Flip

by Christopher J Fox

  “This is Roger Roget, KTLA News, with a special report. Speculation about the identity and fate of ‘The Angel of Avalon,’ as the appearing-disappearing woman is now known, is running rampant around the world. No one, however, has positively identified her. Theories range from her falling overboard and being lost, to her being digitally edited in as a ratings grab. Others claim she was an angel sent to help those aboard. Digital image analysts, special effects wizards, and CGI experts are offering up their own theories as to what happened, but none have provided a definitive explanation.

  Though no more than one hundred ten people were on the deck that morning, more than seventy-five hundred people have claimed they were present on the thirty-by-twenty bow deck of the boat. And now they are trying to sell their stories of the event. Of those survivors who were verified as being on the deck that morning, probably the most genuine and reliable account comes from Dave Chatsworth, who was with his family when he first saw the woman through the cabin window.”

  The news program cut to an interview with Mr. Chatsworth.

  “There was no way to keep track of everything that was going on, what with the smoke, the alarms, people shouting instructions, and others screaming and running all over the place. She was probably another passenger. I mean, why not? It makes the most sense. I don’t know where she went; maybe she wants to stay anonymous. But she helped save a lot of people, I can tell you that.”

  The screen cut back to Roger Roget.

  “What cannot be refuted is the effect the event has had on the world. The hope that has come from it has rooted itself in the minds and hearts of almost everyone who has seen it. It isn’t just the hope that they derive from seeing people help each other but also the hope instilled by the possibility of a chance that what they saw was real. It is a bit of evidence for people to consider in those quiet, introspective moments of utter honesty when they face the question that everyone faces at some point in their lives: ‘Is this all that there is?’

  And from the viewpoint of this reporter, such thoughtful consideration and the altruistic actions that rise from that consideration can only benefit the human condition.

  I’m Roger Roget. Good day and best wishes.”

  Waters stopped the replay.

  “So what do we have?” Kozlowski asked, knowing that the head of the OTD hadn’t flown him in to watch a video that was available everywhere.

  “I need your help,” she said. “You’ll have to take a detour to New Mexico on your way back to Seattle. You can read the files on the way.”

  ***

  Four days after Aida had woken up in the entrance of the Oro y Azul mine, there was a knock on the door of her room at University of New Mexico hospital in Albuquerque. The visitor was a bland-featured woman with dark hair and quick, intelligent eyes. She was dressed in a conservative dark business suit and carried a file folder. A man was with her. He was prematurely bald, sported a thick brown Van Dyke beard, and had an athletic build.

  “Excuse me,” the woman said. “Are you Aida and Gregorio Doxiphus?”

  “Yes,” Greg answered.

  “Please forgive my intrusion. I’m Theresa Waters with the FBI.” She showed her federal ID, put it away, then shook both their hands, grinning as she did so. “You can call me Terry. This is Special Agent Dan Kozlowski. He runs the Seattle field office.” Kozlowski proffered his ID as well.

  “We’ve already told the police and other FBI agents everything that happened,” Greg started, a little more defensively than he’d intended.

  “Yes, I know, and we thank you for your complete cooperation.” Another smile. “Would you mind if we closed the door?” Waters asked.

  “Actually, yes,” Greg said. “We would mind very much. You need to lea—”

  Waters held her hands up. “Of course. I’m sorry. That was insensitive of me, given everything you’ve been through.” Her apology seemed genuine.

  Aida saw that and told Greg, “It’s okay. Would you like to sit down, Terry?”

  “Thank you, but we won’t be staying that long. I’m not here to talk to you about the events in your lab or what happened here in New Mexico,” she said, approaching Aida and opening the folder, which had some photos in it. She laid the first one on the rolling table for both of them to see. They were clear and crisp, not like the blurred images they had seen on TV. “I assume you’ve seen the incredible story of the woman who appeared on the ferry boat off Long Beach and then mysteriously disappeared after she helped rescue the passengers.”

  Greg replied noncommittally, “Sure. It’s all over the news. Do you know who she is?”

  “Well, no one got a good shot of her face,” Waters went on, “but curiously enough, there are reports of a woman, identically dressed, who simply appeared in a jungle in Africa right next to plane that had crash-landed. She helped a dozen or so children and one mother escape the burning wreck before it exploded, and then she disappeared. That happened last week.” She took out another picture; this one was blurry. “Then, about three days later, she appeared again, at the site of the recent tsunami in Southeast Asia. Right on the beach. A security camera recorded her running and waving her arms. It looked like she was trying to warn people. And here she is on the Catalina Catamaran less than six hours later in California.” She finished arranging the photos side by side.

  “You have family in Greece that you travel to see,” she continued. “You know all interactions at customs checkpoints are recorded on video, yes?”

  Greg and Aida studied the pictures and remained silent.

  “As I said, there are no clear views of the woman’s face, but we have tools that can identify people by their stance, how they move, their build, and so on. These tools confirm that it’s the exact same woman in all the pictures. You have to agree that there’s more than a passing resemblance between all the images of her.”

  “What’s your point, Agent Waters?” Aida said with a chill in her voice.

  Unfazed, Waters replied, “It’s Assistant Director, actually. I’m head of the Operations Technology Division, and now that we understand each other, I hope we can have an open and honest conversation.”

  Waters waited a moment for a response from the couple. Greg was standing now, and he and Aida were clasping hands. They didn’t say anything. Waters never had excelled at gaining the trust of people she interviewed when she was in the field. She knew a gentler tack was needed.

  “I’m not here to cause you trouble. We’re here on behalf of several government agencies to ask for your help.” She picked up the photos and placed them back in the folder, then took a step back. “Dan, would you continue, please?”

  Kozlowski rolled a stool up to the side of the bed and sat down. This placed him below the eye level of both Greg and Aida. He kept his hands folded in his lap and made eye contact with them.

  In a calm, low voice, he said, “Four days ago, based on an anonymous tip from a location here in New Mexico, I led a raid on a facility in Washington state that was home to a public service organization called The Project. On the surface, they were providing medical and social services to the homeless, mostly veterans from the Puget Sound area. During the raid, though, we found some exceptionally disturbing things that we don’t understand.” Kozlowski produced his own photos. “It appears that The Project, which was run by a man named Jerome Gilden, in association with Dr. Beverly Michelson—we know you both know her, by the way…anyway, The Project was actually harvesting homeless people and, after performing a neurosurgical procedure on them, using them in a way we don’t understand.”

  Kozlowski had laid out photos of Gilden and Michelson, the surgical suites, the production floor, and the head of a partially decomposed body with wires and tubes running from it. The head and what remained of the body lay inside a sarcophagus-shaped container. Greg looked away, and Aida covered her mouth with her hand.

  “Oh, God,” she said as she looked at the last photo. Imprinted in small letters on the interior of the sarco
phagus was “Observer 119, R. Stevens.”

  “It’s disturbing, I know,” Kozlowski said. “Gilden is now in federal custody.”

  “And Dr. Michelson?” Aida asked.

  “She was found in your lab, Dr. Doxiphus, in the stim room. It looked like she was attempting to use your kweesam de—”

  “cue-sam. It’s pronounced cue-sam.”

  “QUESAM device. She’s in a coma at University Hospital. Dr. LaVista’s opinion is that she’s in a permanent vegetative state, though it’s too soon for a formal diagnosis.”

  Aida blanched in obvious surprise.

  “Back to our request…” Kozlowski chose his next words with precision. “We’d like your help, after you’re discharged, in analyzing what we found at The Project. You’d be consultants, and we’d pay you for your services.”

  Greg equivocated, “This is hardly the time. My wife needs to recuperate, and we need to get back to University City and the lab.”

  Kozlowski tapped the corner of the folder on the nightstand. “I’m sorry to be the one to tell you, but the NIH has pulled all funding for your research after your and Dr. Michelson’s accidents, and I had to seize all your materials, including the QUESAM device, as part of our investigation into what happened at The Project.” His delivery was gentle but firm, and the message was clear.

  Aida touched the photo of Ray Stevens and drew it closer to her. “I expect to be discharged in a few days,” she said. “We’ll need two weeks to wrap up some personal business in University City and here in New Mexico.” Her gaze bore into Waters. “We have two funerals to attend. How can we contact you, Dan?”

  Kozlowski reached into his jacket, took out a card, and handed it to her. “Here’s my work, personal, and home numbers. Don’t worry if my wife or one of my kids answers. Just let them know who you are.” He gave a sympathetic smile. “Take your time. Let us know when you’re ready.”

  ***

  Four Black Hawk helicopters flew low in formation below the heavy cloud deck. With their running lights off and the sound suppression systems muffling the wump-wump-wump of the rotor blades, they were engulfed in the darkness as they tried to be holes in the night sky. The pilots relied on night vision gear to avoid midair collision. In addition to a minimal crew, each helicopter carried three passengers. Two were Federal Bureau of Prisons guards. The third was a hooded man in leg irons, belly chains, and handcuffs. Unknown to all involved, the prisoners in three of the helicopters were actually federal employees who had been selected for their resemblance to the true beneficiary of this heavily armed transport. The fourth prisoner had been fitted with a sound-canceling headset and blinders under his hood.

  One by one, the four transports landed on a desolate, flat valley floor in Florence, Colorado, and discharged their passengers. Each set of three was taken into the administrative maximum facility, called Supermax.

  ***

  After shuffling along for an interminable amount of time, Jerome Gilden felt the hands on his arms tighten, signaling him to stop. As he stood still, he felt the hood being pulled off. The earpieces and blinders were removed, and he squinted at the fluorescent lighting of the stark seven-by-twelve-foot concrete cell. He had no idea where he was, and the US government had done everything in its considerable ability to ensure that no one else did either.

  In the coming months, he would have only one human contact, a voice he would come to know as Mr. Thomas, a charming fellow who asked him questions through one-way glass about The Project and what they were trying to do. He was particularly interested in trying to understand the connection between The Project and the waves of violence that had rippled around the world. For the most part, Gilden kept his silence. But even he knew he wouldn’t be able to hold out indefinitely.

  ***

  Miguel’s funeral was first. Throughout the wake, rosary, receptions, funeral Mass, and internment, Aida found herself surrounded by familiar strangers: Mollie and Francisco, the monks, and Matthew. Although she had seen them all before in the Wave World and even talked to some of them, the first physical meetings with everyone except Matthew and John were strained and uncomfortable.

  She felt as if she were a voyeur, and in a way, she had been. She had watched them without their knowledge or consent. She had seen them going about their lives, sometimes under horrendous circumstances. She had felt their emotions. While she found that level of intimacy grounding and reassuring when she was trapped in the Wave World, now that she was back in the Particle World, she felt ashamed of the experience and her reaction to it. As a physician, no matter how physically close an encounter with a patient was or the degree of sympathy she felt, there was always the barrier of the clinical practitioner between her sense of self and that of the patient. Now, the physician in Aida felt she had violated people’s privacy by peeking in uninvited.

  Matthew understood this and pulled her aside at the funeral home before the rosary started. “Aida, you’ve seen the world in a way that almost no one else ever has or will again and that even fewer could ever understand. You certainly weren’t prepared for it. Don’t judge yourself or what you did while you were away. You’re being unfair to yourself. You did such wonderful, unselfish things. Don’t try to explain it to anyone unless you have some shared frame of reference. That’ll only bewilder them and frustrate you.” He embraced her warmly. “I know you and your family are coming up to the center for Max’s cremation, but after that I want you to spend some time with us when everything gets settled.”

  During the funeral Mass, Greg, Aida, Natalia, and John meant to keep a respectful distance and sat in the back of the church. But Mollie wouldn’t have any of that and insisted that the four of them join the family in the front pews.

  “We’ve been through all kinds of trouble together. You all belong with us now.”

  Aida gave Greg a look to silently ask, Should we?

  Smiling, Greg nodded and mouthed, It’s okay. Go with it.

  He knew Mollie was in charge, and that was that.

  Aida sat between Mollie and Greg for the Mass. Mollie took her hand during the Gospel. It was Romans 14, and as the priest intoned, “For none of us lives for ourselves alone, and none of us dies for ourselves alone” over the flag-draped coffin, Aida understood and wept quiet tears.

  ***

  Before Max’s funeral rite, Matthew had asked Aida to join him in the courtyard privately. “It’s only natural to feel guilty. But keep in mind that his staying with you was his choice. It was what he needed to do.”

  Aida nodded weakly. Intellectually she could acknowledge this, but emotionally accepting it was a long time off.

  “I’m happy for him. Perhaps he has broken free of the samsara,” Matthew said.

  “And if not?” she asked.

  “Then he’ll reincarnate and bring better things into the world.” Matthew embraced Aida, then said, “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”

  She sniffled and dabbed her eyes. “You’re quoting the Bible?”

  Matthew smiled. “Truth is transcendent.”

  ***

  The rite had started in the temple, where a large framed photo of Max was displayed on the altar along with a statue of the Buddha. The photo and statue were decorated with wreaths of flowers, and baskets of fresh fruit lay before them. The monks placed Max’s casket in the center of the temple room, almost exactly in the same spot where Aida had lain. After initial prayers were recited in the temple, they carried that casket out to the parking area, where there was little risk of the heat scorching the tree branches overhead or the fire spreading. They placed the casket on the waiting pyre.

  No one cried; Matthew had explained to them that Buddhist funerals were intentionally peaceful, calm affairs. It was believed this helped the soul of the deceased to move on. Attendees were encouraged to perform charitable acts in the coming days and to pray that the merit for those acts be passed on to the deceased. Lastly—and this seemed an unavoidabl
e consequence of any funeral to Aida—attendees were to contemplate the impermanence of life and their own mortality.

  They died because of me.

  That was all she could think as the flames of Max’s funeral pyre licked the edges of the pine casket and the shrine. The monks encircled the flaming platform and chanted. Their robes had a golden fluid richness to them in the setting sunlight.

  If I had flipped back when I’d had the chance, Max probably would be alive right now, Aida thought. My being on the beach certainly didn’t help many people. I can’t save everyone.

  She knew she was whipping herself and regretted it. Max would have told her to forgive herself, and she owed it to him to try. Grudgingly she took the thought a step further.

  But if I had flipped back when we were all here in the temple, who knows what would have happened to the people on the boat.

  The weight that pressed down on her mind shifted, and while it was still there, perhaps it wasn’t impinging on her quite so much.

  In the twilight after sunset, the main ceremony ended, and participants moved back into the converted adobe hacienda. A few monks stayed with the smoldering pyre and would attend to the fading embers throughout the night. In the courtyard, Mollie had put together a small reception with food and drink. Greg and Aida served themselves small plates and found a bench. Greg wasn’t interested in his food and instead drank in the night sky.

  “I’m sorry we never spent time in New Mexico before this,” he said. “There’s something special about this place—an approachable grandeur. It’s hard to describe…well, at least for me, anyway. I’m sure a poet would do a better job.”

  Aida smirked. Greg was right.

  “Georgia O’Keeffe said, ‘If you ever go to New Mexico, it will itch you for the rest of your life.’” She took his hand and leaned her head on his shoulder.

  “I feel the same,” he replied, and kissed the top of her head. Though the sentiment was unspoken, they both realized this was the first moment when they’d been alone and in peace for weeks. No hospital rooms, no police or FBI. There was a blessing in the stillness, and they welcomed it. After a time, Greg said, “I’m gonna get some more water. You should have some too. It’s arid here.” He undoubtedly would be doting on her for months. She decided it probably would take that long before she would want him to stop.