“I feel like I just gained five pounds,” said Ilya after finishing his burger and fries.
“I normally only eat this stuff if I’m hung over.” Jonah crumpled his burger wrapper with a look of disdain.
“Me too.” I looked over at him and smiled.
“Want to go work it off on the swings?” said Jonah.
“I’m not sure that’s going to put a dent in it, but why not? It’s better than getting right back in the car,” I said.
Cole kept eating, working his way through his third burger. Faith had gone to the washroom. Ilya leaned back on one of the picnic table bench seats. I followed Jonah to the swings.
We sat on the swing set, pumping back and forth with our legs, passing each other in a blur, laughing.
“I couldn’t tell you the last time I sat on a swing.” I smiled, my nervousness melting away.
“We should all–” Jonah stopped short and fell backwards out of his swing, crumpling like rag doll. I turned back as my swing carried me forward in time to see Jonah’s limp body hit the gravel with a crunch.
“JONAH!” I shrieked. I jumped out of my swing and dove down next to his body.
I heard footsteps and shouts behind me as I slapped Jonah’s cheeks and shook his shoulders.
“Wake up! Don’t do this, Jonah. Wake up! Wake up,” I chanted like a mantra.
“He needs water,” said Cole, handing me a bottle.
I cracked the cap and tipped the liquid into Jonah’s mouth. The water slid in as though pouring down a drain.
Jonah roused, grabbed my hand and the bottle together, sucking hard until he emptied the bottle. He was pale as a sheet. The rest of us were sweating in the heat, but Jonah’s skin didn’t release a drop of moisture.
“Take me to the water. Take me to the ocean,” said Jonah faintly.
We rushed to the car and headed west, not knowing the city streets, only knowing the general direction of the Pacific. After passing through block after block of small town America, we finally saw a pier ahead.
“Look for a boat launch,” said Cole urgently.
Faith pointed out a ramp leading down into the sea next to the pier as we turned onto the main waterfront street. Cole drove right down to the ramp. Ilya and Faith quickly carried Jonah into the water.
Jonah sat in the water for a moment. Frothy foam surged and swirled around him, full of debris and garbage, but he leaned back and floated, lounging peacefully. After several minutes, Jonah stood, turned, and dove into the dirty water.
We all stood on the boat ramp watching the surf, waiting for Jonah to resurface. I looked around to see if we had drawn a crowd with our friend’s odd mid-day swim. A few pedestrians walked along the sidewalk behind us. One woman cast a quick glance in our direction. Nobody else cared about a young man plunging into the water fully clothed.
Jonah swam for a while before eventually coming back to us. He emerged from the water covered in dirt and seaweed, but looking more refreshed than I had seen him in weeks.
“Let’s grab a flat of water before we get back on the road,” said Jonah.
“Dude, whatever you need,” said Cole.
Jonah peeled off his wet shirt revealing his pale muscular chest. He squeezed what water he could out of his shorts and we all got back into the car.
Chapter 8
We stopped at the next grocery store and bought two flats of water. The briny smell of sunbaked seaweed permeated Cole’s car as we left town, but none of us said a word.
We passed outlet malls, resorts, and a casino, separated by woods and grasslands tinted yellow by the summer sun. Muggy heat stifled us. The only relief was the occasional gust of cool air through the car windows.
As we neared Seattle, the concrete cultivation improved. Software companies, research facilities, and corporate towers replaced brand-name clothing and chain restaurants. The highway poured onto a larger freeway. After many more miles, the great cement channel opened into an urban landscape. The Space Needle stood out in the distance as we drove onto a bridge leading into the heart of the city.
“I have Josh’s apartment, the name of the diner where he works, and his cell number,” said Ilya as he consulted a piece of paper.
“We should text him first,” said Jonah.
“Which of you guys knew him best?” said Faith.
“Probably me,” said Ilya.
“Use my phone,” I said, handing my precious digital treasure to my not-so-technically inclined brother.
Does mind-reading and the capacity to create illusions negate a need for technology? Or does he not like electronics?
Ilya took the phone. “If you’d spent the last few years hanging out with homeless people, you’d have an appreciation for what you really need in life.”
I narrowed my eyes as I glared at him.
I never had gadgets or luxuries growing up. Mom and Darryl had less than half of what Ivan gave you.
Ilya rolled his eyes and turned his back continuing to concentrate on my phone. I took a deep breath and looked up at the sky to stop myself from thinking anything else.
“David Wong emailed me already. He wanted to make sure he had my address right. Cole, you were all up on the journalist plan, so I’m giving him your email now. In the meantime, let’s hit the Pike Place Market before we meet up with Josh. I’ve never been,” said Faith.
“Oooo, that sounds like fun!” I said, and hoped I didn’t sound as sarcastic as I felt.
“According to the map, we need to be downtown for Josh’s work and apartment, so why not?” Ilya kept texting.
“We need something fun right now, Irina,” said Jonah.
Ilya directed Cole to a parking lot down the street from Pike Place. The tiny lot was attended by an old man who wanted fifteen dollars per hour to park, the first hour up front in cash. Jonah paid him and we left the car.
Pike Street overflowed with pedestrians. A sunny summer day brought hordes of tourists to blend with the already eclectic mix of hippies, students, and business people. Suits and sarongs, bandanas and backpacks all churned in a sea of human traffic.
We made our way to the entrance under the iconic PUBLIC MARKET CENTER neon sign. The huge clock told us it was nearly three. Josh returned Ilya’s text and asked us to meet him at a nearby diner in a couple hours at five o’clock.
As we fell in with a stream of people flowing under the sign, I saw the famous fish market. Their workers were busy throwing fish and shouting, decked in rubber overalls as though they had just stepped off a fishing boat.
“Let’s split up. I want to browse around and I don’t want to hear any crap about boring anybody,” said Faith.
“We’ve got two hours before we meet Josh. Shall we say, back here at quarter to five?” said Ilya.
“Sweet!” Faith turned on her heel and veered into the nearest trinket shop.
“Has everyone got money?” asked Cole. We all nodded and Cole left.
“There’s a sweet record shop downstairs. I’ll be there if anyone’s looking for me.” Ilya followed Cole.
Jonah and I were left to watch the fishmongers on our own. Neither of us said a word or moved to leave. My pulse quickened as our silence stretched on. Jonah gently took my hand. I squeezed it and released my grip.
“The incident at the park makes me more certain we can’t be together,” I said softly, barely audible over the chatter around us.
Jonah leaned down and whispered in my ear. “I don’t care anymore. If I’m going to die anyway, I’d rather be with you before it happens. What’s an extra few days or months in the scope of someone’s life?” His lips almost brushed my skin. The feel of his breath against me sent a tingle through my body. Anger replaced the attraction a heartbeat later.
“Don’t talk like that.” I threw Jonah’s hand back at him and started toward the stairwell.
“We need to talk about it, so why not now?” Jonah caught up with me.
“Let’s enjoy the Market. We’ll talk later, I promise.”
Good luck getting me alone after today
, I thought, vowing not to give Jonah the chance to corner me again. To change the subject, I said, “I think Faith and Ilya are getting back together.”
“Really? Good, I’m glad she’s moving on.”
I exited the stairwell on the next floor down with Jonah next to me. I started browsing a table of leather goods set up in a room off the main hallway. “I walked in on them the other day. It surprised me too. Ilya said he still loved her, but that he refused to make a move until he was sure she’d gotten over you.”
“Faith probably started it then. She doesn’t keep secrets or wait around when she wants something.”
We moved on to a table of organic lavender and honey products. I turned away and headed back to the main hallway. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing. Sorry, I didn’t mean it like that. I wish we had both been honest about how we feel before now. We could have been together for longer.”
“I hate to keep saying this, but we’re not together. Not until you’re cured–or stable at a bare minimum,” I said as we passed a window of glass sun-catchers.
“Can you let me worry about my health?”
“Let’s agree to disagree for now.” I walked into a small shop of handmade wool accessories. I lifted a price tag on an unseasonably full yarn infinity scarf. “One hundred and ten dollars?” I blurted loudly. The proprietor sitting on a stool next to the cash register glowered at me.
“This
is
Pike Place Market,” said Jonah. “If we ever go back to Vancouver, I’ll take you to Granville Island. It’s the same idea, an artists’ market with super cool handmade stuff we really can’t afford.”
I followed Jonah back out into the hall. “I’ve been to Granville Island. Let’s stick to window-shopping from now on. It’s less tempting. You know, if we all still worked for Innoviro, this stuff wouldn’t be so impractical. It’d be a splurge. Why did I have to go digging and ruin everything?”
“Because you thought Ivan was doing something wrong. And he was. We didn’t want to listen at first, but for my part, I think I’d known for a long time. I wanted my cure and I didn’t want to get off the gravy train any more than anyone else. It took someone new–who hadn’t been sucked into the lifestyle yet–to question everything.”
We emerged on another sub level with a vaulted ceiling above two floors of open space. Inner windows from all the shops around us on the floor above displayed plants, clothes, books, posters and more trinkets.
“Oh, I’d been sucked into the lifestyle. Only I was naïve enough to think that asking a few questions might solve a problem. I didn’t think I’d bring the whole place to a halt.” I craned my neck, looking around at each glass-enclosed shop.
“It needed to end. You should never question doing the right thing. We can’t put the genie back in the bottle anyway.”
“Good point. Hey, speaking of genies.” I caught sight of a turban-topped antique mannequin in a glass and wood case with the word ‘Swami’ artfully painted on the front. The figure stood guard next to the entrance to a magic shop.
I stepped up to the swami and looked into his painted brown eyes.
What do I have in common with this man?
I wondered.
How many real psychics have there ever been? Will there be more of us now?
I stared and stared into the swami’s eyes, thinking hard about Ivan, pondering where he might have gone with Tatiana in his silver Audi. The walls of the Pike Place basement dissolved like smoke and I stood in an apartment with a view of the Golden Gate Bridge. Fog covered the bay around it like a blanket of cotton batten. I turned to see the contents of the room.
Ivan and another man in a collared shirt were seated on an expensive-looking white couch. Ivan’s face bore the scabby wounds I had seen outside Gemma’s apartment at UBC. The other man had bright silver hair, although he looked to be no older than his early thirties. A stainless steel coffee mug sat in front of each man, floating on an almost invisible glass coffee table.
“I expect to view the site tomorrow. I didn’t hop on a red-eye for my personal entertainment,” said Ivan.
“You do understand, we’re still weeks away from the earliest possible test date,” said the silver-haired man.
“Listen, Waynesburg,
you
need to understand
me
. You’re adapting to my timeline now. My son and daughter are on the loose with their friends stirring up trouble. My softhearted children have it in their heads that Compendium work needs to stop. I don’t know how much they know, but I have to assume the worst. Tomorrow, we go back to the Island, and then, up to the test site.”
The vision went black. In a blink, I snapped back to the Pike Place Magic Shop.
Jonah had his hand on my shoulder. He stood shielding me from view of other shoppers. “What happened? What did you see?”
“Ivan and Waynesburg. They were meeting in San Francisco and talking about a test and a site. Ivan freaked out about the group of us poking into
The Compendium
. He pressured the other man for a tour of the site. I know the other man was Waynesburg because Ivan used his name,” I said, in a rush.
“Waynesburg was the guy working on controlled seismic activity. He must be getting ready to test a piece of equipment.”
“You mean he’s going to start an earthquake?” Disbelief came through in my shrill tone.
“In terms of accessibility, the San Andreas fault line is a good place to trigger a seismic event. The urban development in the area would be devastated though.”
“No! We can’t let this happen! In the vision, Ivan was cut up, spot on how I’d seen him at UBC! It could have been the present, right now! Waynesburg said the test would happen in a few weeks. We have to go now!” I turned and marched back into the stairwell.
“Calm down, we’ve got time. It’ll only take a few days to drive to San Francisco even if we go at a leisurely pace.” Jonah followed me back the way we came.
“Let’s go find the others now and go straight to this Josh guy. I’ll tell him why we’re early. We’ll buy an early dinner and we’ll be paying customers so he doesn’t get into trouble.”
When I explained my unexpected vision to my friends, they readily abandoned Pike Place. The streets were even more crowded as we made our way back into the heart of Seattle. We went on foot, not expecting to find parking again near Josh’s diner. By the time we found the hole-in-the-wall where Josh worked, he was already sitting on the step outside, phone in one hand, smoking a cigarette with the other.
Ilya approached Josh and the latter butted his cigarette on the ground. Josh wore his dark hair in messy short spikes. He had chiseled features that would have been handsome if not for the hint of menace in his dark eyes. Josh stood and the full impact of his frame hit me. He must have been at least six and a half feet tall. Ilya had to crane his neck up to look Josh in the eye. A flash of fear surged in me as the two moved to embrace. A clapped handshake transitioned to a hug and I wondered how the two had come to be such good friends. Cole stepped up next and when his fist bumped into Josh’s, I could have sworn I heard a deep metallic thud. Cole had unparalleled strength, but he wasn’t made of steel. And then I realized what Josh had been. Security.