The Omega Point

“Miss Caroline, this is Ray Weller, our executive chef. He’s the one who’ll read your preferences list.”

“Hello, Ray.”

The way he smiled told her that he knew her. So this fellow classmate was not in total amnesia. Dad had said that some would be and others not, but that she was to show everyone their glyphs, because the sight of their particular image would end all amnesia. Those hidden in psychosis, though, were a different matter. They were the stars, the powerful ones, the essentials, the most important and therefore the most deeply concealed.

“We aim to please,” Ray said, “so do think carefully about your desires. We can do just about anything, as long as supplies aren’t short, of course.”

“Now we’re going to the art room,” Sam said.

She followed him through double doors that led back into the patient wing, but this room was brightened by big windows that overlooked the lovely grounds. There were men and women in paint-smeared jeans and T-shirts, some painting on canvases large and small, some drawing, others creating clay sculptures.

She was satisfied to see a group of potters working industriously, their kiln casting a glow that she found extremely realistic. They were actually firing pots in it, but it was not really a kiln—or rather, not only that. In fact, right now, it was the most important machine on planet earth, because of what she was going to do with it.

An old classmate, Susan Denman, sat reading The Philosopher’s Stone. She looked up at Caroline and smiled through what was obviously great personal sadness. Her father had told her that, if all else failed, a sufficiently intense shock could often cause spontaneous remission of artificially induced psychosis. The murder of Susan’s mother had obviously, in her case, been enough.

Caroline returned just the slightest glimmer of recognition. She and Susan Denman had studied subspace together, learning how to form holographic realities that would be at once in a single place and in all places at the same time—essential knowledge, given Caroline’s mission. And Susan would bring the colors and prepare the brushes.

She sighed as she walked, wishing that things were different, that they weren’t so hard and so dangerous. Class had been a joy—the joy of their childhoods, and she was so grateful to Mr. Acton and to her dad and granddad for all they had given.

She’d been glad to be recognized by Susan at least, because this business of concealing the group inside induced symptoms of mental disease, and turning Mr. Acton’s beautiful home into a fake mental asylum, was even more horrible than she’d feared it would be.

Susan might be awake, but over there, Aaron Stein, painting that horrific thing—what was it, a woman colliding with a gigantic penis?—obviously still needed to wake up.

“What’s that guy’s problem?”

“Schizoaffective disorder,” Sam replied in a self-important tone. Proud of his jargon.

Beautiful, poetic Aaron, so quick to laugh and so full of gentle wisdom…

She would soon be painting as well, but it wouldn’t be an outlet for mental illness, far from it.

It was essential that it be completed quickly, for there would come a time soon that the chaos would be too great, and it would be impossible to finish it. Even the color of the sky was going to change, and without good color, she could not make this artifact that was to be a perfect confluence of the knowledge of science and the energy of art.

If Mr. Acton’s plan worked.

“Let’s get out of here,” she muttered to Sam.

Another member of the class—a grinning Amy Makepeace—looked up from a painting of what appeared to be some sort of grim tower, and smiled the too-radiant smile of a madwoman.

“What’s your death going to be?” she asked, her tone crisply genial, her eyes button-bright. “Me, I prefer to jump.”

At least there was plenty of painting going on, which was an important part of the plan. The device she had been trained in class to create would appear to be a painting, at least at first. Later, as it developed, it would reveal itself to be a doorway through time, and when it did, nobody would imagine for a moment that it was just a picture.

By balancing the artistic skill and scientific knowledge in her mind, all enhanced by the power of the alchemical gold she would make, she was actually generating their escape route. What she would create in this room would look like a painting for a while. But it was not a painting, not at all.

“Ma’am, we want to move on.”

“Sure. Gotta cover my cage, I’m too noisy.”

“The tower,” the woman said, “you walk and you fall.” She thrust her grinning face into Caroline’s. “And you fall…”

And Caroline saw an opportunity to reinforce her own feigned symptoms. She pretended to have a seizure, letting herself pitch backward shaking. She hit the floor so hard that she blacked out.

A moonlike face appeared, its demon eyes fearsome. She gasped, then screamed—and the face of Mack Graham smiled, and it was as if the demon had withdrawn—hidden, once again, in its lair in the man’s heart.

He helped her to her feet. “I’m so sorry, Miss—”

Do not tell him your name.

Brushing herself off, she scrambled away from him.

“Maybe your medications are affecting your balance,” Sam said.

“That’s just it! I’m not on any. I’ve run out so I came here—” She looked around the room. Every eye was on her, and she was looking at gargoyles, at smoldering sex maniacs, at wild-eyed schizophrenics, at paranoids in their sullen corners—it was awful, a gallery of the damned in the faces of people she loved dearly and respected enormously. That brilliant class of wonderful kids were the center of her heart and to see them like this was almost enough to induce actual insanity in her.

She smiled, forced a laugh. “I won’t miss that step again,” she sang out. “Let’s see my suite.”

“Of course, Ma’am.”

Sam laid an arm around her shoulder, or rather, his big arm came oozing around her with the muscular stealth of a python. She allowed herself to be guided out of the art room and down yet another long institutional corridor.

Ahead was another of the black doors, looming at her like a hungry trap. “Do we have to go back in there?”

“Your suite is there.”

“Where does Mack live?”

“Next door, actually.”

“No,” she said, “no. I need to live in the house, you see. It’s what I’m used to. This—oh, my God, it’s a prison.”

“The rooms are nice, Ma’am. So, please—”

She had to lay it on. She had to continue to seem insane, here. She must not raise the suspicions of that monster Mack, and he was suspicious already, there could be no doubt of that. She pulled away from her minder. “Look, I’ve made a mistake. I can’t do this. I’m going home.”

“Caroline—”

“I’m going home!” But now she found herself confronting not just dear old Sam, but David and his assistant, Katrina Starnes. Katrina, the modern name of the Mexican goddess of death.

“Caroline, you need to go in now,” she said.

“Please, Caroline,” David added—and the lack of recognition stabbed her heart.

“We’re still processing your intake,” the death goddess said. “Someone will be along to help you with your program in a few minutes.”

She had to continue her act.

“I’m free to leave,” she snapped. As she tried to push between them, the enforcer laid his thick—and surprisingly gentle—hands on her shoulders.

Drawing herself away from him, she cried out, “How dare you touch me!”

His body blocked her way, but when she tried to get around him, he proved to be as adept as any dancer.

“What’s she doing, Doctor?”