08 Illusion

by Frank Peretti

  Seamus eased a bit. “Okay. You’re welcome. We all want Eloise to be perfectly safe.”

  Emile called, “Eloise, you ready?”

  Mandy was perched on a chair against the wall, watching the little encounter between Dane and Seamus and reminding herself not to show any feelings about it. She was wearing navy sweats and a body harness and wrapping each ankle with a sport bandage to protect her from the shackles. One final wrap around her left ankle and she was ready.

  Dane greeted her and talked only about the stunt. “Now, I know heights don’t bother you much, but you’re going to be upside down and hanging by your ankles a hundred and fifty feet off the ground, so we’re going to do a little fear inoculation and step through this slowly.”

  Emile signaled the hoist operator. He raised the pod to where it aligned with an escape platform fifteen feet above the floor. With a quiet whirring, the six panels composing the bottom of the pod opened like a flower, and a second cable passing through the pod dropped back down.

  A nasty-looking pair of leg shackles were laid out on a tumbling mat immediately below the pod. Mandy stepped up and a crewman clamped them around her ankles as Dane explained, “These shackles are safety-wired so they won’t fall off and hit you on the chin and embarrass you in front of all those people. Make sure the safeties are in place before they hoist you up. Now, this cable hooks to your body harness …”

  Dane kept explaining, she kept rehearsing and testing. With her ankles shackled and her hands cuffed to a chain about her waist, she lay down on the mat and the hoist took her up, feet first, until she was hanging upside down with her face even with Dane’s.

  “How you feeling?” Dane asked.

  “Like a bat,” she answered.

  “Your weight should be on the harness, not your ankles.”

  Her ankles felt fine. “Good to go.”

  “Okay.” Dane almost touched her. She couldn’t touch him, she was handcuffed. He renewed his business-only face. “We’ll see you upstairs.” He said to the hoist man, “Up slowly.”

  The cable raised her. With her chin to her chest she could look up past her feet and see the pod about to swallow her like a man-eating plant. To one side she could see Dane hurrying up the scaffold stairs to meet her at the top.

  An invisible guide wire kept her turned toward the rear of the pod and the escape hatch. Feet first, she slipped inside until her feet rested on the pod’s ceiling. She hung the chain that bound her ankles on a hook in the ceiling, and a quick outward roll of her feet tripped the shackles open. “Legs are free,” she said, then pressed a button with her toe to close the six petal doors. They whirred shut below her, a soft cradle came up against each of her shoulders, and she was sealed inside, in the dark.

  She heard Dane’s voice right outside.

  “Okay, cuff release.”

  Bending her elbows triggered the cuffs—they slipped off.

  “Hands on the grips,” he told her. “Cable release when you’re ready.”

  On either side of her, at shoulder level, was a short handgrip. She grabbed on. The grip on the right included a small lever she compressed with her hand. Click! “Cable free.”

  “Now drop your knees toward your chest …”

  Her knees pressed against the panel in front of her but nothing happened. “Uh, am I doing this right?”

  “Your knees should be pressing against the panel.”

  “They are.”

  “Oh, brother!” Dane yanked a packing bolt from the escape hatch locking mechanism. “Attention, everybody!” All the techs and observers on the floor looked up at him. He held up the bolt for them to see. “This packing bolt should only be in place during transport of the pod. Be sure to flag it and remove it before the stunt. Got it?”

  They were embarrassed. Good thing. Seamus looked disgusted, but with good reason.

  “Okay,” he called to her, “knees against the panel.”

  She kneed the panel and it popped open. She pushed against the grips, lifting her body, and with one quick tumble, she was out on the platform. High fives.

  “Is she out?” came Seamus’s voice from below.

  Mandy peered around the mirror system that would hide her escape and gave him a thumbs up. He looked astounded, then delighted.

  Okay, so more than just the illusion was working.

  Twelve days before Mandy’s premiere …

  Dane met with Preston Gabriel, Emile DeRondeau, and Keisha Ellerman in a tree-shaded picnic area behind an elementary school near Preston’s house.

  “Mandy’s checked out in the pod,” Dane reported. “All systems are go.”

  Emile asked, “Go? Going?”

  Keisha told him, “ ‘All systems are go.’ It’s old astronaut talk.”

  “Ohhh.”

  Dane asked Preston, “Comfortable with the big room show?”

  “It’s coming together on schedule. Emile’s building the sets and I’ll bring up some effects from LA. We’ll be ready for the premiere.”

  “So Keisha, what’ve you got?” Dane asked.

  Keisha opened her sketchbook. “The Grand Illusion involves these two designs …” She flipped to the pages. “This one, in black leather with silver tunic, is in keeping with the macabre, medieval aspect of the stunt’s opening. The cuff release is integrated into the waistband, and I’ll include some extra banding around her ankles as she requested. It’s cut with a little extra room to fit over this one …” The flowing, angelic costume in glimmering white got an immediate reaction. “This was her idea, something totally opposite the black outfit to express a metamorphosis from death to life, escaping this world and soaring to heaven. The train and the streamers fold up against her back inside the leather suit, and the quick change deploys in less than a second.” Keisha loved the thought of it. “Like a butterfly from a cocoon.”

  “Weight?” Preston asked.

  “Ten and one-half ounces.”

  He nodded with a smile and wrote it down.

  “The harness is sewn into the gown in this waistband, in the sash, and in the bodice. And these slots running along the tops of the sleeves will hold the torso rigging and trapeze clamps.”

  “Those clamps are nearly ready,” Emile told her.

  “What about the rigging?” Dane asked Emile.

  Emile looked at Preston, who shared his concern. “The weight turned out to be a problem. We’ll have to go with a smaller-size filament. It’ll handle the load but it’s tougher to keep from tangling and obviously it’s tougher to see.”

  “We’re sewing it up right now,” said Preston. “We’ll test it tomorrow and give you a report.”

  “Fantastic.”

  “So how’s she enjoying the hang gliding?”

  Dane allowed himself a grim chuckle. “It’s the only thing that doesn’t make her nervous.”

  chapter

  * * *

  48

  Ten days before Mandy’s premiere …

  Hands on the control bar and take off running. Feel that big kite lifting, pulling on the harness. Step off, ride on the air. You’re a bird.

  It was Mandy’s second solo, and none too soon. She sailed close to the mountain slope, picking up speed, rocks and scrub blurring under her and looking close enough to tickle her belly. Down the slope was an SUV parked on a dirt road, its tailgate open, its cargo space filled with cages of doves. Preston Gabriel stood ready.

  She’d reached through time and space and guided her doves plenty of times before, but never from a hang glider, and never quite as many.

  Preston released the birds—twelve this time—and they fluttered from the SUV like tiny angels, wings flashing in the sun. They were circling, orienting, looking for her. She veered slightly left to keep them to her right.

  “C’mon, birdies!” she called. She reached, wide awake, eyes open, much of her mind on her own flying.

  There! She found Carson, her veteran, el primo. He responded right away, flying in the envelope of her invisible
hand, power climbing to meet her. Maybelle and Lily followed him as they always did; Bonkers came around from one of his search circles, made eye contact, and came from behind. She had them, could feel them, and they could sense her, their Momma Dove. Now for the others. She’d worked with them on the ground and gotten them used to the effect. She hoped the training would stick in flight.

  It did! First one, then two, then another one, then three more, then the rest all responded to her interdimensional touch—Oops! Not that way, over here!—and followed as she swooped past the SUV and Preston Gabriel waved.

  She caught an updraft and could feel the sudden lift in her stomach. C’mon, birdies, c’mon!

  They followed her in no particular formation, just flying along, playing a game.

  Okay … Carson, take the lead… .

  She reached and guided Carson to a point straight ahead of the wing, then set Lily and Maybelle wing-to-wing behind him. Bonkers happily slipped into the rear of the diamond formation.

  Now for the point of the exercise: could she handle the rest of the birds and still have enough awareness to fly the glider? She still had envelopes around the others and extra copies of herself to keep track of things, so she and some other shes—she didn’t count how many, she was too busy flying the glider—went to work putting this dove here, those two over there, arranging, arranging, holding in place, aligning—wow, what a trip! The doves seemed to like it. They certainly weren’t alarmed. Maybe they felt sheltered, as if back in their nests.

  The moment came. She got them into formation, the diamond out front, four wing-to-wing on the left in a swept-back line, four wing-to-wing on the right in a swept-back line, one big, graceful migratory V aligned perfectly with the glider’s leading edge—and they were holding formation! She could feel, touch, guide each and every one of them, and they were letting her, easy and steady, just doing what birds do.

  It was weird, but oh, so beautiful!

  Eight days before Mandy’s premiere …

  Preston Gabriel had to strike a few deals and grease a few palms, but he got what he wanted: use of a rubble-strewn vacant lot where an old hotel had been imploded and a new one would soon be built. The lot was one of the few open areas left in town, and as luck and Providence would have it, only one block from the Orpheus. Wearing orange reflective vests and hard hats to look like they belonged there, Preston and a crewman walked the empty ground and looked back at the Orpheus to get a compass bearing. According to the weather forecast, the winds should be light and favorable. A little prayer might help.

  The day before Mandy’s premiere …

  VOOOOM!

  Now, that was one impressive volcano. When the forty propane jets ignited and filled the crater with flame, the effect made Dane jump. He could feel the heat halfway up the bleachers. Andy the stage manager had warned all cast and crew to clear the stage for the burn, and with good reason. The heat was enough to singe their hair if not worse.

  Emile, who sat beside him, asked, “What do you think?”

  Dane had to force himself to look at Emile’s creation, the conical top of a volcano about 15 feet across and 6 feet high, the right size to dominate center stage and incinerate a pod dropped down its throat from 150 feet. Had he the presence of mind he would have said it drew curiosity, looked big budget, created anticipation, would be fun to watch, brought thrill to the stunt … but he couldn’t find the words.

  He could see her through the blackening glass, crumpled over the steering wheel, the deflated airbag curling at the edges, melting into her face.

  The volcano was setting afire the disposable fake trees near the crater’s edge. The effect was meant to frighten and add an element of danger. It worked. Dane looked away from the flames. “Impressive, Emile. I mean, really impressive.”

  Emile had to speak up over the simulated, amplified roar of the eruption. “As good as I could do for the money. I told Vahidi it didn’t have to be this big, but he’s concerned about the other volcano in town. He wanted something that would compete. Are you okay?”

  The heat, the sound, even the smell …

  Her hair crinkling, vaporizing down to her scalp … steam and smoke rising through her blouse.

  “Well, let’s give it a go,” he said, just wanting to get it over with.

  Emile radioed the crane operator, “Let her go.”

  One hundred and fifty feet above the volcano, a dummy test pod hung from the cable. When the crane operator released the hook, the pod fell—it seemed to fall forever—and landed in the volcano with a carefully engineered crash and explosion that produced a ball of fire and a shower of fireworks. The pod was incinerated, just like that.

  Just as planned, without a hitch. Dane felt sick. “Can you turn it off, please?”

  “Sure.” Emile spoke into his radio, “Okay, kill the volcano.”

  The volcano died with a smoky mutter, the shards and splinters of the fallen pod still flaming in its throat.

  Here and there around the stage and bleachers, cast and crew applauded. Dane only wished he could have been stronger.

  Emile must have read his face. “Dane. It’s okay. It’s going to work out.”

  Of course, he thought, she won’t be in the pod. She’ll be long gone.

  They’d run everything, starting at two o’clock, and the whole show took twenty minutes from Mandy’s magical appearance in the maw of the volcano—no fire at the time—to her soft-as-a-feather landing back on the stage in her hang glider, her doves circling about her. Turning on and testing the volcano came afterward just in case something unforeseen occurred that would have posed a danger. Nothing unforeseen happened.

  Not that it couldn’t.

  Mandy, out of her costume and back in her jeans and jacket, came back on the stage. With an assist from Andy, she inspected the smoldering embers of the dummy pod in the volcano. When she looked up at Dane, he could tell it was for reassurance. He could only send her a thumbs-up and mouth Emile’s words “It’s going to work out.”

  They were ready to roll.

  The night before Mandy’s premiere …

  Mandy returned with Parmenter to the canopy in the desert, the 35.76 concrete blocks, and Parmenter’s preoccupied rattling about Bakers and Kileys and numbers that meant nothing to her. Dane was not there, on purpose. They all agreed, even though it pained her, that having him close quelled her tension, eased her longing, blunted that particular edge of unrest that she needed to … how did Parmenter put it?

  “Remember,” he said, helping her tape the sensors in place once again, “we need to reproduce as closely as we can the conditions of that day. Anything you can recall, any feelings you may have had, you need to bring those back because they are what brought you within reach of the Machine’s timeline.”

  That day was the day she was ambushed but escaped and, in a drugged stupor, fled to Dane’s ranch—at least that’s what she understood to have happened. Having been in a drugged stupor, she just plain didn’t remember it, and that was the problem—and yes, they had considered drugging her again to reproduce that condition; but decided that wasn’t the prime condition, being ambushed and in danger of death was.

  All she could do was her best, just try to be scared, as if a killer were chasing her. It sounded like Method acting, something she hadn’t quite mastered.

  “Now remember,” Parmenter was saying, “until the Machine is recalibrated, you have primary control. It will change its settings to accommodate whatever you’re doing. The real challenge will come during the retrace. The Machine will be recalibrated and you’ll be on your original timeline, but you’ll still have to control the Machine from there, which is going to be trickier.”

  “Got it,” she said, not wanting to hear it all over again.

  “We’re ready.” He said it again into his headset, as if Moss needed to be told separately, “Loren, we’re ready.”

  Back in the lab, Moss was at his station, watching the graphs and readings on the monitors. “And … m
ay we have a word in private?”

  “Yes, I’m on the headset. Go ahead.”

  “I suppose her vitals are what we want: her blood pressure’s up, her heart is racing. But I’m getting nearly flat readings from the Machine. She’s not getting through.”

  “Any suggestions?”

  “I suggest you stop yakking so much and just let the kid work it out.”

  “Oh. Yeah, you might be right.”

  Mandy stood facing the stack of blocks, trying not to calm down in any general sense, but in one particular sense. She had to have singleness of mind and will, but at the same time be agitated and, if possible, distraught. Verrrry simple.

  Parmenter sat down and just smiled at her. “Go ahead. I’ll be quiet.”

  One goal of tonight’s session was to manipulate the blocks, all 35.76 of them, at the same time and see what that felt like, if she could even do it. She pretended they were doves and reached for the first block just as she reached for Carson while in flight. There. That was easy. As she and Parmenter watched, it lifted off the stack. It felt heavy to her, just like a big ugly concrete block, but it was floating, moving wherever she wished it to go, back and forth, turning on an axis.

  Okay, now for the second one. No problem. She’d done this with hula hoops, microphones, bottles, spinning quarters, tennis balls.

  She kept going, lifting three at once, then four, then five. Eventually she had ten of them circling the remainder of the stack like old movie Indians attacking a wagon train. Parmenter was excited as he watched, but he kept his promise and stayed quiet.

  Thirty-two blocks all swarming around like bees was wild, very crowded, and scary enough to make Parmenter back away. The biggest trick was to keep them swarming without hitting each other, which got to be like that old rub-your-tummy-and-pat-your-head game, a lot to keep track of. It helped to keep splitting her mind into subminds that rode on the back of each block as if she, she, she, she, she, and all the other shes were driving ugly, 42.5-pound bumper cars.