Shuttered Sky

ashamed of his accomplishment.

Dillon took a deep breath. There was one thing to be said for his confinement. Not only did it keep his powers contained like a genie in a bottle, but it kept the outside world from getting in. Once that vault door was closed, he could not feel the withering of the world around him. There was no white noise, and no visions. There was only himself, a singularity, separate and apart.

He pushed the shackling wheelchair to the far corner of the room, out of his sight, then sat in the armchair, and pulled the tray closer to him. Everything seemed in order there: something brown, something green, something else obscured by gravy. Then he noticed the curious pastry. A fortune cookie. His first thought was that it came from Tes­sic—but Bussard’s eyes had never left the man—he couldn’t have slipped it onto the tray. The cookie must have been left by the female officer who brought his meals. There was a fortune sticking out from the edge of the cookie, and Dillon slid it out without breaking the delicate shell. The fortune held two words, handwritten. It read:

“Favorite food?”

Smiling, Dillon found a pen in the scant supplies of his desk, and on the blank side of the fortune scribbled “Veal Parmesan.” Then he slipped it back into the cookie.

6. 9906753

Transcription excerpt, day 199. 13:49 hours

“Do you think we have a purpose, Maddy? Or are we just like those praying pigeons, picking out patterns in something that’s totally random?

“You’re the master of patterns, aren’t you? If anyone would know, it would be you.”

“Some patterns are too complex for even me to see.”

“Or maybe it’s just so simple, you keep looking past it.”

* * *

Maddy found General Bussard’s office to be as spartan and cold as the man himself. Only his own chair was plush and pad­ded—the chairs on the other side of the desk were so rigid, they cut off circulation to one’s legs.

“I’ll make this brief, Lieutenant Haas.”

Maddy had been expecting some sort of dressing-down. It was clear that Bussard was not happy with her performance and her integra­tion—or lack thereof—into the team. After Gerritson’s death, she had remained cold and aloof.

Bussard tapped a lead pencil on his blotter, not making eye contact, which was unlike him. It was the first clue that this meeting wasn’t going in the direction she had assumed. “Apparently our efforts to see to our guest’s comfort have not gone far enough,” he told her. “Or at least that is the opinion of General Harwood, and the Joint Chiefs.”

It was all Maddy could do to suppress her grin. So even the fuhrer had a master. Now she realized that if Bussard was going to be brief, it was to minimize his own embarrassment at having to actually admit that he had superiors. She was, in effect, watching him squirm, and she had a front-row seat.

“General Harwood feels our guest might need some human con­tact—and that we might be able to use such contact to get information from him that he has been unwilling to share.”

“They don’t consider contact with you human enough, sir?”

He read her smirk, and chose to relent rather than retaliate, chuck­ling slightly. “I suppose my bedside manner is not my strongest point.”

“I sincerely hope, sir, that you’re not calling on me for my ‘bedside manner.’ '

This time Bussard held her in eye contact. “He’s restrained, Haas. And by my observations, so are you.”

Maddy gave him the slightest nod.

“You will continue with your current duties, but now, when you bring your meals to him, you will bring your own as well, and wait there until he has been returned to his quarters. As his chair won’t release him while you’re there, you’ll have to feed him. You will be wired with a video surveillance device, and in this way you will de­velop a supervised rapport with him. Then, once you’ve gained his trust, you will ask him the questions we provide you.” Bussard took a breath, weighing how much information he should ration out, then finally he said: “Our guest is none other than Dillon Cole.”

And although Maddy already knew this, she reacted with requisite shock. “My God!”

“God has nothing to do with this,” snapped Bussard. “Remember that, Lieutenant Haas. And also remember that if you repeat his name or the details of your assignment to anyone else in this facility, you will be severely dealt with.”

* * *

On the morning of her new assignment, Maddy left her quarters just after dawn, wearing a sweatsuit. A daily run was one of the few liberties military personnel were allowed at the plant; it was one of the few activities not under intense scrutiny, and therefore Maddy’s fa­vorite time of the day. Maddy fell into stride by the time she rounded the north side of the reactor building, and followed the path into a patch of woods corralled within the facility’s inner fence. Occasionally there were others on the path, but they always kept a respectable dis­tance, like planes in a holding pattern. Today, however, she was joined by an unexpected companion. A golf cart pulled up alongside her from a connecting path, as if the driver had been waiting there for this ambush. Maddy moved to the side to let him pass, but he did not. He instead matched her speed.

She recognized him right away. Tessic. His overcoat was layered upon an expensive white suit that bespoke more pleasure than business. He looked as if he had walked right out of a fashion magazine.

“I’ve come to congratulate you, Lieutenant Haas.”

The thought of the Elon Tessic pursuing her in a golf cart was ludicrous. Here was a man whose company built everything from sur­veillance satellites to fighter jets. What possible business could he have with her? “Congratulate me on what, Mr. Tessic?”

“On your new assignment.”

Maddy slowed her pace down to a walk, taking a moment to size him up. His hair was only slightly graying, and his skin seasoned by the Mediterranean sun. Somehow she had thought he would look older. His smile seemed pleasant but unrevealing. “Why would you care about my assignment?”

“I not only care about it, I helped arrange it.”

Maddy chuckled. “You? You convinced Bussard?”

“I don’t bother with Bussard. His superior is far more reasonable.”

“You met with General Harwood?”

He waved the thought away. “It wasn’t a meeting, it was a lunch­eon. We both had the salmon special.” He pulled his cart to the side and stepped out, abandoning it. “May I walk with you, Lieutenant?”

“From what I gather you can walk anywhere you want.”

He chortled, but didn’t deny it. “I called in many years’ worth of favors to gain a high security access here. I assure you I don’t take that for granted. Bussard, however, takes everything for granted.” A fellow officer jogged up behind them. Tessic didn’t speak again until the man had run past and the sound of his footfalls had faded. “The American military has in their possession the single most powerful person ever born to our humble little race. And what do they do? They bring him dead horses and aging politicians. Clearly his purpose is greater than this—but they squander him on petty, small-minded tasks. Just as they’ve squandered you.”

He waited for a reaction from her, but she chose not to give one. Maddy didn’t like this. No one—particularly a man like Tessic—spoke so candidly without expecting something from it. What did he want?

“Bussard is a very limited man,” he continued. “With limited per­spective. He can’t see the big picture, like you or I.”

“I see no picture, Mr. Tessic. I have a job to do, that’s all.”

“You say that now—but there may come a time when the picture you see and the orders you are given contradict one another. I wonder what you’ll do then.”

“Orders are orders.”