Into Nina’s hesitation, Michael says, “I want whatever your mother wants, John. But you need to listen now and understand me. Given time, people as special as your mom always make the right decision. Guys like you and me, not so much. The best thing we can do, the only smart thing, is shut our traps and be patient. You keep pestering her about this, she might make a decision too quick, one she’ll regret. We don’t want her to live with regret. We want her to know she’s taken the right path, don’t we?”
“I guess so.”
“You guess so? Want to clean that up?”
“Yeah. I mean, I want her to be happy.”
“There you go.”
Michael smiles almost shyly at Nina. She could adore him. But he’s correct when he says she needs time. She feels as if she is on a tightrope, inching toward something so right and so precious that it’s almost surely beyond her reach, given the missteps in her past. If she hurries, she will lose her balance.
Pushing the trash bag across the island to John, Michael says, “You finished your ice cream. I still have some of mine. Start the count, see how much we’ve got. Then we need to pack it in something that looks unimportant.”
John gets off the stool and opens the bag. Across the granite countertop spill thick packets of cash, each individually secured with taped Saran Wrap or its equivalent.
“Looks like a double century in each packet,” Michael says. “Twenty thousand per.”
“More money than a bank,” John says. “We’re set for life.”
Michael shakes his head. “Maybe. But the day’s coming when they’ll try to outlaw cash, force us into a digital dollar without blockchain privacy, total government control of everyone’s accounts and finances. If that can’t be stopped, it’s important for us to scare up all the cash we can while it’s still spendable and use it to insulate ourselves as much as possible.”
Gripped by a cold disquiet, Nina says, “You know that for true? When you’ve been . . . swimming through the internet or whatever it is you do, you’ve seen proof they’re scheming to do that?”
His deadpan expression isn’t reassuring. “That and more. The worst people live for power. They work at it as industriously as bees in a hive. I’ve discovered so much in the past five days, I’m amazed my hair hasn’t turned as white as snow.”
Piling the parcels of cash five high—one hundred thousand dollars per stack—John pauses with a thicker bundle in hand. “Something’s wrong with this one. It’s twenties.”
“It’s still money,” Nina says.
“Yeah, and there’s been two others with twenties. Thicker like this. But this one is kinda funny. Loose. The plastic can’t keep it straight.”
“Let me see,” Michael says.
Frowning, he takes the packet from John. The stack of bills is sufficiently unstable that the tape has peeled up. The plastic isn’t as snug as it should be. He strips the tape off and folds back the Saran Wrap and lifts up a half-inch-thick quantity of whole bills, revealing that the center of the three-inch-high bundle has been hollowed out. Within lies an object Nina can’t identify, nestled between two triple-A batteries.
Michael says, “A transponder with backup power sources.”
THE NIGHT ISN’T DARK; THE WORLD IS DARK
Active in the aftermath of the storm, crickets and night birds celebrate the freshly washed world.
Walking alongside the deserted highway toward his target residence, Durand Calaphas wonders if the higher reality above this game level will be afflicted with insects. If it’s not home to bugs of any kind, it might also be birdless, as the primary purpose of many birds is to eat insects. Of course some birds dine on fish or, like owls, on rodents. If there are no insects on the level where the designers of the game reside, perhaps rodents also have no place there, which would leave only fish-eating birds. Bats eat insects, so they would have no reason to exist in the world above. Calaphas doesn’t care whether or not there will be bugs, birds, and bats in his next life; he’s just curious. All that matters to him is that there will be people to use and kill, that he will have earned an unqualified license to use and kill them, and that he won’t have to answer to moronic bureaucrats like Julian Grantworth and Katherine Ormond-Wattley.
As he turns into the driveway, no rag of cloud remains to wrap the moon. In that cold radiance, the white roses and calla lilies, plentiful in the front garden, are not lost in gloom like the other plants, but swell out of the darkness on thorny brambles and meaty stalks. They aren’t lovely but ghastly, although he can’t say why.
He is halfway to the house when he becomes aware of an eerie quietude. The crickets and night birds have fallen silent, like they do when something that fills them with dread enters their domain. Alerted by this sudden disturbing hush, Calaphas stands statue-like, listening intently. Whatever threat has muted the night song might be a danger to him. He fears nothing; however, in moments like this, a wise player must be cautious in the game. The light-filled windows on the main level are hazed by sheer curtains, but those at an upstairs room are not. No face or shadow appears at the glass either on the ground floor or above. After a minute passes, when no menace appears out of the broad yard or the garden or from among the trees, he continues to the back of the residence.
Fragmented reflections of the moon ripple across the black water in a large swimming pool. A flagpole stands flagless. White chairs, lounges, and tables furnish a patio. All the windows at the back of the house are dark.
Through the four panes in the upper half of the kitchen door, he can see the green numbers on the digital clocks of the ovens. He tries the lever handle, but it doesn’t move. He slides the thin pick of the lock-release device into the keyway, pulls the trigger three times, tries the handle again, squeezes the trigger a fourth time, and the lock is disengaged. He draws his pistol.
He steps inside, eases the door shut, and stands with his back to it, listening. The refrigerator hums. Warm air sighs through the vanes of a heating vent high in one wall. If the family had a dog, Calaphas would already hear it coming.
Except for the influence of the moon, his eyes became mostly dark-adapted on his way here. He waits until details of the kitchen resolve further out of the gloom. Then he moves cautiously toward an open doorway that is vaguely defined by light issuing from another room farther along the main hall. The hallway itself is not lighted, and a plush runner that carpets the center of the wood floor ensures his silent progress.
The light issues from a book-lined study, a masculine space. Handsome mahogany desk. Button-tufted burgundy-red leather sofa. Seascape paintings with sailing ships.
A fiftysomething man, white-haired, sizable and fit, in pajamas and robe, sits in a leather armchair, slippered feet propped on a footstool, a hardcover book in his hands, reading glasses partway down his prominent nose. He looks up, without apparent surprise, certainly not with alarm, but with interest and calculation. He has the self-possession of a military man who has had to remain calm through times of crisis and chaos.
Stepping into the room, easing the door shut behind him, pistol ready, Calaphas says, “You should have a dog.”