by David Beers
The floor was open and vast. Christian stared at it for a second, honestly impressed at what his mind had accomplished. The rest of his mansion held rooms, each one dedicated to specific people or time periods. Inside each room was everything his mind knew about the person/event, with his mother’s being the largest. He’d spent almost three decades knowing his mother, and even her room was smaller than this. Her area was still a room.
Luke Titan had a floor dedicated to him.
“How did I not see this?” he asked.
“I think you’ll understand the answer once you explore a bit,” the other said. He was further down the steps, but Christian now heard his footfalls climbing from behind. Christian didn’t turn around, but the other’s voice sounded different somehow. Perhaps even sad.
Christian walked forward, ignoring the eyes above him that were certainly following his every movement. He didn’t know where to begin—the place was just too large.
“I’d go right,” the other said. “Though, if you want to jump to the end, head left. It moves chronologically.” The other was now on the floor but not walking closer.
Christian went right, wanting to understand the full scope of what lay before him. The floor’s walls were all digital, but something new had been added—they also projected holograms. The first section of wall showed a video of Christian meeting Luke. Tommy was there, too. The video didn’t show the interaction from Christian’s point of view, however.
He saw it from Luke’s.
“This is how Luke sees the world?” he asked.
“Yes. It may be the greatest feat your mind has ever accomplished. The entire floor isn’t as you would see things, but as he does.”
Normally, when Christian watched videos inside this place, he did it from his own point of view. Seeing the world as an independent observer. Here, though, he could do both. He was still an observer, but by viewing the wall, he saw himself as Luke had.
Words shot out from the screen, projecting a hologram directly in front of Christian.
Intelligent, but he’s little more than a boy.
Christian knew enough to understand they were Luke’s thoughts.
“How accurate are they?” he said. “How well has my mind replicated what he thinks?”
“The best it could do, I imagine. I wasn’t privy to it; you somehow built this and didn’t allow me in.”
“Then how do you know more than me?”
“It’s been open for a few days. Since your dream,” the other said.
Christian nodded and walked forward. He heard the other following him, though keeping a distance that he didn’t usually respect.
As he went further onto the floor, he realized the vast openness he thought was here, was actually a trail of sorts. Statues stood on his left and walls to his right, creating a path. Christian now stood next to a statue of Bradley Brown. It appeared extremely life like, the clothing and skin looking perfect.
Christian thought it was a statue, until it moved.
It was another projection. Brown turned to Christian and looked at him with sad eyes.
“Did Luke have something to do with you?” Christian asked.
Brown raised his hand and pointed at the wall behind Christian. Christian turned and saw another meeting between himself and Luke, one that took place in Luke’s house late at night. Christian saw himself from Luke’s eyes, pacing across the living room as he so often did.
He heard the words spoken, but Luke’s thoughts flew from the screen, capturing Christian’s attention.
Perhaps I’ve been waiting for someone like him.
Christian watched the conversation take place and kept reading the thoughts popping from the screen.
When he’d had enough, he walked forward again, moving deeper into the maze. Veronica was next. Luke sat across from her at a restaurant, both of them outside. Christian listened to the drink order and then watched the conversation unfold.
You shouldn’t have kept asking questions, Ms. Lopez, Luke’s thoughts emanated from the wall. You should have maintained your role as the gushing biographer.
Christian kept walking, until he saw himself lying in Bradley Brown’s living room. This was the first video not shown from Luke’s point of view, but rather Brown’s.
Four people besides Brown were in the room, all of them bound in different places. Christian lay on the floor, Tommy near him. Veronica was on the couch and Charles Ranger—the crippled mute Bradley Brown cared for at the nursing home—sat in his wheelchair.
Everything I need. All right here. The words hung in the air a foot from Christian’s face. They weren’t Luke’s thoughts, but Brown’s. He gave it all to me.
“No,” Christian said aloud, his own words somehow scattering the ones that hung in the air. The video in front of him went black, as did all of the walls. “No. Luke didn’t do that. I’m going insane and this is the byproduct.”
“I wish that was the case,” the other said. “I really do. Our marriage was important for my survival.”
The floor was silent for a few seconds, and then the wall lit up again—the rest of them remaining black. Christian looked at John Presley’s living room, but through someone else’s eyes. He knew whose eyes, and he saw what the person had done. The woman lying on the floor—Mrs. Presley, her fingers detached and discarded, blood spurting across the gray carpet.
Christian shook his head. No.
He watched as the man knelt down and took out the woman’s eyes. Surgically precise.
And then he heard the person speak, the face turning its attention to John Presley who lay tied on the couch.
Luke’s voice filled the entire floor, booming like a god.
Christian looked up at the ceiling, desperately wanting to find Luke’s eyes. They still stared at him.
“Keep going,” the other said. “There’s more. A lot more.”
And as Christian moved through his mind’s vast replication of his and Luke’s relationship, he realized there might be more here than he could view in an entire lifetime.
Christian opened his eyes and saw the rug in front of him. The rug that had no place in this house. He pulled his phone out and looked at the time. He had an hour left, but he knew it wasn’t enough. If everything he’d just seen were true—if even a fraction of it turned out to be right—then a lot of people were very close to dying, and not at Ted Hinson’s hands.
He called Tommy’s phone.
“Are you finished?” Tommy answered.
“Has Luke called you?”
“No? Now answer my question.”
“Listen to me, Tommy. Everyone’s life depends on it. Do not contact him and do not answer his calls. Go back to the office and wait there—“
“No. Fuck you. I’m not doing it. I’m going in that house, Christian, and I don’t care what else you say to me.”
“PLEASE!” Christian shouted. Tommy said nothing, letting silence take over. Rage and despair dominated Christian’s plea, and Tommy had to hear it. Rage at Luke. Despair at how far off they all were. Christian swallowed, and when he spoke, his voice was just above a whisper. “I need two more hours. That’s it. The next time I call you, I’ll know everything, okay? Just two hours. You were already going to give me one more.”
Tommy said nothing for thirty seconds.
“Fine. Two hours, Christian, and not another second.”
“Thank you,” Christian tried to tell him, but the call went dead before Tommy heard it.
Christian didn’t wait or think. He stood up from the couch and left the house. He had one more stop, and there he’d either confirm what he saw in his mansion, or accept that he was actually going insane.
Chapter 26
Luke had spent the last two hours contemplating what he saw at the FBI building: Christian’s bright fear.
Two hours of thinking, and in the end, the outcome was unavoidable. Luke rarely focused on a problem for long, his brain usually able to quickly come up with the solution. This, t
hough, was different, and it took longer. He had sat in the back of the FBI car, passively listening to the small talk from the agents in the front.
But finally, his mind clicked home, and when it did, a calm truth lay across Luke.
Christian knew, and if he didn’t yet, he would very shortly. Somehow his mind had put everything together.
Luke looked at the agent sitting in the driver’s seat. He stared at the man’s neck.
Hadn’t it always been a possibility that Christian would figure everything out? Certainly. The boy’s ability to relate, to understand other people, was without equal. Luke had held Christian at bay for so long because of the mental games he hoisted on him. Luke had been creating more problems—both physical and psychological—than Christian could deal with—and that kept him from seeing the truth.
The fear, though, was the tell. Christian had burned with terror, and at the least, was close to figuring everything out.
Luke didn’t hesitate once he understood this new reality.
His hand grabbed the knife in his pocket and he leaned forward, slicing the first agent’s throat. Blood shot against the front window, his heart pumping at full blast and not expecting a sudden leak. The other agent only had time to turn his head before his own throat opened. His blood pattern was different because of trying to see his partner—it shot onto the first agent’s face and shoulder.
Luke pocketed the knife as the two gurgled in front, their hands desperately trying to somehow stem the pouring blood.
Luke stepped from the back of the vehicle and closed the door behind him.
Blood covered his right hand, bright and warm. He didn’t bother to wipe it off. He stood at the driver’s door, watching as the two died inside.
Once they expired, Luke opened the door and shoved the driver into the passenger’s seat, putting him on top of his dead partner. He looked at the bloody seat and resigned himself to the fact that his suit was finished. Blood was unavoidable at this point. He wasn’t worried—he could still salvage this. He’d need to act quickly, but hadn’t this been what he always wanted? An all out war with God?
So be it.
Luke sat in the front seat and pulled the car into Hinson’s driveway. He briefly considered the options available to him, looking out the car’s rear and side mirrors. He couldn’t place them inside the house—that was too risky. He’d have to discard the bodies after everything was finished. Luke needed to get to Hinson; he’d let his subconscious mind determine a solution for the two agents while he busied himself with the present.
Tommy was in his office. The computer screen in front of him was black, though he kept staring at it. He had already called Vadik twice to see if there was any new information, clearly annoying the cop. Vadik had finally said (in a tone that would have angered Tommy, if he didn’t know the man was right), “I will call you when I have something new.”
Do not contact Luke, Christian had told him. And, of course, that’s all Tommy wanted to do. Well, not all, but if he wasn’t going to rush into Mackenrow’s house, then that was his next instinct.
Tommy had spent the past few hours frantic, with Christian’s last call putting him in a near frenzy. Now was the first time since leaving Mackenrow’s home that he was able to calm down slightly, which gave him time to actually consider Christian’s directive. Before, he had only focused on the fact that he had to wait.
But Christian said more than that.
He said Tommy shouldn’t call Luke. Why? Luke was as much a part of this as Christian; perhaps more so, given Luke’s extensive experience—and the fact that Luke hadn’t radically changed the past year.
Fuck that, Tommy thought. If Christian is going to keep me here while he explores his mind, or whatever the hell he’s doing, then I’m going to see what Luke thinks.
Tommy was going in that house, regardless of the consequences, but he’d prefer to have backup.
He picked up his cell phone and found Luke’s number.
“Hello,” Luke answered.
“Hey. Look, I need to talk to you. Do you have a second?”
“Sure. I’m just sitting in the back of a car staring at a house.”
Tommy sighed, not really sure where to begin. Everything that had happened felt jumbled in his mind, like a pile of wires. “Okay. We went to Mackenrow’s house and things are definitely not right there. They’re fucked, Luke. That’s the best way to put it. The woman was near tears, told us she didn’t have time to talk about her husband because she had to go to work. We told her that she and her daughter were in danger, but that didn’t phase her a bit. She shut the door in our face. The guy is over there, Luke, and he’s holding them hostage.”
“Where are you now?”
“I’m at the office.” Tommy said.
“Why?”
“That’s the other part. We leave the house and get in the car, then Christian says he needs three hours before we can do anything. He said I shouldn’t call you or answer your calls, either.”
“Why would he say that?” Luke asked.
“Fuck if I know. Look, I want to go in that house right now. I don’t want to go in with other agents, though.” Tommy closed his eyes, knowing what he was about to ask his partner. “I’m going to break pretty much everything in the search and seizure amendment, but I’m fine with it. If you come with me, you’ll be doing the same. I … I know what I’m asking isn’t right, and I know what it could mean for your life, but I don’t have anyone else to ask.”
Tommy listened to the phone’s silence, his heart thumping in his chest as if he’d smoked meth. He wanted Luke with him—they’d been partners for years.
“I’m going regardless,” Tommy said. “Now. I’m not waiting on Christian anymore. The kid has snapped, I think. If I have to go alone, that’s fine, but—”
“Meet me at the house,” Luke said. “I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”
Luke ended the phone call and placed the phone on the dining room table. Three people sat around the table—Mr. Hinson, Ms. Mackenrow, and their young daughter, Callie. Luke smiled at them. The adults looked at him, but their daughter stared at the fourth person—well, body—occupying the table.
Alice sat at the head, her destroyed head still slumped on her chest.
“Honey,” the mother whispered, “look at me, okay? Don’t look at that.”
Ms. Mackenrow was doing everything in her power to remain composed, and Luke admired that. Composure under stress was severely lacking in this modern world. People panicked over missing a turn because their GPS lagged a few seconds. Silliness, when four thousand years ago humans had been competing with animal predators for survival.
Dr. Hinson wasn’t holding up nearly as well. He looked at Luke, which was better than completely collapsing, but a steady stream of tears ran down his face.
“Okay,” Luke said. “There has been a change in plans, but these things are necessary when dealing with so many moving parts. I hope you understand.”
He looked directly at Ted Hinson.
“Dr. Hinson, I need you to pay attention to me right now. Can you do that?”
Hinson nodded. The man had looked so composed when Luke met him in that D.C. night club. No longer; the love obsessed parasite was now a frightened lamb. Though, perhaps that was giving him too much. Hinson was an insect, only knowing its habitat was collapsing around it.
“Okay. Now watch closely.”
Luke’s pistol flashed up, moving like a gunslinger of old. The silenced barrel fired two quick bullets, one entering the woman’s and then the girl’s head.
The silencer muted both the sound and the bullets’ velocity, the subsonic ammo not exiting their skulls. Blood leaked down the front of their faces, a small black hole sitting in the middle of their brows. Each stared emptily forward, not having time to register what happened. The mother fell backward, slumping down in her chair. The daughter fell forward, her head landing with a wet smack on the wooden table.
Hinson shrieked
—a high, girlish thing.
“Good. You saw that. I didn’t want you to miss it. Now, there’s still a chance you make it out of here alive, but that depends on you. Go sit in the living room. A man is coming over. When he enters the house, I want you to stare straight forward no matter what happens. Don’t look at him and don’t say anything. Just stare forward, okay?”
Chapter 27
“Mr. Ranger, my name is Christian Windsor. Do you remember me?”
The old man sat in his wheelchair, his eyes wide and his face nearly the color of copy paper. On the way here, Christian drove thirty over the speed limit, rushing as an all consuming need filled him—to hear the truth. Everyone else that Bradley Brown had captured knew only Luke’s version of events. This might be the single man who believed differently. Christian had flashed his FBI ID at a few nurses and got a pretty quick meeting with Charles Ranger.
“Sir, do you remember me?” Christian asked again. The man looked paralyzed with fear.
He nodded, but just barely.
“Good. I was there with you that night, the one with Bradley Brown. You remember that too, right?” Christian didn’t know how much Ranger’s mind had deteriorated over the intervening years. He had been fully functional back then, if mute and crippled, but time changed everyone. Christian knew that only too well.
Ranger again nodded.
“You’re not in trouble, sir. In fact, you may be the only person who can save a lot of lives, so it’s important that you answer me truthfully. I promise, whatever you say to me, I’m going to protect you.” Christian leaned forward in his chair, putting his face twelve inches from Ranger’s. “What I’m saying is, as long as I’m alive, nothing bad will happen to you, okay?”