At the foot of the stairs, he came into a long corridor with fluorescent lights in the ceiling. Some of the lights were off, some were on, some were blinking fitfully, blue glare and shadows alternating on the floor below. Hands in his pants pockets, Hepplewhite passed beneath them. He passed several guard stations, but there were no guards. He went through several heavy iron doors, but they were all unlocked and standing open. Whenever he paused and listened, he could hear the woman’s footsteps echoing up ahead of him.
At last, he turned a corner and caught sight of her again. She was entering the final room, Kurodar’s room, the Control Room, the place where the Realm was made.
The woman had just gone through the door. Hepplewhite went after her. He reached the threshold. He stepped over.
And he nearly gagged at what he saw.
The brilliant physicist Ivan Doshenko—the terrorist now known as Kurodar—had always been an ugly little man. Stoop-shouldered and small, he had always had a face like a skull crossed with a toad. But now . . . now, the man was an atrocity. A slimy purple barely human thing strapped to a chair, wires and tubes going in and out of him blending seamlessly with sinews and nerves and veins. His body and the banks of computers all around him were so completely linked that Hepplewhite found it difficult to distinguish the man from the machine.
Disgusting, Hepplewhite thought. Killing him will just put him out of his misery. Not that he cared whether Kurodar was miserable or not.
The woman with the pot of food stood beside the creature, spooning soup into the toothless hole of his mouth. Two other men, also South African villagers, also dressed in old khaki, stood tending the machines and screens that blinked and fizzled all around the room. They glanced over at Hepplewhite when he entered, then quickly glanced away. Their eyes were wide and frightened. They had been expecting him and only hoped he would leave them alive after dispatching Kurodar. He would. He did not kill for pleasure, after all. It was just a business to him.
Kurodar’s huge, insanely bloodshot eyes also turned in Hepplewhite’s direction. If the scientist felt fear, he didn’t show it. He merely lifted one withered branch of an arm and made a gesture, brushing the woman away. She withdrew, taking her food with her and, with a quick, frightened backward glance, hurried out of the room.
“Hepplewhite,” said Kurodar. Whatever his voice had once been like, it was now a dead echoing thing. It sounded like something dropped into a deep well. His Russian accent was still thick, and the loss of his teeth and the atrophy of his lips made his words indistinct. “Have a seat,” he said.
But Hepplewhite remained standing, slouched, his hands in his pockets. “No need,” he said. “I won’t be here long.”
Kurodar’s laughter sounded like a big hollow gong being struck repeatedly. “You mean simply to kill me and be on your way?” he said in a more or less pleasant tone.
Hepplewhite shrugged. “You know how it is. You are a loose end. Loose ends must be tied up.” The sight of Kurodar disgusted him, but he forced himself to look into the red-streaked eyes. There was an intensity of feeling in them, but what feeling? Hepplewhite wasn’t sure. “You don’t seem to be afraid,” he said.
Kurodar laughed again. “Of you? No.”
“Of death then. Are you at peace with death?”
Kurodar stopped laughing suddenly. Suddenly his tone was dark and seething. “I am at peace with nothing,” he said. “I wake up in a rage every morning and go to sleep in a rage every night. Between waking and sleeping, I think of one thing only: vengeance, nothing but vengeance. I am never at peace.”
Hepplewhite nodded. His handlers at the Assembly had briefed him on Kurodar. He knew what the terrorist said of himself was true. Doshenko had been the son of a high-ranking KGB official in the old slave state of the Soviet Union. The KGB was the brutal Soviet security agency—their spies and secret police. Kurodar’s father, Adam Doshenko, had had enormous power. With a single word and for no apparent reason, he could have almost anyone thrown in prison, order him tortured, order him killed. Kurodar’s father could make his enemies disappear forever with a fingersnap—and he often did.
When the Soviet Union collapsed, a mob had dragged Kurodar’s father out into the street. In their fury at a lifetime of oppression, they had beaten the man to death right in front of his son’s eyes. Kurodar had worshipped his father, and the killing had marked him for life. He had nursed his anger inside him until it grew into a titanic and obsessional rage.
He wanted vengeance—not on the people who had mobbed and beaten his father. He wanted vengeance on America. The Americans were the ones he blamed. It was the Americans more than anyone who had hemmed in the U.S.S.R. and brought her down, all without firing a single shot. And why? As Kurodar saw it, all his father wanted—all the Soviets wanted—was to make all people equal. That’s why they had killed tens of millions of their citizens. That’s why they had conquered hundreds of millions more. What else could they do? People were not naturally equal. You had to make them so! Cut them all down to the same size and kill the ones who refused to go along. Wasn’t equality worth it? Of course it was. Equality was only fair, after all!
But the Americans hadn’t seen it that way. No, they had destroyed his country and caused the murder of his father, and Kurodar had sworn vengeance on all of them. As Hepplewhite understood it, that’s what this whole crazy MindWar Realm scheme was all about. Payback. Bring America down.
A fantasy, Hepplewhite thought. That’s all it was. However brilliant he might be, Kurodar was just an angry little geek with a pipe dream of revenge. The Axis Assembly also wanted America destroyed, after all, but they were willing to do it the right way, slowly, almost unnoticeably, day by day. Infiltrating their agents into American government where they would preach equality. Placing them in American universities to teach the young about the glories of equality. Getting them jobs in newspapers and on TV . . . until Americans started to cut one another down to size without any need for violent intervention at all.
But the Assemblymen had allowed Kurodar to seduce them with his daydreams of a United States in flames. The MindWar Realm. Madness.
Now Kurodar’s grand schemes had been foiled—twice—and by a kid who played video games. Enough. It was time to bring this madness to an end.
“Well,” Hepplewhite said drily. “You will have peace now. I have come to give you peace.”
He took his right hand from his pocket and was about to reach inside his jacket for the .22 under his arm. But when Kurodar spoke again, something in his tone made Hepplewhite pause.
“You have a smart phone in your shirt pocket, do you not?” he said.
Hepplewhite’s hand hung in the air. His eyes narrowed in confusion. “Excuse me?”
“A phone. In your pocket,” said the slimy purple thing that had once been a genius.
Hepplewhite shrugged. “So?”
“So I have entered it.”
Hepplewhite did not understand. Entered his phone? What did that mean? He knew he should just shoot the man and get it over with. But he was curious. “Entered . . .?” he began to say.
“The phone. It’s a computer after all. I have linked my mind to it through the MindWar Realm. I have taken it over.”
“Ah,” said Hepplewhite. This is nonsense, he thought. Once again, he started to reach for the gun beneath his jacket.
But Kurodar said, “If you put your hand inside your jacket, I will cause your phone to explode with a force that will embed a thousand shards of plastic in your heart. You will be dead before your gun ever clears the holster.”
Hepplewhite’s face went blank. His hand froze midway to his jacket. He became very aware of the screens and machines blinking in the room all around him, the machines whose wires ran into Kurodar’s veins and nerve endings as if he and they were one. “No,” he said. “If you could do that, you’d have killed the Traveler and his kid—what’s his name . . . Rick Dial—by
now.”
“The Traveler’s defenses are deep and strong. Yours aren’t.”
Hepplewhite shook his head slowly. “I don’t believe you,” he said—but he did not continue to reach for his gun.
Kurodar laughed again, boom, boom, boom, that dull drumming noise. “You believe me, all right. And here is what you are going to do now. You are going to leave here. You are going to return to your friends in the Assembly. You are going to tell them I want nothing from them. I need nothing from them. I am going to destroy the MindWar Project and I’m going to destroy the United States of America, and I need no one to help me.”
Hepplewhite’s hand still hovered near his gun. He was not sure what to think. He was not sure what to believe. He was not sure what to do. He said, “What makes you think you’ll succeed this time? The Traveler and his boy have defeated you at every turn.”
“Yes,” said Kurodar. “But this time I have a secret weapon.”
“What’s that?” said Hepplewhite.
“Rick Dial himself,” said Kurodar.
And with that, the terrorist began to laugh again, a great booming laugh that caused him to throw his head back against his seat.
And Hepplewhite thought, Now! Like a flash, while Kurodar was fully distracted, the assassin’s hand went inside his jacket and grabbed his gun.
A second later, Harold Hepplewhite was lying on the floor on his back, his eyes staring up at the ceiling through the round lenses of his glasses, his paisley shirt soaked with blood, his white jacket beginning to turn red, his heart shredded by the shrapnel from his exploded phone.
The two men who were tending Kurodar’s machines—the two villagers from the continent—stood staring at the dead assassin with wide eyes.
“Take him out of here and bury him,” said Kurodar quietly.
7. MOONLIT GROVE
RICK DREADED THE darkness. He dreaded sleep. Would his nightmares return? Would they take him back into the Realm again? Would they take him back to the Golden City and its living-dead creatures, Boars and Cobras and Harpies?
Were his dreams even dreams at all? Or were they some strange new form of reality? Was reality itself even real anymore?
Who could you trust if you couldn’t trust yourself? If you couldn’t trust your own mind?
Rick didn’t know. He only knew he was afraid. Of the night. Of the dark. Of sleep and dreams.
He tried not to show his fear to the others. They were all sitting together in the Dials’ living room. Raider had been sent upstairs to bed half an hour ago. But Rick and his mother and father and Molly and Professor Jameson remained. The scene was bizarrely normal. The Christmas tree stood in the corner, its crown scraping the ceiling, its branches hung with ornaments and lights. A fire was crackling happily in the fireplace. Rick’s mother had put some Christmas music on the Sonos—Mom loved Christmas music and played it every chance she got. Right this minute, “Adeste Fideles” was sounding softly in the background.
And they were talking about the murdered guard.
That’s what made the normalcy so weird. In that homey Christmas setting, the conversation seemed like something from another planet, as if an alien language had been dubbed in over an ordinary family scene.
Outside, on the compound grounds, things were not normal at all. Ever since the guard had been found dead in the tower booth, everyone had been on edge. Commander Mars had ordered the entire area searched. The guard who had been assigned to the base of the tower was in custody and under suspicion. Miss Ferris had subjected Rick to a sharp interrogation about the incident, as if he were also a suspect, even though the Traveler had been with him the whole time. Even now, after nightfall, there were flashlight beams crisscrossing the darkness out there as guards went over the area yet again.
“You’re sure you saw the Boar?” Professor Jameson asked Rick one more time.
“We both saw it,” said the Traveler. “It was there.”
“And not just a Boar Soldier,” said Rick. “A dead one. His face all rotted.”
“Ew!” said Molly.
“But how is that possible?” Professor Jameson asked.
Both Rick and his father shook their heads.
“How do I dream about battles and wake up with scratches?” said Rick. “None of it makes any sense.”
“Oh, I’m pretty sure it makes sense,” the Traveler corrected him gently. “We just don’t understand the sense it makes. Not yet, anyway.”
They were all speaking in low voices. Partly, that was so Raider wouldn’t hear them upstairs. But partly, too, it was because they did not want anyone outside to hear them either. No one would say it out loud, but the truth was they didn’t trust anyone outside of their little circle. Like Victor One, they were all convinced there was a traitor within the project. Mars, Miss Ferris, even the Traveler’s old friend Leila Kent . . . Any one of them could be the turncoat in their midst. That’s why they had not told anyone about the Boar. Rick and his father had made this decision together. Mars was already angry and suspicious, threatening to ban Rick from the Realm. An incident like this would only make things worse. So for now, they allowed the death of the soldier in the guard tower to remain a mystery.
“I’m worried that it has something to do with me,” said Rick suddenly. They all turned to look at him. He dropped his eyes and stared at the floor. “Maybe what Mars says is true. Maybe when I went through the Breach, I caused . . . I don’t know . . . some kind of disturbance . . .”
“Is that possible?” This was Molly, looking now from one face to another, from Rick to her father to Rick’s father to Rick again. “I mean, how could that have anything to do with a Realm creature coming into reality? How is that even possible?”
The Traveler’s eyebrows went up over the top rims of his spectacles. He didn’t answer. No one said anything for a long time. There was hardly a sound besides a choir softly singing “O Holy Night.”
“Well . . .,” said Professor Jameson finally.
He and Molly got up to go. They were leaving the compound tomorrow. They had been brought here to keep them safe from Kurodar’s men—and the Traveler had seized the opportunity to get Professor Jameson to help him with his work. But since the guard’s murder, Mars had declared that only necessary personnel would be allowed on the grounds. He had arranged to have a transport truck come and pick up the professor and his daughter and take them back to Putnam Hills. He would have them watched by security guards from now on to keep them safe.
Rick’s father and mother walked them to the door. Rick went outside with them into the biting cold. Professor Jameson walked off to their barracks, leaving Molly and Rick alone in the night. They stood together near where Rick and his father had stood, near the little grove of trees outside the house. A half-moon had risen over the compound. Its silver light turned the winter branches into spiral patterns against the sky. Flashlight beams were visible here and there as guards patrolled the night. And above them, in the tower, Rick could make out the shadow of a new guard, pacing.
Rick and Molly stood close together in the darkness. Rick could see his old friend’s eyes glistening in the moonlight. He could smell her scent. Her nearness made his heart hurt. There were so many things he wanted to say to her, but he couldn’t find the right words for any of them. It wasn’t like he had some stupid idea of ever getting romantic with her again. That was over; it was too late to bring those feelings back. He had seen the way Molly looked at Victor One in the hospital room. Something was obviously starting between them, and Rick had no right to interfere with it. V-One was a good man, a soldier, and a hero. He and Molly could make each other very happy.
Rick put his hands in his back pockets. His frosted breath turned silver in the moonlight.
“Well, listen,” he said, “I’m gonna miss you around here, but I’m glad you’re getting away from all this. Things are getting very weird in old MindWarville, and you’ll be a lo
t better off back at school.”
Molly didn’t say anything, but Rick could see her nodding in the shadows.
He stumbled on awkwardly. “And listen, you know, you and I have been friends a long time, right? And so I just want you to know that I’m really glad, you know, if you and Victor One . . . what I mean is, V-One’s a really good guy and . . . what I’m trying to say . . .”
Molly put her arms around him and kissed him.
It was such a surprise that Rick should have been confused. But he was not confused. He was not anything. He was just kissing her. In fact, he was amazed at how easy it was to find himself doing this, how simple and right it was. He could not understand why he hadn’t thought of it before.
Then he held her close to him, his cheek to her cheek, his lips to her ear, her lips to his.
“But . . . I thought you guys, you and Victor One . . . I thought it was you and him now . . .,” Rick whispered.
“That’s because you’re an idiot,” she whispered back. “You don’t understand anything.”
Rick had to agree. He did not even understand what was happening now. He did not even try.
“There’s no one else,” Molly said. “There’s only you.” She drew back from him. She looked at him through the darkness. “Now you’re supposed to say that back,” she explained to him. “You’re supposed to say there’s only me.”
“There’s only you,” he said.
“Are you sure?”
Rick hesitated. He thought of Mariel. But in fact he realized that deep down he had always known it was Molly he wanted. “I’m sure,” he said. He put his hand against her cheek. His cold hand. Her warm cheek. Molly smiled at him. Then she shivered.
“You better go back to your barracks,” he told her. But he didn’t want her to go. Inside his house, the darkness was waiting for him. His bed . . . sleep . . . dreams. The Golden City. The living dead. He wished he could stay out here with Molly forever. “Go,” he said again.
“All right,” she said. She smiled. “I understand. You have to do what you have to do. Go back into the Realm. Destroy the evildoers. Save the world.”