Written in Fire

CHAPTER 10

The room was the size of a large planetarium, only instead of stars, holographic data floated in the air, charts and graphs and video and three-dimensional topographies and scrolling news tickers, a dizzying array of information glowing against subterranean darkness. To the average person—to Cooper—it made little sense. There was just too much of it, too many unrelated notions overlaid against each other.

But to Erik Epstein, who absorbed data the way others took in a feedcast, it held all the secrets of the world. The abnorm had made his billions by finding patterns in the stock market, eventually forcing the global financial markets to shut down and reinvent themselves.

“Yesterday,” Erik said. “Your delay was inappropriate. Time is a factor.”

“Time is always a factor.” Cooper looked around, his eyes adjusting to the gloom. Wearing a hoodie and Chuck Taylors, Erik stood in the center of the room, pale ringmaster to this digital circus. His eyes seemed more sunken that usual, as though he hadn’t slept in a week. Beside him, his brother Jakob was the picture of refined cool in a five-thousand-dollar Lucy Veronica suit. The two couldn’t have seemed less alike, Erik’s extreme geek set beside Jakob’s air of easy command, but in truth, they functioned as a team; Erik was the brains, the money, the visionary, and Jakob was the face and voice, the man who dined with presidents and tycoons. “And I don’t work for you.”

“No,” Jakob said, “you’ve made that abundantly clear. In fact, you’ve failed to do everything we’ve asked of you.”

“That’s not quite true. I did convince President Clay to let you secede. Of course, that was before you murdered him.” It probably wasn’t a good idea to be so flip, given that he was talking to two of the most powerful men in the world. But Cooper just couldn’t make himself care. Part of it was that flippancy let him tamp down his seething fury; no matter what he’d said to Quinn, no matter that he understood their actions philosophically, they had still murdered soldiers, and that he could never forgive.

The other part might have to do with last night. There were reasons he and Natalie had divorced, good ones, but they had nothing to do with the bedroom. A fact that had been demonstrated rather thoroughly last night, leaving Cooper with a loose-limbed jauntiness.

They hadn’t discussed it this morning. The kids were up, and neither of them wanted to confuse Kate and Todd. But while last night had been rooted in the past, he knew now that Natalie was interested in the future. And she wasn’t the only one. It wasn’t just the sex, or even Natalie herself. They were good together. Easy. There had been a moment, as he took a break from cooking pancakes to hand her a mug of coffee, that felt as comfortable as slipping on an old pair of jeans and a favorite T-shirt. It felt like home.

“You’re different,” a small voice said. Cooper squinted, then saw the girl huddled in a chair, her knees tucked up in front of her, a screen of purple bangs hiding her downturned face. Millicent, Erik Epstein’s near-constant companion and one of the most powerful readers Cooper had ever met. She sensed the inner fears and secret darknesses of everyone around her, had intuited Daddy’s weaknesses and Mommy’s cruelties before she could speak. A ten-year-old girl whose insight shaped billion-dollar deals and resulted in murders. As always, Cooper felt a flush of pity for her; too much, too much.

“Hi, Millie. How are you?”

“You’re different. Did something happen?” She lifted her head, stared at him with ancient eyes set in a little girl’s face.

Natalie astride you, her thighs clamped around your hips, her head thrown back . . .

“Oh,” she said. “Sex. But I thought you and Shannon were doing it.”

For the first time in a decade, Cooper found himself blushing. To cover it, he turned to the Epsteins. “You’ve taken care of Ethan Park?”

“Yes,” Jakob said. “We’ve given him a facility that exceeds anything he’s known, along with a staff, all brilliant. With his knowledge of Dr. Couzen’s process, rediscovering the gene therapy to create gifts is just a matter of time.”

“Which you don’t have.”

“Uncertain,” Erik said. “The data is unclear. Disparate factors, personality matrices under exceeding stress, unexplored variables. Predictions are below threshold of utility.”

“Yeah?” Cooper pointed at a video feed hanging between graphs, a high-angle perspective on the rocky ground outside New Canaan’s southern border. The camp was a hive of activity, twenty thousand people preparing for war. “They seem pretty certain.”

“Unimportant.”

“An army is about to breach your border, and you say it’s unimportant?”

“No. The term army, no. Militia. Statistically far less effective.”

“Yeah,” Cooper said. “But this is the part you’ve never gotten, Erik. Data only goes so far. Not all emotions can be quantified. You murdered thousands of people, did it on national tri-d. You want a prediction?” He put his hands in his pockets. “I predict they’re coming for you.”

“You sound almost happy about it,” Jakob said.

You’re goddamn right, you slick shit. That was my country you attacked, my soldiers you killed, my president you murdered—

He took a moment and a breath. “I’m just tired of everybody making things worse.”

“Cooper,” Erik said, his voice hesitant. “I . . . I didn’t want to do it. They made me.” The billionaire looked around the room as if seeking support, someone to tell him it was okay. “It wasn’t easy. Isn’t. I’m—I hear them, the explosions, and I see them dying. I didn’t want to hurt them, but they wanted to hurt us. Were going to. I had to. They made me.”

The dark circles under his eyes, the extreme twitchiness, the shoulders slumped farther than usual. He’s suffering. The realization brought no compassion. “I understand why you did what you did.” Cooper kept his voice level and cold. “But the people you killed were not monsters. They were public servants. Leaders. Soldiers. If you’re looking for sympathy, I’m the wrong guy.”

Epstein’s mouth fell open like he’d been slapped. He stared for a moment, then turned away, pawing at his eyes with the back of his hand. Behind him the data whirled and spun, sharp holograms floating in nothing. Jakob looked at him disdainfully, then went to his brother, put a hand on his shoulder.

His back still to Cooper, Erik said, “The militia is not a factor. No sophisticated weaponry, no air support. Not a factor.”

“You’re underestimating emotion again. Especially hatred.”

“And you,” Jakob snapped, “are underestimating us. Again. The Holdfast is a long way from defenseless.”

“Even so—”

“Others tried to hurt us. They died. If these people try, they will too.” Erik turned to face him. “They will burn in the desert.”

Burn in the desert? That phrasing can’t be accidental. Cooper said, “It’s true, then. The rumor about your little defensive perimeter. The Great Wall of Tesla.”

“If by ‘little defensive perimeter,’” Jakob replied, “you mean a redundant network of ten thousand microwave emplacements generating targeted radiation that can reduce flesh to ash and bones to powder, then, yeah. It’s true.”

“I don’t want that,” Erik said. “I like people.”

Cooper wanted to hurt him again. Wanted to lash out and make the man feel what he had done, make him suffer for it. He checked himself. Despite Erik’s actions, the sincerity in his voice was hard to question. He’s never made an aggressive move, only defensive. Brutal ones, certainly, but they were to protect his people.

Besides. Like it or not, you’re going to need his help.

“John Smith,” Millie said. She was staring at him again, her eyes aglow with reflected data.

Cooper sighed. “Yeah. As bad as things are right now, he’s about to make them worse.” He told them about tracking Abe Couzen, about the fight on the street and the chase through the train station, the way Abe’s gifts had manifested, and he walked them through his kidnapping. “Now, it’s possible that Smith just wants to keep the serum from us.”

“No,” Erik said. “That would be the maneuver of a journeyman. Smith is a grandmaster. Every move functioning to highest efficiency on multiple levels.”

“I agree.”

“Which is why I asked you to kill him three months ago.”

My God. Three months. Is that all it’s been? Cooper flashed back to that conversation, when he’d first met the real Erik Epstein. The man telling him stories of ancient history, the early terrorists in first-century Judea who killed Romans and collaborators. How that had provoked a reaction that punished not just the killers but all the Jews. Comparing them to John Smith. Saying that if he were allowed to live, the US military would attack the NCH within three years.

Only, because you spared Smith—hell, you exonerated him—it happened in three months, instead.

You did what you thought was right, what your father taught you. And the world is suffering for it.

In a very real way, this is your fault.

“Yes,” Millie said.

He fought the urge to glare, to snap at them, to say that he’d done the best he could. Forced it down, and his temper with it, until he could speak in steady, level tones.

“We’ve been over my mistakes. And yours. For now, we have to put that aside and focus on ending this. Because John Smith certainly is.”

For a moment, the brothers just stared at each other. Finally, Erik turned to him. “What do you propose?”

“First we’ve got to find Smith. I don’t suppose you know where he is?”

“No.”

“You did before.”

“That was before.”

Right. Well, so much for the easy way.

“Then I need to talk to someone who does.” Cooper took a deep breath, let it out slowly. “I need to sit down with the man who killed me.”