Mutant Legacy (8 page)

“Friends,” he said. “Strangers, everyone who can hear me. I bring you joyous news.”

What in hell was he up to?

“Each one of us has felt lonely,” Rick said. His voice was silky, embracing. His eyes stared intently out at me, at everyone. “Abandoned and afraid. Let that be the foundation of our commonality. Let us share our experiences with one another. With wisdom. With compassion. With healing intent. This is an invitation.”

My brother was doing more than talking. I could feel the waves of empathetic energy flowing from him, flowing out of my screen and into my nervous system. As well as I knew him, as closely linked as we had been, I nevertheless fell completely under his spell. It was as though he were speaking directly to me, and me alone. Was this happening in every place where a vid screen was tuned to Rick’s message? Was every viewer personally communing with my brother? Was it really possible?

Rick drenched us in ease, empathy, and goodness. “Join with me,” he said, and his voice was a soothing, compelling caress. “Become a friend. We are waiting for you. I am waiting for you.”

He nodded and his image slowly faded, to be replaced by golden, glowing holo letters that seemed to jump from the screen. Behind them, the camera panned over the Sangre de Cristo mountains at sunrise while a gentle mellifluous voice told me all about Better World.

“Help yourself. Help those you love. Comfort and understanding can be yours. New friends await you in an atmosphere of support and acceptance. We’re here for you. Help yourself and help others through Better World, a service organization.” A fax and phone number followed.

The glow of good feelings persisted long after the letters had faded from the screen.

Then the scene shifted to a white room without windows in which a man sat facing the camera. He had gray hair and a well-baked reddish-brown tan. He twisted his hands nervously as my brother walked into camera range.

Rick leaned over the man in the chair, talking quietly, and coaxed him to stand. As he rose to his feet I could see he was tall and sharp-featured, with all the stigmata of the seriously disturbed. He seemed nervous, even agitated, hands fluttering in tight circles. Rick took hold of the man’s shoulders.

I knew that Rick was both calming him and scoping out the psychological territory with a quick mind probe. The man smiled, closed his eyes, lowered his hands to his sides.

My brother leaned close to the man, frowning. Then he nodded intently. He must have found the damaged areas. I made an educated guess at Rick’s approach: he would probably work on the memory first. The key to the chemical imbalance underlying the man’s problem might be beyond Rick’s analytical skills. But maybe not.

Rick’s concentration increased as he went to work. The patient’s face relaxed, the jaw went slack, creases at the mouth and eyes were less apparent.

Despite my uneasiness I felt a pang of real envy as K rers through I watched Rick. How easily he rewired the synapse paths, rejiggered the neuro-transmission levels, and removed the abnormalities in the cerebral cortex. He probably even erased one or two knife-edged memories while he was at it. Oh, I knew what he was doing—I could almost feel him making each move. Twinsense saw to that.

Rick whispered something that the microphone failed to pick up. Slowly the schizophrenic’s face cleared. His eyes, when he opened them, were focused and bright. The haunted, hunted shadows in them were gone. His nervous twitches and tics had vanished. Clutching my brother’s arms, he laughed a laugh of liberation.

“God bless you,” the man said. “God bless you for what you’ve done for me. It’s like a miracle. You don’t know what I’ve been through, me and my family. You don’t know. Thank you. Oh, thank you.”

Rick’s face glowed with delight. Tears sparkled in his eyes, and in mine as well. For a moment I forgave Rick the peculiar sideshow he had just staged. What he wanted to do was to help, to heal. He was convinced that he could ease others’ pain. And, apparently, he could.

But why in God’s name had he chosen to do a public healing on the main vid channels? There had to be some other, more dignified way to get his invitation across.

Rick’s image faded, and the orange New Mexican sun was back, rising over the dark hulk of the Sangre de Cristos. A gentle voice said that such cures could be found through Better World. Again, the phone and fax number were shown.

Oh, Rick, I thought. Watch out. Be careful. Don’t take on more than you can handle.

After my brother’s little show, the real fun began. Carmen Ventura, a popular talk-show host, interviewed a therapist, two ministers, a Rotarian, a priest, a rabbi, an abbess, and an imam about what they had just seen. They took considerably more time to fulminate than Rick had taken to cure one entire human being. One measly little five-minute miracle followed by an eternity of interpretation by talking heads: it was a synoptic history of organized religion.

Ventura, obviously primed and looking to stir up controversy, began her show practically salivating with anticipation. “You’ve seen the miracle,” she said. “You may have heard about the group of true believers who follow this man, almost worshiping him out in the desert. Is this just one more trend or is this Rick truly a miracle worker? What do you say, Rabbi?”

Judith Katz, rabbi of Temple Beth Shalom in Miami, frowned at the camera and said, “This seems like some sort of circus trick to me. I refuse to give him or his group credence. He’s a performer, pure and simple.”

Ali Haddad, first speaker of the Center for Moslem Studies in New York: “This is evil, ungodly, he will be struck down. No one may masquerade as Allah’s divine healer.”

Said Dr. Irena Strugatsky, “It was a fascinating demonstration of healing—if that’s what actually took place. I’d be interested in studying this further.”

Elder Robert Martin of the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-Day Saints in San Diego: “We’re uncomfortable with the implications of this man’s actions and are investigating the entire group carefully.”

Sister Catherine was the only dissenting speaker. “If he did help that man, isn’t it amazing?” she said. Her eyes glowed with wonder. “How marvelous to think that such powers exist and can be used to heal people.”

For the most part, those interviewed seemed to be united in their sense of uneasiness—even fear—and mistrust. Who could blame them? Rick offered new and different miracles. Wondrous stuff. How could their religions, their therapies and disciplines, hope to compete? And could they afford to look foolish, publicly applauding the acts of a possible charlatan? No, no, it was much more prudent to condemn first and, if necessary, endorse later.

And then the calls started—I never knew how the reporters had gotten my phone number. Probably Metzger had given it to them. In any case, I quickly found myself uncomfortably spotlighted as a leader of the loyal mutant opposition to Rick.

“Dr. Akimura? This is Tom Quinas for Eye-Five Vidnews. I understand you represent a group of mutants who are actively opposed to the efforts of the Better World group. Would you care to comment on the healing that the man some are calling the Desert Prophet just effected?”

“How did you get my number?”

“Dr. Akimura, why are you and other mutants so opposed to Better World’s stated policy of community service?”

“I don’t know that I can speak for other mutants,” I said carefully, feeling pangs of ambivalency. “I know that some mutants feel this group has all the earmarks of a cult and they’re uncomfortable with the potential for extreme behavior that’s usually associated with cults.”

“You’re a psychiatrist and healer, isn’t that so?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“In fact, you specialize in combining mutant and nonmutant healing techniques in the psychiatric therapeutic process, isn’t that so?”

“Yes, I try—”

“Isn’t that the same thing as what this Desert Prophet is doing?”

“Not at all. As far as I can tell he isn’t trained as a healer. Not even remotely. I question his credentials. And his motives.” I hoped that Rick was hearing this. Perhaps I could encapsulate my own message to him within my public pronouncements.

“Do you deny that he helped that man?”

“I have no way of telling what actually took place without physically examining the patient.”

“Why do you think they televised that event?”

“To publicize Better World, of course. And to draw others into its embrace.”

“Which the majority of mutants do not support, despite the presence of a mutant at the helm of this Better World group?”

“I would prefer to say that a large group of mutants doesn’t feel comfortable with it. I don’t think anyone, anywhere, is ever entirely comfortable with the formation of a cult.”

“Thank you, Dr. Akimura.”

The next call after that was from Joachim Metzger.

“I saw that live feed just now,” he said. “A good beginning. But you must be firmer. More insistent.”

“Perhaps you’d like to write me a script?”

He chose to take that as a joke and smiled broadly. “You seem to ad lib well, Julian. But remember that you represent more than yourself when you speak.”

I answered irritably. “Ye Kita But rems, yes, of course. The Mutant Council. Mutants in general.”

“And me,” he said. “Don’t ever forget that you represent me.”

As I had specified to Metzger, the reporters had no idea of my real relationship with Rick—I can only imagine the fine time they would have had hounding my parents, Narlydda, and anybody else they could ferret out of the genetic records. But Rick remained something of a mystery man—where had he come from? Who was he? I certainly wasn’t saying. All I
was
saying was, “This must be stopped. This is no good. This is dangerous.” I was becoming a sort of negative shadow of Better World, dogging reports of their activities whenever they appeared on vid.

Which is not to say I was comfortable with my new prominence—not in the slightest. And I began to see that Joachim Metzger wasn’t much happier—perhaps he resented my public stance as a mutant representative when I was not even a Book Keeper. But hadn’t he enlisted my support? I would happily have relinquished my role as media contact and mutant talking head in a moment, but that was not to be.

Finally, even my mother called me. Either she had forgiven my intransigence against Rick or just decided to overlook it. “Julian,” she said, “I saw you on the vid.”

“I thought we weren’t talking to each other.”

“You take what I say too seriously.” She smiled. “You’re pretty good, you know? But you ought to even out your complexion with some foundation before each broadcast.”

“I’ll try to remember that. Did you call to advise me on my makeup?”

“Don’t be silly. Have you talked to your brother?”

“Not recently.”

“Well, good luck if you try. Julian, believe it or not, I have to get on a waiting list to talk to my own son.”

“Be glad you’re not working the anchor desk for vidnews,” I said. “You could probably get an exclusive with Rick, but you’d be ninety years old before you reached him.”

“Don’t I know it,” Mom said. “But if you do get through to him, Julian, tell him to call me. Remind him that even the Desert Prophet has a mother.”

by
the
time
of
rick
’s
next
vidded miracle
,
I was 
a seasoned media performer, able to provide an extemporaneous sound bite without batting an eye.

When the first reports came in, no one seemed to know where the fire had started at the Grande Gorge Theater in Taos, New Mexico. Perhaps some wiring had shorted out. Perhaps it was arson. The flames spread with frightening velocity until half the theater was ablaze.

Members of the Taos volunteer fire department raced to the scene but they were too late. Some of the support structures in the walls were old, made of a ferro-ceramic manganese, and there’s nothing a manganese fire likes more than water. When the internal sprinkler system came on it spread the fire quickly and efficiently to the other parts of the building. The volunteer firemen just made it worse. Other structures nearby were in real jeopardy and there was the clear threat of a ma Nxbeluntejor catastrophe if the fire could not be contained.

Regardless of the size of the blaze, this was a news item that would scarcely have merited a quick mention in the morning national news roundup if not for Rick’s intervention.

The local Albuquerque vidnews team had caught Rick’s arrival as he teleported almost directly into the inferno, a strange, dark silhouette poised against the flames. He sized up the situation, teleported everyone else out of there, including all the firemen, then closed his eyes and did something to smother the flames. In ten minutes, the theater was a smoking ruin, but the fire had been extinguished. Rick vanished and the tape ended.

A white-haired reporter stepped in front of the camera and said, “Later investigation revealed that the molecular structure of the surviving manganese wall supports had been disrupted to prevent them from igniting. Fire officials speculate that the oxygen in the station was somehow converted to carbon dioxide, smothering the fire. The New Mexico Movie Company that owns the theater is offering a reward to the mysterious mutant known only as Rick who evidently halted this fire single-handedly. Anyone with information on this man is asked to please contact the New Mexico Movie Company and/or New Mexico state troopers.”

“This isn’t miracle-working,” I told the vid reporters when they called. “Any reasonably talented telekinete could have accomplished what that man did. He’s simply using mutant powers.”

“But, Dr. Akimura,” said Tim Walters of Vidnews Too, “what about the disruption of the manganese structure? How do you explain that?”

“Easily,” I said. “Any telekinete who knew what he or she was doing could handle that task. We’re dealing with a heroic deed here. But not a miracle.”

“But if what you say is true, then why don’t other mutants come forward to aid their communities?”

I scented smoke here: the first tinder catching in a backlash of resentment against selfish mutants hoarding their skills. “No,” I said quickly. “I want to emphasize that not every mutant can do these things. Our skills vary. But this man is not some avatar. He’s just a very skilled mutant employing his talents for the good of others.”

A week later, Rick really outdid himself.

My brother went down to Mexico City to help battle a cholera epidemic. The vid report I saw was not of first quality—apparently the tape had come from some amateur vid jock’s hand-held rig. Although the color and sound wavered from time to time the action was clear enough.

My brother was standing in the midst of what looked like an International Red Cross hospital tent as a tall, blond-haired doctor glared at him.

“How did you get in here? Who are you?” the doctor said. “Get away from that patient.”

“Is this a terminal case, Doctor?”

“What are you doing?”

“I think I can use microkinesis to save her,” Rick said. “At least I’m game to try.”

A short, gray-haired woman in a Better World jumpsuit moved into view. She had the no-nonsense air I’ve always associated with nuns and medical professionals, and she ignored the sputtering doctor as easily as Rick did. “We’ve got to deal with the dehydration,” she said to my brother.

“What about the b St ae’ve ugs?” Rick asked.

“The antitoxins will get them. It’s the fluid loss that’s killing these people. Probe her bloodstream. Look for white platelet clumps. Wherever you find them, reinforce the cell walls nearby to increase fluid retention. And scan for ruptures. When you find them, try to repair the cell walls so we can stabilize the osmotic pressure. Got it?”

“I think so.” Rick frowned, leaned down over the woman who lay, unconscious, on the cot, and closed his eyes. “Okay, here we go.” Sweat began to pour down his face.

“Now wait just one frigging moment here,” said the Red Cross doctor. He reached out to grab Rick’s hand—and froze in midgesture. Rick had trapped him in a telekinetic field. The doctor’s eyes roved back and forth in obviously mounting frenzy but otherwise he was completely immobilized.

Yet Rick seemed oblivious to him, eyes tightly shut, all his will focused on the dying woman.

She stirred once, moaned softly, strained for breath, then her labored breathing eased.

Rick opened his eyes. “There,” he said. The tension went out of him; he stood up, breathing heavily, and swung his arms back and forth.

The Red Cross doctor gasped and took a staggering step or two. “What the hell was that?” He rubbed his fingers and arms, concentrating on the tricep muscles. “Jesus, I ache all over.”

“That’s because you fought me,” Rick said. “You shouldn’t have strained so hard. You probably gave yourself a pretty bad charley horse.”

The doctor glared at him. “What have you done to this woman?” The color drained out of his face as he examined her. “My God,” he said. “My God, I don’t believe it.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Her fever’s broken. She seems to be in a light sleep instead of a near-coma. All other bodily functions seem to have returned to normal. Fluid balance is fine.” He gazed up at Rick in wonder. “Did you cure her just like that? Can you really do that? I mean, I’ve heard of mutants having unusual talents, but—”

“Let’s just say that I’m more unusual than most,” Rick said. “Yeah, I guess it worked. Is there anybody else around here I can help?”

The doctor rubbed his jaw. He seemed to be turning things over in his mind, and then turning them over again. After a long moment he said, “I don’t know. It’s irregular as hell just letting you waltz right in here and go to work on people. But on the other hand, we’ve got terminal cases I can’t help. You might as well take a whack at ’em.” He grabbed Rick’s shoulder. “Come on. This way. Hurry.”

Rick moved from cot to cot and the camera followed him. The work was draining, and under his desert tan his skin grew pallid and waxy, but he refused to rest. In his wake, patients breathed with renewed vigor, sat up, and a few of the strongest even attempted to walk.

All afternoon he worked on the most critical cases and a quick, clumsy montage showed that within hours Rick had cured most of the patients within the tent city.

“What’s next, Doctor?” Rick said. A tremor ran through his body but he seemed not to notice.

“Don’t you want to rest?”

“Please, Rick, listen to him,” said the short, gray-haired Be Sray
“Dtter World staffer. “You nearly passed out after curing that last patient.”

Slowly, stubbornly, my brother shook her off. “No, I’ve got to keep moving. There’s too much work to do.”

“Here.” The Red Cross doctor began to press a hypo against Rick’s arm. Rick jumped away from him as if he had just tried to bite him.

“What the hell’s in that thing?”

“A vitamin-B booster.”

“
You
take it. I don’t need anything. I’m fine.”

“Can’t hurt,” the doctor said. “Especially if you want to keep on going.”

“I told you, I’m fine.” Rick’s left eye twitched in an odd tic. “Where to next?”

“Well,” the doctor said, “if you’re absolutely set on running yourself into the ground, there’s an auxiliary tent hospital set up in the Galeria Plaza. I’m sure they could use help there. And if you’ve got any energy left after that, try the city hospital near Reforma at the corner of Sevilla and Ocampo. That place has got to be a nightmare.”

“I’ll bet.” Rick took several steps, staggered, stopped. “Y’know, on second thought, maybe I will have the hypo after all.” He held out his arm and the doctor pressed a small syringe against it. If he felt the sting of the injection he didn’t show it. “Thanks.”

His stride lengthened as the serum took effect and he moved quickly out of range as the film faded, blurred, and ended.

I was deeply alarmed by this particular vid and not only because it showed my brother mucking about in international health crises when he didn’t have any sort of medical training to begin with. That was bad enough, but I was even more concerned when I saw Rick nearly faint from exhaustion. Oh, yes, he had made a lightning-quick recovery, but I knew that something had gone wrong, and
that
frightened me more than anything—and hardened my determination to head off Rick’s juggernaut. What if he, himself, couldn’t control it any longer? Who could?

His intervention in the cholera epidemic made headlines, of course. He was both anointed and vilified by the usual chorus. Loudest among his critics was the ever-vigilant, ever-hysterical Roman Catholic Church, which ceaselessly warned him to stay away from its precious flock. But the AMA was right behind them, cautioning against public sanction of untrained miracle workers.

Theirs were voices in the darkness and they went largely ignored. A letter of commendation arrived from the Secretary General of the United Nations. Rick was even invited to dinner at the White House. And, of course, after a while, he seemed to take all the kind words a bit too seriously. At least, that’s how I saw it. So once again I added my voice to the refrain.

“Of course he helped the medical teams,” I said to the reporters. “But I can’t believe that one man alone was responsible for chasing cholera out of Mexico City. He merely has a very efficient P.R. staff. They’re exaggerating. He’s a glory hunter, pure and simple.”

Then came the plane crash. Or, let me rephrase that, then came the near-miss.

It was a night of uneasy dreams for me. If, in fact, they were dreams at all.

I was standing with my brother outside the main building of Better World. Rick held Sld.ll.

“Little brother, I wish you were here with me,” he said. “I need your help so badly. Why do you insist on rejecting me? You’re a part of me. Why do you stay away?” He hugged me tightly against his rough wool shirt and his eyes were suspiciously bright, as though he were fighting back tears.

I returned the embrace happily until his grip changed and I began to have trouble breathing. “Rick,” I said. “You’re hurting me. Let go.”

He didn’t seem to hear. With punishing fingers he held my arms and his eyes were wide and unfocused and horrified.

“Oh, oh God,” he said. “They’re going to hit. All those people, the little children. No, no, I can’t, I—” He grabbed his head with his hands as though rocked by some terrible pain.

“Rick, what is it? What’s wrong?”

He ignored me, lurched backward, and vanished.

For a moment I was dumbfounded. Then, somehow I saw it also. Two planes were taxiing down a runway toward each other in the twilight. Red lights blinked secret messages from the wings and tail, freezing drizzle fell gray from the sky in the winter dusk. Ice-slicked runways reflected the lights, making ghost patterns of shadows as I watched the slow-motion ballet performed by the elephantine flying machines. In silence they met, metal on metal, and in silence came to pieces. In silence the lights flashed, the bodies fell, the people screamed and screamed and screamed.

No—no, wait. It wasn’t that way, not at all. No one was screaming, no one was dying. The planes floated toward each other and passed smoothly, silent metal birds on separate and safe trajectories. There was no crash. No death. None at all.

Then I saw it yet again, faster this time, and even more terrible. The planes raced toward each other, engines screaming. They hit, they hit, they hit. Oh God, the blood, the sounds, the horror of it. I covered my face. Please, don’t make me see it anymore, please, I can’t bear it.

As if a film were being rewound, the images reversed, planes re-formed, disengaged, pulled back and away from each other. They moved forward, then pulled back. Forward, then back. My vision looped around and around, finally catching and holding on the image of a young woman’s face frozen in midscream.

Julian?

The vision shattered into splinters of color and light. My twinsense twinged, a maddening subcutaneous itch I could never reach, never scratch. I saw a figure, head down, shoulders slumped, standing in the midst of a gray and endless void. I knew before I had even seen his features clearly. It was Rick, and I sent him a query in private mindspeech mode.

Are you all right?

No answer. Couldn’t he hear me?

Rick? Answer me. What happened?