18
After Gus and Nkiruka finished their stories, most of those present left. Odin gave specific advice to almost everyone, though not everyone was willing to accept it. Billy and Faraji and Jay would take Villa 4 as their new hiding place; Odin assured them of their safety, which they might have dubiously received if the brothers hadn't insisted on waiting for Blake. Odin advised everyone else to go to the "private residence of a friend," a man who they could trust and who might help them.
Even underground, Jay thought the uproar might give them away. He and Billy absolutely refused to go without their brother, and why should they go to the Villas anyway? Wouldn't they get caught in such a place? Nkiruka's dark eyes narrowed at even the inkling that her and Faraji might leave each other. Gus, also, refused the deal, and asked Odin in his brusquely quiet manner if he help could help to stall their pursuers.
Odin's calculations were too many to comprehend. He was still as cold as the first time they'd seen him, but he spoke his advice in a way to placate and organize.
Gus could stay with Faraji and the brothers, he said, and they might all safely abide in the Villas with these: he passed a pair of clear contact lenses out to everyone. The devices, he said, would protect them from all eyes but his own—on the grid's cameras, and on the Villa's retinal scanners. The rest of the people really must go to his friend's. Such a large group would be too much in the Villas. Sure to draw attention.
But Faraji must go there—he wanted him to search through the computers and he could not do that alone.
Nkiruka still refused the arrangement. A cloudlike haze drifted all around her person. Everyone could smell her anger. The rest of them, except Gus, looked on the woman fearfully. Nkiruka saw it in them, and perhaps, Jay thought, even fed off it.
"I won't go to the house of another friend of yours. I do not want to leave my son; you ask a mother to let go of her only child—my last family." Her nostrils flared, but a conflicted look entered her eyes.
"But he also wishes to leave,” she said, “I can see."
She faced Odin bravely. "So, I will go where I please. Ten years running and hiding, secreted away in modern caves and ruins, finally I will go where I want. You!" she indicated to Odin and then held up the contacts, "Have your bloody talisman! You have my sight, you have my privacy, you can find me if you need me. Take it all, my only desire is to see the green I haven't seen in years. So if you want to find me, search above the grass and under the trees."
A solemn, processionary air overtook the place as she bent low to Faraji, kissed the boy and whispered a few words in his ear. He nodded, but didn't say anything. His mother stood up again, chin raised regally, acknowledging Gus, and extended her hand to Jess. The little girl and Gus shared a big hug, and then he carried her over to Nkiruka and placed her in the woman's arms.
They left, as did the Kingstons, under the guidance of Odin and his army of eyes. Only Billy, Jay, Faraji, and Gus occupied the space left behind. Jay was watching the Old Man's eyes in the silent room; they didn't close, but had no sign of will behind them. At least for a minute the human fire slipped out of them like a will-o-wisp fading in and out of existence.
He was calling them.
Gaspode waited, standing in the shadowed impression between two buildings: one hunkering clay brick toad, the other newer, taller, characterless but expansive. The night promised to bring excitement, the morning reward. The old hacker’s birds perched on a building cross-streeted and the couple, the bait, interimmed within reach. They were about to lead them to the Old Man. Sniffer turned up his sense. He was close enough to smell the scene: the agitated sudor of Blake and Rosie, the aseptic crisp of the mechanical pets, and the heady anticipation of his two associates.
The three of them—Gene, himself, and Hurn—knew the fight ahead. They'd been briefed. Only they, the best and most talented of the Spotters could venture forth, step into the lair of a modern day wizard. The rest of the team waited in the wings, clean-up and surveillance, contingency for failure.
He tapped Gene as the scent of the couple moved away—they were falling in love, now, it seemed. A brash smell. An unwise time—a shame they'd never flower.
He saw Hurn's face harden.
<<Please, sir.
>>Do not waiver.
<<Yes, sir. Never.
After ten minutes and with a safe enough distance between them and their quarry, they left their space between the two buildings, shadows trailing behind them.
Jay, Billy, Faraji, and Gus spent twenty minutes in the mess before Odin reentered the room, full of direction.
"We have five minutes before they arrive, perhaps another fifteen before the others."
"What should we do?" asked Jay.
"There's nothing you can do except be ready to go. That means, be ready to run. Put in your contacts, get your things, and most importantly, follow my instructions.
Odin faced the four of them, the three boys standing nervously behind Gus's towering personage. The Old Man did not look tired. He did not look nervous, his expression did not waiver or change into something recognizable; it was impossible, Jay thought, that a man could really be so cold.
Odin motioned slackly to Gus, and walked out of the room.
"You boys wait here."
Faraji slipped the contacts into his eyes as soon as Gus left the room. They felt oddly hard to his fingers, but surprisingly comfortable in his eyes. Nothing happened—at least not for a moment. He waited impatiently, blinking weirdly, rolling his eyes, trying to activate them without knowing how.
It took a while but the moment itself was unforgettable; the definition of the room around him, even of Billy and Jay, rose sharply, cut all of the sudden with a diamond edge. A phantasmal light appeared to him from through the entrance to the mess, a small row of green text faded in lightly. It read:
to Villa 4
Faraji was still getting used to the strangeness when Odin returned with two people Faraji had never seen before. As they walked into the room the contacts identified them as Blake and ????
Billy rushed to greet his brother, with Jay not far behind him. It was difficult not to ask all the questions they had for him. Blake and his companion had strangled, stunned expressions, and were looking about at the complex walls trying to orient themselves.
"Where have you been? Where is this? What is this?" Blake asked.
"We don't know! But it's great to see you."
Odin hijacked the conversation, focusing hard on Rosie.
"Who are you?"
Rosie was understandably nervous in the face of such an uncouth old fellow. She looked at the floor.
"Rosie. I'm Rosie Holgrave. I came here with Blake."
Odin: "Under the circumstances, perhaps your fear is excusable, but I need both of you to tell me the story of your last two weeks. One minute each. Put these in your eyes.” He handed one pair of contacts, to Blake only.
"Speak now, or return to the streets."
Rosie looked at Blake who looked at Jay who nodded his head. Without much confidence she related her story, she included as much as she could, as fast as she could. In telling it she felt, just for a second, like she might have some power over the events. It was only after covering their escape from prison that he stopped her.
Odin: "You two will not be going with the boys."
Billy: "What?"
Blake: "Where can we go?
Odin: "First, blindfold her. Plug her ears. She cannot know where you go unless you want to arrive hearing the sound of sirens."
Rosie: "Why me?"
Odin: "Because you have a gift and a curse. You are completely connected. You cannot escape or run or hide. Now do it. Or I'll shut off your senses myself. Blake will be your guide, because you trust him.
"You three."
He turned to the younger boys.
"You have to go now, don't talk, run as fast as you can and do not speak. The hunters will arrive shortly. And he has heard our conversation."
"How do you know?" asked Faraji.
"Because of her, they are using her to spy on all of us."
"But I'm not a spy!" shouted Rosie desperately, looking at Blake.
"No, not exactly," said Odin, "But they can read your thoughts. I can read your thoughts. You are an open book and you cannot stay with people until you learn how to protect yourself. Now, I will say it only once more, all of you, get out of here. Move."
Blake, who had only just installed his new pair of eyes and seen their destination, said, "We cannot go there . . . I have been there before. We cannot go there . . .”
"You can, you will."
Odin walked out.
Faraji sought Gus, to bring him to the Villas with them, but Odin stopped him. The Old Man was already gone, already in another room, but he saw through Faraji, the instant the boy was through the door—the one leading to Gus and not the Villas—his vision went dark, pitch black. He stood there, hooded like a falcon. He knew it was Odin.
Small, white text in the middle of a dark slate:
<<He has chosen to fight. You must go on without him.>>
Faraji took a step backward through the threshold, and his vision was returned to him. He saw Jay and Billy making their whispered and unhappy goodbyes to Blake.
So lonely, devoid of family, he thought. Of Gus, he wondered if yet another family member might be lost.
Gus prayed to God to finish anything he could not.
The three boys ran through the labyrinthine complex. The ways were not altogether unfamiliar to the younger boys, but Jay felt completely lost, as if the only thing that was more frightening than what was before him was what lay behind him.
Green light foreshadowed their every step through the dust covered halls. Before too long the green led them to the back door of the place—or one of them. A steel door, rusted red, and covered with industrial rivets. The ancient thing looked prepared to withstand a nuclear blast, even after so many years. Opening it, at first, appeared to be a monumental task in itself but, as they stood huffing and puffing, there was a silent blink as a red light turned on and the door swung open.
After they pushed their way through, the door closed automatically. Odin's virtual ghost in play. They smelled the cold mustiness of the dead underground, once again. To Faraji, the memories had seemed long gone, like they had never happened, but now the inescapable claustrophobia and frightening absence of life came rushing back—waking from a nightmare only to fall asleep and find himself trapped once again. He took a deep breath and fought it. Jay and Billy moved on.
They followed the green compasses another five minutes before they all stopped at once, in shock.
The left side of Faraji's vision was dark. Using his right eye, he looked for Jay and Billy and saw them as confused as himself.
With a suddenness that made him gasp, his vision lurched back. But not his. Someone else's. He saw the sights of someone else, only through his left eye. He saw only a vision of a long hallway. It was dusty, like the one they had just left.
It felt like being part of two worlds at once. His left eye looked down, at hands—they were big, white, and thick—and then turned around walking into the complex living quarters.
It was the same small greenish text.
<<Watch. But keep moving.
Odin would really do this? Make them watch as Gus fought and perhaps died . . . Faraji knew it would happen, now. He knew of the cold machine parts in the Old Man's brain. He felt himself getting sick, but thrust it down under a wave of anger—that bastard.
He closed his eye, but the vision was still there. There was literally no way without taking out the contact. Why couldn't he bring himself to do it?
Faraji yelled to his companions and they all kept moving slowly through the dream, the real, and the night-mare of Gus's life.
Blake was baffled by the split in his vision, but could not afford the time it would take to understand it. He had one arm around the stumbling and terrified looking Rosie. She clung to him and moved herself forward, loosely giving way to Blake as her guide.
A black strip of cloth blinded her to their whereabouts and a pair of earplugs ensured she wouldn't catch enough noise to tip off their pursuers. Blake felt horrible for her. Not a second went by when he didn't want to rip the blindfold off; but an even louder voice in his head spoke of the consequences.
The awkward pair staggered onward. Blake estimated they'd left the complex only about ten minutes before. Moving so slowly. Vision still stuck in limbo. A miserable voyeur unable to look away.