Thief Of Souls

design.

“Take something for yourself, Dillon. You deserve it. You’ve earned it.”

But instead, Dillon stood, never touching the statue.

“If I need to get off,” he said, “I don’t need that thing to do it.”

Then he grabbed a towel and left the bathroom.

Even in his frustration, Okoya had to smile. No, Dil­lon would not be snared by an object of desire—he was far too clever for that. Dillon’s ability to size up and sidestep a situation made him dangerously elusive, and all the more desirable a trophy. Okoya took the statuette and it disappeared into his pocket.

In the bedroom, Dillon peeled off his sopping clothes, then dressed himself, keeping his back to Okoya. It was more a gesture of disdain than modesty. That’s all right, thought Okoya. This can he done with­out friendship. It will just take a bit more effort.

“Do you know what our Happy Campers are doing?” Dillon asked. “Do you know what they’ve done?”

“I think your followers have been doing you a great service. They’re doing everything necessary to make sure the ones you heal will have the greatest possible impact on the world.” Okoya positioned himself be­tween Dillon and the door. “Didn’t someone once say, ‘The end justifies the means’?”

“No, it doesn’t.” Dillon towel-dried his hair, and stood at the vanity mirror, looking at himself. Looking through himself.

“You have a strange way of thinking, Dillon,” said Okoya. “You say you want to repair a shattering world, but you’re not willing to take hard action. You might as well be treading water.”

Dillon’s eyes suddenly locked on Okoya’s, and Okoya suppressed a smile, realizing he had finally pressed a button.

“What would you do if you were me?” asked Dillon.

Okoya paused for a moment, and took a step closer. “If I were you, I’d stop feeling sorry for myself . . . and I would take control.”

“Control of what?” snapped Dillon.

“Of everything. Control is what you want, isn’t it? Control is what you need. Because the only way you’ll ever be able to protect the world is if it’s entirely under your personal control.”

Dillon sat down, no longer angry, but scared. “That’s crazy,” Dillon said. “I can’t do that.”

“Oh really?” Okoya began to raise his voice ever so slightly. “How many people were following you three weeks ago? None! But now that it’s started, it’s moving faster than you can imagine. There’re more than five hundred of them now—and every one of them is wait­ing for you to use them, but all you do is brush them off.”

“I won’t use people.”

“It’s about time you started.”

Okoya had Dillon’s attention now, for the first time since they had arrived at the castle . . . but Dillon’s eyes had settled on something in the corner.

It was a glass of water. . . only there was no glass. Just water.

Okoya moved over to the dressing table where the water stood, and leaned against the edge of it, making sure he was in Dillon’s line of sight. As he touched the table, it shook slightly. The water vibrated like a col­umn of Jell-O, but still it stayed together, an indivisible whole.

“See how wonder surrounds you,” Okoya poked a finger into the side of the water column, and pulled it out, licking his finger. “You are the glue that holds this, water together, and your power is growing every day.”

Then Okoya lunged forward, driving his logic deep into Dillon’s uncertainty. “If you know patterns so well, look at the pattern around you,” challenged Okoya. “If you took things into your own hands, how long until every person in the world knows your name, and knows what you can do? How long until you be­come the glue that holds the entire world together?”

Dillon was silent as he considered the glassless glass of water. Okoya asked again. “How long?”

“Forty-eight days,” whispered Dillon. “Forty-eight days, twelve hours, and nineteen minutes.”

16. Water Works

Drew Camden likened his condition to the aftermath of the flu. A weakness in the knees; a light­headed, uneasy feeling; a sense of nonspecific malaise that accompanied everything he did. It was amazing to him how much there was to adjust to. It seemed almost every aspect of his life was affected. The way he thought, the way he acted, the way he coped with any and every situation, had been carefully woven to ac­commodate that off-color strand of his sexuality—but now that that thread had been pulled out, the fabric of his life made no sense. Tasks as simple as turning a doorknob took every last ounce of his concentration, and when he was out among people, the world took on a strange dreamlike tilt. Everything seemed violently new, and potentially dangerous, and his interactions with others were . . . well . . . unsettled.

There was a girl, for instance. He didn’t know her name, only that he was deeply attracted to her. He struck up a conversation in the hallway with her—small talk, really, just to get her attention. He was even more surprised than she when he looked down to find his hand deep in his pants, nursing an erection. He felt shock, mortification, and yet found himself laughing uncontrollably, not knowing why. It was just one in a string of unexpected events that had plagued him since Michael had rewired him.

He had asked Michael about all this, and Michael was unconcerned. “It’s just a transition, it’ll take some time for you to adjust.”

Michael was, of course, right. Drew would eventu­ally decipher his new neural pathways and discover the person he now was. He just had to weather through this period of discovery.

Thank goodness for the video camera.

As official video-biographer, and Dillon’s self-appointed spy, Drew could rely on his job to distract him—a job that put a merciful distance between him and the world that he viewed through the lens. He had re­corded quite a few unusual events—definitely video-worthy—and the events only grew stranger day by day.

Today he was busy cataloguing the new backward flow of the fountain, when he caught sight of Okoya following Dillon back to his suite. Drew might have followed, as well, to eavesdrop, and see what conver­sations went on between these two most unusual of people, but it was the activities of the others that af­ternoon that pulled his focus—as it had pulled the focus of so many of the followers.

Lourdes was in the ballroom putting on what amounted to a puppet show . . . but her puppets were human. She had taken a whole group of devout followers, and turned them into a kick-line, shoulders linked and throwing their legs high up into the air, like the Rockettes themselves. They laughed and laughed, as Lourdes manipulated the muscles of their bodies like a row of marionettes. Lourdes laughed, too, and Drew hadn’t been sure whether this show was for the followers’ amusement, or for hers. Ei­ther way, it looked wonderful on videotape.

“Is it difficult to control the actions of so many peo­ple at one time?” Drew asked her.

“Not as long as they’re all doing the same thing,” Lourdes answered, indicating the kick-line. “And it’s easier when they willingly give their bodies over for me to control. Are you getting all this?”

Drew zoomed in and panned the kick-line of follow­ers, whose laughter was fading as exhaustion began to set in.

“How long do you think they can go?” Lourdes asked.

Drew shrugged. “You tell me—you’re the puppet master.”

Lourdes frowned, unamused by the title. “The inter­view’s over.” Drew then found his own feet taking Lourdes’s marching orders, carrying him out of the room against his will.

Drew’s camera next caught Winston in the Rose Garden, a place Winston had initially avoided; but now he seemed to relish the sight of the rosebushes weaving themselves like snakes through the trellises as he sat there, the roses blooming around him in yawnlike bursts. In this festival of roses, Winston held court. It was a cross between a game show and an audience with King Solomon. Some tested his knowledge of minutia, others had specific problems to solve.