Benny stared at Joey in astonishment. As the man in charge of the Dreamscape experiments, he undoubtedly understood the Feldmanra Formula better than anyone, even though he had only taken over recently.
"Your becoming a Transcendent must have something to do with the Dreamscape, right?"
What else could Joey say? The explanation Benny had supplied was perfect. He smiled and nodded in acknowledgment.
"That was only part of it. Nome's help was the main reason."
Pinning things on someone who was already dead made certain questions easier to avoid. Even if he accidentally gave something away, he could blame Nome. After all, no one could ask a dead man for confirmation.
"All right." Benny brought his palms together with a light clap. "I hope you can keep your emotions under control when you hear what I'm about to tell you."
"Okay."
Finally, the real business. Let's see what you've been hiding. He suppressed his agitation, clenched his fists, and looked solemnly at Benny.
"I wasn't born and raised in Lia Harbor. I came from a remote, primitive island."
Las Vegas was a nation composed of islands large and small.
It was known as the country of a thousand islands, the land of ten thousand islets.
"The place where I was born was cut off from the world. We lived by the most primitive fishing methods."
Joey could already imagine how backward a place must be for even the Church of Light, which had the most believers, to refuse to build a church there and recruit followers.
"We worship Mother Goddess Hydra."
Hydra? At the sound of that name, an inexplicable tremor ran through his heart.
"She has never passed away. She left a prophecy in the Scripture."
"When the stars shift and darkness shrouds the earth, the Great Old One