Twelve Days

by Steven Barnes

  Terry checked internally for about a millionth of a second, discovering to no surprise that yes, he yearned to do exactly that. That some part of him hungered for surrender. “I guess that sounds pretty damned good.”

  “Close your eyes,” she said.

  Gupta rose from her chair, and walked around behind him. She inhaled.

  “Listen to your heartbeat.”

  Terry closed his eyes. As she continued to speak, her voice seemed to retreat, as if the room had expanded into an echo chamber. He touched his right fingers to the pulse point of his left wrist. Found his heartbeat, a steady, comforting tha-dump tha-dump.

  “Visualize a light in the middle of the darkness, and allow it to beat along with the life within your heart.”

  “Yes.”

  “Good,” she said. “Now. Allow the light within the darkness to collect.”

  “Into what?”

  “A child. The youngest ‘you’ with which you can make contact. Create a child of living light.”

  Child? He thought he would create a teenager, but there wasn’t enough light for that. Maybe sixty pounds of light. A preteen, ten-year-old Terry? No … less than sixty. A lot less.

  There wasn’t enough for a ten-year-old.

  Nor a six-year-old.

  What the hell? He couldn’t even make a baby. He was on the edge of giving up, when he realized he had constructed an embryo, which now floated in the dark like a proto Star Child from 2001: A Space Odyssey. “Yes.”

  “Good. Allow that child to float in the darkness, at the base of your spine. Now. Roll your eyes upward. Above you, hold the image of the greatest martial artists you have ever seen, or imagined.”

  A rapid succession of images: Bruce Lee, Mas Oyama, Morihei Ueshiba, Danny Inosanto … a series of Asians. Then a series of black and white faces: Sugar Ray Robinson. Sijo Steve Muhammad. Muhammad Ali. Bill “Superfoot” Wallace. Cliff Stewart. On and on.

  And then … Madame Gupta.

  “Yes,” Terry said.

  “Good. Now…” Gupta inhaled powerfully, set herself, rolled her eyes up, exhaled, and with flattened palm, patted Terry sharply on the top of the head.

  Shockwaves, bursting in the upper darkness, rolling down his spine like a wave of fire …

  In the darkness within Terry, light exploded in his heart. The martial images began to dissolve. The younger Terry began to ascend. Flashes of every martial arts class and style he’d ever studied, faster and faster, swirling and colliding. The “embryo” became older and older: teenaged, twenties, then the lower and higher lights collided at his heart, and the light exploded outward to fill him.

  Terry’s back arched, as if wracked by the mother of all orgasms. A quake originated in his feet, traveling up his ankles, through his calves and knees. He felt his buttocks tense and cramp, his pelvis thrusting until he felt like a living parenthesis. The wave transferred to his abdominal muscles and then his back, traveling up his chest and then his neck and head, as if someone had grabbed him by the toes and cracked his entire body like a slow-motion whip, again and again. His body was not his own. His hands gripped the arms of his chair, and his body contracted, stomach muscles convulsed, legs levitating from the ground, heels drumming. His body undulated, like a gymnast’s “flag” position, then rippled as if animated by some primal, mindless pulse.

  Then he collapsed, exhausted, and it was over.

  * * *

  Olympia felt fascinated, terrified, and awed. Simultaneously embarrassed, as if viewing a homemade porn tape. Terry’s convulsions were so amazingly, incredibly intimate that she wanted to flee the room. He tensed again and then … collapsed panting and gasping, so limp it appeared that someone had stolen his bones.

  “This,” Madame Gupta smiled, “is a fair beginning.” She turned to Olympia and Hannibal, a kindly, maternal, Dr. Ruth figure. This woman was a chameleon par excellence. So many personas … which one was the real Madame Gupta? And could she trust someone who she could not begin to understand?

  Fear, hope, and wonder warred in her heart.

  “Olympia. Hannibal. I hope you will accept my invitation to continue our exploration at our sanctuary. Now … I will speak privately with Terry, if you don’t mind.”

  “No. Not at all. It’s Hani’s bedtime.” Olympia fumbled her keys from her purse, aware that she needed something to occupy her hands, to keep them from trembling.

  Terry kissed Olympia’s cheek, and she smelled his sweat, its scent something she remembered too vividly for comfort. Hannibal glowed up at him.

  “See you later?” she asked. She hated the tremor in her voice. She knew something had happened. Just not … precisely what.

  “If I survive, I’ll be around.”

  Hannibal hugged him, hard. “Bye, ’Erry.”

  “Bye, champ.”

  * * *

  Olympia held Hani’s hand as they left. The boy kept looking back at them, waving and grinning, with more eye contact than Terry had ever seen the boy make. Ever.

  And then he was alone with Madame Gupta. Terry was both relieved and wanted to run out the door after O and Hani. Absurdly, something deep in his gut felt as if he had been left alone in a cage with a silky, purring leopard.

  Absurd.

  “You have been well trained,” Madame Gupta said.

  Terry laughed ruefully. “Never know it by the way you handled me.”

  “No fault of yours,” she said.

  “It was as if I was standing still.”

  She giggled. Again, that disorienting girlish quality. “Yes. It seemed that way, didn’t it?”

  A moment of silence followed. Terry suffered the void until it felt as if his scalp was frying. “What do you want from me?”

  She smiled, a warm and welcoming expression. And he thought again that it was amazing that a woman in her late fifties (she had to be that, didn’t she? At least?) could have a face so unlined, a body so defiant of both time and gravity. “That is, of course, exactly the wrong question.”

  Terry’s ears buzzed, as if there were a low-level mechanical whine vibrating in the walls. “What’s the right one?”

  “What do you want from yourself?”

  Terry fumbled for words. “What do I…”

  She leaned forward. “Terry,” she said. “Why are you pretending to be someone you are not?”

  The buzz grew louder. “I don’t…”

  She raised her hand, summoning silence. “You have studied art after art, like a man consorting with courtesans rather than marrying and raising a family. Never have you gone deep enough to find the limits of your ego. You have much technique, and little wisdom.”

  His heart raced, and his stomach soured. This was all too much, happening too fast. “Wait just a minute…”

  “No!” she said sharply. “Waiting is past. Your ego has limited you to those things that came easily. To your detriment, much was easy. You were too talented for your own good. When it became hard, when you were asked to go deep into your own fear and lack of clarity, when you were asked to disassemble your ego structure, tear it down to the foundations and begin anew … you failed the test. Your ego cocoon was too strong.”

  “My…” He shook his head, trying to clear it. “What the hell is an ‘ego cocoon’?”

  “Yes. Imagine a human soul born into the world. In physical form it is helpless. It must plead for everything it receives, curry favor with those who hold all the power. It defines itself in terms of the roles it learns to play, and each role: son, sibling, student, lover, worker, parent … is another mask, ultimately obscuring the spirit that began the journey. Any true discipline tears down the ego so that the spirit can be exposed, then the cocoon reforms according to the new needs. You were too strong to tear down, and too willful to surrender. You built one castle upon the twisted ruins of another, and that upon another, and another.”

  “Where does it end?” he asked. He wanted to shut her out, but couldn’t. “What is ‘real’ about me?”

 
; “There is a story I heard once,” she said. “A scientist was giving a lecture about the solar system, and theories of gravitation. After the lecture, an old woman stood patiently in line to speak, and when she faced him, said: ‘You talk very pretty, young man, but it’s all nonsense, you know. The earth isn’t spinning around any ball of fire. The earth rests upon the back of a giant turtle.’

  “The scientist controlled his amusement, and asked: ‘And what is that turtle standing upon?’

  “‘Another turtle,’ she replied.

  “‘And that turtle?’

  “The old woman narrowed her eyes. ‘Oh, no, young man. I know what you’re trying to do, and it won’t work. It’s turtles all the way down.’”

  Terry blinked. “I don’t understand.”

  “That’s the problem you get into when your ego asks questions about its own reality. It’s turtles all the way down for you, too.”

  Terry felt his breathing hitch, tried to summon calm. “That’s not fair…”

  She clucked. Her face softened. “It is not fair that we have so few years to live our dreams. But neither is it unfair. It just … is. It is not fair that you were born strong and fast, but not wise. But here we are. Because of your gifts, you could probably physically defeat men who might have mentored you to greatness, had you been able to suspend that need to be dominated. You only listen to me now because you know I can kill you, and that is a tragedy.”

  Some other communication was happening here. Terry started focusing on furnishings and books around the room, desperately seeking diversion, struggling like a wolf ready to chew through its own leg to escape a trap.

  “And now,” she continued, “and now you come here, and find yourself in my hands. You fascinate me, Terry.” What in the hell was the implication there? Mother? Teacher? Lover? “You have studied … something … that stirs a memory. Of all the paths you have walked, what is the strangest? The correct, honest answer gets you everything you have ever sought.”

  “If…” He paused. “And the wrong answer?”

  “And you leave here as you came. Ever … becoming. Never being. Isn’t that what you wish, Terry Nicolas? To simply … be?”

  To his dismay, when Terry spoke again his voice seemed … tiny. “Yes.”

  “The strangest path. You have one chance.”

  Terry waited a beat, as if chewing on his next breath. Then: “In 2005, a year after…” He paused, searching for words. “A year after some very bad things happened in a place called Fallujah, I was seconded to the CIA for nine months, and while I was, met some people familiar with something called ‘Voodoo6.’”

  “I have never heard this name,” she said.

  He hesitated, thinking over what he was about to say. Was he breaking rules? Did he give a damn anymore?

  “It’s what America’s MK-Ultra super-brain project became after the core information was declassified. A top-secret operation correlating body-mind information from around the world. The super-soldier project. They called themselves ‘Dorsai.’ I don’t know what that means.”

  “Go on.”

  “There was a bit of footage of a man named Adam Ludlum.”

  Madame Gupta’s eyes narrowed. “Adam … Ludlum.” A spark lit the darkness behind her eyes. Whether she admitted it or not, that name was familiar to her.

  “Yes. My friend showed me…”

  * * *

  Terry Nicolas and Ernie “Father Geek” Sevugian sit in a room without windows, lined with computer screens. Geek rolls his wheelchair over to a twenty-inch flat-screen monitor. “You’re a martial arts nut. All that Bruce Lee shit, right?”

  “Yeah. So?”

  Father Geek grins behind his wire-rims. “So I’ve got something you’ve never seen.”

  “What?”

  Geek assumes that owlish, self-satisfied aspect exclusive to people who know they have information you lack. “Well … back in about 1987, something really weird happened. You know MK-Ultra was trying to make Jedis and shit. They researched A to Z, got their hands on everything they could find. One thing was a surveillance tape from Westwood, California.”

  “Surveilling what?”

  He shrugs. “Well … look for yourself.”

  He searches to find a video file, and begins playing it. At first the screen is fuzzy, full of crossbars, then alphanumerics. And then it clears, presenting an image of the intersection of Westwood and Wilshire Boulevards. Streams of cars and pedestrians against a backdrop of movie theaters and fashionable shops. Then … chaos.

  A man comes galloping into frame. Two police officers try to grab him, and with a wave of his arm he sends them sprawling. His head snaps forward … and then he keeps going.

  “What is this?”

  “Guy’s name was Adam Ludlum. Computer nerd. Story is he went crazy. There’s another piece of footage on him from a restaurant out in Orange County.”

  The image changes to a western-themed bar. Scratchy video. Patrons sit drinking, flirting, dancing, enjoying themselves. Suddenly there is a ruckus. Several cowboys confront a solitary man, and the air is suddenly filled with tumbling bodies. Terry leans forward. Hits the rewind button. “What the fuck?”

  “Indeed. There he is. Nerd from hell, huh?”

  Three cowboys jump him, and the man moves so fast it is almost as if he disappears and reappears in the midst of an invisible explosion.

  “Whoa!”

  “Now this is the crème de la crème.”

  Back to Westwood. A police officer shoots Adam Ludlum point-blank in the head, and the guy shakes it off and keeps going. The cop looks bamboozled.

  “What the hell?” Terry yells. “Were those blanks? Is this footage real?”

  “Real as your last shit. There you have it. The guy was inhumanly fast, strong, aggressive, and resistant to being shot at close range. We’ll assume that bullet didn’t carry away critical bits of cranium, but the shock alone should have floored him.”

  “What happened to this freak?”

  “Nobody really knows,” Geek says. “He disappeared. There are hints that he might have been involved with a paranormal incident in the Bay Area. That information … I just don’t have.”

  “Some kind of drug? Uppers? Steroids?” Terry asks.

  “I don’t think so,” Father Geek replies. “After he disappeared his computer and notes were seized. I only know about this because of MK-Ultra.”

  “If it wasn’t drugs,” Terry asks, “what was it?”

  “Well … according to his files, it was some kind of meditation. Some way of breathing and visualizing. And it … triggered something in his head.”

  This is one of the strangest things Terry has ever heard. “Is there any record of what it was?”

  Geek grins. “Thought you’d never ask. Top secret. Cannot leave this room. Can’t be printed. Can’t be shown, either. But … I’m rolling down to le pissour for five minutes, and if you were to accidentally hit that key, something would come up. I believe your cell phone is a Nokia N-90?”

  “Yes. So?”

  “I hear it has a digital camera. Just a bit of trivia, with no bearing on the situation at hand. If you were to use said digicam, and I found out about it…”

  “You’d have to kill me.”

  “No, I’d have to report you to certain unpleasant people. They, in all likelihood, would do things to you that would make Jack Bauer throw up.” He yawns, stretching. “My bladder hurts,” Geek says, and leaves. Terry pauses for a shocked and pleased moment, then begins to photograph the screen with his Nokia.

  * * *

  “And that,” Madame Gupta said, “is how you came to know of Adam Ludlum?”

  “Yes. Had you heard the name?”

  “In truth, yes.” Madame Gupta rose, pacing.

  He caught something at that moment. She’d broken contact with him. She knows more than she wants to say. It was the first hint of obfuscation he had detected, and it intrigued him.

  “I, too, have seen some of
this footage. But I have also seen the original material created by Mr. Ludlum. And … some of my followers knew him.”

  “Who was he? Really?”

  “A genius,” Madame Gupta said. “He read some fragmentary public pronouncements of Savagi and somehow integrated them into a cohesive whole. Quite remarkable.”

  “Why?”

  “Because … Savagi himself was taught via an oral tradition, and all that remains are partial transcriptions of his lectures. Savagi’s concerns overlapped with those of the martial artist, but were not specific to them.”

  “So … you began as a martial artist?”

  Madame Gupta’s smile was surprisingly elfin. “No. The martial arts are … a byproduct of other knowledge.” Her expression suggested that that was all he was going to hear at the moment.

  “So you came in touch with the work of this Ludlum guy. I thought that everything was classified.”

  “Like you, I have my sources. But let us come back to you. You are unique. I know of no one who ever had a ‘kundalini trap’ remain unintegrated for so long. Over a decade.” She shook her head in wonder.

  “How long was it supposed to remain?”

  “Weeks,” she said. “Months at the outside. As I said, it was an experimental program, possibly misapplied by that instructor.”

  “Did it hurt me?”

  She considered. “It … delayed you. It will be fascinating to see what happens now. I have something I would like to give you.” She rummaged around the office bookshelf, and found a DVD sandwiched between two thick volumes.

  “What is this?” Terry asked. The cover was mimeographed, the case of cheap plastic. He guessed that someone had duplicated it on a home computer. The front photo was a close-up of a bearded Indian man with his eyes rolled up toward heaven.

  “The only known video of Savagi himself, speaking and teaching students,” she said. “Take this with my blessing.”

  “The interview is over?” The idea triggered … disappointment? Fear, perhaps?

  “For now, yes. There are … matters to which I must attend.” She approached him, smiling, and laid her hand on his arm. A kindly gesture? Something else? Her hand was cool and smooth, but in the moment before she touched him, a little static charge leapt from her flesh to his. “But after the first of the year, I invite you to come to me at the Sanctuary. I believe our conversation has just begun.”