Lightning flickered, showing strange greens and purples in the heavy cover of clouds. Thunder rumbled a while later, suggesting the center of the storm was still a good distance off. A cold wind drove the rain hard, bending trees and stripping blossoms off the spring flowers.
Zach made his way alone up the concrete steps to the science complex.
It was Sunday morning, but it felt like night.
"I have to do this alone," he had told Maddy.
She did not approve. "We have a lot of friends. We could storm his office, tie him up."
"I highly doubt it."
"We could try, though!"
"And more people could get hurt. Or worse. No, I have prepared for this. I have my allies. You have already given me all the help I could ask for."
Maddie frowned. "I don't like it."
Zach shrugged. He didn't like it either. But he liked everything else even less.
He had requested another emergency meeting by email, and Enkins had responded promptly in the affirmative.
Zach brushed the rainwater off as he climbed through the bio-sciences building, and felt merely cold and damp by the time he got to the office.
Enkins was in the office, alone, feet on the desk, seemingly napping.
Zach felt that something was different, and it took him a while to realize that the bare shelves were no longer empty. But they hadn't been filled with books. In fact, they were still empty of any physical objects, but there were brightly glowing symbols on the shelves. He couldn't make out what they were supposed to be, or represent, but they were in the other space, the "pranic realm."
Zach carefully fed his observation through to the Enkins-cocoon in his head.
"You are becoming more proficient, Zechariah. You see the
mes
."
Enkins started out of his reclining position.
"What calls me out on this stormy day? Do you not like the little pet I gave you? Do you want to let her go, as you did with the first? Free them, and if they come back to you it was meant to be? You are a surprisingly sensitive young man. Most of my trainees are rutting their way through half a city by now. But, you have certainly had some adventures, despite your tiresome and recurrent qualms."
"I have come to take my leave, Professor."
"Retirement? So early? I think I told you it was not an option. There's no going back."
"I'm talking about going forward... alone. I believe you said I could have my will back when I was ready. And I am ready now."
Enkins chuckled. "You think you can break my will?"
"No," Zach said. "I know that in a direct contest of wills, I will probably never be able to break yours. What you said was that I could have full access to my will without any shred of yours when I am strong enough to seize it. And I have."
Enkins looked genuinely surprised. "Hmm," he said.
Zach felt Enkins flood the cocooned entity with his force of will. As terrifically powerful as it was, it went nowhere. It circled and cycled through the tiny bubble of recursive lines.
Enkins blinked. "You did not do this," he said. "You have had help."
Zach nodded.
"I trapped that ghost you set on me, the big one."
Enkins tilted his head, considering. "How?"
"Just like you taught me, professor. I fed it."
"What makes you think I set that on you? For the record, I didn't."
"It's the only thing that makes any kind of sense. What I don't know is, why."
Enkins steepled his fingers.
"Well, Congratulations, Zechariah. You have figured some things out. Other things, you clearly have not figured out. Unfortunately, this creates a problem."
Zach shrugged. "You seem very capable about dealing with your problems. The question is, are you a man of your word?"
The professor chuckled. "I recall no binding contract for our arrangement."
Zach felt a tingle through his body. Things were not going according to his more optimistic hopes for the conversation.
"So... what then? Are you going to enslave me the way you have enslaved Jasmine? Am I going to be another of your pets?"
Enkins held up his hands in a placating manner. "Zechariah... I am merely here as a mentor and guide. I have no need of slaves, neither yourself nor Yasmin. The error here is in thinking that my mentorship with you is complete. You have reached a truly astonishing level of accomplishment in only a few short weeks, but the fact remains that the domain you are exploring is far, far more dangerous than you know, even now. And while you have had some fortuitous outcomes, you have also had your share of minor calamities. You want to be without the protections I can offer you, fine. But do not throw the baby out with the bathwater, as we used to say."
"Then you will remove your—whatever it is—that was in my brain?"
Enkins smiled in a way that made Zach uneasy.
"Certainly, it's a moment's work."
Zach felt the whole cocoon lift and release. Zach felt the last tendrils of it pulling out of his body as an extraordinarily delicious sensation. The colors of the room came into sharper clarity. The awareness of the lines and swirls of energy came into an even stronger brightness and distinctness. He saw how the flow of all motion and action and life was interwoven, as if he could identify and name every floating microbe in the air, every cell in his own body.
The professor, however, was standing as if stunned, his mouth open, but not speaking.
The door opened, and Jasmine stepped in, and after her, Ava.
Zach felt just as stunned, but closed his mouth.
"Um," he said.
Ava carried the same old backpack he had seen her with a hundred times, but now he saw it was woven and reinforced with trillions of intricate energy lines.
She walked to the shelves with the strange symbols, and began scooping them into her backpack.
"What's going on?" Zach said.
"The Goddess has freed us," Jasmine said.
"From..." Zach nodded at the motionless professor.
Jasmine nodded.
"And... Ava? Is the Goddess?"
Jasmine nodded.
"Yes and no, Zach. Mostly no. No more than the Professor is Enki."
"Enkins?"
"Just a name, a sound, whatever."
Ava zipped up her backpack.
"You did everything perfectly, Zach. Your work, however, is not complete."
Zach slumped into a chair.
"I have no clue what's going on."
"Of course not, Zach. You're a man. Men rarely understand what is going on. Usually my father is a little bit more alert, but he has gotten soft in his old age."
