The Beginning Of Rain In December (11 page)

“I don’t know. It shouldn’t be possible, it takes weeks to know, but Dr. Downs said I was already showing signs of the hormone. You are the only one I have been with in twelve years.”

“I know. Where are you? I will hide you. I will protect you and our child.”

“I can’t trust you, Enlai. I can’t trust you. For now, I am safe. Hidden. It will be useless for them to search for me. I can read their thoughts, know their plans. Will you tell them this?”

“No. Rain…forgive me.”

“Good bye Enlai. If I am pregnant and when I have the child, I will contact you.” She tried to touch him, attempted to caress the back of his hand, but her hand went through his like smoke, like a ghost.

“Don’t leave yet,” he said. “I still think this is a dream,” he began. “Things like this do not happen, Rain.”

She sighed. “I know. I still don’t understand what I am. My body, my mind. My head…there are things inside me that I feel occurring, Enlai. It is frightening. I don’t want this and yet, already, I have controlled others to my benefit.”

“You did it to escape.”
“Yet how easy it will be to continue. I don’t want to be around others. For their own safety. Even you,” she admitted. “It would be so easy to go inside of you, read you, I force myself to not do that. I don’t want to do that to you, Enlai. But to John, Lebna, the doctors in that facility, I will do it. I won’t be there ‘project’, their experiment.” She confessed.

“You should not have to be.” He returned.

“Have you found any news regarding my grandmother? Any evidence?” She asked.

“No, it has been thirty years since the experiments, since her death. She methodically destroyed all her records that is what I do know. Rain…can you, can you search the minds of any one you want? Can you find out if any one has any information on the records. If so, you can find them before we do. You can destroy any final records before we get to it. It will keep you safe. It will keep others from being experimented on.”

“I never thought to do it.” She returned.

“I urge you to do such. To protect yourself and others. You were right, Rain. They wish to create a new race of soldiers that knows no fear, no sickness and no death. I cannot see such happening. It will mean the complete annihilation of every freedom ever given by man. Between China, Russia, Iran and the Western Nations there is a search on, for you and for your grandmothers records. You must hide, forever. You must not be found. And if Dr. Downs is right, neither must our child ever be found.”

She closed her eyes at his words, the terror and fear, the anger, the pain and sadness. She would forever be on the run, forever be wanted, looking over her shoulder. And if pregnant she would condemn her child, their child to the same fate.

“Enlai,” she began, fear in her throat.

“Don’t cry, you must be strong.”

“Enlai…this cannot be. I should die, and my body should be burned.”

“Don’t you dare,” he said. “I will figure something out, I will figure out a way for you to be safe. For our child to be safe.”

“It is too late,” she returned, tears falling upon her face, her head bent in dejection, sorrow. “It is much too late. Forget me, Enlai. I am sorry. Forget the child. I’m sorry, Enlai. I’m so sorry.”

She disappeared from his eyes.

“Rain, no!” He screamed.

Rain left his room, found herself back in her body, her breathing rapid, heavy, tears still falling down her eyes. Her head hurt, but she had to continue, she closed her eyes again, and began searching through the minds of others, thinking of words, her name, experiments, anything that was of question, as she flitted from millions of minds in just seconds, jumping from one to the next, to the next, searching, she began with the highest government officials, scientists but found nothing, her head hurting too much to continue longer.

She got up, cleaned and wiped down the room, packed her items and left well in the darkness, leaving a short note for the inn keepers that she had a family emergency and had to leave. When she was packed in her car, she stilled her mind, driving until reaching a gas station and there she brought matches, filled up a container of gasoline and drove off, deep into the desert for many hours until dawn began.

Once the deep darkness turned into the shimmering gray, did she pull onto the side of the road and climbed on top of her car, facing east, the look of the first break of sunlight, bathed in blues, lavenders, oranges, reds so all-encompassing beautiful she smiled in delight, her thoughts on what she was about to do pushed into the furthest reaches of her mind. She simply enjoyed the startling beauty of dawn’s first light, the glorious sunrise, how the night was pushed away, fleeing from the light. Night and morning. Cold and heat.

She got back into her car, began ascending up a mountain off the road to the edge of a cliff. She got out the car, lit a cigarette, inhaled deeply and stared over the cliff where the drop off was at least five hundred feet inside a dry ravine, only home to reptiles and the occasional flash flood. She pulled her duffle bag out of the car, doused the car with gasoline and set it on fire, watched as it roared briefly before settling into an intense fire.

She sat upon the edge of the cliff, her legs dangling over the rocks, watching a small lizard sun itself in the new morning heat a few feet from her body. The smell of the burning car behind her was stifling, hot yet she did not move, simply stared at ravine hundreds of feet beneath her. Hopefully, she prayed the animals would eat her body and her bones be scattered until nothing of her would be left. Nothing except the memories of others.

She thought of Belle, Mark, their children. The happy innocence of the babies faces, how they were so quick to hug, kiss, be loved. She thought of her faceless parents who perhaps had loved her. She thought of those that had raped and brutalized her as a young child and eased their memories away. She thought of Enlai, his smile, the touch of him. She lastly thought of the child beating beneath her heart beat, the people who would hunt for the small baby, those that would stop at nothing to hunt for her, to create a race of people that should not ever exist.

One last thought, the touch of the sunlight upon her face, asking for forgiveness for what she was about to do and she jumped.

The wind tore across from her face, it went so fast, a mere blinking of her eye, she closed her eyes as the earth raced to her, once again asking for forgiveness and met her fate.

“We got a lead,” Song said, as he met Enlai at the American Embassy as they sequestered in a room, speaking with John.

“What is it?” John said over the laptop as he, the President of the United States and the head of the FBI sat at the Oval Office.

“A janitor’s son,” Song said wryly. “The janitor has been dead for nearly thirty years…suspiciously. The son appears to be involved in government conspiracy antics. He lives in London, has ties to a revolutionary regime possibly the Taliban. More of an overthrow of the government.”

“What happened to the janitor?” The President asked.

“Stray bullet during a bank robbery. But no money was taken.” Enlai added. He kept his face neutral, light. Only Song knew of his involvement with Rain, he aimed to keep it that way.

“Suspicious indeed,” John added. “And how about Ms. Rule?” He asked. “Any word?”

“None,” Enlai said. “But we found her once and we can find her again. This time when we do John, make sure she stays found,” he bit out tightly.

John drew tight lipped at the reprimand. The President had cursed him out sufficiently, he didn’t need this agent doing as such again. “Keep to your orders, agent,” he bit tightly, but they all knew, he’d allowed her to escape, she had been under his watch. There was no excuse for his actions.

Enlai’s jaw tightened but Song gave him a warning look before interrupting the two. “We are bringing him in for interrogation in twenty four hundred hours.” He said.

“Good,” the President said. “Extract every single bit of information from him and once you do…make sure he is not found again.”

“Yes sir,” Song said before discontinuing the conference call, shutting down the state of the art laptop.

Enlai stood about to say something before a voice within his head exploded, he cried out, the pain unbearable, one of fear, darkness, terror, cries for help. He moaned, holding his head in anguish before slumping over in unconsciousness.

“Enlai!” Song said, reaching his brother in a split second, catching his heavy body easily and easing him onto the floor. “Enlai,” he said, cradling his brother as he watched sweat pour from him in rivulets, unresponsive.

He checked his brothers’ pulse, it was erratic. He laid him on the floor, his hands warming, hovering over his brother.

“No…Song,” Enlai said, his voice weak, filled with pain. “I am…” he began, his head hurt as he bent over, cradling his upper body on shaking arms. He was nauseated and bit back bile rising quickly in his throat.

“What is wrong, brother?” Song said.

“I,” he began, but could not say more, his head hurt too much. He had never been in such intense pain. “Something happened…I don’t know,” he said. “Get me something to settle my stomach and something for my head,” he said.

Song did immediately returning in the room in a few moments with bottled water, a ginger ale and some extra strength Tylenol.

Enlai took the pills immediately, drowned down the ginger ale, his headache receding slightly, as he leaned against the edge of the desk.

“What happened?” Song asked.

“I have to go, now. You’re going to have to interrogate him on his own, I have to get back to America, immediately.”

“Now?” Song asked incredulously. “What the hell are you doing, Enlai? We are on assignment.”

“Do what you need to do, Song,” Enlai said, before picking up his suitcase. “I will return in three days.”

Enlai flew to the Colorado immediately. Once there he rented a car and began driving south, with no direction, just knowing he had to get to Santa Fe, urgently.

He drove without stopping for four hours until he had to stop to refill the tank, using cash at an old mom and pop store with no security cameras. From there, he continued until he turned on a deserted Santa Fe highway, driving without aimlessly but there was something leading him without words, without thought. He had to go.

He drove for two more hours, before he looked up from his car, there were vultures high in the sky circling something off road, he took the faint trail until his car could not go any further, pulling off his suit jacket and tie in the desert heat. He ran through the dry underbrush, ignoring all reason until he stumbled down the side of a dry hill, skidding to a stop and finding her.

She lay peaceful, still, not a scratch or mar upon her, there was a snake two feet from her heel that he kicked so hard it sailed nearly twenty feet in the air before hitting a sharp rock, stunned. The few ravens that had been next to she flew upon his movements. He didn’t know how long that she had been there, only that it had been five hours since he had left London, since his head felt as if it was about to explode.

He checked for a pulse, found one strong and steady and lifted her in his arms gingerly, finding a less steep way back to his car less than ½ a mile away.

She didn’t move, he settled her into the back seat, laid his jacket over her and started the car, kicking up a trail of dust as he drove away. He found a small hotel about fifteen miles away in a small town west of Santa fee, paid for a room and took her into it, she was still unconscious and had not moved.

He went into the small, outdated bathroom, rinsing out a cold hand towel and returned to the dimly lit room.

“I thought of the baby,” her voice said.

He paused before meeting her at the bed, her eyes were still closed, but she was awake. “What happened?” He asked sitting next to her and placing the cold towel on top of her forehead.

“It has a conscious, already, the baby. It knew what I was doing, I jumped off a cliff,” she said, pulling the towel off of her face to stare at him.

“No, Rain, why did you do that?” He asked.

“So that this…this unknown future will not occur. The baby, it was frightened, so scared, I heard it cry out in my head, it cried to you, for help, I stopped, I stopped myself mid-air, just seconds away from my death because it’s fear was so strong, so frightening. My head hurt so badly, I dropped just a few feet unto to the ground, all went dark. And I woke, here, with you.”

His mind tried to grasp at what was occurring, he stood, opening the blinds of the lone window just slightly to stare outside the pool, there were three children in it, playing innocently, a tired looking couple overseeing their actions as they sat upon plastic lounge chairs. “It was the child in my head, the child that drew me to you?” He finally asked.

“It was not me,” Rain returned softly. She sat up slowly, her head pain, for it could not rightfully be called a headache had receded, there was still a small dull, ache. She bent over dejected, her elbows on her thighs, her arms hanging loosely between her legs. “It was my intent to end it all, not because I wanted to die, Enlai, I don’t want to die. But to keep the government from creating…a new world order. I don’t want to commit suicide, Enlai. But how do I live with myself when I know my life will mean the end of everything as we know it?” She asked. “Enlai…” she said.