“Right, and protect her as well. I feel like a plate-juggler.”
“Your face does look rather clownish at the moment.”
“You are a hard woman, Amelia, my love. Fortunately for you, I am a hard man at the moment.” Crimson eyebrows waggled.
She laughed. “Very well, just a quickie, as the people call it these days. Then we have to strategize. I’m sure we’re not the only ones doing that at the moment.”
“Rosemary?”
“Yes. She’s remarkable too, though not in the way recruits must be, as you know. Still, it will be fascinating to watch those two interact.”
“Mmmmm...I’m picturing it now. Rosemary’s creamy café au lait skin and ebony ringlets lying on a pillow next to Zoey’s tantalizing tendrils and pale Irish deliciousness.”
“Your fantasy sounds like a Maxwell House commercial. Let’s get down to business,” she said, then shed her clothes in the sunlit room without a hint of self-consciousness.
Chapter 9 – Cthor-Vangt and Jessie
Hundreds of feet below what was once a thriving wheat farm in rural Kansas lies the home of the Cthor, the highly-evolved, virtually immortal ancient race of humans responsible for bioengineering the current one and all those before it. They had been creating and destroying people for millennia in their never-ending quest to perfect them. The survivors of their most recently orchestrated plague were barely meeting the minimal standards to allow their continuation. People were smarter, taller, and more physically attractive than the last population, but there had been unexpected and unwanted psychological pathologies present in a significant percentage.
Defects were never part of the plan, but they did happen.
The Cthor created ever-evolving human populations by utilizing the harvested DNA of gifted recruits. But sometimes the process backfired. In an effort to cultivate a stronger mental and emotional constitution, they had introduced a genetic molecule that had mutated in some, resulting in the opposite of the desired outcome. Many current survivors suffered from some form of personality disorder or psychosis. The conditions ranged from mild Asperger’s and low-spectrum autism to malignant narcissism and full-blown schizophrenia. Some exhibited characteristics of sociopaths and psychopaths. But because there were also shining examples of desirable traits – Jessie’s langthal, for instance – as well as a marked increase in overall intelligence, the Cthor had decided to let it play out. For now.
There was always the possibility, however, that they would bring about another earth-cleansing event and start over.
***
Jessie understood what she was now, but it didn’t make living below ground any easier. She missed seeing the sky filled with puffy sheep-like clouds; missed feeling the soft desert breeze on her skin; missed smelling flowers, and rain, and campfire smoke, and all the other smells that made her smile. Nothing down here smelled like anything. It was just plain old air. Most of all, she missed Amelia and Gandalf the Grey, the kitten she’d had to leave behind in Liberty, Kansas. Animals were not allowed in Cthor-Vangt.
So she was excited at the prospect of her first mission with Tung. He had taken Amelia’s place as her mentor, and he would be the one to escort her the first time back up. Nobody got older while in Cthor-Vangt, but once above ground, the clock started ticking. Tung would be sacrificing himself to aging so that Jessie could also get older. Others would have to take turns, of course; she needed to add seven years to her current nine, and her new mentor was unwilling to age that much.
Children had been non-existent here until Jessie’s arrival, so there had been much discussion among the Cthor and the other residents both ancient and young – gifted ones like Jessie herself – about what to do with her. The solution was to send her up once per year and stay for six months each time. While doing so, she would be involved in the mission objective of the adult who escorted her. It would mostly be observing people, but she had been told to expect an occasional ‘harvesting’ too, just as she had been harvested. The notion was very exciting.
Harold wanted to come with them, but he was already old, so his request had been denied. He wasn’t happy about it, but rules were rules. The biggest rule in Cthor-Vangt was you had to do what the Cthor told you. If you didn’t, you would get kicked out. That’s what had happened to Amelia when she meddled in matters she wasn’t supposed to. She had used Jessie’s langthal to cure Maddie of the poisoned medicine she had been given. She had known it was a big no-no, but had done it anyway. That’s how much Amelia had loved her adopted family: she had sacrificed immortality to save Maddie, which in turn had saved Maddie’s baby, and Pablo’s sanity – he would have lost his mind if Maddie hadn’t survived the poisoning. The sacrifice made Jessie love Amelia even more. She missed her so much and hoped someday to travel to Florida for a reunion.
“We’re not going to Florida,” Tung said in the archaic language Jessie was still learning. She was a fast learner but it was pretty hard. It was much more complicated than English. He had picked up her thoughts with his scythen, which was better than everyone’s except for the Cthor themselves.
“I still don’t understand why I can’t go up just for a month or two,” Harold said.
She liked Harold. He had been harvested in London around the time she had been harvested in Kansas. He was a doctor but not the medical kind, and he was an expert in languages, so he didn’t have a hard time learning this new one. She was a little jealous of that, but he didn’t have some of her gifts, so it balanced out. He was very smart though, and sometimes they would sit and talk about their former homes. As the two newest recruits, they had much in common, even if he did come from across the ocean and spoke with a funny accent.
“Why can’t we go to Florida?” she said.
“Because we need to go to a location that is as safe as possible,” Tung replied. “We don’t want to put you at risk while you’re up there. At the same time, I hope to get some work done too. There’s a community in Tennessee that I’m considering as an observational target. I’m still collecting data on the area. Once it’s been approved, we’ll leave.”
“Why isn’t Florida safe?”
“Hurricanes, floods, tornadoes, wildfires, alligators. And people. There’s a group of undesirables we’re keeping an eye on.”
“I’ve never been to Tennessee. It doesn’t sound nearly as fun as Florida.”
Tung smiled and his eyes crinkled at the corners. That meant he was amused, and it was always a good thing when Tung was amused.
“I could be quite useful, you know,” Harold said.
“I realize that, but there’s not much I can do.”
The three sat in one of the small conversation rooms. All the furniture in Cthor-Vangt contained material that conformed to the body of the person sitting in it at the time. Jessie didn’t understand how it worked, but it was pretty cool. Sometimes she would sit in strange positions just to put it to the test. No matter how weirdly she sat – one time she even did a headstand – the furniture adjusted to her body and made her comfortable. Those chairs and sofas would have been a big hit in her old world; they were something right out of a science fiction movie, the kind her father used to watch on television.
“You could ask them again. Or let me ask them. I’m the superior advocate since I’m invested in their decision. My scythen is exceptional, you know. They’ll hear me.”
That was another thing she liked about Harold. He always said exactly what he thought and you were never unclear on where he stood about things.
“Very well. I wouldn’t get your hopes up, though.”
Jessie wasn’t surprised when, thirty minutes later, happy noises came from one of the many corridors. Sound traveled well here, although she might have heard them with her scythen, which improved every day.
Chapter 10 – Ingrid
“I don’t trust him,” Ingrid said. “Not one bit. There’s something...reptilian about that man.”
She spoke to Hector over an elegant candlelit tab
le. They had enjoyed a delicious dinner of grouper cooked on the backyard fire pit and prepared Spanish-style with stewed tomatoes from Ingrid’s secret canned-goods stash. The bell peppers and onions came from her own garden. She was able to grow a few vegetables herself, but the variety available from the community farm was far superior. Still, there was much to be said for self-reliance.
“Is this something from your dreams?” Hector asked, dabbing at his mouth with a cloth napkin, another tradition from her old life that she insisted on carrying forward into this one.
“No, it’s just a feeling. You don’t sense it? That nagging sensation in your belly? The bristling of the hairs on the back of your neck?”
“No, I do not. Clairvoyance is your talent not mine. I will stick with languages and gardening and leave the mumbo jumbo to you.”
Ingrid regretted telling him about her sixth sense. She had done so in a weak moment soon after they became romantically involved. Because of his love of learning and his open-minded nature, she assumed he would believe her; she had cited many examples of when she had known or seen something simply by touching a person or an object. So she was surprised when she saw a cloak of disbelief, perhaps even disdain, unfurl on his face. His reaction was the reason she had told so few people about it in her former life. She had been considered Jupiter Inlet Colony’s resident curmudgeon, and she had not wanted the title of ‘screwball’ added to her resume.
She sighed. “Very well. I’ll keep my mumbo jumbo to myself then.”
“Perhaps you should talk about this with Tyler. Birds of a feather, they say.”
She nodded. She suspected Tyler possessed a similar gift – another of her gut instincts – but they had yet to discuss it. Now might be the time.
“I think I will. Do you mind cleaning up?”
“Not at all. It is my pleasure, and also a way of partially compensating for my meal. Consider it a down payment. I shall pay the outstanding balance later tonight, through a different form of manual labor.”
Ingrid giggled, then kissed the swarthy cheek. “I won’t be long. Hasta luego, mi amor.”
“Excellent! Those Spanish lessons are coming along nicely. Después, mi pollita.”
“Did you just call me a little chicken?”
“Indeed I did. It is a Mexican term of endearment.”
“If you say so.”
She grabbed a few items from the butler pantry, stuffed them into a fabric bag, and then navigated the uneven flagstone sidewalk with care – a broken hip at this stage would likely be a death sentence. When she reached the level blacktop of the residential street, she turned east toward the small house that Tyler shared with Kenny. The sun was setting and the air was beginning to cool, although she didn’t feel discomfort from the hot summer temperatures like most – it was one of the few benefits of getting old.
The door opened just as she had raised her fist to knock. Tyler greeted her with a warm smile.
“What a nice surprise. Come in. We just finished dinner and are sitting out back. The breeze is best there. Would you like to join us?”
“Yes, that would be lovely. Do you have any stemware? I brought a Bordeaux.” She withdrew the bottle from her bag and showed him the label with a coy smile.
“I think I just fell in love with you. How do you feel about younger men?”
“No offense, but I doubt you could keep up with me in the sack.”
“My loss then. Head on out while I finish inside. I’ll bring the glasses in a few.”
Tyler had picked one of her favorites in the neighborhood – a modest Key West design in pale butter-yellow. Unlike some of the new McMansions that had sprung up on the million-dollar lots during the final years before the plague, his house was understated elegance and pure Floridian. She stepped through French doors and into a landscaped yard. Kenny sat in a patio chair, fiddling with an ancient Rubik’s Cube.
“Good evening, Kenny,” she said with genuine warmth. Ingrid liked the boy, despite his embarrassing outbursts – or perhaps because of them. They could be quite entertaining.
“Hey, Ingrid. What’s shaking?” He didn’t take his eyes off the toy. She remembered those things from the eighties and wondered where he had found it. His fingers were a blur as they clicked the colored boxes. She realized the next moment that he was completing the puzzle by making all sides a solid color, scrambling them up again, and then – in what was probably record time – returning them to the ‘solved’ state.
“At seventy, everything shakes in one way or another.”
Kenny snorted, then said, “What’s in the bag, girly? Chocolate to seduce me? I can be bought, just so you know. And I’m cheap.”
She chuckled, then withdraw a Hershey’s bar from the satchel and handed it to him. The teenager wasn’t psychic; he was observant and intelligent. He could assemble pieces of information in a situation then deduce the outcome with lightning speed. She thought of him as an African-American Sherlock Holmes in miniature.
“Well done. That chocolate should still be edible, although I can’t say it will be as delicious as it was two years ago when I bought it.”
“No worries. There’s no such thing as bad chocolate, just like there’s no such thing as bad sex,” Kenny replied taking a bite.
“And how would you know that? You’re only fourteen, young man. I hope you haven’t been picking up hookers on the docks again.”
“Only ones that are missing all their teeth,” he said with an exaggerated wink.
Ingrid laughed. “You’re incorrigible. I think that’s why I like you so much. Listen, I need to talk to Tyler in private. Can you skedaddle somewhere for a half hour or so?”
“No problem. Just be gentle with him. He may look like Brad Pitt on the outside, but on the inside, he’s Angelina Jolie...all fragile and spooky.”
“What does that mean? Is something wrong with Tyler?”
“I’m just being a smartass. It’s what I do. Catch you later, Ingrid.”
He was gone the next moment. She took a seat at a wrought-iron table thinking about the comment. Tyler emerged from the house soon after.
“Will these do?” He waved two Baccarat cut-crystal glasses as he walked toward her.
“Perfect. The former occupants of this house had excellent taste.”
“I agree. There’s something to be said for having nice things, but only if acquiring them doesn’t become an obsession.”
Ingrid smiled. She had committed that very transgression in her old life. In hindsight, she realized how lonely she had been as a result of her priorities. But that was the old Ingrid. The new, improved version was determined to live out her days as a kinder, gentler human being. It wasn’t always easy.
“I assume there’s a reason for this unexpected visit?” Tyler prompted, taking a sip of the wine. “Oh, man. That is heavenly.”
She nodded, studying the handsome young man; frank, emerald-green eyes gazed back at her. She could imagine the tanned face with the sparse golden facial hair on a billboard or a movie screen. He must have had many girlfriends before the end, but he didn’t exude the typical conceit that went along with being a womanizer.
Fragile and spooky on the inside. She hoped she hadn’t misjudged the young man.
“I’ll be blunt. I have some...talents...that I don’t talk about with just anyone. I want to talk about them with you, though, because I sense a kindred spirit.” She paused, gauging his reaction.
“You mean your ESP?”
“How do you know about that? Did Hector tell you?”
“Of course not. Hector’s the man. He would never betray a confidence.”
“You’re right. I know that.”
“It’s like you said. Kindred spirits.”
“So you have them too? Clairvoyance? Psychometry? Precognition?”
“I wouldn’t go that far. I just get feelings about things and about people. I don’t read too much into it, though.”
“You don’t seem especially interested.�
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“It’s not that I don’t find parapsychology interesting, but it’s not hard science. I’m a marine biologist. I’m a facts guy. I believe in what I can see and touch.”
“But you admit you get feelings, which brings up my reason for coming here tonight. Lucas.”
It was Tyler’s turn to frown, then she saw a façade of neutrality unfold on his face. “What about Lucas?”
“My gut is telling me not to trust him. And now that we know there could be a spy in our midst, I’m even less inclined to do so.”
“Are you aware of any questionable behavior? Witnessed him doing anything unethical or immoral?”
“No, of course not,” she said, irritated now. “If I had, I would have gone to Rosemary. But there’s the crux – she’s sleeping with the man. It makes it tricky to have a discussion with her about him.”
“I understand. But until you have tangible evidence of some kind of wrongdoing, I think it’s best to keep your thoughts about Lucas to yourself. He’s good at what he does, which makes us all safer.”
“What does your gut instinct say about him?”
“Not much. I think what I’m picking up is residual cop vibes, you know? An authoritarian thing. That’s all I’m comfortable saying at the moment. I hate to speculate, and I hate to gossip.”
She nodded. “Very well.”
“You’re a sweetheart, Ingrid. No matter what anyone says.”
She laughed, breaking the tension that had crept into the conversation.
He continued, “Tell me more about your sixth sense. That’s what you call it, right?”
“Yes, that’s what I call it.” She smiled. “It began in my late teens after a minor head injury. I had been riding a scooter in Munich without a helmet. Crashed somehow – that part is a complete blank – and woke up in the hospital with a concussion. The dreams and the feelings started soon after. I tried discussing it with my parents, but they were staunch Roman Catholics. That kind of talk came straight from the devil.”
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