Deep Black Road: The Head of the Snake

Chapter 54

Leila programmed her little one to walk, and then told it to follow her back to the village. When they came around the corner of Al's and Amber's place, she saw Ricky standing under a tree and glowing brightly some twenty metres beyond the edge of the village.

"What's he doing, Mom?" she asked Suzanne, who was standing nearby, watching him.

"He wants communion with God," she answered; "so he's shut off all his inputs and outputs, and immersed himself in the glow God gave him."

"Why?"

"The carnate Followers share bread and wine to connect with God; and he wants to connect with him too, but in a way that'll work for us."

"Oh. How's he making out?" She glanced over at the little one, who was busy absorbing a rock.

"I don't know. It's kind of hard to ... oh." Suzanne suddenly shut down.

Leila immediately connected with her to find out what had happened, and found herself immersed in a vast and gentle presence which made her feel like a tiny speck of dust in comparison. Then her thoughts stilled.

Philip, who felt the change in Leila, got there a minute later, since he had to come all the way from the back field. He quickly scooped up little one because it was wandering off, and touched Leila.

When they finally came out of it ten minutes later, all they could do was remain where they were in silence, and bask in the afterglow.

#

"You've got something?" Bennett Harrington asked his chief engineer, Jeff, whose face appeared in his virtual monitor.

"Maybe. I've been monitoring those Black Scourge messages; and if I only look at the first appearance on any given day, they come from a set of addresses that belong somewhere south of Atlanta in Foredan."

"Break that down for me, because I'm not following you."

"What I'm trying to say is they always start at a given Network location. Once the CDA starts chasing them, they show up almost randomly, even overseas; but they begin at the same place every day. Knowing that, we can start to narrow down where they are physically."

"So how should we proceed?" Bennett asked.

"I'd like to assemble a small team of technicians to go down to Atlanta and do some groundwork. Once we've identified their entry point, we can go from there."

"Do it, and keep me up to date."

#

"All done?" Leila asked Rantan-that was the name the carnate children had given the new baby back when he'd first been programmed to talk. He'd made a mistake that they found funny; and it stuck.

"Yes, Mom," he answered, having just absorbed a sizable rock.

"Okay, let's get you cleaned up." She crouched down, wiped the residue off of his face, took off his overalls, and gave him a good rubdown.

"Mom," he said while she was doing that, "Sammy fell down a little while ago, and started to yell really loudly; and then he ran to his mom. Why'd he do that?"

"Well, when he fell down, he got damaged; so it was like he got a fault alarm; but because he's carnate, he cried, which alerts any grownups who are around. Then he went to his mother so she could, um, fix him."

"Okay. Carnate people sure are different."

She pulled his overalls back up. "Yup, they are; but that's okay, right?"