The car drove slowly past the shops, luxury apartments, and restaurants, but there was no need for such caution. The nearly empty Village looked like a ghost town. An occasional pedestrian walked purposefully down the sidewalk, hurrying to some destination before darkness descended. None of the people she saw were children, and none were women. They all looked to be men in their twenties or thirties — risk-takers who had chosen not to flee like the others.
Two of Hoblenz's soldiers patrolled the sidewalk, one ten meters behind the other. The trailing man spun and walked backward every few steps to check the rear. They wore black combat gear, and radio aerials rose high above their backpacks. They carried the long black rifles the computer said were most effective against the robots.
The car turned onto a side street and pulled up under the portico of a long building. The car door beside her opened, and Laura looked out at the wall of glass surrounding the main entrance. The building's windows were heavily tinted, but it looked as if the lights were on inside. There were security troops stationed in sandbagged positions all down its length.
"Car, could you not leave me here, please?" she said, and got out.
The car remained right where Laura had left it. She went to the front door and pushed. Inside, the building was alive with activity.
It was a cheery sight when compared to the depressing scene on the Village streets.
"Hi! Are you one of the new recruits?" a peppy blond girl with a clipboard asked. She and several others like her milled about the lobby wearing identical red athletic shorts and T-shirts that read EMPLOYEE TRAINING CENTER.
"'New recruits'?" Laura replied — confused.
"Did you just arrive on a flight?"
"Oh… no. My name is Dr. Laura Aldridge."
"Sure! I know you. The psychiatrist, right?"
Laura was shocked. "Psychologist," she corrected, "but how did you know?"
"From the TV. It was all over CNN."
"What was? What did they say?"
"They said you were here from Yale and were treating Mr. Gray for some problem."
A bus had arrived, and the girl looked back at the crowd forming outside.
"Harvard," Laura said, but the woman to whom she directed the comment was distracted. The bus pulled up under the portico, and the girl rose to her tiptoes to peer over Laura's shoulder at the new recruits. "And that report's not true," Laura objected.
"I know that! It's just the press." The girl, Laura realized, was a true believer.
The door behind Laura opened to admit the noise of a dozen excited conversations. Laura turned to see the first of a long line of people.
They were presumably infused with the same spirit as the camp counselor who awaited them. The bus headed off — back, Laura imagined with growing amazement — to pick up more of Gray's reserves.
Two other young women joined the cheerleader with the clipboard.
All three were similarly attired. "Welcome to the Gray Corporation Astronaut Training Facility!"
The sound of it sent the new arrivals into a general commotion. Laura shook her head in astonishment at the quick change in Gray's tactics. Instead of tricking people into courses secretly intended to prepare them for "phase two," he was now using the astronaut training program as his drawing card. The chance to fly in space, Laura thought. It was a heady proposition. Another bus pulled up outside.
"First things first!" the blond girl announced. "Are any of you not already employed by the Gray Corporation or one of its arms?" No one raised their hand.
So that's how he got people here so quickly, Laura thought.
"Great!" the camp counselor chirped. "No paperwork!" A lighthearted cheer rose from the group. Most looked bedraggled from travel, but their faces were alert and awake. For them, it was the beginning of a new life. Phase two.
"I have it down here," the blond girl said, raising the clipboard into the air, "that everyone has completed the basic course at the regional centers and has signed up for Introductory Mechanics: Construction Techniques! Is that right?"
One woman raised her hand. "Is there any chance to switch to Metallurgical Processing?" she asked with a thick German accent. "They said I might be able to switch once I got here."
"I'm sorry, but all the fabricating classes are full. Do you want to continue on in Mechanical, or do you wanna go back home and wait for a call?"
"Are you kidding?" the trainee asked, and the crowd roared with laughter.
"O-o-kay. Now, I know you've all been on long flights, but I hope you got some sleep. The course you're about to enter is going to be intense. There'll be no rest for the weary. I can, however, offer you two treats as a welcome-aboard present tonight. First off, are you ready to take a dip in the pool?"
Quite a few "yeahs" sounded amid the general excitement and beaming smiles of the group. It was more than one would expect from adults offered a swim in a pool, but Laura could feel vicariously their excitement at embarking on the adventure of a lifetime.
"Then we'll head straight to Outfitting to get your new gear. We should be out of the pool and dried off just in time for the real treat of the day. Tonight, a few hours after sunset, the Gray Corporation has scheduled its first-ever launch of three rockets simultaneously from the island!"
The new arrivals were clearly thrilled. When they were led down a corridor by their guides, Laura gravitated toward the opposite side of the lobby A small group of people were gathered around a television.
Before Laura could see the screen, she could hear that they were watching a newscast.
"… neither confirmed nor denied reports coming off Capitol Hill that Joseph Gray had refused a direct request by the President to allow an inspection of his island by members of the International Atomic Energy Commission. Senate sources did say, however, that unilateral U.S. action had not been ruled out and that the President would be granted the widest possible latitude in dealing with the emergency up to, and including, the use of U.S. military forces."
The people on the U-shaped sofa around the high-definition television wore grim looks. These were not the cheerful faces of the welcoming committee or the wide-eyed wonder of the would-be space cadets. These were the worried looks of older hands.
The anchorwoman went on to say that a commission established to deal with the crisis had no independent technical means of verifying the data on the asteroid released by Gray.
"Why don't you tell the world what the rest of the report said?" one of the men slouched on the sofa sniped bitterly, but the anchorwoman moved on to a story about end-of-the-world "asteroid parties" being planned across America. "That damn commission found that if our data was correct," the man on the sofa pointed out, "then Gray's plan should lead to a safe retrieval."
"They would leave that part out," a woman sitting across the U chimed in.
Laura turned and headed back to the car. A new batch of recruits was following its leader toward the locker rooms.
"Are we allowed to look around the island?" someone asked from the back of the pack.
"During the daylight hours, yes, but not after dark."
Laura headed out to the car — out into the black night.
It was dark, but the laptop's screen bathed the keyboard in blue light.