Teek

by S. Andrew Swann

  Stone looked up at the ceiling, as if regarding the sky. “Then the realization hit me. I was seeing an event millions of miles away, and a billion people were experiencing the same event!” Stone held his breath in a dramatic pause, still staring at the ceiling. “Every one of them,” Stone finally said, “the same thoughts. Everyone the same vision. Everyone the same collective dream. That was when I knew.”

  Stone waited and Allison realized that this was the point in the speech where he wanted to be prompted.

  Allison gave him the minimal, “knew what?”

  Like a programmed mannequin at an amusement park, Stone launched back into his story. “The upheaval in the sixties was the first stirrings of the Change.” Allison could hear the capital C. “With the moon landing I realized that I was seeing the collective unconscious made flesh. Our primitive unconscious, our primal fears, our dreams and fantasies all becoming one with the screen.”

  Yes, of course, uh-huh— Allison shrunk a little further into the chair.

  “That was only the first realization. More and more it became obvious that the realm of the spirit was closing upon us. Technology itself was unearthing the ancient shamans and bringing them to life. Physicists have delved deep into the heart of the quantum and have found the Buddha looking back.”

  Stone started pacing, swinging his cane around to indicate both the bookshelves and the complex beyond them. “Before Prometheus ever came to me, I knew my life’s work would be to help engineer the Change. Even then, I could see a great racial longing. I saw it the children who blew their mind on LSD looking for the doorways inside. I saw it in the UFOs. Not aliens, I knew now, but travelers from within. I see it now, in the eyes of televangelists, the channelers, all those who believe in something, anything—”

  What about Elvis? Allison thought.

  “There’s a longing for the next step, the new age, the other world. It draws humanity like a salmon upstream to spawn. I saw this all, but there was no guiding force, no plan for the next stage in humanity’s evolution—”

  “This is where you come in. Isn’t it?” Allison said it so quietly that she didn’t know if Stone had heard.

  “By the time I had heard of the Prometheus Research Institute, I had amassed this library in my studies.” He indicated the books with his cane. “It is the most extensive of its kind.”

  He leaned on his cane. For the first time Allison thought he was really seeing her. “You’re right. Originally this was funded by the CIA. But the CIA disassociated itself at about the time there was the first signs of Awakening. Perhaps they’re afraid of the Change. Perhaps they should be.” Stone shook his head. “I was a patriot with money, and eventually the Institute contacted me to help finance what the CIA no longer supported.” Stone smiled a wide, unrestrained grin that scared the hell out of Allison.

  “I did that, and more. I bought them out. Gave them a new direction. A true direction. I’ve turned Prometheus into the instrument to open the doors of the Change.”

  Stone stared deep into Allison’s eyes. His stare was more intimate, more violating than Chuck’s had ever been. Allison shrunk in the chair. After a long pause, he said in a gentle voice, “After all these years, and all these children, you are the first one to be fully Awakened.”

  Stone’s eyes were intense, empty, and saw much too deeply.

  “Awakened?” Allison managed to say.

  “Yes. I have been waiting for you, or one like you. Someone who has fully linked to one of the ancient powers. In the words of my PhDs, you are our first fully operant telekinetic.”

  Allison straightened in her seat. “What do you want from me?”

  “We are here to learn to access the other world. With one door open, we can discover the keys to more. You are but the first of a new order. With your help, there will be others.”

  Allison felt Stone’s eyes on her and couldn’t help imagine being the incubator for this nut’s master race. “I get the picture,” she whispered.

  “Good.” Stone walked around his metal desk and sat himself down again. Allison could hear the chair protest. “You are the first of many, Allison. You will help me bring the Change.”

  Allison swallowed and pulled herself up in her chair. Remember your advantage, she told herself. Don’t act afraid. In this man’s sick little world, he needs you.

  After willing herself calm, she managed to speak in a voice whose stillness surprised her. “If you want any help from me, I have to have regular visits with my father and Macy.”

  He made a dismissive gesture with his hands, as if it wasn’t even an issue. “It is not a problem, Miss Boyle.” He nodded at her, and she took that as her cue to leave.

  Before she reached the door Stone added, “You were chosen, Allison. Not by me or Prometheus. Your conception is the result of the synchronicity of the other world. You are the Change willing itself to happen. Remember that.”

  Allison shuddered as she closed the door behind her.

  ◆◆◆

  She was led back by another guard. Dr. Zendel had disappeared somewhere. Allison didn’t think she’d miss the doctor, but anything would have been preferable to the blank-faced security goon who appeared as if he’d shoot her as soon as look at her.

  Allison noticed that his ID tag was red. That placed him at the top of the security hill as far as Allison could determine. Blue, green, yellow and red. Blue on the bottom. Red on the top. Allison didn’t find it encouraging to think that a lot of the staff she’d seen with the students were only one step above her, security-wise.

  This guard, leading her back to the blue area, held the first red ID tag she’d ever seen. She noticed that, unlike her ID card, the red-bordered one only had a photograph and the PRI flame logo, no name.

  She was slightly tempted to ask this guy his name, but only slightly. He looked like a twitchy Gary Busey on a bad day. When they reached the lobby of the administration building, she was glad to be rid of the guy.

  12:13 PM

  For lunch, Allison walked through the cafeteria, grabbed a cardboard cheeseburger, and walked back toward the residences. Between the two large residences were a pair of tennis courts, a basketball court, and a small park set up with benches. The whole courtyard was walled in on three sides, on the left by the boys’ residence, on the right by the girls’, and ahead of her, beyond the basketball court, was a building that Allison thought was a gym.

  She walked between the tennis courts and leaned up against one of the whitewashed camera poles. There wasn’t any sign of Zack yet. Allison sighed.

  If it wasn’t for her severe lack of options, she wouldn’t even be thinking of meeting with him.

  She turned her gaze upward and watched the cameras above her as she ate her burger. There were three cameras up there, pointing out the corners of an equilateral triangle. None of them panned down enough to see within a dozen feet of the pole they were mounted on.

  Thinking about that, she looked around the courtyard to see which cameras were watching her.

  The cameras were in the obvious places, including the upper corners of the gym wall. Looking around, Allison couldn’t see anywhere that wasn’t fully covered by some camera or other, at least momentarily. It was depressing.

  “BOO!”

  The shock almost made her spit up her cheeseburger. She jumped turned around to slap Zack— his voice had been unmistakable— and stopped.

  She was looking at Billy Idol in a pair of funny nose glasses. Her hand froze in midair. She snorted once, and swallowed. She tried to control herself and the effort made her tremble.

  “Happy Halloween,” Zack said.

  Allison lost it. Something about hearing Zack’s upper-class Boston accent— incongruous already— coming from behind a garish plastic nose and whiskers made her keel over laughing. She tried to tell herself it wasn’t that funny. But, as she plopped on her butt, holding her stomach, she thought, maybe it is.

  After a second she managed to choke out, “Some entrance,
Zack.”

  “Did I do something funny?”

  Allison almost lost it again. But she managed to control herself this time. She pulled herself upright. “Please, take those things off.”

  Zack took off the glasses, somewhat sheepishly, and looked at them with a slightly bewildered expression. “Sorry,” he said.

  Allison shook her head. “No, it’s all right.” She actually felt a little better. It was the first laugh she’d had recently that didn’t feel as if it was a symptom of her sanity slipping. “Come on, let’s go for a walk, you can show me around.”

  Zack shrugged and started walking, and Allison fished his copies of The Uncanny X Men out of her pocket and handed them to him. “Your comic books.”

  Zack looked at her and arched an eyebrow. “Finished them already?”

  “All of them,” she said, “I’m a quick reader.”

  They walked around in front of the administration building. “So, are they listening to us now?”

  “Truth is, I don’t know.” He lowered his voice. “I do know they’re watching. There’s a camera panning after you.”

  Allison sighed, “I expected as much.” More quietly, “You were right about Mr. Stone.”

  “You’ve seen him already? I’m impressed.”

  “So’s he, apparently.” Allison looked back at the dorms. “So where’s this ward?”

  “The Ward, and it isn’t in the student area, of course.” Zack waved off in the direction of what appeared to be a classroom building. “It’s over behind there. Believe me. You don’t want to screw around with that place.”

  “I take it that’s separate from the medical facilities I was told about.”

  “You bet, the staff won’t even admit the Ward exists—”

  “But you know different?”

  Zack laughed. “Ever try to keep rumors from spreading around a population of telepaths?”

  Allison looked around at the kids crowding the courtyard, feeling more exposed than ever. Zack seemed to notice her concern. “Hey, don’t worry. You’re safe from that at least. Doubly safe.”

  “Huh?”

  “Their little yellow pill? Most of the staff takes ‘em too ‘cause the drug blocks the telepaths out. It’s like locking the door from both sides. Besides which, you’re too high up the food chain for them to read anyway.”

  “Come again?”

  “You’ll hear it all in your orientation class. But simply said, all this mental BS interferes with each other. The more power, the more interference. A ‘path trying to read off you, me, or Jess would be like trying to tune in a crystal radio next to the main generator at Hoover dam. Static city.”

  “Even if I’m not doing anything?”

  “Yeah. You just have to stand next to someone with a lower order power and they not only can’t lock on you, but they’ll have trouble picking up anything.”

  Allison nodded. It made her feel a little better. The last thing she needed was to worry about someone running around in her head.

  That made her think about Chuck.

  Something must have shown on her face, because Zack put his hand on her shoulder. “Hey, are you all right, Allison?”

  She shook her head. “Allie, everyone calls me Allie.”

  “Ok, Allie. Did I say something—”

  “No, no.” She wiped her eyes. “I just reminded myself of someone. I’d rather not talk about it, ok?”

  “Ok.”

  “Now why don’t you tell me about Jessica?”

  12:45 PM

  “She is kinda pretty,” Sean said in his slow drawl. His accent wasn’t characteristic of any particular place— or, if it was, it was a place unique to him. It didn’t hamper Jessica’s understanding of his speech. She had known him too long. She didn’t respond, since anything she might say would be lost while Sean had his concentration focused out the window.

  While Sean stared out the window of the small meeting room, Jessica faced away from him, seated in one of the overstuffed chairs surrounding the oval table that dominated the room. Her gaze was focused on the page in her hands. She stared at it without seeing it.

  At the moment Jessica and Sean were the only people in the room. They were here because it was one of the few blue-accessible places that she knew for a fact wasn’t monitored. Since they didn’t lock up the classroom building for the weekend, the small lounges for the “teachers” made convenient meeting places. This one especially convenient since it overlooked the courtyard where all the PRI kids congregated.

  “She’s still talking to Zack, but a pole’s in the way of his mouth.” Jessica heard Sean shift his weight behind her. She continued staring at the sheet of paper she held in her hands.

  “Ah, he’s saying, ‘She’s into control. She gets the guards to...’ dunno, ‘...stuff in here.’ She’s asking something. I can’t see.”

  Jessica nodded. Sean was largely deaf in both ears, from a childhood accident. It made reading lips second nature to him, and made him useful to Jessica. Such a pedestrian talent was overlooked by almost everyone in this storehouse of the miraculous. With one pair of binoculars, Sean was almost as good as a clairvoyant.

  It was predictable. Zack had made a bee-line to the newcomer. That was almost standard operating procedure. It never had been much of a problem before. Zack never had been much of a problem before, even though his talent was valued highly enough that Jess couldn’t convince Stone to have him dealt with. Zack might be untouchable, but no one else was. And, unlike Jessica, Zack alienated both Stone and the staff. He didn’t have the subtlety to use them to get anything done.

  Jessica, with a few well-placed words, could undo any amount of Zack’s rabble-rousing with the regular students.

  However, Allison Boyle was not a regular student. Jessica only had to think of the wreckage of Billy Jackson to realize that. Worse, from the conversation Sean was relating, Allison Boyle knew how special she was.

  She had already talked to Stone.

  Already.

  Sean fed her more of their conversation, wrapped in his nameless accent. Jessica let it bleed into her mind without paying attention to the individual words. The sense of it was enough.

  Allison Boyle accepted Zachary Lanagan’s evil interpretation of both Jessica and Prometheus, a feeling that seemed reinforced by the means the field agents used to bring Allison in. Even if all Jessica had to go on was Billy’s reaction, it was obvious that the whole episode had been badly handled, to say the least.

  Worse, unlike Zack, Allison Boyle seemed ready to use the value of her power as a lever with the staff. Allison was telling Zack how she had dealt with her orientation officer, Dr. Zendel.

  All of this sank in. Each sentence of the conversation below seemed to tear its own little hole in Jessica’s peace of mind. Up to now she had built everything so carefully. Everything since she had come here was supposed to protect her, keep anyone from being in a position to hurt her. As long as she was in control, as long as she was too valuable, too cooperative to harm, she was safe.

  What would happen to her if she wasn’t the most valuable talent that Prometheus had? Zack disliked her, but there were people— people on the staff— who hated her.

  “Jessica?” Sean placed a hand on her shoulder, breaking her out of her reflection. She jerked, and a circle of gray ash collapsed from the center of the pages she was holding. A small wisp of white smoke trailed up from the pile it made on the table.

  No, I can’t lose control. Not of Prometheus, and God help us, not of this! Not now!

  Jessica stared at the pile of ash for a moment, thankful that Sean knew enough not to ask if anything was wrong. She put down the paper and turned so that Sean could see her talk. “Let’s go see if Oscar’s read anything useful lately.”

  Sean nodded. He bent over to grab a waste basket and started brushing the remains of Jessica’s paperwork into the can. Her eyes focused on the paper again.

  They were copies of the autopsy results on Billy Jackson.


  TWENTY THREE

  NAVARRO COUNTY, TX: Monday November 1, 1999

  7:13 AM

  “What the hell’s going on?” Allison screamed at the dust-strewn corridors of Euclid Heights High. Her voice echoed through dark, abandoned hallways. Deep in the distance she thought she heard an echo say, “Little miss perfect said, ‘hell.’”

  The nightmare. The same nightmare. How many times was she going to be trapped here? Mere repetition had gotten through to her. She was fully aware she was dreaming now. It did no good. She felt trapped here, mired in a frustration as solid as glue.

  She walked, or she tried to walk. Single steps seemed to take eons. Dust billowed up from her steps and fragments of gray plaster crunched under her feet. Her hand brushed a locker. The resulting shower of rust and paint flecks made her itch badly.

  Her mouth tasted dusty.

  She called out again, “I know you’re here, somewhere. Why are you hiding?”

  The echo came back. “You’re hiding. You’re hiding. You’re hiding.”

  “Help me.” she called out. Shafts of sunlight hung from cracks in the boards covering the windows. She pushed through each dust-heavy shaft as if it were a physical barrier.

  The clocks here, all of them, were stopped at twelve. She was passing one now. It hung over the door to a darkened classroom. She stopped there, unable to push herself any further.

  As she did, she thought the shadows in the classroom moved slightly. She peered inside and whispered, “Chuck?”

  The echo came back, even softer, “now.”

  The clock fell from the wall, smashing at her feet…

  ◆◆◆

  … Allison sat bolt upright in her bed, fully awake. Her pulse raced in her neck, and her skin was clammy with perspiration.

  To her surprise, the demon clock on her wall wasn’t sirening her wake-up call. She sat breathing deeply and cursing both Chuck and her subconscious. They were probably one in the same.