How’d that feel? Jonesy asked, more than a little curious. A little apprehensive, too.
“Like nothing,” Mr Gray said flatly, and turned off the ignition. But then, sitting there in the dark with the wind howling around the cab of the truck, he did it again, and with a little more conviction: “Ha! Ha, ha, ha!” In his office refuge, Jonesy shivered. It was a creepy sound, like a ghost trying to remember how to be human.
Lad didn’t like it either. He whined again, looking uneasily at the man behind the steering wheel of his master’s truck.
3
Owen was shaking Henry awake, and Henry responded reluctantly. He felt as if he had gone to sleep only seconds ago. His limbs all seemed to have been dipped in cement.
“Henry.”
“I’m here.” Left leg itching. Mouth itching even worse; the goddam byrus was growing on his lips now, too. He rubbed it off with his forefinger, surprised at how easily it broke free. Like a crust.
“Listen up. And look. Can you look?”
Henry looked up the road, which was now dim and snow-ghostly-Owen had pulled the Sno-Cat over and turned off the lights. Farther along, there were mental voices in the dark, the auditory equivalent of a campfire. Henry went to them. There were four of them, young men with no seniority in… in…
Blue Group, Owen whispered. This time we’re Blue Group. Four young men with no seniority in Blue Group, trying not to be scared… trying to be tough… voices in the dark… a little campfire of voices in the dark…
By its light, Henry discovered he could see dimly: snow, of course, and a few flashing yellow lights illuminating a turnpike entrance ramp. There was also the lid of a pizza carton seen in the light of an instrument panel. It had been turned into a tray. On it were Saltines, several blocks of cheese, and a Swiss Army knife. The Swiss Army knife belonged to the one named Smitty, and they were all using it to cut the cheese. The longer Henry looked, the better he saw. It was like having your eyes adjust to the dark, but it was more than that too: what he saw had a creepy-giddy depth, as if all at once the physical world consisted not of three dimensions but of four or five. It was easy enough to understand why: he was seeing through four sets of eyes, all at the same time. They were huddled together in the
Humvee, Owen said, delighted. It’s a fucking Humvee, Henry! Custom-equipped for snow, too! Bet you anything it is!
The young men were sitting close together, yes, but still in four different places, looking at the world from four different points of view, and with four different qualities of eyesight, ranging from eagle-eye sharp (Dana from Maybrook, New York) to the merely adequate. Yet somehow Henry’s brain was processing them, just as it turned multiple still images on a reel of film into a moving picture. This wasn’t like a movie, though, nor like some tricky 3-D image. It was an entirely new way of seeing, the kind that could produce a whole new way of thinking.
If this shit spreads, Henry thought, both terrified and wildly excited, if it spreads… Owen’s elbow thumped into his side. “Maybe you could save the seminar for another day,” he said. “Look across the road.”
Henry did so, employing his unique quadruple vision and realizing only belatedly that he had done more than look; he had moved their eyeballs so he could peer over to the far side of the turnpike. Where he saw more blinking lights in the storm.
“It’s a choke-point,” Owen muttered. “One of Kurtz’s insurance policies. Both exits blocked, no movement onto the turnpike without authorization. I want the Humvee, it’s the best thing we could have in a shitstorm like this, but I don’t want to alert the guys on the other side. Can we do that?”
Henry experimented with their eyes again, moving them. He discovered that as soon as they weren’t all looking at the same thing, his sense of godlike four-or five-dimensional vision evaporated, leaving him with a nauseating, shattered perspective his processing equipment couldn’t cope with. But he was moving them. Not much, just their eyeballs, but…
I think we can if we work together, Henry told him. Get closer. And stop talking out loud. Get in my head. Link up.
Suddenly Henry’s head was fuller. His vision clarified again, but this time the perspective wasn’t quite as deep. Only two sets of eyes instead of four: his and Owen’s.
Owen put the Sno-Cat into first gear and crept forward with the lights off. The engine’s low growl was lost beneath the constant shriek of the wind, and as they closed the distance, Henry felt his hold on those minds ahead tightening.
Holy shit, Owen said, half-laughing and half-gasping.
What? That is it?
It’s you, man-it’s like being on a magic carpet. Christ, but you’re strong.
You think I’m strong, wait’ll you meet Jonesy.
Owen stopped the Sno-Cat below the brow of a little hill. Beyond it was the turnpike. Not to mention Bernie, Dana, Tommy, and Smitty, sitting in their Humvee at the top of the southbound ramp, eating cheese and crackers off their makeshift tray. He and Owen were safe enough from discovery. The four young men in the Humvee were clean of the byrus and had no idea they were being scoped.
Ready? Henry asked,
I guess. The other person in Henry’s head, cool as that storied cucumber when Kurtz and the others had been shooting at them, was now nervous. You take the lead, Henry. I’m just flying support this mission.
Here we go.
What Henry did next he did instinctively, binding the four men in the Humvee together not with images of death and destruction, but by impersonating Kurtz. To do this he drew on both Owen Underhill’s energy-much greater than his own, at this point-and Owen Underhill’s vivid knowledge of his OIC. The act of binding gave him a brilliant stab of satisfaction. Relief, as well. Moving their eyes was one thing; taking them over completely was another. And they were free of the byrus. That could have made them immune. Thank God it had not.
There’s a Sno-Cat over that rise east of you, laddies, Kurtz said. Want you to take it back to base. Right now, if you please-no questions, no comments, just get moving. You’ll find the quarters a little tight compared to your current accommodations, but I think you can all fit in, praise Jesus. Now move your humps, God love you.
Henry saw them getting out, their faces calm and blank around the eyes. He started to get out himself, then saw Owen was still sitting in the Sno-Cat’s driver’s seat, his own eyes wide. His lips moved, forming the words in his head: Move your humps, God love you.
Owen! Come on!
Owen looked around, startled, then nodded and pushed out through the canvas hanging over his side of the “Cat.
4
Henry stumbled to his knees, picked himself up, and looked wearily into the streaming dark. Not far to go, God knew it wasn’t, but he didn’t think he could slog through another twenty feet of drifted snow, let alone a hundred and fifty yards. On and on the eggman went, he thought, and then: I did it. 7hat’s the answer, Of course. I offed myself and now I’m in hell. This is the eggman in h-
Owen’s arm went around him… but it was more than his arm. He was feeding Henry his strength.
Thank y-
Thank me later. Sleep later, too. For now, keep your eye on the ball.
There was no ball. There were only Bernie, Dana, Tommy, and Smitty trooping through the snow, a line of silent somnambulists in coveralls and hooded parkas. They trooped east on the Swanny Pond Road toward the Sno-Cat while Owen and Henry struggled on west, toward the abandoned Humvee. The cheese and Saltines had also been abandoned, Henry realized, and his stomach rumbled.
Then the Humvee was dead ahead. They’d drive it away, no headlights at first, low gear and quiet-quiet-quiet, skirting the yellow flashers at the base of the ramp, and if they were lucky, the fellows guarding the northbound ramp would never know they were gone.
If they do see us, could we make them forget? Owen asked. Give them-oh, I don’t know-give them amnesia?
Henry realized they probably could.
Owen?
What?
If this ever got out, it would change eve thing. Everything.
A pause as Owen considered this. Henry wasn’t talking about knowledge, the usual coin of Kurtz’s bosses up the food-chain; he was talking about abilities that apparently went well beyond a little mind-reading.
I know, he replied at last.
5
They headed south in the Humvee, south into the storm. Henry Devlin was still gobbling
crackers and cheese when exhaustion turned out the lights in his overstimulated head.