by R. E. Rowe
“Right. Let’s get started.”
I shake out my arms and let my hands dangle as if I’m about to start sprinting in some kind of marathon.
“Relax, would you?” Bree sighs and gives me a shove. “Some basic stuff first. We call our physical body and personality the ego. Your soul is paired with your ego. The pairing makes it possible for souls to be incarnated into a human body to experience physical life on Earth—”
“Stop messing with me and tell me how to shoot light from my hands.”
Bree pauses as if waiting for me to start listening.
Five seconds pass and it’s getting more awkward. “Okay, okay. I’ll listen. You were saying?”
She continues. “Most souls are simply incarnated to experience physical life. You and I are not like most souls. Like I said, you’re an enforcer. You incarnate every lifetime to enforce General’s rules.”
“Wait. Lifetime? I’ve lived lifetimes?”
“Yes. Unfortunately, you don’t remember because you’ve not been properly activated by fusing the gold bracelet to your forearm bone.”
“By the way, I’m still serious about not messing up my forearm.”
She ignores me and continues. “Without the implanting process, you can’t properly entangle, and well, that means you can’t access cloud memory.”
“Cloud memory?”
“All lifetime experiences. However, let’s stay focused on training. Red beryl facilitates the entangling process of the bracelet beyond the ether. The gold bracelet allows your physical body to interact with the fundamental forces of physics.”
My eyes widen. “What the hell does beyond the ether mean?”
Bree clears her throat. “I know this is a lot to handle all at once without actually entangling. Just focus on the bracelet. I’m going to show you how to tap into its power.”
I touch the cool gold bracelet on my forearm. “Go on.”
“Think of a magnetic field or electricity. Both forces are there, but you can’t see them. When you’re wearing the bracelet, you can tap into the forces and interact with them.”
“And throw light like you did in Tripoli?”
“Exactly. You collect energy, shape it, interact with the fundamental forces of physics, and then throw it as blasts of light. When the light wave runs into matter, it turns into particles and acts like a weapon.”
“Hang on, hang on. Rewind. Back the bus up. What are fundamental forces?”
“Okay, physics 101...”
I should have listened better to the lectures at Theodore High.
“Our gold bracelets manipulate the fundamental forces. The strong interaction force binds protons and neutrons together, the electro-magnetic force is the interaction of particles with an electrical charge, the weak force acts on the scale of the atomic nucleus like radioactive decay, and the weakest of the four fundamental forces is gravity; it’s the force that attracts objects to each other. We enforcers can interact with these forces using our bracelets to amplify and shape the energy that’s all around us.”
I hold my head. This girl is not only sexy, a badass fighter, and racecar driver, she’s a freaking genius.
“Sorry. I know it’s a lot to comprehend. Did I go too fast?”
“You think?” I open and shut my fists and feel a brain freeze coming on. “Sounds crazy to me.”
“Our gold bracelets incorporate the quantum mechanics notion that particles are discrete packets of energy with both particle-like and wave-like properties.”
“Waves, like ocean waves?”
“That’s one kind of wave, but think science and much smaller. A wave is simply a disturbance or variation that travels through a medium.”
No doubt. She's definitely a serious brainiac. I stare and pull on my face as if it will somehow help me understand.
“A better example is the nature of light,” she says. “It's part of the electromagnetic spectrum. Think electromagnetic radiation or a stream of massless photons each traveling with wavelike properties at the speed of light.”
“Um, well, okay. But how does it relate to gold jewelry on our arms?”
“Entanglement,” Bree says. “Particles like electrons and photons can stay in sync even after they’re separated. So when the state of one particle changes, the state of the other particle changes too. Albert Einstein called this ‘spooky action at a distance.’ The bracelet allows your physical body and mind to link back beyond the ether to where all souls go.”
“You mean heaven?”
“Let’s not get bogged down in any specific religious way of thinking. Just think of it as another place, another dimension where our souls go when we separate from our egos.”
“You mean, when we die?”
“When our bodies die.” Bree nods her head. “Yes.”
I remember meeting Aimee and Grams at the pond when I nearly died at Rancher Murdock's house. Only the place wasn’t actually the real pond at Aimee’s uncle’s house. It was where Aimee called there, not here.
Bree continues. “Let me give you an example. Entangling electrons from a single atom is one thing, but entangling complex matter is a whole different ball game.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Well, take a grain of sand. Any idea how many atoms there are in a grain of sand?”
“Ah—”
“How about roughly one point two times ten to the eighteenth,” Bree says. “Remember, a trillion has twelve zeros.”
I do a quick calculation. “A million trillion?”
Bree nods.
“That’s a lot of atoms. Can you take it down a few notches, Miss Einstein? I’m still lost on the entanglement thing.”
“Just think of it like I said before, entanglement is where particles are separated by space but are still able to affect each other even when they’re far apart.”
“So what does that have to do with our bracelets again?”
Bree smiles. “Well, the bracelet allows us to interact with the fundamental forces and redirect amplified energy to do things like mess with another person’s brain energy and their neural impulses. We can direct energy.”
I groan. “You mean like what you did in Tripoli?”
“Yes. Energy blasts are one example.”
I hold my head, trying to understand. “Bree seriously, I’ve officially gotten my first brain freeze without eating ice cream.”
Bree exposes her gold bracelet and rubs her fingertips over the edge where the gold melds with her skin and bone. “You’re actually lucky; if I was activating you like we usually do, you’d be feeling a whole lot more than a brain freeze.”
My mind shifts back to Honesti’s comment about Carmina finding me. “So what’s Carmina’s problem with me?”
“Carmina wants to share her vision with you. She thinks if she can explain her vision for the future, you’ll want to join her and help her replace General and his ridiculous rules. She needs your help, Reizo.”
Replacing someone I don’t even know? I’m not buying everything Bree is selling, but I’ll keep listening. “So you know her?”
Bree nods. “Yes. I'm proud to know her—”
“I still don’t get why she needs my help. I can spray a crazy ass masterpiece, but beyond that—”
“Let’s get back to your lessons. Lesson two deals with developing your ability to use the bracelet to interact with objects like electronics or any matter, for that matter.” She grins.
I laugh. “Oh, I see, you’re not only a badass, and a brainiac, you’re also a comedian now?”
“Lesson three deals with concentrating and directing energy like I did in Tripoli.”
“So what exactly did you do there?”
“I simply focused on concentrating energy into the bracelet, and then redirected it at a bad guy, sort of like sending a Taser pulse. It causes neuromuscular incapacitation when it connects.”
I feel an instant chill as I recall memories of the day I was hit by a blast from Zeke and anothe
r from JT. The day Aimee died.
“You have to develop your abilities,” Bree says. “That’s why we’re going to practice. Eventually, you'll be able to form and shape energy with your hands.”
“Can I stop bullets? Like in the movies?”
“No, all you can do is redirect the momentum or increase the velocity of a bullet. If you get really good, you may be able to shape and control energy that can stop bullets. But that’s only theoretically possible. No enforcer has ever done it.”
“Go to the part where we read thoughts.”
Bree smiles. “Yes, once you’re good at using the bracelet, you can use it to collect neural impulses from a person.”
I sigh. More words I don’t understand. “Neural impulses?”
Bree takes a deep breath. “Your brain generates electrical impulses when you think about something. So all we do is entangle our own internal electrical impulses with another person’s internal electrical impulses, use it to tap into that person’s thoughts. Then you replace their thoughts with your thoughts. Simple.”
“Sort of like a wiretap?”
Bree agrees. “That’s a good way to think of it. You change that person’s neural impulses with your own neural impulses. That’s how we were able to take those private planes and get the pilots to fly us where we wanted to go. But remember if someone is wearing a bracelet like ours, that person can block your mind control attempts.”
I scratch my head with both hands. “This is crazy complicated.”
“True, but it seems like you’re getting the general idea, so let’s see what you can do.”
Bree grabs my hand with both of her hands and positions my fingers so the palm of my hand is opened upward. She gestures toward the targets. “Now point your palms forward toward those. Visualize exactly where you want the energy from the bracelet to go, and concentrate.”
“Sure thing.” I’m determined to impress her. I hold out my hand and grunt.
Nothing.
She hides a smile. “You don’t need the grunt. Try again. But this time, focus from your core.” She pushes in the middle of my stomach, prompting me to flex one second too late.
I take a moment and think about the bus, Daniela, Mack, the gray suits, and Harris. All dead. I suddenly get angry. An electric toothbrush sound vibrates inside my head. My face instantly feels warm. I focus on my core and tighten my chest. My intensity increases. I aim my bracelet and visualize energy releasing all at once.
A pulse of energy shoots from the bracelet and explodes on the ceiling, smashes into a sidewall in another explosion, and then rips a hay bale apart in a third explosion, setting it on fire. An automatic sprinkler goes on over the top of the hay bale.
“Well, that’s a start,” Bree says, softly. “Just try not to hit us, okay?”
“Yeah, okay, I got this. Let me try it again.”
I take a breath, concentrate, and aim. A glob of energy forms in my hand. I shove it forward where it travels directly into the archery target fifty yards away, causing the edge of the target to explode.
“Nice. You’re already getting energy to form in your hands. That was quick, but you’re rushing. I know you can do better. Clear your thoughts,” Bree says. “Here, let me show you.”
She takes a deep breath, keeping both hands by her sides. In a blur, she raises her hands, points her open palms, and releases ten roaring bursts of energy in rapid fire.
I step back and grab my ears. “Wow!”
She makes a motion with her hands, releasing a concentration of static electricity. The energy takes the shape of a boomerang. Somehow, she grabs a hold of it and throws it at the targets. The boomerang reaches the target in a blur and explodes in a ball of sparks.
Wow.
My turn to impress her. I take a breath, close my eyes, and then open them, raise both hands, palms outward, and point. A blast of white energy shoots from my hands and strikes the bull’s eye on a target seventy-five yards away.
“Nice shot,” she says. “You might actually get the hang of this.”
“Thanks,” I say with confidence. “You seem surprised.”
“Focus and try it again. This time release as many energy bursts as you can.”
I take a breath, close my eyes, then open them, raise both hands, and concentrate. I feel the palms of my hands vibrate. Suddenly, the energy shoots from my palms and destroys the target. I blow on my palms as if they’re guns.
“Bulls eye.” Bree claps. “Not bad. You catch on quick. Try to visualize a boomerang like I did and see if you can throw it.”
I focus and imitate the motions she’d done earlier with her hands. A glob of static electricity forms into a wide V-angle and crackles like a high voltage line. I grab onto the shifting mass of energy, but it bursts like an overfull balloon and disappears.
She smiles. “You’ll need to practice more.”
“What else can you do?” I ask.
Bree hesitates and raises her eyebrows. “Ah, well, there are energy pebbles, shock waves, energy flashes, and lots more I’ve discovered over the last ten lifetimes.”
“You remember previous lives?”
“Yes. I remember all of them.”
“Can’t that be a little, well, intense?”
“It’s worse. It would drive normal people insane. Can you imagine how hard it would be to keep past experiences straight? Anyway, you’ll be able to do that once you’re fully activated. In the meantime, I’m afraid you’ll only be able to remember experiences in this lifetime with a few other select memories as you need them.”
Before I can stop myself, I ask, “Did we know each other? I mean in past lifetimes?”
Part of me wants to know; the other part thinks of Aimee and doesn’t want to know.
“That doesn’t matter now. Let’s just focus on your training, okay?”
I don’t object.
We practice for two more hours, forming various energy objects, as she called them. She even teaches me how to create an energy shield to redirect incoming energy. She said I should use it as a defense against someone throwing energy at me.
Break time at last.
We walk back into the old shack. I sit down at the small wooden table and sip on a plastic bottle of water, watching Bree out of the corner of my eye. I gently grab her by the arm.
She stops and gazes at me with her beautiful eyes. The air in the room seems to have suddenly been pumped out. I feel myself being pulled towards her, stand slowly, and then hold her tightly in my arms.
For a moment, we just stare at each other without saying a word. Suddenly, her body stiffens. She turns and steps away.
“I’m sorry, Reiz. I have a boyfriend, remember?” she says softly. “And you have a dead girlfriend that I’m going to help you bring back.”
I’m stunned. Did I hear her right? “Bring back?”
“Trust me. I know how we can bring back your girlfriend once the war with General is won.”
“Wait, hold up. War with General?”
Before she can answer, the device Richard gave me in my backpack rings. I dig it out of the backpack and hand it to her like a hot potato.
Bree pushes a button and enables the speaker. “Hello?”
“Signal lock achieved. Proceed to coordinates on the display. Richard out.” The line disconnects.
“Signal lock?” I ask.
“They’ve triangulated Mack’s signal,” Bree says.
“Just us?” I ask. “No back up?”
“No,” Bree says. “Let’s go.” She grabs my backpack and tosses it at me.
We climb back up the wooden staircase to our borrowed car.
Bree drives while I take out the map, locate the coordinates on the map, and compare them with the display.
“Hey.”
“What?” Bree asks, keeping her eyes on the road.
“The dot stopped fifty miles off the coast of Malta.”
Bree grunts. “I should have known—the private island.” She shakes her hea
d. “I hope you like boat rides.”
chapter twenty-five
Flying faster and higher than a space plane, my custom-built aircraft allows me to travel anywhere in the world within ninety-minutes and land like a helicopter. I watch the live video feed on the panel display as we approach the largest QCC community just outside of Kansas City.
My heart sinks. Dark black smoke bellows above stacks of burning tires and dumpsters inside the community’s gates. A large gathering of angry employees and their families have halted all operations. All that stands between QCC business offices and hundreds of angry people are my silica clones dressed from head to toe in black riot gear, steel half face masks, and helmets.
If this were the only QCC community rebelling, I’d discount it. But angry crowds have gathered at every one of the ten communities I’ve visited on this day.
“We can’t stay long,” Chien says in the seat next to me as he pilots the aircraft. “We’re running low on fuel. Would you like to send your clones a command to break up the crowd?”
I lean in close to the video monitor to get a better look and use a joystick to adjust the zoom and turn-up a microphone. An older girl screams at a clone. An upset teenager shouts, “This is a prison! We live in a prison!” An old woman waves her arms and lectures a nearby clone. “You should be ashamed of yourselves,” she says. A man shouts, “QCC Corp should be broken up—closed down. Forced to open the gates to allow everyone in!”
The tension is growing. I must do something.
“No commands,” I say to Chien. “Set down and let me out. I want to talk with these people and find out exactly why they are so angry. You go and refuel. Got it?”
“Not a chance. I can’t let you do that,” Chien says. “It’s far too risky. Besides, the local police are sending in a SWAT team, and news helicopters are on the way to investigate. I need to get you out of here, Carmina.”
I watch on the display as a young boy throws a bottle over the shoulder-to-shoulder line of clones. In the distance, other boys fill bottles with gasoline and tear up an old t-shirt, preparing Molotov cocktails.
I’m running out of time. Violence will come soon if I don’t act.