14

Chase closed the door and returned to his seat beside Mel.

“What is it?” Molly asked. “Do you know something you didn’t want to share with Amos?”

“Yes. I’ll have to tell him,” Chase said. “I just don’t want to do it by myself.” He studied Mel’s concerned expression. “You know about the Wilberton device.”

“Amos is sick?” Her eyes grew wide as she leaned forward. “Judging by the look on your face it’s bad.”

“You two will have to fill me in,” Molly said. “Amos is sick because of some device?”

Chase turned to her. “No. The Wilberton is inside me. It’s part of the exoself and it allows me to diagnose illness. All I have to do is to touch a person and I know.”

“I watched the live show where you touched a woman in the audience. I’d forgotten.” Molly pulled her arms close and inched away from Chase. “Melody, you knew about this. You should have told us.”

“I didn’t want everyone running up to him to find out whether or not anything was wrong with them.” Mel took Molly’s hand in hers. “Chase and I haven’t even had a chance to discuss it. Besides, there’s nothing he can do to help anyone recover. Not down here.”

“She’s right,” Chase said. “Why tell these people what’s wrong with them if we can’t cure them?”

Molly nodded. “Is it organ failure?”

“No. I can tell that he hasn’t even had the cancer vaccine, so organ failure is not the problem.”

“Wait a minute,” Mel said. “What are saying? The vaccine causes organ failure?”

“Yes, the reason organ failure is so common now is due to the vaccine that we’ve all had. Well, almost all. Some who’ve been involved in covert groups haven’t had the vaccine.”

“Amos has been what you’d call covert for the last twenty years,” Molly said. “So then, it must be cancer.”

“Leukemia. Beyond curing. He’s had it for a long time.” Chase moved close and put his arm around her shoulder. “I’m sorry.”

“He must know. He must feel bad, don’t you think?” Mel asked.

“Molly, you’ve known him the longest,” Chase said. “Have you noticed a difference lately?”

“The man relies on the strength of the Lord. He may know he’s sick, but he wouldn’t burden us with it. He’ll stand strong as long as possible. Son, is there nothing you can do for him?”

“I can’t do anything but make a diagnosis. Even if he went up top, traditional medicine wouldn’t help. Techno-meds, perhaps. Advances are being made by the minute—no telling how far they’ve come even in the short time since I left the Helgen. But no one is going to allow that kind of treatment for a leader of the underground. They’d take him straight to jail. Or they’d speed up his death.”

“We have to tell him,” Mel said.

“After dinner tonight,” Chase told her. “Will the two of you come with me?”

The women nodded. “We’ll be there,” Mel said. “But it’ll be hard to be near him all day and not say anything.”

Chase looked into Molly’s eyes. “A few minutes ago, you moved away from me when you found out what I can do.” He took her hand. “You are in perfect health.”

She smiled. “I am as the Lord wills. Tomorrow may bring a change. If it does, and you know, don’t tell me. All right?”

He nodded and lifted his hand to touch her wrinkled face. Then he turned to Mel. “Can I ask you something? About the information trails you put in me?”

“You can ask me anything.”

“I had to get into the underground in Atlanta to find cryptic messages written on the walls before I could dig your code out of the Psalms. Why not just put a Bible in my head and direct me to the code?”

“The scientists and governing officials in charge of your transformation didn’t allow it. If I’d tried it, they’d probably have caught on to what I was doing and had me arrested. I know it sounds odd that they would give you access to everything ever entered into a database except for one topic, but they’re working to get all religion, even if it’s just for reference purposes, out of the cyber world.”

“I’ve found some literature referring to Bible stories. And some historical information about other religions. No history of the Christian church though. It’s like it never happened.”

Molly shook her head. “We’re being erased from history.”

“They can’t do that,” Mel said. “Not as long as we’re still here.” Her eyes met Chase’s. “Do you want a Bible? I can get you a paperback.”

“No need, I guess. I only wondered why I couldn’t access it through the exoself.”

“When I get a chance I’ll see if I can get it in through my own programs.”

“I can access general information about church music,” Chase said.

“You mean, like hymns? You can learn a lot from those old songs,” Molly said.

Mel lifted her brow. “Eliminating religion from the cyber world is a work in progress. Maybe it was an oversight. But Molly’s right. There’s a lot of church history in the old songs too.”

The three left the small meeting room and joined dozens in the command center. Chase brushed by his mother and squeezed her shoulder. She appeared to be working on a new room arrangement. The added residents meant a few would have to share a room. Beds were being moved to accommodate, and those with larger rooms were asked to give up their space for the sake of those who’d be living with roommates. Of course, no one complained. How long could these people live like this before somebody started to gripe?

“Chase,” Mom said. “Switch ran by here mumbling about how ‘that robot’ wasn’t going to accuse him of…something. The two of you having a problem?”

The battle might start sooner rather than later. Chase sat beside her. “We think there might be someone down here, or up top, feeding information to the Feds. Some bad stuff happened last night. I’m sure Amos will fill in the whole group sometime later today.”

“What’s that got to do with Switchblade ranting about you? Does he think you had something to do with it?”

“He might have suggested it, and I might have suggested the same about him.”

“Well, I don’t believe it,” she said. “Not about either of you.”

“We both got a little hot under the collar. Somebody is responsible for what happened last night.”

“What was it?”

Chase peered over his shoulder and then leaned in close. “The families of those kids who came under were killed.”

Tears filled her eyes and her hand covered her mouth.

“Mom, don’t say anything.”

“Where are those poor babies?”

“In their quarters with the ministers.”

“We’ll need to be here for them. All of us. We’re their family now.”

Chase nodded. “You’re a good mom. Always were.” He kissed her cheek. “I’ll go find Switchblade and apologize.”

He left her for the largest area of dorms. Passing his own room, he headed for the door with the switchblade carved on it. What were those artists thinking when they transformed the cavern into an underground campus with enough bedrooms for a hundred people? Apocalypse—that was the word Switchblade had used. Not so far from the truth. The world was falling apart and Chase was hiding in a bunker. A massive, elaborate hiding place never used by the people who built it. Almost seemed like God planned it in advance for the Underground Church.

He knocked on Switchblade’s door, softer this time. He didn’t mean to insinuate the man might be a mole. A thug, yes. And arrogant. Not very likable. But his dedication to these people was obvious.

Switchblade didn’t open the door. Chase turned up his hearing enhancer. No sound inside the room. Surely the guy wouldn’t go up after Amos told him it was forbidden.

“What am I thinking?” Chase said. “Of course he’d go up.”

The dark tunnel that led to the back exit was past the dorm area. Chase slipped through unnoticed, climbed the rickety stairs, and headed that direction. A hundred yards in, long before the hidden panel, he found Switchblade sitting in the dark on the cold floor.

“Did you go up?” Chase asked.

“What’re you doing here, you freak? You traitor.” He lifted himself up and powered a small laserlight.

“Look, I didn’t mean—”

Switchblade let the light drop to the ground and jumped Chase, pushing him backward until they were both on the ground. The big man roared as he balled his fist and punched Chase in the left temple.

But the man was no match for a transhuman.

Chase flipped him over and pinned him tight, pushing his shoulder into the floor and pressed down hard on his throat. “You may be bigger, but you aren’t stronger. And don’t forget it. This thing inside seems determined to keep me alive. If you threaten me, I can’t be held responsible for what might happen.” Chase stood and brushed his hands down his sleeves. “Now get up and let me apologize,” he yelled.