We’d tried to find Dr. Colette to corroborate our story, but she hasn’t been seen since the funeral home incident. At first I wondered if she had perhaps been planning on helping the twins after all, but then I remembered that she’d killed Darren and I decided that was unlikely. I figured she would show up soon enough.
And so.
The president was fine. Undersecretary of Defense Williamson was facing a congressional hearing, and Dr. Arlington was in the hospital with some sort of serious infection, although details concerning what’d happened to him hadn’t been released to the public. Still no idea on who Akinsanya was.
Earlier today I’d tried calling my dad as I’d promised Charlene I would do, but as I suspected, he hadn’t answered or returned my call. For now, the things we all put off saying would have to wait.
As a result of the news coverage, Michelle Boyd begged me to come back to Entertainment Film Network. In addition, I received offers from four other networks to launch a new series, but I declined all the invitations.
Freelancing seemed like a good idea for the time being.
Fionna has offered to act as our tour guide, and as we emerge from the elevator she announces that we’re going to visit the Pennsylvania Hospital this afternoon. “It was cofounded by Benjamin Franklin in 1751 and was the first hospital in the western hemisphere. At first they had a difficult time paying for costs, so they charged spectators an admission fee to watch operations.”
Five-year-old Mandie wrinkles up her nose. “That’s gross.”
“Cool.” Donnie smiles. “That’d be awesome.”
Maddie gives him a sigh and a head shake. “You are such a boy.”
“And you’re such a girl.”
“Thank you.”
We leave the hotel. No limos or executive cars today. My side still aches, but walking doesn’t hurt too badly. It feels good to get some fresh air, and the Pennsylvania autumn trees are stunning.
Fionna goes on with her explanation. “There was no anesthesia, of course, so people got to choose between opium, whiskey, or getting smacked on the head with a mallet wrapped in leather to be knocked unconscious for the operation.”
“What’s opium, Mommy?” Mandie asks.
“Something that’s very bad for you, dear.” Fionna pauses, looks reflectively at the horizon. “Here’s one: when the man thought about getting smacked on the head with a mallet wrapped in leather to be knocked unconscious for his operation, he looked about as excited as the second-place kid in the Scripps National Spelling Bee after misspelling the word idiot.”
“Hmm,” Xavier acknowledges. “That one I actually like.”
“Thank you, Mr. Wray. I think I’m finally getting the hang of this.”
Yesterday Fionna took us to the Eastern State Penitentiary, which is now a tourist site. When I saw the thirty-foot-high walls that were also ten feet thick, I started thinking of ways I could walk through them.
Occupational hazard.
I’d come up with two ideas at the time. Now, on the way to the Pennsylvania Hospital, I think of one more, a good one that’ll work even with live audiences watching from both sides of the wall. And the top of it.
Might be a good publicity stunt to launch a new live stage show.
Charlene is by my side and says quietly, “Penny for your thoughts.”
“I think I’m going to walk through a wall.”
“Sounds fun. Will you be needing a lovely assistant?”
“I could probably come up with a way to work someone in.”
“Glad to hear that.” She takes my arm in hers. “As long as it’s me.”
“There’s no one else even in the running, Petunia.”
“I’m glad to hear that, Wolverine.”
The man who had shot the vest of the suicide bomber, the man who went by the name Akinsanya, had, of course, lied to Darren and Daniel about Adrian Goss. Adrian was not their father; he had known their mother, yes, but he was just a person Akinsanya had come up with to serve as another test.
He boarded the plane for Dubai, a place to hide out until he could regroup. Figure out his next step.
In the last two days, RixoTray stock had plummeted and he’d lost over four million dollars. Yes, his investment portfolio had taken a major hit, but in Akinsanya’s business, money was easy to make. More significantly, because of Arlington’s reckless and illegal actions, the whole telomerase research project was being brought into question.
And that really was the problem.
He took his seat in the first-class cabin.
Yes, lay low until the dust settled, then pursue the second option — The Singularity. If he couldn’t use the experimental telomerase drug to extend his life indefinitely, downloading his consciousness onto a computer would.
Akinsanya looked out the window.
He was going by an alias today, of course.
After all, he’d served in the US military for thirty years, had just recently left. He was the man who had first found Darren at Fort Bragg and Daniel at Fort Benning. Akinsanya was Colonel Derek Byrne. And he was not at all done with his mission.
Cyrus opened his eyes and saw Mambo Atabei sitting beside his hospital bed.
He would have cried out for help, but the damage to his throat from the wasps was too severe. It wasn’t clear if he’d ever be able to speak again. In fact, the doctors were saying it was a miracle that the swelling hadn’t completely closed off his airway.
A miracle?
Well, Cyrus didn’t exactly believe in miracles, or, conversely, in curses, or in any of the spiritual forces of good or evil that religious and superstitious people acknowledged.
But honestly, he didn’t like considering the possibility that there was something to Atabei’s practices — or the role they might’ve played in Tanbyrn’s death. And right now, seeing her here, he realized he most certainly did not want to find out.
Atabei assessed him. “The kind officer at the door let me through when I told him I was your spiritual advisor. I wish I could apprise you that my Loa ordered me not to perform a ceremony regarding your well-being tonight, but that would be untrue. She informed me that you had intended to kill me.”
Cyrus’s eyes grew large. He tried to speak, made only unintelligible sounds. His wrists were strapped to the sides of the bed, so he couldn’t press the call button beside him for help.
How?
You never told anyone!
“I just came by to tell you that so you’d know what’s coming. Expectation always helps in the equation, belief plays a very important role in shaping the future.” Atabei patted his arm and stood. “Well… I should probably be going. It looks like I need to be buying a goat on the way home.”
Fire and Ice
My publicity guys are truly geniuses.
The timing of walking through the Eastern State Penitentiary wall in Philly had been really brilliant. We’d finished the documentary on the events in Oregon and Philadelphia, and it aired the same night as the penitentiary special, coinciding with the week my new stage show opened in Las Vegas. We sold out the first month of the run in the first twenty-two minutes after tickets went on sale online.
We dedicated the documentary to Dr. Tanbyrn and Abina, donated the proceeds from the television special and the run of the show to the Lawson Research Center. All Charlene’s idea.
I hear a knock on the greenroom door three minutes before I need to be on stage.
“Yes?”
Xavier leans in. “Jev, there’s someone here to see you.” I’m about to tell him that I don’t have time to see anyone right now, that he should know that, but he goes on before I can say anything. “It’s your dad.”