Steal the Lightning: A Field Ops Novel (Field Ops #3)(64)

We were looking at a large room, once a meeting place or reception hall, perhaps. The molded ceiling was now cracked and at the far end it had bellied down as if about to break. Windows were boarded up. Several large machines stood in the corners. I didn’t know exactly what they did, but I’d seen something like them back in GH9, and again in Chicago, last year. But these looked beaten up, ramshackle. The nearest had been bludgeoned with considerable force: the front panels were bent, the display screen dead, the chassis scratched and dented. Others showed loose wires, and one, a poorly-fitting hood, as if bolted on from some unrelated mechanism. There were cables taped across the floor, looped in a cloverleaf. The pattern wasn’t adequate, I saw that right away. Whatever was in there, it was complex, and it was powerful. And the pattern had to match that: to trace its lines of strength, to map its contours and react accordingly. A harsh white ceiling light made everything look like a child’s drawing, deep, black shadows under bright, blank surfaces. The air began to move again.

I said, “We need to go.”

The big man said, “Relax. It’s an empty room.”

“It’s anything but.”

He took a few steps forward, raised his hands.

“You see it. You look.”

Dust and small items began to move across the floor. Old screws, a pocket lighter, pieces of wood, a dusty copy of the Appleseed picture—in motion and assembling into patterns, like iron filings caught in a magnetic field.

“You’ll start hearing things now, pretty soon,” he said. “It likes to see us. It likes it when we visit.”

“I know it does. I work with this stuff.”

“Good. Then you should know that things aren’t going how they should here.”

He looked at me directly then. There was a faint lift of the eyebrow—the closest thing I’d yet seen to expression.

“You people fix this, right?”

“I can take away the problem for you, if you want.”

“‘Take away.’ That doesn’t sound like what we want.”

And I heard it now: high up, grating on my nerves. Vibrations in the back of my skull, resonating with the sound. I dug my fists into my pockets, squeezed hard. Behind me, Angel drew a breath.

Dust rose in shifting, intricate formations. White light caught it, made it seem a solid thing, yet shifting, like an ocean. It glittered, sparked. I felt something on my foot, and looking down, I saw a silver nail, dragged in the wake of lighter debris. It rolled across my shoe and inched along the floor, moving as if in stop-motion, inch by inch.

“System’s set to power the building, and it does. Except there’s trouble.” The man displayed one meaty palm. “Things happen, aren’t meant to happen. It needs . . . ah, hell, I don’t know what it needs. Insulation, I guess. Something like that.”

The dust had risen to his knees. He stooped a little, and with one hand batted at his trouser legs.

Something howled, an awful, electronic feedback. There was an odor—sickly, chemical. I said, “We’re going now. Please open the elevator door.”

The man looked up. Was it an act, this unconcern? Or was he genuinely unaware what he was dealing with? As we backed out, the light flipped off. He seized the heavy door and pulled it shut. I heard the lock click into place. A moment later, something boomed against the other side. I saw the door shake, and a little puff of dust fell from its surface.

“Gonna carry on like that an hour or more,” he said. “Should quiet after. Most times, anyhow.”

He called the elevator. The door slid back immediately. The lift had been there, waiting, like he’d said.

We started down. Another thunderclap roared down the shaft.

I told him, “You’ve got trouble.”

“We have an inconvenience. I was hoping you could help us settle it.”

“Where’s Preston McAvoy?”

“There is no Preston McAvoy.”

“Johnny Appleseed. Whatever you want to call him.”

“Johnny Appleseed. Now, that’s a character in funny books, uh-huh?”

“You know who I mean.”

We walked towards the entrance hall.

“No, Mr. Copeland, I’m afraid I don’t. But I hope that you’ve enjoyed your visit with us, and I hope that we’ll be seeing you again, when you have something we can use. In the meantime—have yourself a good night.”

He handed me a card: black, embossed with gold. I glanced at it, hoping for some handy revelation—a name I knew, perhaps even Appleseed, or McAvoy—but of course, it was nothing of the kind.

“Mr. Shwetz?” I called out after him.

He didn’t look around.



“Everybody wants you.”

“Yeah. I’m dead popular.”

Partway along the street I stopped and turned. I could get a view up the front of Second Eden, all the way to the top floor, if I craned my head back.

I expected the roof to blow off. Or something like that, anyway.

It didn’t. But as we headed back to the hotel, I was pretty sure that half the people on the street weren’t really there. They flickered in and out, visible for three, four seconds, in mirrors and through windows and showing up just for a moment in the shadow of a passing car, then vanishing, dissolving into nothingness again; and I could feel the energy, flowing out into the town, draining off into the world like water down a gutter.