Gather the Sentient

by Amalie Jahn

  When Marceau arrived, right on schedule in three days’ time, each of the bodies had already been interred and the few remaining survivors waited for him with Salomon beneath a makeshift lean-to of his construction. He watched the horror wash across Marceau’s face as he took in the scene – the circular rings of scorched earth where the villager’s huts once stood, the primitive noises of the jungle now overtaking any human conversation, and the devastation in Salomon’s eyes.

  Salomon rose as he approached. They exchanged only embraces, as they were both clearly at a loss for words.

  Finally, Marceau said, “Rebels?”

  Salomon nodded.

  Marceau gestured toward the others. “These are all who remain?”

  He nodded again, biting his bottom lip in an attempt to hold his tears at bay.

  “And the rest?”

  He pointed toward the clearing at the edge of the forest. “I’ve already taken care of them.”

  The silence between the men spoke volumes as they walked together across what had once been the village center. Marceau knelt before the mass grave, the earth still unsettled and lumpy, and bowed his head in prayer. After making the sign of the cross, he rose again and turned to Salomon.

  “What now?”

  Salomon shook his head. “I’ve been giving it a lot of thought. There aren’t enough of them to start again. They can’t sustain themselves. They won’t survive. The only good option is for them to find homes within another village. Maybe one of the others from the co-op.”

  Marceau’s brow creased severely between his eyes. “They won’t survive? What about you, my friend?”

  “I’m not staying.”

  “Here in Katanga?”

  “No,” Salomon replied. “Here in Africa.”

  That afternoon, as Marceau made phone calls to other World Vision team leaders in an attempt to secure homes for the survivors within other co-op communities, Salomon logged on to his email account using the truck’s satellite Wi-Fi.

  There were three new messages from Lanying, each of them with further explanation of the prophecy and his part in it. At the end of the third message was a phone number. He checked the time, and although it was almost 11pm in Shanghai, placed the call from Marceau’s phone.

  A small, weary voice answered the phone. “Hello?”

  “Lanying?”

  “Yes? Salomon? Is that you?”

  “It is.” He had to concentrate on his English. “It’s nice to hear your voice,” he told her.

  She laughed good-naturedly. “It’s nice to hear yours too. How are things?”

  The casual nature of the question caught him off guard. It was clearly meant as a conversation starter. A way to break the ice. But he could hardly pretend everything was fine.

  “Actually, Lanying, things are not well. Not well at all.”

  She fell silent, and for a moment he thought she’d disconnected. “I’m afraid to ask,” she said at last, “but has there been a fire?”

  “Yes.”

  “I saw it,” she said. “But since I couldn’t make out any faces or the surroundings, I didn’t know exactly what I was seeing. Is everyone okay?”

  He closed his eyes to compose himself. He needed to keep it together. Before he lost his nerve, he told her all of it, from the very beginning. By the time he finished, he could hear her sniffling.

  “I’m so sorry, Salomon,” she said. “What a terrible tragedy.”

  They were silent for a moment and after taking several cleansing breaths, he felt comfortable enough to broach the subject which was ultimately the reason for his call.

  “I’m leaving Africa. Forever. There’s nothing more for me here. No life. No family. No friends. I don’t know where exactly I need to go, but I know I’d like to go to Baltimore to meet the others. And I’d like to meet you too. But I don’t know how to do that. I don’t have the money to buy a ticket and it’s a long way to the airport. I’m afraid I’m going to need some help.”

  CHAPTER

  42

  THOMAS

  Monday, October 10

  Baltimore

  During his lunch break, between classes, Thomas found himself beneath his favorite oak. The leaves had already changed from the dark green of summer to the bold crimson and gold of fall. An acorn fell heavily onto the ground beside him, leaving a divot in the mossy ground below, and he tilted back his head to gaze into the branches, reevaluating the presumed safety of his preferred location. The branches were teeming with tiny, bullet-shaped projectiles. One knock on the head with one of those, he thought. Before taking another bite of his peanut butter sandwich, he began searching his mind for any nagging inclination of an impending ‘acorn-sustained injury,’ but he felt no compulsion to leave. He readjusted himself more comfortably against the trunk for the duration of his meal.

  Since he and Mia had begun their search for the other prophetic psychics, he’d taken her suggestion about honing his own abilities to heart. Instead of just passively waiting for a feeling to overtake him, he’d been mindfully probing his own psyche for clues about what was to come. He chuckled to himself, that he had taken the time to consider the acorns, but he figured he had to start somewhere.

  As he finished his sandwich, his mind turned to Mia, where it always seemed to drift if he allowed it. They’d been up late the night before, she searching for other psychics and he researching the illusive Lillian Hall. It hadn’t taken him long to discover several YouTube videos demonstrating her ability to be in two places at one time. Many of the comments below the clip of her appearing and disappearing beside herself in a crowded subway terminal accused her of forgery.

  “Crappy digital software will produce the same effect,” one stated. Another considered a less technological possibility. “Not hard to do if you have an identical twin.”

  Although for most of his life he would have been inclined to share their sentiments, he now recognized the images were probably legitimate, and it made him sad for this Lillian, whoever she was. It was no wonder, Mia, Lanying, and so many others like them, chose to keep their abilities hidden from the narrowmindedness of the world.

  Thinking of her again, he felt an urge to hear her voice.

  “Hey, you,” she said when she answered.

  “Hey yourself,” he replied. “Guess what? I’ve been practicing my abilities, just like you told me.”

  “Oh, yeah?”

  “Yeah, and my powers are telling me we should have Thai tonight for dinner.”

  “Really? They’re sending messages about meal planning?”

  “No. Not really. I totally made that up. But I know it’s your favorite, and I was just thinking to myself ‘Hey, Thomas, what can you make with ten cent ramen that you haven’t already prepared this week?’”

  She laughed. “You are a wizard with ramen.”

  “Maybe I’ll add it to my list of known powers,” he said. He finished his banana and stuffed the peel into his lunch bag. “Anyway, I don’t want to keep you from work, but I was wondering if you’d had a chance to run the facial recognition software on that Lillian woman to see if any other info came up for her?”

  “As a matter of fact, I did, and you are totally gonna love me when I tell you what I found.”

  “I totally already do,” he said, mimicking her voice. “So tell me.”

  “It’s an arrest mugshot from Interpol. From about four years ago.”

  His head snapped back. “Arrest.”

  “Yep.”

  “And I assume it wasn’t because she was stealing to give to orphans.”

  “Larceny. High end art.”

  He couldn’t keep the excitement out of his voice. “So then I guess we can assume…”

  “Yes,” she interrupted, and he could imagine she was shaking her head and rolling her eyes at his childlike enthusiasm. “If she’s one of us, she’s probably dark. If she’s one of us,” she repeated again with the emphasis on the if.

  At that moment, his phone chime
d, alerting him to an incoming Skype call. He checked the screen and knew he should take it. “Hey, Mia. Lanying’s trying to Skype. Can I call you back?”

  She paused and then hurried to finish their conversation. “It’s pretty late there. You better take it. Hope something isn’t wrong. And you don’t have to call me back. I’ll just see you tonight for Thai. Oh, and tell her I say hi.”

  He told her he loved her and disconnected before accepting Lanying’s request.

  “Thomas?” she said. There were heavy bags under her eyes, and he could tell she’d been crying.

  “Yeah. Hey, Lanying. What’s up? Is everything okay?”

  Her eyes were wild, searching. “Yes. I’m fine. But, Thomas, the man Salomon I’ve been telling you about…”

  “The one you think is another light psychic from Africa.”

  She nodded. “Something terrible has happened, Thomas. His family, as well as most of the other people in his village, were slaughtered in their sleep by a group of militants. I saw the fire and destruction in a vision. It was horrific. He’s lost now. He has nowhere to go.” She hesitated then, and he could hear, by the way her voice caught in her throat, how deeply she was affected by the tragedy. “He wants to come to Baltimore to meet you and Mia.”

  He brought the screen closer to his face so she could see him without the glare of the noonday sun. “He honestly believes he’s part of the prophecy as well?”

  She nodded, biting chapped skin off the corner of her lip. “He told me something about an inscription in a cave he believes is about the prophecy. He’s certain finding the cave as a boy was his destiny and that to fulfill what’s been written, he must come to Baltimore to gather with the other light psychics.”

  He imagined the man’s excitement, believing it was still possible to save the world. Salomon must not have been made aware their goal was no longer to usher in the light, but to merely prevent the darkness from taking over. “Have you told him about Kate?”

  “How could I? He’s dealing with enough bad news as it is,” she replied and when Thomas didn’t speak again, continued, “He has nowhere else to go. He needs this, Thomas. He’s one of us.”

  It was a lot to consider. He assumed Salomon had no money for transportation, so somehow they would have to obtain funding for his flight. It would be even more difficult to secure a travel visa into the States. “It might prove to be nearly impossible,” he explained to Lanying. “And even if we could get him here, it seems like an awful lot of trouble to go through for nothing. We should be spending our time and energy on keeping the seven dark psychics apart.”

  “He wants to help,” she insisted.

  Thomas shrugged. “Then let him help from there, the way you are from China. We don’t need to be together.”

  She was visibly frustrated with him now, raking her hands through her hair. “He lives in rural Africa. There’s no means by which to help us from there. And besides, we don’t need his IT skills. We need his psychic abilities.” She was pleading with him, as if her life depended on it, and then it occurred to him that perhaps it wasn’t her life she was trying to protect.

  “He’s that bad off?” he asked.

  “Yes, Thomas.”

  As much as it went against his pragmatic nature, his heart wouldn’t allow him to turn them away. “Lemme talk to Mia,” he relented. “We’ll see what we can do.”

  CHAPTER

  43

  MIA

  Tuesday, October 11

  Baltimore

  Mia, Jack, Carson, and his partner Harris were huddled around one of the small conference room tables with photos of almost a dozen stolen cars spread between them. They’d been working closely together since their separate cases appeared to be somehow connected.

  “So here’s the car Fields brought Trece in on,” Mia said, pointing to a late model Lexus. She slid three other cars under the first. “And when you two checked out his place, you found these in an empty lot across the street.”

  “Right,” Carson acknowledged.

  Jack continued. “So then the rest of these cars were reported stolen and recovered over the past two months around the same area. The Civic and the Ford F150 in Sparrows Point. The three Accords in Dundalk. That Chevy pickup in Middle River. And the two Camrys in Essex. We gotta believe they’re all being run outta the same operation.”

  “And if these are the ones we’ve found, imagine how many are still out there we haven’t found,” Harris agreed, rocking back in his chair. “Seems like it gets worse twice a year – when people leave the keys in the ignition to warm them up in the winter and when they forget and leave the windows open in the summer. It’s easy pickins’.”

  “Totally easy,” Mia agreed. “And since we still haven’t tracked down the Altima Mr. Washington saw Trece and Sisco casing, I think that would be a good place to start.”

  Jack and the others nodded in agreement. “You have a printout of the current missing vehicle report?” he asked Carson.

  He produced it from a folder stashed under his chair and tossed it on top of the stack of photographs. “Almost 300 of them right now.”

  Jack whistled between his teeth.

  “We get reports of up to 4,000 a year,” Carson explained. “This is actually a pretty light load.”

  “So what’s the plan?” Mia asked.

  Carson set both hands on the table in front of him and leaned in toward the others. “Lots of the cases we see are kids just being stupid. If this is a full-blown ring, they aren’t just stealing to joyride. They’re either shipping them outta state or scrapping them for parts. Either way, I’m betting they’re moving them out down at the dockyard. They’re probably storing them close by or somewhere in their own neighborhood they think is safe.”

  Jack summarized. “So you think we hit MS-13 territory and around the shipyard.”

  “Exactly,” Carson agreed.

  “And you don’t think we bring Sisco in to see if he talks?” asked Jack.

  “You think he’ll tell us where he’s stashing cars?” The others unanimously agreed he wouldn’t. “Me neither,” Carson continued, “which is why I think it’s better that we keep the rest of the gang in the dark. All they know is that we picked up Trece on that one count. They have no idea we’re aware of the bigger operation. Let’s keep it that way.”

  “But how do we know which cars to look for?” Mia asked, scowling at the extensive spreadsheet. “We can’t memorize all these. There are just too many.”

  “Let’s assume most of the cars reported over three weeks ago are already out of the area, one way or another. Meaning we should concentrate on memorizing the most recent thefts. I printed out pictures and VIN numbers of the last 20 reports,” he explained, passing out folders to each of the others. “And here’s hoping if we find the cars, we find the men. Including your guy from Phoenix.”

  “Here’s hoping,” Jack agreed, flipping through the photographs.

  Half an hour later, Mia and Jack were making their second pass through the MS-13 neighborhoods. The streets were relatively empty which suited Mia just fine, because as they canvassed the area, she was having trouble remembering the make and models of the stolen cars. Instead, she couldn’t stop thinking about how trivial stolen cars were when compared to the atrocities Thomas described to her the night before. Her thoughts kept returning to Salomon; losing his entire family to Rwandan rebels, gunned down while they slept in their beds. It only made her feel that much worse, knowing Salomon’s tragedy was but a preview of the life to come for the rest of the world if the other psychics ushered in the days of darkness.

  No one should have to live in fear for their own safety, she thought to herself, remembering her time in the warehouse basement, alone with the trafficked women. Not now. Not ever.

  “You’re ridiculously quiet,” Jack commented nonchalantly as they waited in traffic for the light to turn green. When she didn’t acknowledge him, he continued. “We’re gonna find Alejandro.”

 
She loved that he thought he knew her so well, and in a lot of ways he did. But on this occasion he had it wrong, for although she wanted nothing more than to protect Andrea from Alejandro, her heart was heavy with other concerns.

  “The world is a very bad place,” she said at last.

  He raised an eyebrow at her. “You don’t really believe that, deep down.”

  She shrugged. “I’m beginning to think I do.”

  He laid a sympathetic hand on her shoulder, the way a great coach would after a particularly brutal loss. “Everything’s going to be okay.”

  She pulled away from him, twisting her shoulders out of his reach and crossing her arms heavily across her chest. What did he know about everything being all right? He was blissfully unaware of just how un-okay things were about to get. About how after the destruction of Salomon’s village, she was now tasked with getting the Congolese man to Baltimore without resources or funding in the hopes of somehow salvaging the prophecy. It suddenly pissed her off that his greatest concerns were for his pregnant wife, some stolen cars, and the life of one abused woman, while she was expected to carry the burden of protecting the fate of the entire world.

  “That’s the biggest pile of crap I’ve ever heard,” she spat at him.

  “What the hell, Mia?” he replied, gunning the patrol car through the intersection as the light changed. “You’ve been preoccupied with something for weeks, and I’ve kept my mouth shut, because I figured if you wanted me to know what was going on, you’d tell me. But screw it. Enough’s enough. You’re driving me crazy.”

  She narrowed her eyes at him, glaring across the distance between them which suddenly seemed greater than it ever had before. She didn’t like it. In fact, she hated it.

  Jack was her partner. Her confidant. Her best friend.

  “The world, as we know it, is about to end. And I don’t know if there’s anything I can do to make it better. So yeah, forgive me if I’ve seemed sorta ‘preoccupied.’ I’ve been a little busy trying to figure out how to save the world. And it’s not going very well at all, thanks for asking.”