Dog Warrior (26 page)

“The founts are too dangerous. You could accidentally kill everything on the planet.”

“Core had a saying that truly applies: Would God give us the gift if he didn't mean for us to use it?”

Ukiah stared at him, horrified. “You can't be serious.”

“God put Core at the car accident where he learned about the demons. He connected Zip with Core to give us access to the founts. A thousand little connections had to line up just perfect for us to find the founts and learn how to make them work. The chances were billions to one, and yet, we have the founts. Isn't that a miracle enough?”

What was the nature of miracles? Did the happenings have to be impossibilities, or merely extremely unlikely? Certainly it was stunning what the cult had accomplished, from decoding the Ontongard language to making advanced technology work without instructions. Ukiah could not believe, though, that God wanted the destruction of humanity.

“It's too dangerous,” Ukiah said again. “You have no idea what you're doing. You're just guessing at this.”

“Then help us. Surely God put you into our power so that we can use you.”

He opened his mouth to say no, but then remembered that Atticus would play along, gathering information. He considered the computers around him, filled with the cult's databases. The cult didn't seem to realize that the Ontongard had genetic memory with perfect recall. While he had talked with Ice, he also overheard a conversation in the kitchen, and shouted instructions from the cultists outside.

And if he couldn't find the key to stopping the Ae, maybe he could keep the cult from misusing them.

“I am helping you,” he said.

Temple of New Reason Commune, Sanctuary Island, Atlantic Ocean
Thursday, September 23, 2004

Ukiah worked through the night, translating and learning about the Ontongard and the cult. The island acted as the cult's ultimate data haven, with high-speed satellite Internet service and IP telephony. The last was a frustrating temptation. The phone sat on the desk beside the monitor he used, but since he didn't know where the island lay, he wasn't sure if calling out would have any point. GPS in regards to phone service was on the crumbling edge of his knowledge of technology. Part of his ignorance came from the fact that he was still fairly new to civilization. The rest was due to his lack of interest, until three months ago when he had received Rennie's memories, in learning all of the bells and whistles life had to offer. He knew land-based phones and cell phones could be traced, but IP telephony? He didn't know. He ached to find out, but the cult never left him alone.

He was dealing with the same type of problem with the translations. While in Oregon, he had noticed that his Pack memories were disintegrating, his “borrowed” memories being crowded out as he grew toward being a full adult. The Ontongard had been guiding technology development in dozens of small high-tech firms across the country, each one building tiny parts to be shipped to Boston to be assembled
into something much larger. After the pieces had shipped, the Ontongard were dismantling the companies to keep their secret. But he was at a loss as to what they were building. Either he had never had the knowledge, or it had worn away over the months of hard living and dying.

But the most terrifying hole was in the last twenty-four hours, there was a tiny gap of what he had done between Animal dying and calling Max.

He had lost a mouse.

Or the cult had stolen it.

Neither was good.

He found excuses to roam the house: going to the bathroom, getting something to drink, raiding the refrigerator, stretching his legs by pacing the large living room. On these forays he couldn't sense any of his mice, but a small collection of cells had a limited range to their telepathy. Whereas he could spot Atticus anywhere on the island and the combined Dog Warriors from miles away, he would almost need to stand on a single mouse to sense it.

In desperation, he insisted that he
knew
that Schrödinger needed to be outside to go to the bathroom, claiming inside angel knowledge, and that he could use some fresh air. The cult reluctantly agreed, but tripled his guard, kept him within fifty feet of the house, and sent Mouse along as an escort. The night was cold and clear. To the west, the moon gleamed on the ocean like a massive field of silver flowers. He was thankful the kitten did its part to uphold his ruse and buried its waste in the loose sand. Ukiah circled the house, using up his hoarded gum, picking up occasional bright pebbles to examine. The cult had drawn heavy black curtains on the expansive windows, keeping in the light so no passing boats would realize people were living on the island.

“It's really not safe out here in the dark.” Mouse shivered in the freezing wind. “We've got land mines everywhere.”

Ukiah slipped his most recent find—a thumb-sized disk of matte black stone—into his jeans pocket, picked up
Schrödinger, and went back in, none the wiser on the location of his mouse.

As they walked into the house, the phone rang.

Mouse froze, a look of utter terror on his face as he stared at the phone. It rang again, the noise jarring in the sudden stillness of the house.

Ice came running down the stairs and paused at the bottom of the steps. “Was that the phone?”

The phone rang in answer.

“We're all here,” Mouse whispered.

Ice approached the phone with caution and snatched it up as if it were a poisonous snake, barely holding it to his ear. “Hello?”

Ukiah's keen ears caught the voice on the other end.

“Ice? Is that you? It's Parity.”

“Parity?” Ice gasped as if punched.

“Parity. Only Parity—no one else. None of them. But listen—they know where you are! They're coming to get you. They're pissed as hell and they plan to make you all one of them.”

“H-h-how?”

“It was so hard to think straight at first. I had to tell them something so I gave them some old addresses—places I knew you wouldn't be. I told them about the boat slip. When we found the wolf boy there, I managed to slip away long enough to clear out my head.”

“How do they know about the island?” Ice growled.

“Ping—Ping told them. They've got her at Totten Pond. I haven't been able to get to her. She said something about the wiretapping. They traced the tap back to the satellite provider and you're the only connection within miles of that GPS position.”

Ice glanced upward as if to see the satellite overhead, pinpointing them.

“You've got to move before they get there. They'll be
there in force—like a hundred of them. You've got to get out! I'll get hold of you later, somehow. I've got to go.”

The phone clicked to silence but Ice stood there with the phone to his ear for another minute, pale and stunned. Finally he hung up, whispering hoarsely, “They know where we are. Start an evacuation.”

The cultists remained still, reflecting his shock.

“Where are we going to go?” Ether finally asked.

“I'll think of something,” Ice said. “Go on. Grab only the bare necessities and get them down to the boats.”

“We just believe him?” Link said.

“We don't have a choice.” Ice sighed heavily.

Link started to protest, “But he didn't sound like one of—”

“Move!” Ice shouted, and flung the phone at Link.

The cult scattered like a flock of frightened birds.

Ice focused on Ukiah. “Is it possible? Could he be one of them—and yet not be?”

Prime had been a mutation—a sole individual—but they didn't know why. What had caused Prime to be different? If Parity had been exposed to Kittanning, the Ontongard, and Invisible Red, maybe he had built up a resistance.

“Yes or no?” Ice hissed.

Ukiah replayed the conversation with Parity, listening to the words and the tone of voice. There had been a slight drag, but it wasn't Hex's emotionally dead intonation. There had been fear, sorrow, and true concern—things a Get seemed incapable of understanding despite its human form, its original personality drowned under Hex's alien mind. “Yes. He might be something new.”

“Do you know what they're building yet?”

“No.”

Ice gave a weary sigh. “We're running out of time, angel.”

 

An hour later, Ice declared that ready or not, they needed to leave. “Meta, get the angel down to the boat.”

The tall, burly cultist caught Ukiah's elbow and guided him toward the door. Ukiah snatched up Schrödinger, determined that the kitten wouldn't be left to the mercy of the Ontongard.

Outside, Ice pulled Mouse aside, saying, “Link, we're all out of the house. Set the defenses and come down to the boats.”

“Keep to the path.” Meta urged Ukiah down the hill to the boathouse. “It would be inconvenient if you got blown to pieces now.”

Ukiah wasn't sure if Meta was teasing him or not, but kept to the graveled path. Ice and Mouse trailed behind, arms over each other's shoulders, heads close together, deep in whispered conversation.

There seemed to be some kind of preplanned system, as the twenty cultists split themselves in orderly fashion between the two boats. Ukiah found himself firmly escorted to a boat called the
Ashpool.

Ice and Mouse stood on the dock, the younger man crying openly.

“We're going ahead with the Cleansing,” Ice said. “Take the angel and go south.”

“South?”

“As far south as your diesel will get you.”

Link came dashing down the path. “Everything's set,” he said, and scrambled on board the
Nautilus.
The engine revved up and the boat started to pull away from the dock.

Ice hugged Mouse fiercely, kissing him on the forehead. “Go on. Live for us.”

Ice jumped onto the
Nautilus
and the boat leapt forward away in a spray of water.

Ukiah was on the wrong boat to stop Ice.

 

They went south as fast as the
Ashpool
would take them, the cultists silent as the big engines roared. The
Nautilus
was nowhere in sight, and the island quickly vanished behind them. Ukiah huddled in the corner of the stern's sitting area, with Meta in the opposite corner, keeping close watch on him.

He'd screwed up. He should have done something, anything, although even now he wasn't sure what.

He considered his options. There was the radio, but he still didn't know where he was, where Ice was heading, nor where the Ae were, except they hadn't been loaded onto the boats. His chances of overpowering all ten cultists to steer the boat to land, which presumably lay off to the west, were laughable.

He eyed his guard. Meta was pale and unfocused, as if the heaving boat were making him seasick. Ukiah wasn't prone to motion sickness; after the first few minutes of jiggling, his body would ignore his inner ear as alarmist.

“Are you okay?” Ukiah shouted over the engine's roar. When Meta didn't respond, Ukiah leaned over to prod the cultist. “Meta?”

Meta's eyes rolled up to white and he went rigid, his arms and legs stiffening and starting to jerk rhythmically.

“Mouse! Mouse!” Ukiah eased Meta to the floor.

The little cultist appeared at the cabin doorway, swore, and hurried to Meta. “Oh, no, not again.”

“What's wrong with him?” Ukiah made way for Mouse.

“It's Blissfire withdrawal!” Mouse turned and shouted for the other cultists. “Oh, God, please don't die, Meta. Please don't die.”

Ukiah found himself pushed to the bow of the boat as the other cultists crowded around the fallen Meta. Qwerty had a small bag that she dipped her fingers into. She painted a glittering cross onto Meta's forehead, and then, as others pried open Meta's jaw, coated the inside of his mouth. It was doubtful Meta could be saved once the drug triggered its
extermination subroutines, but apparently the cult had pulled others back from the brink, using a new dose of the drug to override the kill order. Qwerty kissed the unresponsive man, her tears falling on his face and the hands of the cultists holding him still.

Rolling thunder pulled Ukiah's attention away from the desperate scene. A 747 jet passed low overhead. Its flaps were up and its landing gear down. It vanished from sight over the shifting horizon, but he could hear the whine and roar as braking jets kicked in.

It was landing at Logan Airport. Boston was just over the horizon.

It felt heartless to take advantage of Meta's collapse, but it might be his only chance to slip away. He had to get to Boston. He had to stop Ice.

Grabbing the rail, he swung over the side and dropped into the ocean. He let himself sink for a moment, and then angled off so that when he surfaced, he was on the other side of the boat.

The cultists had stopped the boat. Mouse and other male cultists were scanning the rolling waves, presumably as the females worked to save Meta.

“Ukiah! Wolf boy!” Mouse shouted, as another male said, “I don't know how long angels can hold their breath. He might not even be down there anymore. He's an angel!”

Ukiah ducked under the water, kicked off his shoes, and swam until his lungs felt like they were about to burst, then surfaced again. He was alone in vast shifting waters with only the echoes of jets to guide him.

 

It was a lot farther to Boston than he imagined.

 

He found the first lobster trap by accident. A wave was rolling him down a plane of water as he swam and he saw a Tide detergent bottle floating in the water. Four years of Boy Scouts told him that detergent bottles made good floatation
devices in a pinch. He detoured and caught hold of it, hugging it to his chest. It was a relief to float there, at rest in the chilly water. It would have been perfect, except the bottle was anchored to something far underwater. It puzzled him for a while until he realized it was a lobster trap and the Tide bottle was a buoy marker.

He bobbed in the waves, panting, weary, nothing but water in sight.

He'd been insane to leave the boat.

He knew he couldn't stay with the lobster trap buoy, but he didn't want to let go. It was starting to dawn on him that drowning was a real possibility. Strange, except for being hit by cars and shot, he'd never pushed his body to its limits before. Max had always been there, reining him in before he'd collapsed, shoving food into him, keeping him safe from his own stupidity. Any normal human wouldn't have jumped off a perfectly fine boat, blithely assuming he could swim to an unseen shore.

Atticus probably wouldn't have been so stupid.