Alex's phone rang again. The caller ID displayed Helix.
“What have you got?” she asked.
“A security team found a door that hadn't closed all the way,” Raynes said. “It was down in the storage area underneath the complex. Looks like the intruder came in using an access code belonging to Daniel Bishop, and then escaped through an old emergency tunnel. None of the cameras caught anything, but all the doors logged the times when used.”
“What was in the storage room that was opened?”
“Some old file reels belonging to a bunch of the old-timers.”
Old timers? A sudden thought stuck in her mind. No, it couldn't be. “Did anything in there belong to Wyatt Bishop?”
“Uh, let me see.” The sound of typing for a few moments then, “Huh. Yeah this unit had mostly his stuff in it. Wow, the system says there are some pretty heavy restrictions on this room. How do you think someone got in?”
“When I know, I’ll be sure to not tell you,” she said.
“Oh. Right. I'll take a catalog list down there and see what was taken. You want me to give you another call when that's done?”
“What do you think?”
“On it.”
Alex shook her head as the line went dead. Those who knew the real hierarchy at Helix knew Alex had been Mr. Bishop’s second-in-command. With Mr. Bishop missing, she had been flooded with calls regarding mundane inquiries. Thankfully she only got them from the real security team that handled all of the sensitive matters at Helix. The other security team—the one kept for the normal masses to see—assumed Alex was an intern of sorts. Just the thought of being bothered with the trivial details they would bring up made her head hurt.
Her phone rang. Again.
She answered it without looking. Her patience was gone. “Seriously?” she exploded. “Do I need to come down there and hold your hand? How did you even get a job in security?”
“Having a bad night are we, Miss Courtney?” a friendly voice answered. “I imagine you are supremely busy dealing with the little break-in that happened an hour ago. How goes the progress?”
Alex yanked the phone from her ear and stared at the display. It was blank, like no one was calling at all. But Alex knew exactly who she talking to. She put the phone back to her ear, but the man on the other side began talking before she could say anything.
“Miss Courtney,” he said, “we don't have a lot of time, and there are a huge number of things we need to discuss. The first of which is our mutual friend, Jack Bishop.”
“What about him?” Alex asked. “And why should I talk to you about anything? You told him about me without my consent.”
The Insider laughed lightly. “Of course I did. Events were already moving faster than intended, and we risked falling completely behind. And now things are going perfectly. But enough of that. Tomorrow afternoon you will want to give Jack a visit. I am positive he will want to talk with you about some…items…he procured tonight.”
“That was him?” she hissed. “How am I supposed to cover up that he was involved in the break-in at Helix? How did he even get in to begin with?”
“Don’t worry yourself over how to cover up his involvement. It’s taken care of. He had a little help from me.” The Insider chuckled again. “How else was he supposed to get those materials? You told him you couldn't just go in and grab the things he needed.”
“How did you—”
“You of all people, Miss Courtney, should know that someone is always listening. I hear everything.”
“You son of a—”
“Easy there, Miss Courtney. What would your father say if he heard you uttering such language? Then again, how many people actually know who your father really is?” The question hung between them in silence for a few moments before he spoke again. “But I am off topic. Where was I? Oh yes. Jack Bishop. Let's have a discussion shall we? I have some projects you need to get more involved in at Helix. I'll have to talk fast, so it would be best if you remained silent. Agreed?”
He knows everything about me, Alex thought. She could count on one hand the number of times she’d been frightened and intimidated over the past few years.
Never had she felt so outmatched. This Insider was, perhaps, the most terrifying man she’d ever met.
“Agreed.”
Chapter Fifteen
Incredible.
It was two in the morning, but I was far too wired to even consider going to bed. One quick glance inside one of the books I had stolen had tantalized me enough to shed any exhaustion I previously felt. I opened to page one of the thickest of the bound volumes. There was no table of contents, nothing to tell me anything about the volume’s subjects, but for some reason that made it even more exciting.
This was pure discovery. I felt like one of those treasure hunter guys on the Discovery Channel. The first words made me shake my head in awe.
What happens when the paranormal crosses with science? Most people who haven't seen what I've seen would say science itself makes the paranormal impossible. I happen to think the paranormal involves the things science isn't advanced enough to explain yet. I'm a perfect example of this.
These books were a freaking gold mine.
Should I continue reading straight through, or should I skip around? Screw it. Who knew how long I had with these books. What if The Insider came and took them like he had the papers covered in symbols? I began turning page after page, skimming until something jumped out at me. There were mentions of monsters ... everything from a kid’s nightmare: vampires, werewolves, spirits, undead. They all existed according to my grandfather’s notes. I thought back to what Alex had said about the Hounds being modeled after werewolves. It was one of those things where you just nod your head and smile. Maybe you believe it, maybe you don’t. Then to read that one of your relatives believed in all of it too…well, it suddenly gave everything a bit more traction in my head. For me, I think I wanted to believe these crazy, paranormal things were possible. If there were a bunch of monster running around, and other people that could do stuff like me, then maybe the world wasn’t crazy. Maybe it made a bit more sense. It was more natural.
For every paranormal creature or ability Wyatt would mention in the journal, he would then mention what science had done. To him they went hand-in-hand.
He wrote of experiments to try and replicate the genetic oddities that made these creatures. Experiments and medical trials to try and suppress or enhance these abnormalities in normal individuals. For every natural monster in the world, there were two created by man. One phrase caught my attention in these sections
Here's the thing. The world can be a terrifying place with creatures that strike fear in us. But they aren't the things that go bump in the night. No sir. That special privilege is man's domain. For everything bad a creature does, a normal man is capable of so many more worse things. That's what we try to prevent here at Helix, or so they tell me. We try to keep ourselves under control.
The implications of what I read made my head spin. I flipped another few pages then stopped dead. I rubbed at my eyes to make sure I wasn't imagining it.
I'm tired of people reading my mind. My thoughts are my own, and it ain’t right that a person can read them like an open book. I've decided to figure out a way to use my own abilities to put a wall up inside my head. I don't know if it is gonna work or not, but I reckon I should do my best to find out.
If Helix can have a guy that can read minds, so can the competition. The last thing I need is one of those Commie fools reaching in my head and plucking out national secrets. The only thing worse than the Commies ripping out my thoughts would be those idiots that broke off and formed their own company. They just wouldn't be able to help themselves.
I blazed through the next few pages hoping to find a “How-To” guide for preventing my mind from being read, but mostly it was all a bunch of random tangents about how the line between helping and hurting was getting blurred at Helix. It wasn't until I had t
humbed through a majority of the volume the subject came up again.
Every now and again I surprise myself. I figured it out, much to the consternation of Gaines. He kept shouting at me over and over again, “How are you doing it? You shouldn't be able to do that!” All I could do was laugh. I guess those mind reading folks don’t like not knowing what a person is thinking. They are all about control.
I thought about Alex and nodded my head in agreement. She was used to being in the driver's seat. She didn’t seem as extreme as this Gaines guy my grandfather mentioned, but I could see a bit of that in her. If the ability to read everything around her was taken away, I imagined she would go nuts. I checked the time on my phone and was shocked to see it was four in the morning. Good thing I wasn't planning on going to school. My mind was racing anyway, so there wouldn't be any chance of sleep tonight. My eyes were drawn back to the text in front of me.
The key for me was imagining my mind like a room. Rooms have all sorts of entrances and exits. Doors, windows, vents, even cracks in the floor. Once I pictured it all that way, I could close them all off, keeping Gaines from getting into my head. The first few times he thought it a sort of game, but when I was able to fully shut him out, he lost it. He wasn't just screaming at me verbally. I could see the emotional residue coming off of him in waves, coating everyone and everything around him.
That made me laugh more.
Un-freaking-real.
I couldn't really see Alex going that crazy, but my grandfather brought up more questions than he managed to answer. The way he described the residue sounded a lot like what I saw left behind by people. What would Alex do if she couldn't read me? Maybe I was over thinking it. Maybe she would actually be glad to not hear someone's every thought for a change.
Or maybe she would just punch me.
Or shoot me.
I determined the best time to practice this was when she didn't have a gun. She seemed to like shooting far more than was healthy.
I hadn't even scratched the surface of what was in this book. The book had taught me more in a few hours than The Insider or Alex had managed to teach me put together. My eyes fell on the open duffel-bag containing three more volumes and some film reels.
For the first time in my life I wanted nothing more than to study.
My body was telling me a different story, however. The stress of the day was catching up with me. As wired as I had been only a few minutes ago, I was now coming down off that adrenaline and discovery high.
But I didn't want to go to sleep. That irrational fear and paranoia lingered at the back of my mind. If I went to sleep, would the books still be there when I got up? I looked around my room. I needed a good hiding spot. Under the mattress…well, that was far too obvious. The closet? No. Geez, I was complete crap at this hiding stuff. It was equally obvious, but I finally decided on the air vent. It was the only place big enough for the duffle bag.
There was no getting around it. No better idea. I grabbed a screwdriver lying on my desk and undid the vent. The bag went in, and the vent cover went back on. I turned it so the vent slats faced up to make it harder to see in.
Finally, I changed into some shorts and flipped off my light.
Some more heavy reading was on the agenda for tomorrow, and I couldn't have been more excited.
#
I was in the dream again.
Everything was the same as before, from the scent of the woods to the temperature of the air around me. The absence of control was there, as well.
Ahead of me I could see the purplish form of the thing—person?—I was stalking through the redwoods. My eyes dropped of their own accord and once again I stared at the antique revolver in my hands. A revolver that was suddenly extremely familiar.
It was the same gun I had noticed in the room underneath Helix. My grandfather’s revolver.
What was going on?
Was this actually a dream, or something else entirely?
I followed after the figure ahead just like before, seeing the sign going into Calm Waters, and again witnessed it catch wind of me and dart away. My hands brought up the revolver and pulled the trigger with no hesitation. The gun bucked in my hand, once, twice, then a third time in a continuous roar. A light haze of smoke clouded the air ahead of me, but it didn’t deter my line of sight on the figure.
It was stumbling away from me now, slower and more erratic than it had been when it initially began to run, but fast nonetheless. My hands lowered the gun and I immediately sprinted after the figure. Branches whipped at my face and arms as I ran. No matter how fast my body moved, I couldn’t seem to catch the fleeing figure in the distance. A bright splotch was visible to the right out of the corner of my eye, and I slowed down to a halt to take a look. Up close I could tell the liquid was blood, but it had a bright glow. My mind seemed to accept this as normal. My left hand reached out and touched the substance, then rubbed it between my index finger and thumb. The residue was in the blood.
Ahead I could spot more droplets of blood staining other bits of foliage.
I followed the path without breaking back into a run. A sense of overwhelming caution flooded me. The emotions felt like they were mine, but at the same time I knew they didn’t truly belong to me.
The trail of blood ended a few yards ahead.
A twig snapped to my right, and I spun, bringing the revolver up. My response wasn’t fast enough as something barreled into me. My back slammed into a tree, followed by the back of my head hitting the trunk hard. The gun slipped from my grip. Hands tightened around my throat. My vision cleared enough to get a look at the person assaulting me.
Except it was only vaguely a person.
It was short and thin in a way that reminded me of a normal teenager, but stronger than a person of its size should have been. It bared its teeth, all of them pointed like a shark’s rather than a human’s. But what drew my attention was the glow. It was just like when Barry had tried picking a fight with me. That aura called to me. It called to the body of the person I inhabited in this dream. I was pretty sure this was closer to a memory than an actual dream.
Was this a memory of my grandfather’s? It should have seemed impossible, but there was very little I wouldn’t believe anymore.
My hand came up, glowing with purple light. The light was brighter in places than when I had experienced it for myself before, and yet also darker in places—almost black. It was stronger, that much was certain. My hand didn’t clench into a fist, but rather reached out and grabbed onto the aura itself around the creature’s head.
Then my hand squeezed.
The creature squealed in pain, slammed my head against the tree again before running off into the forest.
I slid down to the ground gasping for air. As it limped away, I could see the wound in the creature’s leg where a bullet had hit. I coughed and grabbed the gun in a shaking hand.
My eyes opened to the sight of the ceiling above me. I was in my room. I brought my hands up and stared at them. Young and free of the wear and age I had seen on them in my dream.
Had that really been my grandfather’s body I inhabited in the dream? The gun had been his. That, together with the glow that had looked a lot like when I’d fought Barry helped my mind connect the dots. Had it even actually been a dream, or was it more of a vision or a memory? If that was the case, then why was I experiencing this memory? How was this even possible?
It was a stupid question. How was anything I had experienced in the last week possible?
I rolled out of bed, and unscrewed the vent again. The duffel-bag full of the stolen books and film-reels exactly where I had left them. Should I read the same one today? One of the others? I also had a sudden realization. How was I going to watch a film reel?
My mouth tasted like I’d licked a dirty sink. I rubbed at my eyes and pushed my way to the bathroom down the hall. The scent of bacon and eggs filled the air. I swear, my aunt must have thought I was starved before she got here.
There re
ally isn’t anything like a hot shower. I only function at about ten percent efficiency in the mornings as is, even with a shower. Without one? I’m at, like, negative eighty. But this morning was different. I had stuff to learn about. That stuff being…me. My power. My family.
My future.
I went through the motions as quickly as possible and was out of the water and dressed in ten minutes. The other three books were peeking out at me from the black, half-unzipped duffel-bag. Tempting me.
And then my phone rang, killing the mood.
I picked it up and saw Alex’s name on the display. It occurred to me I should get a picture of her…for when she called, of course.
“What’s up, Alex?” I asked as I answered.
There was nothing on the line for a few seconds. I checked the screen to see if the call had dropped. Nope. Still there.
“Hello? You there, Alex?”
I heard a deep breath. “You piece of crap. ‘What’s up?’ I’ll tell you what’s up, you moron.” She was kinda cute when she got angry. The yelling didn’t bother me at all after that point. “I had to find out from the Insider that he helped you break into Helix. Are you completely stupid?”
“I was going—”
“Did I say I was done?” she screamed from her end of the call. “Do you have any idea how bad things could have gone for you? Do you? Why would you even trust the Insider?”
“You couldn’t help me get the things I needed, Alex.” The words came out before I could stop them. The good news was I didn’t yell them or anything. They came out quiet.
She sighed. “I know.”
I ran a hand through my hair, still damp from the shower. “Look,” I said. I felt like a complete jerk. “Why don’t you come over and at least let me tell you things from my side of the fence?”
“I’m already here,” she said quietly. “I’m at your front door.” On cue there was knocking.
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