The Elders

by Dima Zales

  Rose looks at me as though I sprouted horns.

  Caleb sarcastically asks, “Anything else?”

  “Yes,” I say, ignoring his tone. “I need you to do it at exactly the same time.”

  Rose’s voice quivers as she asks, “How are we supposed to—”

  “Easy,” I say. “We synchronize our watches.”

  “That’s not what I was about to ask,” she says, her composure improving. “But you knew that.”

  “Look, the worst they can do is make you Inert,” I say. “And you, Rose, don’t have anything to lose.”

  “I do,” Caleb says. “Without the Mind Dimension, I’ll be at a huge disadvantage.”

  “I’m sorry,” I say, “but that’s the best plan I can come up with.”

  “That’s not a plan,” Caleb says. “That’s just something for us to do. I want to know what the hell you need this suicide mission for before I agree to it.”

  I look at Rose, and she gives me a nod. I gather she doesn’t mind Caleb knowing that Readers can be Guided, so I tell him what I, and the Elders, can do. I also tell him my plan—which is to bring Thomas in at the exact same time as Caleb and Rose bring in the others, and use Eugene’s machine to go to Level 2 and gain control of the situation.

  “It won’t work,” Caleb says. “At least not for John.”

  “Why?” Eugene asks.

  “Because I made him Inert,” Caleb explains. “I tried it with all of them but that one.” He points at George. “John was the only one I could beat in the Mind Dimension.”

  “You mean everyone but John kicked your ass?” I say unkindly.

  He gives me a look that says, ‘I’m about to kick your ass,’ so I don’t push the point.

  “Why didn’t you try making George Inert?” I ask instead. “There’s no way he could’ve come close to beating you. He isn’t part of Kate’s crew. He’s a glorified politician for the Elders.”

  Caleb looks surprised. “I didn’t realize that. In fact, I thought it was the opposite. I figured since the guy looks like he’s their leader—”

  “He’s not the leader.” I frown. “Kate—the one with the sword—is.”

  He shrugs. “Not much I can do with that information now.”

  “But you seem to be doing well there.” I look over at frozen Caleb and Eleanor.

  “If you used your brain, you’d know that I’m as good as dead,” he says. “At least I will be once the others are through with the monks. The cow and I are pretty evenly matched, and I let her get me on the ground. Now she’s making sure I’m sprawled like that for a while so her team can finish me off.”

  “So you might as well try this plan,” Rose says. “At least it gives you a chance.”

  Caleb gives me a cold look. “Fine, but I have one condition. You’re going to stay out of my head.”

  “Sure. Even if I wanted to get into your head, I suspect I wouldn’t be able to. Something about your head is special.” I chuckle. “At least when it comes to Level 2.”

  “You mean the fact that he hasn’t been Guided by the Super Pusher?” Eugene looks at Caleb as though seeing the man for the first time.

  “Yes,” I confirm. “Rose hasn’t been Guided either. The two of them must be resistant somehow.”

  “Curious,” Eugene says before turning to me. “There’s a big flaw with the whole idea.”

  He looks worried, and I know he’s no longer talking about Caleb’s strange head.

  “What flaw?” I ask.

  “If Caleb can’t handle them one by one, won’t he have trouble with the whole lot of them all at once?”

  “You don’t say,” Caleb says mockingly. “Thank you for this revelation. Did you need that white coat to come up with it?”

  “He doesn’t need to fight anyone,” I explain to Eugene. Then, looking at Caleb, I say, “You can just tap each one, then run away or something.”

  “Great idea,” Eugene says at the same time as Caleb says, “Run away?”

  Caleb’s face looks menacingly calm as he mutters something softly. The only word I can make out is indignity.

  “Can I do the same?” Rose asks, ignoring the big man’s gripes.

  “Yes,” I say. “And you have the advantage of hiding behind the trees.”

  “But the disadvantage of old age,” she says.

  “I can take your place,” Eugene offers. “I can show you how to turn on the machine.”

  “No,” Rose says. “You’re the best person to operate whatever that is. I’ll run and hide as Darren suggested.”

  “Okay then,” I say. “Let’s go. Unless any of you have objections.” I see that Caleb’s about to speak, so I add, “Other than bitching about having to run from one’s enemies.”

  “Here,” Caleb says and turns the shotgun handle toward Eugene. “Take it.”

  “No, you keep it,” Eugene says. “I’ll need my hands free to start the device.”

  “Keep it, but please, don’t shoot anyone,” I say to Caleb. “No matter how tempting it is.”

  “I’m not an idiot,” Caleb retorts.

  “That’s arguable,” I mutter. Then I say louder, “Let’s set our watches for seven-thirty, unless . . . Caleb, is half an hour enough time for you to pull in the last person at eight sharp?”

  “Again—not an idiot, kid,” Caleb says, crossing his arms over his chest. “And don’t test your luck with a comeback. Kicking your ass wouldn’t undermine the plan, so . . .”

  I swallow my witty response and say, “Rose, I assume you’re okay?”

  She nods.

  “Eugene, is that enough time for us to get back to the guesthouse and start the doomsday device?” I ask.

  “Ample, but I’ll go set up.” Eugene turns around and heads for the Temple doors.

  “Good luck to you too, Eugene,” Caleb says to Eugene’s back.

  “If this works, you'll need to tell Kate and her crew that you’re not their enemy,” I say to Caleb. “I bet they’ll be very confused about what happened.”

  “And as soon as you confirm they’re not aggressive, you’re not to kill them,” Rose says. “I like this idea of peace with the Pusher—I mean Guide—Elders. I’m sure the rest of the Enlightened will want it too. Needless to say, unnecessary killing will not be very helpful in meeting that goal.”

  Caleb’s jaw tenses and he says, “But that’ll make things more difficult—”

  “It’s an order.” The imperiousness in Rose’s tone is as sudden as it is startling.

  “Fine,” Caleb concedes. This is the second time I’ve seen him act almost deferential toward my grandparents. “If the stupid walrus eases her grip, I will too. Same goes for the others. If they leave me be, I’ll let them live.”

  “Thank you,” Rose says, her voice sounding more pleasant. “Good luck then.”

  “Seriously, good luck,” I echo. “Let’s go, Rose.”

  “Hey, kid,” Caleb says. “If you save the day, remind me to apologize.”

  “For taking my moms and friends hostage?” I ask, my hackles rising. “Or for kidnapping me prior to that?”

  Without waiting for an answer, I turn and walk toward the doors of the Temple. I hear Rose shuffling behind me. Once she catches up, I walk in silence, and she doesn’t bother me until we reach the center of the first floor—the place where we’re supposed to part.

  “Thank you.” Rose sounds a bit awkward as she says it. “If your father were alive, he would be proud.”

  “Umm, thank you?” I say, unsure how else to respond. “Let’s hope we live long enough for me to have made him proud by doing something not crazy.”

  “Can I give you a kiss?” she asks unexpectedly.

  My first instinct is to refuse, but she is my grandmother. So I give her a careful hug and lower my head, putting the right side of my face within her reach. She gives my cheek a small, hesitant peck. Almost as if on autopilot, I touch my lips to her wrinkled cheek in turn. I taste a salty moisture on my lips; I might’ve kis
sed one of Rose’s tears.

  Without another word, she walks away, and I watch her go for a moment. Then, shaking my head at her bizarre behavior, I continue walking to my destination.

  I wonder whether women get more mysterious as they grow older.

  * * *

  “Are you almost set?” I ask Eugene when I enter the room.

  “Yep,” he says. “Put this on.”

  He hands me the helmet, which now looks like Medusa’s decapitated head.

  I put it on and look at my watch. “We have some time to kill.”

  “Let me check the equipment,” Eugene says. “Some of the cables might’ve gotten loose with all those roots and rocks the cart had to go over.”

  The cable tethering me to the machine has a couple of feet of slack, so I pace back and forth as Eugene fiddles with his equipment.

  “Okay, it’s almost time,” Eugene says after the longest fifteen minutes of my life. “Which of us will pull Thomas in?”

  “Let me,” I say. “You start this thing as soon as I do.”

  “Sure,” he says. “Do it when you’re ready.”

  After a minute of tense silence, I quietly ask, “Eugene, what do we do if it doesn’t work?”

  Eugene gives me an unreadable look, then says confidently, “It’s going to work. It has to.”

  I stop myself from saying anything stupid for the next few minutes. When I next look at my watch, I see that it’s exactly 7:58.

  “Shit. It’s almost time.”

  I stare at the second hand of my watch in a trance. My index finger hovers next to Thomas’s forehead until the last moment, when the watch hand finishes its journey.

  When it hits eight o’clock, I press my fingers to Thomas’s skin.

  With a guttural sound, a second Thomas shows up in the room.

  In my peripheral vision, I see Eugene press something on the device. He presses it with a flourish and the kind of finality that tells me it’s on.

  Only the welcome emptiness of Level 2 never comes, and the newly animated version of Thomas rushes toward me.

  Chapter 23

  I expect him to attack, but instead, Thomas pushes me aside with an urgency that almost sends me sprawling to the floor. I bump hard into his frozen self, and the statue-like Thomas falls down. This clears the way for the animated Thomas, who proceeds to get into the position his frozen self was in and grabs Mira by the throat.

  “Eugene,” I whisper. “Why am I still here?”

  Mumbling something in Russian, my friend frantically examines his machine.

  In stunned fascination, I watch Thomas choke Mira with such force that the veins on his hands strain from the exertion.

  My best guess for Thomas’s strange behavior is that, in his Guided state, he must not understand that she’s frozen. He must not realize that whatever he does to her here won’t stick.

  The Super Pusher must’ve been too specific in his Guiding, commanding Thomas to break the door down and put his hands around the girl’s neck, while forgetting to specify that the goal was to kill her and not just give her neck a strong squeeze.

  I chance a look at Eugene. He’s unplugging cables, then firmly plugging them back in. He must think a loose connection is responsible for our delay.

  A dreadful thought occurs to me. What if the machine did activate, but it can’t send me to Level 2?

  No. No point dwelling on what-ifs.

  I need to act, because at any moment, Thomas may turn his attention to Eugene and me. I have no idea what else the Super Pusher planted in his head, but I don’t want to find out.

  Taking advantage of Thomas’s laser focus on Mira, I give him the karate-style neck chop I never got the chance to execute on the Island.

  To my shock, when my hand connects with Thomas’s neck, he doesn’t react in the way I expected him to.

  That is, he doesn’t fall to the ground in agonizing pain.

  Trying to make sense of his lack of reaction, I hypothesize that, while in this Guided state, Thomas doesn’t feel pain in the usual way.

  But he does feel something—because he turns around, and without much ado, reaches for my neck.

  I counter his attack by clasping my fingers around his wrists, stopping him from locking down the deadly move. At the same time, I give his shin a good kick.

  Thomas stumbles. Seeing that he’s about to fall, I let go of his wrists, but he instantly reacts by parroting my earlier move, and my wrists end up in his vise-like grip. As Thomas falls, he brings me along for the ride.

  I manage to land on top of him, making sure my knee hits his side. Though he doesn’t react, the move allows me to free my hands. I try to restrain him using an Aikido move, but he doesn’t let me get the grip I need. As I struggle to gain the upper hand, I find myself in a position that might look embarrassingly like the one Caleb and Eleanor are in back in the real world. Oddly, instead of wrestling me back, Thomas goes for my neck again.

  The command to strangle must really be bouncing around in his head.

  I vaguely recall how the black-masked attacker tried to strangle me; it must be the Super Pusher’s signature move.

  In Thomas’s effort to wrap his hands around my throat, his fingers unhook my helmet’s strap. I crane my head out of the way, but to my horror, all I accomplish is dislodging my cable-adorned hat. It clanks as it rolls across the floor.

  Shit.

  Even if Eugene manages to restart the machine, I’m not hooked up to it anymore.

  “Dude,” I yell. “My helmet.”

  A shot rings out. My ears feel as if someone smacked each eardrum with a baseball bat.

  My stunned brain comes up with an explanation: Eugene found the gun I’d thrown at the wall. He’s insane to have used it, though.

  There’s blood everywhere.

  Thomas keeps attempting to choke me. I don’t know whether I should feel relieved or panicked that he’s alive.

  “I shot him,” Eugene says, sounding panicked himself. “Why is he still fighting?”

  “Eugene, focus on the machine,” I manage to croak, and then hit Thomas with an elbow. “If you kill him, you’ll make him Inert and that will ruin everything.”

  My move with the elbow does nothing other than position me in a way that allows Thomas to twist his body. He uses his momentum to execute a head-spinning maneuver—a Hapkido-style throw that, from my vantage point, feels like I just executed a perfect somersault. In the next moment, I’m on my back, with Thomas’s knees on my biceps and his full weight pinning me down. The nasty gun wound on his thigh might as well be a mosquito bite for all the attention he’s giving it. His calloused hands wrap around my throat again.

  I try to move, to buck him off me—to do something, anything—but he has me thoroughly trapped.

  I keep twisting every which way, but all it accomplishes is creating a wave of tiredness that spreads through my body like the aftereffects of twenty shots of tequila. The lack of oxygen must already be taking its toll.

  Apparently emboldened by my weakening struggles, Thomas tightens his grip.

  I begin to see a matrix of white afterglow and try to tell Eugene, “Now would be a good time to help me,” but what comes out is a hiss that sounds like a broken vacuum cleaner.

  Fleetingly, I wonder why the world isn’t slowing down.

  The last time I was on the brink of death, I phased into Level 2 on my own—no machine required. Am I really not as scared right now as I was back then? Am I not as desperate? If I survive today, I’ll need to rethink my newfound bravery, if that’s what’s behind my Level 2 dysfunction.

  I struggle to stop my body from convulsing, as every movement saps more energy from me.

  My mind is slipping. Almost as if I’m in a dream, I feel a pressure around my skull. It takes me a few moments to understand what it means. Eugene must’ve fastened the helmet back onto my head.

  Eugene’s voice is right next to my ear. “I’m pressing it again.”

  A strange noise
follows his words—a noise that sounds like humming.

  The external humming is followed by the strangest feeling—a series of uncomfortable taps against the front of my head. I vaguely recall reading about this effect of TMS therapy.

  Then I’m out.

  * * *

  I never thought I’d be this glad to have all my senses go away. I never thought I’d welcome the blackness and the lack of everything that is Level 2. If I had a heart in this state, joy would be welling up there right about now. As is, joy wells up in a part of my mind instead.

  Hell, I’m so relieved that I’ll call this place Nirvana for the time being. As unpleasant as it is being a naked mind afloat in this ether, it sure beats the alternative. If Thomas had beaten Eugene to it, if he had killed me, I’d be back in the forest, Inert and powerless to stop Thomas from choking Mira to death.

  Some of my enthusiasm ebbs when I look around.

  ‘Looking’ is what I call the foreign sense that allows me to ‘see’ the starry entities—the representations of other minds. It’s not truly vision, but I don’t have a better word for it.

  After I intently focus on seeing, I make out three patterns that appear ‘nearby’—another verbal nicety.

  I assume those patterns are myself, Thomas, and Eugene. Mira wouldn’t be there, as she’s not in the Quiet.

  I look around some more.

  Nothing.

  What about the patterns representing Kate’s team, Rose, and Caleb? Maybe they’re too far for me to be aware of them in this state, but what does distance even mean in this place?

  In any case, the most important thing for me to do is save Mira, and for that, all I need is Thomas’s pattern.

  I examine the three patterns. Though they’re as different from each other as constellations, the hundred-dollar question is: which one is Thomas?

  They’re pretty close to each other, so I can’t orient myself based on their positions. Worst-case scenario is that I accidentally interact with my own pattern, because I would then phase out.

  That I can’t recognize myself is frustrating, to say the least.