The Code - Genesis - Book I (27 page)

“This isn’t what I signed on for,” Knight says with worry.

Miscellaneous vacation adornments sit on a shelf underneath the photos, including a Hawaiian lei, a cowboy statue, a marble miniature slot machine, and others.

Baxter continues, “Lest you forget that you came to me, Agent Knight.  You begged me for this chance.  Just be grateful that I gave it to you.”

A clear circle surrounded by dust sits silently on that shelf that used to house a
Las Vegas
shot glass at the back of the vacation memorabilia. 

Baxter stands, rounds his desk, and positions himself behind Knight, putting his hands on Knight’s shoulders.  “We’re in it through the finish,” he says to Knig
ht, as a
worried cloud enshrouds Knight’s entire face.

Chapter Forty-seven

             
Natan stands in the doorway of
Alice
’s old, bare office.  Hidden inside the ceiling, out of view from Natan, lies the missing disc, sitting on four corners of the ceiling t
iles within the ceiling itself. 
Natan runs her fingers through her hair. 
What are you trying to tell me,
Alice
? 
Natan looks one last time, and after finding nothing, flips the light switch off.

Inside an underground facility on the outskirts of
Las Vegas
, a terrified, wide-eyed
Alice
lies in a hospital gown, with a rubber mouth restraint and her hands and feet strapped to a gurney.  Calming classical music emanates from the selectively placed speaker system.

A doctor stands over a helpless
Alice
as he flips through the pages of a clipboard

in hand, “Don’t you worry, Mrs. Warren,” he says, “You’ll be taken very good care of.”  He smiles at her terror.  “Our facility is one of the best on this side of the country and, well, with your government health plan, you’ll receive the best treatment we can give you.”  The doctor sets the clipboard on
Alice
’s chest.  He pulls out a syringe filled with clear fluid.  He flicks the syringe twice and then injects it into
Alice
’s forearm.  Her eyes relax almost shut.

“Take her to room two,” he says to a nearby orderly.  The orderly nods okay as he wheels
Alice
away quietly and slowly down the hallway.  A medicated
Alice
hears only the squeaky wheel as she is rolled toward a room labeled “IN-PATIENT.”

Baxter’s voice filters through Knight’s memory as he stands alone in the dark inside the empty N.S.A. general offices. “Don’t worry, Agent Knight.  When we’re done with her, she’ll barely be able to remembe
r
her own name.”  Knight cups his face in his hands
.
 

Epilogue

During the obscenely late hours of the night, Natan sits alone on her couch attempting to reconcile her demons so that she can find a way to help Alice, the
p
rofessor, and most of all, herself.  She picks up a pen and notepad from the nearby coffee table and proceeds to document, according to her therapist’s,
Christine
’s, instructions.

Natan sets the unmoving pen against the blank page and waits for the transformation to begin.  There is nothing.  Emptin
ess consumes the page as the pen
yearns for expression.  Natan waits patiently, feeling the welling up within her.  As the strokes finally emerge, this is what she writes:

In the far corners of
the mind one can find themselves
in a state of awareness or delirium, the space between the two only a sliver of what one would imagine it to be.  Somewhere between this gap of reality and fantasy one must carefully teeter to find the real meaning.  Faith is tested by the delicate interweaving of balance that defines this point.  Fear and doubt are vengeful
participants in this realm of
i
n between, accompanying all who
wait here.

Natan’s pen stops, as if taking a breath of recognition, then resumes again, urgently writing the words,

And so it begins, the emergence of the prophet.

A shocked Natan drops her pen, realizing what she has written.