In the Neptune Pool, however, there were dozens of people treading water, under Tory’s direction, of course. Tory had finally deigned to satisfy all the followers who kept asking for “cleansing,” which seemed to mean something different for each of them. No matter; she had concocted an impressive little ritual that was a cross between baptism and synchronized swimming, with her as high priestess and Esther Williams all rolled into one.
As the joyous mobs bobbed blissfully in the water, Dillon strode across the pool deck, and began to run his hands determinedly across the marble railing, and over the statues that surrounded the pool. His strange actions took everyone’s attention away from Tory, and it annoyed her. The pool was her place, and these were her followers. What was Dillon up to?
Drew shuffled across the wet deck, putting the video camera in Dillon’s face. “Welcome to ‘Lifestyles of the Rich and Godlike,’ " he said. “Here we have Dillon Cole, performing some mystic ritual. Tell us, Dillon, just what are you doing?”
Dillon put his hand to a column, rubbing his fingers across it. “Trying to get a feeling,” he said.
“A feeling for what?”
“The pressure point,” was his enigmatic response.
Word had begun shooting through the ranks that Dillon was being weird by the pool. In the ad hoc shrines where Michael, Lourdes, and Winston performed their sideshow tricks, people ran past. “Dillon’s doing something,” they shouted breathlessly. “He’s doing something new!”
Soon the audiences had abandoned the other Shards, hurrying down to the pool to see what was up.
Dillon hopped the railing on the western edge of the pool deck. The pool’s west side jutted over the edge of the hilltop, so that guests could have an unobstructed view of the Pacific. Dillon fell eight feet as he jumped over the railing, but kept his balance. He turned, and facing the granite block wall that enclosed the pool, he ran his fingers along the weathered stone, and between the cracks.
Up above, Drew leaned over the railing, looking down on him, camera still rolling. Dillon’s fingers swept back and forth, until he centered in on a single block, and then he dragged his index finger across it in serpentine motions, until stopping on a single spot. He reached down, picked up a stone from the ground, and pounded the spot three times. Clack-clack-clack.
The sound echoed deep within the structure of the pool.
“Pressure point?” asked Drew.
Dillon looked up and called to him. “Get off the pool deck. Tell everyone to get off the pool deck!”
But by now there were so many people crowding the ledge, and the hillside around him, it seemed impossible to get the mobs moving without some sort of structured retreat. Dillon searched the crowd until finding the other Shards, standing impassively twenty yards away, observing him.
“Lourdes,” he said. “You have to move these peo- pie.”
“I don’t take orders,” she grunted. “Ask nicely.”
“Please, Lourdes—and do it quick.”
Lourdes flicked her head, and focused on the crowd. She took a deep breath, bore down, and everyone—everyone—turned and marched away, leaving the area around and above Dillon clear.
“There,” she said. “You owe me.”
When the marching had stopped, the ground still trembled like the pounding of a hundred feet . . . . Stones half-buried in the hillside began to tumble, and from deep within the structure of the pool came a triplet of sounds growing louder as they repeated. Sounds only barely recognizable as the magnified, mutated clack-clack-clack of Dillon’s stone against the granite block.
Dillon stumbled backward, focusing all of his attention forward as the pool echoed its resonant frequency through its dense structure, and back to its pressure point, until the granite blocks began to quiver; until the heavy railing began to crumble; until the entire west face of the pool fractured and collapsed in an avalanche of broken granite and marble dust.
Dillon was engulfed by that thick cloud of dust, and Michael, for one, didn’t have the patience to wait for the dust to settle, so he blew it away.
What remained brought the crowd to a stunned silence. Drew had to take his eye from his video-cam to make sure he was indeed seeing what he thought he saw.
Dillon stood there, amid the rubble. The statues and colonnade above him were gone. So was the deep end of the pool.
But the water had not moved.
Like the column of water in his room, the pool water held its shape, as if the face of the pool were still there. People still treaded water—from where Dillon stood, he could see the soles of their feet through the wall of water that stayed in place, touched by Dillon’s evergrowing power of cohesion.
It had worked!
And it hadn’t been any more difficult for Dillon than putting his finger in a dike.
The other Shards came down to get a better view of the feat, but each brought along their own sprig of sour grapes.
“Show-off.”
“That’s called vandalism.”
“Have you lost your entire mind?”
“What’s the matter, Dillon—playing Jesus wasn’t good enough for you? Now you have to play Moses, too?”
Dillon didn’t even hear them. “Pack your things,” he said. “We’re leaving.” He turned to the first Happy Camper he saw. “You! Tell all the others there are to be no more sick or injured brought to us. There are more important things to do now.”
“Yes, Dillon,” the man said, and hurried off.
“You!” he said, pointing to another. “I want everyone ready to go by dawn. I’m making it your personal responsibility.”
“Yes, sir,” she said, and sped off.
“You!” he said to another. “We’ll need buses, cars, vans—"
“Buses have already been chartered, and are on the way,” said a calm, familiar voice. “Enough for everyone.” Dillon turned to see Okoya stepping out from behind a tree.
The other Shards were fit to be tied.
“Will someone tell us what the hell is going on?” demanded Winston. “Why are we leaving, and why wasn’t I consulted?”
“Yeah,” added Tory. “Maybe we like it here.”
“SHUT UP!” shouted Okoya, putting a brutal end to the questioning. “You’ll do as Dillon says.” And then he softened. “Dillon has your best interests at heart . . . . Don’t you, Dillon?”
Dillon took in the sight of the other Shards. Just as before, they were standing in isolation; together yet divided. Well, Dillon didn’t know how to change that, but he could still make them work together.
“You want to be followed? You want to be worshiped? You want to be loved and adored?” Dillon looked at each of them one by one. “Well, you will be.”
Not by hundreds, but by millions. I’ll make sure of it. All you have to do is work with me, and do what I tell you, when I tell you to do it.”
“Where are we going?” asked Michael.
“Somewhere we can put on a show,” was all Dillon said for now. He waited to see their response. They all looked to each other, distrustful, none of them wanting to be the first to acquiesce. It was Okoya who coaxed them into submission. “If an alliance serves everyone’s interest,” Okoya said, “why not take advantage of it?”
“I thought,” Lourdes said to Dillon, “that you wanted to save the world.”
“We will,” Dillon answered. “Once we take control of it.”
Then Winston, for the first time in quite a few confrontations, uncrossed his arms. “I think I can live with that.”