68

Oliver Bowen

October 11, 2047. Washington, D.C.

There was a letter in Oliver’s mailbox. It was handwritten, with no return address. Oliver tore it open, withdrew an index card with a single thing written on it: Earth2.

Even if he hadn’t recognized Kai’s handwriting, he would have known the message was from Kai. No one but Kai and Lila knew he lived there. He headed back inside his little basement apartment, decorated primarily with Marvel comic book memorabilia, and sat at his computer.

He’d never been much of a gamer, even back in high school when dorky kids like him were supposed to hide there until they could escape into adulthood. Now he called up Earth2 and set up an account.

He was surprised to find the place roiling with activity. Avatars hurried here and there on foot, in cars, via flight. It seemed bizarre that so many people would be playing an old-fashioned online game. And actually, most people weren’t playing, exactly—they were meeting. Performing a three-sixty, he saw three separate groups of avatars congregated together, deep in conversation.

He directed his avatar toward the nearest group, about two dozen people sitting in a circle on a beach. As he approached, they stopped talking.

“Private meeting,” someone called in a metallic voice, or maybe his audio settings made it sound metallic.

Oliver turned his avatar around, headed for the second group. It probably would have been more efficient to check the instructions and find out how to fly, but he was in no hurry.

He was still surprised by how easy it had been to slip off the defenders’ radar. He’d been a major political player, heavily involved in the Luyten War, the defenders program, yet the defenders had simply lost track of him, and didn’t seem to be actively trying to locate him. If they had a weakness, it was this lack of attention to detail.

As he swung open the door of the old-fashioned diner where the second group was meeting, a few avatars looked his way, but no one said anything. Oliver took a seat toward the back.

“If you try that, they’ll catch you, and they’ll kill you,” a blond, square-jawed avatar said to what appeared to be a golden retriever standing on its hind legs.

“They won’t catch me. And they won’t catch you, either, if you follow my instructions. They can’t trace you if you’re using my baffle software.”

“Can we get back on subject?” a Valkyrie-looking woman dressed in purple furs said.

“We are on the subject,” the retriever said. “Our charge is to develop techniques to disrupt their electronic communications. How are we off subject?”

His heart pounding, Oliver directed his avatar back outside. If this was what it appeared to be …

He joined another meeting. They were discussing how to locate US Army weapons caches hidden during the previous century.

Oliver raised his fist in the air and whooped. A resistance movement. This was what he’d been waiting for. He navigated his avatar out of the second meeting, wandered around until he found a pedestrian—an Asian woman wearing a blue sweater and a pair of khakis.

“Excuse me, is there someone in charge of operations here?”

“You mean, here in Fiddler’s Green?” she asked.

“No, for the whole thing. All of this.” He gestured to encompass all they could see.

The woman put her hands on her hips. “You’re looking for Island Rain.”

Oliver’s heart hit another gear. Island Rain? Why did that moniker sound familiar?

Then he remembered. Dominique Wiewall. She’d been from the Caribbean. There’d been only one thing on her office wall—a poster of her home, with Island Rain printed across the bottom. Could it possibly be Dominique? But how could she have survived? He’d assumed she’d been with the US leadership in Colorado Springs when the country fell.

“Where can I find her?”

The woman laughed. “You can’t just wander in and see Island Rain. You have to earn your place, work your way up. Are you new? You look new.” She looked Oliver’s avatar up and down.

“Let’s assume I’m new, but I’m someone with expertise Island Rain would want to know about. How would I go about getting a message to her?”

“Hmm.” The woman folded her arms. She was quite good at realistic mannerisms. Oliver’s avatar was just standing there, arms dangling at his sides. Of course, that pretty well captured his mannerisms in real life. “I could message JJ, the captain of Fiddler’s Green.”

“Would you? I’d appreciate it.” If it was Dominique, how could he signal her? It would be a bad idea to speak her name, probably not smart even to mention Easter Island. Something subtle. “Ask him to tell her a fellow admirer of Moai needs to speak to her.” Oliver was elated to have something constructive to do. Something he was good at.