Written in Fire (The Brilliance Trilogy Book 3) (25 page)

“You know, I’ve shot thousands of people. Maybe tens of thousands.” She sat down heavily and smiled. “I play a lot of video games. Don’t think it will help. You got people here?”

“My kids. Nick. You?”

“My niece. Her momma left her with me when she was three, never came back. Kaylee’s nine and speaks eleven languages. Says she sees words as colors, so it doesn’t matter which language, she just uses the colors. Isn’t that something?”

“Yes,” Natalie said. “It really is.”

“And because of that, those men out there, they want to kill her.” Her voice was suddenly cold. “Oh, I know, it isn’t that simple. They lost people too, they’re scared, hurting. But you know what? It
is
that simple. Get me?”

Natalie took a bite of her sandwich. The bread was stale, the meat indeterminate, the lettuce like Kleenex. It was maybe the best thing she’d ever tasted. She thought of Todd, standing with his arm around his little sister; of Kate’s too-wise eyes.

It doesn’t matter that you’ll be aiming at human beings. It doesn’t matter that they have thoughts and feelings and parents and children.

And it doesn’t matter what happens to you. Not at all.

There are only two things that matter.

“Yeah,” she said. “I get you.”

CHAPTER 33

Hawk was trying very hard not to cry.

Could it really only have been this afternoon that he’d been sitting in his bedroom with John Smith, the two of them talking like confidants? There had been that perfect moment at the end, when John put a hand on his shoulder, and for a second he didn’t feel like a little kid whose mom had been killed, he felt like a soldier, a revolutionary. The kind of man he’d always wanted to be. Strong, determined, important.

Then the soldiers, the gunfire and screams. Wriggling through that endless tunnel. The woman pointing a shotgun, the way his throat had closed up and warmth had run down his leg, soaking all the way into his sweat sock. For years he’d daydreamed about action, had kept his vigil, but the moment actual danger had presented itself, he’d peed himself and run away.

John told you to. He wanted you to get away.

There was some comfort in that, but not much. First they’d killed his mom, now John. He hated them, hated them all so much, and now here he was running down a tunnel, head held low so he didn’t bang it into the pipes and wires above, jeans wet and cold, and the part of him that was still a little boy really wanted to cry, but he couldn’t, he wouldn’t let himself.

Eventually his legs and lungs gave out, and he had to stop. Hawk bent over and braced his hands on his knees, sucking in gasps of air, the taste of vomit in the back of his throat. He had to think, had to start acting like a man.

Step one was getting out of the tunnels. The dusty smell of them, the pale light and hum of cables were making him sick. He set off at a walk, and a quarter mile later he’d found another ladder. When he climbed up, he found himself in a maintenance hut just like the other one, a small space lined with tools and spare parts. No windows, no way to tell where he was except to open the door and step out.

It was chilly in wet jeans and a T-shirt. He wrapped his arms around himself, blinked at the late afternoon sun. After the subterranean dimness, it made his eyes water. There were honks and yells, a line of cars crawling east. The sidewalk was crowded with people with their arms full, their kids on their shoulders.

Hawk thought about asking what was going on, but couldn’t figure out who to talk to, everyone seemed to be in such a hurry. And there were his pee-soaked jeans to consider. Better to figure it out himself.

He wasn’t sure where he was exactly, but near the edge of town. Everyone else was headed the opposite direction of where he wanted to go. He needed to get out of Tesla, not deeper into it. He started walking, dodging between people, muttering, “Excuse me,” without looking anyone in the eye. There was a big intersection ahead. When they’d gotten here, Mom had made him memorize all the major streets in Tesla. She’d said that the first rule of being a revolutionary was knowing the lay of the land. While a lot of the stuff she’d taught him had been fun, this one had felt more like homework. He’d never imagined he might actually need it.

The intersection confirmed what he already knew, that he was on the western outskirts of Tesla. The buildings were low and spread out. Hawk stood on the corner and thought for a moment. He didn’t have his wallet or any money. Maybe he could sneak onto a bus, or the light rail? It was the kind of thing that worked on tri-d, but it seemed pretty dicey in real life. He could probably steal a bicycle, but what then? Wyoming was a big state.

Finally, he remembered the place he and Mom had crashed when they first got here. A safe house on the northwestern edge of the city. They’d stayed there for like two weeks, bored out of their minds. One day, Mom had said screw it, they needed some air. Wandering around town was too big a risk, but there was a Jeep in the garage, and they’d loaded up a picnic and taken it out into the desert. It had been a joyous, jolting day of loud music and off-roading. She’d even let him drive. Everything had seemed such an adventure back then, such fun.

The house was only about a mile away. A green one-story with an attached garage. He banged on the door, but there was no answer. All the neighboring houses were dark too, and the streets were empty. He went around back, figured screw it, and tossed a paving stone through the patio door.

The interior looked like he remembered, the same ugly carpet, the same outdated tri-d. The lights worked, but he left them off. The fridge was empty, but there were some beans in the cabinet. He ate from the can as he walked around the house, checking the closets and dressers, hoping to find something to change into. No luck. Best he could do was scrub at the pee stains with a wet towel.

The Jeep was in the garage. It was coated in dirt, sprays of it running back from the wheels. Maybe no one had used it since he and Mom. A full tank of gas, which was good news, but no keys in the ignition.

Hawk went back inside. This was a safe house. The keys had to be somewhere. No hooks hanging by the door, so he went into the kitchen, started opening drawers. He found a white envelope with a thick stack of weathered twenty-dollar bills. He tucked it in his pocket, kept looking. Bingo, a ring of three keys, one of them bearing the Jeep logo. He was only fourteen, and hadn’t driven since that day, but he’d figure it out, and besides, the streets were empty—

Outside the kitchen windows a parade was passing.

Hawk froze, glad he’d left the lights off.

It wasn’t a parade.

It was an army.

The men didn’t wear uniforms, but the dust on their clothes and dirt on their faces made them all look the same. They carried guns, mostly rifles and shotguns, but some heavier stuff too, things he recognized from games. There were so many of them, a flood, like a concert letting out, only they walked in silence, their eyes hard. Not more than forty feet away.

One of them looked over, a long-haired scarecrow with an assault rifle in his arms and a huge bowie knife on his hip. The man stared right at him, and Hawk felt his heart bang in his throat and forehead, a wave of panic so hot he thought he’d wet himself again. He wanted to run, but he couldn’t move, just stood rooted at the counter, the keys in one hand. After a moment, the guy’s eyes flicked away and he kept moving. The house was dark, the windows transformed into mirrors. He hadn’t seen Hawk after all. Slowly, he lowered himself to his knees.

The men kept coming. Hundreds. Thousands. The sky was turning red behind them, and he had a sudden flash of something from the graphic novel.

An army of demons marching out of hell.

CHAPTER 34

“Yes, we know, but they are still outside the perimeter defenses . . .”

“Floodlights. Of course they’ll shoot them out. That’s why . . .”

“We’ve got more people than guns, and not enough ammunition, so get a network of runners going to keep it . . .”

“They don’t have vehicles. Horses.”

The room was a cross between a meeting space and an amphitheater, and packed with people jabbering into phones, staring at terminals, bouncing data back and forth. Until recently it had served for corporate meetings and product demos, and in one of those little ironies Cooper was growing tired of, the plaque on the outside of the door labeled it the War Room. A cutesy touch that would have fit in a tech start-up—which, he supposed, the NCH was.

“How should I know when they’ll attack? Sometime after the big bright spot in the sky goes away, and before it comes back . . .”

“Casualty projections are all over the board . . .”

“No,
horses
. . .”

Cooper imagined bulling through the room, fighting his way to Jakob at the head of the table, offering help. The prospect tired him in every way. This was already a too-many-cooks situation, and while in theory his tactical experience would be valuable, without being plugged into the Holdfast bureaucracy, what was the point?

He glanced over at Shannon. She had one arm crossed to support her elbow, the other hand at her face, the tip of her thumb just between her teeth. Her eyes drank the room. Funny—he’d seen her naked, seen her kill, seen her make herself invisible, but he couldn’t recall if he’d ever seen her just stand somewhere. It struck him as oddly intimate.

She sensed him looking—her gift, he supposed—and glanced over.

He said, “Let’s get out of here.”

The location was her idea.

When Erik had activated his Proteus virus, the first casualties had been three state-of-the-art fighter jets that were buzzing Tesla. Two of the Wyverns had collided midair, the debris raining down. The pilot had ejected from the third, and her bird had done a backflip into the side of the central building, tearing a hole four floors high and forty yards across, the jet fuel starting a fire that had consumed most of the furnishings before the auto-suppression system got it under control. The bodies had been removed and the gaping rip in the building had been sealed with plastic sheeting that billowed and popped in the wind, but little else had been done to repair the damage.

They looked at each other, then at the torched interior, the blackened remnants of desks and chairs. Shattered solar glass sparkled amidst the ash. Shannon stepped gingerly through a pile of debris, bent to pick up a metal picture frame. The glass was cracked, the image burned away. “Can you imagine sitting at a desk, just doing your job, all of a sudden an airplane comes through the window?”

“Kind of.”

“Yeah,” she said, threw him a glance not easily parsed. “Me too.”

Cooper picked his way across the ruined floor. The stink of scorched plastic hung in the air even now. Translucent sheeting reduced the world outside to blurry shapes backlit by the setting sun. “A couple of miles away, an army is waiting for darkness to fall.” He shook his head. “How did we get here?”

“Gradually, I guess.” Shannon’s voice was soft. “One lie at a time.”

“You and your whole truth fetish,” Cooper said. “Ever since the first time we talked, in that shitty hotel after the El platform. I had been very heroic, saving your life—”

“Funny, I remember that differently.”

“And you said something like, ‘Maybe there wouldn’t be a war if people didn’t keep going on television and saying there was one.’” He shook his head. “And now here we are.”

“Yeah.” She tossed the picture frame. The remaining glass tinkled. “Here we are.”

Gunfire sounded in the distance, steady and slow.
Going to hear a lot more of it tonight.
He sighed, rubbed at his face. “My kids are in a bunker right now. They must be so scared.”

Somehow Shannon was beside him, then. One hand on his arm. “Hey,” she said. “We’ve saved them before. We’ll do it again.”

Before he could reply, his phone vibrated. He glanced at the display. “It’s Ethan.”

She straightened. “You should answer.”

Cooper nodded, hit a button. “Hey, Doc, you’re on speaker.”

“I . . . is it . . .”

“Just me and Shannon. Have you found the missing canisters?”

“What? No. I haven’t been looking for them.”

“Doc, come on, I need you to focus—”

“You’re the detective,” Ethan said. “What do you want me to do, go door to door? I’ve been working the epidemiology of the virus instead. It’s a sonuvabitch, man, a real monster. A modification of the flu, airborne, long-lived, but with R-naught estimates in the
twenties
. That means each case could result in twenty or more secondary cases. And since there’s no dependable influenza vaccine, if this gets out, pretty much everyone is going to catch it.”

Cooper winced. “How bad is the illness?”

“It’s not. Pretty much the sniffles. The flu isn’t the problem. I’ve been reviewing the research notes, analyzing blood and tissue samples, trying to figure out why Abe died.” Ethan’s voice caught on that. “Cooper, it was the serum. Our work. Becoming brilliant killed him.”

“I don’t understand—”

“Abe vanished before we could do proper trials. And then he injected himself, which was crazy, you just don’t do that, but he was so paranoid, so sure he was right . . . anyway, you saw how effective it was.”

“And that killed him?”

“Not the serum itself, but his mind’s reaction to it.” Ethan took a breath. “You’re tier one, right? And so is Shannon and Epstein and that Soren asshole. But you’ve had your gifts from the beginning. They were part of you as a child. Now imagine that suddenly you also saw the world the way Shannon does.
And
the way Epstein does.
And
the way Soren does. That it all happened at the same time, in a span of a couple of days.”

“It would be confusing, but—”

“It wouldn’t be confusing,” Ethan said. “It would be shattering.” He paused. “Okay, look. Imagine you were born underground. A pitch-black cave. You grew up there, connecting with the world by touch and sound and smell. Completely unaware of vision. That was your normal for sixty years.

“Then there was a rockslide, and light flooded in. You wouldn’t have the first idea what was happening. I mean that literally—your brain wouldn’t have developed neural pathways for processing vision. You’d have no concept of scale, motion, even color. No way of knowing if a shape was your wife or a boulder about to squash you flat.”

“I get you, but—”

“Now imagine it’s not just sight, it’s also sound, and touch, and taste, all at once,” Ethan said. “Christ, man, Soren
perceives time differently
.”

Cooper opened his mouth. Closed it. Said, “Okay. So you’re saying this could be fatal?”

“I’m saying Abe clawed his own eyes out to stop his vision and scratched at his cage until his fingers were bone. And this was a man with a first-rate intellect who knew what was happening to him. The human mind cannot survive that level of change. There just isn’t the neurological flexibility. Not once we’re fully developed.”

“Which is when?”

“The frontal lobe stops forming around age twenty-five.” Ethan paused. “Best guess? It wouldn’t be easy on anyone, but kids’d be fine, teenagers would be okay, people in their twenties would have a shot. Much past that . . . I don’t know. I think you’d be looking at survival percentages in the single digits. And along the way you’ve got confusion, panic, delirium, uncontrollable rage, homicidal impulses—”

“All in the most powerful gifted ever born,” Shannon said. “Jesus Christ.”

A gust of wind shook the plastic sheeting. Beyond it, the world was losing focus. In December, in Wyoming, the sun went down fast, and in the time they’d been talking things had darkened considerably.

Ethan said, “You have to stop this. Somehow. Please. My daughter—”

Cooper hung up the phone. Thought about hurling it right through the fucking wall.

“He’s right,” Shannon said. “We have to stop this.”

“I know.”

“We got distracted. The militia, saving the kids, preparing for war. We took our eyes off the ball.”

“That’s what John Smith does.” Cooper had that feeling, almost a tingle, that he’d learned to identify as his gift patterning furiously, nearing an answer. “This isn’t an accident, a glitch of timing. He planned all of this to happen at the same time.”

“Sweetie,” Shannon said, “that’s paranoia.”

“It’s true. He even told us, remember? ‘Killing me isn’t the same as beating me.’ I’ve been chasing Smith forever.” Cooper shook his head. “I should have known that was too easy. He may be dead, but he’s still trying to win.”

“But how could he have predicted the attack?”

“He didn’t.” A lattice of connections was starting to fall into place. Cooper could feel the truth bobbing just out of reach, like stretching for a beach ball in a swimming pool.
Press too hard and you’ll only push it away. Just follow the logic, let the currents draw you in.
“He didn’t predict it. He provoked it.”

“That’s crazy. The assassinations, bombings, the organization, the stock exchange, the Children of Darwin—are you saying that was all so the Holdfast was under attack at just the right moment to distract us?”

“Not specifically to distract us. But yes, this was his will.”

Shannon started to argue, but he could see that she was considering it, reevaluating her past in light of new information. “The last time I saw John, before today I mean, I accused him of wanting war. And he told me I was right. That the normal world would attack, and that they would doom themselves. He said he didn’t care how much blood was spilled, so long as it was their blood, not ours.”

“Which fits his virus perfectly,” Cooper said. “It only affects normals. It kills everyone over twenty-five, which means pretty much the whole power structure. And everyone who survives is left gifted.”

“Elegant,” she said, “but tricky. There are a lot of fail-safes against biological attacks.”

“Yeah.” Another node of the pattern revealed itself. “But remember, this is just the flu. Every year the flu affects millions, and no one panics. And superficially, this is a mild one. It’s only Ethan’s serum that makes it dangerous, and no one knows to look for that. Hell, no one knows it
exists
. Plus, those fail-safes depend on a functional world. We’re on our third president in a year, there are lynchings in Manhattan, a civil war. The government already played the quarantine card with the Children of Darwin, badly. I think Cleveland is still burning. All of that orchestrated or at least nudged by John Smith. Not to mention today’s attacks—” He froze. “Oh shit. Today’s attacks.”

She thought for a moment. When it hit, the blood drained from her face. “The CDC, in Atlanta. If there was a place equipped to realize what this flu really is, it was the Centers for Disease Control. So he burned it down. That was the real target. All the rest was a smoke screen.”

“Even the bomb at the DAR that killed my best friends and about a thousand other people.”

“Everything we’ve done the last years, all the stuff he claimed was for equality. It was just John pushing the world far enough into darkness that defenses are down.” Shannon paused. “Even so. Even if he releases it in a city, in a couple of cities. Even if millions die. That won’t spread it far enough, fast enough.”

That was it. Suddenly, the whole pattern came clear to Cooper. Like a curtain had been yanked away.

The perfect, crystalline clarity he must have had.

The detail involved. Years of working toward the most complex series of dominos in history.

The horrifying, relentless discipline.

“It’s not going to be released in just any city,” he said slowly.

Shannon stared at him. He let her ponder, wanted her to check his math. Finally, she said, “You’re thinking it’s going to be released here. Against the New Sons. Because they’re all normals, all vulnerable. But he couldn’t count on them winning.”

“It doesn’t matter who wins. If the militia burns Tesla to the ground, their war is over. They’ll scatter back to every corner of the country, as will refugees from Tesla, plenty of them normal. And if the militia loses—”

“The same thing happens,” she says. “Thousands of survivors will run back home. My God. John provoked the attack—the
war
—for this. To infect the whole country.”

“The whole world,” Cooper said. “Maybe not as completely, but still, if this is as contagious as Ethan thinks, how many people are going to die? Hundreds of millions? Billions?”

“We have to call the president.”

“And tell her what?” Cooper shrugged. “I mean, imagine we somehow convince her, and she sends in the marines. That’s just more normals, more vectors. It plays into Smith’s hands. The only way to stop this is to keep the virus from being released.”

“
How?
We don’t have any idea where it is. And the militia could attack any minute.”