“You’ll need to scan a lot more ground than that.” Edward pointed past the Badlands. “The lights come from way over there.”

“I hope we made a big enough fuss about getting here,” one of the researchers said. “German spies keep watch on Oppenheimer and anybody associated with him. Since we’re here, word is bound to get back to Germany.” The gangly, bespectacled man scanned the featureless horizon. The only things in sight were two jackrabbits and five scattered cows trying to eat the meager grass. “Hell, nobody would bother to come here if it wasn’t desperately important.”

The sunset was spectacular. As darkness thickened, the air cooled, making them cross their arms across their chests.

“So, where are the lights?” a soldier asked.

“They don’t always come out. Give them time,” Edward answered.

“Anybody got a smoke?”

An engineer went into the sizable main tent and leaned his watch toward one of the glowing instruments. “It’s 9:20. This has been a long day. If something doesn’t happen by 10 o’clock, I’m heading for my cot.”

“You might need to give the lights more time than that,” Edward said. “They don’t exactly appear on a schedule.”

“Well, wake me if you see Hitler’s new secret weapon. Not that it’ll be easy to sleep with that generator droning.”

“And the static coming from that directional radio,” a researcher said. “Doesn’t matter what frequency I use. That’s all I receive.”

“No, there’s something in the background. But I can barely hear it.”

Somebody chuckled. “Probably a Mexican radio station playing mariachi music.”

“Look, what’s that over there?”

“A shooting star. Wow. Haven’t seen one since I was a kid. I’ve been living in the city for so long, I almost forgot what they look like.”

“There’s another one.”

“No, that one’s not a shooting star. It’s too low on the horizon, and it’s lasting too long.”

“A bunch of them. They look like skyrockets. I bet we’re seeing fireworks from across the border. Does anybody know if it’s a Mexican holiday?”

“Hey, whoever’s in that tent, stop turning up the volume on that radio. The static’s hurting my ears.”

“Nobody’s in the tent,” one of the researchers said. “The static’s getting louder on its own.”

“And the fireworks are getting brighter,” a soldier said. “Look at all those colors. They remind me of the Northern Lights. I saw them once when I was a kid and my dad took me camping on Lake Michigan.”

“But these are to the south. And they’re awfully low on the horizon,” an engineer reminded him. He turned and stared toward the tent. “Are you sure nobody’s screwing with that radio? Now the static’s louder than the generator.”

Abruptly the static ended.

So did the shooting stars or the skyrockets or the Northern Lights-or whatever they were. The horizon turned completely dark.

So did the glowing instruments in the tent. The generator stopped droning.

“What the hell happened to everything?”

“Gentlemen,” Edward said, “welcome to the lights.”

69

Page frowned when something changed on the ground behind the Cessna. The glow of the spotlights abruptly went out.

Tori noticed it, also. “Something happened behind us.”

He banked the aircraft to the left and returned in the direction from which they’d come. But the landscape no longer appeared the same. “Where’s the observation area? I don’t see the floodlights.”

“Not only that,” Tori said, “I don’t see any headlights. There was a whole line of traffic a couple of minutes ago. Now the road’s invisible. And the helicopters-I don’t see their lights anymore, either.”

“Their radio transmissions have stopped,” Page told her, puzzled.

Below them, a fireball suddenly illuminated the darkness. Two other explosions followed. Startled, Page saw the twisting impact of a helicopter crashing onto vehicles at the side of the road, its distant rumble reaching him. Huge chunks of metal flipped along the ground. The spreading flames revealed specks of people racing away in panic.

“God help them,” Tori murmured.

Shock waves bumped the plane.

“Maybe we should head back,” Page managed to say.

“No, it can’t be a coincidence. Somehow what’s happening down there has to be connected to the lights. We came up here to do something-if we don’t finish this now, I don’t think I’ll ever have the strength to try it again.” Tori paused. “I want to find the truth.”

“Whatever you want,” Page assured her. “We’re in this together.”

“Yes.” Tori savored the word. “Together.”

Avoiding the updraft of the flames and debris, Page flew south to- ward the murky horizon.

“What are those dark lumps ahead?” Tori asked.

“The Badlands.”

Tori pointed. “Something’s beyond them.”

“I don’t see anything.”

“Faint red lights. Three of them.”

Page concentrated. “I still don’t see them.”

“They’re getting brighter.”

“Where are they coming from? Give me a heading.”

Tori looked at the indicator. “One hundred and forty degrees.”

“All I see is blackness.”

“They’re dividing. They’re even brighter now. They’re changing from red to blue and green and yellow. How can you possibly not see them?”

“Maybe if I went lower.”

“They’re dividing again.”

Page eased back on the throttle. The aircraft gradually descended, the sinking, floating sensation reminding him of what he felt when he saw the lights.

Except that this time, he didn’t see them.

“So many now. They’re like a rainbow rippling across the ground,” Tori said, her voice strange. “They’re moving toward the observation area.”

“I’m as open as I can possibly be. Why can’t I see them?”

As Page descended farther toward the darkness, all at once he did see the lights. It was as if a veil had dissolved, but the colors weren’t rippling the way Tori had described.

They writhed in anger.

“Something’s wrong.” Page shoved in the throttle and raised the nose.

A yellow filament shot up, like a flare from a solar storm. It lengthened until it snapped free, condensing into a twisting mass that sped higher.

Climbing, Page banked to the right.

The light kept coming.

He banked to the left.

The light did the same.

Transparent, iridescent, pulsing, it suddenly filled the cockpit. Page could no longer hear the plane’s engine. Instead he heard a rushing wind. Shades of yellow swirled around him. Images flickered.

He saw an aquarium filled with wavering plants and a model of a shipwreck, but the plants were actually cuttlefish, their tentacles resembling ferns, and parts of the shipwreck were more cuttlefish that had cleverly camouflaged themselves to match their surroundings.

And now his father was pointing toward more and more cuttlefish, and his mother, who would die from breast cancer within the year, was smiling because her husband and son were getting along for a change.

And Page heard a voice within the rushing air. It was his father.

“Sometimes we need to learn to see in a new way.”

The engine stopped.

The yellow vanished.

Without warning, Page found himself in darkness, his night vision blunted by the residual image of the light. He strained his eyes, desperate to see out through the canopy. With relief, he found that the difference between the glow of the stars and moon above him and the darkness below him was enough for him at least to identify the horizon.

The ground straight ahead seemed darker than the areas around it. Lumpy.

Page frantically realized that, trying to escape the pursuing light, he’d become disoriented and turned the aircraft toward the Bad- lands. The silence was dismaying. Normally his headphones muffled the sound of the engine, reducing it to a drone. But now he heard nothing.

The instrument panel was dark. The radio was dead.