“I don’t care what our sponsor thinks, Dalton,” Witherspoon was saying. He was in his office, talking on the phone. “The decision is mine. I want all the prisoners—right, the test subjects—moved out of there. I don’t care, erase their heads and put them in a federal pen. I want the facility empty within twenty-four hours.”
There was a silence while he listened.
“No. You do not need to check with our sponsor. This is my decision. What? Yes, the machine needs to go as well. Have it dismantled and put it in storage. Pull out all the wiring.”
He listened for a moment, and frowned.
“I don’t know,” he mumbled. “I didn’t think of that. How many personnel are there, besides you and the prisoners? Subjects, I mean?” Another pause. Witherspoon’s expression turned to one of anguish. “The guards. Who else? Right, the engineer. How could I forget those teeth of his?” He counted quickly on his fingers. “Three liabilities, plus…” He didn’t finish the thought, but it was clear to Ed that the person he was talking to, Dalton, should be considered a fourth. “And all of them know enough to be a problem? Yes, yes—I agree.”
Still holding the phone to his ear, Witherspoon stood up and looked out the window at a large work site across the street. An enormous building was being constructed. It was a huge site, trapezoidal to fit the irregular space between E Street and Pennsylvania Avenue. Massive blocks of concrete were being lifted into place by cranes. “No,” he said. “No, don’t do that. I don’t want any more blood on my hands… Well, no—that won’t do either, will it? They know too much about it. They can’t just walk free.” He sighed and chewed at a hangnail on his left thumb. “There’s only one thing to do. Erase them. I don’t see any other option.”
He concluded the phone call and dropped the receiver on the hook. Looking out at the half-completed building, he talked quietly to himself. “Beautiful work, Charles. You’ll burn in hell for this one, just wait and see.”
* * *
Ed pulled his hand away from the gray sapling. It swayed gently back and forth after he let go. So Novus had been another of Nosgrove’s projects. Witherspoon worked for Nosgrove, but was not completely loyal to him. Ed was glad to know that.
There was another sapling nearby, so tiny that he almost overlooked it. The memory it contained had to be quite recent. He knelt and touched one of its little gray leaves.
* * *
He was back in Witherspoon’s office again. The windows were dark. The intercom was buzzing and buzzing as Witherspoon sat at his desk, staring at a paper on the desktop in front of him.
Ed stepped around the desk to look at the paper. It was a letter of resignation, informing the Director that Witherspoon was leaving the Bureau. The old man blinked back tears, picked up a pen, and signed the document with a shaking hand.
The intercom buzzed again. Witherspoon pressed the button. “Can’t it wait, Margie? I’m busy.”
The secretary’s voice sounded frantic. “No, it cannot. Dr. Whitehead is calling on the secure line. It sounds very important.”
“All right.” Witherspoon took another moment to compose himself, then pressed a button to put the call on speaker. “Dalton, this is Charles. Is something―”
“Charles!” The voice at the other end was nearly drowned out by noise on the line. There was a humming noise that fed back and made the speaker crackle. Whitehead said something else, but the words were impossible to make out.
“Can you say that again?” he shouted. “There’s too much noise. I can’t hear.”
“Kajdas. Did you send Agent Kajdas?”
Witherspoon had to hold the receiver away from his ear. “Kajdas? He’s disappeared. No one knows where he is. You’ve seen him?” He paused to listen. “What’s that?”
“He’s here,” said the doctor. “He’s outside the lab. We’ve locked the door, but―”
* * *
Someone grabbed Ed’s shoulder. He cried out in surprise, finding himself back in the gray forest of Witherspoon’s memories. He turned, dizzy with disorientation, and cried out in terror when he saw the face of Nathaniel staring at him, inches away.
“Who did you see there?” Nathaniel demanded, so close that Ed could smell the dizzying stink of his breath. He appeared in this place as he had looked in the physical world, before Ed had shot him. His one red eye shone brightly, and other socket glistened wetly.
Ed instinctively backed away, tripped over a root, and fell on his backside.
“Ah, you’re looking for him too!” Nathaniel said eagerly, taking a step forward. He laid a hand on a nearby tree—a different tree from the one Ed had been touching—and closed his eyes as one of Witherspoon’s memories entered his head. In a few seconds he was done. He opened his eyes and shook his head. “Not that one.”
As Ed watched, the tree Nathaniel was touching began to shrivel, like it was drying out. It was gray to begin with, so the change was subtle. When the one-eyed man took his hand away, the memory was an empty husk. He gave it a shove and it creaked, then groaned, then fell with a crash.
Ed tried to get back on his feet, but his legs didn’t seem to want to hold him up and he sagged back to the ground. “You’re killing him!” he shouted. “Why are you doing this?”
Nathaniel took a deep breath of the chilly air. It had gotten noticeably cooler just in the last few minutes. “Looking for secrets,” he said. “The secret of Urizen.”
“But you don’t have to destroy his memories. You could search his mind without killing him.”
The monster gazed at Ed with his one red eye, and it was just like he was back in L.A. with the gnome again. Fear gripped his heart and took all his strength away. “He has secrets that I need to know,” Nathaniel said softly, “and secrets I don’t want anyone to know.”
Novus, Ed thought. Witherspoon knew about Novus, and Nathaniel wanted to keep that knowledge hidden.
Nathaniel tilted his head to the side. “What’s a Novus?”
“Damn it,” Ed muttered. He had almost forgotten what it was like to have the gnome looking in on his thoughts. “Stay out of my head!”
They faced each other as the cold wind gusted again. Ed shivered. It didn’t seem like Witherspoon could survive much longer.
“I thought you were like me,” Nathaniel said thoughtfully. “Ever since the first time I saw you. Even before you set me free. I never saw anyone shine as brightly as you. And then you turned out to be another one of them.” The last word came out in a spray of spittle. His eye glowed more brightly than before, pulsating like a beating heart. “But it’s not too late. You can help me.” He thought about this for a moment. “Yes! Tell me where you are. I can come get you. You’ll live in my house, and I can teach you like the Crippled Guru wanted to. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
While Nathaniel was speaking, Ed had been feeling behind his back for something. At last he found it: a heavy branch that had fallen off of a dead memory. He wrapped his fingers around it and tried to decide the best spot to aim for. The eye, he thought. He’s only got one. “Tell me where you are,” he said. “I’ll join you if you tell me how to find you.” A weak ruse, but he didn’t know what else to try.
“My house is safe,” Nathaniel said soothingly. “A safe place to learn. I have a lot of students now. I’ll show you where my house is, if you’ll stop fighting me. Fighting me is… stupid.”
“I’ve never been very bright,” Ed replied. He swung the branch with all of his strength, striking Nathaniel in the side of the face. The blow missed his eye, but Ed struck with such force that the one-eyed man staggered two steps to the side, colliding with a tree before he fell.
Ed descended on him with all the rage he had been saving up since Eleanor had died. He leapt upon Nathaniel and pummeled him with his fists. Nathaniel’s head whipped back and forth with every impact. At last, tired from all the punching, Ed stood up and aimed one good, hard kick at the side of his head. Only then did he realize that Nathaniel was laughing at him.
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“You haven’t learned anything,” he said. “You can’t hurt me that way.” He stood up and dusted himself off. “It only works if you do this.” He pointed one finger at Ed, and suddenly all he was aware of was pain. His whole body hurt as if he’d been dropped into a vat of burning oil. Then the pain vanished, and he found himself lying on a bare patch of ground. Nathaniel was looking down at him with a curious expression. He found Ed’s suffering interesting.
Ed stood up and took a moment to compose himself. Nathaniel waited patiently, looking at him with eager expectation. “All right,” Ed said, recalling the thing he had done to Kajdas. He forced his consciousness into Nathaniel’s brain, and for an instant he could see the world through the other man’s eye. Not knowing how to cause pain, he simply grabbed onto the first thing he found there and tried to do as much damage as he could.
But Nathaniel was too strong for him. Ed found himself back inside his own body, snapping back so abruptly that the impact hurt his head.
“Almost,” Nathaniel said. “You could do more, if you’d let me teach you.”
Ed put his hand up to his throbbing head while he stopped to think. Only a few weeks had passed since he’d made Rayfield and the others promise to follow his rules. And now here he was, exploring someone’s memories without permission and trying to kill with his mind. He laughed to himself as he realized that he didn’t care. Then he launched himself into Nathaniel’s brain again, trying to find a weakness. Anything that would cause pain, or at least wipe that awful grin off of the monster’s face.
Again he was thrown forcibly out of Nathaniel’s mind and back into his own body. The impact made him see double.
“Again!” Nathaniel laughed. “Again!”
Ed prepared himself for one more attack. What infuriated him more than anything was Nathaniel’s sense of superiority, that and his mocking smile. He thought of Eleanor. That smile may have been the last thing she’d ever seen on this earth.
In he went again, lashing out with everything he had. Nathaniel pushed again, but this time he was ready. As he was being ejected from the man’s mind a third time, he imagined himself stabbing once, quickly, on the way out.
Nathaniel inhaled sharply. A drop of blood oozed out of one of his nostrils. He wiped it away with the back of his hand and examined it. “Better,” he whispered after he licked the blood off. “But you’re still weak.” Without warning, he raised his hands and prepared to do something nasty to Ed once more. Ed braced himself, and this time he was ready. When he felt Nathaniel probing his mind this time, he pushed back. But he didn’t push hard enough, and a sharp stab of pain filled his head. Nathaniel laughed at him, which made it all the worse. The pain grew worse until he feared he would black out. He gathered his strength and hit back one last time, as hard as he could, shoving Nathaniel out again. But this bought him only a moment before the next attack. Lights seemed to flash before Ed’s eyes like fireworks and he felt suddenly dizzy and nauseated. He wondered if Nathaniel was doing any permanent damage. He was clearly toying with Ed, testing him, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t dangerous.
Even as this was happening, Ed was sure the man wasn’t attacking with everything he had. He could sense Nathaniel preparing something even worse. That red eye shone brighter, reflecting off the gray trees around them. Ed wanted to turn and run, or fly away into the purple sky, but his legs were like rubber. He swayed and fell down again. Closing his eyes, he prayed for it to be over quickly.
The attack never came. He waited with his eyes closed, dreading what would happen next. After a long moment passed, he opened his eyes and blinked until his vision cleared.
A stranger stood between him and Nathaniel. From Ed’s point of view, he seemed to be at least ten feet tall. But when Ed dragged himself to his feet again, he could see that the stranger was only of average height, maybe two inches taller than Ed himself. He was middle-aged, with reddish hair that was thinning substantially on top and a neatly-trimmed, graying beard. He gave Ed the general impression of an accountant or office clerk who had wandered here by accident. The stranger was dressed in an inexpensive-looking brown suit, a bit rumpled, with a loose necktie and scuffed leather shoes. He seemed, overall, to be quite out of place.
“Who are you?” Nathaniel snapped. “You don’t belong here. This is none of your business!”
The newcomer smiled at Nathaniel in a friendly way. “I’m making it my business,” he said. He was soft-spoken, but didn’t seem to be in any way intimidated by the one-eyed monster glaring at him. “I want you to leave this man alone.”
Nathaniel smiled, showing his ugly teeth. “Ed is my student.”
“I’m not,” said Ed. No one paid him any attention.
“You are interfering in a lesson,” Nathaniel continued.
“I’m not talking about Terwilliger,” said the stranger. “I’m talking about Mr. Witherspoon. I want you out of his mind. Now.”
Ed had never seen Nathaniel lacking for something to say. He stared at the man with his mouth open, unsure what to make of this person who dared to challenge him. When he finally spoke, he seemed to be having a quiet argument with himself. “No, we could use him. Don’t kill him. But he shouldn’t be here. This place is mine now. But he could be so useful. Yes, take him. Take him.”
The bearded stranger shook his head sadly. “I’m not going anywhere,” he said. “But you—you are going. And I will not be seeing you here again. This mind is not yours.” He stepped forward and grabbed Nathaniel’s head in both hands. Nathaniel took hold of the stranger’s wrists and tried to pry his hands away, but the man’s grip was too tight and he couldn’t move them. “Go!” the stranger ordered, and Nathaniel vanished.
Ed watched all this in amazement, wondering what kind of person could do such a thing to Nathaniel against his will. “He’ll be back,” he said.
The newcomer dusted off his hands. “I’m sure he will. And I’ll do the same thing again.” He turned to face Ed. His demeanor was calm and pleasant, although he had the mildly distracted air of someone who had a lot on his mind. Standing there in his brown suit and scuffed leather shoes, he looked like an insurance salesman who had gotten lost in the woods on his way to the office. “How did you get mixed up with that one? He’s very dangerous, especially here.”
“I know,” said Ed. He extended a hand. “I’m Ed.”
The man laughed. “I’m sorry.” He shook Ed’s hand. “Jonathan Mason. We’ll be meeting soon”—he waved a hand in an ambiguous way—“out there. In the meantime, I think you should avoid this place. It’s too dangerous for you to be poking around.”
“There’s something I need here,” said Ed.
“It can’t be important enough to risk your life,” said Mason.
“I think it might be.”
Jonathan pursed his lips thoughtfully. “I understand. We can discuss it when we meet in person. For now, though, I think you should stay away until I can convince Nathaniel that Witherspoon is not worth his trouble. Will you do that?”
“What do you mean, when we meet? How do you know we’re going to meet?”
There was a faint rumbling in the distance. Ed felt the ground shift under his feet—not violently, but just enough to notice. At the same time he heard a ringing bell somewhere far away, deep and sonorous, like an ancient church bell striking midnight.
“He’ll come back,” said Mason. “Probably with some friends. Mr. Terwilliger, you need to get out of here. Leave Witherspoon to me.”
A faint red light was moving through the gray forest, becoming gradually brighter. Ed knew it must be the light of Nathaniel’s eye as he approached.
“Time to go,” said Mason. He waved his hand and Ed found himself back in his physical body, at Witherspoon’s bedside.
The sound of the ringing bell rose suddenly in pitch and speed until it became the sound of a ringing telephone. There were footsteps downstairs on the hardwood floor, and he heard the muffled sound of Emma Witherspoon answering the ca
ll. Never send to know for whom the bell tolls, Ed thought.
Charles still slept, but his sleep was troubled. His eyes moved rapidly behind his eyelids and he moaned softly in fear or pain. Whatever was happening in the forest of gray trees, Ed hoped Jonathan Mason knew what he was doing.
The door opened and Emma peeked in. “Telephone for you, Walter,” she said.
* * *
“What do you mean, cancelled?” Sarah tried not to raise her voice, but it had been a very long day and she was not in the mood for this. She no longer cared if she sounded petulant. Her stomach had been bothering her ever since she’d arrived in Denver, and she hadn’t eaten since before the flight out of Pittsburgh early that morning.
“I’m sorry, ma’am.” The secretary was a stout woman with her gray hair in a bun who brooked no nonsense. She wasn’t sorry at all; her tone made that perfectly clear. “Mr. Crustoff had to leave on short notice, and he’ll be out the rest of the day. I did call your office this morning to let you know. Perhaps you should check your messages once in a while. He’ll be able to meet with you…” She tilted her head back to examine her appointment book through her bifocals.
“Tomorrow?” Sarah asked hopefully. Tomorrow was Friday. She was scheduled to stay here in Denver overnight anyway, so it wouldn’t set her back much if she could meet with this Crustoff fellow early in the morning.
“Next Wednesday,” said the secretary with a hint of a satisfied smile. She seemed to be enjoying this a little too much. “No openings before then.”
Sarah still didn’t see why this meeting had to be done in person. Willard Crustoff was a well-known record promoter in the Mile-High City, and Sarah had been dispatched to hand-deliver a new single to him. Ooey Gooey Lovin’, it was called, by a band called Golden Reefer. The cover showed a picture of a woman eating an oozing cherry cordial in a rather suggestive way. Sarah was disgusted by the chauvinism in the industry, but there didn’t seem to be much she could say to the people who were signing her paychecks.
The Music of the Machine (The Book of Terwilliger 2) Page 15