The REM Precept

by J. M. Lanham

  “Well we don’t have time to figure this out now,” Paul said.

  He was right. The mountain lions continued to check for weak points, clawing and pushing up against the exterior siding as they tried to force their way in. They were getting bolder now, the cat on the porch headbutting the door while the one at the back pushed against the window pane. The glass splintered, then broke as its paw reached through up to its shoulder, swatting inward toward the group tightly huddled in the center of the small den.

  “Jesus!” Fenton yelled, his voice cracking. “We’ve got to do something!”

  Claire pulled him back, took aim at the cat, and shot. The bullet nicked its ear, its growl turning to a whimper as it pulled away from the opening. But the retreat was short-lived. Soon the animal was back at the window, running on pure adrenaline, continuing to reach in and clobber at the glass with its massive paw while keeping its head behind the siding.

  “I can’t get a shot,” Claire said. “And if we waste these bullets we’re done for.” The sound of splintering wood caught her attention and she turned back to the front door. The rustic doorframe wouldn’t hold the weight of the cat trying to get in much longer. Paul and Fenton pushed the kitchen table against the door in the hopes it would buy them some time. It wouldn’t be much.

  “We need a diversion,” Donny said. “Someone’s gotta make a break for it, draw their attention away from the rest of the group.”

  Exasperated, “Oh, and who exactly did you have in mind?” Paul asked as he and Fenton continued to hold the big cat on the other side of the door at bay.

  “I can take off through the bathroom window,” Donny said. “There’s another rental cabin just a hundred or so yards downstream, right? So, I’ll make a run for it and try and get us some help out here.”

  “But your leg, Donny. You’ll never make it,” Claire said. “And who’s to say anyone’s there to begin with? You’ll be trading one empty cabin for another, and these things will be just as determined to get in there as they are here.”

  “We don’t know that,” Donny said. “They came straight for us here, in this particular cabin. If you guys can put some distance between yourselves and the cats, I think—”

  “They’re determined to get in here because we’re in here, Donny. Who’s to say they won’t chase us down the second we try and leave?”

  “There’s no time to think on this one, Claire. I’ll draw them away from here, and when I’ve got their full attention, you guys head for the highway and don’t look back.” He looked to Fenton. “You still have that list of throwaway emails?”

  “Yeah ,Donny. It’s in my bag.”

  “Perfect. Once I get to a computer I’ll catch up with you guys. Until then”—he casually saluted the group—“wish me luck out there.”

  Claire started to argue, but it was clear Donny’s mind was made up. He cracked his neck and took a deep breath while Paul and Fenton continued to hold the door. Paul said, “You don’t have to do this, Donny. We can think of another way—”

  “There’s no other way,” Donny said. He stepped into the bathroom, turned the wastebasket over, and stood on it to level himself with the window. “And you’re wrong, Paul,” he said as he took the tail of his trademark Hawaiian shirt and cleaned a spot on the dirty glass. “I do have to do this.”

  The three remaining outliers watched from the den as Donny squeezed through the head-high bathroom window, going feetfirst and slowly lowering himself to the ground outside. Inside, Claire taunted the cat at the window while Paul and Fenton made some noise to distract the cat at the front. The trim around the door snapped and screws wiggled out from the handle. It wouldn’t hold much longer.

  Fenton yelled, “THIS IS NOT GOOD, YOU GUYS!” Paul faced Claire with his back to the table, feet pressed to the floor and pushing against a door that was starting to cave in. “You think he’s going to make it?”

  “Not sure,” Claire said.

  She wasn’t getting her hopes up. Donny was middle-aged and out of shape, with a bum leg that would have to carry him at least a hundred yards past fallen logs and briar patches and potholes to the next cabin over without catching the attention of two bloodthirsty mountain lions that seemed to be willing to do anything for a taste of human flesh. And if the cougars caught wind of the motivational speaker’s poorly hatched escape plan? Well, then the guy who used to be dubbed the main event would quickly become the main course.

  It was clear the odds weren’t in Donny’s favor. But like it or not, he had to make a run for it.

  Chapter 9:

  The Detention of Dawa Shakya Graham

  It didn’t feel right. The air. The tangible energy that flowed through it. Something was off that couldn’t be seen, only felt, like the crackling release of a static charge caused by an imbalance hidden somewhere until a release of energy sheds an electric light on the site of the disturbance. Dawa hadn’t felt that sensation in a long time; not since his parents had passed. Such a strange sense of foreboding had preceded a horrible chain of events back then, and he hadn’t had a clue what it was alluding to until it was too late.

  He felt the same thing was happening now. Only this time, he knew exactly what lay in store.

  The table tilted back, and once again Dawa was inverted at a twenty-degree angle, feet above his head, strapped into a five-point restraint with two interrogators hovering over him.

  “Okay, Mr. Graham,” one of them said, a sheet of cellophane wrap in hand. “You know the drill.” He held the plastic to Dawa’s mouth and applied pressure as the other began to pour water from a gallon jug into Dawa’s nose, filling the captive’s sinuses and throat to the brim. The angle kept the water in his head and out of his lungs, but that didn’t keep him from choking and gurgling as the sensation of drowning overwhelmed him. They let him thrash around for almost two minutes, just long enough to slow-pour a gallon of water at an excruciating pace, then stopped. With the push of a button, the motorized table raised back up and leveled off, and Dawa was allowed to hack and cough to his heart’s content until it was time to start again.

  After the captive’s breathing stabilized, one of the interrogators asked, “How did you shut down the facility at Skyline? What was the plan if you got separated from the outliers? Where was the rendezvous point?”

  Dawa stayed relatively quiet, except for the wheezing.

  “We know you and Donald Ford have history. What’s the connection? And what’s your connection to the Freemans, to Connor, to Reed? These are all federal fugitives, Mr. Graham, and you’re an officer of the law. A well-respected member of your community. Why are you helping these people?”

  Exasperated, Dawa said, “If I were going to talk, I would have told you everything by now.”

  “You know, Graham. This doesn’t get any easier.”

  “Of course it doesn’t. That would defeat the purpose, would it not?”

  The interrogators looked at one another, astonished. In a combined thirty years on the job, countless black site assignments, and two careers built on testing the limitations of the human spirit, neither had ever seen a man withstand two minutes of waterboarding. Hell, getting close to one minute would’ve been enough to impress the most sadistic of operatives. But two straight minutes of simulated drowning? Under duress? Without sleep for almost four days now? Nothing short of impressive.

  But there were no rewards to be handed out during this operation. Almost reluctantly, the chief interrogator nodded to his partner to press the button, lowering the table once again. Dawa braced himself for what was sure to be another excruciating round of near-asphyxiation when the door to the interrogation room swung open. It was Ramírez.

  “I hate to interrupt,” he said, “but I need a moment alone with him.” The two agents left quickly, a little relieved, and Ramírez pulled up a chair. “So, Mr. Graham,” he said as he reached over to test the restraints. “How are you holding up?”

  “I am an American citizen being held illegally, withou
t representation, and I’m being tortured. How do you think I should be holding up?”

  “Come now, Mr. Graham. You act as if you are an innocent party in the matter. I tried to work with you. Advised you multiple times to cooperate. Even gave you a way out of this mess. Unfortunately, you wouldn’t listen.”

  “I already told your friends, there is nothing I can help you with. Nothing to talk about. If that means you plan on keeping me here indefinitely, then so be it.”

  “Oh, I think there is plenty to talk about,” Ramírez said. “After all, why do you think I’m here?”

  Dawa didn’t follow, and Ramírez continued. “We recently caught up with your friends in north Georgia, hiding in some rental cabin in the mountains. At first, the director wanted to bring them in for questioning, find out everything they knew about Ocula, the Asteria connection, the operational facilities …”

  “You are lying,” Dawa scoffed.

  “But it was determined that any possible information they could provide did not outweigh the liability they posed to the agency. So, orders came down from the top to neutralize the threat.”

  “What are you trying to tell me, Mr. Ramírez?”

  He flipped his wrist to check the time. “What I am telling you is that by now the remaining outliers are no longer a threat.”

  Dawa couldn’t believe it. He put on his investigator’s cap, slightly tilting his head as he watched Ramírez, analyzing every word and tone and wrinkle on his face like a professional poker player searching for tells. Unfortunately, he found none.

  “If what you say is true, then you must have proof. Photographs. Evidence. Something other than your word.”

  “Well,” Ramírez said as he stretched, “we don’t have absolute confirmation yet, but we should know more once Alex Freeman comes to.”

  Dawa’s eyes narrowed. “You have the younger Freeman in custody?”

  “Since last night … Still reluctant to talk? To tell us what role you’re playing in all of this? I mean, if you had any truly incriminating evidence to build a case on, you would have already brought the file to your superiors, no?”

  He said nothing.

  “No matter. Like I was saying, one of our agents picked up Alex Freeman last night, took him to a secure location, and got him to reveal the location of the remaining outliers.”

  “I do not believe you. You could never get him to talk.”

  “Talk? No, you’re right. From the beginning we had little faith that any of you would talk. So, we decided to wrap up Project THEIA with a final performance from the young Freeman. A healthy dose of Ocula 2.0 combined with Alex’s affinity for big game was all it took to launch an assault on the others without putting a single boot on the ground.”

  “But you could not know where they were hiding.”

  “No, but Alex did. And for the one doing the dreaming, that’s all that mattered.” He stood to leave. “Like I said, we’ll know more this evening once Alex returns from his Ocula-inspired nap.”

  “And what do you plan on doing with me? Are you just going to murder an officer of the law based on a precarious connection to these clinical trial outliers? A connection that is feeble at best?”

  “No, no,” Ramírez said. “At least, I don’t believe so. Decisions like that are above my pay grade. But from what I have gathered, we’ll probably just stick with the original accomplice story. Turn you over to the FBI. With all the evidence pointing to you aiding and abetting a known felon for the last six months, there will be little reason for anyone to believe this”—he waved his hand dismissively—“this whole outliers story.”

  Dawa said, “If you think you are going to get away with this—”

  “Please, Mr. Graham. Spare me the hollow threats. The situation is not all bad.” He opened to door and said, “Look on the bright side: there’s no longer a reason to continue the aquatic activities here.”

  “That is too bad. I was becoming quite the swimmer.”

  Ramírez smiled his smug, devious smile, then left, leaving Dawa strapped to the table with waterlogged clothes and a million questions about Ramírez’s recent revelation.

  Had Alex really been abducted? And if so, was there any possible way he could have led Central Intelligence to the other outliers? If it were true that he’d been chemically persuaded to reveal their location via an Ocula episode, then it would mean Dawa had been wrong about a lot of things all along, like the notion that little sleeping pills could never help nefarious parties influence the minds of others. He had argued against the very idea of dreams influencing the real world ever since Donny Ford had brought it up at the monastery six months earlier. There was simply no way the brain waves radiating between the ears of one human being could influence another, right?

  Right?

  Even if such subtle electromagnetic radiation could alter the neurological pathways of other organisms, that rationale could never explain Donald’s dream about the volcano; the one he claimed he’d dreamt about right before it erupted. While it was true that Poás Volcano had destroyed a significant portion of the Costa Rican facility, and that Ryan Tanner had mysteriously succumbed to what sounded like a heart attack around the same time, the biological explanation of Ocula’s modus operandi could not account for Donny’s belief that he’d dreamt up a volcanic eruption. There was simply no way brain waves broadcasting from Donald Ford’s dreaming mind in Atlanta could have any influence on an inanimate geological landmark in Costa Rica. So, did that mean it was all a coincidence?

  No, Dawa thought. There were no coincidences. He knew better than that. He swallowed hard and sighed as he came to grips with a truth he had tried his entire adult life to hide.

  Of course it was possible. All of it.

  Chapter 10:

  The Running Man

  Well, this was stupid.

  That was Donny’s first thought the moment his feet hit the ground after making the inglorious exit from the rental cabin’s narrow bathroom window. He crouched down by the side of the cabin and listened to the chaos ensuing just around the corner as the two mountain lions continued their violent attempt to get inside. The sounds of breaking glass and splintering wood were nerve-wracking. It was only a matter of time before the cats got in, before they had the others cornered, before Claire and Fenton and Paul met their ends at the hands (or in this case, paws) of Manchurian mountain lions.

  It was now or never. Time to move.

  He leaned out just enough to catch a glimpse of the next cabin about a hundred yards away, careful not to stick his neck out too far only to have it slashed open by a methodically placed claw. The driveway appeared to be empty, but with any luck, someone would still be there. He tossed a pinch of dirt to check the wind. It was against him, but he figured it wouldn’t hold him up too much. Besides, the cats were focused on the prey in the cabin. By the time they knew what was going on in the woods behind them, he’d already be at the next cabin over, safe and sound.

  At least, that’s what he told himself.

  Loud voices from within the cabin carried out of the small bathroom window above Donny as Claire and Paul and Fenton continued to make a ruckus inside long enough to keep the mountain lions’ attention off the runner. Donny charted a wide-arching path that would put a large pile of brush between him and the predator for the first half of the dash, and with any luck, that would buy him some time. He reached for his bum leg and said a silent prayer, hoping to get just one more good run out of it.

  Then he took off.

  The path to the next cabin over was littered with obstacles as Donny juked rocks, leapt over logs, and sidestepped saplings on his sprint to safety. The sounds of crunching leaves and snapping sticks normally would’ve been dead giveaways, but the morning dew had softened his steps. Still, every step felt like it might be his last as the back of his neck tingled, anticipating the unexpected takedown from behind as one of the cats brought him down like a gazelle.

  But that never happened, and soon Donny was standi
ng on the porch of the next cabin over, hands on his knees, spitting and wheezing and catching his breath. If someone were inside, surely they would have heard him by now, but he turned and banged on the door to be sure. “IS ANYONE THERE? PLEASE! WE NEED HELP!”

  No answer. He looked toward the cabin he’d escaped from to assess the situation—the mountain lions were still on the offense. Donny couldn’t believe it. The hundred-yard dash had been so successful, it hadn’t been a distraction at all. He frantically looked around for something, anything, to make some noise with.

  There: two metal dog bowls near the screen door. Those would do. He picked them up and crashed them together like a high school percussionist breaking in a new set of cymbals. Immediately, the big cat in the distance turned to locate the source of the racket.

  “YEAH, THAT’S RIGHT!” Donny yelled as he banged away. “OVER HERE, YOU BASTARDS!”

  Curiously, the nearest cat turned and faced the pitchman. It was a football field away, but even at that distance he could feel the natural-born killer staring straight through him. Then, the other cat appeared to the right, equally interested in the two-legged morsel making a commotion in the distance. Donny’s heart skipped as the realization set in that the mountain lions had found a new hominid to harass.

  More banging, then, “RUN, YOU GUYS! GET THE HELL OUT OF THERE!” He stopped, dropped the bowls, and saw the cats were gone, but he knew exactly where they were headed—and he hadn’t even thought to check for a way inside.

  “Idiot!” he said, kicking himself as he rushed to the front door. Locked. Of course it was fucking locked. He checked under the welcome mat, then a pot sitting on the porch rail. Nothing. He looked back again. Still no sign of the cats.

  Panic was sinking in now. Think, you moron, think! How could he get inside without leaving a way for two hungry mountain lions to follow? He needed a way in, just barely big enough for a person …