Patrick Griffin's Last Breakfast on Earth (28 page)

Rex turned down the Creed album, put his hands behind his black-turtlenecked back, cleared his throat, and began the meeting. The ocean view faded and the windows went entirely black. One hundred twenty tiles illuminated around him, each containing a middle-aged face—men and women of all racial and ethnic descriptions, though wearing nearly the same humorless expression.

These were the remaining candidates, the novitiates, for Earth's first Deaconry.

Rex gave a cool smile and addressed his virtual audience. “I apologize for the interruption but Novitiate Kyle from Prefecture One is here to recount highlights from his recent mission, and I wanted us all to witness the debrief in real time. Novitiate Kyle—if you please?”

“Oh, uh, yes, Your Awarenence. I tracked the subject from the insertion point to a golf course at latitude 41.14534, longitude minus 73.83089, approximately two kilometers to the east. Somewhere between insertion and my intercept, the visitor made contact with four humans—juveniles, all approximately age four and therefore on the lower spectrum of witness reliability.”

Rex raised his dark, well-tended eyebrows. “Please remind us how this might impact your mission objectives, if at all?”

“Well, of course I had to address that situation, too. ‘Failure to manage risk is mission failure,'” he said, reciting a line from the training manual.

“Indeed,” said Rex, smiling. “And how did you proceed once past this decision juncture?”

“I picked up their trail and, by approximately one point four-two dunts, I achieved contact.”

“And then?”

Novitiate Frank Kyle wondered if the pounding in his head was visible to the camera as he proceeded to recount everything that followed—from his discovery that his neural alarms had been muted to his getting knocked unconscious (presumably by the enemy combatant) to his discovery that his equipment had been stolen—right up to the point where he encountered his fellow novitiates and was taken back to regional headquarters.

“And, so,” said Rex, his words staccato with impatience, “how would you characterize the overall success of your mission?”

“Umm, 42 percent, Your Awarenence.”

“Really? Tell us, how did you arrive at this figure?”

Novitiate Frank Kyle tried to assume a confident smile but it looked more like he was trying to crimp an invisible piece of foil with his lips.

“Well,” he said, coughing softly, “successful assessment is half of mission success, but I of course lost my equipment and had to give myself a deduction there.”

“But you give yourself
some
credit?”

“Yes, Your Awarenence. I tracked and located the enemy combatant, plus I personally discovered it had the ability to access my neural network, which certainly would be unprecedented, so it seems to me that—”

“And did you visually register the enemy combatant—did you actually
see
it?”

“Well, umm, not entirely.”

“And the lost equipment? You are referring to your field-issue rifle and BNK-E?”

“Yes, Your Awarenence.”

Rex's eyes wandered upward thoughtfully. “Anything else go missing?”

Victor Pierre gave a little bark of a laugh. He was the only novitiate who could have gotten away with such a piece of spontaneity in front of Rex, and everybody—himself included—knew it.

“No, I did a thorough inventory and—”

“You also lost an
opportunity
, did you not?”

“Well—”

“And you lost us
time
, didn't you? You lost valuable
time
for our team, for this world, and for the Minder himself?”

“Well, in a manner of speaking, I—”

“A manner of speaking?! Are you accusing me of communicating information in a roundabout or colloquial fashion?”

“Of course not—I—”

“Quiet. I actually am inclined to concur with your self-assessment.”

Novitiate Frank Kyle breathed a sigh of relief.

“But let's put a
minus
symbol in front of it.”

“Uh,” said Novitiate Frank Kyle, more than just his hands shaking now.

Rex, too, seemed to be shaking—with rage. “You are
personally
responsible for setting our mission back dunts if not entire
days
. Your assignment was simple and you managed to let yourself be overtaken by an enemy combatant that had only moments to prepare itself. Tell me: How strong is an organizational chain?”

“As strong as—as—its
weakest link
.”

“And, for the good of mankind and the three worlds, are we to be a pillar of strength, or a puddle of weakness?”

“Please, Your Awarenence—”

“Are you not answering a very clear, direct question?”

“A pillar of strength, my master!” shouted Novitiate Frank Kyle.

“To my mind the only positive thing to come out of your utter failure is, perhaps, some confirmation of the theory that our enemies possess the ability to compromise our neural implants! Unless you disrupted them yourself?”

“Sir, I would never—”

“Which is actually not all that surprising since this agent came from Ith, where they may have had a chance to learn the technology. You agree with me that it's not that surprising, don't you?”

“Y-yes,” stammered Frank Kyle.

“So, it's actually quite fair to have expected us to be prepared for such a thing, is it not?”

“Well, I—I—”

“Shh,” said Rex, raising an index finger to his lips as 238 other judgmental eyes joined his upon the quavering novitiate.

“How do you feel about beta-testing human subjects, Novitiate Kyle?”

“Beta testing?” said Frank Kyle, closing his eyes. “It's necessary to advance technology.”

“Your informational implants, your strength, your speed—they all are the fruits of human testing, are they not?”

“Of—of course.”

“And MoK collars—they, too, come from such testing, do they not?”

Frank Kyle blotted at his sweat-beaded forehead and nodded enthusiastically.

“So,
are
you in favor of testing beta-rated technologies on humans?”

“Yes, Your Awarenence!”

“Good. Because we wouldn't want you to arrive at—which facility is it, Novitiate Pierre?”

“KF-1, sir,” smiled Victor Pierre.

“We wouldn't,” continued Rex, “wish for you to arrive at KF-1 harboring any hypocrisy or cynicism.”

“
KF-1?
The
collar
facility?” asked Frank Kyle.

“Yes, in fact yours is all ready.”

“Mine?”

“Shh,” said Rex, putting a slender finger to his lips. “It's a brand-new prototype. We may have finally cracked a key component of the verbalization issue. We may finally be able to control the subject's speech.”

“But you can't do this! I am inn—” said Novitiate Frank Kyle, leaping toward the camera in desperation.

Whatever else he said didn't get picked up. His microphone had been shut off and two large men in black suits came up behind and pulled him out of frame. Then the feed went entirely blank and his tile disappeared.

“And so,” said Rex to the remaining 119. “Let's use this as a cautionary tale, shall we?”

Every head nodded; a few, following Victor Pierre's lead, even smiled.

“Any fresh progress to report on the enemy combatant, John Michael?”

The visage of a muscular man with wire-framed glasses and a dimpled chin moved to the center spot on Rex's screen.

“No,” replied the man, “we still haven't relocated the creature, Your Awarenence.”

“Well, if there are no results to report by EOD, then I trust you, too, will be prepared to let me know how you feel about human beta testing?”

John Michael blanched but smiled gamely. “There will be no further failure, Your Awarenence.”

“Good,” said Rex. “Because I'm sure I could find another who would be willing to prove him- or herself at this juncture.”

John Michael bowed his head and his tile receded back to its place.

“And,” continued Rex, “will somebody remind me who's now on point for the Ministry of Communications—Cathy Lauren, is it?”

“Yes, Your Awarenence,” said a thin-lipped blond woman in a royal blue turtleneck as her face tile moved to the center of the screen.

“How's the cover-up story coming?”

“We're ready, Your Awarenence.”

“All right, give me the elevator pitch.”

“Your Awarenence?”

“Gah!” he exclaimed in frustration. “It's in the
white paper
! You know, if you only have an elevator ride in which to pitch somebody, what do you say that gets them leaning
over the plate
?”

“Apologies, Your Awarenence,” she said, looking like she was blinking back tears. “My elevator pitch is, ‘Ag-Gen, the company that created the recent sheep-goat hybrid, is behind the creature, and they must be punished.'”

“And we expect the scientific establishment, such as it is, to go along with this idea that this company could have really done such a thing? Made a giant rabbit-like creature?”

“Yes, we've identified all key opinion gatekeepers and will ensure that they play along.”

“Good,” Rex said, and then was silent a moment.

The woman's face tile shrank and resumed its former place among the many.

“And,” he continued, “am I to understand the juvenile witnesses are still with their parents?”

“Yes.”

“And no indication of them reporting the creature's existence?”

“If they told their parents, the parents have chosen not to disseminate.”

“Who in their right mind,” snorted Rex, “would believe a bunch of four-year-olds saying they saw a giant bunny?”

The 119 remaining heads nodded gravely.

“Still,” he said. “We should consider apprehending them once we have the enemy-combatant situation buttoned down.” Which, he reflected, would require a good deal of his personal attention. He scowled and dismissed the tiles with a wave of his hand. The Pacific Ocean reappeared, and the neatly produced, inspiring strains of Creed came back up.

 

CHAPTER 47

Underground Movements

“Am I what—wait!—what!?”

Patrick opened his eyes.

In the flickering lightning he saw that Oma was looking at him and that they were still plunging through the forest.

“Are you okay?” she repeated. “You yelled out in your sleep.”

“I did? What did I say?”

“Um,
dillhole
I think is the word you used.”

“Huh,” said Patrick, wiping his mouth in case he'd been drooling, not that anybody would have been able to tell in the rain and dark.

“Nightmare?”

“Kind of,” said Patrick. “How long was I asleep?”

“A good dunt or so.”

The storm had quieted somewhat and the music thumping from the giant's earpieces was a bit more down-tempo than the former Green Day–sounding song.

“We should be almost there,” Oma continued. “I hope I'm doing the right thing.”

“What do you mean?”

Even in the dark, the look Oma gave Patrick made him realize he'd just asked a pretty stupid question. “You mean running away—all this,” he corrected himself.

“Don't you miss
your
family? And don't you worry about them?”

“I guess,” he said, thinking on it. “I mean, yes, mostly.” It was pretty different situations for him and Oma. Other than for deciding to join her on this trip tonight—he actually hadn't made any choices. He wasn't really responsible for being away from his family. He'd just sort of ended up here and gone along for the ride. She, on the other hand, was apart from her family because she had
decided
to be apart from them.

“But your family will be okay, right?” he said. “I mean, they'll miss you and worry and stuff I'm sure.”

“I
hope
they'll be all right. But things might get hard on them—they'll be investigated at least.”

Patrick thought of Oma's parents discovering she was gone. They must be freaking out right now, much, he guessed, as his own parents would be if he went missing. Which he supposed they might be doing right now, were this not a dream. A dream in which the person he was talking to was stressed out and obviously needing some reassurance.

“But,” he said to Oma, “it's all worth it, right?”

“What's all worth it?” replied Oma, her voice tight.

“You know, saving the world, or—you know—helping to anyhow.”

“It's worlds, not world.”

“Oh, you mean Earth and Ith both, right?”

“Yes, and Mindth.”

“What?”

“The world of dreams, the realm of the Minder. Purse-Phone is from there.”