The Cyclops Initiative (28 page)

Then he got back to the car and found Julia leaning in through one of the rear windows. He came up beside her and saw Angel in the backseat, scrunched down as far as she could get, her arms wrapped tight around her knees. She wore a pair of sunglasses that covered half her face and a floppy sun hat pulled down over her hair. She hadn't bothered to take the price tag off the hat.

“Are we almost there?” she asked.

“I'm afraid not,” Chapel said. “Angel—­are you—­are you all right?”

“Fine,” she insisted, a little abruptly. “Just drive, okay?”

“What is it?” Julia asked, with her best bedside manner. “Is something scaring you?”

“No,” Angel said. She sighed dramatically. “Just—­you know. Trees. And the sky's too big. And everything's so far apart. I'm
fine
.”

Her tone made it clear she had no desire to talk about it further. Chapel stepped over to his door, then stopped to look over the top of the car at Julia. Neither of them spoke, but he knew she was thinking the same thing he was.

What had the government done to Angel? They'd shoved her in a series of boxes for ten years, made her work in tiny trailers where her only stimulus was what came over a computer screen. What could that do to somebody?

He sat back down in the driver's seat and started the car, but his previous good mood was shot. It was going to be a very, very long drive for somebody who was scared of trees.

IN TRANSIT, MARCH 24, 17:20

They had to cross the whole length of Ohio to get to Kentucky, but Chapel wanted to avoid major cities—­in this case, Columbus and Cincinnati. That meant taking a lot of country roads, long stretches of which snaked through endless farms and patches of forest. Other than the occasional ATV dealership or grain elevator, they saw little of civilization. Ancient farmhouses stood well back from the roads, colorless wrecks with peeling paint and sagging gambrel roofs. Only the endless row of telephone poles seemed to link them to the world they'd left behind.

The hours passed without Chapel noticing them much. Julia didn't talk to him very often—­neither of them felt like light conversation when Angel was curled up in the back, clearly in distress—­and so he had nothing but the flashing lines on the road ahead to measure distance or time. Just as the sun began to sink low enough to get in his eyes, the road bent hard to the south and suddenly they crossed the Ohio River and were in Kentucky. It was hard to tell the difference. Maybe the ridges alongside the road grew a little taller. There were definitely more trees.

Chapel glanced in the rearview mirror. “Angel? It's not far now. Can you hold on for another hour or so?”

“No problem,” she called out, her voice far too loud.

The address she'd found—­what he really wanted to believe was a secret NSA data center—­was deep in a wooded valley about thirty miles east of Lexington. It wasn't exactly the middle of nowhere, there were plenty of roads around it and even a ­couple small towns nearby, but it was definitely secluded.

Chapel didn't want to just drive up to the front door. His plan was to find a place nearby to spend the night and then scope it out. If it was what he thought it was, it would be well guarded and there would be constant surveillance all around it. Breaking in was going to be a real challenge.

Of course, Angel had told him it might be nothing. But he refused to think about that. If he'd come so far, if he'd pinned so many hopes on the place, it
had
to be a solid lead. He knew that was just wishful thinking, but in the absence of anything better, he would take it.

“Julia,” he said, “get that map out. Angel, can you help her find the exact spot we're looking for? Maybe there's a way we can get a look at it from the road.”

Angel leaned over the back of the front seat just long enough to point at the map. “Here,” she said, and then dropped back down out of sight, her head below the level of the windows.

“Okay,” Julia said, bringing the map close to her face to get a better look. “Take a left the next chance you get. There's a little road there that'll take us up on a ridge. Up on the high ground we might be able to see it.”

Chapel turned off onto a road that was barely paved, little more than a logging trail. The car's engine whined as he headed up a steep grade. In the back Angel whimpered as they rose above the level of the trees and were suddenly exposed on top of a sharp defile. Chapel drove another half mile along the ridge, then pulled over into the grass on the side of the road.

“There it is,” he said.

Julia leaned out of her window to get a better look. Chapel peered around the side of her head. “Angel,” he said, “at least glance at it, okay?”

In the backseat she curled up tighter around herself. But then she grunted in frustration and popped her head up.

From the top of the ridge they had a good view across a wide valley, half of which was covered in trees and the other half in well-­groomed fields. Far in the distance stood another ridge, taller than the one they perched on. Nestled into the slope of that ridge stood a building that was exactly as Angel had described it—­an abandoned mansion.

It must have been something in its day. A central three-­story house with tall white pillars, topped with a cupola like some Greek temple. Spreading out to either side were long wings with graceful high windows, each wing fronted by a broad garden full of statues and hedges.

Time hadn't been kind to the building, though. A long crack ran across the cupola, and even from this distance Chapel could see it must be open to the sky. Meanwhile one wing had nearly collapsed, all its windows shattered, its brick walls crumbling until some of the rooms inside were exposed. The gardens were overgrown thickets. Nature had begun the long process of reclaiming the house, with a massive growth of ivy choking the walls, creepers spiraling up those strong pillars. It must have been abandoned for decades.

Or at least someone wanted it to look that way.

“I don't know,” Julia said. “Not the kind of place I'd keep a server farm, if it was up to me. I don't see any sign of habitation, do you?”

“Just one,” Chapel said. The house stood in a wide clearing, but it was surrounded on every side by clumps of trees. Hidden among the trunks he could just make out a high fence topped in coils of barbed wire. “Whoever owns that place isn't interested in having visitors.”

Julia clucked her tongue. “Maybe the fence is just there to keep the locals from wandering in and getting hurt. You know, a liability thing.”

“Maybe,” Chapel said. He looked back at Angel, who was slumped low in the backseat, only her eyes above the level of her window. “What do you think?”

“I don't know anything about architecture,” she said. “But I guess . . . I mean, a place like that. Why does it need so many satellite dishes?”

Chapel had missed them in his first look. Now he saw them instantly, perched among the ornamental stonework that ran around the cupola. They were painted the same color as the weathered stone, but once you knew they were there, you couldn't miss them.

“Good eyes,” he said.

“Great,” Angel replied. “Now can we go?”

MOREHEAD, KY: MARCH 24, 18:19

They found a little motel on the outskirts of the nearest town, a place that looked cheap but not too shabby. Chapel pulled up in front of a row of rooms connected by a long porch, then killed the engine. The three of them, glad for a chance to stretch their legs, headed into the reception office together.

A man with very thick glasses and a little bit of white hair welcomed them with a smile. “Need a room?” he asked. Then he took a look at Angel and said, “Maybe two rooms.”

They were running out of money, but Chapel understood what the man was suggesting. He saw a middle-­aged ­couple and a young woman who was too old to be their daughter. In this part of the country that meant separate rooms or a lot of uncomfortable questions. “Two, yeah. Maybe something in the back that doesn't face the road? I'm a light sleeper, and I don't want headlights keeping me up all night.”

“Surely,” the man said as he pushed a paper ledger across his counter. Chapel signed, using an alias he came up with on the spot—­Charles Darnley. “Cash or credit?” the clerk asked.

“Cash,” Chapel said and pulled some bills out of his pocket.

“You here for the folk arts center? Just about the only thing to see around here,” the man said, counting out change.

“No, we're just passing through,” Chapel told him. “We're, uh—­”

“Ghost hunters,” Julia said.

Chapel fought the urge to turn around and stare at her.

“There's a restaurant in Lexington that claims to be haunted,” Julia said. “We're going to take some readings tomorrow.”

“Really now,” the clerk said, suddenly very interested. “Can't say I've ever seen a ghost myself. But there are all kinds of things hidden back in these hills, they say.”

Julia nodded excitedly. “I'll bet. For instance—­on the way here, we saw a big mansion on the next ridge over. I had no idea there was anything like that around here.”

The clerk nodded and patted his belly. “The old Chobham place, sure, sure. 'Fraid you won't get up there, though.”

“Oh? That's a shame,” Julia said. “It must have quite a story.”

“Indeed, indeed. Built by a coal magnate back in the '30s, a placer miner who got lucky. He bought up half this county before his seam ran dry. Then he couldn't afford to keep it. The government bought it up in the Depression and turned it into a camp for the WPA. That's all long ago, now. Nobody's lived up there in my lifetime.”

“It's a shame they let a place like that go to seed,” Chapel said.

The clerk lifted one shoulder toward his ear, in a kind of lazy shrug. “Too expensive, I suppose, to keep it open, and anyway, we got a real shortage of billionaires around here might want it. No, the government seems happy to let it rot.”

“I'd love to take a look,” Julia told him. “But you say it's off-­limits?”

“Well, sure now. The place ain't safe for human occupation,” the clerk pointed out. “You could fall through some broken floorboards, or a brick could muss that pretty red hair of yours. Even the local teenagers, well, they'll go anywhere their parents aren't looking, sure, but they stay clear. There's a pretty serious fence, and there's signs all 'round saying trespassers'll be shot.”

“What a shame,” Julia said. “It would be great for our TV show. But I guess we'll just have to hope this restaurant in Lexington pans out.”

The clerk got a shrewd look in his eye. “TV show? Now, it might just be, we have a haunted room right at this motel, if y'all'd be interested in staying a few nights.”

Julia laughed. “You have a haunted room, or you
might
have a haunted room?”

“Just suggesting a TV appearance could help my business. If you catch my drift,” the clerk said, with a wink.

“I'm sure I don't know
what
you're suggesting,” Julia said, suddenly deeply offended. “We're serious scientists, only interested in getting to the truth about the paranormal.”

“Didn't mean nothing by it,” the clerk said. “I'll get you some keys.”

When he was gone, Chapel turned to look at Julia. “Ghost hunters?” he whispered.

“I watch a lot of reality television,” she told him. “I thought it would make a good cover, and give me a chance to ask about the mansion.”

Chapel nodded, impressed. Badass Julia made a great field agent, whether or not she had any training.

Once they had the keys, Chapel went outside to pull the car around to the back of the motel, where another file of rooms looked out on a thick growth of forest. When the women joined him, he held up the two keys. “One for boys, one for girls?” he said, but Angel just grabbed one of the keys out of his hand and hurried inside one of the rooms. A moment later he heard the door's dead bolt slam into place, and then the sound of a television turned up to a high volume. It sounded like it was showing C-­SPAN.

He turned to look at Julia. “I wish I knew what was going on with her.”

Julia sighed. “Agoraphobia. She denied it when I asked, but . . . my ex-­boyfriend had a cousin with agoraphobia. She came to visit us once in New York, but she couldn't handle Manhattan. She said she felt like all the tall buildings were going to fall down on her. She used to make all kinds of excuses why she couldn't leave the house.”

Chapel frowned. “Angel's been all right until now.”

“This is the first time we've traveled by daylight,” Julia pointed out. “A fear of wide-­open spaces is a lot easier to handle when you can't see them.” She took the other key from his hand and unlocked the second room. “She'll be okay if you leave her alone. Shut up in that room she can probably relax for the first time all day.”

Chapel grabbed some bags from the car. “Poor Angel,” he said.

Julia looked toward the closed door of Angel's room. “What I'd really like to know is whether she was like this before the government started hiding her away in trailers, or if it's a reaction to living her entire life online.” She turned and looked at him. “Somebody really did a number on her, Chapel. They've kept her from having any kind of real life. They've put her under acute psychological stress. Whoever it was, they've got a lot to answer for.”

Chapel couldn't find it in himself to disagree.

MOREHEAD, KY: MARCH 24, 18:36

Chapel locked the door of the room and started unpacking. He hadn't brought much—­just a few pieces of clothing donated by Top's boys. Most of those he left in the bag, but he took out a pair of dark jeans and a black hoodie. It was what he intended to wear that night when they investigated the mansion.