by Neil Mcmahon
It was Lisa who’d suggested that she and I come to the Malibu house while we still had the chance. By now she knew the whole story, and she wanted to walk around the property—where, in an important way, the events had started—and see if any impressions filtered into her mind. She had kept that door firmly shut over these past months; the last thing either of us wanted was more weirdness inside our heads. But as the immediate nightmare had eased off, our need had grown to try to make sense of it.
Especially because we had good reason to believe that it was still going on, hidden, around us.
We got to Malibu as the last daylight streaked the horizon and the long electric arc of the coastline was coming aglow. I pulled the Land Cruiser in through the security gate and parked beside the boarded-up old house. Paul no longer had any claim to it. Auditors were still looking into how much family money he had siphoned off into Parallax, but it was on the order of several million, and we had taken back this property as restitution. It would go on the market soon, and whoever bought it wouldn’t waste any time tearing the house down. But right now everything looked the same as when I’d come here for him that night last May.
“Sure you’re okay with this?” I asked Lisa. She nodded. Most likely nothing would even happen; as she’d told me before, she couldn’t control her ability, only invite it. Still, we were both nervous, feeling that maybe this was a sleeping dog we should let lie.
“Let me wander a little, try to tune in,” she said. “Then show me where you and Nick were.”
We got out of the car and started walking; I kept pace with her but stayed out of her way. She moved slowly, arms folded and head bowed; although she was wearing dark jeans and a hoodie, there was the sense of a gothic heroine on a bleak moor, mourning a lost lover or brooding over the sin that had brought her to ruin. Gradually, we worked our way toward the cliff edge and then to where Nick and I had tangled. The gouge where the chunk of earth had broken off under my foot still stood out like a fresh scar.
It was an eerie feeling, being at this place again.
“He was standing right about here,” I said, tapping the ground with my toe.
Lisa came over and turned seaward. We stood there unmoving, with the wet salty breeze in our faces and the mesmerizing pulse of the surf in our ears.
Then she said quietly, “It’s like—there’s something that’s keeping tabs on us. Sort of hovering, waiting to make a move.”
“Cynthia?” It was the thought we dreaded most—that she was still very much a threat to us, and she’d only been biding her time until she was safe in a new life.
“Maybe—I can’t tell,” Lisa said, looking wary, “but I think we’re going to find out.”
It was only an impression, she was clear about that; she could have subconsciously manufactured it from anxiety, of which we both had plenty.
But it didn’t exactly lighten the mood. We walked back to the car and started home.
There had been a media circus after Dustin Sperry’s death, of course, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as it would have been under other circumstances. Right away, the same spectral agent types as Venner stepped in—although he himself was conspicuously missing. They grilled Lisa and me, but very little information was publicly released; they forbade us to talk to the press and came down on any of them who got pushy. No doubt there was more of that pressure from other sources behind the scenes—the secret, influential Parallax members who wanted no part of being associated with this. The story died out of the mainstream with surprising speed; even the paparazzi and tabloids that targeted Lisa backed off.
We didn’t find out much from the spooks in return. Cynthia and Venner had disappeared. If they ever got caught, we’d probably never know it. The sense we got was that he was a rogue American agent who’d compromised and endangered his colleagues—about as popular with these people as a plague-infected rat—and we’d be wise to forget he’d ever existed. Cynthia was more of a cipher, with her history concealed by a careful smoke screen; the hint of her Russian origin was tantalizing. It seemed likely that they’d left the country and they might or might not still be working as a team. My own guess was that Venner had found out he was just as expendable as everyone else to her, and by now “they” were down to just “she.”
There were still people looking for her, but there wasn’t much doubt that she would sell the mind-control nanotechnology—probably already had—and not just for money but for security, the protection of a foreign government or powerful private interests. With that kind of a safety net, she’d have plenty of time and opportunity to take revenge on us. In that case, our best hope was that she didn’t want it badly enough to go to the trouble.
In any event, the nanotech horse was out of the barn, and it was bound to be ridden hard—by whom, for what purposes, and to what effects, were the questions. With that on our minds, Lisa and I had started noticing bizarre news items that we hadn’t before.
Sheer paranoia on my part? Sure. Most likely they were random and unrelated, the result of real mental disturbance, drugs, or too long a time in some psychological pressure cooker. Or was somebody still using the nanotech?
There’s something starting up that we’re going to see more of, and we might be looking at a real problem, Drabyak had said.
But Parallax had essentially vaporized. The production company had closed its doors, the movie remained unfinished, and there were no signs of the organization itself—but there were people with a lot at stake. Would they just walk away quietly, or were Lisa and I particular threats because of what we knew? Was somebody only waiting for the right opportunity to arrange an accident?
The nanos were in our brains to stay. If anyone knew of any way for us to shield ourselves, they weren’t saying so. Trying to hide out seemed as unrealistic, and futile, as ever. And besides being vulnerable ourselves, someone who wanted to target us could easily set up a situation to zap a total stranger or even an animal into sudden hostility—and themselves never be suspected of having anything to do with it. Every time Lisa or I glimpsed a menacing face, heard a dog burst into sudden furious barking, saw a vehicle in the rearview mirror coming up fast, we got a sickening jolt of fear.
I knew this was edging into “careful what you wish for” turf, but a part of me had started thinking that if somebody was going to come after us, then for Christ’s sake, let’s get it over with.
I woke up out of a dream with my cell phone ringing. The clock read 3:17 a.m.—the exact same time as when Nick had called that night last May. This time I couldn’t remember the dream—it was only a jumble of images—and Lisa was beside me. But the sense of déjà vu was still all over this.
I grabbed the phone off the bedside table and strode out of the room, raising it to my ear as I went—waking up fast.
“Hello, Tom. Don’t hang up,” the caller said. I didn’t recognize the voice—it was male. It sounded somehow disembodied, like it might have been digitally modified.
“All right,” I said hoarsely.
“You need to answer a question, and be very honest. Let’s start by refreshing your memory.”
Then it came—that ugly wrenching twist inside my head, like millions of insects suddenly coming to life and writhing around.
I staggered, but I managed to hang on to the phone instead of throwing it like everything in me wanted to do. After a few seconds, the sensation eased off. I tried to calm my gasping breath, then slowly raised the phone to my ear again.
“Still there?” the voice said calmly.
“Yes.”
“Good. Here’s the question. On the night you were almost killed—when you were in the water, fighting for your life—you got bombarded with those same kinds of signals. But you blocked them. How did you do it?”
“I didn’t do it,” I said. “It just happened.”
“That’s not really an answer, now is it?”
I clenched the phone tighter in my sweaty palm, expecting another searing prod to my memory. But the eerie calm remained ste
ady, and I groped for the right thing to say.
I’d spent endless hours thinking about that particular mystifying part of the overall madness. The only semirational explanation I could come up with was that my brain had somehow manufactured a defense for those few seconds of extreme duress—a sort of neural brownout that was the product of terror, adrenaline, and the need for instant self-preserving action. My subconscious, working in its own bizarre ways, had linked that to the suggestion of “Gatekeepers” that Kelso had implanted in me.
But that edged into the realm of a “rational” explanation weaker than the irrational one, however wild it might be:
That the Gatekeepers really had stepped in to save me.
I inhaled deeply and let the words go. “Maybe something protected me. A power from outside myself.”
“Very interesting,” the voice mused. “Did you summon this consciously?”
“No. I never even imagined it could happen until it was over.”
“Could you do it again?”
“If I could, I’d be doing it right now.”
I thought I heard a hint of laughter.
“Why did they help you, do you think?” the voice said.
“I don’t know. I sure didn’t do anything to deserve it. Maybe it wasn’t about me at all—they had a completely different reason, and I was just in the middle of it. Or maybe—” I hesitated.
“Maybe because they have another use for you in the future? A fiercer beast to throw you to?”
I sagged. “Yeah.”
“An excellent guess. What will you do about it? Just wait and hope?”
“What else am I supposed to do?”
“Remember that Gatekeepers guard gates,” the voice said, still maddeningly calm. “Find those and smash through them. There’ll be beasts at each one, and they’ll tear into you—but you’ll learn to bite back.”
It was sinking in that, bizarre as this had started out, the turn it was taking was far more so.
“How do I find the gates?” I said. “I don’t even know what they are.”
“You’ve been given eyes that see. If you’re fool enough not to use them, then fool you remain.”
And that was it. I was left standing there in the dark, holding a silent phone.
Then I realized that Lisa was watching me from the bedroom doorway, with her hands pressed flat against the jambs like she was bracing herself for support.
“Are you done?” she said, in not much more than a whisper.
I nodded shakily. “I don’t know who it was. Maybe Cynthia, fucking with me. Maybe somebody else. I—I don’t know.”
Lisa came forward and put her fingertips against my chest, a light, soothing touch.
“Tom. It wasn’t anybody,” she said, still speaking very quietly.
“It—What?”
“I was awake the whole time. The way you grabbed for the phone and rushed out here—it seemed so strange, that was why I followed you. The phone never rang. The line was dead. No voice coming from the other end—nothing.”
I stared at her. “I heard it ring. That’s what woke me up.”
She shook her head gently. “Sorry, hon. You must have dreamed that.”
“I know I wasn’t dreaming that I heard somebody talking back.”
“Here, let’s check.” She pried the phone from my numb hand, brought up the received calls list, and held it up for me to see.
The last one had come from Lisa herself at 4:53 in the afternoon, as she was leaving her house to drive over here.
I dropped down to one knee, then the other, then fell sideways on the floor and rolled over flat onto my back. She stretched out beside me, propped up on an elbow.
“You think you’re losing it?” she murmured.
“When you talk out loud to somebody who’s not there, but you’re sure they are there, that’s a pretty fair sign.”
“You didn’t sound crazy at all, Tom. I mean, you weren’t ranting or anything—it’s like you were talking to somebody. So what did they say?”
I told her. “I seem to have some talent, anyway,” I finished. “As hallucinations go, that’s a pretty impressive piece of work.” I must have manufactured it deep in my subconscious—with most of it bearing a suspicious resemblance to things Gunnar Kelso had said.
“But it does make sense in a way. There’s an arc, right?” Lisa traced a curve in the air with her forefinger. “They started by scaring you—let you know they could fry your brain if they wanted. But they didn’t. Instead, they reminded you that you stopped it once. Brought that around to the Gatekeepers. Then—”
“Then they called me a fool,” I muttered. “Being crazy doesn’t feel too bad, at least so far. But I sure hate being stupid.”
She gave my ear a sharp little nip with her teeth. “What they told you was that I’m your eyes that see. You fool.”
“You really think it was the Gatekeepers?”
“Yes.”
“You’re not just saying that because you really do think I’m nuts?”
“If you start getting messages like the alien spaceship is coming to pick us up at midnight, or like religious people who say everybody better believe this or else, then I’ll start getting nervous,” Lisa said. “But let’s face it—Gunnar did something to our brains that we don’t have a clue about. What he told me about opening up new channels—it happened with me, so why not you?”
The jury was going to stay out for a while about that. On the one hand, my rational mind still assured me it was a psychotic episode. On the other, if I accepted that it was real, I’d sure have plenty of company—probably most people believed in otherworldly powers, and many, that they’d had some form of contact with them.
But this had a stunning implication that set it apart.
Gunnar Kelso had destroyed his own credibility by sinking to the level of sordid deceit and manipulation—no doubt under the guiding influence of Cynthia Trask.
And yet, had he succeeded, at least to some extent, in what he claimed—building a bridge by means of science to the realm of mysticism? Discovering the dynamics of a hidden energy system that would someday be recognized, just as the invisible workings of atoms, microbes, forces like gravity and magnetism had come to light in the past? Proving the existence of other intelligent life in the universe, but not in a distant galaxy—in another dimension that intermingled with ours?
There is still truth in what I’ve said, Tom.
“So what are you thinking?” Lisa said.
“That all this scares the shit out of me.”
“Well, yeah. But we are in it, like it or not. And—I know I’ll be sorry I said this—in a way, it’s exciting.”
I rolled over onto my back again, this time pulling her across my chest. She made a little umph sound like she was slightly surprised, but she didn’t seem displeased.
“Okay, here’s my from-the-hip take,” I said. “We call this a peculiar kind of folie à deux—we might be insane, but we both know it. We keep it strictly between us, go on with our daily life just like always. But we start looking at things in this light. If it just fades out, so it goes. If it seems to shine on something, we try that.”
She nodded solemnly, her hair tickling my skin, but her lips twitched in a smile.
“We might be insane, but we both know it?” she murmured. “That’s the sweetest thing a guy ever said to me.”
Los Angeles Times, November 30
Cloud of Industrial Material Released in Fire
A fire whipped by Santa Ana winds tore through Stoddard-Line Shipping Co. in Fontana late last night, gutting the complex of warehouses and transport equipment. Firefighters battled through the night to keep the blaze from spreading. No injuries have been reported, and the facility did not store materials classified as hazardous.
However, concerns are being raised because Stoddard-Line is a major transporter of bulk commercial and industrial materials known as nanoparticles. At least several tons of the particles in powdered fo
rm were on site at the time, with most released into the atmosphere by the fire and wind.
“I hardly even know what those things are, but it’s weird having them up there floating around,” one firefighter commented. “Kind of a perfect storm for spreading them all over L.A.”
A Stoddard-Line company spokesman gave assurances that the nanos are harmless, citing both industry and government sources.
The cause of the fire is under investigation.
Acknowledgments
As always, my wife, Kim, and our families and friends; Carl Lennertz, Jonathan Burnham, Kathy Schneider, and their colleagues at HarperCollins; Jennifer Rudolph Walsh, Lauren Whitney, Anna DeRoy, and colleagues at William Morris Endeavor; Roger Hedden, Drs. Barbara and Dan McMahon, and Andrew Schneider for providing invaluable advice in their fields; my mother, Georgia Knotts McMahon, for being the marvel she is; and many others who helped in many ways—my apologies for oversights.
About the Author
NEIL MCMAHON holds a degree in psychology from Stanford and was a Stegner fellow. He has published ten novels, in addition to the bestselling thriller Toys, coauthored with James Patterson. He lives in Missoula, Montana, where his wife directs the annual Montana Festival of the Book.
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Also by Neil McMahon
Twice Dying
Blood Double
To the Bone
Revolution No. 9
Lone Creek
Dead Silver
As Daniel Rhodes
Next, After Lucifer
Adversary
Kiss of Death
Credits
Cover design by Archie Ferguson
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
