CHAPTER ONE
TWO HOURS INTO OUR desert highland hike, none of my six senses had discovered signs of Dr. Grisha Petrosian’s house. A goshawk rode the updraft off a slot canyon. Dotted with gnarled juniper and mahogany, the crumbling red rock remains of the latter Jurassic dominated the horizon. Off the grid didn’t describe the half of it.
“It’s so dry. I didn’t think my hair could get any frizzier.” Evie stopped for water, the reservoir strapped to her back already half-drained.
“Trust me, this is nothing compared to the Arabian Oil Zone.”
My incessant teenage daughter wiped her brow with her sleeve while shaking her head. “You said we’d stick together, the two of us, from now on. I’m holding you to that.”
“Evie, give me a break.” I had intended to quell her appetite for adventure with our rugged father-daughter outing to Utah, not feed it. “The AOZ is the most hostile natural environment on the planet.”
“I survived junior high.”
I kicked the trunk of a mountain mahogany, shaking a pungent mixture of dust and pollen from its leaves. “I’m not taking you.”
Evie froze. “Speaking of hostile natural environments . . .” She pointed with her eyes.
Without turning, I referenced the oil and water mixture of my sixth sense, superimposing the psychic map of our surroundings over the map gathered by my other senses. Several meters behind me, a juvenile cougar crouched on a rock ledge overlooking our rest stop. His energy signature shone as an opaque outline.
Maybe our feline guest would serve as the threat to life and limb necessary to dissuade my daughter from pestering me further. I was growing desperate.
Crossing the Texicas border under the cover of night had required me to black out a checkpoint. Done from a distance and disguised as a hiccup in the power grid, the black out was completed without us even breaking a sweat. After that, we drove without event for two days.
While discussing the more subtle notes of Sergio Leone’s body of work, we crossed the megafarm agricultural complex blanketing the entirety of the former Oglala Dust Zone. Automated filling stations, occasional caravans of migrant workers, and acres upon acres of farmland—the surroundings grew so monotonous Evie convinced me to let her drive for a stretch.
Failing to silence my fatherly worry long enough to sleep, I barely managed to keep my eyes shut for an hour with her behind the wheel. One would think the ability to bring loved ones back to life would tone down such anxieties.
I’ve always been a slow learner.
The second day of our travels consisted of mountain passes and switchbacks on locally maintained roads. Since crossing the Colorado-Utah border, we’d seen a few Native Americans and a handful of Mormon settlers maintaining a watchful eye on the edge of what had informally become known as the Deseret Nation.
After a decade of being ravaged by the twitch and essentially being ignored by the United States, all parties had maintained the blanket policy of live and let live. The philosophy suited me just fine and no doubt had been the impetus for Dr. Petrosian’s migration west. It did nothing, however, to convince my daughter to break off her campaign for putting herself in harm’s way.
“Just a teenage cougar about to get a lesson on his place in the food chain.” Using my telekinetic abilities, I lifted a large rock from the ledge, positioning it between the cat and us. The cougar slinked back, growling and lifting a claw. Lightly, I clonked him on the head with the rock. Without further argument, he scampered away. “If only human teenagers could be so easy.”
“Funny. If only your mental abilities could make you more reasonable.”
“Hey, I brought you into the wilds of Utah to help me convince your grandfather’s reclusive ex-partner to assist my infiltration of Oleg’s stronghold at the heart of the Arabian Oil Zone. How is that not reasonable?”
She rolled her eyes.
“Don’t answer that. You know what I meant.”
“No, I don’t.”
“Honey, please.” I ran my fingers through my hair. “I’m traveling across the world to kill a man, along with any and all twitchers who get in the way. What kind of father wants his daughter to be a part of that?”
She bit her lip, temporarily stymied. “Are you sure you didn’t make this Dr. Petrosian up? What kind of person lives out here anyway?”
We crested the rock ledge, no sign of the cougar, and continued down the back side into a tight canyon. I allowed myself to hope I’d won a round. “He’s sort of a Y2K survivalist type.”
“A why to whatalist?”
“Y-2-K. Year 2000. A bit before your time, I suppose. Anyway, a decent number of folks thought the world would end with a digital cataclysm when the year numbers rolled over from 1999 to 2000.” We hiked into the shade of the canyon, following an animal trail created by the local population of mountain lions and deer.
“Like the whole Mayan calendar thing?”
“But affecting only stuff based on ones and zeros.”
“And this guy is going to help us how?”
“As the world’s leading anthropological expert on the cult of the desert god, he’s going to help me—” a stiff, mechanical click reverberated beneath my boot. Both the vibration and the sound signaled something out of place. “Get down!”