Journey Into the Flame (38 page)

Logan did not have to walk over to it; just thinking about doing so teleported him there. On a shelf above the casket, he saw framed photos of a dark-haired little girl who looked familiar to him. In front of another picture of a dark-haired young woman were a badge and a gun. Logan looked down into the casket. He saw Valerie lying there. He screamed and tripped backward. But before he could hit the ground, someone slipped an arm around his shoulder and steadied him.

“Are you all right?” Valerie asked, as she helped him sit up. “I just got home and didn’t want to disturb you, but then you started screaming.”

Logan took a deep breath. He was still trembling from what he’d seen on his candle journey. “Just another wild trip,” he said, as casually as he could. He couldn’t tell her what he had seen.

“I’m glad you’re OK,” Valerie said. “You’re not going to believe what happened to Monique.”

“And you’re not going to believe what I found under the park bench.” Logan rubbed his eyes and gazed around the room, trying to erase the frightening images from his mind. “Oh, no!” he burst out. “The candle!” He looked at the clock; it was just past midnight. He had lost track of time, and the blue candle had completely burned down. His link to the old study and the mysterious shadow had burned away.

46

Until you look into a starry night and can see the end of forever, assume there is more to experience, and continue to explore.

—THE CHRONICLES OF SATRAYA

WASHINGTON, D.C., 10:00 A.M. local time,

32 hours until Liberty Moment

“This technology is like nothing we’ve seen before,” Sylvia said. “We’ve analyzed the information on Dr. Malikei’s HoloPad computer. Let me try to explain it as best as I can.”

Valerie’s new partner, Alex, entered the WCF forensics lab holding a cup of coffee and took a seat at the table next to Logan and Valerie. All of them had attended the memorial service for Charlie earlier that morning. Charlie’s wife, his two children, and many friends, including a large contingent from the WCF, had filled the chapel. Valerie gave a moving eulogy for her late partner and dearest friend, which she’d had difficulty delivering without choking up a few times. After the ceremony, she and her team had returned to the WCF lab. There was work to be done in his memory, she said.

Now Sylvia used the HoloPad to bring up a cross-section image of a human skull and brain. “The green serum that we recovered from G-LAB affects brain chemistry. In particular, it messes with this area of the brain, called the posterior superior parietal lobe.” Sylvia pointed
to the upper back of the skull. “Based on Dr. Malikei’s entries, I would say they were interested in this part of the brain because it is affiliated with the orientation association area, or OAA for short. It is the part of the brain that controls your perception of time, distance, and space. It helps you judge which way is up and which way is down. The more active this region is, the more spatially aware you are. You have a handle on where you are and what you’re doing. At first, we didn’t understand why the doctor considered this region so vitally important, but then we read his notes, specifically his notes about when the serum was most effective.”

“Yes, the doctor said the serum worked best when people were focused on something spiritual,” Logan recalled.

“That’s right,” Sylvia said. “This part of the brain is most affected when people are focused on abstract ideas. There were some initial studies done in the 2010s that measured the OAA region when people were praying or meditating. The activity in this part of the brain slowed down drastically, and people began to lose their awareness of space and time—they reached a sort of transcendental state.”

“You’re going to have to connect some dots for me here,” Valerie said. “I’m not entirely sure I see where this is leading.”

“Imagine what would happen to people if the OAA part of the brain could not be slowed down,” Sylvia said. “Think about how you and I make decisions. Or, more important, consider how we make good decisions. When we are emotional, our choices tend to be rash, more spur-of-the-moment. But when we are able to calm down and think rationally, the OAA region slows down. We can then make decisions and choices that are not unduly influenced by our emotions.”

“Are you saying that people would lose their ability to think if the OAA region of the brain were unable to slow down?” Alex asked.

“No, they would still be able to think and process information,” Sylvia said, “but their decisions might be drastically different from the ones they would have made when their OAA was able to slow down.
People would make more purchases on impulse; they would eat more food that tasted good without considering how it affected their health. The world would become a much more emotional place, because people wouldn’t be able to calm themselves and reduce the activities going on in the OAA region.”

“In other words,” Valerie interjected, “people would be more likely to end up shooting their neighbors for making too much noise or putting up a fence they didn’t like.”

“Yes,” Sylvia said. “Once the serum is activated, it will limit people’s ability to think abstractly and navigate complex problems.”

“This is about control,” Logan said in a grave voice. “People would be more vulnerable to manipulation by those whose OAA hasn’t been messed up. They could be prodded, herded like cattle. They would believe anything they were told, and humanity would become a set of automatons following a dictator’s agenda. ‘All persons ought to endeavor to follow what is right, and not what is established,’ ” he recited. Everyone’s eyes were on him. “Aristotle said that.”

“I couldn’t have said it better,” Sylvia said.

“But there is something even more dangerous here,” Logan went on, shaking his head. “The people who created this serum want to separate man from God.”

Everyone in the room looked puzzled.

Logan pulled his notebook out of his backpack and turned to his drawing of
The Creation of Adam
. “They want to ensure that the finger of man never touches the finger of God. They want this gap never to be closed.” Everyone looked at the picture for a moment. “I couldn’t imagine a world where people could not pray . . .”

“I hadn’t thought about it like that,” Sylvia said grimly. “All that the
Chronicles
have taught over the last forty years about stilling our minds and allowing our free will to guide our choices would be rendered moot by the serum if activated.”

“Net this out for me,” Alex said as he took a sip of his coffee. “Is this some kind of mind-control experiment? What’s the end result?”

“It’s going to depend,” Sylvia continued. “Based on the doctor’s notes, people who have the ability to substantially slow down their OAA regions will suffer the most drastic effects.”

“How drastic?” Valerie asked.

“If the dead Council members are any indication,” Sylvia speculated, “then things are not looking good.”

Logan turned to Valerie. “Andrea and Simon have found a way to exterminate the free thinkers of the world. The people who pose the greatest threat to them. Just like our parents did all those years ago.” He did not need to say any more.

“Hold on,” Valerie said. “Sylvia, back up. You said the serum has to be activated? It’s not harmful by itself?”

“Once the serum is introduced into the bloodstream, it starts to bind with the DNA.” Sylvia brought up an image on the HoloPad. “This is the image of Cynthia Brown’s DNA. It shows the collar that we discovered a few days ago. That collar was introduced by the serum.”

“By way of the MedicalPods?” Valerie said.

“Is that the qMeds stuff?” Logan asked.

Sylvia sighed. “Those MedicalPods are all about qMeds. It’s based on an emerging science referred to as DIS, DNA-induced superconductivity. It was the brainchild of Ted Wilson, the founder of Allegiance Pharmaceuticals. He and his team used animal DNA to transmit electricity over distance. They then adapted the science to humans, in medical applications at the DNA level. It led to the creation of the MedicalPod network. The pods administer a low level of electrical current that causes a person’s DNA to become supercharged and superconductive. This allows the quantum medicine to be absorbed with great efficiency. Hence the medicines are called qMeds.”

“If this serum was distributed via MedicalPods, how many people would have received it?” Valerie asked.

“Let me put it this way. Did you go for your mandatory MedicalPod checkup in the last six months?” Sylvia asked a bit rhetorically. All three nodded. “Then you received the serum.”

“Son of a—” Alex didn’t finish the phrase.

“According to the central database,” Sylvia continued, “ninety-five percent of the world’s population has been injected with the serum.”

Logan’s eyes widened in disbelief. His immediate thoughts went to his children. His ex-wife Susan was conscientious about taking them for regular checkups.

Valerie shook her head. “We’re dealing with a potentially worldwide catastrophe,” she said. “And we don’t even understand how this catastrophic attack is going to take place!”

“What about an antidote?” Logan said. “If we had one, we could disperse it the same way the serum was, via the MedicalPods.”

“That’s the problem,” Sylvia said. “We don’t exactly know how to remove the DNA collars. Currently, this is a one-way science. Until now, I didn’t know anyone had perfected it.”

“Did you get anything out of the Allegiance CEO when you spoke to him?” Alex asked Valerie.

“He said that he would get us a list of all the companies that deployed their medicines via the MedicalPods. And that he’d answer any questions he can.”

“Meaning the hard questions go through the attorneys,” Alex said, annoyed.

No one was sure where to go next.

“We have to do something,” Logan said, desperation in his voice.

“Let’s say that we knew how to remove the collars,” Valerie suggested, turning back to Sylvia. “How long would it take?”

“That’s hard to say,” Sylvia said. “But with the proper antidote, the body could clear it very quickly, probably in a matter of hours, maybe even faster. The real problem is deploying the antidote. With the number of pods we have, it would take at least three months.”

“That’s three months too long,” Valerie said. “All the intelligence we’ve gathered points to an attack at Liberty Moment on Freedom Day. We have less than thirty-two hours.”

Logan looked at a clock on the wall. “If we can’t remove the collar in
time, then how do we stop it from being activated? How is it activated in the first place?”

“By the device the agents pulled from the rubble of the plantation,” Sylvia said.

“At least Monique was telling the truth about something,” Valerie said. “What does the device do?”

“To answer Logan’s question first,” Sylvia said, “based on the doctor’s notes, the collar is activated when it comes into contact with a particular UVA spectrum wave. That causes the alternation of the DNA, which messes with the VMAT-2 gene. That’s when all the bad things we talked about take place.” She paused a moment. “To answer Val’s question, the device creates the activation wave. Goshi is running some tests with it as we speak.” She got up and led the group through a set of doors into another room.

There Goshi was working on a computer alongside a bio-coffin, which contained the dead body of an elderly man. Two other coffins stood idle behind him. “It didn’t work,” he said with disappointment as the group gathered around him.

“What didn’t work?” Valerie asked.

“We tried to isolate the proper frequency that activates the DNA collar,” Goshi explained. “We believe we did everything according to the doctor’s notes.”

“Did you try both frequency ranges the doctor mentioned?” Sylvia asked.

“Yes, we administered the two-hundred-five-nanometer range and the three-hundred-nanometer range,” Goshi answered. “We detected zero change in the collar.”

“Did you see a green flash?” Logan inquired, recalling his experience at the auction and the flash of green light.

Goshi nodded. “The three-hundred-nanometer pulse produced a green light, and the two-hundred-five-nanometer produced a violet one.”

“The light is a residual echo pulse that’s given off in the visible-light
spectrum,” Sylvia explained. “It is really just a side effect of the primary wave.”

Logan and Valerie looked into the bio-coffin as one of the technicians opened the lid. They saw the frequency device Sylvia had referred to at the feet of the corpse. It was the size of a dinner plate and looked like a small replica of a flying saucer with a coiled antenna.

“These are special bio-coffins we are using to run the tests,” Sylvia said. “They have the characteristics of a reverse Faraday cage, which keeps the frequency generated by this device localized. Otherwise, we could expose the entire building.”

“The man inside passed away of a heart attack less than two hours ago,” Goshi said. “We tested his blood; he’d been infected with the serum. I don’t know why the test didn’t work.”

“Maybe it doesn’t work on dead people,” Logan said, walking over to the bio-coffin. “The doctor said that the serum is most effective when people are focused on freedom. And your investigation confirms that people who are in a meditative state or praying are more susceptible to the serum and the proper wavelength frequency.” He turned and looked at Sylvia. “So all of this suggests that we have to run this experiment on a live subject. Just like the doctor did at G-LAB.”

That wasn’t what anyone wanted to hear.

“That could be deadly,” Alex pointed out.

Goshi nodded. “How can we run the test on a live subject without running the risk of killing him?”

“We can’t,” Sylvia answered.

“Yeah. So who’s gonna volunteer for that ride?” Alex said, finishing up his coffee and tossing the cup into a nearby trashcan.

“I’ll do it,” Logan said.

“Like hell you will,” Valerie said.

“Listen, unless we figure this out, we’re all going to die or be living as slaves. One of us has to take the risk, and there’s no one here better suited for it than I am. Focusing on the candle is the same as meditating or praying.”