Above

by Roland Smith

  They filed out without a word.

  Lod took a sip of his coffee and said, “Give me your pack and sit down.”

  I gave him the pack and sat down in the chair across from him. He emptied the contents of the pack onto the floor, carefully examining everything before stuffing it back into the compartment it had come from.

  After he had zipped and buckled everything back up he said, “Tell me about the notebook.”

  “It was the one I took off the grill. It was pretty far gone, but I remembered Nehalem Bay.”

  “What else do you remember?”

  I shook my head. “Nothing. Like I said. There wasn’t much left. Then you came out onto the balcony freaking out and took it away from me.”

  “But you saw the words Nehalem Bay.”

  He’d either written it down in a notebook, or he hadn’t. If he hadn’t I was dead. So were Bella and Bill.

  “I don’t remember writing that down in any of my notebooks.”

  I shrugged. “How else would I have seen it?”

  Another sip of coffee. I noticed the coffee was black. Lod always drank his gallon of coffee with a lot of cream. Cutting out the fat might account for some of his weight loss.

  “So you saw the words Nehalem Bay?”

  I nodded, relieved that he had either written Nehalem Bay in one of his little notebooks, or he couldn’t remember. But you never know with my grandfather. He might have been certain he didn’t write it down and was just waiting for me to deepen the lie.

  “How did you know we would be at Nehalem Bay?”

  “I didn’t. I was shocked when I found the Pod there. It was the only place name I had.”

  “You were looking for us?”

  “Why else would I go there?”

  “You ran away. You helped those boys escape.”

  “And if you’d been smart, and had just let them go, they might not have turned you in.”

  His face tightened in anger, which is exactly what I had intended. I wanted to make him angry. The only thing my grandfather truly respected was fearlessness. People tiptoed around him. They were terrified of making him angry. I had to show him that I was not afraid.

  He got up, dumped the remains of his coffee into the sink, refilled his mug, then sat back down.

  “What happened from the moment you were confronted in the Deep by Carl and his dog?”

  I repeated the same story I had told Bella and Bill, which I was certain he had already heard from the other Originals.

  When I finished, he stared at me for a few seconds, then said, “Kind of a long shot.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Remembering Nehalem Bay, then coming out here and actually finding us.”

  “More like a miracle,” I said. “My only plan when I left New York was to get as far away from you as I could.”

  “Why?”

  “Oh, please. You know as well as I do that you were going to punish me for what I did. Maybe even kill me.”

  Lod shook his head. “I wouldn’t have killed you, Kate, but you’re right about the punishment. I would have done something. Probably isolated you until you came to your senses.”

  By isolated, I assume he meant that he would have sent me to the mush room.

  “I came to my senses outside Chicago,” I said. “I decided to go back to the Deep. I was in a station in Iowa trying to figure out how to cash in my ticket for a return ticket to New York when I saw the first newspaper article. It said that you had left the Deep. My only choice was Nehalem Bay. It was the only hint I had. A long shot, but I guess I hit the target.”

  “And you haven’t heard from the O’Toole brothers?”

  “I have no way to get in touch with them, and even if I did, I have no desire to talk to them. Bella told me they were the ones who went to the FBI. They must be in police custody.”

  Lod shook his head. “No, they are not. I would know if they were. We’ve had our eyes on their parents and everyone they know since we left the Deep. We also have contacts in the FBI. No sign of those boys. They’re at large.”

  “Well, I’m sure they aren’t pursuing you. You’re the last person on earth they would want to run into.”

  “We’ll see,” he said noncommittally.

  If he was watching their parents, he had a lot more people working for him above than I had ever imagined. I wanted to ask him a thousand questions, but I couldn’t. My only goal was to survive this interrogation.

  “Tell me about Alex,” he said.

  “I don’t know much about him. He left me books to read. We never really talked until the day we left the Deep.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He said he was your brother. He said that you shot him in the leg.”

  “Did he say why I shot him?”

  If I admitted to Lod that I knew he had shot my parents, he would have me killed. He might even do it himself. Even if he didn’t kill me, he would never trust me again. How could he?

  “He said you had a disagreement about something. He wouldn’t say what it was. He said that you had left him in an alley for dead.”

  Lod thought about this for a few moments, sipping his coffee.

  “Is that all?”

  “Yes, other than the fact that he had been keeping an eye on the Pod.”

  “Why did he save you from Carl?”

  “I have no idea. He never said. He led us up top through the library and told us we needed to disappear.”

  “Why did he give you the laptops and cell phones?”

  I wanted to know how he knew this, but of course I couldn’t ask.

  “He said he wanted us to keep in touch with him. He gave us backpacks with some clothes as well.”

  “As far as I can tell Coop and his brother haven’t used their phones.”

  I shrugged as if I couldn’t care less about them. “Maybe they sold them like I did. I didn’t have any cash. Maybe they didn’t either. Like I told you, they went their way, I went mine.”

  Lod gave me a small smile, his first since I had stepped into his motor home. “Kate, I have always been honest with you, and, until recently, you have been honest with me …”

  He had lied to me my entire life. It was all I could do not to blurt out: YOU MURDERED MY PARENTS! He may have been an expert at external disguise, but I was an expert at internal disguise. I’d been masking my emotions and feelings since I was a little girl.

  Lod continued, “I sent Bella and Bill and the others out looking for you at great risk to our goals, even our lives. I wanted to talk to you. I wanted to hear your explanation for what you had done.”

  “Now you know,” I said quietly, looking down, as if I was ashamed. “I wanted a chance to talk to you too. I didn’t mean to cause you all this trouble. I know there is nothing I can do to undo the damage I’ve caused, but I am sorry.”

  “I’m not ready to accept your apology. You did cause a great deal of damage. What I need is more information about Alex.”

  “He looks a little like you, but frailer. He has gray —”

  “I know what he looks like.” Lod raised his voice. “I need to know what he’s doing.”

  I shook my head. “All I know is that he was watching us in the Deep.”

  “Why?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “And you didn’t ask?”

  “No. I was afraid of what you were going to do if you caught me. All I wanted to do was get away.”

  “And those two boys?”

  “I can see why you’re worried about Alex, but I wouldn’t waste another thought about them. They are long gone. I should have let you put them in the mush room.”

  “I’m not sure what I’m going to do with you, Kate. For the time being you’ll be in the custody of Bella and Bill. If you run, we will find you.” He patted the sofa next to where he was sitting. “Put your foot up here.”

  “Why?”

  “Do it.”

  I put my foot up.

  He open
ed a drawer and pulled out a black rubber bracelet with a little box on it. “This is a tether, or a security ankle bracelet. Law enforcement uses them to keep criminals in the confines of their homes. Since you’re going to be moving, this one is set up a little differently. There’s a proximity sensor. If you get more than two hundred feet from Bella, try to take it off, or tamper with it in any way, an alarm will go off. I will know you violated your probation. One strike and you’re out. No questions. No excuses. I will have you taken care of.”

  I didn’t have to ask him what he meant by this. If I strayed too far from Bella, he would have me killed.

  He put the bracelet around my ankle and began securing it with a special tool.

  “How long will I be on probation?”

  “As long as I say you are. It might be for the rest of your life. You really messed us up. I had planned to leave the Deep at some point, but not at this time of year, and not with the feds in pursuit. There.” He set the tool on the table.

  I put my foot down. “I hope I’ll be able to prove to you how sorry I am one day. I know I could be useful.”

  “I hoped you had learned something useful about Alex, but since you didn’t, you are pretty much useless to me. If I were you, I’d spend some time thinking about everything he said, everything he did, and everything you saw when you were with him. I know more about Alex than you do, and I was only in that rat hole he lived in for ten minutes.” He picked up his radio and said, “I’m ready.”

  “On my way,” Bella said.

  “Both of you.”

  “Copy.”

  He clipped the radio to his belt. “I’ll be coming in and out as we travel. We’ll be talking again.”

  “I’ll try to remember whatever I can about Alex.”

  “Do that. He’s the one thing I didn’t expect.” He pulled his little notebook out of his pocket. “And you are certain you saw only one of my notebooks?”

  “Only one.”

  I wasn’t going to admit that I had actually pulled burned bits and pieces of at least a dozen notebooks out of the grill over the years. I’d even sneaked into his bedroom for a quick peek a couple of times while he was sleeping. At the time it was a lark, something exciting to do while I was cooped up in our apartment day after day. Lod was a pretty good artist. I enjoyed the sketches. I wished I had paid closer attention to what I had seen and read.

  “I’m curious,” he said. “What has it been like for you being above?”

  This time I answered honestly. “Terrifying. I’m sure this contributed to my wanting to go back into the Deep. There are so many options above, too many choices, too many routes, too many people.”

  “How did you cope?”

  “By simplifying. Staying focused on one thing at a time.”

  “Nehalem Bay?”

  “That’s right. I had absolutely no plan beyond getting there. If I hadn’t stumbled onto the Pod I don’t know what I would have done.”

  “I’m sure you would have figured something out. In fact, think about that. Next time I see you let me know what you think you would have done. I’m always fine-tuning the plan. I thought I would eventually find you, but I didn’t think that you would find me.”

  He sounded more like the old Lod, the private Lod, the grandfather who sometimes showed himself when it was just him and me.

  “Why were you looking for me?”

  “Because you are my granddaughter, my flesh and blood. And that’s the only reason you’re still alive. We are about to save the world from itself. I so wanted you to be a part of this, but you let me down. You —”

  There was a tap on the door. Lod gave the door an irritable frown. “Come in!”

  Bella stepped inside.

  Lod looked back at me. The grandfatherly tone was gone. “Take your pack and wait outside.”

  I quickly stuffed my meager belongings into the pack and stepped out into the night. Bill was waiting for me. I started to explain what had happened inside, but he grabbed my arm and whispered in my ear, “Don’t talk. Watchers.”

  I spotted four of them. Two in the front seats of cars, two concealed behind trees. There could have been more. The Pod had to be traveling with a lot of people working different shifts.

  Bella came out of the motor home. We walked down the road to our campsite. When we got into their coach, I pulled up my pant leg and showed them my ankle bracelet.

  “You’re not alone,” Bella said. She lifted her pant leg, revealing an identical bracelet. “We’re tethered. Joined at the hip, or ankle, I guess. I hope you can earn Lod’s trust soon so I can get this thing off. It itches.”

  Alex said.

  We were sitting in the back of our used camper at Bullards Beach State Park, twenty miles south of Coos Bay.

  Alex was drinking a mug of green tea and eating one of Coop’s tuna sandwiches.

  I didn’t have the stomach to eat or drink anything.

  I was trying to settle down after driving the camper on the twisting road, pulling a boat with thirty-mile-an-hour winds blowing us all over the place, Alex yelling at me to stay on the road, and Coop laughing as if we were on an amusement park ride.

  “From the womb to the tomb,” Alex continued.

  After we had gotten the camper set up — electricity, water, toilet — which took a long time because none of us knew what we were doing, Alex decided it would be a good time to tell us more about his brother so we would have a better idea of what we were up against.

  “Larry believes that a few years, or a few decades, makes little difference in another person’s life. It all ends the same way. He feels completely justified in killing anyone who gets in the way of his grand plan. To him, extinguishing a life before its time is nothing more than speeding up an inevitable result.”

  “No guilt?” Coop asked.

  “None,” Alex continued. “He has much more empathy for wildlife than he does for human life. At heart Larry is a frustrated militant environmentalist. People and their governments are the enemy. The only life that matters to Larry is his own life. And the reason it’s so important is because he’s carrying the grand plan in his head.”

  “He seemed pretty fond of Kate,” Coop pointed out. “Even when she was defying him.”

  Alex nodded. “I think Kate might have been his fail-safe. If he had gotten sick before he could launch his plan I think he would have passed the plan off to her to carry out, which brings me to my next subject —”

  The teakettle whistled, nearly launching me from my seat.

  Coop laughed.

  Alex got up and turned it off.

  “Little jumpy, Lil Bro,” Coop said.

  “I’m still driving the truck in my head,” I said.

  “You did fine. We’re alive.”

  Alex sat back down. “Larry has lived a lonely life. He was smarter than almost everyone he knew. That would be like living in a country where you understood the language but no one there could understand you. He got impatient and bored with nearly everyone because he was so far ahead of them. He told me once that when he talked with people it was like they were speaking in slow motion. It took him years to stop finishing sentences for people after the third word was out of their mouth. He had to train himself to act like he was listening to people so they didn’t get angry with him. He learned to feign interest in what people were saying when his mind was off on something entirely different. In the early days with the Originals he would sit in our meeting room, nodding, smiling, frowning, looking thoughtful and concerned, understanding everything that was said, without an iota of genuine interest in what anyone was saying.”

  “What about you?” I asked. “Did he listen to you?”

  Alex shook his head. “No. I was his little brother. He valued my opinion even less than the other Originals. He always underestimated me, but with luck, that will change soon. The reason I’m telling you all this is so you have an idea of Larry’s mind-set. The Originals are getting old. The road ahead of them is a lot shor
ter than the road behind them. Your arrival, and Kate’s betrayal, woke them up, got them moving, but you aren’t the reason they moved. They aren’t running. They are relocating.”

  I was getting hot sitting in the back of the cramped camper …

  “Larry’s escape is brilliant!” Alex continued. “The FBI and other law enforcement agencies have become so dependent on technology, they’ve lost their edge tracking people who are off the grid. In the old days when we were on the run — before cells, electronic transactions, the Internet — they were pretty good at tracking people down. Nowadays if someone on the run doesn’t leave an electronic footprint, the FBI doesn’t know where to start.”

  “Do you think they’re planning some kind of nuclear attack?” Coop asked.

  Alex laughed. “If I thought that, I would have gone to the FBI myself by now. I have no doubt that given the right components Larry could build a nuclear bomb, but those materials are hard, if not impossible, to come by. One of the reasons we went into the Deep is because we thought there was going to be a nuclear disaster. Larry isn’t interested in destroying the earth. He would much rather take down the people in charge of running the earth.”

  “What are we going to do about it?” I asked.

  “I need to get inside to wherever they’re going — either personally or through Kate — see what they’re up to, and stop them before they implement their plan. Larry has been recruiting computer whizzes for the past several years, so whatever they’re doing must have something to do with computers. I think I have something that can stop them. It might be our only chance.”

  “What do you have?” I asked.

  “I can’t give you the specifics, but it will put an end to all of this.”

  Alex yawned, then looked at his watch.

  I guess the session was over.

  Coop stood. He was wide-awake. It was after midnight.

  “I’m going out for a walk,” he said.

  “I’ll go with you,” I said quickly, eager to get out of the camper.

  “If you talk, whisper,” Alex said. “There are other campers here, and some of them might be Pod members. The closer we get to them, the more dangerous they become.”