“We don’t care about your little experiments,” Holbrook growled. “They can’t bring our children back or protect them from the CAMFers.”
“Actually, they can,” Mr. James said, pulling a minus meter out of his jacket pocket.
“What the hell?” Holbrook leapt up. “How dare you bring that in here?”
“Alex!” Mrs. James said, standing up and glaring at her husband. “They used one of those to torture Luke.” She glanced toward a stocky, dark-haired boy in the audience, who was now staring at the minus meter in Mr. James’s hand, his face gone completely pale and still. The woman next to him, obviously his ma, was clutching his arm and glaring down Mr. James with utter hatred in her eyes. This kid Luke hadn’t just been at the Eidolon. He’d been one of those taken and tortured by Fineman. What the fuck was Mr. James thinking pulling out a minus meter in this crowd?
“I know what they did to your son with this,” James said to Holbrook, holding up the meter.
Fuck. That kid was Holbrook’s son? Shit, this was outa control.
“But what if I told you,” Mr. James continued, glancing at Luke, “that I could guarantee this device could never be used against him again. Or against anyone with PSS. What if my little experiments, as you call them, resulted in the discovery of a vaccine that makes PSS completely impervious to extraction?”
Holy motherfucking shit. Passion’s blood could do that? Was that her power? There was no way. James had to be bluffing. I could see everyone in the room thinking the same thing. Holbrook didn’t believe him. That was obvious, and the council and the gallery had broken into a loud uproar, voices yelling over voices.
“Silence! Order!” Mrs. James called, banging a gavel on the table in front of her. The room quieted down, mostly, and she turned to her husband. “Can you prove this?” she asked, hope swimming in her eyes. “Do you have evidence to back up this claim?”
“Yes,” he said, turning to me. “Jason, pull up your pant leg.”
“Wait? What?” I stammered as he approached me with the minus meter. Oh, fuck no! Is this what he’d meant by “a little demonstration”? You couldn’t pay me enough money for this shit.
“Get the fuck away from me.” I stood up and pushed my chair back, ready to bolt.
“Jason,” Palmer said from behind me, putting his hand gently on my shoulder. “It’s okay.”
“No way,” I said, shaking my head.
“You didn’t even tell this boy you were going to do this?” Holbrook laughed bitterly. “You’re as bad as the CAMFers, Alex. You’re exactly like them, scaring and torturing innocent children.”
“No,” Mr. James said. “The vaccine works. We tested it. You have to believe me. Think of how many lives we could save and protect—”
“I’ll do it,” a quivering voice came from the audience. It was Luke. “I’ll take the vaccine right now, and he can do the test on me.”
“Son, no,” his father begged, the blood draining from his face.
“You don’t have to do this, Honey,” his mother said from his side, clutching his arm. “You’ve been through enough.”
“No,” Luke protested, his voice growing stronger, the room gone suddenly and absolutely silent. “When the CAMFers had me, I was terrified. I thought I was going to die. The things they did to me in my cell were bad enough. Then, one day, they chained us all together, and gagged us, and took us into a room where another captive was. They threatened her and hurt her, because they wanted her to do something to us, something horrible. She refused, so they pulled me out of the line. They were going to hurt me, but one of the other guys—he stepped forward. He volunteered to be tortured in my place. Do you understand that?” he asked, those dark bottomless eyes falling on me, then on Mr. James, then back to his dad. “They did horrible things to him instead of me, and I just stood there watching.”
“It’s not your fault, Son,” Mr. Holbrook said, his voice ragged. “It’s this bastard’s fault.” He gestured at Mr. James. “Not yours.”
“Arguing about whose fault it is accomlishes nothing,” Luke said. “If there’s a way to stop them from ever doing it to anyone else, I want to help.”
I had to admit, the kid had balls. He was an idiot to volunteer, but still, he had balls.
“That’s very mature and noble of you, Luke,” Mr. James said, “but I’m afraid it takes the vaccine twelve to fifteen hours to become fully effective. Jason here had it well over a week ago. If I gave it to you we’d have to wait—”
“You do this and he’s back on top,” Palmer murmured in my ear. He was still standing behind me, making sure I didn’t run. “He’ll go after your father. You know he will.”
My old man had used a minus meter to punish me a few times. One short zap to my PSS leg had been much worse than the burning cigars he’d sometimes pressed against my arms. This kid Luke’s story was nothing. He hadn’t really suffered. He was a pussy.
But he was a pussy who’d just volunteered for this, and he wasn’t even getting paid.
“Fuck it. I’ll do it,” I said, shaking Palmer off and stepping toward Mr. James.
“Good,” Mr. James said, relief in his voice. “Thank you, Jason. Go ahead and sit down. It won’t hurt. I promise.”
I sat back down in my chair, trying to stay cool, calm, and collected, but mainly I was hoping I wouldn’t piss my pants. When I reached down to pull up my pant leg, my hands were shaking. I rolled up the cuff, revealing the leg I’d been shamed for all my life, but no one in the room made a sound. No one mocked or abused me.
As Mr. James approached, flicking that minus meter on, the memory of that soft buzz in the air, the calm before the pain, made me squirm in my seat and I felt Palmer’s hand settle on my shoulder again, to pin me or comfort me, I wasn’t sure which. Mr. James bent down, holding the minus meter near my leg, and some part of me hoped someone, anyone, would jump in and object the way Luke’s parents had for him.
But no one did.
The room was absolutely silent, every eye on me.
I caught Luke’s gaze, and he held mine like he was staring straight into my soul.
The minus meter crackled with energy.
Luke glanced away, and I squeezed my eyes shut, waiting for the pain, for a sensation, for anything. I counted to ten, every muscle in my body tensed.
“There, you see?” Mr. James said, standing up, the minus meter powering down in his hands. “It had absolutely no effect on him or his PSS.”
I opened my eyes and bent over, stunned, staring at my leg. He’d done it? He’d actually done it and I’d felt nothing?
“We’re still not sure what all the applications for the vaccine might be,” Mr. James was saying to a now very receptive and captive audience. “We know it stabilizes PSS to the point that it cannot be extracted, disrupted, or compromised. This”—he crossed to the council’s table and set the minus meter in front of them—“is no longer a weapon or a torture device. It is now nothing more than an overdesigned flashlight. And this,”—he turned to the audience and pulled a small syringe of glowing blue liquid from his pocket—“is the promise that your children need never fear the CAMFers again.”
In a moment, the room was in utter chaos. People stormed Mr. James, begging to have their kids be first in line for the vaccine. Holbrook and his wife were among them, looking sheepish and completely appeased. Mrs. James was hanging back in the crowd, but it was obvious she had been won over too.
Mr. James was back on top.
An hour or so later, after a lot of handshakes and small talk, Palmer and I rode back to the mansion in the limo, but Mr. James stayed behind to bullshit more people and carve out his reclaimed kingdom.
Palmer leaned back against the black leather seat, flipping through stuff on his phone.
“You know it doesn’t matter, right?” I said to him.
“What doesn’t?” He mumbled, not even looking up.
“The vaccine. The immunity to minus meters. All that shit back there. My old
man isn’t going to use minus meters. He’s going to use guns. He’s a hunter, not a scientist, and he hunts to kill.” Just like Mr. James, my old man would never give up. He wouldn’t let anything stop him—including having a son with PSS. And despite my taunts back in Texas, I knew the CAMFers would follow him, because they already were.
Palmer looked up. I had his attention now. “The vaccine hasn’t been fully tested yet,” he said. “It may have other applications.”
“It’s not going to save their lives, and you and I both know it.”
“Maybe not. But it will give them hope and courage. It already has. And with Alex back in control—”
Palmer’s phone pinged in his hands—not a ring tone but a message alert, soft and insistent.
He touched the screen and a satisfied grin spread across his face. He tapped the screen a few more times, scanning and swiping.
“Just a minute,” he said, dialing quickly. “I need to make a call.”
After a couple of rings I heard a deep, male voice on the other end, a voice I recognized immediately. “What is it?” Mr. James asked.
“The dome just broke onto the national news circuits,” Palmer said, grinning. “It’s all over the internet too. I thought you’d want to know.”
“But it’s too soon,” Mr. James said. “You told me we’d have more time.”
“No.” Palmer countered. “I told you we wouldn’t have control over the timing. Things like this have a life of their own. Besides, the faster it builds, the better for us. But we need to leave tonight. Tomorrow morning at the latest.”
“I can’t leave this soon,” Mr. James said, sounding frustrated. “I need more time to solidify my position here. I have to call in my people and that’s going to take a few days. I bail now and Holbrook is right back in the driver’s seat. But I want you to go, and take the Williams boy with you. I should be able to send some men by tomorrow evening.”
“There’s no sign of military intervention yet,” Palmer said, “but when there is, we’ll need them.”
“You know I have your back,” Mr. James said. “Take the jet tonight.”
“Will do,” Palmer said, hanging up. Then he turned to me and asked. “Did you follow that?”
“Someone found the dome and Mr. James wants us to secure it?” It would burn my old man so hard if the Holders got the compound. There were CAMFer secrets in there dating back to the early years of PSS. And of course, The Hold had secrets of its own within those walls.
“Close enough,” Palmer said. “We’re flying to Oregon. Tonight.”
I didn’t like Oregon. Last time I’d been there, the place had spat me right back to Texas. But if there was money to be had and I could screw my old man at the same time, I was in. “What’s the pay?” I asked.
“I might as well put you on the payroll,” Palmer said, typing something into his phone. “How does this look?” he asked, holding the screen out to me with a very adequate number on it.
“Looks good,” I said, trying not to sound surprised.
“Just to be clear,” he added. “I’m paying you that, not Mr. James. You understand?”
“Yeah, I get it.” He wanted my loyalty if it came to betraying Mr. James and, for that price, he had it.
“Here. Watch this.” He handed me his phone.
It was playing a news video with half a million hits and counting. There was someone talking, a woman rattling off hype and then helicopter footage of the dome lighting up the desert like a fucking UFO. And there were crowds, tons of people, too many to count, milling around it like ants around an ant hill.
17
JASON
Four hours later, at about midnight, Mr. James’s private jet hit the ground in Oregon and we exited the plane right into the middle of the high desert, a dirt landing strip trailing off into the distant shrub.
There was a vehicle waiting for us, a beat-up truck with an even more beat-up camper top on the back of it. It reminded me of some of the rigs back home guys took into the woods during hunting season, cooking their food over a fire every night and shitting in the bushes.
“Get the bags,” Palmer ordered, as he moved toward the truck. I had one small duffle, filled with a few items Mr. James’s staff had scraped up for me before we’d left. Palmer had two huge bags. So, I threw my duffle over my shoulder and reached down to pick up his two, but they felt like they were full of bricks. Fuck that. I wasn’t his valet. I dropped them at my feet, and looked up to see Palmer talking to some old guy who’d climbed out of the truck. I walked over, and I could tell Palmer was pissed.
“That’s not the arrangement we made,” he said, holding out an envelope. “I pay you and we take this heap of junk off your hands, no title or paperwork involved, but we’re not renting it. That’s not the deal.”
“Buying was the deal a few days ago,” the old guy said, frowning. “Things has changed around here since then. You know how much a camper is worth in these parts now? Ten times what you got in that envelope. Probably more. So, I’m not selling, but I’ll give you a ride to the dome and rent you all the camping gear you’ll need. Hell, I’ll even bring you back to your posh jet when you get tired of the noise and the people and the dirt. But I’m not selling Ole Betsy here. That’s the deal. Take it or leave it.”
“You’ll rent us equipment?” Palmer asked. “Everything we need to camp, including food and water, for as long as we need it. And how much is that going to cost me?”
“Four hundred a day,” the guy said, glancing between Palmer and me. “Two for you, and two for the boy, and I’m the best price around. I guarantee it. And all the stores is sold out of everything, so don’t go thinking you’ll be able to get it yourself.”
“The stores are sold out because you unloaded them,” Palmer said, his nostrils flaring. “You bought them out so you could run this game on every idiot coming into town. That’s called extortion where I come from.”
“Here we call it good business,” the old guy said, spitting into the dirt. “I’m giving you a fair price.”
“And that price won’t go up,” Palmer said. “You gonna guarantee that too?”
“Well now,” the old coot said, one of his eyes twitching, “that ain’t really up to me, is it? It all depends on the free market. Things is getting dearer and dearer around here. You better take this deal while you still can. That’s all I’m saying.”
“You promised to sell me this camper for this price.” Palmer held out the envelope of money again, his voice gone hard. “You better take that deal while you still can.”
“Then I guess we got nothing more to talk about,” the old guy said, turning back toward his battered truck.
It was fast.
One minute the guy was reaching for his driver’s side door. The next he was on the ground, blood pouring into the sand under him, his pained eyes staring up at the starry night sky, his breath coming in desperate gasps.
I hadn’t even seen Palmer pull the gun that was now in his hand.
“I told you to get my bags,” Palmer said calmly, his eyes still on the old geezer dying in the dirt.
“Yes, sir.” I turned on my heels and hurried to obey. I wasn’t afraid. Palmer wasn’t going to shoot me. But he’d certainly just earned my respect.
As I bent to get his bags, hefting the heaviest one over my shoulder, another shot rang out—Palmer putting the old guy out of his misery.
By the time I got back to the truck, he was pulling the body into some shrubs and kicking sand over it.
I was still standing next to the pick-up like an idiot, when he came back, keys in hand.
“Give me that.” He took his heavy bag from me and unzipped it. It was full of guns and ammunition. He pulled out a handgun and held the grip out to me. “In case we meet any more extortionists,” he said. “Unless you’d rather have the shotgun in the cab he was reaching for.” He nodded toward the truck’s interior.
“I’ll take this.” I palmed the gun he was holding out, then
slipped it into my waistband. Some weird shit was going down in Oregon already, and I was glad to be armed. Plus, it meant Palmer trusted me.
“Let’s load up,” he said, leading me to the back of the truck and putting one of the old guy’s keys into the door of the camper so we could throw our bags in.
The lock clicked and he pulled the door open.
“Holy shit!” I said, confronted with a solid wall of sleeping mats, tents, and pillows. I could see a camp stove wedged in between the softer stuff as well, and a new lantern still in its box. There wasn’t an inch of room in that camper left unstuffed.
“Fuck,” Palmer said. “We’ll have to put our bags in the front with us, and unload this stuff when we get to the dome. If that old bugger was right, there should be high demand for it.”
“So, we’re the new extortionists?” I smiled at Palmer.
“Looks that way.” He grinned back.
We climbed into the cab, jamming our bags between us, and Palmer put the old truck into gear. Almost as soon as we cleared the little airport, it became obvious that the world had gone bat-shit crazy. There were hitchhikers everywhere, holding up flashlight-lit signs that said things like UFO or bust and Take us Home to the Dome. We passed groups camping along the roadside, many of them families, sitting in lawn chairs outside their RVs like they were vacationing at the beach. And then there were cops patrolling the area, lots of them.
“I don’t see any state troopers,” Palmer observed. “But they’ll be calling them in soon, if they haven’t already.”
“What the hell is this?” I asked, nodding out the window. “Why are they here?”
“Because the world is changing, and they can feel it,” he said. “They don’t know how, or why, or even what it means, but they’ve come looking for answers.”
“From a fucking dome in the desert? How is that going to answer anything?”
“The dome is just a rallying point, like a porch light drawing moths at night. It’s only a symbol.”