The Tree of Knowledge

by Daniel G. Miller

  His cheeks shined a bright pink, and cold sweat poured from his forehead and around his spectacles. The young professor’s eyes were bloodshot, and his normally immaculate suit was covered in dust. His hands visibly shook, and his shoulders slumped with an unseen burden.

  Ying jumped out of her seat with her hand on her mouth, her eyes straining with concern.

  “My God, what happened to you?” cried Turner.

  Albert placed his hands on his knees and gasped for air, attempting to collect himself. “Eva . . . I . . . I . . .”

  Angus rushed to Albert and grabbed him by the shoulders. “Eva? You saw her? Is she OK?”

  Puddles wriggled from Turner’s grip and took a huge step back. His cheeks regained some of their color, and his jaw clenched in anger.

  “Yes, Professor. I saw her . . . And she’s doing well. My only regret is that I didn’t get a chance to catch up with her before she framed me and took out the entire Princeton police station! By the way, I’m doing fine, thank you for asking.”

  “What!” cried Ying.

  Albert grabbed Ying’s lemonade glass from the table and sat down on the professor’s sofa, gulping the cool liquid down in seconds. In his typically precise way, he took the spare moment to readjust his tie, wipe the spots from his glasses, and brush the dust off his coat and pants while catching his breath. Turner and Ying stood watching him as if he were a curious animal at the zoo.

  When he finally felt comfortable that he had regained some of his typical immaculateness, Albert began, “I went to the Princeton police station to tell Weatherspoon about the Tree, just like you said, Professor. When I got to the station, before I could go inside, Eva stopped me in the parking lot.”

  “Oh dear God,” interjected Turner, staring at Albert with a knowing look.

  “She wanted me to turn a blind eye. She said that the incident at the bank was an accident and that turning her in wouldn’t do any good.”

  “What did you say?” asked Ying.

  Albert resented the question and with one look made sure that Ying was aware of it. “I told her no and went into the station. And that’s when she cut the power to the station, took all the evidence implicating her, and planted evidence to frame me.”

  Both Ying and Albert turned to Turner like children to a parent. The older man’s brow carried the weight of a man who has lost a child. He walked toward the kitchen and stroked his chin.

  Softly, Turner asked, “How did you get out?”

  “She let me out.”

  “Intentionally?”

  “Yes.”

  “And what did she tell you to do?”

  “She told me to run.” Albert took another sip. “Shouldn’t you have seen this coming, Professor, with your special ‘Tree of Knowledge’?”

  “The Tree is not all-knowing, Puddles. It is only as good as the information. I assumed Eva had no knowledge of the evidence she left behind. Clearly, I was wrong.”

  Seconds went by as Turner stroked his chin in a silence punctuated by the ticktock of his grandfather clock.

  After staring at Turner for some time, neither Ying nor Albert could take it anymore, and the two simultaneously blurted out, “What should we do?”

  “Ms. Koh. You need to return to your studies. I couldn’t possibly involve you in this. Forget what you’ve seen today. Puddles and I will be fine.”

  “Professor, there’s a problem. Eva knows about Ying,” said Albert.

  “How?”

  “She saw Ying and me leaving Princeton for your house. She knows that Ying is involved. I don’t think it’s safe for us to just leave her here.”

  “Don’t I get a say in this?” interjected Ying.

  Turner looked at the two of them, rose from his chair, put on his sport coat, and said, “As I said, I’m only as good as the information I have. Eva knows about Ms. Koh’s involvement and told you to run. Then that is what we must do. If I know Eva Fix, the police will be here any minute, and she will ensure that all three of us are brought to account. Now is not the time for confrontation. Ying, I’m afraid you’re going with us for the time being. Grab my papers and come. I know of a place where we can go and gather ourselves.”

  The sound of far-off sirens shattered the peace of Turner’s living room.

  Albert and Ying locked eyes in disbelief. How was it that this morning they had been preparing for the first day of class and now they, along with their revered mentor, were running for their lives? It was surreal. It was tempting to just refuse to believe it. But logic was their default; what was happening was indeed happening; so, like Boy Scouts lost in the woods, they gathered their things and followed the leader.

  Minutes later, Turner’s Buick rumbled out of the driveway and onto a side road, with Albert in the front and Ying perched in the middle of the back seat.

  Two police cars, lights flickering and sirens blaring, raced by them in the opposite direction. Instinctively, the two passengers slid down in their seats.

  “Where are we going?” screeched Ying.

  “We are going to the country,” said the professor. “I have some friends who may be able to help us.”

  The storm that had been crouching over Albert earlier in the day had now pounced, and a steady rain came tumbling down on the windshield of the aged automobile. He opened the window a crack and noticed how the soothing, warm air of this morning had morphed into a raw, wet, inhospitable world of gray. He smelled electricity in the air.

  Albert’s body ached as though that same raw chill had penetrated every aspect of his life, and it made him ill. Ever since he was a kid, Albert had longed for a deeper sense of purpose. He loved comic book superheroes, mystery detectives, and thriller tough guys—not for the powers they possessed but for the fights they fought. He, too, wanted to battle evil and villainy, not grapple with ambiguous and complex problems. To him, it seemed that theirs was a life of purpose and passion, whereas his was a life of dry, abstract pursuits.

  But now, as he stared out from the passenger seat of Turner’s sedan, he did not feel purpose. He felt terror. His stomach clenched as though it would never digest food again. His heart pumped at a furious pace. Waves of fear radiated from his temples and spread throughout his body, causing every limb and muscle group to curl inward. Instead of rising to the challenge, as he always hoped he would do, Albert wanted nothing more than to shrink from it. To go back to this morning in his office and decline the detective’s request for help. Or take the decision tree and burn it. To go on living a life of comfort without meaning. But as the car splashed down the highway through the growing downpour, Albert knew that his life would have purpose . . . and meaning . . . and fear . . . and perhaps . . . an early death.

  Part II

  An Education

  Then the eyes of both of them were opened,

  and they knew that they were naked.

  —Genesis 3:7

  Chapter 1

  Eva sat on the sterile gray swoop-back chairs of the John F. Kennedy International Airport and reflected on what she had just seen.

  She had finally reunited with Dilbert. Never in her life did she believe she would see him again, though she thought of him often and even dreamed of him. In her dreams, he was an idealization of himself, but reality disappointed. The man—and the experience of seeing him—seemed so much smaller, like touring the hallways of her former elementary school. But when she had finally spoken to him in that dreary parking lot outside of the police station and felt his earnestness and precision—saw the kindness in the modest wrinkles around his eyes—she was fourteen all over again. The hard exterior that she had so carefully constructed and maintained over the years began to groan under the warmth of his presence; at that moment, she wanted nothing more than to give up the path of ambition, calculation, and competition—shed the last ten years, all that she had done—and just share in an ordinary l
ife with someone. Not for any facet of that life in particular, but for the feeling of sharing . . . something, anything.

  She had hoped that Dilbert would feel the same way. That his feelings for her were strong enough . . . now that she wasn’t a girl anymore . . . that maybe he would see the longing in her eyes, her desire, the person she could be . . . and give her another chance. It pained her to lie to him, but she knew that the truth was not an option. Dilbert painted in black and white. She loved that about him then and now, and it sharpened her regret even more.

  How did I get here?

  For Eva, it began with a story and a moment. When Eva was a child, her mother often worked late into the evening. As children often do, Eva would burst into her mother’s home office and nag her to play a game or watch a movie. To stop the nagging and buy herself some additional time to finish her work, Eva’s mother would give her logic puzzles or riddles. Most of the puzzles Eva solved and discarded, but one puzzle resonated with the girl: the story of the lady and the tiger.

  In the story, a beautiful princess falls in love with a commoner. The two of them court for months, but eventually, the king discovers the affair. He declares that the commoner will face a trial of fortune that will determine his innocence. The commoner is placed in front of a crowded arena in which there are two doors. Behind one door is the most beautiful woman in the land, whom he will marry if he chooses correctly. Behind the other door is a tiger that will surely maim and kill him. As luck would have it, the princess discovers ahead of time which door holds the tiger and which the lady. The commoner knows that the princess holds the keys to his life, and looks to her before selecting a door. She tilts her head to the right. The question for the man is, knowing that the princess loves him with all her heart and loathes the other woman, should he choose the door on the right or the left?

  As a child, Eva had puzzled over the answer to the question for hours, hoping to find as certain an answer as the other riddles had provided. When her mother finished her work, she asked Eva what she thought.

  “I don’t get it,” she had shouted. “What’s the answer?”

  Her mother offered a warm smile. “That’s the point, Evalita. There is no answer. It’s an allegory about the power of passion and the difficulty of choosing between two equally unpleasant options.”

  At first, Eva had hated the story for its ambiguity. She wanted an answer. But as she thought about it more, she began to love it. She could see herself as the princess, overcome with love for this man, but racked with hatred for the woman he would love. It was then that she realized that she wanted to feel that same passion—for a man . . . or a cause.

  During her youth, everything had come easily to Eva. She excelled in mathematics and athletics, and her physical beauty was never in doubt. After the disappointment of Dilbert refusing the invitation to her quinceañera, she had made a point of winning the attention of every man she noticed, as well as excelling in every field of study and at every skill. And never again was she rejected as he had rejected her; never again did she fall short. But the facility with which she conquered every new challenge left her feeling passionless, like a teenager having finished an epic video game. She wished she could unwind the clock and use her skills to overcome the struggles of the past. To conquer lands with Alexander the Great, to build Rome with Caesar, to lead a revolution with Washington. But those battles had already been fought and won, so what remained for her?

  It was then that she was told about the Society for Reason, Enlightenment, and Democracy. The Society had originated as a think tank designed to promote scientific reasoning and logical problem-solving in all aspects of life. This mission manifested itself in different ways during the following decade, from attacks on the irrationality of modern education to probing analyses of the illogical actions of politicians and government as a whole. By the early nineties, the Society had become an intellectual home for academic, business, political, and military leaders. The annual conference in Los Angeles attracted a veritable who’s who of the world’s power brokers.

  As the Society’s influence grew, so, too, did its ambitions. Unsatisfied with merely being a talking shop, the Society’s leadership developed a multipronged political apparatus comprising private military schools to teach the Society’s values and approach, political action committees to influence elected officials and elections, and charitable organizations to build goodwill. To manage this broader agenda, the Society adopted a rigidly hierarchical structure, consisting of increasing layers of secrecy, and actively began recruiting younger, high-potential individuals to participate.

  The wide-ranging ambition of the Society attracted Eva, and for the last ten years of her life, her sole goal had been to climb the Society’s ranks so that she could further the mission. She had personally created and trained the “Red Army,” the name given to the Society’s military schools. Thanks to Eva’s efforts, the Red Army now ran private schools in every state and was widely accepted as the most efficient and effective educational institution in the country. The crimson-uniformed cadet graduates were regularly admitted to West Point and worked in security at the highest levels. The army’s success generated so much heavy donor interest that Eva was forced to roll out a charitable arm, which used the cadets to perform basic social services. Her triumph with the Red Army led to her appointment to an increasingly vital string of projects. Yet, the more she climbed the Society’s ladder, the more meaningless it all seemed. She was admired, feared, trusted. But she herself didn’t admire, fear, or trust anyone. She didn’t love anyone, except her mother, and that was a love in constant search of approval. She was lonely.

  When she was fourteen, and she had watched Dilbert turn his back on her in that classroom, she had thought she could fill the emptiness, embarrassment, and inadequacy with the thrill of ambition fulfilled. She had thought she would prove herself worthy and then feel it. But as she sat in the JFK gate waiting area and the airport speakers announced the boarding of zone something or other, Eva realized she was wrong. She didn’t feel worthy; she didn’t even know what that meant anymore. Other people’s reactions to her didn’t penetrate: nothing did. Her ambition was a journey without end, an addiction that could never be quenched. The seemingly endless opportunities of life that had beckoned her when she was fourteen had now been blocked off. The lone path visible now was the one that she had already chosen, and she knew that she had chosen poorly.

  Eva pulled out her phone and called the general.

  She shuddered at the sound of his voice but pressed on. It was much too late to turn back. “The job is done. I have the package, and Puddles and Turner have been smoked out.”

  She could see the general’s big, yellow-toothed grin through the phone. She could almost smell his stale breath. “Superb. And his assistant?”

  Eva sighed and thought of Albert’s perky little partner in crime, whom she couldn’t help thinking of as a doll, a petite, pink-cheeked, far-too-cute interloper. “I don’t think she’ll be an issue.”

  “This was an excellent learning opportunity, don’t you think?” the general asked her with his usual whiff of superiority, sounding like the headmaster of a reform school speaking to a student in detention.

  “Yes,” Eva said, unable to summon the energy to feign sincerity.

  “Good. We will see you back at headquarters tomorrow.”

  Eva hung up. She had joined the Society for the freedom and power that it offered, but bit by bit, the Society’s leadership had encroached on that freedom. She was no longer a little girl. She controlled a Red Army of over five hundred thousand men. Something needed to change.

  Chapter 2

  As Turner’s Buick sped along I-95, Albert and Ying attempted to get a grip on the rupture in their life.

  After providing the details on his experience and history with Eva, Albert turned his attention to Turner. “OK, Angus, now that we seem to be at least temporarily out of
harm’s way, can you please explain what is going on?”

  Turner took a long breath, apparently wondering where to begin. The leather from the steering wheel creaked as it slid through the old man’s hands. “Let me answer your question with a question. What did Eva steal from the bank?”

  Ying and Albert glanced at each other.

  “A safe-deposit box.”

  “Ah yes, but what was in it?”

  “Some guy’s stuff?” asked Ying.

  “Wrong. It wasn’t just some guy’s. It was mine. And it wasn’t stuff; it was the very Tree of Knowledge that I’ve been telling you about. That book holds every thought I’ve ever had about the Tree. Every experiment. How it can be used. How it can be taught. Everything. In the wrong hands, the book holds nearly limitless power.”

  “Eva told me that it was a security code,” said Albert incredulously.

  Turner smiled. “Given that her family business is a security and defense company that makes everything from bombs to fighter jets, that’s technically true. But the Tree of Knowledge is capable of much more than security.”

  “Poor Albert,” teased Ying in her singsong voice. “The first girl he falls in love with turns out to be a thief and murderer.”

  As Ying chortled at his misfortune, Albert fought to control his flush. He realized how naïve he’d been. In the logical recesses of his mind, he knew that Eva’s story was unlikely, if not absurd, but for some reason, her presence dulled his reasoning. He had wanted to believe her. He shuddered at the realization of how easily his critical faculties had succumbed.

  “But isn’t this something for the police?” asked Ying.

  At the word “police,” Albert perked up. “Yes, it is, but considering the fact that I’m probably their chief suspect for the murder of the security guard, I’m not sure contacting the police is the right answer at this moment.”