by R. T. Lowe
The general went to his sleeping wife and extended his hand, bringing it close to her face, her breaths slow and relaxed. Gently, his fingers drew near to her cheek then vanished within it. He yanked his hand back as if he’d plunged it in a pot of boiling water then stared at it in fascination. “This isn’t possible,” he said softly. “What did you do to me? What am I on?”
“Nothing,” Kayla replied. “You’re seeing what we’re seeing.”
Lynch made a motion with his hand and the gun dropped and darted, settling in beside Helen, the muzzle nestled against her temple.
The general, instinctively, lunged for the weapon to protect his wife, though it was only the illusion of Helen he was trying to protect, and even if the gun fired, the real Helen wouldn’t be harmed. Of course the general couldn’t have known that, and perhaps he thought a bullet to the head of the Helen in his office would have the same effect on his wife upstairs.
“Stop!” Lynch commanded and the general’s hand froze short of the glinting steel. “Take a good look at your wife. Now do you understand we’re not fucking around?” He waited a moment. “Care to have a seat?”
The general stared helplessly at his wife for a long time, then he looked toward the windows behind the desk. He stood there, squinting, and Kayla imagined he was hoping to see a team of federal agents storming through his yard to rescue him. Finally, his eyes shifted back to his wife with the gun at her head, and gritting his teeth, he stepped around the desk and sat rigidly on the edge of the chair. He placed his coffee, and then his forearms, on the polished surface, looked up at Kayla and said bitterly, “I’m sitting.”
“That’s better,” Kayla said soothingly. With a thought, she vanished the illusion and plucked the gun out of the air, stuffing it into her waistband. “Now this won’t be hard. I promise.” She smiled at him. “You see the pen and paper there?” Among the items on the neatly arranged desktop was a Montblanc laying across a sheet of thick, cream-colored stationery with the general’s letterhead she’d found in a drawer before dawn broke. “We need you to do something for us.” She turned to Jalen. “Go ahead.”
The general sat motionless as Jalen retrieved a laptop and a single piece of computer paper from the bag slung across his shoulder. After placing the computer on a corner of the desk beside a picture of Shale posing with President Bush, Jalen pushed the paper in front of the general. “Transcribe it!” Jalen ordered, using his gruffest voice, Kayla supposed, to compete with Lynch’s, but his inflection rose slightly at the end and it came out like a question. “Word for word,” he finished weakly, eyes lowering to the floor.
The general’s brow wrinkled for a moment then he snatched up the paper, his eyes moving quickly over the typed paragraph. “Are you crazy?” he bellowed, looking up at Lynch, his eyes furious. “A suicide note!” He shook it in his hand then held it up high between his fingers and released it, watching it waft back and forth before settling on the floor at Lynch’s feet. “This is madness. I don’t know anything about the Number Project. You’re all insane! What is it you think you’re doing? What is the meaning of this?”
Lynch collected the paper and slapped it down on the desk, hard. “General,” he said, his voice as inflexible as iron, “if you don’t transcribe this letter, I will personally kill your wife. I’ll take my time. I’ll make it hurt. I know things about inflicting pain you couldn’t imagine.”
The anger in the general’s eyes began to fade, replaced with a hesitancy that looked out of place on his confident face, as if a weaker man’s eyes had been airbrushed over his own.
“I find it interesting,” Lynch said, turning to study a collection of framed letters on the wall beside the desk, “a northerner like you would have the personal correspondence of Robert E. Lee displayed in his study.” He leaned in close and placed a fingertip on the glass, his face inches from the dramatic cursive, the script large and looping. “This one’s to his wife. How…touching.” He turned back and stared down at the general. “‘I tremble for my country when I hear of confidence expressed in me.’” Lynch paused, waiting for a reaction that never came. “That was a quote from General Lee.”
“I’m aware,” the general replied curtly, sitting straight, back rigid.
“Of course you are,” Lynch said. “But do you know the meaning behind it? General Lee thought people should place their faith in God—not him. But if history has taught us anything, it’s that God doesn’t exist, doesn’t care, or isn’t interested in solving our problems. There are three options, and whichever you prefer, the end result is the same. If you place your faith in God to fix the mess we’ve created for ourselves, then you’re a goddamn fool.” He stepped over to the general and stared down at him meaningfully. “Are you a fool? Do you think God will protect your wife?” He paused. “How strong is your faith, general?”
A moment of uncertainty passed. The room was still except for the swirling dust motes dancing iridescently in the yellow light of morning. The general frowned, creasing his forehead with deep striations. He leaned forward across his desk and pressed his fingers to his palms, knuckles whitening, as if contemplating crushing the letter. Then he sighed and the lines smoothed over as he took up the pen and began to write. Kayla watched every pen stroke, studying the decisiveness in his movements. Three crisp glances at the typed page and then he was done, his memory, Kayla noted with admiration, as solid as his reputation. He centered the pen at the top of the stationery, straightening it when one side dipped lower than the other. “No one will believe you anyway,” he said with an irritable twitch of his hand. “There is no human-animal hybridization project and there never has been. The government hasn’t developed anything like that. It’s not possible.”
Lynch took the note from the desk, replacing it with a single orange pill, which he placed between the general’s hands. “You’re right about that. The government hasn’t. But we have.”
The general’s jaw hardened as he processed Lynch’s words, staring down questioningly at the pill. “You’re lying,” he said forcefully, but his eyes revealed the doubt in his mind. “You’re lying.”
“It’s no lie,” Lynch told him. “You’ve played your part.” His eyes moved over the suicide note in his hands. “Thank you. Now put that pill in your mouth and swallow. If you do, I promise we’ll leave here and your wife will be left unharmed, in her bed, sleeping comfortably upstairs.” He leaned over, his scarred face filling the space before the general, his expression twisting with hate and purpose. “But if you make me cram it down your fucking throat, I will filet that whore with the dullest knife in your kitchen.”
The general stared down at the pill and gagged, seeming to choke on his tongue, his hands tremoring slightly. “I won’t do it,” he rasped in a whisper, suddenly looking his age. “I won’t.”
Lynch frowned thoughtfully. “I understand what you’re thinking. I know what it’s like to stare into the dark abyss of your own mortality and to ask yourself if faith is real or just wishful thinking. After all, can it really be possible there’s nothing after this?” He waved a hand to the pool house and manicured lawn outside the windows. “That your consciousness simply ends? I’ll tell you a story that may make your decision somewhat easier to swallow.” He smiled darkly at his choice of words. “Many years ago when I wasn’t much older than these pups here”—his disdainful eyes went to Kayla and Jalen—“I met a woman who changed my life. Aspen was her name. Beautiful. Smart. Everything a man could wish for in a companion. I loved that woman, and she loved me. Over dinner one evening we shared a few bottles of wine and went to bed early. We made love, and before I closed my eyes, I told her I wanted to marry her one day.” Lynch drew a line down his forehead and cheek and along the curve of his jaw to his neck, tracing the long scar with the tip of his forefinger. “When I woke up, Aspen was in the process of carving off my face. Aspen, you see, was a Protector.” He glanced at the general. “I don’t expect you to know what that is, but suffice to say, they are not fond of
people like me. Aspen wasn’t satisfied with simply killing me—she wanted to cut off my demon’s face because it sickened her. So why am I telling you this tawdry tale? To make the point women can’t be trusted?” His eyes settled on Kayla and she returned the stare, her stomach churning. She had never heard Lynch speak of his past, and from Jalen’s stunned expression, she gathered he hadn’t either.
Lynch let the question hang in the air for a moment before continuing. “After I’d regained control of the situation, I attempted to solicit information from her. I brought her to the brink and beyond, stopping her heart and then bringing her back so I could do it again.” He smiled sadly, though Kayla knew it was only for show. She couldn’t picture Lynch flinching in the face of anything, including torture. “You have to understand—I was quite upset once I realized what she was, and how she’d played me for a fool for more than a year. Splitting my face apart didn’t do much for my mood either.” He chuckled. “I learned nothing of strategic value, but she did tell me this. When her heart stopped beating, her consciousness didn’t expire. The Protectors believe that when you die, your consciousness is absorbed by the Source.” He took note of the general’s puzzled expression. “Think of the Source as, well, something like your God and your heaven all under the same roof. But Aspen, that poor woman, was panicked because the Source wasn’t letting her in. It had become so sickened and fragile it was no longer capable of absorbing her consciousness. So it seems when she died, her soul, if you want to call it that, was trapped in a kind of…limbo. Think of it as purgatory.” Lynch clapped his hands together and smiled. “The good news, I think, if you believe Aspen wasn’t hallucinating, is there is an afterlife, albeit not what you were probably expecting. Though I tend not to dwell on the metaphysical, once we clean up your Wisp mess, the Source will be restored to its original state, and I expect it will resume allowing folks to pass through its gilded gates. So rest assured general, this isn’t the end.”
The general made an abrupt move to stand, but before he could straighten his legs, Lynch was behind him with his hands on his shoulders, forcing him back in his chair. The general squirmed, his face contorting in pain as Lynch worked his fingers into the general’s shoulders.
“Just do what he says!” Kayla urged, knowing she risked Lynch’s ire for speaking out of turn. Lynch’s powers were said to be second only to Lofton’s. He could crumble cinder blocks with his bare hands, and she knew he wouldn’t hesitate to make the general suffer. Lofton had given them instructions to limit signs of struggle, though it was known Lynch rarely required much of a pretense to go off script.
“General,” Lynch began, his hateful eyes on Kayla as he spoke, “there is no scenario where you walk out of this room alive. You either take that pill with some semblance of your dignity still intact, or I’ll make you take it, and then I’ll go upstairs with a pair of pliers and extract your wife’s teeth. Would you like to see it for yourself?” His cold stare was still on Kayla. “Show him! Show him what his wife looks like while I smash her face in with my fists and rip out every fucking one of her tee—”
“Enough!” the general shouted, sweat streaming from his brow. “Enough.” He looked up at Lynch, the defiance gone from his eyes, resigned to his fate. “I’ll do it.”
“Wise choice,” Lynch said, relaxing his grip.
Kayla let out a silent breath. She’d conjured horrific illusions before, but the thought of creating one where Lynch ripped out Helen’s teeth with pliers made her stomach turn.
The general closed his eyes for a moment then stared around the room, his eyes drifting over medals and ribbons encased in glass and hundreds of photographs, the accoutrements of a long and accomplished career. He took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. Then, with his thumb and forefinger, he took the pill in hand and said to Lynch, his voice soft and unsteady, “Who are you people?”
“The future,” Lynch replied simply.
The general stared at the orange capsule for a long while then placed it between his lips. His Adam’s apple twitched and he grimaced, swallowing it down.
‘Thank you general,” Lynch said. “It won’t take long.”
General Shale’s eyes found Lynch, blinking fast, lips twitching, micro-spasms working their way through his body. “I expect you,” he began, the words halting, “to keep your bargain. Leave my wife alone.” The muscles in his throat clenched like a fist and twisting green veins swelled across his face, blackening his lips.
Kayla wanted to look away, but she knew Lynch would notice her squeamishness. So she watched.
Lynch cupped the general under his jaw and raised his sagging chin, smiling down at him. “I already killed her,” he said coldly, releasing him. The general’s eyes grew large and he slumped forward in his chair, collapsing to the floor, limbs stiff and spasming, the last words he would ever hear no doubt echoing cruelly in his mind.
Lynch wasted no time. He barked orders at Kayla and Jalen and they cleaned and staged the room according to the plan she’d learned of on the overnight flight from Portland in Lofton’s jet. When they were done, Lynch gave the library a final inspection and grunted his approval, but before he could close the doors behind them Kayla burst out, “Why’d you tell him that? We only drugged her. It would never look like a suicide if his wife was also dead. The suicide note says nothing about her and there’s no way we could spin this to make it look like she’s involved in the Number Project.” She knew she should have held her tongue, but the words flew from her mouth.
Lynch’s lips curled up at the corners. “Don’t question me, girl. Lofton has a soft spot for pretty young things, which is the only reason you’re here. I don’t. If it were my choice…” He let the sentence die unfinished, giving her a smile that didn’t reach up to his eyes. Jalen slipped away toward the foyer, not interested in exposing himself to Lynch’s wrath.
“If you must know,” Lynch said, sneering down at her, “the general expected to have a cup of coffee this morning and for the world—his world—to never change. In my world, he no longer mattered. I wanted him to die knowing he was powerless. That he was so weak and pathetic he couldn’t even save his dearly beloved. This is my time. Not his.” He broke into a broad smile and his eyes lit up with joy, the first genuine look of happiness Kayla had ever seen on his face.
Chapter 7
The Perils of Cohabitation
Protesters packed The Yard, trampling every inch of lawn from the easternmost path Felix walked along to the western edge where a platform had been constructed and a kid in a bright red hat was shouting into a microphone. Felix scanned the square, reading the signs poking up above the frenzied crowd. A few read END THE VIOLENCE and HOLD GOVERNMENT REPONSIBLE, but most said FREEDOM FROM FEAR and A HUNDRED GENERATIONS.
Until last fall, he wasn’t even aware of the ERA’s existence, and now you couldn’t escape the rallies and TV ads and social media blitz. Felix had never been very political and his community involvement in high school had consisted of drumming up donations washing cars and selling stale baked goods to raise money for the football team. His political views were fluid and he rarely took offense when someone he knew offered up an opinion, regardless of where it fell on the political spectrum. Politics just didn’t interest him very much and he’d never quite understood how some of his friends could feel so passionately about issues—whatever they might be, the environment, immigration, racial profiling—that were completely outside their control. It was like getting upset over the rain. If the constant dampness and downpours made them that upset then shouldn’t they find a nice desert somewhere and relocate? Of course no one ever did that, just like no one he knew, with the possible exception of Caitlin, ever did anything about their political opinions (other than express them). So harboring such strong beliefs without having the conviction to do anything about them was pointless as far as he could tell—though it seemed harmless.
The ERA, on the other hand, made him a little nervous, like a tickling cough in the back o
f your throat during the height of flu season; was it just a bit of dryness in the air or the first sign you were about to spend the rest of the week in flu-induced misery emptying half your body weight in the toilet? The ERA members inking themselves with that fang-bearing tiger was part of it, and the tattoo requirement had always seemed cultish to Felix. But now, more than anything else, it was their aggressiveness and in-your-face attitude that struck a disquieting note in his mind. A few months ago, the ERA was nothing. Now its members were everywhere, and they were so outspoken and organized it made the other political groups on campus seem like timid shadows afraid to step out into the light for fear of disappearing altogether under the bright glare of the ERA’s brashness.
Felix felt a hand on his elbow and a voice said from behind, “Hey, how you feeling?” Felix twisted his neck and saw Bill. The walkway was clotted with kids going to and from class so they moved aside and stood off in the grass.
“Still in one piece,” Felix replied, noticing Bill was wearing work boots and a heavy jacket, stained dark on the sleeves. “Working today?”
“Just playing the part,” Bill said with a smile, fixing his eyes on Felix’s neck before glancing down at his fingers and then his thigh. “Did you get my texts?”
“Yeah.”
Bill knitted his eyebrows, troubled. “Why didn’t you reply?”
“Just busy,” Felix said, shrugging. He’d read them and meant to respond, but it had slipped his mind. “Why? What’s up?”
