The 49th Mystic Page 28

  The implications of that one question brought a disturbing stillness to the crowd.

  RG spoke up. “We shouldn’t jump to any conclusions.”

  “But you saw it! The sky—”

  “Yeah, I get it,” he snapped. “We live in a bubble as part of an experiment, but that doesn’t mean there was a nuclear war or that there aren’t people out there right now coming to save us.”

  “If there were, don’t you think they would have come by now?” Barth shot back. “No one’s coming because Smith’s right.”

  Voices erupted, some with questions, others in protest.

  “Okay, shut it down!” Barth stepped up on the wall around the fountain pool, flanked by four of his men, all armed. “Until I figure out what’s going on, no one leaves their house. I don’t care what you think you need to do—if I see anyone on the streets, they get a bullet. The first will be in your leg. If that doesn’t wake you up, the second one goes in your head.” He waved his gun about, compensating for his own insecurity. “You hear me?”

  “We have to find—”

  “Did I give you permission to open your piehole?” he yelled at Martha, who was undoubtedly torn between the news she lived in a nuclear wasteland and the disappearance of her only child, a seven-year-old boy named Buck. “We find the children when I say we find them and not a second sooner.”

  “Oh please, Barth!” Linda snapped. “If you actually believe that crook, you don’t even know who you are! Your brain was wiped as clean as ours! So who are you to tell—”

  He fired his gun into the air. “One more word. Just give me an excuse.”

  Linda glared at him, face red. Apart from the parents who’d lost their children, and Peter, who’d lost his mother and father, the rest were staring either at Barth or at the sky, still trying to figure out what to believe.

  “Now, get!” He motioned with his gun. “Home! All of you!”

  Though my father and I started walking in that direction, I had no intention to “get.” The moment we cleared the first houses, I grabbed my father’s hand and cut west, across the back lawns.

  “Where are you going?”

  “The tunnel,” I said. “We have to see for ourselves.”

  The moment I suggested it, my father took over, striding ahead of me with purpose, as if he just remembered that going to the tunnel was exactly what he’d planned himself. Together we took the long trek up the road, keeping trees between us and the town center.

  My father walked fast, fixated on reaching the tunnel. I asked him what he thought about Vlad’s claims, but he shut me down with “not now.”

  Vlad had said that my mind wouldn’t accept their programming, but the idea that DARPA had successfully manipulated the memories of everyone else was scrambling my brain well enough. Even some of the children had been manipulated. Was it true? You’d think that knowing the sky wasn’t a real sky would make it obvious, but every time I looked up, I only saw what I’d always seen. The sky.

  My thoughts ran in circles, searching for a hopeful course of action, but I couldn’t grab any thread of reason that made sense to me, so I recounted what Justin and Talya had told me.

  One, I was the 49th Mystic, destined to bring crises that would divide. Truth from untruth. Love from fear. Not only here but far beyond Eden. However crazy that had first sounded, it was now sounding less so.

  Two, if I succeeded, the lion would lie down with the lamb. Peace would reign.

  Three, I could only succeed by discovering all Five Seals of Truth before the Realm of Mystics was destroyed. I didn’t know when that was, but I did know that finding the seals was my personal journey, like ninja training on the job. I couldn’t lead the world beyond fear unless I found the way past my own. The thought made my head spin.

  Four, if I understood what Talya had said, I would need the first three seals before I could help Eden.

  I’d only found one and Eden was falling apart. It all sounded a bit impossible.

  What is known that cannot be named? Me, of course. But that wasn’t helping. What is known that cannot be named? No matter how many times the finger tried to point my thoughts to the answer, no answer came.

  It had to be noon by the time we reached the tunnel, but time was now totally relative, because we kept time by the sun, and according to Vlad, the sun wasn’t real. For all we knew, it was midnight beyond the valley.

  We stood at the entrance and stared into the darkness. Dim light lit the far side a hundred yards ahead, like an eye daring us to come and see what was really there. The tunnel gates were open.

  “What do you think we’ll find?” I asked.

  “Exactly what he said we’d find. Vlad doesn’t lie.”

  I glanced up at my father. Saw his hard glare. Something in him had changed, and I wondered what Vlad had said or done to him in the shed.

  I followed him into the dark tunnel. The sound of our feet padding on the asphalt echoed through the chamber. We were past the halfway point when I stopped, taken aback by the sight beyond the open tunnel.

  For a moment I thought I was looking into my dreams. The trees that had always been there, beyond our valley, were gone. All I could see now were barren, rocky hills.

  “Dad?”

  “Keep walking.” He marched on, undeterred.

  Without so much as a glance at me, he continued out of the tunnel and up to the guardrail, where he stopped, staring at the stark vista.

  Pine trees and shrubs extended out for a quarter mile before abruptly ending at a transparent barrier that arched up and over the cliff behind us. Like a dome.

  Beyond that dome, the real world lay before us, desolate and dead. Vlad’s wastelands.

  The asphalt road and guardrail continued another fifty yards before winding to the right and vanishing behind the mountain.

  We stood side by side, staring in silence.

  “So he was right,” I finally said.

  Without answering, my father started walking again. I followed him to the bend in the road. Here we could see the road end at a two-story building made of white concrete. No windows, no pitched roof, just a flat, square building built into the transparent dome. At its center, two large steel doors were shut.

  Somewhere in that gatehouse was a control room and a facility where memories were wiped clean. If Vlad was right about the sky and the wasteland, he had to be right about everything.

  My breaths came in long pulls as I thought of the poisoned air beyond the protective barrier that shielded Eden from the fallout.

  Above us: a false sky, now overcast. Ahead: a treed valley that ended at the transparent barrier. Beyond that barrier: desolate death. My palms were wet with sweat.

  “I’ve got two days to kill him,” my father said, eyes fixed on the wasteland.

  The bitter resolve in his tone surprised me.

  “This is it,” he continued. “This is the end.”

  “Kill who?”

  “The man who murdered your mother.”

  Barth. An eye for an eye. But to what end? If my father really meant to find his own justice by murdering the man who’d killed my mother, he would be as guilty as Barth. More, Barth wasn’t either stupid or alone. The last thing we needed now was a full-scale civil war.

  “You really think that’s wise?”

  “It’s all that matters now,” he said, turning back.

  “All that matters now is surviving.” I hurried to stay with his stride. “You have to hear me out, Dad. Barth isn’t the enemy.”

  “No? And who is? My own mind?”

  Yes, I thought. Yes! But I knew that wouldn’t help him because he was locked in that mind.

  “Vlad’s the enemy.”

  My father spun back. “Vlad Smith is the only man in this valley who can save us, don’t you see that?”

  “Save us? Only DARPA can save us!”

  He stepped toward me, jaw set. “The controllers? The controllers, whoever they really are, were working with Simon. Simon, who or
dered Barth to kill your mother.” He swept his hand at the barren land beyond Eden. “Look at it! Everything we thought was true is half a lie. Everything!”

  Yes, but I was thinking about far more than just the town of Eden.

  My father continued. “They stole me from me and made me this,” he said, stabbing at his head to indicate his brain. “And now this is going to fix what they broke, starting with Barth and anyone who gets in my way.”

  “Nothing gives you the right to murder someone.”

  “An eye for an eye isn’t murder. And as long as Barth’s alive, he poses a threat to whatever life we can rebuild on this godforsaken planet.”

  “That’s what Vlad told you when he found you in the shed? He’s playing you and Barth against each other, don’t you see that?”

  He hesitated, then brushed my question aside. “The only way to keep you safe is to end the threats against you. That means ending Barth, not Smith. Smith needs you alive, you said it yourself. Barth, on the other hand, wants us both dead.”

  Vlad had done something to him—maybe the same thing he’d done to Hillary, even though he’d claimed she was the last. Or maybe he’d used another trick. Or maybe my father’s change in disposition was simply a matter of extreme stress. Either way, the man I was looking at wasn’t the levelheaded father I’d always known.

  I had to tell him what I knew to be the truth.

  “Maybe you’re right about Vlad,” I said, facing the wastelands beyond the barrier. I walked up to the metal railing built to keep cars from falling off the edge. “Where do you think he came from? If it’s just a wasteland out there, where’s he been all this time?”

  “At one of the other havens that failed,” he said without missing a beat. “He came the same way the controllers come, protected from the elements.”

  “And what if he’s lying?”

  “Does it matter? We’re stuck either way. Try to get out, the whole valley blows. Everything, including where we’re standing. All of it!”

  “It matters because he’s stuck here too. He’s from another world, and he’ll use any form of manipulation possible to force me to write him into that book. Including turning you against me.”

  I could have slapped him and gotten less of a reaction.

  “Is that what you think, honey?” He rushed up to me and pulled me into his arms. “No, no, no. I could never even think . . . How can you say that?” He took my face in his hands, pleading. “We’re alone in the world, sweetheart. Even if there is no fallout, we’re still stuck.” He swept a piece of hair from my face and lowered his hands. “Trust your father, honey. I’m not getting this from dreams.”

  “My dreams aren’t just dreams. Not unless dreams can heal a shattered leg. You have to listen to me.”

  He glanced down at my leg. “Vlad healed you. Just the way he gave your sight back.”

  “And how did he do that?”

  “By shifting your perception. I don’t know. All I know is that he hasn’t hurt a soul since arriving. Or haven’t you noticed? Barth and company are set on destroying us all.”

  “Did Vlad also teach me kung fu? He’s lying to us.”

  “About what? The heavens? The sky?”

  “About the power of that book. About healing me. About everything! He’s the storm, the Shadow Man, lies that blind. What we’re seeing isn’t what’s really there to be seen.”

  “No? Then what is there to be seen?”

  His question triggered vivid memories of my experience with Talya—seeing the darkness in the valley shift with my own perception of that darkness. There are two systems in this plane of existence, he’d said. One bound by polarity, called this world, and one free of polarity, called the kingdom of heaven. Two systems: one bound in fear and control, one flowing with love in which there is no fear, no darkness, no trouble.

  Inchristi is all; Inchristi is in all.

  If Other Earth mirrored this world, what were we seeing right now that was bound in fear rather than love?

  Everything.

  But none of this would make any sense to my father. It hardly made sense to me. Here in Eden I certainly wasn’t knowing it. Experiencing it.

  We stood quietly for a minute, he lost in thought, I remembering.

  “I’m not trying to undermine your experiences, honey,” he finally said. “Before she was murdered . . .” He swallowed his emotion, then continued. “Miranda wondered if you were actually connecting with a higher consciousness. Truth from beyond the world we see.” He faced me. “But I can only deal with what my mind offers me right now.”

  “The shadow of death,” I whispered. “An eye for an eye. We’re blind, that’s all.”

  “Then the whole world’s blind and always has been. There’s no changing that today.”

  “That’s not what you told me when I was blind. You told me to believe. That all of what we see in this world is radically limited data coming in through five senses and interpreted by programming in our brains. How many times did you tell me our perception can be re-created so that we see in a whole new way? What if everything we see with these lenses in our heads is only one perception limited by our physical senses? You, of all people, should jump on that.”

  I could see that he wouldn’t. I might as well have told him the world was made of marshmallows.

  “We don’t have time for that,” he said. “I can only live by what I do see today, and what I see is that Barth poses a terrible threat to the survival of this valley. End of story.” He turned and strode back toward Eden. “If that costs me my life, so be it, because I know without a shadow of a doubt that if I don’t stop him in two days, both you and I will die.”

  “That’s what Vlad told you?” I asked as he walked away. “What happens in two days?”

  “The end.”

  “Of what?”

  “Of everything.”

  26

  THAT EXCHANGE formed a terrifying division between myself and my father. We walked through the dark tunnel and returned to the vast basin surrounded by cliffs. I could now deal reasonably well with any threat, I thought. I’d been lost and found, shot and healed, blind and sighted. But the prospect of losing my father threatened me with fresh panic.

  Heading into the gloomy valley, I recalled Talya’s teaching that fear created more fear. Wrath would only create more wrath. Joining the system of problems by offering it outrage would only produce more of the same.

  Wasn’t I doing the same thing by worrying for my father? Who would break out of the system if I couldn’t?

  As we began our descent, it occurred to me that if my father could see what I’d seen in my dreams, he would think very differently about what was happening in Eden. Vlad still had the book, but what if I got it and wrote my father into that reality? The thought swallowed me.

  I caught up to him and told him that I wanted to be alone and would come home in a while. He objected, strenuously. Barth would be gunning for me as much as him. But I insisted that I would see anyone coming from that high place. He finally agreed and left me.

  I climbed to a small knoll off the road and sat in my own silence for a few hours, contemplating the sky, the town, Vlad, the seals, Talya, Samuel, Jacob, myself . . . All of it.

  Down in the town, which I could see clearly from my vantage point, everything looked peaceful. False sky and empty streets, Eden was what it was. Behind closed doors, Linda was undoubtedly pacing and raging. Maybe she’d snuck out and gone looking for the missing children. Barth was either mapping out his new regime or hunting for dissidents. Maxwell Emerson, the town’s financier, was probably still trying to figure out how he’d spent so many years hoarding money that didn’t exist.

  For all I knew, ten more people had been killed. But from where I was sitting, all appeared to be well.

  Part of me was desperate to do something. Fix it all. Find the Second Seal. But something Talya had said shut that voice down. The teaching will appear when the student is ready. The seal would find me as
I surrendered to the journey. I was doing that, right? The seal would come when I was ready.

  I was doing everything I knew to do, and that afternoon my path was to sit on the knoll overlooking Eden, because nothing else presented itself to me.

  One thought hit me late, as our false sky darkened. That sky was like scales that had blinded us all to truth for many years. If Eden was a lie, maybe my task was simply to undo the lie. Collapse the entire system. Escape Eden.

  But that couldn’t be. The charges Vlad had planted would kill us all. Even if they didn’t, we’d be exposed to the fallout beyond.

  I stayed away much longer than I’d planned, so when I returned I was afraid of what I might find. I approached our house from the woods behind and snuck in unseen.

  “Dad?” I called out. But the house was empty. He’d left a note on the counter.

  Gone to Linda’s. Back soon. Keep the door bolted and stay in your room.

  Linda’s? I considered going to Linda’s house myself but quickly let the notion die. Night was coming and there was nothing I could do without more information. For that I had to dream. Never mind that I would be waking in a prison.

  Talya had led me to that prison . . .

  I fixed myself some eggs, stripped out of my bloody jeans, showered all the nastiness off, and, since my father still hadn’t returned, lay down on my bed. It took me two hours to fall asleep, and then only with the help of two Advil PMs.

  THE CELL in Mosseum City was nearly dark, lit by a single pitch-burning torch at the end of the hall. There were no beds, only the stone floor, one concrete wall, and three other walls formed by iron bars.

  Jacob lay with his back to me, snoring softly. How long had I slept?

  I checked my thigh. Smooth and whole. Apparently Jacob had taken the liberty of wiping the blood from my leg.

  “You’re awake?” He twisted, saw me sitting up, and scrambled to his feet. “You’re awake! Mother of Teeleh. I thought someone had stolen your mind!”