The Rising(87)
“I’m not sure. But the better question was your first one: where are they being built, and the answer is probably lots and lots of locations scattered throughout the world.”
“Because these cyborgs are going to be the ones doing the heavy lifting when doomsday kicks in, right?” Alex asked.
“I apologize for the crack about you needing a tutor,” Raiff said, smiling thinly.
Sam kicked at some pebbles collected on the ground. “So if we can figure out how to shut them off, doomsday gets postponed, maybe for good.”
“Maybe that’s what they think I know,” Alex said to Raiff. “How to turn all these robots off.”
“Cyborgs,” Sam corrected. “Androids.”
“Whatever.”
“There’s a difference.”
“Explain it to me again after we find the switch. We need to figure out what it is I’m supposed to know, so we can stop them in their tracks,” Alex said to Raiff again.
“We need those drawings, Dancer.”
“There’s something else we need,” Alex told him. “My CAT scan results. My doctor saw something before they killed him, a shadow, he called it. Now we need to see it too.”
Sam studied Alex’s wrist, then made a grab for it.
“Hey!” he protested, pulling away.
Not to be outdone, she latched onto his forearm and pulled it toward her. “You’re still wearing your hospital bracelet.”
“I forgot all about it.”
“Good thing.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s got your patient ID number on it,” Raiff realized.
“And that’s what the hospital will file all your test results under,” Sam told him.
“Meaning—” Alex began.
“Yeah,” Sam said, reading his mind. “I’ve done some volunteer work at CPMC. I know the layout.”
“You’re crazy.”
“Only for the last day or so.”
“What about those drawings, Dancer?” Raiff reminded him.
“It’s Alex. Alex.”
“‘We know what we are, but not what we may be.’”
“That’s Shakespeare,” Sam noted.
“Hamlet, specifically.”
“I know who I am, Raiff,” Alex insisted.
“Do you?” Raiff asked him, expression gone flat again. “Do you really?”
“By the way,” Sam interjected, squirming a bit, “no, I couldn’t find a bathroom. So, if the two of you don’t mind, could we get moving?”
88
WILDER
LANGSTON MARSH EASED AHEAD of Rathman and deposited a five-dollar bill in the swaying pot next to the sign reading, DEPOSIT A DOLLAR AND ASK THE PROFESSOR A QUESTION.
“I figured I’d pay for a few extra up front,” Marsh told the figure seated on the grass-stained blanket, who reminded him of Kris Kringle, Santa Claus himself. The grass was damp with a mist that had washed in over the water and then washed out just as quickly. But his shoes still left their mark in the form of impressions across the faded fabric, which dried quickly in the brief reemerged late-afternoon sun. He’d skirted the signs reading, THEY WALK AMONG US, TRUST NO ONE, THE WAR IS COMING, and ALIENS GO HOME!, wondering if the scent of lacquer was the product of his imagination or the result of a fresh coat tracing the original letters.
Dr. Orson Wilder cocked his gaze casually from the pot to Marsh and smoothed the tangled hair from his face. “Answers are free for my friends.”
“And is that what I am, Professor, your friend?”
“We share the same goals, so I’d say close enough.”
“I’d still prefer to pay.”
“You failed. You wouldn’t be here if you’d managed to take the boy into custody, would you?”
“Should I be charging you for the answer too, Professor?”
“A waste of your money, since I already know it.”
“An unexpected development was to blame. No matter. We’ll have the boy before long.” Marsh glanced toward the five-dollar bill bent into the pot. “So I might as well get my money’s worth.”
“Okay,” Wilder said, squinting up at Marsh through the last of the day’s sunlight, which made him look spectral, almost as if he were glowing. “First question.”
“Tell me about the boy.”
“I already did. When I called in the report. I did my part.” Wilder’s eyes tried to hold Marsh’s gaze longer and failed. “Don’t make me regret that.”
“As you’ve been regretting for any number of years now?”
“We make strange bedfellows, don’t we, Marsh?”
“Strange bedfellows with a common purpose: forestalling an alien invasion, the kind of invasion your work here twenty years ago proved was possible. The mere proof of their existence was enough for me.” He stopped long enough to fasten onto Wilder’s stare until the old man looked away again. “Your work validated my entire life’s purpose. Now tell me about the boy,” Marsh repeated.
“That’s not a question.”
“What did the boy tell you?”
“That he was an alien. That his mother rescued him from Laboratory Z just before its destruction. That he’s being chased by other aliens, or some kind of robots, cyborgs, they’ve managed to manufacture.”