Brilliance. Part 26

"2022 South Archer Avenue, 337 West 24th Place, O'Hare Airport is 10000 West O'Hare and Midway Airport is 5700 South Cicero."

Cooper's belly tightened as he realized what was happening. As the children kept shouting places, he turned to Lee. "Your daughter is gifted?"

The man nodded. "We started on Goodnight, Moon, but she prefers the phone book. She'll get on my d-pad and read listings for hours. Not just Chicago, either. She knows New York, Miami, Detroit, Los Angeles. Anytime we go on a trip she reads the phone book first."

Lee's pride radiated in every word and every muscle of his face. Smitten with his daughter, and delighted at her abilities. It stood in such sharp contrast to the typical parental reaction, to Cooper's own reaction. This wasn't a man worried about what the world would think, afraid that she might end up tested or labeled or living in an academy. This was pure joy in the wonder that was his daughter.

"Now you, Zhi." Shannon pointed to the boy who had tried to sneak up on her.

"Okay." He stood ready, a pupil confident before a teacher.

"Use the addresses. Add them."

"34,967."

"Multiply them."

"1.209 times 10 to the 36th."

"Add them with north and west positive and east and south negative."

"Minus 243."

Alice joined in. "The Zoo times Tasty City minus Andrea's house."

"4,448,063."

"Navy Pier divided by the school."

"2.42914979757085..."

The kids were having a ball, and Zhi stood in the center of it, giving every answer without hesitation. Cooper stared, realization dawning. "They're all brilliants?"

"Yes," Lee said. "As I said, this is a play date."

"But-" He looked at the children, at Shannon, back at Lee. "Aren't you...I mean..."

"Worried about hiding the fact that they're gifted?" Lee smiled. "No. Chinese culture sees things differently. These children are special. They bring honor and success to a family. Why wouldn't we love that?"

Because someone who works for my old agency could call you at any moment. "The rest of the world doesn't see it that way."

"The world is changing," Lee said softly. "It has to."

"What about the academies?"

The man's face darkened. "Someday, when this is all over, people are going to look back at those in shame. It will be like the internment camps in the Second World War."

"I agree," Cooper said. "Don't get me wrong. I'm an abnorm, too."

"I a.s.sumed. Most of Shannon's friends are."

"And my daughter..." He hesitated. Didn't want to say it even now, even here. Why? Are you ashamed of Kate?

That wasn't it. It couldn't be. It was fear, that was all. Fear of what would happen to her.

Right. But all that negative emotion, all that desire to have her hide her ability, isn't there some part of you that wishes she were normal? If only so she wouldn't face this risk?

It was an ugly thought. Cooper tilted his beer up again and found it empty. "Aren't you afraid that someone will make them take the test?"

"That's where being Chinatown Chinese has advantages. The government doesn't know about these children."

"How?"

"Some of us went abroad to have our babies. Others use local midwives who don't record the births. It's a risk, because they don't have the resources of a hospital if things go wrong. A stupid, terrible way to do things. But right now it's worth it."

The DAR had long suspected that there was a significant population of unreported abnorms in immigrant communities. It was a loophole the agency meant to close, but like a squeaky staircase in a house on fire, other issues took precedence. These communities rarely made trouble and so had been left alone. But watching the children play-they'd moved to a new game, where a little girl spun once, then closed her eyes and answered detailed questions about everything in the room, down to the number of b.u.t.tons on Alice's dress-Cooper saw a whole generation of abnorms growing up right under the noses of the DAR, unreported, untested, untracked. The implications were enormous.

Want to call Director Peters, let him know?

"A lot to take in, huh?" Lee smiled. "I'm so used to it that I forget the rest of the world isn't. Don't you love watching them play together? Children who aren't taught, from the earliest age, that they're monsters. That they're abnormal. It's beautiful, isn't it?"

"Yes," Cooper said. "Yes it is."

Later, after the party had ended, after parents had collected their children and said their good-byes and left with Tupperware containers of leftovers, Lisa led him and Shannon to a small room off the hallway decorated in pastel shades and posters of Disney princesses. A lamp shaped like an elephant glowed on a night table beside a single bed.

"Alice's," Lisa said, apologetically. "She can sleep with us tonight. I'm sorry there's not separate rooms."

Cooper looked over at Shannon, but whatever she might have felt about the arrangement she didn't telegraph beyond brushing a loose lock of hair behind her ear. "No problem," he said.

"I'll get some blankets."

She returned with a sleeping bag, set it on the bed with a spare pillow, then said, "I hope you'll be comfortable."

"We'll be fine. Thank you." Cooper paused, said, "It means a lot to me that you let us into your home."

"A friend of Shannon's is a friend of ours. Come anytime." Lisa looked around the room, hugged Shannon goodnight, and came to Cooper. He waited for her to calculate whether he was a hug or a handshake, but she didn't hesitate, just gave him a quick hug. Then she stepped out of the room and closed the door.

Shannon tucked her hands in her pockets. The movement tightened the shirt across clavicles delicate as bird wings. "So."

"I'll take the floor."

"Thanks."

He made a point of facing the other direction as he kicked off his shoes and socks, unb.u.t.toned his shirt. Decided to keep his pants and undershirt on. Behind him he heard the faint rustle of fabric, and his mind flashed an image of her pulling her shirt over her head, imagined a delicate cream bra over caramel skin.

Whoa there, Agent Cooper. Where did that come from?

He chalked it up to a long day of shared adrenaline, underscored by male chemistry, and left it at that. He slid into the sleeping bag, rubbed his eyes. A moment later, he heard the click of her turning off the elephant, and the room went dark. Pale green stars glowed on the walls and ceiling, swirling constellations of an idealized night sky, one where the stars had neat points and sharp edges and were only barely out of reach.

"G'night, Cooper."

"Night." He folded his hands behind his head. He was too old to be sleeping on the floor, but too tired to care. As he lay there, staring at the stars of that better sky, he found himself thinking back to the game, the looks on the faces of those kids as they played with toys barely imaginable to most of the world.

It had been six months since last he'd seen his children. Six months of pretending to be someone else, of burying the life he loved in order to fight for it.

When it came down to it, everything he had done was for his children. Even the things he had done before they were born, before he'd even met Natalie. It was a truth he never could have understood until he'd become a parent, and one he would never be able to forget.

The world is changing, Lee had said. It has to.

Cooper hoped he was right.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR.

The man was waiting for them.

He was as big as Cooper remembered, broad-shouldered and muscular beneath pudge; a man who didn't lift weights because he lifted heavy things for a living. He looked right at home in the loading dock.

"What the h.e.l.l?" He spat the words as Cooper and Shannon climbed the steps.

"Excuse me?"

"Paying for my ID. You trying to be the big man? You think you know me?" The abnorm shook his head. "You don't know me."

"Whatever." Cooper started past, but the big man grabbed his arm. The grip was stone.

"I asked you a question. What do you want?"

Cooper glanced down at the man's hand, thinking, Twist sideways, right elbow to the solar plexus, stomp the arch of the foot, spin back with a left uppercut. Thinking, So much for good deeds. "I want you to get out of my way."

Something in his tone made the man hesitate, and the grip loosened. Cooper brushed his sleeve, walked past.

"I didn't ask for this. I don't owe you nothing."

He stiffened, the irritation growing. Turned. "You do, a.s.shole. You owe me six months of your life. The phrase you're looking for is 'thank you.'"

The man crossed his arms. Held the stare. "I'm not anybody's slave. Not Schneider's, and not yours."

"Bravo," Cooper said. "Congratulations. You're an island, alone unto yourself."

"Huh?"

"I'm so tired of people like you. Of twists like you. Schneider claimed six months of your life on nonsense, and you just laid down and took it. Okay, fine, your choice. But then an angel bought you that time back. And what's your first thought? He must want something. He can't just be trying to bear his neighbor's burden. He can't just be an abnorm who doesn't like seeing another one treated that way."

The man's eyes narrowed. "n.o.body does nothing for free. Abnorm or not."

"Yeah, well, no wonder we're losing." Cooper turned away and walked for the door. Over his shoulder, he said, "I don't want you to be my slave. I want you to not be one at all."

Then he yanked open the door and stepped inside. Behind him, Shannon chuckled. "You're a piece of work, Cooper."

"Let's go find Schneider."

The forger saw them coming, gestured for them to follow without waiting to see if they would. Cooper felt his irritation growing. Just get what you came for and get out. Time to head for Wyoming, find John Smith, and finish this. Maybe it wouldn't solve all the problems in the world. But it would solve one of them. And it might buy a little time for the world to grow the h.e.l.l up.

For a man of his means, Schneider certainly hadn't spent much on his office. Cinderblock walls painted white, a chipboard desk with a lamp and a phone. The only expensive item was a custom-looking newtech datapad, sleek and machined. The forger sat down, opened a drawer, and took out an envelope. "Pa.s.sports, driver's licenses, credit cards." He tossed the packet on the desk.

Cooper opened it, pulled out a pa.s.sport, and saw his picture above the name Tom Cappello. He flipped the pages, saw that he had traveled extensively, mostly in Europe. The doc.u.ment was faded and worn soft. "The microchip matches?"

"What do you think I am?"

"I'm getting tired of that question. The microchip matches?"

"Of course." Schneider leaned back, crossed his ankle over a bony knee. "More important, your information has been hacked into all of the relevant databases. A complete profile-spending habits, mortgages, voting record, speeding tickets, all of it."

Cooper opened the other pa.s.sport, saw Shannon's picture. It must have been from a security camera somewhere in the building, but the shot was clean, the background suitably bland. Then he saw the name. "Are you kidding me?"

"What?" Shannon moved beside him, took the doc.u.ment. "Allison Cappello. So what?"

"He made us married."

Schneider smiled his dental horror show. "That a problem?"

"I didn't ask for it."

"The profiles support each other. Minimizes the risk of the data insertion."

"Yeah, for you. For us, it means we have to be able to play a married couple."

Schneider shrugged. "Not my problem. Now listen. You both exist, but only at a superficial level. Your new ident.i.ties have been implanted into the baseline systems. But it will take time for it to propagate. That's the only way to do it. No way to modify every computer that would have a record. Instead, I plant your ident.i.ties like a seed, and they grow."

"How long?"

"You could probably clear a basic New Canaan security check now. But in a few days you'll have recursive backup, with your ident.i.ties spread throughout the whole system. Wait till then if you can."

Cooper didn't answer. He put the pa.s.sport back in the envelope and turned to go.

"And Poet?"

"Yeah?"

"Come back anytime. I can always use your money." The forger laughed.