“Is there a point to this? Do you want to use that to bust my balls on the dollar amount of my bid?”
“I don’t, actually. I was just noting it.”
“What I think you’re doing, Major,” he said bluntly, “is reminding me that you know where Prospero is and that you’re keeping an eye on him. And I’m okay with that as long as you keep your hands off of him.”
“We have no intention of interfering with his research,” Sails assured him. “My concern, if you want to know, is that he remains safe during the, um… more turbulent stages of his research.”
“Like I said, he’s not stupid.”
Sails air-toasted him on that. “My superiors took particular notice of the power blackout that seemed to coincide with the incident at the school. All of Poland, Maine, went dark.”
“Isn’t that interesting as hell?”
“It is. Sadly, one of the local merchants passed away, did you hear that? It seems his pacemaker suddenly stopped working. It happened during the blackout, and local authorities are baffled. I heard they’re blaming it on sunspots.”
Bell laughed. “Sunspots? Nice spin. Anyone buying it?”
“We may have seeded that to the local press,” she said, making it sound offhand. “Sunspots are known to have unusually powerful effects on electrical conductivity.”
“Yeah, how about that?”
Sails set her glass down and reached into her purse to produce a crisp envelope with a sturdy seal. Bell inspected it, arching an eyebrow at the seal. It was a red circle with an infinity symbol. No eagle, no name, no wording. Bell felt his heart quicken. He had heard of this group but had never once come this close to it.
“This isn’t what I expected,” he said.
“Open it.”
He did. The letter was on heavy stationery, the kind rarely used in this digital age. A single sheet. The text was brief and to the point. He was being officially advised that his proposal had been accepted pending his signing nondisclosure agreements and taking certain oaths. Upon completion of those steps half of the proposed and agreed-upon price would be transferred to his account. Upon delivery of a working machine the other half would be deposited. There were notes about bonuses based on early-delivery dates, and penalties for exceeding the deadline. That part was commonplace and there were usually workarounds and compromises to be made.
What interested him most was the name at the bottom of the letter. It was neither a military nor bureaucratic name. The letter was signed by a scientist.
Someone Bell already knew.
Someone Bell used to be related to. He looked up.
“What’s this bullshit?”
“It’s not bullshit,” said Sails.
“This is from Mark Erskine.”
“Yes.”
“Is this a joke? He’s my fucking ex-brother-in-law.”
“Yes. And he’s Prospero’s uncle.”
Bell looked at the name again. “How is he involved in this? He’s not in the Department of Defense and he’s not with DARPA. He didn’t even know what DARPA was when I mentioned it to him.”
Sails smiled. “Believe me when I tell you that Dr. Erskine is very familiar with DARPA and with many aspects of advanced research for the Department of Defense. What you might call off-the-record departments.”
“I don’t believe you….” Bell stopped. “Wait. Are you telling me that Erskine is with Majestic?”
Sails smiled. “We call our division Gateway.”
“Son of a bitch!” swore Bell. He flung the letter at her but Sails plucked it out of the air and folded it neatly.
“Mr. Bell,” she said, “do you honestly think we would not have eyes on children like Prospero?”
“Children like him? What do you mean by that?”
She spread her hands. “Prospero may have many unique and very attractive qualities — as we both know — but he is hardly as alone in the world as he thinks he is.”
“Jesus Christ.”
Sails stood up so that she was eye to eye with him. “Let’s stop the dance, Mr. Bell. May I call you Oscar?”
“Sure. Whatever.”
“I’m Corrine,” she said. “The truth is that we recognize that you have been able to find the formula for getting Prospero to work up to his greatest potential. ‘Tortured artist syndrome’? That’s amazing. That report from Dr. Greene started fires all through my department. And while I can’t say that I am comfortable with some of your methods, the results speak for themselves. I’m here to congratulate you and to present our offer. You made it. You’re in.” She paused. “You won, Mr. Bell. Be happy. Dr. Erskine is very excited about the God Machine. He is already making plans to build a full-scale version of it at a secure location we have set aside. More on that after you’ve been sworn in. Erskine thinks that the meltdown problems can’t be solved when working on scale versions. It’s too hard to observe the electrodynamics. So he’ll build a fully functional device, and if — no, when — we solve the power sequencing problems and reach field implementation, you will very likely go down in history as the man who prevented the next world war. Together we could actually save the world. How would that feel, Mr. Bell?” She smiled and held out her glass. “Care to toast to that?”
“Save the world?” he echoed. “Fuck the world.”
But he clinked his glass with hers.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
They put me in a small medical bay that wasn’t much bigger than a porta-potty. Everything was white and sterile and scary as hell. Doctors and nurses came in wearing hazmat suits, trailing wires and hoses. They took every sample that it is possible to take from a human being, and they did it all very fast. Desperately fast, which was not at all reassuring. They asked me a lot of questions but the more I talked, the more truthfully I answered them, the stranger the looks they gave me. Soon they weren’t even meeting my eyes.
My fever spiked and then dropped sharply. Did that a couple of times. Each time it spiked I saw the numbers on the machines. First time was 100 degrees. Second time was 101.4. My heart was racing. My joints hurt and my glands felt like hot rocks under my chin. Sweat poured down my body. They had me on IVs but I think all of it flowed out of my pores. The lights began getting brighter, sounds became tinny and shrill.
“What’s wrong with me?” I asked, desperate for something to cling to.
“We’re doing everything we can,” someone told me. Or maybe everyone told me that. Not an answer. Even a bad answer is less scary than that.
Then another doctor entered the room. Same hazmat suit as the others, but the face behind the plastic was one that I absolutely wanted to see. Needed to see. It was the face of a man who always seemed to have answers for me.
“Rudy!” I cried, reaching for him, but he stood in the doorway and would not approach within touching distance. Rudy Sanchez looks and even sounds like Raúl Juliá from the old Addams Family movies. A rich baritone voice, intelligent eyes that were filled with wisdom, and a manner of quiet confidence that usually put the pin back into the grenade when I was, psychologically speaking, ready to blow.
But not now. He stood in the doorway, wrapped in the highest-level protective gear in the catalog, and studied me with eyes that were filled with pity, and concern, and fear.
“Rudy—?”
“Cowboy,” he said quietly, “the medical team here is doing everything they can.”
It scared me even more to hear him spout a company line like that. When the doctors say that it is never — ever — a good thing.