by Greg Krojac
“I’m Roberto. And yes, I know I don’t sound Spanish. That’s ´cos I’m not. It was my Spanish grandfather’s name. We’re all brothers. Tony is really Antonio and the one who doesn’t speak much is Miguel, or Mike. We call him Silent Bob.”
Maurice wondered why they called him Silent Bob, when his name was Mike, but thought better of asking, even though it occurred to him that Bob would be a better nickname for Roberto, who unlocked the car doors.
“You hungry?”
“Starving.”
“Right, let’s go into the house and get ourselves something to eat then.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
09:00 THURSDAY 3 AUGUST 2051
Thomas hadn’t let the grass grow under his feet. He’d been in charge of the Illuminati for over six months now and had already increased the priority of two of Nathan Smith’s pet projects. There were a few raised eyebrows when he diverted even more funds to those projects, but anybody who held any office of stature in the organization knew that they were also very important to Nathan, bordering upon an obsession, and so nothing was said that could be construed as counterproductive.
Glad to now be at the helm, Thomas’s new position suited his ambitions perfectly. He wasn’t satisfied to be just another name in the long list of acting Pindars, he wanted to break Nathan’s stranglehold and replace it with a new dynasty. Nathan’s and Thomas’s goals were almost identical but Nathan had been the one in situ and therefore he’d had the advantage. Now, in the period between his death and his return as Pindar, Nathan’s position was highly vulnerable. He’d left mechanisms in place to ensure that his return to power was as trouble-free as possible, but nothing is without its risks – loyalty can often be bought. Removing Nathan from the equation would be a difficult task but Thomas didn’t believe it to be impossible. It may take a few years, but Thomas was certain that in the not too distant future he would be able to begin his own self-perpetuating dynasty as the Pindar. Except that Thomas’s rule would have eternal continuity.
In the lavish room that had until recently been Nathan’s seat of power, Thomas shifted around in the large leather seat until he felt comfortable. He’d initially used the chair that matched the original beautifully carved wooden desk but he’d succumbed to using a more modern and comfortable executive chair, that gave his weakened body more support. The desk was far too ornate for Thomas’s taste but he was well aware of the symbolic power of the desk. It had been the seat of operations for the Pindar since the inception of the organization in the 1760s. It had seen Nathan leave and return in various incarnations and had seen several temporary Pindars ensconced behind it whilst awaiting Nathan’s return. It had survived the brief period when the organisation was known as the Perfectibilists, it had survived the two hundred and fifty years or so of the Illuminati, and was still present. It also had the large Illuminati symbol, the all-seeing eye within a pyramid, carved into the front of it. Thomas didn’t want to tempt fate by changing it
This seat would be his for twenty years or so and then he would relinquish it to its rightful owner without a murmur of protest. That was the published plan. But that was Nathan’s plan. To the observer, it would appear that Thomas was simply continuing Nathan’s efforts on pet projects – it was actually part of his remit. Nathan certainly wouldn’t want to come back to reclaim his position and discover that the projects had been stagnating in his absence.
The challenges of these projects were immense. The soul was known to exist, there was no disputing that fact. Reincarnation had confirmed its existence. But what form did it take? It was generally accepted that the soul was sentient energy but its very nature posed numerous problems. How could this energy be trapped and contained? How could it be placed accurately into a specific new host body? These were not the kind of problems that would be resolved in a few months. Theoretically, it was possible. Putting it into practice was the difficult part.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
10:45 TUESDAY 24 OCTOBER 2051
The spacious hospital room was decorated in a tasteful pastel apricot colour, although the patient could change the décor at the flick of a switch. A small bedside cupboard with two drawers stood to the left of Ana Lucia’s state-of-the-art hospital bed, and beyond that, there were a matching armchair and sofa-bed. The latest iPad was sitting on top of the bedside cupboard. To the right, were the medical necessities; the vital functions monitoring equipment, a sink, an antiseptic gel dispenser, and an as yet unused intravenous drip stand.
Ana Lucia was feeling a little anxious. She checked the time on her Rolex wristwatch which was next to the iPad. It was 10:20 in the morning. She was sure that the surgical procedure had been booked for 10:15 am Her husband Augusto had gone to find a member of the nursing staff to see why things were running late, but they shouldn’t have worried really – this was Brazil, after all, and Brazilians were notorious for not being slaves to the clock. However, she had hoped that a hospital should be more punctual than most about its schedules.
This was the date that their daughter was due to be born. Fortunately, the birth wouldn’t inconvenience their professional lives as October was the month during which Augusto took his annual leave and he’d be able to spend more time with his wife and new daughter. Ana Lucia would still have a Caesarian Section though, as they didn’t want to waste the holiday period wondering when baby Érica would be born. They felt lucky that their obstetrician was free on that day; he was highly respected in the city of Salvador and therefore in great demand. For his part, Doctor Anibal Pereira was also a family friend and was only too pleased to be participating in the birth of his friends’ baby.
At 10:22 Augusto returned with the elusive Doctor Pereira. The doctor kissed Ana Lucia once on each cheek and apologised.
“Sorry about the delay. A slight problem that needed resolving. Nothing to worry about.”
Ana Lucia, relieved, told him not to worry, that she wasn’t going anywhere. The doctor looked at her and winked.
“So, my dear, are you ready to bring your little one into the world?”
Ana Lucia smiled and nodded.
Two hours later, after Ana Lucia had recovered a little from the ordeal, the couple was back in the private room, but this time with baby Érica in a cot at the end of the bed.
Érica appeared no different from any other baby in the world. She’d ten tiny fingers and ten tiny toes. She’d beautiful brown eyes and a few wisps of hair straddling the top of her head. She blinked her eyes trying to focus on objects in the room but it was hard work and so she drifted off to sleep. She’d spend the next six or seven years in complete ignorance of who she’d once been, but then the memories of Nathan Smith and his previous lives would emerge from the dark recesses of her mind, and she could set about regaining the Pindarship.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
23:09 TUESDAY 7 NOVEMBER 2051
It was raining and there was a chill in the air as the girl cowered in the pawn shop doorway, trying to keep dry. She’d entertained herself for a while by looking through the mesh grill covering the window at the goods that hadn’t been reclaimed by their owners in time and were now available for anybody to purchase until the rain began to fall and she’d been forced to retreat to the relative shelter of the doorway. She’d particularly liked the guitar to the right of the display and wondered what could have driven someone to pawn such a beautiful instrument. But then she realised that if she’d had a guitar she would probably have sold it by now. At least the original owner of the guitar had, at one time, harboured the hope and intention to be reunited with his or her instrument.
She had the look of someone who had been living on the streets for far too long. Each breath was clearly visible as it left her lips, like smoke from an invisible cigarette. She wished she could go home, back to the comforts of a family home but she knew that her family – well, her father principally – would never accept her with her unborn child. It was over five months since she’d fallen pregnant, the result of a fumbled and les
s than romantic encounter in the back of a van. She’d drunk too much at a Saturday night party and she was now carrying the result of this triste in her belly. Abortion hadn't been an option. It was bad enough that she was having a baby at the age of sixteen, which had alienated her father, but her mother could never have forgiven her if she’d terminated the pregnancy. She didn't want to turn both her parents against her. She didn’t want to completely burn her bridges behind her.
There weren't many people on the street that night; a few couples walking home from a night out, a group of six men – noisy but harmless – ending a night of hard drinking, proclaiming their drunken love for one another, and a well-dressed young man in a sports jacket, black T-shirt and jeans. He stopped as he drew alongside the girl.
"It's cold tonight isn't it?"
The girl looked at him, wondering if he expected a prize for stating the obvious.
"Yes."
"I'm a little bit lost actually. I'm supposed to be staying at a mate's house tonight but I can't find it. Maybe you can help me."
"Maybe."
"I've got it written down on a piece of paper. I'll show you."
The girl wondered if this guy was a bit simple. Surely, all he needed to do was to enter the address into his mobile phone and GPS would guide him to his friend’s house. She was sorely tempted to point this out to him but changed her mind. She was alone on the street and didn't want to antagonise the stranger. The man pulled a folded piece of paper from his jeans pocket and carefully opened it up, holding it in the palm of his hand. The writing was small and the girl had to lean in closer in order to be able to read what was written. The man mirrored her movement and blew onto the paper with great concentration, a fine powder leaving the paper's surface and floating into the girl’s mouth and nostrils. She felt giddy. The man spoke again.
"You know, it's not a night for a young lady in your condition to be staying on the streets. I think you should come with me to my friend's house. We'll look after you."
The girl felt disorientated and didn't want to go with him but she felt as if the energy to resist had been drained from her. She'd spent plenty of nights worse than this on the streets. She didn't know who this guy was, she'd never met him before. He could be a rapist or a murderer, for all she knew. But she didn’t have the energy to stop herself from agreeing.
"OK. I'll come with you."
The man raised his arm and a white van appeared from around the corner. As it pulled up, a sliding door opened and the girl got in, completely willingly. Her captor closed the side door of the van, locking it for security, just in case the girl came to her senses and tried to escape, although he doubted that would happen as the scopolamine powder (also known as ‘Devil’s Breath’) had rendered the girl into a zombie-like state and completely under the control of her captors. He slid into the front passenger seat and nudged the driver.
"We did well tonight. Looking at her belly I reckon this one is just about right."
***
There was no friend's house. Instead, the van pulled up at the rear entrance of a cancer research facility which was, in reality, a front for Illuminati experimentation. A laboratory assistant, wearing a freshly ironed white coat, creases so sharp that you could cut your finger on them, was waiting with a wheelchair, not for any compassionate reason but simply to expedite the journey from the loading bay to Laboratory A1. The girl was wheeled into a side-room where an ultrasound scan of her belly was hastily done. Tonight's catch was particularly good. She was at exactly the right stage of her pregnancy; the foetus was healthy and developing well, and was at the stage when it would receive its new soul. The extraction could take place immediately.
Arriving at Laboratory A1, the girl was told to get out of the wheelchair, go inside the room, remove her clothes and lay down on the operating table. She did this with no hint of embarrassment, for she was still heavily under the influence of the scopolamine dust that had been blown into her face forty minutes earlier.
The operating table was more like an autopsy table, cold and metallic to the touch, perforated with dozens of 1cm holes so that any blood or superfluous bodily fluids could drain into the waste reservoir situated underneath. Other than the operating table the only other piece of equipment was what looked like an incubator connected by a small airlock to a second incubator which was much larger than the first. There were many wires and tubes attached to the apparatus, most of which were to monitor the vital signs of the inhabitants of the contraption. The girl could see the unusual medical equipment and was mildly curious, but the hold of the drug on her mind was too strong and she made no effort to inquire about her predicament.
As she lay on her back, naked and prone, her swollen belly glistening with sweat under the heat of the lights, a lab technician passed a scalpel to the surgeon before walking over to the larger of the two incubators.
Inside this incubator lay a naked man.
Ray Greenway had been diagnosed with terminal congenital heart failure and had volunteered for this experiment; he’d nothing to lose. He hadn’t been told that he might not survive the experiment and was under the impression that this had been done successfully before. He thought that his soul would be transferred to the foetus and he would be born to this girl and the two of them would be cared for and would want for nothing. Consequently, he was very relaxed and calm, idly remembering the best parts of his previous lives.
Illuminati scientists had performed a lot of research on the human brain and had succeeded in identifying where the soul resided. That was actually the easy part. The more difficult challenge was to find a way to extract the soul and place it into another body.
The plan that day was to insert the soul of a recently deceased adult, Ray Greenway, into a developing baby. Many attempts had been made so far and none had met with success but Professor Georgiy Ivanov had come up with a radical new theory and that was what they were about to test now.
A lab technician stood by the large incubator waiting for a signal from Professor Ivanov who, in turn, was standing by the girl’s autopsy table. He nodded to the lab technician who pressed a button on the control panel of Ray Greenway’s transparent chamber and Ray began to splutter as the air was sucked out of the incubator.
Simultaneously Professor Ivanov pressed his scalpel into the flesh of the naked girl’s belly, slicing through her smooth skin and opening up the wall of her womb. This time she did react and cried out with a mixture of pain and terror as Professor Ivanov slid his hand nonchalantly into her womb and withdrew her baby.
Meanwhile, Ray had lost conscious as the oxygen was sucked out of his incubator, leaving his body in a vacuum. His skin started to swell and turn blue as he began to suffocate from within. His natural instinct had been to take large gulps of air but there was none, and so his lungs had burst. If he’d been conscious he would have felt his blood starting to boil.
The technician looked at the small video monitors in front of him.
“Professor, I’m picking up activity in the alma region of the brain. It looks like the adult’s soul will be leaving the body imminently.”
The professor had separated the new-born baby’s umbilical cord from its mother but had made no attempt to clean the infant. He’d clamped the cord, but only at the end where it was attached to the baby. It was important that the baby should not die yet. He was completely unconcerned with the health of the mother. In fact, once the baby had been removed from her belly he used his scalpel to cut her throat. He couldn’t abide the awful sobbing noise she was making.
The baby was placed in the smaller incubator and the lid closed. Ray Greenway was almost dead and the signals from his soul were becoming stronger. As he breathed his last, an airlock door was opened providing a small additional chamber for the soul to enter.
“Professor, the soul appears to have left the body.”
The soul had indeed left the corpse of Ray Greenway, having forced its way through the pores of his blue-tinted skin, and was seeking
a new host. Sensors in the incubator showed that it was moving around the transparent coffin even though nobody could actually see it. The scientists were only aware of its presence due to the unusual electrical activity that was being detected at various points in the incubator.
“Professor, it’s in the airlock.”
The technician pressed another button and the airlock door quickly closed behind it, as air was pumped into the small tube that linked the two incubators.
Over by the autopsy table, two men in red overalls dragged the girl off the table and tossed her lifeless body into a plastic-lined trolley before wheeling her out of the room. Her soul had left her body and was now free, seeking a suitable new host. If it couldn’t find one in the laboratory it would disappear into the atmosphere to widen its search, but this option wasn’t available to it; it was trapped within the apparatus.
A few seconds later, Ray Greenway’s soul travelled through the transparent tube and found a new host waiting patiently for its new consciousness to arrive. The soul passed through the baby’s pores with ease and nestled inside the Alma region of the brain of its new body.
Professor Ivanov looked anxiously at the technician
“Well?”
.“We’ve done it, sir. We’ve done it. The baby has a soul. We just transferred a soul into a new body of our choosing.”
The professor should have been elated. He should have been cheering or doing a jig or something. He’d done something no human had ever done before him; he’d taken a dead man’s soul and placed it into another body – a body that he had selected. Instead, he remained remarkably calm. He turned to two lab orderlies.
“You, Jones, dispose of whatsisname.”
“Greenway, sir.”
“Yes, Greenway. You, Wolzenik or whatever your name is, you can dispose of the baby. I have to go and report to the Pindar.”
***
Whilst the professor headed towards Thomas McCall’s office, Jones pushed the trolley containing its macabre cargo down the corridor to the incinerator room. He opened the doors of the incinerator room and gave the trolley a shove, letting it freewheel inside, where it rolled to a halt next to the body of the young girl.