Shuttered Sky

A few minutes later she wheeled the tray out and left him, trying to shield as best she could how deeply his words had touched her. But even Bussard was able to pick up on it.

“He’s getting to you, isn’t he?” Bussard asked when he next saw her, later that day.

“He’s a very powerful personality, sir.” Then she added, “All the more reason to keep him here.”

Appeased, Bussard congratulated her on what a fine job she was doing, and Maddy hoped to God he didn’t have a window to her soul the way Dillon did.

That night she went for her evening run to clear her mind, only to find that it was already clear— uncongested enough for her to ap­preciate all the sights and sounds of the run. All of her senses had been tuned to a more resonant idle.

“I know you,” Dillon had said. Three simple words—anyone else could have said them, and it would have meant absolutely nothing— but with no one else would it have been true. And until he spoke them, she had not realized how much she needed to be known.

* * *

Elon Tessic, however, was not yet prepared to be known. He was a complex man to be sure, but held no illusions about himself. Given enough time, he knew Dillon would decipher him as well. This is why Tessic made a point of making his visits to Dillon brief, and only moving into his line of sight when there was a specific point to it. In this way, Tessic held his own in Dillon’s poker game.

Bussard did not allow Tessic a moment alone with Dillon. This was alright, because although he didn’t have an ace to play against Dillon, he had several to play against Bussard.

A half mile from the plant’s outer gate, the bells above the door of Bobby’s Eat-N-Greet jangled their merry tune as Tessic entered. The waitress, who was jabbering with some locals in a far booth, didn’t notice, but Bobby did. He stiffened as he always did when he saw Tessic, but this time, he came practically bounding over the counter like a man half his age to greet him.

“Such enthusiasm,” Tessic said, “for the man who practically stole your prize recipe!”

“My granddaughter’s with her mother at Princeton, already look­ing for an apartment,” Bobby said. “I can’t tell you how much your generosity—'

Tessic put up his hand, cutting him off. “I was hardly generous. I payed you half of what I felt that recipe was worth to me, so there! You can now call me a stingy bastard.”

Bobby laughed. “If there’s ever anything I can do for you—any­thing at all . . .”

Tessic nodded, and put a hand on Bobby’s shoulder, leading him to the counter. “First a piece of pie,” he said. “Then we’ll talk about what you might do for me . . .”

Half an hour later, Tessic returned to the plant, his private summit meeting with the grateful restaurateur unobserved. Although Bussard had the guards keep track of Tessic’s comings and goings—his trips to the Eat-N- Greet never made the slightest blip on Bussard’s radar.

* * *

Maddy and Dillon had been talking about Lourdes, the only sur­viving Shard who was completely unaccounted for. “I don’t think things are right with her,” Dillon had told Maddy. “I can feel her out there, and it scares me.”

It was just the kind of thing Maddy would want to listen to—to help her understand the strange relationship Dillon had with these other powerful spirits, but she found her thoughts elsewhere. It had only been one day since her so-called birthday present. That night, for the first time in years, she had found her sleep untroubled, and woke with the enthusiasm of a child on her way to camp. The acuity of her thinking the night before had not been her imagination. Now her idle thoughts that had always seemed filtered and astigmatic had a clarity so pronounced she could almost hear herself think—and could almost see the images those thoughts evoked. She found herself hyper- focused to distraction. If this lucidity was Dillon’s gift to her, it would take some getting used to.

When Elon Tessic entered the room unannounced, it pulled her focus so completely the fork flew from her hand.

Although Dillon’s chair was facing the other way, he said, “That’s not Bussard.”

“Good afternoon.” Tessic sauntered in as if he owned the place, which wasn’t far from the truth.

“I’d smile for the camera,” Tessic said, “but unfortunately no one will see it. Some unforseen glitch in the system has left the control room picking up a local broadcast of I Love Lucy. That gives us several minutes of quality time until Bussard finds out and makes his way down here.”

Maddy looked down to the second button of her uniform, angling it up so she could see. It gave no indication that the camera hidden there was out, but then there was never any indication that it was on, either.

“I knew exactly where it was,” Dillon said. “Why Bussard needs a camera is beyond me; I don’t move.”

“He’d put a stone under surveillance if he thought it might crack,” she said. It occurred to Maddy that this was the first time— perhaps the only time—she’d be able to speak to Dillon out of Bussard’s sight . . . and with all her lucidity of mind, she had no idea what to say. So she just fed him another piece of pot roast.

Tessic came up behind Dillon, keeping out of his sight line.

“I’d invite you to join us, Elon, but there are no extra chairs,” Dillon said.

Maddy glanced at them both. “You’re on a first-name basis with the man who locked you in this chair?”

“I just built it, Lieutenant Haas, I didn’t apply it.” Tessic moved closer, putting a hand on the head of the metal monstrosity. “And besides, we are kindred spirits, Dillon and I. Oh, perhaps my voltage is not as high—but, like Dillon, I once believed I had a spark within me that could save the world—and now I find myself making weapons of war. Just like Dillon, I don’t know if my efforts will, in the end, destroy more than they will save.”

Maddy stood and strode to the threshold, glancing out into the containment dome. No one was coming. Good. No doubt the sharp­shooters were on their perches, but they had no authority to prevent Tessic from being here. The best they could do was report his presence to Bussard. “Do you plan to make something of this quality time, Mr. Tessic?” She asked. “Or is this just a social visit?”

Tessic only grinned, then ran his hand over the titanium ribs that curved across Dillon’s chest. “I’m really proud of this entire restraint system,” he said. “You see, given a minute or two Dillon can jiggle his way out of any lock, so I had to create a lock he could not break. It was quite a challenge—the first systems we developed proved useless. Then it came to me; it wasn’t a stronger lock we needed, but a key that was never the same twice!”

Tessic became animated as he explained his device, looking more and more like the wunderkind he had once been. “The electromag­netic lock on the chair is linked to the lock on the vault door, which in turn is controlled by a subcutaneous chip we’ve implanted behind Dillon’s ear. The chip changes the combination three times a second, based on randomized algorithms from Dillon’s own brain waves.” Tes­sic gave a broad smile. “It was the only way to create truly random numbers, because any normal randomizer would start spitting out chains of consecutive numbers in Dillon’s presence.”

Maddy glanced at Dillon, who said nothing. “Looks like you win the science fair,” she said.

“I always do.”

She wondered what Tessic cold possibly gain by further demor­alizing Dillon with the nuts and bolts of his cage. Then Tessic took a glance toward the open vault door, and sat down on the edge of the bed. “Of course the system’s not without its bugs—after all we never had a chance to test it, and daylight saving time never occurred to us.”

Now he had caught her interest, and although Dillon didn’t as much as flick a finger, she knew he had zeroed in on this as well. “Daylight saving?” Maddy said.

Tessic shook his head, and sighed. “Sadly, the locking mechanism has no protocol for dealing with the extra hour next Sunday. When its internal clock falls 60 minutes back, the vault door just stays stuck on that same electronic combination for the entire hour.” And then Tessic smiled. “You would think with all the money the government paid me, I wouldn’t make mistakes like that.”

Then came the sound of clattering on metal stairs, then the click of feet on concrete. “Bussard!” Maddy said, and took her seat across from Dillon.

Tessic leaned one arm on Dillon’s chair, and stood. “Yes, I’d rec­ognize that goose-step anywhere.”

Through all of this, Dillon hadn’t said a thing—but Maddy could see his eyes. They were full of hope, and focused on her.

Bussard hurried into the room, and double-took on Tessic. “What’s this all about?”

Tessic was so smooth, it assuaged the tension. “We were just dis­cussing television viewing habits.”

Bussard Looked from Tessic, to Dillon, and his gaze settled on Maddy for corroboration. “Lieutenant