Rydel stepped out of the taxi and looked up at the white brick church wedged between two red brick buildings. It wasn't Saint Patrick's, but it was a well-kept church many Catholics in the city chose because of its simplistic beauty. It was for those who truly just wanted to pray, confess, and feel closer to God.
Rydel walked up the church steps and entered. Inside, candles adorned each wall around the church. Stations of the Cross, the paintings counting down Jesus's Fate, lined the walls on either side. Rydel stood before the pews in front of him and waited. When she’d called, Karen's mother superior told Rydel over the phone where to meet her. She would not give the name of the hospital Karen was in or any other information before hanging up. Karen had not been admitted to the few hospitals he was able to call on the train ride in. Taking a vow for religion is one thing, but keeping information about a family member is another, Rydel furiously thought as he waited.
He heard light footsteps from behind and turned to face a woman in her mid-fifties dressed in a black shirt and black pants. As she approached, the woman's eyes, ice blue, looked just as hard and angry as Rydel felt. And it gave him a moment of pause. Just seconds before, he wanted to scream at this woman for not telling him over the phone where he could find his sister—who was very sick, as the woman put it. But now, the woman—unlike the last time they had met—looked at him like he was shit on her heels.
"Hello, Rydel. I wanted to meet you here because—you might laugh—by some miracle from God, I was able to find the number to reach you so that we could talk."
"For security reasons, my cell phone is the only number I can be reached at."
"I understand that. And as your sister's condition worsened, she refused to give me that number. I found her cell phone hidden under her mattress while she was asleep and got your number. When we first met, I got the impression you two were close?"
"We are close."
"Did you have a falling-out?"
"No!"
"I find it hard to believe Karen would not want the only family member she has left in this world to be by her bedside now."
"You find it hard to believe because it's not true. And if you do not take me to my sister right now, the people I work for will make sure you do. I can have them here in minutes. Where is my sister?" Rydel shouted, his voice echoing throughout the church.
"Why would you threaten me like that? I reached out to you to see if there was a way you could forgive whatever quarrel the two of you may have had…to see if there was a way for you to get away from this all-important job of yours to be with Karen in her worsening condition."
"Of course I can. She's all I have. She…"
Rydel stopped talking. It was starting to make sense. He took a seat in a pew to his right and stared up at the cross hanging above the altar.
"Is that what she told you? She was worried about what might happen if I left my job…what kind of trouble I would be in, what kind of danger."
Karen's mother superior shook her head.
"No. She told me you knew about the illness."
"What?"
"She said you knew."
"I didn't know a thing about it—what the hell is going on here?"
__
Rydel sat restlessly in the back seat of a cab on his way to Lenox Hill Hospital. Karen's mother superior was glad to give Rydel the address of Karen's hospital once it became clear to her it had all been a misunderstanding, a very convoluted misunderstanding. Maybe in her condition, Karen was not in her right mind. With the church and its secrecy, this all could have gone another way, Rydel knew. Therefore, he set aside his feelings of anger toward Karen's mother superior, who had finally introduced herself as Grace Rose.
As the lights of the city passed over his face, Rydel could not get her words or the look on Grace Rose's face out of his head. She really thought he was a brother wanting nothing to do with his own flesh and blood. The woman was obviously protecting one of her own. But why? Why would Karen make this woman think they had such a bad falling-out?
The cab pulled up a few feet away from the entrance to the hospital. Rydel paid the driver with a fifty-dollar bill and stepped out of the cab without bothering with the change for a $19.60 fare.
Through the parting hospital doors, Rydel approached the receptionist's desk. A woman in her thirties with jet-black hair, heavy makeup, and a gummy smile spoke to Rydel in a smoky voice.
"How can I help you, sir?"
"I'm here to see Karen Scott. I'm her brother."
After finishing all the formalities, proving he was who he said he was, Rydel was told the floor and room where his sister was located.
On the eleventh floor, Rydel looked for room 18. As he walked down the hallway, most of the doors he passed were open; his sister's door was closed. Hand on the doorknob, Rydel opened the door, not knowing what to expect.
"Jesus."
His sister lay asleep on the hospital bed. Her body, half-covered in bedsheets, showed the frail shape of a woman Rydel was having a hard time recognizing—a dying woman withered and weak. The air she took in appeared to be a hardship with each single breath.
Karen opened her eyes and tilted her head toward Rydel. Her eyes were in contrast to her body; her eyes were alive, alert, and excited to see him. She smiled.
"Hey." The rasping voice that came out of his sister sounded alien to Rydel.
He rushed over to the bed and almost grabbed hold of his sister to hug her tightly, but he stopped himself. Fiercely embracing Karen probably would have ended her life—her body was so utterly frail, ghost-like.
Rydel dropped to one knee by the side of the bed and shook his head, not understanding. Karen reached out, and Rydel gently cupped her hand in his.
"Karen, why didn't you let me know you were sick? Why have you been hiding it from me?"
"Later, Rydel. I will tell you later."
Her breathing labored, her body fighting to stay alive, Karen closed her eyes and slept.
__
Five hours passed, and Rydel never left the room once. A nurse named Peggy tried to convince Rydel to go home (having no idea how far away his home was) and get some rest. It took Rydel only a few minutes to convince the nurse he would not be going anywhere—that he would be here as long as he needed to be—and asked her to bring some things to make himself somewhat comfortable.
Near the window inside the room, the nurse and her superior set up a chair with a footstool, blankets, and pillows and brought in a bedside table with wheels. They also placed a nightlight in an outlet below the window for Rydel to see where he could plug in the laptop he'd brought with him in a shoulder bag. He finally left the room briefly while Peggy changed his sister's bedding.
Now alone with Karen, the first sound of thunder finally came. Rydel stood by the window for over half an hour, watching the gray clouds form above the city, listening to his sister fighting to breathe behind him. Another rumbling sound as light-tapping rain hit the pane of glass in front of him. He almost began to cry along with the rain—but held it back. Another feeling started to take over, a feeling of contempt toward this God his sister devoutly served with everything she had in her beautiful soul. And this is what she received for her complete devotion—to suffer in a wasted shell of a body at the age of twenty-seven.
How incredibly cruel, he thought. Suddenly, Rydel's awareness of his surroundings alarmed him that something was wrong. He could not hear Karen breathing anymore.
Turning, he came face-to-face with Karen standing in front of him and took a startled step backward. Not just because of the sight of his sister out of bed—but her appearance. She looked healthy, vibrant. Karen reached out with both hands and touched Rydel's face.
"He came to me. He has been guiding you these past few years. At last, finding the right soul to give the knowledge to, the one who will help save His Son. He told me about your Placement."
"How? How do you know about Placement?"
"By the broken fence leading to the field where we would play as kids…there is something He needs to show you, Rydel."
"Who?"
Karen closed her eyes and slowly fell forward into Rydel's open arms. Rydel carried Karen back to the bed, placing her down softly, staring down at his sister as her body continued to heal right in front of him. Rydel moved away from the bed and stumbled out of the room, running toward the nurses on duty just down the hallway, the two talking quietly to each other.
Rydel had met the nurses before, but now, frantic, he could not recall their names.
"Nurse!"
"Mr. Scott—what is it?" the taller of the two nurses, Jackie, asked.
"Something has happened to my sister!" Rydel shouted.
Rydel spun away from the two women and ran back inside Karen's room. The two nurses ran after him, both sharing the same thought—the vital signs monitor had gone down (happening only one time on record at the hospital five years ago) and Karen had passed without anyone noticing but her brother, watching over her in the room.
The two women entered the room to see Rydel kneeling at his sister's bedside with his head lowered. They looked over the patient, then the machines in the room, and everything seemed to be working.
Rydel quickly turned toward the two.
"No, no, no! She wasn't like this before!"
"Calm down, Mr. Scott. She wasn't like what? What did you see—what happened?" Jackie asked.
"She wasn't dying! She was cured!"
__
Early the next day, Rydel sat alone and impatiently in an office, waiting for Karen's doctor, the sunlight streaming through the windows behind an oak desk in front of him. A man in his forties with sandy hair entered the office. He walked behind the desk and eased down into a high-back gray swivel chair.
Lee Stepneake was a man with an excellent reputation not only for saving lives but also for his amazing bedside manner. It was a blessing the way Dr. Stepneake cared for a dying patient as well as for their family.
Knowing Rydel was a man of science—having talked with him briefly—Lee saw no need to comfort Rydel and therefore skipped the approach he was well regarded for by so many. He was at the end of a twenty-hour shift; he was tired and hungry and wanted to go home.
"Your sister has only weeks to live. I am sorry."
Another doctor entered the room—a woman with frazzled hair and eyes that seemed almost halfway shut. Rydel knew the look all too well with the hours he put in at the lab. The woman walked over and stood next to Dr. Stepneake without saying a word.
Rydel nodded a hello toward the woman, acknowledging her, and returned his attention to Dr. Stepneake.
"She got out of her bed. Coherent. Healthy, it seemed. Somehow, something is happening inside her that's trying to fight off the illness. I saw it happen."
The half-awake woman glanced down at Dr. Stepneake and then stepped closer to Rydel. "Mr. Scott, she hasn't been able to get out of her bed for over two months now. You are tired. Believe me, I understand. The mind can play cruel tricks when a loved one is dying."
Rydel quickly stood up and paced in front of the two doctors, shaking his head, knowing very well what the two were trying to do with him now. He came to an abrupt stop and pointed a finger in the face of the woman doctor with the slept-in hair and droopy eyes.
"Don't talk to me like that, damn it! I know what I saw. I didn't imagine what happened. I'm not crazy!"
"No, you are not. However, the way you are screaming right now, you do sound a little crazy."
Frustrated, Rydel turned away and bolted toward the office door. On his way out, he suddenly stopped.
"I know what I saw."
__
Rydel spent the morning and afternoon with his sleeping sister. By early evening, he was out of the Hertz car-rental office on 76th Street and in his rented Chevrolet Impala, navigating the streets of Manhattan.
He was heading back to his childhood home in New Jersey.
The hour-long drive seemed like the first time in years he felt calm and at ease. A soothing, whispering voice was calling him to the place his sister had told him to go. He had complete fluidity in his thoughts and a feeling of peacefulness flowing throughout his body.
Everything he was working on at the lab pushed its way out of his mind, and a calming presence began to wash over him. Now his work wasn’t all-consuming. Those thoughts were put aside—not gone, but on the back burner.
Where he was going became all that mattered. Where he was going would give Karen what she needed. Rydel had no idea what that was, but he knew he had to reach the place his sister had talked about, hoping that the fence and the field would still be there.
The field and remnants of the old broken fence were still there. Nothing much had changed. The house looked different on the property, refurbished. However, the large backyard property line of his childhood home had not changed at all. The homeowners of the present, feeling it was also too much of a hassle to landscape the entire acreage of the property, ignored the fact that the overgrown, weed-strewn wasteland with tall trees dotted here and there was theirs to upkeep.
Standing in the knee-high grass with a half-dead tree behind him, Rydel took it all in. Memories of being a young boy playing hide-and-seek with friends, running after his sister, times when they would—
"Remember playing out here when we were kids, Rydel?"
Rydel turned around so fast he lost his footing and went down on his knees. He lifted his head to see his sister in her hospital nightgown, smiling down at him. Small patches of moonlight lit her face, and thin tree-limb shadows covered her body.
On his feet, Rydel clumsily stepped closer toward Karen, his legs unsure and his head trying to process what he was seeing. She's not here. She can't be—your mind is not working properly. Too much work. Too much to take, knowing Karen is going to die. Too much!
Rydel closed his eyes, feeling the wind move over him, seeing and thinking nothing, taking time to calm his mind. He breathed in the air passing over him, and the smell of the greenery around him began to make him feel better.
A hand touched the side of Rydel's right cheek, and his eyes snapped open. He was now standing face-to-face with his sister.
"This can't be possible."
"God has given me an extension of life in this world. My life should have ended by now, Rydel. This night is why I kept my illness from you—to show you God's miracle. To make sure you do what needs to be done. There is a reason you discovered Placement. You need to follow me now."
Karen let her hand fall slowly away from the side of Rydel's face. She walked past him into the field, and Rydel followed. She walked toward a circular clearing with a sky-reaching dawn redwood placed in the middle of the overgrown landscape.
Rydel stopped and rubbed his eyes. And when he was finished, Karen was suddenly sitting under the towering redwood with her back against the tree, sixty feet away.
"Come sit with me, Rydel," she called out.
Fear hit Rydel hard. He feared not just for himself but also for what he could do to help others with his mind's abilities, saving lives with his work.
God, I'm losing my mind.
"You are not losing your mind, Rydel. Come and sit with me. We have a lot to talk about," Karen said, just loud enough to be heard.
The inflection changed in her voice. She spoke in her normal speaking voice from before she became ill; however, there was now this underlying warmth coming from her. With the soothing tone of voice drawing him in, Rydel was starting to peacefully accept what was happening.
Rydel smiled back at his sister, who still sat sixty feet away, and walked over to her. After lowering himself and leaning against the tree, Rydel touched Karen's face, the face of a healthy twenty-seven-year-old woman.
"You're cured. How?"
"By God."
"I don't understand."
As he faced his sister, Rydel's mind began to question what he was seeing. This is not your sister. You are just seeing what you want to see. You are imagining this image of her.
"You're not imagining what you are seeing, Rydel. I am healed right here in front of you now."
"That's not possible. My mind has just created you. I wish to God you were cured, Karen. But I'm starting to understand what is happening. The doctors were right. I am worn out. I'm surprised I made it here without getting in some sort of accident. You are back at the hospital, you are dying, and I will always miss you."
Rydel got back up on his feet and turned away from his sister. After taking three steps, the redwood tree he had been leaning against landed on each side of him, perfectly halved. One tree branch struck his lower cheek, and his cheek began to bleed slightly. The tree never made a sound; it just split perfectly in half from the ground up and fell forward.
Body and face trembling, Rydel looked over his shoulder. Standing between each half of the tree, Karen nodded for Rydel to join her, and he did, moving closer with robotic legs he no longer controlled until he stood in front of his sister.
"A war is coming, Rydel. One you have to help stop."
"A war?" Rydel replied.
Karen slowly nodded three times. "Yes. The one war that will turn the earth into a literal hell. The Other will wipe out humanity. Christ's Second Coming has to be done in His time to save us from that. We let Him die on the cross as a people. We have to save Him."
"Save Him?"
"The earth will burn, Rydel. Did you really believe it was just you creating Placement? God's hand was guiding you to save our Savior."
"Placement is dangerous—"
"It is not dangerous," Karen quickly said. "And you know it. It will save humanity…once He is saved. The message Christ was sent to deliver to the world has to be known in our time. He was crucified before He was able to finish what He was sent here to do."
"You want me to go back in time and save Jesus Christ?"
"You will," Karen said confidently. "God chose you to go back and save His Son."
Karen took two steps closer to her brother.
"I'm going to show you something important now, Rydel. Something to put your worried mind at ease." Karen stepped backward between the split redwood tree. From the ground up, the tree mended itself back together in front of Rydel.
She was gone. Disappearing behind the tree—or inside of it—Rydel could not be sure which of the two.
Emotionally drained, Rydel gazed almost drunkenly at the tree as a leaf drifted down and landed at his feet. He let out a sort of half-mad laugh at the leaf now resting on his dirt-caked shoe. The sound of a child giggling whipped Rydel's head back up at the redwood in front of him.
A young girl walked out from behind the redwood and skipped over to Rydel, then stopped and stood in front of him.
"Let's run together and explore like we did when we were kids, Rydel. One last time."
Rydel dropped to his knees and touched the young girl's face. "My God, what am I seeing here?"
"It's me, Rydel—it's Karen. Come on!"
Karen, who now appeared to be about ten years old, ran off into the field. Rydel stood and took a couple of steps forward like a fawn on the day of its birth, got his legs under him, then followed after her.
__
Two days later at the Genesis lab, Rydel sat hunched over his desk, scribbling on a notepad, when a knock at the door spun his head around. He slipped the notepad into the desk drawer and combed back his hair with both hands.
"Come in."
Will entered. His eyes darted around the way they always did when he was inside Rydel's private room at the lab. He then gave Rydel a look of compassion that almost made Rydel laugh out loud.
"Adams told me about the condition of your sister. My sympathies."
"I'm putting in some hours—but she needs me now. After I leave today, I can't say when I'll be back working like I was before," Rydel bluntly said.
"I understand. I have people I care about as well."
Will took one more discreet glance around the room and gave Rydel what he thought resembled a smile, his lips barely moving. He then exited the room. The look he had given Rydel was unsettling—his face almost inelastic. They’d been colleagues for years, yet Rydel still wondered how Will could work at a place benefiting, for the most part, the quality of human life when the man clearly had no concern for humanity at all.
As years passed, Rydel realized what was driving Will—and that was control. Will had the final say when projects got the green light. He loved having the power over whether the soldiers in the field or innocent civilians in war-torn countries deserved the benefit of the projects he supervised. Once Colonel Adams arrived at Genesis, he had stepped in a few times and disagreed with Will, but for the most part, Will had the final word.
Sensing that Will had gone and wasn’t waiting by the door to pop back inside, Rydel slipped the notepad back out from his desk drawer. Fearing hackers, he did not want to use his computer for what he was doing.
Rydel went over his notes one more time before finishing up for the night.
"Two more days," Rydel whispered to himself.
He slipped the notepad inside his lab coat and shut down his computer. Everything was falling into place for his mission that no one at the lab would ever know about.