Sanity

by Neovictorian

  The air begins to warm and I smell plants, wet earth and dead things and living things and light, the smell that these things have when they’re in the light rather than in the sterile darkness of a tunnel. I feel the rush again, an echo anyway of what I felt back in the chamber where I lay, the pressure on my head and chest starts again but I just burst right through it, I speed up until I’m running, crouched, and then I see that the grate is thrown wide open and I’m out, free. The sky is clouded over but it’s bright, so bright I blink and hold up my hand to shield my eyes.

  I turn along the gravel ledge again, work my way down the flank of the tailings pile. There’s a hint of misty rain falling but it’s bright enough to see all the way across the clearing and I scan left, right, and left again, I know what I’m looking for, catch a flash of man-made orange back in the trees that doesn’t match the thousand shades of green and brown and gray on everything else in the forest.

  They know I’ve seen them now and for a moment I wonder if they’re going to flee or move forward, then the figure steps into the clearing and yeah, I was right, I know what happened to Eve Hart.

  She’s wearing full rain gear, brown rubber boots, slick looking blue pants and an orange rubber jacket, the hood thrown back. Everything hangs shapelessly on her, but her height, squared shoulders and erect posture show through all of it.

  We walk toward each other and I lower my hand from my eyes, staring her down, she’s the reason we’re here, we’re here now and it’s time to end this.

  I stop in the middle of the clearing, make her keep walking the last few strides while I wait. I want to be angry but I’m cold, this was not a prank or an elaborate joke of some kind. This was too serious to be angry about.

  She stops a little farther away than I expect. Maybe she thinks I’m going to punch her in the nose.

  “Mr. Adler,” she says levelly.

  “Ms. Hart.”

  “You’re wondering how and why you got—“

  “Nope,” I cut her off. “I’ll talk first. You listen.”

  She gets that look on her face, the look that Mother got when I interrupted her. And now it doesn’t mean a goddam thing to me.

  “I’m not wondering about much, Eve. The Greek Mysteries used the same technique. So do the Freemasons and a lot of others. Death and rebirth. Out of the Darkness and into the Light.

  “But those candidates are aware going in that they’re being initiated. You could say I was starting to have my suspicions, all the way back to my first hour on your very private jet.”

  She just continues to look at me neutrally and I smile at her, and that does cause a brief instant of surprise to flicker across her face. Gotcha.

  “I want to thank you. Back there in the dark I did have an experience I never would have had, otherwise. Maybe it was an enlightenment, but really, it was more of a rebirth, something like one.”

  I give her the Look, bore in, raise my chin an inch, open my eyes wider and dilate the pupils. I become the Wolf.

  “You know, I thought I was Woke before, but I’d forgotten something, lately: A True Initiation Never Ends. For Humans, ‘Being’ is ‘Becoming.’ Page 29 of Noticing. Right, Eve?”

  It’s starting to rain a little harder now, I hear the sounds of it hitting the plants accelerate, like someone turning up the dial. Enough drops have hit on her forehead that they come together and a little stream trickles down the bridge of her nose. She reaches up and wipes at it with her forefinger, and favors me with the faintest hint of a smile.

  “That’s correct, Cal. I know you have some exceptional abilities, and memory is only one. I will be silent and let you tell me what you’ve figured out. Then I’ll answer any questions you may have and then, we’ll see if the Universe has any more surprises for us.”

  I shake my head once, decisively. “That would be nice for you, but no. You tell me why—two whys. Why we’re here and why you got Lisa involved in all this. And then I’ll tell you what I’m going to do.”

  “All right.” She shows a hint of genuine mirth, just for an instant, then she gives me the Look, mirrors the movements I made. She becomes the Wolf herself.

  “Fourteen years ago a man named White gave you a card.”

  She searches for a reaction but I don’t have any; I’m just looking at her now, observing her like I’d observe a slide under a microscope. Like I learned to observe people from Karina and Dr. Lee, those years ago. She’ll get no star from me to steer by. No clue.

  “Since then you’ve had contact with other people who were with the organization, the Outfit, the Network—the Group that has no name, no leader. The legend is that it was founded in 1945 by some Manhattan Project scientists.”

  It’s raining hard now, the water is soaking through my cap and starting to stream down our faces, but neither of us makes a move to wipe it off, or even blinks.

  “Your best friend James Stark was killed by a Muslim terrorist, whom you took down. At his funeral you met a woman named Janet Seymour, who tried to recruit, or continue your recruitment, in the Church of ReHumanism.”

  She pauses, I give her nothing but a hand gesture: Bring it on.

  “Then, you disappeared, fell off the face of the Earth for a month, suddenly reappeared and spent two years working at a gold mine in Nevada before you got involved with Josh Miller—and he became a United States Senator.”

  She purses her lips and shakes her head, once. “I don’t understand that part at all. It doesn’t fit in with the whole arc of your life, Cal. Then you were shot in an attempted robbery in DC, disappeared again for a month, and reappeared back in Reno, where you opened a very vague business that does very vague things, though you seem to have made quite a bit of money at it.”

  She stops and sets her mouth in a slightly harder line. It’s my turn, now. I take it.

  “Then one day a beautiful mysterious billionairess, the Damsel in Distress, shows up and sweeps me off my feet, gets me involved in this crazy caper looking for her Mommy, and I wake up in a motherfucking mineshaft in Alaska,” I say.

  “And somehow, that does fit in with the arc of my life.”

  I’m trying to keep my stone face on, all those years of practice and training but I can’t help but laugh, I don’t even want to help it, it starts with a grimace and a chuckle and explodes out with a great “Ha!” it’s joy, and Eve can’t help it either, all her self-control can’t override the part of her brain that’s a million years old, the part that’s in tune with mine, the stone face cracks just a little and she snorts once and then she’s really laughing too. I wonder how often she lets herself.

  We laugh hard for a few seconds, bent forward slightly, mirroring each other. Inevitably a bond begins to form, for a moment we’re just two humans laughing, together. The rain begins to slacken, until it’s more of a fine mist, hanging in the air and being blown about by the tiniest breath of wind. I stand up straight.

  “All right, let’s get to the core of this thing,” I say.

  She nods. “You already know a good deal of this, Cal. You’re exactly right, this was a phase of your initiation. This was the Rite of the Stone.”

  And with that the last bit of scale finally falls from my eyes and I’m genuinely surprised for the first time in a long time, and I’m delighted to be surprised.

  “The Rite of the Stone—the entry door into Level Two of ReHume. One step below the Eldars. Except I never joined ReHume, Eve. I never signed the Documents.”

  She nods. “The Documents have been waived for you, Cal. You proved by your complete discretion in regard to The Outfit for 14 years that you were worthy, that your values align with the values of the Documents and ReHume, because—“

  “Because The Outfit is the Special Branch of ReHume, you’re going to say,” I break in. It’s like a series of doors opening, one after the other and now the Light pours in, it’s happening again, I can’t see Eve or the trees, can’t feel the rain on my face, there’s only Light, and in the light there’s a faint gho
st of myself sitting on my back porch, coffee in hand, was it really only 29 hours ago? and I realize that as I was sitting there I was looking at myself from here and now, later in time, but I didn’t know because the Light was too bright, I couldn’t see, you can never really see enough, as much as you’d want, but I see more now than then.

  I blink rapidly, three times, and my regular sight returns, I’m still in the clearing, the rain has almost stopped. I wonder how much time has passed. The expression on Eve’s face looks exactly the same.

  “I suspected something for years Eve. It worked for Duke and it worked for me and Jesus too, I went out in the desert and there’s a silence there like nowhere else, and after long enough your smallest, quietest thoughts become larger and louder.

  “But you’re wrong about one very basic, very important thing.”

  She raises an eyebrow showing that she’d like to hear what thing, she’s not used to being wrong, but I just grin at her. “I’m not going down that road any farther until we get two things resolved. Where’s my .45, and where’s Lisa?”

  “They’re both in the car that’s waiting for us down on the mining road.” She wipes some of the water off her forehead and smiles at the setting.

  “Let’s walk down there and get them.”

  I remember where the opening to the trail is, a thin spot in the thick undergrowth, and I lead the way. She seems content with that and we walk along in silence, except for the intermittent random drops coming down from the leaves smacking our heads and shoulders. In a few minutes we break out of the line of trees and there’s a big dark blue SUV parked in a wide spot across the gravel road, engine running. Scheiss, these people don’t have any imagination when it comes to their cars.

  “There’s room in the back,” Eve says. The windows are so dark tinted I can’t see inside but I open the driver’s side rear door and Lisa is sitting in the middle of the back seat, she’s seen me coming and she’s smiling, hell, she’s glowing, I can’t help but smile back and I want to laugh but that will have to wait.

  The driver is a big guy with longish gray-blond hair touching his collar and a black baseball cap. There’s a tiny Summa corporate logo embroidered in gold on the back of it. He doesn’t turn his head. The man in the passenger seat is smaller, older, and he half turns and gives me a neutral look. Shaven head, silver-framed aviator sunglasses and a luxuriant black and gray mustache. G. Gordon Liddy just out of prison.

  “Dale Anders, I presume?” I give it a hint of theatre to make sure he knows I know the reference. He doesn’t smile.

  “Nice to meet you, Mr. Adler.” He actually makes the effort to swivel his upper body around farther and offer his hand, though I have to lean in to reach it.

  Lisa scoots over behind him, I slide in next to her and Eve gets in beside me. The two of us are dripping water and the windows fog up when she closes the door. The driver dials up the climate controls and I feel the rush of hot air on my face. I take off my wet hat and set it on my lap.

  “First things first. Whoever’s got it, hand me my pistol.”

  Anders reaches between his feet, into a bag and pulls out the .45, still in its holster. He reaches in again, feels around for a second and retrieves the spare mag pouch. He turns in the seat and hands them to me.

  “No one took it out of the holster or touched anything,” he says.

  “Sure, sure,” I say. I pull out the piece, drop the mag, snap the safety down, cant it to the right, cup my right hand under the ejection port and pull back the slide until the round in the chamber drops into my palm. The mag is full of the same 200-grain hollow points I loaded it with yesterday, so I snap it back in, rack the slide to chamber a round, put the safety on, drop the mag again and load the round in my hand into it, and snap it back in again. Condition One, eight rounds, ready. I put it back in the holster, set it gently on my lap.

  I turn to look at Lisa. “Got your Tanto on you?”

  “Of course,” she says.

  I turn to my left. “Quo Vadis, Eve?”

  “Kevin, let’s head back to the hotel.”

  “Yep.” Kevin’s voice is something like the sound of the tires on the gravel road as he slowly u-turns the big rig. He clears the steep uphill side by two inches and we begin to descend at a careful 10 miles an hour.

  I recall the walk up here yesterday and figure we have about 10 minutes until we’re back in town. It will be enough.

  Lisa’s knee is touching mine and despite the raingear we’re both wearing I can feel heat seeping through, and in a few seconds it’s become almost painful. So I push against her harder. She’s looking out the window but I see the big artery in her neck thrumming, visibly vibrating. Oh yes, it’s time to wind this up.

  I turn toward Eve. It’s interesting how different the vibe is than back in the forest, her face is less than a foot away, and now there are three others who can hear everything, but they’re here for a reason. I need to remember that none of this has been random, unplanned, not for a minute since Lisa pressed the buttons on her phone yesterday; not for a long time before that. How long? I wonder.

  “Well Eve, before we go on I need to know about the others here in the car. Why are they here, each of them? What do they know?”

  I’m looking at Kevin and Anders for any reaction but they’re both looking straight ahead out the windshield and I don’t detect the slightest motion from them.

  “They know everything, Cal,” she says. “Dale is an Eldar, as is Kevin. Kevin Hansen, Cal Adler.”

  Kevin Hansen, former MMA light heavyweight champion, she doesn’t add. I remember watching him fight on television. He retired five or six years ago and hasn’t been in the news since. Now we know why.

  Kevin catches my eye in the rearview mirror and nods, once.

  “Mucho gusto,” he says.

  “There are only twelve Eldars of ReHumanism, Eve. Two of them are here for my Level Two initiation? I suppose I should be flattered. How about you, Eldar number three?”

  “No, I’m a Level Two like you, Cal. I did my Rite of the Stone two years ago in a cave in Kentucky. Of course it was similar to yours. All I got was a candle though. No phone to light the way.”

  “I’m not a Level Two quite yet. I didn’t ask for the Rite, like I assume you did, like all of you did. And I’m not accepting it, not any of it, not yet. First you’ll have to explain why this breach of the protocol.”

  “Certainly, Cal, I planned to do so. You’re owed that.

  “Twenty years ago, when you were in the eighth grade, you took some tests, like all the kids in your class. A few days later your principal had you talk to a man from the university about them, about what you knew and what you wanted to do. About any unusual experiences you might have had.”

  “Professor Jensen from Berkeley!” I can’t help myself from saying it louder than I’d like.

  “He told me he was doing brain research on unusual images and experiences in adolescents. We had a pleasant talk. He was straight up, too. I went to the junior college library the next day and he checked out. Everything he told me about what he was working on was true. And I told him about some unusual images I’d seen and experiences I’d had. Then I never heard anything more about it.”

  “Professor Jensen had a theory about identifying and recruiting the best of the best, before they got to college. Give them something mysterious and intriguing to hold their interest, to prepare them.”

  “Prepare them for what, exactly?”

  “Prepare them for the Leadership, for battle. ReHume is battling to take over the Two Orders, piece by piece. We’ve done a lot within the Big Order in the last two decades—journalists, television, researchers and professors at the big universities.”

  “I have noticed more honest pieces in the news these last few years about IQ research, achievement gaps, the differences between men and women,” I say. “The screams from the feminists and the PC crowd seem to be about as loud as ever—but people aren’t getting fired anymore.”


  “We’ve made really big inroads in tech and finance,” she says. “We have, in essence, our own cable news channel.”

  I chuckle at this. “TSC. Formerly The Spy Channel. Funny how that transformation was pulled off.

  “But that’s not why I’m here, is it Eve? You’re saying that ReHume was tracking me since I was 11, 12 years old. It wasn’t so I could get a job at the New York fucking Times.”

  “No, Cal.” I swivel my head toward the front, Anders is speaking. “You were meant to take a place in the Real Order. And James with you. He was going to tell you about much more than the benefits of ReHume on your camping trip. That was just the preliminaries. You were meant to come to work with me at NSA after a suitable amount of time, perhaps eventually become CEO of something like Summa Technologies. Advise Presidents and Secretaries—and pressure them, direct them. Because we know almost everything about them now. Every phone call they’ve made, every anonymous live porn chat. Where the bodies are buried.”

  He turns his head, slowly, deliberately, looks me in the eyes. “The current iteration of the Real Order that was formalized in 1913 is breaking down, Cal. Their cathedral of progressive technocracy was built on sand, their science didn’t deliver the control of the masses as promised. Worse yet, like the old Royal families they’ve ignored genetics and failed to cull the runts. You and James were potential replacements.”

  He turns back and looks out the windshield for a moment, raising his eyes to scan the sky above the mountains. It’s all a pearl gray-white up there, from what I can see. We’re most of the way back down the basin and the first houses come into sight. Kevin is still driving about 10 miles an hour, like he doesn’t want to get there too soon.

  Anders turns again, farther this time, leaning around the seat to face me. His black windbreaker is mostly unbuttoned and I can see a sliver of stainless steel semi-auto in a holster at his right hip.

  “James’ death derailed those plans temporarily, Cal. It took a while for the leadership to consider what to do, attempts were made to find out what you were thinking, and then…you were gone. Under the circumstances, we decided to wait, and watch.”