Ah well. Cole leaned back against the thrumming metal wall and closed his eyes and breathed deeply. He could not control everything, and there was some relief in just accepting that. And he had another source of comfort and confidence as a backup. He had light in him. Light in his hands. Light that could somehow help them. He didn't know how it would come into play, but he expected that it would. He flexed his fingers and felt the strength in them. It was as he'd said at breakfast. He was ready.
15.10
They were all there now. They'd all checked in. Emily. Grace. Dennis. Mihos. Iain was greatly relieved that they were all okay. He'd been so worried. It seemed that they must be close to each other, as they each reported seeing the same thing, the vast bucket of burning coals into which they all seemed to be falling. But so far none of them could see each other. At least they could talk.
"Feel heat," said Dennis.
"Me too," said Iain. It seemed that the coals beneath them really were burning.
"Does anybody else smell smoke?" asked Emily.
None of the others seemed to smell anything.
"What is it?" asked Grace.
"I think it's like... a mouth, or something," said Iain. "Like it's alive."
"Feels alive to me," said Mihos. "Isn't that just nippy?"
"You ever encounter anything like this before, Mihos?" asked Iain.
The cat took a moment to think. "I've seen some strange critters in this realm, but not one of these," he answered evenly.
"Plan," said Dennis.
"What, Dennis?" said Grace. "You want to plan?"
"Have plan," said Dennis.
"Imagine ourselves all drifting together?" asked Mihos, picking up on the dog's idea.
"Yes," said Dennis. "Then help."
"Right," said Iain. "Good idea. If we're together we can help each other."
The cat, the dog, and the three young humans all imagined themselves drifting closer together.
15.11
Linda Travis made for a terrible ghost. She couldn't get through to Cole, no matter how loudly she shouted, no matter how hard she tried to send him a telepathic message, no matter the effort she put into her attempts to knock things over or write messages on the fogged windows, like she'd seen in movies. Cole just went about his business, meeting with Stan Walsh and Stendahl Banks and people whom Linda had never before seen, talking, eating pancakes, dressing in warm clothes and rain gear and getting onto a boat. Maybe if it had been quiet she'd have been able to be heard. Maybe her voice might sound in Cole's ear, one of those ghostly whispers that sends chills up the spine. Maybe. But there was a huge storm raging now, beating the Maine coast with slabs of hard wind and buckets of rain. That's how it looked, at least. It wasn't like she could feel it.
She'd imagined that her rage would carry her. She'd thought her passion would serve her. She'd hoped her good intentions would open the way. Wasn't that how it worked for ghosts? But so far, she felt as ineffective and lost and powerless as that dead body she'd left beneath her cabin. Being freed from the body and stepping into the so-called "higher layers" might make for a powerful, mystical experience in those other realms, but it didn't seem to mean squat here in the physical. And it was here, in the physical, this realm of things she knew and people she loved, people and things that she could see and hear but not touch, that everything seemed to matter. Linda Travis was not ready to go toward that damned light people talked so much about. And she couldn't believe that that was what William had just spent so much energy preparing her to do. She did not intend to stay dead. She had too much to do to be dead.
She still wasn't sure what she would do if she could do something. Gather her husband and children together in safety, of course. That part was a no-brainer. But there was that damned vial in the cabinet, a vial that purportedly held the cure to the disease that was now set to take out some huge portion of the human population. What would she do with that? She wondered if she should just refuse the choice that had been put on her. She knew that William would argue that no choice was a choice as well, but she wasn't sure she bought that one. But, gods, how could she do such a thing, or allow it to be done? Would it be better to just let this virus do its work? Or would it be far worse? And wasn't she going to feel guilty and despairing either way? Was William right? Or was he really, really wrong? And how the hell would she be able to know?
She needed somebody to talk to about this. She needed Cole. And her advisors and confidants. Smart people who could help her. Who could share this. Linda sighed. In the end, it would probably come down to her heart. Her gut. Something. What a burden to put on one woman's internal organs. And right now, she didn't really have any, did she? Her heart and gut were slowly rotting, leaving her with mind alone. And her mind, it felt like, was exhausted and confused and stuck in a loop she could never escape. Damn them all, for putting this on her.
She stood on the small dock in what she knew to be Boothbay Harbor, a place she'd visited more than once back when she'd been a lowly governor, a small, hilly, seaside resort town of shops and restaurants that was now falling slowly into ruin. She watched as the boat that carried her husband pushed out into the bay, bobbing like a duck on the rough waves and smashing headfirst into the wind and rain. She understood what he was doing now. He was going out to try to save her, bless his heart. All he had to go on was what he'd been told, and the videos he'd seen of the computer-generated, disease-ridden Linda Travis shown on TV. He had no idea where she'd really been and what she'd been doing. And he had no idea what he would find, should he ever make it down to that underground room, to that cold, stainless steel table, and that pitiful husk of a body, that shell that no longer contained her.
He would encounter soldiers on the island. And that Mr. Phelps, now wearing a uniform, whom she remembered from her first fateful meeting with Agent Rice. And who knew what or whom else he'd find? William said that Cole was sorting things out. Something about his own connection with the aliens. She didn't know what that meant, but it gave her a shard of hope. She looked up at the sky, seeing a thick ceiling of swirling dark clouds, knowing that above it was the Grid. The aliens. Spud. She wondered if maybe, in her present condition, she might have more access to them now than she'd ever had in her body. Maybe she'd find out.
It occurred to her then that she could ask for help. Not from Spud, exactly. She wasn't sure she even wanted his help, that bastard. But from that Big Whatever that was out there. The Community, as William called it. The gods. The fairies. She wasn't convinced that they could help her, but thought that they probably wouldn't if she never asked. So she asked. Help Cole. Help my kids. Help me. Help me find a way to do whatever it is I'm supposed to do. Help me to choose. Help us all, we humans here on Earth, we who've made such a mess of things. Help us.
The boat was almost lost in the wind and rain and distance now. Linda knew she could follow it. Knew she could follow Cole as he did whatever it was he needed to do. But it occurred to her that he might be best left to his own work now. And she was fairly certain that it would be nothing but anguish for her, to be able to see him, but to have no power to help. In a moment the boat was lost to sight. Linda prayed for Cole's safe return.
But now what? She'd already tried to find the "devious trap" in which William had said the kids were trapped. That "Murk." She hadn't seen a thing. She'd also tried to locate William's vibration, his pattern, and go to him in this level, perhaps to find some way to communicate with him. Again, there was nothing to find or follow. She did not know how to reach him.
She considered heading off into the great unknown. With her ability to blink restored, she was free now to explore the Astral plane. Perhaps there was help there. Maybe some of the beings Grace had encountered in her adventures. But she did not think she could bring herself to leave the Earth. The thought of doing so just made her want to cry. That would be like going toward the light, she feared. That would be leaving this world behind. And Cole. And the kids. That would mean accepting, and ac
ting, like she was as dead as that body under her cabin insisted that she was.
And she was not ready for that.
15.12
The tiny wok rose up from the ground, passed through the garage roof as if it were mostly just empty space, and ascended into the sky above the Presidential Home in Augusta, Maine. Around the city, soldiers and nurses and business people and government employees stopped what they were doing and looked to the sky. The wok glowed pearly white against the dark gray clouds, seemingly untouched by the wind and rain.
As though adding an exclamation point to a newly edited paragraph, the wok flared, a single strobe of brilliance, a beacon, a flashbulb. Those who saw it knew its meaning: it was a flash of intention. And they knew who was inside that wok.
Mary was back.
The intention was hers.
15.13
By the time the kids and animals all found each other, the gaping maw of burning coals had grown vast and hot underfoot, and was rushing up hungrily to meet them. After an infinity of blackness, they found themselves back in their astral bodies, reconnected to their senses, finally able to feel and see and hear. But they did not like what they could see and hear.
They fell through the Murk as though it were open sky now, as if they'd all been pushed from an airplane, five small bodies diving without parachutes into a volcano of writhing flames, holding hands to form a ring. There was no magic carpet to save them. There was no blinking away. There was no changing of form. They might as well be in the physical now, in real bodies, with a real volcano beneath them, for all the power they seemed to have.
Mihos glanced frantically around, then called out to the others. "Look at the edge!" he shouted over the Murk's hungry growling. "Is that a ledge?"
The others peered downward. It did seem that the edge of this field of burning coals was some sort of ridge or ledge, with fire on one side and black Murk on the other. It had some width to it. "It might be something we could land on!" said Iain. He leaned his head and angled his arms in a way that seemed to change their direction as they fell. The others followed suit as best they could. Slowly, very slowly, the five of them, a ring of skydivers, steered toward the ledge.
They'd decided that it was not really fire beneath them. The writhing coals and flames and heat were just how it looked. What it was, really, was some fundamental force of life. It wasn't fear. The Murk did not feel afraid. It wasn't hatred or anger or revenge. It was just simple need. Hunger. The will to survive. As if the Murk was just another living organism. One that first rendered its prey insensate, then slowly transported them to its hot, roiling stomach, where it might break them down and consume them. Like one of those Venus flytraps, say. An organism. Feeding. There was nothing at all personal about it. It was just doing what it did.
But none of the five wanted it to do what it was doing to them. Whether personal or not, getting consumed by the Murk felt pretty darned final. So they leaned and angled and shifted together, holding themselves just right so that their movement through this strange sky would take them over to that edge. So close now. So close. And just in time, as the hungry coals - giant, writhing, crawling, living embers the size of pillows - were now yearning, stretching, lunging up to grab at them and pluck them out of the air.
It was Mihos who was able to reach out and seize the ledge. The surface, maybe six feet across, was smooth and slick, but his cat magic allowed him to get a hold and land on his feet. The ledge rose up a few feet from the sea of hot coals, giving Mihos just enough time to reach down and grab the others before they fell into the fire. He swung them up and around and they landed at his feet in a hard tumble of bodies and heads and limbs. Dennis would have slid off the far side into the blackness, his claws clicking and skittering, had Mihos not reached out and grabbed the dog's tail. Grace hit her head on what felt like solid rock and cried out. Emily grabbed her little sister and pulled her close tight. Iain landed on his knees and slid to a stop right next to them.
For a moment they were all stunned. Then Iain started to laugh, and he leaned over and hugged his sisters to his chest. Mihos went over to help Dennis to his feet. Dennis thanked the cat with a tongue to the cat's nose. The five of them sighed and shouted and laughed and hugged. Mihos was given high praise for having grabbed the ledge like he did. Relief washed over them all like cool water.
Dennis walked carefully to the outer rim and peered over the edge. "Look," he said, glancing back toward the others. They did. It wasn't all blackness, as they'd assumed. Far below was a circle of light. Daylight. "Smell ocean," said Dennis, sniffing the air.
They backed away from the edge. "So is that the way out of here?" asked Iain.
"Yes," said Dennis. "Like tunnel. We jump. Slide. Go through hole."
None of them were all that keen on once again jumping into such blackness, but that tiny bit of daylight felt like home. And none of them had any better ideas. They certainly couldn't stay here. The heat was almost too much to bear. They stood in a circle and discussed their options, but the answer was obvious. Once again, they would trust Dennis's sense of smell.
It was then that one of the burning coals reached up over the lip of the ledge, grabbed Iain's ankle, and began to pull. Dennis leapt into action, grabbing the fabric of Iain's blue jeans and pulling in the opposite direction. But the giant ember was too strong, or too heavy, and Dennis could get no traction on the smooth stone surface. Iain, tall and lanky and caught off guard, began to tumble. The burning coal pulled and Iain followed and Dennis hung on and, in a moment that seemed to last forever, all three of them fell into the sea of fire.
Grace screamed.
15.14
McAfee stood in the surveillance tower they'd built just north of the Presidential retreat, scanning the waters of the bay. The storm was howling now, and it sounded for a moment like a young girl screaming in pain. The Colonel smiled. Whoever it was that designed this storm had spared no expense. They were getting really good.
Lt. Danny Sparks pointed out toward the water. "There," he said.
McAfee looked where his second was pointing. Yes. That had to be them. "Amazing," he murmured. "Who'd'a thunk it? Those crazy bastards."
"It's incredible that they're still above water," said the Lieutenant. "Look at those waves."
They watched for a moment as boat pushed its way through the huge breakers.
"Do we let them dock?" asked Sparks.
McAfee shook his head. They'd learned that Cole and his crew were coming from a news broadcast one of the soldiers had picked up on his phone. "Not when they've got Sten Banks and a cameraman on their crew, Lieutenant," said McAfee. "I can see the headline now: 'US soldiers fire on, kill President's husband.' You want that sort of coverage?"
"So what do we do?" asked Sparks.
"We got anything that'll sink that boat without being noticed?" asked McAfee. "I mean, wouldn't sinking be the most obvious thing for that boat to do just about now?"
Lieutenant Sparks smiled. He gestured with his head to the tower further up the slope. "How's about an old 242 Bushmaster with DU armor-piercing rounds, Colonel? Punch a hole in the hull. In this storm nobody will notice, and we can clean up the wreckage before anyone else gets a look at it."
McAfee nodded. "Range?"
"Three thousand meters, Colonel. Our gun's got the SmartTech upgrade. It can't miss."
McAfee turned to his second. "You seem rather eager to take out the President's husband, Lieutenant."
Sparks nodded. "You and I both know who we really work for, Colonel." He looked McAfee in the eye. "And we both know that it no longer really matters."
The Colonel nodded. "Good point," he said. He turned and peered out into the storm. The boat was still coming. Brave bunch of folks, he had to admit. Or stupid. And there was something kind of sweet about Cole Thomas coming to rescue his wife. But he wasn't going to like what he found when he got here, was he? Maybe they'd be doing him a kindness. He turned to his Lieutenant. "Do it," he said. Then he turne
d back to watch the boat some more.
15.15
Linda was back in the facility, standing next to her dead body, examining it. This was like before, when she and William had hovered in space next to Phobos, when William had said "I'll tell you inside" and then disappeared, leaving her on her own to figure out how to join him. He'd told her where to find her dead body. He'd told her about the vial. He'd told her the virus was already working its way through the global population. Now she had to figure it out on her own. Which meant that she had to find a way to bring her dead body back to life. Nothing else had worked.
But how to achieve such a thing? She'd tried thinking herself into it. Willing herself. Pushing herself. She'd tried just lying on top of it and sinking into it. She'd tried to go inside, like she was a little spark of consciousness exploring a huge cavern. Nothing. There was no pattern she could key in on, like she had with William. No vibration. No whatever it was that allowed her to blink from one place to another. Because living in a body wasn't like being someplace. It wasn't like sitting on a sofa in her chest cavity, or lying in her head and looking out through the eyes, like she had with that wok. Living in a body was being the body. Filling it. Melding with it in some way she'd never really ever thought about before. The body had to want her. And this body was beyond wanting anything.
Urbem Orsus, William had said, there at the very end. Maybe that was some clue. A magic spell? An instruction? She'd tried saying it, but it hadn't done a thing. Just another bit of mystery to add to the confusion. Linda had even risen up through the storm to the Grid, intending to pound on the gates of Spud's little kingdom and demand his help, but she found herself unable to get near. She must have passed through it on the way here from Mars, but now it would not let her approach, let alone pass through. And no amount of shouting had provoked Spud to show his face. Or Alice.
Rumi's Field (None So Blind Book 2) Page 54
