Traveler

by David Yates

  Even Bemis? Parker had asked. Especially Bemis, Kobriger had responded.

  Kobriger had told them that was the reason he and his partners had chosen the two of them. Bullard was 29, Parker 27. They would be able to last the entire length of the Project and still be physically able to do what was necessary. Kobriger had said they could replace either Bullard or Parker if something were to happen to them during the course of the Project, but of course they much preferred not to, for reasons of security.

  As Bullard was merging onto Interstate 84 westbound, he glanced at the passenger seat to his right. The kid was still out. Good deal. Bullard already had a plan if he were stopped by a Statie. He would tell the Trooper that he was taking his son home and putting him to bed. He had documentation backing this up. He had a fake Oregon driver's license with a Portland address...but it would seem to be a real license to the cop. If the cop got hinky and ran the license info through the computer, it would come back as valid. Espinoza's people had taken care of that, as well as the fake plates on the SUV. If the cop still got hinky and asked questions about the boy's mother or why they were out so late, Bullard had believable stories for those, too. If the cop still got hinky, well... if it got that far, Bullard had a fully automatic Tec-9 between the front seat and the middle console, and he would just blow the Trooper right out of his shoes. Sure, it would be messy and noisy, but Bullard couldn't spend the whole night on the shoulder of the Interstate. Besides, he didn't expect to get stopped because he wasn't going to break any traffic laws.

  And so Bullard continued west on Interstate 84, in moderate traffic, confident in the fact that he was home free and that the hard work was done, secure in the knowledge that the chopper was waiting for him at the Portland airport just a couple of hours away. Of course, he still hadn't noticed the unmarked Oregon State Police unit two cars behind him.

  Gwen Wiley sat in an overstuffed chair in her quarters, eating a banana. Smooth jazz music flowed out of the speakers hooked to the satellite radio. She had a leg thrown over the arm of the chair, sitting quietly and thinking about the boy. Braden, she thought, his name will be Braden. She knew his real name, of course, but once he arrived here, he would be Braden until the day he died.

  Gwen was as excited as everyone else, but for different reasons. Everyone else was excited to finally get the Project underway, and so was she, but, again, for different reasons. It all went back to the reason she decided to accept the offer to come here.

  Gwen had been an only child, born to parents who were considerably older than the average new parent. When she was born, her father had been 49, her mother 47. Her mother had been told she would never have children, so Gwen was the prototypical “miracle child". Her parents had been so excited, and had doted on her for her entire childhood. And she loved them very much, too. She had grown up in a stable and happy environment, and had gone off to college just as expected. She had originally intended to pursue law, but changed her mind when she took a psych course. She was fascinated by the human mind, and so changed her major to psychology. The thing that made her change majors was something her freshman psych professor had said, although it was something she and everyone else had already heard before. Human beings only use about 10% of their brain power, the professor had said. The other 90% just lays there dormant. Imagine what a person could do using 100% of the power that their brain can generate

  This statement stuck with Gwen after class. It was still with her the next day, and the next week. She turned it over and over in her mind. Just what could a person accomplish? She began to look into areas such as hypnosis and telekinesis, and the embers of her interest became a blaze. She read articles and case studies of people who had been able to move objects with the power of their minds. Not those fake magicians, either; actual people in actual laboratories being studied by actual scientists. She spoke to her psych professor about this.

  "Why hasn't everyone heard about these telekinesis studies?” she asked him.

  "Well, actually, a lot of people have heard about them,” he replied. “It's not that they've never heard of it; most of them just don't believe it, in the same way that they don't believe a flying saucer crashed in the New Mexico desert in the summer of 1947. To most people, it's all hocus-pocus."

  "Is it hocus-pocus?” she asked.

  The professor smiled and said cryptically, “Is it?"

  Early in her junior year, Gwen got a small State grant and began doing her own case studies. At first, the work was frustrating. She could get no positive results at all. The psych prof told her she was working with the wrong subjects. He suggested that she should work with people who had “special abilities". When she asked him what that meant, he said, “Generally speaking, positive test results occur more often in very bright people. Of course, there is an exception to every rule, but you might try working with some of the top students right here in this school. You could also contact associations like MENSA and inquire as to whether any of their members might be interested in participating.” He paused, then added, “And check with some mental hospitals and clinics. Believe it or not, there are some very bright patients in those places."

  And so she conducted clinical trials on more people. She placed an ad in the paper and put flyers up on the school's bulletin boards. She also took the prof's advice and visited a local mental facility. The people she studied there couldn't leave the facility, so she ran the trials in an empty office there. Of all the people she tested, at the college or anywhere else, she actually had the most success with a 15-year-old boy at the mental facility with severe autism. She had asked for and received permission from the boy's parents to work with him.

  Near the end of her senior year, and after working with the boy for months, she was in her final session with him. Her cell phone was on the table, off to the side. There was a metal spoon on the table directly between them. She had been working with him to try to get him to move the spoon. The boy got upset and screamed, putting his hands on his head. When this happened, her cell phone slid off the table and onto the floor. He hadn't touched the phone, and the table hadn't moved a millimeter.

  She looked at the phone on the floor with wide eyes, then gaped open-mouthed at the boy. He was now sitting there silently, but his hands were still plastered to the side of his head. She got up and retrieved the phone, then placed it back in the center of the table, removing the spoon.

  "Can you do that again?” she asked softly.

  Without the boy moving or making a sound, the phone immediately slid off the table and onto the floor.

  A wondering smile began to spread across Gwen's face. She quickly retrieved the phone again and placed it on the table. As soon as her hands left the phone, it slid off the table again. Now Gwen giggled like a little girl. “Yes! Yes!” she exclaimed. Now she put the spoon back on the table; without hesitation, it slid and fell.

  She tried this with several more objects and got the same result, with one exception. There was a stone bust on top of an old filing cabinet in the corner of the office (she thought it was Sigmund Freud, but wasn't sure), and she placed this on the table. She had trouble with the bust; it was very heavy. When the bust was on the table, it was obvious that the boy was trying to move it. With the other items, it had been no problem; he hadn't even looked at any of them. But when he couldn't immediately move the bust, he fixed his gaze on it. After a few seconds of trying, sweat beads popped up on his brow and his neck muscles were stretched taut, but still the bust wouldn't move. Gwen moved her eyes from the boy to the bust, silently willing it to move. Come on, come on, move, she thought at it.

  When she looked back up at the boy, she was alarmed to see a runnel of blood coming from his nose. He was now sweating copiously, the beads streaming down his face like tears. His white T-shirt was stuck to his body and completely soaked with perspiration. She had never seen anyone sweat so much so quickly. She could imagine the boy having a stroke right in front of her. “Stop!” she said loudly. But he didn't stop
; wouldn't stop; maybe couldn't stop. Instead, he bore down even harder. She saw it happen.

  "Stop!!” she screamed at him, but still he kept on. Finally she reached out and pushed the bust over with both hands, using all of her adrenaline-charged strength. The bust toppled over onto its side, rolled off the table, and crashed to the floor.

  At this, the boy finally relaxed his efforts. He collapsed against the back of the chair, began sliding slowly sideways, and fell to the floor. Gwen ran around the table, screaming “Help! Somebody help me!” at the top of her lungs. She knelt beside the boy and checked for a pulse. Behind her, she could hear feet pounding down the hallway. The boy's pulse was very rapid, but there. He was unconscious and breathing heavily, as if he had just pushed a Peterbilt with a fully-loaded trailer off of the highway single-handedly.

  The door burst open and two orderlies rushed into the room, followed by a nurse. “What happened?” the nurse asked. Gwen explained briefly what had happened, and the nurse had a gurney brought into the room. The boy was taken to the infirmary where a doctor diagnosed acute exhaustion.

  Sitting in her quarters, thinking back on this, Gwen shivered again at how close she had come to killing that poor boy. But she had learned something which would prove to be very valuable in her studies. Just as with physical force, the heavier the object, the more mind-power it takes to move it. Also, the more effort expended by the mind, the more exhausted the subject became. She had confirmed this in her studies over the course of years between that incident and now.

  Gwen had developed a theory as a result of the studies and trials since her college days. It had started with one simple question, and had blossomed into her life's work. The question was this: Would it be possible for a person to use the power of their mind to move their own body? To transport from one point to another? She had tried this out with many subjects over the years, but with no success. She hadn't even come close. But she remembered what her college psych professor had told her. Generally speaking, positive test results occur more often in very bright people. She had worked with a lot of very bright people over the years, but her lack of success seemed to prove another theory. A successful subject would need to be much brighter than anyone I've ever worked with before. Probably someone the likes of which the world has never seen

  "Well, this could be the right person,” Gwen said to herself, getting up from the chair to throw away her banana peel. As she dropped it in the can, a tingle of excitement ran through her belly. “Braden, I hope this works out. For both of us."

  So that was one of the two main reasons Gwen had volunteered for this gig. The second had been much more fundamental. Her mother had been told she would never have any children. Gwen had been told the same thing. She wanted children badly, and had been devastated when the doctor had given her the news. Of course, her mother had cheated the odds; maybe she could, too. But she felt down deep in the core of herself that the doctor was right. A genetic disorder, the doctor had called it, and it all amounted to the same thing. No children.

  So she had drowned herself in the only other thing which had given her purpose: her work. And, ironically, her work was going to give her something that she never would have had on her own; a child. Well, I am married to my job, Gwen thought. And finally, my “husband” is giving me a son.

  She had asked for and received permission from Bemis (almost a year ago, this had been) to be the one responsible for the general day-to-day care of the child whenever it arrived. Bemis had actually been pleased to give her the responsibility. He had been concerned about the child growing up in the sterile environment of The Orchard. It was already going to grow up totally isolated from other kids, he had told her. He had said that the child needed to have the love and emotional support of someone.

  So now Braden was on the way, and she was going to be a mother after all. She had a room all set up for him in her own quarters, complete with furniture, clothes, and toys. There was also a satellite-ready TV on a small stand in his room. The room, like Gwen, waited for Braden's arrival.

  Bullard cruised along at a sedate 60 miles per hour, rolling easy through the Oregon night. The kid continued to do nothing in the passenger seat. The heater was on in the SUV, and it was making Bullard sleepy and logy. He's dead to the world, Bullard thought, and dead people tell no tales. Bullard giggled and shook his head. I haven't giggled since I was nine, he thought, and giggled some more. Man, I gotta wake up. I'm punch-drunk. I'm a drunch-punk, giggle-giggle. He was reaching for the window button to let some cold air in when the Oregon State Trooper behind him activated his emergency lights.

  Bullard cut off in mid-giggle. Blood rushed into his face; he could feel it. Suddenly he didn't need cold air anymore. He was wide awake and alert. The dashboard clock said it was 3:38 am. He briefly considered flooring it and quickly pushed the idea away. He rolled past a sign that told him Portland was 33 miles away, and knew that if he ran from this trooper the Portland Police would be waiting for him ahead. That is, if he even made it to Portland.

  He stepped on the brake, disengaging the cruise control. As the SUV slowed, he moved right and coasted onto the shoulder. The patrol car moved onto the shoulder behind him. Bullard came to a stop and put the SUV in Park. He watched in his rearview mirror as the trooper exited the patrol car and strode toward the SUV. The trooper had a very large flashlight in his left hand and a very large pistol on his right hip. The trooper's right hand was on the pistol's grip. The beam of the flashlight cut through the darkness of the SUV; lighting up Bullard's face, lighting up the face of the boy. If the kid stirs now, Bullard thought, I'll have to kill this trooper. Bullard turned his body toward the trooper. With his left hand he rolled down the window, placing his right hand on the grip of the Tec-9 behind him.

  "Good morning, sir,” the trooper said. “May I see your driver's license, please?"

  Reaching into his coat pocket with his left hand, keeping his right on the Tec-9, Bullard pulled out the fake license he had gotten from Kobriger. As he handed it to the trooper, he asked, “Did I do something wrong?"

  Examining the license, the trooper replied, “Well, you crossed the lane marker back there a couple of times. Is this your current address on your license, Mr. Reeves?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "Where are you coming from right now?” the trooper asked.

  "Ontario,” Bullard replied. “That's where my ex-wife lives. I picked up my son there tonight."

  The trooper finished his examination of the license and shone the flashlight in Bullard's face again. “Have you had anything to drink tonight, Mr. Reeves?"

  "No, sir, not a drop. I guess I'm just tired."

  The trooper moved the light beam to the boy. “What's your son's name?” he asked.

  "Jason,” Bullard replied without hesitation.

  "Sleeping awful hard, isn't he?"

  Bullard smiled. “Yeah, he always does."

  The trooper studied “Jason” for a couple of seconds, and then moved the flashlight beam back to Bullard. He looked at Bullard for a few moments with a thoughtful look on his face, and Bullard looked back with what he thought was a hopeful look on his own face. Bullard saw the trooper come to a decision; the thoughtful look disappeared. For your sake, pal, I hope you made the right decision, he thought, his hand tightening on the grip of the Tec-9.

  "Okay, Mr. Reeves,” the trooper said, handing the fake license back to Bullard. “You're almost home. Please make sure Jason gets there safely."

  "I will, Officer,” Bullard replied, releasing his grip on the Tec-9 and taking the license. “I'm sorry about that, and I appreciate you giving me a break."

  "Have a nice night, sir,” the trooper said, and headed back to his patrol car. Bullard rolled up the window, put the SUV in gear, and rolled back onto the Interstate. After he got rolling, he thought twice and rolled the window about halfway back down. Not gonna let that happen again, he thought. That window is staying open until I get to Portland. One good thing; at least he wa
sn't giggling anymore.

  When he arrived at the Portland airport, Bullard went straight to the private helipad, where he found Hollingsworth waiting at the unmarked black helicopter owned by Kobriger and his boys. He parked next to the helipad and got out. Hollingsworth opened the chopper's sliding back door. Bullard carried the kid (still out cold) to the chopper and put him in the back. As he was belting the kid in, Hollingsworth asked him, “Any problems?"

  Bullard thought of how close he had been to killing an Oregon State Trooper only forty minutes ago.

  "No, no problems at all,” he replied calmly.

  A short time later, the chopper lifted off and turned north, toward Washington.

  "They're here, sir."

  Espinoza had stuck his head into Bemis’ office and uttered these three words. Only three words, but they were words Bemis had been waiting to hear for years. “Okay, thanks, Manny,” he replied, and Espinoza was gone.

  Bemis stood, taking a deep breath. Well, this is it, cowboy. Let's hope Gwen's right about him. He exited his office, grabbing his Western-style duster on the way out the door.

  Bemis walked down the hall, donning the duster as he went. As it turned out, he hadn't needed the duster after all. He didn't make it to the door leading outside to the helipad before it was opened and Bullard strode in, carrying the boy and followed by Hollingsworth. Gwen was already standing just inside the door, where she had been waiting for them.

  "Is he all right?” Bemis asked.

  "Doing fine,” Bullard replied. “He's still out from whatever that stuff was that the Doc put in the syringe."