CHAPTER 27
Bundled up, Locke left the hotel, turning north into the wild wind. Alone on the street, he noticed the footprints in the snow of the subjects who preceded him in the hours before. With each step, he concentrated more on those footprints, like they were trying to tell him something. For two blocks he fought the invisible blowing force, head down, his eyes on those footprints.
In the middle of an intersection, he stopped. His thinking prevented him from going further. A question came to him as if written in the snow:
Would he know anyone else had been out there in the cold if there was no snow?
The question’s answer had a much bigger meaning than anything having to do with precipitation.
The snow did . . . something.
He turned in a circle on the street, taking in all the snow and footprints around him, not caring if an OWG bus approached him.
Put it together, Michael. There’s a puzzle right at your feet. The answer is there as well.
His concentration followed his tracks to the corner of the intersection. When it returned to his feet, he kicked the snow, and a feeling of warmth exploded inside of him, along with the solution.
That must be it: To tell history correctly, the proper conditions needed to exist.
He considered the puzzle in the opposite way: what if the snow didn’t exist on the Snow City streets? What if they were bare?
Then, there would be no way to tell how many, if any, subjects had been out there during the day. No footprints. No tire tracks.
His insides heated to a flame again. The snow made it possible to show the true history. Without it, the past day was left up to interpretation. With it, an accurate picture of the past could be drawn.
There was more to this than subjects on a lonely street, though.
Equidistant from each curb, he crouched down, concentrating on all the various footprints. Large. Small. Wide. Skinny. Heels. Boots. Flats. Children’s shoes. The wind did its best to blow him over but he steadied himself with a gloved hand to the white surface.
What if in certain parts of history, there had been no “snow”? Meaning, there was no way to tell what happened at that period in time. Those years would be open to interpretation. And whoever concocted the best story--whoever told the story the subjects wanted to hear—would fill in the blanks even if the story weren’t true.
Whoever had the most power . . .
Locke compared his revelation to the street. Without snow, someone could come along and tell him no one walked the avenues of Snow City for days, or even weeks. How would Locke argue if there were no footprints?
The snow, though. The snow made it impossible for someone to lie.
As strong as the wind was, it couldn’t knock Locke over. But the next question nearly did:
Was this what Hamilton meant by something existing but not existing?
Again, Locke made a comparison to the pavement beneath his feet. If Hamilton were there during the day, say . . . a day with no snow, he’d see the subjects walking and the buses passing. He wouldn’t need any snow because he was an eyewitness.
Locke might come along later when everyone was gone. However, with no snow, he’d look at the neighborhood and think no one had ever been there. Hamilton, simultaneously, could come along and tell him subjects were there—that subjects existed on that street during the day. But, Locke would argue he saw no proof of that since there would be no snow to tell the true tale.
Specifically, to Hamilton, the subjects walking on that street during the day would exist. To Locke, they wouldn’t.
And for them to both think the same way—for Locke to know Hamilton was telling the truth—something else had to support the killer’s story.
The snow served this purpose. It saved the footprints and tracks as indentations in its smooth covering.
But putting this into a historical context, what did it mean?
The next burst of body heat caused him to sweat despite the single digit temperatures: It meant history could be covered up. Disguised. Cloaked. Camouflaged.
Like his few minutes in the SST lavatory where horrific images rolled frame-by-frame, new ones appeared to him. They were not as terrifying. Confusing more than anything else.
The wide city streets, the large airports, the empty buildings.
The Pyramids.
Somehow there was a relationship between those images and these footprints.
The only word that came to mind was “proof.” But, proof of what? The OWG built those streets, the airports, and the buildings early on in its existence to prepare for the future when everyone would have everything.
Staying as long as he could in the middle of the street, he finally started back to the hotel. No amount of internal warmth generated from his new thoughts made his toes any warmer. His trench coat tried to flap open as the air found a way inside, inflating it like a balloon. Locke did his best to hold it down as he worked his way forward. He drew the collar of the coat higher around his neck and ears. Snow crunched beneath his shoes as he passed under each streetlight. When he visited the first time, the weather had been even colder and a walk like this would’ve been flirting with death.
He kept his head up, hoping to see another Symbol, but it was difficult. His eyes watered, turning crisp details into a blur. Not being able to resist the force, he bent down at a forty-five degree angle.
Every time the wind took a break from pelting him, Locke lifted his head to scan for Symbols. He saw none. Frustration doused the heat generated by his preceding footprint puzzle.
He stumbled as the harsh wind whipped him into the hotel. He stamped his frozen shoes on the carpet, the flakes falling off his soles and heels. After forty-five minutes out in the cold, the warmth of the lobby felt like a welcome change.
The elevator was out of service so he took the stairs to his room. No problem falling asleep this time. As his eyes closed, he visualized footprints appearing on the streets of Gambling City where it never snowed. He saw them in the airports. He saw them outside all the empty buildings. The streets. The oceans.
The rotors of the helicopter were already spinning when Locke and Hiss arrived the next morning. As the copter lifted and hovered forward, Locke raised his feet, a reaction to skimming across the ground. The altimeter said 100 feet, but it felt more like ten. Hiss laughed at Locke, and then seemed to lose interest.
Three hours, huh? Locke folded his arms against his body and rested the side of his head against the window. It was icy cold, like the air passing by. His skin would freeze in seconds if he fell asleep in this position. Instead, he cocked his head back and closed his eyes. He didn’t have much success falling asleep this way but it was better than getting frostbite on his scalp.
Locke woke up to a shove from Hiss. “We are here.”
Locke opened his eyes then squeezed them shut as the sun glinted off the snow, blinding him. He lifted his right arm for protection and squinted. In his peripheral vision, he saw Hiss handing him something.
“Put these on.” Hiss pushed sunglasses into Locke’s right hand.
These weren’t normal sunglasses that covered the forward viewing area of the eye. These butted against the brow and cheeks. At first, he thought they were too dark.
Groping first for the handle of the helicopter’s door, he opened it. As soon as he removed his right arm from his shielded eyes, he realized why the sunglasses were so dark. In the landscape of this white tundra, the sunglasses were perfect.
Out in front of him, Locke saw nothing but white desolation. Far in the distance, fifteen miles? Twenty miles? Maybe more, mountains sat like protectors of this flat land.
Locke fought his way through the rotors’ downdraft until he was clear of their force.
Hiss came around from the other side, fighting the draft as well. “Govicide Agent Locke, over here.” He motioned Locke to follow him.
They stood on snow and ice several feet thick but not one white particle flew in the air. The harsh wind pushed against Locke, but it wasn’t strong enough to pick up anything off the hard-packed ice.
Rounding the helicopter, Locke stopped. What was a building doing out there?
But, the structure wasn’t a building at all. It was a vehicle--flat tires the ultimate proof. It protruded above the terrain by fifteen feet, one hundred feet from the helicopter but appeared a lot closer due to its size.
An SST was larger, but this vehicle seemed like a chunk of steel. An SST was delicate. This vehicle could have been cut from granite. Eight wheels on each side, the large truck—Locke couldn’t think of another word—looked like it had been green once but the environment turned it to mostly dark red over time.
The vehicle was divided into three sections. The front two axles supported the forward part. Three axles supported the middle. And three axles supported the rear.
Locke approached the vehicle from the driver’s side.
Based on its color, he compared it to a brick with notches cut out so the tires had room to turn. There were small doors, like places to put equipment, toward the back.
Hiss stopped about ten feet from the vehicle. Locke caught up to him.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Locke commented.
“Me neither, Govicide Agent Locke.”
“Looks like a . . . uh . . . bus to me.” Locke had trouble coming up with a simple description.
“I thought so, too. But, it cannot hold more than a few subjects. See?” Hiss pointed to the left part of the vehicle. “Not much of a passenger compartment.”
“Can’t imagine driving this thing on any street, let alone way out here. It’s huge.” Locke laughed.
The Agents stood in silence for a few seconds. The wind whistled a shrill tune through the vehicle.
“And this is not the half of it. Follow me.” Hiss tramped out of view.
Locke watched Hiss disappear around the near side. He hustled to catch up. What he saw next stopped him mid-stride once again.
Strewn all over the tundra were pieces of metal and plastic. Wires. Bolts. Nuts. Rivets.
Hiss stood in the middle of the debris. The area dwarfed him.
“What is it?” Locke shouted. His partner didn’t appear to hear him.
Locke couldn’t tell if the parts were pieces of one device or many. If this junk had been a machine at one time, it would’ve been huge. Not as big as the vehicle, but large. He maneuvered through the junk, taking in the pile, not making any sense of what pieces went together and which ones didn’t.
“What is it?” Locke asked again, now closer to Hiss.
“I am a Govicide Agent not a OWG Engineer, Govicide Agent Locke.” Hiss held a piece of metal in his hands. He threw it to the ground. “I think if we gave the technicians a month they might be able to piece this all together into something. If it is anything at all.”Hiss hesitated then kicked a piece of the junk. He raised his head to the perfect blue sky and yelled, “Offenders! When I track you down, the OWG will have the last word on this! Do you hear me?” Hiss stopped to catch his breath.
“Is that what you want to do? Get some techs out here?” Locke asked after Hiss regained his composure.
Hiss shook his head. “Do you know how many Goods and Services might be wasted? Maybe . . . maybe . . . if the site was closer. Maybe if we could guarantee all this junk would amount to something.”
Locke put his hands on his hips, surveying the pieces. Hiss was correct. All the junk could be hauled back to Snow City for analysis but that would use up credits as well. They’d have to run a cost-benefit study, among other OWG procedures, before moving one piece. And that would take months. If they could guarantee this debris would help them catch the Free . . . uh . . . Offenders, Locke knew all the paperwork would be worthwhile. But without some guarantee, the junk would stay here forever.
“So, what do you want to do?” Locke queried while studying the pieces at his feet.
“Try to put some of these parts together.” Hiss stomped away.
“You want me to try to make sense of these parts by myself?”
The old Agent didn’t look back. “You are a smart Agent. You can figure it out. I am going to investigate this vehicle.”
Locke kicked a can-sized cylinder at his feet.