Luca (36 page)

Without hesitation, she accesses her internal account where a copy of the data cube Mercer gave her is stored. With a flick of her thumb, she uploads it to her Mesh-site where it will automatically enter her feed for the world to see.

Still holding her breath, she waits for confirmation of the upload. And then her work will be done.

Illegal data operation. Export not authorized.

The jax glows red.

Mercer has thrown a seal around the building. Makes sense. It was too much to hope that it would be so easy. She’ll have to see Mercer in person after all.

As she takes a step forward, lights spark in the lobby.

On a hunch, she walks across the floor to the elevator, her shoes leaving dusty tracks on the black marble.

The elevator doors open, inviting her in.

He’s waiting.

For an instant, Qaara wavers. She casts a glance behind her to make sure Jedd and Ricky haven’t followed. Then she enters and punches the 250th floor. The closing doors remind her of shark teeth. The elevator shoots up.

He’ll expect me to be mad. And, I am.

Pulling the machine gun from her shoulder, she releases the safety, holds the barrel level with her waist, finger on the trigger. And waits, eyes on the numbers floating through the display.

Her weight drains away as the elevator slows down. And then it stops, gravity pulling on her feet. A tremble causes her to wonder if Mercer will throw the elevator into freefall.

The doors slide open into a well-lit waiting room.

Without looking to see if anyone is there, Qaara holds the trigger down on the machine gun and sprays the walls and floor with bullets. A twelfth century Chinese vase on a pedestal explodes into shards. Priceless glass panels shatter. Wood flooring from an ancient Japanese Shinto shrine is reduced to splinters.

And then silence.

“Is that you, Qaara?”

Mercer’s voice.

She turns in the direction of the sound and lets more bullets fly as she walks to the center of the room.

“You know it’s me. Show yourself, Mercer.”

“You are a very changed woman, Qaara. What happened out in the Zone? Too much sun?”

She sees a small speaker on the wall and destroys it. “It’s time to let the world know what’s happening. To give
everyone
a chance to survive.”

“But that is such a waste. We lose the element of surprise. A historic opportunity frittered away.”

Qaara flips around, looking for the source of the voice.

“I wanted you to be part of it all, Qaara.” The voice comes from multiple locations, bouncing off the walls. “You still can."

She yells and spins in a circle, spraying bullets in all directions until her gun falls silent.

“Out of ammo?”

A thick metal door on the other side of the lobby slowly swings open. Two men in black battle armor step out, each holding a machine gun not unlike Qaara’s. They walk briskly forward, weapons trained on her.

Mercer stands in the doorway behind them. “Nice to have you back.”

Swinging her gun like a club, she rushes to meet the men, connecting with one of them and kicking another, dropping both to the floor. The third man slips a green tube out of his sleeve, pivots and rams it into the base of her neck.

Qaara feels herself collapsing to the floor.

*****

She awakens in a room devoid of light. It feels like she is lying on a sofa. Her head throbs, but she is otherwise uninjured.

I was right. He doesn’t want to kill me.

“A bit dramatic, don’t you think?” Mercer’s voice comes from behind her. “You could have just walked into my office without the gun.”

“Why didn’t you kill me?”

“Because I’ve forgiven you.” Mercer moves to the other side. “Why did you come back?”

“To stop you.”

“Stop me from . . . what? Saving thousands of people that otherwise would die? Saving our culture and civilization so that we don’t waste all that’s been achieved? Saving a cross section of Earth life so that the last three billion years of evolution aren’t a total waste?”

“If you were interested in saving people, you would have told the world. There would have been months to prepare. Plans could have been made.”

“I’m not going to squander this opportunity.”

“You kept the knowledge to yourself. So you could be in total control.” Qaara sits up. “You’re a murderer of billions.”

The holo comes on in the middle of the room, showing the layout of the facility in Fukushima, Japan. Massive black domes form the outer rim of a wheel, not far from the ocean.

“I like to think of it as the Wheel of Life or something like that. Beautiful, don’t you think?”

“Looks like a bunch of big mud huts.” Qaara squints against the sudden light. “I don’t want anything to do with you or your sick plan.”

“You’d rather die?”

“I’d rather die with honor than live with disgrace.”

Mercer’s eyes narrow. “I’m only exercising my duty to perpetuate the human species.”

“Don’t make excuses. You’re protecting yourself at the expense of everyone else and setting yourself up as king. Dictator. Emperor."

“Come with me, Qaara.” Mercer stands directly in front of her. “I’ve made all the arrangements. The old civilization is dying. Along with all of its problems. The City is symbolic of that. Let the people of the Zone enjoy their conquest for a few more days. It doesn’t matter anymore. We have a chance to start over. We can leave it all behind.”

“I’d rather stay here and die with them.”

“Don’t you see, Qaara? All of this is a gift. The Cloud, the killer molecule, everything. It’s as if you and I have been chosen to lead the new world. It's what we were born to do.”

A strange noise, like the buzzing of a bumblebee, comes from outside.

Qaara slips her fingers into her pocket and finds the jax. Her fingers crawl quickly over its surface. She knows the settings by heart.

Wide area audio should do it.

No guarantees on whether it will work. Just a few more seconds for the algorithm to load. A short vibration tells her it’s ready. But how to get Mercer into position?

Make him move around.

Make him angry.

“I got access to your father’s files. Did I ever tell you that? He was right about you.” Qaara positions her finger over the end of her jax, ready to tap. "The words
wasted potential
and
incurable narcissist
came up a lot.”

Mercer laughs. “Why try to bait me? I’ve dealt with my father in the way that suited me. But, now that you mention him, it does cause me to wonder what he would say if he could see me now.” Mercer walks in a wide arc around her, getting closer to the blacked-out windows.

All of them made of solid Graff.

“He would be sick at heart at the monster you’ve become.”

“Perhaps,” Mercer says. “But at least he wouldn’t think I'm a failure. He would be awed at what I’ve accomplished. At what I’m on the cusp of becoming.”

Qaara drops her hand with the jax down to her side, out of sight. “And what
are
you becoming?”

Cocking his head, Mercer’s lips start to curl into a smile. “A creator. No,
the
Creator. I’m taking that position away from the Cloud.”

“You think it’s intelligent?” Qaara can’t help asking the question.

“I
know
it is. I saw an image of it. It was
reaching
for the Earth. This is the second time the Cloud has come around. Maybe even the third. The last time, three billion years ago, it didn't find what it was looking for, at least that’s what the people alive at the time thought, so it wiped the slate clean. To give evolution another chance.”

“What do you think it’s looking for?”

“Hard to say. It might be looking for something specific. Highly evolved. Beyond the garden variety
Fringe-type
human. Perhaps even beyond you and me.”

Qaara settles back into the sofa. “And it’s not going to find it, right?”

“I seriously doubt it.” Mercer walks in a wider arc this time. “The Cloud is probably scanning Earth right now. Maybe that's the cause of the interference with our electronics.”

“A highly speculative conclusion. Or you know more than you’re letting on.” It clicks in Qaara’s mind. “The memory cube you gave me didn’t contain all your files, did it?”

“Hardly.” Mercer turns to face her. “I was saving the rest, the most interesting parts, for you. Once I determined you could be trusted."

“Have I failed the test?”

“So far.”

“You broke the encryption on the little chip your father found buried in the crust, didn’t you? Not just the DNA sequences but the entire chip. Am I right?”

Mercer can’t suppress a smile. “Yes. We did, as a matter of fact.”

“Tell me about it.” Qaara doesn’t have to fake interest.

“It was a gift from the past. A voice crying from the dust. They solved the mystery of the Cloud, decoded its DNA, but knew it was too late for them. And they knew it would come back.” Mercer takes a seat on the sofa next to Qaara.

“Let me guess.” She gently slides the jax under her thigh. “They were able to communicate with it?”

“Not so much communicate, but they were able to detect information. Words. Thoughts, perhaps. Movement of energy within the Cloud in nonrandom patterns. It was
speaking
to them.”

“And what did the Cloud say?”

“That remained a mystery. They and their supercomputers were never able to decipher it.” Mercer forms his fingers into a steeple. “Not enough time before it consumed their world. And there’s more. Much more. I’d like to share it all with you, Qaara. But you’ll have to come with me to find out the rest."

The same buzzing sound floats outside the building, this time closer.

Qaara pushes off the sofa and stands. “It’s no good, Mercer. Your project suffers from a fatal flaw.” She walks to the windows that wrap around the room, hoping Mercer will follow.

He does. “What flaw?”

“You.” Qaara poises her thumb over the end of the jax. “Assuming your domes will survive the destructive effects of the killer molecule's acid, the civilization you build and pass on will be a nightmare. Worse than simply allowing evolution to start over.”

“You really think so?”

“Like I said, you’re a monster.”

Mercer steps behind her, only a few feet from the window.

The sound outside is closer now.

Qaara taps the end of her jax. A faint, high-pitched whine rises from her hand.

Mercer stops to listen. “What is—”

The black glass liquefies into dust. Light and empty space fill the room. Mercer reaches hands up to cover his eyes. An old-fashioned army helicopter hovers only a couple of body lengths away.

Jedd and Ricky are on board, hanging out a window, both brandishing machine guns. From the looks on their faces, they are as surprised as Mercer.

Without taking time to think, Qaara executes the remainder of her plan. Lunging at Mercer, she pushes him to the open window.

In the instant before they both go over the edge into empty space, she smiles at Jedd.

“No!” Jedd yells.

Qaara and Mercer fall toward the pavement.

58

OUT OF THE GROUND

A rush of movement.

Luca’s eyes snap open.

“What are these things?” Suri points at the ground around them.

In an instant, Luca finds the voice of Alice in the multitude of voices inside the domes. Then she drops her gaze to the grass.

It’s littered with little balls the size of tiny marbles, hard to the touch, as if made of black glass. But they are everywhere, even clinging to the girls’ clothing.

By now, all the girls are awake, brushing the little balls off. Suri bends down and picks up a handful.

“Don’t touch them,” Luca says. “Keep them away from your skin."

Suri pulls her hand up. “What are they? Insect eggs?”

“I don’t think so. They must be from the ash.” As Luca’s eyes grow accustomed to the light, she sees that the little balls are attached to everything, flowers, bushes, grass, rocks. Except for the domes. Their outside walls are completely clean, glistening in the pale orange glow. She looks up.

The sky.

The deep red color has faded to a muted orange.

She wonders about the Voice.

Slowly, she opens her mind to it, to the same place in her mind where she last heard it as a massive chaos of swirling sound.

At first, she can’t find it.

Then she realizes it’s
everywhere
, like static in the background against which she hears all other voices. Concentrating on making a connection, she pulls in a breath and goes as deeply as she can, past all the other voices. Past the voice of Alice and all the people in the domes. Past the voices of the other girls in the group. She leaves everything behind and goes into the space
between
the voices.

I am Luca. Who are you? What are you looking for?

No response.

She has an idea. Focusing on the tiny balls on the ground she projects her mind into them, as if they were a colony of insects.

The Voice is there. Scattered throughout the balls.

But no matter how hard she listens or speaks to the Voice, it doesn’t respond. As if it can no longer hear her. Or has no interest.

I’m coming.

This time, it’s Alice’s voice that startles Luca.

Instinctively, Luca jumps to Alice’s mind. She’s walking down a long hall, alone, in the dark, engaged in deep thought. Alice is thinking about another part of the dome structure and what other people are doing there right now.

She’s hoping the guards will be gone when she gets to the door.

Luca scans the minds inside the dome. Most of them are in their rooms, asleep. A group of five has separated themselves from Alice and is quickly moving to another part of the building. They are thinking of what Alice will do. All of them have a plan. All of them are working together.

The five are going to start a fire. They are hoping the guards lingering near the door to the outside will leave.