The Omega Point

by Whitley Strieber

And then, quite suddenly, he was surrounded by the color red. All around him, a rose-red haze. Sunset? No, something else. He tried to wave it away, but found that he couldn’t move his arms.

  That scared him and he cried out, whereupon he felt warmth on his forehead and a voice, young, female, said, “You’re fine, Mack, you’ve just been finishing.”

  The taste of rubber from the mouth guard caused him to realize that he’d been in shock therapy.

  “How do you feel, Mack?” the nurse asked.

  As he sucked in breath, the room appeared around him, all tile and dismal machines. Across the way, a hydro tub moaned and splashed. The head of Glenda Futterman bobbed back and forth, as frantic as an agitated waterbird of some sort.

  “Mack?”

  “I’m coming out of it!” He gazed around at the room. “I’m sorry. I thought I was . . . outside.”

  “Earlier you were.”

  “Did I dream about a girl? A beautiful girl?”

  “She’s a new intake. Very real. You saw her come in.”

  When he tried to get off the table, Dr. Ford said, “Not yet, guy.”

  It was so damnable to have to endure their ridiculous treatments, but what could he do? This was the deepest possible cover he could create for himself, and the danger that he might be discovered was too great. So he endured the stupid indignity of taking electroshock treatment that he did not need.

  The treatment made him forget a lot of things, sometimes too many things. He kept careful notes hidden in his room, but they might eventually be found, he knew that. So speed was essential. He needed to complete his mission, which had two parts. First, find out whatever was hidden here so well, so that it could be taken and used by the people who mattered. Then, the pleasant part: destroy this place.

  4

  THE LADY OF THE STARRY SKIRT

  External conditions were deteriorating far more rapidly than David had imagined possible, and the problems this was causing forced him to put his effort to unravel the mysteries of this place aside for the moment. The blackened bodies of Aubrey Denman and her failed protector had been given a quick burial at the end of the estate’s formal garden.

  He went to his windows, gazing out across the green lawn to the two rough mounds of earth. Close to them, an apple tree bloomed. It reminded him of something, but not something pleasant.

  “The apple blossom is the color of . . .” What? It was blank, so he left it. But it was disquieting.

  A little farther along, an oak spread spring leaves, their pale new green at once reassuring and heartbreaking.

  If you did not raise your eyes, all appeared normal and settled and safe. Look up to the top of the perimeter wall, though, and you saw that razor wire. By reading the clinic’s activity logs, he’d discovered that Aubrey Denman had not been candid with him about much of anything, and certainly not the security situation, which was far worse than she had claimed—or, it would seem, known.

  The razor wire was there because there had been an incursion from the town. People had tried to come over the wall. They’d been forced back and additional defensive measures had been taken, including the acquisition of some very powerful new guns, and thousands of rounds of ammunition.

  Look past the wire, though, and a magnificent view of Raleigh County unfolded, the rolling hills brushed now with palest green. Only if you looked closely would you see a blackened house here or there.

  The sky was now always that odd color, no longer the blue it had been. Really, not a color, more of an absence of color, a steely whiteness during the day, flickering auroras at night.

  The lawn sprinklers came on, clicking smartly. It was a sound from childhood, which the child in him found reassuring, he supposed. But where did they get the water? he wondered. Hopefully, from a well on the grounds.

  Katie Starnes’s voice came over the intercom. “The new intake’s in prep.”

  “Bring in her chart, please.”

  When he saw the name on her chart, he was stunned to frozen stillness. He kept his voice as calm as he could.

  “What’s her state?”

  “Agitated. But it’s a self-commit, so we’re expecting her to be cooperative.”

  “Expect nothing.”

  “Yes, Doctor.”

  Aubrey Denman had said that he would remember Caroline Light, and that she would bring some focus to this whole affair. But it was just a name on a sheet of paper. Seeing her, that must be what would do it.

  “Schizoaffective disorder, previously controlled with lithium therapy,” Katie said.

  He was careful to reveal nothing to her of what the name meant to him, or of his excitement that this was the daughter of their teacher.

  He read on. She’d lived a wealthy easy life, it seemed, up until symptoms began to appear last year.

  This sounded a troubling note. Aubrey Denman had induced psychosis in the class during their late teens, not last year, or so he’d assumed. So was this a real case of mental illness, some sort of odd coincidence? Or was she simply playacting? Because this report gave no indication that any symptom had been present before 2019.

  Sudden onset of mental illness was commonplace now. The whole human species was under extraordinary stress. That was why Manhattan Central had literally been overflowing into the streets. So it was perfectly possible that the daughter of their teacher had, quite simply, gone mad.

  But it was just as possible that something else was happening, so his only choice was to play it as it appeared.

  The report said that her disorder had begun to break through the lithium, in the form of auditory hallucinations ordering the patient to do various things—paint a picture, take a journey to some irrelevant spot, arm herself with a pistol.

  At what must have been astronomical expense, she had made the pilots of her family plane fly her to Guatemala, where she’d chartered a local plane to take her deep into the jungle. What she had done there was not clear, nor had she been willing to explain herself when she returned home.

  Herbert Acton and Bartholomew Light had gone to Guatemala in the twenties, and brought back extensive journals, drawings, and maps that filled many shelves in this library.

  “I want her housed initially on confinement, but give her full indoor privileges with observation. Outdoors accompanied only.”

  “Awfully tight supervision,” Katie commented.

  Caroline Light’s vulnerabilities were complex. Whether she was acting or genuinely troubled, with that last name, she was probably of as much interest to the opposition as Aubrey Denman. More, conceivably.

  “In my opinion, it’s necessary. And keep her surname confidential, please.”

  “We never use patient surnames in population.”

  “Not even in her chart. Call her—I don’t know—Caroline Smith.”

  “Of course, Doctor.”

  Her tone was too neutral. He thought it concealing, but of what he could not be sure.

  The door flew open and Caroline Light came striding in, a breathtaking beauty, her legs outlined by her blue silk dress, which fluttered behind her as she walked forward.

  He felt a sensation of literal, physical shock pass through him as she got closer. Her eyes were jewels flashing light, her skin tanned but soft, her lips at once held in a tight, angry line and yet ready, almost, to laugh. The eyes, made brighter by the darkness of her full lashes, glared, stared, and mocked all at once.

  Behind that complex, challenging expression, though, was a face of heartbreaking beauty, the forehead broad, the eyes shaped for nighttime, the nose tapering but not severe, the cheeks full but not so full that they concealed the suggestive curve of the cheekbones.

  However, the memory he had hoped she would spark did not come. There was no sense of déjà vu, no poignant quickening of the heart. She was, simply, a stranger.

  As Katie discreetly withdrew, she sat down, crossed her knees, and regarded him with pale eyes. Was that anger in there? Amusement? Both?

  “At last,” she s
aid.

  He thought it the most disconcerting comment she could possibly have made.

  “Have we met?”

  She flushed, then tossed her head like a young mare. He had the impression that she was both furious and hurt.

  “Okay, let’s do our medical interview. See how good we are.” Long hands dipped into a purse made of what looked like some sort of cloud, white and soft. She drew out a cigarette.

  “No smoking in the facility, I’m sorry.”

  She lit it, took a long drag, then expelled two streams of smoke through her nose, an exquisite dragon. She glanced around.

  “What is this dump, anyway?”

  “The Acton Clinic. Do you often lose track of where you are?”

  “I mean the room. Of course I know where I am.” She barked out a laugh. “David, are you still asleep?”

  He wanted to open up to her, but he couldn’t, not without some inner signal, some echo of recognition, and there was none. He maintained his professional posture.

  “What do you mean by sleep?”

  “You can take your shrink questions, fold ’em up, and stuff ’em you know where.”

  “Which would be?”

  She flipped the cigarette at him. It hit his shoulder and bounced to the floor.

  “That was useful.”

  “David, you’re embarrassing yourself and—to be frank—hurting me.”

  “In what sense?”

  “Stop it!”

  He was really having trouble here. He was strongly attracted to her, that was certain, but there just was no memory.

  “Those images over the door, I’ll give odds you don’t know what they are,” she said.

  “I do not.”

  “Well, I do, because my grandfather was the man who discovered them. In tetu inan, in tetu itah. That’s Nahuatl for ‘father and mother of the gods.’ Ometeotl was two in one, mother and father.”

  “Is this why you went to Guatemala? Are you a believer?”

  “What do you think?” Her tone was knife-edged with sarcasm.

  “That’s for you to say, Caroline.”

  Her eyes became sad. “You need to remember something, David.”

  This was a subtle mind, quick and supple, and it was testing him, but in what sense? Was the real Caroline Light trying to find out if he remembered her, or was an imposter trying to determine if he’d been in the class?

  “What about myself do I need to remember?”

  She lit another cigarette. “Shall we do sex talk?”

  “Shall we?”

  “Isn’t that what you do here?”

  “This is a hospital you’re in, Caroline. It’s a place where people who are suffering come for relief. Which is why you checked yourself in, I would think. What do you think?”

  “That I need an ashtray.”

  “There isn’t one.”

  She flicked ash on the carpet. “This is a Tabriz, probably a Hajiijalili, and look at the abrash. Gorgeous.” She smiled a little, then, and her face became soft with promise. Really, she was meltingly beautiful. “I always wondered what it was like up here. Remember the time we tried to sneak up and old Mrs. Acton got mad and threatened to spank us? She lived to a hundred and three, did you know that?”

  “Under the terms of the transfer, we can’t alter the décor in these rooms. That’s why the rug is still here.”

  “How strangely colorless you’ve become, David. You’re not in total amnesia, though. I can see it in your eyes.”

  She stood up and came around the desk. He stood, also, and suddenly they were quite close, and the attraction was powerful. He cleared a dry throat.

  “Maybe I’ve always been a colorless bureaucratic type. By your definition, anyway.”

  Fingers brushed his forearm, a seemingly innocuous gesture that was surprisingly intimate.

  “We know each other, David, and we have made promises, and even if your mind is in denial, your body knows it.” She gestured toward the images over the door. “They mark this as a sacred space. Worthy abode of the Plumed Serpent, for example. Quetzalcoatl. Does that ring a bell with you?”

  Vaguely, he recalled talk of the Mexican gods in the class.

  He cleared his throat. “The situation—the disturbed sun, the coincidence of the dates, all of that—has caused a significant minority of patients to integrate Mayan cosmology into their fantasy production. We psychiatrists used to get Hitlers and JFKs and Napoleons. Now, it’s Tlalocs and Quetzalcoatls. So yes, I am indeed familiar with the Plumed Serpent. If I may be so bold, which god are you?”

  “I get what you’re doing. You’re not sure about me. You remember something, but not enough to let down your guard. I could be the enemy.”

  “What does that mean to you?”

  Her cheeks went rosy, her lips parted just enough to reveal the pearl edges of her teeth, the moist pink of her tongue.

  Maybe it was the most seductive look he had ever seen.

  “David, I want us to be us again, like we were when we were kids.”

  There was no longer the slightest question in his mind that his decision to house her on confinement was correct. If she was a member of the class, she’d welcome the safety of it. If she was some kind of agent, she’d be contained. This woman had no psychiatric symptoms, and she wasn’t even bothering to pretend.

  Katie appeared, meaning that he was out of time.

  He said, “Caroline is ready to go.”

  With a dancer’s grace, Caroline turned around. Then she whirled back, her cheeks red, her eyes so savage that they sent a shock through him. Caroline angry was a terror.

  “That works exactly once,” she snapped.

  She was very controlling. She did not like to be “handled.” And he was just not sure where he stood with her.

  He tried a smile. “It’s just that it’s lunchtime, Caroline.”

  “Anything raw and bloody. A heart, preferably.”

  “Be careful, you might get just that.”

  “Ah. Can I order it? Does this place work like a cruise ship?”

  He ignored the question and instead turned away from her in his chair. After a pause, she huffed out, Katie hurrying along behind her.

  Katie handed her over to Sam Taylor in the outer office and began to push David’s door closed.

  “No, Katie, I want you,” he called.

  She returned. For the safety of Caroline Light, he intended to make a convincing case to every staff member at the clinic that she was genuinely insane, perhaps even dangerous.

  “I want this patient placed on priority observation at all times. Her luggage is to be searched by Glen personally for anything that shouldn’t be there, and it’s to be brought to me. She is to have locator buttons placed in her shoes and clothing, and I want security to put her on the alarm list for any deviation from routine.”

  Katie’s face suggested carefully concealed surprise.

  “This woman is in a good deal of trouble,” he explained. “She’s been poorly diagnosed and inappropriately treated, but that’s not the problem. What we have here is a time bomb that’s about to explode. In the safety of this environment, surrounded by professionals who can control her, she’s going to give herself permission to just plain cut loose.”

  “I’ll get this set up right away.” She turned to leave.

  “Don’t worry, she’s not going to blow just yet. But she will, Katie. At some point that anger is coming out, and it isn’t going to be pretty.”

  “Doctor, you have the steering committee meeting.”

  When Katie had gone, he took a deep breath and let it out. He was drawn to his assistant sexually—not as explosively as to Caroline Light, of course, but he’d welcome company in bed.

  He went to the bookcase and pulled down one of the beautiful codices. He really wanted to spend some time with them, if nothing else admiring the artistry. He was drawn to them. He wanted to feel them in his hands.

  He drew down another volume, then another and anothe
r. They were all different, all huge, and he thought that any one of them might contain more writing than all the known Aztec and Mayan codices in the world.

  Then he saw a volume that was not a codex. The Gods of Mesoamerica by Bartholomew Light. He took it down. Obviously, it hadn’t been touched in a very long time, and the leather cover crackled when he moved it.

  He had just opened it when Marian Hunt came in, followed by the executive chef, Ray Weller, Glen, Bill Osterman, the chief engineer, and the other members of the on-site steering committee.

  Appropriately enough just before lunch, the subject was to be food resources. Supplying the clinic with the luxuries the patients expected was getting more and more complicated. There had to be cutbacks, followed by the inevitable protests.

  As the room filled, he began to experience an acute sense of claustrophobia. He was not used to feeling suspicious of coworkers, and having his office filled with them was surprisingly unpleasant. As large as it was, it felt just now like a coffin.

  Katie said, “Doctor, are you okay? Because you don’t look okay.”

  He put a hand on her shoulder and could feel her stiffening and recoiling from the contact.

  “Do you think Dr. Ullman was murdered?”

  “Excuse me?”

  She was surprised by his question—as, for that matter, was he. But she recovered herself quickly.

  “He died in a fire,” she said, her voice sharp.

  He looked around at the assembled group, the concealing, careful faces.

  “Very well,” he said, “let’s get started. We don’t have much time.”

  And then he thought: in truth, we don’t have any time. No time at all. In fact, the Acton Clinic, all of us, the country, the world—we are all in the same situation: we no longer have time.

  DAVID FORD’S JOURNAL: TWO

  I was looking through Bartholomew Light’s book and a document fell out, and this document has, quite simply, turned me inside out. Reality is not what I thought. Not at all.

  The note is old. It is signed by Herbert Acton. The heading is “Divinatory Calendar” and dated “6.1.1.” This is either June 1, 1901, or January 6, 1901, I have no way to tell which.