4
Mel Roberts lay on the glaring white floor in his growing pool of blood and vomit, his left arm twisted underneath him at a crazy angle.
He’d been screaming — lots of screaming.
Even in his sleep the pain that fracture shoved into his consciousness was like a red-hot splinter underneath a fingernail. He tried repositioning, but the pain only worsened. He couldn’t move, and when he inhaled, sucked in some of the blood and vomit before him.
And there was also a searing pain shooting up from his groin and stomach region.
It hurt to breathe. Hurt not to breathe.
He was still unable to see straight… unable to focus on anything in the glare of the white room. Until, that is, he saw the black shoes and pants standing before him like the Angel of Death. He painfully craned his neck, following the dark columns up, up…
“I’m glad to see you’re a survivor.”
Mel grunted, gagging up blood.
Black reached down and grasped Mel’s wet, matted hair. Callously yanked his face up toward him. Mel howled.
“What if I were to tell you I could make this all go away?”
Mel sobbed. Black released his tangled hair, and Mel’s face smashed back into the blood and vomit.
Black paced the room. “What if… I could take you away from all this? Take away all the pain, the hurt, the damage done to your fragile little body? Would you like that? Would you, perhaps, want to do something for me?
“Let’s see…”
Black stopped pacing and Mel stopped crying — just like that.
Mel no longer inhaled blood or vomit.
Instinctively, he pulled in both arms and pushed himself up off the floor.
He shakily got to his knees, looking to Black.
“What — what’s going on here?” Mel asked, as he examined his now undamaged left arm; shot a hand to his ribcage and stomach, his groin.
“Oh, let me assure you, dear boy, your parts are, indeed, all where they should be. Undamaged.”
Mel shakily rearranged his stance.
“What have you done to me — why? What have I done to you?”
Mel’s face now swelled with emotion instead of physical pain.
“What could I have possible done to deserve this?”
“This ‘what’?” Black mocked.
“This… beating. This—”
Black took on a look of surprise. “Beating? Why, I see no beating… nor do I see broken bones, vomit, or blood. I just see a scared, whiny little child before me.”
Mel reexamined himself. He may no longer have had a broken arm, squashed testicles, and smashed ribs, but there was definitely something damaged inside…
“My dear boy, all I need — it’s so terribly simple — is for you to tell me what I want… and off you go,” he said, scooching him off with an “off-you-go” gesture. “It’s that simple. I’m not a mean man… just a demanding one. I get what I want. Sooner or later. One way or the other.
“Now… will you concede? Give me what I want?”
“But I don’t know what you want!” Mel bleated, a little whinier than intended. “Please, mister, let me go!”
Black was in Mel’s face before he could blink.
“Oh, ‘please, mister’ me nothing. I do something good for you, and this is the respect I get? Tell me where he is!”
“Where who is? I really don’t know who you’re talking a—”
“Tell me, you little fuck, or one by one, I swear, I’ll gladly rip each limb from your body and peel the meat from your bones before your very own eyes. Tell me.”
Mel again began to sob, and Black shoved him into a wall. Mel hit and collapsed, but Black was on him in an instant, lifting him up off the floor like a bundle of rags.
“Listen to me you little shit, don’t you yet realize the unimaginable pain I can inflict? Quit fucking around and be a man! Tell me where he is!”
But all Mel could do was cry. He was thinking of his bed at home… the TV and his favorite late-night movies… iced tea… peace and quiet. He tried to say something, anything, but his mind was in knots, muddled, thick as molasses, and his body had long since failed him. Nothing made sense. “I… I…” was all that dribbled out of quivering lips.
“Very well,” Black said, opening his hands.
In an instant, Mel was once more overwhelmed by waves upon waves of pure, exquisite, soul-searing agony and collapsed to the floor. He tried to get up, but his left arm was again broken, his groin, stomach, and ribs again all on fire.
“I’ll be back. And I’ll have my answers.”
Black stepped over Mel, as Mel once again vomited dry heaves and again sucked in snot and blood into a smashed and bleeding mouth pressed into the floor…
Chapter Twenty-Three
1
Kennedy leisurely strolled his beachfront property, inhaling the cool, early morning sea breezes. He tossed bits of bread into the air for the diving seagulls playfully airborne
(full moon?)
(parachutes?)
above.
What if, his thought process had begun all those many years ago, what if we spent as much time and energy on peace as we did on war? A peace special forces — special operations for peace… why not have the same aggressiveness… but toward nonviolent — peaceful — solutions?
That was how it’d all started out with The Center and the Global Foundation for Peace, but it wasn’t exactly how The Center’d ended up.
And how far had either program progressed?
The idea had been pure, but once he’d put the dream into reality, things’d changed. They always did. Especially when government got involved.
There were budgetary and political considerations, not to mention entrenched paradigms near-impossible to overcome, political and otherwise. Though The Center had been created first, during his first term, in ’63, it was actually the GFP that had been his first consideration… even before his presidency. But it had been several years before he’d see that inspiration come to fruition. And, now it had surpassed the Peace Corps.
He’d had to narrow his focus, and though that hadn’t been difficult, it had still been a dilution of his original dream. The GFP focused mainly on peace and peaceful methods — anywhere it was needed — whether in feeding the hungry, clothing the poor, educating children, or fighting various forms of domestic abuse (at home or abroad), but it still fell short of the original goal of being a civilian peace special forces. And The Center was supposed to be the governmental arm of that, but, of course, once government got involved in anything it had been turned into a prosaic military spy training-and-operations center, and though they got much done from both the military and civilian fronts, it still wasn’t what he’d intended both to be. He’d wanted to marry both organizations together. Psychics fighting violence. Oppression. Hunger. War.
A hand-picked select group of individuals who would never use violence, because they would never need to. They could walk into the midst of situations and extinguish them — but from a totally unique point of view. They would be as saints — Mother Teresas, if you will — and would be immediately recognized worldwide and revered. They would think differently, act differently than the rest of us, and would wield great power — responsible power. Unspoken to anyone but himself — and Jackie, before her death — Kennedy had secretly hoped that the remote viewer research would reveal things that could secretly and quietly be put to use in both organizations. Psychic things that could change paradigms and lives. World views. Kennedy doubted he was the only one with this on his mind (he did have Black on his trail), but he thought, okay, we know we can see into the past, present, or future… now, why not use that information for peaceful, more human, developmentally strategic advantages and change things for the better? But, to do all this would require such an incredibly advanced… a different kind of human… one the world had never seen before. Christ-like near-deities. Literal saints in an unsaintly world.
Was
something like this even possible?
Were these kinds of people even out there?
Most people he knew could be, in some way, corrupted — intentionally or not. Hell, even he hadn’t been immune. He’d had his own personal and professional… challenges… over the years, especially with what was needed to be done during his years in the White House, but to give such awesome power to humans was not only unthinkable, but unspeakably frightening.
But he’d always loved a good fight.
He’d secretly hoped that The Center would somehow be able to identify, screen, and school just such individuals from birth, and maybe one day… these gifted individuals would come public to help guide the human race toward improved growth and enlightenment.
That had been the goal.
Lofty. Idealistic. Pure.
He just figured that as Life took its course, these individuals would make themselves known, all his secret goals and desires would someday come to fruition, and he would be able to save himself the embarrassment and task of having to propose his insane ideas first, then look for the means of carrying out such idealistic efforts in a scoffing society.
That had been half a lifetime ago, and so far, no one had been identified. Instead, he’d had this renegade agent corrupting his efforts — a man he thought he’d been able to contain, control… but, instead, seemed to have grown. And he’d had — what was he going to call it, a dream? — an experience? — where he’d actually gone back in time?
Changed events?
Had all that been a daydream? A product of wishful thinking? Or had he actually gone back?
And thirty years.
How had they never been able to find capable souls to fulfill these roles in over thirty years? Not even one? The human race could not possibly be that dirty.
Time travel, changing the past, righting wrongs.
Powerful concepts, indeed, but he hardly believed one man — him — had done any such thing. It had to have been a daydream — wishful fantasy.
But… just the same… the thought was there, wasn’t it? Something had to have happened…
Maybe his thoughts of changing the world weren’t so farfetched… maybe they were attainable. Maybe all the crazy and dimly aware thoughts and dreams — of Black reemerging into his life after all these years — were signs of something big coming… that things were changing. Still, before he died, he wanted to leave a solid framework in place for his efforts to be continued far beyond his lifetime. He’d already laid everything out — even his most-secret agendas — in his will, which would only be read to and by certain individuals not of the government nor military. Individuals who would continue to monitor The Center and the world for just such an outcome — in utmost secrecy.
Hopefully, he could still find what was needed before he was done with this life.
It was definitely time for another trip to The Center.
2
As Travis went about his day, he — and no doubt the others — had found it easier to remain focused on work more than expected. Running and monitoring taskings, reports and paperwork, overseeing training programs… had he forgotten he’d been paid for a job he’d been, up to recently, anyway, happy with? Sure, the occasional distasteful trash had to be taken out, but all jobs had their ups and downs, good and bad days. He’d usually been kept busier than could be worried about, and throughout the course of the day they’d all interacted as if nothing had happened last night. But, the day had gotten away from him — he’d not even eaten — and turned into night. He had to get away. Air out. Needed to think. Try to make sense out of what was going on, as risky as it was to just think about these things. But he also needed some time to search… to find out where this boy was and how to deal with things.
If someone was monitoring their thoughts, what could they do about it?
Nothing was sacred.
Thoughts, ideas, emotions. Concepts. Nothing could be hidden from a good operator. Perhaps the only consolation was that he was working with the best available team, and unless… and unless one of them was working for Black… now there was a thought, and quite an unpleasant one at that…
But, he trusted these people; had worked with some of them for many years. They were all good, solid people, not the kind of evil that sometimes made their way into The Center, like Black and his ilk—
Just the thought of the man sent shivers through him. Who’d he work for — or, perhaps, more likely, who worked for him. It was always a little fuzzy if he was directly associated with The Center or not. They’d tried, a couple of them, to find out whether or not he was, but got conflicting results. Some saw him attached, while others saw him not — some actually saw him dismissed during his appointment interview with the President. He was, somehow, attached to this place, that much was for certain, but in a way no one clearly understood.
Of course… intentional. There were no coincidences in this biz.
Black showed up when he did, did what he did, said little to nothing — at least to “the help”—then vanished. And while he was here they were all directed to avoid him like the plague. Not to ask questions. To do whatever they were told without fail or hesitancy. It was a very uncomfortable relationship, but one not uncommon in this industry. Certain individuals made their way here, individuals whose names were not their real ones, and whose organizations were never spoken of, and who, in all probability, actually ran this outfit, despite whatever was practiced — or on paper.
The world of covert operations.
Travis shuddered as he wound his way across the terrazzo’s shadows outside his building. He headed for the nature path that wound through the surrounding grounds’ wooded area. The terrazzo was lit, but the nature trail beyond wasn’t.
Perfect.
So (he had tried to subtly convey), despite their fears at being outed… their new direction was to do the best they could until caught.
If Black — or whoever ran this outfit — really wanted to catch them, he would. It scared him, but they had little choice — they had to do what was right — and having the added benefit of being remote viewers, they could check in on themselves to make sure they were as safe as could reasonably be made. But, also being remote viewers, those more attuned to the psychic world, couldn’t they also find some other tool at their disposal? Some way to send and receive that could, perhaps, layer their information in such a way as to confuse and confound those who might be peeking in? To… sandwich their information within other thoughts, other images? Technical intel did it with software, they had to be able to do it with thoughts. Feelings.
Travis carefully picked his way along the dark path and stepped on a stick that snapped rather loudly.
He stopped as if bitch-slapped and looked around. Was he being—
Magic?
No Name?
Children?
Travis felt unbalanced. Unable to any longer distinguish much in the darkness, the vertigo completely and swiftly overtook him. He flailed blindly for support, stumbled off the trail, and fell headlong into the brush, scrambling for anything to break his blind plummet. His fall wasn’t as painful as anticipated. He lay there, inhaling dirt, when another image—
Layer cake?
Travis squeezed shut his eyes and tried to pull in the imagery.
Children and layer cake.
Some guy with no name.
Layer… cake. Lay-er…
He sat up.
He was no longer on The Center’s nature trail.
No longer lying in bramble and brush.
He was sitting on the steps of an oddly familiar porch. It was dark, not even a porch light was on. From his left came ripping and tearing sounds. The words came out of his mouth without any thought.
“You weeding again?”
“Gotta,” came the invisible response from beyond. “If you don’t, your work gets overrun. Know what I mean?”
“I do… no, no I — what the hell?”
The Man With No Name emerged
from the darkness. “So, I hear you’re getting a might vexed.”
Travis looked to the Man With No Name, at his dirtied hands and pants (he found he could make it out in all the darkness), and to the porch steps he sat on.
“Wasn’t I just—”
“On the ground? Yeah. But, you had a good question, the opportunity was ripe, so I thought what better time to answer—”
“A question?”
“Layer cake. It was what we talked about when first we met. Kinda. About meeting. I mean — well, anyway, you can use the same principle where you are. Layering your information like I’m layering your training.”
“Training?”
“Granted, it’s not the traditional training you’re used to, but, even now, there’s training going on — as we speak. It’s all done in metaphysical layers. It’ll take some practice on your and your friends part, and I am doing my damned best trying to accelerate things, but it ain’t easy. Most of what gets done appears to get done without your help or knowledge, but it is getting done, and certainly with your help and knowledge. I really wish I could give you more — in your terms — formal training, but circumstances dictate otherwise. What’s of concern right now isn’t the boy… it’s the woman.”
“Woman?”
“Elizabeth Gordon, or ‘Lizzie,’ as she prefers. You’ve dreamt of her. She’s being held at your Center. I don’t want her touched — in any way. Black is trying to play it cool, but can’t. No longer has the patience. He’s tired of playing games.”
“How is this woman more important?”
“Time, in your case, is of the essence. Lizzie is being held in the depths of your compound, in Building 4250. In one of the subterranean rooms there. L5B03. She’s… restrained. Undergoing…”
“How do you know all this?”
“Stop wasting time and get to her. It’s imperative.”
Travis was back in the bushes, sitting on the ground.
He looked around. He was alone again. That crazy spinning gone.
Groggily getting to his feet, he brushed himself off, then gingerly stepped back through the brush and scrub, onto the trail.
Flashes of a garden… weeding — at night? Images so strong, he felt as if he’d actually been there — wherever “there” was.
Psychic Page 24
