Gabe covered his face and turned away. When he turned back, he saw a brown-black circle gradually appear in the middle of one of the bed sheets. It had a raven iris that opened like a fissure in the earth. Cotton-thread edges disappeared into the black rift.
First it was one circle, then it was another, then another, then a whiff of smoke began to rise and it was no longer a question of if they could get someone's attention, it was a question of how long it would take.
[146]
The nearest monitor flickered and Jake felt something tighten in his throat.
The two kids had started a fire inside the room. He watched as the smoke thickened into a dark, angry cloud and began to run the line of the ceiling in all directions. Within seconds the hungry gray mass seemed to consume nearly every square inch of the room.
“Come on,” he said, anxiously waiting for the overhead sprinklers to kick on. He didn't think the fire itself was going to pose much of a problem. But the smoke could be a different matter. It had already dropped a thick curtain over the picture on his monitor. Behind that curtain, in faint outline, he could see the two boys huddled on the floor, next to the supply cabinet.
He watched until the sprinklers finally kicked on, then he crossed to the far end of the room, and pulled down the handle to the fire alarm mounted on the wall. Instantly, the quiet halls, the vacant rooms, the entire building erupted into the deafening rattle of a bell.
“That should wake up a few people.”
He went back to the console, sat down, and rolled his chair to the left, where a bank of override switches had been built into the panel. He started at the top and threw the switches for all the exits, the elevators, the stairway doors, the offices, the labs, every room, every lock in the building that he had the power to control. When he finished, he checked the monitors and was stunned to discover the two kids were still trapped. For some reason, the door to their room had failed to open.
“What the—”
He tried the switch again, once up, once down, and when that didn't work, again, once up, once down, and finally another half-a-dozen times before giving up the futile effort. There was only one way that door was going to open. He would have to go down there himself and open it manually.
He was on his way out, keys in hand, when D.C. showed up.
“You the one who set off the alarm?”
Jake nodded, and motioned toward the far monitor, which was little more than a dark-gray hue now. “It's the room with the two boys. The override's jammed. I can't get the door open. I'm going down to see if I can do something with it.”
D.C. sat at the console, and quickly scanned all four monitors. “Jake?”
“Yeah?”
“Just keep going after you've got it open, understand? I'll watch things here until the fire department shows.”
He nodded and went out the door without a word. He didn't tell D.C. that he'd had no intentions of returning anyway. Not tonight. Not tomorrow night. Not ever. The line had finally been crossed. He had been willing to accept that this was a research facility, that the sleepers were being monitored with the hope they would someday awaken. But twice tonight the monitors had caught someone pulling a gun. That had been enough. The fire had been too much. At $6.50 an hour, he could just as easily be playing night watchman at one of the industrial complexes, cruising around in a car, flashing his spotlight into the shadows, and listening to music on the radio. This had never been what you would call a dream job.
Jake crossed the floor to the elevators, entered the basement car, and waited for the doors to close. It was the first time he had ever stopped to wonder if someone were watching his movements the way he had always watched everyone else's.
[147]
Teri was the first one into the lab. She stepped inside the door to the left and turned to wait for Walt, who had kept himself like a shield between her and Mitch from the elevator all the way down the hall.
“How you doing?” Walt asked as he entered.
“Fine,” she whispered.
“Never a dull moment, huh?”
Mitch directed them to the far side of the room, against the windows, and had them face outward. He sat on the corner of the nearest desk, picked up the phone, dialed a number and hung up again after he couldn't get an answer.
“Christ.” He mumbled something about the doc not being there.
“Trouble in paradise?” Walt asked.
In the reflection in the window, Teri watched Mitch stand up and start to pace back and forth in front of the desk. He looked like a worried man, and that worried her, because she had always thought of him as having everything under control. She didn't like the idea that something might be going wrong. When things went wrong, people got hurt.
Walt was watching him, too. Only he was watching him for a different reason. Teri didn't immediately realize this, but when the fire alarm suddenly went off, Walt went off with it. He turned and closed the distance between the two of them in less than a second. Mitch never had a chance to use his gun.
Teri turned and screamed. “Walt! Don't!”
But by then, they were already grappling.
Walt smashed his fist into the man's jaw and Mitch went flying over the desk backwards, Walt on top of him. The gun jarred loose and bounced around on the carpet only a brief moment before they were on it again, each man trying to take sole possession.
Teri moved away from the windows, a hand to her mouth to hold back the scream that was trying to force its way up from her throat. She had stepped forward momentarily when the gun had bounced free, but she had been too slow and now she was backed against the electron microscope with nowhere else to go.
“Please!”
Mitch landed an elbow to Walt's face. His head snapped back, and Mitch met him with another shot to the face, this one so loud that Teri cringed. Walt rolled over, momentarily dazed, blood flowing out of his nose and a cut over his right eye.
The gun was within Mitch's grasp now. He climbed slowly to his knees, breathing heavily, then to his feet, blood dripping out of the corner of his mouth. He bent over to pick up the gun, wrapped his fingers around the handle, and...
...and Walt rammed him from the side, full-body, full-force.
They tumbled over a chair, and it was Mitch who was the first one standing. He slammed a foot into Walt's side that rolled him over twice. Walt grabbed for his ribs and curled into a ball, in obvious pain.
“Don't!” Teri screamed. “Please, don't!”
Mitch, who was bent over, his hands braced on his knees, trying to catch a breath, looked up at her. His eyes were pure black, cold, empty. This was a duel to the death, she realized bleakly. He was not going to stop. Not until Walt was dead. And if he couldn't kill Walt, then he would die trying. It was all... right... there.
“Please?”
He shook his head and bent over to pick up the gun, and this time Walt rammed him going the wrong direction. Walt hit him low, around the waist and it looked like a perfect Sunday afternoon tackle. He nearly picked him up off the ground and the force of the hit drove Mitch backwards across the room, Walt's legs pumping, Mitch trying to get his feet planted, both men moving straight at the window.
Mitch went through first. The back of his head slammed into the window, shattering the glass and opening a hole big enough to drive a car through. Walt went through right behind him, his hands still wrapped around the man's waist.
It happened that fast.
And then it was over.
Teri heard a faraway scream that only later she would realize belonged to her. She went to the window, and looked down at the two dead men. Walt's neck had been broken, his head twisted back at a hideous angle, a bone protruding out the front.
She closed her eyes and turned away.
[148]
D.C. had finally shut down the fire alarm, and had gone out to the lobby to check to see if any trucks had shown up. It was getting down to the final few seconds now. Once the trucks started arriving
and the fire crews started going through the building floor by floor, then all hell was going to break loose. Sooner or later they were going to stumble across the room in the basement with the sleepers.
The parking lot was empty, except for a pair of tail lights in the distance, on their way out the long drive. D.C. watched them momentarily, wondering whose car they belonged to, then he went back to the control room to check the monitors one last time.
Downstairs, in the basement, Jake had finally gotten the door open. A wall of smoke came pouring out and immediately filled the basement landing. The monitor flickered, this time inside the room with the two boys. They were huddled together, behind a gray screen of smoke, appearing for all he could tell, lifeless.
Another flicker and D.C. found himself watching the last few seconds of the fight between Mitch and Walter Travis. The two men, wrapped together like twine, went sailing out the third story window, a couple of idiot martyrs bent on giving themselves to the afterlife. Foolish men did foolish things.
D.C. hovered over the monitors, his arms braced against the console, and realized the end had finally arrived. He stood, and searched the surroundings, trying to recall if there was anything he needed to take with him. But there was nothing left but trouble here.
He turned the light off on his way out of the room, a habit that was strangely metaphorical. Behind him, the middle monitor flickered, and Jake showed up on the screen, carrying Cody Breswick in his arms. He carried the boy out of the room, over to the stairwell and set him down. Cody took in a spastic breath, then another, and his eyes opened slowly.
Jake went back to look for the Knight boy.
[149]
Teri was on her way down the stairwell between the first floor and the basement, when she encountered Cody. The boy had made it to the mid-landing and he was lying on the floor, too weak to go any further. His face was covered with soot, his blue eyes shining like diamonds in the coal.
“Cody?”
He nodded.
“Oh, my God,” she said. She knelt and gave him a hug meant for all the children just like him. Those who had made it. Those who had not. “I can't believe this. I can't believe you're still alive. Are you all right?”
He nodded again, his eyes clearing.
“Where's Gabe? Do you know where Gabe is?”
“Downstairs,” he said.
“You stay right here. And when I get back, I'll help you, all right?”
“All right.”
She discovered Gabe sitting on the last step, just before the basement landing. His eyes were closed, his breathing shallow. There was the streak of gray in his hair that had seemed so devastating before, and now seemed only to signify that the circle had finally been closed. They were together again.
Teri shook him gently by the arm. He opened his eyes and smiled. An incredible rush of relief filled her lungs. “Hey, kiddo.”
“Hey, Mom.”
“Think you're finally ready to come home?”
“I don't know,” he said, grinning. “It's only been ten years.”
CLOSINGS
Sleep comes in cycles. It weaves in and out of your experience like a ribbon in the wind. Weariness, exhaustion, boredom, routine, all these call it forth and send it back again, hunkering in the corners of your dreams. Sleep is the way you rejuvenate your body, refresh your mind, change your perspective. It is a necessity, no less important than the food you eat, the air you breathe.
Death is the sleep of the soul. It is a necessity for your renewal, for your expansion. Do not cower in the shadows when death comes knocking. Greet it eye-to-eye with a hardy handshake and know that it comes like sleep in cycles.
Transcending Illusions
[1]
Teri never saw D.C. again.
Several months later, after she had learned more about the Karma Project and its history, she called CIA headquarters in Washington. She asked to speak to an agent, any agent, and when one came on the line, she gave the man a brief background on the project, how it had unfolded, the people who had died, and how there were now some eighty-seven children scattered around the country, their lives permanently scarred by what the CIA had done.
It was when she brought up the name D.C. that the agent first began to protest. Until then, he had been patient with her, listening without comment, neither confirming nor denying anything she had said. But that tactic quickly shifted once she had tossed D.C. into the mix. The agent adamantly denied that any D.C. had ever worked for the CIA in any capacity whatsoever, past or present, and suggested several times over that she was obviously mistaken about the man's connection with the agency.
Teri grew exasperated to the point of finally interrupting him. “Look, let's not waste my time, all right? I've only got a few minutes and you need to know exactly what I have in mind. So pay attention.”
The man on the other end grew quiet again.
“If I don't receive notice within one month that this man is no longer involved in the CIA or any CIA sponsored activities, I will immediately go to the press. I will sit down with them and I will share everything I know about the Karma Project and every piece of documentation I have in my possession. You following this?”
“Yes,” the agent answered quietly.
“You get notice to me within the next thirty days that D.C. is out in the cold and the issue becomes mute. My documents will be destroyed, and you won't have to worry about Karma embarrassing the agency or the country. You got it?”
“If you'll just let me—”
“Don't waste my time.”
She gave the agent a post office box in Reno, Nevada, where he could contact her, and then she hung up. Her hands were shaking, her heart pounding. It was the most frightening thing she had ever done, and the biggest bluff she had ever played. Once the receiver was back in its cradle and she was out of the phone booth, walking down the street again, Teri felt as if a huge weight had been lifted from her shoulders. For eighty-seven children, it was already too late. Their lives had been shattered. But maybe it was early enough to prevent any future children from a similar fate. She could hold out that hope, at least. However dim it might be.
Four weeks later, a newspaper article arrived at the Reno post office. It was forwarded to another box at another office, and from there to another box, under yet a different name. By the time Teri held it in her hands, the news had been old: Malcolm Winters, a man in his late thirties who traveled and was often away, according to his neighbors, had hung himself from a chandelier two weeks before. He was survived by his wife of seven years and three children. He had been despondent lately about money problems, according to the article, which also went on to detail some four other women who were claiming to also be married to the man.
Across the top of the article, written in red ink, were the initials: D.C.
A red line had been drawn through the initials, diagonally, top to bottom.
[2]
Michael finally connected with Teri after she had rescued Gabe from the Devol Institute. He had spent that day staking out the offices where Dr. Childs ran his practice, and that night staking out the house where Dr. Childs lived. But Childs had never shown up at either place, and well past midnight, Michael had returned to his motel room, disappointed and wondering what to do next. The following morning, Lieutenant Sterns called and invited him back to the station under the pretense of another interview.
Teri and Gabe were there waiting for him.
Ten long years had passed, and their family was finally whole and back together again.
It was only for a short while.
[3]
The truth began to set in less than forty-eight hours later.
Michael and Gabe had spent most of the day miniature golfing and at the movies. Later, they stopped by the house to pick up Teri and the three of them went out to dinner together. After dinner, Gabe grew tired. He went off to bed late in the evening, and Teri and Michael sat across from each other at the kitchen table.
/> Teri nursed a cup of coffee as she tried to fill him in on most of what had happened over the past week or so. She chose her words carefully, keeping them reined in and under control. It was going to be the very last part of the story—the epilog, so to speak—that was going to hurt the most. And there was no reason she could think of to rush the pain.
Teri took a sip of coffee, and got up to pour herself another cup. Michael had listened patiently, without rushing her, and she had been grateful for that. It had, to a large extent, she supposed, kept her from breaking down and crying. “More coffee?”
“No, I better not. I'll be up all night.”
She stared down at her empty cup, debating. Last night had been a light sleep, lots of tossing and turning; breezy, unremembered dreams; the sounds of the house bringing her up; her exhaustion taking her down again. It would be nice if her dreams could keep her in their fold tonight. She left the coffee cup on the counter and returned to the table.
“So what are we dancing around?” Michael finally asked.
Teri looked at him, seriously, not knowing how else to skirt around it. Her voice was soft. “I don't think it's over. I think Gabe's got something similar to Hutchinson-Gilford Syndrome.”
She explained as much as she knew, and Michael took the news like a trooper, barely a reaction. He suggested they have him tested, since they were relying primarily on the word of Childs and neither of them had reason to trust anything the man said. Especially as it related to Gabe. Teri agreed. She called Cindy to let her know what they were going to do, in case she wanted to have Cody tested as well.
At first, Cindy balked at the idea. She was still whirling from the shock of finding Cody alive, and Teri suspected she hadn't even had a chance yet to deal with the fact that Cody was the same age today as he had been when he had disappeared. When you looked at him, there wasn't a hint of what was going on inside his body. He appeared as healthy and as precious as the day he had been born.
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