Bob brought me to
the guesthouse we saw in Archie’s video. The smiling couple, George and Sue, showed me my quarters. Bob was right; it was better than a hotel. I had a bedroom, office, bathroom, and a huge flat panel TV screen in what George called the gadget room. I wanted to rush back and meet Val for dinner, and I disappointed George by not letting him show me each gadget. After I promised to go through a demonstration session in the morning, I got them to leave, and then I hurried and changed out of the black contractor uniform and into my normal blue jeans.
Bob drove me back to the main building. I would have walked, but he wanted to make sure I knew the way. “Did you have a good day?” he asked.
“I found out more history. Soul Identity’s almost twenty-six hundred years old.”
“That’s twice as old as my own soul line.” Bob shook his head. “People with lines that long must be the luckiest people in the world.”
“Thirteen hundred years seems like nothing to sneeze at,” I said. “Does that make you luckier than those just starting their lines?”
He seemed to ponder this. “I don’t know. I sometimes feel less important around those who have longer lines.” He glanced over at me. “One of the delivery people in
Baltimore
has a soul line dating back two thousand years. You wouldn’t believe how much attention he gets at our monthly meetings.”
“Everybody listens to his advice?”
Bob nodded. “Nobody dares make a decision unless he agrees with it.”
“How old is this guy?”
“He’s twenty-eight. He’s been with us for only two years, and his line has only thirty years of total service.”
“Is yours the next oldest soul line, after him?”
“No, sir. There are other delivery people with older lines than mine. Why do you ask?”
“I thought maybe you had lost your position as top dog and you weren’t quite over it yet.”
Bob looked at me. “Sir, I am the best delivery person in the Mid-Atlantic region. They’re all pretty much jealous of me.”
“Even though your soul line is shorter than theirs?”
Bob didn’t answer right away. “I suppose they are jealous,” he said, “even with my shorter soul line.” He was silent again. “But I still wish mine was longer.”
The Soul Identity headquarters was in front of us. “I’ve got a ride home, so I’ll see you some time tomorrow,” I said.
Bob drove off and left me in the dark. Twilight had ended; the half moon still shone, but it sat low on the horizon and threw long shadows off the evergreens. The air was cooler and drier than back in
Maryland
, and I enjoyed the pine-scented breeze as I stepped up onto the porch and sat on a wooden rocking chair.
The wind carried the faint sounds of a man’s voice. I stopped rocking. The man was talking on a cell phone, and as he got closer, I could make out what he said. “Yes, he’s here. Bob dropped him off this afternoon.” Then, “He’s currently at the guesthouse…No, he doesn’t seem to know.” A long pause. “Yes, sir, I’ll do it just like you said…No sir, he won’t know. I’ll be very careful.” Another pause. “Yes, sir, the same time tomorrow.”
I heard gravel crunch on a pathway next to the porch, and I sat still. The man snapped his phone shut. I tried to make out any identifying features, but it was too dark. He walked around the corner toward the underground garage and out of my sight.
So the games had begun. I smiled. This contract had started off pretty interesting; throw in a potential problem from some bad guys plus a little spice from Val, and I was going to have a lot of fun.
A minute later, a motorcycle rolled up the front driveway. The driver pulled off a helmet and shook out a mane of dark red hair.
I stepped off the porch. “When you said wheels, I assumed you meant four of them.”
Val unhooked a black helmet and tossed it to me. I got on behind her. I looked for some handles, and decided her hips looked more inviting. I hooked my fingers into the belt loops of her jeans. “You changed at work?” I asked.
“Yeah, it’s better than driving in slacks.” She patted her bag slung around her shoulder. “This is big enough for my laptop and a pair of pants.”
We cleared the main gate and screamed down the back roads. I leaned forward and shouted, “Where’re we headed?”
“I’ve been thinking about a grinder all day,” she shouted back. “Is that okay?”
“Sure, but what’s a grinder?”
“You’ll see!” We drove past a ‘thickly settled’ sign and weaved down a hill and into the center of
Sterling
.
Val pulled up to a sub shop. We clipped our helmets to the sides of the bike. “We’ll get our grinders to go,” she said.
We walked into the shop. The guy behind the counter smiled. “Hey, Val.”
“Hi Jerry, I’ve been craving one of your everything grinders.” She glanced at me. “Make it two, Scott needs to experience this.”
“Two everything grinders coming right up.” Jerry smiled at me. “They’re wicked good.”
“So a grinder is a sub?” I asked.
He nodded.
“What’s in it?”
He gestured at the various meats, cheeses, and veggies under his glass countertop. “Everything.”
“And it’s wicked good.” Val winked at me.
“I can’t wait.” I grabbed two bottles of iced tea. “You want anything else?”
“We’ll be stuffed after the grinders,” she said. “Thanks, Jerry,” she called as we left the shop.
“So where do we eat these everything grinders?” I asked.
She handed me the bag. “We’ll drive to a magical place.”
Val pulled to the side of a back road fifteen minutes later. We sat in a forest of tall pine trees.
I removed my helmet. “What’s next? A magic carpet?”
Val laughed. “No, silly. We use magic shoes to climb the hill.” She wheeled the bike behind a rock.
“Have you done this before?”
Val nodded and started up the path.
We avoided the tree roots that seemed to reach out and grab at our feet. The moon had almost set, and it was pretty dark. We made it to the top after ten minutes.
A large granite boulder towered over us. She walked around to the other side. “Over this way,” she called.
I came around the rock, but I didn’t see her.
“Up here.” Val smiled down at me. “This is the magic spot. Hand me the grinders and pull yourself up.”
I passed the bag and climbed up next to her. We sat on a ledge of rock above the trees overlooking a valley. The setting moon illuminated the treetops, and its reflection danced on the rippled surface of a reservoir. White steeples pointed up from churches nestled in sleepy town centers.
“It’s breathtaking,” I said. “You come here often?”
“Is that a pickup line?”
“No. Well, maybe.”
Val hugged her knees. “I found this place last summer when I was riding by. I climbed the path and fell in love with the view. Now I come here when I’m stuck on a bug and I need to sort it out.”
I chuckled. “A true geek. I also have a thinking place back at home. It’s on the water.”
“Where’s that?”
“
Maryland
. On the
Chesapeake Bay
. The
Eastern Shore
, if you’ve heard of it.”
She laughed. “Of course I’ve heard of it. I live in
Annapolis
.”
I stared at her. “You’ve got to be kidding. That’s just across the bridge from me.”
She smiled. “Told you this was a magical place. Let’s eat our grinders.”
I pulled them out of the bag. “Everything, huh?”
“Jerry puts a tiny bit of everything in them. Don’t get too attached to a mouthful, because each one is different.”
“Is that the draw? Not too much of any one thing?”
“No, it’s the mixes I like.” Val took a bite. “See, I just had salami and cream cheese. I think.” She swallowed. “That wasn’t bad. It could have been horrible, but it’s only one bite, and the next one may be great.”
I tried my own. I tasted sweet pickle and some unrecognizable deli meat. “Interesting,” I said. “I don’t know what it was, but it doesn’t really matter, I guess.”
“You’re getting it.”
We ate in silence for a minute. Then I caught her eye. “So you’re a member of Soul Identity?”
She nodded. “For two years now.”
“How’d you get involved?”
“One of my co-workers was approached by a soul seeker, and I went to the reading with her. She wasn’t a match, but the idea of starting my own soul line fascinated me. I signed up, and then they recruited me to run their development.”
“I’m also intrigued,” I said. Mostly because of the present company, but I wasn’t going to tell her that. “Somehow you made a leap from interest to involvement.”
Val was silent for a minute. “You know, I was born in the
Soviet Union
, in its dying years. I was nine when the wall came down. Do you remember that?”
“Vaguely. I was twelve. That makes you twenty-nine?”
“Almost thirty. Those years were tough. I remember how little food we had to eat, and how nobody was paid. Everybody in my city hated the words
glasnost
and
perestroika
. We all craved the stability we had lost.”
“We were taught that you Soviets used to stand six hours in line for a sausage and a loaf of bread, and it all changed after the evil empire collapsed.”
“It did change,” she said. “But not for the better, not at first. My parents were history teachers, and they struggled to recover from the shock that they had spent their lives teaching a pack of lies. My father researched some Stalin-era information, only to learn that his parents were loaded onto a
Volga
river ferry and drowned. Just to meet some quota.”
“Yuck.”
“They are now happy with their new life in Mother Russia. They have joined the Orthodox Church, and with the extra money I send them, they have a comfortable life. But I want more.”
“More what?”
She picked up an acorn and tossed it over the ledge, and then she turned to face me. “I want to make a difference and leave a legacy of improvement behind. By starting a soul line, I can affect lives far into the future.”
“But can’t you do that as a parent?”
“Maybe I can, and hopefully I will. But it only took one evil person and some stupid bureaucrats to prevent me from ever knowing my grandparents—I’d like some extra insurance. A soul line is a safe way to project my legacy.”
We sat silently. I thought about how Val had some pretty deep waters running under her beautiful top layer.
She studied my face. “What’s your difficulty in believing in Soul Identity?” she asked.
I took a deep breath. “Here’s what I see. They claim to help me plan for my future. They use a massive army of recruiters and seekers to grow, and I would guess that many people turn over their money in exchange for simple ego stroking. They seem to have no oversight, which means the potential for corruption is huge.”
She smiled. “It sounds like any organized religion, doesn’t it?”
She had a point. “I guess there’s not much difference,” I said. “Both require believers who have faith in the message and in the system.”
She nodded. “That’s what I see too. Each has believers who have found a purpose in life. Each has members who are uncommitted. And each has bad guys who are only in it for selfish or sick reasons.”
We sat there and looked out over the valley. “Now that you put it that way, Soul Identity doesn’t seem so strange,” I said.
She smiled at me. “Actually, the premise is much simpler here. Your soul identity is unique, and somebody else gets it after you die. All the rest is added in later.”
“Added in?”
She nodded. “That everything grinder you just ate? Soul Identity is like that. The bun is the basic premise, but it can be filled with lots of beliefs—some that fit well, and others that are vile.”
Bob did mention that various churches have formed over the years, each adding different meanings to the base message.
Simple or not, the premise was still a big stretch for me. “I wish I could sit here and tell you I’m there with you,” I said. “But I’m too much of a skeptic to believe this quickly.”
Val nodded.
“Though I’ve gotta tell you,” I said, “I like what you’re doing. Creating a positive legacy is a really nice thought. So much more unselfish than thinking ‘I want to live forever’ or ‘I don’t want to burn.’”
She frowned. “Don’t make me into too much of a saint. I don’t want to become untouchable.”
God forbid that happened; I’d been fantasizing about the touching part all evening long.
She took a deep breath and looked me in the eye. “I’m twenty-nine years old,” she said. “I got married at twenty-four, and it lasted three years. No kids. I have an apartment in
Annapolis
. No pets, no roommate, and no significant other.”
I raised my eyebrows.