At what point did You say, ‘To Hell with them.’
Selfish and stupid, violent and destructive, shortsighted and cruel. Children step on your toes when they are young, then step on your hearts as they get older.
Everyone makes mistakes, God. Were we Yours?
Or was this whole thing just part of Your master plan?
Forgive my tirade, son, but since your departure from my soul, I am so full of anger, so full of hate, so full of blasphemy that at times I feel as if I could burst Immanuel’s ebony eyes flash open as he wails a bloodcurdling scream and leaps to his feet, tossing the now-dry bedsheet from his shoulders.
Jacob grabs him around the shoulders. ‘Manny, what is it?’
Immanuel hugs himself, pacing back and forth in the snow, his limbs shaking.
‘Computer, end program!’
The snow and mountainside disappear, revealing the onyx-tiled sensory chamber. The heavy chill ceases, replaced by waves of heat.
Jacob hovers over his brother, who is kneeling on the damp floor, huddling in the warmth. ‘You heard him, didn’t you, Manny? You heard our father!’
Immanuel looks up, his body still trembling. ‘I heard nothing. Now get me the hell out of here.’
33
Thursday Morning
Lauren Beckmeyer is exhausted.
It is not the kind of exhaustion she ordinarily relishes from her physical training. This is something she has never experienced, the kind of overwhelming fatigue that comes from being a fugitive. Perpetually draining, it refuses to allow her mind to rest, her fraught nerves to settle.
It is exhaustion based on the fear of death.
For the last thirty-six hours the track star has been ducking through back streets and alleyways, hiding in shadows-avoiding people. She cannot go to her apartment. She cannot contact her parents or friends, fearing the men who murdered Professor Gabeheart will come after her loved ones, just as they are coming after her. She has not eaten, since the purchase of food requires identity scans, and hers has been excised.
Lauren doesn’t know who the enemy is, but she has her suspicions. Late the previous night, as she lay alone on the beach, her mind had finally quieted enough to piece things together.
Whoever wanted Gabeheart silenced feared the professor might learn the truth about Yellowstone’s caldera. To resort to murder means pressure within the caldera system must be building, which means an eruption is imminent.
The last eruption in Yellowstone led to an ice age. If this next one is anywhere near as devastating… oh, Jesus!
Lauren did not sleep, the threat to her own life suddenly overshadowed by the thought of a super volcanic winter. Somehow she had to get a warning to the public. Somehow she had to make the world listen while there was still time to act… assuming there was still time and there was another course of action.
But who would listen to her? She was a nobody, someone who could easily be snatched away before the first television camera could be turned on. And what proof did she really have?
But there was someone the media would listen to, someone they wanted to interview, someone who received more news coverage than any scientist, any geology student ever could.
Lauren needed to find Sam.
Lauren watches the Student Medical Center side entrance from her vantage behind a row of shrubs. Her hair is slicked back with water and tucked under a baseball cap.
She crosses the street, blending in with a family as they enter the facility. She follows a crowded corridor, then waits in line to access an automated hospital help station.
Presses PATIENT DIRECTORY. ‘Kirk Peacock’s room.’
KIRK PEACOCK IS LOCATED IN ROOM 310, BED B. HAVE A NICE DAY.
She looks around, bypassing the elevator for the stairs.
Kirk Peacock is lying in bed, his drooling mouth open, his eyes cloaked behind a virtual-reality headpiece. Lauren takes a seat by his bed, averting her eyes as a robonurse enters and changes his IV bag.
‘Kirk. Hey, Kirk!’ She knocks on the VR helmet, then yanks it off his head.
‘Cut the fubitchshitting… Lauren? Hey… what’re you doing here?’
‘I came to see you. You feeling okay?’
‘Fuck no. Got needles and tubes comin’ outta my bunghole. Haven’t done a leech in days. They took my contacts, my body piercings, my hair’s growing in over my ’too, and my father’s making me restain my pigment flesh tone. Life blows.’
‘Yeah. Kirk, I need a favor. I need to get away for a few days. I’ll trade you my car for your Amphibian.’
‘Your ’Vette? You on meds?’
‘It’s just for a few days. I promise I’ll take good care of it.’
‘Sink it for all I care. Belongs to my old man. Fubitchshittingasswipe.’
‘What’s your access code?’
‘Access code… damn… oh yeah.’ He holds up his bare foot. Tattooed to his heel is KP-3757-D.
Lauren memorizes the code. ‘Thanks, Kirk, I owe you. When do they let you out?’
‘ Shifubitchin’ know-it-all tin can mechanical doctor ordered another blood scrub. I told that trash can she can suck my plasma only if she replaces it with BLISS. Ha-ha… hey, ’renman, where you going?’
Hangar 13, Kennedy Space Center,
Cape Canaveral, Florida
Thursday Afternoon
Immanuel Gabriel loses his thoughts in the psychiatrist’s eyes, watching them shift from hazel to green in the overhead lights. The man’s hair is brown and spiked, the cleft lip and telltale scars along the jaw line revealing recent reconstructive surgery.
‘You sure don’t look like a psychiatrist.’
Mike Snyder smiles. ‘And what should a psychiatrist look like?’
‘I don’t know… more scholarly, I suppose. What happened to your face?’
‘Battle scars. I double as one of your brother’s sparring partners. At least I used to. He’s way beyond us mere mortal foes these days.’
Immanuel sits up in the lounge chair, his head still woozy from the sedative. ‘So you’re Jake’s psychiatrist? Bet he plays head games with you.’
‘Only all the time. On occasion he might let something slip, but usually he only confides in Dr. Mohr or Grand Master Xiong. Jacob’s very sure of himself. Even as a fourteen-year-old, he always came across as if he knew exactly who he was and what he needed out of life. And he’s not one to lose his cool.’
‘Unlike me.’
Dr. Snyder grins. ‘Don’t be so hard on yourself. If someone told me I was getting on that spaceship bound for God-knows-where, I’d have popped a few too many meds, too. What you can’t do is allow yourself to be drawn into your brother’s psychosis.’
‘Psychosis?’ Immanuel perks up. ‘Then you don’t believe this whole Mayan Hero thing?’
‘Do I believe you and Jake are unique individuals-absolutely. Do I believe the two of you were somehow the subject of a Mesoamerican tale written five hundred years ago? No.’
‘But Jake believes it.’
‘Jake’s mind absorbs everything like a sponge. Unfortunately, this Mayan mythology thing has been ingrained into his psyche since birth. It’s become part of his dementia and his persona, and it’s now impossible to separate the two.’
‘But… I heard my father’s voice.’
‘Think about it, Manny. Where were you at the time?’
‘In a holograph suite… programmed by my brother, that cocksucker! But wait, the Guardian’s starship-how can you deny that?’
‘Who’s denying it? An ancient alien spaceship was excavated from Mexico. From what I’m told, it’s been buried for at least ten thousand years. Is it one of the greatest, if not the greatest discovery in man’s brief history? Absolutely. Does its existence have anything to do with your late father? Probably, since he was the one who discovered it.’