The Probing: Leviathan, The Mind Pirates, Hybrids, The Village

by Frank Peretti

  He looked at me for a comeback, but he had a point. I hated to admit it ’cause it was getting to be a habit.

  He continued. “But not young Daniel here. You can load him up with all the vile video games you want, but I will not allow him to see this.”

  “Oh, you’ll not allow him?” I said. “What, are you his guardian now?”

  “I could do no worse than you.”

  He was right . . . again. Two for two. I let it go, hoping I wasn’t losing my touch.

  An hour later, one of the Barbies was babysitting Daniel somewhere else on the lot while the rest of us sat in the front row of the arena. The place was packed. Three hundred spectators waiting for the show. They had no idea what it was, but it was free, so here they were.

  “Where’s Andi?” Cowboy asked. “Why isn’t she—oh, there you are.”

  “Where have you been?” the professor asked as she took her seat.

  She motioned to the control room up behind us. “Checking their equipment. Looking for that glitch.”

  “And?”

  “We couldn’t find a thing. But they did offer me a job.”

  “They what?”

  “Relax, Professor. I didn’t take it. Though their equipment is breathtaking. Real state-of-the-art.” She opened a small plastic case and took out what looked like fancy earplugs. There were four sets. “Here,” she said, passing them out to us.

  “What are they?” Cowboy asked.

  “They’re like noise-cancellation headphones, but smaller. They go inside the ear.”

  “It’s gonna get that loud?” Cowboy said.

  She shook her head. “It’s not about the volume. It’s something else. Some sort of filtering device. All the crew wear them.”

  The professor looked at his doubtfully. “And what exactly do they filter out?”

  Andi motioned back to the control room. “The engineer says it’s some sort of high frequency they’ll be broadcasting through the studio. Something about—”

  “Ladies and gentlemen . . .” The announcer’s voice echoed through the building. “Welcome to the world premiere of . . . Live or Die: The Ultimate Reality!”

  The applause signs flashed overhead, and the crowd clapped and cheered.

  The contestants were introduced. Not the stand-ins, but the real people: a perfectly cut, shirtless piece of eye candy in shorts, glistening in oil, and his opponent, some chick, an obvious supporter of the steroid industry, with skimpy shorts and a halter so tiny you wondered why she even bothered.

  They stood at opposite ends of the arena, huffing and puffing, getting themselves all worked up . . . right along with the crowd . . . and me, just a little. Seriously. I mean I knew better, but it was like their enthusiasm was contagious.

  The announcer continued, “Each of you have your weapons. Choose what you wish, any time you wish. And remember, there are no rules! Anything and everything goes!”

  The crowd cheered, hooting and hollering their approval. And I felt myself getting pulled right along with them. Not much. But enough.

  “You have no referees. No scorekeepers. The only way to win is to be the last one standing . . . the last one whose heart is still beating!”

  The cheering grew louder.

  “Because ladies and gentlemen: This is . . . THE . . . ULTIMATE . . . REALITY!”

  Lights flashed, music blared, and I was clapping along with everyone else. Well, almost everyone. Andi, Cowboy, and the professor sat there like lumps on a log.

  “Come on!” I shouted to them. “It’s only a show!”

  An air horn blasted and the fight began.

  The kid was the first to attack. He grabbed a battle-axe off his wall of weapons and raced toward the girl. But she was no wimp. She grabbed a broadsword from her wall and spun around just in time to block him. The clang of steel filled the arena. He swung again and she blocked again. Then again. You could literally see the sparks.

  The crowd behind us was on their feet. There was something so real. So honest and brutal.

  Blow after blow came. First he had the advantage. Then she did. They went from weapon to weapon. What she lacked in strength, she made up for in speed. What he lacked in agility, he made up for in raw power.

  They were so equally matched that at first there was no blood. But as they wore each other down they got tired, sloppy. The first real wound came when they were both using swords. She managed to get a good one right across that handsome face of his. I gasped along with the crowd, then joined in the applause.

  It got even more interesting when he attacked her with a short lance. She countered, holding him off with the sword once, twice. Then she misjudged. He sank his spear deep into her thigh. If she screamed, you couldn’t hear over our shouting.

  Then, to everyone’s amazement, she broke the spear. Snapped it right off, leaving a piece still in her leg. More cheers. But that was nothing compared to when she reached down and yanked out that remaining piece. Blood gushed everywhere. The crowd went wild. It got even better when she ripped off her glove and stuffed part of it into the wound to stop the bleeding.

  She limped back to her wall and grabbed the broadsword . . . then came at him with everything she had.

  “Yes!” I shouted. “Go! Go!”

  She swung hard. The kid barely dodged it. She missed his chest, but as the sword came down, she did manage to cut off two of his toes. More blood. The crowd went nuts.

  “Yes!” I shouted. “Yes!”

  “Brenda . . .”

  I looked down to see Andi tugging at my arm. I shook her loose.

  Now it was the kid’s turn. He limped to his wall and grabbed one of those iron balls on a chain with spikes. He turned and staggered toward her.

  But the girl wasn’t backing down. She’d lost a lot of blood, and was still bleeding, but there was no way she was gonna run.

  He came at her, swinging the ball. She ducked, the pointed spikes barely missing her. He swung it around again. This time she wasn’t so lucky. The spikes missed her neck, but caught her arm, digging into the flesh.

  She screamed, staggered backward, fighting to stay on her feet. But it was obvious things were coming to an end.

  The crowd began chanting. “Kill! Kill! Kill!”

  He came at her again, swinging. She ducked. Then, half running, half stumbling, she threw herself into him. He didn’t see the blade she had hidden in her shorts. But he sure felt it as she sank it into his belly.

  What a sight!

  He stumbled backward, gasping, looking at the wound, then up at her, as surprised as the rest of us. She was gasping hard, too. They stood a moment, bleeding, trying to clear their heads . . . as we kept shouting and cheering them on.

  Then, with an energy from who knows where, the girl scooped up her broadsword from the sand and raced at him, shrieking like a crazed animal.

  He tried to spin, to dodge, but she slammed it down into his left shoulder so powerfully you could hear the joint crack and separate. And blood. So much we thought, we hoped, he’d lost the whole arm. But it was still there. Barely. It didn’t matter. He was exhausted, overcome, and fell to his knees.

  That’s when the lights in the arena went red. That’s when we resumed chanting. “Kill! Kill! Kill!”

  The girl staggered toward him, barely able to walk. He looked up. Too weak to move. To care.

  “Kill! Kill! Kill!”

  “Brenda . . .” It was Andi yelling at me.

  I didn’t look at her. I couldn’t. Not now. The strobe lights began flashing. The girl screamed, fighting to raise her sword. She nearly fell from the pain and fatigue.

  The arena shook with our voices. “Kill! Kill! Kill!”

  She finally got it over her head.

  “Kill! Kill! Ki—”

  “NOOO!”

  I turned to see Cowboy leap from his seat and race toward the arena.

  “Cowboy!” I shouted.

  He jumped over the wall and dropped into the pit. Security guards streamed do
wn the aisles.

  “Cowboy!”

  “STOP IT!” he shouted. He ran straight for the girl. “WHAT ARE YOU DOING? STOP IT!”

  The crowd began to boo. But he didn’t hear. Or care. He grabbed the sword from her. She was too dazed and confused to put up a fight.

  “WHAT ARE YOU DOING?”

  A dozen security people were clambering over the wall and dropping into the pit. The booing got louder. Cowboy threw the girl’s sword to the ground. The lights came up. He turned to the kid who’d passed out, fallen face first into the sand. Bleeding out.

  The announcer’s voice boomed, “Remain in your seats! Please remain in your seats!”

  By the time Cowboy kneeled to the kid, security guards were all over him.

  “Remain in your seats. The show will resume shortly. Please remain in your seats.”

  The booing continued. And for good reason. Cowboy had ruined everything. The show was heading for its big climax, and he ruined it.

  And that’s what shocked me. Not his actions, but my thoughts. Ruined? Really? Cowboy was trying to save someone’s life. And I resented him? What was I thinking? What was going on?

  “Brenda . . . Brenda . . .”

  I turned to Andi, confused and feeling more than a little guilty.

  “Your earplugs,” she shouted.

  “What?”

  She pointed to her ears. “Your earplugs!”

  I looked down at my hand. I was still holding them.

  “Put them in your ears! Put the earplugs in your ears!”

  It made no sense. But she looked so serious. I turned to the professor. He was pointing to the ones in his own ears. I frowned, then nodded and put them in. The guilt and confusion grew even stronger. What had happened?

  Suddenly, I heard the crowd gasp and I looked back to the arena. Cowboy was helping the kid to his feet. There was still plenty of blood, but no more was coming from his arm. His stomach was in bad shape. So were his toes. But the gash in his shoulder, the one that had nearly severed his arm and bled him out?

  It was gone. There was no sign of the slightest injury.

  CHAPTER

  6

  Our hotel looked just like one of those Hollywood postcards. Everything pink, big pool, lots of palm trees. The rooms were huge—kitchen, bar, big-screen TV, white carpet, tub with Jacuzzi.

  And mirrors. Everywhere mirrors.

  ’Course, none of us could sleep after the show. Most of all me. So we were meeting in Andi’s room.

  I sat there sketching—the same monster as on the plane, only now I was making its tentacles stretch around something that was supposed to be the world. Daniel was out on the balcony playing his apps. Cowboy was watching some football game. Andi had gutted one of those earplug things and was studying it. And the professor had his face stuck in a newspaper.

  “So it was all in my head?” I said. “All that stuff I was feeling?”

  “Yes and no,” Andi said. “The signal broadcast throughout the auditorium lowered your inhibitions by restricting activity in a specific area of your frontal lobe.”

  The professor spoke without looking up. “Not entirely dissimilar to the fungus that attacked Andi and myself in Florida.”

  “But we killed all that,” I said. “With that blue light.”

  “As far as we know,” Andi said.

  “Then how could—”

  “Seriously?” The professor folded up his paper. “You don’t think they could have found a different transporting mechanism by now? Something far more elegant?”

  I added, “And more subtle. I didn’t become some crazed zombie like you and Andi. I didn’t think I was part of a universal mind.”

  “Nevertheless, your resistance toward violence was dramatically decreased.”

  “More than decreased. I really wanted to see that kid killed.”

  Andi nodded and quoted, “‘The outlook on any morality can be changed through TV viewing.’”

  “Another study?” I said.

  “J. L. Singer. Yale University.”

  “And those earplugs?”

  She pushed them aside, taking a break. “They were designed to cancel out the signal. We all wore them . . . except you.”

  “So they plan on broadcasting that signal into every home in America?”

  She shook her head. “The frequency is too high for the bandwidth assigned to television.”

  “Then, why—”

  “Aw, shucks.”

  We turned to see Cowboy drop to his knees. He grabbed his Coke can, which had fallen and was spilling all over the white carpet. “I didn’t even touch the thing. It fell over all by itself.”

  Before we could respond, the big-screen TV flickered and switched to that clip from Superman we’d seen before. It only lasted a second before going back to Cowboy’s game.

  “Oh brother.” Cowboy sighed. “Again?”

  Another flicker. This time to the Rocky movie. Then to the DiCaprio spinning top.

  Cowboy pressed the remote again, then again, but nothing changed. “What’s with the TVs in this city?” he complained.

  Another flicker. Now we were watching that flying telephone booth show. Another flicker and it was The Hunger Games.

  “It’s identical to what we witnessed in the control room,” the professor said. “And the limo ride.”

  Now we were watching that cartoon with the talking ants. Then the newer Rocky movie.

  “Same order, too,” Cowboy said.

  “Are we certain of that?” I said.

  “Here, let me check.” Cowboy pulled out his smartphone as the TV repeated itself, starting with the Superman movie. “I was videoing them pillars, remember?” He brought up his recorded video and crossed over to us. “Hang on.”

  He fast-forwarded through us sitting in the limo, then the pillars, until he finally came to the first clip. It was the Superman movie. He pressed pause and waited for the same clip to reappear on the big-screen TV. Once it did, he hit play and we watched his phone and the TV as the cycle began again. In perfect sync.

  Andi picked up a pencil and paper and began writing.

  “Do you believe there is some sort of pattern?” the professor asked.

  She shrugged. “Only one way to find out.”

  Cowboy’s phone stopped, but the TV repeated itself.

  “Then please,” the professor sighed, “do us a favor and at least put that on mute.”

  Cowboy obliged. But the images kept appearing and reappearing. I glanced over to Daniel on the balcony. He couldn’t care less. Just kept on playing his game. Andi kept working, filling up one sheet, ripping it off, and starting another.

  “Maybe they’re like years or dates,” Cowboy said. “Some secret code, like when you put all the numbers together they say something.”

  “To what purpose?” the professor said.

  Cowboy shrugged.

  “Or maybe it’s not a pattern at all,” I said.

  Andi answered without looking up. “Everything’s a pattern. Whether it’s useful or not, there are always patterns.”

  Cowboy looked longingly at the screen, obviously not thrilled about missing his game. “Maybe I should call the front desk. See if they got another TV.”

  “Not yet,” Andi said.

  Cowboy slumped back into his seat. This was some kind of link. We all knew it. And the sooner Andi figured it out (and we all knew she would), the sooner we’d know what was going on.

  I waited another cycle or two before I grabbed my pad and went back to sketching. The professor picked up his paper. And Cowboy eventually got up and joined Daniel on the balcony.

  The TV never stopped repeating itself. It was back to the spinning top for the thousandth time when there was a knock on the door. We all looked up. Another knock. More impatient. I went over to answer, hesitated, then opened it to see Norman Anderson, the producer.

  “What are you doing here?” I said.

  He just stood there, staring down at his cell phone.<
br />
  “What?” I repeated.

  Without a word he turned the phone to face me. It was playing the same video Cowboy had shown us—starting off with brief shots of us in the limo, followed by the airport pillars, and finally the flickering clips on the limo’s TV.

  Cowboy stepped back into the room. “Hey, that’s my video,” he said. “I filmed that.”

  “You sent it to him?” I asked.

  “Nobody sent me anything.” Anderson did not sound happy. “It’s playing all by itself. Has been for the past ninety minutes.” That’s when he spotted our big-screen TV playing the same images. Without an invitation, he stepped inside.

  “Oh brother,” Cowboy said. He’d pulled out his own phone and was staring at it. “This doesn’t make sense.”

  “Now what?” the professor said.

  “My video. I didn’t touch nothing, but now it’s gone. Erased. All of it. Now I just got this.” He turned his phone around so we could see that the screen was filled with a single word in bright red letters: SINCERELY. And below that a capital letter S.

  Anderson looked down at his phone and swore. If he was unhappy before, he was downright livid now. He turned the screen back to us. It had the same word, SINCERELY, in the same red letters. And, at the bottom, the same capital letter, S.

  I felt my own phone vibrate and frowned. Six people in the world have my cell number. (I like my privacy.) And half of them were in this room.

  I pulled it out and, sure enough, there was the word SINCERELY followed by an S.

  “Who’s S?” Cowboy asked.

  Nobody had a clue.

  “This is all a bit too melodramatic for my taste,” the professor said. “If the party wishes to leave us a message, they should at least have the courtesy to give us his or her name.”

  “Unless . . .” Andi stared at her latest sheet of paper.

  “Unless what?” I said.

  “Unless he didn’t want his identity to be traced.”

  “Who?” Anderson said. “What are you talking about?”

  Andi motioned to the big-screen TV. She waited for the Superman scene to come around. When it did, she simply said, “Superman.”