“Hey, Davis. You look pretty.”
“Hey, Wilder. Still in uniform?”
“They got me upstairs. Bradley Cooper showing up? I heard he was in town.”
“Anyone whose manicurist makes more than I do can blow me. You have a good night.”
“Roger that.” Beth marched between the two guards, toward the security entrance, then turned back. “Hey, Davis. I heard they caught Joyce.”
Davis glanced over his shoulder at her. “Gibson’s people took custody about an hour ago. Got him on thirty-five. Doesn’t look like much of a terrorist, but who does?”
Beth waved herself through security and into the atrium.
Beth entered the lobby from the west. The lobby floor was divided into three sections, from left to right: the main event area, the reception, and the displays. The central south-facing doors led to the security corridor. Through that was the Visitor Center, where guests were now being received. Within minutes guards would open the security doors and let everyone in.
The display area was intended to prime the audience for the main event: lots of information on chronon research, projections for its applications, but nothing too specific. Hatch was saving that for the big reveal. The main event platform was an elevated stage with full lighting rig and Marshall stacks. A two-story-tall videoboard was the backdrop. Light and sound techs were scuttling about, squaring away the final bits of unevenness, getting out of sight, running final checks.
In the wings, out of sight of the main floor, she caught sight of a pilot being assisted into his Juggernaut, arms reaching into the oversized chronon-powered exoskeleton. The pilot angled his legs into the frames of the Juggernaut’s legs. Techs consulted with tablets and diagnostics, asked the pilot to run through a few simple routines to confirm the suit was in working order.
The Juggernauts were prototypes, a side project that had been brought under the umbrella of Monarch’s Chronon Research Division. The torso was a simple, blind, geometric half shell. Each facet of the trunk had a couple of hi-res optics nested at the center. From inside the pilot navigated through a standard eyes-and-ears headset.
The prototypes were pretty much for show, which is why the rear of the thing was a naked frame and completely exposed. Beth guessed the techs wanted visibility on the innards, and to be able to get a pilot in and out quickly if needed. Nonetheless, it didn’t stop them being highly functional. The frame had enough hydraulic power to flip a station wagon, and came armed. A multimissile pod hovered above the thing’s headless body on a thin articulated arm, and a light auto-cannon replaced the suit’s left fist.
Looked like Hatch planned to go all out with the display.
Mezzanines ribbed one side of the lobby from the second floor right up to forty-eight. Forty-nine and fifty, she knew, were off-limits.
Saturday, 8 October 2016. 8:20 P.M. Floor 35, Monarch Tower.
A guard tapped an access plate. The door to the room that held Jack Joyce slid aside. It was a typical meeting room, save for the four pieces of abstract technology in each corner. It was nothing elaborate, but it didn’t need to be. Potted plants and AV cabinets had been moved aside to ensure maximum coverage for the chronon dampeners. The floor-to-ceiling blinds had been lowered.
Paul sensed the room had been nullified before he’d set foot inside; the familiar leadenness palpable even from the hall.
Chronon-1’s new senior operative was here, his fist in his palm. Donny took his eyes from the figure handcuffed to the stainless steel designer chair in front of him, nodding an acknowledgment to his employer.
Jack was slumped in the chair, chin on chest, the fabric of his jeans spattered with fresh blood. He was the only thing at the center of the room.
Noting Donny’s mood, Paul glanced at Hatch. “No word on Gibson’s remains?”
Hatch gave the smallest shake of the head.
Clearly Donny was still processing whatever passed for grief. In Paul’s experience this breed of man had long ago replaced all secondary emotions with primary ones. “Donald, is it?”
“Yep.”
Paul heard his teeth grind at this dismissive familiarity. Hatch cleared his throat.
Chronon-1 was exceptional only in that its elite members were the first and the only group to have fully passed muster in Hatch’s cost-benefit-calibrated viewpoint. Technicians operated in a similarly lightweight fashion, but functioned only as soldiers. C-1 were, to an operative, multifaceted specialists able to adapt, survive, infiltrate, and succeed in almost any environment. Highly trained, highly valuable.
Nonetheless, Paul very much wanted to drive two fingers through the man’s clavicle.
Donny noticed. “I mean… yes, sir, Consultant.”
Martin stepped aside, gesturing with an upturned palm toward the door. “Would you mind stepping outside? We’d like some time with Mr. Joyce.”
Donny took a last, longing glance at Jack and exited the room crisply.
Jack turned his head, spat blood onto the carpet. Groaned.
Paul crouched in front of his friend. “Jack.”
Jack said “Wait,” and slackly spat again. A gobbet of syrupy black adhered a tooth to the fabric of his jeans. “Put that in my pocket?”
Paul sighed, collected the tooth between thumb and forefinger-it might have been a molar-and cleaned it on the arm of his fatigues before zipping it into the pocket of his friend’s leather jacket. “I can’t debate this further.” Paul sat on the carpet in a half lotus. “Martin’s mind is very clear-we should kill you. I don’t want to, but I know Martin is right. What are we going to do? Tell me.”
Jack appeared to be forming a response, and then he blacked out.
“Paul,” Martin said, checking his wristwatch. “I have to go. I’m expected downstairs.”
“Of course. I’ll be watching from my quarters. Let’s return here after we have both done what we need to do… and come to a decision about Jack.” Paul got to his feet, took a last look at his friend, and marched for the door.
Martin did not follow. He remained in the room, bent at the waist now, peering, as if committing Jack’s face to memory. Head tilted, like a curious animal.
“Martin.”
Martin Hatch straightened, adjusted his jacket, and joined Paul in the corridor.
Saturday, 8 October 2016. 8:27 P.M. Parking garage.
Finding a parking spot on a Saturday afternoon was a bitch, even with the city in shock. Nick supposed some people needed escape, and others wanted to give a Massachusetts fuck you to the group they thought had shot up the university by going out unafraid and spending. Maybe that’s why, despite the fear and the anger, there was a block’s worth of star spotters pressed to the front of Monarch Tower.
If only they knew that the people they were ogling were the people who had terrorized them. Monarch had made a big deal out of this gala. The publicity promised that tonight would be an unveiling of the future. The new revelation would reinvent society-just as the printing press and the Internet had done in former times-to change life on planet Earth forever.
Big claims from a corporation with form got a lot of interest from people that mattered.
From the third level of the parking building Nick had a good view of the crowd on the street. Every now and then, as a new foreign-made sedan rolled up, the crowd surged forward a little and phone cameras flashed. Sometimes people exclaimed and whoever had gotten out would turn and smile and wave. Nick couldn’t make out anyone down there. He supposed he could have checked the live coverage on his phone, but he was down to 25 percent. Couldn’t risk a dead phone in case Beth called.
Then someone turned up whom Nick did recognize, though not straightaway. The man didn’t step out of a polished Mercedes. His arrival started as a disturbance in the crowd on the other side of the street. First a few turned heads, then exclamations, and then space opened up as this person moved through the crowd. From above it was like watching a shark glide through a shoal of fish.