Rise of the Mystics Read online

  “Oops,” I said.

  Then he was laughing. And I was laughing. And jumping up, dancing a little jig. We were like two children, both of us lost in the moment of making the impossible possible.

  “That’s what I’m talking about!” he said. “That’s why all those news stories don’t mean a thing.” He leaped over to the couch, grabbed the remote, and stabbed it at the television. “That’s why we’re not afraid”—he faced me, jabbing a finger at the screen—“of that.”

  “Never,” I cried, filled with more excitement than I had yet known in my six hours of new life. “Never, never!”

  He reached forward and jerked up my right sleeve. “See this?”

  For the first time since awakening, I saw that I had a tattoo on my arm. A white circle with a green circle inside it. The rest was black. But it wasn’t on my skin as much as in my skin. Three-dimensional, as if someone had surgically implanted the circles in my arm.

  “You had it when you came out of Eden. You claimed it came from your dream world. So you see, there’s something very special about you.”

  I stared, stunned. “What’s it mean?”

  “That’s what we’re going to find out. Just say the first thing that comes to mind.”

  “It’s a seal,” I said.

  “A seal? That’s it?”

  I looked up at him. “A Seal of Truth.”

  “Anything more?”

  “No. Just a Seal of Truth.”

  “Okay, a Seal of Truth. That’s good. You see how that happens when you’re in this state? You know things no one who’s had their mind erased should know. Little pieces of information that you’re accessing in higher frequencies because your mind can somehow receive them.”

  “You think?”

  “I do. And I also know that the brain is very selective. When you’re in survival mode, the brain radically narrows its perspectives, robbing all the energy available to focus on only fight or flight. ‘Get away from the tiger. Run!’ Which you do to save yourself. In that state, the brain can’t think logically. It shuts down all centers that process reason and redirects the energy to fight-or-flight programming and mechanisms. In fact, when you’re in terrible fear, you don’t even know who you are. You can’t. That part of the brain is shut off.”

  “Really? That’s kind of frightening.”

  He lifted a hand to me. “No, no, don’t be frightened. I’m just telling you how the brain works so you can avoid fear! When you’re in fear, that childlike imagination that knows anything is possible shuts down. Hundreds of studies have shown how fear locks out higher thinking. So you need to be like a child who doesn’t know fear. No matter what happens, you just be you.” He pointed at me. “That you, who believes anything’s possible, fearless.”

  “Fearless,” I said, flashing him a grin. “That’s me.”

  “. . . now can confirm reports of a second bomb at a church eighty miles south of Washington, DC.” The voice on the television turned both of our heads. “There are no reports of casualties yet, but we understand that the church was in service at the time. It appears the bombing in Washington this morning was only the first planned by . . .”

  I didn’t hear the rest because the window by the door shattered.

  I spun, heart in my throat, as a hot gust of air lifted the curtains and blew past me. It was pitch-dark outside. Someone was here!

  As if in answer, a fist pounded on the door.

  I heard the chuckle then. A deep laugh that I was sure I’d heard before, even though I had no memory of it.

  Vlad! I thought, rooted to the floor. Vlad’s come to finish what he started!

  “Run!” Steve rasped. “Hide!”

  I ran.

  20

  PULSE POUNDING through my veins, I ran. Leaping over the couch, two long strides to the staircase, quick as the beating of my heart, up the stairs four at a time, only barely aware that I was moving faster than what most would say is possible.

  I had only one thought. The bed in my room. Get under it! Hide!

  I hit the carpet next to the bed already rolling and was small enough to only scrape the bedframe, but as soon as I was under I thought, Oh no, I forgot to close the door!

  Before I had time to think, I reacted, rolling back out, jumping up, closing the door quiet as I could, then quickly rolling back under the bed, facing the wood-framed mattress above me, breathing hard and trying not to.

  What is seeing beyond what you think should be, dear daughter?

  I caught my breath, surprised by the voice in my head. Like the ones DARPA had insisted were auditory hallucinations. But they’d lied to me.

  Had I just read someone’s mind? But no, or I should have been able to read Steve’s mind. So maybe I was hallucinating. Or maybe I was hearing my own mind. Or something else, like a higher radio station.

  That reasoning was enough to pull my mind out of raw reaction into logical thought. Where was Steve? Why hadn’t he run with me? Had I actually heard the laugh that I assumed was Vlad’s? What if I’d only imagined it? How could I even know what he sounded like if my memory had been wiped?

  Something had broken the window and the wind had blown in, that much was true. Someone had knocked. Steve had told me to hide. All fact.

  I held my breath and listened as carefully as I could. The house was creaking faintly. The veins on my neck were pulsing. The TV was still on downstairs.

  Then I could hear other muffled voices, not from the TV but from Steve talking to whoever had come to the door. Who were they?

  The TV went silent. The voices were still muffled and I had to strain to hear the words.

  “Then I’m sure you wouldn’t mind us taking a look upstairs.”

  I couldn’t make out Steve’s low response, but now I knew they’d come looking for me.

  “Look, Steve.” They knew his name. “Either you can let us handle this internally, or we can call the police. You clearly know what . . .” And then I didn’t hear the rest because my mind was jumping around.

  Steve had told me to hide because he wanted to protect me, but could he protect himself? I’d seen him fighting with the guard in the garage. That was one man, and if I hadn’t saved Steve, we would both be in prison by now.

  So who was here to protect whom? Steve said that fear would narrow my mind, so I shouldn’t be afraid, but in a state of fight or flight, fear was a good thing, right? It was how people survived—and right then, all I could think about was that I had to save Steve, the man who’d saved me.

  It was enough for me to move. Quickly. I rolled out, rushed from the room, and slid to a stop at the top of the stairs, staring down over the railing.

  Two men faced Steve. Both were dressed in black slacks and long-sleeve black shirts, the kind without buttons. Both looked normal enough. Both looked up at me with Steve, who’d gone pale.

  For a few seconds, no one spoke. The man on the right had reddish hair and blue eyes. The other, blond with a close-shaved beard. They didn’t look so threatening to me.

  “What’s happening?” I asked.

  The redhead cocked his eyebrow. “Well, well, speak of the little devil.”

  “I’m not a devil. Why are you here?”

  He seemed to think that was funny. “I’m afraid the world perceives you as one very nasty devil who’s come to kill all their children.”

  “Don’t listen to them.” Steve backed toward the stairs. “They say they’re from DARPA, but I don’t buy it.”

  “Of course you don’t, Steve. But if we wanted to hurt you, you’d already be dead.”

  “How am I supposed to know you’re with the company? A business card?”

  “I told you,” the redhead said. “We’re with the compliance group. My name’s Clive, he’s Richard.”

  “Never heard of any compliance group.”

  “Because we don’t exist. It’s what allows us to do our job. You asked how we found you. Truth is, we never lost you.”

  He seemed like a dece
nt guy, and maybe he really could help us. So I headed down the stairs.

  But Steve wasn’t so sure. “Stay where you are, Rachelle. Just stay up there.”

  I stopped halfway down. “But they already know where we are.”

  He blinked as if this was a new thought. Maybe he wasn’t thinking clearly in his fear.

  I walked all the way down, crossed the room, and sat on one of the stools at the breakfast bar, far enough away that I could still run out through the back door if I had to. I was probably a lot faster than them, right?

  The redhead wagged his head at the couch. “Sit down, Steve.” Clive was in charge. His partner, the blond, had crossed his arms and was watching, jaw firm, but even his glare didn’t unnerve me much. Maybe I was being naïve.

  And that made sense. The reason I was suddenly much calmer than Steve was because I was like a child, not knowing danger the way he did. But I was also easily influenced, so fear could come quickly, like it had when Steve told me to run.

  So which was better: fear to survive, or no fear so I could believe anything was possible? Maybe right now I should feel more fear.

  Steve edged over to me, strung like a piano wire. “Fine. You say you came to talk sense. So talk sense.”

  “Stand then. But what I have to say might come as a bit of a shock.”

  “I don’t think anything would surprise me anymore.”

  “Fair enough. But don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  Clive bent down and picked up the glass I’d played my tricks with. Turned it upside down and let the last few drops fall to the rug. Then set it on the mantel next to the radio.

  “As you’ve heard,” he said, turning to face both of us, “a bomb went off this morning in DC, killing forty-seven. Fifteen more in the hospital. The whole world is gunning for the girl with the shattered mind and her misguided cohort, who broke her out of a secure facility. They’re saying you have links to an organization that calls itself SAC. Society Against Control. No one wants to be controlled, but few would ever resort to the kind of violence you have. That takes a truly twisted mind. Which is what—”

  “None of it’s true,” Steve cut in. “And if you’ve been watching us as you say you have, you already know that. It’s all a lie.”

  “Which makes you wonder what the truth is, doesn’t it, Steve?”

  “I know what the truth is. I was there.”

  “Of course you think you know the truth. We all think we know what the truth is based on the evidence we think we have. Not so long ago, everyone had evidence that made it clear to them the earth was flat and the body was solid. Today we know the earth is round and the body is 99.9999 percent empty space, held together by quantum forces we’re just now figuring out how to manipulate. So what are people a hundred years from now going to know that today sounds absurd? Makes you want to second-guess everything, doesn’t it?”

  “As we should. What’s your point?”

  “The girl beside you is my point. The evidence you think you know tells you DARPA sees her as a problem. In truth, she’s the most valuable human being alive. We would never allow any real harm to come to her.”

  Steve took a bit to respond. “That’s not the way I read DARPA’s attitude. Not even close.”

  “No? What else do you think you know? Starting with the bomb. Were you complicit in this morning’s church bombing?”

  “Of course not.”

  “But the bombing did happen, you do know that, don’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “You perceived it with your own eyes, didn’t you?”

  This time Steve hesitated. “What are you saying?”

  Clive paced to his right. Richard, the blond, still hadn’t moved a muscle.

  “I’m saying what you already know. Technically speaking, no one actually sees anything with their eyes. They’re receiving signals that their programming interprets in the visual cortex at the back of the brain, not in their eyeballs. You know as well as anyone that we’ll soon be able to reprogram the visual cortex so that if we look at a glass, say, we might see a ball instead, hard as that is to imagine. We don’t see the world the way it is, we see it as our brain interprets it.”

  “You’re saying we didn’t see the church bombing? That’s absurd.”

  “Project Eden proved that our entire lives are the result of what’s been programmed into us, if not by an MEP, then by centuries of indoctrination and collective consciousness. But the MEP works much faster. Using it, we can just erase someone’s memories and give them new ones, which radically changes their lives.”

  I tried to connect the dots. Was he saying we were still in some kind of Project Eden?

  “There’s no way,” Steve snapped, but I could tell he wasn’t certain. “There’s no way! No way!”

  “No way what?” I asked.

  Clive drilled Steve with a long stare. “Do you really think the company would allow you to get away with running around and exposing our deepest secrets? Your brain was first wiped seven days after the fall of Project Eden. You went through the MEP a second time last night and woke up an hour before you so boldly snatched Rachelle from the white room. None of it happened, Steve. There was no church bomb.”

  Steve looked like he’d been slapped. I was surprised that he would actually believe the man.

  “That can’t be true, right?” I said.

  “That’s impossible.” Steve’s voice was trembling. “The news is—”

  “The news was created by DARPA and is being fed only to the devices you have access to. Neither you nor Rachelle were at the church this morning. You were both under deep, in the MEP. Trust me when I say it was part of our research. As are you.”

  “That’s . . . It’s just not possible! It can’t be true!”

  “No? You tell me, Steve. You’re the expert. Could it be true?”

  “I . . . Yes, but . . .”

  “But you don’t want to accept it.”

  “You went through the MEP too?” I asked Steve, looking up at him. “But then . . . how do either of us know what’s true?”

  “You don’t,” Clive said. “Fact is, no one can trust what they see or remember. That may be the only truth we know is actually true. What we think is real is only the brain’s cognitive perception of data streams. It’s impossible for the brain to know what’s true, so it makes itself the god who knows. Which is why Steve’s falling apart right now. His brain is being told it’s been wrong this whole time. It’s practically short-circuiting. Look real close and you can see sparks flying.”

  Strange, but in that moment, I knew his reasoning not only made sense but was true. Whether or not that meant Steve was part of the MEP program was another matter. He could be trying to trick us with that.

  “Don’t listen to him,” Steve growled. But he was sweating and nervous. “Don’t listen to a thing these two fools say! If this is all part of DARPA’s continuing research, why would you come here? Why not just let us play whatever sick game you’re forcing us to play?”

  “Because something’s gone wrong. The second bomb, which went off an hour ago and was only recently reported, was real. And we have no idea who detonated it. The director pulled the plug on you. The three of us were sent to bring you back.”

  “No!” I snapped, standing from the stool. “I’m not going back.”

  “You have to. We can’t just let you run around with all this in your head. Mack’s in the van just outside now. If we’re not out there in ten minutes, he’ll be in here with guns. You don’t want to mess with Mack when he’s packing heat.”

  I stared at him, freshly frightened.

  “Look, it’s not so bad,” he said, face softening. “The only difference between you and the rest of society is that you actually know your brains have been programmed to believe what you believe. You’ll know for a few more hours, that is. Tomorrow you won’t remember any of this and you can get back to believing what you’ve been taught to believe, just like everyone else. Regardless, yo
u have to come with us.”

  In that moment I decided I hated him. I hated him because I knew that most of what he was saying was true, at least the part about how all people’s brains had been taught what to believe. I wasn’t sure about the bombing not being real. Either way, there was no way I was going back for more of their programming.

  “Cheer up, pumpkin,” the blond said, speaking for the first time. His mouth twisted slightly with an impish grin. “You can’t run from the truth forever.”

  “How do you know you haven’t been through the MEP?” Steve snapped at Clive.

  But my mind was on Richard, the blond who’d called me pumpkin. Something about that word triggered a terrible fear deep inside of me.

  “Why’d you call me that?” I demanded.

  He grinned. “It’s a term of endearment, sweetheart. Nothing to fear.”

  Panic flashed through me. The fear I felt was so dark and terrifying that I reacted without thinking.

  I flew at the man in a barely controlled rage. I might have been able to stop myself before I hit him if he hadn’t been taken off guard. If not for the fact that in being taken off guard, a red spark twinkled in his eyes.

  But I did see that red spark and I screamed, throwing myself forward with every ounce of strength and speed the cells in my body could access.

  It happened so quickly that he was only just turning when my fists slammed into his gut. His body flew back and crashed through the window, taking what glass remained with him, and me following, carried by my own momentum.

  He crashed into one of the porch posts, hard enough to knock the breath out of anyone.

  It didn’t knock the breath from him. It hardly fazed him. What it did do was change his face—I saw it as I rolled to my feet on the porch. One moment he was a blond with a close-shaved beard, the next he was bald with red eyes the color of fire.

  I didn’t understand what I was seeing, and it didn’t last long. Less than a split second later he was blond again, stepping forward. Then throwing himself at me. His ferocious roar shattered the stillness.

  I could hear Steve yelling something inside, but none of that mattered now. I leaped up and over the blond just as he reached me. My movements were guided by something in the DNA of my cells, purely instinctive.