The Thousand - Kevin Guilfoile [123]
“Harmonia.”
She nodded. “Some mathematici have no use for religion. Others are Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, and on and on. But my father thought my strong faith, my mother’s faith, put me at risk of being recruited by the acusmatici. He feared they would get my vote. So he turned to my brother, whom he saw as being more loyal.”
“So it wasn’t religion so much as politics.”
“I guess that’s true.” She smiled. “But there are many just like me. Orphans of the tradition. We keep the secret but don’t enjoy the benefits.”
“Why not go public?”
“Fear is a powerful motivator, right? Fear of them. Fear of spoiling my very comfortable life, which, I have to admit, is financed by my father. And fear that they’re right. That it would lead to catastrophe. I’ve seen evidence of that. You have, too.”
“The planes,” Alberto said. “The blackout.”
She looked away, toward the water.
“You’re telling me a lot, though.”
“Lots of people know about them, Professor. You know about them. Speculative books have been written. Novels even. The Internet is saturated with legends and theories. They don’t care if people know about them. They have contact with outsiders at every level—science and politics and business. Their power comes from fear, and no one would fear them if they were completely unknown. But I need you to know that this is not an urban legend or a conspiracy theory. You need to understand that they are real. And they are very, very serious. And that you need to just let it drop.”
Alberto pressed on. “I was one of those contacts. Marlena was working on something. I helped her for years. I answered her questions—”
“There might have been a dozen outsiders like you, each working unwittingly on a small part of some huge project. No one person would ever see the big picture.”
“But that’s the work I was doing? Harmonia? A theory of everything?”
“Might have been. Might have been a gadget to be manufactured in somebody’s factory. A widget for Marlena to put inside somebody’s head. A computer operating system to compete with Microsoft, or maybe a virus to take Microsoft down.”
Alberto said, “I’m afraid the work I was doing was what got Marlena killed. Jesus Christ, I might have helped crash those planes, for all—”
Her tone sharpened. “Drop it right now.”
“I don’t know if I can.”
“There was a man named Reuben Contreras,” Laura said. “He lived in L.A. Like you, he got a glimpse of the tradition, got his fingers on just a tiny piece of it. And he wouldn’t let go. Find out what happened to him, and then decide if it’s worth it. But don’t tell anyone you talked to me.”
She refused an escort back to her car, and because he didn’t feel like going to his office, Alberto took the long way, past the library, across the main quad. He turned and looked about, noting students, administrators, tourists, and alumni dispersed across the campus at some distance—random and uncorrelated plots on a grid—none, it seemed, paying particular attention to him.
44
SHE WAS SUSPICIOUS of him, guarded and cautious. Maybe that was just the way she looked at all people, or at least all lawyers. Still, Reggie thought there was something spooky about a girl with a half-robot brain, especially to a guy like him, someone who was keeping a secret she’d no doubt like to know.
“It’s good to see you again, Canada,” Reggie said.
She smiled, and it looked sad but sincere. Pretty. She was smaller but had many of her mother’s best parts—around the chin and the cheeks and the straight white teeth. Her eyes were longer-lashed versions