The Reality Conspiracy (28 page)

Here and there, litter—McDonald's bags, plastic foam boxes, and empty plastic cups—suggested meals were taken here, meals no doubt salvaged from the trash cans of the Combat Zone.

The man lit the candles and returned McCurdy's lighter. Then he motioned for McCurdy to sit on the floor.

"We'll be safe here," the man said, the jagged nail of his right index finger picking at an infected-looking pimple on the lobe of his right ear. "They don't open the church till nine in the morning, so we got time. And it's quiet here. We got the whole place to ourselves."

McCurdy sat on the wooden floor, avoiding contact with the filthy blankets. He studied the man's face in the pulses of candlelight. If the garbageman was wearing a disguise, it was an awfully good one. Stringy hair dangled limp and filthy around a face wild with whiskers, slashed with grime. Eyes, lifeless and discolored, teeth and gums, a brown, pulpy mass. And the smell, the odor of human waste and decay, surely it was something impossible to fake.

The man spoke in a hoarse whisper. "You were in the war, a fighter pilot in Vietnam. There, you had a religious experience. Am I right?"

McCurdy nodded, very much on his guard.

"What you saw there is not important to our discussion or to the work we must do. But let me say simply that it is your religious conviction that makes you ideally suited for your role at the Academy. The work you do there must be tempered by a strong Christian spirit. It is dangerous work, as you well know; it requires a sound mind and a sturdy Christian soul. What you are doing with your electronic equipment would not have been possible at any other time in history. That it can be done now marks a whole new step in human development. Would you agree with me?"

Again McCurdy nodded. His stomach had contracted into a tight, lumpy knot. He was sweating and his mouth tasted strongly of copper. For a moment he thought he was going to faint.

The man settled back against the wall, stretching his legs out in front of him. McCurdy could see the holes in the soles of his mismatched shoes.

"Your theories about the degeneration of mankind are not far from wrong. What's happening to the human race is a problem of numbers, really. There are more people now than ever before. I mean the number of people alive right now, as we speak, by far outnumbers all those who have ever been born, and who died throughout the entire history of this planet. And soul, Dr. .McCurdy, soul is a commodity of which there is a precious limited supply. In short, for way too long there just hasn't been enough of it to go around."

McCurdy's head reeled. How could this man know about soul? McCurdy had never shared this theory with anyone.

"Do you believe that, Dr. McCurdy?"

McCurdy cleared his throat. "Ah . . . believe what?"

"That soul is quantifiable. That it is in limited supply. That there is nowhere near enough of it to go around. That it is a precious resource that has been shamefully squandered."

"I've . . . ah, well, I've considered it."

"And if it is true, would you agree that it is therefore possible for certain people to be born with too little of it to be called human? Would you say it is possible that some individuals are born with none at all? That they can mature, mate and marry, then give birth to generations of soulless progeny?"

McCurdy had secretly considered all these things, but he had never spoken of them, not to his father, not to Rev. McNaughton, not to the other members of the congregation. And hearing them spoken aloud made McCurdy realize how eccentric they sounded.

"Is this a difficult question for you, Dr. McCurdy?"

Still, he didn't answer. Nonetheless, it had always been clear to him: if soul is the quality that can make human beings divine, then the absence of soul is the only thing that could explain the rabid growth of evil in the world. Terrorists, serial killers, preteen murderers, opportunistic politicians. The soulless ones. The Nighttimers.

Without soul there can be no incentive to accomplish good works, no possibility of redemption, no chance for earning divinity.

"Dr. McCurdy . . . ?"

The walls of the little cubicle seemed to close in on him. The candle appeared to lose its light. Suddenly the humid heat was unbearable. McCurdy tapped his fingertips against his knee. His eyes darted from side to side. He swallowed rapidly, feeling his gorge rising. How could this man know his unspoken thoughts? How?

A series of memories presented themselves in a revealing sequence: in McCurdy's mind the Combat Zone was a vision of Hell on earth, something he was compelled to study, night after night on his aimless walks among the Nighttimers. Yet this man had said, "I want to lead you away from here."

Then he had taken him to what he described as "My house." Only it was a church.

And now the stranger was articulating some of McCurdy's deepest, most carefully protected suspicions.

Without changing visibly, the soiled and homely face suddenly took on a different light. And suddenly McCurdy was in his plane above bamboo shacks and rice fields. Below, the brown earth exploded into churning smoky mushrooms. Machine guns spat and charges erupted. Jet engines roared like dragons as again McCurdy rolled out of a dense cloud and soared toward the blue-black heavens.

And again he saw the light, the brilliant white flaming pillar that divided the horizon like a slice cut out of the sky.
A vision. I'm having a vision!
It was then—way back in 1969—that he had seen the face of God.

And now he knew the stranger across from him. "What would you like me to do?" he whispered.

Burlington. Vermont

K
aren stared in terror at the television screen.

The black and white videotaped image had all the newsreel immediacy of a Fredrick Weisman documentary.

She had watched the image of the masked, black-suited men as they tied the naked prisoner to a heavy wooden chair, watched the white-clad medic tape the sensor wires to the captive's skin, heard the electronically altered voice introduce the tethered Denny LaChance and read off his list of crimes
.

And the recorded demonstration began.

When LaChance started to twitch, Karen felt ill. Bile sloshed against the back of her throat. She had to swallow rapidly to keep it down.

When he convulsed as if hit by a million volts of electricity, she looked away and reached for her gin and tonic. By the time LaChance bit off his tongue, Karen was in tears, her eyes hidden in her hands.

"Turn it off," she said, jumping to her feet. Before Jeff could find the remote, she had crossed the room. Just prior to hitting the TV's OFF button she noticed viscous liquid from LaChance's exploded eyeballs running down his cheeks, blending with the black blood surrounding his mouth.

Karen flicked the switch and the TV screen went dead.

"That's awful, Jeff. It's . . ." her voice was uneven, wracked by stifled sobs. "I've never seen anything so . . . so horrible."

Jeff walked closer, extending his arms to embrace her, but she pulled away.

"I don't care if he is a criminal," she said, "how could anyone do something like that to another human being?"

"I warned you it would be rough, Karen, but I had to let you see it. You have to understand what I'm so panicked about."

She used the paper napkin from under her gin and tonic glass to dry her eyes. The ring of moisture felt cool and good against her face. Then she sat down, trying to compose herself. She thought of Casey, sleeping in the spare room. How fortunate the girl was not aware of the ghastly research her father was involved in.

Hyperventilating, Karen wrestled with the urge to shout at Jeff, to tell him that he'd have to wake Casey and leave at once. How dare he involve her, not to mention his own daughter, in something like this? How dare he just bulldoze into her life and force her to watch something so grotesque, so inhuman?

Her anger, she knew, was born of a deep-rooted, bone-crushing fear. If only she didn't have to see, didn't have to witness, that such inhumanity existed. She felt sick. Sick in her heart, sick in her soul. She had never seen anyone suffer and die so violently. Swimming somewhere in her vague memory she recalled a news broadcast from the Vietnam war era. It involved a Vietnamese officer putting a pistol against the head of some skinny pajama-clad soldier and blowing him away, executing him with a single merciful bullet. The victim dropped out of sight and it was done. Ugly as it was, at least it had been quick. What she had watched tonight seemed to go on and on. It was torture.

"Where did you get that awful tape?"

"I told you, Karen, I took it from Skipp McCurdy's office. I stole it. I knew I would have to have some proof."

"W-what did they do to him? Was it electrocution or what?"

Jeff sat beside her on the couch. She fought the urge to get up and move away from him.

"I don't think it was electrocution."'

"The wires . . ."

"Just as they said, sensors. They recorded his vital signs and brain wave activity while they were killing him."

"Couldn't it have been a trick?"

"I don't—"

"Maybe they staged the whole thing, maybe the whole thing is bogus?"

"It would be great if that were true."

"You believe it, Jeff? You really believe they killed him with . . . with . . ."

"Magic."

Karen started to cry again, this time it came in great heaving sobs. "No, no it can't be. They poisoned him before he sat down, or . . . or . . . maybe they really did use those wires to electrocute him. How do you know they didn't? Huh, Jeff? How do you know for sure?"

Jeff rested his hand on her shoulder. This time she let it remain. He spoke quietly but insistently. "All I know is what McCurdy told me about what the Academy is up to.

"Look, Karen, I know how whacked out all this must sound. It smacks of witchcraft, and voodoo, and Indian magic, and all the other stuff our parents and teachers told us just can't be real. But the trouble is, it is real. I can't deny it; you have to stop denying it.'

"The Academy has been using that damn computer to gather all sorts of magical data from all around the world: old, new, the well-known and the seemingly insignificant. Everything. Crazy or not, that's McCurdy's million-dollar idea. And he was able to explain it convincingly enough to sell our government the kind of bill of goods that earned him a multimillion-dollar research grant.

"See. McCurdy believes in magic as much as he believes in God. And he believes that all the age-old magical beliefs might each hold a certain amount of magical truth. It makes a weird kind of sense: every culture in the history of mankind has had a tradition of magic. And within cultures there have always been subcultures, sects, and secret societies, all carrying some small part of a great body of hidden wisdom. How can something that is completely bogus have such staying power?"

"But, Jeff, how can you honestly—"

"Believe it? I'm not sure that I do. Not completely. But try this on: chemistry evolved out of alchemy, right? Astronomy is astrology all grown up. Maybe the arcane forces we refer to as magical conform readily to natural laws we just aren't aware of yet. Maybe McCurdy will be remembered as the terrible genius of the twentieth century who brought magic out of the closet and put it into the classroom. In any event he's succeeded in putting it on America's defense budget right along with psychic warfare and flying saucer research."

Karen heard herself sigh pathetically. She felt as if she wanted to hide and cry and forget everything that had happened today. She felt as if she wanted Jeff to take her in his arms and tell her it was all some great big joke, a campfire story designed to scare her half to death before she crawled into the snug security of her sleeping bag.

She glanced at the clock on the mantel. Thirty minutes after one o'clock in the morning. No wonder she was feeling so fragile—she was tired. Tired, but not sleepy. "Okay, Jeff," she said slowly, trying to control her voice, "one thing at a time. First, how do you know that tape is on the level?"

He got up, walked over to his open briefcase. He removed a file and brought it to Karen. "Here," he said, "this is a photocopy of the autopsy report. Look at it. Check out the cause of death."

Karen's eyes quickly found the entry in question, then raced over the typed pages for something that would argue with the medical doctor's conclusion.

After a while she closed the folder and handed it back to Jeff. "I'm sorry, Jeff," she said. Now her voice was stern and cold. "I just cannot believe this. It's impossible. It's a joke or a plot of some kind. This just cannot be true. No. No way."

She shook her head and, when Jeff took the file, crossed her arms defiantly.

"It is unbelievable. I admit that, Karen, but I have no choice but to believe it's true. Before the doctor performed the autopsy he found no cuts on the body, no intrusions whatsoever. Nothing at all. Nowhere. But when he opened the chest the heart was gone. Believe it, Karen, the man's heart vanished from his chest!"

Boston, Massachusetts

T
hey walked up and down the aisles of the church. The tap of McCurdy's leather-soled shoes echoed ominously in the hollow of the vast marble-floored sanctuary. Lights from outside cast the silhouette of wire mesh against the muted colors of twelve stained-glass windows. Before the altar, rows of candles burned in red glass holders. Above, soft indirect lighting illuminated the great carved crucifix. On either side there were statues: to the left, the Virgin Mary; at right, St. Joseph holding the baby Jesus.