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

by Frank Peretti

  “Or tomorrow, or the next day, or—”

  Pointing to a toggle switch on the side, the professor interrupted. “Then I suggest we simply turn off the contraption and—”

  “Professor, I wouldn’t—”

  Too late. He flipped the switch to the off position. Well, you’d think it should have been off, but the light turned from amber to bright green. At the same time the little digital screen beside it lit up with the numbers:

  00:15:00

  which immediately started counting down:

  00:14:59

  00:14:58

  00:14:57

  The professor swore, flipping the switch up, then down, then up again. Nothing.

  00:14:56

  00:14:55

  00:14:54

  I heard a quiet hum and looked up. Something like a miniature satellite dish, no bigger than a cereal bowl, was rising out of the top of the pillar.

  “That can’t be good,” I said.

  “Or that.” Andi pointed across the way to the next column. A similar dish was also rising, pointing the same direction. And beyond that, another column with a rising dish.

  “What is it?” Cowboy asked.

  “Microwave,” Andi answered.

  “What are they pointing at?” I said. “They’re all pointing the same direction.”

  Andi pulled out her cell phone.

  The professor was still on his knees, fighting the switch. “Andrea!”

  She pointed her phone up at the dish. “Triangulating now.”

  “What’s going on?” Cowboy repeated.

  No one answered.

  “I’m too low,” Andi said. “I’ve got to get a better angle. I’ve got to—”

  Suddenly our cell phones chimed. All of them. I reached into my pocket and pulled mine out. On the screen was an old stone church.

  Cowboy’s must have shown the same. “A church?” he said.

  I nodded and looked to the professor, who was also fumbling with his phone. “Professor?”

  “Yes,” he answered. “Mine is a church, as well.”

  “St. Johns,” Anderson said. He was staring at his own phone. “The abandoned church on West Manchester.”

  “You recognize it?” Andi asked.

  Without a word, he turned and started back across the street.

  “You know this place?” the professor called.

  Anderson shouted back. “It’s six blocks from here.”

  I glanced at the digital clock.

  00:14:18

  00:14:17

  00:14:16

  We traded looks. Then started back through the traffic to join him.

  CHAPTER

  10

  And of all the churches in Los Angeles, how did you recognize this particular one?” the professor asked.

  “The news,” Anderson said. “It’s been deserted a couple years now. Developers want to tear it down, but the city keeps blocking them. Very strange.”

  “What’s strange about that?” Cowboy asked.

  “The city of Los Angeles fighting to keep a church? You really aren’t from around here, are you?”

  We’d parked the limo a block away, Anderson’s suggestion to draw less attention. The closer we got to the place, the creepier it looked. Weeds, ivy overgrowth, old stone walls. The steeple seemed a bit taller than proportionally normal. Other than that, nothing was unusual.

  “So how we getting in?” I asked.

  Anderson motioned to Cowboy. “With his size and the condition of those doors, it shouldn’t be a problem.”

  But it was a problem. From the sidewalk the doors looked like old, rotting wood. But when we got closer and checked them out, we saw they were actually metal—steel painted to look like old wood.

  “Weird,” Cowboy said.

  I motioned to the small electronic box beside the doors. “Is that going to be a problem?”

  Andi was already opening some program in her cell phone. “Shouldn’t be.” She grinned as she held the phone against the lock and it began beeping real fast. “One of my favorite apps.”

  We waited a half minute until the lock clicked and the beeping stopped. She pocketed the phone and pushed open the door. Immediately an alarm sounded, complete with flashing lights.

  “Tank!” Andi called over it. “Will you take care of that?”

  “Me?”

  She motioned to the control panel on the wall not far from the door. He stepped up to it, gave it a good, hard look, then tore it off the wall with his bare hands.

  Everything stopped.

  He grinned back at Andi. “One of my favorite apps.”

  The inside of the church was anything but a church. It had more monitors and walls of electronic junk than three or four of Anderson’s TV control rooms put together. Geek heaven for Andi. She left us and began checking it out.

  There was one thing we all recognized. On the bottom of each monitor was the same type of digital readout we’d seen at the airport:

  00:09:01

  “What does it mean?” Cowboy asked.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “But I’m not liking it.”

  Oh, and there was one other thing we recognized. . . .

  “Greetings.”

  We spun around to see a way-too-familiar guy in a three-piece suit. He’d just strolled out from behind one of the walls of computers.

  “Dr. Trenton?” Cowboy gasped.

  “Who?” Anderson said.

  Trenton continued like he hadn’t heard. “No doubt you’ve noticed you are on private property.”

  “Dr. Trenton,” Cowboy repeated. “Remember us?”

  “He can’t hear you,” the professor said. “I suspect he is a holographic image. As before.”

  And he was right. Trenton just kept on talking like he never heard a word. The guy pulled a pocket watch from his vest. “You have exactly fifteen seconds to remove yourself from the premises.”

  I turned to Anderson and explained. “He’s from the Institute for Advanced Psychic Studies. A training ground for The Gate.”

  “Was,” the professor said.

  “. . . we kinda destroyed it,” Cowboy sheepishly admitted.

  “Ten seconds.”

  Anderson took a step toward the hologram. “Fascinating.” And then another step.

  “Five seconds.”

  Anderson nodded. “He’s simply a pre-recorded display.”

  “Well, all right.” Trenton closed his watch. “But please remember, you have been warned.”

  Suddenly, one of those floating orbs we’d seen in Florida appeared from behind Trenton. It was blue and the size of a softball.

  Anderson took a step back. “What the—”

  “Relax,” I said, “it can’t hurt you.” More softly I added, “I hope.”

  Because I was the first to speak, it flew right at me and stopped three or so feet away. It hovered at eye level. I steeled myself, refusing to flinch. Hoping I sounded tough, I said, “And what do you want?”

  A pencil-thin beam of light shot out and scanned my face.

  “Andi?” I said. But she was out of sight, examining equipment. “Professor?”

  A second later the beam stopped and Trenton turned toward me. “Well, Brenda Barnick, so good to see you again.”

  I glanced to the professor for help.

  “Facial recognition,” he said.

  As soon as the professor spoke, the orb darted to his face and began scanning him. When it had finished, Trenton turned to him. “And Dr. McKinney. What a treat to see you as well.”

  “I’m sure you’re thrilled.”

  Anderson turned to me. “What’s going on?”

  The orb flew to his face and began scanning. You could see the muscles in Anderson’s jaw tighten, but taking his cue from me and the professor, he refused to back down.

  Cowboy opened his mouth to speak, but I motioned for him to keep quiet. Daniel, too. I figured the fewer of us they knew were here, the better.

  When the
scan finished, Trenton stood a moment like he was thinking. Then his face lit up. “Well, hello there—Mr. Norman Anderson, the famous TV producer. Good to see you, sir. You’ve been so helpful to us these many years. However, and I don’t mean to be rude, these grounds are private property and I am afraid you must leave. At once.”

  One thing I’d learned about Anderson, like me he wasn’t great at taking orders. “And if I don’t?”

  Trenton gave no answer.

  Anderson looked around the room. “What’s all this about? And those extra generators at the pillars. The ones you’ve charged to my show’s account. What exactly are you doing here?”

  Trenton ignored him. “I believe there’s somebody here who’d like to see you.”

  “Who? What are you talking about?”

  Trenton just smiled. The floating orb shot back to him. He turned and disappeared behind the wall of computers with it following him.

  Andi called from another bank of computers. “The generators are fully charged.”

  “They’re what?” I said.

  “The pillars have been building a charge. They’ve begun transmitting it to these storage units.”

  “That doesn’t sound good,” Cowboy said.

  “It gets worse. The steeple on top of this roof? It appears to be some sort of an antenna.”

  “To receive the charge?” the professor said.

  “And to transmit it. From what I can tell, when the signal is strong enough—when the countdown reaches zero—it’s going to beam the signal to a satellite in geosynchronous orbit overhead which, in turn, will broadcast the signal over a specific area of the nation. I believe it to be the central states of the Midwest.”

  Before any of us could answer, two eight-year-old girls suddenly appeared from behind Trenton’s wall of computers. Hair tangled, faces dirty, shirts ripped and torn, they ran toward us. They were chained together, foot to foot. One was blonde, the other was—

  “Helsa!” Cowboy cried. And he was right. The girl was our friend from the parallel universe.

  “Daddy!” the blonde shouted to Anderson. “Daddy!”

  “Sophia!” Anderson cried. “Sweetheart!”

  “Daddy!” The girl stumbled and fell to the floor, dragging Helsa down with her. “Daddy, help me!”

  Anderson started toward her, but the professor grabbed his arm. “She’s not here,” he said. “It’s a holographic image.”

  Anderson hesitated, then slowed to a stop.

  “Daddy, you have to go!” the girl shouted. “You have to go now or they’ll hurt us more.”

  “Hurt you? What have they done to you? Where are you?”

  The girl didn’t answer, only began to cry.

  “Helsa!” Cowboy repeated.

  But Helsa didn’t answer, either.

  “It’s me. Tank,” Cowboy said.

  “She doesn’t know you’re here,” the professor said. “The orb never saw you.” To prove his point, he called out, “Helsa?”

  Helsa turned to him.

  The professor motioned to me and I did the same. “Helsa?”

  She turned to me.

  “Daddy, please!” the daughter cried again. “You’ve got to go!”

  I frowned, trying to piece it together. No way did they know Anderson would break in. No way would they kidnap his daughter unless they knew in advance. But they couldn’t know.

  Daniel tugged on my arm. I looked down. He was pointing at the girls. “Shadows,” he said.

  “What?”

  He kept pointing. “The shadows. They’re different.”

  I turned back to the girls.

  He repeated, “They’re different.”

  Then I saw it. The light hitting Helsa was coming from the right. The light hitting Sophia was from the front.

  “Sweetheart,” Anderson shouted. “Where are you? What have they done to you?”

  “Daddy, please, you’ve got to go.”

  I called over to Anderson. “She’s not there.”

  He answered, “Yeah, I get it, holographic image. But they’ve got her somewhere.”

  “That’s impossible,” the professor said. “The odds of them knowing you would be with us are—”

  I interrupted. “Photoshop.” They turned to me and I explained. “They grabbed a video of your daughter, probably off the Internet. They computer-generated her to talk and look at us, but they don’t have her. She’s not there.”

  “Daddy, please go.”

  The professor nodded. “Your daughter is safe and sound in Maui.”

  “And Helsa?” Cowboy asked.

  “The same,” I said, hoping I was right.

  “Daddy! Daddy, you’ve got to go!”

  Anderson looked from me to the professor, then back to the girls. He was a media guy. It should have made perfect sense. Then again, he was also a dad. He reached for his cell phone. “Well, there’s one way to find out. I’ll give them a call and see—”

  Suddenly every monitor in the room lit up. Just one word. Two letters. Different fonts, different sizes, but the same two-letter word over and over again, filling the screens:

  NO! no! NO! no! No! nO! NO! no! NO! no!

  No! nO! NO! no! NO! no! No! nO! NO! NO!

  no! NO! no! No! nO! no! NO! no! No! nO!

  NO! no! NO! no! No! nO! NO! no! NO! no!

  “What?” Anderson said. “What’s going on?”

  The words disappeared. They were immediately replaced by the same clips we’d seen so many times before:

  Superman, Rocky, Inception, Doctor Who, Hunger Games, Antz, Rocky. Superman, Rocky, Inception, Doctor Who, Hunger Games, Antz, Rocky . . .

  “Stop dialing!” I shouted to Anderson. “It’s—” I started to say Sridhar’s name, but caught myself. “Our friend! He’s telling you to stop!”

  But the girl continued pleading. “Daddy, please. You’ve got to go!”

  Anderson ignored me and went back to dialing.

  The screens returned to:

  NO! no! NO! no! No! nO! NO! no! NO! no!

  No! nO! NO! no! NO! no! No! nO! NO! NO!

  no! NO! no! No! nO! no! NO! no! No! nO!

  NO! no! NO! no! No! nO! NO! no! NO! no!

  Anderson entered the last number.

  “What did you do?” Andi shouted from her computers. She sounded panicky. “What did you just do?!”

  I shouted back, “He’s calling his daughter. Why?”

  “His signal, it’s overriding the satellite’s signature.”

  “Meaning?”

  “It intercepted the microwave. It’s shifted it to his phone, to all our phones.”

  Anderson looked at me, then slowly disconnected.

  “He hung up,” I called.

  “It doesn’t matter—it’s still receiving!”

  “His?”

  “Ours. They’re all hot spots. Receiving and transmitting.”

  I threw a look over to the monitors.

  00:04:27

  “The clock says we’ve still got four and a half minutes.”

  “That’s for the satellite uplink. But our own phones . . . every phone in this proximity is receiving the signal now. And transmitting it! It’s happening now!”

  CHAPTER

  11

  The professor smashed his cell phone onto the floor. It shattered into a half dozen pieces.

  “What are you doing?” I shouted.

  “If Andi is correct, I am destroying the transmitter device. Each of you must do the same. You must destroy your phones.”

  He reached for mine, and I pushed him away. “You can’t be sure. These things are expensive.”

  “If you had a modicum of intelligence you would understand.”

  “I understand just fine.”

  He reached for it again, and I shoved him away harder. “You’re not always right. What makes you so right?”

  “Having more than a tenth-grade education increases my odds.”

  I shot him a glare.

  “Or is it
ninth grade, I forget.”

  He reached for my phone again, and I punched him in the gut. It surprised me as much as it did him. But it felt pretty good. So I hit him again. That’s when Cowboy grabbed my arm and spun me around.

  “Stop it!” the big lug shouted. “Stop it right now!” I tried to twist free, but he was twice my size. “I’m so sick of you two fightin’ all the time! You need to grow up!”

  The professor righted himself, massaging his stomach. “Maybe if our resident bag lady could resort to a more civilized way of expressing her—”

  “Shut up! Both of you. Just shut up!”

  I stared at Cowboy. I’d never heard a mean thing come from his mouth. And the professor. Yeah, we had some mutual disrespect goin’, but he’d never resorted to name-calling. And I’d never dreamed of hitting him.

  “It’s the generators!” Andi shouted. “They’re affecting us.”

  “Well, fix it!” Anderson yelled. “You’re supposed to be the electronic genius.”

  Cowboy let go of my arm and turned on him. “You don’t talk that way to Andi. She’s good, and smart, and sweet, and—”

  She cut him off. “And not the slightest bit interested in you.”

  He turned to her, obviously hurt.

  She continued. “Seriously, what do I have to do to get through that thick skull of yours?” She turned to Anderson. “But you . . .” She smiled coyly. “You have the brains and the bod.” Her voice softened. “Not to mention power. I like powerful men. If you ever feel you want a little companionship, intellectual or . . . otherwise, just let me know and I’ll—”

  “Please,” Anderson sneered, “I’m not interested in children.” His gaze shifted to me. “But real women—street-smart with experience—now that’s something I could get into. Really get into.”

  “Dream on,” I said.

  “I’m serious.” He stepped closer. “With all the bimbos around, it’s been a long time since I’ve had myself a real woman. And, I’m betting, since you’ve had a real man.” He took my arm.

  I looked down at his grip then glared back up at him. He didn’t get the message. I tried to break free, but he grabbed my other arm and pulled me toward him. I head-butted him. That message he did get. He staggered backward. But only for a second.

  “Yeah,” he said slowly, “a scrapper. I like that.”

  He came at me again. I threw a punch, but he grabbed my arm and pulled me into him, tight. I tried getting away, using my elbows and knees, but he had me in too close. I shouted. Swore. Turned to the others for help.