The Shibboleth (27 page)

“That's your ability? Telling lies?”

“No. My ability is making people believe my lies.”

Ruark's voice sounds from the speakers. “Mr. Cameron, you have three seconds before Mr. Negata will escort you from
the testing area.”

“
I got it the first time!
” he screams. “Your hair is on fire.”

It's most definitely not. I don't have cancer, and Jack isn't dead.

Holy crap, this kid could rule the world.

“Gimme back my twenty.”

He grins a little sheepishly, digs in his front pocket. “Hey, I didn't want to. They made me.”

“You said they have your parents, is that right?”

He stills, but before he can answer, the outer door opens and Negata stands framed in it, holding something in his hand. A Taser.

Ruark's voice says, “Not another word, Mr. Cameron. Please accompany Mr. Negata out of the testing room.”

Cameron looks at me apologetically and heads to the door. Negata steps aside and lets him pass. The door glides shut with a click.

“This concludes phase one of your testing, Mr. Cannon.”

They leave me in the room for a good long while with nothing to do but think about all the implications of the boy named Reese Cameron and his ability. It's funny, but I'd been walking around thinking that I was the baddest mofo in the valley. Part of me is glad I'm not. Part of me is scared.

But he was missing a tooth. Someone did that to him, I wager. I wonder if they keep him deep underground, like me.

The outer door clicks and swings open, and there stand Negata and Ruark. Ruark's expression is blank, yet I can sense some excitement in her. A smile tugging at the edges of her mouth. I'm tempted to go out into the ether and peek, but the Taser in Mr. Negata's hand dissuades me.

“There any need for that?” I ask, nodding at the zapper.

“Both you and Mr. Cameron were quite obstinate during the first phase. A show of force may be necessary.”

“Nice. You guys are class, all the way.” I shouldn't mouth off, but hell, they're going to stuff me back in my hole anyway.

“Follow me, Mr. Cannon, for phase two of your testing.”

She walks away, down the hall. Negata stands waiting for me to move. Which I do.

“Miss Ruark?” I say. “Can I ask a question?” She ignores
me, not even glancing back. “What's the point of all this?”

“The Society of Extranaturals is dedicated to assisting and supporting the American government in its operations at home and abroad.”

“Huh? No, I mean here. Right now. This testing.”

She's silent for a bit, walking straight ahead. Then she says, “What do you think, kid?”

“Do you really want my answer?”

She shakes her head, sighs, still walking. I glance behind us and there's Negata, holding the Taser and watching me closely. The man just reeks of the possibility of impersonal and unsmiling carnage. Simply with the set of his shoulders, the grace of his stride.

“Isn't it obvious, Cannon?”

Ah. We've moved on from the “misters.” We've become chums.

“No, not really.”

“All testing is to determine aptitude, of course. Special abilities.”

“Of course.”

“But this testing also plumbs the depth of your will, your ability to think, to cope in certain situations.”

“Is that what all the ‘reading' stuff is about?”

“That's classified.”

She stops. I stop with her. She turns to me and then, pointing her index finger like it's a gun, she jabs me hard in the nipple. I step back.

“And,” she says, her voice hard and low. “The testing is to remind you exactly what your situation is.”

“And what is that?” I try to stop myself from asking, but the
question just sashays to the tip of my tongue and dives headlong out into the world.

“Dire.” She smiles again. “Your situation is dire.”

She turns and begins to walk once more.

The next room is smaller, tighter. No mirror, but the same plastic chair and plasma screen. Once I'm in the room, Negata stands in the doorway, watching me until the door shuts, hands like blades, ready. I spend an interminable amount of time just breathing in the close confines of the room and listening to the air circulate through the vents.

When Ruark's voice squelches the speakers, it's almost a relief.

“Cannon, please direct your attention to the screen and we will begin.”

“What happened to the other person, the last person telling us what to do? The nice one?”

“Please direct your attention to the screen.”

I sit down and wait for the coming attraction. This time the screen shows me a backyard, somewhere in America, because there's a plywood fence, a swing, the edge of a concrete patio. Trees crowd in close beyond the fencing, and the sky is blue. In the bottom right corner of the screen there's a time code and a date. If it's today's date, they had me down in the hole longer than I thought.

There's no one on-screen, but the way the light moves, the shadows sway, I can tell it's a video, not a still image. A bird flies over the yard to settle on a power line. A figure comes
on-screen. He's small, wearing a Spider-Man T-shirt, jeans, tennis shoes.

Vig.

He backs into the yard, into view of the cameras, hands up as if warding off someone. He's not crying, but I can tell from the way his lip is pulled to the side in a grimace that he's seriously distressed. A larger figure appears, and this time I can only see his back. Another boy. An older boy, judging by his muscles, the tightness of his T-shirt across the thick wedge of his back. Vig says something but, thank God, there's no sound, so I don't have to hear the smack of fist on flesh as the older boy hits Vig and he goes tumbling across the patio and into the grass.

But he's tough, my little dude, and pops right back up. He doesn't have his hands up anymore; they're balled into tight little fists even though his mouth is smeared with blood. When the larger boy steps forward, swings his fist again, Vig jukes to the side, scrambles forward, latches onto the larger boy and begins to grapple for his left arm. He clamps on and sinks his teeth into the boy's forearm. He looks wild, my brother, his face smeared with blood and his expression screwed into a paroxysm of animal fury. My skin itches, watching. My heart throbs in my chest.

The larger boy howls soundlessly and slings Vig away, sending him tumbling once more. Vig is slower to rise this time, so the boy's shoe catches him perfectly on the chin before he can stand and flips his body over to fall on the grass, faceup, staring blindly at the sky. The older boy kicks him two more times, once in the head, once in the ribs.

Before he stomps off, he spits on Vig.

It's a long while before Vig moves, rolling over and pushing himself to his knees. A thin dribble of bright red blood spools from his mouth into the grass. He stands unsteadily, looking about the yard. He sits down, hard, on his ass. Blinks a few times. Rolls onto his knees again and pushes himself up.

He slowly walks toward the camera. He's not crying at all. For an eight-year-old, his stare is remarkably cold. He's pissed. I don't know if that older boy knows what he's got coming to him.

Once Vig has passed out of view, the screen flickers and dies.

“Reading complete. This concludes phase two of your testing, Mr. Cannon. Please wait for Mr. Negata to retrieve you.”

It's twilight now as they take me back to the bunker. It's hard to tell how far we travel in the back of the van, without windows.

“Why aren't there any windows back here?”

Davies tugs at his bottom lip, considering, and then says over the growl of the van's engine, “No need for you to get too cozy around here. No idea if you'll make it through the testing.”

The van turns, and the driver shifts into a lower gear. I think about what he's said.

“That's crap,” I say. Davies's shoulders tighten. “You don't want anyone to see me.”

Jack could be out there right now. But the dark. Vig.

“I don't give a damn who sees you. To me, you're
no one
.”

“My name is Shreve Cannon.”

“I don't care.”

The Helmholtz is running but it's not strong. So I touch his mind and see. He's not lying.

The van stops. There's a rumble. I have to assume that's the blast door opening. They get me out of the back. Two soldiers wait for us with rifles.

They've gotten me out of the van before the blast door has shut. There are shadowy trees and a slight breeze. It smells wonderful. Like freedom. It's dark now, but the stars have begun
to scatter across the vault of sky. It will get darker tonight, I'm sure. At least for me.

Fifteen minutes riding down. The elevator car shudders silently. I think about Jack. I think about Vig. The minds of these brutes are open to me. I could ride them to freedom.

Vig.

When the elevator doors open, the hall doesn't lead to my cell. There's a locker room here stinking of jockstraps and athlete's foot and the cold, clammy smell of wet rock. A quick perusal tells me there are no cameras or sensors in here. Soldiers don't like being filmed while they shower.

“Get the clothes,” Davies says, and one of the soldiers tromps over to a locker and removes a folded stack of duds and hands them to me. Black military issue, like the Flying Burrito Brothers wore. White T-shirt. Tighty-whities.

“What's all this?”

“You're starting to stink. Disrobe.”

“No.”

“Disrobe. That's not a request.”

“No.”

I can compel you.
The memory of Quincrux comes unbidden.

Davies's jaw locks, and I can see he's going to be Mr. Pushy.

“Whitmore. Stevens.” Davies chucks his head at me.

The soldiers set down their weapons. Davies unholsters a Taser.

It's easy enough to snatch up their minds and hold them. There are just four. I am not yet whole. If I was, I could make this whole yard of boys kill each other. Gleefully.

For an instant, I have the urge to snuff out the burning matchsticks of their consciousness. To extinguish the light for them as they have done to me. And plan to do again. But it seems I'm haunted by ghosts. Jerry's words echo through me.

They're staring, blank-faced, locked in the stasis of my possession. Turning to Davies, I open both pairs of eyes—mine and his—and allow them to find the other's gaze in an infinite feedback loop. I'm looking at myself looking at this guy looking at myself.

“Everything I say you will remember. Do you understand?”

He nods, caught in my gaze.

“There's a man named Horace Booth. He is—or was—the assistant warden at the Arkansas Pulaski County Juvenile Detention Center. You can find his e-mail on the state website.
I order you to contact him.
You will use whatever resources you need to get this done. Once you find his contact information, deliver this message: ‘The man from the Department of Health and Human Services named Quincrux holds Shreve Cannon and Jack Graves prisoner in a military compound in Montana. The address is Number 15, Old US Highway 10, Montana.” I pause here because I can't remember the zip code. But what else can I do? “Repeat that back to me.”

He does.

“You will tell no one about this. Do you understand?”

There are small tremors running through his frame. His left eyelid twitches. I ride him hard, on the inside. He cannot match me.

“Good. Davies, you will do as I have said. Otherwise, you will feel an unease.” Crap. That's no good. An unease? It needs to be worse. It needs to be bad, if he doesn't do what I say. It hits me now. I continue, my fists balling. “You will not be able to sleep. The insomnia will come back to you if you do not do as I say and contact Horace Booth. Do you understand?”

I relinquish enough control to allow him to nod.