"Sorry. Not on a first date."
Canfield didn't laugh. "What's wrong? Does it disturb you that your scars might link you to me and my birth defects?"
Jack repressed a shudder as Canfield's legs stirred under the blanket.
"Whatever scars I have came along long after my birth. You told me yourself that your defects happened before you were born. I don't see any connection."
"Ah," Canfield said, raising a well-chewed index finger. "But what made your scars? A creature, right?"
Jack stared at him. He knows too? Finally he said, "Where do you get your information?"
"About the Otherness creatures?"
Why doesn't he call them by name? Jack wondered.
"Yeah. How do you know about them?"
"Melanie and I sensed their presence last year. Just as I sensed those scars on your chest, we became aware of the Otherness creatures approaching from the east."
That's right, Jack thought. The rakoshi had come from the east…from India…by freighter.
"I get the impression you never saw one."
"I never had the honor. We searched, but we never could locate them."
"Lucky for you."
"I don't see it that way. I could consider them almost…brothers. After all, they too were children of the Otherness, like Melanie and me, although they contained far more of the Otherness than either of us."
"The Otherness…I'm getting real tired of that word."
"Well, it's a perfect name, really. The Otherness represents everything that's not 'us'—meaning the human race and the reality we inhabit. Melanie thinks it's vampiric in a way, sucking the life—the spiritual life—out of everything it encounters. Monstrously dark times will ensue if and when it takes over."
"And how would it manage that?"
"Sneak in when the other side's not looking. It can't charge in because the current landlord's got it locked out, but it's always there, hovering just beyond the threshold, keeping an eye on us, making tiny intrusions, creating strange, fearful manifestations, using its influence to sow discord, fear, and madness wherever and whenever it can."
"Like through the folks downstairs?"
Canfield nodded. "Some people are more aware, others less, but each of us knows—I don't care whether it's in our preconscious, post-conscious, subconscious, in the most primitive corners of our hindbrains, in the very cells of our bodies, we all sense this battle raging. And that subliminal perception has been reflected in human religions since earliest recorded history: Horus and Set, the Titans and the Olympians, God and Satan. The war is out there, and it's been going on since the beginning of time. We're aware of it. We can sense the Otherness on the far side of the door, we can smell its hunger."
"Okay. Fine. Let's just say that's true. How's this…this evil Great Whatever screwing with things now?"
"It can influence certain susceptible individuals—'touched by the Otherness,' as Melanie used to say."
"Touched is right," Jack said.
Canfield smiled. "Interesting, isn't it, that 'touched' has two meanings."
Jack hadn't thought of that, and thinking about it now was no comfort.
"Keep going."
"The willing susceptibles give in to the influence and go to work for it—they're the ones behind all the discord and cover-ups."
"Controlled by the Otherness."
"Not so much controlled, as simpatico. They're not taking orders, per se, but they feel a certain solidarity with its ethic."
"Ethic? What ethic?"
"All right, perhaps ethic isn't the best term. How about 'esthetic'? Does that sit better? Whatever the term or the reason, they're quite willing to inject as much chaos and discord as possible into everyday life. The unwilling fight back, but not without paying a price."
"SESOUP folk, in other words."
"Yes. They're what we call 'sensitives.' For better or worse, their nervous systems are more attuned to the Otherness. Their minds have to make sense of the external will impinging on them and so they think they're hearing voices, or come up with these wild-sounding theories."
"Like gray aliens, reptoids, Majestic-12, the New World Order—"
"You're thinking smalclass="underline" from Christianity and its Book of Revelations to the Hebrew Kaballah, to the Bhagavad Gita, they all come from the same place."
"So in other words, there's no shadow government trying to control our minds."
Canfield shook his head. "You're missing my point. I believe there is a shadow government with our worst interests at heart, but it's not controlled by aliens or the UN or Satan, it's run by people under the influence—note I said 'influence,' not 'direction'—of the Otherness. Aliens, devils and the NWO are simply some of the masks worn by that single, nameless chaotic entity…the many faces of a single truth."
"Melanie's Grand Unification…" Jack said.
"Exactly. But this conference is a unification of sorts too. The members of SESOUP are particularly sensitive to the Otherness, that's why membership is so selective. And now they're all gathered here, packed into a single structure, each one of them a lens of sorts, perceiving the Otherness, and focusing it, distilling it. Surely you've noticed the charged atmosphere in the hotel?"
"Sort of. But focusing it for what purpose?"
"Only time will tell. We must believe now, but soon we shall have proof."
"Proof?" Jack said. "Real hard proof? That'd be refreshing."
"Your scars are a form of proof, wouldn't you say?"
Jack was glad to get back to the subject of his scars. He remembered something Canfield had said.
"You mentioned that you and Melanie 'sensed' the creatures. You 'sensed' they were in New York but you didn't know where they came from."
"Of course we did. They came from the Otherness."
"I mean, what country."
"Country? What is a country but an artificial boundary agreed on by ephemeral governments."
"And I'll bet you don't know what they were called, either."
"What's in a name? Just a label attached by some primitive people. All that matters is that the creatures were fashioned ages ago by the Otherness, and they carry the Otherness in them."
Odd. He seemed to know the big picture, but not the details.
"Carried," Jack said. "Past tense. They became fried fish food at the bottom of New York Harbor."
Canfield nodded. "Yes. I remember waking from a nightmare about their death agonies. When I read about the ship that had burned in the harbor, I guessed that was what had happened." He shook his head. "Such a shame."
"Shame, hell. Probably the best thing I ever did."
Canfield stared at him. Jack couldn't read his expression through all that hair. When he spoke his voice was just above a whisper.
"You? You're the one who killed the Otherness creatures?"
Something in Canfield's wide eyes made Jack uneasy.
"Yeah, well, somebody had to do it. They happened to pick on the wrong little girl for their next meal."
"Then it's no wonder you're here. You are involved…more deeply than you can possibly imagine."
"Involved in what?"
"In Melanie's Grand Unification Theory. The Otherness creatures are part of it, I'm sure, and therefore so are you."
"Whoopee," Jack said. "And does her theory involve weird contraptions as well?"
"You mean machines? I don't think so. Why?"
"Well, I've got a couple of crates of parts sitting in my room. I don't know why they're there—I don't even know how they got there—but I've got a funny feeling their appearance is somehow connected to Melanie's disappearance."
"I can't imagine how. You mean, you don't know who sent them or where they're from?"