ALEX STILL COULDN’T FIND Marit’s long hall. He had the feeling he had been looking a long time, but it felt like he had just begun. Beyond his perception, he could sense there was a very large world to explore, but first he wanted to find Marit again. He wanted to ask her to explain more about the danger he was to face.
Besides, he didn’t want to go home, either. It was peaceful here. Nothing really bothered him, if he didn’t want it to.
But there was something ahead. Beckoning. He couldn’t really see it, but it called to him like a magnet to filings. He was supposed to go there and so he leaned toward it. Suddenly he was there.
It was a room he recognized. Captain Baker’s room at the precinct. Sydney’s precinct. She was there, standing right in front of him. She was facing Baker as he sat behind his desk and there were two other lieutenants in the room. The door was closed.
Alex moved around them, until he was behind the captain’s desk and could see Sydney’s face. Something shifted inside him as he looked at her. She was so beautiful! Even with her face drawn into an angry scowl she was a delight.
No one appeared to be able to see him. He had come upon other places in this gray world and seen other people, but the only person who had ever been able to see him and speak to him had been Marit. He held no fear now, as he stood beside the captain and listened.
“He made us all look like fools!” Sydney raged. “Miranda rights are drilled into the youngest rookie. Everyone knows how to issue them. And to fuck up with such a high profile public figure!”
“Now, Lieutenant, we’ve all made mistakes from time to time, even you,” the captain said.
“This wasn’t a failure to sign a warrant, Captain! He made the whole case implode inside five minutes just because he couldn’t keep his goddam dick out of it.”
The other two lieutenants snickered, but the captain grew red in the face. “Lieutenant Brixton works a hard line, we all know that. But he’s a good, honest cop. It was just our bad luck the perp had an appeals judge in his pocket. Those fellows know constitutional law backward, sideways and through to Sunday.”
“Our bad luck?” Sydney repeated. “Captain, we would still be swearing in a jury right now if Brixton hadn’t been so in love with his own ego and forgotten basic police work.”
“I’ve heard your complaint, Lieutenant Stevens. Thank you, that will be all.” The captain’s face was closed off. Alex knew Sydney would get nothing out of him now. Apparently, so did Sydney. She straightened, almost as if she was at attention. “Sir, I intend to file a report with Internal Affairs.”
The captain stared at her for a long moment. “Knock yourself out, Lieutenant,” he said finally.
Sydney nodded and left the room, shutting the door behind her. Alex wanted to follow her out, but the three in the room exchanged glances, with expressions that made him stay right where he was.
“You’re going to let her talk to I.A., Captain?” the Irish-looking one with the pug nose asked.
The captain sighed and brushed his hand back and forth through his crew cut. “I can’t stop her. Everyone has a right to talk to those pricks whenever they want. She didn’t even have to tell me.”
“Her mistake,” Pug Nose said softly.
The captain looked at him.
“Something needs to be done about her,” Pug Nose added.
The captain threw his pen down and tugged at his jacket. “Now, I don’t know…”
“Quietly,” Pug said. “Very quietly.”
The other lieutenant, a bald black man, spoke for the first time. “I can take care of that.”
The captain looked at him. “You have something on her?”
The black man opened his mouth and the captain’s hand shot up. “No. I don’t want to know what it is.”
“Does that mean you want me to take care of it?” the black man asked.
The captain blew out his cheeks with a gusty sigh. “Yes,” he said finally. “Goddamn it, yes. Get her out of my precinct, one way or another. Just don’t let it come back in any way. If Internal Affairs knocks on my door, I’ll know exactly who to point to.”
The black man grinned. “There’s no way anyone will see this coming,” he said.
Alex leapt across the room, leaning in the way that would make him move faster. Doors were no barriers in this world. He had to find Sydney. He had to warn her.
But she wouldn’t see him here. She wouldn’t hear him.
He threw himself upward, spiraling up like a swimmer straining for the surface. In a way, he was reaching for the surface. It was faster than trying to go back, because retracing his route never brought him to where he had started.
He burst through the surface, with almost a popping sound and gasped aloud, sitting up. He looked around.
Veris was crouched in front of him, a syringe in his big hand. Brody was sitting on the edge of a dining chair, just behind him. When Alex looked at him, Brody sat back with a heavy sigh. “Thank the fucking Lord.”
Taylor came hurrying into the room. “I couldn’t find saline. Will common table salt do, Veris?”
Veris stood up and tossed the syringe onto the table. “I don’t think we’ll need it now.”
Alex looked around at the three of them. “What are you doing here?”
Veris settled himself on the edge of the table and crossed his arms, making the muscles ripple. “I could ask you the same thing.”
“We’ve been so worried, Alex,” Taylor added. “Veris didn’t think you’d come out of it.”
Alex pushed on the carpet to try to get up and fell back, surprised, as his muscles didn’t cooperate. He had been sitting on the dining room floor, his back against the wall. For a moment he was thankful he wasn’t naked. He had outgrown the irritation that his clothing delivered. But when he tried to get up again, he couldn’t.
“You’ve been out for a while. ‘Out’,” Brody repeated slowly, “I don’t know what else to call it.”
“Idiocy is a good name.” Veris picked up the pile of papers on the table. “What on earth did you think you were doing, Alex?
“You’ve read them all?” he asked.
“And the real files on your laptop,” Veris said.
“How long have you been here?” Alex asked. His time sense was completely distorted. He couldn’t sense what time it was now.
“Four days,” Taylor said softly. She pulled out one of the dining chairs and sat in it, her hands held tightly together. “Well, mostly Veris has been, trying to figure out what you did to yourself.”
“Four days…” Alex shook his head. “It’s never been this long before.”
“I found your logs, too,” Veris said. “You’ve been experimenting on yourself for over a year. Ever since you threw in the towel on God. It’s like we don’t know you anymore.”
“This wasn’t a fancy form of suicide, if that’s what you’re thinking,” Alex said. He tried to get up again and swore. “If someone could help me into the kitchen, there’s a pint of blood in the fridge.”
Taylor stood up. “I’ll get it.”
Veris reached out his hand and Brody moved a chair around next to him as Alex took the offered hand. Then Veris hoisted him up and lowered him onto the chair. Taylor came hurrying back with the blood bag and held it out to him. “I’ll wait in the living room.”
“Stay,” Veris growled. “Alex can fucking well feed with an audience. I have a few things to say.”
Alex sighed and bit into the bag. The blood fever didn’t overwhelm him for he was too wasted for that. This sort of muscle stiffness was something he remembered from when he was human. He drank slowly. Even cold, the blood spread warmth through him and he could feel the kinks unwinding.
“Can you hear me?” Veris asked. His voice boomed, but was perfectly clear. Alex nodded.
“I read all your research, but the logs of your trials are the alarming stuff. If you put together the drug’s potential effects on the brain with your notes on the trials…are you aware that you’ve been very nearly on the verge of self-induced seizures?”
The hunger was starting to fade, letting him think better. Alex shook his head. “No.”
“The feeling of some impending event…something coming, something exciting. You’re describing classic petit mal seizures, reported by thousands of sufferers. It’s called Jamais vu.”
“I’m an internist,” Alex pointed out. “Not a neurologist.”
“Then why the fuck are you messing with this?” Veris cried and threw the papers back on the table with a thump.
“Veris,” Brody said softly.
“No, I won’t take it easy on him. He’s a fucking doctor of medicine, he should know better!”
Alex straightened up in the chair. His sight was returning to human normal now that he had fed enough. “The seizure symptoms subsided once I learned how to avoid stirring them. Then the other events started happening.”
“Events?” Brody repeated and looked at Veris.
Veris shook his head. “I have no idea what he’s talking about.”
“I have been travelling to different places. Some I know. Some I don’t.”
Veris leaned on the table with both fists clamped tight and gave a deep sigh.
“Astral projection?” Taylor asked.
“That’s the stuff of fantasies,” Brody said.
“So is time travel,” she replied calmly.
Veris looked at her, then he straightened up. “Okay. Your notes are not complete, clearly.”
“I’ve been distracted lately,” Alex said.
“We know,” Brody said. “Why do you think we’re here?”
Alex looked at them, puzzled.
“Sydney phoned us,” Taylor said. Hers was the only voice in the room that wasn’t angry to one degree or another.
Sydney. Alex tried to get up out of the chair but his muscles were still not cooperating. “She’s in trouble,” he told them. “I have to warn her.”
“You’re not going anywhere for at least twenty-four hours,” Veris told him flatly.
“You don’t understand. I saw her when I was there, when I was out. They’re plotting something.”
“What do you mean you saw?” Brody demanded.
Veris held up his hand. “No, we’re not going to pick at this piece meal. Taylor, are you hungry? Is there anything here you can eat?”
Taylor stood up. “I should go home. It’s getting late. I’ll see to the kids.” She kissed Veris quickly and Brody, too, then surprised Alex by kissing his cheek. “Take care,” she murmured.
Veris sat on the chair she had been using. “Okay, so start from the top. Tell us everything. Including why on earth you started this insane project.”
Alex sighed. “It could take a while,” he warned them.
“We have the time,” Veris said dryly. “Start talking.”
* * * * *
It did take a while. It took two more days. Brody soon grew weary of it, for only Veris could follow the chemical equations as Alex spelled them out to him. Taylor came and went, checking on them, but not bothering them with demands they return home or that the children missed them.
Brody remained in the house, although he did not always stay in the room. He would come back in and listen to the conversation for a few minutes, stay if he felt like it, or leave. There was only one time he did leave the house, and that was to feed.
Alex found the stiffness left him after a few hours and he was able to stand up and move around. That made things easier, for he could pull out notes and references as he explained.
Veris pulled over a blank pad of paper and began to write notes of his own. Not very often, so Alex assumed he was building a high level summary.
Finally, Alex ran out of things to say. He sat in the chair again and leaned forward, letting his hands hang loosely between his knees.
Veris stared at the pad in front of him, also silent.
Brody came into the room. “Silence, at last,” he said. “What’s the verdict?”
“Speaking of which, Brody, you were a lawyer, once. Why didn’t you know about the Miranda thing?”
“I was a solicitor in England,” Brody said. “Anyway, I do know the Miranda act now, but I don’t remember much about that night. It was just as big a surprise to me as everyone else. I don’t even remember being read my rights in the first place.”
“How can that be?” Alex said, marveling. “Our memories are pure.”
“Assuming you form the memories in the first place,” Veris said, his tone distant. He was concentrating on his notes. “Brody was overloaded with adrenaline and his perceptions were completely screwed. I don’t think he could have told you what century he was in, that night.”
Brody shrugged. “I think I was actually back in the fifth century for a bit. In my head, anyway.”
Veris sat up. “Damn! Brody, you’re brilliant.” He pulled the pad around so it was square in front on him. “Yes, of course!” He looked up at Alex. “I think you’ve created the chemical equivalent of a time travel pill.”
Alex stared at him. “I’m not a physicist.”
“I’m a good jackleg physicist and I want to work out the physics later, but this isn’t a physical thing. Brody, remember Tira said she had time travelled? She called it a sharing of memories.”
“Which is what we figured that the three of us did the first couple of times, until Taylor really got the hang of flipping whatever switch it is in her head,” Brody said in agreement.
“This serum Alex has developed was to counteract a sedative that is powerful enough to knock out vampires. The serum stimulates the brain and results in an electrical storm, with synapses firing wildly. That’s exactly what happens to the brain during a seizure. But with a higher doze, Alex moved past the seizures mode and turned on more and more areas. He was temporarily increasing the capacity the brain had to work with. There’s been research on this. When a human’s brain capacity is increased beyond the standard ten percent nearly all of us use, then some of the abilities that appear are the stuff of science fiction. Mind reading, telekinesis, super computer-like computational skills…and this was from switching on a mere one percent more.”
Brody leaned forward. “That is what Alex has been doing? On his own?”
Veris tapped the pad in front of him. “He spoke with Marit and he saw Sydney. Marit…well, let’s leave that problem for another day and work on the baseline. Alex saw places and events that he has never seen before.”
“In his mind, sure,” Brody said.
“It was too real,” Alex said quietly. “Too detailed. Memory recall, even ours, is fuzzy around the edges because we weren’t looking at those details when the memory is made. So the memory is like looking through a fish eye lens. These places I saw, they were as detailed and felt as real as it feels standing here right now.”
Brody sat back. “So prove it.”
Veris smiled and dropped the pen on the pad and sat back, too. Now they were both looking at him expectantly.
“Prove what how?” Alex asked reasonably.
“You say you saw Sydney being threatened in her office, didn’t you?” Brody said. “So ask her if that conversation really took place.”
Alex shook his head. “You ask her. I’m not going anywhere near her.”
Veris stood up. “You’re going to let both of them influence your life even when they’re not here. Alex, this search for meaning has got to stop.”
“No, Veris,” Brody said softly. “Not now.”
“What not now?” Alex demanded.
“You’ve been lost for over a year, sunk into a hole that no one seems to be able to pull you out of, including yourself,” Veris said. “You’re looking for the meaning of life, your purpose, like it’s a chest buried on a desert island somewhere and if you can only find the map, you’ll be happy. Happy doesn’t work that way.”
“I know what will make me happy,” Alex said and his heart lurched.
“Kids don’t provide meaning,” Veris shot back. “A family doesn’t guarantee happiness. You have to find it yourself or you’ll fuck up your life and theirs by expecting them to make your life better. You have to look after yourself, first.”
“And confronting Sydney about an event that might or might not have happened, that I have no earthly right knowing that it happened at all…that is looking after myself?” Alex said.
“No,” Brody said quietly. “You confront Sydney and find out that the world doesn’t fall apart and crumble if you can’t have her.”
Alex hung his head. “Damn,” he muttered. “You’re really going to make me do this?”
“No, you’re going to do it because it’s the only way to prove you saw something that actually happened,” Veris said flatly. “If you don’t prove this, then you’re demonstrating instead that you’re just another junkie who likes to disappear inside his own head. A very gifted and creative one, but an addict, just the same.”
Alex considered Veris. His heart was hurting from all the unaccustomed spikes and alarms it had been processing. “You do know how to cut to the chase, don’t you?”
“He hews too close,” Brody replied.
“No, don’t apologize for him,” Alex said.
Veris shrugged. “We have to take what we want, Alex. Our lives are too long, our days too many, to let others shape it for us.”
Alex stood up. “You’re right, of course.”
Veris nodded. “Want us to drive you there? Your reactions might still be slow.”
“Human slow?” Alex asked dryly. “I think I’ll survive among all the other human slow drivers out there. Besides, it’s time I started acting and stopped thinking so much.”