Another shot. Lyle took a tentative step inside. “Down,” Jerry screamed. It wasn’t clear who he was talking to. Lyle stared at the room, captivated. Calculating, things falling into place. He picked up movement in his periphery. Bang, bang, more shots. A punctured tire hissed.
“Jerry! In here!”
Jerry said something, like, “I got this.”
Lyle’s head spun with information, ideas. He hardly heard the commotion now. Suddenly, he muttered, “Trap, yes a trap,” Lyle muttered.
He shut himself inside, dulling the noise. He looked at the walls, and another oddity: a clock on the bedside table blinking with rapidly changing numbers. Now there was no sound from outside whatsoever.
Suddenly, a high-pitched sound pierced the air. Lyle resisted the urge to cover his ears, during the thirty seconds before the sound passed. He turned around and saw the door.
He saw the bodies.
Jackie, tight jawed, stared at the video feed streaming on a second monitor she’d set up on her desk. The video showed a dark hotel room, number 106. Lyle stood at the doorway, back to her. She looked down at the desk. It was covered with papers and take-out food containers. It smelled. Didn’t bother her at all, not when she felt such elation. He’d fallen right into it, or, more likely, he’d gotten her clue and acted on it. Either way, all according to plan. Lyle alive and well, and Hawthorne frozen around him.
She cleared her throat. There was a bit more to do before the last of the clock counted down. And she still needed Lyle to show up to celebrate with her. He’d figure it out, and be so grateful for the awakening, his rebirth. He owed it all to her. And in this new world, there would be time to think and process, slow down, take their sweet time to share the peace.
Lyle walked outside and looked down at Jerry. He lay on his back, his gun hand palm up to the right, nine millimeter spilled out of it. His head tilted sideways, and on his face he wore a dumb-looking smile.
Twenty yards away, near one of the motel’s metal support poles that the police officer had hidden behind, the man lay on the ground. He looked much like Jerry. Then another body near the door of the motel; it was the woman who had been behind the desk, her iPad near her feet. She must’ve come outside when the shooting started.
Eleanor’s head lolled back in the passenger seat. Lyle cringed. “I’m sorry, Captain,” he said quietly. “It’s the only way.”
Lyle returned to Jerry and knelt beside the fallen flight officer and felt the carotid for a pulse. He pulled back an eyelid and saw that the pupils looked, at first, to be dilated. Then Lyle really focused and noticed the pupils moving so rapidly as to appear fixed.
Just like Steamboat. The syndrome. The whole town must be like this. He carried Jerry into 106 and laid him on the bed. He did the same for Eleanor so the pair were side by side. He covered them with the flower comforter to keep them warm. He shut the door and studied the room and its oddities. First, the clock. It wasn’t the usual motel room clock. It looked similar, but the numbers were going backward and rapidly so.
4:26:27
4:26:26
4:26:25
Counting down.
Until what?
He shuddered at the possibilities. The rest of the country? The world? Lyle’s own fate? All of the above?
He focused his attention at the crisp green apple next to the clock. There was a bite out of the apple with a light sheen around the edges. Lip gloss, maybe. The part where the bite had been taken was turning brown. It had been here awhile.
Lyle stood and ran his hand along the metal-looking wallpaper. It was held in place by nails, closely spaced but inexpertly placed, probably with a nail gun. Someone had gone to a lot of trouble. Jackie had gone to a lot of trouble. She had protected this place from the syndrome. He circled slowly, looking in each corner, knowing he was being told something and wasn’t sure what it was. How to understand Jackie Badger, this virus? He looked back at the apple.
What does an apple symbolize?
“An apple a day keeps the doctor away,” he murmured. No, that was too clever by half. “Eden. The apple, the snake, Eve and Adam,” he said. “Some Eden.”
He scanned the room, struck by revelation. There must be a camera in here. Of course; it’s how Jackie knew to trigger the syndrome outside this room. She was watching. On some level, he realized he’d known it all along. Subconsciously, it’s why he set these bodies on the bed, so Jackie could see her success. Now Lyle would take further advantage of Jackie’s digital presence here, her watchful eye. It was time to turn up the heat on this madwoman.
Lyle walked to the right side of the bed. He leaned close to Eleanor and he whispered, “I’m very sorry, Captain Hall. No violation intended.” He leaned down and swallowed and then kissed Eleanor gently on the cheek. He held his lips there.
It might even draw her out. It was a similar analysis he felt like he’d been through before in the snowy Steamboat night.
He withdrew from Eleanor. He turned and walked from the room.
“Nicely played,” Jackie said, watching Lyle separate from Eleanor. Her words didn’t match the sneer on her face. Lyle was right. She was furious. “Fucking bitch,” she muttered. “Alex, that captain is a hideous siren, you know that?
“Hey, you hideous siren, how do you expect to please your man when you’re locked in paralysis. You’ve been paused, bitch.”
She took a deep breath. Okay, no biggie. Maybe Lyle was just messing with her, giving her his best match. He probably didn’t care about this woman. Remember who you’re dealing with, she told herself; it’s Dr. Lyle Martin, the best of the best, her future and eternal playmate. He was just playing.
She looked at the computer windows on her monitors. They showed her that much of what had needed doing was already done. Virtually the whole world was teed up, the telecommunications infrastructure ready to send paralyzing bursts. The final commands had been keyed in. Only she knew the password to turn it off. So it was just a matter of time.
4:22:19
4:22:18
“Alex, can you hold down the fort for me? I have to grab something from the car.”
Jackie pulled on a dark knit cap. It had odd-looking gold-colored lines woven into the sides. These would, in theory, protect her from any inadvertent surges in electromagnetic frequencies. There shouldn’t be any. She turned it all off now that she held the town in stasis. But it never hurt to be careful. That’s why she’d parked the whole operation in this room downstairs, isolated from the surges bombarding the rest of the world. It was a nice little bunker. As she shut the door, it made her a touch nervous to leave the comfort and safety of this place. But the initial surge was finished, so she should be just fine, just as she had been in Steamboat.
Besides, she was too close to starting this world over to let it be screwed up by Captain Hall. It was exhilarating, in a way, being involved in this game with Lyle. He was searching for her, not merely physically, but searching to understand her, and she was searching for him. Oh, to see and be seen.
Upstairs and outside, she let herself into her Tesla. She glanced in the glove box and withdrew mace and a Taser.