by R. E. Rowe
Mack points to the leather chair situated in front of his desk. “Please, have a seat.”
I sit down slowly, realizing Honesti and Bouncer have been silent for a while now.
“Bouncer, Honesti? Talk to me, would you? Is this guy legit?”
They don’t answer.
Mack narrows his eyes. “Excuse—Oh.” Suddenly, a smile flexes on his face. “Voices, right?”
How does he know about the voices? Maybe he stole my file from Willowgate. That’d make sense.
“You hear voices? Probably two? Two voices are the most common among our kind.”
Kind? I don’t respond.
“You also probably figured out there are places they can’t talk to you. Places that are, well, energy-shielded from their communication, like the old storm shelter and this old building. So don’t freak out if you don’t hear them here.”
“What is going on?” I ask.
Mack softens his eyes. “Look, I know your head is probably spinning. I’m taking you through all of this much faster than the regular way we activate our kind.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
”We’ve been keeping tabs on you, cuz. Typically, we wait until age sixteen to activate you, sometimes even eighteen. By that time, your mind is more adjusted and developed. It’s easier to handle all the noise from prior lives.”
“Keeping tabs on me?” I narrow my eyes. “You mean spying?”
“No, no, nothing like that.”
“Then what?”
“Known Principal Rutworth since grade school.” Mack pauses as if searching for the right words.
“Why do you care? I don’t even know you.”
“General wants all of us activated—”
“Activated? What the hell? And who is us?”
Mack uses his index finger to rub his cleft chin. He looks like he’s done it so often it left a gash in his chin. “Let’s start over, can we?” He pauses. “I work for an old soul named General. I’m what they call an enforcer. We need your help.”
I glare at him and say nothing. A soul named General?
“I don’t blame you for being confused, upset even. It was like that for me too when I was first activated.”
I want to scream, but let out a loud sigh instead. I still have no idea what this guy is saying. And I haven’t heard Aimee in my head since I left Franklinville. I’m pretty sure I just imagined it all. Granted the key and car were weird coincidences, but I’m done with this bullshit.
“Look. This has been strange and you’re probably a nice dude and all. But I’m going home now, cuz.” I stand up and walk to the door. “Tell General to stay the hell out of my head.”
“Reizo,” he calls out.
I stop and glare at him over my shoulder. “I’m done with this creepy family reunion.” I flip him off and continue toward the door. “Have a nice life—”
“Reizo Nathan-Hale Rush!” he shouts.
I freeze and turn around. How does he know my full name? It’s been years since I’d heard it. It brings back memories I forgot I had. Dad. Mom. A happy family. Dad’s death.
Nathan Hale.
When Dad was alive, he told me I was named after an American Revolutionary War hero. The British captured my ancestor when he was on an intelligence-gathering mission. The dude made some kind of historic speech just before the British hung him. Dad used to say one quote over and over. He said it was something Grandpa Wesley used to say. “I only regret that I have but one life to give for my country.” It never made any sense, but it sounded cool.
“Did you know my dad?”
“I know he died when you were young. He was like you and me, you know.” He pauses, apparently to choose his words carefully. “I’m afraid his death wasn’t an accident.”
I suddenly feel like throwing up. Liar! He probably found out about Dad and is using it to try and control me. Bastard.
“I’m sorry for all the cloak and dagger,” Mack says. “But we don’t have much time.”
At first, I can’t speak, and then I force myself to form the words. Only they come out as a croak. “How’d he die?”
Mack studies me and takes a deep breath. He rolls up his sleeve and points at a gold bracelet on his arm. “Your dad removed his bracelet. He wanted a normal life. But that was against the rules, I’m afraid. Enforcers don’t have normal lives.”
“Rules?” I shake my head again. “Someone killed him?”
“I believe so. All I know for sure is he loved you and your mom very much. He’d want you both to be safe.” Mack rubs at the back of his neck. “I’m determined to do just that if you’ll let me.”
The floor suddenly feels like it’s floating on water. I didn’t think about Mom being in danger. “You’ll keep my mom safe?”
“Of course. That’s what we enforcers do for each other.” Mack glances at the big rock. “Say, how’d you like to help me find rocks like that one?” He points to the sparkling mass of gemstone-protruding rock in the glass case. “The one you stared at when you walked in here.”
I look at the rock carefully.
“It’s actually full of one of the rarest minerals on Earth,” he says. “Around here, we call it our shooting star.”
“You collect them?” I ask.
“Sort of.” He nods. “It’s more valuable than gold.”
I’m still processing the news about Dad being killed. I haven’t decided if Mack is a good guy or a bad guy. But his shooting star rock has my attention. I slowly walk back to the large rock and gaze at it.
“How much is the thing worth?”
“Well, in fact, it’s priceless. However, if you were to put a value on it in the current market, it’d be around $10,000 per carat. There are hundreds of two and three carat gemstones in the raw material you see. My staff estimates five-hundred-and-forty total carats to be exact. That’s about—”
“I can do the math,” I say.
When it comes to money, Moser would be impressed. I do the quick multiplication. Five hundred and forty carats at $10,000 per carat is $5,400,000. Holy crap. That’s a lot of cash!
I feel the pupils in my eyes turn to dollar signs. There’s over five million dollars’ worth of gemstones sitting in the glass case in front of me. I think about Mom working too many jobs and my recent assignment to add color to the gray buildings all over Arkansas.
What am I doing here anyway?
I stop myself. Nothing makes sense. Voices telling me they’re real, Aimee telling me a guy named General needs my help, this old person telling me I’m his long lost cousin and need to join him to find rare gemstones. He knows General?
“Would you just be straight up with me? What is going on? This isn’t about finding gemstones. Is it?”
“Let’s just say...” Mack smiles. “Enforcers are special.”
What a con man. Mack’s inviting smile reminds me of the old black and white photograph of Grandpa Thomas that Aimee and I found in the shelter.
“For now, all you need to do is keep an open mind,” he says. “Can you do that?”
I look at the five-million-dollar chunk of rock, and slowly gaze around Mack’s fancy office. Shelves are jammed full of old looking statues, books, and other antique artifacts that belong in a museum. I inspect the rock from the outside of the glass case.
“Can I keep what I find?”
“I’ll split it with you. I’ll even help you convert your half to cash.” He smiles. “How about a road trip tomorrow?”
That comment surprises me. “But you said I’m meeting with my mom?”
“You’ll talk with her tonight in your hospital room. Convince her you’re fine. The staff will tell her to come back in a month to check on you.”
I let out a loud sigh and think about the cash again. Since the day of the shooting, everyone has been telling me the Last Will and Testament that we found will eventually make Mom and me millionaires. But Aimee’s mom told us that could take years of court battles. Having cash now
might help Mom be able to quit her job, or at least to work only one job. The bigger deal is keeping Mom safe if this Mack guy is being straight with me.
“I’ll do it, but with one condition.”
“Which is?” he asks.
“You’re not only going to protect her, you’re going to take care of her financially. Set her up with respectable work and enough cash so she can quit her lame ass jobs.”
“That’s your condition?” he asks. “That’s all?”
Damn, I should have asked for more.
“Yep.”
“Don’t worry. We’ll take care of your mother. But you need to agree to help us.”
“Fine.” I give him a cool nod. “So where are we going?”
“A place called Malta. I own a construction company that uncovered an old chamber in one of our renovation projects. We found an ancient storeroom under the basement of an old building I own. Your key will get us inside a room we believe is hidden in it. A source tells us it’s full of red beryl.”
“You need my key?” Damn, I could have asked for more.
Mack glances away and nods. “Don’t lose it.”
“Never heard of Malta. Where is it?”
“It’s in the Mediterranean. Prime location south of Sicily, north of Tunisia. Alexandria and the Strait of Gibraltar are to the east and west. A very historic place.”
I think about it for a moment. “Well, I—”
“Great, I’ll take that as a yes. Miss Jacobs will make the arrangements. You’ll need a passport. We’ll take a photo of you on the way out.”
I shift my attention to a pair of the dark sunglasses on Mack’s desk like the ones I’d seen everyone wearing outside his office. In one motion, I snatch them and push them over my eyes.
The view is crazy. I see out like typical sunglasses, but there’s a display of changing words and video information floating in front of my face as though I’m watching a 3-D movie. Video images dangle in front of my nose, but I still see the room around me. As hard as I try, I can’t make sense out of the data. It all looks like something you might see in the control room of a space launch.
Straining my eyes on the floating images makes me seriously dizzy. When I focus past the floating images, the glasses return to normal sunglasses. I regain my balance.
Mack clears his throat. “I’ll take those, please.”
“What are they?”
“Just a little productivity enhancing device we imported from, um, Europe,” he replies, and puts the glasses in his desk drawer and closes it. “We use them to multitask around the office.”
I search his face for a moment, trying to comprehend what I just witnessed.
“We’ll fly to Malta on my jet.” He stands and slowly walks over to me, then puts his arm around my shoulder and gently pushes me forward. “Jacobs will get you to the hospital before your mother arrives. She’ll tell you what to say.”
Kate abruptly walks into the office and approaches with a man in a gray suit. “Don’t worry, she’ll be with you during your mother’s entire visit.”
“That’s right,” Kate says. She winks. “Nothing to worry about. We’ll fly your mom back home on one of our smaller private jets later tonight.”
The man next to Kate holds up a camera in one hand and waves a free hand in the air. “Over here, young man,” he says.
As soon as I look up, a flash goes off.
chapter eleven
My private submarine-yacht approaches one of three camouflaged entrances to our permanent base and control center on the bottom of the North Atlantic, west of the Orkney Islands. On the surface above, passing ships see only a sailing super oil tanker. While under my super tanker, two hundred human 1.0 clones are busily transferring supplies and materials to the base.
The submarine surfaces in a pressurized sea cave, mooring to cement dock the length of a city block. Chien takes his position by my side. We walk from the cement dock into a long, busy hallway carved out of solid rock and lit up with bright florescent light.
“Carmina,” Chien says. “I have the latest numbers.”
For a brief moment, I hope beyond hope that the numbers will be better this lifetime. Hoping there’s a sign that people are evolving and becoming more in tune and connected. Suffering less.
“Two conflicts resulting in over ten thousands deaths, a drug war, ten conflicts resulting in at least one thousand, but less than ten thousand deaths per year. Our estimates are one million suicides in the world per year, or about one every forty seconds. Five hundred thousand murders per year, viral deaths include...”
My heart sinks. Senseless suffering. Sadness presses in on me. I struggle to breathe.
Chien continues. “Sixteen conflicts resulting in less than one thousand deaths per year, twenty rebel groups controlling territory and people, and over fifty terrorist organizations determined to use their free will to kill.”
Tears fill my eyes, but I force myself to clear my throat. Once all our QCC communities are online and everyone has what they need, there will be no reason for conflicts, murders, suicides, or terrorists.
“What is the mood in our QCC communities?”
Chien starts to tell me as we continue down the dimly lit cement walkway, but hesitates.
“Please. Just tell me, Chien.”
“A small percentage of people are causing unrest.”
“But these people have everything they could ever want inside of the community’s fences. Why do they want more than they need?”
“Some worry they won’t have what they need in the days ahead, some are just restless and want to accumulate in order to profit. Others lack trust in the people around them.”
“Profit? Trust?” My face grows hot. I grab his arm and stop. “They wish to create a black market?”
“We’re not exactly sure what is motivating them. Maybe old memories and reflections of suffering are causing worry, and encouraging some people to act out.”
This is not the way I’d hoped the rollout would go. “Is this an isolated incident?”
“I wish. I’m afraid it’s happening in every one of our communities. Fear of scarcity and lack of trust seem to be at the core. Some take advantage of the unrest.” Chien’s gaze shifts downward. “There has been looting.”
“Looting? What is Dennis doing about solving these issues?”
Chien shrugs.
I straighten myself and continue walking in the carved out hallway. I won’t give up hope. “Recommendations?”
“Dennis has no recommendations at the moment.” Chien opens and closes his fists. “I’m sorry, Carmina. I wish the news was better.”
Chien’s cell phone rings. He answers and quickly hands me the phone as we walk. The phone is not a typical cellular phone. This cell connects to an underwater network of repeaters, relaying communications to my buoy-comm network, then on to one of a dozen satellites above the ocean’s surface.
“Hello?”
“Carmina, Bree here.”
“Yes, Bree. Do you have an update for me?”
“Yes. I’ve contacted Daniela. She’s the woman who activated me after my biological parents were killed this lifetime. Our souls were very close in previous lifetimes . . . I used the CIA cover story we discussed.”
“What did you tell her?”
“I told her that I’m loyal to General just like her.”
“And?”
Bree continues. “She says a group of rebel enforcers hacked General’s system and are trying to destroy it.”
“Destroy it? We want only to change it.” I feel my pulse push hard on my neck. I am fixing his flawed system. “Have they figured out who I am this lifetime?”
“I’m not sure yet. Daniela identified you by your soul name, Carmina, not your human name, Carmi Cee. She doesn’t suspect I’m helping you either.”
“Good. What are your next steps?”
“I’ll join Daniela in Malta and see what I can find out. Daniela said an enforcer named Mack ha
s made contact with his cousin, a boy our age. He’s the last enforcer to be activated.”
“Nice work.”
“But there’s more. Evidentially they know already about your ancient gold storage place in Malta. Daniela told me that General tasked Mack with retrieving all the red beryl he can find.
“But how could this enforcer named Mack find out?”
“Someone told him anonymously about the location on Malta.”
“She doesn't know who?”
“No. All Daniela knew is that Mack is coming to Malta to secure the gold and the red beryl.”
“Very well. Take Alex and Asher with you to provide backup. But have them stay in the shadows. Is that understood?”
“Yes, Carmina. One more thing...”
I stop when I reach the end of the long carved out hallway. I’m amazed when I see the three-story room in front of me filled with electronic monitoring and video devices. Thousands of autonomous bots the size of rats swarm together to chisel rock in order to extend the control room farther into the cave, while two hundred human clones, wearing dark jump suits, work on computers and hurry around the room. The entire facility is buzzing with activity and excitement as human 2.0 production day nears.
Curtis approaches us with a wide smile. He’s obviously proud of the progress he’s made inside this facility and he should be.
“Hang on, Bree.”
“Excellent work, Curtis. This place is amazing.”
Curtis greets me with a hug. “Thank you.”
“I wish I could stay, but Bree found the enforcers. Tell Franz to call me when he’s ready to test integration of the first soul into a human 2.0 silica body. You go on and join Bree using your CIA cover. See if you can help her recruit the last enforcer.”
“Consider it done. I’m off.” Curtis walks away quickly.
I turn to Chien. “Get my Osprey ready on Alaric I. We’ll fly the tilt-rotor bird to Greek base omega immediately.”
I place the phone back to my face and turn around to walk back to the submarine. “Sorry for the interruption, Bree. Please, go on.”
“Mack plans on bringing the last remaining enforcer to a dinner with Daniela. She confirmed the boy isn’t activated yet. He has no prior life memories.”