by Rai Aren
Oz looked at the wall of gleaming metal. He realized he was going to have to take Javier and his group as permanent prisoners. He would need their help. But he was going to keep that detail to himself for the moment.
“Show me exactly what symbol he made contact with,” Oz ordered.
Rick looked to Javier. “I don’t even know what I touched when I hit it. It happened so fast.”
“I think I know, based on what you’ve described.” Javier pointed out the symbol. It had several vertical lines over top of wavy lines. “The wavy lines represent the boundary between this life and others. The vertical lines above represent other possibilities for a person’s life. By touching it, you may see different paths your life might’ve taken.”
“How is that possible?” Oz asked.
“We do not fully know,” Javier admitted.
Oz then looked at Rick, accepting Javier’s answer for now. “You said your experience was better in many ways. Explain.”
Rick complied. He didn’t want to share such highly personal information with so many, but he realized he had no choice. “I saw my father. We’d never gotten along. He’d never been happy with any of my choices in life. Always criticized me. He died too young due to his own crappy life choices and we never reconciled before his death, which is something that I’ve never really gotten over.”
“Doesn’t sound too good to me,” Oz snapped.
Rick held up his hand. “What I saw when I touched that tablet was a life where he was my biggest supporter. This time we were close, something I’d always wanted. He also lived a long life, so we had a lot more years together. Happy ones.”
As he spoke the emotion in his voice and on his face was coming through loud and clear. He’d been deeply moved by his experience.
Oz listened and waited for him to continue.
“I don’t know what else to say other than it didn’t feel like a dream. I feel like I have those memories now. I know it sounds crazy.”
Oz was thunderstruck by what he heard. Rick’s recounting sounded authentic, like he meant it. Oz thought of his own father, a man he’d never met. His mind raced. The inner child he’d always beaten down into silence and submission to his stronger, adult self, was crying out with longing. He clenched his jaw to keep from showing his emotions and how deeply what Rick just said was affecting him. He couldn’t let his men see this was personal. But he desperately wanted a chance to experience this. It was the opportunity of a lifetime. Something far beyond his worldly desires and beyond any reason or possibility or dream he’d ever considered.
Sofia’s heart went out to Rick. She could well imagine how intensely meaningful and profound that experience had been. She thought of her mother. Was this really possible? she wondered.
No matter what, Oz was not going to let this opportunity escape him. He didn’t know if he’d ever have this chance again. If he was forced to hand this discovery over to Ares, he might lose control of it, or possibly even access to it, forever. He couldn’t bear even thinking about that outcome.
Maybe, he thought, there is a way I can be certain of a few things first.
As if reading her mind, he pointed to Sofia. “We will test this out on her. You’d better not be lying, for her sake.”
CHAPTER 21
Rick immediately objected. “No!”
Diego stood in front of his daughter. “You will not harm her.”
Luis was panicking.
Oz glared at Rick. He pointed his gun at him, then at Javier. “Are you telling me you’ve both been lying to me?”
Rick shook his head. “I told you the truth.”
“We have told you what we know,” Javier replied.
Oz gave them a sly smile. He looked at Diego. “Then you have nothing to worry about.” He turned his attention to his men. “Alpha-4, ensure she does as Javier here instructs.”
The man nodded and took Sofia by the arm. He led her closer to the wall of tablets. “Go,” was all he said.
Sofia’s eyes went wide. The idea both terrified and thrilled her. She looked at Rick.
He gave her a comforting look and nodded his head. “It’ll be ok,” he said, hoping it would be.
She was breathing heavily, as her heart started pounding wildly in her chest. She decided to trust him. “I’ll do it.”
Javier pointed to the specific symbol on the tablet Rick had made contact with. “This will be brief. It’s not necessary to remain in contact with it for too long. I will guide you.”
She looked at him; fear clearly etched across her face. She could feel the strong energy field coming off of the metallic tablets. Her skin warmed and tingled just being in proximity to them.
“Don’t let anything happen to her,” Rick said.
Javier shook his head. “I won’t.” He looked at Sofia. “Calm your thoughts if you can. Open your mind. Take slow, deep breaths. I will be right here.”
She nodded, trying to do as he said.
Oz edged closer, watching every move she made.
With a shaking hand, she reached out, sweat beading on her forehead.
Luis and Diego both fought back tears, as they held onto one another, fearing what could happen to her.
Sofia felt heat and a strong electrical sensation in her fingertip as she gingerly touched the symbol, then a whooshing sensation that felt as if it was pulling her out of her very body.
Only moments after she touched it, Javier pulled her away. But that was all the time she needed.
She fell to her knees and wept.
Diego and Luis rushed to her side.
Oz watched, fascinated by how simple it seemed.
Like Rick, she was disoriented at first. She took a few minutes to come out of the fog the experience had left her with. After regaining her bearings, she started speaking rapidly in Spanish, telling her father and brother all about her experience and how she’d seen her mother. She told them how her mother had never had a heart problem and had lived to see Sofia and Luis each get married and have grandkids. She told her father how the two of them had grown old together, happy and in love, just as they’d always been.
The family cried together, hugging one another.
Oz listened. He knew enough Spanish to understand what she’d told her family. He was convinced. He wanted this for himself. Now. A lifetime of suppressed longing came surging forward, overwhelming every other consideration.
“Alpha-4,” Oz ordered, “I want to test this out myself. You will stand guard over me while I do this. Pull me away after a few moments, understood?”
“Sir, I don’t think that’s a good idea,” the man protested. “You can’t trust whatever voodoo magic this is, or these people. They’re probably all lying to you!”
Oz looked at Rick, then at Sofia and finally at Javier. “Maybe, but I want to find out. She survived. I won’t do anything different than she did. You’ll see to that. Understood?”
The man’s mouth was agape at his sudden rash decision. He felt they were being pulled into a trap.
Oz ignored his reaction. “I think there’s something here, something vitally important, and I want to know what it is. I want to see this for myself.” He didn’t want to let on to his men just how all-consuming his desire was to experience this. He didn’t want to tip his hand that this was intensely personal. That he wanted the metal library for himself. “Besides, it’s prudent to test this out before we report back,” he lied. “Don’t you agree?” He knew there wasn’t anything prudent about what he was doing, but he no longer cared.
“Sir,” the man said, shocked at the sheer recklessness of what his boss was proposing, “it’s killed two of our men already and we don’t know why. Despite what they’ve told you, we don’t actually know how any of this has happened. Don’t do this!”
Oz was barely listening at this point, the draw was far too powerful, far too irresistible to him. “I’ve made my decision.” He nodded his head in Rick and Javier’s direction. “Just shoot anyone who tries to in
terfere with me.”
“I really don’t think...”
Oz raised his hand and cut him off. “I pay you to follow my orders!” He pointed to Alpha-3. “That goes for you, too. Clear?”
The man nodded.
Alpha-4 gritted his teeth. He wanted to argue more. His boss was losing all perspective. He’d lost two teammates to this madness tonight—the situation was already out of control. He couldn’t fathom why Oz couldn’t see that.
Oz’s heart was pounding in his chest like a boxer trying to win the biggest prize fight of his life.
“The rest of you back away,” he ordered.
Alpha-3 and Alpha-4 aimed their guns to make sure they complied.
They did.
Alpha-4 turned his attention to his boss, while Alpha-3 kept watch on the group.
With his gun in one hand, Oz reached out towards the symbol with his other hand, feeling the tablet’s energy surging and thrumming. With a heady mixture of excitement, anticipation and trepidation coursing through him, Oz touched the same symbol that Rick and Sofia had made contact with. Immediately, he felt a hot, electrical charge in his fingertip and an intense whooshing sensation that swiftly pulled him away.
* * *
Oz saw himself as a young man. He’d been born healthy and strong. He’d grown up in wealth and power and privilege. His parents were affluent, well-connected society types. His mother sat on the board of a hospital, various arts organizations and museums, as well as an Ivy league university. His father was a financier and venture capitalist who’d taken Oz under his wing ever since he was a young child, showing him the ropes of life early, so that he’d always be prepared and in control in every situation, never caught unawares.
Oz had attended society balls, ballets, plays, operas, orchestras, sporting events, and VIP parties throughout his life. He had an Ivy league education due to his family’s generous donations to the university and their position in society. His family mixed and mingled with celebrities, politicians, and power brokers of all kinds. His name was known far and wide. His social calendar overbooked. He was a popular playboy who was a regular feature in the gossip columns and an ever in demand guest at society’s most important and glamorous functions.
Due to his family’s extensive connections, he’d grown even more powerful and wealthy as he got older, beyond all imagining. Ares was his company, just one asset in a vast portfolio. The world was his. Everything he had ever wanted was laid at his feet. There was nothing he couldn’t have. No one he couldn’t hold dominion over. He felt invincible.
Then, as the years went by, he found himself wanting more. Nothing was enough. He got bored easily. Short-tempered and ever more selfish. His various appetites could never be satisfied. He enjoyed toying with people and taking advantage of situations whenever he could. People were pawns to be used and then tossed aside. He became cruel, and sadistic even, increasingly so as the years went by. He made many enemies along the way. He was battling a growing emptiness inside, lashing out, trying to escape the constant pain he felt. He hurt others in a futile and severely misguided effort to fix what was wrong inside and lay the blame for his misery elsewhere. He felt more and more hollow over time. People even seemed hollow. The pain and emptiness he suffered grew and grew. Life itself seemed to mock him—a shallow game, pointless and meaningless, but one he was still trying to win, even though he no longer knew what that even meant.
But then it all suddenly changed. All his riches disappeared. He was alone. He stood in an empty apartment with rags for clothes. He looked around. He recognized it. It was the small, dingy apartment he’d grown up in with his mother. It was cold and dark. No heat. No lights. He was horrified. He knew that somehow everything he had was now lost.
Suddenly he heard a voice. Oz spun around.
His father, once again the man who had abandoned him and his mother, was there standing before him. A beam of moonlight lit his young face.
“Dad?” he asked. To his dismay, his voice sounded meek and small.
“Yes, it’s me.”
“Where did it all go? What’s happening?”
“It’s gone. It’s over.”
“But I don’t understand. It was real. I know it was. Can’t I just go back?”
His father looked at him with eyes empty of feeling, devoid of compassion. “You used it all up.”
“No, please, let’s go back,” Oz begged him.
“There’s no place to go back to,” his father answered.
“But can’t I just start over?” Oz pleaded, his desperation mounting. “Why is this happening?”
“There is nothing left there. You destroyed everything in your path and in turn, lost yourself,” his father said, as his image began to fade. “That life was squandered. All hope. All potential. Used up. Now dead. Just like in this life. Just like in the next. It’s always the same with you. You’re like a black hole devouring all energy and light around you. It must stop.”
“No, no, no, please, no... don’t take this away from me. Don’t leave again!”
Just then, Oz heard something behind him. Something scratching along the wooden floor.
He turned around. He gasped, recoiling in horror. It was his own image looking back at him. Old, hunched over, decaying, wearing only torn, filthy rags, with sunken eyes that conveyed a mix of rage, terror, and pain. The creature opened its mouth and screamed.
“No!”
He felt a strong hand clamp down on his shoulder, roughly yanking him downwards.
“You will stay here now,” a deep, rasping, and unfamiliar voice said in a most ominous tone. “It’s all you have proven yourself worthy of.”
* * *
Alpha-4 was growing alarmed. This is madness, he thought.
“Stop this now!” he shouted as he reached out to grab Oz’s shoulder and pull him away.
“No!” Oz suddenly screamed. He spun around, a mixture of rage and horror in his eyes. But what he saw was not Alpha-4. Still holding his gun, Oz took aim and fired.
Alpha-4 dropped to the ground; a bullet wound between his eyes.
Rick took the opportunity and acted on pure instinct. He roared and ran headlong into Oz, grabbing the man’s wrist to point the gun at the cavern ceiling and shoved him hard into the wall of tablets. The gun went off and dropped from Oz’s hand as a shower of sparks flew out in all directions.
Rick let go immediately and ducked, quickly scrambling away from the wall.
“Everyone get back!” he yelled.
Oz now writhed and screamed in agony as the heat built up within him. His skin was fire, his body was fire. The pain was excruciating. His mind fractured, trying to protect him from the horror that had befallen him. In the split seconds before his death, as the flame consumed him, he knew his end had come. His last thought was of his father, Will I see you again?
Sofia saw her chance and grabbed the gun that Oz let fall. She dropped down on one knee, took aim and fired at Alpha-3. She hit him in the chest.
He gasped, clutching his chest, and fell forward, struggling for breath.
Javier leapt towards him and kicked his gun away.
Alpha-3’s struggle didn’t last long.
Nor did Oz’s.
It was over at last.
CHAPTER 22
Javier quickly grabbed the compass and stepped back, well away from the wall of tablets, far enough for the vibrations to all but cease. The metal tablets were now safe to handle. He nodded to Mari, Carlos, and Juan, who began the delicate process of taking them down.
They were all dumbfounded at what had happened in this cavern. It had happened so fast. It felt almost unreal. They were exhausted and spent, desperately trying to process what they’d just witnessed, experienced and done.
Sofia and Luis walked off to the side and sat down with their father. They huddled together, speaking in hushed tones, wiping tears away.
Rick walked over to Javier. In solemnity, they watched the metal library being dismantled.
/> “Javier, I have so many questions... but first I need to know why?” He hesitated. He pointed to Oz’s remains. It was a grim sight. “Why am I still alive and he’s not? Was it just because he slammed into the wall of tablets? Because both Oz and that first operative seemed to have had a really bad experience prior to hitting it.” Rick shook his head. “I don’t understand what happened.”
Javier sighed and rubbed his face. He felt drained. He just wanted this to be over with. All of it. “I was serious when I told Oz that the library must never be mishandled. There is enormous power running through it when the tablets are in place. Power we don’t fully comprehend.”
“Right... and... ?” Rick’s memories just after waking up from his experience were a little fuzzy; he had gaps he needed filling in.
Javier continued, recognizing Rick’s need to understand the profound experience he’d had. “As I told Oz, all we know is that the symbols affect each person differently. It may be their thoughts or actions, or a combination of both. Some people have had similar experiences, others radically different. We cannot be entirely certain of what the symbols do, because they can change with each new interaction. For all we know, there might be an infinite number of ways these symbols react to a person’s contact.”
“But why is that?” Rick pressed. He needed to know. He’d come so close to dying tonight in this place.
Javier frowned, reflecting on this terrible night. “I tried to tell him—the library seems to respond to a person’s intent. We don’t know how or why, but we suspect it has something to do with the energy a person brings to it.”
“Like a reflection,” Rick added.
“A good analogy,” Javier answered. He gazed at the wall of tablets as his friends were taking them down. He let out a heavy sigh. “We’ve learned to respect the library’s power. What’s in our hearts, our minds, has real world consequences in this place. Here, it can mean the difference between life and death.”