The weather, which had been cooling steadily as November wore on, evolved further overnight. I awoke the next morning, shivering and sensing the change. Even in the basement, the howl of the wind and the creaking and popping of the house contracting in the cold reached me.
A storm was upon us.
Good day for it, I thought as I dressed in layers of warm clothes and climbed the ladder into the house. The furnace was running as programmed, but the icy, buffeting wind was doing its best to force its way inside. The windows flexed and groaned under the pounding gusts; the wind’s frozen fingers scrabbled on the walls.
I grabbed coffee, wrapped myself in a light blanket, and peeked through the blinds on the back door. Frosty white stuff swirled and thrashed against the window—not real snow, just frost on the move.
We don’t get much snow in Albuquerque—the occasional dump that lasts a day or two. More common are blasting winds that carry freezing sleet-mixed-with-snow, blizzards that scour us for a day before passing on.
Happy Thanksgiving, I told myself.
Coming from such a small family, our Thanksgiving celebrations had never been fancy affairs—they were often potlucks, gatherings of what Aunt Lucy called “orphans,” an eclectic collection of church friends who had no family. After Lu passed, Abe and I opted for dinner at one of those all-you-can-eat buffets. We enjoyed it—and cleanup was a snap.
I chuckled, grateful for those memories.
I took my coffee downstairs and ran a scan of the security system for alerts. I found none—but I did see one of my phones blinking.
Voice mail? I listened to the two words: “Call me.”
A smile tugged at my mouth as I deleted the VM and the call log. I dialed from memory.
“Hey. Got your message.”
“Some weather, huh?”
“Yeah. You won’t catch me going out today!”
“Well, no such luck for me. Now that I’m back on my feet, Pastor McFee is making up for lost time. He’s spending Thanksgiving out of town with family, so I’m preaching this Sunday. And today? Today Iz and I are helping the singles group from church to serve lunch and dinner at a shelter. I thought I’d call early to wish you a happy Thanksgiving. By the way, I-40 and I-25 in all directions are closed due to the winds. I imagine every hotel and shelter in town will be full up because of the storm. It’s gonna be a long day.”
I shivered—and was grateful again for this house, this home, temporary as it might be. “What about Abe?”
“He’ll be okay while I’m gone. Between lunch and dinner, I will fix him a big plate and take it to him.”
I toyed with the idea of spending the afternoon with Abe, but gave it up. The roads would be treacherous.
“Drive safe today, Zander.”
“I will—but you stay inside, hear?”
“That’s the plan. Thanks for calling.”
Thanksgiving called for a grander breakfast than usual. I added cinnamon rolls to my usual fare and gobbled down the meal like there was no tomorrow. Afterward, the mites and I got serious about White Sands.
We mined all the data about the missile range available in the public domain. Well, I wasn’t certain it was all public domain; the nanomites could defeat the security of any network connected to the Internet, so some of the data could have been from official, restricted government files—non-classified but still controlled. Regardless of its origins, what we found was daunting.
The White Sands Missile Range stretches across the New Mexico desert, spanning five counties and most of the Tularosa Basin. The range occupies nearly 3,200 square miles of the state’s southeast corner. Knowing Cushing had hidden Dr. Bickel somewhere on WSMR had been about as helpful as saying she had hidden him somewhere in Texas!
Cushing may have hidden Dr. Bickel close to her—close in relative terms—but she had also picked the largest U.S. military haystack in which to hide her “needle.”
“Well played, Cushing,” I whispered. “The proverbial needle in a haystack.”
Gemma Keyes, we will locate Dr. Bickel.
“I’m trusting that you will, Nano.”
The storm roared on until late afternoon when it blew itself out. Eastern New Mexico and Texas would continue to feel the storm’s fierce, icy blast, but for now we were out of it. I yawned and got up from the couch where I’d been napping. Now that the tumult of wind had passed, I was itching to move.
Time for a run, I told myself, lacing up my shoes, then over to the dojo.
I’d seen the holiday weekend schedule posted on the dojo’s doors: Closed until Monday.
Good.
Gus-Gus was accelerating my training. He was expecting more from me. He was pushing me harder . . . and I was letting him.
I thrived on the work.
As I finished tying my shoes, I pondered yet another recent observation: The communication the mites and I shared? It was evolving. The progression was subtle, hard to pinpoint, but some of our daily exchanges, our little back-and-forths? Well, they just “happened.”
What I mean is that I heard the mites speaking in my ear less often, but I still heard them. At first, it had been a word or two. Negligible. Now it was occurring more frequently. Like, this morning, I’d “heard” a whole sentence—and the mites had not spoken it, had not vibrated the words in my ear.
And I’d felt the urge to answer them in kind. I hadn’t succeeded, but I had the strangest sense that it was near me . . . like a phrase that’s right there on the tip of my tongue. I sensed that I should be able to reach out and grasp it—only to discover that it was a hairsbreadth beyond my reach.
Another example? The mites were involving themselves directly in my training, not merely through Gus-Gus’ AI. I couldn’t put a label to it, but sometimes it felt like the mites and I were moving together while I practiced—they helping me, and their consciousness blending with mine to form something . . . stronger, more cohesive.
The merge. I shook my head over this latest progression.
We weren’t done yet.
***
With the martial arts school closed for the holiday weekend, Gus-Gus insisted on an eight-hours-a-day training schedule. At least he conducted our long sessions during the day and not all night! Friday’s workouts had been grueling, and I’d needed more than my usual four hours of sleep to recover from the physical abuse and fatigue.
When I arrived at the dojo the Saturday morning after Thanksgiving, I left another envelope on the owner’s desk and returned to the floor to commence the day’s lessons. Gus-Gus and I were in the middle of a heavy sparring drill when the nanomites freaked out and, with a squeak or two, went silent.
Gus-Gus disappeared.
I blinked and opened my eyes to my “real” surroundings—and to a man’s irate voice.
“Who the *blank* are you, and what the *bleep* are you doing in my school?”
The guy was dark-haired, slender but compact, and maybe three inches taller than me.
Oh, yeah—and he was furious.
“I said, who are you? Who said you could use my school?”
It dawned on me that this guy was the dojo’s owner and that he was looking right at me.
I lowered my sticks and saw them.
What?
The mites should have been hiding them! Then I saw my hands wrapped around the sticks. Saw my feet down on the floor.
I’m visible?
I held one hand up where I could examine it.
And I’m me, not Kathy Sawyer?
“You’d better answer me, lady, before I call the cops.”
Nano! Where’d you go?
“Hey! I’m talking to you!”
My head snapped up. “I . . . um, I’m the one who’s been paying to use your, um, school.”
He looked perplexed for half a second. “The money? On my desk? That’s you?”
“Yeah.”
He was confused, but not nearly as confused as I was. Why weren’t the nanomites hiding me? Why were they silent?
The guy came closer. “What, so you . . . you’ve been working out in my school. On your own?”
“Um, sort of. I mean, yes. Alone.”
“I watched you for a minute. You seem advanced. Almost looked like you were sparring with someone.”
“Uh . . .”
“Whatever. I want to know how you are getting in here.”
Nano?
Not a thing from the nanomites. Not a peep.
Traitors!
The guy bent over and picked up a pair of my sticks—not my extra rattan sticks in the bag, but the kamagong sticks on the floor.
“These yours?”
“Yeah, they are. So, listen, I apologize. I’ll just be on my way. I won’t come back.”
“You didn’t answer my question. How are you getting in here?”
“I’ll be going now.”
“No, you won’t; I have a top-notch security system. I want answers.”
“Look, I said I’m sorry. I won’t bother you again. I promise.”
“You’re not leaving until you answer me.”
I made a move toward my bag, but he stepped between me and my gear. His expression hardened. “I have a better idea. How about we spar? Let’s see how good you are.”
“No, thanks. Honestly, I’m kinda new at this. I don’t know how to properly spar, don’t know the rules. I just . . . fight.”
He liked that idea even better. “All right. Let’s fight. Maybe I’ll teach you a lesson—not that I’d actually hurt you or anything, but I could teach you a thing or two about, say, property rights and criminal trespass.”
The guy’s response rubbed me wrong; his arrogance sparked my temper—his cocky, “I could teach you a thing or two” attitude. If the smoke that filled my head had rolled out of my ears, he would have called 911 and reported a fire. It wasn’t just this guy’s condescending attitude that angered me; the nanomites—who suddenly regained their “voice”—earned their share, too.
Gemma Keyes. We apologize for not detecting this man’s presence sooner. However, as we analyzed this unanticipated encounter, we determined that it presents an opportunity for you to engage in a fight sequence with another human. Such an experience will promote our goal of helping you to become optimal. Do not be anxious; you will not be harmed.
“Oh, sure.”
I was about to get my hiney kicked from here to Santa Fe! But, hey, anything for a fight sequence with another human, right?
Seething inside, I stretched my neck and rotated my shoulders. Whatever punishment this guy dished out wouldn’t matter, would it? The nanomites would just “mitigate” my injuries like they did when I fought with Gus-Gus.
Lovely prospect.
I twirled my sticks to flex my wrists. I was plenty riled.
“A lesson? Hmm. Well, okay. Let’s go.”
I bowed to him.
He didn’t bow back. In fact, he appeared less certain, like he was rethinking his challenge.
I couldn’t resist a taunt. “Come on. Scared of a girl?”
“No, but it was a bad idea, just my anger talking. Not professional of me. I don’t want to hurt you; I just want answers.”
“I won’t tell if you won’t.”
“You won’t tell what?”
“That you let a girl beat you.”
He flushed red and tilted his head. “Y’know, lady, you’ve got quite a mouth on you. I’d be happy to slap it shut, if that’s how you want it.”
“I’d like to see you try. You’ll find another pair of rattan sticks in the bag.” I pointed.
I bowed again; this time, he bowed back.
Remember, I started my training a couple of weeks ago, while this guy was an instructor with years of experience behind him. I should have been terrified. The fact that I wasn’t terrified was suspicious: Who knew what hormones and chemicals the nanomites were feeding my system so that I’d feel this confident? Shrugging, I moved into position.
Because rather than terrified, I was excited.
He came at me fast, really fast, sticks weaving and crossing in a blur. I countered what he threw at me. I parried and deflected his strikes. We danced apart.
Then that “thing” happened. That thing where the nanomites’ consciousness and mine blended. Their “mind” became my own.
The guy attacked; I thwarted him with ease. The flick of a glance, a facial microexpression, the infinitesimal tensing of a muscle—those things telegraphed the cocky dude’s intentions. I foresaw his moves before he acted.
Holy, smokin’ Spider Man!
The speed of the nanomites’ computing power and predictive logic flashed through my hands and feet. The flow between us—me and the nanocloud—was like nothing I’d experienced or even conceived of. I was more in tune with them than I was with my physical surroundings!
Conscious thought seemed slow. Ponderous. The mites and I traveled ahead of reason, through the realm of intuition and presentiment, my moves like flashes of brilliance. Mindful thought trailed each move the way thunder follows lightning.
The nanomites and I weren’t six; we were one.
“Yow!” Dojo guy cursed and stumbled back, stung by the blow I’d landed on the outside of his left arm just above his elbow.
I moved away, bouncing lightly on the balls of my feet. “I hit your radial nerve. You won’t have normal sensation in that arm for at least a quarter of an hour.”
“I know what the radial nerve is, lady.”
“You ready to quit?”
“I’m just getting warmed up.”
As was I. The bond the nanomites and I shared was intense and potent. I didn’t want it to end. I was so freaking wired! Powerful! Invincible!
Dojo guy sprang at me; I sidestepped before he moved and snuck in a strike to his outer thigh as he passed by. He took one more step before his leg collapsed under him.
“We’re done,” I told him.
Over in less than two minutes.
Dojo guy didn’t dispute me. “How . . . how did you do that? I’ve never seen anyone move that fast. Who are you?”
“Does it matter?”
He staggered to his feet, massaging his thigh, limping to stay erect. “Well, if I had to be beaten by a woman, I’m glad it was by a fine fox such as yourself.” He kind of grinned, a sheepish, “You’re hot; don’t you think I’m hot, too?” grin.
My reply was scathing. “Save it for someone who cares, dude.”
What was he thinking? I was Gemma the Nondescript! The woman who was invisible before I couldn’t be seen, before the nanomites made it their mission in life to hide me in perpetuum.
The nanomites spoke inside my head. I was surprised and perplexed, but not altogether unhappy with their proposal.
I made the effort to be civil. “Say, would you be, um, amenable to a little arrangement?”
“What kind of arrangement?” Dojo guy’s response was stiff. He was smarting from more than the two strikes during our match.
Think fast, Gemma.
“Sorry. Uh, first off, I’m, um, Emily. What’s your name?”
“Doug.”
“Well, Doug, is the cash I’ve been leaving on your desk enough payment for my use of your school after hours?”
“I still want to know how you’re getting past my security system.”
“Learn to live with disappointment, Doug. Have I left enough money?”
He huffed and folded his arms. “Yeah, yeah. It’s fine. What’s your proposal?”
“I keep coming, using your facility, and paying you for it. You don’t mention me to anyone. Anyone. Not a soul. You will agree to keep my presence to yourself. You will speak of me to no one. You will carry on business as usual, and you will give your word not to sneak in cameras or any type of surveillance.”
Yeah, because we’ll be watching and listening, buddy.
“A warning, Doug: If you decide to pull something fast, trust me when I say that, as easily as we defeated your security system, we’ll know if you speak of me to anyone. In return for your cooperation, we’ll increase the amount we’ve been leaving you. Say, another hundred each week? Win-win, right?”
I didn’t notice how, partway through my last statement, I’d switched from singular first person to plural. As the whole “we” thing fell on my ears, I grimaced.
We? Creepy! Where did that—
Doug’s face reflected what I had just realized. He was kind of freaked out, but he blustered a reply.
“Let’s say I don’t agree.”
I shrugged and reverted to normal first-person voice. “I’ll find another place to train. The money stops. You never see me again.”
And we will make sure you don’t remember a thing.
And there it was again! What was up with the disturbing plural voice?
Doug looked aside, thinking. “Another hundred?”
“Yup. It’s good money, Doug. Why blow it off?”
The nanomites whispered again. In my head.
Stranger and stranger.
“Oh. And I might request some sparring practice with you from time to time.”
He winced. “Not sure you need any practice, Emily.”
I extended my hand to Doug. “Come on, then. Deal?”
He looked at my hand first, then shook it in a perfunctory manner. “Yeah. Deal.”
I drove away from the school reflecting that Doug was the first and only person to have seen me, the actual me, in months. But what occupied me more was the rehash of our short fight.
The ease and swiftness of movement I had experienced, the foresight—the foreknowledge of what Doug would do before he did it—and my ability to act on that knowledge just as fast? It was more than me, more than I could do by myself. Every aspect of that fight spoke of a synchronicity with the nanomites I hadn’t believed possible.
Yes. Things between us were still evolving.
***
I arose the Sunday morning of Thanksgiving weekend with “Zander on the brain.”
He’d told me he would be leading the service at DCC today, and I wondered how he would prepare and what he would (gag me) preach on. Despite my best efforts to block them out, bits of our recent conversations—especially the part about God calling me—repeated like song fragments that get trapped in your head and won’t quit.
Sometime after breakfast, I dressed to leave the house. That’s when I realized I had decided to peek in on the service. It hadn’t been a conscious, considered decision, but after spending hours with Zander’s voice stuck on replay inside my skull, I was about ready to pound a stake into my own brain.
Anything to change the tune. Even more Zander.
I parked a block away and walked to DCC. From across the street, my gaze tracked up the church’s tall, brick front until I fixed my eyes on the round stained glass window high above the doors. After our parents died and Genie and I came to live with Aunt Lu, the image of Jesus with a lamb laying across his shoulders had both intrigued and puzzled me.
I was less intrigued today, but just as puzzled.
When the crowd pressing through the two sets of double doors under that window began to dwindle, I followed them inside and made an abrupt right. I knew where I was going.
Back when I’d attended DCC with Genie and Aunt Lu, a few teens would hide upstairs in the choir loft, choosing the loft’s farthest-back seats, almost behind the old pipe organ. The kids squabbled over those seats because they could get away with goofing off or necking during service—especially while the organ was blasting away during the singing. Genie managed to snag those “prime” seats a few times when we were teens.
I had planned to go up the back stairs to the choir loft—except, as it turns out, the narrow staircase to the loft was cordoned off.
Huh? What about the organist? Maybe he’s the only one allowed up there these days?
Well, that worked for me. With no competition, I would have my choice of seats. I stepped over the thick cord and headed up. But when I reached the top of the stairs, the organ’s heavy wooden cover was closed and locked over its three keyboards. A coating of dust told me how disused the organ was!
Weird.
I was the only one in the loft—and down below me unfolded a bewildering scene.
Modern instruments occupied most of the platform at the front—drums, guitars, bass, electric keyboards. A team of musicians and singers led the singing.
Loud singing. Loud music. With a beat.
I couldn’t miss the words: A data projector plastered them in foot-high letters across two screens mounted on either side of the platform. The congregation below me was on its feet, singing, swaying, and clapping along.
Clapping in church?
I pulled one of the old wooden folding chairs toward the edge of the loft and plopped down on it. Leaned on the railing overlooking the sanctuary. Stared and listened and shook my head. Nothing could have been more different from the church of my childhood.
This was not the Downtown Community Church I knew.
I searched for Zander. Below, in the front row, on the left side, I spied him. He was singing, too, one hand in the air, lost, I guess, in his own worship experience.
After twenty minutes of exuberant song, followed by another twenty of slower, more intense tunes—none that I recognized—the congregation sat, and Zander walked up to the platform.
His bruises were almost gone; the most visible remainder of Mateo’s attack was the sling that kept his collarbone immobile. He smiled.
“It’s great to be back in the house of the Lord, and I’m grateful for this opportunity to share from God’s word. Our text this morning is found in Luke, chapter 15.
Now the tax collectors and sinners
were all gathering around to hear Jesus.
But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered,
“This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.”
“In the first two verses of this short chapter, Jesus is accused of welcoming sinners and eating with them. Jesus responds with three parables in quick succession, each different, but all three designed to dispel a wrong understanding of God—not that God condones sin, but the perception that God does not care about the sinner. In contrast to what the Pharisees and teachers taught, the three parables speak a single truth: Our God is a seeker.
“In the first parable, Jesus speaks of the Good Shepherd. The Good Shepherd, Jesus said, will leave his entire flock—ninety-nine percent of his flock—to pursue the one who has wandered or run away. In John 10, Jesus tells us clearly that he is the Good Shepherd, and we are the sheep. The Good Shepherd goes after the lost sheep, because our God is a seeker.
“In Luke 15, verses 8-10, Jesus tells of a woman who owns ten silver coins. When she loses one of those coins, she expends precious and expensive oil to light a lamp. Why? She lights a lamp to illuminate her entire house while she sweeps it and searches all the dark corners until she finds that lost coin.
“Silver is valuable, my friends. So is oil to light a lamp. Those ten silver coins represent people, people who are made in God’s own image and likeness. We are valuable! When God sees us, he sees something of value. The oil for the lamp represents the Holy Spirit. Like the woman in this parable, God will spend money to search high and low for you because you are as valuable as silver to him. He will expend his Holy Spirit to woo you, to convince you, to chastise you, to illuminate your life. He will do all that is necessary to bring you to himself, because our God is a seeker.
“In the final parable of Luke 15, Jesus tells the tale of a father and two sons. One son is good and obedient; the other son is selfish and demanding. He demands his inheritance—before his father is even dead.
“Can you imagine it? The kid might as well have said, ‘Hey, Dad. Kick the bucket already, will you? I only care about your money.’ His father must have been so hurt!
“You know the story. The father gives him the money, and the son goes on his way and wastes it all—half of everything the father has worked for his entire life. The son wastes it all on parties and pleasure. When the money is gone, and the son is starving, he remembers that even the servants in his father’s house have enough food. So, he decides to go home and beg for a servant’s position in his father’s house.
“In the meantime, what has the father been doing? Verse 20 tells us, But while he (the son) was still a long way off, the father saw him. What has the father been doing? The text tells us that the father has been watching for his son to return. Hoping against the evidence, for a long, long time, the father has been watching for his son to come home, believing he will come home. Why? Because the father loves his son, even as ungrateful and hurtful as the son has been.
“Of course, the father in this parable is God the Father, and we are the son who has behaved in such an ungrateful, hurtful manner. God still watches for us; he still waits for us. No matter how hopeless or how long it has been, he is watching and waiting. Why? Because our God is a seeker.
Zander warmed to his subject. He stared with love around the congregation. He even glanced up into the choir loft—and paused, a curious look on his face.
What was that? Even though I was certain Zander could not see me, his puzzlement made me pull back. Had he . . . had he glimpsed the sparkle of the nanomites that Emilio said he sometimes saw?
Zander blinked and looked down to his notes. “Yes, our God is a seeker. Jesus said it this way, speaking of himself: For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost. We know from the three parables in Luke 15 that God values people, but not merely ‘people’ in a general sense: No, God values lost people. Now, let’s make it personal: God values you.
“How valuable are you? Let me repeat: Our God will expend precious resources and even risk loss—that’s how valuable you are to him. And our God will watch for you! No matter how long you’ve been gone or how much you’ve wasted, he will, in hope of your return, watch for you. Does this sound like a God who does not care? Not a bit.
“Let me take the lessons of these parables even further. A normal shepherd, when a sheep has strayed, does not know in which direction his lost sheep has gone. He may have no clue. While he searches, he may grow weary and discouraged. Not so, the Good Shepherd! He sees you wherever you are, whether you are hidden, trapped, injured, or damaged. He knows exactly where you are. You cannot hide from God! No room is so dark that he cannot see you. You are not . . .”
Here Zander’s eyes, again puzzled, drifted up to the choir loft. “You are not invisible to him.”
At those words, the hair on my arms, neck, and head prickled and crawled. I pulled away from the rail and fell against the hard back of my chair. Zander’s next words reached me anyway.
“In closing, I want to draw your attention to two more facets these three parables have in common. First, each parable ends with rejoicing. The father pulled his son to his bosom and threw a banquet for him; the woman clasped her lost coin and called all of her neighbors to celebrate; Jesus, the Good Shepherd, placed the lost lamb about his neck, and the angels in heaven rejoiced.”
Jesus placed the lost lamb about his neck? In an instant, my lifelong puzzlement over DCC’s stained glass window vanished.
“The last facet deals with ‘proximity’—each parable ends in close relationship between the one who was lost and the one who sought and found him. When we are lost and God finds us, he does not merely tolerate us: He draws us close. Don’t stand far back from him! Our great God is a seeker. He will call to you. He will search high and low for you. When he finds you, he will draw you close—and he will rejoice over you.”
~~**~~