Chapter 10: Out of Print

Something odd was happening. Jorge noticed the noises in the room had stopped.

He wondered if thiopental deadened normal senses. They said the effect was different on everyone. The white cloaked man asked him to count backwards, so he had laughed. Laughing failed to stop the drug from working however.

Some questions he ignored at first. But then he started telling them about the caves in Denmark and then Edda. They seemed very interested in anything about the symbols. They never heard of them before. And when he mentioned the Cabal, they looked very startled.

One of the men started mumbling something about subjects lying while under the drug before. They were very excited though.

It seemed hours passed before his head began to clear a little and he started getting very drowsy.

Then quiet settled over the room.

A strap over his forehead came undone. He tried to crane his neck, but some kind of cap was being removed from his hair. It pulled at him, making it feel as though the roots were being yanked out. Looking from side to side, he was able to make out one man burning a bunch of tapes in a trash can.

His arms came free. The straps holding his legs and ankles went next.

One man was politely offering him a hand to get up. His head spun a bit as he sat. The room, a sterile space, was littered with various bits of equipment normally found in a doctor's office. A pair of oxygen tanks stood nearby, a desk, a set of chairs, and various assorted paraphenalia.

The room contained only three men besides himself. They were all busy, making themselves ingratiating. The one burning the tapes was smiling and nodding at him. One offered tylenol for the headache he must now have. The third watched at the door, keeping an eye out for someone.

Their sudden change in behavior seemed very odd. They even still had mind shields on. He tried to probe all three without success.

A cardboard box on the floor contained his clothing and belongings. He poked through it, looking for a most important article, his watch. Finding it, he turned it over. The medallion was still attached. The foolish interrogators never checked.

He put in on, and doing so, felt vastly refreshed.

Then he spotted a phone on the desk. He managed, with some help from a former captor, to stumble over to it. Lifting the handset, he tried dialing only to get a horrible tone for the effort.

The man beside him picked up the phone, held down the switch hook for a few moments, then dialed '9'. He handed the phone back with the steady hum Jorge was accustom to. Jorge dialed again.

"You've reached the offices of Schmitz, Martin, and Lear. May I help you?" came a feminine voice.

Jorge smiled for the first time since the gas put him in dreamland. He recalled how nicely the owner of that voice screamed in the sack.

"I'd like to speak with Mr. Lear, Cindy."

Leisure activity at an end, Jones stepped into the hall. The very first man he saw was a guard.

Jones learned his craft years before. Every stitch out of place triggered some small part of his paranoid senses. Something was wrong. He knew it but couldn't find the cause.

Reaching into his pocket, he removed a second mind shield. One he'd taken from the lab techs who could have handled Bob on the gurney. He examined the hearing aid like device in his palm and looked down the hall at the receding backside of the guard.

The man's ears were both visible.

There was no mind shield. He suppressed his panic, and stepped back into the room with Diane. Grabbing her, he led her into Heather's room. He picked up one of the local censure shields, a skull cap like device to place over a telepath's head, intended to suppress the talent.

Seeing one man with his mind shield still in place, Jones stopped him along the way. He brought the man along. If he could get anyone out who was capable of helping the Institute rebuild elsewhere, it would prove useful.

Peters didn't know what was going on. But Jones was the number two man at the Institute. Peters wasn't going to lose his status by following the man's orders. He quickly complied with the directions he was given.

He led the little troop towards the river side exit. There were speedboats there. The loose spark couldn't control everyone. If only there was time enough left

Sunlight filled the room. Like a glass full of sparkling clear water, the sun washed to every corner, flooded the long wooden shelves, illuminating the oak desk.

Bob stood at the window. He tried to imagine mowing the yard before him. The number of tight corners, hedges, trees and other obstacles must make the gardeners crazy, he decided. A numbing escape into physical labor only goes so far before it becomes annoying.

Birds seemed to like the greenery. He tried to touch one of the flight borne creatures with a mind probe, but had forgotten the shield at the outer walls of the building. Some other time perhaps.

Jorge was led in by two of the men who interrogated him. He was back in his own things. It was much more comfortable than a blue hospital gown. The mess here would be settled soon. The Cabal was on the way.

Bob didn't turn as he spoke.

"The records of your interrogation have been destroyed, and the goons can't remember a thing," he said, watching a cardinal soar on bright red wings.

"Who are you?"

"Me? I'm Bob. You are Jorge."

"Oho! You must be the escaped Robert Lawrence that man was; wait a minute!" Jorge walked over to look out the window too. The clouds were puffing along, accenting a beautiful blue sky.

"Hmm," Bob faced towards the freed telepath. "what?"

"Where's the guy who questioned me about you? He was in charge of this place."

"What did he look like?'

"Perfect suit, black hair, manicured, muscular, short nose. About 42, give or take a few years. The kind you see as the heavy CIA type in flicks."

"That should be Jones. Dirk Jones is how he introduced himself to me."

"Yeah, if you say so. But he was in charge, what'd you do with him?"

"No, he wasn't. Some guy named Thadeous was. Neither of them are still here. Sorry, I haven't found your reporter friend yet either. You do know, by the way, how bad an idea it would be if she actually aired this story?"

"She's not going to tell anyone. You know that."

"And I expect your gang of thugs at any minute."

"Huh?"

"This Cabal, or whatever."

"You got that? Say, how did you get past those mind shields?"

"They're shaped funny, like donuts. I didn't know until they tried to experiment on me with some kind of control machine. Your people will probably find it soon enough. Like donuts, there's this hole in the middle. If I had to guess, they probably transmit some kind of energy through an antennae. Most antennas have some dead spots. You just need to know where."

"Really? Now I know, so lots of others will know too. You want, the Cabal would welcome you as a member."

"No thanks. Until Thadeous and Jones are caught though, I'd like to stay in touch with your people."

"I'll see what I can arrange. The Cabal won't have any trouble with that."

"Tell me a little about them. Who the hell is the Cabal?"

"What's to tell? It's an international organization, mostly based in the States because of the effort the Cabal put in moving here to escape persecution in Europe. The name is new by a few centuries. It was borrowed from a group in England under one of the kings named Charles. I don't know enough history to know what it was called before that.

"Let's see, the Cabal has been under siege a few times before. None with secretly organized opposition though. This Institute scares the leadership a whole hell of a lot."

"I can imagine"

"No you can't, it's never happened like this before. The Cabal has suffered from a few outside threats, but no one immune to the Voice. Internally, we have occasional problems, but those we can handle."

"How about those internal problems. Why would anyone be stupid enough to cause trouble when a whole bunch of telepaths would be all over them in a hurry?"

"No one in their right mind would. But anyone with the Voice has a substantially higher risk of insanity. If you've even a tenuous grip on reality, follow the 'rules', no one in the Cabal gives a fuck.

"In essence, if you call attention to anyone with Voice, mostly yourself, we try to convince you to ease back. We don't want any witch hunts.

"The Cabal doesn't much care what someone does with the Voice. Mostly. Stay away from power politics, it's too easy to spot the personality changes the highly visible mutes go through your voice influences them.

"There are also strict rules against violence, murdering mutes even by proxy, or even just maiming them. Its another thing that attracts too much attention. If you get enough mutes involved, they may figure out what happened, and then you can guess.

"This mess here for instance. Exactly the sort of thing the Institute was doing. I was out here looking for them. I've only been hanging out in the area a year, but everyone I work with think I've been here for five. The planted familiarity sometimes can get additional leads. The Institute's influence hit about two to three years ago, but we've been unable to track them down."

"Yeah," said Bob, "I can see why a group like the Cabal would form. But I don't like the idea of making too close an association."

"Embarrassed about your own set of playmates? The Cabal really doesn't care about that. They're too worried about Voices that act genuinely loco. Hell, they're much worse than you, I'm sure."

"That reminds me. They should be here any minute now. So what will you do with all the looney people the Institute has locked up here?"

"I'm not sure. It's against the rules to control other members and people with the Voice. We save it for special situations requiring censure. Some of these people have the Voice. They may simply need a little adjustment to return to more normal lives."

"Normal? You've got to be kidding."

"If we have to, we can make them mute again. They'll have a chance again, as soon as a little adjustment is made. A team will come in, remove the 'God' syndrome and fix the worst. I doubt we'll need to do much worse. As long as they're no longer a danger to the rest of us."

"I hope so," said Bob

"Just the way I feel."

Bob closed his eyes, sensing an additional presence. He didn't need to root around the room though to find it. The familiar symbols almost cried out to be found.

"Can I see your watch?"

"Huh? What for?"

"I just want to see the source of the symbols I keep, they're at your wrist."

"You see the symbols?!"

"I read a book. You read a cave wall. I think you and I may be unique. Most of the 'sparks' here are freaks of nature, finding their talent by one freak accident or another. You and I seem to have woken it by seeing the symbols."

Reluctantly, Jorge removed the watch. He pulled the concealed medallion from it's hiding place. Bob turned it in his hands, basking in a glow of definitions, descriptions and experiences from the red coin like object. He handed it back after a moment.

"Very interesting, where'd you find that?"

"In a locket from the cave. I learned about the symbols through it, more so than the scrawls in the cave."

"An unusual keepsake. Are there more?"

"I've never seen another one, you?"

"Oh no," Bob lied, "I'd know if one of those had passed under my eyes."

They both peered out the window to the brightly light lawn. Silence fell over them, a quiet born of the strange situation. Trouble shooter rescued by amateur, waiting for the rest of the cavalry.

Jorge tried to think of ways to reach out to the younger man. He wanted to know more about the book, yet somehow knew the subject had been closed. Hands in his pockets, he looked at the tall man, wondering what to say.

"What will you do once we take over this mess?"

"I'm going to hide for a while, some place with lots of people."

Jorge grinned, "and probably lots of attractive women too."

"Yeah," Bob grinned back, "as many as I can find. I've got this habit, see"

As Fran drove them away he looked back at the Institute.

Miki was acting snippish, jealous of Fran and the deep kiss from Bob when he greeted her. Bob deliberately made Miki watch as he gave Fran a violent orgasm in the car. Miki's embarrassment was turning into a deep humiliation, and he could sense deep down she liked the treatment.

He watched the manicured lawn and the frightening building vanished from sight. As they passed through the gates, his imprisonment passed away into a memory.

Too bad he couldn't make the Institute's organization vanish as easily.

}From the balcony, it seemed the view went forever. She could make out Denver in the distance. It was hazy, slightly marring the rest of the countryside.

Diane was confused. Heather was very important to her, but why were they here? She wanted to go home, if only to get a change of clothes. The people they traveled with were in such a rush. Hurry to the plane, hurry to the car, hurry in the house. It was very unnerving.

Every now and then, the man who confused her by claiming to be Bob insisted she service his peculiar needs. He still insisted on being called Master. And Heather insisted she had to cooperate. He always left a foul taste in her mouth, in much more than the physical sense. He made her feel dirty.

He never touched Heather though. That was a small consolation.

She could hear his voice. He was talking to someone in the study above. They probably didn't know the window was open.

"I tell you we can still do it!"

"The Senator will be difficult to control. I'm not certain we can continue operations until we've re-established ourselves here."

"As long as we have at least one of the sparks, we can still sell the process!"

"No," a strange male baritone replied. "I won't chance it until we've gotten a few more under our thumbs. I do thank you for bringing Heather. But we've got to get these two sparks. I have the folder on Robert Lawrence, and our field agents are gathering the necessary information on Jorge Dansen as well. Too bad the debriefing material for him was lost."

"I only just got out of there with the spark. The reporter was with me at the time. I couldn't have gotten the tapes if I'd tried. You know if I had, they'd be picking my brains too. Not just the lab techs we left behind. And they don't need drugs to learn everything someone knows."

"I know, I know. But I don't think Jezabel will understand."

A shiver went through Diane, hearing the tone in the stranger's voice.

Out of her sight, Jones shuddered at the name as well.

The trip was uneventful. The probe at the gate was gone. Whether removed by the Institute or driven away by the Cabal, Bob had no idea.

They settled into the hotel suite very nicely, the women spreading out all over. They had a nice view of Central Park looking north from the balcony.

A man named Charles came by to visit. Jorge sent him. The man looked a little like an academic, dressed as though he should pass for a professor. The wire frame glasses kept sliding down his nose.

Bob knew the Charles was in charge of Cabal security or something like it. They chatted a while. Bob didn't tell Charles anything he hadn't told Jorge. Still, the man was grateful to Bob for helping. He insisted on a substantial reward from the Cabal.

The Cabal demonstrated their gratitude to Bob in a monetary way. When Charles learned how carefully he'd been accumulating his income, he arranged a sizable retainer fee. Bob was now a semi-official consultant of the Schmitz, Martin and Lear law firm.

They also promised to provide an accountant if he wanted. He'd declined. If someone else was going to watch his money, it would be someone he controlled.

It was uncomfortable having older siblings watching his every move. Even if they were being protective.

His traveling harem had gone shopping.

Betty was excited about visiting Saks. Bob was more interested in a town-house for the 'family'. First though, he had to get more familiar with the City. He decided to explore a little on his own.

Manhattan is huge.

Bob was boggled at the shear size of it, the density of the buildings, the number of people. For a seventeen to eighteen mile long, five mile wide island, it was overwhelming him.

He went downtown to Chinatown. From there he walked north through the village, Greenwich Village. Past the New York University buildings and through Washington Square Park. He stopped for an early lunch near a used book store he'd found around 12th street.

He continued on. The crowds were amazing, rushing from place to place, hurrying to get where they were going so they could rush some where else. He was unaccustomed to the waves of people.

At 33th street, an interesting game store had attracted his attention. Too bad he really couldn't play competitively any more. His discipline would have to improve significantly to keep from reading an opponent's mind.

He wandered around, sampling food from street vendors, immersing himself in the crowds. In the heat, scantily clad women glowed as their exposed skin became moist. Crossing Herald Square, he avoided the plethora of beggars in the little islands between the avenues.

After wandering about in a camera/electronics store for a while, he decided to visit some of the Museums. The shopping crowd was beginning to oppress him. Too many rushing people.

He climbed into a taxi in front of Madison Square Garden, across from the Post Office.

Courtney was walking alone through the Gem exhibit.

The day was very peaceful. She'd taken off work to avoid the heat in her office. Sometime, her boss promised, they'd get air conditioning put in. In the meanwhile everyone had to live with it.

Today she'd escaped. The tiger's eye was her favorite gemstone. There were a bunch of them here in the Museum of Natural History. The more popular stones attracted the tourists, but the tiger's eye were the loveliest stones here. She also liked the opals, but she knew the colors came from the moisture in opal, not the stone itself. Tiger's eye was its own natural wonder.

She wandered out past the moon rock, encased in Plexiglas of some sort. There the school aged kids were gathered with their mothers. The distant origins of the stone chunk attracted as much attention as the rare gems of Earth.

A tall man looked on, over the children. He seemed as fascinated as the kids. Was it her imagination, or was he watching her too? She was used to men looking at her though, they found her attractive.

She stepped out into the hall. She started towards the exhibit of American Indian artifacts. Brushing her red paisley dress smooth, she failed to notice how it accented her figure. The low heeled, white shoes she wore set off the laced socks she'd worn well.

She passed a museum guard, whose head followed the swish of her dress' hem with momentary interest. He admired the section of exposed leg, a calf turned with gentle and elegant curves.

The old drums and pictures of tepees adorning the walls didn't attract her attention as much as the dugout canoe. She wondered how long it took to hollow out, the birch bark canoe had to be easier to make.

She clasped her hands behind her back, stepping from exhibit to exhibit. These weren't as interesting as the tiger's eye, but it remained a relaxing escape.

Behind her, a teenage boy admired the round shape of her bottom and the drop of her dark pony tail as his parents called him away. She never noticed.

She did catch a glimpse of the tall dirty blond fellow again, examining the same dugout she'd looked at a while ago. He was handsome enough, maybe she could introduce herself. He wandered off before she made up her mind. Sigh, so it goes, she thought.

In the hall with the insect models she shuddered. She slipped past them to see the whale. Hanging from the ceiling, it was impressive. She liked the elegance of its long sleek features.

She walked down the stairs, drawing attention from the male half of a couple going up. The guy's girlfriend punched him, whispered voices conveying disapproval of his behavior. She smiled to herself.

Before the case showing the stuffed Seals she spied the tall guy she'd seen elsewhere in the museum. This time she was going to get close. His dirty blond hair was neatly combed. He wore a stylish pair of trousers, a light cotton shirt, and dark running shoes. She thought about introducing herself.

This whole thing was very unlike her. She almost never walked up to a stranger to introduce herself. She stepped over to stand beside him anyway, uncertain where her courage was coming from.

He turned, flashing her a sweet disarming smile. Her insides melted a bit. Nerves took over. She froze up, barely managing to smile back.

"Hello."

"Hi," she squeaked. A short pause occurred.

"My name is Bob. I'm only visiting New York for the second time."

"I'm Courtney," she bobbed up on her tip toes, guessing him to be about six foot four. Her five and an half foot height forced her to tilt her head back to look at his face. She could see his eyes linger on the rise of her bust, thrust forward by tilting her head.