by Brandt Legg
“I’m trying,” he said. “My body is failing.” The astral allowed him to speak, free from physical burdens.
“What can I do to help?”
“Lusans and healing are about all you can try.”
“Are you going to make it?”
“The odds are good.”
“What happened?”
“Too much.”
“How did you escape the men in the square? How did you get back?”
“Yangchen, she . . . it was quite something. Omnia agents actually had their hands on me. It was over, so I thought, and then, the sky split open just over my head and I was pulled up through a dimensional split.”
“Then the Movement can pierce dimensions, too?”
“It seems so.”
“We’re back in it!”
“I’m not sure it’s a cause for celebration.”
“Why not?”
“It’s akin to MAD during the Cold War.”
“Mutually Assured Destruction.”
“Yes. Neither the Soviets nor the Americans could escalate the war because to do so would mean both sides would be destroyed.”
“I know the history, but you think this is the same thing?”
“Worse. They only had the ability to blow up earth a few times over. Omnia and the Movement could destroy all of existence.”
“You mean our universe?”
“The multiverse, everything.”
“How is that possible?”
“We don’t know what is possible. But it’s clear that dimension-blending can make whatever does occur so unrecognizable that we all might as well be amoebas floating in a constantly changing ocean.”
“Then what do we do?”
“Same as always: protect the Jadeo and stop Omnia.”
He opened his eyes and looked at Linh. “Hello, Linh,” he said, weakly. His attempt at a smile quickly turned to a grimace.
“I’ve missed you.” She said, blinking tears, unwilling to take her hands from the Lusans to wipe her cheeks.
“The thing is, Linh, I’ve loved him too,” he said, reading her. “It’s not always worth it during the lifetime, but in the long run, you’ll be glad you did.”
“It’s not the time for advice on love,” I said.
“There’s always time for love.” Spencer coughed. “I wanted her to know in case I don’t make it.”
“You’ll make it. Let’s try to get you to the house?” I used Gogen to hold him on my back and Skyclimbed as gently as possible. Linh followed closely. Spencer wanted to be put on the big leather couch in the grand living room.
“If the Omnia agents didn’t injure you before Yangchen pulled you out, what happened to leave you in such bad shape?” I asked.
“She pulled me out some time ago, but we were separated somewhere in the split.” He paused and closed his eyes. “I’ve been battling my way back for months – stuck in some awful places.” He didn’t talk again for several minutes, and I thought he might be asleep.
“As I said, in case I don’t make it, there are things we must discuss now.”
“You should rest, it’ll wait.”
“It will not. I know who is running Omnia.”
60
“Devin Moore controls Omnia,” Spencer said.
I knew his name only because most people did; he had more money than Booker.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, absolutely. I came across a lifetime that confirmed it. Devin Moore is the most powerful man on earth.”
“If you were to take all the powerful people alive and put their power together, it still wouldn’t equal his,” Yangchen said gravely, as she walked in. “We’ve suspected him for a while.” She went to Spencer. “I’m sorry I lost you.”
“No, on the contrary, Yangchen, you found me, you saved me.”
“How are you?”
He didn’t answer; they just stared at one another.
“How do we stop the most powerful man on earth?” Linh asked.
“Because the key words are ‘man on earth,’ there are awakened souls who possess enough soul powers to topple Devin Moore,” Spencer said.
“The mystics?” Linh asked.
“A few of them. The Dark Mystic, Nate . . .”
“You, Yangchen,” Linh said.
Spencer nodded. “You have to remember that Omnia has access to soul powers as well, and not just the basics. They travel through Outviews, pierce dimensions, and other things yet to surprise us, I am sure.”
“Devin Moore was among a handful of people we believed might be running Omnia. Now that Spencer has confirmed this, I will tell you what we know,” Yangchen said. “Moore was born so rich that even if he was a drug addict with a gambling problem, his great grandchildren would never have to work a day in their lives. However, Moore has neither of these afflictions. His only known vice is working. His inheritance, shared between two siblings, was greater than the gross domestic product of many countries.” Yangchen stopped as if absorbing for the first time the power that Devin Moore wielded. “Booker, usually one of the top five billionaires on the planet, always trails Moore, who has held the number one spot for two decades. Even with Moore’s massive holdings, if the assets he controls as head of Omnia were calculated, Devin Moore would hold the distinction of being the world’s first trillionaire.”
“If he already has everything, why does he want more?” Linh asked.
“Greed,” I said.
“Too easy,” Spencer said. “It’s something else, but I don’t know what it is . . . yet.”
“Moore, like Booker, shunned publicity so we don’t know much about him personally,” Yangchen continued. “He has staff to deal with everything. There’s an entire company employed to kill stories about him or topics not to his liking, as well as additional ones to kill other things not to his liking.”
“Since he controls Omnia and Omnia controls banks, governments and the media, I wouldn’t think much happens in the world that isn’t to his liking,” I said.
“It’s a big world and controlling seven billion people is not entirely possible,” Yangchen said. “Plenty happens that he doesn’t like. The Movement is the biggest example of this but not the only one. Now that we know for sure it’s Moore, we’ll see what else we can find out. We already know that there don’t seem to be many ex-employees around. Working for Devin Moore appears to be a lifetime appointment where loyalty is prized above everything.”
Later, while walking alone above the lake, I found a poem from Linh in my pocket.
LOVE IS FALLING
Love is falling, swift, like rain
love is cold, disappears, in shadow
touched, quickly and gone
on my tongue I swallow
oh love, I swallow and cry
and I, a red and bruised petal upon petal,
curls in and breaks to pieces falling
into no one’s hand, into no one’s hand.
Tears so hot against my cheek,
throat swells chokes and disparages
concern, that which I have neglected
and warned unto, dissolute passage
where dream and diamond talk clear.
Crushed, forever forgotten
to a world where black and mirth
chant, syncopated, disturbed.
Cold water embraced
my boneless body in moments silent –
the sun that warmed my opening, my
awakening cut off cruel, and sudden and sure –
love turned inside through to release
loud and long,
where frog and cricket and
nighttime sounds silence.
My lost and scattered dream relinquished
violently into dark and light, this abyss.
Like a bat I pushed from rock and weight
to surface, alive. Alive! To what?
My mouth tore ragged sky into thousands,
breath that burned, such pain I fell backward,<
br />
floated as shards and debris splintering ugly openings . . .
my eyes stung, lungs tightened,
this landscape where thought and emotion
Escher strange and beatific, became
just that, an epoch, an eternity unknown lifetimes
discarded like clothes, dirty, ragged, wet, and old.
I let them go and escaped,
like a bird, whose wings silently
soared on rhythms of wind –
listen, I am wind, and trees
safe and true
it is here, I step forward
into clean skies.
I am willing to be that light,
that abandonment, oh this is new,
this is life, distilled as radical
buoyant butterflies,
reckless in thought
and object of change.
Fresh and quaint, my hardship
unravels with you, strangely close.
I am the depth to where we went,
and it is there, I have risen.
I read the poem three times. There were aspects of Linh that even she didn’t understand and certainly many that eluded me. One day, the discovery of those parts through some tender demand would fill my hours. With tear-blurred eyes, I headed off to find her.
Along the way, I stopped to check on Spencer. He held me in urgent conversation. We talked about Moore and I recounted the meeting with the scholar Travis Curry and the archaeologist Ripley Gaines, and about my last encounter with Dunaway. He listened without comment.
“What if we don’t get the Jadeo back?” I asked.
“It’s troubling not to possess something that one wants so desperately.” He reached for a cup of tea, letting it warm his hands. “In the case of the Jadeo, it is important to see the good . . . In Dunaway’s hands it appears to be as far away from Devin Moore as it could be.”
“Yes, it appears that way, but for all we know Dunaway is Devin Moore.”
“That thought brings back my headache . . . yes, that is possible, as we’ve seen with Storch and Dustin –”
“And me and Marie Jones and Fred Means . . . Geez, I could even be Devin Moore.”
“Yes, Yangchen told me about Means and Jones. Hardly surprising, given the stakes of this war, that souls are showing up all over the board. Yet, for you or Dunaway to share a soul with Devin Moore would be highly unlikely. That’s an old karma, and much larger than one soul.”
“So you think I’ve encountered Moore in other lives?”
“Undoubtedly.” A concerned look came over him. “And it’s safe to assume that Devin Moore knows which past lives you have in common.”
“You think he’s waiting for me to go back to them?”
“Count on it.” He drank his remaining tea. “Now, Linh will be joining us in a moment, and I’d like to explore the time of your death at the Mayan Lighthouse, when you were known as Bola, and Linh was called Nares.”
As if on cue, Linh walked in. I never knew if he asked her to come or if he knew she was on her way. In either case, before she even sat down, he asked. “Tell me about Nares.”
Linh looked at me, wondering what the name meant to me. “What do you want to know?”
“It’s not what I want; I need to know where and when he went after he left the Mayan Lighthouse.”
“Do you think Nares caused something to go wrong in the present?” she asked.
He studied her, surprised by her defensive response. Then he looked at me. I could tell Spencer attributed her attitude to the tension between her and me. “Nate, perhaps you should tell us about what happened after Nares left your incarnation as Bola,” he said.
“There isn’t much to tell,” I watched Linh, realizing she probably didn’t know. “I was desperately in love with Nares and could not imagine a life without him, so I tried to follow him into the portal.”
Linh’s face flooded with sadness.
“But when I attempted to jump into the portal, it had already closed and I plummeted to my death.”
Linh’s expression contorted to a pained look, as if she were watching a puppy get beaten. “Oh, no,” she whispered, before dropping her face into her hands. Spencer and I remained silent. Finally, Linh looked up at me. “I’m so sorry.”
The sincerity and emotion in her voice caused a lump in my throat and although centuries had passed, the apology seemed to come from Nares and the relief it brought shocked me. Tears flowed from my eyes. Linh left her seat and kneeled in front of me, her head resting in my lap. “I’m so sorry,” she repeated through sobs.
At the same time a calmer Linh reached me on the astral. “I didn’t know you knew of Bola and Nares. It means you understand, don’t you?”
“Yes,” I answered on the astral. “I loved you so much, wanted only to be with you . . . I waited and hoped but it was not to be.”
“And you lost me to the same cause we are struggling for today.”
“It is all the same, isn’t it?” Spencer said out loud. “The names and faces change, we change roles, but we play out the same stories again and again.”
Linh, as Nares, had travelled into many lifetimes working to defeat Omnia. He worked, when necessary, using mostly violent methods; however, there were several lives influenced by Linh’s current life in which Nares refrained from using force. Linh told us of dramatic battles and intrigue used to circumvent Omnia’s purposes. But Spencer didn’t want the details of the losses and triumphs.
“Who sent you to those lives?” he finally interrupted her.
“I thought you wanted to know where I went.”
“Yes, and you’ve told me enough. Now I need to know who you were working for.”
“It is not important,” she said, rising from her chair.
Spencer looked as if he’d been slapped. Her abrupt response also caught me by surprise.
“Linh, it’s a fair question,” I said.
“Yes, I suppose it is . . . but it will go unanswered.”
“Why? What are you hiding?” I asked. “We’re all on the same side; we don’t need secrets.” As soon as the words left my lips, I knew they’d been the wrong choice.
“Secrets?” She blasted. “You are the ‘prince of secrets’ and only because the title, ‘king of secrets,’ is already taken by Spencer. Neither one of you is in a position to condemn me for keeping secrets.”
Spencer shot me a disappointed look, no doubt thinking he would have handled it more diplomatically. “Linh, please think about this,” he said. “You don’t need to answer now, but it’s important for me to know who sent Nares into the future.”
It had never occurred to me to wonder who sent her, but if it had, I would have assumed Spencer or Yangchen were calling the shots. Spencer would have known if it were Yangchen so that left only one other possibility, me. But if I sent Nares/Linh anywhere, it hadn’t happened yet. The more I thought about it, the more I saw why Spencer needed to know, why the answer could change so much. I also became more astonished that Linh would not tell us. Who did she trust more than Spencer and me? What possible harm could come from telling us?
61
The following morning Spencer called another meeting. This time Yangchen and Amber were there in addition to Linh and me. Spencer looked worse than he had the prior night and I guessed he hadn’t slept much. There was a flash of concern on Yangchen’s face when she first saw him, but she masked it quickly. I stood in the corner, near two platters of fruit. I’m sure Linh expected the same topic as I did – who sent her to the future – but instead, Spencer launched into the list of the nine entrusted.
“We’ve got two names left, Kevin Morrison and Helen Hartman. How come we can’t find them?”
“When I first found the list there were only three names we knew for certain. We’ve found four, we’ll get the other two,” I said. “Where did my dad get the names, anyway?”
“From a future incarnation of Dustin,” Spencer said.
“And wh
ere did Dustin get them?” Linh asked before I could.
“He’s fuzzy about it. He says he hasn’t been able to find that future life, but speculates that Nate told him from this life.”
“Sounds like one of Dustin’s theories,” I said. “Dad taught us young that most things were theories and theories were just someone’s best guess.”
“Maybe we should go see him,” Yangchen said.
“Not sure I’m up to another family reunion . . . the last one didn’t go so well.”
“Is Outin still safe?” Spencer asked Yangchen.
“For now,” she answered.
“We’re running out of time to get those names,” Spencer said. “We have to get the Jadeo.”
“Last night you said it might be just as safe with Dunaway.”
“There’s been chatter,” Yangchen said.
“What’s that mean?” Amber asked.
“It means Omnia is looking for it, too,” Spencer said.
“All right, I’ll go back to Outin,” I said. “Nothing is more important than the Jadeo, but remember, Dunaway also has Clastier and he’s one of the seven. If we find him, we need a way to hold him.”
“He’s shown his powers are strong,” Yangchen said.
“Getting the Jadeo and Clastier should be sufficient,” Spencer added. “If we’re lucky enough to secure the Jadeo, we can no longer indulge in the idea of converting Dunaway.”
“I disagree,” I said.
“Shouldn’t we try to stop him?” Amber asked. “He’s destroying the Movement’s core message of non-violence. There’s no telling how many members he’s cost us.”
“That damage is done. We’re beyond image and PR now. Let him do what he will and Omnia will continue to waste resources on Dunaway and Inner Force.”
“No,” I said. “I’m going to pursue him. I know I can convert him to our side.”
“This isn’t a contest,” Yangchen said.
“Then you won’t mind when I win,” I said.
“Nate, Dunaway and you are too evenly matched,” Yangchen said. “And, surely you’ve seen that his skills, while maybe not superior to yours, are more dangerous because of his ruthlessness.”