“You finished the dream.” Paul’s disembodied voice floated above her. “You said Marcus was the one.”
She didn’t have to close her eyes to concentrate, to swim back through time and sort out the fuzzy memories bobbing like debris from another place, another time.
“Yeah,” she said, dragging the word through her lips.
There was no panic in the dream. It ended peacefully. Maybe the shock eased her into it or somehow distorted it, made her believe the old man was responsible.
But that was him. He was behind those eyes.
And she didn’t know what that meant.
They lay awake, the sound of their breath mixing with the night sounds sneaking through the open door. She walked her hand between the bars and found his forearm tacky with perspiration.
“Don’t leave me, Paul.” She trembled.
“I won’t.”
But come morning, he would be gone.
Paul
Footsteps, bare and clammy, the kind that stick to smooth surfaces, passed by Paul and paused. For some reason, he wasn’t alarmed until the door creaked.
He rolled onto his knees and scanned the room.
Jamie hadn’t moved, her leg still wrapped and immobile. The door moved again, the crack widening, the black iron bars gobbling up moonlight that crept inside. Outside, cricket song droned in a long, endless note.
He peered outside. A woman stood near the trail, her dark skin dappled in moonlight.
Raine.
She started down the path before he could call her name; the darkness of the forest swallowed her.
This is a dream. She couldn’t be here, not now.
But there was nothing to distinguish reality from dream, no discernible difference in sight and smell, texture and feeling. Dream or not, Raine wanted him to follow.
Paul looked back and hesitated before running after the lithe silhouette. A stray moonbeam gave her up now and then, but couldn’t catch her. By the time he emerged in the grassy field, she was already rounding the dormitory.
He picked up the pace, running past the tower. The windows were still shattered where he’d bashed his way into what looked like a lobby, the cracks white and wrinkled on the black glass. Raine was beyond the tower, shoving through impenetrable foliage. Paul followed her, vines raking his face. There was a path several steps into the jungle that wandered in looping, narrow turns.
Eventually, it straightened out, a rutted corridor so dark beneath the thicket of trees that he could barely see his next step. Raine waited at the very end where an opening washed her with moonlight.
He approached cautiously.
She stood on the bottom step of a wide staircase, the treads bone white with patches of algae. They led to a prestigious set of double doors already thrown open like the sideway jaws of an alien baiting its prey with curiosity.
Raine pinched the thin fabric of her dress and hiked it above her knees as she padded on the balls of her bare feet. He followed her footprints to the foyer. The inside was decadent—marble floor, ornate tables and a massive chandelier—and was brightly lit (although there was no light fixture, no bulb that he could see).
The back wall was glass, offering a panoramic view of the ocean and the resort spread along its shore—a pool with recliners, a manicured lawn that spread between stretches of shuffleboard playgrounds and thatched-roofed cabanas. The night sky was streaked with a silky cloud that funneled and glowed with excessive moonlight.
She stood on the veranda just outside the glass wall, arm laid across the silver railing. Paul walked carefully, his steps soft and quiet, as if not to startle a fawn. Her breath puffed in light, cool clouds. She gazed at the water, white splashes of moonlight bouncing off the undulations.
“Raine,” he said, “what—”
“Shhhhh.”
He didn’t know what he wanted to say. It was all so surreal, so dreamy and otherworldly. But she was here and he had a list of apologies to give her. Dream or not, she was here, finger to her lips, glowing in silvery moonlight.
She pointed.
The iridescent cloud was moving, a twisting, contorting motion that tightened into a twister as it reached the horizon. But it wasn’t funneling to a far spot on the water, not the kind of descent a rainbow makes, but rather landed on a luxurious port like a waterspout drawn to the end of the dock.
Someone was out there.
The light was blinding, the end of the funnel landing with white-hot intensity that, oddly, did not illuminate the surroundings but instead collapsed upon itself, a white hole in space. The arms and head of the person were barely visible—head thrown back, arms out in helplessness or ecstasy, the loose clothing flapping in a nonexistent breeze that wasn’t reaching the veranda or, as it appeared, affected anything else.
Raine was gone.
Not even wet footprints remained. A pair of sticks lay in her place, bound in the middle. He picked up the cross. When he looked up again, the white braided funnel was gone, so was the dock and the ocean.
Concrete pressed against his shoulder blades. His hips began to ache. The round skylights looked back from the domed ceiling, the dusky light of dawn brushing their hazy lenses. He was on the floor, little cross in hand.
Awake.
Jamie was still asleep, nostrils flaring with each breath, eyes dancing beneath the lids. He had promised he wouldn’t leave her, wanted to be there when she woke up, to make sure she took the pills for the expected pain. But something was on the other end of the island. And she couldn’t go. He wouldn’t let her if she could.
Raine showed him the way.
He thought about leaving a message on the laptop, but in the end he simply laid the cross where he had slept. It wasn’t Marcus that closed the cell door or brought them to this island.
The answer was waiting.
He ran through the forest without stopping, thinking of Raine and the old man’s silly prophecy.
One to lead…
______
The doors were closed.
Big, brassy handles tarnished by the elements. Paul sweated rivers down his cheeks, over his ribs; his sides stitched with exhaustion. He struggled to breathe. The morning humidity hovered beneath the trees, the air lazy and thick. He felt the weight of physical reality.
This was not the dream.
In the dream, Raine led him through open doorways. This time he observed the length of the building in both directions. They were impossibly long, appearing to extend the width of the tiny island. Unlike the ornate detail of the doors, the outer wall was flat, tall and forbidding—a fortress to keep the jungle out.
Or people.
If the doors were locked, there would be no scaling the walls. And the doors looked thick and solid. He approached one step at a time, his legs weak with exhaustion and fear. Pausing at the top, he peered the length of the building again, considering how he might breach the three-story wall if—
The doorknob clicked.
Paul backed up as the door cracked open. His heels hung over the top step. A white sleeve appeared, the cuff hanging from the wrist; nimble fingers grasped the edge of the door. A man stepped out.
It was him, the one from the dream. The one on the end of the dock… he stepped out bearing a smile and bright eyes. It was the powers-that-be. He could feel it beaming from him, waves of radiant energy warming Paul’s face, filling his chest.
And he knew him.
He knew this man well.
Paul stumbled backwards, reaching for something to stem his fall. Finally, he collapsed to keep from cascading in a tumbling mess. He looked up from his hands and knees, a supplicant at the throne of great power.
The man stepped out, his head not shaved but bald. He looked down and, once again, smiled a welcoming smile, beaming with the grace and fearlessness of one that has nothing to fear.
Marcus Anderson.
He regarded Paul with a slight air of annoyance, eyes cast down his slender nose, the feel of a man tired of waitin
g, irritated by the shortcomings of his children.
His posture was rigid, thin hair along the sides. The skin was perfect. It looked like the old man… but not exactly. This was the old man without imperfections, a version of flawlessness.
He took half a step aside, shoulders thrust back, head upright and perfectly aligned with his spine, and gestured to the open doorway. Paul, still on his knees, considered turning and running all the way back to the cell, but the man was expecting him.
“You’re the one,” Paul said. “The… the powers…”
He couldn’t say it, the words silly and overly dramatic. He’d often considered Marcus insane, inventing this paranoid quest for dark forces to create a sense of purpose for himself. Now Paul was looking at the old man’s doppelganger.
Who’s crazy now?
“Come in.”
“How is this—”
“Come in,” he repeated. This time the words were bendy quills that stung his brain.
Paul stood up feeling a bit like a child caught trespassing, an adult scolding him until the police arrived. He stopped just short of the open door and peered inside to see the glass wall and the veranda. A small table was set in the morning light.
“You’re Marcus Anderson.”
“I am.”
Paul looked back in the direction of the path. Somewhere behind those trees was a three-story tower with shattered windows on the first floor and a feeble old man in a wheelchair.
“I am the archetype, Paul.”
“I don’t—”
“We’ll discuss that,” the archetype said. “But first…”
He gestured once again with a hint of impatience. Paul stepped past him, through a clean wintery essence that surrounded the impeccably dressed archetype of Marcus Anderson and into the foyer and a dizzying sense of déjà vu.
The marble floor seemed to tip beneath his feet.
The archetype’s loafers clapped with a muffled thud as he approached the breakfast table. Paul absorbed the details of the view—the pool, the lawn, the empty boat slip. He had seen this before.
The archetype pulled one of the chairs from the table and then sat across from it, unfolding a cloth napkin. He scooped out the cell of a grapefruit.
“Please, have a seat,” he said.
“What is this?”
“This is breakfast, Paul. You are hungry. You haven’t eaten in almost three days.”
“Who the hell are you?”
“We will get to that. First, have a seat.” When Paul didn’t, he pointed the fork like a maestro. “We will get to everything, Paul, I assure you. I like my mornings to begin with breakfast. You are my guest.”
He was not a guest. Paul had been summoned, in one way or another. There was still the odd manner in which he spoke, not as gruff as the old man. It was very proper, well enunciated. Like that of a scholar that, quite frankly, didn’t have time for ignorance.
The archetype consumed another bite of grapefruit (that was what it looked like, consuming… not eating. It had the formal sense of ritual, like one would do morning prayers) and looked up.
Paul sat down. Eating would be impossible.
The archetype finished his grapefruit, dabbed at the corners of his mouth and considered the untouched food in front of Paul—the glistening cubes of cantaloupe, the crispy lengths of bacon. There was enough for six people.
“You’re experiencing a degree of reality confusion,” the archetype observed. “Is this a dream? Is it a dream of a dream? I would expect that from most people, but not you, Paul.
“You see, most people don’t realize that reality can’t be cornered,” the archetype continued. “There is no floor beneath our feet, physical reality isn’t the ground floor of our existence. Dreams are just as real, another frequency you might say. Dreamlands, as the People call them, are realities, too. They are universes that exist in their own right, interlaced with this world around us. To those that are born of and live in dreamland, our reality would seem a dream to them.”
He weaved his fingers to illustrate the integral nature of alternate realities.
“And the people that exist in those dreamlands fall victim to the same assumption, that they are all that is real, that their reality is the foundation upon which everything else springs forth. And yet there is no foundation, Paul. There is no floor. We are all falling, all just endlessly falling together for eternity.”
He prattled on about string theory and reality holograms in between sips of coffee, lifting the cup with the saucer beneath it.
“You’re not eating, Paul.”
“I can’t.”
“I’d prefer you have at least something. You’re going to need the energy for later. We have a lot of ground to cover.”
“Where are we going?”
“Nowhere.”
He lifted his eyebrows, signaling his patience had reached an end. Paul ate the cantaloupe, swallowing lumps without chewing. When he started on the poached eggs, the archetype looked out to the water wistfully and spoke as if finally at ease.
“I was a client here many, many years ago. I came to this island to cheat death, to steal the body of a young boy and make it my own. I was wealthy beyond reason, had everything a man could want and wasn’t prepared to die, you see. So I came here on the promise that this new technology would allow me to take another body, to continue living.”
“The Foreverland Project.”
“That’s what it was called, yes. It was controversial, it was risky, but I had nothing to lose. Dying is for those that give up, Paul. I had earned the right to live, you see. I love life. There’s no reason our bodies should die. Humans are no longer bound to the food chain, we’ve risen above it. Death is for evolution, to pass along genes that favor survival. That is no longer necessary. So I took another body. It was that simple.”
“That is not your body?”
“Of course it is.”
“You murdered a boy for it?”
He regarded Paul like a child that didn’t understand why he was being disciplined.
“Murder is a human trait, Paul. The body was occupied by an immature soul that would waste it had I not saved it. And the souls of these young boys weren’t destroyed, simply relocated to another reality. A nowhere place from which they couldn’t return.
“But, I’ll admit, the Foreverland process was not sustainable; the organic body is built to die, that is its purpose—to pass along genes. I could not continue taking bodies forever. Eventually something would go wrong. Organic life abhors immortality.
“Biomites saved me, Paul. They saved us all. I wasn’t just an early adopter of biomite technology, I am the original innovator. I funded the labs, gave direction to the scientists, approved the development of the perfect body, you see. I cornered the market, let’s say.”
“You’re the powers-that-be.”
“That’s being a little overindulgent, but accurate. I am the one behind it all, Paul. Marcus and the others can be a little dramatic when they return.”
Others return? “Return where?”
“Let’s discuss that later.”
“You did this? You brought us to the island?”
“Of course I did. No one comes to the island if I don’t allow it. I have the occasional client that passes through, people that serve my interests that also have an investment in their immortality, wealthy men and women that wish to have a new body, but I decide who comes and goes, Paul. I decide everything.”
The powers-that-be.
“You murdered Raine.”
“You weren’t listening. Dreamlands are as real as this table.” He knocked on it. “I didn’t need her. Only you, Paul.”
“And Jamie.”
“Consider that a gift. After everything you did to bring her back, how could I deny you?”
“You locked the cell.”
“I do everything, Paul.”
“What the hell is this all about?”
“Contrary to how bad you feel righ
t now, I’m not in the business of suffering. As I told you, I’m about life, Paul. That doesn’t mean it will always feel good.”
“My daughter is…” He choked on a sudden knot. “She’s trapped in a fucking jail cell with a broken leg and you’re not about suffering?”
“Are you done eating, Paul?”
“I’m done with all of this. I want her out, I want her leg healed, and I want off this island. We don’t want to be here, we just wanted off the Settlement.”
“Your daughter came searching for me, remember. She led the old man to find me. She’s not innocent, Paul. And neither are you.”
The old man? He was talking about Marcus Anderson in the tower. They were two separate people, but one and the same?
“You and the old man can play your games until the end of time; leave us out of it.”
“I’m afraid you are the game, Paul.”
“No.” Paul slammed the table. A fork fell on the floor. “I don’t give a goddamn about you or the old man. Let us go.”
The archetype’s jowls slacked with indifference. He slid his chair back, gracefully turning toward a wide, turning staircase and descending in quiet, fluid motions. Paul was suddenly alone. He considered leaving in a hurry.
An arm reached around him and gathered his plate, the hand knobby with arthritis, the skin thin and spotted. Another servant was wearing a short apron, just as old and hunched. They were both balding. Both with one irregular-shaped eye.
Both Marcus Anderson.
There were two of them, and then a third came out to clear the tablecloth. They were variations of the old man, each at a different age with a varying range of agility, but all with the dour expression of servitude.
“He will meet you by the pool,” one of them said before carting off the dishes.
“He will meet you by the pool,” another one repeated.
“He will meet you by the pool.”
“What is this place?” Paul said.
The table was removed from the portico, each side carried by an old man. As quickly as they arrived, they departed, closing various doors until all that was left was the rhythmic sound of the ocean.
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