He was tired.
“So?” Sanders asked. He folded his arms. “Insights from your side of the street?”
“It’s not like Colorado,” I said. “Not at all. That felt as if it had been built by human hands.”
“That’s because it was,” Sanders replied. “Built by the Church of the New World. Their training-slash-inspirational camp, preaching and war games all rolled into one. Thing is, the CNW wasn’t one of those apocalypse cults, originally; it was built by a bunch of hippies who wanted to do the peace and love thing. Gradually got taken over by more and more extreme elements. But even so, we never expected them to ramp up to industrial crazy. They were—” He shrugged. “Normal. As such things go.”
“Until last year,” I said. He nodded. “And when did this structure appear?” I touched the white bubble shown in the pictures.
“About eight months ago,” he said. Same in Colorado. Same in two other places we know of. Same damn structure. This one’s the largest, though. It’s about the size of a football stadium, though it’s not very tall. We figure all their facilities are inside, including whatever training they’re doing.”
“Who comes in and out?”
“In, we get individual cars and trucks. Not too many of those. Most are registered to members of the church, a few suppliers who drop off stuff and drive away.”
Luis asked, “Who comes out to get it?”
“Nobody,” Sanders said. “It sits there until dark. We monitor with night vision, but we never see anybody come out to get it. It just . . . disappears.”
I nodded. I understood, now. “I will need a list of those . . . suppliers.”
“They all check out. And yeah, we’ve tried putting tracking and surveillance into the shipments. No good. Everything gets blocked as soon as it’s inside that dome. Some kind of interference.”
“I’ll need the list,” I repeated. “And a weapon. Perhaps one of those large ones your agents carried in the clearing.”
“Uh-huh,” Sanders said, not in any way as if he was acceding to my request. “And you’d like this because . . . ?”
“Trust me,” Luis said. “I don’t think it’s better to know the answer to that one.”
“Gotta write a report,” Sanders said. “Government runs on reports. So yes. I need an answer before I say yes, no, or anything.”
I shrugged. “I’m going to get into the facility,” I said. “Now that I know how. And I’m going to take a gun because I might need to shoot those who get in my way of retrieving Isabel and as many of the other children as possible.”
Sanders blinked. “You’re going to get inside. Shoot people. Rescue the kids.”
“Yes.”
“That’s your plan.”
“It is.”
He looked at Luis. “Help me out.”
“I think you need a little work on it,” Luis told me. “Particularly in the part where you don’t have any kind of backup or information about what’s inside in the first place. Cass, for all you know, this is one giant fly trap, and you’re the fly. You go in there, you may never make it out. And you’re the one who said she’s all about the Djinn. Maybe she’s just waiting for a Djinn.”
“I’m not a Djinn,” I reminded him. “And I would happily accept backup from you. And any other Wardens you can locate and deliver quickly. But we can’t wait. They know we’re here. They won’t be content to wait quietly much longer.”
“Before they do what?” Sanders asked. His voice had gone quiet. The other agents in the tent—and they were all listening closely, although appearing not to—suddenly looked up, fixed on the answer to his question.
“Show me where the other facilities are located.” He looked nonplussed by the question, then nodded to a nearby female agent, who tapped keys on her computer and pulled up four quadrants on the glowing screen. One was labeled ROSE CANYON, LA JOLLA, CALIFORNIA—where we currently stood. One was labeled DOGTOWN COMMONS, MASSACHUSETTS, and it looked virtually identical to what was shown in La Jolla. Another said ADAMS, TENNESSEE. The last was OHIOVILLE, PENNSYLVANIA. “Show me on a map,” I said. She pulled it up and illuminated the locations for me.
I called on Oversight, bringing the aetheric filter in front of my eyes, and saw the ghostly rivers of power that some humans still called ley lines.
Every one of these spots sat on a nexus, a power center. Oracles were situated on such spots; Sedona, for the Earth Oracle; Seacasket, for the Fire Oracle. Only the Weather Oracle had no fixed location that anyone could identify.
Pearl had established herself—or some aspect of herself—on the supernatural equivalent of a power grid, at the most powerful spots not being watched over by Djinn Oracles.
And all of the locations— allof them—now looked identical. The precisely measured open ground, freed of vegetation. The same glowing dome. Each location was bordered by geography that made it difficult to approach.
She had built herself a network, a support system, and a web of energy.
“Ley lines,” I told Luis. He nodded. “You see what she’s doing?”
“Building herself a power grid? Yeah, I see it. The question is, what’s inside the domes? And which one is she in, physically?”
“I’m not sure she’s in any of them,” I said. “Or, more accurately, I’m not sure she’s not in allof them. I think the dome isPearl. But she is able to exist simultaneously, in different locations.”
Luis grunted. “Wouldn’t that divide her power?”
“I don’t know,” I said. With the ley lines, it was possible that she could draw from one location to another, move her consciousness seamlessly between the four sites without much, if any, delay. “How many other nexus points are open?”
“In this country? Probably about ten. You think she’ll go after those, too?”
The FBI agent running the computer said, “The Ohioville location, there? That only came up on our radar about two months ago. Locals swear it wasn’t there before. Satellite imaging confirms it.”
Pearl was spreading her influence. It was an infection, a kind of disease traveling along the invisible lines of power that crisscrossed the planet’s surface, and also served as conduits directly through its core. These installations could spring up like mushrooms, without warning.
“I think,” I said quietly, “that if she can get enough power, she will spread to every nexus point in the world. Think of these as blisters, holding in infection.” I tapped the screen, and the white dome. “When they break . . .”
Silence. They all looked at me. Luis looked faintly sick. “How much trouble are we in, exactly?”
Enough that I was being forced, again, to consider Ashan’s orders. Destroy them all. She is powering herself through the humans. Cut out the humans, you cut her connection to the Earth, and she can be killed, once and for all.
Her war was against the Djinn, and yes, she would destroy them and absorb their aetheric power; but her heart, her soul, her spirit was channeled through humanity, in the same way that Djinn were connected to the Oracles.
I don’t want to do this,some part of me whispered. Indeed, I did not. I dreaded it with all my soul. To destroy humanity, I would have to feel their pain, their deaths, their livespassing through me, being removed from the world and the living memory of the Mother. I would have to unmake Luis Rocha. Isabel. Even the fragile memorials of the dead, like Manny and Angela.
I couldn’t. I couldn’t bring myself to take that step, not even looking at this appalling thing in front of me, and understanding how little time was left to us.
There’s still time. There must be a way to stop her.
I had to try. For the sake of those I loved, for the sake of those I didn’t, like Agent Sanders and his unseen family, I had to not only try, but succeed.