The Sound of Seas (19 page)

“Yes, you
can
!” Barbara agreed.

The psychiatrist began to count. When she was finished, Caitlin exhaled loudly then relaxed. She was still staring, though her eyes were not as wide, her pupils no longer fully dilated.

“Where are you, Caitlin?” Barbara demanded.

The woman blinked at her. “I'm here. I'm with you,” she replied.

“So you see me?”

“Yes. Of course.”

“Did you see the light I shined in your eyes?”

Caitlin hesitated. Barbara turned the light back on. This time Caitlin winced when it struck her pupils.

“You didn't react when I did that half a minute ago,” Barbara said as she turned off the record button.

“What was happening? What was I saying?” Caitlin asked.

“I'll play it back for you in a minute,” Barbara said. She herself needed a moment to try and figure out what had just transpired. “You just lie there. Don't even think about trying to get up.”

Caitlin did as she was told. “I don't understand where I ended up,” Caitlin said. “I was in Galderkhaan, then it was gone. Not destroyed, just . . . gone. I can't remember how it happened.”

“You were retreating,” Barbara said. “You went back very fast, very far.”

“I didn't see Jacob when I passed through Galderkhaan,” Caitlin said. Tears began to form in her eyes. “I know that much. I couldn't even feel him.”

“Do you know why?” Barbara asked. “It's what I've been trying to tell you, Caitlin. Jacob is
here
. He's in New York, in your apartment.”

Caitlin wiped the tears. She was confused, she was angry, and she had no idea what to do next. Maybe Anita and Barbara
were
right. Maybe everything she did going forward would just muck things up even more.

“Whatever you just experienced, Caitlin, we both know you didn't leave the room. We've had this discussion. Real or not, everything you think you experienced was in your head, where it is subject to personalization, corruption, subjectivity, a
host
of unreliable markers. Even with racial memories—which are bona fide genetic triggers, quantifiable biological imprinting—those ancient codes inside us may still be using the mind to tell a
story
.”

Caitlin shook her head slowly. “I don't believe that. Just because we can't understand it, that doesn't mean what's in my head is false. After the incident in the park I
was
in Galderkhaan!”

“And after the tornado, Dorothy was in Oz,” Barbara said.

Caitlin grew angry. “I know the difference, dammit!”

“Do you? Because there's also a rational explanation for everything you said when you were under, and you know what it is.”

“What? Delusion?
Grandiose
delusion?”

“It fits, doesn't it? Inflated sense of self, relationship with a deity—called to the side of God. You just said as much in the session. How many point-to-point correlations do you need?” Barbara moved closer. “You know I believe in energies that exist apart from the body. But Caitlin—you've used that idea, that belief, to concoct a psychodrama.”

Caitlin looked at Barbara with an expression that was profoundly sad and something else Barbara had not seen, ever: fear.

“That's not what's happening,” Caitlin said. “Anita has seen things . . . Ben.”

“They saw shadows, they heard your words, your—what, acting out?”

“I cured those kids, Barbara!”

“By getting into their psychoses,” she said. “It was a masterful job of psychiatry. And then it was done.”

“You're wrong.”

“We all want to support you, Caitlin. You say you destroyed the park. The FDNY says it was underground water and gas lines.”

“Which I broke.”

Barbara sat back. “I'm not going to continue arguing this with you. There's no point. What you do in the hospital is between you and Dr. Yang. But as much as I find this topic personally fascinating, this approach is not doing you or Jacob any good.”

“Uh huh. And your recommendation?”

“Rest, girl. Those kids a few weeks ago—the situation between India and Pakistan boiling around you? That took a toll.”

Caitlin pouted. It was the only way she could stop herself from screaming.

“How about I do this?” she said, rising. “I'll send you the recording of the session. Listen to it. Have Ben come over and listen with you. If there's somewhere, some way, you're convinced I've whiffed, call me. In the meantime, just do me one favor. Please reconsider what you're doing with your son.”

“Sure.”

“I mean that, Caitlin.”

“I know. And I'll think about it. I will.” She looked at her friend. “I may not agree with you, but you know how much I respect you.” Caitlin managed a half-smile. “And that's the last word.”

Barbara gave her a squeeze on the shoulder. Collecting her phone cable, she sent the audio file then left with a little smile and a small wave.

Alone in the hospital room, Caitlin O'Hara knew then that her life would never be the same: to her,
Standor
Qala, Vilu, Bayarma, Yokane, and Azha seemed more real to her than anyone in her life, other than her son.

Which meant that either she was truly delusional . . . or two worlds were on the verge of colliding.

CHAPTER 16

F
lora Davies gazed at the spot where Adrienne Dowman had been sitting.

All that remained of the young woman was a diploma on the wall and a stiff, blackened corpse on the floor. Strips of burned flesh hung from her bones with red, raw muscle peeking out from beneath. The odor was sinful.

Throughout the experiment, the laboratory associate had sat supernaturally still even as flames started to appear under her clothes. Then, in a flash, a ferocious blaze erupted, consuming her body from sole to scalp. As though entranced, she had not moved, had not cried out, had not even twitched. She just sat there as her flesh bubbled away, as her hair flew off in short-lived flamelets, as her eyes and the insides of her nostrils liquefied and ran down the white bones of her face—the entire process concealed more and more by noxious, oily smoke. It only took seconds for the ruddy fire to finish its job before dissipating.

The laboratory sprinklers had come on as the young scholar burned. The water not only doused the flames, it caused her body to collapse with a soggy crunch by its added weight. The shower also short-circuited the electronics.

The acoustic levitation hookup died. The olivine tile fell to the platform with a
thunk
.

As water rained down, Skett cried out an oath over and over, louder and louder. Flora forced herself not to think about Adrienne. It was the stone that had connected her with a Galderkhaani. There was no way to break the connection other than by learning to control the tile.

But Skett hadn't expected an inferno
, Flora thought.
The Technologists never had sufficient respect for the tiles.

Almost at once, smoke detectors throughout the Fifth Avenue mansion went wild. An automated call went out to the New York Fire Department. Flora did not concern herself with that. Her three-­person office staff was used to crises; this was one more. The ungoverned tile was her immediate concern.

She jumped from the seat where Skett had placed her and slapped on a large industrial-size fan whose location she knew by feel. Choking in the ash-filled air, she pulled a towel from a rack by the industrial-size lab sink, wet it in the spray from the overhead nozzles, and wrapped it around her mouth and nose. She shut the sprinklers from a panel above the sink then approached Casey Skett. He was coughing and leaning over heavily by a laptop on the lab table, pinned there by the opaque smoke.

Simultaneously, Flora's wall-mounted landline beeped. It was her personal aide, Erika. The Group director picked up, after nearly slipping on the water-slickened floor.

“Ms. Davies, are you all right?”

“Yes,” Flora told her aide. “Shut the alarms and call the neighbors. Apologize for the incident, but assure them there's no danger. Then call the fire department—tell them it was a smoke condition, nothing more.”

“I'll call the FDNY first,” she said.

“I would hold off on that one,” Skett said, coughing hard as he turned toward her.

“Wait, Erika.” Flora regarded Skett with open contempt. “Why?”

“Let them come, you're going to need them,” he said. “And tell her to leave the building. Quickly.”

Flora told Erika to hold off on calling the fire department and just to go outside. She could alert neighbors in person.

“If I need anything, I'll call your cell,” Flora said. Hanging up, her eyes continued to burn into Skett. “Explain yourself. What else have you done?”

“Me? Nothing. We've
both
done this, Flora.”

“We've done
what
? And no lectures, please.”

“This tile,” he cocked his head toward the olivine stone. “It's going to rip this place to sawdust.”

“It didn't do that
before
we had the acoustic control,” she said. “Why should it now?”

Skett wiped his face with his sleeve. “Figure it out, dammit.”

“No, you're going to talk,” she said.

“What's your leverage?” he asked. He wiggled the phone. “This is drenched and dead. Jasso's cut off.”

“The computer is, and has been, recording everything that has taken place in this room. The recording is being stored offsite. If this place comes down, if I die, that data will automatically be reviewed.”

He looked over at the laptop. “That's soaked too.”

“It's waterproof.”

Skett's eyes narrowed in challenge. “You're bluffing.”

“Not my style,” Flora assured him. “The Technologists really
don't
know much about technology, do they? Everything in here is custom-built. Did you really think I submitted to you because of a knife? I let you run this because how else was I to find out who you really are, who you work for, and what you and your Technologist employers know?”

“Paranoia will always trump planning,” Skett said. He pushed back his wet hair and happened to glance at the charred body that, just moments before, had been a living woman. “And I always thought
I
was low on compassion!”

“Spare the psych profile,” Flora said. “She was beyond help before we started this. We're wasting time. The fire department is only a few blocks away. What else do you know that you're not telling me?”

He looked over at the tile. It was still vibrating and beginning to glow again. “That stone is now fully reconnected to the tiles in the South Pole, and it is probably getting a bump from the one in the freezer,” Skett told her.

“That one is dormant.”

“Is it?” he said.

“They don't
function
in subzero. That's why Galderkhaan was quiet for forty thousand years, until the ice began to melt.”

“You're wrong, Flora,” Skett said. “They were
quiet
until Jasso found the other tile and Arni turned it on! Now none of the tiles are sleeping. You linked them all—or someone did.”

That revelation hit Flora with a shock so hard she actually wobbled.
Caitlin O'Hara did that.
The Group director did not like where this was headed.

“Your dead assistant here was linked with someone in the past,” Skett went on. “We knew that. But instead of being able to communicate with that person through her, which is what I was trying to do, instead of waking them both up, the tile here went ballistic and those two transcended against their will.”

Flora nodded. “And that connection between the tiles is still open,” she said, catching up to Skett.

“Very much so,” Skett said, regarding the tile with growing concern. “Open and growing, only now the power won't be a simple, ‘Hi, how are you?' connection as when Arni turned it on. It won't be rats massing or intestinal bugs eating a mail carrier from the inside out or insects gathering at the South Pole. Mikel Jasso is standing beside a still-open doorway to Galderkhaan. I thought we could control that through this woman and her partner—”

“But the tiles are working on their own now,” Flora said. “Fueled by the Source?”

“I don't know,” Skett admitted. “I sincerely pray they are not. There isn't an acoustic monitor this side of the universe that can contain that.”

Flora eyed Adrienne's body. Sirens blaring sounded closer. There would be an investigation; that was unavoidable now.

“I'm going to get a cooler,” Flora said. “Without the tiles, this will be a forensics nightmare.”

She saw Skett shaking his head.

“What, dammit?” Flora asked, approaching him through the thinning tester of smoke. “Why not?”

“A cooler is not going to work,” he said. “Not anymore.” He cocked a thumb toward the hallway, toward the storage room. “Listen.”

Flora reluctantly obliged him. There was a deep hum, like a long, low note on a bass cello.

“The other tile,” Flora said.

“Already active and getting livelier,” Skett said.

“It
shouldn't
be!” Flora said.

“It's drawing more and more power from this one and, I suspect, breaking its icy bonds. The freezer won't contain it much longer, and a frigid little container certainly won't stop
this
one.” He indicated the tile in the laboratory.

“There
has
to be a point of equilibrium,” she said. “Dammit, the tiles didn't go chewing up Galderkhaan every time somebody used one!”

“No, but they were all—synched somehow. Honestly, Flora? I don't know what the tiles can do. Until I held this specimen, I'd never seen one. But we had better continue this from a distance.”

Then the Group director looked around. “No. I'm staying.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Stop this.” Flora began typing on the computer.

The tile was beginning to shake harder, creating a high-pitched sound that was beginning to pierce her skull. Several yards away, Skett too was beginning to wince. He edged into the hall.

“What are you trying to do?” he yelled at her.

“No one should control a power this monstrous,” she said.

Covering his ears, Skett returned to the laboratory. He looked over Flora's shoulder, saw that she had opened a program that accessed Mikel's phone.

“No!” he said. “We have worked too hard to reach this point!
All
of us have!”

“So did Galderkhaan,” Flora said, “and look where it got them.”

Skett reached for the woman and pulled her from the laptop. The woman pulled herself from his one-armed grab, turned toward a drawer in the lab table, and yanked it open. She withdrew a scalpel and spun back toward her unwanted guest.

“Get out!” she said, just as Skett drove his own blade hard into her chest, plunging the silver blade to the hilt, through her heart.

“Mikel, destroy the tiles!” she cried out as she slid off the knife and hit the floor, dead.

“Flora?” a voice shouted thinly on the other end.
“Flora!”

Skett swore. He didn't know if Jasso would figure out what had happened, couldn't stay here to find out, and Skett wasn't sure what he'd tell the archaeologist in any case. Jasso probably wasn't carrying explosives on the vehicle and he would have a hell of a time obtaining them if he went back to the outpost.

What do you need them for?
Bundy or one of the others would ask.

To destroy an archaeological find
,
Jasso would reply.

It would never happen.

Confidently slipping the blade back into its sheath and stealing a quick glance at the wildly shaking tile, he killed the connection to Mikel, closed Flora's laptop, and tucked it under his arm. He glanced back at her.

“Sorry,” he said. “I no longer need you—just this to access your offsite storage.”

Then he turned and hurried back into the hallway. The olivine stone in the laboratory was a lost cause, already too active. Yokane
probably kept it near her for that reason: it would immediately become alert if another stone were in close proximity. He'd collect the other. With luck, his exit should time out perfectly.

Behind him, the tools in the table drawer began to shake loudly and then the lab table began to hop around; a moment later the walls themselves began to undulate like sails in a typhoon. Below them, the remains of Flora Davies began to liquefy. First the brain and other internal organs; then, as the unchecked vibration of the stone increased, the rest of her cellular structure came apart. Within moments, the woman was a pool of biological material spilled across the laboratory floor. There was no longer a knife wound, or anything to point to homicide. The floor itself was quaking, spreading the material thin and wide.

Skett followed the steady pulse of the original tile. He went down a flight of stairs to a sub-basement where the Group maintained a row of subzero freezers. He had been down here before: this was where the door to the alley was located, the alley through which he'd transported Arni's body as well as other biological mishaps over the years.

Skett waited anxiously. He stood there, his skin vibrating as the air around him began to quiver. The old beams in the mansion shook and screamed and the structural matter of the century-old building also began to tremble faster and faster and then groan, loudly. He heard crashing above and then a pop that wasn't so much a loud noise as a dull punch in his ears. It was followed by a massive shockwave that slapped him from above and behind him—the location of the laboratory.

Hopefully, that was the tile reaching some kind of critical mass, releasing its energy before going quiet—

The tile in the freezer instantly calmed once its link to the southern tiles had gone silent. As the building above him fell to dust, Skett grabbed the tile and ran for the door. Behind him, large stone and wood pieces disintegrated as they dropped, the ceiling vanished completely, and millions of tiny pieces of laboratory fell into the ­sub-basement, the
upper floors crashing on top of that, all of them creating a pile that rose nearly half a story above a shocked Fifth Avenue.

Observers wondered aloud if it had been weakened by the flooding and fires from the night before. The fire department arrived and pushed back everyone who was recording the event on cell phones. The police department sealed the block, in the event it was a crime scene.

Within that rubble, the olivine tile was quiet now. The collapse of the edifice had caused the orientation to be lost. It would take a boost to raise its energy sufficiently to find the others, to reestablish a connection with the collective. Until then, the now-subdued energy within resumed its waiting patiently, as it had done for an eternity. As it would do for an eternity more if it had to.

The power inside the tile wasn't conscious but it was sentient. It wasn't artificial but it wasn't alive. It was a result. A result that was invulnerable to time, impervious to destruction, merely waiting as it had always waited.