by R. E. Rowe
“Yes, Reizo,” Honesti says. “Everyone is in danger. You’re running out of time.”
“Ah, hell.” I pull the device out of my pocket and gaze at the dark display.
“Press it,” Honesti says.
“Just press it!” Bouncer says.
I feel an overwhelming desire to chuck the device out the window of the yacht. If it doesn’t work, I’m done with the wild goose chase once and for all.
I set the device down and use my forefinger and thumb on both hands to press all four corners of the display simultaneously. A small window appears with a keypad below it.
“What’s the code, dammit?” I ask.
“Tell him the code!” Bouncer says.
“96033033,” Honesti says.
I enter the code.
Two six-inch tall, three-dimensional holograms appear, floating above the device’s display. I fall back into my chair. It’s Bouncer, the same dude I saw in the airplane with slicked back hair and bulging muscles, and Honesti, the middle-aged conservative woman with curly gray hair.
“Hi, Reizo,” Honesti says, her voice radiating out of the device’s speaker. “Sorry for startling you.”
“Yo, boss man.” Bouncer smiles, his large teeth filling up his face. “Props. You entered the correct code.”
My thoughts shift into waves of emotion. There’s so much for me to process, too much to understand. I rub my eyes, trying to wrap my head around everything that’s happening.
I raise my voice. “Where’s Aimee?”
“We figured you’d say that,” Bouncer says, his voice emanating from the device’s speaker.
“We brought you someone,” Honesti says.
A hologram of Aimee suddenly appears. She’s only inches tall, but every inch is as stunning as I remember. Shiny black hair, side-swept bangs, and bushy eyebrows with tiny brown freckles sprinkled across her nose. Glistening dark red lips. I notice she's wearing the same jeans and blouse she wore the last day I saw her alive.
“Aimee?”
“We’ll let you have some privacy,” Honesti says.
“Ha!” Bouncer adds, clapping his hands, causing both holograms to disappear.
Aimee’s hologram remains.
“Yes, Reizo. It’s me. We don’t have much linear time before General discovers I’m missing.”
My heart races. “You look beautiful.”
I want to touch her. Hold her. Kiss her.
“I wish I could too, Reizo,” she replies.
“I forgot. You can hear my thoughts, right?”
“Yes. It is the one thing that reckoners like Honesti and Bouncer can’t do.”
My voice goes higher. “I need you here with me, Aimee.”
“I wish I could stay, but I can’t.”
I groan. It takes a couple seconds for me to get my head together, but I'm still seriously confused. “At least tell me what is going on.”
Aimee appears to sit down with her legs crossed, but she’s still hovering in the air. “We all need your help.”
“Yeah, I heard. Be honest with me. Why my help?”
Aimee stands and begins to pace. “Carmina is with us now.”
“But I thought—”
“So did everyone. The one who took Bree and Mack has different plans. He’s determined to destroy everything on Earth and start over without biological humans.”
That sounds bad, but I ignore it. I only have one thing on my mind. “Ames, I love you more than anything. I just want to be with you. That’s it. None of this stuff matters to me.”
“I love you too, Reizo. You know I’d love to be with you. But like I told you, this is bigger than us.”
I stand with fists on my hips, keeping my eyes on her hologram.
“You need to stop Curtis and Dennis,” she says. “It’s up to you. No one else can stop them now.”
“No one? Why not?”
Aimee points to the chair. “You’ll want to sit down for this, Reiz.”
I reluctantly sit down in the captain’s chair.
“Remember when we saw each other on that last day? You know, when I introduced you to Grams?”
I remember meeting Grams, but it feels so long ago. “Yeah. That was the day you died. I didn’t want to leave.”
“I know, Reiz. I didn’t want you to leave either. I wish—” She stops. “Look. JT and Zeke weren’t who you thought they were.”
“What do you mean?” An unexpected memory returns. JT laughed when I mentioned Russian mobsters. He'd been following me since the day I met him. “Wait. JT said something about followers? But so what? JT was shot dead at your house and Zeke has been locked up for life after the FBI raid of Willowgate.”
“Yes, I remember that terrible day. My point is that JT is here now, but Zeke is still there. I'm afraid he has broken out of prison.”
“Are you kidding me?” I groan, and then shake it off. “Well, it doesn’t matter. I’m thousands of miles away from that lame ass. Why should I care about him?”
“You heard JT correctly the day I died. Both JT and Zeke belong to a secret group of souls General calls “Followers.” I recently verified their existence. General assigned them to follow enforcers and eliminate them upon command. General lets his followers do whatever they want as long as they stay close to the enforcers they’ve been assigned to track. When the nuke killed Carmina, all the followers defected. They’re helping Dennis now. He managed to break Zeke out of prison and tasked him with stopping you.”
“Zeke is a wimp. Why is Dennis worried so much about me?”
“Bree and Mack are sidelined. General has lost all control and Carmina’s body is dead. Her soul is back beyond the ether. You’re the last free enforcer besides Richard, but he’s too weak to stop Dennis. I’m afraid you’re the only hope.”
“What do you mean the only hope?”
“It means if they kill you, Dennis will have no one who can stop him. Richard will never be strong enough to stop him. Dennis will take control of Earth and use nuclear bombs to eliminate human population centers.”
“But the radiation from the nukes will kill him too, right?”
“That’s the thing. Radiation won’t kill him. A soul named Franz worked for Carmina and figured out a way to entangle a soul with a body made from silicon, sort of like a high-tech robot that looks identical to a real person. Carmina’s plan was to offer souls eternal life on Earth without suffering. Souls would have a choice. A traditional biological body or one made from silicon. Carmina believed souls should be allowed to live as long as they want without struggling and suffering. But Dennis killed her. Now he controls Carmina’s hack and all her systems and technology.”
“Wait. You mean if I get ahold of that tech you could come back here in a silicon body?”
“That’s right, Reizo. I could.”
Now she’s talking. For the first time since I left Arkansas, a wave of excitement hits me like a right hook. “Really? We could be together!”
“Yes, Reizo. It will be possible. First, you need to stop Dennis. I need to tell you something else. It’s about Zeke.”
“What about that piece of crap?”
“Your mother is missing.”
“Missing?”
“Yes, Zeke took her.”
Suddenly, it feels as if a weight is pushing against my chest. I struggle to breathe. Zeke kidnapped Mom? “No, that can’t—how do you know she’s been kidnapped?”
“Her reckoners told me everything. She needs your help just like everyone else.”
A swell of anger builds inside me like a volcano made of hot tar. No way is that jerk is going to hurt Mom. No way! “What do I need to do?”
“First, find Bree and Mack. They’re your best bet for finding your mom. You’ll need their help to destroy Dennis and his gang. Make sure to protect Franz. He’s the key to the future, the only one who knows how the silicon bodies and soul entanglement work.”
The hologram flutters and disappears.
“Aimee
?”
Aimee’s hologram reappears. “I have to go.” She blows me a kiss. “Hurry, Reizo. Find Bree and Mack. I love you.”
Her hologram disappears just as Honesti and Bouncer’s holograms reappear.
“How’d it go, lover boy?” Bouncer asks.
“Tell us about it,” Honesti says. “What’s the plan?”
“Zeke has Mom. I’m pissed.” I scratch my head as if it might help. “Can you give me some time? I need to think.”
Bouncer grumbles.
“Kidnapped?” Honesti asks.
“That’s messed up,” Bouncer says. “I heard a rumor from the other reckoners, but was hoping it wasn’t true.”
Aimee doesn’t have any reason to make it up. I believe her. Mom is in trouble, but I don’t know where they’re going.
My stomach growls loudly. Bouncer smiles and Honesti looks concerned. “You need to eat,” she says. “It will help you think.”
She has a point. “I’m turning off the device so I can think,” I say. “I’ll tell you when I need you.” I press a button and the holograms disappear. I pocket the device and head down the stairs.
It’s not long before I find a huge refrigerator disguising itself as a wooden cabinet. I find a walk-in pantry next to it. Both are fully stocked with food and drinks. I open a soda and grab a sandwich, and then return to the top deck where I find a lounge chair and a better view of the horizon.
Autopilot comes in handy.
I sit back in the chair and fill my lungs with the salty ocean breeze.
That Dennis kid and Curtis left me for dead. Arrogant bastards. My thoughts shift to Bree and how she picked out the best yacht in Malta. She really is amazing.
For some reason, I find myself worrying about her, the cute badass Maltese girl. Oddly enough, I feel sorry for Mack too, even though I don’t even know the guy. But mainly, I worry about Mom. What if Aimee is right? Dennis and Curtis setting off nukes in cities? I’m the only one who can stop them? What if I can really bring back Aimee?
Still, I have no clue where Dennis and Curtis are going. I take out the device and randomly push on the screen and scan screen after screen, peering at the display. I finally come across a screen named “itracking.”
Maybe Richard was trying to tell me to check this screen? I push a few more buttons. A green dot with “Agent A – Malta” in the middle of it appears.
“Can we talk?” Honesti whispers inside my head.
“Come on, boy. Let us help,” Bouncer whispers, inside my head too.
“Fine,” I say, as if telling them “no” is really an option.
Bouncer and Honesti’s holographic images reappear and float above the display.
“Watch the green dot labeled ‘Agent A,’” Honesti says in a more serious tone than usual.
The entire map projects as a hologram. Honesti interacts with it by using her hologram hands to expand and zoom into different areas of the map.
“The green dot shows Bree’s location,” Honesti says. “Mack’s tracker shows he is either with her or nearby. Most likely they are traveling together.”
I try to touch the hologram like Honesti did, but nothing happens. “Can you overlay the dots on a world map for me?”
“Sure.” Honesti motions with her hands, manipulating the 3-D holographic map, and showing two blinking green dots.
“Can you tell where they’re going yet?”
“At this point, all we know is they are moving towards Europe,” Bouncer says with less attitude than normal.
Honesti continues. “Based on the vector addition of relative velocities—”
“Can you dumb it down a notch or ten?” I ask.
“Since the ground speed is the vector sum of the airspeed and the wind velocity, a simple calculation involving a few variables indicates Mack and Bree appear to be aboard a medium-sized jet.”
“That’s dumbing it down?” I watch the dot blink as it moves slowly across the three-dimensional map. “Would you tell please tell me more about what is going on. I get part of it. I need to find Bree and Mack to find my mom, but what is all this really about anyway? Big picture?”
“Where’d you like us to start, brother man?” Bouncer asks.
“Who are General, Carmina, and Dennis? Ghosts or something?”
Bouncer points at Honesti. “She’s the brains. I’m the brawn.”
Honesti straightens as if she’s about to teach a class. “General is a soul in charge of the reincarnation system and rules, or at least the old rules. Carmina is another soul who hated the old rules and tried to get General to change them. But General wouldn’t even consider it. That started a war between the two that’s lasted over a thousand years.”
“What do you mean ‘rules’?”
“General ran the system with three rules before Carmina hacked it,” Bouncer says. “They were: souls can’t reincarnate without permission, they can’t remember past lives, and free will is bound by cause and effect.”
At first, the rules sound simple enough, and then I realize they’re way more complicated than they seem. “So hang on. Who gives permission?”
“General, of course,” Bouncer says. “General has some equation to mix the right number of experienced souls with inexperienced ones during a lifetime. He calls it his bell-curve algorithm. It’s supposed to provide everyone who is incarnated together opportunities for growth.”
“Does it?” I ask.
“That’s a good question,” Honesti says. “Most would say that the bell-curve distribution is what makes the system perfect because everyone is always challenged.”
“Sounds like something my math teacher, Moser, would say at Theodore High.” It feels like it’s been a million years since I was in school. “Explain ‘experience.’ Experience as in what?”
“Experience as in how many times a soul has been reincarnated and the lessons the soul learned,” Honesti says.
“So if you’ve lived a bunch of past lives, you have more experience?” I look at Bouncer.
Bouncer shrugs and looks at Honesti.
I continue. “But that makes no sense. No one remembers past lives, well, unless they’re put under hypnosis or have a near-death experience like the one Aimee did. Everyone just wastes time relearning everything over again, right?”
Bouncer sticks out a hologram hand. I try to give it a high five with my finger, but swoosh only air.
“That was exactly Carmina’s point,” Bouncer says. “The first sixteen years are a major waste of time.”
“But General’s last rule is the most complicated,” Honesti says. “Cause and effect. It deals with events that happen, causing other events to happen. Sort of like a chain reaction of events.”
It’s true. It sounds simple, but I realize it’s way complicated. “But why did Carmina have a problem with the rules?”
Honesti paces in the air. “Carmina felt the free will part caused suffering. Her thinking was that it allows anyone to do whatever they want, possibly causing innocent people to suffer for no good reason. Think about it,” Honesti says. “It’s like how JT killed Aimee. She was completely innocent, but JT killed her. It was his free will—”
Memories return like a baseball bat hitting me in the head. “I get it, all right!” I don’t want to relive that day.
“Easy, big guy,” Bouncer adds. “She’s just sayin’.”
“The truth is JT isn’t really a good example,” Honesti says. “He is a follower. He was assigned to stay close to you. Zeke is a follower too. They didn’t expect you and Aimee to find the storm shelter or the Last Will and Testament that your Grandpa Wesley hid in the shelter. Your Great-grandpa Wesley also hid information about the followers in the shelter. They were afraid you’d find it.”
It doesn’t surprise me there’s more to find inside that shelter. “So Zeke’s ancestor was a follower too?”
Bouncer nods. “Bingo.”
“The entire family has always been followers,” Honesti says. “Your family
has always been enforcers.”
“Wesley and Thomas were enforcers too?”
“Yes,” Honesti says. “Your father as well.”
“So what was Carmina’s grand plan?”
“Her vision,” Honesti says, “was that she wanted people to remember past lives. She thought it would save time and keep souls focused on why they were reincarnated. The idea was if souls remembered where they came from, they wouldn’t use free will to cause other souls to suffer. If one did, she’d send the soul back beyond the ether immediately. There wouldn’t be any delay. She thought it’d be a powerful deterrent for souls. They’d most certainly think twice about their actions. Suffering would be eliminated.”
“Yeah, it was her one strike and you’re dead rule,” Bouncer says.
I recall what Bree told me during my first training session. “So you two are my reckoners?”
“Very good,” Honesti says. “Yes. We whisper helpful hints to you—”
“Helpful?” I sigh.
“Most people don’t hear us like you do. Most people just get a feeling. Some call it intuition. We’re the ones who give them that feeling.”
“Why do they call you reckoners?”
“Yo. Represent. Spiritual accountants we is,” Bouncer says, chuckling as if he’s proud of himself. “Maintain balance. Prevent bad things, if we can. We work overtime under General’s system. We’d probably work a lot less under Carmina’s system. But either way, we stay out of the politics and just do our job.”
“I doubt that. Be honest. Do you think General’s rules need to change or not?”
Bouncer and Honesti appear surprised at my question and glance at each other.
Bouncer smirks. “We’re impartial. No opinion.”
“That’s a total cop out,” I say.
“Them is the rules,” Bouncer says.
“We’re supposed to be impartial,” Honesti says. “So we are officially impartial.”
I don’t believe either of them, but there’s no point pushing it now. “So who is Dennis and which side is he on?”
“His own side,” Honesti says. “He plans to use the technology Carmina built and take over General’s system.”
“So Dennis jacked her tech and thinks if he can live forever, he won’t need General?” I ask.