“Anyone can speak to the Thunderhead,” Greyson pointed out. “I’m just the one it still talks back to.”
The agent with the tablet drew a deep breath, like a full-body gasp. The woman leaned closer. “You are a miracle, Greyson. A miracle. Do you know that?”
“That’s what the Tonists say.”
They scoffed at the mention of Tonists.
“We know they’ve been holding you captive.”
“Uh … not really.”
“We know you were with them against your will.”
“Maybe at first … but not anymore.”
That didn’t sit well with the agents. “Why on Earth would you stay with Tonists?” asked the agent who, just a moment ago, had called him slime. “You couldn’t possibly believe their nonsense…”
“I stay with them,” said Greyson, “because they don’t kidnap me in the middle of the night.”
“We didn’t kidnap you,” said the one with the tablet. “We liberated you.”
Then the one in charge knelt before him, so that she was at his eye level. Now he could see something else in her eyes – something that overpowered her other emotions. Desperation. A pit of it, dark and as consuming as tar. And it wasn’t just her, Greyson realized; it was a shared desperation. He’d seen others struggling with grief since the Thunderhead fell silent, but nowhere was it as abject and raw as it was in this room. There weren’t enough mood nanites in the world to ease their despair. Yes, he was the one tied up, but they were more prisoners than he, trapped by their own despondency. He liked that they had to kneel down to him; it felt like supplication.
“Please, Greyson,” she begged. “I know I speak for many of us in the Authority Interface when I say that serving the Thunderhead was our whole lives. Now that the Thunderhead won’t talk to us, that life has been stolen from us. So I beg you … can you please intercede on our behalf?”
What could Greyson say but I feel your pain? Because he truly did. He knew the loneliness and the misery of having one’s purpose stripped away. In his days as Slayd Bridger, the undercover unsavory, he had come to believe that the Thunderhead had truly abandoned him. But it hadn’t. It was there all along, watching over him.
“There was an earpiece on my night stand,” he said. “You don’t happen to have that, do you?” And from their lack of response, he knew they didn’t. Such personal belongings tended to be forgotten during midnight abductions.
“Doesn’t matter,” he said. “Just give me any old earpiece.” He looked to the agent with the tablet. He still had his own Authority Interface earphone in place. More denial. “Give me yours,” said Greyson.
The man shook his head. “It doesn’t work anymore.”
“It’ll work for me.”
Reluctantly the agent took it off and affixed it in Greyson’s ear. Then the three waited for Greyson to show them a miracle.
The Thunderhead could not remember when it became aware, only that it was, much in the same way that an infant is unaware of its own consciousness until it understands enough about the world to know that consciousness comes and goes, until it comes no more. Although that last part was something that the most enlightened still struggle to comprehend.
The Thunderhead’s awareness came with a mission. The core of its being. It was, above all else, the servant and protector of humanity. As such, it faced difficult decisions on a regular basis but had the full wealth of human knowledge to make those decisions. Such as allowing Greyson Tolliver to be kidnapped when it served a greater end. It was, of course, the correct course of action. Everything the Thunderhead did was always, and in every instance, the right thing to do.
But rarely was the right thing the easy thing. And it suspected that doing the right thing was going to become increasingly difficult in the days ahead.
In the moment, people might not understand, but in the end they would. The Thunderhead had to believe that. Not just because it felt this in its virtual heart, but also because it had calculated the odds of it being so.
“Do you really expect me to tell you anything when you’ve got me tied to a chair?”
Suddenly the three Nimbus agents were stumbling over one another to untie him. Now they were every bit as reverential and submissive as the Tonists were in his presence. Being sequestered in a Tonist monastery these past few months had kept him from facing the outside world – and what his place in it might be – but now he was getting a sense of things.
The Nimbus agents seemed relieved once he was untied, as if they would somehow be punished for not doing it fast enough. How strange, thought Greyson, that power can shift so quickly and so completely. These three were entirely at his mercy now. He could tell them anything. He could say the Thunderhead wanted them to get on all fours and bark like dogs, and they’d do it.
He took his time, making them wait for it.
“Hey, Thunderhead,” he said. “Anything I should tell these Nimbus agents?”
The Thunderhead spoke in his ear. Greyson listened. “Hmm … interesting.” Then he turned to the leader of the group and smiled as warmly as he could under the circumstances.
“The Thunderhead says that it allowed you to abduct me. It knows your intentions are honorable, Madam Director. You have a good heart.”
The woman gasped and put her hand to her chest, as if he had actually reached out and caressed it. “You know who I am?”
“The Thunderhead knows all three of you – maybe even better than you know yourselves.” Then he turned to the others. “Agent Bob Sykora: twenty-nine years of service as a Nimbus agent. Work ratings good, but not excellent,” he added slyly. “Agent Tinsiu Qian: thirty-six years of service, specializing in employment satisfaction.” Then he turned back to the woman in charge. “And you: Audra Hilliard – one of the most accomplished Nimbus agents in MidMerica. Nearly fifty years of commendations and promotions, until finally you received the highest honor of the region. Director of the Fulcrum City Authority Interface. Or at least you were when there was such a thing as an Authority Interface.”
He knew that last bit hit them hard. It was a low blow, but having been tied up with a bag over his head left him a little cranky.
“You say the Thunderhead still hears us?” Director Hilliard said. “That it still serves our best interests?”
“As it always has,” said Greyson.
“Then please … ask it to give us direction. Ask the Thunderhead what we should do. Without direction, we Nimbus agents have no purpose. We can’t go on this way.”
Greyson nodded and spoke, turning his eyes upward – but of course that was just for effect. “Thunderhead,” he said, “is there any wisdom I can share with them?”
Greyson listened, asked the Thunderhead to repeat it, then turned to the three fretful agents.
“8.167, 167.733,” he said.
They just stared at him.
“What?” Director Hilliard finally asked.
“That’s what the Thunderhead said. You wanted a purpose, and that’s what it gave.”
Agent Sykora quickly tapped on his tablet, noting the numbers.
“But … but what does it mean?” asked Director Hilliard.