Encompassing (6 page)

CHAPTER 16

“Him?  Again?  He thinks of himself as a demigod stuck between being human and more.  He’s less than any and more than all.”  --  from the book of Vladimir

“As ridiculous as it sounds, we’re going to run out of time.  Are you ready or not?”

“He won’t like us interfering.  Your argument is sound, but somehow he always knows.”

“If he always knew, then explain why he’s done this hundreds of times.”  She responds, watching the face of her daughter, closely, for a response.

“Maybe it has to do with his plan.”  The daughter responds.

“If he had a plan, why would he have to keep doing it over and over?  I don’t know.  I haven’t been with him as long as you have, but it doesn’t make sense.”  The mother shoots back.

“It will, when he’s done.  Ask my sister.  Ask her why she draws what she does, over and over again.  Each time she gets something she didn’t before.  To you and I, all of the drawings look the same.  I see her face.  They are not the same to her.  She learns.  He does too.  They are a lot alike.  With what they can do and how it effects everything, wouldn’t you want to be sure?”

“What are you sure of?”  The mother stops and picks at the ground then holds it up and lets it slide through her fingers.

The daughter watches the demonstration.  She slowly walks to where she sees the sun’s current position.  Then she tilts her had back as it begins to rain and feels the rain drops on her face and body as she turns to respond.  “I know that I will do my part.  I believe I am a part.  I know that makes you angry at times.  I know you’ve accepted it in your way.  But I know that we named that”, she points towards the sun, “Sol.  We were so sure of that we named everything in it’s immediate gravity influence the Solar system.  That isn’t just a name.  That’s faith, mother.  You have faith in him too.  It’s ok.  He’s human.  He does make mistakes.  I’ve seen them time and again.  But he tries and he never gives up!”

The mother turns to walk away, but stops and says, “He’s my husband.  I have faith in him.  I always will.  I may question him, but isn’t that my role?  I’m supposed to help him and he’s supposed to teach me.  That’s what a wife does for her husband and what a husband does for his wife.  You are my daughter, you are not his wife.”

“I won’t disagree with you, Mother.  I am sorry.  It was fate.  One of those things he knows that he doesn’t even understand he knows.  Do you understand that?”  She turns back to the sun as the rain stops.  She begins to cross the porch back into the house they are currently living in.  She thinks to herself how many times she’s been here, but then looks at her mother and realizes she may know but she can’t understand the feeling.  She knows that to her mother, it’s just another place.  She looks at her, not with pity, but with understanding.  She walks over and gives her a hug and then points out into the distance far over a valley.  “Do you remember how you felt when you first met him?”

Her mother looks at her and chuckles, “Oh, you mean the pain?”

The daughter laughs, “I suppose you could call it that.”

CHAPTER 17

“There are things the universe is unable to erase with time.  Cherish those.  The universe wants you to remember.”  --  from the book of Laura

“Who are you?”  As she sat up she clearly was uncomfortable with the man the question was aimed at.

“I’m Renfield.  But, you already knew that and that wasn’t what you were asking.  I’ll need time and you will too.  Given time you’ll remember through other ‘you’s’ and I know that makes no sense now.  It will.  In time.  We have to live long enough to have the time to remember, no?”

“You’re odd, but I like your voice.  Come here often?”

Renfield laughed.  Her sense of humor was so her.  “More than I care to, but you’re here so it makes it worth the trip.”

“I see you plan your lines.  So yeah you’re weird, but I’m interested.  Why are we moving so fast?  I mean the team, not you and I.  Don’t get any ideas, Mister.”

“Actually it’s not Mister, but that’s a long story.  Hmm, I guess they all are.  We have to stop something.  Something really bad.  Are you in or do you want the easy way out?  Not that I can think of an easy way out right now.  I suppose that’s rhetorical.”

“Ya think?  Can I have a moment?  I have to…”

“Right” observed Renfield, “but get ready, we have to move fast, ok?”

“Why do I feel like I know you?” She finally asked.

“Residual effects.  You’ll get used to it and eventually enjoy it.  But in the near future you’ll hate it so I don’t want to press.”

“What the hell does that mean?” Christina was clearly annoyed with Renfield.

“Take care of what you need to, but be fast. We have to move soon.”  At that he got up and exited her tent looking for Brady to urge him to get everyone on task to move very quickly.

Brady was already on top of it, everyone was prepared.  Brady walked over to Renfield and with a hand to Renfield’s shoulder he whispered, “That didn’t go as you wanted, but it did go as you expected.  Am I right?”

“Yeah, this gets old.”  Then with a smile he looked at his new friend Brady and said, “But she’s worth it!”

Brady looked at his new friend and thought, “Is she why he’s done all of this?”

Renfield, knowing the thought, turned to Brady and said out loud, “In the long run?  Probably.”

Renfield feels it.  Christina clinches but he’s already beside her, “Sorry, no time for you to finish, get what you need, leave the tent here.”  He knows that she’s angry, but it is important that she live.  She cannot waste another moment.  He can’t change that.  He tried that once.  He realizes that if residual memory works for the others it works for the beast too.  He smiles.  New name, ‘the beast’.  He’s got to call her something.  He moves fast, but he knows they know where he’s headed.  That might work.  If Brady leads where he told him to go, he can go where ‘the beast’ will feel most at ease and get in at least one strike.  He knows he’ll bleed again, but he knows what he carries in his blood is his best design, so far.  He pauses, Christina runs from her tent and starts following the others.  To him this means they will make it to the other side and now he can act.  He runs out to flat land and stands and waits. And thinks, “Come, take the bait.”  Then out loud he screams, “I have become your death!”, knowing they don’t communicate in his language, but it helps him brace himself for the onslaught of pain to come.  As they rise up and tear away at his body he can only think, “Run Brady, get Christina there safely.  The final package you don’t know about is with you.  Everything depends on you!”  Almost as quickly as he thinks it, Christina stumbles and he moves fast to pick her up and hand her to Brady who is now on the rock bed.  Brady looks down shocked at the damage endured by Renfield.  “What is he?”  He snaps out of the thought and they move higher up, and Renfield is again gone, drawing these strange things away from their position.  Brady wonders, “Why?  Why don’t we just bomb this place if he knows where it is?”  He suspects Renfield knows the answer and snaps back into action to get everyone to keep climbing.  The whole time, looking back at Renfield.  He sees him pick up rocks that could not be lifted by a hundred men as he smashes them into the enemy.  He then notices something odd.  Renfield seems to disappear and re-appear in different places.  “How?”  Brady thinks?  “Who is Christina, what is his plan and why does it seem like he really has done this before?”  Then Renfield is beside him, not just battered but torn asunder.

“Explain what you are?” The detective quietly asks.

Barely able to breathe, yet again, Renfield explains.  “I’m not alone.  As those who know me pass on they have a choice.  They pass on their ‘thing’ to me or I take away what ails them.  They all know I am bound by my promise to accept either fate.  They all know if I accept what ails them, I have to store that forever and it means I will eventually cease to be.  Some choose to share themselves and some lead me closer to my ultimate fate.  I don’t get to choose.  That’s the other side of how all of this began.  Did I mention it’s complicated?”

“I can’t even ask those guys to treat you right now.  If they saw you, they would not understand why you’re alive.  Not that I do, but I’m starting to accept it.  Why?”  Brady looking frustrated stands and paces for a moment than looks back at Adam, “For her?”, he shouts at Adam while pointing to Chirstina.

“You keep digging, that’s why you’re a detective” Renfield tries to smile.  “She is the mother.  She has to live.  All of you are here based on a lot of learning time after time, but this is my last time, so it has to work.”

“What does?  What’s going on, this is getting... Damnit, I’m not going to say the word, but, please just tell me!”

And yet, as he turns he notices Renfield was completely unconscious.  Brady realizes that even if Renfield had heard the query he probably would not have answered.  If he had he would have explained that it was complicated.

CHAPTER 18

“I was neither the beginning nor the end, but I was.”  -- from the book of Christina

“I’m sorry, two more valleys to get past. I’m, good.  You should have been moving me while I was out.”

“Stop!  I heard you mutter the words, ‘The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.’  You know what this is so well for a reason.  You created it.  Now you are making amends for it, but you’re moving people’s fates to stop it.  I know you’ve done this over and over and you’ve failed.  What gives you the right to keep trying?”

“Brady, there is not one of us here that doesn’t want the same thing.  This needs to end and I know no one remembers why, but there is an echo from the other ‘you’s’ in all of you.  We should be at the summit of this mound by now, why didn’t you move me?”

“Renfield, you were dead.  I saw it, we all saw it.  I picked up the line to call in a strafing operation, but Christina stayed my hand.  She said I should believe, because I’m your friend, as you predicted.  She doesn’t know what to think of you, but I know a man on a mission when I see one.  Did you create this ‘thing ‘we are struggling against?  That you are struggling against so hard that you come back from death?”

“Yes and no, it’s…”

“Complicated?  Break it down.  How did this start?  If we’re going to win, we need to know what we’re up against.”

“Understood”, said Renfield and Brady’s eyes widened.  Clearly he had once been a brother.  “It was a theory someone else had about a theory I had.  It wouldn’t be had I not given the answer to the query.  I trusted people to know right from wrong and I never imagined that a thought I had on just one topic would ever be used.  Basically, I put it in story form so it could be understood.  If God were to have created man what would motivate man to move if he could not die.  If man could die what would motivate him to try to live.  At the end of the story Adam sees Eve and runs after her because the answer to the riddle God put inside them.  At least the concept of God did.”

“So Adam, you?  And Christina is Eve?” Brady said quietly.

“She is, but she hates that before knowing after knowing, while trying to understand and then…when… she loves so deep it…”

“Relax, I’d say you’d pull a stitch but we didn’t sew you up.  You were dead, Adam.  We all saw it.  How do you explain that?”

“We need to move, we’re behind schedule.”

“Again!  Can I hate you and love you as a friend, Adam Renfield?”  Brady looks at Renfield and then around at the expanse of sand, rocks and carvings that ancient rivers had once created.

“As you wish.  As long as you wish we were already doing it at the next rock.”  Adam replies.

“We call them cliffs, mesas and a few other words, we don’t call everything a rock, just to be clear.  I know what you mean.  We move now.  Wait, can YOU move now?”

“Of course, I could outrun you all there!”  Renfield grins at Brady.

“Of course you can, Adam.  That is what I want to understand.”  Brady’s eyes narrow as he responds to Renfield’s quip.

“In time, but let’s be over there when we talk about all of this.”  Renfield pointed at the next rock formation as he was beginning to call them in his head.  He remembered that now.

CHAPTER 19

“Deciding to act is often harder than action and why others fail to succeed.”  -- from the book of Illumna

Brady yells, “Adam!  Stay with me!  Adam!  Christina is here, I told her some of what you said.  She’d run from you right now if she could, but that would be illogical.  Stay with us, for her.  How many times can you get ripped to shreds like that?  It’s insane!  You got us all here safely, but we’re worried you won’t make it.  If you won’t explain it all to me, explain to her.  At least tell me what you know.  Renfield, tell us what you are.  We have to deal with this one way or the other and we’re wondering.  In case you…”

“Sir, let me talk to him.  From what you’ve told me, I should at least get to know him.”  Christina leaned over Renfield and looked at him in doubt, but part of her wanted to know if any of it were true.  What she had seen certainly proved there was some reality to his words.  The madness she had seen over the last few days was proof of that.  She asked Renfield softly, “Why me?”

“They’re getting smarter each time I do this, dear.  Echo memory.  It makes this harder each time.  The Queen understands echo memory.  So the faster I get the faster she gets.” Renfield responds.

“When did I become your ‘dear’?”  Christina looks down at Adam suspiciously and a bit offended.

“Sorry, Christina.  I have to do things differently than I did before, they’re going to come up this hill.  Sometimes we stand the ground and fight and we die here.   Sometimes we make it to the next rock formation.”

“What happens when we make it?”  Christina asks.  Detective Brady thought it was best that she ask the more delicate questions that Renfield seems to continually avoid.

“You and I spend a lot more time together.”  Renfield laughs weakly.  “My point is they know the same outcomes I know.  So if you want to help right now, think of a different scenario.”

“What if I leaped off of here into them, then your ‘mother’ thing couldn’t happen.  That would change it!”

“I don’t want to think about it, but yes, you tried that before too.  It’s a horrid memory.”

“Did it change anything?”  Christina’s eyes blaze with the question as she stares at Adam.

“Everything was hopeless to all of natural evolution from that moment forward.  You’ve come up with that idea more than once.  You damn everything except them.  It’s a total win for them and damnation for everything else.”  Renfield stands as he speaks.  His mind wandering back to the pasts he doesn’t want to think about.

“I don’t believe you Adam.  I think you just want and you seem to get what you want.” Christina looks at him as if she wants to slap him.

Laughing in less labored tones, “Well, that I do, dear.  Know me long enough and you’ll be even more convinced and satisfied!”

“What does that mean?”  Christina looks at him with slits for eyes as she crosses her arms to avoid overreacting.

“Satisfied that I am truly telling you what I already know.  What did you think I…Oh.”  This time the laughter was a bit stronger.  “I’m not getting into that, I mean I…” Renfield pauses considering his words, but unable to find better, “Yeah well I meant…”  Renfield pauses and then considers the things he hasn’t done before.  Adam then says, “Look at what we figured out you could put on me that would last!”  Renfield begins to unbutton his shirt while stating, “It’s your own drawing and you know your own hand well.  You’re a pilot.  Look and tell me you didn’t draw it and I’ll shut up about all of this and if you want to jump, go ahead.”

At that Renfield showed her the markings that would always remain, no matter what happened to him.  Christina immediately knew they were hers.  They were a representation of a dream she had.

“You are him!  I’m sorry I didn’t believe.  I…”  And then she kissed him deeply.