08 Illusion

by Frank Peretti

  “But you’re fine with letting your own friend and colleague die.”

  Parmenter’s heart sank. “It’s more than your life and Mandy’s. It’s the nature of the Machine coupled with the nature of mankind. We’ve already demonstrated the results in this very lab, in our own choices and actions.”

  “I see it differently.”

  “I can understand that. I was expecting it, to be honest.”

  “Is that why you didn’t trust me with Mandy’s reversion data?”

  Well, now we’re getting down to it. “Loren, I would hardly trust myself, and it was an extreme act of trust for Mandy to do so. She trusted me with her life.”

  Just then the hallway door opened and several men came into the room. Parmenter recognized Martin DuFresne, Carlson, and three other physicians in DuFresne’s camp—speak of the devil! There were three other men he’d seen maybe once before. They were the government interests who stayed deep in the background, unnamed, unseen, making things happen, definitely not to be trusted. Last through the door were two men he’d not seen before: one was dark, Mediterranean, perhaps Middle Eastern, the other blond, with a ruddy, pockmarked face.

  He nodded at the men in greeting. They didn’t nod back or say a word as they assembled in a rough line behind the command console, eyes unfriendly, wary.

  Parmenter eyed them all, then Moss. “Don’t tell me. You’ve changed sides.”

  Moss gave his hand a little turn upward. “It’s my life, Jerry. If we keep going with the Machine recalibrated and Mandy no longer a factor, we might find a way to make a reversion stick.”

  “Yours, I take it.”

  Moss jerked his head in the direction of DuFresne and company. “They put me first in line.”

  Parmenter knew he had little or nothing with which to bargain. “I could never betray Mandy’s trust. I can’t give you the information.”

  Moss only smiled. “We have it.”

  Mandy let Seamus walk her to her dressing room—the new one above and behind the big room stage, the one with the rich carpet, mile-long makeup counter, huge, illuminated mirror, full bath with walk-in shower, and separate lounge area where she could relax, do interviews, entertain guests. He seemed particularly pleased to show her her name on the door, just the way she liked it: Mandy Whitacre.

  Facing her, his hands on her shoulders, he told her, “This is it, sweetie. But don’t think of this as an arrival; think of it as a beginning. This is where we place the bar and we rise from here.”

  “I hope I can do you proud,” she said.

  “I have every confidence that you will—”

  She cut off his sentence with a kiss, then gave him a look she hoped would show her appreciation. “Gotta get ready.”

  He enjoyed the kiss, she could tell. “We’ll all be waiting.” He threw her a little salute and backed down the hall, keeping her in sight until she closed the dressing room door.

  Once inside, she rushed into the luxurious, marble-floored bathroom and washed the kiss from her face.

  * * *

  Parmenter didn’t have to ask; DuFresne seemed nearly bursting to tell him. “Seamus Downey was hired by our friends here, which meant he had all the inroads and connections with the government he could have needed. He got her a new identity so she’d blend into the system unnoticed, be able to work for a living and have as normal a life as possible, and most especially, confide in him when the time came.”

  Moss was allowed to finish the revelation. “When she visited the fairgrounds, he was there, taking note of the time, the date, and the exact location. We ran the information through the simulator and with a little finessing we got the numbers to jibe. We can recalibrate.”

  Parmenter pushed Moss to say it, maybe think it. “And then?”

  “And then we recover full control of the Machine and a space-time fabric free of deflection, a blank slate. From there, we continue to explore, and I promise, we will work out the problems.”

  “You made no mention of what will happen to Mandy.”

  Moss only gave his head a dismissive tilt. “It’s a foregone conclusion.”

  Parmenter looked at the gathering. “Or what will happen to me.”

  DuFresne spoke. “It would be impossible to ignore your immeasurable value to this project. We can only hope that, in time, you’ll be able to put the greater good above these momentary difficulties. I can assure you, you’ll be kept safe and the process will be painless.”

  “As a matter of fact,” Moss added, “this is one way your invention can do you a world of good. When you wake up, you’ll be a year younger, and as far as you’ll remember, all this trouble never happened.”

  The thought of fleeing had no sooner entered Parmenter’s head than a lightning bolt shot through his body and every motor nerve seemed to short out. He saw the pockmarked face above him and felt the prick of a needle in his neck, but he could do nothing about it.

  At 12:54, Mandy sat alone at the oversize makeup counter where she really had to get going on her showbiz face and her showbiz hair, but had to be sure, had to try things first. Cradling her chin in one hand and keeping the other in her lap, she toyed with the lipsticks, makeup brushes, eyeliner, foundation, and blush, making them scoot about the counter like little bumper cars, each one independently controlled. A tube of mascara, an eyebrow pencil, and a lipstick brush did a drag race, popping wheelies at one end of the counter and zipping down the counter until the mascara spun out, the eyebrow pencil sputtered out, and the lipstick brush won, screeching around a tight victory circle and then dancing in victory. The foundation and a lipstick were doing a figure eight and about to collide in the middle; she made the lipstick jump over the foundation and continue on. She closed her eyes and placed herself aboard each little item as it scurried around the counter. This would have been a load of fun any other day.

  As the makeup kept moving around the counter, she eyed a chair, reached invisibly, and lifted it, holding it in space. Beyond the chair, the three aspens jutted up through the floor and disappeared through the ceiling; the white paddock fence divided the room.

  Sure would like to be there right now.

  “Looks like our magician friend is rehearsing,” said Moss, now in charge at the command console as his cohorts observed with unbroken attention. The monitors were showing small deflections as Mandy multiplied herself and made things move. “She is really good at this! She has twelve separate timelines working right now, each one controlling a different object.”

  DuFresne expressed the sentiments of all. “We have got to master this! We need to achieve this level of control.”

  “We will—or may I say, I will?”

  “So what happens when we recalibrate? Will that kill her ability?”

  “Now’s when we find out.” Moss entered the vital numbers. “We enter the ending point, 13:05:23, September 12, 1970, and have the Machine reverse-calculate from there back to 10:17:24, September 17, 2010. That should bring the Machine back to its original setting and we can regain control.” He entered some more commands until the cursor blinked on the final field, Initiate. “Hang on to your hats.” He hit the Enter key. The monitors filled with a flurry of numbers and graphic patterns moving faster than the eye could follow.

  Clunk! The chair landed on the floor and toppled over. Mandy’s mind went spinning away from the objects on the counter, and she could no longer see herself piloting each one. A lipstick and a makeup brush fell on the floor. The vision of the aspens and the fence dissolved. The room was deathly quiet, and Mandy felt as if she were totally, really there in the room, a solid floor beneath her, solid walls around her, no sense of drifting, no invisible currents and eddies swirling around her.

  What happened?

  She felt strangely awake, as if she’d been in a trance for the past several months. Was this how normal really felt? She forcefully blinked her eyes and looked about the room, just trying to perceive and understand it. So this is where I am? She could smell the newne
ss of the carpet, the sweet smell of the makeup for the first time; there was no burning smell to cover it.

  Is this normal? Maybe it is.

  But … I can’t have normal, not today.

  She looked in the mirror and saw the same Mandy Whitacre she’d been since the county fair. That hadn’t changed.

  But something had.

  chapter

  * * *

  50

  The bleachers were filling up: a busload of bald and blue-rinsed retirees making a special stop, moms, dads, and restless kids, younger couples without kids, slightly seasoned couples away from their kids, single guys on a lark, single girls eyeing the single guys, older guys with younger women, tourists with all sizes and types of cameras. The crowd was buzzing, eyeing the stage, the whimsical forest, the volcano intermittently grumbling and burping smoke. The TV crews were setting up their cameras along the top of the bleachers, down on the ground, anywhere they could get a good shot, and Emile was advising them what would be happening and where.

  Dane blended with the crowd, sitting on the top row of the bleachers but about to surrender his spot as the crowd pressed in. From here everything looked ready to roll, but he was making sure of the last few items on his checklist: cable cinch, tight; escape hatch packing bolt, removed; release hook, functional; stage clock—the oversize hourglass that ran for one minute—operative. The winds were favorable.

  One thing still unchecked: the call he would have to get from Parmenter by 1:30 if, and only if, there was no need to go ahead. He checked his watch: 1:10.

  In the makeshift sleeping quarters adjacent to the lab, Parmenter lay on the bed unconscious, his phone in his pocket.

  In the lab, as Moss and DuFresne watched and the others wondered, streams and columns of numbers counted down and graphs jittered until finally, with an electronic warble, the Machine rebooted and the original control interface filled the screen, the fields clear.

  With one victorious clap of his hands Moss announced, “Gentlemen, we are back online. I’ll keep the fields open for her input and let her have control. We want her confident.”

  DuFresne spoke to Mr. Stone and Mr. Mortimer. “Let’s get it done.”

  They hurried out the door.

  He asked Moss, “So what if she tries to go interdimensional to escape?”

  Moss wagged his head. “We won’t give her that. The moment she’s in the pod, we retrace.” He puffed a little sigh of relief. “And with her total weight no more than 112, she won’t have anywhere else she can go.”

  “Except the volcano,” DuFresne suggested, amused at his own wit.

  “What more could we ask for?”

  One of the staff set a video monitor atop the console. “Seamus is sending video.”

  The monitor lit up and after some snow and flicker the picture appeared. Seamus was shooting from the parking lot, looking up at the bleachers, panning across the stage.

  DuFresne donned a headset. “Seamus, can you hear me?”

  Seamus, wireless earpiece in place, kept taking in the scene as he replied, “Loud and clear.”

  “Excellent,” came DuFresne’s reply. “Be advised, we have control of the room and the Machine is recalibrated. Stone and Mortimer are on their way.”

  “Very good,” Seamus replied, giving them a view of the crane. “No problems here. They’re going ahead with it.”

  Mandy stood in the middle of the dressing room, eyes closed, a silver, glimmering hula hoop in her hands, feeling the texture and weight, the curve of the circle, smelling the plastic. Her palms were sweating.

  All right, now remember … remember!

  She set the hoop against a chair, backed away, and tried to reach across space and time. The hoop just sat there, far away, untouchable, unreachable.

  She looked at Bonkers, Carson, Maybelle, and Lily, perched peacefully in their cage, nibbling on seeds, preening. She tried to reach … she couldn’t feel them, they didn’t sense her.

  What a fine fix to be in: she was normal, in the solid, real world, and here she was panicking. Dear God, no! I’ve got to find it, I’ve got to find it—

  A gentle knock on the door. It opened.

  Keisha, with costumes on hangers. “Hi. Guess it’s time.”

  It was 1:20 when Dane stood beside the crane checking the zip line, the illusion’s secret avenue back to the ground. From any angle of view the audience would have, it was obscured by the crane’s boom and allowed the performer to descend to the ground unseen and finish the escape. The thing was a real pain to get right, but Emile managed. Dane’s cell phone hummed on his belt.

  “Yeah.”

  “Dane”—Mandy sounded troubled—“could you talk to me just a little bit?”

  He sighed, and she probably heard it. He wanted to talk with her, touch her, open his heart more than anything else in the world, but would that achieve the effect they needed?

  “Are you sure you should—”

  “Dane, I just need …” She was troubled. “I need to see something, just feel something.”

  Oh, no. Not this late in the game. “Are you all right? Are you—”

  “Tell me how we met.”

  He checked his watch. “Uh … you mean, at the fair?”

  “Yes, tell me.”

  It would be all right to tell her, even the best thing he could do. He brought back the memory—not at all difficult, it was one of his favorites. “It was in the middle of Marvellini’s dove routine. I was in the wings setting up the levitating table when I saw you in the front row—just you. Joanie and Angie were there, but the sunlight was on you, you were the one glowing. Your hair was like, well, like a sun-washed wheat field in summer, and the wonder in your eyes … I couldn’t look away.”

  Keisha sat waiting, entirely patient.

  Mandy sat on the edge of her chair, dabbing tears from her eyes, drinking in the sound of Dane’s voice and every detail she wished she could remember.

  “You loved those doves,” he told her. “I could tell. You watched them more than Marvellini, and then … that dove—his name was Snickers—he must have picked up on that because he chose you over Marvellini. He came flying out of Marvellini’s sleeve and headed straight for you. He landed on your finger like you already knew each other and he was really happy there. I think he would have stayed.”

  Dane could still feel what he felt that day, and it came through his voice. “It was my job to patch up the gaffes, so I ran down to get Snickers back, but when you stood up with that dove on your hand, and his little head right next to your cheek … I wished I had a camera, but that’s okay, I can still see it, that image of you, just so perfect I had to get you up on that stage and …” A flood of emotion overtook him too quickly to disguise it, but maybe that was just as well. “When you danced across the stage and took a bow, I felt my future was determined from that moment. I felt, I knew, you were the one.”

  She’d have to do her makeup over again. But from somewhere, some part of her could feel him, even hear his voice without the phone. She looked across the room at the hula hoop and reached. It stood up, rolled back and forth, did a spin in place.

  “Thank you, Mr. Collins.” A quick, tear-blurred glance at ever-patient Keisha. “I gotta go.”

  Dane clicked off his phone and slipped it back on his belt. He cleared his eyes just as three people appeared on the stage: Seamus Downey and …

  Dane edged behind the crane, out of sight. Remarkable. Shocking, actually. The other two were dressed in uniforms to make them look as if they were from the fire department. One carried a clipboard, and they seemed to be giving the stage an additional, last-minute once-over. The olive-skinned guy he was seeing for the first time, but the blond guy … he was wearing sunglasses and a fireman’s dress hat, supposedly to hide his appearance, but his war-torn face Dane remembered vividly—he’d almost had a knock-down, drag-out fight with him back in his pasture in Idaho, and come to think of it, Mandy actually had.

  Dane could see Emile in h
is control booth on the third level of the parking garage behind the bleachers. Dane got on his radio. “Emile, this is Dane.”

  “Emile. Go ahead.”

  “Who are those guys on the stage?”

  “Fire inspectors.”

  “We’ve already passed inspection.”

  “Seamus called for it. He wanted to be sure.”

  “Oh, he did, did he?”

  “I just got off the phone with the fire department. They didn’t send them.”

  “I’ll get right back to you.”

  So Seamus Downey, who miraculously produced a fifty-thousand-dollar settlement from the Spokane County Medical Center for hiring those two guys, was now in their company as they snooped around the effects. Bernadette Nolan was right: the hospital in Spokane never hired them.

  But DuFresne and his government backers did, along with Seamus Downey, Mandy’s bighearted manager who made it a point to find out exactly where and when Mandy’s reversion placed her.

  The three men were spending a noticeable amount of time checking out the pod.

  Dane checked his watch. It was 1:30, and there had been no call from Parmenter. They all agreed that Parmenter would have to remain at his post for the plan to work, and the scientist said he had a contingency plan, but now Dane had to abide by Parmenter’s final admonition, “If I don’t call by 1:30, if you don’t hear from me …”

  He got on the radio again. “This is Dane. We have a go. Please acknowledge.”

  “This is Emile. We have a go.”

  “This is Preston. We have a go.”

  Atop the semi, Preston and three crewmen unfastened the Velcro loops from around the bundle of webbing and carefully lifted the top edge of what looked like a huge fishnet woven from fine, nearly invisible fibers.

  In the lab, Moss and DuFresne received a quick message in their headsets from Mr. Stone. “All set.”