Nobody Gets The Girl (16 page)

"If it had only stunned him for half a
second, I could have done something to save the woman. I could have
sealed his head inside a steel mask, if I'd thought fast
enough."

Nobody shook his head. "This is perverse. I
know why I feel bad. If I hadn't found Veronica, Rex Monday would
probably never have known she was important to me. She'd still be
alive. For you to blame yourself, though, is just plain unhealthy.
You did save my life, after all. You can't focus on everything at
once."

"Then I'm not trying hard enough," said
Amelia. "Every time I hesitate, people die."

"You didn't hesitate down in Texas. You
killed that guy who said he was Monday without blinking an eye. Yet
he was just a brainwashed victim. Maybe there's something to be
said for a slow approach."

"His death is just one of hundreds I have to
live with," said Amelia. She pressed her lips together into a tight
line.

"You take this stuff seriously," said
Richard.

"Unlike Sarah, I believe in my father's
mission. We can make the world a better place, if we devote our
minds and bodies to the task."

"You're being a little unfair to Sarah," said
Richard. "She's fighting beside you, putting her life on the line.
How can you say she doesn't take it seriously?"

"Did she tell you she thinks Father is
insane?"

"Yeah. Not a bad theory."

"But she continues to do his bidding."

"So do you."

"I believe him," said Amelia. Her gray eyes
continued to stare at him.

Richard turned away. The punching bag was
nearby, and he jabbed out at it, not very hard, but enough so that
his knuckles stung.

"Have you considered my offer to train you to
fight?" asked Amelia.

"I don't know," he said, tapping the bag
again. "I have to admit, you scare me. You might even be scarier
than your old man. You’re a very angry person, Amelia."

"Anger is a tremendous source of power," said
Amelia. "Anger, fear, guilt, shame... if you embrace these things,
they can make you better. They can light a fire within you that
burns away your weakness and doubt. If you feel guilty over
Veronica's death, you can push that guilt down and let it haunt
you, or you can keep it always in the front of your mind. You can
let it drive you to train and prepare to do the right thing the
next time you're in a tough situation."

Richard hit the bag again, then once more,
harder, making his fist throb. He turned to face Amelia.

"OK," he said. "Train me."

Amelia punched him in the stomach, dropping
him to his knees, barely able to breathe.

"Rule one. Never let your guard down."

"Noted," he wheezed.

DR. KNOW WATCHED
the banks of monitors
before him, barely listening to Nobody's words.

"Funny," said Nobody. "I thought you'd be
happy I decided to stick around."

"These are not cheerful times for me,
Richard. My years of hard work seem to be unraveling before my
eyes. The Middle East is on the brink of self-destruction. The more
effort I place on securing peace, the more the people clamor for
war. Baby Gun's attack on Jerusalem has taken on some sort of
prophetic significance, I fear. He's being seen as an avenging
angel, martyred by Israeli jets. There's no rationale, no logic
behind what is happening there. To bring peace, I’ve channeled
enormous resources to provide all citizens of the area with a
strong economy, with good health and fair laws. Our dome project
for Palestine will transform desert into cropland and allow people
to live in a modern paradise. Yet everyone seems ready to throw
these things away, all in the name of religion. The mention of the
word Jerusalem seems to destroy all reason among residents of the
area."

"It's been that way forever," said Nobody.
"Don't blame yourself. Oh, wait, I bet Amelia gets her blame
philosophy directly from you. You like blaming yourself for all of
this don't you?"

"Don't be absurd," said Dr. Know. "I don't
like blaming myself. But as long as we are discussing blame, I want
to find out how you feel about my role in Veronica's death."

"Your role? What role did you play?"

"After you left, I placed Veronica and your
parents under surveillance, guessing you might attempt to contact
them. Rex Monday seems to be aware of your existence, and I feared
he might try to use them to manipulate you."

"How does he know about me? He seemed aware
of me from the very first mission."

"I don't know. I can only speculate he has
some method of spying upon my electronic communications."

"That was a pretty clever gadget he cooked up
to see me, that hood. Why don't you fix me up with something like
that, maybe in reverse? A suit I wear that lets people see me?"

"The hood's circuitry was too damaged to
reconstruct. But I can work to develop something comparable."

"So maybe Rex Monday is another mad scientist
with super-telepathy?" Nobody said. "That would explain a lot."

"It would," said Dr. Know. "But while I'm
perfectly aware of the many absurdities of my existence, I'm not
quite prepared to accept that I have an evil twin."

"I guess that is a stretch," said Nobody.
"But here's what I'm prepared to believe. I believe you want to
make things better. So I'm signing on. I know you have projects all
around the world. But if you need an invisible man on the ground
anywhere, you can put me on a plane tomorrow."

"Yes," said Dr. Know. "Yes, I can make use of
you. Get some rest. You'll accompany Sarah to Jerusalem tomorrow.
She is overseeing an important development."

"Oh?"

"I'm taking the Old City of Jerusalem away
from Israel. I'm making it a world city, under the protection of
the United Nations. It will be ruled by a triumvirate of clerics,
one Jew, one Christian, and one Muslim."

"I can't imagine many people are going to be
happy about that," said Nobody.

"I'm not searching for happiness. Only
fairness and peace."

"And you think people will go along with
this?"

"Sarah can be very persuasive," said Dr.
Know.

"True," said Nobody.

JERUSALEM TURNED OUT
to be many
cities. Nobody wandered the streets, amazed at the contrast between
the different cultures and eras. In the space of an hour, he could
walk from modern shopping districts almost indistinguishable from
an American city to the Old City, where narrow, sunken streets
formed labyrinths through stone buildings unchanged for centuries.
The whole city, old and new, was a trip back to the stone age. The
rocks quarried from the land had a distinctive whiteness, and all
buildings, old and new, were built using this stone. Nobody guessed
it must be part of the zoning.

The other continuity was guns. Every shop,
every intersection had guards, now wearing the baby blue helmets of
UN peacekeepers. Nobody hung out in the restaurants, getting a feel
for how people felt about this. Not many people spoke English,
although many of the signs and menus sported it. He picked up
enough to know that the average citizen, both Jew and Arab, viewed
the UN troops with a feeling of dread. It was only a matter of time
before the peacekeepers were tested for readiness by a suicide
bomber.

Still, Dr. Know seemed on top of this. Nobody
had been run ragged for a month, invisibly thwarting the plans of
terrorists Dr. Know found with his telepathy. There had been a lot
of bombs that failed to explode lately, and a lot of vehicles
prepared for suicide runs that had mysteriously developed slashed
radiator hoses and ruptured fuel lines.

Only this morning he had managed to put a
stop to a situation in a hospital on the edge of Jerusalem. This
time it had been an Israeli settler that had taken hostages on the
third floor of the hospital, saying he would kill one person per
hour until the Peacekeepers withdrew from the city and returned it
to the sovereign rule of Israel. Nobody had reached the scene
before Sarah, who was on the other side of town when the crisis
broke out. He had infiltrated the third floor and discovered, to
his great relief, that the hostages were already being released as
the UN negotiator demanded. Then the gunman threw his guns out the
window, and Nobody felt like his work there was done.

Then he saw the gunman set the timer on the
bomb vest he wore under his coat.

"I'm coming out with my hands in the air,"
said the gunman. "Don't shoot."

Nobody studied the bomb. The timer read
ninety seconds. Just enough time to ride the elevator to the ground
floor and be surrounded by a dozen UN Peacekeepers.

Nobody walked backwards as the gunman walked
toward the elevator. Nobody ran his ghostly fingers along the
wiring, searching for some pattern in the multicolored spaghetti.
It was possible he might be able to pull a wire while the gunman
was distracted, but which one?

Just then the elevator door slid open, the
Thrill stepped out, looked at the gunman, and said, "Sleep."

The gunman smiled as his eyes rolled up into
his head. He swayed backward on his feet. A sickening hollow formed
in Nobody's stomach as he realized he was suddenly solid again, in
the absence of any observers other than Sarah. Worse, he'd
materialized in such a way that a green wire from the bomb was
actually looped through the buttonhole on the sleeve of his shirt.
He tried to keep the gunman from falling backwards, to no avail.
The man slipped from his grasp and the wire popped out of the bomb
with a barely audible snap. The timer froze at seventy-three.

The Thrill looked at the timer, then patted
Nobody on the back. "Good work on the bomb," she said. "How'd you
know which wire to pull?"

"I always knew one day I'd sell my soul to
the devil," said Nobody.

The Israelis had once asked for a week
without bombings. Thanks to Nobody, they'd had a month.

And what a whirlwind month it had been. The
agreement had been announced shortly after he arrived. As far as
the world knew, the agreement had been hammered out over long weeks
of negotiations by the American President, the Israeli Prime
Minister, and representatives from several Arab nations. Nobody
knew the reality involved very little arm-twisting. The Thrill had
just told those concerned what needed to be done, and they did it,
with smiles on their faces.

Sitting in a street café on the edge of the
Old City, eating falafel and humus, Nobody listened in on those
conversations he could follow. Dr. Know's scheme was accepted by
most people. Or, if not accepted, tolerated. People here were used
to the world's meddling.

The deployment of United Nations troops in
the Old City was almost complete. A ceremony was planned at the
square edged by the Wailing Wall. The three ruling clerics were to
sign a treaty and take command of the city. Nobody rubbed his tired
shins. It had been a long while since he'd had a day off. But he
wasn't complaining. He finally felt he was on the right team, that
he could make a difference in the world. It was a good feeling.

RAIL BLADE JOINED
the Thrill and
Nobody the day before the ceremony.

"It's been quiet," said Nobody. "People seem
to have accepted this world city idea."

Rail Blade looked at him like he was a
foolish child. "Rex Monday has something planned. He'll do whatever
it takes to stop this ceremony."

"I can't imagine how we can be any better
prepared," the Thrill said. "We've got UN troops everywhere.
Everyone who enters the square to witness the signing will be
checked for weapons. And of course, we have you scanning for
weapons as well. If there's going to be trouble, it won't be coming
from the crowd."

"I still think something bad will happen,"
said Rail Blade.

"We'll be careful," said Nobody. "Trust me,
we aren't complacent about this."

"Good," said Rail Blade. "Because these are
the most serious stakes you can imagine. If something does go
wrong, it could plunge the whole region into war, and drag the rest
of the world with it. One false move, and we could trigger the
Apocalypse."

Nobody started to tell her to lighten up. But
he wasn't in the mood for another punch in the stomach, so he kept
quiet.

A CIRCULAR PLATFORM
was erected in the
middle of the square. Nobody stood at the foot of the Wailing Wall,
staring at all the slips of paper stuck into the cracks. Studying
it, he finally understood something about the sacredness of this
place. He was cynical enough to doubt that the world truly held
sacred spaces, especially now that he'd met the man who claimed to
have assembled the world. But maybe it all came down to what people
believed. He believed he was real, and so he lingered on despite
the accident. People believed this ground sacred, and that was
enough to make it so. He felt once more that he was grappling with
things his mind hadn't been fully prepared for, concepts too large
to fit neatly inside his skull. No wonder Dr. Know used spares.

The signing was scheduled to take place at
noon. Blue UN peacekeepers helmets were everywhere. A half dozen
television cameras were set up to record the ceremony, with feeds
available to all networks and news media. Ten thousand citizens of
Jerusalem—Muslim, Jew, and Christian—had won tickets in a lottery
to witness the signing, and the square was packed. Nobody walked
through the crowd, keeping an eye out for anything that looked
suspicious. Too many people were wearing loose clothes for his
comfort. He kept imagining dynamite beneath every burqa or
plastique in every suit. But Rail Blade would sense anything if
there was trouble, and Dr. Know was on the lookout for minds shut
to him, a sure sign of Rex Monday's involvement. For the most part,
people seemed excited and happy. Had Sarah talked to every resident
of the city individually?