Crux

75 SANCTUARY

Friday November 2nd

Rangan accepted the outstretched hand, pulled himself up with it to the road. He put Jose down, then he and this other man hauled the rest of the boys onto the muddy embankment, then into the ancient-looking white van.

“Get in front,” the man yelled to Rangan over the wind. Rangan nodded, opened the passenger side door and hauled himself in. Free!

He slammed the door as this man did the same on the driver’s side. The boys were in a stunned state of excitement in the back, babbling at each other, their minds giving off chaos and disbelief. Rangan studied the man who’d rescued them. Early thirties. Dark hair. Average build. Clean shaven. In a raincoat, with jeans and hiking boots showing beneath it.

“I’m Levi.” The man turned to Rangan, offering his hand.

“I’m Rangan,” Rangan said, taking the hand, shaking it.

“I know.” Levi smiled. He turned an old-fashioned key and a startlingly loud engine rumbled to life.

“Thank you,” Rangan said.

Levi nodded his head and the van lurched forward, driving them into the night.

“Where are we going?” Rangan asked.

“West,” Levi said. “St Mark’s Episcopal Church.”

Rangan frowned. “I thought the churches all hated Nexus?”

“Not this one,” Levi said. Then he turned and smiled at Rangan. “I should know. I’m the minister.”

It took almost three hours to make it out to the Virginia countryside and to St Mark’s, a little church on the outskirts of a farming town called Madison. Levi took back roads, avoiding the highways where cameras would be. Zoe battered them every moment of it, pushing herself onto land, chasing them as they drove. The radio brought news of downed trees, roofs torn off, power outages, cars overturned, injuries, and deaths.

“We got lucky,” Levi told him as he drove through the gale. “We couldn’t have gotten you out without this storm. It left them short-staffed. Satellites can’t see us with the clouds. Drones can’t fly in this wind. Zoe’s a gift from the Lord, Rangan. He sent her. So we could get you and these boys out.”

Rangan just grunted in reply.

Holtzmann lay on the floor, face down, eyes closed, pretending to be unconscious. His head ached where Rangan had punched him, shoved him against the wall. His right arm had long ago fallen asleep, pinned beneath his weight. His still healing hip ached at him. His Nexus OS was on the fritz, disrupted by the electrical shock through his system, not responding to his commands.

Stay still, he told himself. Just a little longer. Just a little longer.

In the end it was thirty-five minutes before Holtzmann heard running feet and a raised voice, before someone shook him and rolled him over.

He did his best to look and seem dazed, confused. The guard was asking him again and again, “What happened?”

Holtzmann groaned, put his hand to his head. “I was interrogating Shankari. The alarm went off. And then…”

Then the guard cursed, got up, ran off. A moment later a new alarm sounded, one Holtzmann had never heard before. A voice came on over it.

“Lockdown alert. Lockdown alert. This facility is now locked down. No one may leave or enter the facility until the lockdown is completed. Lockdown alert. Lockdown alert…” and on and on.

Now he just hoped that Shankari and the children were already off the campus.

They held him for two hours, not as a prisoner, but as a witness. More guards arrived, some sopping wet, others dry. A medic pointed a light in Holtzmann’s eyes, scanned him for any sign of concussion, pronounced him likely healthy.

Bit by bit, over the course of those hours, Holtzmann’s Nexus nodes came back to functionality, until the Nexus OS booted itself again. Idly, he wondered if his root access to his own brain had been restored? No, he told himself. Best not to check that. Best not to go down that road again. Never again.

While he waited, Holtzmann overheard bits of chatter across the radios. All-points bulletin. Local police. FBI. Hurricane problems.

They were doing everything they could to recapture Shankari and the children. And Zoe was fighting them.

The lockdown ended just before 10pm, but Zoe raged on, intensifying, as more of her pushed aground.

Shortly after, Holtzmann persuaded them that he’d answered all the questions he could. One of the guards escorted him to his office, opening the doors that Holtzmann couldn’t without his badge.

He thanked the man, sat down at his desk, waited for the guard to leave.

Then he got to work.

As they drove, Levi updated Rangan on world events. It was November already. When had he thought it was? Fuck, he didn’t even know. A lot had happened. Kade’s release of Nexus 5. The embrace of it by scientists, mental health workers, and the autism community. The PLF bombings. The Nexus crackdowns. The birth of the underground railroad.

Rangan’s head spun with it. The world was a different place. Nexus 5 had changed things in ways he’d never expected. Maybe Wats had expected this conflict. Maybe Ilya had. They’d been political. Not him or Kade. The political ones had died. He and Kade were just hunted.

He needed to get in touch with his parents, let them know that he was alive.

“Later,” Levi said. “DHS will have your parents under surveillance. We’ll find a stealthy way to let them know.”

Rangan nodded his head mutely. He had no choice but to trust this man.

Levi pulled the van up to a covered garage attached to the small church. The door opened and they drove in. The boys were holding their breaths in Rangan’s mind. This all seemed so unreal.

Rangan hopped out, opened the van’s side door, started helping boys out. He felt other minds appear, turned, saw three women approaching, all modestly dressed. Their minds felt warm and welcoming, and there were smiles on their faces.

Bobby jumped out of the van, hugged Rangan tight. Rangan returned the embrace. So weird that he’d never seen any of these boys in the flesh until a few hours ago.

Levi came around the van, introduced the women as Laura and Janet and Steph. “These are friends,” he told Rangan and the boys. Janet crouched in front of Tyrone and held out her hand and mind. The boy tentatively reached out, embraced both, and suddenly the bottleneck was broken, and the women were accepted.

“Welcome to the underground railroad,” Levi told Rangan quietly.

The three women took the boys away. Bobby didn’t want to go. He hugged Rangan tight, but Rangan assured him it was OK, that these were good people. He felt it. He felt it from Laura and Janet and Steph’s minds, felt it even from Levi, though there was no Nexus there. Bobby felt it too, felt the kindness, felt Rangan’s own judgment. He loosened his grip, and Laura led him kindly away.

Outside, the storm raged on, battering the church with a ratatatat of heavy rain.

Levi showed him to a bathroom, put a bundle of clothes in his hands. Rangan went in, pulled off the thin soggy clothes he’d been wearing, changed into a plain cotton T-shirt and jeans Levi had given him. The jeans were too loose, but there was a belt. He pulled it tight, wondering who had gifted him with these clothes.

He half collapsed on the sink, then, overcome with emotion. A sob ripped itself out of his chest. The kindness these people were showing him overwhelmed him. A day ago he’d been sure he was going to die in that place. Now he had something. Hope. The boys had hope. Rangan wept, racked with sobs, wishing Ilya had lived long enough for this, wishing Wats had, wishing he knew where Kade was or how to help him.

He pulled himself together, stood up straight, forced himself to stop crying, then splashed water on his face.

If I make it out of this… I’m gonna help people. I’m gonna pay this forward.

Levi was there when Rangan opened the bathroom door, standing there patiently. The minister just looked at him kindly, smiled, held out a hand and took Rangan by the shoulder.

Levi led him down a stairwell and into a basement below the small church, then through a door and into an office.

Rangan felt her before he saw her. Felt them before he saw them. He didn’t understand what it was he sensed until the door swung open and Levi stepped out of the way. And then he could see her. Levi’s wife, Abigail. She was seated in a swiveling office chair. A pretty, petite blonde woman in a floral dress. Thirty, maybe. She had a shy smile on her face. And her hands were on her belly.

Her giant pregnant belly.