by Gwenda Bond
So she’d hidden and watched for their headlights at the agreed-upon hour of 11:00 p.m. When at last she heard the crunch of footsteps, she flipped on the lights and jumped out. “Boo!”
There was a yelp, and Gloria entered with her hand over the heart of her perfectly pressed blouse. “Congratulations,” she said. “You have successfully caused a heart attack.”
“Oh, come on, it was a gag.” Alice nudged Gloria’s shoulder. “I got you. And I taught you how to take apart a door lock.”
“True.” Gloria laughed. Then she turned and shouted into the evening. “Alice is in a weird mood—expect surprises!”
“I already knew that,” Ken called back.
Gloria and Alice shared a roll of the eyes. “I thought having a psychic around would be more useful,” Gloria said, low.
“He’s grown on me,” Alice said.
Gloria nodded. “Like a very special and likable form of algae.”
Terry and Ken came in together. It had been two and a half weeks since they’d all seen each other. Two and a half weeks of no van, no lab, no acid, and no electricity. Of no monsters.
“You shouldn’t talk about people when they’re not present to defend themselves,” Ken said.
“Never mind that.” Terry hefted high a marvelous meringue in a round tin. “I call this meeting of the Fellowship to order. Also, I brought pie.”
“But no Andrew?” Alice asked.
Terry’s face fell. “I can’t tell him about Brenner and the draft—it would just make him worry too much about me once he’s gone.”
“You’re doing him a favor.” Gloria put a gentle hand on Terry’s arm, and Terry nodded.
“And I’m doing you a favor.” Ken carried a stack of paper plates and four metal forks. “I brought the means to eat the pie.”
Terry stage-whispered. “I didn’t tell him to either.”
Alice reached out and plucked a fork from the top plate, then dipped it straight into the pie for a bite. “Butterscotch,” she said.
“What is butterscotch anyway?” Ken asked. “Buttered scotch?”
“Heaven,” Alice answered.
“Brown sugar and butter usually, sometimes a little vanilla,” Gloria said. And when they all gave her a look, she added, “Baking’s just another form of chemistry.”
Alice couldn’t believe it. “You contain more layers than anyone I know, Gloria Flowers.”
“Back at you, Alice Johnson.”
“Fellowship, Terry Ives’ feet are tired from running the dinner shift all night. Can we sit down?” Terry beelined to the same area they’d occupied the first time they came here.
Alice had been so nervous about bringing them. She loved the shop with its grease-and-oil aroma and the machines that were her work. It had meant the world when no one laughed at her. They’d even seemed impressed.
The bulldozer from the other week was gone, back to its home. Now a granite-crusher sat in its place. Terry awkwardly lowered herself to the floor beside it, depositing the pie in front of her with care. Alice thought she looked a little less worn out after the holiday. She hoped Terry and Andrew were getting lots of time together. She’d had a dream in which they got married, and one of her cousins from Canada’s kid was the flower girl. Weird, huh? It had felt like just a dream, not real, but she’d woken with a smile and then lost it immediately when she remembered that he’d be leaving anytime. The calls would start going out to the first-round draftees soon.
Ken placed the plates and cutlery beside the pie. Everyone grabbed a fork—even Gloria, in pants tonight—and sat cross-legged around the tin to take a bite.
“I wish we didn’t have to go back.” Gloria was the first to bring up the reason they were here.
“But we do.” Alice swallowed. “So I’ve been puzzling about whether there might be a way for me to use what I see to help…A way to use it to our advantage, like Terry said. I don’t think any of you can access the Beneath like I do, and I already told you I can’t control it. At least I haven’t been able to yet.” Alice had a theory that she was getting better at seeing, though, and that an increase in electricity might show her more. “But if I could tell you exactly what I’m seeing as I’m seeing it, so we make sure nothing gets lost in translation…maybe we could go on a real fact-finding mission.”
“But how would we manage that?” Terry asked, piling another forkful into her mouth.
“So you do trust that I’m seeing what I say I am?” Alice knew they said they did, but she’d understand it more if they didn’t. “The little girl? The monsters?”
Terry didn’t even hesitate. “Yes.”
“Why wouldn’t I?” Ken asked.
Gloria nodded.
Terry put her fork down. “You have an idea how to do it, don’t you?”
Here was the sticking point. Alice hooked a thumb in the belt loop of her coveralls. “I do, but I was hoping this one”—she looked at Ken—“might have a better idea. I don’t think you’ll like mine.”
Ken shook his head. “I’ve got nothing. That’s not how my gift works.”
“How does it work?” Alice demanded. She wanted to know that much, at least.
Ken responded with calm, and Alice admired him more. “I get feelings, sometimes fully formed thoughts, that I have a deep sense are true. Like how I felt moved to pick up a newspaper the day the ad ran about the experiment. Later I had an image of four people and the thought, ‘We’ll be important to each other.’ I can’t explain it any better than that. I’m sorry.”
“No, I’m sorry.” Alice would have to tell them her plan, such as it was. This was important to her and she’d fight for it.
“Do you ever get thoughts and feelings you wish you didn’t?” Gloria asked Ken.
“Yes.”
“About any of us?” Terry asked, eyes laser-focused on him.
“Not yet.”
“Okay,” Terry said and waved at Alice. “Go on. Tell us your bad idea so we can shout it down.”
They really weren’t going to like this, but it was the best possibility she’d come up with. The only possibility. She understood machines, and could decode the ones at the lab, too; maybe she could create the effect she believed they needed to further unlock her mind.
But—if this even worked—it would require a big shock to the system. Hers.
Alice heaved out a breath. “It involves the electricity.”
“You’re right, I don’t like it,” Terry said. “Go on.”
“I don’t know if there’s something else to it, but I do know I only see the, well, visions, that’s how I’ve been thinking of them—I only see them when I’m given the medicine and the shock treatment.”
Alice studied the pie with its massive whipped peaks, half gone now. She was afraid if she looked at the others they’d see how ridiculous she felt. The word “visions” made her sound like she thought she was some all-important genie or something. She didn’t.
No one interrupted, so she continued. “If you could administer the shock, then I could do the rest. You’d be there to take notes.”
“No way,” Terry said. “Too risky to you. I’m not going to shock you.”
“This is something I can do,” Alice said. “I can’t just live with knowing these girls may be suffering when I might be able to confirm it. It’s no different than what’s happening to me every week. I want to do it.”
Gloria held up a hand when Terry started to argue. “How certain do you feel about this being worth it? There’s no way for us to base it on fact, so it’s all gut feelings.”
Some of the tension went out of Alice at the honesty of Gloria’s question. “I’d say roughly eighty-five percent.”
“I can do some research,” Gloria said, “find out what level of curren
t is safe.”
Alice ignored that. She’d figure out how much current she needed.
“It puts Alice at risk,” Terry said.
Ken said it quietly: “She’s already at risk. We all are.”
“If it cuts down on the time we have to spend there, it’s worth it.” Alice pleaded with Terry. “You know I’m right. Remember what he did to Andrew.” And to you.
Terry gathered her hands in her lap. “We can’t risk doing this at the lab. Dr. Brenner can never find out what you can do…We know how he treats his subjects. He probably thinks your monsters are bad trips, or just enjoys making you suffer them. If he knew you’d seen him or the children, who knows what he’d do? The fact you see this stuff at all is something he would latch onto and not let go.”
“But the lab’s where the electroshock machine is,” Gloria pointed out.
Terry swept her eyes around them. “Alice, can you make a similar machine?”
“Can I?” Alice blinked and considered. She wished she’d already taken one apart. Part of her plan had been figuring out how to run the one they had. “I can make a better one. So you’re thinking we’d do this here? Where will we get the drugs?”
“I’ve still got the dose I palmed,” Gloria said.
Terry tugged on her lip. “It may matter where you are when you have your visions. We should do this in Hawkins.”
“But I thought you didn’t want to be there,” Gloria said.
“I looked at a map at the library when I couldn’t find anything on Brenner. It showed open forest around the lab. If we get as close as we can outside the fence…”
“If we’re going into the woods, I’ll have to make sure it works without a wired power source,” Alice said.
“Is that a problem?” Terry asked.
“It’s a challenge,” Alice said. “No, an opportunity—to show off.”
Gloria shook her head. “Sounds like as good a crazy plan as any, then. I’ll need a few days to research the best protocols. So when are we doing this?”
Terry picked up her fork. “I guess as soon as Alice has the machine ready, unless someone comes up with a better idea first.”
“We won’t,” Ken said.
A whirl of nerves spun through Alice, and they were back to being the bad kind.
2.
Terry sat in a chair in a room at the lab with her eyes closed. Brenner had led her through a long series of visualization exercises—mostly picturing the various parts of her body and envisioning them healthy and strong. What purpose it had, she couldn’t say, but it had been easy.
He’d eventually quieted and left her to go deeper.
She found herself back in that nowhere-everywhere place. The void. Alone.
She’d been experimenting with trying to find someone, the way she’d seen Gloria. But there was nothing. No light of any kind.
Anyway, even though Alice’s logic that it was her choice was sound, Terry hated the idea of shocking her. She had tried to come up with a plan that meant they didn’t have to. She’d come up empty.
When Kali appeared in front of her, approaching in the black, Terry blinked. She was sure she’d hallucinated it.
But the girl remained, darkness around them.
“Kali?” Terry asked in her mind, holding out her hand.
“I’m here,” the girl said. “Am I dreaming?”
“Maybe?” Terry offered. Who knew?
Either way, talking to Kali with Brenner in the room monitoring Terry and none the wiser gave the moment a special thrill. From the outside, she just sat motionless, tripping. She felt drowsy and pleasant with her eyes closed.
Terry dropped her hand. She didn’t want to scare Kali off, so she asked something neutral. “What have you been doing today?”
Kali struck her as being in a mood. Not a good one.
“Making pictures for Papa.”
“Like you made for me of the sunflowers?” Terry asked.
Kali scowled. “No.” She held up her hand, holding a crayon. Terry squinted at her forearm and saw the small tattoo there: 008. “Pictures. Those are ’lusions.”
She tried not to react with the horror she felt at the number, for Kali’s sake. “ ’Lusions…?” she asked. “Oh, illusions.”
“That’s what I said.”
Terry might not have been around many kids, but she knew better than to argue with that tone of voice. She would tread lightly.
“Does Papa know we’ve talked? Is it still our secret?”
“I told you. Papa knows everything. There’re no secrets from Papa.”
A circle of fear bloomed inside Terry. She tried not to let the girl see. Had she told him about sneaking out to find Terry before? Or, worse, had he encouraged it?
Kali watched her with the attention only a child waiting for you to give something essential away could. If she asked outright again, Kali would never trust her. And now Kali didn’t need to sneak out for Terry to see her.
“I know that seems true, but it isn’t,” Terry said, gazing straight into Kali’s eyes so she could see her honesty. “He doesn’t know we’re talking here. This is between us. The only way he’d know is if you told him.”
The girl was quiet for a long moment. Then, “I’ll do my best.” She peered at Terry with renewed interest. “Do you have friends?”
“We’re friends, aren’t we?” Terry asked.
Kali smiled, clearly pleased. “I want friends more than anything. Do you have other friends?”
“Oh yes,” Terry said. “Some of them are even at the lab today.” When Kali looked around them in the nowhere-everywhere of the void, Terry clarified. “Not here here, but at the lab. We all come together. And I have other friends, too. Andrew…” Why could she barely get his name out? She’d gotten choked up. Blame the acid. The Selective Service and its lottery. Brenner. She was overly sentimental lately.
She swallowed and forged on. “Andrew’s one of my very best friends.”
“It’s not fair.” Kali stomped her foot in the water, and an echo of circles spun out from it into the darkness. “Why do you have so many friends? You’re not even special, really. Papa says he’s getting me a friend, but he’s said it before.”
The little girl was having a meltdown and rightly so. “You don’t have any other friends?”
Why would he keep her separate if there were other children like her? God, everything she learned about Brenner made her loathe him more.
Kali shook her head, her face scrunched, near tears.
“Well, that’s not fair,” Terry said. “I’m glad we’re friends. And you made this friend all on your own, without any help from your papa.”
Kali nodded. “I have to go.”
Terry had so much more to ask her. “You’ll visit me again when you can?”
The fierce chin ducked in a yes, and then Kali threw herself at Terry and put her arms around her. The girl hugged Terry hard and fast and then released her and disappeared into the black of the void.
The resilience in that little girl. How long had she been under Brenner’s sway? Terry had so many questions. She felt a tear slip down her cheek, touched by the sudden hug.
Children were exhausting. But also? Kind of wonderful.
3.
Brenner sat behind an oak desk large enough to make a point. This barrier between me and you is not just symbolic. We are separated in power by many degrees.
“They’ve met with each other at the garage twice, sir,” the security man said, addressing himself to a point just over Brenner’s right shoulder. The trick would’ve fooled most people into assuming eye contact.
Brenner wasn’t most people. “And you have video or audio?”
The gaze over his shoulder intensified. “I’m afr
aid we’ve been unable to do that. A man went in to do a sweep, attempting to sell the Johnson girl’s uncle a security system. He showed off a bit of his own—there’s no way to be certain he wouldn’t film us placing it. He has cameras very cleverly hidden.”
Brenner took his time responding. “So…what you’ve come to tell me is that a mechanic has outsmarted what is supposedly the best security and intelligence force on the planet?”
“Not the words I’d use.” The man waited and when Brenner didn’t speak, he went on. “But yes, if you choose to see it that way. My take is that we have decided the risk of being exposed is not equal to the value of having footage of secret meetings between college students you’ve been pumping full of LSD. We’ve managed to plant listening devices in the Ives and Flowers residences, both at the dorms and at home. That is sufficient.”
“Get out,” Brenner said.
The man’s mouth opened and closed, and Brenner expected an argument to spout forth. But instead the man shook his head, rose, and said, “You’re just like I heard.”
“You don’t know the half of it.”
Brenner never understood those who worried about collegial threats. He didn’t care if this man liked him, didn’t even truly care if he respected him. He cared about respect of his authority though.
“Also, officer?” Brenner asked, and the man stopped at the door. “You can expect to be reassigned. Our work here is of crucial importance, even if you don’t understand it. Classified information is classified for a reason.”
“I look forward to the day someone rains on your perverse parade.” The man slammed the door, not waiting for a response.
It hardly mattered. He wouldn’t have gotten one.
Of course, Brenner could have given Terry another assignment—to bug the garage. But he no longer trusted her not to tell the others. And he couldn’t be confident in giving her a hypnotic suggestion to forget it while she was on her guard.
Time to go check in on Eight, who kept giving him drawings of the two of them and a third person with a circle head and question mark face, to represent the friend he’d promised her. He should add them to her file, but something about them made him vaguely angry. He threw them out instead.