Zig Zag

  "What happened in the control room, Elisa?" Blanes asked, anxious.

  She recounted everything she hadn't wanted to say in front of Harrison, including the disconnect she'd had when she saw Jacqueline disintegrate.

  "I left the image profiling," she added. "If they haven't touched anything, it should be done by now."

  "Any splits?"

  "The computer chair. I saw it twice. But Ric and Rosalyn didn't appear."

  "That's odd..."

  Blanes tugged on his beard. Then he started speaking in a tone very different from the one he'd put on for his interrogation. Now he sounded choked and spoke quickly, almost panting.

  "OK, I'll tell you what I think. First, Elisa's right, of course. Once we hand over that report, we'll be no good to them anymore. In fact, now that we know where Zig Zag came from, we're actually dangerous witnesses. No doubt they'll want to bump us off, but even if they don't, I'm not going to hand Zig Zag over on a platter so they can turn him into a twenty-first-century Hiroshima. I think we're all agreed on that." Elisa and Victor nodded. "But we have to play it safe. We can't lay all our cards on the table; we need at least one ace up our sleeve. And that's why we have to really know what happened and find out who Zig Zag is."

  "But we already know; it's Ric," Victor began, but Blanes waved him away.

  "I lied. I wanted to throw them off the track, get them to organize a big search to distract them. I didn't really see Valente or anyone else in the screening room."

  Elisa had already suspected as much, though she still couldn't help but feel disappointed.

  "So we don't know any more than we did before," she said.

  "I think I know something more," he replied. "I think I know why Zig Zag is murdering us."

  "What?"

  "We had it all wrong."

  BLANES'S eyes were shining. She knew that look: the scientist who, for a split second, finds himself on the brink of truth.

  "It came to me after I saw Jacqueline's remains. When the soldiers took me into the dining room and I was able to calm down enough to reason, I thought about what I'd seen in that room... what Zig Zag had done to Jacqueline. Why such cruelty? He doesn't just kill us; there's a level of mercilessness that goes beyond all limits, it's totally incomprehensible. Why? Until now we'd talked about a disturbed person, thought Zig Zag was some kind of psychopath hidden among us ... a 'devil,' as Jacqueline said. But I wondered if there could be some scientific explanation for that totally unwarranted savagery, that superhuman brutality. I considered every angle, and this is what I came up with. It might sound strange, but I think it's the most likely explanation."

  He knelt down and used the sand like a chalkboard. Elisa and Victor crouched down beside him.

  "Just suppose that, when the split was first produced, the person in question was in a state of rage. Imagine he or she was hitting someone. Or not even that: just some sort of intense, aggressive emotion, maybe directed against a woman. If that were the case, then when the split first appeared the emotion couldn't be changed, couldn't even be tempered. There wouldn't be enough time. In a Planck time, not one single neuron could send any information to another. Everything would stay the same, totally unmodified. If the person were experiencing violent urges, or the desire to abuse or humiliate, then that's exactly how the split remains, frozen in that desire."

  "Still," Victor objected, "the person would have to be pretty disturbed..."

  "Not necessarily, Victor. That's where we went wrong. Ask yourself this: what is our idea of goodness based on? What makes us say that a person is 'good'? Anyone might think terrible thoughts for a moment, even if they repent a second later. But repenting takes time, even if it's only a millisecond. Zig Zag never got that chance. He lives in one single time string, a minute fraction of time, isolated from the course of events. If the split had been produced a second later, maybe Zig Zag would have been an angel instead of a demon."

  "Zig Zag is a monster, David," Victor murmured.

  "Yes, he is. The worst kind: a run-of-the-mill human being frozen in time at a random moment."

  "That's absurd!" Victor laughed, agitated. "I'm sorry, but you're wrong. Totally wrong about that!"

  "I find it pretty hard to believe, too." Blanes's idea upset Elisa. "I understand what you're saying, but I just can't believe it. All that torture, the pain he inflicts on his victims ... the obscene 'contamination' of his presence ... those ... sickening nightmares..."

  Blanes stared fixedly at Elisa.

  "Everyone has those desires for brief, isolated intervals of time, Elisa."

  She stopped to think. She couldn't conceive of Zig Zag that way. Her whole body rebelled at the idea of her torturer, her merciless executioner—that thing she'd dreamed about for years and was scared to even contemplate—could be anything other than Absolute Evil. But she couldn't find fault with Blanes's reasoning.

  "No, no, no..." Victor refused to accept it. The light rain, falling more gently now, studded his glasses with tiny dots. "If what you're saying is true, then what becomes of ethics, what about good and evil, all of that? You're saying it's all just our conscience in some state of evolution? You're saying that our morals are random, that they bear no relation to personal decision, to strength of character?" Victor's voice grew louder and louder. Elisa tensed up, afraid the soldiers would hear them, but there didn't seem to be anyone around. "This is absurd! So in your judgment, any man, the most moral of men ever ... even ... even Jesus Christ, could be a monster for an isolated period of time?! Do you even realize the implications of what you're saying? So anyone could have done ... what I saw in the screening room! Anyone. What I saw ... what you and I both saw that he did to that poor woman..." His lips had curled into an expression of horror and disgust. He took off his glasses and ran his hands across his face. "I know you're a genius," he said, more calmly now, "but you're a physicist. Good and evil have nothing to do with time, David. They are stamped onto our hearts and souls. We all have urges, desires, temptations. Some people control them and others lapse: that is the key to religious belief—"

  Blanes cut him off. "Victor, what I'm trying to say is, it could be anyone. It could be me. I didn't think that before. Deep down, I always thought I could count myself out because I know what I'm like inside, or at least I think I do. But now I think that no one can count themselves out. We have to include all of humanity in this draw."

  "Still," Elisa interrupted, "we have to find out who it is. If it wasn't Jacqueline, then he's got twenty-four hours to strike again."

  "True. Stopping Zig Zag is our top priority," Blanes agreed. "We need that profiled image."

  "We could go now," she suggested.

  "I'm not sure this is the best time..."

  "Yes, now," Victor insisted. "While they were taking me to the barracks, I saw that there were only two soldiers in Silberg's lab and they were both asleep, and then one more on guard duty outside the room where they're holding Carter." He turned to Elisa. "If you go in through the first barracks, you could get to the control room without being seen."

  "I'll try," Elisa said. "The image must be clean by now."

  "I'll go with you," Victor offered.

  They looked at Blanes, who nodded.

  "OK, I'll keep watch from the kitchen in case Harrison and his men come back. We have to act fast. As soon as we know who Zig Zag is, we'll destroy everything so Eagle never finds out what happened."

  She knew what he meant. We'll destroy everything, including whichever one of us is Zig Zag.

  They said good-bye right there, and Blanes gave her an impulsive hug. Then he pulled back to look at her as he spoke.

  "Zig Zag is just a simple error, Elisa. I'm sure of it. An erroneous equation, not some malignant being." Suddenly, she smiled. His voice reminded her of the professor she'd so admired. Now go and correct that damn error once and for all.

  STOPPING Zig Zag is our top priority. Harrison couldn't agree more with Blanes about that. But he was wrong when he sa
id Zig Zag wasn't some malignant being.

  Of course he was. Harrison just knew. The most evil being ever to set foot on the earth. The Devil himself. The only real, true Devil.

  He struggled to get up—the years were starting to take their toll—slipped the earpiece back into his jacket, and told Jurgens to collapse the antenna on the directional mike they'd been using to listen in on the conversation from over by the palm trees, three hundred feet away. His idea—sending the soldiers out to comb the island and sticking close by with the mike himself—had paid off.

  "We're at a disadvantage in the sense that they're the ones who have all the information," he said, gazing at the lovely shape off in the distance that was Elisa. Her clothes were so scant that, from where he stood, she almost looked naked. "But that also works to our advantage. They're all geniuses, and that means they're ignorant. I knew Blanes was lying so he could meet up with the others alone. But his little lie is quite useful to us. Better to have the army looking the other way, I think. We don't want any witnesses, now, do we? After all, we have no orders to terminate them yet. But we're going to do it anyway. That will be our little secret, Jurgens. We're going to expurgate, to purify ... All right?"

  Jurgens seemed to agree. Harrison turned to look at him. When they landed on New Nelson, he'd ordered him to hide on the beach and await the right moment, the moment when he could use his extraordinary abilities.

  And that moment had arrived.

  "You're going to go into the barracks. Take the long way around so Blanes doesn't see you, and kill Carter and Blanes. Then we'll wait for the others to get what they're looking for, and when they do, kill Lopera while Robledo looks on. Make sure she's watching; I want her to see it. Then lock her into one of the rooms and we'll interrogate her. We need that report. We have all day to make her talk, until the delegation arrives. This could get very interesting. First thing tomorrow, there won't be a single scientist left."

  As Jurgens headed off, leisurely, to carry out his orders, Harrison sighed deeply and stared out to sea, watching the clouds break up and the sun make a feeble attempt at shining. For the first time in a while, he felt happy.

  With Jurgens by his side, he had no fears. Not even Zig Zag scared him.

  PART NINE

  Zig Zag

  My God, what have we done?

  ROBERT A. LEWIS, COPILOT OF THE ENOLA GAY. AFTER DROPPING THE ATOMIC BOMB ON HIROSHIMA

  33

  ONE hundred and sixty seconds.

  He was lying down, his face up. Every once in a while he opened his eyes to see more light filtering in through the filthy window; the rain was finally letting up. He estimated that it was about ten in the morning, though he couldn't be sure since his computer watch had no battery. He'd taken it out the night before, trusting the damn scientist who'd assured him that they'd avoid an attack that way.

  Idiot.

  They'd locked him into a room in the third barracks, under the watchful eye of one soldier. He could just see the edge of his helmet through the peephole in the door. He felt as good as possible, given the circumstances: he'd been "greeted" on arrest (his nose and mouth were still bleeding). He was detained in the screening room by two young soldiers even more surprised than he was; all the scientists had done was scream their heads off. He'd surrendered immediately, of course.

  And now Paul Carter wondered about his future.

  He wasn't feeling overly hopeful: he knew Harrison would kill him sooner or later. At least he had that to be grateful for. Otherwise, Zig Zag would do it. The question wasn't if, but how and when.

  He thought he should devise a plan, because although he thought he could withstand whatever it was Harrison had in line for him, he wasn't so sure he could say the same about Zig Zag.

  Over the course of his life, Carter thought he'd seen just about everything one human being could do to another, and he knew people did more evil things than most people could even imagine. But Zig Zag surpassed all limits, all experience, everything.

  He hadn't lied to Harrison. It was true that he really knew almost nothing about Zig Zag. No matter how much he'd heard Blanes talk about splits and energy levels, it was all Greek to him; only the scientists understood what they, after all, had created. He was even telling the truth when he said that he'd betrayed Eagle out of fear: anyone who thought guys like him never felt fear—even terror—was just wrong.

  And since he'd walked into the screening room no more than five minutes after he'd left it (in search of that idiot priest) and seen what had happened in that short space of time, his fear had become uncontrollable panic.

  Call it what you like: panic, the Impact, or scared-fucking-shitless.

  He'd seen it all in the dim glow of the matches that the stupid priest had pinched: the chairs and screen destroyed; blood all over the walls and floor as if there'd been an explosion; the woman's face—or half of her head, or whatever it was—lying there on the floor at his feet; chunks of her body all over the place. He knew that wasn't the work of a lunatic, a crime that had taken place in five minutes. It was the methodical, deliberate work of a creature with no ability to reason. He was tempted to believe in the forces of evil and demons.

  And as if that weren't enough, the scientists were sure— they'd "proved" it with their convoluted theories—that the damn thing might even have come from him. That made him fear not only for his own life, but for Kamaria and Saida, his wife and daughter, too. Who knew what might happen to them if he survived?

  No, the only solution would be to die—soon. Or try to get away. Escape Zig Zag and Harrison, if it was possible to escape both of them, if—and this thought made his blood run cold—they were in fact two different threats.

  Because the fact of the matter was, he was increasingly convinced that Harrison had lost his mind.

  And Zig Zag was the one who'd made him lose it.

  104 seconds.

  He felt uneasy, but he wasn't sure why.

  It had stopped raining and the sun came out, painting the day, peeking through the clouds and casting its first rays, as always, on the sea. Light loved the sea. Blanes loved both of them. That phenomenal spectacle, the world of waves and particles that was both sound and color, beings and objects, was suddenly before him, teasing, "Look at me, David Blanes. Look how simple my secret is."

  No, it wasn't simple, and he knew it. It was a complex, profound enigma, maybe even too intricate for the human brain to comprehend. That secret spanned everything, from the most grandiose to the tiniest details: Orion, black holes, and quasars, but also the intimacy of atoms, subatomic strings, and (why not?) the reason his little brother, his mentor Albert Grossmann, and his friends Silberg, Craig, Jacqueline, Sergio, and so many others had died. The answer took it all on: if the aim of physics were to discover everything there was to know about reality (and that's what he thought the aim was), then things like Zig Zag, his brother's death, and the dying breaths of Grossmann, Reinhard, and Jacqueline had to figure into the equation, too. It was all part of the Great Riddle that human beings from Democritus to Einstein had been desperate to solve.

  The wise old man stands pondering at the window. That misleading image made him smile bitterly, recalling that in the solitude of his home in Zurich, he used to mull things over while gazing out a closed window. Marini had once told him that it was indicative of the fact that he lived inside his own brain. Maybe he was right, but now things were different. Now he was doing it solely to keep an eye on the entrance outside and make sure that Elisa and Victor were unhindered in their attempt to decode the computer image.

  For now, things seemed to be going well, but his uneasiness didn't diminish.

  That sense of apprehension was unlike any he'd ever experienced. Maybe it was due to the possibility that Elisa would come back and tell him that he was Zig Zag. No, he'd already decided that if that were the case, he'd remove himself from the picture. He was sure it was due to something else, some detail he'd overlooked, some tiny variable he hadn't taken
into consideration...

  Tiny, and yet vital.

  He searched his memory, trying desperately to figure out what it was. Grossmann used to call their goals "pieces of cheese." Memory, he claimed, was like a laboratory rat stuck in a maze, and sometimes you could only find forgotten information by using faculties other than intelligence and knowledge. "Sniff it out, the way a rat finds the piece of cheese."

  Sniff it out.

  The kitchen was a small room, and the smell of burned wires was still thick in the air. When Zig Zag had attacked poor Jacqueline, he'd scorched all the plugs. He'd seen it himself while he was writing that message to Elisa and Victor on the napkin.

  He looked away from the window and stared at the power cords.

  Yes, that was it.

  Zig Zag had extracted energy not only from components that weren't being used, but from things that didn't even use electricity. He and Carter had disconnected every source of power around, but Zig Zag had sucked energy up the way a pump sucks the air from a bottle. That was the first time he'd done that, as far as Blanes knew. It was like using energy from a flashlight with no batteries.

  His mind raced as frantically as an Olympic skier, down a slope of computations. If he'd learned to obtain energy from unplugged appliances, then...

  Four helicopters. Two generators. Rifles, pistols. Radios.

  Transmitters. Telephones. Computers. Military paraphernalia.

  Good God.

  He broke out in a cold sweat. If he were right, this was a death trap. The entire island was a trap. Zig Zag could obtain energy from almost anything, so what would stop him? He was making more and more frequent appearances, and the area he was able to exploit was growing larger and larger. It might be miles by now, and that would require even more energy. Where would he get it from?