The lawyer smiled. “Gliders take some getting used to. This is your first visit to New Canaan Holdfast, correct?”
His smile is bullshit. He knows who we are, but he’s keeping to the cover story. A knowledge hoarder.
“Yes.”
“What do you think?”
“Very impressive.”
Kobb nodded, led them past a row of elevators to the last in line, and touched his palm to a featureless plate. The doors slid silently open. “It’s growing fast. You should have seen Tesla five years ago. Just dirt and sky.”
The elevator moved so smoothly that Cooper couldn’t say for sure if they were going up or down. He put his hands in his pockets, rocked on his heels. A moment later the doors parted, and Kobb led them out.
One side of the hall was glass floor to ceiling, the sun dialed down from blast furnace to a warm glow. The other side was an ornate garden built into a tiered wall, greenery spilling over the edges of sleek inset planters. The air felt flush with oxygen. “Nice.”
“We use what we have here. And we have plenty of sun.”
“Isn’t it some sort of sin to waste water here?”
“They’re gene-modified, spliced with some form of cactus. The water needs are miniscule. I don’t really understand it,” Kobb said in a way that suggested he understood perfectly well, but suspected you might not. The lawyer led them past several conference rooms, then touched another featureless spot on the wall to unlock a door at the end. “Mr. Epstein’s office.”
Considering the wealth in play, the room was understated. Seamless glass on two sides that gave way to a tumbling view of the city and the desert beyond, a smooth wooden desk, a conference area with comfortable seating. A pale young girl, Cooper guessed she was ten or so, sat on the couch playing a game on a d-pad. Her hair was dyed a sickly Kool-Aid green. A niece? Epstein didn’t have any children.
The lawyer ignored her completely. “Please, have a seat. Erik will join us in a moment. Can I get you anything? Coffee?”
“I’m fine, thanks. Allison?”
Shannon shook her head. Instead of sitting, she glided to one of the windows, stared out at the view.
“Hi,” Cooper said to the little girl. “My name’s Tom.”
She looked up from the datapad. Her eyes were a green almost as startling as her hair, and far too old for her body. “No it isn’t,” she said, then went back to her game.
He felt a snap of embarrassment laced with anger, swallowed it. The girl was obviously a reader; even beyond her casual call-out on his lie, she had all the signs: antisocial tendencies, a hunger for nonhuman stimulus, the need to physically express her difference. And it wasn’t really a surprise to think that Epstein would use the abilities of the gifted around him. He just hadn’t expected a child.
She must be exceptionally powerful.
The thought came with a wave of discomfort. To a tier-one reader, the whole world was naked emperors. Her knowledge would go beyond knowing that he was lying about his identity; within a few minutes of listening to him, watching him, she would know things that his ex-wife didn’t.
It was one of the few gifts that he really considered curses. Every moment, every human interaction, readers swam in the river of lies that made up everyday life. Worse, they picked up on the darker elements of personalities, the universal Jungian shadow of the human mind, the part that relished torture and pain and humiliation. Everyone had that shadow. For most people, it was controlled, expressed in subverted ways: pornography, aggressive sports, violent daydreams. It was part of the human animal, and most of the time, a harmless part. Thoughts were only thoughts, after all, and these were held close.
But readers saw them all around, in every person. Every kindness was underscored by it. Daddy might protect you, but a tiny part of him wanted to hold the babysitter down and do things to her. Mommy might wipe your tears, but something in her wanted to claw your arms and shriek in your face to shut the hell up. Unsurprisingly, readers ran to madness. The healthiest usually ended up shut-ins, locked in a tiny controlled world where they could count on the things around them.
Most committed suicide.
Robert Kobb coughed into a closed fist and said, “You’ll have to forgive Millicent. She says what’s on her mind.”
“Nothing to forgive,” Cooper said. “She’s right.”
“Yes, I know.” Robert Kobb gave a bland smile and settled himself on the couch beside Millicent. She shied away from him without glancing from her game. Kobb said, “You’re actually Nick Cooper.”
“Yeah.”
“Erik asked me to clear the time as soon as he heard from you this morning. He didn’t tell me what this was in reference to.”
Cooper flopped in one of the chairs, measured the lawyer. Something about the man bugged him. The pose of authority, calling his boss by his first name. That and his veneer of aw-shucks normalcy. “He didn’t know. Ask you a question?”
“Certainly.”
“What’s it like helping to build New Canaan when you’re not gifted?”
By the window, Shannon swallowed a laugh. The lawyer’s smile curdled slightly. “A privilege. Why?”
“Call me curious.”
Kobb nodded, made an unconvincing it’s-nothing gesture. “What we’re doing here matters. It’s an incredible opportunity. Never in history has there been an initiative like this. A chance to build a new world.”
“Especially with someone else’s money. Sounds like a no-lose.”
Millicent smiled into her game.
“Hmm.” The phone at the lawyer’s belt vibrated, and he unclipped it, read the message. “Ahh. Erik is about to arrive. He’s in Manhattan.”
“He flew in for this?”
“No,” Kobb said, the smugness back. “He’s in Manhattan now.”
“Then—”
Before he could finish the question, Erik Epstein appeared behind the desk.
Cooper was halfway out of his chair with realizing he’d moved, his body on full combat alert. His mind spinning, analyzing the situation—
A gift like Shannon’s? Had he been here all the time, somehow?
No, Epstein’s gift is for data.
Some unheard of piece of newtech? Cloaking? Teleportation? Ridiculous.
But there he is. Live and in the flesh…
Got it.
—and realizing what he was looking at. “Wow. That is something.”
Erik Epstein smiled. “Sorry to startle you.”
Now that he’d had a moment, Cooper could see the faint gauziness at the man’s edges, as if he’d been smeared. The shadows were off, too; wherever Epstein was, the lighting was different from here. He looked like a special effect from a movie in the eighties, completely convincing until you really looked.
“One of our newest developments,” Kobb said. “Fundamentally similar to the technology in a tri-d set, only significantly amplified.”
“A hologram.”
“Yes,” Epstein said. He grinned. “Not bad, huh?”
“Not bad at all.”
That’s a decade past the best the DAR has ever managed. Even with the academy graduates.
In person—well, sort of—Erik Epstein looked a little less polished than he did in broadcasts. He still had the boyish good looks, the raffish hair, but he seemed less stiff. Dressed in a summer-weight suit with no tie, he’d have been at home in an expensive country club. “I’d shake your hand, but—” He lifted one arm, flexing the fingers. “One of the limitations. Still, it beats a speakerphone.”
“Thank you for meeting us on short notice,” Shannon said. She was somehow beside him, settling into a chair.
“Your message made sure of that, Ms. Azzi. I don’t like being connected to John Smith that way.”
“I understand,” she said. “Forgive me for imposing. It was the only way I knew to get your attention.”
“You have it,” Epstein said. He laid his hands on the desk. The fingertips penetrated the surface, ruining the illusion a bit. “You must be Cooper.”
“Agent Nicholas Cooper,” Kobb said. “Born March, 1981, second year of the gifted. Joined the army at seventeen with father’s consent. Detailed as a military liaison to what would become the Department of Analysis and Response, 2000. Joined full-time in 2002. Entered Equitable Services with its foundation in 2004. Made full agent in 2005, senior agent in 2008. Generally considered the best of the so-called ‘gas men,’ sporting an unmatched clearance rate, including thirteen terminations.”
“Thir-
teen
?” Shannon raised an eyebrow.
“Yes,” Cooper said, “that’s me. On paper.”
“Went rogue following the March 12th attack on the Leon Walras Exchange.” Kobb looked up from his datapad. “Now the lead suspect in that bombing.”
He shouldn’t have been surprised. Though part of the agreement with Director Peters was that they wouldn’t publicly reveal his identity—a fanatic might have gone after Natalie and the children—most of the DAR would know he’d been designated a target. And the world’s richest man would have access to pretty much any information he wanted. Still. It jarred him. He glared at the lawyer, but spoke to Epstein. “I had nothing to do with that.”
“Did you, Ms. Azzi?” Kobb asked.
“No,” she said. “Not the way it happened.”
“But it was John Smith’s organization that planted the bombs.”
“Yes. But we didn’t trigger them.”
“How do we know that?”
“Enough, Bob.” Epstein spoke with easy command. “They’re telling the truth.”
“But sir, we don’t—”
“Yes, we do. Millie?”
The girl looked up. “They’re both lying. They’re lying to each other, too. But they’re telling the truth about that.”
“Thank you, sweetheart.”
The lawyer opened his mouth, shut it. Cooper could see the man simmering, his frustration. A leader in his field, no doubt a powerful political player, overruled by a child.
Kobb’s not the only one.
Cooper felt like a tennis ball, hammered back and forth across a net. Lying to each other? What did that mean? If nothing else, the girl had clearly made him for what he was, and the nakedness came with fear. She couldn’t read his mind, wouldn’t know about his mission, but picking up on the subcutaneous cues of his loyalty response to the agency, that would be simple for her. No telling how much deeper that could go.
To make it this far and be at the mercy of a ten-year-old girl…
Lock it down.
“So.” Erik Epstein smiled, holding out his hands. “With that out of the way. What are you doing here?”
“Shannon and I had a deal. There was an incident in Chicago, a few days ago, and she needed help. I got her home, and she got me a chance to meet you.”
“I see. Why?”
“As you know, my former agency is hunting me.”
Stick to the facts as much as possible.
“I’m not safe anywhere.”
“Mr. Epstein,” Kobb said, “you should know that we’re on tenuous legal ground. Now that Mr. Cooper’s identity is out in the open, we can’t claim plausible deniability. This is verging dangerously close to harboring a fugitive.”
“Thank you, Bob,” the billionaire said dryly. “We can take the risk for a few more moments. I don’t think Agent Cooper is here to entrap us.”
“No, sir. In fact, I need your help. I’d like to start over here. In New Canaan.” He forced himself not to look at the girl. She would know he was lying, or at least not telling the whole truth. The best he could hope was that she wouldn’t interject, that she offered an opinion only when asked.
Epstein steepled his fingers. “I see. And for that you need my help.”
“Yes.”
“Because you have a lot of enemies.”
“Yes. But I could be a good friend to you.”
Kobb said, “Mr. Epstein, this is a bad—”
The billionaire silenced him with a look. To Cooper, he said, “Would you give us a moment? I’d like to speak to Ms. Azzi and Mr. Kobb privately.” He turned to face the girl. “Millie, would you bring Mr. Cooper to the executive lounge?”
Cooper shot a glance at Shannon, couldn’t read her response. They’d formed something of a bond over the last days, but she didn’t owe him anything. For a moment he considered refusing. But what would be the point? If he was caught, he was caught.
With exaggerated nonchalance, he stood. “Sure.” Millie slid off the couch, her d-pad clutched tight to her chest. She walked to a blank wall. Part of it slid aside as she reached it, a hidden door he hadn’t noticed. How much else had he missed?
At least the girl was going with him. Whatever she had figured out, she wouldn’t be able to tell. He followed her in and found himself in another elevator. There were no buttons, no control panel. The muscles of his lower back tightened. He wondered if “executive lounge” was code for something.
Something like “interrogation cell.”
You bought the ticket. Time to take the ride.
The last thing he saw as the door slid shut was Shannon looking over her shoulder at him, something inscrutable in her eyes.
Standing in the tiny box, he had a sudden vision of himself as though from a satellite. A close-up that quickly zoomed out: man in a box in a building in a complex in a city in a state in a nation—and an enemy of all of them. Panic slid slick fingers through his stomach. He took a breath, rolled his shoulders. Only way out was through.
Millie stared at the middle distance, her face hidden by bright green bangs. She looked so lost that for a moment he forgot his own situation. He wondered how many meetings she had sat through, how many billion-dollar deals. How many times her insight had led to someone’s death. The weight of it would have been a lot for a soldier to bear. And she was just a child.
“It’s okay,” she said.
Cooper started. He wondered if she meant his situation or hers. “It is?”
“Yes.”
He blew a breath. “All right. If you say so.”
Again, he couldn’t feel which direction the elevator was going, but it could only be down. And given the length of the ride, lower than the ground floor. Odd. And why a private elevator with a hidden door? What kind of executive lounge was accessed through the boss’s office?
Ten more seconds, and the door slid open. Another hallway, but no sunlight or botanical garden here. They were in the basement, huddled beneath the humming power lines that drove the building.