“That’s why it’s got to be an excellent plan.”
Donny was adamant about staying so they stopped at a La Quinta outside the Albany airport. Hari admitted to herself that she was worried about him—worried enough that she accompanied him inside and continued trying during the registration process to talk him into coming back to New York. She even followed him to his room.
“We’re better off investigating the signals.”
“The signals?” He shook his head. “That’s the cosmic end of this. I can’t deal with cosmic. What I can deal with is real-world stuff like trucks and trailers. I just have to figure out how.”
“Okay, look,” she said. “Will you promise me one thing? Promise me you won’t get in their faces. Promise me you’ll keep arm’s length and do whatever you do anonymously. You said yourself these people are dangerous. Look what they did to your brother.”
She hated to bring that up, but Donny wasn’t some black ops veteran, he was just a hacker, and she had a sense that Septimus ran broader and deeper than either of them could imagine.
His expression darkened. “And that’s why they have to pay.”
“Have it your way,” she said and started to turn away.
“Hey.” He spread his arms. “After all we just went through and not even a hug?”
Okay, he had a point.
They clinched but he held on and whispered in her ear. “We could finish what we started on that other world. People have the Mile-High Club. We could inaugurate the Interplanetary Club.”
Hari broke the clinch with a laugh. “You never give up!”
He winked. “As Septimus is about to find out.”
He keyed his door open and waved as he entered. Hari walked down the hall and out to the parking lot where she stopped and looked up at a sun that had risen late this morning and, if her intuition was right, would set early tonight.
Why was she leaving Donny alone in that room? The world was in the process of ending and here was a good guy—a little young, maybe, but well into adulthood—who truly wanted her. This moment might never come again.
She turned and headed for his room. By the time she knocked on his door, she had her blouse fully unbuttoned. She delighted in his shocked expression when he opened it and saw her
“I’ve got an hour,” she said, pushing him back into the room. “Don’t waste it.”
ERNST
The sun had risen late.
The Change was upon the world.
At last.
Ernst had been anticipating this any day for the two months since he had last seen the One. Apparently the stars or planets had aligned or the gears of the multiverse had reset. Or not. All that mattered was that it had begun.
The One’s time, the Order’s time, and most important, Ernst’s time was at hand. Though he wished the One had given them warning. Even the Council had been left in the dark.
It may have begun in the Heavens as predicted, but instead of basking in the glow of this momentous occasion, Ernst Drexler was forced to deal with the Order’s more mundane issues.
Yesterday he’d informed the Council of Slootjes’s determination to tell the membership that the Order had been played for fools for millennia, that they’d been misled by the dupes on the Council of Seven who repeated all the lies they’d been fed.
And now this morning, Council member Patel had stopped by the Lodge with a pronouncement: “Loremaster Saar Slootjes has been designated a Threatening Presence.”
A loremaster receiving the Threatening Presence designation was unheard of—unprecedented in Ernst’s experience. It amounted to a death sentence: a Threatening Presence had to be eliminated at all costs, by whatever means necessary.
Naturally it came down to Ernst Drexler, as the Lodge’s actuator, to deal with any member labeled a Threatening Presence. But on today of all days…it didn’t seem right.
“The Change has begun,” Ernst told Patel. “Surely that makes this all moot.”
“Oh, quite the contrary,” Patel said. “He will raise doubts about the Order’s place in the post-Change world. He will tell them we won’t be ascendant in the new order. We can’t allow him to create a crisis of faith within the membership. We haven’t been stockpiling food for no reason, you know.”
Wait…what?
“Stockpiling food? Where?”
“Beyond the Leng passage. There’s no place safer.”
“Why wasn’t I told of this?”
Patel gave his arm a condescending pat. “You’re an actuator, Ernst. Not your concern. These matters are best left to the Council.”
Officially Patel was right, but Ernst’s father had always said an actuator’s job was to make things happen for the Order, and this had happened without him.
“I’m hardly rank and file.”
“Of course not. But trust me, you wouldn’t want to be saddled with the logistics of the problem. I’m constantly arguing and cajoling on the phone. Sometimes I want to hurl it across my office or bounce it off a wall. The truckers up in Albany are chronically behind in moving the shipments to safety, and that’s all Brother Riker’s fault. His lame excuse is that they can’t risk running more than ten trucks to the passage at once for fear of attracting too much attention. And just recently he thinks someone has been following the convoy.”
“Still, I wish I’d known.”
“And now you do.” Another condescending pat. “But don’t allow this to distract you. If the supplies aren’t secured in time, the rank-and-file members will suffer, not us. Just take care of the Slootjes threat. Inform the Council as soon as it’s done.”
Ernst didn’t feel up to eliminating Slootjes. The loremaster wouldn’t be the first member of the Order he’d terminated. But in those cases he’d felt justified because he’d been eliminating a threat, either to himself or the Order. And, coincidentally, in all previous incidences he’d actively disliked, even loathed the target. He rather liked Saar, despite his tendency toward drama queen.
Ernst would take another shot at dissuading him. If that didn’t work, he’d bring in Belgiovene.
FRANKIE
P. Frank Winslow stood in the cab of his building’s elevator, trying one key after another
