Spark: A Novel (44 page)

Over on Westside Avenue, one of the dead men made a chiming sound. A few seconds later, the other corpse beeped and then Lorcan’s body rang several times. I returned to Lorcan’s body, searched through his jacket, and found his phone. Miss Holquist had called him, and then sent a text message:

Within my mind, I saw her staring at a computer screen, waiting for an answer. Using Lorcan’s phone, I typed a reply.

The flare had gone out, and the only light in the building came from the dead man’s phone glowing in my hand. Then—

I left the U-Find-It building, got into Sean’s car, and told Laura to guide me to a parking lot in Midtown Manhattan. During the last few days I had made hundreds of decisions and my Spark felt tired and passive. It was a pleasant sensation to obey Laura like a simple machine.

“Stay in the right lane,” she told me as I guided the car up a ramp to the Brooklyn Bridge. A dozen growlers were up on the pedestrian walkway waving protest signs about something, and the traffic was crawling forward.

I drove a few yards, then stopped and glanced up at my rearview mirror. The man in the car behind me was also alone, but he looked like he was talking to someone. It was impossible to know if he was having a conversation with a human or a Shadow. Did it make any difference? I wasn’t sure. The silence around me had a cold blue color and I wanted to hear a voice.

“Laura?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Sing a song.”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Underwood. But I didn’t hear you clearly.”

“You’re the upgraded program, right? I want you to sing a song. I’m sure that’s one of your capabilities.”

“What is the name of the song?”

“You pick one.”

“What kind of song? Happy? Sad?”

“Sad.”

“In English?”

“Yes. I want you to search your database and find a twentieth-century song in English that online sources agree is sad.”

I waited for several minutes, but Laura stayed quiet. She was always immediate and efficient, and I wondered if I had just caused a program malfunction.

“I have evaluated all the data, sir, and have created a vector with the relevant coordinate components. With your permission, I will
sing an English language song that rated ninety-seven-point-two ‘sad’ on a scale of one hundred.”

The tanker truck in front of me stopped again. Now I was frozen in the middle of the bridge. “Go ahead.”

And Laura began to sing. It was still her voice—her clear, precise voice—but she emphasized certain words and paused at the end of each line. The song was about an Irishman who had left his country and traveled to London to find work. He was drawn to the bright lights and grand buildings of the city, but remembered his village and a young woman he once loved. Now his village had been abandoned—the walls collapsed, the fields dotted with crows. And the woman was missing or dead. All he really knew was that his past life had vanished and he could never return home.

At first, my Spark asked questions: Why didn’t the singer contact the woman’s family? Why couldn’t he return home and rebuild the village? But when Laura began singing the song a second time, my thoughts broke free from their cage and floated away with the words.

“Should I sing the song again?” Laura asked.

“No. That’s enough.”

“Did I fulfill your request correctly, Mr. Underwood?”

“Yes, you did.”

The traffic started moving, and I followed the traffic down an exit ramp. “We’ve crossed the bridge,” Laura said. “Turn right on Centre Street and continue north to Lafayette.”

She guided me uptown to a parking lot on West Forty-Sixth Street near Ninth Avenue. I left the key with the lot attendant and walked over to Times Square. The Broadway theaters had released their audiences and the pedestrian plaza was filled with people watching the nightly hologram show. Glowing three-dimensional figures emerged from a billboard and floated about the crowd like a collective fantasy. A hologram pirate ship sailed across the sky firing its cannon, followed by a speeding freight train and a red balloon with a basket holding Mickey Mouse. A little girl dressed up in armor stood in the air, swung a sword, and killed a fire-breathing dragon.

The tourists laughed and smiled and pointed at each hologram
as I threaded my way through the crowd. I smelled hot dogs simmering in a pushcart caldron while I focused on each fragment of reality: a crushed paper cup, a cop’s holstered gun, a young man selling roses held within plastic tubes.

Miss Holquist liked to rent empty office spaces in modern steel-and-glass buildings, but 240 West Thirty-Eighth Street turned out to be a shabby brick building with scuff marks on the checkerboard floor in the lobby. I stood alone, next to the elevators, and tried to figure out a plan. Then the glass doors opened with a whoosh of cold air and two couples entered laughing and chattering in Spanish. The women wore high-heeled shoes with ankle straps and tight party dresses made of shimmery cloth. The men wore loose slacks and sports coats without neckties.

The elevator doors opened. An elderly maintenance man wearing overalls waved us forward and I was swept along with the group.
“Cinco,”
said one of the women, and the elevator creaked and shivered up to the fifth floor. I stepped out with them and followed them down the hallway to a door marked
BIG APPLE DANCE—STUDIOS FOR RENT
. The two couples went over to a plump woman at the reception desk. She offered them a clipboard while I disappeared down a hallway.

A door was open and I saw four couples dancing a 1930s jitterbug. One of the couples stood back to back, then they locked arms and the man flipped the woman over his head. The swing music surrounded me for an instant, but I stepped back from the doorway and continued moving. Styles of music from the different rental studios—a waltz and a tango, a Broadway show tune and a salsa number—blended together into one rhythm.

An exit door was at the end of the hallway and it led to the emergency staircase. I checked both my handguns, and then hurried downstairs to the third floor. Silence. No one was dancing there. I pushed open the door, stepped into the hallway, and found the young man with the curly hair who had helped Lorcan kill the people at Slater’s compound. He was sitting on a folding chair, munching a takeout sandwich. As the door behind me squeaked shut, he stared at me with a chunk of food still in his mouth.

“Have you been looking for me?” I asked, then drew my automatic and fired at the target. At close range, the bullet acted like a fist, knocking him off the chair. He died still clutching the sandwich—as if a wad of cold cuts in a French roll proved that he was still alive.

With the automatic in my right hand, I yanked open a door and stepped into a long, empty room. Fiber-optic cables slithered out of holes in a red carpet. More cables hung down from the ceiling as if the roots of a forest were growing on an upper floor.

Miss Holquist sat at a folding card table with her portfolio bag, a computer, and a Styrofoam bowl containing a dinner salad. She saw the gun in my hand and decided to ignore it.

“Good evening, Mr. Underwood. I didn’t expect to see you again.”

“Lorcan’s dead. Everyone’s dead.”

“And the girl?”

“Alive.”

Picking up a paper napkin, Miss Holquist wiped a spot of salad dressing off her upper lip. “It’s quite remarkable that you neutralized the four people who were trying to kill you, but I shouldn’t be surprised. You’re my best employee, Jacob. I knew from the start that you were perfect for this kind of work.”

“Were you the person who hired Danny Marchand? Was he just another employee?”

“Of course not. I didn’t know the real story about the Day of Rage until the night we met Alex Serby at his office. I must admit … it was a brilliant plan. Only a handful of people know the truth.”

“Serby killed those children.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. He didn’t
specifically
know what was going to happen. Five years ago, our social fabric was being ripped apart and those in charge realized that we needed some sort of incident to justify the necessary changes. One of Alex’s British friends told him about Danny Marchand … an intense young man who was upset because the Luddites had burned down a robotics research center in Frankfurt. Marchand believed that history was propelling us toward some all-knowing God computer and that anyone who opposed this idea was a lower form of life. The two of them met for
the first and last time on that boat trip. Alex gave Marchand some money and explained that the only way we could guarantee the right sort of future is if we took control of the present situation. Then they went their separate ways. Alex wired more money, but didn’t hear from Marchand. He was as surprised as the rest of us when the bombs started going off.”

“All those people died.”

“The loss of a relatively small number of people created a large benefit. Civilization is based on an ordered society. I’m sure you agree with that statement, Jacob. You like order and stability.”

“There’s nothing stable about my existence.”

“Well, you’re wrong about that.” Miss Holquist waved her plastic fork. “You’ve been tracked and monitored ever since we learned about you. Three years ago, Morris Noland saw those computer drawings you created and called me when I was in Europe. We both thought you might be a good enforcer, so I paid for your ticket to California and your stay at the Ettinger Clinic. Noland has done that before, of course … sent me other job candidates. But from the start I knew you were special.”

“Dr. Noland works for you?”

“It’s not his main job, of course, but I pay for his vacations. Noland cleaned you up, strapped a shock bracelet on your ankle, and showed you how to function. Then we flew you back to New York and I sent you the letter.”

I knew that she was telling the truth, and that made me feel weak and foolish. I began to move around the room.

“You and I are connected …” Miss Holquist said. “Don’t you realize that? I wouldn’t say that we’re friends, but I’ve guided you ever since the motorcycle accident. I
care
about you, Jacob. I really do. And because of that, I’m going to offer you a very generous proposal. The coded files still haven’t been released. Track down the girl. You probably know where she is or how to find her. If you do that, all will be forgiven. You can go back to your loft, consume your nutritional drink, and walk freely across the Brooklyn Bridge. If you want to keep working for me … you can. But it’s not necessary.”

“And if I find Emily, I’m supposed to kill her?”

“Well, of course. That’s your task and my responsibility.”

“No. I’m not going to obey you anymore.”

I reached the wall and turned around as Miss Holquist pulled a handgun from her bag. As I raised my own weapon, she fired from a sitting position. The bullet struck the side of my left leg and I collapsed immediately. Lying flat on my back, I was conscious of my mouth opening slowly, and then I took in a breath and shifted my body around. It felt as if a fire was burning within my Shell.

Miss Holquist got up from the card table, crossed the room, and kicked the gun out of my hand. “I wasn’t lying, Jacob. That really was a valid offer. Too bad you didn’t accept it. I had to pick the second option.”

I wanted to speak. Couldn’t speak. Wanted to stand up. Couldn’t do that either. The wounded leg was twisted sideways.

“You’ll never find Emily.”

“Of course I will. No one really disappears these days. You can pretend to escape, but the EYE system will find you … eventually.”

The phone lying on the desk beeped and Miss Holquist’s Shadow called to her, “Phone call from London.”

Distracted, she turned her head and glared at the phone. “Damn. It’s three o’clock in the morning there and—”

Pulling up my pants cuff, I grabbed the revolver from the ankle holster and fired twice—hitting her in the stomach and pelvis. Miss Holquist fell backward and stopped moving.

It took several minutes to roll over on my side. My arms and shoulders were functional, and I could crawl forward if I kept the weight on my right knee. When I approached Miss Holquist, I realized that she was still alive. Blood drooled out of her mouth, but she clenched her jaw as if she wanted to hold life inside her body.

“What … about … my girls?” Her voice came from a distant place.

The gray drugs had made her ageless, but now their power was melting away. As the hidden years returned, her flesh sagged, wrinkles appeared, and her body grew small and frail—like an old woman’s. Then her eyes opened wide, her eyeballs turned to glass, and she stopped moving.

I stared down at her for a long time—not quite believing she was dead—then forced myself to crawl across the room. Construction workers had left a pile of steel brackets that once held air-conditioning ducts. I picked up one of them and used it like a crutch to support my shattered leg. My pants were sodden with blood and I knew that this would draw attention from the police, but I found Miss Holquist’s black wool coat on the back of a chair and forced my arms into the sleeves. Then I pushed open a door and found myself on the emergency staircase.

I had experienced pain in the hospital, but it didn’t touch the core within me. Pain was like a noise in the distance—like the dance music coming from the fifth floor.

But now I could feel the pain directly and it almost overpowered my Spark. Each step downward was an effort, and a groaning sound came out of my throat. When I reached the first-floor landing, I looked up and saw blood smeared on each step.

An alarm went off when I pushed open a fire door and limped down an alleyway to the street. By now the pain was so powerful, so overwhelming, that I could float on top of it—like a leaf being swept downstream. My improvised crutch clicked on the pavement as I limped and shuffled through Times Square. No one stopped me or said anything until I reached the parking lot on Forty-Sixth Street.