Written in Fire

CHAPTER 29

The streets were jammed, cars and trucks everywhere, most filled to bursting, suitcases strapped to the roof, people piled in the back. Cooper had driven fast and disrespectfully, blasting through parking lots, jumping sidewalks, ignoring traffic lights. It was the way he used to drive when his car had a transponder identifying him as a DAR agent. Today he got away with it because the SUV belonged to the Holdfast Wardens. There was an irony to that juxtaposition, but he didn’t have time or inclination to savor it.

The crowd grew worse as they neared Epstein’s compound of mirrored buildings. It made sense; the pitchforks and torches were at the gates. The residents of New Canaan would feel safest close to their leader.

“You sure you want to be part of this?” Cooper spared a glance sideways as he squealed up to the door. “I’m not sure what kind of welcome we’ll get.”

“Are you kidding?” Shannon looked incredulous. “I rescued those kids. I planned the operation on the academy, I led it, I blew the damn thing up. You think I’m going to let a bunch of rednecks burn them alive?”

“Roger that.”

The lobby to the central building was airy and flooded with late afternoon winter sunlight. One whole wall was given over to a massive tri-d, the projection field showing children three stories high and terrified. People stood in the lobby staring, pale lips biting shaking knuckles. Cooper ignored the receptionist, strode across the floor to the unmarked elevator. No doubt the guard standing by it was normally very good at his job, but at the moment his attention was absorbed by the footage. Shannon smiled and faded back.

Cooper said, “Hey.”

“What?” The guard straightened. “Yes, sir?”

“I need to see Erik Epstein right now.”

“I’m sorry, but he isn’t seeing anyone at the moment.”

“He’ll see me. Nick Cooper.”

“I know who you are, sir. But Mr. Epstein was explicit. No one in at all.”

“Son, I’m sorry. But we don’t have time for this.”

The guard was about to reply when Shannon slid the sidearm from his holster, planted it in his back, and cocked it.

They left the guard cuffed to the elevator rail and sprinted down the hall, the thick carpet muffling their footsteps. He could hear the rush of the ventilation system, the air cold against his sweating skin, and then they were pushing through the door to Epstein’s private world.

It was different than the other times Cooper had been here. It was bright, and instead of constellations of data hanging in all directions, there was just one simple vector animation, a stylized blob intersecting a series of three concentric rings. Without the dizzying backdrop, the room looked cheap, the mystery deflated. A movie theater with the house lights up.

Three men stood in the center, their heads snapping around at the sound of Cooper’s entrance. The first was tan and wild-haired, with that skin-stretched-over-skeleton look. Slouching beside him, Erik Epstein looked paler than usual, his eyes haunted, his plump neck sweaty. In his usual five-thousand-dollar suit, Jakob looked like the adult guardian to a couple of precocious nerds. “Cooper? What are you doing here?”

“John Smith is dead.”

“We know,” Jakob said. “We watched the operation via the Wardens’ bodycams. Good work. But if you’ll excuse us—”

Cooper gestured at the animation. “Is that the Vogler Ring?”

The three men exchanged looks.

“Cooper,” Jakob said, “we appreciate your help, but you aren’t needed at the moment. This is an internal matter.”

“Tell me that you’ve turned it off.”

“Turned it off?” the third man said like he’d been slapped. “Of course not.”

“Who are you?”

“Randall Vogler.”

“Vogler? You’re the genius who developed this system?”

“Well, of course my whole team gets credit, but—”

“Erik, what are you doing?”

Epstein’s eyes darted to his, then away. “Protecting us. The data—”

“Cooper,” Jakob said, “we understand your feelings, but this system is all that’s standing between the city of Tesla and a lynch mob.”

“A lynch mob that’s marching children in front of it,” Cooper said. “These aren’t game pieces. They’re kids, and you’re killing them.”

“Not all,” Vogler said. “This is a completely defensive system. I’m a pacifist, sir.”

“Tell that to their parents,” Shannon said.

Erik flinched. “We don’t have a choice.”

“You do. You’re making it, right now.”

“This is a civilian city,” Jakob said. “Just regular people, including thousands of children. This system is all that’s protecting them. The men coming for us are ex–special forces, paramilitary survivalists, and armed killers. None of us are twirling our mustache here. If we drop our defenses, those kids might live. But how many people here will die? How many children?”

“You. Vogler.” Cooper gestured at the animation. “There are three rings up there, and the militia is almost to the second. What does that mean?”

“The system is a directed-energy weapon, generating electromagnetic radiation in the 2.45 gigahertz range, but the effects are modulated by particulate disturbance, humidity, air currents. The first ring represents guaranteed safe distance. The second is the corollary to that, the line at which, no matter the range of conditions—presuming relative norms, of course—the effects will be felt.”

“What are the effects?” Shannon’s voice had a girlish lilt that caught Cooper’s attention. When he glanced over, she didn’t wink, but he could see that she thought about winking, with the tiny resulting muscular motion that entailed. God love her, she was playing them.

“The ring agitates electric dipoles like water and fat, and their motion generates heat.”

“Sort of like a microwave oven?”

“Yes, exactly.” Vogler beamed at her.

“So . . .” She paused theatrically. “It will burn them alive?”

“Well, the advantage of the system is that there is plenty of warning. It’s not like one moment targets are fine and the next they drop dead. The only way it would be fatal is if—”

Cooper said, “Somebody marched you into it with a rifle at your back.”

“In the absence of ideal options,” Erik said, “the only rational choice is the best of the worst.”

“Then why aren’t you watching?”

“What?”

“It’s easy to talk about the greater good,” Cooper said, “when you’re looking at a colored blob crossing a dotted line. But that’s not what’s happening.”

“I . . . I like people. You know I do, that children—”

“Stop playing the saint, Cooper.” Jakob’s tone was sharp. “How many people have you killed? How many have you killed today?”

“Today? Two. And I looked them both in the eyes.” His hands clenched and unclenched. “I’m not a saint, Jakob. Far from. But if you’re going to decide who lives and dies, have the stones to watch.”

Erik took a deep breath. “Computer. Quads one to fifteen, activate, drone and security footage, multiple perspectives, militia approaching Vogler Ring.”

The air shimmered to life. What had been empty space was suddenly filled with people, a mob of them, a horde of humanity. Cooper had heard the number over and over, the headcount of the New Sons of Liberty, but it was one thing to hear the figure and another to see the mass, a crowd that could fill a midsize stadium. At that scale, individual features were lost in a shifting whole, and the dust-coated clothing, coupled with the beards and the dirt and the rifles, compounded the impression that it was a single creature, some thousand-legged insect out of a nightmare.

“Better?” Jakob’s voice was cold. “You see what’s coming for us?”

“The children, Erik.”

Jakob said, “Don’t—” as his brother said, “Computer, group quads, refocus, front ranks.”

The hologram shifted vertiginously, the multiple angles replaced by a single stream of video.

According to the news, there were about six hundred children. A small number when compared to the militia twenty yards behind them, but seen altogether, it was about the same size as the school Todd attended. The youngest were four or five, the oldest in their late teens, the majority somewhere in the middle. They were dressed too lightly for the weather, and fear shone bright from their faces.

“Erik,” Jakob said softly. “No one wants this. We don’t have a choice. It’s a horrible decision, one we’ll have to bear for the rest of our lives, but it’s the right one.”

“The right one?” Cooper couldn’t take his eyes off the screen. Six hundred children. His mind kept wanting to zoom out, to see them as a mass; to counter that, he made himself focus on one. A teenage girl walking a bit forward of the others, her head bowed, hair falling across her face. She was one of the academy kids, he could tell instantly; where others risked defiant glances and might resist when the pain got bad enough, she just walked. Bore up under horror not because she was brave or strong, but because horror was what the world had shown her so far. “It might be the decision that lets you win. But it’s not the right one.”

Shannon said, “They’re crossing the second line.”

She was referring to the animation, he knew, but it was easy to see in the video as well. An invisible wave of sensation washed across the children. Not a wind that tugged at clothes or hair, but a ripple of pain that twisted their features into grimaces and gritted teeth. What had been strange warmth was beginning to burn as they moved farther into the radiation field. Several of the kids hesitated. Behind them, men raised rifles, made soundless threats. Some of the New Sons were laughing. One boy froze, then turned around, his defiance clear even without audio, his arms pointing and head shaking. A dark-haired man in his fifties slung the rifle casually to his shoulder, aimed with practiced ease, and fired.

Shannon gasped.

The dirt inches from the boy’s toes exploded upward.

He staggered backward, his face wild with disbelief. A friend grabbed his shoulder, pulled him along.

Randall Vogler looked like he wanted to vomit. Erik Epstein had his tongue between his teeth and was biting savagely. Jakob put a hand on his brother’s shoulder. “You don’t have to watch.”

The children continued marching, their faces tight and shining.

“We’re saving lives,” Jakob said, his voice hollow. “This is the choice we have to make.”

Cooper turned back to the video, his fists clenching and unclenching, heart pounding. He made himself look at the same girl. “Turn it off, Erik. Please.” She was still walking, her pace steady, even as her shoulders shook and chest heaved. “Erik.” Walking through agony because the choice was death, and she didn’t want to die, not before she’d had a chance to live. “Erik!” Her fingers knotted, the knuckles twisting. Her face was turning pink and spotted, a sunburn happening at high speed. Tears streamed from her eyes. Her skin rippled and tightened. Discolored splotches rose on her cheeks and nose, pink blotches that turned angry red, then white. Like acid sprayed across her flesh, and yet she kept walking—

Enough.

Cooper stepped forward, grabbed the world’s richest man by the sweatshirt with one hand, then wound up and slapped him with the other. “Look at her.”

Jakob opened his mouth, but before he got a syllable out, Shannon had the gun jammed in the base of his skull. “Whatever security system you were about to engage,” she said, “don’t.”

“Look at her,” Cooper said. “Look at her. Look at her goddamn face!”

Erik did. The blood rushed from his cheeks, and his eyes went wobbly, and then he said, “Computer, power down Vogler Ring.”

“Yes, Erik.”

Cooper turned back to the video. The effects must have been immediate. The kids were staggering as if something they’d been leaning against had vanished. They stared at one another in relieved disbelief, gingerly touched themselves, wincing as they did.

And behind them, a barbarian army began to howl, whooping and raising their guns in the air, firing shots at heaven.

“My God,” Jakob said. “What have you done?”

Cooper let go of Erik, clapped him on the shoulder. He sucked in a deep breath, let it out. “You know what I’ve learned over the last year? Doing the right thing doesn’t protect you. But it does help you live with the consequences.”

“You let an army of murderers in,” Jakob said. Shannon released him, and he collapsed into a seat. “You’ve killed us all.”

“Just because I wasn’t willing to sacrifice innocent kids,” Cooper said, “doesn’t mean I intend to quit fighting.”

“What are you suggesting, Cooper? We hand out rifles to accountants and housewives?”

Maybe it was relief, or a year-long surplus of adrenaline, or just the best thing to do at the end of the world, but Cooper found himself laughing. “You know what? That’s exactly what I suggest.” He turned to Erik. “I know how your mind works, and I’m betting there are bunkers within the city. Something underground, just in case.”

“Yes,” Erik said, “designed for brief bombardment or extreme weather. Not defensible long term. Dependant on external support for air recirculation and water supply. Limited waste facilities.”

“Get the children there, and the elderly. Do it now. Break the rest of the population into groups around the perimeter of the city. Choose multistory buildings with good sight lines. If they’re old enough to operate a rifle and young enough that the recoil won’t break their shoulder, put them in a window and give them a gun.”

He stepped away, walked closer to the video feed, still live. The militia had spread the children out across the breadth of the defunct Vogler Ring, guards keeping them in place while the rest of the mass moved through. Thousands on thousands of men. Not monsters; just men. Men who had lost loved ones or lost faith, who were too panicked to see beyond the animal side of themselves. Steeped in fear, hardened with pain, and released from bounds.

There’s nothing more dangerous.

Shannon was suddenly beside him, her eyes on the video even as her fingers found his. “The Vogler Ring is about five miles out of the city.”

Cooper nodded. “My bet, they’ll surround Tesla.”

“They’ve been marching for days. They’ll rest. Wait for night to fall.”

From behind them, Vogler’s voice said, “And then what?”

“Then we do the thing I’ve been trying to avoid,” Cooper said. “We go to war.”