Mirrorman Page 18

  PART TWO

  TEMPLE DEEP

  The quantum principle shows that there is a sense in which what the observer will do in the future defines what happens in the past – even in a past so remote that life did not then exist.

  John Wheeler

  BEAMERS OF JOY

  1

  The headquarters of Grace MediaCorp dominated the flat Florida landscape. Reclining in the deep plush seat of the limo that had been waiting on her arrival at Miami International, Mara BeCalla caught sight of the structure from highway 441 just north of Fort Lauderdale: a majestic and imposing glass pyramid way off in the distance, flashing the rays of the sun for miles around like a giant heliograph.

  This time of year was as much in between seasons as ever it got in the Sunshine State: the winter vacationers from the northern states long gone, the tourists from Europe yet to arrive in appreciable numbers. It was Mara BeCalla’s first visit, and she was less than impressed. To her right were the hotels, the apartment blocks, the fancy condos, the restaurants and bars, bingo parlours and garish stores which catered for the holiday crowds. On her left the drab landscape alternated between scrubland bleached by the constant sun and large tracts of marshy quagmire with pools of brackish, stagnant water filmed with green and yellow slime. The Everglades lapped right up to the thin strip of civilisation along the coast: primordial swampland cheek by jowl with sun-seekers’ paradise.

  Quite definitely not her idea of where to spend a vacation.

  Twenty minutes later she was standing in the marble-floored reception hall. Mara BeCalla was surprised, indeed taken aback, by its elegant proportions and overall splendour. Against a backdrop of dark-veined marble, a huge silver ‘M’ and its inverted image stood proud of the wall. Suspended at an angle from the ceiling, a bank of forty television screens replayed sequences from The Lovebeams Show. It was Grace MediaCorp’s primetime programme, Mara BeCalla knew, though she’d caught maybe only five or ten minutes here and there. Something of a TV celebrity herself, hosting a talk and entertainment hour for a cable station in Pittsburgh, she found The Lovebeams Show an oddball mix of style and content. Part stageshow extravaganza, with dancers and musical acts, part soul-baring confessional – teenagers mostly revealing their tortured relationships and romantic growing pains – it was also imbued with a peculiar kind of religious fervour. Not that the show promoted a named movement or any one creed, as far as Mara BeCalla could tell. Nonetheless, there was a distinct aura of new-age evangelism promising a golden future of sunlit tomorrows.

  Striding towards her, a clean-cut, broad-shouldered young man with an even tan and a set of perfect teeth presented the image of wholesome wellbeing. A silver pin – a tiny replica of the symbol on the wall – glinted in the lapel of his dark-blue blazer. His thin-striped tie, stone-coloured chinos and polished black shoes reminded Mara BeCalla of a tour guide. As a one-word description, she rejected ‘humourless’ and settled on ‘robotic’. After a few words of welcome and a perfunctory handshake, he conducted her towards a square core of stainless steel and smoked glass containing four glass-sided elevators that rose up through the centre of the pyramid-shaped building. Like layers in a cake, each level was revealed to its furthest depth on all four sides as they ascended to the nineteenth floor. The building was a hive of open-plan offices divided into workstations, with rank upon rank of employees dutifully toiling at VDU terminals. Above their heads, lenses in rotating domes of blackened glass kept a constant vigil. Mara BeCalla bet herself a month’s salary that not so much as a pencil ever went missing from Grace MediaCorp.

  She voiced what was on her mind.

  ‘This is one sweet setup. All this to produce a TV show?’

  The clean-cut young man raised a disdainful eyebrow. Apparently she had betrayed her astounding ignorance. ‘Television production and broadcasting is but one division of Grace MediaCorp,’ he informed her in clipped tones. ‘What you see here embraces all forms of massmedia dissemination.’

  Even talks like a robot, Mara BeCalla thought.

  ‘We have a suite of twelve sound studios for radio broadcasts and a recording division for CDs and tapes. We have a video production unit, five publishing imprints handling books, magazines, brochures, and other types of promotional literature. There is a department of two hundred and seventy-three people creating and servicing websites on the Internet. In addition to this facility here in southern Florida, we have several others in the process of design, development and construction in Minneapolis, Dallas, Albuquerque, Denver, Seattle and Sacramento. When completed, Grace MediaCorp will have the technical capacity and resources to beam our programmes twenty-four hours a day via five satellite channels worldwide.’

  Mara BeCalla felt the least she could respond with was a ‘golly-gosh’, or even a ‘wow!’ She resisted and merely said with a limp smile, ‘Silly old me.’

  The clean-cut young man proved himself a humourless robot, too. His air of disdain turned to frank disapproval, as if she had compounded her appalling ignorance with unforgivable flippancy.

  On the nineteenth floor, he led her from the main elevator to a smaller, private one. After seeing her safely inside, he went on his way. Mara BeCalla wasn’t sorry to see him go.

  ‘This is level twenty-seven. Alight here for Mr Graye’s executive suite,’ a female voice murmured softly from the speaker grille as the doors slid open. ‘Mind your step. Thank you. This is level twenty-seven. Alight here for…’

  Mara BeCalla came out into the hallway. Concealed lighting gleamed on black marble, and her high heels resonated on the polished granite floor as she strode towards a door inlaid with bronze panels. In the absence of any receptionist or personal assistant, she grasped the ornate handle and entered without knocking.

  A tall spare figure with a narrow shaven skull was standing with folded arms, gazing out through the slanting wall of tinted glass. The office suite was at the apex of the pyramid, two faces of the outer façade forming a vaulted triangular enclosure like that of a chapel. A sultry sun burnt low in the sky, filling the room with light the colour of blood.

  Isolated on the expanse of granite floor, Mara BeCalla waited as Graye turned from the slanting glass wall, letting his arms fall to his sides. His suit of fine black pinstripe hung slackly on his gaunt body like an empty sack.

  He motioned her to an armchair of dark-blue velvet and sat down opposite her, lacing his long fingers between sharp knuckles. His hooded eyes in their cavernous sockets possessed the quality of a clinical incision, assessing her with icy objectivity. If his scrutiny was meant to be intimidating, it didn’t work with Mara BeCalla. Supremely confident about her appearance – the mass of tumbled black hair and smooth dark complexion, huge green eyes flecked with starbursts of gold, voluptuous body under the creamy silk blouse and tailored jacket – she looked fabulous, and knew it.

  She relaxed into the velvet armchair. For a moment she considered lighting up one of her thin, liquorice-paper Spanish cigarettes, but refrained. Not for Graye’s sake; of far more importance was her need to maintain a strong inner sense of cast-iron discipline and control.

  ‘I am pleased that you accepted my invitation, Miss BeCalla. It is a pleasure to meet you at last.’ In contrast to the polite sentiment, Graye’s voice was flat and rasping.

  Mara BeCalla gave a slight shrug. ‘You paid for the trip, Mr Graye. And your proposition, I have to say, sounded intriguing – at least the outline of it in your fax did – otherwise I wouldn’t be sitting here now.’

  Graye raised his sparse eyebrows. ‘A global audience of millions has its attractions, does it not? I sense that your ambition stretches further than a few thousand cable subscribers. Grace MediaCorp has satellite channels reaching a third of the world’s population, and more are presently in development. We also have several radio networks, a publishing division –’

  Mara BeCalla interrupted him. ‘I’ve already had the guided tour, Mr Graye. One of your young men here gave me the rundown. And yes, bef
ore you ask, I was impressed. I’m also familiar with The Lovebeams Show. Let’s take it from there, shall we?’

  Apparently, Graye wasn’t used to being interrupted, and plainly he didn’t like it. He sat ramrod straight in the chair, his neck a thin, veined column, an artery beating in the hollow temples.

  He spoke in a low, harsh tone. ‘If you wish to join us, Miss BeCalla, you must understand the nature and purpose of our enterprise. Grace MediaCorp is not a communications empire for mere financial reward. We are motivated and inspired by profound and sacred beliefs whose origin lies in ancient days.’

  ‘Is it necessary that I understand?’ Mara BeCalla asked him. ‘Even if I don’t share your beliefs?’

  ‘With understanding will come belief; nothing is more certain.’

  ‘What if I choose not to?’

  ‘You will believe, gladly and sincerely,’ Graye insisted, ‘when you understand the nature of our ultimate purpose in this world.’

  ‘So what is your ultimate purpose?’

  ‘To disseminate the Message and make converts of those millions who watch our programmes, through the grace of our Saviour and Redeemer, Kersh. With His help we are able to influence the course of history and set both past and future on the rightful path.’

  As a sceptic, Mara BeCalla might have laughed in his face. She didn’t. Instead, a stab of apprehension penetrated through her heart. It was the name Graye had uttered – Kersh – that struck within her a strange chord of remembrance, and with it the icy chill of fear.

  ‘What do you mean, “the rightful path”?’ she asked less confidently.

  Graye regarded her with his hooded eyes.

  ‘Past, present and future are linked together, following a certain course. But it must be one of our choosing.’ The deeply etched lines of his face creased in an austere smile. ‘As an unbeliever, you will be ignorant of the fact that many alternatives exist. However, the Rule of Infinite Parallex tells us that the present we inhabit is but a single refracted image of all other existing presents. Thus it is vital that the rightful path is of our choosing.’ Graye’s thin lips affected a superior smile. ‘But don’t tax your brain, dear child, with such difficult concepts

  Mara BeCalla stiffened in the chair. ‘Don’t patronise me!’ she snapped. ‘If you were as all powerful and all knowing as you pretend to be, you wouldn’t need me to help you. And I think you do need me, Mr Graye. I think you do.’

  Graye sat with his hands locked tightly together. A distant light gleamed in the dark eye sockets, as if, Mara BeCalla thought… as if at some secret knowledge he was withholding from her. The tension in him was apparent in the flaring of his nostrils.

  There was a secret and thrilling power there, Mara BeCalla had no doubts about that. It was the dark nature of that power that intrigued, tempted, and yet also frightened her. She wanted nothing more than to taste it for herself: to savour it as one savours a delicious, forbidden fruit. But not to be devoured by it.

  Mara BeCalla arched an eyebrow, flawless as an artist’s brushstroke. ‘Tell me, Mr Graye.’ She leant forward. Her green eyes glittered. ‘What would happen if the rightful path, as you call it, was not the chosen one?’

  ‘We would lose control. The world – this world – would be changed.’

  ‘This world?’

  ‘This world,’ he repeated stonily. ‘The one we presently inhabit.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘You don’t see. But you shall.’

  The two of them faced one another, the silence trapped between a rock and a hard place.

  After a moment Graye rose to his feet, his domelike head bathed red in the rays of the setting sun. ‘There is no danger of that happening while we protect, and in turn are protected by, our Saviour and Redeemer Kersh. One day, Miss BeCalla, you will come to understand that.’

  Her curiosity was aroused. ‘The way you speak of Kersh… as if he has ultimate power. What is he? Who is he?’ The sound of that name on her lips made Mara BeCalla shudder, as if something slimy and cold had crawled over her skin. When Graye didn’t immediately respond, she said, ‘An actual living person … or someone from the past?’

  ‘Kersh isn’t dead.’

  ‘Then he must be alive.’

  Graye shook his head.

  ‘He isn’t dead,’ Mara BeCalla mused aloud, ‘and neither is he alive …’

  ‘Kersh is in another place,’ said Graye solemnly.

  ‘I didn’t think he was in the next room. Then where?’

  Graye had no humour, and didn’t indulge it in others.

  ‘The City of Perpetual Night.’

  ‘Sounds pretty lonesome, stuck there in limbo. What’s he find to do all day – or should I say all night?’

  Graye ignored her flippant tone. ‘Kersh has plenty to occupy Himself, Miss BeCalla.’ He turned away. The meeting seemed to be over. But, as Mara BeCalla got to her feet, Graye turned again. They faced one another in the rosy twilight of the vaulted room. For a moment the masks of pretence were stripped away, the naked ambition of each mercilessly exposed. Mara BeCalla didn’t fool herself that she had any grasp at all on what Graye, in his supercilious manner, had revealed to her. Nor could she give credence to his beliefs – this talk of ‘the rightful path’ and ‘the chosen way’. As for the fantastical figure of Kersh, who existed and yet didn’t exist in some lonesome night-time limbo, he was less real to Mara BeCalla than Santa Claus.

  But some things she did understand, and believed in fervently. Fame, wealth, and power were real and knowable to her, as tangible as her own fingertips, and she craved them with an insatiable lust more powerful than sexual desire.

  Graye curled a finger. ‘Come with me. Let me show an unbeliever what we have to offer, all of which can be hers.’

  The elevator descended rapidly, the levels zipping by in a blur. Mara BeCalla tensed her knees, anticipating the sudden braking as the indicator lights flicked down the panel to the first floor. She was caught off guard. The elevator kept on going. The lit levels vanished into darkness.

  ‘There are ten sub-basement levels,’ Graye said, in answer to Mara BeCalla’s startled look. ‘The studios are located below ground to minimise external sound and vibration.’

  The elevator slowed and stopped, and a red panel marked STUDIO 7 lit up.

  From a small lobby, they passed through heavy double doors into a dimly illuminated corridor with large observation windows along one wall. A sound like the fardistant rush and rumble of waves on the shore filtered in. It was the murmur and buzz of a huge and excited crowd, muted by the thick glass. Mara BeCalla caught a glimpse of them through the observation windows, sitting in a steeply raked semicircle which rose from the stage and vanished into the shadowy depths way up near the roof gantry. The tall figure of Graye strode ahead, and Mara BeCalla followed him into a viewing gallery which was open to the auditorium.

  At once the distant rush and rumble became the roar of one vast wave crashing down. Perched high in the studio, as if on a cliff edge, the gallery overlooked the sea of faces lifted expectantly to the stage area bathed in a curtain of light. Cameramen with lightweight shoulder cameras, the sound crew, and a dozen technicians were making their final preparations. The floor manager was talking to the control booth through his miked headset. Mara BeCalla followed his gaze to the angled windows on the opposite wall of the studio where heads and shoulders, partly in silhouette, were hunched in front of monitor screens.

  For the first time, Mara BeCalla took in the audience. What struck her immediately was that they were all young, fresh-faced kids, average age seventeen or thereabouts. And they were as excited and pepped up as if at a rock concert. As she gazed down upon all this youth and vibrant energy, her attention was caught by a girl of about fourteen with spiky red hair, cheeks flushed, eyes bright and joyful. She saw the girl slip something into her mouth. She then took a gulp of diet soda, head tilted back, her slender white throat rippling. Another kid further along the row did the same. Now that sh
e was consciously looking for it, Mara BeCalla saw at least a dozen more unwrapping small round pink tablets and swilling them down with diet soda. The wrappers had a red symbol on them which she couldn’t make out from this distance.

  From the corner of her eye, Mara BeCalla looked at Graye in the padded, high-backed chair next to hers. His hands were clasped reverently together, the long planes and hollows of his face suffused with a dreamy reflection. ‘A median share of forty-three point six every day of the week, Miss BeCalla,’ he murmured with gloating satisfaction. ‘Over six hundred million worldwide. And just the beginning.’

  The lights in the main auditorium began to dim, and a huge collective sigh passed over the packed rows. The audience seemed to sink into a state of trancelike hypnosis. All eyes were fixed unblinking on the stage, which was revolving. Slowly, the long curved staircase with its myriad dazzling lights came into view, the white arch at the top outlined against a deep-purple backdrop sprinkled with stars. Smoke billowed forth, and a voice from up above boomed out like the tolling of a bell.

  ‘To our friends everywhere, brothers and sisters the world over, may the blessings of the Beamers be upon each and every one of you. Welcome to our daily hour of celebration, beaming joy into your hearts. And tonight…’

  There was a roll of drums accompanied by a tumultuous fanfare of trumpets.

  ‘… the Beamers are proud to present to our millions of satellite and cable subscribers everywhere – the Chosen One. Yes, friends, somewhere in our audience here tonight is a very special person, given the honour and privilege to step up on to the stage and become the Chosen One! And now please welcome your host… Messiah Wilde!’