Blindspots Page 19

  Darcy blew smoke into his face. "I'm guessin' you finally worked it out."

  He stared at the smoke, curling around in the air, blowing in the breeze. "Prosopagnosia."

  She smiled. "As they say downstairs on Thursday nights, 'Bingo.' Now, listen up. You want to know who you are?"

  "I do," Indra said. "But more than that, I want to hear you say I'm right. I want to know for sure how he did it. How he got the six of us to have Face Blindness in this life, how he left it that we could still see each other and only each other." Indra's breath was coming out in shallow gasps. Flickers of memories flew past his vision, pinprick images caught in the smoke rings. "I want to know everything."

  Darcy snorted. "I'll tell you on the way there. After you bust me outta this shithole. I assume you've got a driver who can manage in this storm?"

  "I do." Indra wheeled closer to her until their knees were almost touching. "But first, I want to hear you say just one thing."

  "What?"

  "I want to know for certain who he is. I know he managed the impossible – brought himself back in a new body, reincarnated and regained his memories. But tell me… who did Atticus come back as?"

  Darcy let out a long breath. "I guess I've known for these past eight years. I've always known, deep down. A wife can't be deceived, 'specially not by someone like him. Con-man my ass." She put out her cigarette and was silent for almost a half-minute before she spoke.

  "From the moment she walked in, I knew there was a reason I hated that blind bitch."

  BOOK THREE – THE GRAND EXPERIMENT

  1.

  A single candle burned on the desk in Alexa's office. The curtains were drawn, and a crimson haze floated over the walls.

  Monica knew she had been drugged. Some kind of injection. That nurse, Ursula--something with the crystal blue eyes that never blinked – she had stabbed her shoulder with a needle the size of a dagger. But still, Monica's arms were bound behind her, ankles duct-taped. She sat in a desk chair, facing the rear wall, so she couldn't evade the giant portrait of Atticus Sterling smirking down at her.

  "Magnificent, isn't it?" said a voice over her shoulder. Alexa entered after the nurse left, but Monica hadn't heard a thing, not even a breath competing with the raging storm. "I had it commissioned back in 1967 by an artist from Copenhagen, a fellow occultist specializing in persons of my… caliber."

  "What? What… are you talking about?" Monica struggled to keep her head up. The face on the wall swam in and out of focus, the blurriness swirling into one ethereal leering smile with flickering red eyes. She had heard Alexa say something about 1967. More than forty years ago. What the hell was she talking about?

  Alexa stepped to the desk and picked up a stack of files, then spread them out like playing cards.

  Six files, Monica noticed, having difficulty focusing. Alexa ran her fingers over the top right corner of the first few, reading in Braille.

  "Ah, here we go." Bringing one file with her, she walked back to Monica. "Ursula tells me you have a lovely almond-shaped birthmark on your back."

  The room spun some more, and the man in the painting smiled. She could almost hear a low chuckling. Why is he familiar? That suit – the tuxedo, and the red bowtie. She had seen it before; it made her feel sick, nauseous, and cold. So cold. When had she seen him, and where?

  "I remember the same birthmark on her. Elizabeth."

  Monica gasped.

  And Alexa leaned in excitedly. "You know that name? Elizabeth? Lisa Ellison?"

  Alexa stepped back, raising a scolding finger. "What have you and Dr. Sterling been up to? Hiding in that closet? Did he put you under? Did he make you re-live your past?" She made a clicking noise with her tongue. "Didn't think he had it in him."

  Monica mumbled something, a slurring sound. It sounded like bees were buzzing near her head, conducting a background orchestra to blend with Alexa's powerful voice.

  "I should have known. You gave me the most trouble back then. Resisted the hardest, refused to relax and let me into the places I needed to go."

  "I'm… glad," said Monica, finally raising her head. She struggled, tried to stand, and slumped back down, almost heaving as bile raced into her throat.

  In the flickering candlelight Alexa leaned forward, pressing her face inches from Monica's. Candlelight reflections burned on the surface of her glasses like jack-o'-lantern eyes.

  "All right then, Monica… Or Lisa if you prefer." Alexa opened the file and flipped through pages, her fingers sliding across and down the first couple sheets, reading the Braille dots. "Yes, a lot of trouble. Thirty years old when you came here, answering the ad. Changed your mind, I recall. After the first month. Had doubts about the experiment. Too many questions. Money wasn't the issue; you wanted answers. Concerned about morality. Tried to call the authorities, then attempted to escape with a few of my subjects. I had to isolate you. Drugs. Food and water deprivation. Dull your mind to the point of acceptance."

  Monica felt dizzy, so weak… Like she could just nod off for a day or two, maybe weeks. Travel into the sweet embrace of dreams and maybe become another person, someone like this Elizabeth Ellison, who apparently had the strength to resist. God Bless her, she thought. Not me. I'll just go on pretending this isn't real, that it's just a game, a stand-in rabbit for the real one.

  The file snapped shut and Alexa walked it back to the desk. "Anyway, I apologize that I don't have the time to give you the attention you deserve, since I assume you'll still be the same pain in the ass you were back then. I believe that whatever else might be different, personalities don't change all that much." She patted Monica on the head like a dog. "So I'll be quick."

  "Gabriel…" Monica whispered.

  "What's that? Oh, have you started to feel something for him? For that useless waste of a son?" Her hands sought out and found Monica's chin. Squeezed her cheeks, ran her fingers over her face, feeling, touching her skin, her hair. "Oh, I suppose you might have been pretty enough for him, but I think right now you'll find him just as he was in life – rather cold and stiff."

  She headed around to her chair behind the desk, "I want you to listen closely to my voice."

  Bees hummed, buzzing in unison, gradually dwindling in tone.

  "Picture an hourglass."

  "No…" Monica's head slumped forward as the candle blew out in a draft from the opening door. The shadows expanded, right up to the wall where the painting flickered, and then Atticus Sterling slid off the canvas, dropped to a crouch and crept toward her, a leering smile on his face.

  "Yes. You will listen," Alexa whispered. "And we will finish this."

  2.

  Holding hands, Kaitlin and Jake ran headlong into the pitch-black basement. Kaitlin dragged him ahead, and Jake actually had to pull her back, stopping just before they collided with a pillar. Using their free hands, they inched forward, around the pillar and then backed against it.

  Listening.

  "They're coming," Jake whispered. "Don't move, they can't see us."

  She clenched his hand tighter, and it made his heart race. "I'm not moving," she whispered back. "Jake…"

  "Shhh." He didn't want to think about anything else now except keeping her safe. Keeping them both safe. He held onto her hand for dear life. Don't let her go. Don't lose her like you lost Mikey at Disney World. Stay together, he could almost hear his father's voice, echoing down through the years – the last thing he ever told him.

  Stay together.

  The darkness was a tangible wall of shadow in front of them, and somewhere in that direction – that door, the hourglass. The vault.

  If they could make it there. Maybe force the door…

  Whispers from behind them. A light stabbed into the gloom. A piercing white beam trapping dust particles like moths in a tube.

  "Shit," Kaitlin hissed, squeezing closer to him.

  "Mr. Griffith?" a woman's voice. That nurse. The curvy one with the ice-cold attitude. "There's no way out down here."

&nb
sp; Footsteps. The beam swinging back and forth, gliding over the other pillars, the boxes, the cabinets, the other doors.

  Damn. Might have been better to get behind the boxes. The person holding the light moved closer, still sweeping the beam. Only one set of footsteps. The others must be waiting by the steps.

  The nurse called again, her voice just as distant, back by the door. "Jake? And was that Miss Abrams with you? Looking oh-so different from her punk band days? What's the matter, Kaitlin, gone conservative in your old age?"

  Kaitlin squeezed Jake's hand harder and whispered into his ear, "Tell you later, when we get out of this."

  "It's a date."

  The light headed to their left, and Jake was about to breathe easier when it swung back around, sweeping the floor.

  Can he see the footprints in the dust?

  "Come out, come out…" said the man's voice.

  Jake and Kaitlin inched around the pillar, trying to keep it as shelter, hoping to avoid the erratic motions of the light.

  It came closer.

  With his right hand, Jake dug into his jeans' front pocket. Found it! A quarter from one of yesterday's stops at a mini-mart.

  He could hear the man's breathing. Closer, closer.

  Jake held out his arm, and with a quick flick of his wrist, flung the quarter high and far away. It clapped against something – a cabinet or a metal locker-- and the flashlight spun around. It tracked the sound, and the man ran towards it, the beam seeking, following the shadows.

  "We've got to move," Jake whispered, and he was about to push off with her when he heard a series of high-pitched beeps.

  "Shit!" Kaitlin hissed. "Indra's cell phone!"

  "Stop it!"

  The beam swung back around, caught Kaitlin peering around the side.

  "There they are!" shouted Ursula from the stairs. Jake looked in that direction. Two other men were with her, their silhouettes outlined in the hazy stairwell light.

  Damn it! Can't get out that way.

  "Jake--" Kaitlin started, but then he pushed her out of the way of the rushing flashlight, hopefully into the concealing shadows. He ran around the pillar and caught the man from behind, jumping for his neck, taking him down and rolling.

  The flashlight dropped and spun in circles on the floor, the light stabbing around in all directions. Jake landed hard on his shoulder, grunted and loosened his hold on the man's neck. He rolled to his knees and kicked free of a hand grabbing for his ankle.

  And then he was up and running. Away from the stairs, toward the back, believing it was the way he had shoved Kaitlin. Heavy feet trampled after him. Someone had picked up the flashlight… Shouts, a woman's cry.

  From somewhere far away: "Jake! Run, hide!"

  He skidded and glanced over his shoulder, saw a group struggling down the stairs, two big forms restraining Kaitlin, dragging her back to the stairs.

  And the one with the flashlight, getting up and running toward him.

  Jake stopped, preparing to turn and fight – to get past this one and then rush back to help Kaitlin -- when a door opened right next to him. A grinding, grating sound – a sliver of blue light from within.

  He had made it to the far end of the room.

  The vault door scraped open. A woman, dark hair, heavy-set, poked her head out. Jake was framed in the light. His pursuer saw him, and Jake made his decision. He barreled into the woman, gripped her by the shoulders and flung her back the way he had come. She had time to cry out, and then she was flailing ahead, colliding with the bald man who was approaching at full speed.

  Jake grabbed the edge of the door and swung it back, hard. It felt like a bank door, thick, with a wheel-lock on the back. When it shut he spun the wheel, then put his back against it for good measure. He wasn’t sure if it opened with a key or combination or some kind of sensor; he couldn't take a chance.

  Then he noticed the contents of the room.

  He stepped forward into the hazy, generator-powered light from the monitors. But what drew his eye were the relics hanging on the walls. The ancient bas-reliefs, the chipped sections of wall-carved hieroglyphics, the statues, the bowls and glass-encased papyri.

  And there, in a clear case, with a single dim amber light set on its stand: an all-too familiar gold-trimmed hourglass. With red sand inside the lower bowl.

  Someone beat against the other side of the door. Muffled shouts, but Jake was a world away.

  3.

  The wind ripped through the splintered windshield and the snow blew in, hungrily smothering the roof of the upside-down Jeep, obscuring the blood, the debris, and Gabriel's crumpled form.

  Another piece of glass, dislodged by a bitter gust, fell onto Gabriel's shoulder, and he stirred. I think my legs are moving. That was a good sign. His neck wasn't broken; his spine was still in one piece. He blinked away the blood, the snow, the ice crystals that had formed over his eyelids. How long have I been out?

  It couldn't have been too long, or else he would have frozen to death. He lifted his head, and the numbness followed him like a halo. His ribs were burning, his left shoulder throbbing in time with his heartbeat.

  But he was alive. Fingers numb, ears tingling, he started to lift himself up, using the bent steering wheel as a lever, maneuvering around a jagged pine that must have just missed Nestor.

  Nestor. Son of a bitch. What did he do? It had to be Alexa. She had got to him. Anger fueled his body, burned away the cold, the numbness in his muscles, and he slid out and crawled onto the base of a massive snowdrift obscuring the trees, the road, the sky.

  Grunting, tasting ice-coated blood, fighting back the tempting promise of sleep, he started to dig.

  #

  Sometime later, long after he had given up on surviving, but still struggling anyway, still climbing and dragging himself out of the ditch, his hands drawn up into his sweater's sleeves, he saw a light in the storm’s nearly impenetrable fury.

  He stumbled and lurched forward and only then realized the land had leveled out and he must have made it back to the road. Snowflakes stung at his face as he stood unsteadily on burning legs. Hugging his shoulders, he blinked and squinted against the stinging flakes and the roaring wind.

  At first he thought the light, barely visible through the army of clouds and snow, was the sun. But then he realized he could also see the glow from the sun, higher up than the light coming toward him –

  – the light that now seemed to be separating, forming twin orbs of gold, cutting through the snow and rolling through the blizzard. Then, finally, he made out the dull roar of a motor. And the crunching of wheels.

  Grinning an ice-crusted, chapped smile, Gabriel dropped to his knees and held up his arms.

  Please see me. He tried to wave his hands in the air, shaking off the snow from his black sweater.

  The Hummer came to a skidding stop just a few feet away from colliding with him, and Gabriel had one clear thought: I hope they're the good guys.

  #

  Strong hands lifted him, guided him to the rear seat, where he slid in next to a dark-skinned man with thin legs. A glance in the back gave him pause. An odder assortment of items he couldn't have imagined: a wheelchair resting on top of a plastic crate, and several ski-bags, open partway, offering the hint of rifles and other pistols.

  A blanket settled over him and he breathed in air so warm it actually seemed too hot, stinging his raw lungs.

  The dark-skinned man finished covering Gabriel, then directed a smile at someone turning around in the passenger seat.

  Gabriel squinted. That looks like… No way. Now I know I'm dreaming.

  "Boy," said Darcy Sterling, "what the hell are you doing out without your coat?"

  4.

  Jake backed away from the steel door, keeping an eye on the wheel-lock mechanism, expecting it to turn at any moment. He looked around for something to jam under it – a table, a bookcase, but even the chairs wouldn't line up right.

  Maybe they don't have the access key?


  He scanned the room again. Portable lights were linked to a tangled collection of wires running from the servers and equipment directly to a generator in the corner. They aren’t taking chances with this place. So what's so important?

  He would check that out in a minute, but first, he looked around for a weapon, hoping he might get lucky and find a gun lying on a table, or maybe a fire-ax. Even a letter opener?

  Nothing. Nothing but manila folders, pens, coffee mugs and old McDonalds wrappers. The place smelled like an office break room, but not as musty as he'd expect for a basement, thanks to the air purifiers and de-humidifiers. A lot of expensive stuff on the walls.

  A jackal-headed deity stood on the left side of one of the wall carvings, arms folded over his chest in apparent judgment of a line of crowned people on their knees before him. Other hieroglyphics were perfectly chiseled alongside these figures. Just looking at the scene made Jake break out in a sweat, like he was one of the souls being judged.

  Tearing his eyes away, he looked around at all the monitors. His head swimming, he went from station to station, finally stopping at one that had a spreadsheet open on a split-screen view. To the left: an open folder, called 1976, with six files inside, all with different file names. Jake frowned, then looked over the spreadsheet. The same names were recorded there across the top, in blue indicating a link to another file. There were six other names repeated in the columns below, familiar names most of them. Some were bolded and others were crossed out.

  What the hell? Jake took a seat, momentarily forgetting about the threat outside, about Kaitlin's capture, about everything. He focused in on his own name, saw it bolded under another: Carrie Colburn.

  Carrie Colburn… The name registered with him. A twinge, a dark shudder, the way he thought people must feel when they say someone just walked over their grave.

  He clicked on her name, and the other side of the screen flickered, and a file opened. A Word document, twelve pages long, small print. On the top left of the first page was a scanned-in image, a somewhat blurry photograph of a youngish-woman, auburn hair and a cute smile. Freckles. Jake stared for several seconds before he realized what was wrong.