Suddenly these visions and more, so much more, are reeled back in, flying back in reverse, pausing at scenes of wild lightning, plasma balls whirling in the air in some underground domed chamber as the boy-teen struggles to stay upright with all the power coursing through and around him. Gauges and output screens spin wildly with data as the vision appearing within the conjured doorway changes again and again.
“There,” says the familiar voice of the man in the hat, again in the shadows. “That one,” he says as he comes closer, with a team of scientists watching in awe around him. “It may be the one. You have to go through.”
“He’s not anchored,” another voices in concern.
“He can find his way back. I know he can. It will work.”
The boy turns, his eyes alight with electrical fragmenting bolts.
“You will come back,” says the man, as he gives the boy a shove. “Go, confirm it…”
The doorway swallows him and snaps shut, winking out of sight just as all the electrical energy dissipates, sputters and dies.
The man coughs, then frowns and looks up as if sensing he’s being spied on. The hat comes off and the eyes scrutinize the very air, still lingering with after-effects of plasma. The man is bald, with fiercely pale eyes.
Caleb chills. Can he see me?
“Who are you?” the whisper vibrates in the vision as the scene suddenly fragments, stills, shatters.
Custodian? The word comes to Caleb’s mind, and nearly paralyzes him. Interfering so directly, and all this time?
For a moment, all that’s left in the vision is the boy’s room again. The night light. The door closing softly. The baseball trophy stands in the illumination, alone on the desk beside the unread comics beside the unoccupied bed.
The name on the trophy: Boris Zeller / MVP.
The bald man and those pale eyes rush toward him out of the shadows.
The vision dissolved, Caleb woke to an empty room, just noticing the enigmatic door closing.
A voice behind it said, “Follow me now.”
Caleb followed without hesitation, his head full of wonder and speculation. Unsure of what, if anything, was real anymore. But one thing, he knew, was very much real.
He had now the fundamentals of a plan forming in his carefully controlled thoughts. Every step he took toward the door and the elevator waiting to take him below, he knew was one step closer to deciding the fate and shape of the world to come.
19
Xavier Montross felt like he hadn’t eaten in days and had now been offered what might be his final meal. It was one he had to eat in the back of a limo — a turkey, capicola, onion and provolone sub that had a hard time staying together but was nonetheless delicious.
“You all are just too kind, really.” He mumbled the last bit, chewing mightily into another mouthful as he tried not to meet his captor’s eyes.
In her tight blue power dress, with a little rocket ship pin on her collar and a white blouse unbuttoned partway to reveal a gaudy jade necklace, Miriam sat and watched him eat. “Least I can do is feed you, after you were kind enough to come back to us.”
“Missed the hospitality,” he said with a swallow and a grin, as bits of bread and lettuce fell onto the seat. “And now that I know what you’re really after, I felt you really need someone here with experience.”
She leaned in, and Montross again had the sense that this was all a disguise, a façade. If he reached out to touch her, would it all melt away? Would she stand revealed as someone — something — else?
“Given for a minute that I believe you and you’re not bluffing, are you saying you’re actually proposing to help me now?”
He shrugged and tried to act nonchalantly. “Maybe, or maybe I just want to be here in the thick of things when you fail.”
“We won’t fail.”
“Sure you will. General Bensari I’m really sorry about, but those other recruits I saw down there?” He made a backwards gesture with his thumb, even though they were far from D.C. now, heading up the New Jersey Turnpike. He wasn’t sure of their final destination. “Good luck with them if you’re going after it.”
“It?”
“Stop playing around. It took all of Caleb’s mad genius and help from the Keepers and his father’s guidance, and still all the traps and diabolical riddles almost killed him.” He downed the rest of the sandwich. “Your boys don’t have a chance with this one. So…by the way, where are we going?”
Miriam crossed her arms and leaned back, giving him a strong stare. “You don’t seem too concerned for yourself.”
“Depends where we’re going, but you’re right. I wouldn’t have come back if I knew death was a strong possibility. You know about my how my talent tends towards benefiting self-preservation.”
“I do, but there are fates worse than death.” Miriam’s eyes clouded, as if she saw something long, long ago. “I should know, at least…the old me.”
“What are you talking about? When have you ever suffered?”
She shook her head. “A lifetime ago, and I saw such horrors…but that is no concern anymore. Nothing that matters.”
“Ah, well. It’s to be torture, is it?” He reached for the bottle of water to wash down what he just devoured. All of a sudden he had a mental image appear from nowhere, as if it came out of Miriam herself, an uncontrollable blast of something even she couldn’t suppress: barbed wire, emaciated hands…a line of poor souls being marched into steam rooms while others had to dig mass graves. A Nazi flag waving overhead…
Montross frowned and shook it off, after glancing at Miriam. What the hell was that? “Or are you just suggesting to keep me in perpetual lock up? I’m guessing you’re still going to need to trot me out as the face of all this psychic spygate bullshit, and have me be the villain in all this while you, what? Take the rest of us out of the picture?”
She said nothing in return, just turned her attention to the window, watching the hills becoming more interesting, as they now took the exit for 495 East.
“Good thing I came back, then.”
Miriam continued to stare, unblinking out the window. “Why?”
“Oh,” Montross said, shaking the water after taking a swig. “To stop you from doing anything stupid, in case you somehow manage to find the Tablet.”
Her eyes flickered. “You mean, before your other escaped birds?”
Now it was Montross’s turn to be silent.
“Oh yes, we’ve got your little plane tracked. Saw them take off thirty minutes ago.” She sighed. “I honestly hope the kids are up to it. Backup squad and all, but I understand. We didn’t leave you many options.”
Montross shrugged. “Backup enough to find you out and unravel all this bullshit about what you’re really doing.” Except you, I still don’t know what you’re all about. But I’m going to change that, fast.
Miriam licked her lips. “Something tells me you don’t really have a clue, or you’d know where we’re going. But it doesn’t matter. You and your team will be helping us soon enough. Voluntarily…or not so much.”
Montross lowered his water, clenching the half empty bottle so hard it almost snapped the plastic in half. A flash of a vision knifed into this mind, supplanting everything.