Gather the Sentient

by Amalie Jahn

  His skin was smooth, the darkest brown she’d ever seen, and she wished in that moment she had the power to reach out and touch his cheek. She was certain it would feel like satin if she could. His hair was clipped short, almost to the scalp, and in contrast to the native looking sarong draped around his hips, a pair of thick, horn-rimmed glasses adorned his face.

  Coming out of his trance-like state, he blinked repeatedly and then bowed his head, as if to recover from something. After a moment, he pulled a tablet out from beneath the woven mat and powered it on. His fingers flew across the screen, searching, and then finally he began to type. Lanying strained to see the words on the screen but the text was blurry and unreadable. She watched him from within the vision for several more minutes until slowly, the image started to retreat.

  The following afternoon, as she sat in her Advanced Bariatrics seminar, she was yanked away, without warning, back to the African jungle. Initially concerned about missing important information from the day’s lecture, she quickly reconsidered when she realized the importance of the scene she’d been called to witness.

  The man from the first vision was there, dressed now in a filthy t-shirt with a logo for World Vision emblazoned across the back. He sat among a circle of women and infants, as well as boys and other men, most of whom looked to be between the ages of 12 to 40, and on the ground in the center of their group was a large scale model of what she assumed was the surrounding area. There was a highly forested section and beside that numerous fields displayed with different crops. By the way he slid the sections around and moved them in and out of the display, it was clear he was explaining crop rotation. She glanced away from the group and saw that just beyond the small clustering of thatched roof huts, there was a makeshift granary, where teenage girls worked to load baskets of maize onto a World Vision delivery truck.

  As abruptly as she’d been pulled into the vision, she was dismayed to discover being returned to her class with the same degree of haste. Thrown slightly off-kilter, she blinked several times to reorient herself to her surroundings, from the blazing African sun into the dim classroom. Her professor was pontificating about the pros and cons of LAP band surgery, and Lanying immediately tuned out. The last thing she wanted to think about was people who had access to so much food they needed operations to keep themselves from eating, especially having just witnessed people living in a place known for extreme bouts of famine. Without the slightest hesitation, she gathered her belongings and slipped unnoticed out the back of the lecture hall.

  Most of the visions she’d experienced during her life had been benign. Of people driving to work, grocery shopping, watching television. And the truth was, she hadn’t been particularly inclined to think very much about the meaningless visions peppering her existence. She’d mollified herself about remaining at a distance, uninvolved, because what went on in other people’s lives simply wasn’t her business. However, after meeting Thomas in real life, outside the visions she’d observed him through for so long, she now realized she could no longer ignore the truth.

  She was part of the Sevens Prophecy.

  She was chosen to save the world.

  And therefore, it stood to reason that the visions she was having of the man in Africa were important. She was sure of it.

  She headed to the closest Wi-Fi area on campus and booted up her laptop, Googling World Vision from her phone. Within moments she learned they were an agency dedicated to ‘working with children, families, and their communities worldwide to reach their full potential by tackling the causes of poverty and injustice.’ She began skimming their website, searching through hundreds of active development projects across dozens of countries in Africa when she spotted a photograph of the man from her vision.

  His name was Salomon Maunb, and he was a junior agricultural specialist from the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

  Immediately, she searched for information about the country, having little knowledge of its location on the map, much less its history or current status, and the first image on the screen turned her stomach. Dozens and dozens of men, women, and children frowning into the camera, all without any hands, exactly like the photographs she’d witnessed Salomon inspecting in her first vision. What had Salomon been doing with the pictures? she thought. And what in the world happened to the Congolese?

  Discovering the truth behind the mutilated natives was the easier of the two inquiries. Two clicks later, the answer was revealed by an online encyclopedia page describing the atrocities committed by King Leopold II of Belgium against the Congolese during his reign at the turn of the nineteenth century. After claiming much of the land in the Congo for himself, Leopold used mercenaries to exploit forced labor from the native population, harvesting and processing rubber. The king went on to amass a great fortune at the expense of nearly ten million Congolese lives. Sadly, if the Congolese were unable to meet their daily rubber quota, the punishment was death; although many Congolese children and wives whose fathers and husbands did not meet their quotas also paid a severe penalty by having their hands removed.

  Upon reading all of this, Lanying was appalled and overwhelmed by the brutality Salomon’s ancestors endured and immediately wondered to what degree Salomon was motivated by this information. Did it make him angry? Sad? Emboldened? It also bothered her that she’d lived her entire life without knowing anything about this narrative of world history, causing her to speculate about other gaps in her knowledge base. Her curiosity sparked, she dove deeper into her search, reading more about Leopold’s reign of terror and the current state of the Democratic Republic of Congo. And then, an hour into her search, she stumbled across Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad’s seminal call-to-arms against the Dutch occupation and downloaded it immediately.

  She was three-quarters of the way through the novella, still sitting in the same Wi-Fi station in the university’s library when her phone buzzed in her pocket. She pulled it out and saw that Thomas was attempting to Skype. Mindful of the library’s strict no calls policy, she dashed into the nearest restroom, leaving her backpack and laptop behind.

  As soon as the restroom door closed safely behind her, she answered the call. “Hello!” she said, waving enthusiastically at the screen with her free hand.

  “Hi,” he grinned back. “It’s good to see you.”

  “You too.” She was surprised by the sense of relief she felt at seeing his face. Since leaving the United States she’d been plagued by the feeling that her trip there had been a dream and that Mia and Thomas didn’t actually exist outside her own mind. There’d been several text messages sent between them, but visual confirmation of his existence sparked renewed confidence in her path.

  “Listen,” he began, “I don’t want to keep you long because I’m sure you’re busy and it’s really late here in Baltimore, but I wanted to let you know Mia and I may have found another psychic from the prophecy.”

  “That’s terrific news!”

  “I know. We’re still researching specifics about her, but her birthday is a match and she’s part of this psychic registry we’ve been working from. We have no idea whether she’s light or dark, but we’re working on finding out.” He paused. “Any news from your end?”

  She thought of the hours she’d wasted reading about the Congo and Heart of Darkness and felt a pang of regret, until she remembered her grandfather’s warnings about the prophecy. “Something quite strange, actually,” she told him. “As it turns out, my grandfather, who I thought was simply an archivist at the Second Historical Archives of China in Nanjing, worked secretly as a historical theologian prior to his retirement. Thomas, he knows about the prophecy. He believes in the prophecy. And the weirdest part is, he suspected for many years I was part of it.”

  He was silent for a moment and she saw the awed expression on his face. “What does he know?”

  “A lot. He gave me a box of old relics and notes from his research. I’ve been trying to go through it…” She stopped then, the guilt of her misdi
rected attention weighing heavily, until she suddenly remembered her first vision of Salomon occurred as she was going through the box. Was it possible? she thought.

  “Thomas, I think I may have found another psychic as well.”

  His eyes widened in disbelief. “You’re kidding.”

  She was piecing it all together quickly in her own mind – the scrap of paper written in Bantu and Salomon’s trance-like appearance while holding the photographs of the handless Congolese. It wasn’t impossible for him to be one of them. He even appeared to be about the right age. And if the reason her ability had shown her Thomas was because he was part of the prophecy, perhaps that’s why it was showing her Salomon as well.

  “Remember when I told you I had visions of you long before actually meeting you in real life?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Well, I believe it might be happening again. Now that I’ve made an actual, physical connection with you, I believe my focus may have now shifted to another member of the prophecy. Since returning from the United States, I’ve had several visions of an African man named Salomon working in the Democratic Republic of Congo. I didn’t know all of that at first, of course, but it didn’t take long to uncover with a little online research.”

  “And what makes you think he might be psychic?”

  She called to mind the way Salomon held the photos in his hands. The way he sat motionless, as if in prayer or meditation. As she described what she’d seen to Thomas, she became even more convinced there was something inherently supernatural about it.

  “It could be psychometry,” Thomas said, without missing a beat, clearly unfazed by the ridiculousness of what she was suggesting.

  “Which is what?” she asked.

  “Mia described it to me as the ability to use an object to understand more about the events surrounding it. He might have been using the pictures to see back in time to the point at which they were taken. What were the pictures of?”

  Her stomach churned at the thought. “Mutilated native Congolese. They were enslaved and tortured by the Dutch monarchy in the late 1800’s. I’ve just been reading up on it. Such a tragedy.”

  Thomas looked away from the screen, and she could tell he was thinking. “Do you have a gut feeling about him? About whether he’s light or dark? Because maybe he’s interested in their persecution because he’s looking forward to its return.”

  Another woman entered the restroom and eyed Lanying suspiciously as she slipped into a stall.

  “I had the same thought initially, but the more I think about it, the more I’m inclined to think that’s not the case.” She spoke more quietly now that she was no longer alone in the room. “He works for World Vision, an organization which partners with communities to address immediate food needs and to grow sustainable food for the future. When I saw him, he appeared to be teaching a village about crop rotation. He was hands on, Thomas. He was helping those people. And I think he might actually be Congolese himself.”

  They were both silent as the other woman appeared from her stall, washed her hands, and returned to the library without attempting to make small talk or even eye contact. Lanying’s muscles relaxed as the door clicked shut, and she realized just how nervous it made her to think someone else might discover her secret.

  “So you think, assuming he’s one of us, that he’s light?”

  “Yes. My gut tells me he is.”

  He frowned. “So really, we’re no better off than we were before, right? Because finding good guys doesn’t do us any good if it’s the bad guys we need to keep apart.”

  She hadn’t considered this, however, she felt compelled to trust her gift. It had to be showing her Salomon for a reason, and not just to prove there were other good psychics in the world. She already knew that. Her visions had a purpose, she just had to figure out what it was.

  “I’m going to reach out to him, Thomas. There was an email contact on World Vision’s website for him. I don’t know quite what I’ll say, but we need to at least find out if his birthdate matches ours. Beyond that, perhaps bringing him into our circle won’t stop the dark psychics, but it can’t hurt to have another person on our side, can it?”

  He smiled into his phone, and she saw herself smiling back in the tiny image on the bottom corner of her screen. “I like your thinking,” he said. “And it’s not a bad idea. Although to be honest, he might not even respond. He might think you’re crazy.”

  She returned his smile, surprised by how their conversation emboldened her. For the first time in her life, she felt truly purposeful, a valuable member of a team. Crucial even. And it felt wonderful. “I can handle it,” she said.

  CHAPTER

  34

  MIA

  Friday, September 30

  Baltimore

  The phone on Mia’s desk rang. It never rang. She looked at it for several seconds before registering that she should pick up the receiver.

  “Hello?” she said cautiously.

  “Is this Rosetti?”

  She recognized the voice immediately. Sisco.

  “What do you want?”

  “I got something for you on the guy you been lookin’ for.”

  Criminals didn’t typically call her out of the blue, offering unsolicited information. It was clear he needed something from her. “What do you want?” she repeated again.

  Jack looked up from his laptop, curious now about who was on the other end of her conversation.

  “Mi amigo, Trece.”

  “What about him.”

  “He got picked up by your department this morning.”

  This was the first she was hearing about his arrest, but it wasn’t a surprise. The question was whether the arresting officer would be willing to make a deal to get her the information she needed about Alejandro.

  “And?” she said. She was going to make him ask. It felt good to make him say the words aloud.

  “And I’m willing to give you what I got if they let him go.”

  “And if they don’t?”

  “Then I ain’t got nothin’ to say to you.” And with that, the line went dead.

  She set the receiver back on its cradle and had to laugh at Jack’s expectant expression.

  “That phone never rings,” he said.

  “I know. And you won’t believe who it was.” She gave him the CliffsNotes version of the conversation and he followed her out of their office to the detaining facilities. “I hope they haven’t already shipped him off to central booking.”

  She needn’t have worried because as they reached the holding cells she spotted one of the senior officers escorting him into a room for questioning.

  She nodded at Trece. “Is this guy your perp, and if he is, can I get a minute with you, Zelnick?” she called.

  “He’s not mine. Just dropping him off. If you need somethin’ you’re gonna have to talk to Fields. Last time I saw him he was with the Chief.”

  Her heart sank. Fields was about the last officer she would have chosen to deal with, given their past history and current situation. Jack shot her a knowing glance as she called to mind the last run in they’d had with him just after Commissioner Dalton’s arrest. A ‘by the book’ hardliner, he was a stickler for both details and justice. Which meant he hated that Mia went after Dalton on a hunch and carried out her plan for his arrest outside standard operating procedures. The fact that he’d defended Dalton on principle ensured the two officers would never get along, much less see eye to eye with regard to Sisco’s negotiations.

  “You wanna go talk to him, or do you want me to?” Jack asked.

  “Let’s just go together,” she said. “Maybe my dad will run interference.”

  Fields was standing in the doorway of her father’s office as she and Jack approached. She stood in the hall, just inside his line of sight, until they finished their conversation.

  “You need me?” her father asked as Fields began to walk away without so much as acknowledging her presence.

 
“Actually, no,” she said to both men. “I was looking for you, Fields.”

  He turned on his heel, making a slow production of her imposition. “Can it wait? I’ve got a guy detained in questioning for me.” He checked his watch. “I’m late already.”

  “That’s actually what we wanted to talk to you about,” Jack said, taking the lead. “We’ve got an opportunity to get some intel on a case we’ve been pursuing if we can work a deal to get your guy sprung.”

  Fields laughed and continued down the hall. “Fat chance,” he called over his shoulder. “I’ve had this punk in my crosshairs for months. Like hell I’m gonna let him off now.”

  He rounded the corner and was out of sight before Mia’s father broke the tension. “What’s going on?”

  She rolled her eyes. “You know the case we’ve been working about the woman whose boyfriend followed her from Phoenix to kill her?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, Fields has this guy Trece down in holding. I have no idea what he picked him up for, but his buddy Sisco called me a little while ago to make a deal – Trece’s freedom for intel on Alejandro, the guy who’s out to kill his girlfriend.”

  She could see her father weighing their options. He walked a fine line between being the chief of police and being her dad. 99 times out of 100, he erred on the side of the department, but she still held out hope.

  “You think your informant is credible?” he asked.

  “As credible as any criminal can be,” she answered honestly.

  “And you trust him to keep his end of the bargain?”

  “He knows I’ve got stuff to bring him in on if he doesn’t.”

  Her father glared at her over the top of his glasses. “I’m gonna pretend I didn’t hear that, Officer. But let me talk to Fields about it.”

  Mia couldn’t keep from smiling. It was good to have friends, or family as the case was, in high places.

  “Wipe that grin off your face, Mia. I’m not making any promises. If he’s got this Trece kid in here for something legit, I might have to let it ride.”