ARC: The 57 Lives of Alex Wayfare

by M. G. Buehrlen

“You see,” Porter says, dunking his teabag up and down, “you were upset that I made you erase your first kiss. But you only erased it in that boy’s past. In your past life’s past. Not in your present. That kiss will still be your first, forever and always. You feel sick about it because the boy you shared it with won’t remember. That your night together may have prevented his unfortunate fate. But what if you didn’t care about that? What if you only cared about your own experience and nothing more?

  “When Gesh discovered he could experience all the pleasures of the world – all the pleasures of a lifetime – in no more than a blink of an eye, he was hooked. He descended into bodies and used them however he saw fit. Gambling, drugs, sex, murder. He could live as wretchedly as he wanted – he could push life to the limit in those other bodies – and never sully his present day reputation as the revered founder of AIDA. The saint who dedicated his life to saving the world, one person at a time.” Porter makes a sound in his throat like he’s disgusted.

  “For a while, when he was younger, sex was his main conquest. He took what he couldn’t have in Base Life. An enemy’s wife. A rabbi’s daughter. An actor or actress he fancied. It was all a game to him, seeing how far he could go. He could make all the impact he wanted, and all he had to do was go back and erase it, like you did your first kiss. Poof. It never happened. He did the same with drugs. With gambling. He pushed everything to the limit, even going so far as assassinating half a dozen US presidents, simply because he could get away with it. He used the past as his own personal playground. He stopped searching for cures long ago. Now the only things he searches for are lost treasures and unclaimed inheritances, just to line his own pockets.”

  Porter places his soggy teabag on a saucer on his lap. “Remember I mentioned moving documents and other things to hidden locations to recover in Base Life? Like a time capsule? It’s just as easily done with treasure. And a lot more profitable. Within a few years, Gesh was the richest man on earth. Only no one knew it. They still don’t know it. He started companies and organizations all over the world to cover his tracks and launder the money he makes from his discoveries. Under the banner of AIDA, he bought out museums, universities, gave grants to private archeological teams – all so he could keep his personal name in the clear. He wanted AIDA to be recognized for every major historical breakthrough, not himself. Did you hear about that recent lost artifacts discovery in Scotland?”

  I nod, remembering how it was all over the news. The largest and most priceless archeological find in history. Gold, silver, rubies, coins, armor, weapons – all sleeping peacefully in the highlands since the Dark Ages. My eighth grade history teacher made us write a report on it. “A team from a Scotland museum dug it all up. It was worth millions.”

  “That’s the one. It took Gesh years to discover it. He sent dozens of Descenders back to the Dark Ages and the time of the Crusades, sending them into bodies of soldiers, of civilians. Each time he gathered more clues about the location of the lost hoard, until finally, he got the tip he was looking for. He bought the land using a phony identity that couldn’t be traced back to AIDA. Then when the time was right, he sent anonymous tips to the museum. His museum, mind you. When his team dug it up, the news spread fast. The museum took in donations from philanthropists to purchase the hoard from the landowner, which was Gesh. No one knew the massive amount of money they donated to Gesh went straight into Gesh’s pockets. Gesh walked away with millions and got to keep the treasure. It belongs to the museum now, which belongs to AIDA, which belongs to him. He’s playing God with the world, and no one’s the wiser.”

  “What a brilliant, sick, twisted bastard,” I say, shaking my head.

  Porter nods. “I thought the novelty of it – if you can forgive me for using such an innocent term – would eventually wear off, but it hasn’t. He won’t stop until he has everything. Until the world is his.”

  I grip my mug so hard it’s in danger of cracking in two. Of course he won’t stop. Not the kind of man who’d smack and cut and burn a little girl who didn’t perform the way he wanted. The feeling of fear and hatred inside me that awoke when I remembered my past life with Gesh is now a solid knot of disgust lodged in my chest. I know what it’s like to feel that lure of addiction. The feeling of Base Life slipping away. The thrill of attaching myself to another existence, one where I’m not the Fix-it Freak. Wrapping my arm around Blue’s. Looking up into his blue-green eyes. Letting it all go for the chance to be someone else just a little while longer.

  It was so easily done. I can see why he was hooked.

  But I’d never let myself go as far as Gesh. That was his weakness.

  Not mine.

  “At least some good comes out of all this,” I say. “AIDA truly is saving the world. They’ve saved countless people. Audrey’s still alive because of AIDA. They’ve paid for all of her treatments. And Mom and Dad have always had all the money they need for their research.”

  “No thanks to Gesh,” Porter says. “AIDA’s a non-profit. It’s one of his most brilliant schemes. All that funding your parents get? It comes from donations, not from Gesh. But you’re right. There are plenty of people who work for AIDA who still care. Your parents are a perfect example. Most of the employees have no idea what goes on at the top of the corporate ladder. In the smoke-filled back rooms.”

  Porter was right. Mom and Dad had no idea who they truly worked for.

  “It’s unethical for Gesh to use other people’s bodies for his own gain,” Porter says. “Especially when they can’t remember what he makes them do or how he uses them. That’s partly why Flemming started doing research on reincarnating souls. A reincarnated soul descending over and over via its own soulmarks wouldn’t have to violate a stranger’s body. And Gesh was on board with the idea at first. Not because he cared about ethics, but because your soulmarks would be reusable. No more burning up soulmarks never to be used again. And he hoped you’d be able to remember your past lives. That way, when you descended, you’d fit into those lives seamlessly. You’d remember your mission and have all the memories of your host body. You could go back to any time period and find any lost document or artifact with ease. No years of research required. You’d know right where to look. But it didn’t turn out the way he hoped. You didn’t remember your past lives. You remembered the mission and your Base Life, but nothing else. Just like when you were in 1927 – you didn’t know who you were, who your family was, or what the money in your pocket was for. Gesh considered it a defect in your memory. You had other defects too, ones neither Gesh nor Flemming anticipated. Gesh thought a reincarnated Descender would make things easier, but your defects only presented more obstacles for him and the Descension Project. That’s why Gesh experimented on you. He tortured you for years, using all sorts of indecent methods, trying to get you to remember your past lives, fix your defects, turn you into the ultimate Descender. The ultimate Transcender. But something backfired. I don’t know what happened exactly, but you turned on him. Became his enemy.”

  “And then I escaped?”

  Porter nods. “I’m not sure how. I remember hearing gunshots, and then the facility alarms went off. You disappeared and went into hiding. I tracked you down a few months later, but you were dying. You made me promise to reincarnate you. To help you continue AIDA’s original mission and stop Gesh. I hid your soulmarks so Gesh couldn’t find them. I made sure you were reincarnated into a good family. I chose your mom and dad, even though they work at AIDA, because I figured Gesh would assume I’d take you as far away from him as possible. He’d never suspect I’d hide you right under his nose. Then I changed my name and went underground until you were grown and ready to travel again.”

  I stare at my hands like they aren’t really my own. Like I don’t recognize them anymore. “You did all of that for me? Because I asked you to?”

  Porter sips his tea, and a small smile reaches his eyes. “I would’ve done it for you anyway.”

  SABOTAGE

  “So how do w
e stop Gesh?” I ask. “Can’t we go to the police?”

  Porter chuckles. “And tell them what?” He carries his empty mug and saucer to the kitchen and sets it in the sink.

  “That he’s laundering all that money,” I say. “That it’s all tied to AIDA. It’s fraud, isn’t it?”

  “We don’t have proof. And even if we did, he’d never be convicted. Not someone who’s had every president in his pocket since Nixon.”

  I sit up and almost spill my tea in my lap. “He has the government on his side?”

  Porter lifts an eyebrow. “Where do you think the United States gets most of its funds? Taxes?”

  Something inside me stirs as I sink back in the armchair cushions. I can’t tell if it’s shock and disbelief that our country is basically run by Gesh, or if it’s knowing the most powerful man in the world thinks I’m a threat. “There’s nothing we can do?”

  “Not in Base Life. But in Limbo,” Porter wags a finger at me, “on our turf, we have a few advantages.”

  “Like what?”

  Porter scrubs his mug with a soapy dishrag. “Before I left, I stole a copy of Gesh’s itinerary.” He smiles across the counter at me. “I know when he’s going to send Descenders, where he’ll send them, and what treasure he’s sending them to look for. My plan is to send you back in time to derail his plans.”

  “How?”

  “If Gesh is looking for a certain treasure, you’ll find it first. If he sends a Descender to find the whereabouts of a lost relic, you’ll get to it before he does.”

  “You want me to sabotage his treasure hunts?”

  “Precisely. He’s obsessed with them. That obsession is his one true weakness.”

  “But why do you need me for that? Why can’t you do it? You’re a Descender, too, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, but your past lives were reincarnated with all of Gesh’s treasure hunts in mind. The years in which you were born were never coincidences. Each time and place, and each family you were born into, had a specific purpose.”

  I wrinkle my nose, not really getting it, but he shakes his head. “Don’t worry. You’ll see what I mean when you go on your first mission.”

  “But isn’t sabotage too convoluted? Couldn’t we just go for the more straightforward, obvious solution?”

  “What’s that?”

  I fist my hand into the shape of a gun. “Take him out.”

  The edge of Porter’s mouth tugs into a smile. “Tell you what, if you can find him, I’ll let you have the first shot.”

  “He’s in hiding, too?”

  “The day you left, he packed up everything. Lit a torch to the research facilities and disappeared. Remember, he has unlimited resources. We’ll never find him in Base Life.”

  I frown down into my mug. “So this is the only way to beat him? By slashing his tires? It seems juvenile.”

  “It is juvenile. All weaknesses are. But it’s the only thing that will work, the only thing that will smoke him out of his hole. You have to understand how Gesh works. I’ve known him long enough to know that nothing comes between him and the hunt. And you and I are about to do just that. Every time he shoots, he’s going to miss. It’ll make him crazy. He’ll start getting sloppy. Making mistakes. If all goes to plan, he may crash and burn all on his own, and we’ll never have to lay a finger on him. Never even see him face-to-face. He’ll never find out who you are, and your family will remain safe, free to devote all their time to finding a cure for Audrey, just like they are now. Things can remain the same on the surface, and no one will know we’re involved.”

  I raise my brow at him. “That’s a pretty good plan, Porter.”

  He bowed his head. “Thank you. I’ve had a few years to perfect it.”

  A pang of guilt for setting Porter on this course pricks me in the gut. That coupled with the hatred I remember feeling for Gesh, and the fierce, instinctive need to protect my family from him at all costs, tingles and sparks beneath my skin. I down the rest of my tea, join Porter at the counter, and hand him my empty mug.

  “When do we start?”

  THE RAPHAEL

  Porter orders pizza, and we spread Gesh’s itinerary and research papers out on the floor like a carpet. We eat from paper plates on our laps while Porter tries to explain Gesh’s theories to me. I thought I was smart, but it’s like the papers are written in an alien language. Most of what Porter says about the space-time continuum, dimensions, manifolds, and longitude and latitude soars right over my head.

  Until he narrows the focus to my first mission.

  “Portrait of a Young Man by Raphael,” Porter says. “The most famous missing painting of all time.” He tosses a photo of it in front of me. I wipe my hands on a napkin while I look at it.

  The subject in the painting looks out at me from the corner of his eye. He wears a black beret and something that looks like a thick fur stole over one shoulder. But there’s something about his feminine features and the way his long hair curls like silk at his chest that throws me off.

  “Looks to me like it should be Portrait of a Young Woman,” I say, wiping pizza sauce from my mouth.

  Porter pages through more of Gesh’s papers. “There are some who would agree with you. Others say it’s a self-portrait of Raphael himself. Either way, it’s been missing since the Nazis stole it in 1939. Last seen in 1945 in the possession of Hans Frank, one of Hitler’s governors. Gesh sent a Descender back to infiltrate Hans’ home in Neuhaus.” Porter holds up one page in particular and squints as he scans it. “Apparently, Hans ordered one of his men to transfer the painting to his summer home in France before he was arrested by the Americans. But the painting never arrived. Hans’ man went into hiding with it. Gesh sent Descenders back dozens of times to track the man down.” Porter places the page he was reading in front of me and taps it. “The man’s name was Schneider. On his deathbed, he told the Descender that he hid the painting inside the backing of another. A large landscape of the Rhine River Castle that had been in his family for years. The last Descender Gesh sent in search of the Rhine River painting learned that it was last seen in 1961, at the estate home of Charles Mitchell, outside Cincinnati. Now, in order for Gesh to find out if that’s true, he needs to find the soulmark of someone close to the Mitchell family somewhere in Polestar. Once he does, he can send a Descender back into that body and retrieve the Raphael, if it’s there. Obviously he hasn’t found a suitable soulmark yet, or else we would have heard of the Raphael’s discovery. But lucky for us, I have.” Porter’s eyes meet mine. “I’d like to send you back there now.”

  “Like right now?”

  “Well, within a week, preferably. You’d have some studying to do.”

  “On paintings?”

  “On the Sixties.”

  RULES OF THUMB

  In one week, I manage to secretly learn everything I can about 1961, as well as fail two pop quizzes at school. (If they had been about John F. Kennedy and nuclear threats from the Russians, I would’ve aced them.)

  After school on Halloween, I wave to Dad and Gran as they head off to take Claire trick-or-treating. She’s dressed as Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz, and she convinced Dad to go as the Scarecrow. Gran refused to dress up, but promised that if anyone asked, she’ll say she’s Auntie Em.

  Audrey is dressed in her usual costume, a black cat suit Gran made her when she was Claire’s age. It’s actually kind of upsetting that the black leotard and tights still fit her like a glove, but it’s her favorite, so none of us discourage her. I sit by the fire in the family room with Pops, ready to take over candy duty if Audrey gets too tired. But there’s a twinkle in her eye and a spark of energy about her – I can tell she’s going to try her hardest to stay awake. Just seeing how much she treasures the little things, like passing out candy to trick-or-treaters or reading Robert Burns before she falls asleep, makes me want to show her the whole world before it’s too late.

  If only I could take her to Limbo with me. She could spend a lifetime there, trav
eling to the past, slipping into healthy bodies, never hurting again, while no time passed in Base Life at all. She could see everything.

  I scrub tears from my eyes before she sees them, and decide that if Porter wants me to go on this mission for him, he’ll have to give me something in return. A payment for my services.

  That night, after dinner, I steal away to the front porch by myself. I curl up on our porch swing and finish off a mug of Gran’s cider. Candlelight from Claire’s jack-o’-lanterns flickers in the dark on the porch steps. I’m shrouded in a pocket of shadow, ready to meet Porter in Limbo.

  Ready to experience the Sixties.

  I pull the Polygon stone out of my pocket and run my fingers over the carved letters. LVI. IV. I see the little boy with the wire-rimmed glasses. Then the black takes me.

  When I find my way to my garden of soulmarks, Porter is already there waiting for me.

  “Ready for your first mission?” he says, his chin set proudly.

  I square my shoulders. “Ready.”

  “Remember, you’re just a spectator. Do not make an impact. An easy rule of thumb is this: No Acts of God. No floods. No forest fires. Don’t destroy anything. Do not take a life, do not make a life.”

  “Make a life?”

  “There will be no sexual intercourse during your travels. I know sex isn’t a big deal to you kids nowadays, but it’s one of the most dangerous things you can do as a Descender. Your host body could conceive. That child would change history.”

  “Couldn’t I just go back and erase the sex?”

  Porter glares at me.

  I raise my hands in surrender. “I’m joking. Yeesh. You’re like an insurance agent and a parent wrapped up in one.”

  He’s still glaring at me.

  “Porter, I’m serious. Consider me traditional in that sense, OK? You have nothing to worry about. I’m not like Gesh.”