by Ted Dekker
They stiffened, mouths gaping. Together they dropped their heads, obviously unfamiliar with the new emotions of sorrow washing through them. They knew what this meant, of course. Not specifically, but in general they knew something very bad had happened. It was the first time anything bad had happened to either one of them.
Silently their shoulders began to shake, gently at first, but then with greater force until they could stand it no longer, and they threw their arms around each other and sobbed.
The sting of tears returned to Thomas’s eyes. How could such a tragedy have happened at all? For a long time they clung to each other and cried.
“What will we do? What will we do?” Rachelle asked a dozen times. “Can’t we go to the lake?”
“I don’t know,” Thomas responded quietly. “I think everything’s changed, Rachelle.”
Johan looked at Thomas with a tear-streaked face. “But why did Tanis do that when Elyon told us not to?”
“I don’t know, Johan,” Thomas said, taking the boy’s hand. “Don’t worry. Earth may have changed, but Elyon will never change. We just have to find him.”
Rachelle tilted her head back and raised her hands, palms up. “Elyon!” she cried. “Elyon, can you hear us?” Thomas looked on hopelessly. “Elyon, where are you?” Rachelle cried again.
She dropped her hands and looked despondently at Thomas and Johan. “It’s different,” she said.
He nodded. “Everything is different now.” He glanced up at the green-domed roof. Except for the Thrall. “We will wait until morning and then, if it seems safe, we will try to find Elyon.”
33
THE NIGHT had been pure agony for Thomas. He’d awakened screaming, soaked in a cold sweat, at two in the morning. He couldn’t go back to sleep, and he couldn’t bring himself to tell Kara about the nightmare. He could scarcely comprehend what it all meant himself. The images of the black wall of bats spreading over the land and then tearing into the village hung on him like a sopping, heavy cloak.
The early morning hours had been torture, relieved only in part by the onset of a new distraction.
“Do we have Internet access?” he asked Kara at six.
“Yes. Why?”
“I need a distraction. Who knows, maybe a little crash course in survival may help me out in the land of bats.”
She looked at him, taken aback.
“What?” he asked.
“I thought we were more interested in how that reality can save this world than how to build weapons to blow away a few black bats for Tanis.”
If only she knew. He couldn’t bring himself to tell her, not yet. She would never understand how utterly real it all felt.
“I need a distraction,” he said.
“So do I,” she said.
They spent the next three hours browsing subjects on Yahoo! that Thomas thought might come in handy. Maybe Tanis had been onto something with this idea of his to build weapons. If they were right, the only things that were transferable between the realities were skills and knowledge. He couldn’t take a gun back with him, but he could take back the knowledge of how to build a gun, couldn’t he?
“What good is a plan to build a gun if you don’t have metal to build it with?” Kara asked. “Will the wood there sustain an explosion?”
“I don’t know.”
He doubted there was any more wood that could be reshaped. Or anyone who could reshape it. He clicked off the weapons page and searched for the basics. Finding ore and building a forge. Swords. Poisons. Survival skills. Combat strategy. Battle tactics.
But in the end he came to the horrible conclusion that no matter what he did, the situation in the colored—or was it all black now?—forest was ultimately hopeless.
Things were hardly better here. They had proof that the Raison Vaccine could mutate into one very bad virus, and no one seemed to want to make sure it didn’t. True, in less than a day he’d been dropped in by helicopter with Muta, found Monique, barely escaped with his scalp in one piece, and finally confirmed the reality of the Raison Strain, but Thomas still felt like nothing was happening. If Merton Gains was working his promised magic, he was doing it way too slowly.
Jacques de Raison entered the room midmorning, and Thomas spoke before the Frenchman could explain his presence.
“I feel like an animal trapped in a cage,” Thomas said. “I walk around like an idiot under this house arrest while they sit around and talk about what to do.”
“They’ve lifted the house arrest,” Raison said. “At my request.”
Thomas faced the haggard-looking pharmaceutical giant. “They have? When?”
“An hour ago.”
“Now you tell me?”
The man said nothing.
“I need a cell phone,” Thomas said. “And I need a few phone numbers. Can you do that?”
“I think that can be arranged.”
“Our car is still here?”
“Yes. In the parking lot.”
“Can you have it brought around? Kara, you ready to leave?”
“Nothing to get ready. Where to?”
“Anywhere but here. No offense, Jacques, but I can’t just sit around here. I’m free to go, right?”
“Yes, but we’re still looking for my daughter. What if we need you? Secretary Gains could call at any minute.”
“That’s why I need a cell phone.”
Their feet clacked along the Sheraton lobby’s tile floor. Thomas pressed the cell phone to his ear patiently, scanning the room. Hundreds of people loitered in the grand atrium, completely clueless that the young American named Thomas Hunter and the pretty blonde at his elbow were bargaining for the fate of the world.
Patricia Smiley came back on the line for the fourth time in the last half hour. He was driving her rabid, but he didn’t care.
“It’s Thomas Hunter again,” he said. “Please, please tell me he’s not in a meeting or on the phone.”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Hunter, I told you before, he’s on the phone.”
“Can I be frank? You don’t sound sorry, Patricia. Did you tell him I was on the phone? He’s waiting for my call. Did I tell you I was in Bangkok? Put him on; I’m dying over here!”
“Raising your voice won’t—” Her voice went mute. She was talking to someone in the office. “I’ll put you through now, Mr. Hunter.”
Click.
“Hello?” Had she hung up on him? “Don’t you dare hang up on me, you—”
“Thomas?”
Merton Gains.
“Oh. I’m sorry, sir. I was just on the phone with . . .” He stalled.
“Never mind that. I’m sorry I haven’t been able to get through sooner, but I’ve been clearing my schedule. How you looking for ten o’clock tonight?”
Thomas stopped.
“What?” Kara asked at his elbow.
“Ten o’clock for what?”
“For me. My flight leaves in an hour. I’ll have the director of the CIA with me. We still have some calls to make, but we think we can get Australian Intelligence, Scotland Yard, and the Spanish there as well. Ten, fifteen people. It’s not exactly a summit, but it’s a start.”
“For what? Why?”
The phone hissed.
“For you, boy. I want you to have everything ready, you understand? Everything. You tell them the whole thing, from start to finish. I’ll have Jacques de Raison there to present their findings on the virus. I’ll have a CDC representative on the plane to hear those findings. The president has given me discretion on this, so I’m running with it. From this point forward, we treat this as a real threat. With any luck, we’ll have the ears of a few other countries by day’s end. Trust me, we’ll need them. I don’t have a lot of believers here at home.”
“You want me to present this at the meeting?”
“I want you to tell them what you told me. Explaining dreams isn’t something that comes naturally to me.”
“I can do that.” Thomas wasn’t sure if he really cou
ld, but they were way beyond such insignificant considerations. “And someone is locating Svensson, right? He has to be stopped.”
“We’re working on that. But we’re dealing with international laws here. And Svensson is a powerful man. You don’t just drop the hammer on him without evidence.”
“I have evidence!”
“Not in their minds, you don’t. He’s agreed to an interview tomorrow. Don’t worry; we have a ground team paying him a visit in a few hours. They’ll set up surveillance. He’s not going anywhere.”
“That could be too late.”
“For crying out loud, Thomas! You want fast; this is fast! I have to catch a flight. I’ll instruct my secretary to patch your calls through. You’re at the Sheraton, right?”
“Right.”
“Ten o’clock at the Sheraton. I’ll have a conference room reserved.” Merton Gains paused. “Have you . . . learned anything else?”
The nightmare swept through Thomas’s mind. The Fall. A sense of impending dread settled in his gut like a lead brick. “No.”
“Fine.”
“Okay.”
He hung up.
“What was that?” Kara asked. “He’s coming?”
“He’s coming. With an entourage. Ten o’clock.”
“That’s twelve hours. What happens in the next twelve hours? You’re briefing them, right? So we need more information.”
Thomas suddenly felt faint. Sick. He settled into a chair in the open dining room and stared out at the lobby.
“Thomas?” Kara slid into a chair opposite him. “What is it?”
He massaged his temples. “We have a problem, Kara.”
“Why do you say that? They’re finally starting to listen.”
“No, not with them. With me. With whatever’s happening to me.”
“Your dreams?”
“The colored forest has come apart at the seams,” he said.
“What . . . what do you mean?”
“The colored forest. It’s not colored anymore. The bats have broken past the river and attacked—” Thomas broke off.
She stared at him as if he’d lost his mind. “That’s . . . is that possible?”
“It happened.”
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t know.” He hit his hand on the table. The plates clattered. A couple seated two tables away looked over.
Again, not as loud. “I don’t know; that’s the problem. As far as I know, I won’t even go back. And if I do go back, I have no idea what the land will be like.”
“It’s that bad?”
“You can’t imagine.”
“This explains your sudden interest in weapons.”
“I guess.”
“Then you have to sleep! You can’t meet with all those people without knowing what’s going on over there. Our whole case hinges on this . . . these dreams of yours. You’re saying it’s over? We have to get you to sleep!”
“I’m not going to tell them what’s going on over there!” he said. “That’s for us, Kara. It’s bad enough talking about what I learned in my dreams, but there’s no way I can give them any specifics. They’ll lock me up!”
“But you still have to know. For yourself.”
They sat quietly for a moment. She was right—he had to find out if he could go back. They had twelve hours.
“Tell me what happened,” Kara said quietly. “I want to know everything.”
Thomas nodded. It had been a while since he’d told her everything. “It’ll take a while.”
“We have time.”
Twelve hours had come and gone, and Svensson hadn’t forced Monique to change her mind as promised. But one look at his face when he opened the door to her white-walled cell, and Monique suspected that was about to change.
They’d moved her during the night. Why or where she had no idea. What she did know was that the plan unfolding about her had been the subject of immense planning and foresight. She’d picked up enough between the lines to conclude that much.
Virologists had speculated for years that one day a bioweapon would change history. In anticipation of that day, Valborg Svensson had laid exhaustive plans. His stumbling upon the Raison Virus might have been a fluke, but what he would now do with it was anything but. Actually, he hadn’t stumbled upon it at all. He’d invested in a vast network of informants so that at the first sign of the right virus, he could pounce on it. In effect, he had many thousands of scientists working for him.
This man standing tall in the doorway to her white room was a brilliant man, Monique thought. And perhaps completely insane.
“Hello, Monique. I trust we’ve treated you well. My apologies for any discomfort, but that will change now. The worst is behind you, I promise. Unless, of course, you refuse to cooperate, but that is beyond my control.”
“I have no intention of cooperating,” she said.
“Yes, well, that’s because you don’t know yet.”
She didn’t indulge him with the obvious question.
“Would you like to know?”
She still didn’t. He chuckled. “You have a strong backbone; I like that. What you don’t know is that in exactly fourteen hours, we—yes, we; I’m certainly not alone in this, not even close, although I would like to think I play a significant role—are going to release the Raison Strain in twelve primary countries.”
Monique’s vision swam. What was he saying? Surely he wasn’t planning to . . .
“Yes, exactly. With or without an antivirus, the clock starts ticking in fourteen hours.” He grinned wide. “Astonishing, isn’t it?”
“You can’t do that . . .”
“That’s what some of the others argued. But we prevailed. It’s the only way. The fate of the world is now in my hands, dear Monique. And yours, of course.”
“The virus could wipe out the earth’s population!”
“That’s the point. The threat has to be real. Only an antivirus can save humanity. I trust you would like to help us create that antivirus. We have a very good start already, I must say. We may not even need you. But your name is on the virus. It seems appropriate that it also be on the cure, don’t you think?”
34
THE FIRST thing Thomas realized was that he was back. He was waking up in the Thrall with Rachelle and Johan curled by his feet. He’d dreamed of Bangkok and was getting ready to enter a meeting with some people who were finally willing to consider the Raison Strain.
They’d spent the evening huddled together on the Thrall’s floor. The night seemed colder than usual. Depression hung in the room like a thick fog. Rachelle had even tried to dance once, but she just couldn’t find the right rhythm. She gave up and sat back down, head in her hands. They soon grew silent and finally drifted off to sleep.
Sometime in the middle of the night, they were awakened by a scratching on the roof, but the sound passed within a few minutes and they managed to return to sleep.
Thomas was the first to wake. Morning rays lit the translucent dome. He quietly stood, walked to the large doors, and pressed his ear against the glowing wood. If anything alive was waiting beyond the doors, it made no sound. Satisfied, he hurried across the room to a side door that Rachelle said led to storage. He opened it and descended a short flight of steps to a small storage room.
A clear jar containing about a dozen pieces of fruit sat against the far wall. Some bread. Good. He closed the door and returned upstairs.
Rachelle and Johan still slept, and Thomas decided to leave them to their sleep as long as he could. He walked over to the main doors and put an ear to the wood again.
He listened for a full minute this time. Nothing.
He eased the bolt open and cracked the door, half expecting to hear a sudden flurry of black wings. Instead, he heard only the slight creak of the hinges. The morning air remained absolutely still. He pushed the door farther open and cautiously peered around. He squinted in the bright light and quickly scanned the village for Shataiki.
The village was deserted. Not a soul, living or dead, occupied the once lively streets. There were no dead bodies as he had expected. Only patches of blood that had soaked the ground. Nor were there Shataiki perched on the rooftops, waiting for him to leave the safety of the Thrall. He twisted to look at the Thrall’s roof, thinking of the scratching during the night. Still no bats.
But where were the people?
Apparently even the animals had been chased from the valley. The buildings no longer glowed. The entire village looked as though it had been covered by a great settling of gray ash.
“What happened?” Rachelle and Johan stood dumbstruck.
“It went dark inside,” Johan said, staring past Thomas with wide eyes.
He was right; the wood inside had lost its glow as well. It must have been somehow affected by the air he had let in when he opened the door. He turned back to the scene before him.
Thomas felt nauseated. Scared. His pulse beat steady and hard. Had evil entered him somehow, or was it just out here in this physical form? And what about the others?
“It’s all changed!” Rachelle cried. She grabbed Thomas’s arm with a firm, trembling grip. Frightened? She’d known caution before. But fear? So she, too, felt the effects of the transformation even without being torn to shreds.
“What . . . what happened to the land?” Johan asked.
The meadows surrounding the village were now black. But the starkest change in the land was the forest at the meadow’s edge. The trees were all charred, as though an immense fire had ravaged the land.
Black.
For a long time they stood still, frozen by the scene before them. Thomas looked to his left where the path snaked over scorched earth toward the lake. He placed his arms around Johan and Rachelle.
“We should go to the lake.”
Rachelle looked at him. “Can’t we eat first? I’m starving.”
Her eyes. They weren’t green.
He lowered his arm and swallowed. The emerald windows to her soul were now grayish white. As though she’d contracted an advanced case of cataracts.
It took every ounce of his composure not to jump. He stepped back cautiously. Her face had lost its shine and her skin had dried. Tiny lines were etched over her arms.
