The Savior's Game (The Daniel Byrne Trilogy Book 3)

by Sean Chercover

What if I passed out on Lexington Avenue and everything since then has been a dream?

  What if this is all in my head?

  He forced a slow breath, but his heart beat faster and a wave of vertigo washed through him. “Digger, how much of this is a delusion?” He reached for the balcony wall. “I’m not feeling very—”

  “Stop! Be here now.” Digger clunked the heel of her beer bottle hard on the back of his hand.

  It hurt.

  She said, “Feel that? This is real. Don’t run away.”

  It worked, and the pain grounded him. He took a full breath and his pulse began to slow. “Ouch,” he said.

  “Don’t make me do it again. I understand this Eckinsburger thing freaks you out—”

  “Daniel Byrne’s coming to save us? Yeah, it freaks me out. It feeds the same messianic delusion Tim suffered. And besides, I didn’t apply for that job.”

  Digger smiled. “If it makes you feel any better, many of the lost souls in Source have predicted a savior. Eckinsburger probably just latched onto your name after Elias warned us to stay away from you. Understand, there’ve been dozens over time agitating for rebellion, talking of organizing a resistance movement. And some claimed visions of a”—she forced the word out—“Noah-level entity coming to oppose him. But you’re not that. With practice, you might be a match for Elias . . . and Elias is powerful, but he’s just a person like you and me.”

  Daniel said, “Are any of the agitators still—”

  She shook her head. “Maybe he’s got them up in the tower, maybe Elias killed them, but agitators are not tolerated. They just disappear. And he’s got this place locked down to the point where we can’t even meet in groups anymore. We get together in pairs now and then, take a walk or a swim, hang out for a couple of hours and talk. Sometimes manifest a meal and eat together, just because everything tastes so good here. But only in pairs. Any time we gather in groups of three or more, members of his flock show up and try to love-bomb us, telling us how great life is up in the tower, inviting us to join them. And always a couple of his soldiers come along, just so we get the message. And if he knows whenever we gather in groups, then he can see us. Maybe he can even hear us, if he’s listening. I don’t know.”

  “Why don’t you all leave town, set up far away from here?”

  “Can’t leave town. Town goes on about ten miles from the ocean, then it just ends.”

  “Ends, how?”

  “It’s like a huge wall of glimmer, goes all the way up to the sky. Makes you sick, you can’t even get close to it.”

  Daniel searched for a relatively benign question that would lead them back on track. He said, “What does he look like?”

  “Like a normal man, except when he glims in and out of existence from one place to another. His power is incredible. He’s not God-God, but everyone believes he’s some kind of next-level entity. Because he is. Not God, but a god. If we felt like minor gods before he got here, the stuff he could do made us feel like nightclub magicians.”

  “So if he’s a next-level entity, why didn’t you follow him to the tower when he first arrived?”

  “Because he’s a dick, regardless of his power. I mean, if God turns out to be an asshole, should you still follow him? The day he arrived, he threw us a banquet and gave a big speech after dinner. Actually glimmed an entire restaurant into existence up the hill, linen tablecloths, fine china and silverware. Food on every plate, wine in every glass.”

  “Tuxedoed waiters?”

  She shook her head. “Even he can’t manifest any living thing above the consciousness level of plants. You can manifest a dead fish on a platter for dinner, but not a live fish.”

  “I noticed the lack of birds,” said Daniel.

  “No animals at all. Which sucks, because I’m a bit of a cat lady.” She drank some beer. “Anyway, his basic message was that we were mistaken to think of Source as the source universe, or even a parallel reality. He said Source was the only reality, and Earth was just a dream we were having.”

  “But this place doesn’t even hide its holographic nature, so how can he claim it’s the only reality? How does he know there isn’t another source universe projecting this one, and another behind that?”

  She nodded. “And so on, and so on. It’s turtles all the way down.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Of course it could be. We have no way of knowing. But human nature doesn’t change by virtue of crossing over into Source. People are petrified of existential uncertainty, and he offered certainty.”

  “Particularly odd,” said Daniel, “given that this place is a physical manifestation of the uncertainty principle.”

  She raised her bottle. “You’re okay, Daniel Byrne. He’d never win you over.”

  “I’ve seen his grift before,” Daniel said, remembering himself as a kid riding shotgun in the Winnebago with Tim Trinity. “Hell, I grew up in it. Sounds like Noah’s running the same sort of con. He breezes into town performing his magic tricks and sells the snake oil of salvation through metaphysical certainty. It’s the bromide at the root of every religious grift.”

  “Except,” said Digger, “he does more than magic tricks. An example: When he arrived, there were about twelve hundred of us. None of us knew each other back on Earth, didn’t know anything about each other. People arrived here with a clean slate, and we decided early on to respect that. It didn’t matter who anyone was back home. Everyone got a new name, a new start. Here, people were who they said they were.”

  “You could just decide to be someone different, and no one would know,” said Daniel.

  “And I think many took it as an opportunity to reinvent themselves, leave a lot of emotional baggage back on Earth. But he arrived knowing us all. He knew our names on Earth, where we lived, what we did for a living. Every one of us. Which means he can see us back on Earth, too.” She folded her arms across her chest, suppressing a shiver.

  “Like a real god,” she said.

  16

  Digger manifested crab cakes, warm in the oven, while Daniel manifested a Caesar salad and a bottle of dry rosé in the fridge. He couldn’t decide between Bajan or Louisiana hot sauce, so he manifested both.

  Over dinner on the balcony, she told him more of her life in Source before Noah’s arrival, how Noah seduced the people here, how he intimidated those who resisted his charms and “disappeared” those who spoke out against him. She didn’t use Noah’s name—and neither did Daniel—but she acknowledged Daniel’s need to know, and with some gentle prodding she answered his many questions as best she could.

  “I have no idea,” was a frequent answer, also a signal that his questions had again wandered away from the experience of Source and into the metaphysical woods. The woods where the minds of others in Source before him had wandered and gotten lost, never to find their way back.

  A lot to take in.

  Daniel closed his eyes and manifested a pot of coffee on the kitchen counter inside. He stood and collected their empty plates.

  “Be right back,” he said.

  She called after him. “One cream, two sugars, please.” When he paused, she added, “I can smell it.”

  He returned with the coffee, and they listened to the distant surf and sipped quietly for a minute. Despite the constant string of questions marching through Daniel’s mind, he was getting better at surfing the wave—he sent a silent thanks to his friend Natty B—and now he could feel Digger’s presence from across the table.

  She’d said people learn to feel the presence of others nearby in Source, that you could tap into their emotional state. And it was true. It was like Daniel could feel a muted sense of what she was feeling, not the way you infer another’s mood from body language and tone, but a direct feeling, coming across the table like heat from a radiator.

  She was cautious more than fearful, her caution directed toward the tower in the distance, keeping herself on alert. But there was also a certain defiant pride, and a sense of camaraderie with Daniel
. He couldn’t read her thoughts, but her emotional state was clear.

  Daniel marveled at the intimacy of it, and he thought of Kara. She’d had AIT. Maybe she could learn to cross over. He allowed himself the brief fantasy of exploring Source with Kara, then shut it down.

  He said, “Aside from Noah, I do love it here. I realize that’s like saying, Aside from that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play? but I can’t get over the potential of this place. It’s incredible.”

  “You’re a natural,” said Digger, raising her coffee mug. “This is one strongly intentioned cup o’ joe.”

  “Glad you approve.”

  “No, really. Nobody’s first coffee tastes this good. They always start off a bit generic.” She put her mug down and looked straight at Daniel. “That’s why he wants you dead.”

  “He must really hate coffee,” said Daniel.

  She shot him a look. “Listen. You’ve done things on your first attempt that take everybody else a hundred tries or more.”

  “The things we can do here,” said Daniel, “as weird as it is to admit . . . they feel almost natural to me.”

  “That’s because—” She caught herself, started over. “My theory is, navigating in Source feels natural to you because your consciousness has been here before, only you don’t know it.”

  “That’s not a theory, it’s just a guess.”

  “Look at the evidence. Exhibit A: You do things here like you’ve done them many times before. Exhibit B: You told me you had an apartment, complete with personal belongings, already manifested when you arrived. The rest of us had only the clothes on our backs. You see? You’ve been here all along. You just can’t remember. An apartment, for God’s sake. Nobody else. You’re the only one.”

  Daniel pointed his coffee mug at Noah’s white tower. “I suspect he’s got a pretty swingin’ pad up there.”

  “Well, right. You didn’t manifest a four-hundred-story skyscraper on your first day. Noah’s a next-level entity. Like I said before, you’re not one of him, you’re one of us. But you’re the most powerful one of us I’ve ever seen. Now that your entire consciousness is here, and with a little practice . . . Look. Head-to-head, he’d make short work of you and be back to his breakfast before his eggs got cold. I haven’t changed on that. But maybe you could be powerful enough to toss a monkey wrench into his intentions, after all. Maybe he thought it prudent to take you out prophylactically, if you’ll pardon the word choice.”

  “Maybe,” said Daniel. “But we don’t even know what his intentions are.” He looked back to the tower in the distance. “What do two thousand people do up there all day?”

  “I’ve never been, but they say the bottom 350 floors are empty. Say they spend a lot of time meditating on the top floor of the building and Noah lives up on the roof, in the glim, but he guides their meditations. And they say he gives talks—sermons, I guess. He’s got them convinced that Earth is a dream, and they’re somehow making it a better dream.”

  Daniel remembered the first time he saw the tower. He’d thought the sun was reflecting off a glass wall on the penthouse level. But it wasn’t sunlight reflecting off glass. It was, as they called it in Source, the glim. Atop a tower built by Noah’s intentions.

  How do you go up against a guy like that?

  Daniel said, “How close do you think we can get before we give ourselves away? I’d like to take a—”

  Digger was rising from her chair, staring past Daniel, terror in her eyes, staring away from Noah’s tower, pointing down toward the beach.

  It had been a clear day since they’d arrived, but now a large storm front hung low in the western sky, over the ocean, a few hundred yards from landfall, thick black clouds moving toward shore, gray curtains of rain sheeting down to the water below.

  “Shit,” said Digger.

  The clouds billowed up, growing so fast they looked like a time-lapse video, rolling and billowing until they blocked the bottom half of the sun.

  Like turning a dimmer switch on the world.

  She said, “We have to get back home.”

  Back home. Daniel remembered. I’m in a float tank in Barcelona. How could I have forgotten that?

  “Damn it,” she said, “we shouldn’t have talked about him. He knows where we are. We have to move.”

  “Wait, he knows where we are here, or—you said he can see people on Earth. Is the risk here, or there? Where’s the danger?”

  “I don’t know.” She stepped forward. “And there’s less difference between the two than you might think.” She touched his arm. “Remember the float spa. Picture yourself there, remember how it felt just before you lost track of your body and crossed over. The air in the float tank smells of salt, remember that smell. Close your eyes, feel yourself there, and you’ll be there. I’ll see you back home.”

  Daniel stole a glance back at the storm as it rolled in, picking up speed, reaching the shore and rising even higher, blotting out more sunlight, darkening the world.

  “Go,” said Digger, her eyes flicking back at the storm. “I’ll buy you time.”

  “No, you come, too. We go at the same time.”

  “It’s not up for debate.” She grabbed Daniel’s arms and spun him away. “I’ll be right behind you. Now go!”

  Daniel closed his eyes.

  I’m in Barcelona, Spain.

  In a float tank.

  The air is salty.

  17

  Daniel let out the breath he was holding and filled his lungs again.

  He opened his eyes.

  He was nowhere.

  Caught between worlds? Trapped in a void? Dead? His mind grasped for context.

  No light, no sound, no—

  Wait. The air is salty.

  Float tank in Barcelona.

  He moved his arms and heard water splash. He contracted his stomach, feeling for which way was up, then sat up and blindly reached his right arm out until it touched the smooth wall.

  He ran his hand along the wall until it found the switch. The LEDs in the ceiling came alive, and he was bathed in blue light. He pressed the red button, and the hatch door rose on pneumatic hinges.

  Daniel stepped down from the tank and into the bright room, still feeling disoriented. He knew he was in the float spa in Barcelona but he’d been in another place, and the memory was returning fragmented. He remembered the sand between his toes, the sun frozen in the sky. Source—he’d been in Source—with . . . Digger. She’d taught him how to spot-travel. They’d had dinner—crab cakes—on a balcony. Something had gone wrong, something about a storm . . .

  Pat was leaning against the far wall, by the door, working the crossword on a folded newspaper. He lowered the paper as Daniel wrapped himself in one of the thick bathrobes supplied by the float spa.

  “Didn’t work, huh?”

  Daniel shook his head. “It worked plenty.”

  “But you guys just got in.”

  “No, I—we were there half a day.”

  Pat shook his head, confirmed it with a glance at his watch. “You’ve been in there just under four and a half minutes.”

  Digger’s words came back to him: Time works differently here. He let out a low whistle. “Digger wasn’t kidding.”

  “Digger?”

  “Dr. Cameron. That’s what she’s called there—in Source.”

  Then Daniel remembered. It all came flooding back.

  He knows where we are.

  I’ll buy you time.

  “Dude, we gotta motor.”

  “Relax,” said Pat, “we’re cool. Nobody’s arrived since you went in. Pretty Boy at the counter’s just lookin’ bored, reading GQ and practicing his pout. Only thing’s changed: He put on a Santa hat. I think he thinks he’s being ironic.”

  “You don’t understand, Noah’s a—I don’t know exactly what Noah is, but he’s bad business. He knows what everyone in Source is named on Earth, what everyone does for a living, where they live—that’s how Elias knew where to find me in Barbados.”


  “You mean Drapeau.”

  Daniel nodded as he strode across to Digger’s float tank. “Same guy. I don’t know if Noah knows where we are right this instant, but he very well might—he found us there in less than five minutes, Earth time. Digger’s right; he’s some next-level entity. He built a four-hundred-story skyscraper out of pure intention and—”

  “Slow down.” Pat eyed Daniel for a second before speaking. “I gotta level with you, Dan. You’re not sounding strictly one hundred percent rational right now. But if you say we gotta motor, we motor.” He nodded at the closed float tank. “You’re the AIT expert. Any idea how we wake the professor?”

  “That’s the problem. Forcing someone out of an AIT episode is a high-risk play—it can trigger a severe dissociative state with crippling and long-term mental health repercussions. Sometimes permanent. It’s just something you don’t do.” Daniel thought back to what he’d learned from Ayo Onatade, head of the Foundation’s AIT team. The risk of triggering such a state was about five percent. One in twenty.

  Pat said, “So we give her a little more time. She knows what she’s doing.”

  Daniel looked at the float tank. Cameron did know what she was doing. She was a capable woman with an agile mind. She’d been in Source through Noah’s ascendency, remained an independent straggler, in defiance of his wishes, while the vast majority became his flock and those who spoke against him vanished. She’d walked that tightrope and survived. She couldn’t toss dumpsters around, but she’d outwitted a professional assassin, saving Daniel’s life. Probably saved his life again, just moments ago. Waking her might destroy her mind, but not waking her . . .

  He did the math. They’d been at the float spa for twenty-three minutes, the university a couple hours before, but Daniel and Pat had conducted a twenty-four-hour surveillance on Cameron, sleeping in shifts, to be sure Drapeau wasn’t hanging around in the shadows before Daniel made his approach. In total, Daniel had been in Barcelona for almost thirty straight hours. Seemed an unsafe length of time to stay in one place, considering Noah’s special talent.