Part 29 (1/2)

”How can he be her husband, but Sam is not your brother? How can one be true but not the other?”

Mara turned red. ”Carol Sandoval had a husband before this other guy showed up. She didn't have to wrap her mind around the concept of having a husband in order to accept him. I do not have a brother. I can't just create that sort of relations.h.i.+p out of nothing. It may not be logical to you, but it is to me.”

”I did not mean to upset you. I just want you to embrace the experiences you are having, not avoid them.”

”What am I avoiding?”

”You haven't talked about what happened the other day with the radio.”

”I'm still mulling that one over, trying to figure out how you did it.”

”Explain to me how it is possible for you to send a man to an alternate reality using the Chronicle, but it is not possible for you to make a radio work using your abilities?” Ping raised his eyebrows.

”I don't know.”

”You're just a bundle of contradictions, aren't you? Perhaps you need more time to sort it out. Maybe we should talk less and do more.”

”Do what?”

Ping pointed to a wall a hundred feet away under a row of windows barely discernible because they were beyond the periphery of the light. ”There is a small table over there. Would you bring it over here?” He pointed to the opposite edge of the light off to the side of the whiteboard.

While Mara moved the table into place, Ping retrieved a tripod projection screen from behind the metal cabinet and set it up thirty feet beyond the light toward the center of the warehouse. Once Mara had the table in place, he walked behind the cabinet once more and emerged with an old 35mm projector, which he placed on the table and pointed at the screen.

”You said you taught metaphysics before, right?” Mara asked, watching him fiddle with the projector.

”Yes, that's correct.” He went to the cabinet, opened it and removed a large film canister. He returned to the projector, opened the canister, removed a reel and mounted it onto the old projector's arm.

”So you have worked with people who have metaphysical abilities before, right?”

”Not actual people with real abilities like you or Sam.”

”You've never worked with a prompter or a pretender or a progenitor before?”

”No. They are rare. I've never even met one before.”

”So this is all theoretical to you. It's not like there are metaphysical abilities all over the place where you come from.”

”That's correct.”

He threaded the film through several slots and wrapped it around two spools.

”How can you be so sure I'm a progenitor? Maybe you are wrong.”

”You've demonstrated your abilities several times.”

”No, I mean, maybe I'm something other than a progenitor. Maybe I'm a psychic or a soothsayer or something.”

”Call it what you will, you are a progenitor. Okay, I think we are ready. Have a seat.”

”You know that film looked like it had been overexposed. It looked blank to me, like it had been left out in the sun or something.” Mara took a lotus position on her mat.

”It's just the lead on the film strip.” Ping connected the projector into an extension cord.

”Is that cord actually plugged into something?” Mara asked.

Walking to his mat, Ping pointed to a long orange cord snaking on the floor into the dark toward the wall with the windows.

”Since you have an affinity for technology, I thought we would use this device as your talisman today,” Ping said, pointing over his shoulder to the projector.

”You know, I do work with some gadgets from this century occasionally,” she said. ”Although, I remember having a teacher who would bring in old reels of nature doc.u.mentaries and show them to us using a projector like that. We were as fascinated by the projector as the movie.”

”We'll try something a little more modern next time. Now, I want you to close your eyes and go through the same process you did with the radio. Think through each step, visualize each in your mind as you a.s.sess how the mechanism works. Verbalize it or just think through it, whatever you are most comfortable with.”

Mara closed her eyes, imagined going over all the moving parts of the projector, checking the belts, the lenses, the light and the power supply. Satisfied everything appeared mechanically sound, she confirmed the film was threaded correctly. In her mind, she flipped on the power switch at the back of the projector and heard the rapid clicking of frames feeding through the machine.

”Excellent,” Ping said. ”Now I want you to think about a movie you would like to see. What do you want the projector to show you? Think about that movie. We want the projector to show us those images. Keep your eyes closed until I tell you to open them. Concentrate.”

Mara could only think of the nature film her teacher used to show. She focused on that, a film featuring a mother tiger and her two cubs. Mara loved the film so much that, for most of the third grade, virtually every stuffed animal, toy, lunch box or linen had a tiger motif. She loved how the mother tiger lifted her cubs by the scruff of the neck to move them to safety and how she would warn away predators with- A growl.

Mara's eyes sprang open. ”Did you hear that?”

Ping's bugging eyes answered her question.

Another growl, this one downs.h.i.+fting to a hiss, came from the cone of flickering light s.h.i.+ning from the projector's lens. It echoed in the darkness that surrounded them. Ping stood up, turning, straining to see beyond the fluorescent light. He spun back toward the projector.

Mara got up and whispered, ”Maybe it was just a sound, a sound track, from the projector.” She nodded toward it.

”I didn't think that film had any-” He stared at the screen. A hazy purple blotch appeared at its center as if something were smeared on the projector's lens, but whatever it was writhed like an amoeba, something shapeless.

”Ping?” She was holding her hands up to her nose. ”Do you smell that?”

”What?”

”I think it's duplicator fluid.”

”Dittos? What are you talking about?”

”It's not coming from me.” She held out her hands. The aroma filled the room. ”Where's it coming from?”

Ping turned back to the screen. The amoeba had grown denser, darkened to violet, undulated more urgently. The ditto smell was overpowering. ”Mara, look at the screen.”

She lowered her hands. The blob on the screen bulged outward into the cone of purple light coming from the projector and then retracted. It bulged again, growing, reaching out more than two feet, extending itself with two appendages groping for the ground. Below the ambient light of the projector, a large purple paw print appeared. Then another. The purple bulge snapped back into the screen.

A roar echoed throughout the darkened warehouse. A large blur sprang from the screen, took form as it arched toward Ping. Crouching, throwing his hands up, he dispersed. The large purple tiger flew into a cloud of dust, landing on Ping's mat, sliding out of the light into the dark warehouse beyond.

”Ping, what's happening?” Mara yelled into the billowing particles. She swung to where the tiger had disappeared into the shadows.