A Better World (26 page)

Cooper sighed. “Hi, Millicent. Dyed your hair a different color, huh?”

“Nick Cooper. Welcome back to the NCH.” The man wore a five-thousand-dollar suit and the easy grace of someone who dined with presidents and golfed with oil barons, who bantered on CNN and spoke on the floor of the Senate. The world knew him as Erik Epstein.

The world was wrong.

“Hello, Jakob. Nice to finally shake your hand.” The last time Cooper had been here, Jakob Epstein had appeared as a fully dimensional hologram, a stunning reminder of how far advanced technology was in the NCH. That had been the Holdfast’s real defense these last years; not legal wranglings or massed billions, but simply the fact that there were more brilliants here than anywhere else, that they were working together, and that the results of that work were astonishing.
The best way to protect your country,
Cooper thought,
is to create things people desire more than they fear your ability to create them.

“Our deal. You didn’t honor it. Statistically, that was unlikely, 12.2 percent.” The real Erik Epstein slumped on a couch, blinking like an animal ripped from its den. It wasn’t entirely inaccurate. The last time Cooper had been here, he’d seen Erik’s inner sanctum, a digital Xanadu below the building. A cave of wonders, he’d thought at the time—a solemn, dim space, lit entirely by projected data. Within it, Erik worked his gift, finding patterns in seemingly unrelated things and using them to expand his empire. It was there that Erik had predicted that John Smith represented the greatest threat to the New Canaan Holdfast; Epstein believed that his actions would drive the United States government to grow increasingly repressive against all abnorms, and specifically against the NCH.

And he was right.

“Our arrangement,” Erik continued, “was that you would kill John Smith. You didn’t.”

“You didn’t tell me the truth about him,” Cooper said. There was no point in being anything but open so long as Millie was in the room. She was one of the most powerful readers he’d ever come across, a gift that was in practice a terrible curse. Readers didn’t have a filter, couldn’t choose to turn away from what their gift offered. Tier-one readers saw everything, every hint of darkness in a person’s soul, every fractional flicker of cruelty and evil. Starting with Mommy and Daddy.

Poor Millie had never known peace in her own mind, never known trust or faith. Would never believe in love, because she saw clearly the parts of themselves people never showed the ones they loved. She would almost certainly kill herself before she was twenty.

“It’s okay,” she said. “Don’t feel sorry.”

“I can’t help it.”

“Be afraid instead.”

The words were ice down his spine. He looked at her, then at Erik and Jakob. “I am afraid.”

“These are fearful times,” Jakob said, sitting on the edge of his desk. “And you betrayed us.”

“Prior chance of the US military attacking New Canaan: 53.2 percent.” Erik spoke with his eyes closed, one hand in his lank hair. “Current chance, given impeachment of President Walker, deactivation of Equitable Services, and the emergence of the Children of Darwin: 93.2 percent within the next two weeks.”

“Three things which are all, by the way, your fault, Cooper.” Jakob smiled thinly. “More or less.”

“You didn’t tell me the truth,” Cooper repeated. “You manipulated me the same way Smith did.”

“Truth is relative. Data is absolute.”

“Okay, well, you didn’t give me all the data, then, did you?” Cooper hadn’t known what to expect out of this meeting, but it hadn’t been this. “You didn’t tell me that Smith wasn’t behind the massacre at the Monocle. You didn’t tell me that President Walker and Drew Peters were. You didn’t tell me that there was evidence of it.”

Erik waved his hands. “Irrelevant. You came to New Canaan to kill John Smith. That was your mission. His death would have stabilized trends. Helped protect our art. We made a deal. You broke it.”

“And then you made things worse,” Jakob said, “by releasing that video.”

Cooper struggled for words. None of this was a surprise. It was the reason he had joined Clay in the first place, the reason he had kidnapped John Smith, the reason he was here right now.
Because in your heart, you know that what you did, while morally correct, was a mistake. The world would be in better shape if you had used the Monocle video to blackmail President Walker. The Children of Darwin would never have been this successful if the DAR was strong and Walker was still in charge. You could have put yourself in a position to shape policy and improve lives.

True, he would have to become corrupt himself. But did his personal values count more than the lives at stake?

Somehow doing the right thing was wrong. Dad never covered that eventuality, did he, Coop?

Millie said, “He understands.”

“I’m sure he does,” Jakob said. “But understanding doesn’t fix anything, does it?”

“Maybe not. But that’s why I’m here. Do you want to know what would be happening right now if I weren’t?” Cooper was about to continue, but instead he turned to Millie. Put all the events of the last days in his eyes and his bearing. Remembered standing in the Oval Office last night watching Cleveland burn. “Tell them.”

She cringed, dipping her face to her lap, hiding behind a shield of purple hair. Erik and Jakob both looked at her, staring intently. Cooper felt another flash of sympathy for the girl. Ten years old, and grown men were looking to her for information that would decide the fate of the country.

Finally, she said, “They want to attack. Not just the Holdfast. Brilliants.”

“By ‘they,’ ” Cooper said, “she means the most powerful people on the planet. Last night Defense Secretary Leahy gave orders to arrest all known tier ones, start the microchipping program, and move military forces to your borders in preparation for an invasion. None of which happened—because I stopped it. So how about you two drop the tough-guy act and we work the problem together?”

A long moment of silence fell. Jakob turned to face the floor-to-ceiling windows. The city of Tesla spread out around them, orderly and neat, a new world sprung from desert soil. A world that Cooper had to admit he quite liked. More than that—admired. Ever since the emergence of the gifted thirty-odd years ago, most of the world had been turning inward, becoming destructive. His
own government had focused on containment and control, on smashing anything deemed dangerous.

Funny, there had been a time when building things was what America did. From massive dams to towering skyscrapers, from mechanized factories to moon rockets, the nation had
created
, had viewed that as part of the national identity. Being an engineer or an architect had once been high aspirations.

Now everybody wanted to be musicians and basketball players, and America didn’t build squat.

But out here, in the least hospitable place, the Epsteins had. The NCH was a dream made real. A beautiful place that he would very much like not to see obliterated, both for its own sake and for what would happen to the country afterward.

“You want our support.” Erik crossed his leg at the knee. The richest man in the world wore threadbare Chuck Taylors. “For the NCH to join forces with the government. Against the Children of Darwin.”

“Against every terrorist. Against John Smith. He’s behind the COD, isn’t he?”

“The data is inconclusive—”

“You’re lying,” Millie said. “I hate it when you lie.”

Erik Epstein winced. It wasn’t, Cooper realized, because she had contradicted him. It was because of what she had said. Clearly, he cared for Millie. Understood her.

“Yes,” Jakob said. “Smith is behind the COD. He set up the organization years ago as sleeper cells with a very specific set of instructions. They were to activate once he was cleared of the charges against him.”

Cooper stared. His legs felt wobbly, and he steadied himself on a chair. On one level, he’d known it since he and Bobby Quinn had confronted John Smith. But it felt different to have it confirmed—and to learn that his actions had been the trigger for everything.
All those people. All that chaos.

All your fault.

He took a deep breath, blew it out. “Okay. You said there’s a 93 percent chance of a military attack in the next two weeks.”

“93.2 percent. Not enough time. Not enough time.”

“For what? There’s no magic potion that will fix this.”

Abruptly, Millie started laughing. It was an eerie sound, like she had only heard laughter described to her. Cooper stared, a little creeped out. After a moment, she stopped as abruptly as she had begun.

Unsettled, he said, “If you want to know if I would make the same choices now, I honestly don’t know. And frankly, if your crystal ball is so goddamn clear, then you should have been making other plans. You shouldn’t have gone all-in on one angle.”

There was a half second hesitation before Jakob—

You’re missing something.

These are very smart people, with enormous resources.

What are the chances that they bet their entire survival on you? A rogue agent working as an assassin in a situation he didn’t, couldn’t, fully comprehend?

They
do
have other plans. There’s something else.

And why did Millie start laughing just then?

—replied, “You’re right. Erik?”

“Fluid situation. Too many variables. The patterns are indefinite.”

“That’s why we need to act,” Cooper said. “I understand how awkward this is for you. But if you don’t come out right now in defense of the government, if you don’t denounce the Children of Darwin and dedicate the full resources of the Holdfast to ending terrorism, you’re slitting your own throat. I’m not posturing here.” He glanced at Millie, who said nothing, just continued playing a game on her d-pad. “This is what I believe. Something I believe in so strongly that I came here myself, with my family. If we work together, right now, we have a chance to save everything.”

Jakob cleared his throat. “We can see the advantages to President Clay. And to your country.”

“
My
country?”

“But like Erik said, the situation is fluid.”

“What does that mean?”

“You want me to put it bluntly?” Jakob shrugged. “We’re no longer sure that the United States of America will survive.”

“That the—what are you talking about? Are you saying that—”

“We don’t want to back the losing side.”

Cooper barked a half laugh, involuntary and not funny. “You’re considering siding
with
the terrorists?”

“An appellation,” Erik said to his lap. “A name given to a vector. There is no morality in the data.”

“What my brother means is that John Smith would call himself a freedom fighter. And unlike your government, he has a plan. Allying with him might be better for the NCH.”

Cooper couldn’t believe it. He could not fucking believe what he was hearing. How could this be happening everywhere? All of them: President Clay and his staff running electoral math; John Smith trying to start a war; the Epsteins caring only about their own interests. Could it really be that everyone in power, on every side, was blind to the larger stakes?

The Civil War had been the bloodiest conflict in America’s history. Three-quarters of a million dead, cities burned, infrastructure destroyed, disease run rampant—and that was all before Seraphim drones and Avenger missiles. Could positions be so hard-line, so intractably personal, that the people who held them were willing to risk the entire world?

“Yes,” Millie said.

Erik looked at her. “Yes what?”

She shook her head.

All right. If they won’t listen to reason, if terror of the consequences won’t work, maybe something else will.
“You said the data was unclear.”

“Fluid.”

“There must be something that would help solidify it.” Cooper paused. “Something that we can offer you.”

Erik and Jakob shared a look. To a normal person, it might have seemed they were considering his words. But to Cooper, the meaning was clear. They had already decided what they needed. There was a price for their help.

And it took all of three seconds for him to work it out.

CHAPTER 24

Soren read.