this time it is soothing warmth, not the lactic acid he experiences while playing football.
His mind wanders, pushing him deeper through the corridors of darkness, until he hears:
It must be boring to be God… omnipotent and immortal, never knowing ambition or desire, triumph or loss. Is that why You created us, Lord? To entertain You? Is that why You ‘blessed us’ with our insecurities, poisoned us with ego, enslaved us with lust and greed, power and revenge? Is the human race one big cockfight to you? Do You enjoy the cruelties we inflict upon one another?
Does it entertain You?
Or have You, our parental deity, simply given up? At what point, I wonder, did we finally cross the line? Not during our infancy, when You instructed us through Noah and Abraham, Jacob and Moses. Was it after Christ was crucified? Did You really forgive us? Perhaps it was during humanity’s adolescence, those terrible ‘teen’ years when most parents feel like abandoning their child. Was that it, Lord? Was it the Holocaust that caused You to shake Your mighty head in shame? Hiroshima? Korea? Vietnam? September 11? The 2012 conflict? The atrocities in Africa? The endless turmoil in the Middle East?
At what point did You say, ‘To Hell with them.’
Selfish and stupid, violent and destructive, shortsighted and cruel. Children step on your toes when they are young, then step on your hearts as they get older.
Everyone makes mistakes, God. Were we Yours?
Or was this whole thing just part of Your master plan?
Forgive my tirade, son, but since your departure from my soul, I am so full of anger, so full of hate, so full of blasphemy that at times I feel as if I could burst Immanuel’s ebony eyes flash open as he wails a bloodcurdling scream and leaps to his feet, tossing the now-dry bedsheet from his shoulders.
Jacob grabs him around the shoulders. ‘Manny, what is it?’
Immanuel hugs himself, pacing back and forth in the snow, his limbs shaking.
‘Computer, end program!’
The snow and mountainside disappear, revealing the onyx-tiled sensory chamber. The heavy chill ceases, replaced by waves of heat.
Jacob hovers over his brother, who is kneeling on the damp floor, huddling in the warmth. ‘You heard him, didn’t you, Manny? You heard our father!’
Immanuel looks up, his body still trembling. ‘I heard nothing. Now get me the hell out of here.’
33
Thursday Morning
Lauren Beckmeyer is exhausted.
It is not the kind of exhaustion she ordinarily relishes from her physical training. This is something she has never experienced, the kind of overwhelming fatigue that comes from being a fugitive. Perpetually draining, it refuses to allow her mind to rest, her fraught nerves to settle.
It is exhaustion based on the fear of death.
For the last thirty-six hours the track star has been ducking through back streets and alleyways, hiding in shadows-avoiding people. She cannot go to her apartment. She cannot contact her parents or friends, fearing the men who murdered Professor Gabeheart will come after her loved ones, just as they are coming after her. She has not eaten, since the purchase of food requires identity scans, and hers has been excised.
Lauren doesn’t know who the enemy is, but she has her suspicions. Late the previous night, as she lay alone on the beach, her mind had finally quieted enough to piece things together.
Whoever wanted Gabeheart silenced feared the professor might learn the truth about Yellowstone’s caldera. To resort to murder means pressure within the caldera system must be building, which means an eruption is imminent.
The last eruption in Yellowstone led to an ice age. If this next one is anywhere near as devastating… oh, Jesus!
Lauren did not sleep, the threat to her own life suddenly overshadowed by the thought of a super volcanic winter. Somehow she had to get a warning to the public. Somehow she had to make the world listen while there was still time to act… assuming there was still time and there was another course of action.
But who would listen to her? She was a nobody, someone who could easily be snatched away before the first television camera could be turned on. And what proof did she really have?
But there was someone the media would listen to, someone they wanted to interview, someone who received more news coverage than any scientist, any geology student ever could.
Lauren needed to find Sam.
Lauren watches the Student Medical Center side entrance from her vantage behind a row of shrubs. Her hair is slicked back with water and tucked under a baseball cap.
She crosses the street, blending in with a family as they enter the facility. She follows a crowded corridor, then waits in line to access an automated hospital help station.
Presses PATIENT DIRECTORY. ‘Kirk Peacock’s room.’
KIRK PEACOCK IS LOCATED IN ROOM 310, BED B. HAVE A NICE DAY.
She looks around, bypassing the elevator for the stairs.
Kirk Peacock is lying in bed, his drooling mouth open, his eyes cloaked behind a virtual-reality headpiece. Lauren takes a seat by his bed, averting her eyes as a robonurse enters and changes his IV bag.
‘Kirk. Hey, Kirk!’ She knocks on the VR helmet, then yanks it off his head.
‘Cut the fubitchshitting… Lauren? Hey… what’re you doing here?’
‘I came to see you. You feeling okay?’
‘Fuck no. Got needles and tubes comin’ outta my bunghole. Haven’t done a leech in days. They took my contacts, my body piercings, my hair’s growing in over my ’too, and my father’s making me restain my pigment flesh tone. Life blows.’
‘Yeah. Kirk, I need a favor. I need to get away for a few days. I’ll trade you my car for your Amphibian.’
‘Your ’Vette? You on meds?’
‘It’s just for a few days. I promise I’ll take good care of it.’
‘Sink it for all I care. Belongs to my old man. Fubitchshittingasswipe.’
‘What’s your access code?’
‘Access code… damn… oh yeah.’ He holds up his bare foot. Tattooed to his heel is KP-3757-D.
Lauren memorizes the code. ‘Thanks, Kirk, I owe you. When do they let you out?’
‘ Shifubitchin’ know-it-all tin can mechanical doctor ordered another blood scrub. I told that trash can she can suck my plasma only if she replaces it with BLISS. Ha-ha… hey, ’renman, where you going?’
Hangar 13, Kennedy Space Center,
Cape Canaveral, Florida
Thursday Afternoon
Immanuel Gabriel loses his thoughts in the psychiatrist’s eyes, watching them shift from hazel to green in the overhead lights. The man’s hair is brown and spiked, the cleft lip and telltale scars along the jaw line revealing recent reconstructive surgery.
‘You sure don’t look like a psychiatrist.’
Mike Snyder smiles. ‘And what should a psychiatrist look like?’
‘I don’t know… more scholarly, I suppose. What happened to your face?’
‘Battle scars. I double as one of your brother’s sparring partners. At least I used to. He’s way beyond us mere mortal foes these days.’
Immanuel sits up in the lounge chair, his head still woozy from the sedative. ‘So you’re Jake’s psychiatrist?
