by Orson B Wolf
The psychologist spoke again and a new expression came to his face, one that David had never seen before. “You said you don’t really need to learn a profession and make plans for the future.” He placed the folder on the table, leaned forward, and gave David an intense look.
David tried to remember, but the loud music made it difficult for him to concentrate. He looked at the psychologist’s grim face. A moment later Mr. Harrison softened, his face beamed, and his eyes returned to show honest concern. “What did you mean by that, David? I feel that we are on the verge of a breakthrough.”
David gulped as he finally remembered. It had actually happened last week, when he had arrived at the session more tired than usual. He must have momentarily abandoned the harsh set of rules he was always careful to maintain and made a slip of the tongue. What a mistake!
He thought of all the threats flooding the prophet’s email box, all the dangerous people longing to put their hands on him. His heart now pounded in his chest and sweat beaded on his forehead. The thin howl of a solo violin now sounded above the cacophony of instruments, threatening to drive him out of his mind.
He blinked in confusion as he stared at Mr. Harrison, and Max rose to his four feet. David felt an uncontrollable urge to escape and swung up from the couch to his own two.
Mr. Harrison leaned back in surprise. A moment later he gave David another one of his empathetic smiles.
“I’m sorry if I made you feel uncomfortable, David.”
David took a deep breath before replying, “I didn’t really mean what I said last time. Just ignore it.” He tried to smile back but knew the psychologist did not believe a single word coming out of his mouth.
He looked both ways sadly and sighed. “I just remembered I have an exam. Gotta go.” He turned toward the door.
“Wait!” The cymbals clashed together and Mr. Harrison’s voice could barely be heard.
David opened the door and stepped back quickly. “I’m in a hurry, see you next week.”
He went out to the stairwell and the door closed behind him with a loud echo. He leaned on it and breathed hard while silence settled around him. A few seconds later he felt the back of his head touching a hard object. He quickly moved away from the door and turned to look: it was a small metal plaque, engraved with light-blue gentle letters, “Dr. Michael J. Harrison.”
David wrinkled his forehead. Could it be that he had unwittingly let slip some other things, secrets that he mustn’t expose?
Max pressed his large head against David’s stomach, and David slowly stroked him. “There’s no way he could have understood anything from what I said, right?” he muttered.
He took a deep breath and decided this had been his last session with Mr. Harrison. The risk was too great.
The light was turned on in the stairwell and he could hear children’s laughter. Time to go. David grabbed Max’s leash.
“Let’s go.”
22
Green Eyes
David didn’t like break times at school.
If he was lucky, he was just bored. If he was unlucky, the other kids pestered him. This was just how things were when you weren’t going along with the rest of the herd—not forcing yourself to laugh with everyone, take part in their stupid games, or constantly try to gain popularity.
When he observed his classmates, it seemed to him that each of them was mainly occupied with the question of how he was perceived by others. Sometimes, just so they’d let him be, he took part in their ball games and was always careful to take on some inconsequential role so as not to expose his miserable motor skills.
On most days, he simply found a quiet, secluded corner for himself. Even Red Eric couldn’t understand the meaning of his friend’s behavior. One day, when David had once again refused his invitation to play basketball, he erupted and asked David why in heck he wasn’t behaving like everybody else. David looked at Eric and knew that his friend could never understand what it meant to lead a double life, making crucial decisions on one hand, while being so helpless on the other.
And today, Eric came to school happy and cheerful. He was almost late for the first lesson and barged into the classroom disheveled and sweaty, but with a wide smile on his face. David knew everything about the source of his happiness, of course.
Last night, the Jones family had been told that an anonymous donor had paid for Kiky’s medicine. David could have concealed the connection to the prophet, but had chosen not to do so this time. Eric’s happiness was contagious. David nearly asked Eric how his sister was doing. Instead, he chose to mutter loudly, making sure Eric would hear: “That pea-brained prophet doesn’t tell anyone what’s going to happen with the Russians.”
“Why so cold?” Eric answered with a smile. “The prophet is nicer than you think. After all, he helps people.”
David tried not to smile, and instead asked Eric with naivety, “What do you mean?”
“Will the dynamic duo Jones and Robertson kindly take their seats and keep quiet?” The history teacher interrupted their conversation.
David and Eric looked up and were dazzled by the most shocking dress they had ever seen.
David had to force himself not to laugh, lowered his face, and stole a sideways glance at his friend.
Eric stared at the abundance of birds, cats, trees, clouds, dragonflies, houses, spiders, grasshoppers, mushrooms, and colorful flowers chaotically printed on the dress fabric. His face seemed almost traumatized, and David did not need the prophet software to predict what was about to come in the next few seconds.
Eric’s mouth closed and his cheeks puffed-up as his face turned crimson like a tomato. David tried to hold himself back, but knew the eruption was inevitable. He got up and quickly left the classroom, barely able to mutter, as he walked past the surprised teacher, “I’m sending myself to the principal’s office.”
When he was out in the hall, he finally allowed himself to unwind. The liberating laughter erupted from his throat uncontrollably. A few seconds later the door opened and Eric joined him, roaring and snorting as well.
The teacher was heard from behind him, exclaiming, “To the principal’s office, both of you! Right now!”
That had all happened during the first lesson. An hour later, during the morning break, he noticed Rachel. She passed by him, running and smiling. Her hair fluttered in the wind and there was laughter in her green eyes.
David, out of the spur of the moment, almost started running after her, but she was already approaching a group of boys sitting on a bench. Jackie, as usual, had the most prominent presence and whispered with Thomas, the blond teen. They all looked at Rachel as the girl went straight to Jackie. The leader of the gang seemed not to have noticed her, but a few seconds later, he wrapped his arm around her waist and continued speaking with Thomas.
David felt as if he had been punched in the stomach. He stood there, rooted to the ground. Rachel brushed aside her hair and laughed loudly. She seemed in her natural place: the most beautiful girl by the side of the leader.
Anger welled in David’s heart. How come she didn’t see that Jackie was the embodiment of evil in this world? An aggressive, heartless bully. What the hell was she doing with him?
Jackie must have said something extremely witty that moment, because she immediately responded with an exaggerated laughter, threw back her head and hid her mouth with her hand.
David felt sick. Each additional moment of that sight wounded him, but he was unable to divert his eyes.
He wanted to meet the same Rachel he had met at the park two days before, and yearned to continue that magical moment they had shared. He realized something that wasn’t clear to him before: he loved that girl from the day before yesterday. But the girl he was now seeing in front of him, chuckling and whispering with Jackie—her, he hated. David shook his head. How could the same person be the source of two such polar emot
ions?
The bell sounded, marking the end of the break—and everyone rose to their feet. David turned sideways so they wouldn’t notice his glances and forced himself to march toward the main building. He really hated break time.
During class he tried to focus on what the teacher had to say, but to no avail—his thoughts kept turning back to Rachel. He was sorry for that, because the lesson was actually about complicated equations that could have helped him with further developing the prophet software.
When the lesson was over he intended to stay in class during lunch break and connect to the software, but two other students remained in the classroom, so he had to go outside again. Now he was leaning against the wall in some remote corner of the quad, some distance from the rest of the boys and girls.
David normally refrained from logging into the prophet software in public places, but this time knew that he had no choice: he simply had to address recent developments. It seemed that every journalist in the world was wondering what the prophet had to say about the Green Pines hostage situation and, of course, about the Russian threat. Most of the requests addressed to the prophet’s website dealt with those subjects as well.
David looked both ways again to make sure no one was close to him. He couldn’t refrain from thinking about the fact that Rachel and Jackie were now an item. The thought angered him.
He took a deep breath, held up his phone and went to work: he typed the password and went through the identification tests. He decided he would soon change the definitions. He was tired of coughing each time.
The burning questions appeared on the screen, and he was happy to discover the software had an answer regarding the factory hostage situation. He curiously clicked the link and opened the analysis details.
“Wow. Who’d have thought?” he muttered with amazement.
The content of the reply was definitely surprising. The software revealed how the kidnappers had been able to take over the heavily guarded factory with such ease.
David eagerly read the analysis and immediately sent a series of instructions to his people on the security forces. The journalists could get their answers later; he needed to take care of that ongoing situation first. There would be time enough to worry about the media once the hostages were released. Now he moved on to the second major issue: the Russian nuclear threat. To his surprise, the software was unable to come up with a definite answer.
That was extremely rare. Over the course of almost four years, the software had managed to answer nearly every question he had presented it with, but there was no clear-cut answer this time.
David knew that phrasing the question was critical, so he rephrased it. Finally, he clicked the “Run Query” button. The hourglass icon filled with virtual sand as the queries were sent to the server cloud for processing and calculations. David knew this could take a while, sometimes even hours. He sighed—dealing with the pressure was a major part of his role as the prophet.
Red Eric had said a few days before, “If I were the prophet, I’d probably be filthy rich. Wow, I’d turn my life upside down!”
“Oh yeah? What would you do?” asked the amused David.
“First off, I’d get as far from here as possible, to a place that doesn’t have teachers, tests, or any other horseshit… maybe to some tropical island, you know, the type that has a million girls in it.” Eric smiled as he dreamed about it. “Actually, this island will only have girls, no men allowed—other than me, of course.”
David thought about Rachel. Being in her company, talking to her, hearing her laughter—he needed nothing else.
He shook his head and returned to reality: the class break was almost over and he had to focus on the mission at hand. He looked at his phone and was suddenly angry with himself. So many people depended on him and he was busy daydreaming.
“There you are!” a familiar voice suddenly sounded next to him. He raised his head and saw large, green eyes.
“I’ve been looking everywhere for you.” Rachel smiled. “How is that gorgeous Max doing?”
The surprised David desperately sought the right answer. Finally, he gulped and answered, “He’s doing great. How’s Buffy the ant slayer?”
Her smile widened and David felt himself conquered by those eyes all over again. “Buffy is fine. I put a tag with my phone number on her collar, just like you said!”
David blushed. They were alone now, just the two of them, just like they had been two days ago at the park. He felt the magic settle between them again.
“When are you coming to the park? Max is dying to see Buffy again!” He could hardly believe the words were coming out of his own mouth, but apparently they had, because Rachel replied, “We could go this evening.”
He smiled and his heart raced as he answered. “Maybe this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”
She leaned closer to him. “I’ve been looking for you. Could it be that you’re avoiding me?”
David felt embarrassed and shook his head. “Me? Why would you think that?”
She suddenly grabbed his hand, as if remembering something. “Listen, why didn’t you tell me you were friends?”
David couldn’t understand, his attention was entirely focused on the touch of her hand on his arm. “Friends with who?”
“You and Jackie. He talks about you all the time!”
He froze. Mentioning Jackie’s name had made the magic instantly vanish.
“What did he say about me?”
“He told me you were great friends and asked a lot of questions about you.” She laughed. “At first, I thought he was just trying to make an impression, but then I slowly got to know him better. He’s actually very sweet.”
David felt nausea rising up his throat. He had to explain to her who Jackie really was before she got hurt, too.
“Listen, Rachel,” he said urgently, but she cut him short.
“Oh, and there’s something I have to tell you!” Her eyes sparkled.
He couldn’t stop the flow of her speech.
“Remember I told you about that veterinary school, the one I was dying to get admitted to?”
“Sure I remember,” he answered. “So, what’s up with that? Any developments?”
“You bet! There are some amazing developments! They let me know I got in!” She jumped to her feet excitedly and grabbed his arm again. “Isn’t it just amazing?”
David’s heart widened to see her so happy. “Wow!” He tried to look surprised. “See? I told you there’s a chance! So. They just called you?” He wore a naive expression, but felt that he was floating. Rachel’s enthusiasm, her bell-like laughter—it was contagious. David, who knew she had been admitted thanks to him, wanted that moment to last forever.
“Exactly!” She nodded with excitement. “They called to let me know there’s a scholarship available. Someone cancelled at the last moment, and I was next on the list!”
David’s smile widened and Rachel continued. “When I told that to Jackie, he didn’t seem surprised at all.”
His smile froze. Once again, she brought up Jackie like a wall separating them.
She chuckled. “It seemed odd that he wasn’t excited by the fact that I was unexpectedly admitted, suspicious even. Then I interrogated him a little and he admitted he was actually behind it.” She shook his arm passionately. “He was able to pull some strings to help me get in! Isn’t he sweet?”
David collapsed on the inside. He didn’t answer and merely gazed at Rachel. Her cheeks were flushed with enthusiasm.
“There’s something else.” She smiled and drew closer, as if about to disclose a secret. “He left me a message. The secretary read it to me over the phone. Guess what he wrote me?”
David didn’t want to listen, but Rachel didn’t wait for a reply and continued.
With an ashen face, he muttered the words along with her,
“Someone out there is thinking about you.”
23
Closed for Cleaning
It wasn’t difficult for Paul to follow Raphael Greene.
The blue BMW could easily be seen from afar. Following a short drive, they reached a new office building. Greene maneuvered into the building’s underground parking lot, and Paul was happy to discover it was accessible for guests, which allowed him to drive inside and quickly park his own car.
He noticed that Greene had parked under the “Research and Development” sign. With great effort, Paul hobbled on his cane toward the elevator—where he was noticed by Greene himself, who amicably kept the elevator door open for him.
They emerged from the elevator and Paul silently followed him into a large restroom.
The scent of disinfectant hung in the air. The stall doors were wide open, and other than the two of them, the room was empty. This was the opportunity Paul had been waiting for: the man was a mystery, and even Paul’s operators, Matthew and Ron, had heard nothing about him. When he had updated them about the confrontation between Greene and David—they had given him a green light to investigate the man.
A standing floor sign was resting against one of the walls: “Restroom Closed for Cleaning.” He acted fast, leaned his cane against the wall, placed the floor sign outside the door and locked it. Then he quietly turned toward Greene and lunged at him.
Just as he had done numerous times during his career in the force, he twisted the suspect’s arm up with one hand and pressed his head against the wall with the other. The shocked Greene had no chance. He tried with all his might to resist and push himself from the wall, twisted and gritted his teeth, to no avail.
“What do you want?” He panted with his face pressed against the cold porcelain tiles. “Here, take my wallet.”
Paul went straight to the point. “What is your connection with David Robertson?”