Shuttered Sky

end was there besides self-preservation? No, it wasn’t easy to see people as cattle, but she was working on it.

A woman clinging fearfully to her husband approached Lourdes. “Did you see this here?” she asked in a rich Jamaican lilt. “Do you know about it? Were you here?”

“I was right in the middle of it,” Lourdes said.

The woman began to shiver. “This a dark happening here,” she said. “A dark happening.”

“It gets worse,” answered Lourdes. Then with a flick of her head, she took control of them, sending the couple marching toward the limo, where the angels waited to devour their souls.

PART IV -SYNTAXIS

24. Sins Of Omission

There was only so much recreation Maddy could take, and although she knew she was free, in theory, to leave the building, both she and Dillon had grown accustomed to the security of Tessic’s high sanctuary. She found herself losing track of the days, and feeling more and more a prisoner of the tower.

Dillon on the other hand luxuriated in his new-found freedom. With all of Tessic’s resources left completely at his disposal, Dillon was like an overstimulated kid in a toy store. Much of his days were spent in Tessic’s media room, scouring five hundred some-odd stations for news of the world, analyzing patterns and trends of the decline, but now from a detached, enlightened distance.

Maddy found herself absorbed in Tessitech’s computer network. Tessic had given her enough access to his computer system to tempt her to look, and enough restrictions to tempt her to look deeper. In two weeks she had racked up enough information about his organi­zation, in both R&D and trade secrets, to be either a substantial threat, or qualify for a high corporate position. It annoyed her no end that she was beginning to fantasize about the latter, and she wondered whether or not Tessic had planned it that way.

Toward the end of the second week, Dillon called Maddy down to Tessic’s sixty-second-floor workshop.

“This is great, you’re going to love this!” Dillon told her as he led her down three flights of stairs, not patient enough to wait for the elevator.

Tessic had been gone for three days, jetting abroad to take care of business, but had left Dillon a whole arsenal of gadgets to toy with. Today’s objects of fascination were two glass cylinders filled with brown sand, which he pulled out of a heavy metallic container. Both were about a foot high, on a heavy base, like two high-tech blenders. A closer inspection revealed that the sand was, in fact, colored granules blended into a homogenous muddy melange.

Maddy crossed her arms. “So what am I looking at?”

Dillon set them at the two ends of a large work desk. “Tessic had me working with these before he left.” He grabbed a remote control, backed away then positioned himself about five paces away from the table, equidistant from both cylinders. “Watch.” He clicked the re­mote and the two glass cylinders began to vibrate in unison. The sand shifted, and the blend of colors began to separate from one another until what remained were two cylinders filled with rainbow strata of sand that would no longer blend, no matter how much the cylinders vibrated. Dillon hit the remote to shut them off.

“I came down to watch you do sand art?”

“No—see, look.” He pointed to a timer at the base of each cyl­inder. “This measures the time of separation. It’s a way to quantify the strength of my field. The closer I am to the device, the faster the color separation occurs. I can place myself behind different objects, and test what inhibits my field, and what amplifies it!”

“Interesting,” she said with a smirk. “A Dillonometer.”

“But here’s the really exciting thing.” Dillon pointed out the two timers again. “The right one is two-point- three seconds slower than the left.” Dillon looked at her proudly.

“And?”

“Don’t you see? I was able to control it. When I first started, both times would be identical, but I’ve been able to alter that. I’ve been able to control and focus my field.”

There was something unpalatable about Dillon’s enthusiasm, and even though Maddy was impressed, she found herself downplaying it. “It’s just sand, Dillon; sand in a perfectly controlled environment. It has no bearing on the real world.”

“It’s a start.” Dillon grabbed the colorful cylinders, returning them to their metallic case, which was no doubt some shielded material that would allow the sands to mix. “Before, it took a damned vault to contain me. This is one step closer to containing myself.”

“If that’s what you want, I hope you succeed.”

Dillon took a good long look at her, his enthusiasm overripening into irritation. “What’s wrong with you lately?”

She shook the question off. “Maybe I’m just tired of watching you puttering your days away.”

“What would you rather have me do? Live in shadows, playing hide and seek with the FBI?”

Maybe, she thought. There was an intensity to him then; a wildness that had now been tamed. But then, wasn’t it she who told him to slow down and accept Tessic’s hospitality?

Maddy sighed and turned to see how far she was from the stairs. “Listen, just forget it. Forget I said anything.” She kissed him on the cheek, and made her way toward the stairs, hoping to get there before Dillon spoke, and knowing she wouldn’t.

“You need me helpless,” he said.

She found her feet slowing in spite of herself.

“You prefer me locked in a chair, or running from the Feds, or tormented by thoughts I can’t control. It’s the only way you can deal with me. If I’m helpless.”

“That’s not true,” she said, forcing herself to turn to him.

“Of course it’s true.” Dillon scoffed. “I know you—don’t forget that. I can see right through you.”

“Well maybe I don’t enjoy being transparent.”

The back door to the workshop opened with a conspicuous squeak. They turned to see Tessic standing there, feigning to have just arrived. There was no telling how much he had heard, and Maddy wondered why she cared.

Dillon spared one more look to Maddy before hurrying to Tessic as if he were Daddy home from work.

“Elon! I’ve had some breakthroughs while you were gone.’

“How was Poland?” Maddy asked, flatly.

“Cold.” Tessic pulled out a stack of pictures from his pocket. “The Ciechanow construction site. Would you like to see?” Tessic spread the photos out methodically on the work table. The images showed a swarm of more than one hundred buildings all much closer to com­pletion than Maddy had assumed. Little more than landscaping re­mained.

“The first twenty buildings are ready for occupancy. The rest will be done in a matter of weeks. Then we repeat the process at identical sites in Belarus and Lithuania.”

“Any takers?” asked Dillon. “Anyone moving in?”

“Not yet.” Tessic finished laying out the pictures. Maddy noticed how he avoided looking Dillon in the eye. “Marketing has not matched the pace of construction, but I’m confident Ciechanow will fill quickly.”

Maddy wondered why, if she could read Tessic’s evasiveness, Dil­lon could not. Or perhaps he did read it, and chose to ignore it.

“I’d very much like you to join me on my next trip,” Tessic told Dillon. “Photographs do not do it justice.”

Maddy watched Dillon’s response closely. He took his time before answering, studying an aerial view of the sprawling complex that looked eerily similar to the model across the room.

“Sure,” Dillon said, tossing it off like it was nothing. “Sure I’ll go.” Then he turned to her as an afterthought.