J Bryan - Dominion

One of the cops began to speak: “Sir, we think we might have these hackers on foot.”

“Forget it,” a voice crackled back. “Emergency boxes are lighting up all over the valley. It’s a distraction.”

“Ten-four.”

The boots and the beams of light retreated up the hill, and then they were gone.

Lucia hauled herself from the cold water and climbed up on the creek bank.

“Come on,” she said. “Let’s get your car.”

“What happened?” Ruppert began to climb the muddy slope.

“They set off a bomb somewhere to break up the roadblock,” she said. “Terrorism takes priority.”

“That was nice of them.” They hurried up along the steep hillside.

“It’s a lot of trouble,” Lucia said. “And it could draw federal attention. Everyone’s going to hate me. I just hope no one gets caught.”

They climbed back up to the emergency phone box, but Lucia’s computer had been severed and confiscated. They hiked back up along the road, keeping to the trees so they could jump out of the way at a moment’s notice. They found the car intact and undisturbed. The police probably hadn’t had time to find it, and it was not very visible from the road. Ruppert looked ahead, where the edge of flashing blue light had disappeared.

“Let’s go,” Lucia said. “We’re as safe as we’ll ever be.”

They drove for thirty minutes among winding roads, eventually turning off on an unmarked, unlined street that became a dirt track. Lucia stopped in front of an overgrown brick gate thick with vines. She stepped out of the car and approached the gate, where she pressed a button set into an ornate frame.

“We’re here,” she said. “If anybody’s listening.”

After several seconds, the gates creaked open, folded inward and squealing with the sound of badly rusted machinery.

They drove through overgrown fields of wild vines and thorny brambles. At one intersection of dirt tracks, a young dreadlocked black man stood with his hand raised. Lucia stopped, and he climbed into the back seat.

“Turn left,” he said. “We’re stashing the car in the old fermentation building.”

At his directions, Lucia drove them into a long brick building with boarded windows. They parked among machinery draped in tarps, then got out, swept the tarp from one of the machines, and covered up Ruppert’s car.

“Is everything all right?” Lucia asked.

“It's all right,” the man said. “We just had to distract the police force of Sonoma County and get it away with it. Did I mention we had no time to prepare?"

"I’m sorry,” Lucia said.

“Don’t ever, ever do that again. Now we have to deal with Hartwell sniffing around. Through here.” The young man approached one of four giant cylinders against a long wall. He took hold of the circular pressure gauge, which was as wide as the man himself, and wrenched it around like a large dial. A section of the metal cylinder screeched as it opened outward, revealing brick stairs that spiraled away underground. He led them down, closing the hatch after them.

“What is this place?” Ruppert asked as they stepped into an underground room made of brick and stone. Racks of dusty glass containers lined the walls, under rows of grow lamps with empty sockets.

“Somebody used to have another operation going on down here, back in the 1970s, 1980s,” the young man said. “Plants more profitable than grapes. You should wait here.” He left through a faux-medieval door made of thick wooden slats and brass bindings.

“Friendly people,” Ruppert said.

“They’re cleaning up our mess,” Lucia said.

“You don’t think they hurt anybody?”

“I’m sure they just detonated an old building or something. Already wired in advance. They do have contingency plans.”

“An old wooden water tower, actually.” A familiar face entered along with the young black man. It was the “Packers fan” Ruppert had met at Nixon Stadium. “No water was injured, I promise.”

“Archer, I’m glad you made it,” Lucia said.

“Your name’s Archer?” Ruppert said. "I thought it was Benny."

"Benny's what I go by when I'm out among the sheeple," Archer said. "And Archer's what I'm going by this year. And this is Turin." Archer clapped the dreadlocked man's shoulder. "Because he's a miracle worker. Every call box for eighty miles-pow!"

Turin nodded at Adam. To Archer, he said, “Big lady thinks we should go ahead now, since he’s here. They’ll keep watch for the Harty boys.”

“Great,” Archer said. “Daniel, background. We’ve got him thinking that we’re doing it for him-like a final request before the cancer eats him up. He thinks you’re still with GlobeNet, and this is going to go large onscreen. The story he believes beyond that, too complicated, you don't need to know. Can you play along with that?”

“Not a problem,” Ruppert said.

“Should I come?” Lucia asked.

“You’d better,” Turin said. “You go upstairs, she might rip out your throat for the storm you just stirred up. And we don’t need her distracted right now. Anyway, the man hasn’t seen you before, so we're calling you the GlobeNet camera operator.”

“I don’t have any equipment.”

Archer handed her a tall silver cylinder with a 360-degree lens band.

“And you,” Turin said to Ruppert. “You need to look like you’re on the job. I’ll find you a suit upstairs, but maybe…” He pantomimed a few swipes at his own face.

Ruppert touched the heavy stubble on his chin, then nodded.

“Bathroom’s down the hall, fourth door on your left,” Turin said.

A few minutes later, having shaved his face and splashed some water in his hair, dressed in a dark brown wool suit that might have been fashionable in the 1920s, Ruppert met back with the others. Lucia had gathered her hair back into a ponytail and changed into a long-sleeved blouse and ankle-length skirt, the way a modern Dominionist woman dressed in the workplace, but they looked ridiculous on her.

“Okay, Daniel.” Lucia powered up the holographic recorder. “Let’s go and make your life worthwhile.”

Turin led them through a dark warren of rooms lit by a few spare bulbs, down another set of stairs, then unlocked a sheet-metal door. “Don’t let him rattle you,” he said to Ruppert. “And try not to mind the stink. He won’t sponge himself off, so we just have to hose him down every couple of days.”

The door swung open, and Ruppert stepped into a cinderblock room dominated by a large iron cage, like a monkey house at an old city zoo. A man reclined on a heap of filthy cushions, his leg attached to one of the cage bars by a long chain. His hair was longer, grayer, and more scraggly, and he smelled like a rhinoceros, but Ruppert recognized the swastika tattoos on his flabby arms and bare torso. The man leaned forward and smiled at him through teeth clotted with dried, black blood.

This was Hollis Westerly.

The underground room was floored with a concrete slab, but a few worn rugs and swatches of carpet softened the interior of Westerly’s cage. Scattered inside the cage were a small chemical toilet, a few bottles of water, a cot, and a few highly illegal magazines of the kind that featured people performing sex acts. Westerly rose from the pile of cushions at the middle of the cage and approached Ruppert, his chain skittering along the floor behind him.

His smile was crooked, missing teeth.

“I know you,” he said. “I seen your show before.”

“Always nice to meet a fan,” Ruppert said.

“Didn’t say I was a fan or not.” Westerly looked at Turin. “Now give me one.”

“That’ll be three today, Hollis,” Turin said.

“You said I could have one when he got here.”