SIXTEEN
I’m still getting used to my old body. Now I have to get used to a new phase of life that’s so unpredictable and fraught with danger I can’t drop my guard for an instant. I’ve intentionally marooned myself in the heart of the IIC’s stronghold so I can destroy them, right after I destroy the Telar.
But doubts assail me.
Even Yaksha was unable to stop the Telar.
I wish I shared the faith Umara has in me. It’s hard not to call upon her and Matt for help. I miss Seymour, his love and wisdom, and I miss Teri. I never had a chance to properly mourn her passing.
I feel so alone caged inside the IIC’s headquarters.
Yet it’s crucial I stay, and that I remain alone. If I brought in Umara and Matt, then all our cards would be on the table, and we’d be exposed to the IIC. And if something went wrong with my plan, we’d have no backup. Even if the IIC should happen to kill me, if Umara and Matt are still out there, alive, then at least there’s a chance the IIC and Telar can be stopped.
I stay inside the Malibu center to keep an eye on everything the IIC does. Likewise, I force them to remain inside the building, all six hundred of the firm’s employees that I’ve infected. I convince them that they’re contagious, and they believe me. Why shouldn’t they? At this point, they know little about the virus. They have barely spoken to Charlie—I have given them limited access—who’s confident a person can’t spread the virus as long as the black blisters haven’t begun to pop and ooze their deadly fluid.
I stay in the building for another reason. The IIC know me and know a portion of my history. For two decades they have fought the Telar. Now that they have me on their side, it’s strange but they see me as a leader of sorts. Not Cynthia and Thomas Brutran, but the rank-and-file members of the company. On the whole, they’re normal people, and I go out of my way to treat them with kindness and respect.
I am, after all, their doctor, even if I’m the one who infected them. The simple act of giving them a shot every day that washes away their symptoms gives me a mysterious authority.
But that doesn’t mean that other members of the IIC are not working behind my back at other facilities to try to develop a better vaccine. I’m alert enough to know there are scientists in our center who are sending out data on their computers to other IIC sites. That I cannot control, and I’m not even sure if I want to.
Because I have two holds on the IIC, not one. They need me to stay healthy, and they need me because of the blood samples I carry. The blood Umara has so carefully gathered over the eons. My decision to infect the IIC was to get them moving quickly. But it’s the Telar blood that gives me my true control over them.
Cynthia Brutran is still a mystery to me. She knows the danger X6X6 represents. She may crave power but she’s wise enough to know there has to be someone left alive on the planet to have power over. She should be doing everything she can to help me destroy the Telar.
Yet, when it comes to the Cradle, she keeps stalling me.
It’s like she’s afraid for me to meet the children. I’ve been at the Malibu center for three days and still only a trickle of the kids who make up the Cradle have arrived. I’ve met them, twenty teens and preteens, and they seem normal enough, although on the quiet side. But I suspect I haven’t met any of the kids who control the actual Lens.
My patience with Brutran quickly runs out.
On the fourth night, I tell her we’re going for a walk.
We sneak out through a hidden exit Freddy has already alerted me to. It’s late, close to dawn, and the half moon has risen. It lights our way as we stroll along a path that leads through the hills behind the compound.
“Why are you afraid to talk inside?” she asks.
“Why are you? You act like every room has ears.”
“That’s close to the truth. Security monitors every important area. They’ll know we’ve left the building.”
“Don’t worry. You must know Harold in security? He and I have become good friends. He’s not going to talk about our great escape.”
“I’ve noticed the two of you talking. For a vampire who’s brought nothing but disease, you’ve managed to develop quite a following.”
“The rank and file don’t know I’m a vampire.” When I give the injections, I work fast but not at hyper speed. Nevertheless, the soldiers who broke into Brutran’s office have spread the rumor that I’m no ordinary woman. I don’t mind. I have gone out of the way to build their trust but a little fear can be a good thing.
“They don’t think you’re human, either,” Cindy says.
“But they like me more than they like you. Does that bother you?”
“No.”
“I think it does. It must get lonely working in a building where your nickname is the Wicked Witch.”
“No one calls me that.”
“Not to your face. You should have my ears. Do you want to hear some of your other nicknames?”
Brutran acts bored. “You didn’t bring me out here to taunt me.”
“True. I’m annoyed the Cradle’s not here. And don’t give me your usual excuses about their parents and the distances they have to travel and all that bullshit. You’re keeping them away for a reason, even though you know the Telar can strike at any time.”
“I never agreed to bring the Cradle here.”
“Liar. You never agreed to let me join them. You did agree to bring them to this building.”
“I didn’t say those exact words.”
“You gave the impression that bringing them here was not a problem. Now I’m through waiting. Why do you keep stalling?”
“Give me the blood samples and we’ll kill the Telar for you. We’ll start immediately. You can oversee the operation. You can have access to all our surveillance equipment. You can’t imagine how sophisticated it is. We have a dozen satellites that can read a newspaper from orbit. You’ll be able to watch each target that we select die. You can even tell us how you want them to die.”
“No.”
Brutran stops me in mid-stride. “There’s only one reason you would say no to my offer.”
I don’t respond. I wait. She knows.
“You don’t just intend to destroy the Telar. You intend to do the same to us.” She pauses. “Deny it.”
“Why should I deny it? You’re dangerous.”
Brutran sighs. “At last we’re able to speak the truth to one another. Why, from your perspective, is the IIC dangerous?”
“Too much power concentrated among too few. You’re like the Nazis.”
“Hitler was insane. Do you think I am?”
“You have too much control. I was present when the founding fathers created this nation. There was a reason they split the government into three parts. The checks and balances were all designed to keep power-driven people from seizing absolute control.”
Brutran is thoughtful. “How little you understand what’s really going on here.”
Her remark sounds degrading but again I hear truth in it.
“We’re alone. It’s just us girls. Enlighten me,” I say.
Brutran continues walking. I follow.
“To understand you’d have to go back to the beginning days of IIC. I know now that you’ve spoken to Professor Sharp and Freddy, and I assume they gave you a reasonably accurate idea of how the Array and the Cradle came into existence. At the same time, you have to understand their point of view is limited. They were always on the outside looking in.”
“Because you’re the real founder of the company.”
Brutran hesitates. “I thought so at the time. Freddy told you about the loss of our son. What he couldn’t tell you is how the pain refused to fade with the passage of time. I think I went a little crazy during those days. I knew Henry for only a week, but I talked to him in my head for years. And I had but one wish. That he would talk back to me.”
I feel a disquieting chill. “I don’t understand.”
Again, she stops me. “Before I go any further I need you to answer a question. It’s the most important thing I’ve ever asked of anyone. Please be honest with me.”
“Ask.”
“We know your small group battled the Telar in Colorado, outside the town of Goldsmith, and that you escaped the area in a helicopter by flying into the Rockies. We’re not sure what happened up there but our best information says that you were killed.” She pauses. “Is that true?”
I’m silent a long time. Knowledge is power and I’m reluctant to tell this woman anything that could give her leverage over me or my friends.
Yet I see the desperation in her eyes. The loss.
“Yes,” I say.
“You died?”
“Yes.”
“How did you come back to life?”
“I don’t know.”
“Alisa, please, this is important to me. What happened to you when you died?”
I tell her a version of what happened.
“I lost two days of memory. Then, when I began to experience the world around me again, I found myself floating near my body. Eventually that sensation passed and I was back inside it.”
“And Teri Raine was dead. How did she die?”
“It was in this morning’s news. She fell and broke her leg. The shattered bone ruptured her femoral artery.”
“That must have been a hell of a fall. How did it happen?”
“Does it matter?”
“Yes. You’re leaving out a huge part of your story. You act like you were killed days before Teri.”
“I was.”
“How were you killed?”
A note of bitterness enters my voice. “We’ve gone over this. Your Cradle possessed a friend of mine and forced him to shoot me in the heart.”
“Who?”
“It’s none of your business. Besides, you must know.”
“I know nothing about this incident.”
“Gimme a break.”
“It’s true, and you know it’s true as I say it. How did you recover from the wound that killed you?”
I shrug. “There are qualities to my vampiric blood even I don’t understand. The wound healed and I recovered.”
“I find that hard to believe.”
“Your own spy saw that I was dead. You can see I’m alive. What’s there to believe?”
Brutran is suddenly emotional. The change in her is so unexpected I’m shocked. “What’s there to believe? Alisa, you of all people must know the questions that haunt us above all else. Is there life after death? Does the soul exist? Is my son still alive somewhere?”
A mother’s grief over the loss of her child. Even the Wicked Witch is not immune to it. For the first time since I met the woman, I feel sympathy for her.
“Krishna brought me back,” I say.
“What?”
“It was Krishna. That’s all I can tell you.”
Brutran grabs my shoulders. “Did you see him when you died?”
“I told you, I don’t remember what happened. I wish I could. You have no idea how I’ve struggled to fill in the blank of those days. But I can’t, they’re just empty.”
“Then how can you say Krishna saved you?”
“You just have to trust me.”
“Trust you?” she shouts. “Now you sound like a Christian asking me to believe in the resurrection of Christ. I can’t believe something because someone tells me to believe it. Faith is for the foolhardy. Can’t you see that’s why I returned to experimenting with the array after I lost Henry?”
The pieces of her story are finally beginning to fit together.
“I thought you used it to make money,” I say.
Brutran waves her hand impatiently and resumes walking. “I needed money to create a powerful array. So yes, in a sense, I focused on money to start with. But my ultimate goal was to find out what had happened to my son.”
“Was this during the time Freddy was creating his scientific form of astrology?”
Brutran snorts. “He came up with the idea. He didn’t create it all by himself.”
“Explain.”
“Freddy had his obsession, I had mine. We were both trying to drown our grief. Drugs and alcohol could only help so much. Once I had a new array up and running, and enough money to sustain it, I changed the focus of the work.”
“You wanted to get it to talk,” I say.
She glances over. “It seemed a natural next step. After all, you would have asked the same questions I did.”
“Give me examples.”
“Who are we talking to when we ask the array for information? Who or what is giving us insights into the market?”
“You had grown weary of yes and no answers.”
“Yes. I wanted more, a lot more.”
“So how did you get it to talk?” I ask.
“You might find this amusing. At first I split my two thousand kids into a thousand pairs and gave them each an Ouija board. Then I posed the simplest question of all: ‘Who are you?’ I allowed the answers to come just one letter at a time. It took discipline to stick with this program.”
“Why?”
“Because many of the messages coming through the Ouija boards were fascinating. The spirits we channeled would say they were guides or angels, and they would give us page after page of esoteric knowledge. Most of it was garbage but some of it was heartbreaking in its beauty and with its insights. Still, I forced myself to only keep track of the responses the group as a whole generated.”
“You were sticking with Professor Sharp’s idea that ESP is basically a weak signal that can only be picked up by a large array of minds?”
“Exactly. I couldn’t trust individual or paired responses. They had never been able to predict the market accurately. Why should I trust them to talk to me about spiritual matters?”
“What answer did you get to your original question: ‘Who are you?’”
“The answer was disconcerting. It said, ‘I am no one.’”
“Nothing else?”
“Not at first. Not for a long time. I tried switching our method of receiving the answers. I used applied kinesiology, or muscle testing. That’s where you have a subject stick out their arm, ask a question, and then test the arm for strength. Generally, if the arm is strong, the answer is yes, and if the arm goes weak, the answer is no. In many ways that worked better than the boards. I’d have each person start at the beginning of the alphabet and have another person keep checking them until their arm muscle went strong. Then I would write down that letter and repeat the process with everyone in the group.”
“You did all that just to get one letter of one word?”
“Yes. I know what you’re going to ask next. How many out of the two thousand would come up with the same letter? At first our results were dismal. We were lucky if any letter would stand out. But as we continued to work together, it was like a group mind formed and most of the kids started to get the same answer.”
“Another amazing example of ESP.”
“Yes. I thought Professor Sharp would have been proud of me.”
“Were you in contact with him at the time?”
“He was recovering from a stroke. But we spoke occasionally.”
“Your work had nothing to do with his stroke?” I ask.
“Don’t be silly, Alisa. The Cradle didn’t even exist at the time.”
I ask my next question as gently as possible.
“Were you able to contact your son?”
The question still hits her hard. She takes a moment to recover. “It seemed, from time to time, that we would contact a kind spirit that said he was my son.”
“Why do you say it was kind?”
“It felt that way when he was in the room.”
“What did he have to say?”
“That he was my son and that he was happy where he was.”
“Did he give you any practical advice?”
“Did he urge you to let go of your grief and get on with your life?”
Cindy lowers her head. “I don’t recall every message that came through.”
We walk for a while in silence, and it seems to me that no matter how hard Cindy tried, she never did get to talk to the son she had lost, not really. However, after a few minutes, she begins to describe a breakthrough of sorts.
“The being that came at the start, the one who said he was no one, returned and took control of the sessions. He blocked any other beings from talking. I didn’t mind because he began to give out information that I could validate.”
“Give me an example,” I say.
“Besides predicting fluctuation of the stock market, he began to foretell other worldly events. Bad weather in certain countries. Plane crashes. Huge fires. Earthquakes. His accuracy level was higher than ninety percent.”
“Your test subjects must have been blown away.”
“You misunderstand. When this being showed up, I stopped sharing what was being channeled with my test subjects.”
“How did you keep the truth from them?”
“I separated them. The experiments worked almost as well on the phone.”
“But kids are curious by nature. Some of the older ones must have tried to contact each other.”
“Of course. I put a stop to it.”
“Did this brilliant being have a name?”
“It’s ironic you should phrase your question that way. It called itself Ta-Ra-Na. Ra, as you know, is the name for the sun god from ancient Egypt. It also means ‘light’ or ‘brilliant.’ All together the symbols mean the ‘Light Bearer.’”
I stumble on the path. Brutran has to reach out to steady me.
“What’s wrong?” she asks.
“Nothing.”
“You’ve heard the name before. Tell me.”
“It just reminds me of the Bible.”
“About Lucifer being the Light Bearer?”
“Yes.”
Brutran stares at me in the dark. “You know more than you’re telling me. I wish it didn’t have to be that way between us.”
“You’re not exactly the sort I would confide in.”
“Right now, I’m telling you things I’ve told no one else. Not even my own husband.”
“But I’m your enemy. You said it yourself. I want to destroy you. Why are you confiding in me?”
She lets go of my arm and continues down the path. “Let me finish my story. Tarana became the focal point of my research. The Array began to channel him exclusively. His knowledge was breathtaking. He taught me simple herbal formulas and physical and mental exercises to halt the aging process. He explained how best to choose candidates for the Array. He even gave me lessons in management. IIC was organized under his directions.”
“You speak of him like he was your mentor.”
“In a sense, he was.”
“He wasn’t real! He was just your subconscious speaking. Or else the combined subconscious of every kid in your Array. He wasn’t the Light Bearer.”
“You say that like you’re trying to convince yourself. If you don’t believe me, then maybe you should have another talk with Freddy. Oh, I don’t suppose he told you how often he came to me for Tarana’s insights on how to make his astrological system work. It was Tarana who dictated the bulk of the planetary influences that Freddy came to depend upon.”
“Freddy said he pinpointed the influences by using the lives of thousands of people as examples. He told us how he wrote computer programs designed to find patterns in their lives.”
“Sure, Freddy did all those things. After he asked me, and Tarana, what to look for.”
“Freddy said you stole his system.”
“Nonsense. I stopped supporting him and he ended up on the street. I’m not saying he isn’t creative. He has one of the most imaginative minds I’ve ever encountered. But when it comes to reality, he’s a failure.”
“So says the woman who talks to spirits. If Freddy was such a failure, why did you have another child with him?”
“Jolie was an accident.”
“You forget, I’ve met Jolie. She was no accident. She was one of those kids that was designed to be born at a certain time and place so she could be used to focus the mind-warping power of your goddamn Cradle.”
My last remark is an educated guess but I can tell from Brutran’s reaction that I’ve scored a bull’s-eye. She looks devastated. I don’t care. I take advantage of the vulnerable moment and try to discover what I need to know.
“Freddy was more than creative,” I say. “He was your example of what a true psychic could do when channeling the full power of the Array. What he did to Tom’s heart was your inspiration for the Cradle. I bet the same day Tom was fighting for his life in the hospital, you were thinking what an awesome weapon the Array could be turned into. If the others would just leave you alone to play with it.”
“The others you speak of all joined me when I founded IIC.”
“Which reminds me. Where are Noel and Wendy?”
“They left the company two years ago.”
“And they’re still alive?”
“Yes.” She pauses. “Don’t look so surprised.”
“But I am surprised,” I say.
“That’s silly. You know . . . Freddy has resisted me from day one and I’ve never harmed him.”
“He doesn’t count! You love Freddy! You cheat on your husband to be with him.”
“What I do in my personal life is no concern of yours.”
“This entire conversation is about how your personal life has led you to create a monster that even you are losing control of. Admit it, isn’t that what your story is leading up to? I’ve only realized it now myself. You’re not lying when you say you don’t know who the mole in my group is. Or who ordered the Cradle to attack my friend on the mountain. You don’t know because others have taken over your organization!”
Brutran stops walking and stands deflated. The pin I hoped to use to pop her ego has struck deeper. My words are like a needle through her heart. She doesn’t even try to fight me.
“You’re right, I have lost control,” she says.
“To the kids in the Cradle? Or just to those who control the Lens?”
“Both and neither.”
“You’re not saying it’s Tarana?” I ask.
“I’m not sure. It’s whatever stands over the kids when they gather to invoke the Cradle. It’s that power, or those beings, that have taken over.”
“Those beings? What beings?”
Brutran shakes her head. “It all goes back to the questions we asked Professor Sharp the first day he spoke to us about creating an array. What is the nature of the consciousness we’ll tap into? Is it individual or universal? Is it good or is it evil? Back then we used to discuss these issues late into the night. We were like a bunch of pseudophilosophers, safe in the certainty that nothing really bad could happen to us.”
“Hold on a second. I’m not buying this one-eighty you’re trying to pull. Suddenly you’re acting like the victim, when you’re the one who set all this in motion. Hell, the night I came to your house you forced me to put a loaded gun in my mouth. If not for Krishna, and maybe some dumb luck, I would have pulled that trigger. And I know damn well you wouldn’t have shed a tear while you wiped up my bloody brains.”
“The Cradle ordered your execution, not me.”
“I don’t believe you. You created the Cradle.”
“Professor Sharp, Freddy, and yes, I, Cynthia Brutran, helped bring it to life. But I see now that Tarana and creatures like him were behind it from the start.”
“Now you sound like one of those religious nuts who blames the devil for every mishap in the world. How convenient, Satan made me do it. Don’t accept any personal responsibility for how many people the IIC has killed.”
“Stop!” Brutran shouts as she tries to slap me. But I’m much too fast for her, and catch her hand before it can approach my face. The fury in her eyes doesn’t surprise me, but the stark fear does. Damn it, the bitch is still telling the truth, or at least her version of it.
“I know what I’ve done!” she says. “I don’t deny that I’ve always craved money and power. But that doesn’t make me any different from the majority of politicians and CEOs in this country. And if you’re thinking about giving me a lecture on how those people don’t kill others, save it. They make decisions every day that result in more deaths than I have ever caused.”
“Fine. You’re evil. But it’s okay because all powerful people are.”
“Nothing in my life is okay. From the start, I chose a path that was selfish. I admit that. But I never expected to end up where I’m at now. My life has become a waking nightmare.”
“Don’t be so melodramatic.”
She lets out a bitter laugh. “You think I’m being melodramatic? When you burst in my office the other day and released the virus, there was a part of me that thought, ‘Thank God, it will soon be over.’ I almost didn’t make a deal with you for that reason.”
“But you did deal. You can’t be as depressed as you say.”
“Whatever you think of me, I still feel a responsibility for the people who work for me. They trust me with their lives. I made a deal with you to protect them from the virus. And I agreed to join forces with you because you’re probably the only one who can destroy the Telar.” She stops. “And the Cradle.”
“You would kill your own daughter?”
In response, Brutran slowly lifts the front of her blouse. She wears a bra underneath but it does nothing to hide the extensive scarring. Her entire abdomen is worse off than Shanti’s face used to be.
“What happened?” I ask.
“When my daughter was three she asked if she could stay up all night and watch TV. Like any decent mother, I told her no, she had to go to bed. A short time later I felt a thick psychic fist descend. I lost all control. When the command came to light a candle and burn the skin off my abdomen, I obeyed. Jolie showed me no mercy. It didn’t matter how much I screamed and begged for her to stop.” Brutran pauses. “Do you still think I’m being melodramatic?”
“She did all this without the Cradle?”
“Yes. Or at least, I think so.”
“How long did it take for you to recover?”
“I’m still recovering. I’m in constant pain. I’m addicted to OxyContin. I’ve built up an incredible tolerance. I have to take three hundred milligrams a day just to cope.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t know.”
“You can see why I need your help.”
“You could have asked for my help at the beginning. Instead, you set yourself up as a foe, and it wasn’t the fault of the Cradle. It was you, Cindy. You have suffered, I see that now, but you have caused me and my friends to suffer. I don’t forgive that and I sure as hell am never going to forget it.”
“That’s fine. As long as you stop them.”
“The Telar or the Cradle?” I ask.
“What makes you think I can?”
Brutran sounds sad. “You came back from the grave. How many others can say that? If you can’t stop them, then who will?”