Chapter 10

Now. When I asked you to consider the journey of Warren Spicks, I had very little expectation of credibility. But the facts, as I lay them out here, remain true. And if you should ask for proof, well I’ve already supplied it: glance at our girl across the street, Sofi Gio Seville. Yes, that was her full name. And if you remember, she was indeed the author of that fascinating article which had caught Warren’s eye in the café in Manitou Springs on that first fateful day of his journey.
Now, why should she be proof of an international mob war you’ve never heard anything about? How does she explain elephants roaming Colorado’s valleys, a flood of pinecones, such reckless fighting with massive collateral damage, and not a stitch of news coverage? Well, should your doubts flare up, should your mind question the reality of the things I’ve told you, her articles, indeed her very field of study, will be of extreme interest to you. While her degrees in social psychology explain her skilled work with the human operatives within the organization—it was not her passion. Rather, she had nearly completed a bachelor’s in the field of philosophy, her favorite class, as she once told me, being one on cosmological philosophy—asking questions about the reality of the universe, asking about the entire progression and existence of the whole of what is.
But some professor noted her skill in perceiving human beings and talked her into switching majors (she had a few psychology classes under her belt already, I think) probably mentioning the quality and quantity of jobs related to the field of psychology, as opposed to philosophy. So she made the switch between asking questions about the whole of things, to asking questions about the mind—both rather complex with a fair amount of unanswerable questions to deal with. And probably because of their similarities, she excelled at psychology and proceeded to finish her master’s in it as well. This you already know.
And yet, somewhere, the longing to understand and address the bigger issues—well, the biggest issue (perhaps besides theology, based on one’s beliefs) which could be addressed. Her question could probably be phrased like this: What does it all mean? And this of course, contained all manner of sub-questions. How did it begin? What does it contain? Will it end? Etc. These were inquiries she addressed regularly in articles to whatever local paper would take them. Before she met Warren, she had been stationed in Manitou for some time, but when she was compromised by Warren’s arrival she had to uproot herself. So up to that day in Manitou, she had published in a local newspaper entitled, “Outside the Camp” several articles of interest, not only to the local readership, but probably to any chair of philosophy on the continent—had they the chance to read it.
Sofi, however, she isn’t a very forward human being at all—not like Trent, who will smile and swindle anyone he meets, nor Old Fred, who will talk your ear off, no matter who you are. And so Sofi’s aspirations remained small and her articles appreciated among local thinkers.
Here then, I submit my proof. Sofi’s discoveries in philosophy, particularly in the philosophy of time as it related to her preferred field of cosmology, had captured the interest of one of her readers. This man, as I found out from her, had visited Sofi not a few days before Warren arrived, asking about her most recent article. He was an elderly man—much older than Fredric—whose habit, it seemed to her, was the wearing of trench-coats. Even in the middle of the summer, he walked into the café and met with Sofi, dressed in a dark-gray trench-coat with a low-brimmed hat and dark aviator sunglasses. He had a salt-and-pepper mustache, and strands of brilliant white hair spilling over his ears and beneath his hat.
Their conversation, as Sofi told me, was short and sweet, for he too was afraid of the Mar and their capabilities. She would not tell me what he proposed, at first. But in the end, I coaxed this much information from her: he had told her that her theory of time and space was true in most facets, and that the Mar’s influence was far more reaching than she assumed. Then he told her about the waypoints and their importance to the future journey of Warren Spicks. She of course asked him about Warren—he told her only that Warren was, as she had assumed, of great value to the Mar and she would do best to escort him through the waypoints. With that, and perhaps an eloquent goodbye, the stranger had disappeared.
Now, I know little of what waypoints are, or even how they work, but they are points in time and space where overlap occurs. Overlap between what, you ask? Well, I just happen to have acquired that article of interest from Sofi. You may read it length, but let me summarize her main points and what the gentleman in the cloak pointed out to her. Sofi envisioned the universe as did the Latin writer of the mid 20th century, Jorge Luis Borges—as a garden of forking paths. These paths, infinite in number, represent a single history of the universe. Now when I say a history, I mean as a string of events as influenced by rational beings, or to quote Sofi, “the cascading stream of time resulting from a choice, be it a butterfly’s choice to land on a flower or the choice of John Wilkes Booth to pull the trigger.” Each of these paths of time crisscross the massive labyrinth of times in the giant garden of the universe. What the gentleman in the long coat told Sofi, was simply that there are waypoints, places where these histories cross each other and one might traverse into another path—and that the Mar had already succeeded in doing so.
This gave Sofi hope, as a team of code-breakers working on Mar transmissions had intercepted a great many codes which came out to be little more than random numbers. With this paradigm, the numbers were determined to be longitude and latitude and time locations of these waypoints. With this discovery, the planning to move Warren across these different paths to the final safe location on Florida’s coast had begun. A couple of the timings would have to be dead-on accurate—as several of the waypoints would only open for a few minutes, instead of days. Of course, this path-hopping strategy had been largely built on decoded Mar information until they figured out how to locate and track these waypoints.
Sofi had figured that Trent would be able to figure that out when he found one. The first, closest on their journey had been in southeast Denver, and she had ordered a team in to secure the location of the future waypoint—and, as she explained to me, had joined them via helicopter the night after leaving Warren.
So it should come as no surprise to you that when she heard the explosion and gunfire outside the secured area, she and her team arrived on the scene to find Old Fred and Warren working busily to save what looked like a gardener from death’s grip. But it did come as quite a shock to Warren to see Sofi trotting up with a group of six armed men. After Fredric had updated her, she ordered her men to get Scott’s body and the injured man back to the waypoint. She also insisted that Warren accompany her to the waypoint itself, while they waited for Trent and Oscar to arrive—explaining in the process as much as she could to Warren about the nature of the waypoints. As they entered the building, what seemed an ordinary upper-middle class residence, Sofi said something which caught his attention.
“Now I doubt that there will be many ways to tell once you’ve made it through a waypoint and have crossed into a different pathway. Most of the paths will seem so similar that until we’ve detected a bifurcation again, we can’t be sure we’ve been successful. From what information we’ve intercepted from the Mar, they seem to treat the waypoint as a waiting room. You go in, you look at your watch, when the time’s up you go out. It’s almost as if you have to rationally choose to enter and exit a waypoint—whereas, if you stumble upon one in everyday life, it seems doubtful you will cross. So we believe that if you choose to enter a waypoint, knowing that it is such, you’re chances of successfully navigating to another path will increase. If you do get separated from the team, keep an eye on your wristwatch.”
Warren didn’t know he had a wristwatch, and began to inquire what she meant when she pointed to his pocket. “Put it on. It will indicate your proximity to the next waypoint and alarm you when you have successfully made the transition.” Warren checked his pockets. Sure enough, he pulled out a gleaming burnished silver watch and slipped it onto his wrist. “If you happen to lose it, Watson, use your own sensibilities. If you have passed into another pathway, you should check the little ordinary occurrences in life to make sure. For instance, say you don’t see any butterflies. This is June, they should be in any garden. That might be a solid indication you’ve succeeded.
“You may feel a little different as well. Our scientists aren’t quite sure what side-effects this sort of travel may cause. Just keep your head and follow me or Oscar or your watch,” she finished and indicated for Warren to have a seat on a plush suede couch. “Do you need anything? Something to eat, a drink?”
“Do you have anything for Ali?”
“Who?”
“Oh, Ali is the name of the rat you sent me.”
“I didn’t send you a rat; what are you talking about?” Sofi wondered. Warren fished Ali out from his shoulder. Sofi wrinkled her nose.
“She came this morning with a note from you,” he said and stroked Ali gently. Sofi shook her head—frowned at the rodent.
“No, I didn’t authorize anything of that sort. Let me run some tests on her; make sure she isn’t being used by the Mar to transmit your location to them. Here,” she demanded, pulling a plastic bag from the counter.
“I’m not going to put her in there,” Warren stated.
“Watson, please, I don’t have time for games; we need to figure out if she has a tracking device in her.”
“I’ll take her wherever she needs to be taken; but if you harm her, so help me God…” Warren threatened, holding Ali close.
“Watson, it’s just a rat…” Sofi began, but Warren shook his head and interrupted her.
“She’s survived as much disaster today as I have—more than any creature should in a lifetime. I’m not going to let her suffer any more.” Likely sensing the determination in Warren’s voice, Ali squeaked defiantly.
“Fine, bring it along,” Sofi sighed and strode from the room. Warren followed her, but not closely.
“I’m sorry Ali. I don’t know what’s wrong with her today. She’s usually much prettier,” Warren said, setting Ali back on his shoulder. She squeaked and tried to decide which shoulder offered the better view.
When they entered a bedroom which had been converted into a sort of minor operation command post or the like—wired with all manner of portable electronic equipment—Sofi picked up a small device (Warren assumed it was a metal detector—or at least had such a function or something similar) and stood right in front of him, though her focus remained on Ali. Warren stiffened and suppressed a shiver. Her proximity to him heightened his senses—with each breath, her fragrance overpowered him. But she seemed oblivious to her marked effect on him, and so Warren tried to ignore the quivers in his stomach—attempted not to gaze at her hair, her neck, imagine her resting in his embrace. And of course failed miserably.
But as soon as she had approached, she spun away and grabbed another gadget. “You’ll have to hold her for a second,” she ordered and Warren obeyed, picking Ali from his shoulder. “Okay, start by holding her on her back. Like this,” she said, grabbing Warren’s wrist and rotating them. He noted the warmth, the delicacy of her touch—and while he tried to think of Ali’s safety, he only succeeded in dreaming of her fingers entwining his own.
“Aha!” she exclaimed, looking at the display on the device. “They’re tricky, the Mar.” She set down the tool and kneeled down to examine a suitcase full of such electronic gadgets.
“What’d they do to Ali?” he asked her, his voice coated with obvious concern.
“It’s a fairly recent development. Trent would know more about it, but basically it’s a small radioactive signature—not harmful, but easily tracked from within fifty miles or so. Because their network is so widespread, it’s unlikely we can ever get away from it—and if we do, say in the middle of Nebraska, they’ll have a pretty good guess of where to send a research plane. I don’t think it’s quite strong enough for a satellite to track it, but it’s certainly possible.”
“So what do we do?” Warren wondered, stroking Ali. Sofi put a hand on her hip.
“We could put it to sleep and mail the body to Alaska, which might serve as a healthy decoy for a while,” she suggested. Warren cringed and glanced at Ali.
“No, not an option. Can we neutralize whatever it is?”
“Maybe. If we had the access of a full research hospital. But we don’t. So no.”
“Anything else?”
“We could pinpoint the infusion location—it’s not an IV injection, it’s too concentrated to be in the bloodstream. Perhaps they fused it to the bone. But you’d need to convince our medical officer to perform a surgery on a rat. Which is highly unlikely. Best thing to do is to part with her, Watson,” she confided, tapping her foot as if anxiously awaiting a decision.
Warren found Ali’s gleaming eyes and couldn’t imagine ending her life—or even tearing himself away from her now. He thought himself a father asked to drop his daughter off a bridge to save his own life, an impossibility. His head shook automatically and Sofi sensed his distress. “I won’t give her up,” he stated. “Please, Sofi, you need to find a way to get this out of her.”
But Sofi found herself distracted by a sudden call from Oscar. She answered while patching it through to the main display in the room. “Yes?” was her simple question. A blurred picture of Livingstone came to life, “I’m…ehh…”he began, looking frantically left and right, “going to need a little help.”
“Where are you?” Sofi demanded, fiddling with settings to get a clearer image.
“Right above you—at least for a little while. Have you…looked outside a window recently?” he asked with evident concern thickening his words. Warren stepped to look outside, but Sofi caught his arm in a grip like a vice. “If not, that’s okay. For a bit. Like maybe…eighteen seconds. Whoops. They spotted me. Oscar out.” And with that, his face faded from the screen. Warren put Ali back on his shoulder while Sofi scrambled for a door. She shut and locked the one. “Stay in here—pack what you can; it’s all labeled.” Shoot anyone who doesn’t knock three times on the door. I’m going to send Old Fred back to help you when I find him. Until then, stay down and pack.” Warren started to protest, but the door slammed in his face.
“Well Ali, looks like we’re not done for the day.” Warren sighed and began unplugging everything.