Nirvana Effect

by Craig Gehring

  Edward nodded. “At least, I have some idea,” said Edward.

  “Well, all right, I answered your questions…”

  “Right,” said Edward. The priest hesitated for a moment before he started his explanation. Just that little pause told James’s experienced ear that he wasn’t going to get the whole truth. “The ‘nectar’ is what you could call a designer drug,” said Edward. “A sort of an upper. The Onge have a new young leadership that’s trying to export is to the mainland, but right now it’s got a nasty kick that makes it unsalable. I’d assume that they were going to use you to try to fix it.”

  “Why me?” asked James.

  “No idea. Ask yourself what might lead them to you in particular. There are a few other doctors on the island, no?” Edward asked.

  Liang. I’ll never get away from that bastard. Especially while I’m stuck on this damn island. James shrugged again noncommittally. “Maybe it was just bad luck,” said James. “I seem to be running long on that.”

  “Maybe so,” said Edward.

  “So what’s your gig?” asked James.

  “Hmm?”

  “How come you’re kicking ‘Onge’ ass left and right?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Well, you know…”

  “Just bad luck, I guess.” The priest smiled a bit too knowingly. He could tell that James was not satisfied with that answer. “Actually I was the missionary assigned to that tribe. They tried to get me to do what they were ‘recruiting’ you for.”

  “And what’s Callista got to do with all this?” James smelled a rat, but he tried to keep his eyes from slanting in suspicion. This priest is in the drug game. I don’t care what he tells me. James knew bishops, politicians and superstars all in the drug game. A priest was no surprise to him.

  Edward hesitated. “I escaped a few nights ago. I ran into Callista by accident. Then I discovered that I’d been spotted, that the Onge had seen me with her. I told her to go hide somewhere she felt safe – which she said was with you. I came back to the Onge village to try to reason with the leader of the tribe. He had been my pupil for a time and I stupidly thought I could change his mind. I almost got captured again in the process.”

  James nodded. He wasn’t convinced, but would act like he was.

  “So now I don’t know where Callista is because you’re sitting in this car,” said Edward.

  “What’s your plan?” James asked.

  “Find Callista. Get off this island.”

  “Aren’t you a member of some order of priests or something? Couldn’t your church help you?”

  Edward hesitated again. “Dr. Seacrest, this may or may not be a surprise to you, but that option is not open to me, if you know what I mean.”

  Paydirt. At least he’s an honest crook. If it were me I wouldn’t tell the truth. As a matter of fact, I won’t.

  “I do,” said James.

  The reached another hilltop. James could see Lisbaad through the hole that used to be his windshield.

  “You don’t mind if I bail when we get home?” asked James.

  “I don’t mind. Wouldn’t advise it, though,” said Edward.

  “Do elaborate.”

  “Thing is, unless you’re getting off this island, they’ll get you again.”

  “What makes you so sure?” asked James.

  Edward shrugged. “Educated guess.”

  “On your word as a priest?”

  “For whatever that’s worth,” said Edward.

  I’m starting to like this guy.

  “I want to get off this island, anyway,” said James. “But I think I’ll need some help in that department.”

  “You help me find Cali, I’ll do what I can to help you.”

  “Who?” asked James.

  “Callista, sorry.”

  “What makes you think I’ll be so helpful?”

  “You’re a crook,” said Edward. “Crooks are always helpful.”

  James just stared at the priest for a moment. He couldn’t help but laugh. “It takes one to know one, Edward. Takes one to know one.” He laughed again.

  Edward shrugged.

  52

  Edward and James reached the neighborhood. Edward had never seen it in the daylight.

  The street was a jumble of houses. Obviously foreigners of many different backgrounds and nationalities occupied this small territory carved out of the edge of Lisbaad. It had no rhyme or reason. Edward was sure the words “building” and “code” had never been uttered together on the island. Still, this neighborhood comprised the “finest” residences of Lisbaad - meaning they weren’t ancient piles of firewood.

  Edward resisted the urge to barrel down the street, launch out of the car in yet another trance, kick down Cali’s door, wipe out Onge by the cartload with his trance fighting, and carry her off into the sunset. Reality was a factor he could not ignore. Physically, he was exhausted. Trance or no trance, he could only direct his body to do what his body was already capable of. With no sleep and after having gone through what amounted to a combination marathon/boxing match, he felt he could at any minute blink his eyes and wake up two days later. The after pain only made it worse.

  What was more, he had no exit strategy. There was no plan once he reached Callista. He hoped she had some ideas. Maybe this crook Seacrest could help. He’d managed to subtly convince Seacrest that he was criminal; hopefully that would increase the doctor’s willingness to trust and help him.

  Edward had no idea what the Onge’s strength and position was inside Lisbaad, or even inside the neighborhood. He didn’t even know if Cali was home. It was pointless to risk death fighting a troop of hunter-killers only to not even find Cali. Stealth was his best option at the present.

  “Is there a back road?” asked Edward.

  “There is behind my house. Not behind Callista’s,” said Seacrest.

  Edward didn’t like Seacrest using her first name.

  “Show me,” said Edward. The doctor pointed the way. Edward puttered the car up the road, idling as much as possible. The roar of a Corvette engine would have been too much of a tip for whatever Onge were stationed inside the houses. “Tell me when we’re a few houses away.”

  “Stop, then,” said Seacrest. “We already are.”

  “Are they home?” asked Edward, pointing to a nearby house.

  “No, not ‘til 5:00 or so,” answered the doctor. Edward pulled up into the driveway. He parked and pulled out the key. “I wouldn’t run,” said the doctor. Edward smiled at him.

  I know you wouldn’t. I have the key.

  “Not just because you have the key,” said Seacrest. “As a matter of fact, a key wouldn’t be much of a barrier for me. But I want off this island. I really do. And Callista is a friend of mine. I wouldn’t play a part in her coming to any harm.”

  Edward’s tired mind couldn’t help but contemplate whether Seacrest had ever managed to pick up Callista in his red ’95 Corvette. He was suddenly very happy to see it riddled with shotgun pellets.

  Edward acknowledged Seacrest with a nod as he stepped out of the car. He kept the key in his pocket. “Stay here, then, will you? I’m just going to go see what’s happening. I’ll be back soon.”

  Edward’s legs were killing him. He’d never moved so much in his life. His whole body was dragging. Somehow Earth’s gravity had doubled overnight. Again he fought the temptation to pop another t-pill. He only had forty-two left. They might be the last forty-two he would see in a while.

  Moreover, he felt he should be cautious. He played with something he still did not even vaguely understand. Its effects begged many questions. In a way, he felt like the child who after his tenth time watching the thrilling adventure movie began to wonder how the film was shot.

  In the minute alone as he crept from house to house, he finally had time to think. What’s Mahanta’s next move? Stop reacting and start ACTING.

  And stop calling him Mahanta. He’s Manassa through and through. He’s enemy.

&n
bsp; Mannassa will protect the substance first and foremost. He’ll guard the sap from me. That’s foremost on his mind. Probably he has all the plants mobile by now, without my knowledge.

  Edward picked over the situation – the cars, the “lightness”, what Manassa told him about his plans.

  He’ll make the big move soon. Maybe tonight. He won’t risk anything after our confrontation. He’s got to assume I’m bringing in the Jesuits. He can’t take any risks.

  I’d never bring the Jesuits into this.

  Edward looked at his chances. Trance or no, his gut betrayed him. Manassa will win. He would have to find some way to change that, but Mahanta had everything in his favor - the initiative, the resources, his own personal army.

  He toyed again with getting help from the Jesuits. They would help him…but there goes his freedom…and who knew what General Pizo would do with the drug.

  That was idiotic to ask Manassa to destroy the substance. There will be no tricking him, now. He knows what I intend. He can predict me. Edward had always had a talent for berating himself with the brilliant clarity of his own hindsight.

  He watched Cali’s house from the neighbor’s, but saw nothing amiss. No lights were on.

  Edward crept back around to the other side of the house to spy on Dr. Seacrest’s domicile. It looked to be a combination between an Asian garden and a log cabin. No motion there, either. No lights.

  Think. Think. Think. Something was bugging him. He wished he was in trance. Something obvious. Damn it! Edward closed his eyes and breathed. He forced the exhaustion out of his body. He forced his attention to the matter at hand. Now that he’d done it in trance, he at least knew what the state felt like. He could approximate it.

  Clarity wavered in and out of his consciousness. As soon as he would turn his attention on the houses, the exhaustion would work back in on him. He pushed it out again. He decided most firmly that it was gone. The houses. The houses. The lights. The lights were a subtle point in the daylight, but they told him what he needed to know.

  53

  The Sri Lankan posted at the heavy iron gate of the Liang estate pulled his legs off the control board.

  Four cars were barreling over the horizon, directly toward him. He pulled up his binoculars. They were a mangy hodge-podge of vehicles - an SUV, two sedans and a Bug all covered in mud and grime. He saw some dark tribesmen leaning out the windows of the vehicles. One native peered back at him with his own set of binoculars.

  The guard pulled his gun out its holster and radioed for help.

  “I’ve got four unidentified vehicles coming at high speed to the gate. Do you hear me? Do you hear me?” He was panicked. They were closing the gap quickly. In less than a minute they would be upon him.

  The captain of security’s voice crackled back over the radio. “Roger that. We’re sounding the alert and manning up. Hold your position. Are they armed?”

  The guard checked his binoculars again.

  “Can’t tell. Just see some guys leaning out of the windows.”

  “What are they?” asked the captain over the radio receiver. “Cartel, you think?”

  “They look like natives, sir. Almost look like blacks.” He felt exposed. It would take the security force a minute to get up there. Dozens of Liang’s soldiers manned the estate, all armed to the teeth, but they didn’t do him a bit of good while they were at the mansion.

  He heard the telltale clicking noise of a gun behind his head. He started to jerk around.

  “Don’t move,” said an insistent voice in Tamil. The cold metal against the back of his head reinforced the mysterious assailer’s words. How did he get in the gatehouse?

  The cars were only a few hundred meters away.

  “Open the gate. Now.” It was a young voice. The gatekeeper did not move. “Now!” He tripped forward as the metal was shoved violently into his head.

  The gatekeeper fumbled with the controls. His vision was blurry from the blow. The cars kept flying towards the gate. Finally, he got the gate to start opening. “Thank you. Now step away.”

  The cars didn’t even slow down for the gate to fully open. The first zipped through the gate, scraping both of its sides on the iron and knocking off its side mirrors. The other cars were following.

  The gatekeeper didn’t hear the shot that ended his life.

  54

  Tome got into the Bug. It had skidded to a stop at the gate, and one of his warriors had opened its passenger door for him. He slammed the door and shouted, “Go!” He could already hear gunfire in the distance, near the brick mansion.

  The young man was on his third lightness in a day. He knew he might die from the after-pain. He did not care. That might have been a concern of Tomy but not of Tome. It was what must be done. No one else could be trusted to get the money and the guns.

  The top of Liang’s house was crenelated. Automatic weapons were manned at each corner and firing wildly at the Onge vehicles.

  Tome watched as two of his Onge leaned out of the front car windows. Each fired a few shots with their rifles. The two machine gunners atop the turrets dropped and their guns fell silent. The Onge reached the house. A flatbed full of Liang’s guards were pulling out from the back. The Onge fanning out of the vehicles shot it to pieces before the guards even had time to fire back. One bullet dropped each man, in just the way that Tome’s men had been trained. Efficiency. Their assault had come too fast for even the hardened criminals and ex-military under Liang to make a stand.

  The power of the nectar.

  His Onge warriors ran one of the cars through the front door of the estate. It was an iron door, but it could not stop an SUV. They were in.

  Tome followed behind with gun in hand. His job was the safe. It turned out being in the music room, and quite obvious. There was a guard he had to drop, which was his first tip-off.

  The floor sounded different near the grand piano. Tome shoved it into the middle of the room and flipped away the throw rug. One of the floorboards beneath had a recessed handle. He pulled it, revealing a passage below. He checked his gun. He was sure there would be a few more surprises before he got the cash.

  Liang wasn’t home, but his hideout reserves would be down there. It would be quite a sum, all they needed to set up shop in Sri Lanka.

  55

  Cali’s house had several lights on when Edward first saw it. She had left them on during the day while she was at work, probably as a security measure. And at Seacrest’s, Edward remembered the same.

  Edward tossed this around in his mind. Cali may have turned the lights off at her house before she left, but the only people that could have changed Seacrest’s lights were the Onge.

  The Onge are definitely still there. No tribesman would have bothered to switch a light off to save electricity. There were many tactical reasons for it to look like no one’s home. Chief among them: the fact that someone’s home.

  Edward grasped for something else he could learn from what he’d already learned. He wished he could discern Cali’s situation. It seemed that if only he were in the trance, some telltale clue would present itself.

  He wanted God to tap him on the shoulder and whisper in his ear, “Cali’s in Seacrest’s house, in the third room to the right. You can get in through the side window and save her.”

  He doubted there would be any divine intervention today. He’d have to use his logic, despite his weariness. He backtracked several houses and then crossed the street to Cali’s row.

  Now that he knew the disposition of Seacrest’s residence, he needed to know what was happening at Cali’s. He found an empty driveway and followed it all the way back, hopping a fence into the same jungle area where he’d chased Tomy the night before.

  He leaned out of the foliage see through the windows facing Cali’s back yard. The glare kept him from seeing all the way inside. There didn’t seem to be any motion, however. Outside, he saw no signs of activity: no cars, no footprints. The whole neighborhood felt abnormally still. Edward c
hecked the sun. It would be many more hours before the workaday crowd started making its way back to this community.

  Edward gripped the t-pill bottle in his pocket, then released it. It would be a lot easier. His eyes felt droopy despite the adrenaline flush in his veins. He maneuvered behind the tree closest to Cali’s back door, then calmly walked up to the house. He kept his eyes peeled for motion in the window but saw nothing. He tried the door handle; it was unlocked.

  He hadn’t expected that. The door swung open easily and quietly. Edward froze. The doorknob slammed into the wall. He listened for a reaction, but heard nothing.

  Edward stepped inside and closed the door behind him. He resisted the automatic impulse to rub his feet clean on the mat and walked light-footedly to the kitchen. He’d never been able to walk quietly, before, but he poured his attention into his feet, tweaking their position and the shifting of his weight until no sound came from his steps. Cat-like, he reached the opening of the living area and leaned his head around the corner. He positioned his body so that he could respond to an assault at any moment and quickly gain the initiative.

  The living room was empty. Edward walked in. He was starting to relax. No one seemed to be here.

  He looked out the window to the front yard of Seacrest’s residence. The house’s front door swung open. Edward dodged behind the curtains. He didn’t want to take any chances of being spotted.

  Edward peered out as four dark men, two in casual tourist clothing and two in suits, stepped out of Seacrest’s front door. One of them had a paper in his hand. One toted a suitcase. The two in suits carried briefcases. They were obviously Onge. At least, that fact was obvious to Edward. Probably not to anyone else, though. He’d been right about some of Manassa’s plot. That fact was reassuring, although it felt akin to being able to predict the path of a boulder but not being able to step away.

  The group entered a black sedan parked on the roadside and pulled away.