Blood Colony (14 page)

That snapped Johnny from his stupor. “What the
hell
? That phone cost—”

“They’re tracking you,” Caitlin said. “
Wake up,
Johnny, or get the fuck out of this car.”

Traffic had stalled, so Caitlin held his eyes this time. He wasn’t used to seeing her without her layers of black mascara; she looked younger and more fragile, only scared instead of judgmental.
Who IS she?

“There are people looking for us who will kill us if they catch us,” Caitlin said.

As much as Caitlin sounded like she was having a psychotic breakdown, Johnny felt a rising terror that maybe she wasn’t. But he was more worried about Fana, for now.

Fana didn’t look good. Her face was shining with perspiration. Her eyes were closed, her cheeks and brow wrinkled, almost converging. She was hurting. Johnny pressed his palm to Fana’s forehead, and the strange static sensation jittered across his skin again. Her skin might be a little warm. Maybe. He was glad she didn’t have a raging fever.

“What’s going on, Lil’ Cuz?” he said gently. “Are you OK?”

“Too much noise,” Fana said, her voice far away.

“Stay focused, girl,” Caitlin said. “What’s up with Berhanu?”

“I don’t know…,” Fana said. “He’s gone. Maybe he’s too far now.”

“We’ve only gone ten yards,” Caitlin said.

Fana just shook her head. “Maybe he’s masking. He’s gone. There’s too much noise.”

“Who’s Ber…hah…noo?” Johnny said, buried under yet another layer of confusion.

“A Searcher,” Caitlin said. “They knew we might come to you. You’re a friend of Fana’s. They’ve probably been reading her ShoutOut posts.”

Each sentence Caitlin spoke was more bizarre than the last. He couldn’t talk to her.

“What are you doing here, Lil’ Cuz?” Johnny said, matching Fana’s kitten-soft voice. He stroked the top of her head, running his hand down her soft ropes of hair.

Fana opened her eyes then, as if she’d just realized he was there. She smiled at him, and her dimples were unchanged from the day he’d met her when she was ten. If not for the sweat and the fact that she was outside the state of Washington for the first time since he’d known her, Fana looked like everything was fine.

“We were worried about you,” Fana said. Her eyes were dewy.

“Why? What’s going on?”

“She’s liberated, that’s what,” Caitlin said. “The revolution has begun.”

Fana clasped Johnny’s hand. He didn’t feel the static this time, but her skin glowed inside of his. Hadn’t he felt some kind of glow the first time he’d touched her, too? She looked like a fragile little angel. He wanted to protect her in a way he had never wanted to protect anyone.

“I ran away,” Fana said.

Johnny sighed. “Look, I know you’re bored at home, but—”

Fana’s eyes silenced him, burning with a flurry of emotions. Something terrible had happened. “You’re not safe because of me.”

“What are you talking about?” The car was moving, but Johnny’s world fell still.

Fana blinked. She spoke again, louder than before, but this time her lips didn’t move. His rational mind fought his eyes as he stared for six seconds, and the illusion didn’t go away: Fana’s mouth was still, but her voice filled up his head, louder than any of his own thoughts:

PLEASE TELL CAITLIN TO DRIVE FASTER SO THE NOISE WILL STOP.

Tallahassee, Florida
8:37 p.m.

W
hen his phone rang, Garrick Wright was waiting.

His wife always made it a point to be home when Johnny called, but tonight a cracked crown had sent Tahira to her dentist. She had left Garrick instructions to remind Johnny to explain his missing Selective Service card at the financial aid office. Garrick hoped the government fuss wouldn’t ruin their trip to Jordan to see Johnny’s grandmother this summer.

Garrick had already finished half the conversation with Johnny in his head before he picked up the phone and heard Lucas Shepard’s voice instead.

“Garrick?”

Five years ago, Lucas had said he would call him next week, and this was his first call since then. Garrick sat at the edge of his backyard cedar picnic table, swatting a fly from the bridge of his nose. He saw swarms of insects in the light from his solar lamp, which silhouetted his yard’s live oaks, strung with tendrils of moss. Garrick hoped Lucas’s call had nothing to do with the newspaper and video files he kept on the laptop locked in a safe under his bed. Lucas Shepard wouldn’t call about something trivial.

Garrick tried to think of the worst-case scenario but couldn’t. “What happened?”

“It’s Johnny,” Lucas said. “He vanished from the Berkeley campus late this afternoon.”

Garrick felt rocked by a series of unfamiliar emotions that made it hard to catch his breath. The strongest was anger, in the end. “Why haven’t I heard about it?”

“His roommate doesn’t know yet. We only know Johnny vanished because…he was being watched. My people found his cell phone on the 510.” Lucas didn’t sound like a friend anymore, talking with such detached efficiency about a telephone Johnny had loved.

When Lucas hadn’t called him back and the number had gone out of service, Garrick had guessed that the government had taken over Lucas’s work. He shouldn’t have been surprised that his son was under surveillance, yet he was. Shocked, even. But shock gave way to a creeping sickness. He couldn’t think of where his questions should begin.

Lucas went on, more gently. “I’m sorry, Garrick. We have a security problem, and Johnny’s disappearance might be related to that. He was being tailed as a precaution. Someone might be tracking us. I’ll tell you what I know…”

For the first time, he sounded like Lucas again.

“Please.” The wind chimes Tahira’s mother had sent them from her village near the Dead Sea hung outside the window, robbed of music without a breeze. Trip approval from the State Department had just arrived that morning. Johnny didn’t even know yet.

“Fana and Caitlin have run away,” Lucas said. “The girls were selling Glow.”

Of course. Garrick had suspected that Glow had something to do with Lucas’s work. Once he waded past the anti-Glow propaganda exaggerating its dangers, the effects of Glow sounded too similar to claims sending bloggers into a frenzy in Ghana and China. And Nigeria.

“The Underground Railroad,” Garrick said.

“Yes. I’m not accusing Johnny of selling, but—”

“He might have been if Caitlin was.” Garrick hoped his honesty would be contagious.

Garrick and Tahira had talked about Caitlin many nights the first year they’d eaten alone at the dinner table after Johnny had gone to Berkeley. Johnny would have followed her anywhere.

“Caitlin’s roommate was abducted and murdered last month,” Lucas said.

Like Garrick used to tell his journalism students, Lucas had buried the lead.

Garrick stood up and began pacing, and the weathered patio floorboards creaked under his weight. He couldn’t sit still with that information in his heart, not when Johnny’s voice wasn’t on the phone. His heart stalled, so his mind took over. “I’ve been following it as best I can,” Garrick said. “I read about a girl in Miami. Colón. That the one? And a guy in Michigan—a UM professor? I figured it might come together, since Glow was involved. Who’s doing the killing?”

“We don’t know.” A pause, then Lucas added, “We think Johnny is with Caitlin and Fana. They left within twenty-four hours of each other. But we really don’t know where he is. That’s the truth. I’ll call you the minute I hear anything, good or bad. I promise you, Garrick.”

Did Lucas think he was just going to hang up the phone? Garrick’s heart thrashed. He didn’t have to look at his caller ID to know that Lucas was calling from somewhere he couldn’t reach. “I’m flying out to Berkeley,” Garrick said.

Lucas sighed. “I’d advise against it.”

“I have to call the police, Lucas.”

“They won’t want that yet.”

“
They”
were the scientists, the Africans. The masters of Lucas’s new world.

Lucas was telling him to sit and do nothing. To trust in the people who did not trust him.

“I’m having trouble with this, Doc,” Garrick said.

“Me too.” Lucas’s voice cracked. His day wasn’t going much better, from the sound of it.

Garrick couldn’t imagine living the way Lucas had chosen, no matter what the cause. There were times over the years Garrick had wished that he’d accepted Lucas’s offer to live at the colony, where he might have chronicled it all from inside, capturing history fresh. Now he was sorry he had ever laid eyes on that compound in the woods.

“I’m thinking back a few years, Doc…,” Garrick said. “I remember when your son was sick and you thought you had to go to Botswana to get a cure. A miracle drug. You did what you thought you needed to do, and nobody could tell you otherwise. Remember that?”

Before Lucas had left Tallahassee, he’d come to Garrick’s house for a few beers and told stories about his son’s recovery. Said he’d seen spontaneous remission on a steady basis. Said he believed it was possible to eradicate AIDS within a decade. Hinted that the bigger truth was impossible to believe, that he was living proof of a medical miracle.

Finally, he’d invited Garrick to a meeting. Garrick and Lucy Keating and Three Ravens Perez and the South African nurse Shandi Shabalala had traveled to the Pacific Northwest to hear about a new blood-based drug. The Living Blood, the woman Jessica had called it. But that had been the last meeting, the last he’d heard about blood. No explanation of its origins.

Garrick wasn’t a doctor, but he wasn’t a fool, so he could guess at what he didn’t know. Either the blood was manufactured or it was organic, or some combination of both, but blood was at the heart of the health movements overseas. And now Glow was out there, too. For all the precautions the scientists at the colony had taken, their genie was out of the bottle.

The silent phone line left Garrick’s history with Lucas Shepard unspoken, and Garrick realized Lucas couldn’t talk. Garrick wondered if his family’s phone had been bugged all this time. Garrick felt a physical tremor, the ground sinking beneath him.

“I’m asking you to trust me,” Lucas said finally. “Stay under the radar. At least wait until somebody else reports him missing.”

“That might not be until tomorrow.”

“Might not. But I’m asking as your friend, Garrick. I know how hard this is.”

Lucas Shepard hadn’t been his friend for a long time, but Garrick didn’t dwell on that. Lucas was busy changing the world, one way or another. For better or worse.

“I have to tell Tahira,” Garrick said. “How am I supposed to meet her eyes?”

“Give me twenty-four hours to get you some news. One hour at a time, Garrick.”

“
Shit
.” Garrick’s hand shook, and the telephone receiver was unsteady. He was terrified Lucas would hang up, that he would never know what happened to Johnny. “How’s Jared?”

“Good.” Lucas’s voice loosened. “We’re bringing him home from Oxford.”

Oxford. Not bad. Garrick tried to say
Keep him safe,
but his words caught in his throat.

“My wife’s on her way back,” Garrick said.

“Please don’t say anything to her, Garrick. It isn’t safe.” Lucas was begging. “If Johnny is with Fana and Caitlin, he’s fine. They have safe houses, like the original Underground Railroad. My people will find them before anyone else does. My people are good. They’re fast.”

“Is that what’s best for him?” Garrick said. He had to ask. The answer depended on who Lucas worked for, and how “his people” felt about Glow dealers. Garrick had read about prison sentences that would destroy his son’s life before it began if the feds were involved.

“Tell me if you hear from Johnny,” Lucas said. “That’s what’s best for him. We need to find them before the bad guys do.”

“You’re asking a lot for what you’re giving,” Garrick said.

“I know, but…I only called to tell you about Johnny. We need to get those kids home.” Lucas sighed again, and Garrick wished they were sitting on the back porch together instead of thousands of miles apart, in every way. “This is my fault, Garrick.”

“I won’t argue.”

“I’m so sorry. Give Tahira a hug. Just don’t say it’s from me.”

Then Lucas hung up, gone as suddenly as he’d reappeared.

Another dramatic exit with no forwarding number. A kick in the stomach.

Bring Johnny out with you,
Lucas had told Garrick five years ago, before that last phone call Garrick had finally stopped waiting for. Lucas had thought he could convince Garrick to move out to the colony once he showed off the new houses, the lab, and the children lined up at school. The colony had been doing wonders for Lucas: He’d looked like he hadn’t aged a day in ten years.

Lucas had strolled those peaceful wooded grounds as if God had whispered The Answer To Everything in his ear. Garrick had never seen a man look so contented. He had thought he would have had to cross to his Father’s Kingdom to see the joy he’d seen right there on Lucas’s face. Garrick had been tempted to join Lucas and build a house just like Cal Duhart and his family, with a creek out back.

Was it science? Was it a religion? The journalist in Garrick Wright had needed to know. Something in his
soul
had needed to know.

But Tahira would never have agreed to leave Tallahassee. And no matter how many children lived there, Garrick hadn’t been able to imagine raising Johnny out in the woods. It hadn’t seemed like a well-rounded life, with all the secrecy. For his family’s sake, he had chosen caution.

Johnny had only visited once, for two days, but it had been long enough. Long enough to meet Caitlin O’Neal. Long enough to meet Fana.

What is It? Where does It come from?

Garrick might have sacrificed his only child and never know why.

Bea had stopped shaking, but she looked far from all right.

Jessica gazed sadly at her mother, who sat in the armchair near the window in Alex’s room with her eyes closed, her chin bobbing slightly as she fought off sleep. Her lips were pinched shut, the only sign that she was awake. Bea looked like a woman sitting in a burning room, her face full of focused pain. This was the half-waking state Bea had been sinking into more and more often in the past few years, as if the effort of consciousness wearied her. Today precious hours of Bea’s life had been stolen from her early. Jessica could see it in her face.

Alex lay in the Victorian-era maple bed, her head resting on two pillows, as if she were sleeping. Lucas had dressed Alex in a pink gown Jessica knew her sister would hate—silk with lace fringes, no less.
Wake up, hon, and tell your husband to go bring you a decent T-shirt.
But at least Lucas had tried to dress Alex like a queen.

Jessica only remembered that Lucas was still in the room when she heard him sigh behind her. He was sitting in a wooden chair near the closet. He slipped the black satellite phone into his jacket pocket, stood up, and carried his chair to Alex’s bedside. Lucas shouldn’t be calling anyone, but she understood. He had to talk to his friend, considering the news that had just come.

“How’d it go?” Jessica said.

“Awful,” he said. “He was a friend, I couldn’t tell him everything he deserved to know, and I think I just lied to him. I don’t know if I should bring Jared back here, much less Garrick’s kid. But he said he’ll wait to call the police. Until he hears more from me.”

Thank goodness. Maybe there was still time to fix it before it became worse. Before outsiders got involved.
Damn, damn, damn
. This was their worst day in a long time.

Fana and Caitlin were gone, and now Garrick Wright’s son was, too. Garrick was a good man, but the Brothers had refused to allow further contact with him and the others. The Lalibela Council had threatened to shut them down by force if they brought in more outsiders, and Dawit had made concessions to avoid conflict. She hadn’t minded the extra precaution; she’d known the price of carelessness. But as much as they had all tried to shield their children, clearly the younger generation had been touched by the mission, knowing what had rarely been spoken. Radicalized by it, maybe.
And a little child shall lead them.
Jessica wished she felt proud instead of scared.

Alex had tried to warn her. Jessica clasped Alex’s hand, feeling her sister’s warm skin, the calluses in her palms.
I miss you, Alex. I need every counselor today, and you’re my best.