Valerie stood up and called an agent over. “Get down to the plantation, and search all the locations where a fireplace could have been.”
“What are we looking for?” he asked.
“Anything that doesn’t look like it belongs in a fireplace,” Valerie said in a sarcastic, frustrated voice.
• • •
A man hopped into the backseat of a black van that was parked around the corner from the WCF offices.
“Is it done?” Randolph Fenquist asked.
“Yes,” the man said, running his fingers along the scar on his face. He set the high-powered rifle between them.
Fenquist lit a cigarette. “You know, Jimmy,” he said, “we saved everybody from a lot of hassles today. That girl was causing nothing but problems.”
“Well, she’s at heaven’s gate now,” Jimmy said. “I hope her sins don’t keep her from gettin’ in.”
Both he and Randolph smiled as the van screeched away.
45
Enlightenment is not what you think it is; but you have to be enlightened to know that.
Such is the dilemma of all master teachers.
—THE CHRONICLES OF SATRAYA
WASHINGTON, D.C., 10:00 P.M. LOCAL TIME,
44 HOURS UNTIL LIBERTY MOMENT
Logan now knew the piece of information that his father had used all those years ago to force Fendral and Andrea to disassociate themselves from the Satraya movement and return to Europe. He took his father’s handwritten pages and the cigar case and put them into the tin box. He wondered if Simon, who had only been thirteen at the time, knew of his own father’s despicable deed and, more important, if this information could somehow help to derail the mysterious attack he and Andrea were planning to launch on Freedom Day. Perhaps, as happened years ago, if Simon were threatened with this story going public, he would be inclined to back down. But so much time had passed. Would anyone even care anymore that Fendral Hitchlords had been an impostor? That Giovanni Rast had found the set of the Chronicles known as the Train Set and in all likelihood had been robbed and murdered by Fendral?
Logan rose from the sofa and started pacing the room; it helped keep him from falling asleep. He wanted to stay awake until Valerie returned from her interrogation of Monique. His thoughts went to Mr. Perrot, who was halfway around the world, working to thwart Simon’s quest, and to his parents, who had risked everything to confront Fendral with his lie. He continued to pace. He needed to do something, anything, that would help stop Simon and Andrea. He remembered something that his mother told him when he was young: “Evil is not stopped by good intentions; it is stopped by fearless action.” He stopped pacing. It was time to be fearless. Time to take action. He knew what he should do. He took the blue candle out of the tin box and put it in the candle holder. Then he placed it on the coffee table and sat down on the floor half a meter away. He refused to think about his failed attempt at the plantation.
The room was dark except for the flame of the candle. He struggled to stay awake and focus on the flame. His eyes wanted to close, his body wanted to fall asleep, and he had to shake his head whenever he felt himself drifting off. But just as at the plantation, he still could not hear the ringing sound. His apprehension intensified, and doubt overtook him. Disappointed, he closed his eyes for a moment.
• • •
How it happened, he didn’t know, but Logan found himself back in the old study. The desk stood before him, and the written notes were all stacked in neat piles as they had been during his last sojourn. How is this possible? He hadn’t even been able to keep his eyes open, let alone focus on the flame.
“You are here because you had no expectation of arriving,” an echoing male voice said.
He turned around and saw the dark silhouette of a man sitting in a chair. He was wearing a long, flowing robe and seemed to be in a faint vortex of bluish energy which distorted his face.
“Your failure at the plantation was a result of your arrogance,” the man said, raising his right hand and pointing his finger at Logan. There was a golden ring on his finger. “That is the downfall of all men on this journey. You cannot come to this place or any other in this realm if you presuppose your entitlement to be here. This is a place of sincerity, of humbleness. This realm is not subject to the conditions of right and wrong or good and bad. Did not a great master once say you must humble yourself as a child?”
“I understand,” Logan responded sheepishly. He took a seat in a chair that suddenly appeared, facing the shadowed figure. “Who are you? Are you my father’s friend Baté?” The shadow did not answer. Logan thought for a moment about his next question. “Is everything that I see in the candle true?”
“Whatever you see here is a possibility in your reality,” the shadow replied.
“So what determines if it will happen?”
“What are revealed to you are your potentials. Some are based on your desires; others are rooted in your fears. Whatever you see that frightens you is not certain to come to pass, just as it is with what you see that brings you comfort. All is subject to change. Your fears, your uncertainties, your doubts—all are intermingled with those of everyone around you. If a single person changes his or her mind, the destiny of all will change. Everyone’s thoughts are like great waves upon the ocean interfering with one another. Change the waves, and you will change how they crash upon the shores of your reality.”
Logan pondered the shadow’s cryptic words. Even after some moments, they still didn’t make sense to him. “We need your help,” Logan said. “The world is facing a great threat.”
“Change the waves in your life, and you can change how they crash.” The shadow stood and gave Logan a bow. “It is time for you to leave this place. Your life is beckoning you. But remember this: when the finger of the unknown presents itself, be greater than Adam, and grasp its opportunity.”
Logan did not want to leave. There was something eerie yet empowering about the place. With the gesture of the shadow’s hand, Logan’s chair suddenly disappeared. He was about to hit the floor when he suddenly found himself in a dimly lit room filled with large floral arrangements. People were talking in hushed tones, and no one seemed to notice that he had arrived. He saw Mr. Perrot, Sylvia, Luke, and many others he had recently met, sitting in rows of chairs. On a platform, he saw an open casket. Near it, he saw Charlie. He was looking down into the casket, tears running down his burned and charred face.
Logan did not have to walk over to it; just thinking about doing so teleported him there. On a shelf above the casket, he saw framed photos of a dark-haired little girl who looked familiar to him. In front of another picture of a dark-haired young woman were a badge and a gun. Logan looked down into the casket. He saw Valerie lying there. He screamed and tripped backward. But before he could hit the ground, someone slipped an arm around his shoulder and steadied him.
“Are you all right?” Valerie asked, as she helped him sit up. “I just got home and didn’t want to disturb you, but then you started screaming.”
Logan took a deep breath. He was still trembling from what he’d seen on his candle journey. “Just another wild trip,” he said, as casually as he could. He couldn’t tell her what he had seen.
“I’m glad you’re OK,” Valerie said. “You’re not going to believe what happened to Monique.”
“And you’re not going to believe what I found under the park bench.” Logan rubbed his eyes and gazed around the room, trying to erase the frightening images from his mind. “Oh, no!” he burst out. “The candle!” He looked at the clock; it was just past midnight. He had lost track of time, and the blue candle had completely burned down. His link to the old study and the mysterious shadow had burned away.
46
Until you look into a starry night and can see the end of forever, assume there is more to experience, and continue to explore.
—THE CHRONICLES OF SATRAYA
WASHINGTON, D.C., 10:00 A.M. local time,
32 hours until Liberty Moment
> “This technology is like nothing we’ve seen before,” Sylvia said. “We’ve analyzed the information on Dr. Malikei’s HoloPad computer. Let me try to explain it as best as I can.”
Valerie’s new partner, Alex, entered the WCF forensics lab holding a cup of coffee and took a seat at the table next to Logan and Valerie. All of them had attended the memorial service for Charlie earlier that morning. Charlie’s wife, his two children, and many friends, including a large contingent from the WCF, had filled the chapel. Valerie gave a moving eulogy for her late partner and dearest friend, which she’d had difficulty delivering without choking up a few times. After the ceremony, she and her team had returned to the WCF lab. There was work to be done in his memory, she said.
Now Sylvia used the HoloPad to bring up a cross-section image of a human skull and brain. “The green serum that we recovered from G-LAB affects brain chemistry. In particular, it messes with this area of the brain, called the posterior superior parietal lobe.” Sylvia pointed to the upper back of the skull. “Based on Dr. Malikei’s entries, I would say they were interested in this part of the brain because it is affiliated with the orientation association area, or OAA for short. It is the part of the brain that controls your perception of time, distance, and space. It helps you judge which way is up and which way is down. The more active this region is, the more spatially aware you are. You have a handle on where you are and what you’re doing. At first, we didn’t understand why the doctor considered this region so vitally important, but then we read his notes, specifically his notes about when the serum was most effective.”
“Yes, the doctor said the serum worked best when people were focused on something spiritual,” Logan recalled.
“That’s right,” Sylvia said. “This part of the brain is most affected when people are focused on abstract ideas. There were some initial studies done in the 2010s that measured the OAA region when people were praying or meditating. The activity in this part of the brain slowed down drastically, and people began to lose their awareness of space and time—they reached a sort of transcendental state.”
“You’re going to have to connect some dots for me here,” Valerie said. “I’m not entirely sure I see where this is leading.”
“Imagine what would happen to people if the OAA part of the brain could not be slowed down,” Sylvia said. “Think about how you and I make decisions. Or, more important, consider how we make good decisions. When we are emotional, our choices tend to be rash, more spur-of-the-moment. But when we are able to calm down and think rationally, the OAA region slows down. We can then make decisions and choices that are not unduly influenced by our emotions.”
“Are you saying that people would lose their ability to think if the OAA region of the brain were unable to slow down?” Alex asked.
“No, they would still be able to think and process information,” Sylvia said, “but their decisions might be drastically different from the ones they would have made when their OAA was able to slow down. People would make more purchases on impulse; they would eat more food that tasted good without considering how it affected their health. The world would become a much more emotional place, because people wouldn’t be able to calm themselves and reduce the activities going on in the OAA region.”
“In other words,” Valerie interjected, “people would be more likely to end up shooting their neighbors for making too much noise or putting up a fence they didn’t like.”
“Yes,” Sylvia said. “Once the serum is activated, it will limit people’s ability to think abstractly and navigate complex problems.”
“This is about control,” Logan said in a grave voice. “People would be more vulnerable to manipulation by those whose OAA hasn’t been messed up. They could be prodded, herded like cattle. They would believe anything they were told, and humanity would become a set of automatons following a dictator’s agenda. ‘All persons ought to endeavor to follow what is right, and not what is established,’ ” he recited. Everyone’s eyes were on him. “Aristotle said that.”
“I couldn’t have said it better,” Sylvia said.
“But there is something even more dangerous here,” Logan went on, shaking his head. “The people who created this serum want to separate man from God.”
Everyone in the room looked puzzled.
Logan pulled his notebook out of his backpack and turned to his drawing of The Creation of Adam. “They want to ensure that the finger of man never touches the finger of God. They want this gap never to be closed.” Everyone looked at the picture for a moment. “I couldn’t imagine a world where people could not pray . . .”
“I hadn’t thought about it like that,” Sylvia said grimly. “All that the Chronicles have taught over the last forty years about stilling our minds and allowing our free will to guide our choices would be rendered moot by the serum if activated.”
“Net this out for me,” Alex said as he took a sip of his coffee. “Is this some kind of mind-control experiment? What’s the end result?”
“It’s going to depend,” Sylvia continued. “Based on the doctor’s notes, people who have the ability to substantially slow down their OAA regions will suffer the most drastic effects.”
“How drastic?” Valerie asked.
“If the dead Council members are any indication,” Sylvia speculated, “then things are not looking good.”
Logan turned to Valerie. “Andrea and Simon have found a way to exterminate the free thinkers of the world. The people who pose the greatest threat to them. Just like our parents did all those years ago.” He did not need to say any more.
“Hold on,” Valerie said. “Sylvia, back up. You said the serum has to be activated? It’s not harmful by itself?”
“Once the serum is introduced into the bloodstream, it starts to bind with the DNA.” Sylvia brought up an image on the HoloPad. “This is the image of Cynthia Brown’s DNA. It shows the collar that we discovered a few days ago. That collar was introduced by the serum.”
“By way of the MedicalPods?” Valerie said.
“Is that the qMeds stuff?” Logan asked.
Sylvia sighed. “Those MedicalPods are all about qMeds. It’s based on an emerging science referred to as DIS, DNA-induced superconductivity. It was the brainchild of Ted Wilson, the founder of Allegiance Pharmaceuticals. He and his team used animal DNA to transmit electricity over distance. They then adapted the science to humans, in medical applications at the DNA level. It led to the creation of the MedicalPod network. The pods administer a low level of electrical current that causes a person’s DNA to become supercharged and superconductive. This allows the quantum medicine to be absorbed with great efficiency. Hence the medicines are called qMeds.”
“If this serum was distributed via MedicalPods, how many people would have received it?” Valerie asked.
“Let me put it this way. Did you go for your mandatory MedicalPod checkup in the last six months?” Sylvia asked a bit rhetorically. All three nodded. “Then you received the serum.”
“Son of a—” Alex didn’t finish the phrase.
“According to the central database,” Sylvia continued, “ninety-five percent of the world’s population has been injected with the serum.”
Logan’s eyes widened in disbelief. His immediate thoughts went to his children. His ex-wife Susan was conscientious about taking them for regular checkups.
Valerie shook her head. “We’re dealing with a potentially worldwide catastrophe,” she said. “And we don’t even understand how this catastrophic attack is going to take place!”
“What about an antidote?” Logan said. “If we had one, we could disperse it the same way the serum was, via the MedicalPods.”
“That’s the problem,” Sylvia said. “We don’t exactly know how to remove the DNA collars. Currently, this is a one-way science. Until now, I didn’t know anyone had perfected it.”
“Did you get anything out of the Allegiance CEO when you spoke to him?” Alex asked Valerie.
�
�He said that he would get us a list of all the companies that deployed their medicines via the MedicalPods. And that he’d answer any questions he can.”
“Meaning the hard questions go through the attorneys,” Alex said, annoyed.
No one was sure where to go next.
“We have to do something,” Logan said, desperation in his voice.
“Let’s say that we knew how to remove the collars,” Valerie suggested, turning back to Sylvia. “How long would it take?”
“That’s hard to say,” Sylvia said. “But with the proper antidote, the body could clear it very quickly, probably in a matter of hours, maybe even faster. The real problem is deploying the antidote. With the number of pods we have, it would take at least three months.”
“That’s three months too long,” Valerie said. “All the intelligence we’ve gathered points to an attack at Liberty Moment on Freedom Day. We have less than thirty-two hours.”
Logan looked at a clock on the wall. “If we can’t remove the collar in time, then how do we stop it from being activated? How is it activated in the first place?”
“By the device the agents pulled from the rubble of the plantation,” Sylvia said.
“At least Monique was telling the truth about something,” Valerie said. “What does the device do?”
“To answer Logan’s question first,” Sylvia said, “based on the doctor’s notes, the collar is activated when it comes into contact with a particular UVA spectrum wave. That causes the alternation of the DNA, which messes with the VMAT-2 gene. That’s when all the bad things we talked about take place.” She paused a moment. “To answer Val’s question, the device creates the activation wave. Goshi is running some tests with it as we speak.” She got up and led the group through a set of doors into another room.
There Goshi was working on a computer alongside a bio-coffin, which contained the dead body of an elderly man. Two other coffins stood idle behind him. “It didn’t work,” he said with disappointment as the group gathered around him.
Journey Into the Flame: Book One of the Rising World Trilogy Page 29
