment. He tightened his muscles and pushed ahead, passing through the doorway and entering the glass room. It was hot and the sun's rays refracted from one lens to another in a dizzying crisscross, so that it was like stepping into a gallery of blazing light.
He looked around him. He looked at everything in sight, at first rapidly, sweeping the balcony with his eyes, and then slowly and methodically, so as not to overlook anything. He looked around the glass house and at the metal track, the circular walkway, the giant lens, the ceiling, the floor, the walls. He examined every inch of the place.
Jude had finished searching the master bedroom and a neighboring bedroom when he heard a sound coming from a narrow hallway. It was a grating noise, like something ripping, and it was magnified in the silence of the old manor house, so that it seemed incredibly loud.
Jude's first thought was that Skyler was behind it—he was opening something, cutting something—but he knew at once that that was impossible. Skyler had already left.
He walked to the entrance of the hallway and listened. The noise stopped for a moment and then resumed. It emerged from the darkness and seemed to come straight at him, as if it were directed at him. He felt around for a light switch—there was none. So he took a step into the hallway, feeling the walls on both sides, moving one foot slowly ahead. He continued in this fashion, sliding his feet before him as if he were walking on thin ice. Halfway through, he paused and cocked his head to hear better; the sound was irregular. It was not the sound of inanimate objects.
Someone—something—is making it.
He continued down the hall, and now he could see into the room ahead, which was flooded with light streaming through the windows. Still, the noise came.
Then it stopped.
Jude stepped ahead boldly now and found himself standing in a room. He looked around. Nothing was moving. The walls were covered in faded blue wallpaper, and a baby grand piano was standing in a corner, some of its keys missing. There was no other furniture in the room.
Part of the ceiling had collapsed from a toppled tree. A heap of plaster and broken laths lay on the floor, directly under a wide hole in the ceiling. Floorboards from the room above leaned down at the edges of the opening, and sunlight came in through a gap in the outside wall. It was most likely from there, Jude thought, that the noise had come. He waited quietly for a minute or so, and was soon proved correct. The noise started up again—a scraping sound and the floorboards above shook lightly, bending under the weight of something.
Jude jumped back. Now, suddenly, the noise seemed very loud.
He went to a closet where he found a broom and brought it to the hole and raised it. He pushed hard against the loose floorboards and jumped back, and just as he did, something came crashing down. It was alive, squirming in midair, a creature with a long tail, scales on its back. It landed on its side awkwardly with a grunt, flipped over and scurried away, huddling in a corner. It looked at Jude with a baleful eye that he had seen before. A malevolent-looking, two-foot-long lizard.
They kept these things as pets wherever they went, he thought, as he turned his back in disgust and left the room.
After Jude left the Big House, closing the front door behind him and walking down the front stairs, he waited for Skyler under the oak tree that had been their message board. After a half hour, he saw him in the distance, walking toward him. As he approached closer, Jude could see that he looked odd, his face drawn and tense, his steps mechanical.
Skyler sat next to him and picked up the rock. He explained that he had looked out from the Big House and saw that it had been moved—that no one other than Julia knew that signal. He had run to the lighthouse and searched for a long time, until finally inside the glass room, over in a corner, he had found a note, held in place by a rock.
It was a note from her, written no doubt on the day she had died. A final message, delivered up in love.
She had discovered the passwords from observing the computer operators. She was providing them to him.
"Two words are needed to gain access to the files," said Skyler, talking like a man in a daze. "First: 'Bacon.' And then: 'Newton.'"
He explained about the ditty they had all recited for years.
Nature and Nature's laws lay hid in night:
Bacon said, "Let Newton be!" and all was light.
"Do you think..."—Jude tried to pick his way carefully—"that was why she died? Someone saw her or they found out somehow?"
"I do," replied Skyler.
He held the note in his hand, but he did not show it to Jude. Instead, he folded it up and carefully put it inside his pocket.
* * *
They spent two hours searching the rest of the island. They examined every building—the Meal House, the storage house, the women's barracks, the guest house, the airport hangar, even the old pump house for the unused swimming pool. And everywhere it was the same. Damage was substantial. Trees had fallen everywhere, crashing down on rooftops and buckling walls. Inside, the buildings were deserted and mostly empty, but with an odd assortment of things left behind in the water-damaged hallways and corners—socks, shirts, belts, batteries, sheets, pillows.
It was impossible to reconstruct what had happened with any certainty. Clearly, an evacuation of some kind had taken place; the members of the Lab had carted away most of their belongings and clothing and medical records and other essentials. Had it been done in panic—perhaps as the hurricane approached? That seemed unlikely. Too much had been taken away in too short a time. Had they returned after the storm? That seemed unlikely, too—the mud would have been covered with telltale footprints.
So the most likely scenario was a planned, methodical evacuation before the hurricane had even been predicted. But that raised as many questions as it settled. Why had it been done? After two hours of sifting through the debris, Jude and Skyler hadn't a clue. They didn't even know how it had been done—what kind of boats had been used or where they had docked. Never mind the ultimate unknown: Where had the boats gone?
One more mystery, thought Jude.
Why do we always seem to be taking two steps backward for every one step forward?
He stood n
ext to Skyler on a small rise overlooking the Campus and checked his watch. Still two more hours until the meeting with Homer. From here he could see almost all the buildings they had searched. At least they had been methodical. They had looked in every building, in every room. There was nothing left to inspect.
Then Skyler reminded him of one place left to look.
"We should check the Nursery. It's on an adjacent island—not far. I think it's easy to cross if the tide is right—though I've never been there."
It took Jude only a second to realize what he was talking about—the colony of small children raised by the Lab. He had assumed, when he heard Skyler talking about them weeks before, that they were another generation of clones. And, like Skyler, he had totally forgotten about them.
Skyler was already off, following a trail that ran north through the woods, and Jude was right behind him. The forest here was dense, and looking at the path they were on, he could see the prints of countless hooves.
After twenty minutes, they reached the northern shore. Jude was winded—they had been going faster than he realized—and so he leaned against a tree with one hand to breathe deeply. He felt his head clear and his heartbeat calm, and he looked around.
This coast was much wilder. The trees dropped away, so that ahead of them was a sea of waist-high grass, extending like a vast golden-green savannah. Beyond was the sea, coming upon them in breakers that washed upon a rocky shore. Off to the left was the island, no more than about two hundred yards away. But it looked like a treacherous two hundred yards. A rocky sandbar served as an isthmus, and it was almost completely under water. To reach the island, they would have to traverse that narrow bar of land. One large wave could sweep them into a channel, where the current, funneled between the two bodies, looked swift.
"Can you tell," shouted Jude over the surf, "is the tide coming in or going out?"
