"Anyway, the technology was in place. It was just about getting the right people in Washington. I don't know, maybe I know more about it because Hero was involved in pushing through some of it."
"I heard Angel Corp made a killing on that system," Alex said. "Bought the small startup that invented the panels and just started mass producing the things, even before they got the spending bill through."
Remembering the note in Becky's file, Ellie perked up at the mention of Angel Corp. Becky seemed uncomfortable at the mention of her benefactors, but it still wasn't clear just what her involvement with the company was. Perhaps her surrogate father, Hero, was involved in the company somehow, perhaps employed by them as a lobbyist. That seemed to make sense.
"Well, yea," Ellie said. "My car won't make it in one day. With the induction panel and supercharging network, I'd make it there. But it'll add another four hours to the trip, and I still need to get back in time for classes on Monday."
"Maybe we could rent a car and take the Global Rail back," George suggested. "That would be fun, right?"
"No one is going to rent a car to eighteen year olds," Eric said.
"That train is stupid," Alex said. "Who ever heard of a train that only goes in one direction. It would have been perfect for the ride, that thing just flies, doesn't it? But we'd have to go all the way around the world if you want to go east."
"Trains usually do only go in one direction," Ellie said. "Forward."
"I've actually been on it," Becky said. This didn't surprise Ellie in the least. It was Angel Corp that had built the high-speed train to begin with. "It's not that great. It's basically just an ordinary train."
"That goes really fast," George said. "I mean, it goes around the world in a day. We could--"
"It would take twenty-two hours to get to New York from here on it," Ellie said. "Plus, another three just to get up there from the city. Sure, the trip back would only be five hours that way, but I'm more worried about the getting there part." Ellie's thoughts turned to the old bug she and Mare had borrowed for their own little road trip two years earlier. She wasn't sure what had happened to it; it had been misplaced during their mission. Fortunately, it had belonged to the headmistress, who had no need of it in jail.
"Can we borrow your dad's car?" Alex asked. "He had that old Ford last I heard. Those still use gas, right?"
"That would involve me actually telling him where we're going," Ellie said. "That is so not happening. What about your mom's car?"
"She's working this weekend," Alex said. "Otherwise I would have offered it."
"Well, I have another idea, but you're probably not going to like it. You could... ask your dad to borrow his truck."
"No. No way. Not going to happen," Alex said. "That would open up way too much of my life to him just calling him up."
"Who said anything about calling him?" Becky asked, as a malicious grin spread across her face.
"What? Then how..." Ellie started to ask. Both Becky and Alex looked over to her together, matching grins spreading across their faces.
Ellie squirmed under their collective gaze for a moment. "Yea, I guess I could hotwire the truck. I've seen Mare do it often enough. Unfortunately, that was a freshman year course, so I never took it at boarding school."
"They teach high school freshmen how to hotwire a car?" Eric asked. "What kind of school did you go to?"
"A weird one."
"So, wait, were you serious about that?" Alex asked. "Are we really going to steal my father's truck?"
"We could, I guess," Ellie said. "But if you think--"
"No. I'm in."
"Great," Eric said, around a long, heavy yawn. "Now that the transportation has been figured out, what are we even talking about? We're going to New York? Why? I mean, I know I'm usually the odd man out, or, well, basically the only man in this group at all, but you never really said what you found out."
"Wait, I didn't?" Ellie asked. She looked around at her friends, wondering how she could have missed that part.
"I was just excited at the prospect of a road trip," George said. "I've never been on one. Hell, I've never even been out of this state."
"Well, alright, then. Um... Well, we... I was able to track Sam's parents to a psych hospital in upstate New York, with some help from a former teacher of mine."
"That's it?" Eric asked. "Some psychiatric hospital? We're driving across the country for that?"
"Not just his parents, but Rebecca Anne's mom as well," Becky said. "There's gotta be something there."
"No, it's probably just a coincidence," Eric said. "I mean, come on. Three people were in a psychiatric hospital together. They were together, right? There was some overlap of time at least? Well, what about all the other patients that were there at the time as well? Are all of those parents of the kids you're so worried about? Just how many of the students would it take for a coincidence to be..."
"A conspiracy?" Becky asked. "How about three?"
"Were there three? You only mentioned two of them."
"Eric," Alex scolded.
"No, that's fair," Ellie said. "It is pretty thin. For all I know, I'll be wasting my entire weekend and not get anything out of it."
"Versus having to say no when they invite you to join their little secret society," Eric said.
"From what I've seen of these people, they don't seem to be the type that will take no for an answer. No. If I can get anything from this, even if it's just a forwarding address for his birth parents, I'll have something to go on. If they both died in the hospital, then I'll know something from that. I'm tired of just sitting around here, waiting to be recruited, with or against my will. They'd be expecting me to break into another room or confront them head on. This, they won't be expecting."
"Yea, because it's stupid," Eric said. "You guys can go without me. I don't care. I'm going back to bed."
"And he was just complaining about being left out," Becky said. "Wasn't he just complaining about that?"
"There's being left out and there's choosing not to participate. I'm doing the latter. If anything interesting happens, just put it in an email. I don't care." Eric scooped up his half-emptied coffee cup, downing the last of it, before standing up from the table. He tossed the cup at the garbage can behind him, hitting the rim, but still managing to get it inside. "See you all Monday in class, if you don't get arrested for breaking into a hospital." He weaved his way through the group, heading for the door. The four of them watched him go in silence.
"What the hell was that about?" Becky asked, once he was gone.
"I don't know," Ellie said. "Screw him. We don't need him."
She looked around at the group, wondering just what, if anything, any of them provided to the mission. If Mare had been there, if it had been Mare and her planning on breaking into the psych hospital, she would have insisted that the other three stay behind. Even with using Alex's father's truck, Mare would still have wanted her to stay at the school. Heck, she might have even insisted that Ellie stay behind as well, saying something along the lines of two years at the school not being enough to go into the field. Still, she wanted them on the mission. More than that, she didn't want to go alone. If things had been different, if these things, what Eric might have accused to be coincidences, hadn't kept happening around the abyssal eyed people, she might actually think herself crazy. She might end up feeling like she belonged at that psych hospital and choose to stay.
"So, where does your dad live?" George asked, eager to get on the road. They all smiled at each other, Alex more than the rest, as she really wanted to stick it to her father.
Chapter Thirty
Getting There
The road trip was mostly uneventful. Alex glowed for the entire first half of it, as elated as she was to stick it to her father like that. Unfortunately, when they stole the truck, her father was asleep inside, so she didn't get to see the look on his face when he noticed it was gone. Ellie didn't have the heart to remind her that, with the
way her father was some of the time, he might very well never notice that it was gone.
As they drove, Ellie tried not to daydream about all the times the two of them were in the truck together. With George and Becky in the back seat, it was easy to forget they weren’t alone. Some of her best memories with Alex had been in that truck. Driving along abandoned roads together. Parked somewhere secluded where no one would bother them. Alex’s proximity was intoxicating, as it always was. It was easy to forget about Mare. About that last time Alex and she were together in that truck. About why they ever broke up to begin with.
Other than having to stop three times for gas, and snacks, it was mostly just driving down the highway, listening to the radio. Ellie felt relieved about the lack of excitement. After being stuck on campus, surrounded by those abyssal eyed people, it was a relief to be away from there. Once they got off campus, she didn't see a single one of them the entire day. Even before leaving, there were only two of them that were up that early, and neither of them showed much interest in her. She promised herself that, if they found nothing at the hospital, she'd put some serious thought into moving back home, if for no other reason than to get a break from those people at the end of the day.
She also found the smart highway interesting. The LED lights that were built into the panels were used to show the boundaries between lanes. Halfway through Indiana, the lines adjusted towards the right, swinging traffic around a dead deer that was lying on the side of the road. However, other than that little blip and the general wonder at the thought of the road itself putting solar energy into the electrical system, even taking over for the old power lines that still lined the roads, it didn't have much draw to it. The smart highway ended soon after they crossed into Ohio. This left just the old, bruised and bandaged roads that had been around for years, but the budget wouldn't allow them to fix anymore.
They pulled into the parking lot for Holy Trinity Psychiatric soon after 7PM. They had made excellent time, considering the fact that they had stolen the truck at around six in the morning, after Eric had gone back to bed. His absence was most noticeable in the silence it allowed. No one had wanted to mention him, though Ellie almost felt betrayed that he didn't want to come. He was always complaining about being left out, then he decided to leave himself out on what could very well be the most important step in combating what she thought of as a clear and present danger. Then again, she kept hoping that she was just overreacting to the gut feeling of fear these people had always imbued in her.
The visitors' parking lot was clearly marked at the turn off from the main road. As they pulled into it, Ellie noticed that the place was completely empty. She started to worry that they had missed visiting hours. Not that she knew who they were visiting, or even how they were going to get past reception. The entire drive over, during the long bouts of silence, she kept playing the ideas over in her head, none of which seemed all that promising. What they needed was access to the records room, and that was not something they were likely to get.
"So, what's the plan?" Alex asked. When they had been dating, she always had an uncanny ability to read her mind. Alex looked over at Ellie from the driver's seat as she pulled into a spot near the building. With their choice of spots available, it just made sense to limit the amount of walking they'd need to do.
"Well, the best idea that I've been able to come up with so far is to go inside to the receptionist."
"And?" Alex prompted.
"And ask to see this Natalie Jennings."
Silence filled the truck as the engine shut off. All three of them looked over at Ellie, questioning and disbelieving faces planted squarely on them. It was clear that they had expected a more complicated plan than that.
"Wait, isn't Natalie Jennings dead?" Becky asked.
"Yup. Obviously. They'll probably mention something like that, or say that there's no one by that name here, or that we can't see anyone unless we're a relative or something. It doesn't really matter. We're not going to get past them anyway."
"Well, obviously," Alex said. "Even if we could, it wouldn't do us any good. We need access to the records room, not the patients."
"Exactly. Trust me, I know what I'm doing," Ellie said, knowing full well that it was a complete lie. She had some idea on where to go from there, but the most important step in all of this was just getting inside the building. "Just... everyone, keep your eyes peeled in there. Take in everything that you can. Every little detail could be important."
"You are totally making this up as you go along," Alex said. "That is so not like you. Is this from Mare or that school?"
"A little bit of both, I guess," Ellie said. "Come on. We should get in there."
Ellie hopped out of the truck, slamming the door behind her while the other three were still gawking at her. She was halfway to the building's entrance before she started hearing the other doors opening and closing behind her. Her friends quickly caught up to her and the four of them came to the front doors as a group. It was two glass doors that opened manually, with another, similar set behind them. Ellie tried first one, then the other when the first proved to be locked. She drew a deep sigh of relief when the second door pulled freely open, allowing them entry into the building.
The lobby was small, barely enough for the four of them to get into before coming to the receptionist desk. The desk was empty, but there was an open doorway behind it, the light glowing through from an area beyond. To their left were another set of glass doors, these with the wire through the glass and several markers that said they were locked, but that they opened automatically. Ellie figured that way led to the hospital proper, the limits of where the patients were allowed to go without supervision. There was no one in sight through those doors, though. All she could make out was a long hallway leading back. The doors themselves blocked most of her view beyond that.
George tapped a bell that he had found on the desk, off to the side. As the sound rang out, with no response from the back forthcoming, he tapped it several more times, much like a child would have. George had a huge smile on his face as he did so, the same one he had since they left campus. He was obviously having the most fun out of all of them.
"Alright, alright, alright," came a call from the back. "I'm coming." It was an old, husky though feminine voice, one of those that often spoke to the owner's long smoking habit. The short, bulky woman waddled her way out of the back room. She stopped just past the doorway, staring over at the four of them, obviously not expecting to see four teens there alone. "Can I help you?" she asked, as she came forward to the desk.
"Um, hi," Ellie said, hesitantly. "We wanted to see--"
"Visiting hours are over," she said. "Long over. Come back tomorrow. Or, you know, don't. No skin off my nose."
"Oh, um..."
"We came a long way," Alex said. "We really were hoping to see Aunt Natalie tonight. We have to go back to school tomorrow, and it's a pretty long drive."
"Look, kid, I can't just let anyone come back there. You should have called first. We could have arranged for a scheduled visit. Are you even on the approved visitors list?"
"I don't think so," Alex said. "We... I only found out about her being in here last night. She's been missing for years, you see."
"Uh huh. What's the name?" She moved over to the old computer that was sitting on the corner of the desk. Ellie couldn't get a good angle to see it, but she thought it was one of those old desktops that no one sold anymore. The kind that sat on the floor with wires everywhere. They were another fatality of Angel Corp's innovations.
"Natalie Jennings," Alex said.
Ellie leaned over the desk, which was no easy task with how short she was. She had to hop up, her feet dangling two feet off the ground, held up with her stomach against the edge. The screen was turned away from her, so she couldn't make it out. But she watched as the receptionist typed in her password, and then the name. The woman was old enough that she wasn't well versed in touch typing and was typing out everything o
ne letter at a time. Even without her training, she had no trouble discerning the password.
"I'm not seeing anything here," she said. "Are you sure she's at this hospital?"
"I... I don't understand," Alex said. She let out a fake sob, tears starting to show up at the edges of her eyes. "Is... Do you mean she's not here? But... But where is she? She's been missing so long. Are you sure she's not here?"
"I'm sorry, dear. She's not in our system. Everyone gets logged in upon entry. No one is in this building that isn't in our system. No one that's been in this building for the past ten years isn't in this system."
"What... What about those that had been in here earlier? Maybe she was--"
"If she was a patient when they went over to the new system, her records would have been uploaded. Only those patients that had been discharged earlier, and never returned since, wouldn't be in the system. Those records would be in the archives downstairs." She half turned towards the door behind the desk but didn't move towards it. "But you said she'd have been here now?"
"I... I don't know."
"Maybe we should call your father," Ellie said, trying to play along. "He'll know where she is, wouldn't he?"
"I guess so."
"Come on, let's go outside and call him," Becky said. She ran her arm comfortingly around her shoulders, seeming to support her against the sobs that racked her. The two of them moved slowly back towards the front doors.
"Thank you so much for your help," Ellie said to the old woman.
Ellie longingly glanced towards the door behind the counter before turning back towards the exit. As the group left, she took her time heading through the front doors. She tried to take in as much information as she could about the front door, as it was the most likely entry point back into the lobby. However, that would rely on the lobby, and the room behind it, being abandoned at some point in the night.
The locks on the front doors seemed simple enough, but she couldn't get too close of a look at them without tipping her hand. As she passed through them, Ellie glanced back over her shoulder, towards the woman. She was still standing there, watching after the four of them, though it wasn't clear if she was concerned for their wellbeing or watching them for signs of deceit.
Light Through the Window Page 20