“Did you ever study the Bible?”
“I’ve listened to a lot of preachers. My mom is Baptist.”
“You know I still go to church,” she said. “Isaiah says that you learn ‘precept upon precept, line upon line, here a little and there a little.’ That’s the way that John teaches people. I’ve seen him bring several people into Zero line that way. He talks about one part of Endgame, then another, deeper part, and so on until . . .”
She didn’t finish, but she didn’t have to. By that point they’re already too deep in it to leave.
Part of me knew I should get out now. But there was a part of me too that had to see what would happen next.
“So,” I said, “he was talking about me? He’s moving up the schedule for how fast I’m going to learn.” Mary nodded. “How much more is there? I mean, what else could possibly be left to tell me? He’s already talked about how all of human existence is a big game run by aliens, and how twelve Players are supposedly competing to outsmart them and save their lines from the end of the world. There’s more?”
“A little more. But you’re learning fast; it’s great. I think tomorrow, when we meet with the La Tène Player, we’re going to hear most of what there is to know—probably a lot of stuff even I don’t know.”
Darkness was settling in as we crossed the street. A police car flipped its lights on and sped off in the direction of People’s Park.
“So, here’s a question,” I said. “If you believe those alien guys, why do you still go to church?”
“You really are Mr. Inquisitor, aren’t you?”
“I just punched a cop to protect John, who could be a cult leader for all I know.”
Mary’s faced turned serious. “Zero line isn’t a cult.”
“It’s definitely not a book club.”
“Are those the only choices? Book club or cult? I believe that’s what’s called a false dichotomy.”
I smiled to relieve some of the tension that was building. “You Stanford kids with your big words.”
“Look. We’re not the Manson Family, but we’re not exactly the PTA either. And as long as we’re laying our cards on the table, John isn’t sleeping with any of us, and I haven’t seen anyone use anything stronger than marijuana.”
“Walter drinks a lot. I mean, a lot. I don’t like that.”
“I know,” she said. Walter drank even more than my dad, but he didn’t seem to have the angry streak in him. “I bet you would too, if you’d seen the kinds of things he has. It surprises me more that John doesn’t drink with him. They were there together. They both saw and did the same things. And about church, I go because I like it. I was raised going to church, and I feel like it’s a part of who I am. Is that good enough?”
“Sure.”
We turned a corner and could see the big sign of the Creamy Freeze. This was definitely the weirdest first-date conversation I’d ever had.
“Hey,” I said, taking her hand and swinging it. “How did you become a member of Zero line?”
“Kind of a boring story, really. Kat—you remember her? The nurse?”
I nodded. She was cute, but nowhere near as pretty as Mary. She was also older than me by three or four years.
“She works at a clinic near my dorm.” Mary raised her right arm and showed me a jagged scar on her arm, just below the elbow. I’d never noticed it before. “My second day at Stanford I fell down the stairs and caught it on a carpet nail. Not my proudest moment. Kat treated me, and we became friends. She’s the one who introduced me to John.”
I opened the door of the Creamy Freeze for her and then followed her in.
“I like to joke that they use me for my ranch. And the funny part is that it’s totally true. While Kat and I were talking, I found out she was camping a lot on land up by Susanville, and I told her my family had the ranch. Four days later, John and Kat showed up at my Stanford apartment and laid out the sales pitch. Nothing about the Zero line then, of course. They just wanted to do some fishing and shooting. I found out more and more as we went—like I told you, precept upon precept, line upon line. I’ve been with them ever since.”
We stepped up to the counter in an otherwise empty shop and ordered. She got a vanilla ice cream cone, which I told her was the most boring thing in the place. I got a banana split with a scoop each of Rocky Road and strawberry. We made sure to stand at the counter and talk happily with the teenaged scooper, trying to make a clear impression on her so that she could pick us out of a lineup.
It had been at least 25 minutes since we’d gotten away from the mob and police. Probably more. But we acted as though we didn’t have a care in the world.
As we headed for a booth, I didn’t know what to think. I liked Mary, and she seemed to like me. But part of my brain kept telling me that this Zero line stuff was crazy and this Endgame story was bullshit. Yet each time I saw Mary, I couldn’t wait until the next time I could see her. I’d never felt this way after knowing someone for only a couple of days. It felt like much longer.
I’d never had a girlfriend before. I’d been to prom, but that was just a group of guys asking out a group of girls. I went out a few times with Camille Edwards because my friends goaded me into it more than because I liked her. We made out a bit, but that was it. And I mean, that was it. I, Michael Stavros, was a virgin. It was one of those things that I hoped Berkeley would solve for me. College would be a fresh start—no one from my high school was there. I was a new man; this was a new life. One that now included Mary. And Endgame.
CHAPTER SEVEN
It was on the front page.
When I woke up, the first thing I did was go to the mail room to check the copy of the San Francisco Chronicle we got delivered each day. It was clean. I felt light-headed with relief. There was a story on page three about the march (they called it a riot), but no picture and no mention of me. One man, Officer Scott Hoover, had suffered a dislocated jaw. But that was it, and I felt like I was walking three feet off the ground. There was no picture, no names, no ongoing investigation.
It wasn’t until I got to the dorm cafeteria, got my breakfast, and sat down at the table that I saw a discarded copy of the Daily Californian, Berkeley’s student paper. I came crashing back to Earth. My face was three inches tall, completely clear and in focus. My fist looked like it had just connected with the cop’s chin. It was a perfect picture. It looked as professional as if it had been taken at a prizefight. My face, the cop’s face, and the top of John’s head—he was looking down, and his face couldn’t be seen.
I surprised myself by not freaking out. I picked up the newspaper, took my full tray of food to the dishwashers, and quietly left the building. By the time I got to the bottom step I was sprinting, running as fast as I could from the other students and desperately trying to avoid anyone. I had to get to my dorm, to the phone. I had to talk to John. He could make this go away. I was stepping in to save him—couldn’t he step in to save me? He knew the leaders of the protest.
Something could be done. Someone could save me.
I got to my dorm and ran up the stairs, hoping Tommy would be in the room, but he wasn’t. I darted into the bathroom and called his name. No answer. I jogged down to the common room, but he wasn’t there either.
“Damn it,” I said, digging in my pocket for coins. I tried to compose myself as I went down the hall to use the pay phone. Except I didn’t have any phone numbers. I had no way to reach Tommy, and no idea how to get in touch with John. I realized I didn’t even know his last name. There was no one to call. I walked back to my room, but before I went in, a thought struck me: if the campus police—or the city police—were looking for me, of course they would check my room.
But I’d only been in Berkeley for a little over a week, and I’d spent a whole weekend of that at Mary’s ranch. My boss never paid any attention to me when he was assigning tasks. But he did always have a copy of the newspaper open on the table in the supply room. He’d recognize me, sooner or later.
I looked d
own at the paper and began reading the story. My heart sank, and I thought I was going to be sick. I’d only just gotten to Berkeley and my time here was already over. What was I going to do? There was no caption under the photo, but now my face was all over campus.
I had money in my room. I had brought it all in cash, everything I’d saved for tuition. Yes, it was stupid of me, but I’d planned to open an account at a local bank once I got to Berkeley. I just hadn’t done it yet. The cops could be watching my room, but I had 3,000 dollars in there—everything that I’d saved from working for my dad and two summers with the Forest Service. I could go get it and some clothes, hide out in a hotel for a couple weeks, and grow a beard.
Shit. I needed help.
I cautiously walked back to my room, quietly inserted the key, and turned the lock. The door swung open.
It was still empty. I let out a long, slow breath.
I rushed to my desk and unlocked the drawers. In the back of one, behind a divider, was all my money—a thick stack, wrapped in two rubber bands. Eventually someone would search my room once they figured out who I was. I pulled my wallet from my back pocket and tried to fit in as many bills as I could. In between the folds of the wallet I found what I needed: a business card for the law firm of Goodman and Odenkirk. Mary’s job. It listed a phone number, even though it didn’t have her name—it just said Legal Assistant. She could help me. She worked in a law firm, after all. At the very least, she’d be able to point to someone for me to talk to.
My wallet was bulging as I crammed it into my back pocket, and I put the remainder of the cash into my front right pocket. There were neighborhoods in Los Angeles where I would never dare carry a wallet that was so obviously big, but Berkeley seemed safer. Or maybe I was just clueless.
My hands were shaking, and I didn’t want to use the pay phone on this floor. I wanted to get out, away from here, away from any place where there was a copy of that newspaper.
The police would have seen the photo by now. They’d be investigating the assault on the cop, and nothing that I did could change that, could throw them off the scent. The only thing I could wish for was that no one at the school would be able to identify me. But there were so many people that I’d interacted with: the admissions office, the cafeteria and dorm staff, my boss and the other janitors, local shop owners, and all the students who were hanging around campus over summer session.
I left the dorm and headed off campus. It was too warm for a jacket and scarf to hide me, but I had a ball cap, which I pulled low over my eyes. I stopped at the closest phone booth—it was on the corner next to a gas station.
I held the business card in front of me as I dialed the number.
On the third ring, someone answered.
“Mary Nesmith, please,” I said.
“One moment.”
I waited for what seemed like an eternity, but which was probably only 30 seconds.
“This is Mary.” I recognized her voice.
“Hey,” I said. “This is Mike.”
There was a pause, and then her voice was much softer. “You can’t call me here. I’m not supposed to take any personal calls.”
“You gave me your business card.”
“I didn’t think you’d call.”
“They got a picture of me, Mary. It’s all over campus, in every newspaper rack in every lobby.”
“Oh my God. What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “That’s why I called you. Yours was the only phone number I had.”
There was a pause. “Am I in it too?”
“No. Neither is John’s face.”
“Can you talk to Tommy?”
“I don’t know where he is. Police are going to see this, Mary. They’re going to search my room.”
“Is there anything they’ll find?”
I thought of my meager belongings. Books, bedding, some clothes. No photos that might connect me to the one in the paper. “Nothing important.”
“Good.”
“Do you think Tommy will lie? Will he say that it’s a picture of me? I know they’ll question him.”
“Tommy’s . . . I don’t know what he’ll do. Do you have a lawyer?”
“Of course not, unless your firm wants to represent me.”
“We do divorces and bankruptcies. We’re not defense attorneys.”
“Then what am I supposed to do?”
“Can you make it to the meeting today?”
“I don’t know where the Berkeley Rose Garden is,” I said.
“It’s less than a mile from campus,” she said. “Take Euclid and just walk north. You’ll find it.”
“Is there a pavilion or somewhere we’ll meet?”
“There’s a room. I’ll show you.”
“Okay.”
“You can call me again if you need to.”
“Thanks.”
I was about to end the call, but she said, “Mike?”
“Yeah?”
“Be careful.”
“I’ll do my best.”
I hung up. I couldn’t go to work. I couldn’t hang around campus, or stay in my room. And I had almost seven hours before the meeting. I was going to need to find something to do all day. Instead of heading north, I walked west to the public library. It was close to campus, but there wouldn’t be any university newspapers in the foyer.
I went to the card catalog, looking for law books. I wanted to see what I was in for if I got caught. But after an hour and five books, I couldn’t find anything about sentencing recommendations for assaulting a policeman. One book, though, made it clear that there was a big difference between assaulting a regular person and assaulting a police officer. Assault was usually a misdemeanor, but if the injured party was injured—and a dislocated jaw definitely counted—then it would be a felony charge. Worse, another book, which talked about the marches and protests of the sixties, said that riots were a whole other ball game. I could be charged with rioting, disorderly conduct, and criminal mischief. And the law said that it didn’t matter whether the rioters’ cause was just: attacking police was always assault, even if the protest was against something horrible.
I was screwed.
As the day wore on, I ran out of things to research, at least in regard to the law. But I didn’t have anywhere else to go. I found myself looking for other books. Books related to Endgame. There was nothing in the card catalog with that name except for a play by Samuel Beckett. I looked at it, and it had nothing to do with what John and Walter were talking about.
Then I remembered what Phyllis had said about the Annunaki, the aliens in Walter’s papers. There were a handful of results in the history section. The Annunaki were a group of gods in Mesopotamia, the cradle of civilization. Sumerian, Assyrian, Babylonian. According to legend, they were the seven judges of hell. Was it possible that they were really aliens?
I looked at the time. The meeting was going to start in an hour.
I didn’t know what secrets were waiting for me. I was in a new city, at a new school, and I didn’t have many people I could really trust. I was in trouble, and I was alone. I needed to lie low, and maybe the Zero line could help me with that. At this point, I didn’t have anyone else.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Mary was waiting for me in her car when I got to the rose garden. She got out. She was wearing a printed black-and-white dress—she probably had just come from work—and she ran to me. She wasn’t smiling.
“I passed by an electronics store on my way here that was playing the evening news on the TVs in the window. I stopped to watch.” She threw her arms around me in a hug. “They talked about the march, and they showed the picture. They said the cop was still in the hospital—they’re saying you broke his jaw.”
“Shit.” I held her tightly.
She pulled back. “They’re going to come after you, Mike. Hard. That’s what one of the lawyers in my office said—and no, I didn’t tell him I was there or that I knew you.”
&n
bsp; “What am I supposed to do?” I asked, my heart pounding. “I can’t go back home. I won’t.”
“John might know what to do. In the meantime, quit shaving. Maybe we can dye your hair.”
“I can’t go back to my dorm.”
“Definitely not. Let’s talk to John. He’ll know what to do.”
She hooked her arm with mine and started leading me into the rose garden. It looked like a Roman amphitheater: a large half circle, terraced several steps down to an epicenter, which led to a tunnel under the street. I would have found it beautiful if my world hadn’t been falling apart around me. I had been on the news. Everyone would have seen it. Now it wasn’t just a matter of hiding from the Berkeley campus. I had to hide from everyone in the city.
“It’s going to be okay,” Mary said. She probably could hear my heartbeat—it felt like it was thudding in my chest, pounding in my ears.
“How is this going to be okay? You just said your lawyer thinks I’m sunk.”
“That’s only if they can find you.”
“Where else can I go? Back to Pasadena? I’ve spent my whole life trying to get out of there.”
“You could get a job and an apartment.”
“Not anywhere around here. Besides, what about school? I’ve wanted to go to Berkeley forever. I’ve been saving money for years.”
“Well, there’s your answer. Lie low, get a place out of town, and wait for all of this to blow over. They’ll be looking for you now, but soon they’ll move on to something else. One cop’s broken jaw is not going to warrant an all-points bulletin.”
“Thanks, Mary, but that doesn’t change the fact that my time at Berkeley is over. There’s no way I can return to school. I can’t believe this is happening.”
“We don’t know if anyone has your name. Just stop going to work, lay low, and then go back in the fall when the new semester starts and you have a beard. You haven’t even started classes yet, no one will remember you. You’ll be fine.”
I nodded. It made sense. But it required that no one connect my face with my name, which still scared me.