Jordan made a pot of coffee, with a bit of cinnamon, a dash of black pepper, and some fresh turmeric, at Luke's adamant insistence. He claimed it boosted mental clarity, and Carl supported him, so Jordan did what he was asked. He sure as hell didn't like this new approach, but he couldn't think of any other way to keep Carl alive, and he didn't want to see him die, so he decided to bide his time, keeping a close eye on Luke.
Luke just didn't seem to have any moral compunctions about "executing" people, or any decent self-editing on the subject, even when he was talking to the subject of his supposedly suspended execution. He just let what he was thinking come right out of his mouth, not caring whether the person he had said he was going to kill heard it or not. Jordan was half-sure he was simply a psychopath with hypnotic tricks, but he couldn't seem to rule out the distinct possibility that the guy could, and would, handle this transplant Carl seemed to need. He hated having nothing but bad options, but that's where he was. Again.
He brought the coffee and three mugs into the parlor, where Carl and Luke were busy with dry-erase markers on the windows. Carl had pulled all the drapes aside so the windows were fully exposed so they could use them for brainstorming.
"What do you think?" Carl asked over his shoulder, his hand still in the air, ready to write something onto the window.
Jordan looked at what was written. Carl had "Mind-Control Surgical Team" below which was a straight line down, where he'd written "Luke’s connections." There were bullets points under his name, including one that was marked with the words “many moving parts.” Jordan had to move sideways to see the last point clearly when he came back in. He put the pot and mugs down on the coffee table, then saw the plus before "complete control over information and process.” So those weren't dashes, they were minus signs. Pros and cons.
"I thought we were brainstorming ways other than a transplant."
"Yeah, well, we can't think of anything. Can you?"
Jordan poured himself some coffee and looked at the window. Then through it. The cedar and fir trees were a deep green. There was a hemlock tree that Jordan always noticed on the far side of the clearing. The tip flopped over as all Hemlock trees did at the top. Hemlock was a notorious poison, and he always took immediate notice of all the ways to die, wherever he went. It was the last thing he wanted to focus on, right now. Ways to live. How many ways to live could he come up with?
It's in Carl's blood. It's his blood type. The only possible solution he could think of was to change the blood type. That, or go down the path of vampiredom, which sounded horrific, even if Luke would allow it, and he clearly would not. Luke also, apparently, had the power to enforce this rule. Jordan shook his head in frustration. "Give me time, dammit! This is all too fast—"
"Not fast enough, in my opinion," Luke answered quietly. "You two have no idea how much patience I am showing you. You have no idea the pressures I am under, the timeline we are on, the immediacy of the need to get this done and move on to other imperatives. The fact that you have a possible solution, and that it could save more than just Carl's life, is the biggest breakthrough in lupanthrus mercy in thousands of years. Since I have been alive. Sometimes the pace of progress is a good thing, but make no mistake, my patience is running out." Luke looked fiercely into Jordan's eyes. "I am doing this for you, Jordan. If you will do this, you will need to get up to speed quickly, and making decisions like this is one of the most critical elements of the job—"
"I’m not taking your fucking job!" Jordan cursed, and Luke leaned back in surprise.
"Fuqua! I am not accustomed to being challenged!" Luke answered, stepping forward.
Jordan leaned in and shouted, "I'm not accustomed to people who can't get it through their thick skull that I'm not a toy!"
Luke gaped in shock at Jordan’s outburst, then laughed with delight. "Oh, no, farthest from. The gods themselves must be laughing at me now. I finally have what I have been looking for hundreds of years, right under my nose, and it refuses to do what I ask because it is exactly what I am looking for,” Luke’s expression changed to a fierce glare. “I am way too old for this, I am too tired, and I have too much to do. I have forgotten how to work with others with all the solitary work I have had to do, and I have got to find my way out of this labyrinth I have built around myself, but I keep going down the wrong path." Luke shook his head, then looked up and shook his fist at the ceiling. "I hope you are enjoying this! I am certainly not.”
Carl and Jordan looked at each other. Jordan shook his head. Surely, Carl saw the insanity now.
Apparently not, Jordan thought, as Carl spoke. "So that's it, then. The only option is the transplant, and the only question is, do we use Jordan's connections for the data, or have you take care of it."
"Not me, my assistant,” Luke answered, wearily. “For the data, at least. There is no way I will have time to do both, and I seriously do not have time to clean up any of the details that might escape after the fact. It seems there are always details that escape. The data breach will snowball, and every moment I take cleaning it up, there is more mess to clean up. It can take years to get ahead of it, as it did with the Roswell incident. And if I miss a single thing, some government agency will release documents, or someone will hack them, then I have a ton more work to do. Snowden was a nightmare. I had to make sure he was safely out of the country so I could review his thoughts when I had a chance, and erase anything he knew about us at that point. It is fine as long as it is in concealed government files, but that information breach was hell – and don’t get me started on Assange.”
"You handled the Snowden escape?" Carl asked.
"Parts of it,” Luke replied. “He has particularly good skills and many connections. But he would not have made it the whole distance safely without my facilitation."
"So, he's one of the people you've talked to?" Carl said, surprised.
"No, I never talked to him,” Luke responded. “I just dropped into his mind and got back out. He does not remember anything about it."
"And he's not insane, and he functioned through it," Carl pressed.
"That is the outcome in over 99% of the cases. I avoid situations that would turn out otherwise,” Luke answered, looking up finally. “When I am the one doing it, anyway."
"What about your assistant?" Carl asked.
Luke shook his head. "More like 85% right now, but he is getting better. He needs more practice, and experience to learn proper judgment. This would be good practice."
Carl took the mug of coffee Jordan had finally poured for him. Luke poured his own, since Jordan clearly wasn’t going to.
Jordan took a sip from his mug, then looked down at it. That was actually pretty good. Weird, but not bad at all. When he looked up, Luke was staring at him. "You've got an assistant, that’s great,” Jordan said. “That means you don’t need me." He suddenly felt anxious as he realized Luke seemed to be planning him into these machinations, and he didn't like it. He was accustomed to being in control, or having to fight. This was neither, and it was a horrible feeling. He didn't want his mind taken over again, but he didn't know how to stop Luke if Luke decided he wanted to do it. It was just like the times when he was just a boy, when his dad would pin him face down on his bed, then strap his arms and legs to the bedposts, pull his shirt up, and whip his bare back with a belt. He was utterly helpless.
Jordan looked back down into his mug. He didn't want to look at either of them. Luke was a murderer, insane, controlling, everything Jordan had always fought against. And Carl had been drawn into his spell, just as Jordan’s mom had been drawn into his dad’s spell. Jordan felt a rising fear. It was a foolish, and criminal, idea to doctor medical files and control the minds of a group of people. He wanted none of it, but he couldn’t seem to find any other answer.
"We’ll do it ourselves,” he said, finally, and looked up at Luke. "We don't need you."
Carl answered. "You're wrong. We do need him. We can't do this alone.”
Jordan slammed his mug on the table and strode down the hall toward the back door. Enough of this. He paused briefly to grab his gun and his jacket and headed out to the trees to clear his head. They would make decisions without him, but they were doing that already. He started running up the trail to the nearby fire lookout.
* * *
Several hours later, Jordan took a deep breath and set his nerves aside as best he could, then hiked back down to the house, grabbed the silver handle of the front door, pulled it open, and walked inside.
Luke was still sitting in the middle of the sofa, and he looked up at Jordan. He would have preferred the man already be gone, but he’d have to face this eventually anyway. “What did you decide, Carl?”
Carl set his mug on the table. “I’ll give Luke copies of the records that will need to be entered into my file. He’ll get them to his assistant who will call me and put me in touch with the data team he puts together while I find a suitable donor, then he and I will see that the donation request is accepted by a suitable center. When it’s time, Luke will be present to assure the appropriate mental state of the staff and coordinate any further records alterations, and we’ll take it from there.”
“You don’t need me then,” Jordan said with relief.
“Oh, we most certainly need you,” Luke said.
Jordan felt his lip curl as he sized up the man sprawled across the smooth brown leather of the sofa. “What for?”
Luke slowly sat up. “To make sure nothing interrupts us as we perform the process.”
Jordan leaned against the doorway. “That’s not in my job description,” he said finally.
Luke seemed to almost be smiling. “That is your choice? You want Carl to die?”
Jordan looked at Carl. His face was just the slightest bit fuller than it had been a few days ago, but it was still bony, compared to the healthy, younger Carl he had gone to school with. He wondered if Carl’s body would ever fully recover from this. No, he didn’t want Carl to die, but he wasn’t going to work for Luke.
“What if I don’t? I’m not taking orders from you.”
“You cannot refuse this,” Luke said with exasperation. “We will need someone watching the doors for possible interruptions while Carl is receiving the transplant and Dwayne and I are controlling the people and the circumstances. And someone must take charge. Excuse me if I think it is the one who knows how all of this will be done!”
“Well, we don’t have to call them orders, or say who’s giving them,” Carl interrupted. “These are simple roles. Luke does the mind work, Jordan makes sure no one interferes, and I get new bone marrow.”
Jordan turned to Carl. “How long will this donation take?”
Carl looked uncomfortable. “Well, that’s going to vary a bit…”
Jordan’s eyebrows rose.
“The first time—” Carl answered.
“There’s more than one procedure?” Jordan cut in.
“Stop!” Luke’s voice pounded in both of their heads, seemed to fill a cavernous space in another dimension. Then, still in their heads but at a more tolerable volume, “Enough of this! It must happen. We must do it. We have no choice but to work together. After this is taken care of, we will reassess to see if it worked. I say we have a truce until then; we all work with each other on faith. I will not kill anyone, Jordan will not walk away, and Carl will not die. Agreed?”
Jordan was furious, but he assessed each of the statements, in turn, and had to admit that he couldn’t disagree with a single one, regardless of how much he wanted to. “And then you leave us alone?”
Luke responded, his voice back to an entirely normal level. “And then we talk about you, and you will have a choice to make.”
Jordan looked at Luke. “And you’ll let me choose? You won’t force me, or manipulate me?”
Luke answered tiredly, “You will have to have free will at that time. I will not force you, and I will not force your mind. The choice must be yours, or there is no point.”
Jordan felt queasy. The wording of Luke’s response seemed to fall short, though the answer seemed clear enough. The man could be lying, of course, so it hardly mattered. Luke was clearly impatient, and his seemingly omnipotent powers were very disorienting when he chose to use them. And he could apparently use them whenever he wanted. It seemed, though, that he did want to see Carl live, at this point. A temporary truce was a decent start, under the circumstances. He addressed Carl, purposely avoiding Luke’s stare. “Okay. This isn’t something I’ll walk away from. You’ve been taking my blood for months, if this works it’ll be the last time. Once you’re in the clear, we can resume the argument over the rest of the crap I disagree with.”
“Then it is agreed. I need to get back to the rest of my work.” Luke stood up swiftly and left through the front door. Jordan and Carl watched him through the windows as he ran into the woods and was gone.