The Dragonfly Effect

  But how can I give in when there’s so much at stake?

  “You’re very sleepy,” Stanley told him.

  It was so true. The notion of submitting to his fatigue was so tantalizingly tempting that he was listing reasons why he should do it. It made perfect sense. He couldn’t fight this any longer. What’s more, why would he even want to?

  “No!” he rasped aloud.

  In the rush of anger at his own weakness, a possible solution came to him. If he couldn’t win, maybe he could change the game. The technique had come from Elias Mako himself. He had tricked Jax into performing hypnotism sandwiched between two mirrors. Lost in the infinite reflections, Jax had ended up bending himself. If he could re-create that here, he would have the edge, since he’d experienced such a thing before. Maybe he could keep himself awake and aware while Stanley succumbed and went under.

  “Mirrors!” he croaked.

  “What?” Tommy demanded.

  “Get two mirrors,” Jax insisted, striving to keep his voice steady. “Hold them up — one behind him, one behind me.”

  Kira was baffled. “But why?”

  “Do it!” Jax commanded.

  Kira lifted a large mirror off the wall and rushed to stand in back of Jax, holding it high. “Like this?”

  “Another one!”

  Tommy raced out into the hall.

  “Hurry!” Jax urged, feeling the inexorable tug of Stanley’s power.

  There was a crash, and Tommy reappeared in short order, bleeding from one hand, lugging an enormous broken piece of mirrored glass. “Seven years of bad luck, Opus,” he panted, pushing it along the carpet until it stood behind Stanley. “I hope this is worth it.”

  Now bracketed between the two mirrors, Jax saw his own reflection repeated to infinity, along with a million diminishing images of Stanley. The eight-year-old was clearly thrown by this, his eyes widening in surprise. His pupils began to shrink down to near pinpoints. His head nodded a little.

  Jax took the initiative. “You are very relaxed….” But Stanley wasn’t bent — not by him, anyway.

  “You okay, Opus?” Tommy hissed. “You’re slurring your words.”

  Not now, Jax tried to reply, but all that came out was a yawn and a gurgle. Across from him, Stanley was very still, the expression on his face stunned. He still didn’t seem to be bent, though, as Jax could detect no PIP.

  His vision darkening around the edges, Jax watched in amazement as Stanley’s eyes rolled back in their sockets and his head slumped forward. I did it! Jax cheered, but his celebration was silent. Okay, get the mirrors away, he instructed Kira and Tommy. On some level, he was aware that his mouth was not working, but he was too wrapped up in the task at hand now that Stanley was defeated.

  Now, what we have to do is —

  He never finished the thought, not even in his own head. An enormous burst of acceleration sent him rocketing forward.

  The mirror images of himself and Stanley blurred to streaks and then winked out entirely, to be replaced by billowing clouds of fiery static. Then a cooling fog.

  Where am I?

  The scene resolved itself into a suburban backyard — rolling lawn, picket fence, swing set, sandbox. Hamburgers and hot dogs sizzled on a barbecue. Jax stood up for a better view, and understood instantly that something was very different.

  I’m too short!

  It took a moment for the reality to sink in. He wasn’t too short; he was just right — for Stanley. The boosted mesmeric effect of the mirrors had catapulted him into Stanley’s mind! This was a scene from Stanley’s life! Jax wondered if the same thing had happened to the real Stanley — if the eight-year-old was lost in Jax’s memory somewhere. If so, the kid was in for a scary ride.

  Sniffling — so this is what allergies feel like — he climbed up the ladder and came down the slide face-first. He was grooving on the sense of speed, until he face-planted on the ground and got a mouthful of grass and earth. Big brother laughed. Little sister clapped her hands and reenacted his hard landing in the sandbox. Mother rushed over and gathered the crying Stanley into her arms —

  Wait a minute — Brother? Sister? Parents? But Stanley X was an orphan! The army adopted him from an institution! Who were these people?

  A terrible thought occurred to Jax. Was this the family Stanley had lost? Was the poor kid the only survivor of a tragic accident? No wonder Stanley was so messed up that even Elias Mako looked good to him.

  Still in his mother’s arms, Jax-as-Stanley glanced up as if searching for the lightning bolt or meteor that was going to wipe out everybody but him. But the immaculate blue sky showed no lethal projectiles heading for the backyard. The day remained perfect, the aroma of cooking meat tantalizing. Suddenly, Jax knew without having to be told that no calamity was going to overtake this loving group. These people were not fated to die. They had never existed in the first place. The “memory” was not even a memory; it was nothing more than a figment of Stanley’s imagination — a lonely orphan conjuring the family he did not and could not have. In a way, it was the saddest scenario of all.

  And then the backyard dissolved and Jax was surrounded by static again.

  Out of the blizzard, a nasty voice hissed, “No one’s ever going to adopt an ugly yellow-eyed loser like you!”

  The long white room came into focus around him — twin rows of identical beds. Jax understood that this was an orphanage — Stanley’s orphanage. And the oversize bully who stood menacing him was an unpleasant fact of life in this place that was filled with many unpleasant facts of life. A group of smaller boys gathered around to watch the confrontation, most of them grateful that the big kid’s attention hadn’t fallen on them.

  “Nobody likes you, Stupid Stanley.” The bully reached down and picked up a large cockroach crawling along the floorboards. “They like this bug better than they like you!”

  Holding the roach by an undulating leg, he dangled it over the terrified boy, staring down at him with a cruel leer.

  Very few people would have recognized what Jax saw next. As Stanley looked up at the bully, a picture-in-picture image appeared — the cowering Stanley from the big boy’s perspective. Jax recognized the PIP — but Stanley didn’t!

  He has no idea he’s a hypnotist!

  At least at that moment he didn’t.

  “Hey — hey!” Anger was overcoming Stanley’s fear. “Get that thing away! Shove it up your nose!”

  Jax watched in wonder and a little pleased satisfaction as the big boy backed up and stuffed the large insect into his left nostril. There were screams from the other boys. As the scene began to dissolve around him, Jax had the suspicion that this would be the last time Stanley would be bullied in this orphanage.

  And then Jax was off again, rolling and tumbling through Stanley’s memory. The blizzard of sparks grew redder, hotter, and Jax had a sense that something important was coming up.

  “… and we’re all so thrilled to have found you, Stanley. We can’t wait to welcome you to our family.”

  The voice made Jax’s blood run cold, and the first sight of its source was even more chilling. Elias Mako’s single black brow and hawk nose gave him a raptor-like appearance. That was exactly what he was — a predator.

  Stanley adored him. Jax could feel it. Why not? At eight years old, Stanley had come to believe that he would never be adopted. And along came this man called Ferguson, who later revealed himself to be the infamous Dr. Mako everyone talked about. But they were all wrong about him. He wasn’t evil; he was just misunderstood. He was an Arcanov, too — an uncle, or at least a close cousin. He wanted to use hypnotism to do good in the world!

  And he loved Stanley. The kid was sure of it. Soon he would meet the rest of his cousins. He had a family after all — a big one. There would be Thanksgivings and get-togethers and movies and ballgames and fireworks on the Fourth of July. He’d go to a regular school and have friends and do things that normal people did! After eight long years, it was finally happening for S
tanley X — Stanley Ferguson — Stanley Mako.

  There was just one little detail they had to take care of first before all that great family stuff could kick in. Nothing too complicated — Stanley had to record a short video that would help clear his cousin’s legal problems and set the world right. It was to be a hypnotic clip, with him looking into the camera as if mesmerizing a subject.

  And then Jax was doing it, saying the words from the FreeForAll video, speaking in Stanley’s young voice as Mako ran the camera.

  “You will stay perfectly still until you hear this special word — the name of what I’m holding in my hand right now. Remember it well….”

  Panicked that the memory would fade out and he would lose this vital moment, Jax glanced down at his palm to see what was there. It was a large porcelain dragonfly.

  Dragonfly. That was the trigger word that would shut down Mako’s global Aurora.

  The word that could save the world.

  I’ve got to get out of here! I’ve got to break the connection!

  But he could already see the gale of static swirling all around him, closing in on him, carrying him to another place inside Stanley’s mind.

  You can’t forget it! he exhorted himself. No matter what happens. Dragonfly, dragonfly, dragonfly …

  He kept on repeating the word as he waited for the next memory to coalesce around him.

  It never came — not the location, anyway. Instead, he was flattened by paralyzing pain, overwhelming nausea, and blindness.

  No, not blindness. Stanley wasn’t seeing nothing; he was seeing everything — millions of images all at the same time. That was when Jax recognized this for what it was — hypnotic blowback! Stanley’s blowback from the mesmeric message that was being spread across the entire world.

  What Jax had experienced from the original Operation Aurora paled in comparison. That had come from several hundred people — few enough that he’d been able to make out individual PIP images. This had to be coming from millions!

  He felt his strength ebbing, a numbness setting in.

  It’s going to kill me!

  A more rational thought: How could it kill him? It hadn’t killed Stanley. He recalled the boy’s words: He’s my cousin and he loves me! He made me better when I got sick!

  That’s what the poor kid was talking about — this terrible blowback!

  But to save Stanley, all Mako had to do was to pull the message off FreeForAll. This blowback was coming from Stanley’s memory. It could go on forever!

  The kaleidoscope of PIP images began to recede from him until he was surrounded by glaring light, staring at a point of utter blackness in the distance. All at once, the dot shattered, and he was hurtling through space and time, falling faster and faster until he, too, winked out of existence.

  The screams were raw, like animal cries, and came at exactly the same moment. Jax and Stanley, squared off opposite each other, both crumpled first to their knees and then to the floor, where they lay, gasping.

  “Let’s get rid of the mirrors!” Kira ordered, turning hers to face the wall.

  Tommy dropped his, breaking it into countless pieces. He crunched through the shards and hauled Jax to his feet. “Opus — wake up!”

  Kira saw to the fallen Stanley, supporting his head with one hand and patting his cheek with the other. Wilson, still bent, looked on blandly. It wasn’t that he couldn’t see the events in the room, but between the post-hypnotic suggestions implanted by Mako and Jax’s clashing commands, he was a blank slate.

  Tommy turned desperate eyes on Kira. “Why aren’t they waking up? Who hypnotized who?”

  She shook her head helplessly. “I have no experience with this. They might have hypnotized each other.”

  “What should we do?” Tommy persisted.

  “What can we do?” she replied. “We wait for them to come out of it.”

  “But what if they never do?”

  “They have to,” she said, not as confidently as she would have liked. “Whatever happened to them, it was purely mental —”

  “Don’t give me your freaky mumbo jumbo!” He turned to Jax’s inert form. “Don’t you dare leave me, man! Don’t even think about it! I drove a bulldozer into a police station for you! In New Jersey!”

  Jax opened one eye. “What do you want — a medal?”

  “Opus!”

  Tommy was so overjoyed that he dropped Jax. The jolt to the floor brought Stanley back. The boy sat up in Kira’s arms, gurgling and spitting as if he’d just been rescued from drowning.

  “Don’t be scared,” Kira comforted him. “We won’t hurt you.”

  Stanley was practically hysterical. “It’s my fault! All those people are going to die — because of me!”

  Light dawned on Jax. Just as he had been wandering inside Stanley’s memory, Stanley had been wandering inside his!

  “What did you see?” he asked.

  “Dr. Mako lied to me,” Stanley quavered. “He’s not a good person! He tried to kill you and your family. And he made me record that message! And now — and now —”

  “It hasn’t happened yet,” Jax cut him off. “Maybe we can prevent it.”

  “We can’t!” Stanley wailed. “Nobody can, not even Dr. Mako! It’s in too many people’s heads! At nine o’clock, everybody who got my message will just stop!”

  “Listen, Stanley. Just like you were in my mind, I was in yours. The trigger word to reverse the suggestion is dragonfly, isn’t it?”

  Stanley nodded. “But there’s no way we could ever deliver it to the whole world!”

  “There is one way,” Jax countered. “And you know who showed it to us? Mako himself.”

  “Mako?” Tommy echoed. “He doesn’t strike me as the helpful type.”

  “Mako scheduled the post-hypnotic suggestion for nine o’clock this morning — exactly when the big UN conference is scheduled. The opening ceremony is supposed to have the largest TV and Internet audience the world has ever known.”

  “So,” concluded Kira breathlessly, “if we can bend our way to the podium and deliver the trigger word exactly at nine o’clock, we can undo the damage the minute it starts.”

  Jax nodded. “We can’t save everybody, but we might be able to reach enough people that they can rescue the rest.”

  “But that’s in New York!” Tommy exclaimed. “It’s almost two in the morning. Do the buses run this late?”

  “We’ll have to call a taxi,” Jax decided.

  “Have we got enough cash for that?” asked Tommy. “It’s going to cost a fortune to drive to Manhattan from here.”

  “Money’s no object,” Jax said solemnly. “However much it costs, that’s how much the driver is going to think we’re giving him. Maybe we can find a way to make sure he gets paid after all this is over.”

  Kira nodded. “I agree. Stopping Mako is more important than anything else.” She pulled out her phone and began tapping the screen. “Here it is — Pine Bough Taxi. Let’s hope they answer their phone at night.”

  The car was unmarked except for the license plate: G — 0745. The G stood for government. It was after two AM when it pulled up in front of the Pine Bough police station and the uniformed military officers got out.

  Colonel Brassmeyer squinted through the darkness at the small building with the shattered doorway. “What hit this place?”

  “More than hypnotism, that’s for sure,” commented his companion, Captain Pedroia.

  Inside, the devastation was even worse. The desks were toothpicks; filing cabinets lay on their sides, bleeding papers; the bars of the holding cell were knocked off and bent. In the center of the ruined office sat the Bobcat, its digger askew.

  “Jackson Opus did this?” Brassmeyer asked the police chief.

  The older man shook his head. “He had help. He and the girl were in custody. It was the other boy who brought in the Bobcat and busted up the place.”

  “Any sign of the kids?” Pedroia probed.

  “Patrolman Wisnews
ki said he didn’t notice anything. Where exactly were you driving, Wisnewski?”

  The young officer looked completely blank. “I — I can’t remember….”

  His boss stared at him. “What do you mean, you can’t remember? That doesn’t make any sense!”

  Brassmeyer and Pedroia exchanged a knowing glance.

  “Actually,” said the captain, “it makes all the sense in the world.” The HoWaRD officers had not spent the past months working with mind-benders without learning how to recognize the aftereffects of hypnotic manipulation.

  “Well, would you mind letting me in on it?” the chief asked in exasperation. “I’ve had a rough night.”

  “It’s classified,” Brassmeyer informed him.

  Pedroia spoke up. “Has your squad car got one of those cameras on it? The kind that records everywhere you’ve been?”

  The crunching of tires on the gravel drive of the Quackenbush property came earlier than Jax had expected.

  “That was fast,” noted Kira. “The taxi company said half an hour.”

  “What should we do about him?” asked Tommy, indicating Wilson.

  The burly teen, still bent, was lying on the couch, totally focused on the broken TV and Stanley’s cartoons. Jax walked over and stared into his enemy’s eyes. “Wilson, we were never here. You’re holding the fort, and Stanley’s upstairs, asleep. You will remember none of this when you wake up in the morning — you know, if there’s a morning to wake up to.”

  “It might be easier that way,” Tommy mourned. “There’s no way I’ll ever be able to explain all this to my folks.”

  They ran out of the house and started in the direction of the long drive.

  Kira said it aloud just as Jax registered the same observation. “That doesn’t look like a taxi.”