“Yes, I think so. Are you considering the wet string project?”
“No, Staci. I think it’s very important that we all go ahead and see where it leads. However, your priority is and should be the work, but mine is and will always be Mark.” Elizabeth knew that she was about to include this young lady in a world that, up to now, only she had lived in. She had always known there was no other road for her to take, and Mark’s anonymity was his only true security, but… “What we give the world from these labs are eventual products that contribute not only to the wellbeing and comfort of millions of people but they directly influence the creation of large new manufacturing companies around the world. Therefore, they affect the economies of many countries.” She was drawn up from behind her desk by what she was feeling and turned, once more, to face the closed door of Mark’s office. She no longer felt like she was a teacher with the goal of imparting something to her student. She was making Staci a sister in her world. “That’s why we must have everything explainable beyond any one person’s involvement. The people of the world are not just starved for goods anymore, or a better lifestyle, or anything like that. They have got all that, in some form or another, and they have found that they are still hungry. It’s their hearts, Staci. It’s their souls that are starving.” Elizabeth made a silent reaffirmation to wherever Mark was behind that door and turned back to Staci, who only sat there with her mouth slightly open and her hands limply in her lap. “With what I believe you are about to confirm in your work, we will just jump from real goods to philosophy. For a large part of the world, it could even become religion.”
“I had never thought it through to that application, Dr. Merrill.”
“Well now we must, Staci.” She came closer and looked directly into the young girl’s eyes. This was the one time, the only time, she could have this conversation with Staci. If she didn’t understand or if Elizabeth felt she wasn’t ready for the responsibility, that was it. Elizabeth would be alone again. “If it is all connected, Staci—time, space, sentient, and insentient are all connected—and if the world thinks the only pass or key into the universe is Mark, what will we do? What will they think he is?”
There was no answer to that question and they knew it.
“Everything that has protected him up until now—the location of his home, the security that exists in the open area around it, and everything we do to protect him here—will be useless. The world will demand and find and use him. And I think destroy him.”
But there was one course of action. They were together now. Elizabeth felt strengthened, knowing another would share him. Mark would be safe and his life would be sure. Now, with or without her, there would always be someone to care.
That evening, Mark sat in a lounge chair by the pool. He had just stepped out of the water, and the shining beads were still gliding off his skin and pooling in the small recesses of his muscles. The energy he had absorbed from the water filled his body and mind and made both feel strong. Although the sun had set hours ago, the moonlight was more than enough when added to the flicking rays from the large glass enclosed oil candle Elizabeth had given him. The candle burned on the table by the chair. He adjusted his eyes, the same way he did when in the depths of the sea, and picked up Staci’s report from the table as he sat down.
He paused as the white of the paper grew in brightness, and everything around him appeared to his inner eye as though the sun had just come out from behind a cloud. He thought for a minute. Was that the feeling again? Was it his memory? Many times in the early days, when she was trying to open the locked door to his forgotten past, Elizabeth had described how different stimuli can make memories return. Did he remember smell? Was the comfort he felt then, and was feeling now, coming from some long ago page of his life? No! Mark was suddenly very alert. The smell was here. It was by this pool. It was by him!
He knew nothing was moving toward him so he remained motionless until he could target the danger. He knew it was danger, but he was not afraid. He could always handle the hazards he encountered. Just identify, locate, and react.
It only took him a moment to detect an outline in the shadow of the bougainvillea; an outline that, at one moment, was motionless then moved and grew over the edge of the railing at the far end of the deck. It was large and solid and stood out as foreign against the dappled stems and leaves of the shrub.
“What is it that you want?” Mark spoke as he slowly rose to his feet and, with equal smoothness, let Staci’s report gently drop to the chair. The shadow grew as the form came forward, and soon it was no longer the outline of darkness but the shape of a man.
A few more steps before he can be considered a threat, thought Mark.
When those steps were taken, Mark was about to make his move. At the mere tension of his muscles, Mark felt his arms being pinned to his sides, and he was held motionless. He had not perceived the second person at all. It puzzled him how his senses had not heard or felt the man. He assumed it to be a man as the power that held him was considerable. He still felt calm and confident that, when he was able to identify these men and determine their intent, he would take whatever steps necessary.
The larger man approached until he was about nine feet in front of Mark. Mark knew this man was larger because he could feel the air on his neck from the one who restrained him and knew him to be six feet tall at the most.
“What is it that you want?” Mark repeated the question, this time slower and with a small smile because, based on the closeness of the man in front and unfamiliar way he was dressed, perhaps he spoke little or no English. The man stared at Mark with more intensity than he had ever seen. Over the last fifteen plus years, when someone would discover Mark’s true identity, they would look at him differently. Sometimes it was curiosity and other times fear. But never had anyone looked at him the way this man did. All he could compare it to was some strange combination of anger and fear.
The man was big and stoutly built, and Mark took him to be only slightly older than himself. His dark hair was shining in the night light as though damp. His clothes appeared to be dry but the fabric? Mark could not remember ever seeing this material before. It did not fit snuggly; yet it adhered to the man’s skin. It also never stopped moving even when the man was completely still.
Mark repeated. “What do you want?” It was as though the man was a little taken aback by Mark’s calm detachment.
The stranger opened the top of the strange tunic he was wearing and, from his waistband, withdrew a shiny object about twelve to fifteen inches long. It reminded Mark of the old- fashioned pistols he had seen on television. Next the man pulled something from inside of his tunic. It was very small and appeared to be nothing more than a piece of cloth. Very carefully but quickly he unfolded the small square and placed it in the palm of his hand. All of this was in and out of the light and shadows and difficult for Mark to see clearly. Then the man shifted his position a little and, for the first time, the light fell squarely on the object in his left hand. Although resembling a type of pistol, it had none of the separate pieces that would identify it as such. It was one solid form… some sort of metal. From where he was, Mark could not identify the metal but was pretty sure that—based on what he could see and other information—he had never encountered its type before. Again that puzzled him. Since working with Elizabeth at the foundation, there had been times when he had to learn the names of certain elements and compounds, but they had all been familiar in some way. This time nothing triggered a response in him.
There was a cone-shaped opening in the larger end, and it was in this that the man inserted his hand with the cloth until it disappeared to the knuckles. At that moment, the casing on what appeared to be the barrel turned almost transparent and looked to be more fluid than solid. It retracted completely into the handle, revealing a razor-like blade. Something deep and long forgotten in Mark’s life was suddenly activated and, for the first time, he could re
member he felt fear, fear for his life!
The man started towards Mark. He held the weapon out in front of him and seemed almost afraid of it himself. Mark also felt the grip around his own arms tighten, and he sensed the respiration and heart rate increase dramatically in the man who held him. Just two more steps. Mark knew that the five feet or so between them would give him the room and the chance to throw off the one who had him pinned and to disarm the assailant facing him. As the man took the second step and Mark was about to move, he heard him speak for the first time.
“We have searched a long time to find you. We have traveled many shorelines.” Now his face became more animated and his lip rose to a slight sneer. “Your time here has dulled your senses and dimmed the qualities of your people.” The sneer was now a complete grin, but there was no warmth to it. “You are a weak keeper of gardens. Ja-Lil, it is to be, you must die.”
Inside Mark’s brain, it was as though a blast of the brightest light illuminated a place long dark. It was only for a moment. But in that instant visions came to Mark in blinding swiftness. A beautiful young girl’s face, long dark hair, smiling. She is gone. Gone too quickly for him to call the image back! Now a man and a woman in their early fifties or so. He is waving. At Mark? He is gone. She is beautiful. Her face is over his, looking down. The long gold twists of hair fall against his face as she laughs and rocks her head back and forth. The beautiful face and mouth come closer. She is gone! Large strange shapes. Buildings? Just shapes? Shapes and symbols that puzzle him.
As quickly as the images came to him they were gone and then back again. Mark felt in those brief seconds like he was free falling through the shreds and edges of someone else’s life. Then it was all gone and nothing replaced it. It was just the now. Him and the two strangers, the quiet night, and the danger! Mark knew now that he must act.
He flexed his arms to raise them above his head and break the grip of the one behind him, but he was held fast. Never in his life had he been unable to overpower another person, but one more attempt to break the hold told him it was not to be. The larger man raised the weapon to the level of Mark’s chest.
“Your life is a crime, Ja-Lil. Your line must cease to be.” He continued forward.
Mark summoned the totality of his strength and, with one twisting motion of his entire body, spun and flipped his restrainer into the oncoming assailant. For a second all was still. The strength that held him was gone. Mark, upon feeling his freedom, spun around and stood poised to act. To do what? He did not know. With their strengths being equal, he considered an escape to the sea. He was about to run to the wall and jump. At least if he made it to the water and out into the deep, he would have the advantage. The smaller of the two men, the one who had been holding Mark only a moment ago, slowly turned to face him. The left sleeve of his tunic was badly slashed, and a large gaping cut oozed blood from his arm just above the elbow. He brought his other hand up to staunch the flow. The free hand flexed strongly on the long diagonal opening. The compression did not halt the flow of blood, and Mark watched it run out between strong fingers. The man repeated the squeezing, and then Mark saw something. As the fingers flexed and released, the skin between them extended smoothly outward to the joint of the first knuckle. Mark was looking directly, for the first time he could remember, at another webbed hand.
The ground he stood on split beneath him. The crack became an opening. The opening widened as cement, deck, house, land, and the very air—everything except the space he possessed with these two men—raced into the distance and disappeared. Everything he could remember belonged now to another place, another world, another dimension. The connections he felt so securely to Elizabeth and the people of the institute stretched into such a fine filament that he could not feel their attachment for him. There was nothing in his universe but total darkness and that one hand pushing against red soaked fabric and skin. Thin snakes of brownish-crimson wandered over curved arcs of flesh that held his eyes like iron.
There was no controlling the systems in his body now. His heart raced, and the separation of beats blurred against the inside of his skin until he thought he would split open at every cell. His body had no weight but was pressed against the ground so hard he could not lift his foot. His mind was as black and empty as the world around him. A small speck of something was born into the black and matured in an instant into a feeling then into a thought—a thought which became a word “Who?”
One word typed indelibly on the black page brought the cosmos back to order. He was there on his deck by his house with these two men. He was standing in the glimmering moonlight. His breathing slowed and the muffled sounds he heard became the slap of the waves’ crickets calling somewhere in the brush beyond the house and the rapid gasps of the young bleeding man.
Those little gasping tufts of air pulled his eyes off the bleeding arm and hand, and he looked into the eyes of the wounded man. What he saw there was what he had felt when he noticed the knife-blade. The fear was now married to fate. This young man knew he could die and he would die. In that stretched moment of shocked immobility, all three sets of eyes jumped from one person to another, almost begging the other to break the deadlock. The larger, older man very slowly let the knife loosen in his grip. Like a curtain coming down, the blade was soon covered with the flowing shield becoming solid. With the same deliberate speed, he slipped the weapon back into the waistband of his tunic. This serpent-like movement held everyone in its trance, and all was still until he reached down and grabbed the glass container and votive candle that was burning on the table. With a sudden eruption of violence, he threw it towards the house. It barely cleared itself under the rain gutter of the overhang and crashed in an explosion of crystal shards and liquid wax against the teakwood bench. In an instant, all of it was ablaze and small molten drops of flame were dropping to the cement patio.
The two assailants, using the diversion of the moment, jumped over the patio wall and disappeared. Mark’s every molecule wanted to chase after them, but the sound of the growing fire turned him back. He grabbed a large towel from the back of the chair where he had been sitting and slapped it into the water. After he ran to the burning bench, he twisted the towel into a six-foot long, wet rope and hooked it around the armrest. Still watching the spot where the two men disappeared over the wall, he easily pulled the bench to the edge of the pool and threw it in. With one more quick movement, he drenched the towel again and threw it over the small flaming trail the bench had created. With the house safe, he ran to the sea wall and saw the last white explosions of water and foam as the two men disappeared into the ocean.
Mark ran to the telephone under the eave of the house. He picked up the receiver and punched the top speed dial button.
The seven-tone song quickly dialed, and he stood watching the few small dabs of flame above the surface of his pool like some floating candelabra. The phone rang six times. There was a click and then the voice of Elizabeth, “This is Dr. Elizabeth Merrill. I can’t answer the phone right now, but if you leave a message I will return the call as soon as possible.” Another beat as he shifted his eyes from the drowning flames to the waves breaking along the shoreline. Then the tone.
For a second he said nothing. What could he say? What was it that had just happened? What was it that he felt and heard and saw? The silence now roared louder than the surf. Never taking his eyes off the gentle rolling of the ocean, he took a deep breath. “Elizabeth, there are others. I am not alone. I will return.”
Mark hung up the phone, ran to the wall, jumped over, and was gone.
CHAPTER FOUR
The sun’s rays filtered through the thirty feet or so of water and,
by the angle of them, Mark was subconsciously aware of the chase being ten hours old. At this level under water, any turbulence that might be on the surface did not affect the signs and they were very easy to follow. Mark was excited and also extremely puzzled. These two were almos
t certain to be his kind, but why had they acted the way they did? Despite the speed of the pursuit, he was able to use his time in the water to collect and organize his thoughts. Putting the events of the last ten plus hours in perspective was important. Why would they want to kill him when he had no idea who they were? The killers’ chilling words echoed constantly. “Your life is a crime. Your line must cease to be.”
For the first time in his memory, he had to consider the blank parts of his life not being what he assumed they were. He had, since finding Elizabeth, always looked for and found the goodness in those he met. Over the years, there were many whose evil was apparent, but he took them to be the exception. Now he had to question everything about himself. All that was exciting about filling in so much forgotten knowledge was counterbalanced with danger. Was he a criminal? Why must he die? He was racing into the unknown where he might be targeted again for death.
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