Chapter Thirty-Six

“I thought we could continue our conversation, Sid,” he said.

Marco stood at the foot of the bed. He wore a white medical coat and his badge identified him as Dr. Sid’s Friend, Department of Mind, Body, and Spirit.

“A badge doesn’t make you a friend, dude,” Chris said.

“Maybe it would be better if we met alone,” Marcus said to me. “Why don’t you wake up the others and ask everyone to give us a few minutes?”

“I don’t think so,” I said. “In fact…” I wished he would leave.

Marco turned, took a step toward the door, and then stopped. With an effort, he pivoted and came back. “A new power,” he said, surprise on his face. “Fascinating. But it won’t work on me.”

“You’re not so tough,” Chris said.

“Yes, I am,” Marco said.

“Well, okay, maybe you are, but my point is we’re not intimidated. Sid has superpowers up the wazoo now.”

Marco laughed. “That’s a good place for them, isn’t it? Who would look there?”

“Good point,” Chris said. “You can be such a fun guy, Marco. Why do you act like a dick so much? What’s the point, really?” He stared at him with defiance.

Marco ignored him and addressed me. “Your energy is remarkable now, Sid. I don’t know where it came from—samadhi alone doesn’t explain it. And it’s beyond the scope of my own in several respects. I want to acknowledge that. But you haven’t outgrown your need for a mentor. Without guidance from someone more experienced at managing energy, you will perish. And there will be collateral damage.”

While he was talking, I did more wishing. I directed Jason’s cuts and bruises to heal. I wished that, when I snapped my fingers, both Sam and Jason would become fully alert, ready to fight if necessary. I also tried to radiate a general stay-away vibe to keep any real doctors or nurses from wandering in.

“I appreciate your concern,” I said. I could sense that whatever other motives Marco had, he also did care about my welfare, and he sincerely believed he could help me. Of course, Marco’s version of sincere was more complex than Joe Q. Average’s. When I continued to scan him, pushing past whatever defenses had shielded him in the past, I was startled to see how conflicted he was. There was no aspect of his psyche that didn’t embody a healthy percentage of its opposite. And all of it was relatively extreme. He was very compassionate, for example. This was an authentic, hard-earned aspect of his outlook and behavior. But simultaneously—they didn’t take turns—Marco was also incredibly angry. The two elements didn’t mix, temper one another, or interact in any way that I could sense. They were just both there.

My rational mind couldn’t make any more sense of it than that. It didn’t feel wrong, though—as though he were broken and needed fixing. Marco was exactly who he should be—like everyone else.

I also understood now who Marco was in a more global sense. He wasn’t the monster that others had depicted—he wasn’t a sociopath. But he certainly wasn’t fully enlightened. His energy and knowledge base were on a par with that status, but his inner chaos bespoke the work that still lay ahead of him. Psychologically and emotionally, he was a well-managed mess. Much of what he said or did was for effect—a performance designed to manipulate people. Even now, in the hospital room, he was posturing and choosing his words with a cunning that undermined his purported spiritual evolution.

“Get out of my head,” Marco said tersely.

I nodded and stopped probing.

“I am who I am,” he said, looking at me intently. “Whether you knew what this was before or you know it now or you wonder about it, I’m still this. Whether we call me Marco or Bruno or a dick”—he nodded to Chris—“I’m this—that which stands before you. Like you and everyone else, I’m ever-changing, but right now, as always, I’m this. Good or bad. Like it or not. All I can be is this.”

“That’s a load of self-serving crap,” Chris said.

Marco glared at him and lost his poise. Perhaps my intrusion into his psyche had been destabilizing.

Energy shot from Marco’s right hand. I could actually see it now as a dark, surging ray in the air. I didn’t wait to see what effect it would have on my best friend. My own energy burst out of me and met Marco’s—blocking and disrupting the visible wave pattern. His energy dissipated harmlessly after a second or two.

“Don’t do that again,” I told Marco.

“What? What do you think I did?”

“Perhaps it wasn’t conscious,” I said. “But you’d better keep your energy under control.”

“Or?” His face was tight and his eyes were fierce.

“Or we’ll end up in some kind of energy war,” I said. “And I don’t think we want that.”

“I might,” Marco said. “If you’re determined to be my enemy, why should I let you continue to develop and perhaps become my equal—or superior?”

“I have no ill will toward you, Marco. I thank you from the bottom of my heart for all your help. You have nothing to fear from me.”

“I wish I could believe that,” he said. “But you have no idea what it’s going to be like to hold so much power. Power really does corrupt. It would be irresponsible of me to allow someone I’ve imbued with this much spiritual energy to administer it without supervision. Would you train a young therapist for a week and then step away and let him screw up clients on his own?”

“Of course not. But that’s an invalid comparison. In your case, we’re talking about involuntary supervision, while my trainees have asked for help. And when I’m working with interns, I don’t sit in the therapy room with them and direct their actions. They approach me for anything they think they need. They set the agenda. Unsolicited help is interference. Give me your cell phone number, and I’ll call you with any questions I have.”

Marco waved his arm in the air. “Words. It’s all just words,” he said. “You talk for a living, Sid. Of course you have words for everything.”

I softened my voice. “I listen for a living,” I said. “And I’m hearing your concerns. What do you need from me to keep this from getting ugly?”

“Uglier,” Chris said.

“Let me in,” Marco said. “Open up and let me in your head the way you were in mine. I’ll take it from there.”

“I can’t do that,” I told him.

He shook his head slowly and then raised his hands in front of his chest. “I’m sorry, Sid,” he said. Then he blasted me with an intense wave of high-pitched energy. I was rocked.

I felt a burning sensation in my chest, and all the muscles in my torso and neck tightened painfully. My head felt as though someone were sticking needles in it. I didn’t know what to do.

“What’s going on?” I heard Chris ask. It sounded as if he were a hundred yards away.

The energy took me over. A frenzied buzzing spun in my gut. Marco’s attack was activating a resonance, and my own energy was being co-opted—used against me. I could barely think or act.

I held up a hand, hoping that something would happen—that my energy would know how to defend itself.

White light shot from my fingertips toward Marco. As it met the dark waves he was directing my way, the two energies merged and morphed into a supercharged field that filled the room with pinpoints of sparkling gold light.

“Hey!” Chris said. “What the fuck!”

Marco switched to another wavelength with a tighter, faster pattern. Despite my best efforts to protect myself, the new energy blasted me again. It was an assault on every level—energetic, of course, but also physical, emotional, and mental. The intense, grinding pain drained my defenses.

Marco knew how to fight this way. I didn’t.

I improvised, radiating a force field of sorts around me. It seemed to help for a time—only a muted version of Marco’s energy penetrated it. But his battering gradually wore me down. I tried to counterattack, but all I could send at that point was intense love.

“That feels great,” Marco said. “Send me more love, Sid.”

I checked on Chris. He was asleep or passed out beside me.

I redoubled my efforts to hold off Marco, and it worked for a while. But I could sense that he expended far less effort generating and sending his energy than I used to defend myself against it. Sooner or later, this equation would tip in his favor.

I snapped my fingers to activate the others. To do so, I had to relinquish my first line of defense—the energy in my hands. An almost unbearable vibration blitzed me—an oscillating, destructive wave. It was going to tear me apart.

Then I heard a shriek, and I refocused on the scene in front of me. The awful energy relented as Sam kicked Marco in the side of the head. Jason rushed the older man from the other side. Marco blocked a follow-up punch from Sam and slid sideways. Just as the Maori began a backhand fist strike, Marco leapt in the air and kicked both of them simultaneously. It was an impossible move—especially in the close quarters of the hospital room.

Sam sprawled onto the floor after taking a blow to the solar plexus. Jason staggered back, having been kicked in the upper thigh, but kept his feet. If Marco had been aiming for his groin, he’d just missed.

I crawled out of bed as Marco came at Jason. The big man surprised him by initiating a quick leg sweep. I don’t think Marco was reading his mind. But he backed away from Jason in time, and a millisecond later, he lashed out a leg of his own to topple him. Jason managed to fall onto the other bed instead of the floor. He was unhurt. Unbelievably quick for someone his size, he scrambled back up.

I looked around for some sort of weapon. All this kung fu was wonderfully cinematic, but a stainless steel bedpan to the back of Marco’s head seemed like a more practical solution.

The fight raged on behind me as I scavenged. God, I was stiff and sore. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Sam rush Marco with a series of punches, each of which he blocked with his forearm. As Jason engaged him simultaneously from the other side, Marco casually flicked away the Maori’s powerful fists with the side of his own. It all looked so effortless. It was hard to imagine Marco could lose this fight.

I couldn’t find anything that would serve as an effective weapon—not even a bed pan. I stood in the corner of the room under the TV and tried to send energy. If I could time it just right, maybe I could throw Marco off-balance and give Sam or Jason an opening. But my energy was weak and diffuse now. I couldn’t target it at all, and as I tried, I felt myself becoming dangerously depleted.

Then I remembered my new ability to influence people—to alter reality, perhaps. Surely I could use that in some way that would influence the outcome of the fight. Suppose I told the TV to jump off its mount and land on Marco’s head? I reached out my will and tested those waters. The TV didn’t budge. Then I thought of something else; I could call in the cavalry.

Sam and Jason held their own for another minute or two, and then I heard footsteps pounding in the hallway outside the room. Three burly security guards burst in. One even held a gun—well, a stun gun.

“All right!” the gun wielder called. “That’s enough!”

Everyone froze, except Chris, who decided to wake up at that point.

“What the fuck?” he said, sitting up.

The spokesperson, flanked by his two colleagues, swiveled and aimed his weapon at Chris.

“Shut up,” he said. “Who’s the perp?”

We all pointed at Marco.

“He impersonated a doctor and broke into our room,” I said. “Be careful. He’s a martial arts master.”

The guard waved his stun gun. “Don’t worry. I’ve got Suzie here, and she doesn’t take any shit from anybody. I don’t care if he’s Mohammed Fucking Ali.”

Marco immediately kicked the gun out of the man’s hand and launched himself in the air. As the guard stood there wondering what had just happened, Marco planted his hands on the man’s shoulders and vaulted over him. He tucked his body into a graceful somersault, landed on his feet, and sprinted away.

After a moment’s hesitation, the three men turned and ran after him. I had no doubt he would escape their clutches.

“Well,” Chris said, “he really stuck the landing. I’m giving him a 9.6.”