The 49th Mystic Page 26

  He tried to say more but his voice was drowned out by another outburst.

  And that outburst was silenced by the loud crack of his gun, fired into the ceiling. I could hear the drywall rain down in the silence following his gunshot. He slapped his gun down on the bench.

  “Order means order. You see the gun. One more of you gets out of order and I swear, I put a bullet through your head. Understood?”

  I walked into full view then.

  Sue, seated next to RG, was the first to see me and her eyes went wide. Then Peter, who glanced at my leg and blinked. Carina, Hillary’s seven-year-old daughter, wasn’t in the pew next to him . . . She was among the missing children?

  Hillary stepped out with me, eyes fixed on the stage. Two, and then a dozen, and then all of them turned to look in our direction.

  The sight of me with bloodied shirt and jeans, and Hillary with scrambled hair and crooked shirt, held them in silence. I was watching Barth, whose face had gone white.

  “How’d you get out of the prison?”

  “I let her out,” Hillary said. “Vlad healed her leg.”

  Barth reached for his gun, but Simon stopped him.

  “Leave it, Barth. Just calm down. Everyone just stay calm!”

  “What prison?” someone asked.

  Then another, “Who shot you?”

  The room was a powder keg. Vlad was having his way. They had to understand that I wasn’t their enemy. The council was. Vlad was. The whole system was.

  I walked across the front, speaking with as strong a voice as I could gather. “It doesn’t matter what prison or who shot me. But I can see, can’t I? My eyes are healed and my leg is healed. So maybe I’m someone you should listen to.”

  I could practically see the wheels spinning behind their eyes.

  “How many children are missing?”

  “Seven,” someone said.

  “Okay. Seven.” I knew there was no way to find them quickly—not if this was Vlad’s doing. I would be the key, and the thought of that nauseated me. “And how many of us here? A hundred and fifty? The valley is roughly two square miles, right?”

  “’Bout that,” Bill said, nodding at me.

  “Frank, Luke,” Barth barked. “Grab her by the collar and take her down.”

  I turned to the stage with the intent of discouraging both Frank and Luke from following his orders, but the sight of Hillary stopped me cold. Barth’s glare was on me, otherwise he might have been able to stop her. Using the distraction, Hillary had climbed the steps to the platform, grabbed Barth’s gun, and was now marching up to Simon, pistol leveled at his head.

  “You sick, lying piece of garbage!”

  Simon staggered back, face drawn in shock, both hands raised shoulder high. “Honey . . . What are you doing?”

  I realized then that Vlad had somehow modified her memories. Organism was algorithm and he’d changed hers. It was the only explanation.

  “No, Hillary!” I yelled. “It’s not what you think!”

  “This man,” she shouted, face beet red, “has been beating me and cheating on me with that whore Linda Loving for years.”

  “That’s not true!” Linda cried.

  “As the good judge said, you live by the sword, you die by the sword.”

  “No, Hillary!” I leaped onto the stage and was halfway to Hillary when the gun discharged with a loud boom. The bullet punched a hole the size of a penny through Simon’s forehead and snapped his head back. His huge body crumpled and landed on the platform with a loud thump.

  “An eye for an eye,” Hillary rasped. “Meet your maker, you sick bastard.”

  Her action was so unexpected, so ruthless, that it caught even Barth flat-footed.

  Peter staggered forward from the first row and slowly sank to his knees. “Dad?”

  Jaw set, Hillary tossed the gun on the floor and faced her audience. “If you’d suffered what I have, every single one of you would have done the same,” she said.

  Peter hung his head and began to softly sob.

  A solitary clap from the back of the room cut through the silence. Then another and another.

  “Nicely done.”

  Vlad stood at the back of the sanctuary, grinning, with my father at his side. My father’s shirt was torn and bloody, his hair was matted to his scalp, and his eyes were full moons.

  “I am so proud of you, my darling,” Vlad said. “Finally, a tissue-top with the backbone to stand up to the true monsters in this room.”

  23

  VLAD GAVE my father a shove. “Join the rest, my friend.”

  My father stumbled forward, grabbed a pew for support, then stood to the side, looking dazed. But he was alive. And from what I could see, no worse off than when they’d hauled him off to the shed. Vlad had collected him. And done what to him?

  “The only problem,” Vlad said, shoving a hand into his pocket, “is that dear Simon never did beat Hillary. Not once. Nor did he have this little tryst, though I wouldn’t blame him. Linda is a fine-looking tissue-top by any standard.”

  Hillary tried to say something but could only stammer.

  “Shut up and stay put, Hillary.” Vlad looked over the residents, wearing that twisted grin. “You see what happens when even one of you disobeys the law?” He was speaking about me. “The only one here who has any sense is Barth. And maybe David.”

  My father was scowling at Barth. I doubted there were any kind thoughts in his head.

  Vlad held up a finger and drilled me with those deep eyes. “I invited one girl to write in the book, but she refused that invitation. God’s law, which is now my law, is perfectly clear: accept the invitation or pay the price. So now you all get to pay the price.”

  Linda Loving stepped up to the bench, face set. “What have you done with my children?”

  “I have no idea what happened to your precious little pumpkin rolls, Linda. Ask God. He shares in your problem, surely.”

  “Stop it with all your crazy talk!” Linda snapped. “God would slaughter a thousand heathens to protect even one of these!” She jabbed her finger at the floor. “Just one of them! Now you tell me where Jordan and Holly are!”

  Vlad smiled. “That’s a good girl. Feel the problem. Let righteous indignation fuel your fear, in the same way God fears for you.”

  Talya’s voice whispered through my mind. Against the Fifth Seal there is no defense. I didn’t have the fifth, or the fourth, or the third, or the second. But I did have the First Seal.

  “You’re wrong,” I said, stepping up to the podium. My hands were clammy and my heart was racing. “God doesn’t have a problem. You know that as well as I do.”

  The moment I said it, I knew that he did know.

  Vlad lowered his chin. “Is that so?”

  I could feel heat from the tattoo on my shoulder. The fog in my mind lifted.

  “Neither does Justin. We’re just not seeing what he sees.”

  He went perfectly still at my use of Justin’s name, grin affixed to his jaw as if made of plaster. There was a quiver in his fingers. I could see it from all the way across the room.

  After a long pause, Vlad lowered his head and stepped to his right.

  “Very well, let’s go with that. Because the little girl who was blind but can now see is right about one thing. Nothing is what it seems in this world, and that includes Eden.” He faced the audience, feet planted wide at the back of the center aisle. “Sit down. All of you. The truth is going to get a little rough.”

  Half were already seated, and the rest looked around before joining them, including my father, who eased into the last pew. I stayed where I was, facing Vlad squarely.

  “You too, Linda,” he said. “Barth. Hillary. Sit.”

  Barth pulled out one of the bench chairs and sat. Hillary too, behind him in one of the side seats.

  “Let’s start with what year it is. You all think it’s June 2018. But you’re wrong. The date is actually September 21, 2038.”

  His words echoe
d through the auditorium. Not a soul moved. On its face, the claim sounded preposterous, but I wasn’t so sure.

  Bill Baxter was the first to find a voice. “That’s completely absurd. Why are you doing this to us?”

  “You mean telling you the truth? Because it now facilitates my own survival. Bill, is it? Bill Baxter. Stand up, Bill.”

  Bill slowly stood.

  “Let me ask you a question, Bill. When was the last time you left this stink hole?”

  “You mean Eden?”

  “Of course I mean Eden. When?”

  Bill hesitated. “Never.”

  “And why is that?”

  “Well . . . it’s not permitted.”

  “Really. How convenient. So no one here has actually ever left the valley, is that right?”

  “We’ve separated ourselves from the world for good reason. There’s no reason to leave Eden. Everything we need comes in.”

  “So you live in a kind of test tube, protected from the world,” Vlad said. “And what memory do you have of your life before you came to this valley?”

  Bill looked down at Cindy seated beside him. His eyes drifted off her as he tried to recall. “It was a long time ago . . .” He stalled for a second. “It’s a bit fuzzy but—”

  “Sit down, Bill.”

  He sat and Vlad nodded at the platform. “Let’s try something more recent. Stand up, Hillary. Step up to the bench so we can all see how beautiful you are today.”

  The pieces were falling into place, but I was too stunned to accept that they were forming the picture I saw. I kept telling myself Vlad was only manipulating us, and by us I meant me. But there was nothing in his tone or demeanor that betrayed the slightest hint of deception.

  Hillary was at the bench, shaking.

  “How many times did the man you killed beat you, Hillary? Tell them.”

  She looked as frightened as a mouse. “Hundreds.”

  “You remember each time like it was yesterday, don’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “And how long have you hated that lying piece of garbage who beat you?”

  “I’ve always hated him.”

  “Ever call him honey? You know, a term of endearment one might say with a smile to make sure their beloved believes them.”

  “Honey? I would never call him honey.”

  Vlad scanned the room. “But the rest of you know that’s not true, don’t you? Hillary used that particular term of endearment every day, didn’t she?”

  We all knew that Hillary doted over Simon and that honey was what she called him. But she seemed to have no recollection of using the term.

  “Memory is a strange thing,” Vlad said. “Do you know”—he cocked his head—“that under normal circumstances, a full half of what the average human remembers is radically distorted within a couple of years? Scientific fact.”

  True. My father had shown me the studies years ago. He wanted me to forget that I was blind. See if my mind could self-correct.

  “The only problem is, even knowing this, humans can’t bring themselves to doubt their own memories, because it’s all they have. For all practical purposes, humans are their memories. You’re a mother, a lover, a victim, a writer, a farmer, because you remember being one. But if someone was to figure out how to reformat that hard drive up there”—he tapped the head of the person seated closest to him—“who would you wake up to be? You would have no identity. A human being can’t function without an identity, so you cling to the one you remember.”

  He paced, head lowered.

  “But what if someone figured out how to both reformat the hard drive up there and reprogram it with a new identity, complete with new memories? Then they would wake up and be someone else, wouldn’t they?”

  No one spoke.

  “Wouldn’t they?” he repeated. “You would think good Christians like yourself would know this. Isn’t this at least half of what your Jesus fellow taught? Unless you die to the old self, take up the cross, all of that, you can’t be who you are in the kingdom. Unless you let go of your attachments to earthly father, children, wife, husband—even your identity of self—you can’t be the new you in new wineskin. Let go of the old wineskin. Be transformed by the renewing of your mind, and so on and so forth. Sunday school basics, yes?”

  He was using teachings Talya might use, perhaps to confuse me and plant doubt. Even the Shadow of Death knew how the universe worked, because those teachings were true. But the residents of Eden didn’t know the meaning of those teachings like I now did, and they were too dumbstruck to respond.

  “Has anyone ever wondered why the health of residents in this sinkhole is off-the-charts good? Except for a few poor souls like Betsy and Robert and a handful of others who were tinkered with. Turns out when you take away a person’s memory of, say, an allergy, the symptoms stop manifesting. And vice versa. Do you know why?”

  “Epigenetics,” my father said. “Placebo.”

  “Exactly. Beliefs affect neural activity. What goes in, comes out. We are all products of our programming. You believe what you were taught to believe, and that expresses itself in your body. That’s the way it works in the world of polarity, and by polarity I mean lower nature. Flesh. Form. It’s the way the neural synapses in your brains work. Someone please give me a yes, so I don’t think you’re all idiots.”

  “It’s true.”

  Vlad jabbed his forefinger at my father. “Thank you, David. And David should know. What David doesn’t know is that he, along with everyone not born in this valley, agreed eighteen years ago to have their memories modified. And many of them have had their memories modified again and again since then.”

  “You’re saying . . .” Hillary looked at Simon’s body bleeding on the floor. Then back up. “That my memories are wrong?”

  Vlad hit an imaginary button in the air. “Bingo! Bingo, bingo! Amazing what a few memories can do. Your turn’s up, darling, so please take your seat.”

  She did, but Betsy was on her feet, glaring. “What do you mean a few poor souls like me were tinkered with?”

  “I’m saying all your memories of childhood nastiness are just made up, sweetheart.”

  She looked dumbfounded. “Why?”

  “Why! That’s the question of the day. Why did you all agree to be a part of Eden? There’s no question that you are, but why? And how?”

  He began to pace again like a professor delivering a lecture.

  “Was it a carefully planned and executed trial conducted by DARPA? Or was it a matter of human survival? I could tell you almost anything at this point, and you wouldn’t know if it was true because you’ve all had your memories modified.”

  “I don’t buy it,” RG said, standing. “It would be way too difficult to pull off. There’s no way to hide this valley from the world! What about the sky? It would be impossible to isolate us.”

  “Impossible? Give me five minutes and I’ll heal your delusion. I’m going to give you one story of why and how you’re here. You can believe me or not, it really doesn’t matter. But one thing you won’t deny is that you are here, in a bubble, lost to the world and to yourselves.”

  RG sat back down, unsatisfied, judging by the look on his face.

  “Several years before Eden came to be, a splinter group of Isis long thought to have gone underground detonated three nuclear weapons on the same day, one in Moscow, one in Beijing, and one in New York City. I could thrill you with all the details, how those dominoes knocked over a hundred more in the months that followed, but suffice it to say that the fallout soon killed all but twenty-eight million people. Most of those died over the next decade. The day that first nuclear weapon was detonated, DARPA began construction of twelve safe havens, all controlled and monitored from one hub in Salt Lake.”

  DARPA. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. My father and I had often discussed the advancements the governmental agency had made, dating all the way back to the early nineteen hundreds. Though they were best known for adva
ncements like the internet and stealth technology, their greatest achievements were in fringe technologies that slowly made their way into the public sector.

  “Like arks, these havens were designed to be completely self-sufficient and self-sustaining. Massive resources went into the project with extensions in Japan, China, Germany, Russia, and Brazil, where another forty-two havens were constructed. Three years later, they populated each haven with between fifty and two hundred carefully screened volunteers. But survival isn’t just a matter of biomechanics.”

  Vlad spread his arms wide.

  “And that, my friends, is where you come in. Eden. Because you see, with so much at stake, they had to try more than one approach. It does humanity no good to have the perfect house if the family is always fighting, does it? No. Of some concern to DARPA was that the inhabitants, no matter how well screened, would still bring with them all their psychological baggage. Jealousy, fear, and hopelessness can be just as destructive as nuclear fallout. So they took a rather extreme approach to Eden. Do you see where this is leading us?”

  “What about the children?” Linda asked.

  “Please keep your mouth shut and let me finish, Linda. I’m almost done.”

  “But . . .” She glanced around, looking for support, but received none.

  I wanted to hear it. All of it.

  “Extreme, I say,” Vlad continued, “and risky, because DARPA decided to use a relatively new form of genetic engineering—a technology first discovered in 2020 that could isolate and eliminate memories throughout the neural pathways, then imprint the subject’s mind with new memories. In this way they could both influence the community and study the effects of memories on a person’s behavior and survivability. They chose to do so in Eden based on a strict set of religious laws. Why religious laws? Because there is no fear greater than a religious fear of consequence. Manipulation becomes much easier. Follow?”

  “You—”

  “Shut up, Linda.” He continued without missing a beat. “The residents of Eden would have no memory of any conflict with each other and would think they were living in a paradise of sorts while the rest of the world was sprinting headfirst to a nasty end. They had their hope and would be controlled by the fear of breaking any law that might compromise that hope. This, my friends, is the state in which you have lived for so long.”