Page 32 of Mastermind

She holds the side door open so we can climb inside the vehicle. Jessica takes the seat opposite the door facing a large monitor. I sit next to her.

“This is a little intense,” says Jessica, looking around at the interior of the vehicle.

“EMP and chemical agent–proof?” I ask.

“Yes,” says Lilith. “We haven’t gotten our helicopters protected yet.”

“Neither have we,” says Jessica with a wink at me.

The others get inside, and Lilith seals the door, then gives an order to the driver. The vehicle begins to move forward with our escorts following on either side.

“We’ll take the main highway toward the center. If there’s anything you want to get a better look at, let me know. We have several drones up in the air and a long-distance camera on the roof.” She points to a large monitor.

For the first time, I notice the large black void in the center of the screen. It’s a view of Seoul . . . or rather what should be Seoul. Where Manhattan had been a dark pit in the middle of the water, Seoul is a hole in the middle of a megalopolis. There are buildings . . . and then nothing.

“What’s the air quality like there?” I ask.

“Similar to New York. The cloud contains carbon soot that’s probably not good for long-term exposure. We have respirators on board in case we have to get out.”

I turn to Jessica. “Do you have any satellite images or heat maps of the Manhattan event?”

“I’ve got an iPad full of them. What are you looking for?”

“This is literally a smokescreen. Both visually and electronically,” I tell her.

She hands me the device and opens a folder of images. “You think there’s something going on right now?”

“Possibly. I’d be curious to take a look at whatever weird stories we have from New York. The things that authorities claimed were just hysteria.”

Jessica makes a small nod. “I was wondering if you were going to ask about that.”

“You didn’t want to tell me?”

“I wanted independent confirmation that there might be something more to it. There should be a folder there with the kind of eyewitness reports you’re talking about.” She points to an icon on her tablet.

I read the icon’s label aloud: “‘Demons and Dementors’?”

“Yep,” says Jessica. “More than a dozen sightings. The witnesses used various terms. But the gist is that some people claim there were things in the Void.”

“Things?”

“Fast-moving objects. Dark blurs, basically.”

I go back to the images of the blackout and start zooming in.

“You don’t want to read them?”

“Maybe later,” I reply. “I think I know what the witnesses said. I just want to make sure I understand what they were doing.”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

BALANCE POINT

I scan the images showing which parts of the city were in total blackness and which were not. Despite the EMPs, certain areas of the city managed to make it through relatively unscathed. At first, I take that to be random luck, but on closer examination of the photos, I notice the time stamps and realize that some of them eventually did experience a total blackout. Was this because of a delay in the EMPs or some other factor? Hiding secrets behind something meant to seem random?

I pull up the current weather reports for Seoul, Singapore, and Manhattan on the night of the events. There’s about a twenty-degree temperature variation, but wind speed is about the same, and they all have strong climate differences with their surrounding areas. The urban-island effect at the extreme.

Jessica is watching over my shoulder. I show her the weather reports. “I’m sure this was noted.”