A Better World (Brilliance Saga, #2)

by Marcus Sakey

movies, the cabin would have had a gun rack with a glass front, and Cooper would have smashed it and geared up. Unfortunately, it appeared the Hendersons hadn’t read the script. Cooper flipped open the revolver and dumped the empty brass. “You have more bullets?” “We did. They were—” “Stolen. Right.” He glanced sideways, saw the TV playing footage of Wyoming, made himself look away. No time to get distracted. Ethan said, “What now?” “I’m working

had the urge to slap his forehead. The two gunmen outside had both carried

slid the revolver into his pocket and started for the door. Then froze. You have to think. You can’t count on your gift here. Cooper dropped to an army crawl. The position took core strength, and the moment he engaged those muscles, searing pain went through his chest, and that strange skipped heartbeat feeling. He gasped, then...

put his back to it, then sorted through the window shards, selecting...

long. Slowly he inched it up, angling it to see out the window. The reflection was gauzy and translucent, but it framed the pickup well enough. He panned it sideways, trying to remember exactly where the guys had fallen. Trees and darkening sky, a blur, and . . . And Soren, walking toward the house with that same absent calm, the long combat blade in his right hand. Cooper yanked the fragment of glass down. His heart beat like a drunken drummer, heavy and out of whack. His palms were soaked, and blood dripped from a dozen small cuts. No way to get to the rifles, not without facing Soren. Options. The back way might be clear. On the other hand, there could be a team of snipers back there who had been ordered to wait for their actual target. It made sense; Soren comes in the front and ...

world is entirely shaped by it. He will depend on it utterly, and trust what it tells him. —might be used against him. Cooper scrambled across the floor, ignoring the pain. Unbelievable the risk. It wasn’t just his life on the table, it was Ethan’s, and the hope he offered the future. And it all depended on Cooper being right. “Doc, I need you to trust me again.” Still carrying the shard of glass he’d used as a mirror, he glanced over his shoulder. Out of sight of the window. He rose quickly, took in the room. Measured angles in his head. “You see that closet? When I say, crouch down, move to it, and get in. Whatever you do, don’t look back.” Ethan laughed. “Are you serious?” Cooper shared the urge to laugh, didn’t. There was an archway out of the living room into what looked like a kitchen, the back way Shannon had taken. “Do it now.”

Situation Room at a world gone mad. Men and women in uniform were yelling at each other, talking into phones, but all of them were looking at the same thing. The wall of tri-d screens, where American troops were massacring each other. A high-angle recon shot showed a line of vehicles burning. Those that could still move rolled into exposed positions and continued

gunship hovered over a platoon of running soldiers, spitting bullets and bright tracers. Men staggered and fell as if shoved from behind. A soldier missing an

ground. The dead lay everywhere. Killed in groups and mowed down one by one. Streaks of light hurtled down from tactical drones, each finger missile thumping into the ground with an explosion that tossed heavy trucks like toys, ...

must have had it waiting in all our hardware.” “Can’t we shut everything down?” “Nothing is responding. The virus has subverted manual control.” “A computer program is massacring American soldiers by the thousands, and there’s nothing we can do but watch?” “We’re working the problem, but so far—” “General!” The interrupting soldier wore a lieutenant’s bar and held a phone to his ear. He needed a shave, though the scruff was patchy at

Warren Air Force Base in Cheyenne.” To the lieutenant, he said, “What’s the ETA to the Holdfast?” “Sir,” the man said, eyes wide and face pale. “It wasn’t from Warren. Air command reports the missile was launched from the USS Fortitude, a Luna-class attack submarine at latitude

Washington, DC.” The lieutenant swallowed hard. General Raz laid his fingers on the table. “They’ve already tried the self-destruct?” “No response, sir.” “Activate all missile defense batteries.” Raz spun. “Sir, we need to get you out of here immediately.” “It’s heading for the White

At the monitors, on which his soldiers burned and bled. At the officers surrounding the table. At the American flag hanging limp in the corner. “Sir, the Avenger is our top-of-line technology. It’s capable of more than four thousand miles per hour, five times the speed of sound. You have to go.” This was never what you wanted. Not the office, not division in America, not the war. You let others drive you here. You knew better, and you let it happen anyway. And now thousands

on. He’d been a history professor, not a mathematician, but the calculation wasn’t complicated. If the missile could cover four thousand miles in an hour, it could do a hundred miles in a minute and a half. Which meant they had thirty seconds left. “Sir, antimissile batteries on the Chesapeake Bay are firing now.” The lieutenant closed

every president but George Washington. For 213 years it has stood as a symbol of all that America is. Everyone in the room stared at the lieutenant, the phone held to his ear with fingers clenched bloodless. There was nothing but the sound of breathing. And then something in the young officer gave. His shoulders slumped,

Clay buttoned his jacket and straightened his posture. His eyes swept the room. Funny, only now did he realize who was missing. You little shit-heel, Leahy. At the very least, you should be standing here too. He wanted to say something. Wanted to find words that would make it all meaningful. But what would they be? Five seconds. He strained to hear a screaming, then remembered the

Past the red Porsche, his fingers trailing along the hood, the metal cool. Past the shattered pickup truck, the windshield glass crunching beneath his feet. As usual, John had been right to be prepared. The tactical team had failed, and it was up to him to finish it. The rook, but no longer on the back row. Now stalking the board, forcing checkmate. His nothingness had been shattered, his stores of carefully hoarded oblivion squandered. It’s time to go away. But finish this for your friend. The presence of Nick Cooper had been a surprise. The man was resilient. But Soren had spotted the bandage on his hand, had seen him stumble and fall. All that resilience had accomplished was to delay the inevitable. He walked toward the cabin, calm, alert, in the moment. Through the shattered bay window, he could see the living room, a television on, no sign of the people inside . . . until, low but not low enough, he saw Ethan Park hurry in a crouch to a door in the side wall. A closet, and in the leisure of his perception, Soren catalogued the items inside, the blankets and coats, fishing poles and board games. Park slid inside and shut the door behind him. Soren paused, took thirty of his seconds to think. The doctor was intelligent, and hiding in a closet was the action of a child. Especially with Cooper inside the

there. Cooper would be waiting somewhere he could cover the front door and the closet. He smiled, imagining John’s amusement at such a simple gambit. Ignoring the front door, he moved in a jog around the side of the house. As he rounded the corner, he took in the world, the pond, the trees, the woman Shannon moving into the forest with Amy Park and the baby. Good. No need to deal with her now. The back door was ajar, no doubt left that way when she fled. Soren moved to it, light on his feet. Though he knew what he would see, he still moved carefully, easing around the edge of the doorframe. Nick Cooper stood at the edge of the kitchen by an arch that led to the living room. His back was to Soren, the pistol up and aimed at the front door. Soren was almost sad; the man had proven resourceful, and while he would fail here again, he had fought to the end. Soren slipped in the door. Four steps would take him there. He took the first, then the second. Raised the dagger, the flat black blade so light it was an extension of his arm. The third. Cooper held the pistol in his left hand, braced against the wall, his aim unwavering on the door. All his attention on the trap he had laid. His back exposed and unarmored. The fourth. Soren cocked the dagger back, lined it up between Cooper’s vertebrae to the left of the spine, and lunged.

pulsing in his veins. Could hear the tiny creaks of the cabin, smell the sweat and blood. His arm was tired, but he kept the revolver pointed at the door. Everything came down to this.

coming down to one instant, his left hand whipping the heavy pistol around, praying that he’d been right, that what Todd had shown him in the restaurant was true, and as he saw Soren hurling forward, the blade out and his weight

man’s face was the second-most beautiful thing he’d seen all day. The blow had been ferocious, crippling, and the knife fell from Soren’s hand, but Cooper didn’t pause to savor the moment, just wound up and swung again, across the man’s face this time, and then the monster was falling. He hit the floor gasping, a gargling sound coming from his throat. “Hi,” Cooper said.

clutched at his ruined hand with his good one. “Funny thing.” He

limped around the guy to the other side. “I realized the reason I couldn’t beat you. You never attacked. You waited

But once you commit to action, I can read you just fine.” Cooper raised his foot again. “You know how I realized that? The only time I could read y...

screamed. Outside, Cooper heard more gunfire, the same fast cluster as before. Shannon’s SMG. There was no returning fire. Good. Cooper smiled. Then he tried to lean against the wall and fell

later she was in the kitchen, moving fast, the gun up. “Nick!” “I’m okay.” He took the hand she offered and wobbled back to his feet.

Doc,” he yelled to the other room. “You can come out now. The good guys won.” On the floor,

moment, he said, “Doc?” “

pictures and the broken glass, to where Ethan stood staring at the television. A line of tanks burned against the skyline of an apparently unscathed Tesla. Corpses lay everywhere, thousands of them carpeting the desert. The prefab buildings smoldered, black ropes rising into the sky. Helicopters buzzed through the haze, firing on the few soldiers still standing. Then

building had been replaced by a massive crater. The surrounding earth was bunched and rippled like carpet. A column of thick smoke obscured most of the strike itself, but the debris

scattered like children’s blocks. Shattered glass glinted amidst piles of limestone and marble and bent steel. Paper blew in

The trees on the north lawn were burning, a harvest of fire wavering like autumn leaves. He stepped forward and found the volume. “—a missile

President Clay was inside at the time, along with . . . oh God.” The

force in New Canaan has torn itself to pieces. Casualties are in the tens of thousands. We—” A pause and a choke. “America is now at war. My God, we’re at war with ourselves.

on the precipice. They’d gone headfirst into the abyss. Without thinking, he kicked the television, the screen toppling over and smashing against the wall, sparks flying. Ethan

to one side and lay shivering. Shannon looked up with wide eyes. “Did I hear—” “Yes.” He

family?” “Safe,” Shannon said. “Nobody’s after

her mom’s.” Slowly, Ethan nodded. “Now what?” Now what. Now what indeed. Cooper had known

House was destroyed, the president dead, the nation in a civil war. John Smith had won.

Your boss, Couzen. You know him pretty well?” “Sure. But he was kidnapped—” “No. He faked it.” “He faked it?” “

have. You’re going to help me find him.” He turned to Shannon. “This isn’t over.” “Nick . . .” “It’s not. It’s not over unless we give up. Unless we let Smith win.” He took a breath, tried to stop the shaking of his hands. “Everything is falling apart. But we can still fight. We

decide to do it. My children are still alive, and as long as that’s true, I’m never going to quit.” She stared at him for a

and then she nodded slowly. “What’s the plan?...

understood Smith better than anyone.” He read the confirmation in her eyes. “Good. We’re going to need that.” “What about me?” Ethan said. Soren groaned

talked at the counter. The small tri-d showed a scene of devastation. Ah yes, the White House. He’d heard something about it being destroyed—a week ago, perhaps?—but he’d been

nuke. They could have firebombed Manhattan. They didn’t. So maybe we oughta—” “Twists had their chance,” the other replied. “There’s ninety-nine of

Zeke, by the way.” He held out his hand to shake. It was plump and sweaty, and his nails needed a trim. Dr. Abraham Couzen looked at it. “Sorry. I’ve got a cold.” He laid

the tab from one of the coffees and took a long sip, and then another, and then another. When he finished it, he tossed the blue and white cup in a trash can and started walking. The South Bronx was not a glamorous part of town, but

yesterday? The breeze smelled of gasoline and fish. Bits of trash in the chain-link fence hummed in the wind. Abe turned up his coat collar

tracking him right now. Government agencies, terrorist groups, Epstein’s spies—so many dirty fingers picking through his past, scanning camera feeds for his profile, ransacking his home. Pierre Curie did