It was a glass of water. . . only there was no glass. Just water.
Okoya moved over to the dressing table where the water stood, and leaned against the edge of it, making sure he was in Dillon’s line of sight. As he touched the table, it shook slightly. The water vibrated like a column of Jell-O, but still it stayed together, an indivisible whole.
“See how wonder surrounds you,” Okoya poked a finger into the side of the water column, and pulled it out, licking his finger. “You are the glue that holds this, water together, and your power is growing every day.”
Then Okoya lunged forward, driving his logic deep into Dillon’s uncertainty. “If you know patterns so well, look at the pattern around you,” challenged Okoya. “If you took things into your own hands, how long until every person in the world knows your name, and knows what you can do? How long until you become the glue that holds the entire world together?”
Dillon was silent as he considered the glassless glass of water. Okoya asked again. “How long?”
“Forty-eight days,” whispered Dillon. “Forty-eight days, twelve hours, and nineteen minutes.”
16. Water Works
Drew Camden likened his condition to the aftermath of the flu. A weakness in the knees; a lightheaded, uneasy feeling; a sense of nonspecific malaise that accompanied everything he did. It was amazing to him how much there was to adjust to. It seemed almost every aspect of his life was affected. The way he thought, the way he acted, the way he coped with any and every situation, had been carefully woven to accommodate that off-color strand of his sexuality—but now that that thread had been pulled out, the fabric of his life made no sense. Tasks as simple as turning a doorknob took every last ounce of his concentration, and when he was out among people, the world took on a strange dreamlike tilt. Everything seemed violently new, and potentially dangerous, and his interactions with others were . . . well . . . unsettled.
There was a girl, for instance. He didn’t know her name, only that he was deeply attracted to her. He struck up a conversation in the hallway with her—small talk, really, just to get her attention. He was even more surprised than she when he looked down to find his hand deep in his pants, nursing an erection. He felt shock, mortification, and yet found himself laughing uncontrollably, not knowing why. It was just one in a string of unexpected events that had plagued him since Michael had rewired him.
He had asked Michael about all this, and Michael was unconcerned. “It’s just a transition, it’ll take some time for you to adjust.”
Michael was, of course, right. Drew would eventually decipher his new neural pathways and discover the person he now was. He just had to weather through this period of discovery.
Thank goodness for the video camera.
As official video-biographer, and Dillon’s self-appointed spy, Drew could rely on his job to distract him—a job that put a merciful distance between him and the world that he viewed through the lens. He had recorded quite a few unusual events—definitely video-worthy—and the events only grew stranger day by day.
Today he was busy cataloguing the new backward flow of the fountain, when he caught sight of Okoya following Dillon back to his suite. Drew might have followed, as well, to eavesdrop, and see what conversations went on between these two most unusual of people, but it was the activities of the others that afternoon that pulled his focus—as it had pulled the focus of so many of the followers.
Lourdes was in the ballroom putting on what amounted to a puppet show . . . but her puppets were human. She had taken a whole group of devout followers, and turned them into a kick-line, shoulders linked and throwing their legs high up into the air, like the Rockettes themselves. They laughed and laughed, as Lourdes manipulated the muscles of their bodies like a row of marionettes. Lourdes laughed, too, and Drew hadn’t been sure whether this show was for the followers’ amusement, or for hers. Either way, it looked wonderful on videotape.
“Is it difficult to control the actions of so many people at one time?” Drew asked her.
“Not as long as they’re all doing the same thing,” Lourdes answered, indicating the kick-line. “And it’s easier when they willingly give their bodies over for me to control. Are you getting all this?”
Drew zoomed in and panned the kick-line of followers, whose laughter was fading as exhaustion began to set in.
“How long do you think they can go?” Lourdes asked.
Drew shrugged. “You tell me—you’re the puppet master.”
Lourdes frowned, unamused by the title. “The interview’s over.” Drew then found his own feet taking Lourdes’s marching orders, carrying him out of the room against his will.
Drew’s camera next caught Winston in the Rose Garden, a place Winston had initially avoided; but now he seemed to relish the sight of the rosebushes weaving themselves like snakes through the trellises as he sat there, the roses blooming around him in yawnlike bursts. In this festival of roses, Winston held court. It was a cross between a game show and an audience with King Solomon. Some tested his knowledge of minutia, others had specific problems to solve.
“We’re worried about feeding all these people,” said one of Winston’s flock. “What should we do?”
“Dig up the lawn beneath my balcony, and seed it with vegetables,” he told them. “You’ll have a full harvest by morning.”
Drew used his zoom lens on Winston, because Winston had no patience for Drew, and couldn’t be bothered with something as menial as their videologue. And besides, whenever Drew moved too deeply into Winston’s sphere of influence, he could feel his own hair growing, and it wasn’t a pleasant sensation.
Drew followed Winston’s gaze to the sky, where, to Winston’s irritation, Michael was upstaging him with a host of cloud creations. “That’s all he’s good for,” Winston grumbled to his followers.
Drew trekked to a clearing on the far side of the castle, where close to one hundred followers lay on their backs like a Peanuts cartoon, staring up at the clouds. In the center of them, Michael emoted in short, directed bursts. Drew could feel the pulses move through him like Morse code. In this way Michael carved and molded the clouds. He had whipped the high cirrus into a wispy spiderweb. Now he drew together the puff in its center until a spider could be seen lurking there. Then Michael released his breath as if he had been lifting a heavy weight, and the web above began to dissolve into random vapor once more. His crowd applauded and cheered.
It was then that Dillon burst out of the castle with Okoya close behind. Drew quickly spun the video-cam to him, zooming in on Dillon’s intensely determined face. Dillon was searching for someone or something, and his mind seemed to race ahead of him like an engine pulling him forward. He stormed past the antifountain, which had become a little shrine all its own, and continued on toward the Neptune Pool. There were, no doubt, great wheels of creation turning in his head, as he devised complex, unknowable schemes.
Drew’s observation was, in fact, correct. Dillon’s mind had kicked into overdrive, and was practically burning a path before him. The thoughts Okoya had planted in his mind just a few moments earlier were germinating at the speed of Winston’s Rose Garden.
You can be the glue that holds together this failing world, Okoya had said, and Dillon knew he was right. He also knew that what he was about to attempt, if it succeeded, would change everything. It would alter the ineffective course of his actions. If he was able to do this, he would no longer be merely treading water.