“You’re superstitious?” Ashley asked as she punched in the code.
“The number keeps cropping up.”
“ ‘Cropping’? Is that some kind of pun?” She was smiling.
“In reference to a skull,” I said.
“What skull?”
“That’s what I’d like to know.”
It was a cozy little cabin. There was a fireplace, a couple of rustic rocking chairs, a bed with a small writing table beside it, and a bathroom in the back. I opened a slatted door by the bathroom and saw thirteen identical OIPEP jumpsuits hanging there. There was that number again. I wondered if somebody cosmically connected was trying to tell me something. “What now?” I asked Ashley.
“Try to rest. We’re getting started first thing in the morning.”
“No TV?”
She smiled. “The reception here isn’t very good.”
“There’s always satellite,” I said.
She left. I heard something go snick when the door closed. I tried the handle.
I was in lockdown.
04:04:25:31
That night I dreamed I was flying. Maybe it was the eagle I saw the day before, soaring high and alone over the mountains, but I was flying, arms outstretched, a thousand feet high, and below me I could see mountains and rivers, vast plains and open, empty desert. And cities, from sprawling metropolises to mud hut villages, until I soared past a rocky coastline and then I was over the open ocean, heading west toward the setting sun, cut in half by the horizon. I was alone, and for once it felt good to be alone, above a tranquil sea that had no boundary, the sparkling ribbon of reflected light from the dying sun the path that guided me.
I dove down like a seabird going in for the kill, my arms against my sides, and the wind drove my hair straight back away from my face. I wasn’t afraid. I felt alone, but in this aloneness there was a sense of complete freedom.
I woke up kind of dissatisfied with the fact that eventually you have to wake up from dreams. Someone was knocking on the cabin door.
“Alfred,” I heard Ashley call. “Alfred, it’s time.”
I washed up, pulled a fresh jumpsuit from its wooden hanger, slipped on my hiking boots and parka, and then followed Ashley up the trail to the main cabin.
Breakfast was already laid out, and we ate alone by the crackling fire.
“Where is everybody?” I asked. The place felt deserted and had an almost haunted-house feel to it. I thought it would be crawling with Company operatives, doctors and researchers and the support staff, like cooks and maids and maybe even a bodyguard or two. But the only people I had seen since arriving in Canada were the two guys from the airstrip, Abby, Ashley, and Nueve.
“They’re in the conference room upstairs,” Ashley said. I guessed she was talking about Nueve and Abby. “Meeting with the board.”
“The board is here?”
“By video phone.”
“Oh. Why are they meeting with the board?”
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Before she could answer, a door slammed upstairs and Abby Smith came rushing down, Nueve hot on her heels.
“I don’t care,” Abby was saying. “It wasn’t the bargain we made, Nueve.”
“A bargain impossible to keep, Director,” Nueve said. “As the board pointed out to you.”
Abby whirled on him. “This is entirely your doing.”