Dean Koontz: Brother Odd

Romanovich said, "Well, we know that matter can be transformed to energy, as burning oil produces heat and light-"

"As splitting the nucleus of an atom produces the nuclei of lighter atoms," Brother John interrupted, "and also the release of great energy."

Romanovich pressed him: "But are you saying that thought- at least Divine thought-is a form of energy that can shape itself into matter, the reverse of nuclear fission?"

"Not the reverse, no. This is not merely nuclear fusion. The usual scientific terms do not apply. It is… imagining matter into existence by the power of the will. And because we have been given thought, will, and imagination, albeit on a human scale, we too have this power to create."

Romanovich and I locked eyes, and I said, "Sir, have you ever seen the movie Forbidden Planet?"

"No, Mr. Thomas, I have not."

"When this is all over, I think we should watch it together."

"I will make the popcorn."

"With salt and just a pinch of chili powder?"

"So shall it be."

Brother John said, "Are you sure you won't have some cookies, Odd Thomas? I know you like my cookies."

I expected him to make sorcerous gestures toward the table beside my chair, conjuring chocolate-chip treats from thin air.

Romanovich said, "Brother John, you said earlier that you have applied the lesson of your computer model, the lesson being that all matter as we know it has arisen out of thought. The universe, our world, the trees and the flowers and the animals… all imagined into existence."

"Yes. You see, my science has led me back to faith."

"How do you mean you applied what you believe you've learned?"

The monk leaned forward in his wingback chair, his hands fisted on his knees as if he were struggling to contain his excitement. His face appeared to have shed forty years, returning him to boyhood and the wonder thereof.

"I have," he whispered, "created life."

THIS WAS THE CALIFORNIA SIERRA, NOT THE Carpathian Mountains. Outside, snow flew rather than rain, without thunderclaps or bolts of lightning. In this room I found a disappointing lack of bizarre machines with gold-plated gyroscopes, crackling arcs of electricity, and demented hunchbacks with lantern eyes. In the days of Karloff and Lugosi, they really understood the demands of melodrama better than our mad scientists do these days.

On the other hand, it is true that Brother John Heineman was less mad than misguided. You will see that this is true, though you will also see that between the mad and the misguided, the line is as thin as a split hair that has been split again.

"This chamber," said Brother John with a curious mix of glee and solemnity, "isn't merely a room but is also a revolutionary machine."

To me, Rodion Romanovich said, "This is always trouble."

"If I envision an object and consciously project that image," Brother John continued, "the machine receives it, recognizes the projected nature of it separate from all other kinds of thought, amplifies my directed mental energy to several million times its initial power, and produces the object imagined."

"Good Lord, sir, your electrical bill must be outrageous."

"It's not inconsiderable," he acknowledged, "but it isn't as bad as you might think. For one thing, it's not volts that matter so much as amps."

"And I suppose you receive a high-user discount."

"Not only that, Odd Thomas, my laboratory has certain rate advantages because it is in fact a religious organization."

Romanovich said, "When you say you can imagine an object and the room will produce it-you mean like the cookies you have mentioned."

Brother John nodded. "Certainly, Mr. Romanovich. Would you like some cookies?"

Glowering, the Russian said, "Cookies are not alive. You said you had created life."

The monk sobered. "Yes. You're correct. Let's not make a parlor game out of it. This is about First Things, man's relationship to God and the meaning of existence. Let's go directly to the main show. I will create a floppy for you."

"A what?" Romanovich asked.

"You will see," Brother John promised, and smiled knowingly.

He sat back in his chair, closed his eyes, and furrowed his forehead as if in thought.

"Are you doing it now?" I asked.

"If I am allowed to concentrate, yes."

"I thought you would need a helmet of some kind, you know, with all kinds of wires trailing from it."

"Nothing so primitive, Odd Thomas. The room is attuned to the precise frequency of my brain waves. It's a receiver and an amplifier, but only of my projected thoughts, no one else's."

I glanced at Romanovich. He looked as bearishly disapproving as ever I had seen him.

Perhaps twenty seconds had passed before the air felt thicker, as though the humidity had abruptly increased, but this heaviness had no moist quality. Pressure pushed in upon me from all sides, as if we had been descending into oceanic depths.

On the Persian carpet, in front of Brother John's chair, arose a silvery shimmering, like a reflection of light that had bounced off a bright object elsewhere in the room, although that was not the explanation for it.

After a moment, tiny white cubes had formed apparently out of nothing, as rock sugar crystallizes on a string that is suspended in a glass of highly sweetened water. The number of tiny cubes rapidly increased, and at the same time they began to fuse with one another, as if I were watching a rewinding video of the incident in the garage.

Romanovich and I rose to our feet, no doubt motivated by the same thought: What if a "floppy" is the pet name Brother John has given to the ambulatory boneyards?

We need not have been alarmed. What formed before us was a creature the size of a hamster. All white, combining features of a puppy, a kitten, and a baby bunny, it opened huge eyes that were as blue as-but less predatory than-the eyes of Tom Cruise, gave me a winning smile, and made an appealing, musical burbling sound.

Brother John opened his eyes, smiled at his creation, and said, "Gentlemen, meet your first floppy."

I was not present in the school to witness this, but following is what I was told of events unfolding parallel to Brother John's revelations in the Mew:

In Room 14, as Jacob does needlepoint, Brother Knuckles places a chair in the open doorway, where he sits, a baseball bat across his knees, and observes the activity in the hallway.

Brother Maxwell, fifteen years downriver from his journalism career, is perhaps hoping that he has not come all this way and time only to encounter the same mindless violence that he could have had without a vow of poverty, in Los Angeles.

Maxwell sits in a chair near the only window. Because the whirl of snow half hypnotized him, he has not been focusing on the fading day beyond the glass.

A noise more crisp than the wind, a series of faint clinks and squeaks, draws his attention to the window. Pressed to the far side of the panes is a shifting kaleidoscope of bones.

Rising slowly from his chair, as if a sudden movement might agitate the visitor, Maxwell whispers, "Brother Salvatore."

In the open doorway, with his back to the room, Brother Knuckles is thinking about the latest book by his favorite author, which isn't about either a china rabbit or a mouse who saves a princess, but is nonetheless wonderful. He doesn't hear Brother Maxwell.

Backing away from the window, Brother Maxwell realizes that he has left both his baseball bats beside the chair he vacated. He again whispers for Salvatore, but perhaps no louder than before.

The patterns of bone at the window constantly change, but not in an agitated fashion, almost lazily, conveying the impression that the creature may be in a state similar to sleep.

The dreamy quality of the kaleidoscopic movement encourages Brother Maxwell to return to his chair to pick up one of the baseball bats.