“One of us has to look where we’re going.”
Her hand squeezed a response in his.
He started up again, pulling her one step behind him. He felt better now, and realized that she had forced him into a role that didn’t allow him to panic. He’d been right at the edge of it. But then she’d needed him to be strong, so he was.
Up, one step at a time.
His hand counted the turns of the rail. When they rounded what Silas calculated to be the final riser, he guided her up the last six steps to the door. The push bar was cool metal in his hands, and for a split second, Silas was afraid of what he’d do if there was only blackness on the other side. Would he lose nerve and go back? A staircase is one thing; it has boundaries you can touch. It is directional. A darkened labyrinth of hallways was quite another thing altogether. If he got turned around and lost his bearings, they might wander for hours.
He pushed, and the flickering yellow glow beyond the crack of the door brought a relieved smile to his face. It was faint, at the far end of the hall, but it provided context. It provided the
Vidonia moved past him, grinning. “I guess you counted right.”
“I guess I did.”
“You think Chandler’s in there?”
“I do.”
“And you think he’s behind this power outage?”
“I don’t see how he could be. The blackout stretches way past this power grid.” He realized he couldn’t lie to her. “But yeah, somehow, still, I think he’s the cause.”
He started down the hall, walking softly, Vidonia close behind.
He stopped twenty feet short of the door when he heard a sound. He listened.
Then a voice was talking. A strange, deep voice. A moment later, another voice spoke, and Silas recognized Chandler’s nasal whine. But the words were lost in the sound of crashing surf.
“You stay here,” he said.
“Why?”
“Because I’m not sure what’s on the other side of that door.”
“I’m going with you.”
“You wanted to turn around in the stairwell. Those were good instincts.”
“I’m coming.”
“Stay here.”
“No way. If I stay here, and you don’t come back, that means I have to go back down that stairwell myself. I’m coming with you.”
“All right,” he said.
“Besides, everything I’ve heard about Chandler says he’s crazy, not dangerous.”
“I can’t believe you said that.”
“What?”
He turned and walked toward the light. “Stay close.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
The light hurt his dark-adapted eyes, and at first Silas wasn’t sure what he was seeing. Chandler was kneeling before an enormous glowing screen, rocking slowly back and forth. Something moved on the screen, and in the same instant that Silas realized it was a man—some impossible, beautiful man—shining black eyes fixed on him from across the room.
The figure on the screen stared at him.
“Who are you?” said the figure. The voice was soft and deep and musical. This wasn’t like any interactive protocol he’d ever seen before. This was something different.
“Silas Williams,” he said. The thought of not answering never entered his mind.
“I know that name. You’re the builder.” The figure was tall and powerfully constructed. It was impossible to guess his age other than to say he was a man in his prime. Thick black hair flowed around his wide shoulders, twisting in a breeze. “You’ve come to ask what it is that you’ve built.”
Chandler stopped rocking and turned. His eyes were red and swollen, as if he’d spent too long staring at the sun. Silas didn’t see much he recognized in those eyes.
“Yeah, I guess I have,” Silas said.
The figure’s shining black eyes shifted. “And what is her name?”
“Vidonia Joao,” she answered, stepping the rest of the way into the room.
The figure glanced up, as if lost in thought. “Xenobiologist at Loyola,” he said finally.
“How could you know that?” she said.
“Your name is in a thousand files. I know you a thousand ways. You were called in to examine what he built? To explain it?”
A pause. “Yes.”
“Could you?”
“No.”
The whole encounter felt bizarre to Silas, too Oz-like for reality. He needed to get a grip on it. “You seem to know a lot about us,” Silas said. “But I know you, too.”
“Who am I?”
“You’re the Brannin computer.”
The figure laughed, and for the first time Silas noticed the beach behind him, and the clouds, and the red kite things that sliced through the sky like birds.
Chandler’s eyes slitted. “You call a butterfly its cocoon,” he said.
Silas looked away. He was happy to turn his attention toward Chandler. He was easier to look at, somehow. The figure in the screen seemed to have the weight of a world pushing in from behind him, and the pressure hurt Silas’s eyes. “I don’t know what you’re up to, or how you managed to get the power to get your little toy running again, and I really don’t care. I don’t have time to care. But I do want to know where the gladiator is.”
“And you think I know?” Chandler said.
“None of this was by accident.”
“I suppose you’re right.”
“It’s killed people. Do you know that?”
Chandler was silent.
“Tell me where it’s going, so we can find it before more people have to die.”
“I don’t know where it is. I don’t know anything. Nothing at all.” Chandler turned toward the screen, pointing. “But he does. He knows.”
Dark patches of cloud advanced behind the figure, rushing in from the sea, black and gravid with moisture. The sun was big and red, sitting on the line dividing sky and water. The figure smiled, and Silas squinted involuntarily.
“I like you, Silas,” the figure said. “Not Papa, though. He doesn’t like you at all. He’d rather see you dead. I can feel that. You can’t blame him; he’s been mistreated, and he’d rather see a great many people dead now, I think. But you never hurt him, and you were a good builder. Good work deserves reward. But first there is something I want to know from you.”
Silas had some experience with interactive protocols, with phones that knew your name, or house units that asked you what temperature you preferred your thermostat to be set at. But this felt different. It felt surreal being spoken to in such a way by something he knew wasn’t alive.
