A Better World

CHAPTER 28

Cooper was having a hard time keeping his mind on his breakfast.

In an hour he would be sitting down with Erik Epstein to negotiate the terms of the New Canaan Holdfast’s secession from the United States. An enormous political maneuver with consequences so far-ranging they boggled the mind.

And it didn’t matter, because what they would actually be talking about was the biggest development in human history since . . . fire?

When the gifted had first appeared thirty or so years ago, scientists and philosophers alike had wondered what they meant. Why some people had amazing abilities and others did not. But after decades of research and thousands of theories, no answers had been found. As the ramifications of that dichotomy had grown, the whys and hows had started to seem less important as people focused on the question of what the world was going to do about it.

And now, suddenly, all that was wiped away. There would be no more “us” and “them”—no more divisions. There would be questions and fears and a million decisions to be made. But at least there would be options. The growing tension that was pitting the country—the world—against itself would ease. Instead of terrorism, there would be debate. Instead of genocide, there would be choice.

And humanity would never be the same. In a very real way, humanity as it had been would cease to exist, replaced by something better.

All of which made it hard to concentrate on breakfast.

For now, be here for your family. You’ve lost enough time with them already.

The restaurant was bright and airy, tastefully designed, and alive with chatter. One of the guys on their security team had recommended it; apparently the chef was famous in the NCH, a brilliant who ran a string of places. Cooper largely avoided abnorm chefs; maybe his palate wasn’t sophisticated enough, but he just didn’t need his breakfast “deconstructed”:

Steamed egg cut into a cube, the yolk removed and the hollow stuffed with spinach and goat cheese; kelp protein extruded and dyed to look like rib eye, served atop a smear of braised beet puree; rutabaga tater tots served with crystallized ketchup.

“How do they turn ketchup into crystals?” Todd poked at his plate suspiciously.

“I gotta say, Toddster, I think the more important question is why.” Cooper glanced around, taking in the room, old habit. It was busy, a crowd of people waiting, but a table had been made for them the moment they arrived. One of the benefits of being an ambassador. Thankfully, the security team was keeping things low profile; most of them were outside, and the two guards in the restaurant wore plainclothes.

Soon we won’t need guards, won’t fear terrorists.

“I like it,” Kate said. Her crepes were folded into origami animals and covered with freeze-dried berries. He’d stolen a strawberry off her plate; it tasted sweet but had the texture of a cheese puff. “I like it here.”

Natalie shot him a quick look over the table, a smile in her eyes. “You do?”

Kate nodded. “It’s nice. Everything is new.”

“It’s stupid,” Todd said.

“Come on,” Natalie said. “Why would you say that? You’ve only been here a day.”

“They screwed up soccer.”

How did it work, turning a normal into a gifted? Probably it amplified latent tendencies; if you had always been good at guessing how other people were feeling, you would now be a reader. If you had always had grace on the athletic field, now you would be able to sense the others’ moves before they made them.

My God, though, what a change that would bring. The Children of Darwin thought they had caused some chaos? Their little insurrection was bush league compared to the upheaval that would flow from Erik’s pet project. A magic potion indeed.

Be here now.

He turned to his son. “What do you mean, they screwed up soccer?”

“I played with some kids yesterday. They have all these stupid rules ’cause they’re gifted.”

“Like what?”

“One kid can do the thing you do, where no one can touch him, so to get a goal he has to score and then take the ball back and score again. This other girl just sits in the center of the field. She doesn’t even move, but they picked her first. A girl. Plus, one kid is allowed to use his hands, because he’s seeing math.”

“He’s seeing math?”

“That’s what he said. Angles and stuff, and he needs to be able to pick up the ball and throw it. Then when he does, it does crazy trick stuff and bounces off things and people and no one can get it and it just, like, rolls past you.”

Cooper fought an urge to laugh. Remember when you said a city of mirrors would be cool, kiddo? Welcome to a world of them. “So they’re changing the rules. No one says the rules have to be the same all the time.”

“They do. That’s what rules means.”

“You’re just mad because you lost,” Kate said.

“I didn’t lose. They cheated.”

“I like it,” Kate said. “Nobody here thinks it’s weird that I organize things.”

“That’s not weird, sweetie. You’re not weird.”

“I’m weird at home. Can we stay here?”

Cooper laughed. He was about to reply when a knife slid across the throat of one of his bodyguards, and a fountain of sudden blood sprayed across three tables.

Soren rode.

Passenger side, the backseat of the cab. The driver had a mole on his neck, a hair growing out of it. Out the window, momentary flashes turned into still life paintings. A man and woman walking hand in hand. Look at it slow and notice that her hand clutches harder than his, that his eyes are on a display window, that her neck showed age ten years past her makeup, and his belt was buckled but pants unbuttoned. Grace, permanence, purity—they were illusions. People were just fluids and flesh, meat and hair and bone.

The weapon was what he had asked for, a Fairbairn-Sykes. A fighting knife, dagger-tapered and razor-sharp, thin enough to slide between bone. Made famous during World War II, although those had been steel and this one was carbon-fiber. The edge wouldn’t hold, but it was so light he could move it without any momentum at all, just an extension of his hand. A knife good for killing and little else. His fingers rested on the pommel.

The car began to slow. It would be almost a minute before it stopped. Soren used the time to read the security outside the restaurant. As John had predicted, it was a diplomatic protection team, all gifted, all armed, all wired via earpiece. Guards used to escorting high-value assets, attuned to threat at all times. They would have constant situational awareness, evaluating everything in terms of risk.

So he became a tourist from Missouri, wide-eyed and unthreatening. He had all the time in the world to slip into character. He paid the driver with the mild excitement of someone for whom a cab ride was a novelty, something more often seen on tri-d. Told the driver to keep the change, a buck too much, exactly enough to be appreciated and forgotten. Stepped onto the sidewalk and looked around, trying at once to pretend that he belonged here—keep the muggers away—while simultaneously taking everything in. After a minute and a half that was eight seconds to the rest of the world, he turned and walked into the restaurant, consciously putting a little pleasure in his step, anticipating a meal unlike any he could get in good old MO.

The team registered him, watched him, and dismissed him. Even the reader by the door. Readers amused him. They were so attuned to everyone else in the world, yet his gift meant that to them he was like the optical illusion of a tire rim spinning backward as it sped along—an incorrect approximation based on flawed perception.

Inside, the restaurant was chaos and noise. So many people, all being. Just sitting there being, and so loud about it, volume and intensity. But he was ready, became nothing at all as he walked to one of the two bodyguards and slit his throat, the blade’s edge so sharp that the skin sprang apart at the touch, the carotid neatly bisected.

Arterial spray gushed out in an arc. It was rather pretty, the fluid dynamics of it, and he spent a few seconds admiring it before heading for the other guard. That one was drawing his gun, a smooth and practiced move, and Soren took the time to look at the angle of the man’s arm, the way his left hand was bracing his right, and positioned himself so that the man’s own momentum brought his inner elbow into contact with the blade, the force of the guard’s motion driving the knife through cloth and flesh and muscle and tendons to sever the brachial artery.

There was screaming, but not in his nothing.

For some reason, Soren found himself thinking of the spider, the one he had spent time being when John came to get him. Why? Ah. The calm immobility that preceded lethal motion. Yes.

He turned. The two bodyguards crumpled at about the same rate, as if they had choreographed it.

Soren took in the still life. Nick Cooper was on his feet, his eyes appraising. No hesitation or paralysis. Interesting.

It wouldn’t be enough, of course. But it was interesting.

Cooper was on his feet without thought, reflex taking over. But by the time he had stood up, the second bodyguard was done, a textbook-perfect slice splitting the inner bicep to the bone. He’d have a few seconds of consciousness before the long fall into darkness.

The man with the knife turned, his face calm. Behind him, the two guards collapsed, not clean and quick like on tri-d, but messy, arterial spray lashing like a hose each time their hearts beat. A woman coated with blood screamed a ragged, inhuman sound.

Cooper took in the scene in an instant, his mind patterning for the fight to come. The killer was lean and slight, the knife he carried modeled after the old British commando daggers. He looked at Cooper, and then—

His knuckles aren’t white. His breathing is steady. The pulse in his neck is maybe seventy beats a minute. He just murdered two highly trained guards in three seconds, and he is perfectly calm.

This isn’t an abnorm with a grudge, the brother of one of your old targets. This is an assassin.

Which means he was sent for you. Probably by John Smith.

And your children are here.

—started walking toward the table.

In one move, Cooper spun, grabbed the back of his chair, circled back around, and hurled it at the assassin, an easy throw at ten feet, the chair not heavy but massy enough to tangle the guy up, lessen the advantage of his knife. Cooper kept the momentum going and hopped right up on the table, the shortest distance between a killer and his children being a straight line. He dropped down the other side, following the chair, thinking, Go low, sweep his leg, then stomp his wrist, groin, wrist, neck—

Only when he got there, the chair had flown through space undisturbed, the man somehow standing calmly to one side of it. Not even blinking as a chair missed him by a fraction of an inch.

Fine. Cooper slid into a fighting stance, light on his feet, knees bent, arms up to block. The trick to facing an opponent with a knife was knowing you were going to get cut, period, and maintaining an attack despite that. Act like prey and you became prey.

The assassin’s face was composed. He seemed barely awake. Cooper shifted his weight, watching the man, gauging his next move . . .

And getting no sense of it. Nothing. It was like the man in front of him had no plan, no intent. He was a void.

It didn’t matter. Cooper faked a jab, then put his weight behind a devastating hook to the man’s left kidney, followed it with an uppercut that caught his chin and snapped his head back, exposing the neck for an elbow strike that crushed the assassin’s trachea.

Only the man didn’t react to the fake, and when Cooper threw his hook, instead of flesh, he found himself punching the edge of the dagger, the thing held parallel to his knuckles so that the edge slid right between his second and third fingers and split his hand halfway to the wrist.

Oh.

Shit.

He took a half step back, his arms up to guard, only his right hand was a mess of gore, half of it sort of flopping, no pain yet, the edge of the knife too sharp, and shock setting in so that for a fraction of a second all he could do was stare at his hand, thinking, wow, how weird was that.

Still no expression on the man’s face, just the flicker of his eyes to one side as—

He’s immune to your gift. Exempt from it.

He can’t be. Everyone shows intention. Our bodies betray our minds. But somehow his doesn’t.

Which means that your gift won’t help you. This fight isn’t like any you’ve ever had.

And what’s he looking at?

Oh. No.

—Todd, somehow on his feet, ran at the man.

No!

It all slowed down then, not an effect of his gift but the by-product of a massive spike of adrenaline and terror, Cooper thinking faster than he could move, and harder than he could bear, trying through sheer force of will to make the universe not allow what was happening, his son yelling as he ran at the man who had hurt his dad. Ten years old and tall for his age but a boy, just a boy, skinny legs and skinny arms and good intentions but no business doing what he was doing, and Jesus oh Jesus no, don’t let this happen, Cooper trying to block Todd with one arm, an arm hurled with all his force, better to knock the kid back and take the breath out of him and maybe even bang him up than let him anywhere near this empty-eyed killing machine who even now was spinning with terrible force, arm up and elbow out, no no no not my son you bastard, me, take me but not my boy—

The assassin’s blow was square, the arm locked, the elbow conveying all the force of the move directly into Todd’s temple. His son’s head snapped too far sideways and his eyes went glassy.

Cooper screamed as he threw himself at the killer, ready to strip the skin from his body and tear the tissue from the bones as, moving like he had all the time in the world, the man continued his turn and buried the dagger in Cooper’s chest.

Slick cool plastic parted skin and muscle, slid between his ribs, and pierced his heart.

He knew he was dead then.

Tried to fight anyway even though he couldn’t move his arms, but it didn’t matter because the guy was already turning and walking away, his mission accomplished, his target assassinated.

Cooper fell down.

Natalie was suddenly there, her face filling his vision, black spots dancing, holes in her head, and she was yelling something, couldn’t hear, the blood coming fast and on the floor he landed beside Todd, his beautiful boy, the son he and Natalie had made, and it couldn’t be that his son was on the ground, that he wasn’t breathing, and this couldn’t be the last thing it couldn’t it can’t remember instead a whirl of green and your kids clinging to each arm as you spin them on the front lawn of the house you’d shared with Natalie all of them smiling and laughing and the world a whorl a whirl a beautiful world.