The Reach

by Nate Kenyon

  She had shopped here herself, buying a lamp and rug and three prints for her walls recently. She had even bought used clothes once from the place on the corner when money was particularly tight, the smell of mothballs and dust mixing with her general discomfort at wearing other people’s things.

  Okay, the Crown’s still there. What to do!

  Two cars back. She was being paranoid. Let’s just see. When it was her turn, she stopped dead at the green light on Commonwealth. The car behind her began to blow its horn. She heard someone shouting out the window. Hold on, girl, easy. She drummed her fingers on the wheel. People were suddenly paying attention. A couple stared from the doorway of the McDonald’s. The man smiled at the crazy woman sitting in the middle of the street, with the line of cars behind her all honking now.

  The light turned yellow, then red. She floored the gas. Charlie’s car shot out across the T-tracks and into oncoming traffic. Brakes squealed. She swerved right onto Commonwealth and missed clipping the bumper of an oil truck by inches. More horns and shouting; she ignored them, corrected the car into the proper lane, and risked a glance back.

  The Crown had tried to swerve around the cars in front of it by bouncing over the right-hand sidewalk, but it was blocked by the flow of pedestrians. The man in the passenger seat threw his door open and yelled at them to move, move out of the way now. He wore a white shirt and a tie and something black and threatening was clipped to his belt.

  Jess turned back to the road and kept her foot on the gas. She swung the wheel hard, swerving around cars that were moving much more slowly. A light up ahead, but it was green, thank God, and she swept around a car in the left-turn lane and through the intersection.

  Here the street turned steep, running up the crest of the hill and down the other side. A glance in the rearview told her that the Crown had not yet managed to catch up. She swung a hard left onto Washington, shuddered over the T-tracks, and flew past the Whole Foods Market. Another green light, someone looking down on me right now, yes, sir. She forced herself to slow as she approached the playground and the Washington Square intersection. Red light this time. A short distance down Beacon on her left was her graduate school, and her apartment. She could not go home now, she did not know what might be waiting for her there. Another glance in the rearview told her that the Crown was nowhere in sight.

  The library had an underground garage. When she reached it she pulled down into the lower reaches and switched off the engine. Metal ticked in silence. She heard the echo of a car door slam, the sound of footsteps moving away from her. A man’s voice speaking to someone else in unconcerned tones, both of them drifting away. She sat and caught her breath.

  Inside the library she made her way back down into the stacks to a far corner of the lower level. A quick scan told her the area was deserted. She pulled out her cell phone.

  A woman answered on the third ring. Jess could hear another voice in the background, a child’s high, clear, breathless laughter. She closed her eyes and leaned against the cool wood of the study cubicle.

  “This is Patrick.”

  “It’s Jess Chambers.”

  Suddenly his voice was attentive, crisp. “Hold on.” The phone, muffled by a hand; muttered voices, then silence. “Tell me.”

  “I found something in Wasserman’s desk, a bunch of PET scans of Sarah’s brain. They’ve circled what looks like an area of heightened activity in the parietal lobe. Does that make any sense to you?”

  “Sure, sure it does. The parietal lobe deals with the sensations of touch and pain, as well as a feeling of where the body is in space and what surrounds it. Sensations in general, so that if a person has damage to the parietal lobe they lose the ability to feel.”

  “Would it follow that a person with an enhanced parietal lobe would have increased sensation? Perhaps a heightened sense altogether?”

  “We don’t know that. But it sounds to me like your hospital director sure thinks so.”

  “It’s not just him. There are others involved in this.” She told him about the man in the blue suit, everything Shelley had said just minutes earlier. “I think they’re following me, Patrick. I saw a car full of men and I managed to lose them, but they were after me from Shelley’s house. She’s sick, but she’s lucid. I think she was telling the truth. I don’t know what we’re up against here. Patrick, what do we do now? What the hell do we do?”

  “I’ve done a little digging,” Patrick said. “Called in some favors. I want you to understand that this is coming through several sources, and I have no way to know if it’s accurate.”

  “What is it?”

  “A little background first. Just bear with me here. The human genome was entirely sequenced a few years back by the NIH and a private company called Celera Genomics. Scientists found that the genome contains less than thirty thousand genes. The function of the majority of these genes is unknown. Only a fraction of the human DNA sequence codes for a protein. The rest is dormant, and some people think it is vestigial or may have some future use.”

  “English, please, Patrick.”

  “There are rumors of genetic experiments by a pharmaceutical firm,” he said. “My sources say they’ve been working on isolating a particular protein produced by one of these normally dormant genes. It’s supposed to produce a psi effect, Jess. And these same sources tell me they’re testing it right now.”

  “You think this has to do with Sarah?”

  “I think you’ve gotten yourself tangled up in the middle of something very bad. Put it this way. The men in that car following you weren’t looking to deliver a Publishers Clearing House check.”

  “Why would they do this to her?”

  “Think about it. If they were able to isolate this protein, they might be able to reproduce the same effects in anyone. Imagine the possibilities here. Scientists able to wake up a long-dormant portion of the human DNA strand and induce psi capabilities whenever and wherever they choose. The military, hell, the business implications are enormous. It’s cutting-edge genetics, Jess. Billions of dollars are at stake.”

  “This is crazy. She’s just a little girl, Patrick.”

  “I know. I know she is.”

  “I won’t let them hurt her.”

  “I talked to my people and they’re ready to go,” Patrick said. “She can disappear, I swear. Just say the word.”

  Jess smelled the dust of old books and coffee and she drifted through shades of memory. The window glass here was gray and sticky, like the glass of a phone booth, smeared with children’s fingerprints. Eating a chocolate bar while her mother talked on the phone, talked forever on the phone, hurry up, Mama, we’re late for school.

  Professor Shelley’s face drifted into her mind. Her mother’s face too. Jess felt the sting of betrayal once again. She opened her eyes, allowed herself a moment to grieve for something lost, a connection grasped at and missed. A fleeting recognition of a turning point, and a decision that had already been made.

  There might still be time, before they figured out what she was planning to do. But she had to move, and move fast.

  “Let’s get her out of there, Patrick. Get her the fuck out. Let’s give her a chance.”

  —32—

  Professor Jean Shelley sat upright in a straight-backed cane chair in front of the table and the window that looked out upon her garden. Jess Chambers was gone. The house was empty.

  She tried to soothe herself enough to eat from the bowl of miso soup that steamed in front of her. It was no longer easy to do, this simple ritual of spoon to mouth that so many took for granted. She looked down at the swirl of soup and the fleshy gray squares floating in it and the smell nauseated her. She thought of hundreds of thousands eating Big Macs in their cars and dribbling mayonnaise down their fronts and wanted to scream.

  Outside she watched a hummingbird flit to the feeder, tucking its long slender beak into an opening and darting away again. She had suction-cupped the feeder to the glass because she liked to watch them
dance during the evenings, their nervous vibration of wings translated into a calming, fluid movement by the shadows of the trees in her backyard. Now that she could no longer play the piano without cramps in her hands, this was what beauty she had left.

  A bit of a breeze made the shadows dance along in silent partnership, as beyond in the dusky light the multicolored flowers ducked and bobbed their heads. Soon they would be gone. It was fall, and they were dying too.

  Next to her chair on the floor was the silver bowl. She kept it close to her because sometimes when the sickness rose up inside she couldn’t make it to the bathroom in time. Lately there was blood. She kept a folded towel next to it that she could use to wipe her mouth, though she had not yet been able to do it today. The towel held a delicate lace pattern along its edge. Seemed like such a waste, dirtying a perfectly good towel on something so useless.

  From where she sat she could see the dust beginning to gather on things—the tabletop, the picture frames on the shelf above the telephone, the windowpanes. For a long time she had fought the dust and then she had given up when the pain and dizziness had become too great. She had someone who would come in for a couple of hours a day to help her cook, but she would not hire a cleaning service to come in and vacuum and dust for her. In her mind that was a luxury reserved for single old men. It would be too much for her pride to bear.

  She thought again, as she had countless times the past few months: I will not give up. I will not let it win.

  Outside, the heads of the flowers dipped and turned like an audience at a play. The breeze was light and the air was warm. She thought about getting up and opening a window, but the idea of it overwhelmed her and she remained in her seat. Best to just sit and enjoy until she had gathered her strength for what was to come.

  After twenty minutes she was ready to begin. She stood up, her swollen joints protesting loudly. She left the bowl of miso untouched, and walked slowly under the lovely carved-wood molding into the sitting room. She had cleared this room of all but a series of yoga mats in various bright colors and a low long table against the far wall, where she kept towels and bottled water at room temperature.

  This was going to be a difficult session, she knew. But it was necessary to prepare. There would not be any more chances to do so, and she needed to be clear and focused for what lay ahead. She ground her molars together against the pain as she worked herself into the lotus position on a mat in the center of the room, and faced the bank of windows overlooking the patio.

  The sun gently touched her face. She let the warmth wash over her, soothing her breathing until it became slow and deep. She folded her hands against her lap, her mind an empty shell, focused inward on her heartbeat. In a state of deep meditation she could slow that beat to less than fifty times per minute.

  Tibetan Buddhism concerns itself with the power of the mind over the physical body. The belief is that everyone is linked, and everyone has the ability to influence the world through thought. A great Buddhist master had once said, “To study the Buddha Way is to study the self, to study the self is to forget the self, and to forget the self is to be enlightened by the ten thousand things.” This was a goal Shelley had struggled to understand. She had studied the Dalai Lama’s teachings very carefully. She had visited Tibet three separate times. She had hiked through mountain peaks in pursuit of enlightenment, of spiritual peace. But this riddle remained beyond her reach.

  She worked in silence, stretching and loosening her body, calming her heart and mind. A sheen of sweat clung to her skin. She did not like the smell of sickness that came from it. She should not be noticing the smell at all, if she were successful in clearing her thoughts. But the impurities must work their way through her pores.

  She imagined a war happening at the cellular level, white blood cells maturing as they were supposed to do, and moving as one to attack the blast cells and drive them out. This visualization was the important part. This was truly mind over matter.

  When first diagnosed she had visited countless doctors, believing in the miracle of Western medicine. Many of them had been friends or colleagues. She had subjected herself to countless prodding and pokes and treatments. Nothing had worked; the leukemia had always returned, more aggressively than before. Finally she had begun to look elsewhere to find some kind of hope.

  Physician, heal thyself. She had thought that true devotion would lead to inner peace, a journey that would lead to the loss of self that brought the elusive ten thousand things. She would learn to focus her mind into an efficient killing machine, eradicating the mutating cells as they swept through her blood. Through all this, she thought, she would be able to lose her fear. After all, what did anyone have to fear if the only truth was what the mind created? And the mind had the power to change everything?

  But the fear was still there. In point of fact, it had grown, slowly eating her up inside like the cancer that ate away at her guts. It distracted her, kept her from focusing on what she must do. Perhaps, she thought, she was not truly devoted after all.

  So she turned to something else.

  From the very beginning she had tried to understand the truths of Lamaism in a different light. Everyone is linked, and everyone has the ability to influence the world through thought. She had come to believe this to be literally true. She had no doubt about what had happened to her. That night so many years ago she had felt something alien worm its way inside her body. Some kind of energy had been released that had forever altered her genetic makeup.

  First chemotherapy had failed. Then the bone marrow transplant wouldn’t take. Spirituality alone hadn’t solved anything. As far and as wide as she had looked, there was no other option. So Jean Shelley had created one.

  They still didn’t know exactly how Sarah did it, but effect had something to do with electromagnetic energy. It seemed that whatever had caused her leukemia could cure it as well.

  At least, that had been Shelley’s hope. And in fact, Sarah’s strange power had put her into remission twice. Each time the cancer had returned, but already she had lived for six years longer than even the most optimistic doctors had predicted.

  Both she and Evan had tried very hard to teach Sarah the importance of making amends for your mistakes. They had made real progress at first, until the fire. After that, they had lost her. She had come to hate all doctors, anyone who had anything to do with her life in the facility. In her mind, they had betrayed her. She had to be sedated every time Shelley was in the room, and then she had retreated deep inside herself.

  Jean Shelley’s death was coming. She had one last chance, but it was all getting so complicated now. She had worked so very hard to play everything just right, teasing Jess Chambers along, letting Evan think what he needed to think to be useful to her. What she had done could not be undone, all the long, complex plans she had put into motion, and everything was spiraling toward an end. It wouldn’t be long before this last chance had passed beyond her reach.

  The bell rang. The next scene in the last act. She closed her eyes and gathered her thoughts for a moment. She would have to give a command performance now, and she needed every ounce of energy she had left.

  Evan Wasserman forced his way through the door before she had swung it fully open. He looked like a madman, tie pulled down and to the side, hair flying wild about his egg-shaped skull, eye twitching uncontrollably. “They want to introduce this into the general population,” he said in a rush. “They want to sell it like some kind of treatment for…for…high cholesterol levels or something. They don’t know what they’re getting into, Jean. It’s gone too far, do you understand? Too far!”

  He clutched at her like a drowning man would cling to driftwood, his face close to hers so that she could smell the sour stink of his breath. “Oh God, Jean, what are we going to do? We’ve got to shut it down somehow. But your treatment—look at you, you’re so pale, God, I’m so sorry…”

  “Hush, now,” she said. She forced a smile, reached up to touch his face with gentl
e fingers. “It’s all right. We’ve done what we could do, and it’s gotten away from us. But I’ll be okay.”

  “Oh no,” he moaned. He buried his slick, sweaty face in her neck, and she managed to remain still, putting her hand around the back of his head and holding him to her. His voice was muffled by her blouse. “No, you won’t, not if we can’t get her to cooperate. We were so close to a breakthrough, I, I can’t lose you.”

  “Don’t worry.”

  “I love you, I’m sorry, but it’s true, I always have. I know you don’t want to hear it.”

  “I know you do, Evan,” Shelley said. “I love you too.”

  And then he was trying to kiss her with his slimy, wormlike lips, wet with the salt of his tears, and it took every ounce of her self-control not to pull away from the horrible smell and taste of him.

  Finally she got him to the couch, and poured a shot glass of brandy. His hands were shaking too much to hold it. “Here,” she said, holding it up for him to drink. “That’s better. Now, tell me it again, from the beginning.”

  She listened as he described his conversation with Cruz and Berger. Then he told her about Jess Chambers’s visit.

  “We should never have let her become involved,” he said. “Now she’s sniffing around and she’s got her wind up. It’s only a matter of time until she puts it all together. She’ll go to the state, the papers, she’ll expose us both.”

  “Jess served her purpose,” Shelley said. “Sarah opened up again, didn’t she? Just as we’d hoped.”

  “But now Helix is taking over. They’re going to cut me out completely, I can feel it coming. They don’t know what they’re doing with her.” Wasserman shook his head. “I just wanted to save the hospital,” he said. “And I wanted to save your life. I never thought it would go this far.”