by White, Gwynn
“Is it this one?” Rach pointed at the stoplight. “I can never remember.”
Tight-lipped, he pointed to the right, careful not to sound nervous about rear-ending another car. They caught another green light. If not for getting cut off, they would have caught every light, a statistical impossibility.
“Good luck charm,” Rach muttered.
Even she noticed the unusual number of green lights when he was in the car. They weren’t all green, but it was safer to limit the number of red lights she would undoubtedly run.
Grey couldn’t explain how he did it.
He woke up with this expanded sense of awareness. There was an electrical field in the city. It was a web of pulses, something he could feel under his skin and taste beneath his tongue. It was the wireless communications, the technology in cars and buildings and the subway beneath them. He had a hard time tweezing apart the noise. It was a ball of multicolored yarn the size of a house, each thread representing an alarm system, a television or phone.
Or streetlight.
But if he focused on the light, he could convince the sensors to give them a green light by the time they reached it. It was a little tricky if the system was on a timer. That would require more manipulation, and that brought up an ethical question: just how much of his environment did he want to influence to his advantage? It was a slippery slope that was steep and long and only required one step to start sliding.
To improve his odds of survival, he turned as many lights green as Rach would see.
It was instinctual. He couldn’t explain the mechanism that allowed him to lift his arm—the nerves that fired, the muscles that contracted—but that didn’t prevent him from painting something wonderful.
It was the same for Freddy’s interrogation room.
There would be recording devices to capture their conversation. Grey wanted to be frank with the detective. He wanted him to know the truth of what had happened to his mother and to prepare him for the arrival of his dad, when that day came. Keeping their conversation off the record, a conversation that could have legal consequences, was important. He was certain that he could speed up Freddy’s heart rate if he wanted. He could induce an adrenaline dump and step on the panic button. After all, the human body relied on electrical impulses.
Could I induce a heart attack?
These were just ideas. They were nothing he had attempted since waking on his bed and removing the punch. But he was certain they were possible in the same way he didn’t have to step on an egg to know he could break it.
How many people are like me?
It seemed unlikely he was the only one. But would someone be tempted to use these skills for their own desires? If Henk had access to another person’s mind, he would be a super villain.
The odds were slim he was alone with these abilities. This was a question he pondered often. Perhaps, he wondered, the only way to obtain this level is through some sort of enlightenment.
Grey wasn’t claiming enlightenment in the Buddhist sense of the word. But his experience of the world had broadened. There was a general lack of fear because he didn’t sense separation. He was okay with just sitting in the car as Rach checked her phone while changing lanes. His heart would race when they nearly hit someone on a bicycle, and, strangely, that was okay. It was all right. Everything was exactly as it was supposed to be. This ability to say yes to his experience had been completely opened.
How could he abuse this ability?
It seemed impossible. In fact, this was beyond enlightenment. It was the end result of the experiment he had unwittingly stepped into when he strapped the punch around his head—an experiment that had unknowingly drawn his mother into a submersion tank. The sight of her gray skin and open mouth would remain with him until this life ended. The emerald sparkle in her eyes had been snuffed.
How was it not my fault?
That was a thought he struggled to work with, especially since it was tightly wound with sensations of sadness and grief. Is this what the investors of the experiment want? No one had contacted him since waking. There were no condolences or recognition.
The lake house was abandoned. The front gates were open when he had a car drop him off. No one stopped him from walking down the path or met him at the front door. The rooms were empty. But they knew his journey had been complete.
His bank account was proof.
The weekly deposits were enough to buy a fleet of cars. He attempted to trace the source of the mysterious donor, but that was fruitless and silly. One thought had haunted him since he awoke.
Is the experiment over?
“What did the cops want?” Rach said.
Rach had picked him up at the police station. She didn’t know he had to post bail. She didn’t know anything other than his mother had been found in a tank. All those lifetimes he’d lived as Hunter Montebank unfolded within the span of twenty-four hours of flesh time. He’d missed a day of school.
That was it.
“They just had a few questions.”
“About your mom?”
“Yeah.”
“They find him yet?”
Rach was convinced his dad had something to do with his mom’s unexplained death. No one could understand why she was involved with the Maze or her tragic end. And when Henk Grimm was nowhere to be found, it was assumed he was involved.
It didn’t take a detective.
Rach had no memory of their trip out to the lake house. She didn’t remember driving out there and still believed they’d capsized near the boat landing. His hallucinations of talking to his dad, she believed, were stress induced. Maybe you knew something would happen to your mom, she said.
Grey left it alone.
The complete absence or manipulation of memories was for her benefit, he rationalized. That would explain why they had different experiences when they flipped the boat and were rescued by the people in the house. Rach was sent home for her own protection.
Grey was sent down a different road.
All Rach knew was his mom was dead and his dad was gone. Her sympathy was deep and genuine and moving. He could feel her pain because she loved him. Not in the girlfriend-boyfriend way. Not yet.
He couldn’t predict the future, but it didn’t take a detective.
“I’m taking this one.” She squeezed into a parking spot a block away from the café.
They walked without talking. Sometimes they held hands and swung them between each other like they did when they were kids. The storefront next to the café was boarded up. It was a furniture store that specialized in resale items. Someone had purchased the business and boarded it up. Metal security gates had been pulled down and locked. Closed for business was posted on both sides. Graffiti artists had already started filling up the space between the signs.
“You want something?” she asked. They waited for traffic before crossing the street.
“I’m good.”
“How long you going to be?”
“A few minutes.” Grey stopped outside the boarded door of the old furniture store. “I’ll be done before you get your coffee.”
“When are you going to tell me what you’re doing?”
“When I’m done.”
She watched him feed a key into the door and cringed when he opened it. “Whatever you’re doing, it stinks.”
He stepped sideways into the open door and waved. Rach went to the café and he locked the door behind him. She didn’t know he’d bought the furniture business and closed it down. He was simply investing his inheritance in the available space.
She really didn’t want to know what he was doing.
There was another set of doors inside the front door. These had been installed shortly after he had the windows boarded. Some ambitious criminals might get past the gate, but they weren’t getting through the second door. He didn’t need the space much longer. It had taken six months to set it up and get it ready. A few more days, maybe a week, and he’d sell the property and reloc
ate. He’d take a loss on the investment.
The smell would be a permanent problem.
The second door required a palm print, a retinal scan and voice recognition to open. Grey’s forehead tingled in anticipation as he waited for the retinal scan to finish. Inside, the lights were out. Syrupy bubbles gurgled in the dark. A pungent odor filled his eyes with tears. A light came up in the corner. Watery patterns danced across the floor.
A cylindrical tank was softly lit.
Thousands of translucent follicles swayed in the dense solution like tentacles of an anemone. They massaged the nude and freshly shaved body of a middle-aged man.
It wasn’t hard to find Henk Grimm.
Grey had accessed his credit card statements and followed the money. He’d found him at a beach resort. Getting him back to the city was the roadblock. His dad wouldn’t be happy to see his son and he sure as hell wasn’t going to follow him. Grey had the furniture store ready. Patiently, he considered his options.
Then he got a text.
His dad was in the passenger seat outside the apartment building. He was unharmed and unconscious, hiding beneath a stocking cap and a black overcoat. There was a wheelchair folded in the backseat. The timing was impeccable. Grey texted and called the number without an answer. Someone wanted his dad as badly as he did.
Later, he would understand.
He drove him to the furniture store at a late hour and wheeled him inside. His dad was unaware his vacation had ended. When Grey undressed him, he discovered he had already been shaved. All Grey had to do was dump him into the oxygenated solution and let the tank do the rest.
He came out of the groggy slumber as the solution reached his chest. When a mouthful of the foul solution filled his throat, his eyes snapped open. He thrashed at the sides of the transparent cylinder. The tank’s tendrils gently wrapped around his arms and legs, stroked his midsection and cradled his head. Henk Grimm released his son’s name with his last breath and then swallowed the first draught of liquid oxygen.
He survived the awareness leap.
Grey now stood in front of the tank, the limp body of his father swaying with seaweedy tendrils that had leaped his awareness and tended his vacant body—a body he would soon return to and live out his days.
But not yet.
Grey sat in the chair next to the tank. His forehead twittered with excitement. He reached for the clunky band. Stretching it over his head, he centered the circular knob on his forehead. Eyes on his dad, he relaxed into the headrest and felt the dull thunk.
He’d be back before Rach ordered her coffee.
37
Henk
After the Punch
3:00.
The pounding. The burning.
A brush fire roared through his lungs, scorching his throat. He swam through the pain. A migraine waited above the surface of waking and swung a big club when he broke through.
It hit Henk between the eyes.
He blinked away the dry burning. The popcorn ceiling was familiar. An old web swayed in the slots of a vent. A bag of wet sand, he was hungover. He was dead weight. Heavy and slow, there was no memory of drinking. In fact, there were very few memories at all.
Palm trees. Sand.
That was the last thing Henk could recall. He’d gone south and left the city in the rearview for warmer weather and freedom. But he was lying in his apartment on top of the comforter, wearing shoes and pants. And his white lab coat.
His finger throbbed.
A gold band was on his finger. He’d pawned his wedding ring the day he left Sunny. No sense in wearing money around his finger when he could be spending it. And now it was on his finger?
He sat up slowly, cradled his head and waited for the day of the week to arrive. He tugged at memories from the recent past.
Nothing but sand.
The drawers were open, the closet door. There were clothes on the floor. I’ve been robbed.
A chair dragged across the kitchen floor.
Henk strained to listen. Maybe the thieves were still there. He was passed out while they ransacked his room. Did he bring someone home? Candace, maybe? No, not her. She wouldn’t be happy to see him. No one from the office would be happy to see Henk Grimm, not after he stole from the office. He’d transferred all the money into his account and withdrew it as cash.
Why am I here?
Henk leaned against the wall. Someone was at the kitchen table.
“Grey? What… what are you doing here?”
A box was on the table with the flaps open. The package. But that was months ago. Grey watched him shuffle toward the table and peer inside the box. The velvet bag was nestled at the bottom.
A gust of wind spattered the glass wall of the apartment. Rivulets raced in jagged lines. A gray sky consumed the skyline. Henk took a deep breath, careful not to wake the migraine. His lungs, though, were still hot.
“Brought you back a souvenir.” Grey slid a tin box across the table.
“From where?”
Grey’s stare was intensely uncomfortable. The crosshairs were on Henk’s head. Henk palmed the metal lid and shook. It sounded like a rock. He pried it open.
“What’s this?” He dumped the tooth on the table. “Where’d you get that?”
“Just a gift from some people. They left it for me, sort of like a clue.”
The enamel was thin and yellow, the root intact. It was a strange gift, even for a dentist. If Grey had been to the office, then they’d know Henk was in town. He couldn’t let them find him. Too many debts to pay. Debts that could never be resolved.
“What’s this about?”
The tooth trembled between his fingers. The roots dug into his thumb. Grey sat stone-still, hands folded on his lap, his eyes lazy and unblinking. An x-ray beamed across the table, an illuminating glare that exposed Henk’s soul.
“What’s this mean?” The words gushed out of Henk.
Vomit swelled in his throat. He swallowed hard and rushed to the sink, hand over his mouth to hold back the bile. He puked from the bottom of his feet.
Balls clenched, stomach knotted, he purged a foul translucent slime. A string hung from his bottom lip and crept down the drain, a rancid pool of oily emulsion, a distillation of watery pus.
Grey watched with x-ray vision.
Through involuntary tears, the Maze symbol appeared on the refrigerator. The card had been cut and folded and taped together to reveal the secret. It wasn’t the invitation Henk had posted, the simple one that came in the mail, the one he knew Grey would find, the one he knew his son would solve.
This was a card with a tagline. Find yourself.
“Goddamnit,” he muttered and spit. “So you know, is that it?”
Grey silently watched.
“I couldn’t do it, so there.” Henk hunched over the sink. “I swear, I would’ve done it myself, it just didn’t work. The tank was… I couldn’t make it work. I tried, you know. And I spent all the money…”
“All of my money.”
“You wanted it,” Henk said. “You loved the Maze, don’t fool yourself. You wanted to go inside, just needed the opportunity. I put it out there, but you picked it up. You have to be willing, you know that. I couldn’t force you.”
He wiped his mouth and threw the towel on the floor.
“I’m not an idiot, son. The passwords were simple and I kept them where you’d find them. You went through my email. You set up the GPS on my phone, not me. You took the invitation off the fridge.”
He shook his finger.
“I put that box on the table and opened it, that’s all I did! You looked inside; you took it for yourself. You did! You strapped it on; you punched in. You did, son, not me, so don’t look at me like that.”
Grey continued silently judging. His expression had already announced a verdict. A sentence was to be passed.
“I can’t do needles,” Henk said. “You got to believe me, I would’ve done it myself, but I just don’t have it in me. You w
anted it—”
He gagged. This time he sprayed a coat of stench on the counter. His forearms slid through it as he collapsed. He was lying though. He could’ve taken the needle; he didn’t want to. There were ways to tank he hadn’t tried, too. Ways that made him quake with fear. He couldn’t do it.
Didn’t want to.
“Why is the box here?”
Grey had taken that thing; he’d used it. Henk had gone to the apartment and seen his son lying on his bed, a funeral display still breathing, the black knob seated squarely on his forehead. That horsehair needle was licking his frontal lobe. It had slurped out his son.
He was so still, so peaceful. Like he was little again, slumbering in his crib. Henk had run out of the apartment, ran out of the city, took a few belongings and left it all behind. He would never come back, would live off the prize money when the Maze was over.
He dry-heaved.
“They came to me,” he said. “They said there was an experiment that was perfect for a parent and child… a willing parent and child, mind you. I did the hard work, just so you know. I went to the Sessions and made all the connections. I spent all of my money and yours, too, so don’t give me the puppy eyes. I spent it all and planned on doing the Maze myself. It just didn’t work out.”
He ran the water and sniffed back an acrid wad of saliva to spit.
“She didn’t have to do it, you know,” Henk said. “I didn’t plan that. You went in and then she followed, that was her doing. I didn’t trick her.”
Like I tricked you.
He could’ve followed Grey into the Maze. The people at the house made the offer and he accepted. They would do the rest. He wasn’t going to ask his son to participate. Grey would’ve, he was sure of it. But then he would have to follow. The experiment needed a parent. It didn’t say which one.
All he had to do was put the pieces together, act enraged when he discovered his son had gone out to the house, follow the script to act like he didn’t want them involved. He baited Grey to want more. And when he took the boat out, when he crashed it short of the cliff (which wasn’t part of the plan, but worked in their favor), they seeded his son with confusion and made him more suggestable.