The Omega Point

by Whitley Strieber

  She reached for her drink—they had both been given highballs by the waiter—and as she lifted it to her lips, a blue glow appeared around her arm. She looked at the glow for a moment, then tossed the drink away with a little cry and an electric crackle. David noticed the same glow along his arms, and felt a tingling sensation. He thought, This thing is about to blow up, and his heart started racing. The waiter rushed to pick up the glass, blue fire shimmering along his arms and back.

  “Ma’am, it’s Saint Elmo’s fire,” he said. “We’ve got incoming solar energy again.”

  She looked pained. “We should have taken the car, Andy.”

  “Impossible, Ma’am. Too slow, too dangerous.”

  David glanced down at what he supposed was the New Jersey Turnpike far below. There was no sign of movement in the long, gleaming snake of vehicles. He said nothing.

  She jabbed the intercom. “What does this Saint Elmo’s fire mean? Is it going to cause a crash?”

  “We’re trying a lower altitude.”

  “I hate these damned solar flares. It’s hideous, all of it. Hideous.” She twisted about in her seat where she sat, a spidery old creature in silk and diamonds. She looked at him, suddenly as intent as a snake.

  “Where’s it all going to end, Doctor, do you know?”

  “It’ll fade away eventually.”

  “That’s one opinion. But perhaps you haven’t seen this.”

  She handed him a document in a beige folder. When he opened it, he saw red classified stamps.

  “I can’t read this.”

  She waved her fingers at him. “You’d better.”

  “I haven’t got a clearance.”

  “Don’t you understand, David? That doesn’t matter anymore. All of that’s gone.”

  The paper was only three pages long, a quick series of paragraphs. It was from the chairman of the National Security Council, directed to the president.

  “Where did you get this?”

  “Oh, for God’s sake, young man, read the damn thing!”

  According to the paper, the solar system was entering the atmosphere of a supernova—information which was hardly classified. Everybody knew it. But then came a more shocking sentence: “The last time we passed through this cloud 12,600 years ago, debris from the body of the exploded star impacted the glaciers. An area of the great northern glacier, the Laurentian ice sheet, was transformed from ice to superheated steam in under a second. This area was as large as Rhode Island and the impact resulted in enormous icebergs being thrown as far afield as New Mexico. A storm of smaller pieces created the million craters of the Carolina Dells.”

  Still, he was not surprised by this. Since the publication of Firestone, West, and Warwick-Smith’s Cycle of Cosmic Catastrophes in 2006, it had been a generally known, if debated, explanation for the abrupt end of the Ice Age.

  He read on.

  “The ice melted so rapidly that the entire North American continent was flooded. In North America, all human life was destroyed. Elsewhere, man survived, and the catastrophe gave rise to all of the world’s flood legends.”

  He looked up. She had knocked back his drink. She regarded him out of shadowed, appraising eyes.

  “Does any of this ring a bell?”

  “Sure. It’s one of the theories about why the Ice Age ended. Why it would be classified, I can’t imagine. It’s been in the news for years.”

  “Read on.”

  “As our last advanced civilization was being destroyed by the upheaval, scientists made detailed observations of the stellar debris field. They mapped it and found it to be irregular in shape, and it became clear that we would reenter it in another twelve thousand years. But they could not pinpoint the exact date without taking extraordinary measures.

  “There is evidence that they created some sort of substance that enabled them to see very accurately into time itself, and actually looked forward into the future to determine the precise moment of reentry.

  “Whatever this was, it is why later users were able to draw glyphs of modern military equipment at the Temple of Hathor in Egypt. But more importantly, some truly exotic use of it may be why certain people, such as many of the priestly class in the late Mayan period, simply disappeared. They went elsewhere in time physically.

  “So far, our efforts to determine what this was have failed.

  “In any case, its use enabled the people of the past, at some very distant point, to make the exquisitely careful observations that pinpointed the precise date that the danger would return. They marked this as the final end of the world.

  “However, they also understood that mankind had much history to live before that day came, and they realized that all of their learning centers, clustered as they were along shorelines that would soon be under hundreds of feet of water, were doomed. They created a calendar now called the Zodiac, that measured the ages. This was further refined as the Mayan Long Count calendar, which revealed the exact moment the solar system would re-enter the cloud.

  The tone was ponderous with official importance. But there was a problem—it was based on an absurd notion.

  “The ancient civilization they refer to—I assume they mean Atlantis? Plato’s little speculation?”

  “What do you remember?”

  “About Atlantis? Nothing. It was before my time.” His contempt was growing.

  “Please keep reading, young man, if you don’t mind.”

  As the jet sped on, its old engines blaring, its airframe shuddering, he returned to the document.

  “The beginning of reentry was first detected as an increase in cosmic background radiation by Dimitriev in 1997. Then, precisely on December 21, 2012, as the Mayan Long Count calendar suggested, an unusual spike took place. Since then, the density of the field has continued to grow, and all indications are that this will continue, possibly for thousands of years, with unknown consequences. In fact, the solar system is headed directly into the center of the cloud. In a very short time, we will begin to actually see the core of the exploded star, and it will be flooding Earth with radiation.”

  This last paragraph had changed his opinion of the document. In fact, he was eager now to know more and flipped the page—and sat staring at the back of the folder.

  Mrs. Denman took it from his hands.

  “Let me ask you this, David. Do you recall Herbert Acton? Bartholomew Light?”

  “I want to know more about this document. Because if this last part is confirmed—”

  “It’s confirmed. Please answer my question.”

  “Who confirmed it? How?”

  “The way you give me the space I need to address that is to answer my question.”

  “I know who Mr. Acton is, certainly.”

  “But you recall nothing else? No childhood memories?”

  “Of Herbert Acton? Mrs. Denman, I was born in 1984. He’d been dead for—what? thirty years or more.”

  “Charles Light, Bartholomew’s son?”

  David was mystified. “No, I don’t remember him. Should I?”

  She reached over and touched his face, drawing her fingers along his cheek. It was an oddly suggestive sort of a thing to do, and David was embarrassed.

  “As far as you’re concerned, you were never at the home of Herbert Acton?”

  “No.”

  She regarded him. “No memory at all?”

  He shook his head.

  A small, sad smile came into her eyes.

  “There were thirty-three families, all associated with Herbert Acton in one way or another. Your family was one of them.”

  “My family?”

  “Your great-grandfather sold Herbert Acton the land the estate is built on. That connects you.”

  “A very tenuous connection.”

  “You remember nothing of your childhood?”

  “I remember my childhood perfectly well. I was raised in Bethesda. My father was a GP. He was a good doctor and I’ve been trying to be the same.”

  “But you
don’t remember Charles Light? Or the class? Or Caroline Light?”

  “Absolutely not.”

  She smiled. “You will meet Caroline, and when you do, I’m sure it’ll all come back to you. In any case, you were hired because it’s time, and you’ve been carefully prepared.”

  He absorbed this last and most mysterious statement. When she had originally interviewed him, she had a list of obviously professionally written questions about medical qualifications. Frankly, she could have gotten them from any hospital personnel department, or even a book. He had thought her interview technique a poor one and had doubted her qualifications to select a physician provider for any decent sort of mental health facility. Now he really doubted those qualifications.

  He’d also had the sense that his answers didn’t matter to her, and even that she didn’t understand his discussions of patient evaluation methodologies, the uses of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, his thoughts about drugs to be used and dosing, or, frankly, any of it.

  No matter this document, whatever it might actually mean, he had no intention of proceeding if anything other than his professional qualifications had gone into his hiring. It was already a sticking point that she’d come to Manhattan Central and found him, even though he wasn’t looking for work. First in his class at Johns Hopkins had been the stated reason.

  “If you didn’t hire me on my medical qualifications—”

  “You have magnificent qualifications.”

  “Who is Caroline Light? What class?”

  “Doctor, you will remember.”

  “No. I need to know right now or we need to turn around and go back to New York.”

  “You have nothing to go back to. You’ve resigned.”

  That was true enough. For everyone working just now, there were fifty ready to take his job, and his position at Manhattan Central had no doubt been filled within hours of his leaving.

  “What class?”

  “You were in a class as a child. On the Acton estate.”

  “That’s impossible.”

  “That’s what you say now, but you’ll remember.”

  “Why would I forget?”

  “Because if you had not been made to forget, you might have revealed something about an extremely sensitive matter. Any of you.”

  “Any of us? Of who?”

  “The class!”

  “I don’t remember this class, Mrs. Denman, so I need you to explain it, please.”

  “David, the class is now assembled at the clinic. They will appear to be patients.”

  “Appear to be? Mrs. Denman, please. What am I getting into?”

  “David, when you’re at the clinic, you’ll remember more on your own, and there will be somebody coming soon who’ll help you remember everything.”

  If there was one thing he could not handle and had never been able to handle, it was helplessness. He needed to be in control of his life, and that was at the core of his willingness to take this job. He wouldn’t be under control of a hospital administration, he would control one—or so he had thought.

  “This is an outrage.”

  “Yes, it is, David. I admit it. You were always the only candidate for the job.”

  He could not turn back, that was clear. He did not relish ending up on the street just now. The world was starving and there was no recourse. Professionals were clawing for food alongside beggars.

  “You’ve lied to me. In effect, kidnapped me.”

  “And who’re you gonna call? The FBI?”

  He waved the report. “I hope I’m not expected to deal with supply problems and survival issues, because this looks like a horrific disaster. Something way beyond the Acton Clinic.”

  “You have been trained to navigate us through this. You are uniquely qualified.”

  “I’ve had one class in disaster management. I treat psychiatric disease.”

  “You will remember. Trust me on that.”

  “Trust you?”

  “You must understand—”

  “I don’t understand a thing!”

  “Shut up, boy!”

  “I will not shut up! I don’t understand and I need to understand because you’re dropping me into an incredibly challenging situation and at the same time telling me that I’ve somehow forgotten all the damn rules. Come on!”

  The jet shuddered.

  “Oh, God,” she said. “I loathe air travel.”

  “It’s starting to land, that’s all. What am I supposed to remember?”

  “David, let’s please just get through the landing!”

  “What in hell am I supposed to remember?”

  She sighed. In her eyes he saw something beyond desperation, the expression of an animal that is dying and knows it has run out of options.

  But then again, that was apparently the definition of the entire world, if this document of hers was to be believed. Everyone had been assuming that it would be like this another few weeks or months. Surely it would get better.

  And surely it would. Earth wasn’t descending into hell . . . was it?

  As they banked, David could see the trees over northern Maryland brushed with fragile early spring leaf, a dusting of green not quite thick enough to camouflage the reality on the ground, of burned-out houses and strip malls, and abandoned vehicles along the roads.

  Off to the west, he saw a large estate, a complex of shale roofs in lovely, manicured grounds. He could see figures on the grounds, a man riding a lawn tractor, two others walking along the curving driveway.

  “Is that it?”

  She jabbed the intercom. “How much longer, damn it?”

  “Five minutes, Ma’am.”

  She regarded David. “I don’t want to die. Isn’t it odd? An old woman like me. So selfish.”

  He wasn’t interested in her anxieties. “It’s human nature,” he snapped, causing her to blink and set her jaw. Well, let her be offended. “I need to get to the bottom of this,” he continued. “Tell me about this class. And if I’m suffering from an amnesia, what was responsible or who? Was I underage? Did my parents consent?”

  “Of course they did! Your father brought you to the class.”

  “I’m taking this job as a clinician, not a survival expert or whatever it is you expect me to be. I’m a psychiatrist and that’s all I am.”

  “Think of yourself as a shepherd.”

  “All right. That’s valid. But not a disaster expert.”

  “You’re our Quetzalcoatl.”

  How tiresome. Since it had been realized that December 21, 2012, actually did have some significance, everyone was an expert on Aztec and Mayan civilization, and their dreary, complicated, and unforgiving gods.

  “I am so tired of that stupid fad. Those damn gods didn’t mean a thing.”

  “They had meaning.”

  “Come on!”

  “Not in the way people think, of course. They represent scientific principles that have been lost. Human personality types, hidden powers. But you understand all this. You just need to remember, David.”

  “Remember what?”

  They came in low over the estate, then banked again, this time quite sharply, resulting in an excellent view of the property.

  Behind the shale roofs of what was obviously a very large mansion, stood an austere modern building. The whole establishment was surrounded by high brick walls.

  “Is that razor wire on the walls?”

  She peered out the window. “Looks like it. We have an excellent security organization. I’m sure it’s there for good reason.”

  “I’m sure.”

  When they landed, what looked to David like an unusually heavy black car appeared, some sort of Lincoln, he thought. Andy the waiter opened the jet, dropping down the door and lowering the steps. David checked his watch. They’d been in the air for thirty-eight minutes, a journey that would have taken six hours by car, assuming the roads were open. But with all the disabled vehicles around nowadays, it could have easily tak
en a week, or proved to be impossible.

  As they went down the steps, the pilot appeared.

  “We need to keep moving,” he shouted over the whine of the engines.

  Andy was already putting David’s bags in the trunk. Mrs. Denman had no bags. She was returning tonight.

  David gazed off across the airport. There were a couple of Cessnas in tie-downs. The wreckage of two personal jets—newer than this one—lay piled alongside the runway.

  “Get in the car!” Andy barked. David realized that he’d taken on a new role. In the air, he was a servant. Here, a bodyguard.

  David jumped in. A moment later, the trunk slammed, the pilot returned to the jet and it took off, making the car shake violently as its exhaust hit the vehicle.

  “Jesus, they’re in a hurry!”

  “There can be shooters,” Mrs. Denman muttered.

  “How dangerous is this place?”

  She looked at him as if he was some sort of a lunatic for even needing to ask. Andy, now driving, did his job in silence.

  “I have two hours. The plane will fly a pattern, then meet me back here. Not a good idea to keep it on the ground.”

  “No, I suppose not.”

  The car swayed, then picked up speed as it approached the town of Raleigh itself. David had never been here before, but had been told that it was a prosperous and settled community of upscale commuters and local gentry.

  By the time they reached the outskirts of the town, the car was doing at least sixty. They accelerated as they went along the main street, tires screaming as they rounded courthouse square.

  Buildings raced past on each side as Andy leaned on the horn and they shot through one red light after another.

  “What’s going on?”

  “We call it ‘running the town.’”

  “But—Jesus . . .”

  “There’s a lot of inappropriate resentment.”

  At that moment, the car turned and slowed as it began moving, once again, through the countryside. “Cigarette?” Mrs. Denman asked, holding out a pack.

  “I don’t smoke.”

  She put it away. “Neither do I.” She sighed.

  Soon, David saw ahead of them a pair of enormously imposing gates. They were iron and easily twenty feet tall at their peaks. Across the top were four iron finials. On the finials, David recognized gryphons with their eagle’s wings and lion’s bodies, familiar, leering forms from the walls of Gothic cathedrals. Gryphons were guardians of the gates of heaven. Worked into the iron of the gates themselves were images of Mesoamerican deities—which was odd, given the age of this place. In the early twentieth century, they’d hardly been known.