“And if we’re not in agreement, you’ll have to find some other way?”
“We would discuss that.”
“But you can’t harm us. So you need our permission.”
I said, “I don’t think there’s any disagreement here. You saw the larva attack me, that part of the debate is over.” To Tasker, I said, “Then we should be good to go. Assuming, of course, the other ten children show up and you’re able to corral them. If the bikers find them, good luck convincing them to turn their kids over to you shady fuckers.”
“We have a plan for that contingency.”
Amy sighed and crumpled up her Cheetos bag. “I’m sure you do.”
To the phone, Tasker said, “Termination of the two existing specimens will proceed immediately. Mikey Payton is secure and will be here within fifteen minutes. A team will be dispatched to the Loretta Knoll residence momentarily.”
Amy said, “I want to go with them.”
“You are not going to interfere.”
“I don’t want to interfere. But I want to be there. If you don’t let me, then I’ll interfere.”
Tasker said, “Any further questions?”
The rumbling mountain voice spoke up once again, and this time it continued speaking. It was a voice I could feel in my gut and in my shoes as it rattled the floor. Gibson and Tasker listened intently, the way you’d listen to a jury delivering a verdict at your murder trial. The sound of fates being decided.
It spoke for some time, maybe a full two minutes, and it was one of the longest two-minute spans of my life. I tried to detect emotion in that voice, to see if it was delivering good news or bad, if it was angry or pleased. But whatever sentiments were being expressed were beyond me, maybe beyond any human.
Finally the voice rumbled to a halt, the aftershocks subsiding. The sense of relief in the room was palpable.
Tasker nodded, swallowed, and said, “Yes, my lord. Thursday at two.”
23. A PLAN WITH NO POSSIBLE FLAWS
Amy
They were in John’s Jeep, parked outside Taco Bill on a street hidden under a sheet of rippling water in a neighborhood that looked like it had dressed up as Venice for a costume party and then woke up in a dumpster. Amy wasn’t even sure why she had insisted on coming, maybe she wanted one last look at Maggie, to try to see the monster, to shake this feeling.
She had to admit, NON could certainly play subtle when they wanted to. Instead of rolling in with an army of scary-looking trucks and men in space suits (a sight all too familiar to the residents of this city), they had simply approached the Loretta Knoll home in the agents’ nondescript sedan followed by an ambulance. (Had they stolen one?) Amy watched as they approached the door and explained the situation to an increasingly panicked Loretta, then tried in vain to calm her. The story would be that the other abductee had tested positive for this dangerous toxin, that they just needed to bring Maggie in for tests, that every minute counted, blah blah blah. They all went inside, Amy figuring that the odds of them deciding to take the child by violence increased with every passing second. She got that Bunny Bread knot in her guts.
But, finally, the NON people emerged with Maggie. And, right behind them, was her mother.
You’d have to kill Loretta, too.
David reached back, took Amy’s hand in his and said, “You did everything right, babe. Everything you said, we need you to say those things, to be that person. You were basing it on what you knew. You can’t let it tear you up inside—that’s what They want. But once you land on the right thing, you don’t look back, you don’t apologize. I know this looks different from your end but you have to trust us here.”
Amy said, “So now we’re basically following NON’s orders and you’re fine with that.”
“I’m not fine with anything, ever. But, as far as I can tell, what NON wants is to keep things on an even keel, to keep people from panicking. That’s not always a terrible thing to want.”
Amy said, “No. What they want—not just NON, but everyone like them—is for us not to panic, but to be just scared enough. You know that scene in They Live where he puts on the glasses and all the signs have all these propaganda messages hidden in them? In the real world if you put on those glasses all you’d see is one message, repeated everywhere: BE ANXIOUS. Buy this thing or your friends will laugh at you, eat this thing or you’ll get fat and nobody will love you, watch the news to find out who’s trying to kill you today.”
“Yeah, but all that stuff is real! There’s actual reasons to be scared!”
“The problem, David, is your cynicism only runs one direction. If somebody comes on TV and says everything is great and wonderful, you don’t believe it, you say they’re blowing smoke up your butt. You demand proof. But if one second later, some guy comes on and says everything is falling apart, you automatically believe it, no questions asked. If those people had told you that this mine monster situation was no big deal and that we should just go home, you wouldn’t have believed them, not for a second. But the moment they said it was a Class G apocalypse, you were on board. As if nobody ever has motivation to tell you things are worse than they really are. And you know for a fact that’s not true! Nothing controls people like fear.”
John said, “We’re moving.”
They followed the sedan back toward the wellness center. On the way, a pair of the flat-black trucks silently moved in front and behind them, ready to do containment if “Maggie” should transform and get loose.
There were no incidents, however, and the three of them were allowed to follow the NON team back into the field HQ where they proceeded to haul Maggie past the office area and toward that rear concrete wall with its huge steel door. The bizarre painted warnings had been covered by a series of posters reminding staff to wash their hands and to please dispose of food waste properly, lest it attract ants.
The steel door slid open soundlessly and Maggie and her mother were hauled into the chamber beyond. The little girl was bawling her eyes out, and Loretta seemed on the verge of a breakdown. Amy, John, and David followed them back. The steel door, Amy noted, was a foot thick. Beyond it were a number of cells with clear walls that Amy suspected were forged from a substance much stronger than Plexiglas.
This facility clearly had not been built within the last two days.
Maggie was taken past the glass cells, into a room at the end of the hall labeled STAFF ONLY. This time, Loretta was made to stay outside, reassurances being muttered to her by a very competent-looking guy in doctor scrubs. Amy had the horrific thought that they were just going to euthanize Maggie right then, in that room, and that Amy would have to watch them break the news to Loretta.
But about ten minutes later, the STAFF ONLY door opened—it made a hissing sound—and a few kind-looking folks who looked like staff from a hospital pediatric unit led Maggie Knoll to one of the cells. Her hair was wet and she was wearing baggy hospital pajamas, as if they’d hosed her down. Amy wondered if those people were actual medical staff, or if they were just actors NON had hired for their false flag operation (the ominous black cloaks were nowhere to be found—today, the facility was playing the part of a laboratory and wellness center to a T).
Maggie Knoll went into the cell, crying but not resisting, and the glass door closed and sealed her in. Loretta, sobbing, was taken down the hall to answer some questions.
As soon as her mother was out of range, Maggie instantly stopped crying. She stood perfectly still in the middle of her cell, made eye contact with Amy, and said, “Hi.”
For some reason, this seemed to creep David out quite a bit, and he actually took a step back from the glass wall. Amy didn’t answer. Loretta was now talking to the NON agent, who was entering information on a tablet. Amy noticed the agent glance her way the moment she heard “Maggie” speak.