Neptune's Tears (8 page)

‘You better believe it. You see, I’ve been without him all these years, and I’m tired of waiting. I don’t exactly know what comes next, but I know John will be
there.’ She fell silent for a moment. ‘Someone once said that life is either a daring risk or nothing. I guess that’s true of death too.’

A shiver went up Zee’s spine. She’d heard the same quote for the very first time just the other day, from David. ‘Helen Keller.’

‘What dear?’

‘Helen Keller said that. She lived about two hundred years ago. She was blind and deaf and —’

‘I know who Helen Keller was, dear. I’m glad you do too. Well, let’s get started. Do you have some suggestions for me? My daughter really can be exhausting, and takes on
so.’

When she’d first sat down, Zee had felt a moment of panic, overwhelmed by the situation, but Mrs Hart’s questions were focused and somehow ordinary. Over the next hour, Zee explained
various ways of meeting the pain, and helped Mrs Hart develop several personalised exercises. They discussed Mrs Hart’s daughter as well, Zee listening more than talking and feeling
they’d made progress when Mrs Hart concluded that she needed to give her daughter time to accept things in her own way.

‘That’s all I can manage for today,’ the older woman said suddenly, ‘but I hope you don’t have to go rushing off. I’d love a cup of tea and a chat, and maybe
we can make a dent in the cakes people keep bringing me.’

Zee was halfway through her lemon-curd tart when Mrs Hart surprised her by asking, ‘Now, if it isn’t prying, what’s troubling my favourite empath?’

Zee finished chewing and swallowed. ‘Does it show?’

Mrs Hart said nothing, waiting for Zee to go on, but Zee remained quiet. ‘Ah. Silence. That usually means a man.’

‘Mrs Hart —’

‘Ellie. We can’t be having a cosy chat if you’re still calling me Mrs Hart.’

‘Ellie. I’m not sure I should go into it all. I’m supposed to be here helping you with pain management techniques.’

‘No, you’re supposed to be helping me manage pain effectively. Nothing would be a more effective distraction than hearing someone else’s troubles for a change. Although I
respect your privacy if you don’t want to talk about it.’

The truth was, Zee was dying to talk about David. So far she’d told no one, not even Rani or Jasmine, about him. So the whole story tumbled out to a rapt audience of one. She told Mrs Hart
how they’d met, how he’d taken her to breakfast, and how, despite his being an alien, she’d found herself thinking about him over and over again. And she told her about the
confusion as well, about how she always sensed there was something he wasn’t telling her, and little things he told her that didn’t quite match up, and how she sometimes wondered if she
was wrong to trust him.

‘And you really like him?’ Mrs Hart asked thoughtfully. ‘You really think he’s someone that could be important in your life?’

Zee nodded.

‘Then there’s really only one question that matters. Is he a good person? Do you think he has a good heart?’

‘Yes.’ Zee thought of the times she’d felt connected to him and the times she’d felt pushed back. Even then, she’d always felt he was pushing her away to protect
her from something. ‘Yes, he has good heart.’

‘Because people can seem to do the right thing, the thing you want, but do it for selfish reasons. And people who care about you can do things you find confusing. But if I had to pick,
I’d pick the person with the good heart. How long did you say you’d known him?’

‘Almost two months.’

Mrs Hart laughed. ‘Oh my, two whole months. And you don’t know every single thing about him! Yes, no wonder you’re frustrated.’ She laughed again. ‘Two months out
of what could be a lifetime! Oh Zee, if you knew everything about him now, what would you do for the next hundred years? No one can tell you who they are – they
show
you who they are,
and that takes time.’

As Zee had predicted to David, the Trafalgar Square shock bomb was followed by a second attack two months later. On the last Sunday of August, shock bombs went off within
minutes of each other in Dublin, Gdansk, Shanghai, Houston and Toronto.

Zee was with a patient when a sudden, piercing pain spiked through her head so forcefully she bent double. Grateful that her patient – a post-op stroke victim whose damaged brain had been
spliced and patched with a re-grown section – was still recovering from the anaesthesia, she managed to find the call button, then stumbled to a chair. Zee felt as if she might be going
blind, but when she covered first one eye, then the other, she found that she could see normally each time. Her jaw was clenched, and waves of nausea seemed to begin in her head and sweep though
her body. She knew this wasn’t logical and wondered if she was having a stroke or a seizure. Worse was what she described later as the silent scream. She knew she wasn’t hearing real
screaming but felt it in her head – hundreds and hundreds of people, their voices knitted in an endless cry of horror. By the time an orderly reached her, she was exhausted with fear, and
barely felt herself being helped onto a bed.

Waking up, she knew from the slant of light in the room it was early evening. Two familiar faces, Rani and her adviser, looked down at her.

‘What happened to me?’

The room was tranquil and smelled faintly of oranges. The silent screaming that had filled her head was gone. The pain was gone too. Zee moved her hand and noticed a blood pressure thimble on
the tip of her index finger. She was wearing a hospital gown and a gauze pad was taped to the inside of her elbow. They’d drawn blood. Slowly, she reached her other hand up and felt the EEG
magnets attached to her temples, her forehead, just behind her ears, and at the base of her skull. With a start, she realised that her brain activity was being monitored. For once, there was no
mischief in Rani’s eyes. Her adviser had no expression at all.

‘What happened to me?’ she asked again.

Zee was clearly waiting for an answer.

The adviser turned her head slightly. ‘Rani?’

Rani stepped close to the bed and gave Zee a quick hug. ‘Don’t be afraid, Zee,’ she whispered. ‘You’re the one raindrop.’

What did she mean by that? Zee wondered. And why was Rani – laughing, irreverent Rani – looking at her with an expression that could only be described as awe?

‘What’s going on, Rani?’ she asked.

‘Nothing bad,’ Rani said. She gave Zee’s hand a little squeeze, and for the first time seemed like herself, a smile playing at the corners of her mouth. ‘I’ll see
you in the morning.’

After she left, Zee’s adviser stepped into her place. ‘First,’ she said, ‘there’s nothing physically wrong with you. We’ll have the EEG analysed in detail,
but Dr Branning and I both think it looks fine.’

Zee realised there was a third person in the room, sitting off to the side. He rose at the mention of his name. ‘We haven’t met before, I think. I’m with the psych department.
Separate building.’

Psych
department?

‘Is there something wrong?’ Zee asked. ‘With my brain? Did I – I don’t remember too well – did I
do
something?’ A horrible possibility flashed
through her mind. ‘Did I hurt a patient?’

‘No, no, nothing like that,’ her adviser assured her. ‘We’re quite sure we have the answer, but Dr Branning has some questions to ask.’

A wave of exhaustion washed over Zee. ‘Could we do it tomorrow? When I’m fresh? I’m just so tired right now.’

Dr Branning had a kind smile. ‘I’m sorry, Zee, but we really need to do this now, when you’re stale.’

That made her smile. ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Shoot.’

For the next half hour, Zee answered the oddest assortment of questions she’d ever been asked. Was there a radio on in the room she’d had the attack in? Or anywhere nearby? Was she
aware of any significant news stories? When was the last time she’d seen a news screen? Been online? Did she dream often? What about? What was the last dream she remembered? Had anyone told
her their dreams lately? Yes? What were they? What images and techniques had she used with her most recent patients? What did she and Mrs Hart discuss in their sessions? What was the last hologram
she’d watched? Was she reading any books just now? No? When was the last time she’d read a book and what was it about? When had she had her last period? What were her periods usually
like? Were they accompanied by dizziness? Visual or audio hallucinations? Did she ever think she heard voices? Did she know today’s date? The Prime Minister’s name? Her own name and
address?

By the time Dr Branning finished, Zee could barely keep her eyes open. And even with her eyes closed, she knew her adviser and Dr Branning were conferring about her in lowered voices. She no
longer cared. She just wanted to be left alone, or have Rani come back. Instead, she opened her eyes to find Dr Branning staring down at her.

‘Ah, good.’ He drew up a chair. ‘What happened to you is quite rare, but not abnormal. My speciality is mass psychology, in particular, a branch called noetics. The idea that
thoughts have substance and can be picked up by others isn’t new, but it wasn’t until a few hundred years ago that we had proof.’

He paused to make sure he had Zee’s attention. ‘Researchers back then discovered that whenever a new puzzle appeared – be it a crossword or jigsaw or any other type of puzzle
– the first people who solved it took the longest. But the more often the puzzle was solved, the more quickly others solved it, even though each person worked on their own, in isolation. The
answers, you see, were out there, thoughts in the air, picked up and used by others. For the most part, this activity goes on undetected, in the subconscious. People aren’t aware that
they’ve tapped into the thought swarm, even when the thoughts are disturbing.’

Again, Dr Branning paused to make sure Zee was following him. ‘About the same time the puzzle data surfaced, researchers at Princeton University were monitoring patterns of mass
consciousness. There was a severe, widespread disturbance in the group pattern in the days before 9/11, yet no one predicted the event beforehand. The subconscious, by and large, defends its
secrets. The conscious can bang at the gates all it wants, but the road remains closed, often for the overall good of the organism. There are rare cases, however, when someone possesses or develops
a mind in perfect unity, where the subconscious passes along information it deems vital. That person is one in ten million, the single raindrop that by accident or fate or some grander force lands
on the thirsty flower instead of the rocks surrounding it. The transmission, of course, is imperfect, for the conscious mind communicates in words while the language of the subconscious is images
and feelings, sometimes even elements as illusive as touch and scent.’ At this point, Zee’s adviser came forward again. ‘We’re sorry about all the tests, Zee, and drawing
blood, but we had to eliminate all other possibilities. Now we have, and we’re certain that’s what happened to you today. You see, at exactly the time you had your, er, episode, shock
bombs went off in Dublin, Gdansk, Shanghai, Houston and Toronto.’

‘
What?
You’re telling me I
knew
about the bombs?’

‘No. You caught the thoughts of those who were there, and those thoughts manifested themselves in you as physical symptoms.’

Zee’s hand felt ice cold on the bed’s guard rail. That storm of silent screams! The fire-hot pain at the base of her skull! The realisation that she’d caught the final thoughts
of hundreds of dead people spiralled into a tidal wave of nausea.
Be calm,
she told herself.
Focus. Stay logical.
She took a deep breath.

‘Okay. What do we do now? How do I stop this?’

‘That’s the thing,’ her adviser said. ‘There’s no real way to stop these incidents. In fact, each time this happens makes it more likely to happen again. The body
learns from itself.’

‘But I can’t live with this,’ Zee protested. ‘It’s too . . . too . . . big.’ Her voice saying ‘big’ sounded pathetically small. Neither of the
faces gazing down at her looked surprised at her alarm. A sudden thought struck her. ‘Is this because I’m an empath?’

‘Not directly, no.’

‘Not
directly
? What’s
that
supposed to mean?’

‘This isn’t the result of being an empath. Your training didn’t create this. But the traits that make you a good empath also make you a good receptor – and potentially
diviner. And both your training and your work made it more likely to happen.’

Zee was suddenly furious. ‘Why didn’t you tell us this was a possibility when we were in training? Didn’t you think we had a right to know?’

‘In the early days of empathy we did,’ Dr Branning said. ‘I developed the protocol. But we discovered it triggered false episodes in a large number of trainees. We never saw a
real case. Apparently because the phenomenon is rare.’

Dr Branning smiled as if he’d just given her a spectacular present.
Easy for him,
Zee thought.

‘What do I do now?’ she demanded.