With one minute to go, Hatch entered the Hexagon with Dirk only a half step behind him. Oz and Andreas were already present. The former massaged Valda’s calf muscle while the latter drank from a mug, a nasty cut on his right hand. Neither man spoke to him or Dirk, nor ceased in their motions.
A sense of déjà vu flashed over him, but Hatch ignored it. They’d repeated this moment dozens of times, and they’d do it a dozen more if necessary. Settling in before the main console, Hatch tapped the touchpad to bring them out of sleep mode. A timer flashed at the thirty second mark and continued to decrease. When he’d hijacked this piece, he’d made sure he took every part of the hardware, while at the same time, a virus inserted itself into the company’s corporate mainframe to harvest the software he needed to control it.
25
Proprietary programs on the cutting edge of an outlawed technology sector—well, outlawed in most countries. At the time, Belgium hadn’t decreed deep scientific study into mental reprogramming as a heretical crime. Too bad for the company that they’d built the full prototype in Singapore and they couldn’t report it, because they’d broken the law creating it.
20
Worked for him.
18
The designer had a good idea, however, he’d blended developments from a dozen different theories into a singular machine, which allowed them to create a controlled dreamlike state. The software actually allowed for subconscious reprogramming. If one ignored all the unsavory uses it could be put to—it was ideal for their purposes.
15
In his many travels, Hatch had seen the fracture of the human soul. Lives broken with pain, anger, and left to drown in grief. The three men standing behind him followed him along this shattered path, their faith in his idea helping to bring it to fruition. It had taken six months to calibrate it the first time.
10
And nearly a year from the horrible day they’d found her unconscious before he’d been able to look her in the eye again. It’s not real. But real enough. Locked away in her own mind, Valda waited for them. They just had to find the right path, the right code, and she would be free of that prison.
5
They were all holding their collective breath. Hatch typed the code into the screen, code he’d been considering throughout their last injection. The white walled rooms she conjured with her mind, their pristine orderliness, and their absolute lack of color were all a testament to the logical and orderly process of her mind. Brilliant, devoted, and filled with a conviction he couldn’t begin to understand.
3
But that was not all there was to Valda, and it was that disconnect—between the scientist and the woman, which was getting in their way. Like some modern Gretel with four very non-platonic Hansels, they needed to lay the breadcrumbs. Uploading the room with images of all the items she’d scattered through her home—rich vibrant colors, soft decadent fabrics, throw pillows, and sensuous artwork. They also spoke to her soul.
2
Finger hovering over the enter button, he weighed discussing it with the others first. It would take too long, and they might not agree. If the construct didn’t hold, they might have to wait another twenty-four hours to initiate positive cycle, or they ran the risk of causing brain damage. Unacceptable.
1
He hit enter. It was easier to ask for forgiveness than seek permission. If it worked, he’d need neither.
The code began to scroll as his changes implemented and each monitor began to illuminate. The flat line of brain activity began to flicker into gentle, beautiful waves as the machine initiated deep cortical stimulation.
“Heart rate normal, respiration in range.” Oz studied a different set of readouts. “Blood pressure stable.” Even with all the equipment, he shifted his hand to her ankle, then to her wrists and finally her throat. “Good radial pulse at all points.”
Still alive.
Brain activity continued to increase. The generated theta state brought her into active dreaming. Inside, she was waking up. Hatch split his attention from the screen to her face. The eyelids showed the barest hints of motion. Blowing out a breath, he transferred his focus to the readouts. Would the construct hold?
Steady reports filled the screen, the code beginning to scroll at speed, but every fifth—no, every tenth line, the new code began to appear.
“You always believe that humanity can be rational, even when they prove over and over they aren’t.” The echo of words he’d spoken to her so long before surfaced. Valda had been in her office, reading news reports coming in about some upheaval a half a world away. Her troubled expression had torn at him. “You behave as if your very existence depends upon that order…but hope isn’t about order or rationality…it’s about faith in the dark that the sun will come up in the morning, that winter will end, and that at some point, the rain will stop. Hope is survival, and it’s not rational.”
Green bars began to appear on one screen after another. The construct held. A new clock appeared above. Time marking 23 hours and 58 minutes.
“Sometimes, you have to live with that imbalance between the way you view the world and the way the world is.” Had he been angry when he said that to her? Or simply resigned? His heart wanted to hope for the latter, but they’d been debating his smuggling operation, an operation he’d put at her disposal to get her whatever she needed for her research. Ethics, as far as he was concerned, were the province of those who could afford to lose.
“You want me to listen to my heart?” The challenge in her voice raked across his soul. “Don’t you understand how impossible that is?”
He did. He always had. But then he’d gotten to know her heart, and understood the depth of feeling she possessed. “Listen to your heart, love. I do.” Her smile when he made such a bold proclamation filled him with warmth and renewed purpose all these years later.
Hang on, love. We’re coming.
“Fuck.” Oz’s sharp word jerked him around. What? What had he missed?
Chapter 2
“One of the deep secrets in life is that all that is really worth doing is what we do for others.” - Lewis Carroll
VALDA
Day One
Morning
The first twenty-four hours in the facility passed both agonizingly slowly, and all too quickly. Worse, when it came time to wake my companions—I wasn’t entirely certain I wanted them to emerge from their pods. If they at all matched the disjointed memories colliding within my brain, then it meant our Rescue One operation was something far more different than it appeared on the surface.
“We’ll be back, gorgeous… You owe me a night next time.” The words penetrated the calm I’d managed to reassert with my yoga practice. The elegant act of stretching my body while soothing my mind had kept me grounded in an uneven, and often unforgiving world. Yet here, in this strangely sterile realm, it didn’t ease the jittery sensation in my middle, nor slow the often rapid and sudden acceleration of my pulse.
Hatch Benedict. The name had meaning…but why? I was an hour away from the first emergence, and though I’d left my suite to explore the facility the night before, it was as though ghosts traveled with me.