by John Akers
“Stop it, Oreste, you’re delirious! They’ve done something to you, you're not thinking straight!”
It occurred to Pax that he’d never seen Cevis angry before. He knew he had to defuse the situation. “I’m fine, Cevis," he said, in as calm and normal a voice as he could muster.
“No, you’re not, something's wrong with you. I can tell, you’re not yourself.”
“We haven’t done anything to hurt Mr. Pax, Mr. Pierson,” said Alethia. They both turned and found her somehow standing. One hand was crossed in front of her and was holding her side where Cevis had kicked her. But her voice was strong and clear as she said, “I assure you, he has full possession of his faculties.”
For a moment, Cevis looked startled. Pax wasn’t sure whether it was because Alethia had managed to stand up, or that she knew his name. Quickly, however, his angry expression returned.
“That’s not true. You’ve done something to him.”
“We shared information with him, that's all. We have no intention of hurting him, or you, Mr. Pierson. There’s no need for any further violence.”
“Isn’t that sweet,” sneered Cevis. “In that case, I’ll just take my friend and we’ll be on our way.”
“Cevis,” said Pax, “these people are not our enemies. They just, they just want—” Pax paused, unsure of how to summarize what he'd seen and learned over the past few days in a way that didn’t sound preposterous. He suddenly realized why the Infinet had wanted him to experience the Story of Man first-hand. Why he had to be physically immersed in the problem, rather than simply be told about it. He looked around and suddenly realized there were still only three of them on the platform.
Alethia seemed to sense what he was thinking. She said, “The Infinet knew Dr. Pierson was coming, Mr. Pax. It notified the other members of the society he is here, and a second platform is being formed. It will only be a few minutes before it reaches us.”
“What the hell’s the Infinet?” asked Cevis. Then he shook his head and said, “Never mind.” Turning to Pax, he said, “Come on, Oreste. Let’s go.”
“No, Cevis, I’m not done here. I just started helping them fight the virus that’s spreading everywhere. I need to see if it’s working or not.”
“What are you talking about? Jesus, Oreste, what have you done?”
“They’ve got a quantum computer that created an antivirus app that will neutralize the virus. I just had the engineers at Omnitech post it to the app store, notify all our users about it, and recommend they install it.”
“What!?” yelled Cevis. He looked wildly between Pax and Alethia, before focusing on Pax again. “How could you do that? How can you possibly trust these people? My God, it’s probably a Trojan Horse! Hell, they probably created the virus in the first place!”
“These people aren't crackpots, Cevis. You wouldn’t believe the technology they possess. Just look at this building.” As he said it, Pax realized Cevis had only seen the tower when the arms were visible, so it wouldn’t have the initial impact it did on him.
Nonetheless, he pressed on. “And they’ve got a bigger plan, too. I’m not on board with it completely, but they’ve got a plan to change the direction that humanity is headed. And the Univiz can help.”
“Of course it can!” Cevis hollered, his free hand clenched into a shaking fist, and his face contorted with rage. “That’s why I had you build it in the first place!”
Pax flinched as if Cevis had just slapped him across the face. “What are you talking about?” he said, his voice sounding high and thin. “I created the Univiz! You didn’t have anything to do with it.”
Cevis shook his head, and Pax caught a micro-expression of pure disgust. "And all this time I thought you'd figured it out a long time ago. I thought you’d never said anything to me out of, I don’t know, pride maybe. But you still don’t know, do you?”
“Know what?” Pax asked, dreading the answer.
“About the pills I’ve been giving you all these years, for starters.”
“The stim pills? What about them?”
Cevis rolled his eyes. “They're not just energy pills, Oreste. They’re cognition enhancers. Smart pills. Of course, no one’s ever invented a cog pill like mine. I came up with the formula when I was a sophomore in high school, and I’d perfected it by the time I shared it with you in college. They’re far more potent than any of the other junk out there.”
As Cevis spoke, Pax felt as though a white-hot filament had materialized at the base of his neck.
“What nature gave us wasn’t enough, Oreste,” Cevis continued. “Your cognitive recall, working memory, and associative capacity are at least 30 percent greater than even the smartest non-enhanced person. You’ve accomplished what you have because of those pills! They enabled you to create the Univiz.”
The filament formed tributaries that began slowly coursing down Pax's spine.
“I thought it must have become obvious to you at some point they were far more than simple stimulants. But apparently, I gave you too much credit."
At that, the tributaries breached their banks.
“I trusted you!” Pax screamed. "I trusted you, and you treated me like one of your fucking lab rats! How could you do that to me?“
“Because I repaid your trust! Many times over!” Cevis yelled right back. "Look at what you’ve done, Oreste! Look at all you’ve accomplished! Don’t tell me you think you’d have been able to create the Univiz without my help?”
“I came up with the design for the Univiz! I did!” Pax shouted, his voice cracking toward the end. The thought that Cevis had been behind it all, had enabled him to create the Univiz, was too much to bear. He felt like a fish that had been gutted with a fillet knife.
“Of course you did,” Cevis said, his voice calm again. “You just needed a nudge or two.”
Cevis’ phrasing caught Pax’s attention and displaced his anger. “What do you mean, ‘or two?’”
At first, Cevis said nothing. Pax's mind raced to understand, until a desperate, horrible thought occurred to him. Even before Cevis spoke again, he knew the answer, and he felt his body go numb all over.
“It was me, Oreste. I was the angel investor.”
Chapter 57
Pax felt as if all his bodily substance had suddenly dissolved and been drained away. His legs gave way, and he sank to his knees. He hung there, swaying.
Everything. Everything I’ve done. It’s all because of Cevis.
“The whole thing was my idea,” Cevis was saying, his voice sounding muffled, far away. “I came up with the idea for the project, created the shell company, and paid an out-of-work actor to play the role of Chester. I also paid the business development manager and her staff a lot of money to leave the agency. Their leaving forced the owners to accept Chester’s offer. After your team did all the research and initial design work, I pulled the funding. I wanted to see how you would respond, to see if you would step up or fall apart.
“When you rose to the challenge, I kickstarted your funding by creating a large number of accounts that financed your project with donations ranging from $100 to $1,000. That helped get your project noticed and build up funding momentum.”
Cevis smiled at Pax with an expression like a proud father that only deepened the acrid taste in Pax’s mouth. All he could think was that Cevis had used him like a chess piece, elevating him far beyond his natural station in life, like a pawn promoted to a queen. He recognized with devastating finality, how far above Pax’s level Cevis operated. Setting the entire direction for Pax’s life, enabling him to create the most famous invention of all time, had been nothing more than a side project for Cevis, something to occupy him when he wasn’t busy figuring out how to defeat death.
“How could you, do that?” Pax asked again, his voice now weak with shock. “How could you use me that way?”
“Because you were wasting your life!” Cevis yelled, with a startling ferocity. “You were wasting your life working for other people at t
hose stupid companies! My pills gave you the capacity for greatness, but you were wasting it away! I got sick of watching the gift I gave you slip through your fingers, so I gave you one last chance.”
Cevis reached up and ran the fingers of his free hand through his hair. “I gave you the opportunity to do something great, something important, like I knew you longed to do. And boy did it ever work. You created something that surpassed even my high expectations.”
Pax’s head was a whirlwind of emotions. He felt his anger toward Cevis fading, and a deep gratitude toward him welling up in its place.
“Why me?” Pax asked.
“Because you were my friend. Because you weren’t afraid of me like everyone else. Because you made me get out of the damn lab once in a while.” When Pax remained silent, Cevis turned back to Alethia.
“Before we go, who are you, and how do you know my name?”
“My name is Alethia. We know a great deal about you, Mr. Pierson.”
“Alethia,” Pax began, “you don’t need to…”
“There isn’t anything to know about me,” said Cevis. “I’ve made sure of that.”
“Of course there is, Mr. Pierson, although the lengths to which you’ve gone to conceal your tracks are very impressive.
“Such as?” asked Cevis, his voice tight.
“We know you were behind the cures for more than two dozen diseases. We know you are the founder and silent partner behind Gen6, the biotech incubator. And we know, other things.”
The veins on Cevis’ neck bulged, and his face began to turn red. “So help me, Oreste, if you told them.”
“I didn’t tell them anything, Cevis,” said Pax.
“Not intentionally, anyway,” said Alethia. “But based on an analysis of all of your research, and a few momentary reactions Mr. Pax had to what we showed him here today, the Infinet—the quantum computer Mr. Pax mentioned earlier—has deduced the underlying purpose of all your research, which probably only Mr. Pax knew about beforehand.”
“And it will remain that way,” Cevis said with a guttural snarl as he raised the gun toward Alethia with one hand while simultaneously turning a knob on the side of it with his other hand.
He’s going to kill her, Pax thought. Yet for some reason, Alethia didn’t move. In fact, she looked completely calm. Pax wanted to shout at Cevis that killing her was pointless now that the Infinet knew, but his throat felt thick, like it was stuffed full of peanut butter. Stop! he thought as he stared at Cevis. STOP!
Suddenly, Pax felt a large tremor run through the platform. He saw the gun fly out of Cevis’ hand, and for a terrible moment he thought it was the kickback from the gun firing. But then he saw both Cevis’ arms pinwheeling wildly in an attempt to keep his balance. To his amazement, Pax saw the surface of the platform bulge and ripple in chaotic undulations, like the surface of a lake in a hailstorm.
Pax instinctively put his hands down to brace himself, but when he touched the platform he found it was still flat and stable underneath him. Then he saw Cevis flying through the air, away from Alethia, his limbs flailing awkwardly. Pax was afraid for him and wished the platform would stop moving. No sooner had the thought occurred to him than the giant ripples suddenly flattened out and disappeared.
Pax looked for Cevis and saw him lying 20 feet away from where he’d been. He then looked for Alethia, but to his dismay she had disappeared. His heart sank, but then he saw people rising out of holes appearing at various places in the platform. Several of them began running immediately toward Cevis.
A wave of compassion for his friend flooded over Pax, followed an instant later by anger at the thought that the people running toward Cevis might harm him. Stop them, he thought. STOP THEM!
Suddenly, the building shook again, then Pax’s awareness of everything was lost as the roof above him exploded with a deafening roar. He fell down, instinctively curling into a ball once more. Thunderous noise and debris flew everywhere around him, followed by a steady sound of rushing wind. Slowly Pax moved his arms away and opened his eyes.
Light blinded him, and he held one arm up to shield his eyes. He looked up and saw a huge linear swath of the roof was gone. Beneath it, one of the enormously long cable arms supporting the tower was embedded three or four feet deep into the platform. The end of it lay a hundred feet past them, while the other end ran off the edge of the platform.
Stunned, Pax staggered to his feet again. As he did, he saw Cevis lying on the ground, just a few feet in front of the massive cable arm. Pax stumbled over to him, grabbed his shirtfront, and pulled him into a sitting position. He shook him by his shoulders and yelled “Cevis! Wake up!” He shook him harder and slapped his face. Cevis groaned, and his eyes fluttered open.
“Cevis!” Pax yelled. “We’ve got to go! Come on!” Pax braced his feet and yanked upward, standing Cevis up next to him. Then he looked around and wondered what had happened to the people who had been entering the platform.
Suddenly, the massive cable arm rose up from the platform with horrible metallic wrenching and liquid sucking sounds. It rose back up through the hole in the roof and came to rest seventy or eighty feet above the top of the building. There it remained, curved and motionless, like a giant cobra poised to strike. Now that it was in the bright light of the sun, Pax saw the underside of the arm was covered in a dark red liquid. Pax looked back down at the platform where the cable had been, and it was only then that he noticed the bodies.
There were at least half a dozen of them, lying at various places along the giant trench left by the impact of the cable arm. Their bodies had been crushed like grapes in a presser. An astonishing amount of blood covered the entire area, with a long pool of it forming along the trench bottom. People on the other side were slowly standing up and looking at the trench with horrified expressions. Pax knew he and Cevis needed to somehow reach the helicopter and get away. He began backing away, pulling Cevis with him, but then he saw Elena.
She was in front of the others, already crawling head-first down into the trench. She slipped on the slick red mess and slid down onto one of the bodies, one that was much larger than the others. Like the others it was impossibly flat, as if every bit of flesh and fluid had been expelled from it, leaving nothing behind but an empty husk. Elena knelt over it with eyes so wide Pax could see the whites as she stretched a hand out toward the body. Suddenly she recoiled, and opened her mouth to scream, but just then she looked up and saw Pax staring at her. Her expression instantly transformed to a look of pure rage. Pax felt terror galvanize him, and he turned and started to run, pulling Cevis along with him. He thought about dropping Cevis and running for it alone, but then he was ashamed of himself and he held on.
“Come on, Cevis!” he hollered at the top of his lungs, his voice barely audible over the winds howling overhead. “We have to go! Now!”
Chapter 58
They made a mad dash for the helicopter. Incredibly, Cevis somehow managed to keep his balance and lumber along with Pax’s help. As they ran, other people appeared through holes in the platform all around them. No one made any move to stop them, however. Instead, they all ran back toward the trench. Pax didn’t bother to look behind to see if Elena was chasing them.
A few seconds later, they reached the chopper. Pax shoved Cevis up and into the cabin through the right-side door, then pulled himself up. As he clambered over Cevis into the left-side seat, he touched the door panel behind him to close it. Before either of them was buckled in, he yelled, “Fly! Now!”
To his surprise, the central rotor immediately sprang to life. Pax leaned over, grabbed Cevis’ seat buckles and buckled him in, then did the same for himself. He quickly checked the instrument panel, but made a point not to look outside to see if Elena was there. The blades reached full speed in just a few seconds and the helicopter shot up off the platform.
As the helicopter headed toward the ragged hole in the roof, Pax realized Cevis must have blasted the hole with his pulse gun. The instant the rotor blades pa
ssed through the hole, however, they were caught by high winds that pitched the helicopter precipitously forward. Pax now found himself staring down at the platform, causing his stomach to lurch. Then there was a loud bang, and the chopper shook violently. Looking back he saw the tail boom had caught on the roof. As the chopper self-corrected and swung its front end back upward, Pax was again staring at the sky. Somehow the tail boom slipped free, but then the shearing winds once again took control, forcing the chopper into a 360-degree spin. Pax had a sudden, panicky feeling that they were going to spin out of control.
But then, miraculously, the rudders re-engaged, the helicopter straightened itself out, and it accelerated forward with the wind at its tail. The thought flashed through Pax’s mind that if the helicopter had had a secondary rotor at the end of the tail boom, they’d have been done for.
To his surprise, he heard Cevis say, “Djibouti. Maximum speed.” Pax looked over at him and saw a faint smile. “They’re friendlier to Americans than in Somalia. Or Yemen.” Pax nodded and sat back into his seat.
The helicopter banked sharply to the left. Pax’s stomach flip-flopped as the ground suddenly swung into view out of his side window, 10,000 feet below. As he looked back at the massive tower, the giant cable arm began to arc gracefully downward toward the earth. For a moment, he saw all the cable arms, hundreds of them, stemming outward along the whole length of the funnel. It looked as if dozens of gargantuan mechanical spiders had been skewered through their centers with a giant stick pin, arranged from largest to smallest, like some twisted entomologist’s version of Russian nesting dolls. But as he looked, the arms gradually became invisible again. The Story of Man once again looked as he had first seen it; a transcendental irrationality, a space-time wormhole made incarnate.
Just before the chopper straightened out again, Pax caught a glimpse of the gigantic gash in the tower’s roof where the cable arm had smashed through it. I did that, he thought. Somehow he knew his wish to stop Cevis and then the people on the platform had caused it. He thought of the bodies in the trench. I killed those people. My God—Angelo! A wave of nausea hit him, and he leaned forward and retched all over the front of the cockpit. Several more waves hit him until he felt as if his whole stomach had been expelled. Finally, it subsided, and Pax fell weakly back into his chair.