Chapter IV, pt. IV

Why doesn’t she know me? The thought played over and over in his head like a chorus.

“Something’s bugging you,” she said, “you’ve been staring into your cup of tea for five minutes.”

“Nothing,” he said, “nothing’s bugging me.”

She scoffed and said, “I know when something’s wrong. Your mother should know.”

He took a sip of his tea, it was cold now.

“You still need time to get over the accident, that’s all.”

He laughed and shook his head, “that’s not what’s bugging me.”

“Is it that weird guy, sitting on the couch?,” she said, making sure to keep her voice low.

“Who, him?,” he glanced over his shoulder, in the direction of the living room behind him, “he’s alright.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah, he’s fine.”

She got up and poured the last sip of her coffee down the drain, running the water, making sure the stainless steel sink didn’t stain.

“You know, Ma,” he began, “I look around here, and you got a lotta junk.”

She shut the water off and turned to face him, her hand on her hip accusatorily, “excuse me?”

“No, I’m just saying, Ma, it’s just you here, right?”

“For your information, I have a lot of nice things, I don’t have junk.”

“That’s not what I’m saying--”

“Yes it is! You just said it.”

“No. No. It’s just…” he thought carefully about the right words, “you got a lotta stuff you don’t need.”

“That’s what you think,” she said, aloofly.

Adam looked around and catalogued the items he found one doesn’t need. Little trinkets and hummels; salt and pepper shakers shaped like African fertility sculptures; fridge magnets and matching clock shaped like an owl; the vibrating leather couches in the living room with the padded arm rests that folded out to reveal cup holders. Instead of just, a couch.

“I happen to like nice things,” she said, “my house reflects my personality.”

“You can’t order personality over the phone,” he said.

“I’m not on the phone that much. I talk to my sister in Pasadena and that’s about it.”

Adam grunted in frustration, he remembered that she never understood him, “I’m saying, you can’t buy personality.”

“Well, this is my house, if you don’t like it, well … you know where the door is, honey.”

“I just don’t think a person needs all this useless stuff to get by.”

“I’m through with just trying to get by, and who are you to tell me what I can and can’t have. This is the way I want my house. Why can’t I have what I want? What’s your point anyway?"

“My point ..?” he thought about it for a long moment, a far away look fell across his features, and a slow smile spilled over.

He called Justin into the kitchen and said, “I guess my point is, we’ve all got to learn something in this life. I was put here to learn something, and you were put here to learn something, and you were. The thing we’ve got to learn is different for everybody. That’s the point here. It's destiny. We’ve got to learn something so that we don’t have to keep coming back in an endless cycle of life and death. You see, all this stuff you keep around, the trinkets and decoration, it’s an illusion. That can’t be what you’ve come here to learn: to love the illusion. All this stuff you want, it’s gonna tie you here to earth and you’ll never get back to the kingdom of heaven if you don’t let go, because there will always be something else that you want, and you’ll keep coming back and wanting more stuff, then one day, when the sun goes nova, and the earth is destroyed, there’ll be no place to go back to and there will be no salvation and you will taste death and you will be denied eternal life.”

A new vigor possessed him, he had a nugget, he had a point. Soon he would be on TV and the radio and the internet and downtown jumbo trons across the globe, spreading the message. 60 minutes, Larry King, The Late Show, Coast to Coast, The Mike Marsh Show, he would make everybody sick, there’d be no escape from him. The world was waiting for him to make a statement and now he’d found one. He would say it louder than anyone who’d come before him. And he would find other things to say as well, important things! He would go on until every man, woman and child in the remotest cave on earth would hear his word. He was ready to speak!

His mother calmly said, “get out of here. Just go.”

“Well, I can't,” Adam said, “I need to use the phone.”

Chapter IV, pt. III

Justin sat on Adam’s mother’s couch, staring at the finite space between his feet.

“Yo, G,” he said to Adam, rushing by, “I can’t get my mind right, you know what I’m saying?”

“Who is that man?,” Adam’s mother said to Adam, referring to Justin.

Adam had come straight through his mother’s door with pensive Justin faithfully in tow and went straight to the bathroom and had come out and rushed straight into the kitchen, past Justin, locked in a cosmic struggle of mind and body, and past his mother who asked, “Adam, who is that man?”

He grabbed her telephone and dialed franticly, mumbling, “can’t talk now, Ma.”

The phone rang.

“This is Mike Marsh,” the phone said.

“Marsh, this is Adam.”

“Adam,” Marsh sounded surprised, “that's so weird, I was just thinking about you. So,you got my message.”

Obviously, he had. Adam’s mother was pacing around the house, tidying things up a bit, you know, for her unexpected guests, “I wish you would have told me you were coming,” she said, pulling her coffee maker out of the corner, “and bringing company. I would have cooked something.” She checked her cupboards, “let’s see…”

“Adam, look,” Marsh said, “I saw you at the ballgame with Falconer.”

“You saw us there?”

“It was everywhere. The sports highlights, CNN, youtube. The play by play guys were going on and on about it, non-stop.”

Adam’s mother wandered into the living room and asked Justin if she could get him something to drink, she was making coffee, she also had Coke, orange juice, tea or water.

“I’m not thirsty, Mam,” Justin said, “been getting crunk, all the time, off the elixir of life, know what I’m saying?”

“Oh,” Adam’s mom replied, “okay.”

“Now,” Marsh continued, “I’m going to need to ask you to do something for me, in good faith.”

“I’m listening,” Adam said.

“Adam,” his mother low-talked, so her strange guest in the living room wouldn’t hear, “Adam, who is that guy?”

Adam dismissed her with an attempted polite wave and turned his back.

“That guy, Falconer,” Marsh continued, “he’s a prick. I need you to stay away from him.”

“I know he’s a prick.”

“Then what are you doing going to ballgames with him? How did you even get mixed up with a guy like that?”

“He contacted me.”

“G,” Justin called from the living room, “Geeeee!”

Adam’s mother raced over to the living room, wondering what all the fuss was about, as her coffee maker gurgled to life.

“Don’t you find it odd,” Marsh said, “that a guy running for President of the United States of America, the future so-called leader of the free world wants to take precious hours and minutes out of his busy schedule to spend quality time with you, and be makes sure to be seen in public doing so?”

“Well,” Adam said, “now that you mention it, I did find the whole experience rather puzzling, yes.”

Justin sauntered into the kitchen, “G,” he said, “determinism ain’t the thing, yo. It can‘t be.”

Adam turned his back again.

“Listen,” Marsh said, “Falconer is just another New World Order asshole, and they know, like I know, that the world is waiting for you to make a statement.”

“What you think,” Justin said, “if God predetermines all our actions,” he trailed off for a minute, “yo, you listening, G?”

“That’s why,” Marsh went on, “they’re trying to get to you first.”

“Like,” Justin continued, “then we ain’t responsible for our own actions, know what I’m saying? Cause we ain’t even in control of our own motherfucking actions.”

“Come to think of it,” Adam was now talking with a finger in his free ear, “he did seem to be trying to recruit me. He said I had a future in politics.”

“That’s what I was afraid of,” Marsh said.

“So, how come we’re still answerable to God, right? I mean, if that Motherfucker with the white beard up in the clouds is pulling all the strings, how can he blame us for the shit we do, right?. Holla at me on that, G”

“Listen, I’m leaving Dallas right away to come see you. Stay where you are, I'll call you as soon as I get there.”

“Coffee’s ready.”

“Um, fine, good. Now may not be the best time to talk, anyway.”

Chapter IV, pt. II

The secret service agents were at his door.

“Mr. Falconer’s waiting,” the one of the left said.

Justin leaped off the couch, uncertain, leaning forward with two clenched fists, sleepy eyes forced wide. Adam held out his hand and silently ordered him to halt.

“These are my friends,” Adam said to Justin, then turned to the agents, “right?”

They each nodded once, in unison.

Justin warily sank back down onto the couch, tense at first, then slowly relaxing. He laid back and put his hands on his forehead, getting back to the mysteries of the universe which swam about in his head like a child’s mobile.

There was a limousine waiting outside. Adam followed the agents toward it. One of them opened the door for him. He glanced at both agents standing on either side of him as they patted him down, then hopped in. Henry Falconer greeted him with a wink. The two agents got into a car parked behind the limo and the party drove off.

“I hear you weren’t too surprised that we found you,” Falconer said, “when and where we did.”

Adam was strangely uncertain. He was losing his edge. He said nothing and dug around in his pocket, never breaking eye contact with Falconer. He brought his hand up for Falconer to see, cradled in his palm was the tiny tic tac-like RFID chip.

Falconer smiled, “where on earth did you get that thing?”

Adam lifted his shirt to reveal a stomach encrusted with still healing scabs and gashes, red around the edges.

Falconer couldn’t suppress an easy laugh, “now, that takes motivation.”

Adam put the chip back in his pocket. They sat in silence. Falconer stared at him, fascinated, then he laughed again and shook his head.

“How are you feeling, Adam, okay? Since the accident, I mean.”

Adam nodded. Falconer leaned back, resting his arms on the seatback, smiling, gazing out the window.

“You went downtown the other day,” Falconer said, “I understand you’ve got a lot to say.”

Adam said nothing.

“Hey,” Falconer leaned forward, his elbows resting on his knees, “relax. You’re not in trouble.”

“I made a new friend, downtown,” Adam finally said.

“Good,” Falconer said, truly pleased.

“Isn’t it?” Adam said, smiling.

“It strikes me that,” Falconer said, “you’ve got passion. I mean, one look at that stomach of yours confirms it. You have a message for the world don’t you?”

“Maybe,” Adam said.

“What is it?” Falconer asked.

Adam shrugged, “it’s different for everyone.”

Falconer nodded and looked out the window, then said, “ever think about getting into politics?”

“Oh,” Adam said, “I leave that for more worthy men than myself.”

Falconer noted the sarcasm, and said, “I think you could have a future in politics. In one form or another. We could re-make you into a preacher, or get you started in congress. You’re hot property, did you know that?”

Adam put the back of his hand against his forehead, “no, I hadn’t realized.”

“You’ve kept a low profile, but they still talk about you every day on TV and radio. Speaking of which, I heard you on the Mike Marsh show. You don’t buy into his conspiracy theories, do you, Adam?”

“I’m open to anything these days.”

Falconer smiled.

“I think Marsh tries to educate the people,” Adam continued.

“He’s an evangelist, and a phony,” Falconer said, finally doffing his air of cordiality, “he’s only in it for the money.”

“Well,” Adam said, thoughtfully, “I’m in it to educate the people, and I think Marsh’s audience is curious about the truth.”

“You can’t teach the people to be smarter than they are,” Falconer said, “They won’t listen. They’ll fight you. They’ve been got to already, and don’t forget who got to them first. If you’re really out to change the world you’re going to find that most people can’t run their own lives. People crave structure. They crave leaders. They need leaders, because most of them are not capable of leadership or responsibility.”

Adam fought to keep his blood down. He felt his face grow warm and his fists clench.

“Do you know where we are going, Adam,” Falconer said, no longer smiling.

Adam looked from side to side out the windows, “my guess is, we’re going to the baseball stadium.”

“That’s right,” Falconer said, smiling, “very good. Do you like baseball?”

Adam mimed hitting a ball with a bat, then smiled at Falconer and said, “no.”

“Come on, drinks, popcorn, ball park franks, big pretzels, anything you want, it’s on me! The great American past time, what do you say?”

“Well,” Adam said with finality, “I don’t have much of a choice, do I?”

Appendix - Leah

For the most part, she watched quietly. He spoke of his views and she watched him recklessly put them into practice. The way he went about things, he'd be killed sooner or later, and, if he wasn't careful, she would be too. She couldn't say why, people were just that way. They reacted funny to would-be messiahs. She knew he was genuine enough, she knew it for a fact because once, she'd tasted his mind, savored his thoughts, sampled his ideas. She just didn't know when she'd understand where it was going and what it was about. Wheels of revolution spun around him and he was dazzled, dizzy. A new universal church of truth, a new state of anarchy. Leaderless, without form, a vision of primordial society. This was his vision for the world.
He was just one man but he could do it.
He was the player, everybody else were just pieces on a chess board. He experimented with them, opened their eyes, blew their minds, changed their lives on a whim. He knew how to move the pawns. Phase one was complete, phase two was a mystery.
The best things to do when the wheels were put into motion would be to stay close to him, though the wheels might crush her. She didn't trust him. What kind of insane thing was he planning? He went for a drive one night and came back three days later a very strange man. A stranger, ever since the accident...

Chapter IV

Downtown. Adam cared enough about his friends to make himself presentable. He didn’t want to embarrass Leah and Thomas so he threw on his housecoat before he left. He didn’t want to look crazy by just traipsing around town in his socks and underwear.
People stared, though. Or they looked away, but he knew what they were thinking. Every last one of them.
“Yeah,” he said to the people passing by, “I’m the one that’s crazy.”
They thought he needed to get out of the house, be around other people. Leah didn’t want him to get bedsores, Thomas didn’t want him to wind up like Howard Hughes. He still saw Adam as post-traumatic but Leah knew better. She couldn’t tell Thomas, of course.
“Look at this,” Thomas said, about a newspaper box, “’Man’s throat slashed, reveals tumor.’” He dropped a couple quarters in the slot and pulled out a paper. The trap door slammed shut real loud, drawing eyes.
“What,” Adam yelled, sensing their thoughts, “you want I should go around naked?”
Leah and Thomas exchanged glances, maybe this wasn’t the best idea.
“Sure it is,” Adam said to either of them. “You wanted to bring me downtown, I wanted to show you this.”
He pointed up to the stories-high jumbo tron, its insect like multi-faceted, multifarious pixilated eye trained on the unsuspecting masses, teeming below. It ran, day and night, hour after hour an endlessly repetitive stream of commercials and advertisements. All the time. He looked across the street and saw two girls snap a picture of the thing.
He pointed up at it once again and began to speak to his friends and everyone else.
“You can’t get away from it, there’s no place to escape from it because it’s the plague. It’s everywhere, on the streets, in books … everywhere. A living, dreaming plague of dangerous and irresponsible ideas. Every time you turn a corner there’s another shit and smut peddler trying to sell you a bad idea. The price is right, the price is so low you’d have to be crazy not to buy into it, because the price is you willingness to be accepted.”
By now he had a wide berth around him, no one stopped to listen. Leah and Thomas receded along the wall.
“I want you to question your sanity. I need you to go stark raving mad. You’ve got to run through the streets screaming, ‘I am fucking sick of this shit.’
“Look. Look at this. No one cares. We don’t care about our mental health or the state of things. Only status. A newer car, bigger tits, that’s what we really need, right? I’m not saying those aren’t nice things in the shop windows, I’m just suggesting that maybe we can get by without them.
“Not everyone can have an important car or a nice big fat set of tits to get you into places. And those are the things that are important, right?
“This is what we’re told over and over and it’s pounded into our brains and we start to believe it mind body and soul but there is no soul anymore because we believe and pretty soon there is no mind left at all and then all we’re left with is a body. A body to parade around and buy clothes with even more advertisements on them and then all of a sudden the images you see up there on the screen and in your home on TV or on the internet become real. They become a physical reality because it’s self-reinforcing propaganda doesn’t anyone see that? Anyone? No?
“It’s what’s inside that counts.”
“Don’t you care?”
Everyone walked by, trying as hard as they could not to meet the gaze of the madman. And it was a perfectly reasonable thing to do for perfectly reasonable people. Of course, not everybody was perfectly reasonable.
Across the street, a trio of young men watched the whole seen, grinning. They just had to get a closer look at this guy.
Adam turned back around to face his friends who hid their faces along the wall.
“I’m sorry you guys,” he said, “I try to tell the truth and no one cares, no one wants to hear it. They don’t care about the lies and the falseness. I can’t live like that. It’s time someone paid a visit to the Wizard of Oz.”
“Yo, Wizard,” one of the young men said, “you a wizard?”
“No, I’m not the wizard,” Adam said, “I’m Dorothy.”
The young men burst out laughing.
“I know who I am,” Adam said, “who are you?”
“Me,” the young man said, “I’m a thug.” He took a big swill from a bottle concealed by a brown paper bag. “They just let you out or something?” he said, indicating Adam’s housecoat with a slap across the shoulder.
“No,” Adam said, “but you wouldn’t really know anything about that. Sure, you’ve spent a night or two in the drunk tank, but you’ve never been to prison. You’re not hard. And you’re not smart either, the most hardcore thing you ever did was sell some pot in high school and it got confiscated by two undercover cops once and you were so shook you never thought about doing it again. Isn’t that right, Justin?”
Justin was confused. He glanced back at his two buddies, scared, then he flashed the gun tucked into his waistband.
“I know you won’t use that, cause it’s a replica.”
At that moment, everything went white for Justin …

Interlude II

Hard to concentrate, but not impossible. Can’t shut the voices out, the millions of people planning, looking to the future. The millions recalling the past. Millions of songs in millions of heads. The trick was to make them into one voice, one song, one drone, om. Get back to the white noise, the static. With effort, he could pick his own voice out from the billions.
With effort.
A giant cerfuffle about an earthquake when he went to use the john.
Effort.
Outrage mingled with joy over the outcome of some international sporting event.
Make them one voice, then raise your own above them.
Do not concentrate.
Streamline the noise into a single sound.
Om.
He heard his own voice above the din.
I want cereal.
Okay.
He would get cereal. And milk. Even though time was a strange and funny thing to him these days and he already knew where the cereal and the milk was going to end up, it didn’t matter because he had spoken up, he had mastered the billions and by hook or by crook he was going to Get Cereal! … and milk. And he still knew what was coming to him once he did, but eff it, he was hungry.

Falconer was busy on the campaign trail, but not too busy for his pet project. It’s good to have hobbies, he thought to himself, even for future presidents.
The campaign trail was a long and grueling one. An endless montage of flights and hotels, and speeches and debates, but that was the easy part. Ever since the accident, he’d had to watch himself. He couldn’t score dope or get laid. He couldn‘t be seen without the wife at his side. He traveled the country like a rock star but he couldn’t get laid. Well he could, but he was advised not to.
“Okay, so,” Chan the advisor said, “After the meet and greet in Topeka we got a couple doubleheaders in Missouri, then we’re looking at a big fat nothing. Day off. I’m thinking … Good Morning America, by satellite. I can get them on the phone in thirty seconds.”
“No,” Falconer said.
“Well, you gotta do something.”
“I’m gonna check up on Adam,” he widened his eyes as he spoke the name.
His aides shifted uncomfortably, almost in unison.
“Better leave it,” Chan said, “let him die down a little. Besides, we can’t go a day without cameras and microphones, we’re hot.”
“That’s just the thing,” Falconer said, reclining, “I got a feeling he’s not gonna let himself die down. I got a funny little feeling he’s gonna make a real big stink and that radio show from Dallas was just the beginning. Who knows, maybe I can talk some sense into him.”
“Mmm,” Chan said, thinking, “I don’t know, the guy’s absolutely smothered in controversy.” He paused for a minute, thinking, rubbing his chin, “On the other hand, he’s hot too. That Marsh clip’s got a quarter million hits on Youtube.”
“I got two words for you friends,” Falconer said, smiling, “Photo Op.”
His aides relaxed visibly, almost in unison.
Falconer brushed a hand through his perfectly sculpted hair and said, “Why don’t we grab that tracker and find him right now?”

Adam didn’t like to be around people. That is, large groups of people or even small ones. Proximity had something to do with his telepathy. He especially didn’t like to be around the supermarket crowd. It was a singles bar, and all the singles pretended that it wasn’t but he knew. He could smell the hope and feel the anxiety in the air. The nerves.
If he just kept his head down and walked real fast, he at least wouldn’t have to see the worried looks on their faces while their hormones thumped in his chest and their biological clocks ticked down in his ears.
He zipped down the cereal aisle, dodging shopping carts unaided by his eyes or ears, he navigated by thought alone. He knew what was coming.
He grabbed a box of Lucky Charms off the shelf as the ‘Suit’ bee-lined it toward Adam, checking a GPS locator, just as he had foreseen it. The Suit approached him as he mentally ran the maze on the back of the cereal box. The suit was about to speak.
“Sure,” Adam said, without looking up, “tell Falconer, I’ll be there on time.”
The puzzled Suit watched Adam head for the check out counter, still running the cereal box maze.

Chapter III, pt. iv - Interlude

Make the world go away. How could you sleep, perchance to dream, when you know you are asleep roughly a third of the time and awake roughly two thirds of the time and you are dead most of the time and you are born some of the time?
It didn’t affect her the same way it did him.
“It,” she said, “it’s like a drug.”
“Did,” he said, “did I say that…?”
“…Or did you say that?” she said.
How could you sleep when you’ve got six billion voices in your head …
“… and most of them have nothing to say?” she said.
“How?” he said.
The birds began their morning reveille.
“Soon,” he said, “the sun will be in our faces…”
“…and we’ll be asleep,” she finished.

The Godhead spoke.
And so it was that he was not born from man as all others, man from man, but from science, man from science. First, he was one cell, then two, then four, then eight, and on and on, until he was enough cells that the mass became aware of itself. He popped into existence in a test tube.
From then on, the process sped up exponentially, until he had bodily achieved thirty years of growth in only three days.
He was born again, from the blood, and come in to life for the first time.
The memories of the true Adam had been imprinted on the DNA and passed to this new born man, made in the image of the one who donated the material of life.

The original Adam, the perfect being, the one who could see through the motivations and deceptions of others now spoke to him. He who was spoken to was not a forgery, or an imitation, but a new Adam, and the first of his kind. A Test Tube Man, born not of physical union, but of a new technology and a new kind of morality. He was Miracle Man, a man come from death and nothingness, into existence. An extra person, an extra soul come to earth that was not accounted for in the divine plan. He was the Dead Man, a body without a soul. His life was truly a gift, and with it came a larger responsibility.
Why was he given this gift?
What was this responsibility?
He saw his death, the death of the original Adam.
He saw his birth, the moment of self awareness of the new Adam.
He saw his life, his memories, and he saw that they were not his own.
Was it all just a dream?
Am I dreaming?

Leah was reinvigorated, energized, but something fundamental about the experience of oneness was lost on her. He could see it. He could see it on her face and he could see it in her mind. She was changed, sure, but not in the way that he was.
He just laid there.
“It’s two o’clock,” she said, “time to get up.”
The sun shone onto the bed through the blinds.
“Every time I move,” he said, “an earthquake splits the land.”
She rubbed her eyes, too tired to wade through the mysteries of his thoughts. She wasn’t tired of what he had to say or what he had to show her, it’s just her mind didn’t work so fast when she woke up.
“It’s late,” he said, “I’ve got to get going.”
“Stop that,” she said, “I hate when you do that.”
She kissed him on the forehead, rolled out of bed and got dressed.
“Yeah, I’ll be fine here,” he said, preemptively answering her question.
With a kind of uncertainty she kissed him once more and hurried out the door. He hadn’t moved a muscle except to speak.

Chapter III, pt. iii

At first, everything went white.





Snow blindness, the roar of white noise, white heat, white taste, white smell.


Then, everything got jumbled. All senses became indistinct. A bitter white sameness that enveloped his world.



The cacophony brought with it a new thing, five together made one, then five plus one made six, and more still. A maddening exponential rush of sameness and oneness and novelty. Eventually, the whiteness surrendered shapes, textures, scents, flavors, colors that were all together, the one thing, then more. Sensations that stood alone and flooded in and out of each other. He became every sound, every scent, every flavor, every sight, every surface, then went deeper than the surface, beyond. He experienced the ’Om’ and was one with the all. He was man. The first man, the only man, every man, woman and child.
At first, he tried to orient himself in the universe. Then, he rearranged the universe again and again, never quite getting it right the way it was. How could he get his bearing when he walked on smells, stood on tastes and breathed every sound?
Had the chip held him back so much or had he come to his new place in the universe by will alone? If so, could every man, woman and child reach his state of higher being or was it his experience, alone? How did Marsh know about the chip?
Every moment, every desire, every experience was now his for the asking. Do everything could be done. Realize every thought could be thunk. Every question was his to ponder and marvel. But he did not have every answer. He did not want all the answers, he was only human after all, only human. Existence was an apple, who to share it with?
Red tic tac in his palm. Oh yeah, the chip. What to do with the chip? He could smash the tiny thing into a thousand other, smaller, things. Maybe he could will it out of existence, watch it pop back into nothingness where it came from.
Pop back into nothingness where it came from … curious.
No, he thought, perhaps I’ll keep it. Something intrinsically human in him was glad to know he could still organize his thoughts into words.
Leah is here. She has always been here. She betrays him. He dies. She dies. Here they meet for the first time. Damn, she’s hot. They have always been here, right now, right then, this moment.
She starts to speak.
“You’re bleeding,” he says it for her, only, more serenely. “You’ve hurt yourself. What is this? This isn’t funny. Oh my God. You’re scaring me. Stop it. Stop it.”
“Stop it,” Leah screams. Hers is the face of betrayed confusion. Her thoughts have betrayed her.
He knows he can share the experience with her. As a matter of fact, he already has, just a few moments from now.
At first, he had trouble getting his own words out of his mouth, “Eeeeeeewwwwwwwwwwwwlllllllllll … Leah.” His eyes rolled slightly into the back of his head. “He’s fainting,” he said without difficulty. “Ssssssss-s-s-s … sorry. AAAAaaahhhhhhhhh … I know you don’t like that.” His fingers contracted into claws, “Lll-let me … let me help you … let me help you look into my mind, as I can look into yours.”
The last thing she remembered was backing slowly out the kitchen door.




At first, everything went white for her …

Chapter III, pt. ii

He had blown half his savings on the trip to Dallas but he knew it was worth it. The whole way back he turned the events over and over in his mind. RFID chip. Dog and pony show. His mind was a jumble that he couldn’t quite piece together, something was missing or out of place maybe, or maybe, there was one too many things cast into the lot. Something was holding him back, he could feel it. He had been freer and calmer then he’d ever been but still he knew he wasn’t where he should be. He could get right up to the edge but he couldn’t dive in.
Shapes and patterns and landscapes kept rolling away until he got home.

All this time he wasn’t paranoid but maybe he should have been. He didn’t always buy into the kinds of things Thomas had talked about, conspiracy theories. He wouldn’t find himself with a tinfoil hat on his head, for instance. But there was something larger going on, something larger than his mind could take in and it had been right there in front of him all along. What his eyes saw and what his heart and mind felt weren’t always lining up with one another. It was times like this he wished he were a dog. A dog sees the world in terms of smells. That is, a dog understands the larger olfactory world around him and therefore had a sensory experience more representative of the larger worldly palate of sensation. The mole navigates through the world by touch, the bat sees the world through echolocation. Animals understand that the world is made up of more than sound and vision. Adam began to understand there was a world behind the world that he saw, hidden behind the limitations of his senses.
Radio waves. They were all around, all the time but you couldn’t see them. Television signals, cell phone signals, all kinds of thing were being broadcast into everybody’s home all the time whether or not they even had a TV or a cell phone. You just can’t see the signal because it’s made up of waves and the TV or the cell phone or the radio can interpret these waves and convert them into sound and/or vision. But they’re there all the time. It made him wonder, what else could they be putting out there?
Was there conspiracy? Could the world be brainwashed? He figured there was no way to find out.
Something kept knocking down his thoughts, like empty cans on a fence in a high wind, sometimes he could get two or three ideas but as soon as he tried to put them together they would repel one another like magnets. He couldn’t think, couldn’t concentrate, the more he tried to concentrate on a thought or idea the faster it would get away from him. Wet soap.
RFID chip. Radio waves. Could the chip be used as a remote control? The thought gave him the willies. RCID.
Through it all and without the aid of a tinfoil hat, one thought broke through and kept tugging. Was it true, did he have a chip in him? Why and what harm could it do weren’t the thing, only where? Where was it? How could he find it?
How? He didn’t need a detector, the chip wasn’t going to reveal itself by its transmission or frequency. He took his shirt off. He had enough tiny scars and scrapes on his body that he wouldn’t be able to find any physical evidence of the thing.
He needed to concentrate. He remembered the stories of people who had seen fifteen or more doctors before finding the one to confirm what they knew all along. Cancer, the black death, the foreign agent. This was no different. Concentration alone would reveal the truth. It was only the material world around him and those with too much invested in it that wanted to trick him into believing that his mind could not overcome matter. A false zeitgeist had enveloped the earth, that made people believe they were truly powerless. That they needed to buy and sell, buy and sell, usually things and not ideas and usually not very good things or ideas anyway.
Concentrate. That was the thing. Remember that the truth will set you free.
Concentrate.
Was it in his toes? No, it was not in his toes. Was it in his feet? No. His calves? His thighs? His waist? No. Fingers? Hands? Arms? No!
Shoulder. He concentrated real hard. He could find it if he could only concentrate.
Yesterday’s obituary revealed the end of little Abbie’s struggle. In the Hospital, he was new, he was not cynical or married to the world around him, the world that wanted to trick him in to believing it was all that was. Time has a way of making people forget what’s real and what is story. History. In the Hospital he found he could be sensitive to the thoughts and feelings of those around him. Now, he had to be.
Maybe it’s not there at all, the chip. Doubt. It’s only natural.
He … concentrated.
Marsh was wrong. Doubt. There was no chip. Concentration.
No … there was no chip … in his shoulder. Keep going. What was this power he was trying to tap into? This ability? Was it real? No way, it couldn’t be. It was natural to doubt. Or … the ability was the natural thing.
Keep going.
The chest? No.
No, don’t concentrate. Concentration made his thoughts come down all around him like a house of cards. An empty can. A magnet. Wet soap. He needed to let go. Focus and let go his conscious self and find himself in a larger world.
Without getting the answer he craved, he walked calmly into the kitchen. Took out a knife, calmly. He had concentrated and that didn’t work, then he let go and was calm, without questions, without answers, without confusion. Only resolution remained.
He was resolute. His arm did not tremble, his hand did not waver as the drums of the larger world throbbed and he took the knife in his hand. It had to be done slowly. This was not like taking off a band-aid but it was going to feel ten times worse. This was resolution.
He dug in with the knife, into the skin of his belly. It took time and focus to even get near the point where the skin would be punctured. It took a long time and it hurt. Every instinct in his body screamed at him to stop, he continued. There was no guarantee that he would even find anything, he pressed on. Pressed the knife so that it drew blood, hesitated and dug deeper. There was a thin layer of subcutaneous fat that he had to dig around in and that’s where he would find his foreign agent. Though he grimaced, he was calm. He did not fear doing this crazy thing that had to be done. The tip of the knife found nothing and he dug around in his skin waiting to feel pay dirt. He would need to try it again, in a different spot and again if need be and again and again …

Every now and then, Leah liked to surprise him. She thought it would be funny to pop in on him and find him jerking off or downloading porn. He hated it when she popped in, though she never caught him doing anything. But now that he didn’t have a phone she found herself having to pop in and now she hated it.
The front door was unlocked and she found him in the kitchen with his shirt off, huddled on the floor with what looked like a red tic tac in his left palm, a knife in the other. His fingers, his stomach, the knife and the floor around him a bloody mess.
"Love Him," he said with a dark brown streak on his eyebrow, apparently from where he had had an itch, "love God."