Mind's Eye (42 page)

Hall shook his head. “Humanity,” he said sadly. “Sometimes it’s really hard to be a fan.”

“That’s for sure,” said Megan. After a long silence, she added, “But as horrible as this is, we should try not to let it bring us down right now.”

Everyone nodded their agreement with this sentiment.

“I know,” said Megan a few seconds later with a sly smile. “Why don’t we adjourn to our respective rooms and find some positive way to reaffirm
our
humanity.”

Altschuler turned away from Megan and gazed deeply into Heather’s eyes. “Now
that
,” he said, having learned from his previous mistake, “is the best idea I’ve heard in a long time.”

50

Alex Altschuler had never been happier in his life. He and Heather had made love several times during the night and early morning, and had chatted like teens at a slumber party when their bodies weren’t otherwise preoccupied. They had only managed a few hours sleep, but Altschuler was giddy in mind and body, and Heather Zambrana seemed to radiate happiness beside him.

The press conference was scheduled for ten in the morning, New York time, which meant seven o’clock in California. They had set the alarm for six, but at five-thirty they were wide awake and decided to get a jump on the day, since Altschuler was sure he wouldn’t be able to make love again for many hours—maybe never.

They both took quick showers, and were on their way to the kitchen to surprise the rest of the house’s inhabitants by making a pancake breakfast, when they heard a pained shriek. “
Nooo!”
bellowed a voice that sounded like it might be Nick Hall’s, coming from a nearby bedroom.

They rushed to his room and Altschuler rapped on the door. “Nick, are you okay in there?”

There was no answer.

“Nick. If you don’t answer, I’m coming in.”

When they still didn’t get an answer, Altschuler turned the handle and he and Heather stepped into the room.

Hall was sitting in the bed, wearing a pair of light blue pajama bottoms with no shirt, with a stunned look on his face, as though he were in a coma. He was holding a piece of notebook paper, with writing scrawled all over it.

He glanced up at them as they entered, but didn’t move. The piece of paper dropped from his hand and fell to the bed.

“Nick?” said Heather, an anxious look on her face. “What’s going on? Where’s Megan?”

Hall caught Altschuler’s eye. “Read it,” he said, as though he were in agony, making the smallest gesture with his head toward the fallen piece of paper. “Go ahead, Alex. Read it out loud.”

Altschuler glanced at Heather, only then realizing they were holding hands. He removed his hand from hers and retrieved the paper from the bed. He walked to a point midway between Heather and Hall and began reading.

“Dearest Nick,

In the short time you’ve been in my life, I’ve come to care about you more than any man I’ve ever known. After we made love last night (well, to the limits of what’s possible with an injured Neanderthal) I had the irresistible urge to tell you I loved you. How psycho is that? I’m scared, Nick. I’ve never felt this way before. I’ve fallen for you too hard, too fast.

Did I mention I’m scared? Funny, people have been trying to capture or kill me for days now, but my feelings for you scare me more than any of that.

I’m so happy for you that your psionic curse has been lifted. Soon you’ll have your life back. You’ll be famous beyond famous, and since you won’t be a pariah, you can have any woman you want. I know you said you didn’t love Alicia anymore, but I suspect that was just sour grapes, because you knew you couldn’t have a relationship with her anyway in your previous condition.”

Who in the world was Alicia? thought Altschuler. And what did Megan mean by
injured Neanderthal?
He had begun to think he really knew Nick Hall, but apparently not. Now wouldn’t be a great time to ask him these questions, he decided, so he continued reading:

“This isn’t your fault, Nick. You’ve been incredible. Fun. Smart. Heroic. Everything I could possibly ask for. But this is becoming too real, too fast. You know how I feel about marriage. My parents once loved each other passionately, and that ended in nothing but bitterness and hatred. And I won’t even mention the incident nearby we heard about last night. So maybe humans aren’t meant to marry.

But when I’m with you, I don’t believe this anymore. You’re like a mind-altering drug. One that I fear may be very bad for my health.

Besides, being the girl a celebrity dated before his fame, who just happened to be in the right place at the right time, before being tossed aside for something better, just isn’t my style.

So I’m leaving. I need time to get away from your zone of charisma. Time to think. And you need time as well.

Don’t worry, I’ll check in with Ed Cowan every few days. I’ve taken some of your poker winnings so I can stay off the grid until he tells me it’s safe to stick my head up again. Maybe one day I’ll be able to call you and see how you’re doing. But I suspect this will be too painful to do for some time to come.

Good luck, Nick. You’re a wonderful man, and I wish you nothing but the best. I know I’ll be reading and seeing all about you in the days ahead.

With fondest memories,

Megan.”

Altschuler looked up from the letter. Heather’s eyes had teared up, and Hall still looked like he had been hit by a train.

Altschuler could only imagine what Hall must be feeling. How would he feel if Heather walked out of his life, just when they had made such a great connection? How would he feel knowing the reason for it wasn’t something he had done, but simply because she had fallen for him
too
hard. What a brutal irony. What a bitter pill
that
would be to swallow.

Suddenly, as Altschuler looked on, Hall’s expression went from utterly despondent to furious in the blink of an eye. He jumped up off the bed. “Wait here,” he said as he raced by them to the door, still shirtless.

Altschuler and Heather ignored Hall’s instructions and rushed after him.

Hall marched straight for Eric Trout, who had manned the graveyard shift while his partner slept, and was due to be spelled shortly. “Anything interesting happen last night or this morning?” asked Hall in a venomous tone.

Trout was taken aback. “No. We still seem to be locked down tight.”

“
Really?
” thundered Hall. “Are you
that
incompetent? Do you know that Megan Emerson isn’t in this so-called safe house anymore?
Do you know that?”
he shouted.

From the look on Trout’s face, it was obvious that he didn’t. “That’s impossible.”

“I’m fucking positive!” shouted Hall. “So how is that
you
don’t know that? Weren’t you and your partner watching the doors? Watching your video? How could you let her just waltz out of here?”

Trout’s lip curled up into a snarl, and he looked about ready to crush Hall’s windpipe, but managed to control himself. He was being paid to protect these people, not kill them.

“Tanya,” he said to his tablet computer with barely contained fury. “Did Megan Emerson leave the premises?” He shot Hall a contemptuous look, as though he was sure Hall was about to be proven wrong and shown to be a hotheaded jackass.

“Yes. Megan Emerson left at three thirteen this morning,” replied a soothing, unflappable computer voice.

“What?”
barked Trout, horrified. “Why wasn’t I alerted?”

“Megan Emerson was listed as a resident. I’ve been programmed to ignore the comings and goings of residents.”

“God dammit!” screamed Trout. “What kind of fucked up . . .”

Trout paused and visibly tried to get a grip on himself. He turned to Hall, his eyes still burning. “I apologize, Nick. This is idiotic programming, which I’ll fix. This shouldn’t have happened without me knowing it. But I can’t be everywhere at once,” he continued, anger seeping into his tone despite his best efforts. “So if Megan decided she wanted to wait until I couldn’t see her and slip out, there’s nothing I can do about it. At the end of the day, I can only protect people who
want
to be protected. If she’s suicidal enough to leave here, she takes her chances. Where the
fuck
did she go, anyway?”

Hall’s demeanor had changed again, and now he looked like a whipped puppy. “I don’t know,” he whispered. “She just left. She plans to stay off the grid and check in with Cowan every few days.”

Hall turned and walked away without another word, and Altschuler and Heather followed him back into his bedroom, where he sat on the bed once more.

“Nick,” said Heather, “are you going to be okay?”

“I don’t know,” he said woodenly, but it was clear he was devastated.

Altschuler stared at what now appeared to be the shell of a man, and decided he needed to play the heavy. Not that he wanted to kick a man when he was down, but too much was going on, and they owed it to Nick—and themselves—to deliver a dose of reality.

“I feel horrible for you, Nick,” he began. “But the timing here isn’t great. Cameron’s press conference is less than an hour away. After that, all hell breaks loose. Not to mention powerful people are still trying to kill you, at least until you can prove your ESP is gone. Again, I can’t tell you how much I feel for you, Nick. But I worry about your ability to weather this storm if you can’t shake this off. It’s like going into a hot zone with an impaired immune system.”

Heather lowered her eyes, but nodded her agreement.

Hall opened his mouth to speak but shut it once again. He stared at Altschuler and then Heather for several seconds. Finally, his right hand balled up into an unconscious fist and he rose from the bed.

“You’re right!” he said. “You’re absolutely right. No more moping around. I don’t have the luxury. And do you know what else? I’m going to get her back! As soon as I convince Girdler I’m clean. I don’t care what it takes. I’m going to convince her that I don’t care about Alicia, and I don’t care about fame, and I don’t care about any girls I might meet in the future. I won’t stop until she reconsiders. She thinks
she’s
stubborn. Well, she ain’t seen nothing yet.”

Altschuler studied the steely gleam in Hall’s eye and the resolve in his expression, and a faint smile came over his face. There were no guarantees in life, he thought. Maybe Nick Hall would fail to get Megan back, after all. But Alex Altschuler would be the last man on earth to bet against him.

51

Theia Labs had conducted corporate-sponsored press conferences before, but never in New York. Cameron Fyfe was unable to score a large conference hall in a luxury hotel on short notice, and unsure if he wanted to anyway. The conference ended up being held in a fairly small room at the Hudson Hotel, a lesser known facility that had sprouted up almost a mile from Times Square, with maybe fifteen journalists in attendance. He had intimated to each that they were being given an exclusive on a press conference they would never forget, but after seeing the limited audience and unimpressive setting, the majority began to wonder if they had been misled.

The press conference wasn’t nearly important enough, or so the world thought, to appear live on any of the many hundreds of available television channels. But it was being videotaped, and could be accessed live on the web.

When the conference began, there were only five or six TVs tuned in to the web broadcast, including one in the living room of a tract home outside of Sacramento, California. By the time the conference ended, alerted by frantically texted messages from the few attendees, there were thousands.

At ten o’clock exactly, Fyfe came out onto a raised podium, just to the side of an eight-foot-tall screen that looked like a large picture window behind him. He introduced himself as the interim CEO of Theia Labs and then, without any further preamble, he launched deep into the heart of the matter.

He began by narrating actual footage of the attack on the
Explorer
, explaining it had been taken from the computer of Theia Labs’ former CEO, Kelvin Gray, who was now dead—fatally shot several days earlier in a fracas that had ensued when he was confronted about his crimes.

This opening got the attention of the crowd like nothing ever had in any of their collective experiences. The footage was taken from a helicopter and zoomed in on an oceangoing vessel, almost lost amid an endless, tranquil sea of greenish-blue. As the helicopter got closer, those aboard the
Explorer
could be seen sprawled out around the deck, in haphazard poses of unconsciousness. Four other large helicopters were swooping in from the other direction, flying low, and soon the unconscious victims were being loaded into the helos like cordwood; presumably to be transferred to another oceangoing vessel within flying distance.