Omegasphere (8 page)

“You’re serious?” Ursula asked.

“I am.”

She took a deep breath and then exhaled. “Bock said horrible hallucinations are symptomatic of the infection.”

“We aren’t sick. The book. They seeded our minds with the book.”

“You’re telling me that an alien race infected you with an idea for a novel . . . and you don’t think you’re sick?”

Recognizing a psychiatric tone, Kurt said, “Let me guess. You’re unwilling to indulge the idea of aliens.”

She attempted to veil the incredulity in her expression as much as possible. “I think you’re under the influence of something . . . who knows what for sure? You have to admit; with no proof, an alien influence seems a little farfetched. Why then are the people on this island getting sick?”

Kurt didn’t respond immediately. He knew there was a chance that accusing Bock of wrongdoing would just make him sound more insane. Being forced to tell her the truth before she was ready was causing her to shut down.

Against his better judgment, he told her, “The alien’s meme is causing us to evolve, but Bock has countered with an idea that is making us sick.”

“Bock made you sick? How did he do that?”

“With his book. There are ideas in it that slip past conscious thought and burrow into the subconscious mind—ideas that begin to attack the body, making it ill. I didn’t even see it coming. I searched Bock for signs of duplicity and didn’t see anything, but I should have searched for signs of truthfulness, of which there would have been none.”

“Kurt, you had that fever nearly a week ago now. Before you even met Bock.”

“That fever is a natural part of the process—”

“If I read Bock’s book, would it have the same effect on me?”

“Yes.”

“May I see it?”

“I’d rather you didn’t.”

“If you know the idea is in you, why don’t you just eradicate it, exorcise it . . . vanquish it— whatever?”

“I’m not sure I can take his idea out of my mind any easier than I can take out the alien meme. Don’t you find it a little curious that he’s the only one on this island who’s not sick?”

She sighed and said, “But aliens? Really? Where are they? Why haven’t they come and taken ownership of the meme?”

“They’re long gone. They’ve moved on to a higher dimensional plane. The manuscript was put into the universe centuries ago.”

“So before they sauntered off to a higher spatial dimension, they left us directions on how to meet up with them as soon as we’re evolved enough?”

“Sounds silly when you put it that way, but yes.”

“Of course,” she said, mockingly. “You realize that all of the manuscripts are gone? The government destroyed them all. If only the evolved can get to Shangri La, then what’s going to happen to the rest of us? You’ll be alone!”

Kurt leaned back and allowed his weight to be supported by the sink counter. It all made sense. Bock was destroying the manuscripts and poisoning the infected so he would be the only one left, the smartest man on the planet. But if he wanted enhanced humans dead, why didn’t he just shoot them? Why an illness that kills them slowly? With his ties to Homeland Security, he could have easily wiped out all of them.

Her insight, however, didn’t go unnoticed. He felt lonelier than ever. Even if he found a way to eradicate Bock’s poisonous ideas from his mind, he would have to live a life without an equal. He would continue to evolve while everyone he cared about stayed the same. As far as he could tell, this was not what the alien race had intended, and certainly not what he wanted.

Ursula sighed heavily and went to sit on the lid of the toilet.

Kurt said, “Whether you believe me or not, I don’t think we’re safe here. There’s something amiss about this island. There’s no reason for you to be here. You haven’t been infected. Why don’t you return to New York?”

“I’m not going to leave you alone. I might be able to help you,” she said.

The pain in his stomach struck him like a gun shot and caused him to double over. He turned away from her, putting his hands on the bathroom counter. He felt like he was going to be sick.

“Are you alright?” she asked.

“I’m fine. Just a little nauseated.”

Kurt looked up into the mirror. His face had gone ashen.

“You don’t look so good, Kurt. I'm going to call Richard.”

“No. I’m fine.” He did his best to smile at her and then quickly left.

He shuffled his way toward the playground where Dana and the other little girl were playing on the swings. The nausea had gotten worse—the burning in his chest nearly unbearable. He had hoped fresh air would help, but now that he was out in the open he could smell the scent of death wafting off the other bungalows. The only reassurance came from the fact that some of the inhabitants of the island were still alive . . . some of them. However, like Ray, his fate was sealed. The ideas in his mind would continue to attack his body, and there was nothing he could do to stop it.

Kurt sat down on a bench and watched the girls play. He tried his best to take his mind off the pain. He was angry with himself. He should have seen this coming, been more cautious, but his insight was doomed to fail with someone like Bock. For the sociopathic mind there was no truth. He could lie without effect, without emotion, without remorse.

Kurt tried to collect some energy from within, to overcome the pain and find some inner reserve of strength. On the helicopter flight in, he had seen a white cliff house on the north side of the island. A strong energy was emanating from it and he had sensed that something important was going on there. It was a few miles from where he was, and there was the small problem of getting there undetected, so for now, he watched the girls.

Dana’s new friend had an unhealthy pallor to her face, and her hair appeared to be thinner than it should be. When Dana began to playfully chase the little girl around the jungle gym, the girl got winded and went into a fit of coughing.

Kurt rushed over to help.

“I’m fine,” the girl said. The coughing stopped, but she didn’t look fine. There were black circles under her eyes and her face had gone ghostly white.

“Where are your parents?” Kurt asked her.

“They’re not here.”

“Who’s looking after you?”

“No one. I don’t need anyone to look after me.”

Kurt began to cough, a raspy bass that boomed in his chest.

“It looks like you got it too, Mister.” She ran off to the swings, not yet fully recovered, but in rebellion against any sickness that would interfere with her playtime. Dana quickly followed her, taking the swing next to her.

Kurt walked down to the shore. For a moment he pretended to be taking in the view of the vast ocean before him. When he was sure no one was looking, he began to trek north.

When he was at least three miles away from the resort, the beach ended in a cliff side. He either had to climb it, swim around it, or go back. He decided to climb, though there were parts of it that he knew would be dangerous. The ascent started off with a steep trail, but that ended quickly in a vertical rock face. Were he feeling better physically, this would have been an easy climb, but every muscle in his body ached and his head was pounding. He went for it anyway. As far as he was concerned, there was no other choice.

Using his feet and fingers to find purchase in the imperfections and cracks in the rock face, he began the ascent. He had always been adequately athletic, but before the alien meme this was something he never would have attempted without sufficient practice and training. Now he had an enhanced intuitive knowledge to help him. He could economize his body’s energy, coordinate his mind with his muscles in ways he never thought possible, and make decisions based on mathematical certainties. He could calculate the aspect of the rock face and the force needed to ascend it, predict a reasonable probability of failure, and assess the potential of a particular route to its conclusion. If not for the ideas in his mind poisoning his system, ascending this cliff face would have been a cakewalk.

About half way up he began to get tired, feeling that burning in his chest again, overcome with a need to cough. With only his fingertips and a sliver of his shoes connected to cracks in the rock face, a spasm of coughing could prove fatal. He was more than a hundred feet up and ocean waves were pounding into the jagged rocks below. But the pressure in his chest wasn’t going away. He fought it back with every bit of strength he had and climbed as quickly as he could.

Finally, he pulled himself up over the cliff’s edge. Collapsing on the ground, he covered his mouth to mute the sound and allowed himself to cough. It felt like razor blades were rattling around in his lungs. When he took away his hand, there was a splatter of blood coating his palm and fingers.

With the need to cough subsiding for now, he scanned the cliff side plateau. There was a white house, the design appearing to be several decades old. A pristine satellite dish the size of a barn stood off to the side. A golf cart was parked on the cement driveway with the word SECURITY emblazoned on the side. Behind the house, several hundred yards away, there was a yellow front loader truck situated before a large hole. Thousands of seagulls were circling the hole, the collective cawing nearly deafening.

Staying low, Kurt made his way over to the side of the house. He looked through a window. Two men were inside, playing cards on a foldout table.

A truck came barreling down a serpentine dirt road, clouds of dust spewing out from the tires. A honk came from it as it pulled up to the house. The driver got out, slamming the door behind him.

Kurt immediately recognized the driver. The hair on his arms stood up and a cold chill enveloped his bones. It was the dark-skinned man who had been haunting him, the intruder that had been in his apartment in New York.

The man went to the back of the truck and opened the shell hatch and the bed door.

He whistled loudly. “Get out here!”

A man with a hood over his head and his wrists bound together was helped out of the back of the truck.

Two men came out the front door of the house, forcefully took the hooded man by the arms, and took him back inside the house.

Kurt peered through the window. They were taking the hooded man to a back room.

The burning in his chest came back with a vengeance and he couldn’t suppress the need to cough. He covered his mouth, terrified at the prospect of not only being detected, but of seeing more of his own blood.

The crackle of a radio from inside the truck masked his coughing: “Base to Cliffside, come in.”

A voice responded, “This is Cliffside, over.”

“Be advised. We have a runaway. Have you seen anyone in your sector?”

“That’s a negative, Base. All clear here. We just brought one in for treatment.”

“We need all available personnel to return to Base for assistance. Over.”

“What about the treatment?”

“Complete the treatment and return to Base, A-SAP.”

“Copy that.”

No more than ten minutes later, the three men came out the front door and climbed into the truck. After they drove off, Kurt stealthily made his way up to the front of the house. Cautiously, he pushed the front door open and went inside. The boards of the wooden floors creaked under his shoes. The layout reminded him of some of the post-World War II military housing that was riddled throughout Southern California. He made his way into the hall and up to the door of the first room. The door was open a sliver so he peered inside. There was a computer table with a multi-monitor display splayed out over it. The monitors were showing the brain scans of people undergoing electroshock therapy.

On a far wall, there was a map of the world with red pins pushed into various cities. Below that was a file cabinet. He pulled open the top drawer, A-F, and found hundreds of names labeling manila folders. He knelt down to get to the third drawer and went to R.

There was a file for Kurt Robbins.

Inside there was a picture of him pulled from his Facebook account, a medical history taken from the family doctor, a social security number, DMV records, and, under something labeled STATUS, it read: “Captured.” Under the sub-label MANUSCRIPT, it read: “CONFISCATED AND DESTROYED.”

Maybe coming to the island wasn’t as voluntary as he had been led to believe.

He opened the second drawer and went to the letter J. There was a file for Ray Jacobson. He opened it. A red stamp on the first page read: DECEASED. A hand written note on the bottom read: “Subject did not respond to treatment.”

He put the file back and went to S. William Snow’s file. It also had a DECEASED stamp on it with a note on the bottom explaining his unresponsiveness to treatment.

The hole dug in the field overrun by seagulls wasn’t a landfill, it was a mass grave.

A muted sound came through the walls. A moan.

Kurt put the file back into the file cabinet and shut the drawer.

He went back into the hall and listened again for the sound. There were two more rooms at the back of the house, both doors shut. He went up to a door and listened. Someone was definitely on the other side, moaning in pain.