A Better World

CHAPTER 41

“You are my sunshine, my only sunshine . . .”

Late afternoon, and already the sky was starting to fade, cold clouds going fat and dim. They had a fire burning and news on the TV, an actual old-school television, not a tri-d. Ethan was splitting his attention between the horror show in Wyoming and the sight of his wife crooning lullabies to their daughter. It was a jarring juxtaposition, footage of soldiers and tanks and jets, of missiles being fueled and politicians thumping the podium, set against the two loves of his life, his daughter safe and warm and drifting off on a tide of song.

“You make me happy, ev-er-y day.”

They did a lot of singing to Violet. Sang the “Naked Baby” song as they got her into her bath (to the tune of “Alouette”: “Naked baby, naked naked baby, naked baby, naked baby time”). Sang free-form about toys and breakfast and pooping. And early on, Amy had declared that they would have their own version of “You Are My Sunshine,” one that addressed certain thematic difficulties.

Now the news was showing footage of Cleveland. If it hadn’t been identified, he wouldn’t have recognized it. Fire had swept through most of downtown, and what was left was all gray people in gray clothes digging through rubble, ragged families on street corners, and squads of riot police locking shields.

“You’ll never know, dear, how much I love you.”

Ethan’s eyes wandered from screen to family, family to screen, but a part of him, the part he would have pointed to as his real self if anyone had asked, wasn’t really taking either in. It was thinking about what Amy had said earlier.

The fact that she was right was so obvious it didn’t bear thinking about. He and Abe had rushed foolishly into places angels feared to tread, and while they had found answers there, they had also made enemies. Funny that the idea had never occurred to him before. Even when the DAR had shown up at his house about their research, he’d asked Bobby Quinn to leave like the agent was a census-taker. In hindsight, it was all so clear: the DAR must have been watching them, watching from before Abe disappeared. And they would never stop looking for him, never. Not with what he knew.

“No one can take my sunshine away.”

And what if the DAR wasn’t the only group who wanted the serum? Another thing he’d never thought of until Amy laid him out. The value of their discovery was literally incalculable. Controlling it would be like holding a patent on the wheel. No wonder Abe had been so rigid about his nondisclosures, his loose-lips-sink-ships policy. The problem was that Abe hadn’t gone nearly far enough. They should have been operating in perfect secrecy on some remote Pacific island.

If the DAR knew about their work, maybe the Children of Darwin would too. Plus their mysterious backer, whose deep pockets had financed the lab in the first place. Ethan had always suspected that might be Erik Epstein—who else would benefit so highly?—which meant he and Abe had been working for a rogue state currently surrounded by American troops.

All those forces arrayed against him, and here he was huddling in a cabin, waiting for the sky to fall and crush him. Not to mention his wife and daughter. Because of what Ethan had done.

No, that was imprecise. It wasn’t because of what he’d done. It was because of what he knew. The difference was important. The former was about punishment for a sin already committed. Nothing to be done about that.

But if people were after him for what he knew . . . well. That made things clearer.

Ethan focused on his wife and daughter. Amy was gazing down at Violet, a faint smile on her lips. A knit blanket draped her shoulders, and the fire wrapped them both in soft flickering light. His daughter’s tiny hand clenched his wife’s index finger. What wouldn’t he do to protect them?

“No one can take my sunshine away.”

He’d have to act soon. Every moment he stayed with them, he put them at risk.

If he was going to leave them, maybe forever, he’d have to act soon. Now.

Ethan was trying to make himself stand up and walk away from everything he loved when he heard a sound that didn’t belong. It wasn’t menacing in its own right, not something he would have noticed under other circumstances. But now it meant the world. Meant, in fact, that the world was ending.

It was the sound of a car door closing.

They were here.