THE KILLING COLLECTIVE

“Long day at the office, Carter?” Seacrest tossed a magazine onto the coffee table and yawned. “At least you’re on active duty again. I can’t wait to be cleared. House cleaning is not therapeutic, just in case you were wondering.”

Her usual brand of sarcasm seemed so dear to him now that he laughed, and once he did, he couldn’t stop. He laughed so hard he had to sit down and hold his stomach with both hands to stop it from hurting. Seacrest knew she hadn’t said anything particularly funny, but being a woman, she recognized the final release of the burdens he’d been carrying around since well before they moved to New York.

“Jill, I can’t even remember the last time I laughed. Oh God, my stomach!”

He stood and held his hand out to her. Taking his hand, she stood and melted into his broad chest, inhaling his scent. He always smelled so damn good! Then she looked up at him for a long moment.

“Nothing, Carter. Just looking.” She smiled into his chest knowing his heart was hers.

Carter snapped his fingers over his head and commanded his voice-activated assistant. “Alexa, play Stardust. Dim the lights to the lowest setting, and show us some real stars while you’re at it.”

A million diamond-white stars emerged from the ceiling and winked at them as soft music seeped into the room out of nowhere and everywhere. They began to move to the melody that had always meant so much to them.

They dipped and swayed and twirled their way to a new intimacy. She nibbled on his lower lip, the song forgotten. Carter felt it travel from his mouth all the way down to the pit of his stomach like a huge jolt of electricity. All at once, he grabbed her upper arms, jerked her away from himself and looked at her in a way he never had before.

He looked savage and felt ferocious. Seacrest felt his electricity and masculinity all around her. She looked shocked but waited for whatever came next.

He jerked her back to him like a rag doll and planted a long, hard kiss on her mouth. A hundred years of pent up emotion passed away in that moment. Their hands travelled all over each other, learning each other all over again. They made love on an incredibly cushy carpet and obliterated the silence and sadness that had grown between them for several weeks. They were one again, each an extension of the other. Neither knew nor cared where one ended and the other began.

Time drifted as they lay on the floor in comfortable silence, watching the stars. At some point, Seacrest returned to earth and turned to Carter, who had temporarily lost all capacity for speech and thought.

“Love you. Play Stardust again a little later so we can actually dance to the end of the song this time, hmmm?”

They sat together like two teenagers in their little kitchen, spreading butter and thick slabs of brie on French bread and sipped sweet, red wine with it. The atmosphere tonight was cozy and romantic, as if they were the only two people left in the world and were glad for it.

Happily chewing away on his bread and cheese, Carter lifted an eyebrow and waited for her to continue.

Seacrest blushed. “Don’t you dare laugh at me, but as much as I hate to admit it, I saw a sign in the sky. Right over your head.”

“Really?” He did a lousy job of hiding a smirk. “And what exactly was this sign you think you saw, my love?”

“Yes, a tree, Carter, a tree. The stars made a crazy pattern in the sky right over your head, and it looked just like a big tree.”

He did become serious, though, because she was. “It was the tree of life. What do you think it meant?”

“There was one star at the very tip of the highest branch that was brighter than all the others. I thought it meant that wherever you were, and even though you were gone from me, you were happy.

“Carter, I changed my mind. You don’t have to change for me. I don’t need you to go on some great expedition of self-discovery, and I don’t care if you ever clear out your stupid mind boxes. You’re perfect. If you can live with my bossiness and dark humor and still love me as much as you do, I wouldn’t ask you to dial back the Buddha in you for all the tea in China. All I want is to be with you every day of every season of my life.”

“I’ve always known that, honey, but I want to take this journey; I need to do it because I’m not satisfied with myself anymore. In a nutty sort of way, this whole experience with the Silver Man gave me the answers I’ve been looking for my whole life. Wanna here what I’ve learned?”

“I’ve been lost and didn’t know how to get home. Then the Silver Man showed me what life was like for a man who refuses to accept the world for what it is, who’s incapable of recognizing his own weaknesses, and who tries desperately to force people to live by his rules and philosophy rather than try to understand and accept theirs. I don’t have to change the world to feel fulfilled, Jill, I just need to change myself.”

“You learned all that in a few days after ignoring it your whole life? I don’t believe it. Who are you, sir, and what have you done with my husband?”

Carter got up and took a sheet of paper out of the junk drawer. “I’ve been keeping this here because it seemed like the right place to leave all my crap. I left the women’s detention center last month with a lot on my mind, so I went back to the office and wrote down the things that I think are true, but don’t feel comfortable with, yet. I made an appointment with the cognitive behavioral therapist I saw the night we went to the Jazz Standard. I don’t care why we live, anymore; I’m going to learn how to live. Take a look at this.”

Carter’s “Keep The Home Fires Burning” List

1. Knowing how to live is more important than knowing why I live and what may or may not come after death.

2. To know and understand myself is the road to understanding and helping the people around me.

3. Opening up my heart and speaking my mind is accepting that I’m as vulnerable as anyone else and that talking things over with someone I trust can help me make sense of things in a more objective manner.

4. Learning is not always linear in nature, and it’s a journey with no end.

5. To move forward, I might sometimes have to take a few steps back.

6. I can’t change the whole world, but I can change myself.

7. I can’t protect myself from things that bother or confuse me by ignoring them.

8. To move past those things I can’t seem to get over, I need to look at them, chew on them, and swallow them without forgetting how bitter their taste is.

9. Having wisdom means that people other than myself value my experiences and insights.

10. It’s O.K. to change my mind.

11. Celebrate everything you can whenever you can.

12. Being a little silly sometimes is a good idea. Letting my guard down won’t destroy the respect people have for me.

“Wow! This is a very ambitious list, darling, but tell me why you decided these changes are ones you want to make. I hope they’re not here because I said they were important. Your list should reflect changes based on your needs, not mine.”

“Have you decided, then, that Yin and Yang are no longer the cornerstone of your philosophy of personhood?”

“Actually, no. All I did was adjust my understanding of it as a result of everything that happened to us before and since we moved here. I decided that it’s not my job to worry about the destination when it’s all about the journey. If I had to describe Yin and Yang now, I’d say they’re what we are when the journey begins as well as what we experience and learn from it along the way. I’d say the opposing forces within us are not good vs. bad or heaven vs. hell; I’d say they’re more like needing and being needed, giving and being given, understanding and being understood. I guess even extremes are normal in extreme situations. The point is, we change as our circumstances change. If sometimes one desire overpowers the other it’s because it has to for our own good or even our own survival.”

“Are you saying that the girls’ extreme behavior was natural and acceptable based on the situation they were in?”

“No, honey. It’s one thing to defend yourself when you’re forced to, and that’s what Alison did at the micro-brewery, but it’s another to have options and choices and still choose the wrong ones, like the other two did.

“Alison wanted friends so much that she developed an extreme sense of altruism to get them, but all it led to was extreme self-sacrifice. She couldn’t find a happy medium, and that left her with nothing.

“On the other hand, Eliza’s brutality and Clara’s machinations, unchecked, would’ve left everyone else with nothing. Eliza was born to see life as a win or lose, eat or be eaten, proposition. She was wired up for instinct only. Did you notice that when she was finally caught, she accepted it as fair and square?

“But, it’s clear - to me, at least - that Clara always knew right from wrong but that her uncle taught her people were inconsequential if her own desires were at stake. She learned that smart, successful people don’t believe in win-win scenarios, so she got the things she wanted by lying and manipulating the people who stood in her way, and that extended even to himself. I think it’s what killed him in the end.

“She’ll still be denying her guilt and blaming the other two when she’s sentenced. Clara knows what shame or remorse are, but she’s only ashamed of getting caught and remorseful of her exposure and punishment. She’ll never accept responsibility for her actions, and she’ll never walk out of those prison doors.”

Seacrest handed him a glass of wine. “O.K. I get that, Carter, but I want to know one more thing; if the Good Witch of the North floated in here and asked you to sum up what you’ve learned before you could click your heels three times and go home, what would you tell her?”

“That we can’t all be either saints or sinners with no in between. I think Dr. Jekyll would agree that you can’t sustain an ‘all or nothing’ attitude without being consumed by it.”

Seacrest’s eyes grew wide. “So you learned the secrets of the universe from the Silver Man, three female convicts, and a fictional character in a cautionary tale about playing God?”

“Well, yes. And Monty. And Agent Deeprose. Even Bill Fischetti and young Red.”

“Especially you, Jill. You were right; denying what I thought were undesirable emotions didn’t mean I didn’t have them. Not talking to you or anyone else about things put an insurmountable wall up between us. I know Hyzopran was responsible for what I did to you, but it made me realize I couldn’t ignore the depth of my anger about so many things anymore. You should have been able to talk to me about yourself and your needs, but I made that impossible, and I’m sorry, baby. I’m so, so sorry.”

“It wasn’t all your fault, Carter; you had a little help from me. I tried to be what you needed me to be, and I thought if I acted that way, I’d become it for real. I got so used to the act that when I thought you were gone, I couldn’t stand knowing I’d never get the chance to tell you all the things I’ve wanted to share for so long. Let’s both go see that therapist you found. We have a lot of growing up to do, and I don’t think we should wing it anymore. Is that all right with you? I mean, we don’t have to go there together, so long as we both go.”

“Practice expressing yourself here before unleashing your new self on the general public, will you please?”

It was late Christmas evening when they heard three sharp knocks on their front door. “Oh, who can that be at this time of night, when lovers want to be left alone to stargaze?”

“I’ll get it, Jill. I forgot to tell you I asked Agent Deeprose to stop by for a celebratory drink tonight. Director Fischetti contacted her at home today. She’s cleared for duty. I’m giving her a commendation and a promotion.”

“Well, open the door! After all, it’s Christmas, and I want to hear all about hers with Wilson.” Carter blushed and grimaced simultaneously.

The two women locked themselves in hugs. They talked and laughed at the same time and then did the same thing all over again and still understood each other perfectly. Carter was lost.

Before Deeprose left, Carter raced to the closet and shoved a box into her arms. “It’s a Christmas present from us, a full length dark green winter coat. You’re not down South anymore, Agent Deeprose, and the winters here are brutal. That little red thing you’ve been wearing falls woefully short of the mark. Jill and I want you to have it and to know that you’re part of our family now. I promise you’ll never be out on a limb again.”

Deeprose had never been given anything so beautiful in her life. “Ah, don’t know what to say! Oh my God, Ah just don’t know what to say!”

Carter smiled. “That would be a first, Agent Deeprose. Merry Christmas from us to you.”

“Well,” Carter said as the door closed, “that’s another reason we need to stay at the Bureau, Jill. Agent Deeprose needs us.”

“Not quite, Carter.” She hugged him close and whispered in his ear, “We need her.”

In a small, quaint countryside with an unpronounceable name, Galatea’s exquisite form reawakened in the hands of an ancient sculptor named Pygmalion. His face looked like a thin sheet of paper that had been crumpled up and smoothed out again.

“Just like old times, eh my girl? We must wait a while yet, but when the time comes, I will make the world just as lovely and perfect as I made you.”

He was no longer encumbered or impeded by the JASONS whose help he’d needed until technology caught up to the plans he devised more than two thousand years before. The vast resources he amassed over the past twenty centuries ensured that the very latest and top-secret advances could be applied to the perfection of his Nano-chip. Following the execution of Carter’s team and everyone named on a new Burn List, it would be offered to and installed for excited new parents everywhere immediately following the birth of a child.

“I will still pull the strings to which all humanity dances. Ha, haaaaaaa! They won’t be able to get enough of them! They’ll have to order them years in advance!”

He raised his glass of schnapps and drank it down. His hands actually shook as he stroked her, the symbol of all his desires. “They think because they have forgotten us, we no longer exist. But when people forget, my dear, they always do, we will return…as we always have and always will. And then we will make the world great again, according to my design and your image.”

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