45

“You’re not gonna put electrodes in my neck, are you? Because I really don’t want electrodes in my neck. There’s just no good way to accessorize that.”

Aura did her best to get a rise out of Dr. Hope, but so far no luck. A steely façade of sweetness surrounded the bosomy hypnotherapist—or whatever she really was. This woman’s scientific acumen went far beyond a soothing voice and taking people up the imaginary stairway to heaven.

“The EEG monitor records impulses,” Hope replied calmly. “It does not impart any electrical charge. Though I don’t know why you’d care. I hear you’re quite hardy when it comes to torture.”

“Doesn’t mean I enjoy it,” Aura murmured.

“What I find most interesting is that you’re likening yourself to the Frankenstein monster. Many people in the outside world have the same view of Shines.”

“Don’t psychoanalyze me, Doctor. I already have a therapist.”

“And I understand you have a strong preference for his company.” Hope pressed a spongy pad to each of her temples. A wire connected the pads to the mainframe computer. She had no idea what it all did, but she was certain there was more to it than a simple EEG. Most of the tests so far had been disguised. She wasn’t fooled.

“I thought I had to volunteer before this Dr. Mengele clownfest would work.”

Hope sighed a little, the closest she came to a despairing reaction. “Sadly, that is true. The brain comes equipped with its own defenses. You have to lower the walls or the technique will not prove efficacious.”

“I wouldn’t end up brainwashed?”

“You’d end up brain dead. And that’s not our goal.” She paused, and her voice dropped. “Though that would certainly be simpler.”

“What are you doing today?”

“Just getting some preliminary readings. Establishing a base line. So when you do consent, we’ll be able to proceed immediately.”

She squirmed as Hope attached something cold and metallic to her back, pressing against her far too intimately. She was beginning to worry about Dr. Frankenstein’s sexuality. “I notice you didn’t say ‘if.’”

The tiniest trace of a smile crossed Hope’s lips. “No.”

“You’re that certain Dr. Coutant will be able to persuade me? You think I’m that weak?”

“Just the opposite. I think you’re quite strong-willed. You care about others, not just yourself. And that’s your great weakness.”

“I wasn’t aware compassion was a weakness.”

“You might never give in to save yourself. But what about your mother? What about the other girls, your best friends? And that boy…what’s his name? The one who visits you?”

She felt a cold grip on her heart. Taj planned to return day after tomorrow.

“You may be tough when the cattle prod is on you, Aura. But how will you feel when it’s someone else? Someone you love. And you’re watching. Listening to them screaming. Begging for mercy. Dying by inches. How long will you resist then?”

An image flashed in her mind. Beverly strung up in that cell again, black bugs crawling out of her mouth. Limbs swelling, body spasming. Blood gushing from her eyes and ears.

And then the face changed. To Twinge. Dream. Harriet. Tank.

Taj.

Mark.

How long would she last? Not very long.

Enjoy your brain, girl. You won’t have it much longer.

***

Dr. Coutant watched Aura and Dr. Hope through the two-way mirror. The setup was not terribly subtle. If she were incarcerated here, she’d never go near a mirror. She’d be suspicious of everything and everyone. Perhaps that was her nature, so different from Aura’s. Or maybe that was what these years enslaved to Dr. Estes had done to her.

She’d endured it all, because she had no choice. She fought for a greater good. Sometimes sacrifices had to be made. You can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs, right? So she agreed to take this position at what they laughingly called a rehab. She agreed to oversee Aura’s conditioning. She even agreed to become her torturer.

Though not her executioner.

This put her in a position to do the most good, to have the greatest influence.

When the time came for her to break away, to take decisive action, she would not hesitate.

Aura never asked to be the linchpin of this brave new world. But she was, just the same. Maybe she didn’t deserve this fate. Maybe no one did. But we have to play the cards we’re dealt.

She played just as fast as she possibly could. But she didn’t hold the trumps. She didn’t even hold a particularly strong hand.

She had to destroy Aura. She had to destroy her to save her.

She faced opposition from all sides. No matter. She would fight to the finish, with the last ounce of strength in her body. She would never stop fighting, not till she was cold and dead and lying on a slab somewhere. Maybe not even then.

There was no force on earth more powerful than a mother fighting for her child.

***

“Does she know you’re watching her?” Reverend Trent asked.

“Not a clue,” Dr. Estes replied.

“Slick.” He gazed at the virtual image projected into the middle of Estes’s lab, which gave them real-time images from Coutant’s office. “I might need to get one of these gizmos myself.”

“You already have one,” Estes said, not as a challenge, but simply as a matter-of-fact. “You use them to monitor your top operatives.”

“Seems you know more about my operation than you let on.”

“I know more about everything than I let on.”

He had never visited Estes’s office on Antolina Island before. Never felt the need to come to this rehab cum fortress. Normally people came to him. He preferred it that way. Once he had folks in his million-dollar penthouse office atop the tallest skyscraper in LA, all questions about who was in control vanished.

But Dr. Estes was a special case. Estes stood at the forefront of Shine research. He was the first to identify the phenomenon, to define its biological roots. He isolated the genome while the rest of the scientific community debated whether the phenomenon was real. His insight into the situation was so advanced it had led some jealous pundits to wonder if he hadn’t created the situation himself somehow, just to give himself a field of inquiry he could dominate. He suspected that wasn’t true, but he liked to think it was.

He admired a man who thought the same way he did.

“It’s an age-old question,” Trent said. “Biblical, even. Who watches the watchers? And it turns out—it’s you.”

Estes fiddled with his tablet. “Dr. Coutant has proved to be a useful asset. But that doesn’t mean I trust her. She’s a woman. She has a…shall we say, personal stake. I keep an eye on her.”

“The amount of information you’ve amassed on Shines is incredible. So I won’t question your methods.”

“Thank you.”

“But I wonder if it might be possible for us to advance…our mutually beneficial working arrangement.”

Again, Estes did not look up. Which annoyed the hell out of him. Maybe that was why he did it. “I know what you want from me. But I can’t think of anything I want from you.”

He grinned, that broad charismatic smile he’d perfected in tent revivals and a thousand reception lines. “Now if that were true, I don’t think you’d have let me through the front door. You’re much too busy to waste time on people you don’t think can help you.”

Estes did not reply. But he didn’t argue, either.

“You have all this data,” he continued. “I have enormous resources. Money, to be blunt. Not to mention the largest army of followers possessed by anyone save the military. All under my direct control.”

Estes looked up for the first time. “Except they’re not just under your control, are they?”

He was unsure how to respond. “All I have to do is make a phone call and—”

“Santa Monica,” Estes said, cutting him off. “The alleged Shine implosion. Your SSSers were present. As soon as the Shines arrived, they raised a riot so intense the police could barely control them. And they were taking orders.” Estes made eye contact for the first time, a gaze so direct and intense he found he had to look away. “But they weren’t taking those orders from you, were they?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“What’s even more problematic is that one of the Shines picked up on the messages. Everyone focuses on Aura, but Harriet may pose the more immediate threat.”

“Still don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Let me tell you about alliances, Reverend. They’re not based solely on mutually desired objectives. They also must be based upon trust.” He paused, just long enough. “As long as you’re lying to me, I can’t trust you.”

He hesitated. He hadn’t spoken about this to anyone. But he needed Estes in his corner. “Some of my troops did report a…strange neurological occurrence.”

“And you’ve the seen the reports about Reykjavik. Surely you see the connections.”

“Other than oddness, no.”

“You’re dissembling, Reverend. Something is out there. We don’t know what it is or what it wants. But it appears to be focused on Shines.”

“Nonetheless, I am in complete control of my forces. And I can offer them to you. Along with all my other resources. And the tallest building in the city. Which could prove useful to someone wanting to…broadcast a signal.”

Estes nodded. “You are indeed well informed, Reverend.”

“There’s not much I don’t know.”

Estes walked to the nearest lab table and punched a few buttons on the 3-D printer. “The fool believes he knows everything. The wise man realizes he knows nothing at all.”

“I’m no fool, Doctor.”

“Nor I, Reverend.”

So this was destined to be a tense alliance at best. Maybe that was best. Estes struck him as a man accustomed to bullying his way to whatever he wanted. “I’m familiar with your modifications of the Faraday cage, if that label is even accurate anymore. But you will require both a broadcast point and a mobile receiver, correct? I can provide both.”

“I don’t need you.”

“Don’t you? Your experiments with tainting the air and tainting the food didn’t work out so well, did they? Zero long-term impact on Shine ability.” For the first time, he sensed discomfort. Good. That was much more to his liking. Better to get out of Estes’s comfort zone and back into his own. “Those preliminary chromosomal transfers didn’t work out so well, either, did they?”

He detected the slight tensing of Estes’s fingers. “It seems your government connections are deeper than I realized.”

“And now you’re preparing Phase Five, even though the last two phases were basically complete disasters. If I were you, I’d be pretty worried.”

The two men stared at one another silently.

He understood the risks he took, challenging Estes, the most powerful man in the Shine scientific continuum. But he had a purpose. And he had never been one to shy away from anything that might help him accomplish his purpose.

Time to deliver the fatal blow.

“I can help you in one other area in which you have been relentlessly unsuccessful, Doctor. I can help you obtain test subjects. For Phase Five.”

“Can you not see that I have access to the greatest inventory of Shines—”

“But it’s not quite enough, is it? The Chief is only interested in girls. You’re taking a broader view. Girls are too volatile. Unreliable. Hormonal. Saint Paul was right. If you can live without women, you should. Your research in the underground dungeon has just about peaked out, hasn’t it? Which is why you’re shutting it all down and taking your research elsewhere. Moving in a different direction. You’re going to need help. More than the Chief will be willing to provide.”

“And what is it you want in return?”

“Complete access to your data. Don’t think you can get away with hiding anything from me. I’ll know.”

“I would’ve thought you already had complete access. Since you have your tenterhooks in the Chief.”

“Ah, but you haven’t given the Chief quite everything either, have you?”

More staring, culminating in Estes turning away, setting down his tablet, and chuckling. “You prove to be a formidable collaborator, Reverend. If that’s the correct word.”

“I believe formidable is a good word for me.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“I am aware that you have your own agenda, Estes. Which is undoubtedly why you’re holding back from the Chief.”

“The Chief just wants a weapon. I want a new world order.”

“Yes, the Chief only sees the short game, unlike us. You won’t be surprised to hear that I have my own agenda as well.”

“No indeed.”

“So can we work together. As partners.”

Estes’s head bobbed. He had the eccentric professor act down cold. “I believe perhaps we can. But let me ask you this. What happens if, once my work here is complete, I find it necessary to…clean the slate. If you know what I mean.”

“I do.”

“Unlike the Chief, I have no sentimental attachment to these Shines. Not even Aura. Maybe she does have the greatest potential. That’s no reason to let a loose cannon keep firing. Just the opposite, in fact.”

“Well, you know my position. If it becomes desirable or necessary to…wipe the slate…you’ll get no resistance from me.”

Estes turned back to his work. “Good to know, Reverend. Good to know.”

***

Agent Coal couldn’t be more pleased. This time even the Chief, who had opposed this surveillance from the start, couldn’t complain. She had cold hard proof of what she had suspected all along.

Dr. Simon Estes could not be trusted. Relying so heavily upon him to solve the Shine crisis was a suicide play.

“And he has no idea we’re watching?” the Chief said.

“None. State of the art surveillance equipment. Hardwired into his tablets, glasses, and watch. I can record everything he sees, hears, or does. And I can show it to you.”

“I knew he’d talked to Trent. But this is a virtual conspiracy. Treason. Do you have any idea what he’s holding back?”

“You heard what he said. You want a weapon.”

“To deal with a global crisis!”

“I know, I know. But he wants something more. Because he has a different agenda.”

“Could be innocuous. Scientists always have their heads in the clouds.” Through the virtual image, she saw the Chief lean back. “I don’t much care for the sound of ‘new world order.’”

“I didn’t think you would.”

“I believe it’s time for you and your team to move in, Coal. Decisively. Immediately.”

“I agree.”

“Strike with maximum force. Leave no traces.”

“Understood.”

“Don’t screw it up.” The transmission ended.

Her teeth clenched. No matter what she did, the ingrate always treated her like a child.

Fine. Made her job that much easier. Treason was the right word.

The Chief just didn’t understand who the real threat was.