The Enclave (38 page)
As the images changed to the flickering orange flames and belching smoke of the Inferno that was now their world, the choir sang of death and then rebirth. They would bring back the life. The Father would show them, and they would do it. And one day, all that was lost would be regained.
During the last lines of the song, Enforcers marched up the aisles, center and sides, to take their stand, their watchful eyes ensuring none would shirk his duty. Gaias, of course, positioned himself alongside Zowan, watching boldly as the Affirmation began.
“Our Father who walks among us, wise and holy are you.
Your kingdom has come, your will be done,
Now and in the age of awakening to come.
Strengthen us against temptation
Deliver us from the evil of selfishness
Bring us together in unity to make our world home again.
For you are the answer and the strength and the only righteous
one forever.”
Having said those same words every day for eighteen and a half years, they’d become a chain of meaningless syllables Zowan could recite by rote. Which was exactly what he did now, all his awareness focused on Gaias—who watched him so closely—and on the hard, hot knot of bitter anger that had formed within his heart.
The official portion of the ritual completed, Father now addressed them regarding recent events, assuring them that New Eden’s atmospheric integrity had not been breached, that all the damage created by the power failures had been repaired, and that despite the problems, they must keep their focus on their very important task, one entrusted to only the best and the brightest. Some of those best and brightest he would honor today.
He called up a man who had worked hard to restore the power after Monday’s blackout, then another who had labored twenty-four hours straight to ensure the Enclave’s seals were indeed secure against the outside toxins. Third was the block leader who’d held his poise under pressure and kept his people calm and safe.
Finally he called up Zowan and, after introducing him to the gathering, announced, “I will be taking him with me when I travel to New Babel on Sunday.”
Babel,
Zowan thought irreverently.
That’s a name from the
Key Study
stories, too.
“They have had illnesses there, and need skills such as Zowan here can provide,” Father was saying, his hand warm on Zowan’s shoulder. “He will do an important service there in furthering our glorious—”
Suddenly another’s voice overlaid Father’s, strong and firm and compelling:
Go from this place, Zowan. Go from your people, and from
your Father’s rule, to the land which I will show you. Come out of the
darkness and into the light. . . .
Father was still speaking, but Zowan hardly heard him; the voice was so close and clear the speaker might have stood in Father’s place.
“But how do I get there? I don’t know how to get back to the physical plant without getting caught,” he murmured.
The voice did not answer. Instead, the memory of being alone in the tunnels following someone with a light flashed into his mind. And with it came the inexplicable assurance that if he obeyed this command, he’d be shown the way to go.
Midmorning Friday, Cam was surprised to look up from his work at a tentative tap on his open office door and find Lacey McHenry standing in the doorway. The last time they’d spoken was yesterday afternoon, when he’ d told her bluntly that Swain was playing her, and she had
not
been happy with him.
The remark had been as much impulse as calculated risk in hopes the truth might startle her out of the cocoon of euphoria Swain’s promises had spun about her. Perhaps it had worked, for she did not seem angry now, though she was unquestionably agitated. As often of late, some high emotion had flushed her cheeks, the rosy glow making her dark eyes luminous and drawing attention to her high cheekbones and long elegant neck. Realizing suddenly that he’ d been staring at her far longer than was polite, he averted his eyes and waved her in, unnerved at the intensity of his attraction to her.
She surprised him further by closing the door behind her and stepping toward his desk. “I probably shouldn’t even be here,” she said, “but with Dr. Viascola closeted for the day, I decided to take the risk.”
With Swain still in Guadalajara supposedly meeting with Manny Espinosa, his Inner Circle had announced at breakfast that they would be in an all-day meeting on the ninth floor and unavailable until late afternoon. Though Gen had made sure to tell Cam they’d be back in time for the unity meeting.
His eyes fixed on the small manila collection bag that McHenry now held out to him.
“What’s this?” he asked, taking the bulging bag from her. She let him pull back the flap and see for himself: it was a blue plastic tree frog.
He looked up at her quizzically, and she explained how she’d come to have it.
By the time she finished, he was chilled, recalling his own recent interaction with the frog eater, who’d questioned him in the stairwell outside the animal facility on Wednesday morning. Clearly he’ d found out where—and who—“the girl” was. “So why did you bring this to me?” he asked.
“Who else could I take it to? I didn’t even see him this time, only the door latch turning. And that.” She gestured at the envelope in his hands. “I thought maybe you could get fingerprints or something.”
He arched his brows in surprise. “Because
I
have an in with the police now, after their lengthy questioning of me, coupled with my recent exoneration?”
Her blush deepened, and he was relieved to see genuine chagrin fill her face. “I didn’t think about that. I just thought . . . you’d want to know who he is as much as I do, and you might know who to give this to. Maybe through your friend at the U of A Genetics department . . .” She paused, then asked in a quiet voice, “Did you really see Manny’s body?”
Cam nodded.
“Was it Frogeater?”
“I believe so.”
She turned pale and sank onto the chair before him, her eyes big and troubled. “What is going on here, Dr. Reinhardt?” she whispered. “Who is he? Why is he still out there? And why are they covering all this up?”
“I’m not sure yet.” Though he did have a couple of ideas, they weren’t something he was willing to share here. He decided then that their need to talk freely was too great, and that with Swain off doing whatever it was he was doing, Cam had better seize this God-given opportunity while he could. “Are you still game to go with me to the open house tonight?” he asked.
She frowned, her dark eyes full of uncertainty. “I don’t think Director Swain would like that.”
“Probably not.”
He reached for a pad of sticky notes and scribbled on it—
Atrium
pond, 6:45 tonight?
—then pulled off the sheet and stuck it atop one of the file folders sitting on his desk, as if he’ d just thought of something irrelevant to their conversation.
“I’m not sure I want to do a lot of walking, either,” she said. “I still haven’t recovered from the blisters I got at the theater last week.”
“I understand. There
would
be a lot of walking.” With his eyes he directed her to the note he’ d just slapped onto the folder. She glanced down, seemed to read the words, then met his gaze again. He wasn’t sure if she nodded or not, but given the fact their conversation was probably being recorded, he would just have to hope she got the message. “I doubt I’ll be in the dining hall tonight, is all,” he said, “given what’s likely awaiting me in this afternoon’s unity meeting.”
The girl’s eyes widened. “Oh, that’s right!” She looked genuinely distressed. “Viascola is really going to go after you in that. I’ve heard her plotting. She’s even got one of her assistants serving as your substitute while she launches all her arguments.”
“I’m not surprised.” He made a show of looking through the stacked folders, then pulled one out and opened it.
“She’s going to have half the Inner Circle there, and other people, as well. They’ve already decided to change the venue for lack of space in our original room. Now they’ll be holding it in the common area on the fourth floor.”
“Well, I did ask her to give me the microphone and the podium at dinner one night,” Cam noted ruefully, closing the folder and moving it to the top of the stack, where it covered his sticky note.
“She’s not going to let you speak, you know. She only wants to make you look like a fool.”
He shrugged. “I’ve rejected the doctrine of evolution. That makes me as vile a heretic as ever came along, and you know what happens to heretics when they meet the true believers.”
She cocked her head at him. “You make light of it, but they’re going to tear you apart. I don’t understand why you’ve agreed to this.”
“Because part of the reason I came to K-J was in hopes of giving the gospel to these people. And now, thanks to Gen’s vitriol, the crowd has expanded. There just might be someone among them who is ready to receive what I’ll say. Even though they might not know it right now.”
He burrowed through his files and papers again, just to make his earlier actions look more convincing.
“What are you going to say?”
“Whatever the Lord gives me.”
“And if He gives you nothing?”
“Oh, I doubt that’ll be the case. He set this whole thing up, after all.” Though of course it could only be to give the people at Kendall-Jakes the chance to hear the truth and then reject it. Noah had preached one hundred twenty years, after all, without a single convert.
She leaned forward as if to go, then said, “Well, good luck with it.”
He looked at her in surprise. “Thank you.”
After she left, he dropped the bagged frog into his pocket and wondered if Rudy might be able to get anything off it. Probably not, but he’ d give it a try. Anything to shed light on why exactly Frogeater had sounded so much like Swain. It could be he was one of the man’s many illegitimate sons, out for justice. Or it could be some weird Dr.Jekyll and Mr. Hyde situation. The latter in particular would account for why the voice in the audio recording of Manny’s murder had been so rough and deep—someone had distorted it so as to hide any connection to the director. There was one other thing it could be, but he wasn’t willing to seriously consider that one. Let them rule out the more reasonable possibilities first. Any prints on the frog would go a long way to either confirm or eliminate his theories.
As he turned back to his computer, he pressed the small transmitter button he’ d affixed to the underside of his keyboard tray. About ten minutes later, the fluorescent bulb in the fixture near his office door began to flicker.
Eventually he called maintenance to have someone up to fix it, and when Rudy showed up, Cam spoke to him sharply, because it was the third time he’ d allegedly fixed that bulb.
“I’m beginning to think you’re just putting the same bulbs back into the fixture,” Cam complained. Which was
exactly
what he had been doing.
The elderly janitor insisted he was not and set down his toolbox to arrange his ladder beneath the fixture. While he did so, Cam surreptitiously slipped a small, oddly bulging manila collection envelope into the sheaf of work orders stuffed in the toolbox.
At precisely 5:00 that afternoon, Cam arrived at the changed venue for the Department of Applied Genetics’s weekly unity meeting, moved from the Desert Vista room on the third floor to the fourth-floor common area open to the atrium. As Lacey had predicted, a sea of people clogged the carpeted common area in anticipation of his arrival. The organizers had pulled over every available chair, bench, and sofa, but even that wasn’t enough, forcing many to sit on the floor. The gathering included a number of familiar faces from the Inner Circle, including Nelson Poe, Maia Ahmed-White, Oscar Orozco, and Lee Yuen.
Gen sat in one of the two wing-backed chairs Cam had last seen in the reading area on the other side of the atrium. The second chair, separated from her by an end table, waited for Cam.
As the attendees became aware of his presence, the rumble of conversation damped swiftly, making the trickle of the waterfall and the echoing shrieks of the parrots from the atrium seem loud and close. Cam threaded a path through the gathering, feeling surprisingly calm, despite the hostility radiating around him. Not until he reached the empty chair did Genevieve look up from reading the typewritten paper in her lap.
“Ah. Dr. Reinhardt. Right on time. Guess I won’t be needing this.” She waved the typewritten sheet at him, then tucked it into her red straw bag with the yellow flowers sitting on the floor at her feet.
Her hand emerged from the bag with a black cube, which she set on the end table, and uneasiness invaded his calm. “What is that for?”
“I thought it might exert a calming influence, considering our subject matter for today.” She smiled, then let her gaze sweep over the others as she addressed them. “As most of you know, we’re tackling the very ticklish subject of religion this afternoon, one that must be approached with the utmost civility and tact. I would like for this to be more a conversation than a lecture, so if you have questions or comments, please feel free to interject. But I also want all of you to remember that just because someone holds an opinion different from your own, they must still be treated with respect.”
Cam spotted Lacey McHenry out in the audience, seated on the floor at Aaron’s feet beside Jade and Mel. As he made eye contact, she flashed him a quick smile and he immediately felt a little less alone.
Viascola went on: “I am sure that Dr. Reinhardt, being the man of science that he is, has many excellent reasons for his beliefs. We should respect his willingness to share them with us.” She turned to him. “So tell us, Dr. Reinhardt, how
do
you reconcile the truth of evolution with your belief in the Bible’s story of a seven-day creation?”
“Actually, I don’t,” he said, turning toward her, “seeing as they are two antithetical belief systems that cannot be reconciled.”
Hisses of indrawn breaths greeted this statement, followed by irate mutters.