A Better World

CHAPTER 23

It was no Air Force One, but Cooper had to admit the diplomatic flight was a pretty nice ride.

It had been a fun morning, lit with a simple sweetness. Apple pancakes in the skillet, the Stones on the stereo, his children spazzing, high on sugar and excitement. They’d gone to bed expecting the dawn to bring a day like any other, and instead, hours later, here they were playing tag in the sky. The jet had leather seats, integrated tri-d, a fighter escort, and a steward happy to bring them all the Coke their parents allowed.

“Hey, Todd,” Cooper called. “C’mere.”

His son dashed down the aisle, sweating and smiling. Cooper tapped the window. “Check it out.”

Obligingly, Todd pressed his face against the glass. They’d started their descent, and from this height, Wyoming looked like cake left too long in the oven. Near the horizon, almost out of view of the window, something glowed silver and white. “What is it?”

“That’s Tesla. The capitol of New Canaan. It’s not the only city, but it’s the biggest. It’s where Erik Epstein lives.”

“Is he really that rich?”

“Yup.”

“Everything looks like it’s made of mirrors.”

“That’s solar glass. It captures energy and keep the insides cool.”

“Oh.” Todd looked up at him with a grin. “Too bad. A city of mirrors would be cool.”

It was one of those weird moments of discordance, a sense of greater meaning. Cooper found himself staring at his son, a thought rising unbidden. A city of mirrors. He’s not far from right.

If ever there were a place that reverses everything, this is it.

Their reception in Tesla was certainly a different experience than the last time he’d arrived, three months ago. That time he and Shannon had snuck in with false papers, worried every moment they’d be caught.

This time there was a motorcade waiting, guarded by a security team. Instead of the heavy limousines favored everywhere else in the world, the motorcade was made up of tear-dropped electric vehicles and sleek ATVs. Gasoline was one of the many things the Holdfast had to import, and it was correspondingly expensive.

As for the security team, they were young even by military standards, ranging from sixteen to maybe twenty-two. Their lightweight desert fatigues were made of active camouflage, the fabric patterns shifting and morphing as they moved. Despite their youth, he could tell they were good; they moved as a single unit, covering every angle without needing to speak to one another. He didn’t recognize the assault rifles they carried, some sort of NCH newtech with rounded curves and plastic stocks. When did you start manufacturing weapons, Erik?

“Ambassador Cooper.” The woman who met them had the willowy beauty of a runway model but not so much as a whiff of sexuality. “I’m Patricia Ariel, Mr. Epstein’s communications director. On behalf of Epstein Industries, welcome to the New Canaan Holdfast.”

Ambassador. That’ll take some getting used to. “Thank you,” he said. “This is Natalie, and our children, Todd and Kate.”

“Welcome. If you’ll follow me, I’ll see you to your residence in the city.”

Cooper said, “Epstein couldn’t make it?”

“He thought you’d want to get settled first. Shall we?”

Hmm. Cooper hadn’t expected the real Erik Epstein—he probably never left his cave—but his brother Jakob should have been here. It was a snub, and a bad sign.

The car wasn’t as heavy as President Clay’s ride, but it was comfortable, with leather seats and broad windows. A privacy shield separated them from the driver. The motorcade started rolling immediately, engines humming softly.

“Mr. Ambassador, this isn’t your first visit to the Holdfast, correct?”

Cooper shook his head. “But my family hasn’t been here before.”

“Well, as you know, we’re corporate-held land, custom designed from the ground up . . .” Ariel continued talking, and he patterned her while his family enjoyed the tour. She was smooth and polished, but every so often a rounded consonant crept in, and he figured her to be from the Boston area. Probably a tier two, he suspected memetic based on her speech patterns, and definitely not academy-raised. He imagined her parents were loving and still married, proud of their daughter but not residents of the NCH. Sunday phone calls and e-mails about seeing her on the news, polite inquiries into her social life met with polite deflections.

Once he had figured her out, he turned his attention to the view. The airport was small, two runways for jets and a handful of glider paths. Todd oohed as one took off, a hydraulic winch a mile away yanking the carbon-fiber plane into the sky. Cooper remembered riding in one with Shannon, felt his stomach lurch. He didn’t mind heights, but airplanes without engines were another matter.

Outside the boundaries of the airport, they passed a huge solar array, tens of thousands of black panels stretching into the distance, all of them perfectly aligned and bathed in sunlight. Traffic was light, and though the motorcade moved without sirens, they rarely slowed down. One of the benefits of building a world from scratch, traffic patterns could be anticipated, roads built wide enough to avoid congestion. He wondered if Ariel ever thought of Boston, the antithesis of everything here: an old city by American standards, confusing and crowded, horse paths turned into streets, winding mazes instead of neat grids.

“What’s that?” Todd pointed at a complex of domed structures on a ridgeline, the silver sides open to the wind.

“Moisture condensers,” Ariel said. “We harvest water from the wind. This is the desert, after all, so water is always a concern. You may find showers a little strange . . .”

He tuned back out, his mind returning to the Oval Office. Last night had been close. Cleveland on fire, and the president comatose while his secretary of defense practically staged a coup. If Clay hadn’t snapped out of it, this morning abnorms all over the country would be getting shipped to internment camps as troops descended on the Holdfast.

Cooper’s last-second save had bought a little time, but only a little. Now he somehow had to convince Erik Epstein to abandon his deliberately neutral posture and throw his support fully behind the US government—a government that was at that moment drawing up plans for an attack.

Maybe that’s your angle. Carrot and stick in one.

He tapped at his teeth with his thumb, watched Tesla unfold around them. Low-rise buildings of stone and solar glass, fronted by broad sidewalks and charging stations for electric vehicles. Signs for restaurants and bars, holographic arcades and coffeehouses advertising brands of marijuana. The people on the street favored rugged, practical clothing, jeans and boots and cowboy hats. There was a genial air, people smiling at one another as they passed, stopping in small groups to talk.

He imagined US Army Seraphim drones circling above, raining down finger missiles. Vehicles exploding, walls cracking and collapsing. Or worse, bomber-dropped incendiaries; in the dry climate, the heat would reach levels hot enough to shatter stone and boil solar glass.

“Everyone is so young,” Natalie said.

“Youth is strength,” Ariel said without hesitation. Definitely memetic. Professional communications had always been about the attempt to generate memes, to make a message viral; abnorms just took that to a higher level. Back when he’d been a DAR agent, Cooper had read a brief arguing memetics was the most dangerous gift. As politicians had long known, people preferred short, catchy answers to complex ones, even if the short answers were oversimplified to the point of ridiculousness. Phrases like “old-world thinking” could be as devastating as a bomb, and much farther ranging.

After all, remember how many times you saw “I am John Smith” scrawled on a wall.

And now he’s a hero, and that’s the title of his bestselling book.

“Youth is being young,” Cooper said. “Strength is something else.”

Ariel smiled politely, continued the tour. “The average age in the Holdfast is 26.41, although that’s misleading; the number of parents and grandparents who move here with gifted children skew the math. The median is closer to sixteen.”

“A city of children,” Natalie said.

“Not a city, a new community, united in a common purpose. When people are invested in what they’re doing, biological age is less important than energy and focus. Look at Israel’s growth after the Second World War. A generation of passionate Jewish youth transformed a desert into a global power.” The motorcade purred to a halt outside a gracious brick building on a neighborhood street. “And here we are.”

Cooper had been expecting traditional diplomatic quarters—a luxury hotel, one floor cordoned off for them, agents posted everywhere. Instead, Ariel led them into a lovely three-story apartment, tastefully decorated in Western style, tile floors and sheer drapes. The back half of the house looked out onto a public square surrounding a tall tree with thick rubbery leaves, no doubt a genetic variant that required minimal water. Despite the cold, men and women chatted on benches, read d-pads in the sun. A group of boys kicked a soccer ball. Todd pressed against the window, his breath fogging the glass.

“Your security detail is quartered on the first floor; if you need anything, just pick up the phone.”

Todd said, “Can I go play?”

Cooper hesitated. He wanted his children to experience this world—that was one of the reasons he’d agreed to bring them—but this was more exposed than he’d imagined. As if reading his thoughts, Ariel said, “The security team can accompany him if you’d like, but it’s not necessary.”

“Why’s that?”

Ariel smiled. “You’re in New Canaan. Approximately fifteen percent of our police force are readers; they move through the cities looking for dangerous personality discrepancies. Pedophiles are screened out, as are those with violent tendencies.”

“You have tier-one readers wandering the streets?”

“Of course not. There are tier-one readers in the Holdfast, but mostly they choose to live in special facilities where their needs can be met by automation so they never need to see another human being. They’d go mad wandering the streets. The readers in the police are generally threes. They can sense imbalance, sociopathy, psychopathy, but they’re still able to function in human society. The system has been exceptionally effective—there hasn’t been a child hurt by an adult anywhere in the Holdfast in years.”

“What about terrorists?”

“Not a threat. These being diplomatic quarters, that protocol is expanded to include political insurgents. Your children are safer here than they are in your front yard in Washington.”

New-world thinking. Gotta love it. He caught Natalie looking at him, shrugged. She said, “Sure. Be home by dinner.”

Todd whooped and streaked for the door.

“If it’s okay with your mom and dad,” Ariel said to Kate, “there’s a sandbox and swings, other kids your age.”

His daughter wrapped her arms around herself. “I don’t really like playing with other kids.”

“That’s because you’re gifted.” Ariel smiled. “I know how you feel. I used to feel the same way. Normal kids can be so mean. Trust me, it’s better here.”

Kate looked up at Cooper, a question in her eyes. A hope, he realized, and remembered his own childhood. He’d been a military brat, and so always an outcast, but that had been made far worse because he was gifted. It seemed like he’d had to fight for his place every day of his life.

Imagining his beautiful baby girl feeling that way broke his heart.

He squatted down in front of her. “Mom will go with you, sweetheart. You don’t have to play with the other kids unless you want to.” He put a hand on her shoulder. “It’s up to you.”

Kate bit her lip. Then she nodded. “Okay.” Natalie held out one hand, and Kate took it.

“Now, Ambassador Cooper, we have a dinner planned this evening. The car will be back to pick you up at seven, if that’s all right.”

“It’s not.” He stood and turned to the communications director. “I want to talk to Epstein.”

“Mr. Epstein is engaged—”

“Now.”

Ariel was considerably cooler on the ride away from their apartment. After she had realized that he wasn’t kidding, there had been a hushed phone call, a lot of yes, sirs and sideways glances. Like any official, she didn’t like having her legs kicked out.

Cooper didn’t care. If Epstein was hoping he’d play the polite diplomat, the man had lost his touch.

Though Epstein Industries was officially headquartered in Manhattan, the real power center was here, in a complex of silver cubes that shimmered with reflected sky. The tallest was a six-story building topped with a bristling array of equipment. Satellite dishes and climatic trackers and scientific gear, he knew, but also laser defense shields and antiaircraft batteries and surface-to-air missiles. Gear that should never have been okayed for a private corporation. However, $300 billion bent a lot of rules. The gerrymandered whole of the NCH proved that, the nested sieves of legal loopholes that turned the Holdfast into something like a private nation-state.

Flanked by four security guards, he and Ariel walked to the building. Cooper imagined an Avenger missile streaking toward it. Extremely low-altitude trajectory, remote guided, stealth build, integrated ECM, hypersonic. When it came to stopping an Avenger, the countermeasures on the roof would be as effective as a kid’s slingshot. Cooper imagined the building vaporizing, a shock wave rolling out, pushing glass and stone in a lethal globe.

The atrium was broad and sunlit and backdropped by the skyline of Cleveland, columns of smoke rising from the city center, a news ticker five feet high scrolling. A massive tri-d screen with spectacular resolution. Apparently President Clay had formally declared martial law in the city; regular army tanks were rolling down Ontario Street.

Ariel led him to an elevator, the doors whisking open at their approach. She started to board, and he said, “No.”

“I’m sorry?”

“I’m going alone.”

“I’m sorry, sir, but Mr. Epstein asked that I join this meeting.”

“I’ll explain why you’re not there.”

She hesitated, then said, “Regardless, the security team—”

“Can wait down here.” He adopted a bland smile. “This is still American soil, Ms. Ariel, and I’m here at the personal request of the president. Believe me when I say now is not the time to start a turf war.”

The word “war” seemed to hang in the air. After a moment, Ariel said, “As you wish.”

Cooper smiled, then boarded the elevator. There were no buttons, but he wasn’t surprised that it slid immediately into motion.

He shouldn’t have been surprised by who was waiting on the other side, either, but he was. A ten-year-old girl with electric purple hair and clenched shoulders, eyes that wouldn’t meet his own. “Hi,” she said. Then, “Oh God. Really? They’re going to attack?”

Cooper sighed. “Hi, Millicent. Dyed your hair a different color, huh?”

“Nick Cooper. Welcome back to the NCH.” The man wore a five-thousand-dollar suit and the easy grace of someone who dined with presidents and golfed with oil barons, who bantered on CNN and spoke on the floor of the Senate. The world knew him as Erik Epstein.

The world was wrong.

“Hello, Jakob. Nice to finally shake your hand.” The last time Cooper had been here, Jakob Epstein had appeared as a fully dimensional hologram, a stunning reminder of how far advanced technology was in the NCH. That had been the Holdfast’s real defense these last years; not legal wranglings or massed billions, but simply the fact that there were more brilliants here than anywhere else, that they were working together, and that the results of that work were astonishing. The best way to protect your country, Cooper thought, is to create things people desire more than they fear your ability to create them.

“Our deal. You didn’t honor it. Statistically, that was unlikely, 12.2 percent.” The real Erik Epstein slumped on a couch, blinking like an animal ripped from its den. It wasn’t entirely inaccurate. The last time Cooper had been here, he’d seen Erik’s inner sanctum, a digital Xanadu below the building. A cave of wonders, he’d thought at the time—a solemn, dim space, lit entirely by projected data. Within it, Erik worked his gift, finding patterns in seemingly unrelated things and using them to expand his empire. It was there that Erik had predicted that John Smith represented the greatest threat to the New Canaan Holdfast; Epstein believed that his actions would drive the United States government to grow increasingly repressive against all abnorms, and specifically against the NCH.

And he was right.

“Our arrangement,” Erik continued, “was that you would kill John Smith. You didn’t.”

“You didn’t tell me the truth about him,” Cooper said. There was no point in being anything but open so long as Millie was in the room. She was one of the most powerful readers he’d ever come across, a gift that was in practice a terrible curse. Readers didn’t have a filter, couldn’t choose to turn away from what their gift offered. Tier-one readers saw everything, every hint of darkness in a person’s soul, every fractional flicker of cruelty and evil. Starting with Mommy and Daddy.

Poor Millie had never known peace in her own mind, never known trust or faith. Would never believe in love, because she saw clearly the parts of themselves people never showed the ones they loved. She would almost certainly kill herself before she was twenty.

“It’s okay,” she said. “Don’t feel sorry.”

“I can’t help it.”

“Be afraid instead.”

The words were ice down his spine. He looked at her, then at Erik and Jakob. “I am afraid.”

“These are fearful times,” Jakob said, sitting on the edge of his desk. “And you betrayed us.”

“Prior chance of the US military attacking New Canaan: 53.2 percent.” Erik spoke with his eyes closed, one hand in his lank hair. “Current chance, given impeachment of President Walker, deactivation of Equitable Services, and the emergence of the Children of Darwin: 93.2 percent within the next two weeks.”

“Three things which are all, by the way, your fault, Cooper.” Jakob smiled thinly. “More or less.”

“You didn’t tell me the truth,” Cooper repeated. “You manipulated me the same way Smith did.”

“Truth is relative. Data is absolute.”

“Okay, well, you didn’t give me all the data, then, did you?” Cooper hadn’t known what to expect out of this meeting, but it hadn’t been this. “You didn’t tell me that Smith wasn’t behind the massacre at the Monocle. You didn’t tell me that President Walker and Drew Peters were. You didn’t tell me that there was evidence of it.”

Erik waved his hands. “Irrelevant. You came to New Canaan to kill John Smith. That was your mission. His death would have stabilized trends. Helped protect our art. We made a deal. You broke it.”

“And then you made things worse,” Jakob said, “by releasing that video.”

Cooper struggled for words. None of this was a surprise. It was the reason he had joined Clay in the first place, the reason he had kidnapped John Smith, the reason he was here right now. Because in your heart, you know that what you did, while morally correct, was a mistake. The world would be in better shape if you had used the Monocle video to blackmail President Walker. The Children of Darwin would never have been this successful if the DAR was strong and Walker was still in charge. You could have put yourself in a position to shape policy and improve lives.

True, he would have to become corrupt himself. But did his personal values count more than the lives at stake?

Somehow doing the right thing was wrong. Dad never covered that eventuality, did he, Coop?

Millie said, “He understands.”

“I’m sure he does,” Jakob said. “But understanding doesn’t fix anything, does it?”

“Maybe not. But that’s why I’m here. Do you want to know what would be happening right now if I weren’t?” Cooper was about to continue, but instead he turned to Millie. Put all the events of the last days in his eyes and his bearing. Remembered standing in the Oval Office last night watching Cleveland burn. “Tell them.”

She cringed, dipping her face to her lap, hiding behind a shield of purple hair. Erik and Jakob both looked at her, staring intently. Cooper felt another flash of sympathy for the girl. Ten years old, and grown men were looking to her for information that would decide the fate of the country.

Finally, she said, “They want to attack. Not just the Holdfast. Brilliants.”

“By ‘they,’ ” Cooper said, “she means the most powerful people on the planet. Last night Defense Secretary Leahy gave orders to arrest all known tier ones, start the microchipping program, and move military forces to your borders in preparation for an invasion. None of which happened—because I stopped it. So how about you two drop the tough-guy act and we work the problem together?”

A long moment of silence fell. Jakob turned to face the floor-to-ceiling windows. The city of Tesla spread out around them, orderly and neat, a new world sprung from desert soil. A world that Cooper had to admit he quite liked. More than that—admired. Ever since the emergence of the gifted thirty-odd years ago, most of the world had been turning inward, becoming destructive. His own government had focused on containment and control, on smashing anything deemed dangerous.

Funny, there had been a time when building things was what America did. From massive dams to towering skyscrapers, from mechanized factories to moon rockets, the nation had created, had viewed that as part of the national identity. Being an engineer or an architect had once been high aspirations.

Now everybody wanted to be musicians and basketball players, and America didn’t build squat.

But out here, in the least hospitable place, the Epsteins had. The NCH was a dream made real. A beautiful place that he would very much like not to see obliterated, both for its own sake and for what would happen to the country afterward.

“You want our support.” Erik crossed his leg at the knee. The richest man in the world wore threadbare Chuck Taylors. “For the NCH to join forces with the government. Against the Children of Darwin.”

“Against every terrorist. Against John Smith. He’s behind the COD, isn’t he?”

“The data is inconclusive—”

“You’re lying,” Millie said. “I hate it when you lie.”

Erik Epstein winced. It wasn’t, Cooper realized, because she had contradicted him. It was because of what she had said. Clearly, he cared for Millie. Understood her.

“Yes,” Jakob said. “Smith is behind the COD. He set up the organization years ago as sleeper cells with a very specific set of instructions. They were to activate once he was cleared of the charges against him.”

Cooper stared. His legs felt wobbly, and he steadied himself on a chair. On one level, he’d known it since he and Bobby Quinn had confronted John Smith. But it felt different to have it confirmed—and to learn that his actions had been the trigger for everything. All those people. All that chaos.

All your fault.

He took a deep breath, blew it out. “Okay. You said there’s a 93 percent chance of a military attack in the next two weeks.”

“93.2 percent. Not enough time. Not enough time.”

“For what? There’s no magic potion that will fix this.”

Abruptly, Millie started laughing. It was an eerie sound, like she had only heard laughter described to her. Cooper stared, a little creeped out. After a moment, she stopped as abruptly as she had begun.

Unsettled, he said, “If you want to know if I would make the same choices now, I honestly don’t know. And frankly, if your crystal ball is so goddamn clear, then you should have been making other plans. You shouldn’t have gone all-in on one angle.”

There was a half second hesitation before Jakob—

You’re missing something.

These are very smart people, with enormous resources.

What are the chances that they bet their entire survival on you? A rogue agent working as an assassin in a situation he didn’t, couldn’t, fully comprehend?

They do have other plans. There’s something else.

And why did Millie start laughing just then?

—replied, “You’re right. Erik?”

“Fluid situation. Too many variables. The patterns are indefinite.”

“That’s why we need to act,” Cooper said. “I understand how awkward this is for you. But if you don’t come out right now in defense of the government, if you don’t denounce the Children of Darwin and dedicate the full resources of the Holdfast to ending terrorism, you’re slitting your own throat. I’m not posturing here.” He glanced at Millie, who said nothing, just continued playing a game on her d-pad. “This is what I believe. Something I believe in so strongly that I came here myself, with my family. If we work together, right now, we have a chance to save everything.”

Jakob cleared his throat. “We can see the advantages to President Clay. And to your country.”

“My country?”

“But like Erik said, the situation is fluid.”

“What does that mean?”

“You want me to put it bluntly?” Jakob shrugged. “We’re no longer sure that the United States of America will survive.”

“That the—what are you talking about? Are you saying that—”

“We don’t want to back the losing side.”

Cooper barked a half laugh, involuntary and not funny. “You’re considering siding with the terrorists?”

“An appellation,” Erik said to his lap. “A name given to a vector. There is no morality in the data.”

“What my brother means is that John Smith would call himself a freedom fighter. And unlike your government, he has a plan. Allying with him might be better for the NCH.”

Cooper couldn’t believe it. He could not fucking believe what he was hearing. How could this be happening everywhere? All of them: President Clay and his staff running electoral math; John Smith trying to start a war; the Epsteins caring only about their own interests. Could it really be that everyone in power, on every side, was blind to the larger stakes?

The Civil War had been the bloodiest conflict in America’s history. Three-quarters of a million dead, cities burned, infrastructure destroyed, disease run rampant—and that was all before Seraphim drones and Avenger missiles. Could positions be so hard-line, so intractably personal, that the people who held them were willing to risk the entire world?

“Yes,” Millie said.

Erik looked at her. “Yes what?”

She shook her head.

All right. If they won’t listen to reason, if terror of the consequences won’t work, maybe something else will. “You said the data was unclear.”

“Fluid.”

“There must be something that would help solidify it.” Cooper paused. “Something that we can offer you.”

Erik and Jakob shared a look. To a normal person, it might have seemed they were considering his words. But to Cooper, the meaning was clear. They had already decided what they needed. There was a price for their help.

And it took all of three seconds for him to work it out.