The ruthless efficiency with which his life had been destroyed left Ian hollow and stunned. His mind tripped over its own rational thoughts trying to accept the naked truth. In less than a day, everything he’d been working for in his entire life was gone. It had melted in a great implosion. He’d studied hard in high school so he could get into college. He went to college so he could get a good job. He sacrificed his social life so he could build a career. He hoped one day to pay off his student loans, earn enough to support a family, and maybe save enough to retire. For a time, he’d wondered if he could build that life with Emli.
But all of that was no more. And while half his mind knew it, the other half rejected even the possibility that a quarter-century of preparation wasn’t stout enough to survive a single bad day. He kept feeling the urge to wander home. To sleep in his own bed. To wake up tomorrow and wrestle with lesser truths: that Emli was gone, that he’d lost his job, that he would have to move back to Vancouver. He could already see the look on everyone’s faces, that mix of humor and pity.
But none of that mattered.
By breaking him out of jail, his new masters had made him look guilty, and by killing Betty Six, they’d ensured that no one would know otherwise. He imagined someone somewhere was already implicating him in her murder. And if he turned himself in or was captured, no one would believe a fantastic story about phantom interrogators and a man who could electrocute people with his bare hands.
Not that he could blame them. He knew the police were like any pack of hounds; they followed whoever held the bugle. It wasn’t their fault he was the perfect patsy. When his new masters were done with him, he’d be dead, and with his corpse would come the end of it. No one would avenge him. His killers would never be hunted. No justice would be served. Because to the rest of the world, Ian Tendo was the lone gunman. The end of the trail.
As he stood in the doorway of a downtown library, shaking at his assignment, his skin tingled at the clever ruthlessness of it all.
He had instructions. He was to email a bomb threat to a local school. He had no idea why. He’d been given fresh clothes and medical attention by someone who didn’t appear to have any more of a clue than he did. He wasn’t allowed to speak to her, and she didn’t speak to him.
A small child smiled at Ian as he walked to the computers. The little boy was waiting for his mother. Ian smiled back and glanced at the inverted black domes hanging overhead. Security cameras. They were accumulating more evidence against him.
He followed the posted instructions and logged on as a guest. He opened a browser and brought up his email account. He stared at the empty inbox for a moment, unsure what he was expecting. Something from Emli maybe. A friendly word. He caught the date on the screen. His car payment was due today. The vehicle was leased. He’d left it at the concert. It had probably been impounded.
Ian typed the message just as he’d been instructed.
THERE IS A BOMB HIDDEN ON THE CAMPUS OF EAST LAUREL MIDDLE SCHOOL. YOU HAVE 30 MINUTES.
He stopped. He stared at the computer. He couldn’t type the rest. He looked at the clock. Quickly he Googled the name Prophet. Nothing but religious websites. What else did he know? Agent Scanlon had told him a name. What was it? Derek something. Williams? He put Derek Wil- in the search bar.
Wilkins. That was it.
He clicked the first link. It was a 30-second news broadcast from a network affiliate in San Diego. Ian immediately remembered the story. Derek Wilkins was an army sergeant who shot his family—his wife and two children—and then himself. His neighbors said he seemed like such a nice guy. Everyone was appalled at the revelation of his mental illness. The final footage was of his psychiatrist, Dr. Amarta Zabora. She was distraught and being led into a hospital amid a parade of cameras. She had never agreed to an interview.
The video ended and Ian noticed bantering comments on the post. They were arguing about another link someone had provided, a video on a Chinese website, somewhere that wouldn’t care about the content: a copy of the sergeant’s suicide video.
Ian’s finger hovered over the mouse for a moment. He glanced at the clock. He looked around the open floor to make sure no one was looking. He clicked play.
Derek was a clean cut black male in his 30s. He looked like he hadn’t slept for days. The sound quality was terrible. There was a rambling preamble about God and America. Ian fast-forwarded. He stopped when a gun appeared.
“This video will probably be taken down . . . but I just want everyone to know why I am doing this. I’m sick, but I’m not crazy.” His voice grew stern. “I’m protecting my family from a threat so grave, no one even believes it exists. I’ve spent my whole life in service to my country. I’ve earned—” The sound was garbled. “I don’t go around telling people to wear tinfoil hats. But the truth is this.” He raised his voice. “The whole world is being manipulated. Once they catch you, they see everything you see. Your fears, your secrets, your private moments with loved ones. No one is safe. There’s nowhere to hide.
“I’ve been told that I have to betray my country or my family will be tortured and killed. They’ve already demonstrated their resolve. Now, they’ve gone to my daughter’s school.”
Ian thought about the bomb threat. He glanced at the clock again. He was supposed to be leaving by now.
“I’ve done everything I can. I’ve told everyone I can. But no one believes me. No one believes that these people can see out of my eyes, that there’s nowhere I can run where they can’t find me, nowhere I can take my family to be safe, no way we can escape this hell.
“And no one will help. Not the Army. Not the police. I’ve been referred for psychiatric care.” He stood tall, like he was proud. The camera cut off the top of his head. “I’ve spent my whole life in service to my country. I won’t betray the greatest nation on earth, not to these people, not to any enemy, foreign or domestic. I’m sick, but I’m not crazy. I just don’t know what else to do.
“May God have mercy on my soul.”
The video clicked off.
“Jesus . . .” Ian sat back.
To think, after recording that, the sergeant walked into the next room and executed everything he loved in the world, and then himself.
It was unreal. It was brutal.
A message appeared on the screen.
WHAT ARE YOU DOING?
Ian froze. He looked around. It wasn’t a chat box. It was a system warning complete with iconic exclamation point. There was no way for him to reply.
Another warning appeared.
FOLLOW YOUR INSTRUCTIONS. PROCEED TO THE RENDEZVOUS. NO MORE DELAYS.
How did they know—
Ian shut his eyes. The IP address of the computer had flashed across the screen when he logged in. He thought about the sergeant’s words.
The warnings disappeared and Ian was left with a terrifying realization. His own eyes were cameras to his masters.
Holy shit.
The projector.
Ian looked around again, at the computers, at the appliances, at the people. The sergeant was right. There was nowhere to hide. They could see everything.
Ian felt a stab in his leg as if he’d been jabbed with something sharp. It was followed by a searing pain.
“Ow!” He grabbed his thigh and tip-toed in a circle on the thin carpet, pelvis jutting forward. “Owowowowowow.”
Everyone turned. The little boy watched, bemused, as Ian strutted painfully around a table. His face got red. He wasn’t supposed to call attention to himself. He made for the front door.
The girl Wink was sitting on the trashcan in front. Her backpack dangled toys. She pressed the timer on her wristwatch.
“You.” Ian walked past her toward the sidewalk on the road. “Go away.”
Wink jumped down and followed. “You need my help.”
“How did you find me?” He looked down at his leg. “Never mind.” He touched his thigh gingerly. It stung. He wondered if it were toxic. He headed to the bus stop on the corner. “What did you just do to me?”
“You don’t know enough about quantum field theory for me to answer that question meaningfully.”
Ian stopped to retort. Then he started walking again. “Whatever.”
“You’re not snagged anymore. You’re welcome. But that means they’re going to come for you. We need to get out of here.”
“Please go away.”
“I just saved your life.”
“I doubt that.”
Wink ran in front of him. The plastic figurines hanging from her backpack flopped back and forth. “Hey moron, you’re not listening. I broke entanglement. That means they’re going to come for you. Like, now. You won’t last five minutes by yourself.”
He couldn’t risk it. They’d said no help. “I’ll take my chances, thanks.” Ian stepped around her.
“We have to find where they’re keeping the box.” Wink trotted behind him in her purple tennis shoes. She took two steps for every one of his.
Ian stopped. “What box? What are you talking about?”
“The cube. The one that was stolen.”
“I don’t know anything about any cube.”
“That’s what I thought you’d say.” The little girl sighed. She dropped her backpack, opened it, and dug inside. It was an unusual color—not quite pink, not quite purple—and adorned with boy-band stickers.
“Please leave me alone. I’m in a lot of trouble, okay? It’s adult stuff.” Ian looked at the passing traffic. He had to get across town. There was a bus stop on the corner.
A small metal canister fell out of the girl’s bag and clattered onto the sidewalk. It trailed short, colorful wires. The polished casing was spotted with screw holes as if it was meant to be attached to something larger. It rolled to Ian’s foot and stopped. A car passed.
“Fancy toy.”
Wink picked it up. “It’s not a toy. It’s a magnetometer.”
“What?”
She gave another exasperated sigh, as if talking to Ian were the hardest thing in the world. “A sensor. For measuring magnetic fields.” She put it back and kept digging.
Ian scowled. “I know what a magnetometer is, Einstein.” He looked at the girl in the fuzzy hoodie. “Are you supposed to be some kind of genius or something?”
“Geez, figure that out all by yourself or did your mommy help you?”
Ian made a face. “Fine. I’ll bite. Why do you have a magnetometer?”
“I created a new kind of superconducting electromagnet.” She didn’t turn from her bag. “It’ll support fusion reactions at temperatures above 250 Kelvin, if I can get it to work. The reactive pile keeps imploding.” She pulled out a slender, clear plastic tube. It was filled with greenish liquid. “I thought if we had some downtime, I could recalibrate the control systems.” She pulled the needle cap free with her teeth and jabbed Ian’s arm through the sleeve of his hoodie.
“OW!” He jumped off the sidewalk and nearly in front of a moving car, which swerved and honked. Ian scrambled back and rubbed his arm. “What the hell? What did you just inject me with?” He pulled up his sleeve.
“Experimental stimulant. Chinese military. Helps normal people like you think, make connections between things.” She put the tiny tips of her fingers together.
“Where do you get all this stuff?”
“Black market. They scrapped it because it causes frontal lobe damage.” The girl lifted her backpack and put it back on.
“Wait, what?”
“It’s also a hallucinogen, so it’s probably a good idea not to believe everything you see for, like, the next two to four hours.” She nodded solemnly.
Ian inspected his tiny wound. There was barely a hole. He felt dizzy. He needed to sit down. “Two to four hours,” he repeated.
“Look.” The little girl raised her hands as she spoke. “I know you’re not used to thinking on your feet—”
“What’s that supposed to mean? Stop injecting me with things!”
Ian walked gingerly to the bus stop and lowered himself on the bench. He winced. His leg was still sore. He wasn’t sure who was worse, the dark man or the little girl.
“People leave clues. To everything. All the time. Most people’s brains work too slowly to process it, which means most of the information you perceive in the world just gets ignored. Filtered. It’s all there, you’re just too dull to process it.”
“Dull?”
“Yes. Dull, as in dimwit. But that’s what this is for.” She raised the empty syringe. Then she threw it into the bus stop trash can.
Ian watched it disappear. “That’s hazardous waste.”
The girl looked at her watch. It was maroon and covered in plastic jewels. “But you need to hurry.”
Ian felt woozy and rested his head in his hands. “I think I’m gonna throw up.”
“Don’t be such a baby.”
He lifted his head. “How about you not be a jerk, huh? You know, acting all gruff and shit doesn’t make you seem older. It just makes you seem like a jerk.”
“Whatever.” The little girl fidgeted at the observation. “Tell me as soon as you feel less dull.”
Ian’s stomach turned. He felt everything keenly. The drug seemed to resurrect the pain in his feet and his sinuses, which had swollen from the blow to his nose. The taste of blood lingered at the back of his throat.
He bent over his lap. “Who are you? Huh? Who the fuck is Prophet?”
“We need the cube. It’s super important.”
“We? You mean the Minus Faction?”
Wink didn’t budge. “I mean ‘we.’”
Ian’s gaze darted up and down the street. He saw everything in rich detail, like his eyes had suddenly switched from standard to high-definition.
Wink pulled a bottle of soda from the side of her bag and twisted the cap. It hissed. “You need my help. But if you’d rather be an evil minion, go ahead.”
Ian scowled. He looked her over. If the girl had any dark intentions, she was doing a good job of hiding them. Sitting there in her Totoro hoodie, chugging sugary soda, she didn’t seem like much of a threat. She was tiny. Her backpack seemed to weigh more than she did.
She replaced the bottle. “Look, if you’re worried about dying or whatever, don’t. My friends are on their way. They’ll take care of everything.”
“Friends? What friends?”
“You’ll see.”
“Would it kill you to be up front with me?”
“I don’t know.” She shrugged. “It might.” Her watch beeped, and she shut it off.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Wink hopped off the bench and looked straight at Ian. She stood stiff. “I don’t trust you.” She announced it like a surprise candidate for office. “We can’t wait anymore. We need to get away from here.” She grabbed Ian’s hand and tried to pull him off the bench.
“You don’t trust me? That’s ridiculous.” Ian wasn’t sure what to do. Nothing in his life had prepared him for this. Any of it. He felt her tug but didn’t budge. She was so thin. Her legs were sticks in skinny jeans. He stood and pointed to the posted bus schedule. “We don’t have a car, genius.”
“Man, if all you’re gonna do is complain, I’m gonna leave you catatonic in the back.”
“The back of what?”
“This way.” Wink walked around the corner.
“Where are we going?” Ian followed.
Wink looked up and down the street. She was so deliberate, a poster child for school place safety. When the traffic parted, she ran quickly across even though no cars were approaching. Her huge, colorful, sticker-covered bag jostled on her back. Ian strolled after her into a small paid parking lot. It was surrounded by a high chain-link fence, but the gate was open.
Wink pressed a button on a key dangling from her belt loop along with toys and baubles. A vehicle beeped.
“What the . . . ?”
Lights flashed on a wide-bodied emergency vehicle. It had prominent sirens on the roof and two captain’s chairs in the cab. The windows had a tint that faded from the top. Unless standing right next to it, it would be difficult to see who was inside. A slim side door led to the back. It was painted simply in red and white and lacked any municipal markings. It was completely generic.
“Where the hell did you get an ambulance?”
Wink shot Ian a sideways glance. “At a hospital. Duhhh . . .”
Ian scowled. “You know what I meant.”
“No, I don’t.” She walked toward the truck. “I’m a genius, moron. Not a mind reader.”
“Fine.” Ian followed. “How did you get an ambulance?”
Wink turned dramatically as if Ian had just said the stupidest thing in the world. “You really aren’t very bright, are you? Do you really think someone is going to sell a $200,000 ambulance to a kid? I stole it.”
Ian pointed in shock. “This cost $200,000?”
Wink nodded. “Top of the line: V8, GPS, satellite dish, some wicked sirens, all the usual medical stuff. Plus . . . I totally tricked it out.”
She was very proud. She walked to the narrow side door and flung it open. Opposite the stretcher and cabinets, the work area had been converted into a mobile command console.
“Eight server blades, dynamic-frequency radio transmitters with quantum encryption, Wi-Fi, satellite, five flat screens.”
Ian shook his head in amazement. “What, no missiles? No oil slick?”
“Uh!” The girl made fists. “Dude . . . Why do you have to be such a jerk? No wonder your girlfriend dumped you.”
Ian thought he should probably be the adult and stop taunting her, but it was the first time he’d managed to get a jab in. “Whatever.” He mimicked her. “Talk to me when there’s an ejector seat.”
“I only had a couple days, okay? I’ll add the missiles and stuff later. Jeez, some people . . .” Wink climbed into the cab.
Ian dropped his smile. “Wait, are you serious?” He was starting to suspect she was. “Where the hell do you get all this stuff?”
Sirens. Closing fast.
“Shit!” Maybe this wasn’t a good idea after all. Ian jumped into the cab and shut the door. He watched from down the street as patrol cars screeched to a halt in front of the library.
“Holy shit, that was fast.”
“Jeez, stop worrying about everything.” Wink was listening to the ambulance’s police band radio. “They got a tip about an escaped terrorist.”
“About that. Lando Calrissian? Really? That was the best you could do?” Ian watched as the police cordoned off the block at both ends, just like they had at the concert. The ambulance was trapped. “Shit.”
“Drive.”
“There’s a roadblock.”
The police were starting a pattern search. They were being very thorough. It was only a matter of time.
“They’re not looking for an ambulance driver, moron. Just put the flashers on.” She reached over and flipped the switch.
Ian could see the reflection of the colored lights in the nearby cars. He looked up and down the vehicle and a thought hit him. She was smart. She was very smart. Unless they were crashing through a school or something crazy like that, no one would pull them over in an ambulance.
Ian looked down. Plastic extensions jutted from the pedals on the floor. They’d been 3D-printed to look like sunflowers. “Cute.” He removed them, turned the key, and pulled out. “Get down, genius. Ambulance or no, an eleven-year-old will look suspicious.”
“Eleven and a half,” she corrected again. She grabbed her backpack and dropped into the space under the dash.
The tinted windows would have to do the rest. Ian took a deep breath.
“Just act natural, dimwit.”
The ambulance crept up to the barricade across the road. The police were moving in and out of the library and around the parking lot.
Ian gave a peep from the sirens and one of the cops ran over and moved the barricade out of the way. Ian drove through. Wink had been right. The officer didn’t even look.
As he drove to the highway, Ian’s mind raced from the drug. He had an idea.