Javier looked over. “That shit was unfortunate. There’s worse things will happen, I guaranfuckingtee you that, esse. But you go on. As long as you can. As smart as you can.” He walked in silence before adding in a lower voice, “We are the few that hafta do this, so one day the many will be free. And it ain’t gonna be fuckin’ easy. Dying’s part of what we’re buying. Deal with it.”
He got it. Worse, he understood.
“Then my dad – he’s already dead?”
Javier blinked. “I ain’t heard. But if he is, whatchya gonna do ‘bout it?”
They approached the parking lot of the motel. Javier unlocked the room and called dibs on the shower.
Austin fell onto the nearest bed, his world reeling. Dad and Yuni dead? He wouldn’t even imagine it. No reason to. He stayed in the moment, lying in his dirty clothes, sweating. To wash it all off, everything; he couldn’t want anything more. Except maybe cold air. The air conditioner knob was missing but he managed to crank the post two notches to max. Cool air flowed with a hum.
He asked, “So was that a pass or a fail?”
Javier shrugged and pulled off his shirt. “You did okay. You got the basics. You need practice now.” Tattoos told stories across his chest and stomach.
“What about the shooter? Why’d he go down like that?”
The Mexican continued shedding his grimy street clothes and disappeared into the bathroom. Just before the door closed, he answered.
“I took him out.”
The ‘81 El Camino pulled to the side of the road and its lights died. Javier and Austin emerged and headed across the grass towards the steep dirt path into the moon-lit hills. Dry brush scraped at their tan khaki uniforms. Near the top, Javier halted. Austin stopped to catch his breath. Behind them, the grid that was L.A. lit the night. Headlights on the Ventura Freeway just below them merged with the I-5 flow coming in from the north. Electric blue, white, red, orange, green – the grid shone with life and activity, the markings of man’s presence for the heavens to see.
Javier gazed out on the city with unmistakable love. “You know, we made it this far. Just think of what we can do with the right help.”
He fought the urge to ask more questions and worked on filtering his thoughts. The previous night’s killings still haunted him. Jacob and the gang banger, Philip, both dead but by two entirely different means. That someone could kill with a thought disturbed him more than he wanted to admit. The meta arts implied as much darkness and evil as they did light and goodness. Again he thought of his dad and Yuni and suppressed anxiety. Forming an island in his mind wasn’t easy.
Javier looked at him. “You like animals?”
“Love ‘em. Why?”
“Just curious. Got your breath?”
“Yeah.” He followed Javier up the path. They crested the ridge and stepped onto a winding dirt road. The half-moon cast dim shadows under their feet. “So what are we doing?”
“Gonna see an animal that’s a lot like us.”
“Monkey?”
“Chimpanzee.”
“Secret mission to the chimps?”
“Now that you know about listening and pushing, you’re gonna try it with a chimp.”
“What’s the point?”
“What, you got somethin’ against chimps?”
Javier waited for the hum of an electric cart driven by a security guard to pass by before scaling a fence. With a surge of adrenaline, Austin followed and joined Javier in dashing into the Los Angeles zoo.
Unchallenged, they approached an exhibit. Lights shone in a building where a woman sat with a small chimp in her arms. Javier walked up and tapped the glass. She waved him in.
“Did anyone see you?” she asked.
Javier shook his head. “Nope.”
“Why did you insist on sneaking in? I could’ve picked you up at the gate.”
“And where’s the fun in that?” Javier winked. “Christine, this is my friend, Allen. Christine and I go way back to grade school. So this is the little guy?”
“Little girl. She’s sick and we don’t know what’s wrong. Her breathing is labored as you can see. Tests have all come up negative. She’s been running a low-grade fever for over a week, isn’t responding to antibiotics, and has been eating less and less every day. At this rate she isn’t going to make it on her own.”
Javier nodded. “We’ll sit with her for a while.”
“Her name’s Darcy. I really hope you can do something. I’ve never tried a psychic healing but at this point I’m willing to try anything.” She handed the diaper-clad baby chimp over to Javier. “I’ll be back in about ten minutes. Thanks again, J.P.” She nodded at Austin. “And thank you, Allen.”
He glanced at Javier after Christine left.
“Psychic healing?”
Javier shrugged. “Never mind. Here,” he extended the chimp to him. “Take her.”
“Wha– okay. What’s this about, man?” He took the tiny chimp. Its eyes were half-lidded and it weighed almost nothing. “And why’d we hike the hills?”
“You’re out of shape, esse! You need the exercise.” He pointed to Darcy. “See what you can learn from her. Free form, forget English. Just tell me what you get from her.”
“Alright, I’ll do my best.” He sat down with the chimp on his lap.
The most surprising thing right off was the sentience, not too unlike humans. First in her eyes, then when he went passive to listen. There was no English of course, but a kind of language she used in her thoughts, a visual structure. How it worked wasn’t clear; it didn’t seem to have the same flow that humans did. For several minutes he just sat with her and let her weak grip on his index finger be their bonding point. He listened further, getting nearer to sinking into her awareness. She sensed his closeness and her eyes opened a bit more, curious. Something passed from her then, a missive, a kind of message destined not for within, but beyond her. Meant for him.
He couldn’t read it; in his surprise, he’d missed it.
Darcy stared at him, her eyes intense. Again she passed a meaning, a vibration that held a message. This time he followed intuition and sensed it as he would a picture. Like magic, the unknown resonance formed into almost graphical understanding: her lungs ached. She was depressed.
He waited, passive but nodding his head. She sent another message resonance. Hard to breathe. Hungry. Another resonance conveyed her scooping up a white substance from the rocks and putting it her mouth. It returned again and again.
He looked up at Javier. “This is amazing.”
“Describe it.”
“You... you get what she’s showing me, right?”
Javier shook his head no.
“What’s this mean, Javier? Am I really communicating with this chimp? Or am I going nuts?”
“Depends on if she asked for your number or not.”
“That’s not even funny.”
“Can you merge with her?”
He could only stare back and wonder why Javier wanted to know. Curiosity led him back to Darcy, though, to try.
Close in, she was weak and suffering more from depression than the pain or hunger. He drew closer still and gently extended into her thought stream. Vividly, he saw his own face looking down at her, mouth etched into a concerned frown, his eyes focused beyond. She squirmed a bit, uncomfortable with his visit, though overall trusting. He stayed passive, filled with wonder at the realization that if he wanted to, he could control her quite easily. Far different than the homeless people. Naturally pliable.
The side door opened, bringing him out. Darcy started a bit and looked for assurance, her grip tighter on his finger. An eager Christine returned and squatted in front of the little chimp with a concerned look.
“Any luck?”
“Maybe. I’m seeing her eat something white from the rocks. Maybe someone threw something poisonous?”
“It’s possible, I suppose. Something white? One of the – oh wait! Shit!” She laughed, half in disbelief for hav
ing missed it and half in relief. “Bird poop! Darling’s disease. A fungal disease that mimics T.B. We tested for T.B. but not for fungal. She probably ate bird poop!”
“It fits with what I saw.”
Christine’s eyes welled up. “Oh my God, you are amazing, Allen. I’m sure that’s it, I can feel it. Oh, bless you. I’m going to draw blood right now. Thank you, thank you!” She stood and hugged both Darcy and Austin.
He tried sending Darcy his own resonance message to show how much he wished for her recovery and health. In a response so quick he almost missed it, Darcy asked if she was going to be okay. Getting the hang of it, he responded just as fast to show that Christine was going to do her best to help her.
“Bye-bye, lil girl. Hang in there.”
In her brown eyes he saw gratitude.
Two weeks later, Austin sat on the porch steps of the doublewide. The L-shaped trailer park had nineteen units, mostly singlewides parked on a slab of west Compton. A boxed patch of grass held a makeshift kid’s playground with a sun-bleached plastic slide. The water treatment facility on the other side of the chain link fence created an occasional refrain from a pump motor bearing going bad. Soft rays of the sun cresting the distant Chino Hills belied its intentions for the day. The heat wave would continue summer’s tradition in the basin.
The thrumming of the city arrested awareness, a slow riptide pulling his thoughts into the mundane, the ordinary. Ten million souls inside four thousand square miles. Practicing on the throwaways of society meant a lot of change and not just in his psychic abilities. Both guilt and gratitude colored his days and nights with them. They were people imbued with the same god-like powers he was developing but without hope of realizing them. Those naturally aware often ended up suffering mental illness without the framework to process their extraordinary senses. The salve was the thought that someday humanity might not be so lost in the evolutionary backwaters and that he could help forge a path. Still, it was hard to imagine a graceful transition, even without the Comannda. All the fear and greed and division would take years to overcome. Generations.
He rested his jaw in his palm, fingertips to lips. His lips. Squinting brought an unfamiliar bulge of flesh beneath his eyebrows into view. Narrow eyes. Hazel now. Harder. Mom always loved his almond-shaped eyes. Both Mom and his face were gone, victims of an unpredictable world. One lost to a drunk driver, the other to a system drunk with power.
The trailer’s screen door creaked and banged shut. Miguelito stepped around him on the stairs.
“You got news, hombre.” Javier’s son headed for the bus stop. He turned and walked backwards. “It’s been good getting to know you, mang. See you around, you know? Be coolio!”
With a wave he turned and didn’t look back, a happy teenager living with incredible secrets.
Inside, Javier sat watching cartoons and slurped up colorful cereal from a bowl. With one hand he pulled a necklace out from under his shirt and fingered a pendant. There was a click and the ankle band opened and fell out from Austin’s pants leg.
“Important people wanna hang out with you. Don’t ask me why.” He half-smiled. “Instructions on the counter. Hope you can read ‘em. You got half an hour.”
A clean-shaven Austin stepped from a house into a waiting Subaru, suitcase in tow. The clothes felt wonderful: clean blue jeans that fit snug, blue cotton t-shirt, and running shoes. No more baggy jeans and wife-beaters. It didn’t feel good not knowing the fate of their parents but he couldn’t change that, yet.
“Relax,” Javier had said. “This is a big meeting so don’t freeze up about the folks. I’m sure they’re all right.”
The woman who’d picked him up from the strip mall near the trailer park was a utility only, a non-Korda following directions. She handed him a sealed envelope. “Please read this before your flight, Mr. Crichlow.”
His back-story was provided in the form of a resume, a set of working notes, and a printout of a dating service profile. Thin and simple, easily adapted. He skimmed it. Allen Crichlow. Technical sales rep for a Glendale, California based software company. Names of managers, product lists, descriptions, all familiar technology he could fake knowledge of in a pinch. Single, living in nearby Eagle Rock. Cat named Javier. Cute. He’d have time on the flight to commit it all to memory.
The woman dropped him off at the airport. He stood on the sidewalk with a new identity and a plane ticket to London. First time overseas, for a vacation. Coach class? He rubbed his chin and decided he didn’t mind at all.
He was free to move about the planet.
A window seat afforded a view of the eastern coast at night, lit up as it had been in the lucid dream a lifetime ago. Then, Austin had sought the hacker and felt a dark, textured energy of a place with complex designs emanating intelligence. Now, as land receded and dark ocean took its place, he half-expected the tiger’s head to appear. Instead a stranger’s face stared back in the window’s reflection. The person he’d become was almost as unfamiliar.
He’d smoked pot a little in high school. Like sugar poured into water, boundaries dissolved along with coherency and identity. Something like that was happening now but over the course of weeks, not minutes or hours, and it wasn’t fading. In this, he was keeping up, learning his place, discovering reality instead of exploring a temporary high.
He closed his eyes. Mental restraint was as much a survival skill as learning to perceive beyond himself. Expressing elevated awareness risked attention, examination. People were used to the type of contact born of ignorance, a language of protective responses and basic civility. Intelligent awareness made people uncomfortable, made people notice. Javier had jammed that into his head so hard he probably had bruises. Do not give them your imprint. Do not give anyone reason to remember you. You are a boring fuck. Only boring fucks stay alive. Even passively, there was more to learn about people around him than they would willingly reveal. Already he’d confirmed that preoccupation with sex was a driving theme and not just with men. At its best, it was tasteful and provocative; at its worst, evil and debasing. By far the most common vibe was that of depression. It weaved itself through most minds, even if only intermittently, pervading the group mind like an unshakeable background melody. Part of him wanted to help, to emit a soothing, reassuring vibe to help lift everyone on the plane. Though strongly tempted, he knew it would be an advertisement to the Comannda and might even backfire. Experiments had to wait. Instead, he spent the first couple of hours sifting through his meta-store of memories, reliving them in a lucid state of recall. It definitely beat the in-flight movie about a senator’s wife falling in love with the president.
Halfway through the flight he finished memorizing Allen Crichlow’s dossier. Dozens of questions stood out, things he’d need to properly cover his ass. So much left for imagination. If this was to be a primary identity there better be a whole lot more coming.
An attendant appeared and offered a pillow. Her long hair made him think of Kaiya.
“Please, thanks.”
Every night since their time in old London, he’d taken pills before sleeping as insurance against dreams. More mystery. They would only say it was crucial he take them, that his life could depend on them. The warning had seemed more than a bit overdone. He touched a pill in his jeans pocket. The thought of catching Kaiya in a lucid dream was a powerful draw.
In a plane traveling over the dark Atlantic, he could say he nodded off without realizing it...
He re-stuffed the envelope and sat on it, reclined his chair, and relaxed. Someone nearby had freshened their perfume. The scent somehow brought to mind Paris or the Mediterranean. He recalled the last evening at Kaiya’s trying to break the cipher code. In slow motion he saw the expression in her eyes, the curve of her lips, her hair as it fell forward like silk. Memories flowed, comforting and familiar. Eventually the drone of the engines and the hiss from the overhead air vents lulled him toward the shoreline of sleep.
He dreamt, but not lucidly.
I
n the din of a darkened manufacturing plant, lights slid past. He lay on a moving conveyor belt and watched behemoth machines pulse red, orange, and green. Robotics worked busily all around, hissing and beeping in a random symphony. He sat up. The high ceiling, dominated by a domed skylight, lit up from the flash of spot welding. Beyond the skylight the Milky Way galaxy made a brilliant spectacle and dwarfed whatever facility he was in. He looked down the conveyor and saw a split point ahead where a connector belt veered left and his continued straight.
The split point approached, as did a vague uneasiness. The random tones and static started to fire differently, slowly arranging into a semblance of order. He glanced up at the skylight just as two long shooting stars crisscrossed the night sky to form a symmetrical X, as if the planet were being marked from outer space.
The conveyor carried him along. Thirty feet remained to the split point. Twenty five. Stay or roll left?
Something was wrong. The machines’ cacophony was a signal. Straining to find meaning in the halting patterns, he looked up once more and saw a bright greenish-white comet streak down past the skylight on a trajectory that could only lead to the factory’s grounds. Then, as if in frustration, the machines formed an unmistakable pattern, delivered with a sudden increase in volume.
“SYS-TEM!” And again, “SYS-TEM!” He passed the split point, the divider now alongside him.
“LEFT! LEFT! LEFT!” The machines vocalized perfectly.
He lashed out and grabbed hold of the divider, the belt like sandpaper tearing at his clothes. He rotated to get his feet against the divider then pulled and bounced with all his strength until he fell onto the other conveyor path. It trundled along while he examined the raw and bleeding skin beneath his torn clothing.
The machines were looping now, a soft rolling pattern that sounded like ‘woo... woo’, over and over. It was a sound of relief or contentment that made him wonder what danger he had avoided. Slowly it broke up until the tones returned to random patterns.
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