Ariel led him to an elevator, the doors whisking open at their approach. She started to board, and he said, “No.”
“I’m sorry?”
“I’m going alone.”
“I’m sorry, sir, but Mr. Epstein asked that I join this meeting.”
“I’ll explain why you’re not there.”
She hesitated, then said, “Regardless, the security team—”
“Can wait down here.” He adopted a bland smile. “This is still American soil, Ms. Ariel, and I’m here at the personal request of the president. Believe me when I say now is not the time to start a turf war.”
The word “war” seemed to hang in the air. After a moment, Ariel said, “As you wish.”
Cooper smiled, then boarded the elevator. There were no buttons, but he wasn’t surprised that it slid immediately into motion.
He shouldn’t have been surprised by who was waiting on the other side, either, but he was. A ten-year-old girl with electric purple hair and clenched shoulders, eyes that wouldn’t meet his own. “Hi,” she said. Then, “Oh God. Really? They’re going to attack?”
Cooper sighed. “Hi, Millicent. Dyed your hair a different color, huh?”
“Nick Cooper. Welcome back to the NCH.” The man wore a five-thousand-dollar suit and the easy grace of someone who dined with presidents and golfed with oil barons, who bantered on CNN and spoke on the floor of the Senate. The world knew him as Erik Epstein.
The world was wrong.
“Hello, Jakob. Nice to finally shake your hand.” The last time Cooper had been here, Jakob Epstein had appeared as a fully dimensional hologram, a stunning reminder of how far advanced technology was in the NCH. That had been the Holdfast’s real defense these last years; not legal wranglings or massed billions, but simply the fact that there were more brilliants here than anywhere else, that they were working together, and that the results of that work were astonishing. The best way to protect your country, Cooper thought, is to create things people desire more than they fear your ability to create them.
“Our deal. You didn’t honor it. Statistically, that was unlikely, 12.2 percent.” The real Erik Epstein slumped on a couch, blinking like an animal ripped from its den. It wasn’t entirely inaccurate. The last time Cooper had been here, he’d seen Erik’s inner sanctum, a digital Xanadu below the building. A cave of wonders, he’d thought at the time—a solemn, dim space, lit entirely by projected data. Within it, Erik worked his gift, finding patterns in seemingly unrelated things and using them to expand his empire. It was there that Erik had predicted that John Smith represented the greatest threat to the New Canaan Holdfast; Epstein believed that his actions would drive the United States government to grow increasingly repressive against all abnorms, and specifically against the NCH.
And he was right.
“Our arrangement,” Erik continued, “was that you would kill John Smith. You didn’t.”
“You didn’t tell me the truth about him,” Cooper said. There was no point in being anything but open so long as Millie was in the room. She was one of the most powerful readers he’d ever come across, a gift that was in practice a terrible curse. Readers didn’t have a filter, couldn’t choose to turn away from what their gift offered. Tier-one readers saw everything, every hint of darkness in a person’s soul, every fractional flicker of cruelty and evil. Starting with Mommy and Daddy.
Poor Millie had never known peace in her own mind, never known trust or faith. Would never believe in love, because she saw clearly the parts of themselves people never showed the ones they loved. She would almost certainly kill herself before she was twenty.
“It’s okay,” she said. “Don’t feel sorry.”
“I can’t help it.”
“Be afraid instead.”
The words were ice down his spine. He looked at her, then at Erik and Jakob. “I am afraid.”
“These are fearful times,” Jakob said, sitting on the edge of his desk. “And you betrayed us.”
“Prior chance of the US military attacking New Canaan: 53.2 percent.” Erik spoke with his eyes closed, one hand in his lank hair. “Current chance, given impeachment of President Walker, deactivation of Equitable Services, and the emergence of the Children of Darwin: 93.2 percent within the next two weeks.”
“Three things which are all, by the way, your fault, Cooper.” Jakob smiled thinly. “More or less.”
“You didn’t tell me the truth,” Cooper repeated. “You manipulated me the same way Smith did.”
“Truth is relative. Data is absolute.”
“Okay, well, you didn’t give me all the data, then, did you?” Cooper hadn’t known what to expect out of this meeting, but it hadn’t been this. “You didn’t tell me that Smith wasn’t behind the massacre at the Monocle. You didn’t tell me that President Walker and Drew Peters were. You didn’t tell me that there was evidence of it.”
Erik waved his hands. “Irrelevant. You came to New Canaan to kill John Smith. That was your mission. His death would have stabilized trends. Helped protect our art. We made a deal. You broke it.”
“And then you made things worse,” Jakob said, “by releasing that video.”
Cooper struggled for words. None of this was a surprise. It was the reason he had joined Clay in the first place, the reason he had kidnapped John Smith, the reason he was here right now. Because in your heart, you know that what you did, while morally correct, was a mistake. The world would be in better shape if you had used the Monocle video to blackmail President Walker. The Children of Darwin would never have been this successful if the DAR was strong and Walker was still in charge. You could have put yourself in a position to shape policy and improve lives.
True, he would have to become corrupt himself. But did his personal values count more than the lives at stake?
Somehow doing the right thing was wrong. Dad never covered that eventuality, did he, Coop?
Millie said, “He understands.”
“I’m sure he does,” Jakob said. “But understanding doesn’t fix anything, does it?”
“Maybe not. But that’s why I’m here. Do you want to know what would be happening right now if I weren’t?” Cooper was about to continue, but instead he turned to Millie. Put all the events of the last days in his eyes and his bearing. Remembered standing in the Oval Office last night watching Cleveland burn. “Tell them.”
She cringed, dipping her face to her lap, hiding behind a shield of purple hair. Erik and Jakob both looked at her, staring intently. Cooper felt another flash of sympathy for the girl. Ten years old, and grown men were looking to her for information that would decide the fate of the country.
Finally, she said, “They want to attack. Not just the Holdfast. Brilliants.”
“By ‘they,’ ” Cooper said, “she means the most powerful people on the planet. Last night Defense Secretary Leahy gave orders to arrest all known tier ones, start the microchipping program, and move military forces to your borders in preparation for an invasion. None of which happened—because I stopped it. So how about you two drop the tough-guy act and we work the problem together?”
A long moment of silence fell. Jakob turned to face the floor-to-ceiling windows. The city of Tesla spread out around them, orderly and neat, a new world sprung from desert soil. A world that Cooper had to admit he quite liked. More than that—admired. Ever since the emergence of the gifted thirty-odd years ago, most of the world had been turning inward, becoming destructive. His own government had focused on containment and control, on smashing anything deemed dangerous.