TPG

by The Perfect Game (mobi)

  When Kyle entered the small waiting room, Liam was already sitting on a folding chair inside. There wasn’t much to the room. No receptionist, no magazines. Nothing but two chairs, some burning incense and a few tiny artificial waterfalls lightly splashing in unison against jagged earth tone tiles.

  Liam stood and gave Kyle a hearty shake and patted him on the back as he walked in, greeting him like a lifelong friend. Kyle found it odd, but then he found almost everything Liam did odd.

  “Found out some big news last night,” he told Kyle. “Really big.”

  “What’s that?” Kyle asked, hoping for some good news about Allie. Maybe she was starting to wake, or at least show some signs of waking.

  “I spoke to Hillier’s doorman,” he said, his eyes even more puffy than when Kyle last saw him. It looked like he hadn’t slept a wink in days. “The overnight guy.”

  “Spoke to him about what?”

  “Hillier, of course.”

  Kyle closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “I figured that much out. But what about Hillier did you discuss with him?”

  “I asked him if Hillier does anything funny on the nights of his starts.”

  “And?”

  “And, for a hundred fresh ones, he told me Hillier does something very suspicious the night of every start.”

  Kyle waited for the rest, for Liam to tell him without any prompting. But Liam didn’t say a word, just stared at him with a wide toothy grin behind his scraggly beard that had bits of bread tangled in its thick hairs.

  “And what’d he say?” Kyle finally asked.

  “That Hillier leaves at the same friggin time every friggin night before every friggin start.”

  Kyle let the response linger, digesting it.

  “Same exact time before every friggin start,” Liam slowly repeated, careful to emphasize the importance of the statement.

  “What time?”

  “Midnight. On the dot.”

  Kyle thought about it for a few more seconds.

  “Crazy, right?” Liam said.

  “And the doorman told you this?”

  “Yup. He said Hillier takes his car out. The building has a self-serve garage in the subbasement and the doorman sees Hillier take his car out on the closed-circuit security camera every night before a start.”

  “You’re sure about this? You’re sure this guy isn’t lying?”

  “Lying? Why would he lie? I gave him a hundred and asked him what Hillier does the night before his starts. Why would he lie?”

  “Maybe he just needed to say something to justify the money.”

  Liam shrugged. “I guess that’s possible. But it’ll be easy enough to find out.”

  “How so?”

  “When we follow him in two days.”

  Kyle massaged his forehead, which already started to ache. “Wait a second. Let’s just back up. The guy said Hillier leaves at midnight, but the strokes have been happening at all different times in the early morning, right? Some were as early as one or two, but others were as late as six or seven. And didn’t one happen in the afternoon?”

  “I already considered that,” Liam said. “The guy said he never kept track of when Hillier returned. He said he usually takes naps at that hour because no one is coming or going. So Hillier could have returned at any time.”

  “But why would he leave at midnight? And especially right at midnight. Particularly if he wasn’t doing anything until six or seven in the morning?”

  Liam shrugged again. “Could be anything. Maybe it’s a ritual. Maybe he had to pick up some equipment. Maybe he has to meet someone else who helps him out. I have no idea. But the question we should be asking is what is he doing when he leaves?”

  Kyle took a deep breath as he digested the impact of the new information.

  “You have to admit,” Liam said, narrowing his puffy eyes behind his thick glasses. “The coincidence is pretty bizarre.”

  It was. And he was curious. He was also trying to reconcile the intelligent, insightful, deductive side of the man who had put together the clues leading to a pattern of Hillier’s starts in only days with the potentially deluded, irrational man crying for help.

  But the sudden appearance of a man about his own age wearing khakis and a plain white button-down disrupted his thoughts. The man was a few inches shorter than Kyle and had thinning dark hair and a bit of a paunch, with an easy smile plastered on his face.

  “Mr. Murdock?” the man asked, looking at them, unsure which of them was Liam.

  Liam stepped up and shook the man’s hand. “That’s me,” he said. “This here’s my good friend Kyle Vine.”

  Kyle was amazed at how easily Liam characterized their relationship as a friendship, apparently blind to the fact the friendship was one-sided.

  Kyle struck out his hand. “I presume you’re Mr. Chhabra?”

  “Please, Ahmed is fine,” the man said with a warm comforting smile while shaking Kyle’s hand. He turned his auburn eyes to Liam. “And let me express how saddened I am about Allison. But she is strong, my friend. Her will, her energy, is second to none.”

  “Which is probably why she didn’t succumb like the others,” Liam said.

  If Ahmed thought the statement strange, he didn’t let on. He just let his compassionate gaze linger.

  “Did Liam tell you about what he thinks happened to Allie?” Kyle asked.

  “About the stroke, yes,” Ahmed said. “Very odd for someone so young, and so healthy—in mind, spirit and body.”

  “It is,” Kyle agreed. “But did he tell you why he thinks she had the stroke?”

  “He did.”

  “And what do you think?”

  Ahmed nodded over to the door. “Let’s discuss inside,” he said. “It’s more comfortable.”

  Kyle and Liam followed the Deeksha Giver through the door, which led straight into a modest-sized room decorated to look like a fancy spa—a few plush chairs, more artificial waterfalls, some colorful abstract artwork adorning the walls, dim lighting, overhead speakers playing serene instrumental music.

  Ahmed motioned for them to take a seat.

  “I understand Allie had been coming here,” Kyle said.

  “Yes,” Ahmed said. “Once a week for about a month or so. Friends in college had introduced her to Deeksha.”

  “For what purpose?” Kyle asked. “Why was she doing it?”

  “Cleansing,” Ahmed said. “She was looking to cleanse her soul so she could calm her anxieties, allay her fears, and strengthen her confidence.”

  “Was she having any particular difficulties that prompted it?” Kyle asked. “She didn’t seem all that anxious to me.”

  “Problems? Allie?” Liam jumped in. “None.”

  “We all have our daily stresses and anxieties,” Ahmed said. “Allison is no different than most. But was there anything particularly worrisome or concerning? No. Mr. Murdock is correct. I was simply her personal trainer for her mind.”

  “But how did she even get into it? How did her friends get into it?”

  Ahmed shrugged. “It’s not that uncommon these days for young people to partake in such cleansing and energy healings. Especially for the competitive ones once they leave for college and become more independent. In high school they obtain their edge by taking amphetamines like Ritalin and Adderall. Once in college, many seek a more wholesome approach.”

  “And they think they get that through Deeksha?”

  “They do it by sharpening their energy and cleansing their spirit, whether that’s through Deeksha or another approach. Yes.”

  “How much does it help?” Kyle asked.

  Ahmed smiled. “Would you like to give a try?”

  “Yeah,” Liam said. “That would be great, Kyle. Try it out. Then you can see what we’re up against firsthand.”

  Kyle looked around and soaked in the room some more. The lights were dim, the smell of incense wafted, the slight splashing of water echoed over the cautious hint of the soft music sneaking out
of the hidden speakers. Just what he would’ve expected—everything was in place to put your mind at ease and isolate the clutter. But energy transfer techniques like Deeksha were supposed to do more than just put you at ease. They were supposed to give the mind a state of malleability, make one’s neurons susceptible to external manipulation. Many times the practice was aided by hallucinogens, like leyham, which was slipped to the person unknowingly so they’d describe the process afterwards as feeling a tingling or shift of their mind, not knowing it was due to the drugs rather than an actual energy transfer. But a true energy transfer was performed without any drugs. It was part of the Buddhist search for enlightenment, dating back to when “the Buddha” was still known as a man named Siddhartha Gautama who was trying to reach life’s ultimate goal—supreme happiness. Nirvana.

  “Would I have to take anything?” Kyle asked.

  Ahmed smiled. “No,” he said. “Ingest nothing but the words I speak and the energy around you.”

  Kyle had actually been curious about the practice for a while and had thought about giving it a try. The technique had been growing in popularity, and had been becoming a larger part of his lectures. It would serve him well on many fronts to get a better sense of what actually occurred.

  “Where do I sit?”

  “Right where you are sitting is fine,” Ahmed said.

  “So,” Kyle said, shifting his body about in the chair looking to get more comfortable. “From what I know, the transfer requires a relaxed meditative state—”

  “Mr. Vine,” Ahmed gently interrupted. “If I may, preconceptions of what it is I do, and what you will experience, are probably best left aside. As I’m sure you’re familiar from your own practice, when a patient comes in telling you how you are going to treat them, it becomes an uphill battle for you to break through the preconceived notion.”

  “Yeah, Kyle,” Liam said. “Probably best if you just let him do his thing.”

  Kyle shifted about some more. “Fine.”

  “Excellent,” Ahmed said. “Close your eyes and just let your mind relax. Try to think of nothing but what you hear. The falling water trickling down. Drop by drop by drop.”

  Kyle shut his eyes and felt the lights dim even further around him. He leaned his head back in the enormously comfortable chair as Ahmed’s talking continued to ease Kyle into what he assumed was the normal routine, gently instructing him with a soothing and calming voice to clear his mind. Kyle did his best to try to follow the instructions, but rather than drift about, his thoughts remained planted on what was coming next—awaiting the transfer, anticipating the steps Ahmed would take, wondering if he would feel the tingling that had been described in various accounts, or the heightening of his senses that he’d seen documented in studies. But Ahmed was not in the same rush. There was no urgency in his voice. Kyle tried to match his patience, tried to push his pressing thoughts to the side, but it wasn’t working. He couldn’t relax. He followed the instructions, the breathing techniques, the listening for his heartbeat, the attempt to feel every speck of his body from his toes to his head—typical meditative tricks he was very familiar with.

  But he couldn’t empty his mind.

  Ahmed told him to open his eyes.

  He did.

  Ahmed instructed Kyle to gaze into his eyes, to search deep into the depths of his pupils. Kyle did, first focusing on the man’s light brown irises, then piercing straight into the pitch-black center. Ahmed then instructed Kyle to place one hand behind his own head and cup the base of his skull. Kyle complied and watched Ahmed do the same as he calmly explained that the hand on the back of the head locks in the energy. He then held out his other hand and placed it on Kyle’s forehead, telling him he was targeting the focal point of where the energy would flow.

  Ahmed’s voice vibrated in a deep soothing chant as he slipped into a meditation mantra, his gaze intensifying and holding firm with Kyle’s eyes. His jaw clenched and his eyes slightly strained.

  But Kyle felt nothing.

  The chanting went on for minutes, maybe five, until Ahmed gently released his hand and broke off his gaze, his warm smile reappearing.

  “What?” Kyle asked, his hand still cupped to the back of his head.

  Ahmed’s smile widened. “You are a psychologist.”

  “Yes.”

  “You know the blocks a mind constructs when its focus is elsewhere.”

  “I do.”

  Ahmed studied Kyle’s eyes. “You have many things going on right now. Beyond your concern for Allison.”

  “That obvious?”

  “Your mind is like a brick wall.”

  “I know,” he said. “I’m trying to relax, trying to open things up, but I can’t stop pressing.”

  “And that happens,” Ahmed said. “You know how it is, people come in defiant.”

  “I assume, like hypnosis, it won’t work if you fight it.”

  “That’s why I go through the opening techniques. It usually relaxes the mind enough to allow the transfer and cleansing. But there’s more here than your refusal to relax. You’re not just tensing, your mind is unwilling to let go.”

  Kyle’s eyes narrowed. “Let go?”

  “Yes. Let go of the negative energy. That’s the essence of a transfer. It’s not just a parlor trick, it’s a cleansing. It’s an influx of new energy, positive energy, clean energy, to replace and wash away the negative and polluted. That’s the climb toward enlightenment, the path toward peace and tranquility. It is the attainment that will bring us closer to the internal, and then external, utopia we all seek.”

  “So you’re saying it won’t work at all? You can’t perform a transfer with me?”

  Ahmed shook his head. “Not now.”

  Kyle considered the statement. “But then how can Deeksha and other energy transfers cleanse negative energy if they can’t even penetrate because of that negative energy?”

  “The mind must first resolve itself enough to allow a cleansing. As the saying goes, you cannot draw blood from a stone. I cannot force an uncooperative mind to cooperate.”

  The statement piqued Kyle’s curiosity. “Can anyone?”

  “Force a transfer unwillingly?”

  “Yes.”

  “In my opinion?”

  “Unless you want to offer someone else’s.”

  “Anything with the mind is possible,” Ahmed said, smiling.

  “Have you ever seen it before?” Liam asked. “Have you seen someone force an energy transfer?”

  “I haven’t.”

  “Heard about it?”

  “I have not.”

  Kyle thought about Liam’s theory. It relied upon someone raiding another’s energy. Forcing themselves on another. “So all the energy transfers you know about have had willing participants?”

  “Correct.”

  “So then what are your thoughts about what Liam thinks happened to Allie?” Kyle asked, catching a glimpse of Liam’s small eyes narrowing with interest at what Ahmed was about to say.

  “My thoughts,” Ahmed said as he walked deeper into the room, “are that the mind can accomplish most anything.”

  “So you think that what I’m saying can happen, right?” Liam asked. “It’s possible, right?”

  “There are no limits to what one’s mind can do.”

  “But you just said you’ve never seen or heard of something like that happening?” Kyle asserted, trying to rein Liam in. “You’ve never heard of someone being able to force an energy disruption of the consciousness so strong that it physically damages the brain.”

  “Alters the brain? Yes,” the man said. “It’s what I do. It’d be what any practitioner could do with a willing participant. But damage the brain to the degree that an aneurysm would form, and then burst?” Ahmed let his gaze gently fall upon Liam. “I have not.”

  Kyle nodded. “So you don’t think someone could have tried to raid Allie’s energy? You don’t think she was attacked?”

  “I’m neither a doctor nor a
scientist,” Ahmed explained with a smile. “I believe in the soul. I believe in our energy, and I assist in its transfer. But if you are asking me whether the fundamentals exist in nature to accomplish such a thing—or could exist—I would have to say yes. But explaining what mutations of the mind would be needed for realizing such an accomplishment is well beyond my expertise.”

  “But not beyond the expertise of others,” Liam quickly pointed out. “Look at what those guys at PEAR did.”

  Ahmed crinkled his brow. “Pear?”

  “Princeton’s Engineering Anomalies Research program,” Kyle said, knowing exactly where Liam was heading. “He’s referring to a study one of their neuroscientists performed in India that suggested there’s a shift in neural activity during the practice of Deeksha.”

  “That’s right,” Liam said. “Their data proved that different people react differently to the practice, and that some practitioners are able to transfer more energy than others. One guy had the EEGs dancing like crazy for the same people other practitioners had barely budging. So there are people out there who are naturally better at it than others.”

  “But none of them were able to do anything on the level of what we’ve been seeing,” Kyle said.

  “So?” Liam challenged. “That’s not so odd. What are the chances their small study would’ve come across that one in a million person who has the ability to do this? Think about when they do a random study on memories. Are they actually going to come across someone with a photographic memory or, better yet, hyperthymestic syndrome in a simple random sampling?”

  Kyle was again impressed with Liam’s level of knowledge. He was right. The cases of people with true photographic memories, or eidetic memories, where you could memorize something after having just seen it for a short while, were extremely rare. And those with hyperthymestic syndrome—remembering every day of your life—were even more rare. There were only a handful of cases ever documented.

  So if someone could do what Liam was saying, and it was as rare as hyperthymestic syndrome, or even rarer, then yes, he highly doubted that such a person would’ve appeared in a random study.

  “So let me just put it right out there and cut right to the chase,” Kyle said. “Because young people are dying of burst aneurysms right before every one of his starts, Liam thinks a pitcher for the Yankees is raiding energy so he can pitch better. What are your thoughts on that?”