The Quantum Objective (9 page)

‘Around here most people see him as a kind of…demigod. They fear him, but they also respect him. Yes, he is narcissistic, but he is not psychotic nor a sadist. He isn’t interested in guilt or innocence as such, only what moves him towards his goals. He pays very well for competence, which is second only to courage in his eyes. People fear his temper and intolerance of failure. Disloyalty is severely punished.’
Beth sat back in her chair. ‘So, if he has all this wealth and power, what does he want with us?’
Bazir crossed his legs and fed some yellow Turkish delight into his mouth. He seemed to be enjoying his tale. She wondered how much was true, or was it just the first ever telling?
‘When Khoen was 18, his mother died of cancer. He returned home for her funeral and learned from an elderly cousin that he had not been born into the family. He’d apparently been abandoned on a street corner as a new-born and found by his mother early one morning. She’d brought him home to the puzzlement of the family and fury of her husband. Nevertheless, she’d been adamant that she would not give him up. The family had assumed her inability to have children of her own had made her a bit crazy.
The news came as a huge shock; it changed his personal identity and ambitions quite radically. I believe it exposed him to a vulnerability he hadn’t felt since before his father’s death. For a while he became obsessed with his lost parentage, but there was no trail; he focused then on understanding his powers as a source of information about his origins.
It didn’t take him long to realise there weren’t any answers available within orthodox physics. He immediately set up his own research facilities, seeking out the best scientists, the most creative thinkers.’ Bazir shrugged, ‘It proved difficult to keep things quiet and a number of international agencies were still chasing down El Maestro, even though he had, by then, largely disbanded his criminal organisations. So came the change of name and a move to international waters.
Much progress was made here, and there were excursions to other labs over the years to extract information. He is adept at using his considerable charm as effectively as his other strengths. It was during one of these excursions to a parapsychology centre in Mexico that a young woman approached him. I don’t know what she said to him, he didn’t tell me many details about it, but it wasn’t long before he became interested in the holographic paradigm and your name came up.’
Beth started, ‘Me? Why me?’
He shrugged, ‘he wanted to meet with you, but our forward scout discovered you were already being observed by the Sayan. That’s when we sent in the extraction crew.’
‘The Sayan? What’s a Sayan?’
‘It’s a person from the Sayan Mountains in Russia. There was a lab created there by a group of pharmaceuticals in the late 1960s to research the powers of healing. It was a pretty radical group by any standards and children were created and trained specifically to harness and enhance the power demonstrated by some healers, to exploit the resource. Their research methods were…harsh. After 20 years, their star performer escaped and disappeared. The remaining children rebelled and the Pharma group crushed them before terminating the project. I believe some sort of chemical weapon was used. A nasty business for sure.’
She was staring at Bazir with a strong sense of dread.
‘Why was this Sayan watching me? I haven’t done anything. I have no powers; it doesn’t make sense.’
He contemplated her in silence for a moment. Beth felt him weighing the sincerity of her words.
‘I don’t know either. We’ve been trying to figure it out for eight years.’ He glanced from her to Galen. ‘While you are intelligent, highly resourceful and surprisingly, even recklessly courageous, there is nothing overtly special about you.’
He rose from the sofa, leaning close to Beth. ‘Nonetheless, it is clear that you had attracted attention, even before Khoen found you. Now you have birthed the son of the Sayan; this has and will continue to lead you on a path of discovery about his powers and therefore Khoen’s powers. You’ve acknowledged in the past that the holographic theory of the universe inspired your career from childhood. Here, you are simply following your ideas from a different angle, in unexpected circumstances. Your work with us could be useful to Galen, as well as Khoen. I urge you to assist us, and let us assist you.’
He straightened, gave her a long look and moved to open the door. Beth saw another liveried man waiting to escort them.
‘You two should get some rest. I will have food sent to your rooms and no, you cannot remain together. Tomorrow we will meet for a debrief first thing and the work can begin.’
Beth rose stiffly. Not a trace of confidence remained.
‘Come Galen.’ He slipped his hand into hers and squeezed.
‘Don’t allow your courage to slip into stupidity, Beth. I don’t know what happened with Khoen today, but don’t let it happen again. Yours are not the only lives to consider. There are over a hundred souls on board. Khoen’s rage, if released, is highly destructive – be careful.’
Beth dragged her leaden feet out the door, Galen close beside her.
*
She stared at the wind-blown butterflies on her wall, trying to process all she’d learned; her thoughts and emotions were tremendously tangled. What a mess! She was aggravated that Bazir separated her from Galen and acknowledged some of that was directed at Galen too. He’d been entirely relaxed and anxiety free when she’d kissed him goodnight in the corridor.
Is this a sign of things to come? She wrinkled her nose at the thought of his growing independence. Pride at his progress warred with a distinct sense of betrayal. She tinkled the ice in her gin and tonic and turned her mind to what Bazir had told her about Khoen and Liam.
The Sayan – huh, these men really have a flare for the dramatic. She would scarcely credit the Sayan lab story except for her experience of both Liam and Galen’s healing powers.
She stared at the ceiling; a hollow feeling emptied her chest. Man’s inhumanity never failed to depress her. She couldn’t imagine the life Liam had suffered.
All those children who hadn’t made it out. She squeezed her eyes shut and threw a blanket of thoughts over her feelings.
How do you breed a healer anyway? Some sort of genetic engineering, I presume. It all seems a bit advanced for the 1960s or even today. I’ll look into it - unless Khoen’s lab has covered it all already. And Khoen: What was
that
all about? How is it even remotely possible that I’m attracted to a man who named himself Big Star? She didn’t try to deny that ugly truth.
Ridiculous…not to mention his criminality.
A shudder of horror shook her at the thought of the people he must have murdered. She didn’t doubt that. Shame washed over her because it somehow didn’t reduce his appeal. The force of the attraction was burned in her memory.
It has a life of its own, and I know he felt it too. It felt unnatural. Too strong. Her heart thumped in excited trepidation at the prospect of where it might lead.
She quickly derailed that train of thought.
He’d certainly been annoyed and surprised at my audacity, but he’d remained civil and had even started to relax when I admired his Penrose Triangle; no doubt it soothed his ruffled ego.
She reflected on her own conduct with incredulity.
Why was I so pushed to defy him? Like the attraction, it’d been weird and illogical. It will surely only hasten our fate as fish food.
The fear and terrible fury she’d seen in his eyes when he’d dropped the glass flashed through her mind. There was something important she’d missed. She rolled back over the memory with care.
Why was he so angry? She’d told Galen to drop the sword, then the glass was spilling that god-awful blue liquid on the carpet, and Mr. Bighead had lost his cool.
Beth couldn’t see how it was her fault but she noticed the objects jumping in the room seemed to be metallic. Even that enormous heavy table had tilted and rocked. Perhaps his power lies in some sort of psychokinesis with metals. Perhaps he can shape it or alter its behaviour, which explains how the triangle worked.
She felt the sharp itch of curiosity lifting her spirits. The realisation that Galen was not unique, that his father and Khoen had comparable talents was mind-blowing. Teams of scientists had researched Khoen’s power for years. The wealth of data they must have could prove crucial, not only to understanding Galen’s powers, but to their escape. She knew the temptation to analyse that data would be irresistible.
She drained the final drops from her glass.
I’ll play along with the proposed collaboration to get what I can out of it. That means getting a grip on your wayward tongue, Irving. As for Khoen, perhaps there’s a way of managing the relationship more effectively, to my benefit. A means of escape will surely present itself at some point.
She sighed and took off her dressing gown. Tomorrow would no doubt be another long day filled with the weird and the worrying. She crawled under her covers and crashed into a restless sleep.

The summons surprised him before dawn and he was keen to hear what Khoen had to say about last night. Something strange had happened with the new visitors, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. Could it signal the opportunity he sought? It grated that the Irving woman hadn’t been punished for her stupidity. The idiot clearly doesn’t know what the hell she’s doing. She won’t be so lucky next time.
He pushed into the office and approached the large armchair facing the open vista beyond.
‘Good morning,’ Bazir spoke in the smooth chocolate tone that worked best in the early hours.
There was no response.
He strolled to the coffee machine, made two perfect espressos and walked round the desk. Fear stabbed through his lungs at the haggard face he found. Khoen took the cup, a sip and leaned back in his chair with eyes closed, palms cradling the tiny cup.
‘Elizabeth Irving must be eliminated at the earliest possible opportunity, notwithstanding her use for the project.’ His Spanish flowed fast.
Bazir blinked, grateful Khoen couldn’t see his reaction. They both knew she was crucial; for this to be on the cards already something very serious had occurred. The puzzle pieces clashed in his head as he frantically tried to pinpoint the threat. He stared down at the man who had dominated his life for years and took in the dark circles and pallor.
She’d terrified him!
That meant she had power. It was the only thing that had a chance of ruffling him. It was rare that he felt threatened and threats were always promptly annihilated.
‘She’s certainly too bold,’ he ventured, ‘but we’ll start pumping her for information this morning. The sooner we can get at her ideas, the sooner she’s gone.’
No comment.
‘Would you like me to speed up the kid’s trials?’
‘Yes, but test her too.’
An ache formed between his eyes.
‘You mean run healing tests on her? She’s shown no sign of that ability, nor any transformative talents.’
Black eyes burned his and only years of practice stilled his feet. Khoen rose and the weight of his presence deepened, pressing against Bazir like G-force.
‘Test her…voice - vocal patterns, resonance track, the full workup. You have two days.’ Khoen turned to the window.
His dismissal unmistakable, Bazir retreated and touched the small tattoo on his forearm to earth his frazzled nerves.
I’ll be damned if that bitch is going to screw things up now.
*
Beth entered a conference room where the table could have accommodated fifty delegates. Bazir was waiting with six people in lab coats. Her heart pitched like a dip in the road. Khoen wasn’t there. Anticipation had niggled all night, but the depth of her disappointment surprised her. She straightened and nodded at the introductions.
‘This is Dr. Baudin, head of our medical research unit, and Dr. Mullany has been our lead physicist for almost two years. Sizeable teams of highly qualified personnel assist both. With them today are their direct deputies Dr. Jenny Fischer and Dr. Adrian Bell respectively. I’d also like you to meet Dr. Rupert Grainger; he heads up the anthropological team, while Dr. Amelia Vikashev is our resident biologist.
Her gaze flicked round the room, ‘Why is Galen absent?’
‘He’s currently completing further tests, but will join us shortly. You too will take part in a full medical later today,’ Bazir said. Beth prickled.
‘What are these tests you’re doing on -’
‘Dr. Baudin…’ Bazir pulled out a chair for Beth to sit in. Everyone sat and she bit back her irritation. Baudin, a large man who might have passed for a family doctor, waited till everyone sat before taking a slim folder from Jenny. A deep hum filled Beth’s ears, the lights dimmed and a holographic projection of Galen, twice his normal size, appeared in the middle of the table.
Her breath caught in her throat; the quality of the projection was extraordinary, the illusion complete. A fist of anxiety squeezed her lungs at the sight of her baby, fastidiously protected, now so exposed.
I have to change the game, I must take the lead.
‘Sorry, I missed that. Please start again,’ she said.
‘Are you aware of the condition Situs Inversus?’ Baudin said.
Her heart stamped, ‘what condition? Galen has always been perfectly healthy.’
‘I’m sure he has, which is why he has never acquired any medical records. It’s a rare congenital condition, his major visceral organs, heart, stomach - the lot - are mirrored from their normal positions.’ He gestured towards the hologram. She swallowed against a tight throat as the skin peeled back to reveal Galen’s insides. Beth bit her finger.
‘Do you have any hypotheses about the mirroring, as it might relate to his abilities?’ she said.
‘So far, no. Is there something you’d like to add?’
‘Galen can’t read or write normally. He needs a mirror to read and when he writes it comes out perfectly well, but entirely reversed.’ The group turned frowns to Baudin. He pressed his lips with steepled fingers.
‘I know some left-handed people are able to read and write backwards without being hindered in their normal language processing. It may indicate an anomaly within a language centre or visual cortex. These things are hereditary -’
‘Speaking of heredity,’ Bazir interrupted, ‘what can you tell us about Perun?’ He waved a hand and the hologram vanished.
‘What?’ Beth raised her brow.
‘Perun. You know, the Sayan.’
Beth did a double take.
‘Oh. Well it’s the first time I’ve heard that name…Perun; and why are you asking me? You told me about the Sayan. All I know is he was a nice guy, called Liam who happened to be at the site of your botched kidnapping attempt. Everything he told me about himself has turned out to be false and looking back I can’t believe how naïve I was. You know far more than I.’
Bazir glanced at the biologist.
‘You’re right,’ Amelia conceded, ‘we probably do, but you’ve met him, interacted intimately with him. There may be plenty you can tell us.’
Beth leaned back in her chair and crossed her ankle to her knee.
‘All I know is that he saved me from you guys. He never scared me or threatened me. Yes, he lied to me and stole from me, but he also gave me Galen. I would still trust him any day over you or your boss. You told me yourself that he was a victim of monsters like Khoen, hungry for power and careless of the harm they caused.’
The group flinched as one.
‘What did he steal?’ Bazir snapped.
Beth glared, tight-lipped; all her intensions of being a collaborative hostage had vanished.
‘I know how you feel about being here Beth, but you really can’t think an aggressive attitude is going to help?’ His voice smoothed, ‘we all have a common goal here; to understand and better control the forces being wielded by these rare individuals.’
‘That is not my goal.’ Beth’s cool gaze masked the heat in her chest, ‘mine is to secure the wellbeing of my child. I don’t care about his powers. If I strive to understand them, it is solely to enhance his safety and to better discern the desires of those who may seek to harm him. I fervently wish he had no powers.’
‘But he does have them. Do you think he’s going to live a normal life? Isn’t it better for him to get full understanding of his power.’
‘Are you suggesting this process is in any way for his benefit? You were trying to kidnap me before he was conceived. And you don’t even know why, because your boss doesn’t trust you with the information. This is all for Khoen’s benefit and as far as I’m aware, my son and I have no future beyond our use to him. You may have more information about certain things than I currently do, but please don’t patronise me.’
Bazir lowered his gaze; the muscles in his jaw clenched so tight Beth expected the crackle of breaking teeth at any moment. The others looked everywhere but at her. When he raised his head, he was once again serene and a wry smile tugged at his lips.
‘I apologise for appearing disrespectful; it wasn’t intended. We’re all aware of your capabilities. I just think we can make better progress and get more of what we both want if we work together. I appreciate that for you, the circumstances are much more challenging. Rupert, run through the data we’re missing on the Sayan.’ Nothing in his pitch or timbre bore any trace of his preceding fury.
Rupert twitched and cleared his throat.
‘Well, the main thing puzzling us is the source of Galen’s transformative powers. We have no record of that power for Perun…um…Liam. From fragments of his childhood records we know he was a star performer, capable of healing any number of diseases and also exacerbating illnesses if required. Latent physiological weaknesses are hugely accelerated, instantly incapacitating the target. That was how he disabled team 113 in London.’
‘Jesus…’ Beth shivered.
‘However, there are no records of transformations as such. I don’t know if anything you saw or experienced with him could have indicated transformative powers?’
‘Nope. There was a very long-lived bunch of flowers though.’ She couldn’t restrain a smile at the memory. She’d liked the flowers, puzzled over them, hated them and finally left them behind. ‘Not one bloom withered in over a year, long after he’d disappeared. They’re probably still there.’
Beth raised an eyebrow when Jenny scribbled a note and typed into her phone.
Clearly, no stone is to rest unharassed. I won’t go into Galen’s healing powers; they haven’t mentioned it yet. So far, it’s all about transformation.
‘What about Galen’s own impressive healing powers?’ Bazir said.
Bloody hell he’s annoying!
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean…the fact that neither of you have suffered any illness since his birth.’
‘He certainly radiates good health - not even a cold to trouble us. But our normal functions and abilities have remained so, such as fatigue, and physical strength.’
‘What about the healing he conducted after your pretty spectacular nose-dive off the bridge in India? That was a hell of a thing, to heal you both instantly, aged three. You were up and running before we could get men on the water. A fall like that could have knocked the very life out of you.’
His gaze bore into her. She shrugged and blotted out the image of her body floating away from her.
‘Guess it was a combination of luck and his healing ability. It did take many months to fully recover,’ she allowed the honesty of the words to infuse her before she met his stare.
‘Well, we’re grateful to good fortune and Galen that you’re safe. It’s clear the power was inherited.’
‘We haven’t been able to isolate the precise location in the genome,’ Amelia said, ‘but based on the human genome project as well as our own extensive database, we think the source of these powers isn’t within the genes but in the non-coding DNA. The odds of locating it anytime soon are negligible.’
‘What’s the function of non-coding DNA?’ Beth asked.
All eyes turned to Rupert.
‘From a conventional research perspective, it’s early days, though there seems to be a tuning effect on the expression of genes.
We’ve taken an indirect approach however. I specialise in shamanism, and we’ve been using the world of the shaman as source of information. Shamanism brings together several concepts that keep cropping up in our work and the Sayan Healing Project was strongly influenced by it.
The first is shamanic belief in communicating with spirits found in nature, specifically in organic materials such as plants. Not all, but many do this through ritual consumption of psychoactive substances, also sourced from plants.
The spirits are said to be intelligent beings that communicate information of a microbiological, even cosmological nature, but are also able to promote healing and have diagnostic abilities. They are not always benevolent, communicating through a language of 3D sound and imagery, which apparently takes some interpretation. Music, particularly song, plays a critical role in the rituals. An increasingly popular eco-tourist experience is the Ayahuasca hallucinogen used widely by Amazonian shamans.’
‘So what’s this to do with DNA?’
‘Well, it was only discovered by western research in 1953, but is abundantly symbolised within many shamanistic cultures going back millennia, in the form of entwined snakes or ladders. Twin snakes have represented special knowledge, power and healing in primitive and Occidental mythologies from ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia to Australian Aborigines. Even the western symbol of medicine still uses the Caduceus’ entwined snakes.
The serpent of knowledge was often described as colossal, stretching to the stars and interestingly, originating from the stars. Sometimes in winged or feathered form, it represented divine power and the creation of life. Obviously, we now know that the DNA in one human body, if stretched out, could do about seventy round trips to the sun. It is also the grand master of transformation through the evolutionary process. The myths later reversed the cosmic serpent’s role from good guy to bad guy. For example, Zeus went from being originally embodied as a snake to being a snake-killer, defeating Typhon the serpent monster.’
‘I suppose the satanic snake in the genesis story is post role-reversal?’
‘Yup. There are myriad ancient myths and legends about creation involving such imagery.’
‘So what does it mean? Are you suggesting DNA is somehow sentient?’
Rupert flushed pink, ‘well…yes…maybe. We’re not sure. At the moment we’re electing to think of the shamanic spirits as a sort of innate intelligence within organic matter. For example, three years ago a Japanese researcher called Toshiyuki Nakagaki discovered that a class of unicellular organisms with no brain - a slime mould, can solve puzzles such as the shortest path through a maze. As well as outstanding information-processing functionality, our own tests found these moulds can actually anticipate events such as routine changes in their environmental conditions, before they occur.’