The Cyclops Initiative (27 page)

Nothing for it, he supposed. He started making a mental plan about how he was going to steal another car.

SOUTH HILLS, PA: MARCH 24, 09:29

On the screen Angel kicked open a wooden crate while Ralph laid down suppressing fire on a squadron of Nazi flamethrower troops. “Ammo,” Angel said, and they switched positions so fluidly they might have been practicing the maneuver for years. Ralph, who in the game was playing a British Tommy with a BAR rifle, ducked down to grab a new drum of ammunition. Meanwhile Angel, dressed like a member of the French resistance (the only female character in the game), threw a stick grenade into the midst of the Wehrmacht troops.

The Germans screamed “Schnell, schnell!” but it was too late for them. The grenade went off in a cloud of fire and smoke, and the fuel tanks on the Nazis' backs popped off one after another, bathing them all in liquid fire and sending them screaming around a village square, their faces melting in exquisitely rendered detail as they died.

“Jesus,” Chapel said, wincing.

“That was—­that was—­” Julia couldn't seem to find the word.

Ralph had it, though. “
Nice,
” he said, bouncing up and down on the couch.

His claw hand didn't seem to be any kind of impediment to working the video-­game controller. Chapel knew from experience how much you could achieve with one hand, if you had enough practice. What surprised him was just how good Angel was at the game.

Julia had a theory about that. “She's been living in one trailer or another for the last ten years, never going out, living on delivered Chinese food. Her only connection to the outside world has been telling spies where to go and who to shoot. Why wouldn't she be a natural at this?”

Chapel just shook his head. They needed to head out soon, but it was clear Angel was enjoying herself and he didn't want to interrupt the game.

On the screen the Tommy and the resistance fighter dashed across the village square, hopping over the bodies of the still-­smoldering Nazis. On the far side they took cover in a bombed-­out café. As soon as they'd hunkered down, the television started growling with the noise of tank treads coming closer.

“You have any shaped charges?” Angel asked.

“Just one left. Glad I held on to it,” Ralph told her.

His on-­screen avatar jumped through the door of the café and rolled along the street, a square lump of plastique in his hands. He slapped it onto the cobblestones and a little red light started blinking on its detonator. The tank was only a dozen yards away.

“Did they even have C4 in World War II?” Chapel asked.

“Shut up, Chapel!” Angel cried, anguish tinging her voice because just then the tank's machine gun opened fire and Ralph's character flopped down in the street, right next to his bomb. “Hold on,” she said, and her beret-­clad character rushed out to his side, carrying a green box with a red cross on it. She injected something into his arm that was apparently a cure for machine-­gun bullets, because suddenly Ralph was up and on his feet again and drawing a pistol.

It was too late for both of them, however. The panzer's main gun fired with a cloud of smoke and debris, and the screen went red as both characters fell in slow motion to lie in heaps on the cobblestones.

“Dang,” Ralph said, tossing his controller onto the couch. “I can never get past that tank.”

“Why do you want to?” Julia asked. “Why do you even play this game?”

Ralph lifted one eyebrow. “Because it's fun?”

“She's got a point, though,” Chapel said. “Look, not to get all preachy here, but you're a veteran with PTSD. We've all heard you screaming in the night. Why on earth would you want to traumatize yourself with a war game?”

“Therapy,” Ralph answered, without hesitation.

Julia looked intrigued. “How does that work?”

“The game isn't real,” Ralph told them. “It's nothing like real war. There's no waiting around for weeks only to have an attack come when you're just starting to relax. You can get shot, like, a dozen times in the game, and all you need is one medical kit to get back to full health.” He shrugged his shoulders. “Two ­people against an entire squad armed with flamethrowers? In real life, you'd be dead meat.”

Chapel had to admit that the game didn't match his own experience of warfare.

“It helps with the dreams. Yeah, you've heard me wake up in the middle of the night thinking I'm back there, under fire. But when I play this game for like twelve hours straight, I'm not dreaming about Iraq. I'm dreaming about liberating Paris with a hot resistance fighter by my side.”

“You think she's hot?” Angel asked. “I just thought she was an ass-­kicker.”

“She can't be both?” Ralph asked. “Anyway—­sometimes the dreams get mixed up. I don't know. It helps.”

Chapel had learned during his own rehabilitation not to turn up his nose at any treatment that actually worked. “Have at it, then. But I'm afraid your sexy partner there has to get going.”

Angel didn't protest. She set her controller down on the couch and stood up. “What's on the agenda?” she asked.

“We need to arrange transport,” Chapel said.

“What, like you need a car?” Ralph asked.

PITTSBURGH, PA: MARCH 24, 10:09

The place where Ralph worked had a clean and trim little storefront where it met the road. Four recently washed cars stood in the parking lot, all of them with prices listed on their windshields in greasepaint.

Beyond that lot, however, the place was pure junkyard. Behind a chain-­link fence stood towering stacks of hubcaps and dented fenders, cars without wheels or doors or windshields, heaps of scrap metal, and, for some reason, an entire avenue lined with nothing but old washing machines. You could easily get lost wandering among the heaps of old decaying machinery back there—­you could get lost, or you could just as easily get tetanus. The men and women working in the yard were all dressed in heavy corduroy jackets and wore thick, grease-­stained gloves.

For a mechanical graveyard, though, it was anything but quiet. The noise of whining power tools and tracked vehicles filled the air, punctuated by the ring of actual hammers and mattocks where someone took out their frustrations by breaking down an old heap. They passed by a guy cutting a bulldozer down with an acetylene torch, sparks flying ten feet in the air. They walked past a kennel full of barking dogs. When they finally found Ralph's boss, the man was hip deep in a pile of old hardware, hinges and flanges and nuts and bolts, sorting them by tossing them one by one into rusted fifty-­gallon drums.

It took a while to get his attention. When Ralph called his name the fourth or fifth time, he finally looked up and glanced from Chapel to Angel to Julia as if he was sorting them into categories in his head.

“This is Art, he owns this place,” Ralph said. “Navy.”

Art clambered out of his pile, sending bits of metal cascading across their shoes, and reached out one massive hand to shake Chapel's. He was a huge man, broad through both shoulders and belly, though his legs were crammed into heavy jeans that made them look like toothpicks holding up a jumbo-­sized olive. He had hair the color of the old metal around him, and it cascaded down his shoulders and joined with his beard.

“Jim,” Chapel said, squeezing the massive gloved hand. “Army.”

He expected Art to make some joke—­one of the dozen or so quips ­people always made when they met someone from a different branch of the ser­vices. Instead Art just said, “Uh-­huh.” His eyes didn't leave Chapel's, though.

“They need a car,” Ralph explained. “Just an old beater is okay. But they're friends of mine, so don't cheat them.”

“Huh,” Art said.

“Ralph tells me he's been working here two years now,” Chapel said, to fill the void in the conversation. “It was really good of you to give him a shot.”

Art shrugged. “Works hard. That's what I want.” He broke his gaze, but only to stare at Ralph for a long time. “Cars,” he said finally. Then he took a deep breath and let it out again. “Okay.”

He headed down an aisle between two mountains of truck tires. The stink of rubber was overwhelming, and it wasn't helped by the stagnant water that had collected inside the tires. “Art's a genius,” Ralph said. “He can fix anything. Used to work on a nuclear submarine, keeping the engines going. Now he's got more than a hundred ­people working for him here, most of them vets or ­people who were down on their luck. If you screw up, you get fired on the spot, but if you do what he says, he treats you right.”

“Only rule,” Art called back, without turning his head.

Beyond the tires lay a landscape of partially intact cars. A small legion of men and women were busy either stripping pieces off the vehicles or screwing parts back on. A few of the cars looked like they were in drivable shape, though most were just held together with primer and duct tape.

Art stopped in front of one that had definitely seen better days. The quarter panels were dented, and rust had set in where the paint had chipped away. The radio antenna was about a foot and a half shorter than it should have been, and none of the four hubcaps matched any of the others. The inside looked like it had been vacuumed recently, though, and the windows shone as if they were brand-­new.

Art put a hand on the hood and closed his eyes, as if he were communing with the spirit of the car. Then he opened his eyes again. “It'll run. You guys drug dealers?”

“No,” Chapel affirmed.

“Mafia, or somethin'?”

“No,” Chapel said again.

“Eight hundred, with tags. Tags are good.”

Chapel glanced at Julia. He knew they didn't have that kind of money. He'd come out here with Ralph because he'd known that stealing another car was a bad idea. Wilkes would be looking for any reports of stolen vehicles now, anywhere within fifty miles of Pittsburgh.

Art must have thought he was hesitating because of the car's condition. He pointed at another one, which had fewer dents. “Sixteen. Worth it.”

“If we could afford it,” Chapel began, but Ralph touched his arm with his claw.

“These are good ­people, Art, but they're kind of broke.”

Art considered this for a long time. Then he tilted his head back, so his hair shifted out of his face, and announced in deep tones, “Poor ­people gotta drive, too.”

“I'm going to cover them,” Ralph said. “I don't have much in my bank account, but I'll work for free for three weeks and make it up to you.”

Art squinted hard at Ralph. His lips pursed.

Ralph nearly stammered under the pressure. “Four weeks,” he said.

Chapel shook his head. “Ralph, you don't have to—­”

Art squinted harder.

“Six.”

“Looks like,” Art said, his face relaxing, “you got a car.” Then he started walking back toward the office.

They watched the junkyard owner go until he was out of earshot.

“Man,” Ralph said, “that guy's sharp.”

Chapel shook his head. “Ralph,” he said, “this is incredibly generous of you, but we can't accept it.”

“It's no big deal,” Ralph said. “Top and Dolores will feed me, and I've got a guaranteed bunk at their place. I might have to buy a few less video games.”

“Those games are your therapy,” Julia pointed out.

Ralph laughed. “I have enough already. Though I'll tell you what.” He turned and reached over and grabbed Angel's hand. “You come back some time, and we'll beat that panzer together, okay?”

Angel looked confused. “Are you asking me out on a date?”

“She meant to say yes,” Julia said.

IN TRANSIT: MARCH 24, 12:32

It was a clear, bright day, perfect for driving long distances. Something Chapel hadn't done for a very long time. The beater might look bad, but it had a decent motor under its hood and it purred along, gobbling up the blacktop. Chapel drove fast without actually speeding, overtaking big rigs and the occasional tractor as the road unrolled before them, heading west through endless stretches of grass and trees and low, gentle ridges. The car had no air-­conditioning and no radio. The latter wouldn't have mattered much anyway, since Julia kept her window rolled down, one arm out in the rushing air, her outstretched fingers weaving up and down like the spread wings of a gull.

He looked over at her, a big grin on his face, and saw her smiling back, her eyes hidden behind chunky sunglasses, rivulets of red hair sweeping across her cheek, now her eyes, now getting in her mouth so she had to sputter it out, which made him laugh. Which made her laugh.

It just felt so damn good to be moving, to be free. This was the America Chapel had learned to love as a kid, the wide openness of it, the size of it, the raw country all around him. Headed west with no real idea what he would find, the danger and the fear and every worry in his head not gone, necessarily, but put aside for a while, put on a back shelf where he could think about it later.

At some point he felt like having lunch, so they pulled into the immaculate parking lot of a welcome center, right inside the Pennsylvania line, and had hot dogs and soda. He perused a rack of road atlases and folding paper maps, found the one he liked best.

“When was the last time you saw one of these?” Julia asked, unfolding the map, following the major roads with one finger. “I always just use my phone, now.”

Which made him think about the fact they didn't have phones anymore. That they were cut off, with no chance of calling for help if they needed it.

But he thought about that for only a second. He paid for the map with a ­couple of bills from their dwindling treasury. He followed Julia back out to the car while she tried to keep the map from fluttering open in the wind. He stopped for a moment and just looked out at the farmland that surrounded them on every side, flat and open, a backdrop for the white grandeur of the clouds, which dropped nothing but big, sharp shadows on the green of the land.