Black Jack (26 page)

‘As the super-psychic children in China have demonstrated, the human DNA is a biological Internet - it communicates. Progress is infectious, unstoppable. Just watching a child perform a psychic feat can cause another child to manifest the same phenomena. First one child, then another and another. Until a whole new united human race with godlike powers is born. And the illusion will crumble. The dark hierarchy’s only hope is to capture as many lost souls as possible to drag into their brave new world where there will be no rebellions, no chaos, no waste, no overpopulation; only a mutated transhumant who will serve a master class.’

‘What can a boy who has four strands of DNA do?’

‘Why don’t you go forward and find out?’

‘Will he be able to see me?’

‘Of course.’

Black went closer and the boy spotted him amongst the bushes. His small, round face lit up and he began to laugh with great delight. When Black was very close he suddenly reached out a hand and grasped his arm, but instead of his hand going through Black, Black felt his forearm firmly held by his pudgy little hand. Black gasped. The boy was multidimensional!

He could operate beyond the third dimension.

From the dark interior of the house a woman’s voice called out, ‘Yuri come in. You are making so much noise you will frighten the bears.’

Yuri seemed to find that idea funny beyond belief. His laughter rang out in uproarious peals. ‘Ha ha,’ he laughed, clutching his stomach. ‘Mama is so funny?’ he communicated, but using hand signals. It was a language, ancient and strange, but Black understood him perfectly.

The boy’s laughter was catching and Black could not help joining him. The laughter came from deep inside him. He had never laughed like that in all his life. It was a wonderful feeling. The more he laughed, the better he felt. He laughed even while he felt ‘things’ beginning to shift inside him. Then the boy’s mother, a large peasant woman, came out of the small house. She stood at the door with her hands on her hips and scolded, ‘Come in here, you little brat.’ Her voice was stern but her eyes were gentle and filled with love.

The boy ran in clumsily.

Black looked back at Green. ‘How many strands are activated in me?’

‘Six. There many more things you can do, but the most important thing you are doing is simply lying in your bed. Remember when I said that the focus of all those millions will transfer strength to you. Well, every person who watches you, regardless of how they vote, will be internally and invisibly changed by you.’

‘Is Dakota one of us?’

‘Yes.’

One can never consent to creep when one feels the impulse to soar.

 - Helen Keller

The sun was shining and everything looked peaceful, but Dakota knew something was very wrong. She had been over the rainbow for too long. One of the others had taken the body. Perhaps for good. She thought about Black and if he would ever come to see her again. He had promised and yet so long had passed since he had come. She had promised him something too. She moved the sleeping wolf’s head off her stomach on to the ground and sat up amongst the long grasses in the meadow. Shadow raised his head and looked at her enquiringly.

‘Sleep,’ she said softly, and he lay on his chin, and watched her with alert eyes. She stood. Immediately the wolf sat up and made to follow her.

‘Stay,’ she commanded softly, and he lay back down obediently. ‘Good boy,’ she praised and rubbed his stomach.

Leaving the meadow she walked slowly toward the mirrors. She was frightened of them, had always been. Mirrors were special things, enchanted things. Another world lived behind them, as Alice in Wonderland had found out when she had gazed into the looking glass. When she reached the place where all the staircases ended in mirrors, she stood for a moment in the sun. For the sun ended where the tiled floor began.

A little voice in her head warned,
Don’t open locked doors. There may be demons behind that will eat you
.

But she squared her shoulders and walked onto the tiles. It was decidedly colder; her hands began to shake. Determined to move forward, she crossed the floor and put her feet on the first step of the staircase.

Go back, go back
, said the voice.
Back into the sunshine where it is warm and safe
.

What am I scared of?

Nothing.

Well then.

But the next step made her feel almost dizzy with unexplainable fear. Like a frightened animal she ran back to the sunshine. Trembling with fear she stood looking at the imposing jumble of staircases and the gleaming mirrors that stood at the top of each one.

She thought of Milarepa.
Invite your fears, they are your creations. Befriend them; offer them your head
.

‘I must do this,’ she told herself, jamming her fists into the pockets of her jeans. This time she didn’t try to walk up the stairs, she ran up, her feet moving so fast they were almost flying. There was no time to think or fear. Before she knew it she was standing in front of a mirror. At first it reflected her image like an ordinary mirror, then, as she had known it would, it changed. It became a doorway into another world.

You never grow old in mirrors
, the little voice said.

A little blonde girl was squatting on a floor. She was too exhausted even to cry. She simply hung her head low. There was a bowl in front of her and inside it Dakota knew was the girl’s own excrement. A stern-lipped woman with black hair slicked back in a bun was standing over her. She was gently tapping a whip against the side of her leg.

‘Eat,’ she ordered.

As if she was a trained circus animal, the girl immediately got to her hands and knees and moved her head toward the bowl.

‘Don’t!’ Dakota screamed.

Both the woman and the child turned to stare at her. The child was visibly horrified, but the woman appeared mildly surprised, as if she had been told that such an interruption was unlikely, but it could happen. Her expression turned scornful. ‘There is nothing you can do,’ she mocked. ‘If you come in here you will
all
die.’  She turned back to the girl. ‘Eat,’ she commanded, and raised the whip.

The petrified girl moved her head toward the bowl.

‘No!’ Dakota shouted and put her hand through the doorway. The woman’s face changed to one of fear. Alters screamed. One came to the front and shrieked at her. ‘You fool. Look what you have done.’ Dakota screwed her eyes tightly and put her hands to her ears in terror. Even then she heard the terrible sounds. This was death. But then nothing happened. She opened her eyes and stood looking around her. The mirror lay in useless fragments, but nothing else had happened. False. They had been false, again.

She must destroy them all. All the images of pain and degradation and suffering. One by one she ran up the stairs and shattered the mirrors. All the horrors slipped away to nothingness. Where it was born, there it went to end. All the pain went with it.

She went back to the meadow.

Shadow was waiting loyally at the edge for her. When he saw her, he came flying toward her. She knelt down and opened her arms.

‘Oh, Shadow,’ she said over and over again full of guilt. She had seen him in the mirror. She had seen what he had done for her. How his big, strong body had lain down inside the fighting cage and willingly let her take his life. Shadow put his great paw in her hand and forgave her. She held him close. 

‘Come,’ she said to him and they walked until they came upon a stone. It was just the right size. She picked it up with both hands. It was time to enter the black cube. She made Shadow wait outside. It could be her end, but she’d be damned if she didn’t do it. She went in and smashed to pieces the self-turning contraption that Black had built for her. She let the stone fall from her hands and stood next to the hourglass watching the sand run out. When it did she waited.

Nothing. Nothing happened. Another lie.

She walked out into the sunshine toward Shadow, her triumph tinged with a dim dread. Soon it would be time to face her biggest fear. The others. And all the terrible things they had done in her name.

And the multitudes asked him, “What then must we do?”

 - Luke 3:10

The sun had not even appeared on the horizon when the old man set off. He glanced at it, high and bright in the African sky. Another two hours remained of his journey. He had to get to the voting station before two o’clock or he would lose his chance to vote. His clothes were worn and torn, and his bare feet were as hardened and gnarled as tree roots on the dusty path. He had never learned to wear shoes. Shoes and vaccines were white man’s curses. This way he was always connected to the Earth. He knew what she was thinking. She was his mother. He carried a staff and around his thin, lined neck he wore the bones that his ancestors had worn since before time began. He was a witch doctor, but he hardly practiced his profession anymore. Nowadays everyone went to the clinics. There was almost no business left; a spell or two, and even those were stretched out in the month.

He squinted against the sun. His belly rumbled loudly. It was yesterday that someone had given him some plantain to eat. In a small leather pouch where he carried his holy stones he had put his birth certificate. Though he had never used it and had never imagined he would need it before this, it was frayed and badly stained. Still the information it carried was discernible and that was all that mattered. There was a beetle on his path and he carefully avoided stepping on it. She was a daughter of the Earth.

When he got to the voting station he saw that many had already gathered outside the wooden shelter. The ones in front were squatting and the ones at the back were standing. They were half-chatting and half-listening to the speeches made by the headmen of the different villages. There was a man videotaping the event. They seemed to be mostly men, but there were a few women and children too. They were seated on the ground lazily swatting away the flies. He didn’t know who had organized the event but someone from the city had come to collect their votes and names.

He stood for some minutes listening to the men speak. Each had come forward on behalf of their villages to collect the money that the Americans were giving. They spoke of how the money would help them in their moment of need. Some even thanked God for this act of kindness and charity.

Finally he stepped forward.

‘Which village do you represent?’ the man in charge of organizing the event asked.

Odingo looked around the gathered faces - even though he was more than eighty years old his eyesight was so good that he could discern even the whites of the eyes of the men who stood at the back. He felt their hunger and inexhaustible poverty in his own empty belly.

‘I speak for no one but myself,’ he declared. His voice was strong and rang out like a bell in the dusty afternoon.

‘Speak then, old man, and be quick about it,’ called a youth impatiently.

‘One hundred American dollars,’ Odingo cried out suddenly, and cast his unblinking eyes around the crowd. The whites of his eyes were red, making him look fierce and frightening. ‘That is what the devil has offered to buy your soul.’ A murmur of unease spread through the gathering. ‘So we agree to kill this innocent child to fill our bellies and our children’s bellies for one month or two, or even three, but then what?’ He paused. A great hush fell upon the crowd. Only the insects dared speak.

‘I’ll tell you what.’ He jabbed a horribly yellowed and curving fingernail toward the crowd. ‘You will be hungry once more, but then you will be a hungry murderer. What use to prolong your life if you have to steal the life of another to do it? Are we vampires? They came for our grandfathers, made them slaves; our fathers they made poor: now will they have us as vicious as them? When we kill this boy, we kill ourselves. Awaken to your actions.’ He thumped his bony chest with his fisted hand. ‘I will die before I take one drop of blood from this boy simply to keep this rotting carcass alive. Never.’

‘He is dying anyway.’ It was the youth again, but his voice was different, hesitant. He did not know how to stand alone. He needed to be in the midst of a crowd to feel safe, to be brave. ‘Have you seen the way the votes are? Our votes will not make a difference. The boy has no chance.’

‘The boy has a chance.’  Odingo’s sunken eyes shone with a strange light. ‘He is protected by divine forces. I have seen it in a dream. But that is not of concern. We do what is right, our responsibility. We must cast our friendly eyes in his direction. Beyond that nothing is expected of us.’ He banged his staff on the podium he stood upon. The crowd jumped. ‘I vote no.’

A young girl standing in the middle of the crowd called out, ‘I will vote no too, Grandpa.’

Her father looked down at his daughter in shock; she had been ever the quiet little thing since her mother had died. He had come here to feed her. She looked up at him. ‘Don’t worry, Father, I’m not hungry,’ she said. He looked into those familiar dark eyes and, blinking back the tears in his eyes, he raised his head and in a loud voice said, ‘I vote no too, Grandpa.’

It began with the women, like a murmur that grew louder and louder until it was a great roar. One by one and then in groups they rose from their squatting positions and joined the chorus. ‘I will vote no too, Grandpa.’

The old man nodded. He felt proud of his people. The white man had come to enslave, rape, plunder, and steal their land and its riches. As if that was not enough he had brought his manufactured diseases and his ungodly vaccines, all while carrying a book that preached love and forgiveness. But his people were people of spirit. They survived and they would survive again without this blood money.

‘Bah one hundred dollars!’ he said, and spat on the ground.

From the shade of a tree a teenager, a visiting American student, was using his phone to record the entire event. That night he did some minor editing to his tape and uploaded it to his YouTube channel.

The next morning Jennifer went to Kim’s table. ‘We have a video going viral.’