Normal humanity could see the writing on the wall. What had once been a curiosity was now a threat. Whatever you called them—brilliants, gifted, abnorms, twists—they changed everything.
Hence the Department of Analysis and Response, an attempt to deal with a radically shifting world. Though only fifteen years old, the DAR already had unspecified funding greater than the NSA. The agency handled testing, monitoring, research; it advised lawmakers and occupied a cabinet post. And every time a gifted engineer jumped technology forward a decade, the DAR got another half a billion. Still, as long as abnorms were productive members of society, good citizens who obeyed the laws, they were afforded the same rights and protections as everyone else.
It was the ones who didn’t play nice that Equitable Services was concerned with.
“Anyway, sounds like it’s all hands on deck to find the signal in the noise. No rest for the virtuous.” Bobby Quinn spoke through a yawn. “You drive here, or should I call for a ride?”
“Call a ride.” He pulled his bag down and then dug out his keys.
“Umm, Cooper?”
“Yeah?”
“Aren’t those car keys?”
“Looks like.”
Quinn rolled his eyes. “Must be nice to be Drew Peters’s fair-haired boy.”
“Let me know if you find anything.” Cooper walked down the aisle, toward the open door. The flight attendant smiled as he passed. He smiled back, then walked down the stairs to the runway.
The weather had driven DC indoors, and he made good time. Del Ray was at the north end of Alexandria, a cozy neighborhood of single-family homes nuzzling close against one another. The houses were well maintained and solidly middle class, with a sodden flag dangling from every fourth porch.
Natalie’s was a tidy Folk Victorian, two stories, bright blue, and dotted with windows. A picket fence framed a postage-stamp yard, within which a black dirt bike lay on its side under a maple. Cooper pulled into the drive and killed the engine. He slid the Beretta and holster off his belt and locked both in the case beneath the passenger seat. The downstairs lights were on; he might not be too late after all.
The rain had picked up, and Cooper hurried up the walk-way, still wishing for a jacket. As he approached the front door, he heard footsteps behind it. There was the click of a deadbolt, and then the door swung inward. His ex-wife wore striped pajama bottoms and a worn T-shirt with a Greenpeace logo. Natalie’s feet were bare, her hair pulled into a ponytail. She smiled at him. “Nick.”
“Hey,” he said as he stepped inside. He gave her a hug and was briefly enveloped in her familiar smell. “I’m sorry it’s late. I wanted to see them.”
“They’re asleep.”
“Can I pop in anyway?”
“Sure,” she said. “I just opened some red. Want a glass?”
“Bless you. Yes.” He bent over to untie his shoes, left them on the mat next to a jumble of sneakers. “I won’t be long.”
The hall light was off, but Cooper had climbed these stairs ten thousand times. He padded up, skipping the squeaky step at the top. Gently, he opened the door to their room and stepped in. Pale light filtered in the windows, and he paused to let his eyes adjust.
The room smelled of children, that sunlight smell over socks and sweat. The left side had posters of dinosaurs and nebulae, a big framed image of the earth rising from the moon. There were toys in heaps, robots and knights and cowboys.