by Simon Rose
“Are you Max Garrison?” said the black-haired officer.
Before Max could answer, he heard another vehicle arrive. He gasped when he recognized the dark blue car with tinted windows. The driver parked behind the police car, the doors opened, and Connor and Drake stepped out. Max contemplated running but the officers continued to block his path. He had no chance of getting away.
“Thanks for your help in tracking him down,” said Connor, calmly, as he and Drake walked toward Max. “We’ll take it from here.”
The police officers simply nodded.
“Hello, Max,” Drake added, with a thin smile. “It’s so nice to see you again.”
He reached out and grabbed Max by the arm then began pulling him toward the blue car.
“What’s this all about?” Max demanded, struggling to break free of Drake’s grip. “Where are you taking me?”
The police officers remained silent as Drake ushered Max into the back seat of the car. Once the door was closed and securely locked, the officers spoke briefly to Connor before returning to their car and driving away. Max was trying not to panic as Connor got into the passenger seat.
“Where are we going?” Max asked. “What have I done?”
Connor didn’t respond and simply took out his phone. Drake then opened the car’s back door, pulling something from his jacket pocket. To Max’s horror he realized that it was a hypodermic needle.
“No!” he yelled. “You can’t do this!”
Max tried in vain to get away, kicking the back of the driver’s seat and desperately tugging on the door handle and lock.
“Keep still,” snarled Drake, as he tightly took hold of Max’s wrist.
He plunged the needle into Max’s left forearm and Max immediately began to feel drowsy. Drake got out of the back of the car and climbed into the driver’s seat. The car pulled away from the park entrance and sped out of the neighbourhood. The last thing Max heard before he lost consciousness was Connor making a phone call.
“Yes, Doctor, we have him. We’ll be there very soon.”
Chapter Seventeen
Questions and Answers
MAX WAS LYING on his back on the rug in front of the fireplace at his home. Intense pain filled his head and Kane was standing over him.
“I know everything,” said Kane, tracing his fingers along the deep, disfiguring scar that snaked down his right cheek and neck. “This is an ever-present reminder of another reality, when I was something else. But you changed all that, didn’t you, you and that damned psychic.”
Kane grinned as he stared directly into Max’s eyes. The searing pain within Max’s skull quickly became unbearable. He screamed but heard nothing but silence.
MAX WOKE UP, breathless, on what resembled a wheeled hospital bed in a dimly lit room with bare walls. He sat up, feeling groggy, and quickly examined his surroundings. There were two chairs on opposite sides of a small wooden table and another chair by the room’s only door. It reminded Max of the room at the police station where Kane had questioned him in the summer although there was no large two-way mirror on the wall. The last thing Max remembered was Drake injecting him with the needle. Max had no idea how long he’d been unconscious. He stood up from the bed, still a little unsteady on his feet. He reached for his jeans pocket but discovered that they’d taken his phone. The terrifying image of Kane’s attack in the summer had returned to Max’s mind, but why? Was it simply part of his thoughts because of everything else that had happened? Or was there a more sinister reason for its reappearance?
He heard footsteps approaching outside. The door opened and Connor and Drake stepped into the room. Connor was carrying Max’s jacket.
“Good, you’re awake,” he said, flicking on the light.
“Where am I?” Max asked, blinking and shielding his eyes with his hand.
“Sit down at the table, please,” said Connor.
Max carefully took a few steps over to the table and sat down in one of the chairs. Connor sat down opposite Max. Drake remained standing over by the bed, his hands in his pockets.
“Where am I?” Max repeated. “What is this place?”
“Just somewhere private,” Drake replied, with a smile that made Max’s skin crawl. “Where we can ask you some questions.”
“Yes,” Connor added. “Much more suitable than the principal’s office, wouldn’t you agree? I’m sure the sedative’s worn off enough by now.”
“What kind of questions?” asked Max, still not feeling fully awake.
“How do you know Jesse Bolton?” Connor asked.
“Who?”
“He runs a website about conspiracy theories,” Connor replied. “It’s called SecretConspiracyXpose.”
“Never heard of it,” said Max.
If they knew about the site, he suspected that they might have shut it down, maybe even eliminated Jesse too.
“It’s best if you tell us the truth,” Drake advised, with another smile, as he approached the table. “We’re going to find out, one way or another.”
Max gulped.
“I was on a site like that once but I don’t remember what it was called. I just followed a link on another website, I think. I don’t believe in all that stuff anyway.”
“We could check your laptop to see what you’ve been up to,” said Connor. “But we don’t really need the computer to view your online activity.”
He reached into his pocket and took out Max’s phone.
“We could just get it through this. It was very useful in tracking you down at that park.”
Max almost cursed under his breath. He was usually pretty good at deleting his history but in his anxious state recently he hadn’t thought to erase everything. Yet he also suspected that Connor and Drake knew how to unearth details even if they’d been deleted.
“Where’s your friend Julia now?” Connor asked, putting Max’s phone back in his pocket.
“She’s not my friend. How would I know where she is?”
“So how come you talked to her at school?” said Connor. “You were seen talking in the library then having lunch together.”
“I told you about that already. She wanted to use the computer in the library and then later there weren’t any other seats in the cafeteria so I had to use her table, that’s all.”
“But then you went to her house?” said Drake. “Strange if you don’t know her, wouldn’t you agree?”
Max tried not to panic. How did they know all this stuff?
“Is it because both your mothers are on that website?” Drake asked.
Connor cleared his throat.
“Let’s stop playing games, Max,” he said. “Your friend Jeff and his family are on vacation and you know where they keep the spare key. Isn’t that right?”
“You tell me,” said Max, impassively. “You seem to think you know everything.”
Connor grinned.
“Mrs. Flynn’s not such a fan of teenagers, is she? She told us that she saw you and Julia leaving by the back door.”
“And then you and your friend went to the hospital, didn’t you?” Drake added.
“The hospital?” said Max, innocently.
Now it was Drake’s turn to take something from his pocket and place it on the table. To Max’s horror, it was the security pass belonging to Jeff’s mom.
“Like I said, it’s best if you tell us everything.”
“You could get sent to jail, Max,” Drake added, smiling. “Looking at confidential records at the hospital is a criminal offence. There have been a number of break-ins in your neighbourhood too.”
“But I have nothing to do with that.”
“No, of course not,” said Drake, calmly. “But your friend Julia has something of a reputation as a loner and she has no friends. She skips school and has a history of rebellion. It’s easy to believe that she might be involved in something criminal, even if it’s just petty theft. And as her seemingly only friend what else could you be but an accomplice.”
&nb
sp; “You can’t pin that stuff on her,” Max declared, defiantly. “Or on me.”
“You’d be surprised at what we can do,” said Connor. “We could have you sent away for a while. Maybe you’ll have an accident, like your parents did at that train station? There’s even the possibility of you disappearing into a hospital for crazy people. That would be easy to do, based on your history. Dr. Hammond, wasn’t it?”
“And who’d look after Grandma?” Drake asked, grinning.
Connor stood up from the table and handed Max his jacket.
“Although you probably already know too much, the doctor needs you alive, for now at least, but then . . .”
He was interrupted when his phone rang. He took it from his pocket and answered the call.
“Yes, Doctor, he’s awake. We’ll bring him right away.”
Chapter Eighteen
A Familiar Face
CONNOR AND DRAKE led Max from the room and out into a long, featureless hallway with bare concrete walls. Max didn’t see any windows or skylights and had no idea if he was underground or on the surface. He also didn’t see any doors or even fire exits that might offer some hope of escape. Connor walked in front and Drake stayed behind Max. They turned several corners, passing a number of men who appeared to be security guards, all armed with a variety of guns. Connor finally stopped at a doorway and simply nodded at the security guard. He opened the door and Connor stepped inside, followed by Max then Drake.
Inside was a starkly furnished office, containing two short filing cabinets, a handful of wall shelves, and a large, wide desk on which sat several computers and other pieces of electronic equipment. Behind the desk a woman wearing a white lab coat stood with her back to them as she adjusted some books and files on one of the shelves. When the tall slender woman turned around to face him, despite the passage of years, Max recognized her immediately.
“Ah, so we meet at last. Max, isn’t it? I’m Dr. Christine Evans.”
Max did his best not to react. The last time he’d seen Dr. Evans she hadn’t worn glasses and didn’t have traces of grey in her short, dark brown hair. She looked to be close to fifty years old and it had been twenty years since Max had first seen her at the waterfront laboratory. She’d been one of Kovac’s closest associates in the experiments that Max had been subjected to when he’d occupied David’s body. Max knew this woman well but she obviously had no idea of his connection to David Dexter.
“Please have a seat,” said Evans.
She settled into her leather office chair. Drake nudged Max in the ribs, and he reluctantly sat in the chair directly across from Evans.
“So, shall we leave him with you?” asked Drake.
“Yes, I’ll let you know when I’m through with him.”
“We’re going to follow up on a few leads about the girl,” said Connor. “At first she seemed to have vanished off the face of the Earth but we have some things to look into.”
“Good, I’d like to have her safely here and secure as soon as possible.”
Connor and Drake left the room. As the door closed, Max noted the armed security guard standing outside in the hallway.
“So, Max, you’re probably wondering why we’ve brought you here?”
“Where am I?” said Max, ignoring her question. “Who are you people anyway?”
“All in good time, Max,” Evans replied. “It’s your recent interest in your mother that really brought you to our attention. That girl Julia Woodman also had a birth mother associated with this project.”
“But I only started looking into this a few days ago,” said Max, feeling very confused.
“We always act quickly if we feel there’s a problem,” said Evans. “You’ve been watched ever since you visited that website but you’ve also been monitored on and off for a long time.”
Max realized that it was pointless to deny that he’d been on Jesse’s website. Evans and the others seemed to know everything about recent events, but Max still wasn’t sure how much they knew about him personally. He decided to play along and see what he could learn about this new timeline.
“What do you mean?”
“Someone with a mother like yours could easily exhibit the same powers or something similar one day, the same with Julia. Her mother showed great promise back then too. She was younger than most of the people that were experimented on, but Dr. Kovac felt that she was worth the risk.”
“So, you’ve been watching Julia too, just because of her mother?”
“Yes, she appears to have acquired some kind of ability from her mother. Most of the time these types of psychic abilities aren’t hereditary but we always have to be aware of the possibility. Your medical history, all those sessions talking with Dr. Hammond, we know all about it.”
Max was taken aback at this revelation.
“How can you know all that?”
“It’s our business to know, Max,” Evans replied, with a brief smile. “This operation’s too important to leave anything to chance.”
“And exactly what kind of operation are we talking about?”
“I don’t suppose there’s any harm in telling you,” Evans replied. “I’m sure you’re familiar with some of it from that website, most of which is true. Dr. Kovac was working with psychics a long time ago but his original field of study was neuroscience and the workings of the brain. When he was a young man in Belgrade he was involved in a car accident. He was driving with his nephew around the city. The boy was killed and Dr. Kovac was in a coma and technically dead for around twenty minutes. It changed his life and once he got back to his work he started to investigate near-death experiences or NDEs. He became very interested in the paranormal and the psychics who could see what’s referred to as ‘the other side’ and wondered if he could manipulate their powers. The Soviet military became interested and Dr. Kovac’s work began.”
“My mother was from Czechoslovakia,” said Max.
“Yes, she was one of many children kidnapped in Eastern Europe in the late 1980s for experiments in the former Yugoslavia. She was only a teenager but showed great promise. However, she turned out to be too young so she was let go, as many others were, and left in a rural area.”
“I know that she came here when she was still a teenager,” said Max.
“Her family moved to North America when the Eastern Bloc collapsed after 1989. We found her again when Dr. Kovac had been recruited by the US military after leaving Yugoslavia soon afterward. It turned out that your mother’s experience in the labs in Europe had left her with severe mental issues. Through medical records we were able to track her quite easily. She was kidnapped again here and seemed to be an excellent prospect. Experiments were carried out at Dr. Kovac’s secret facility at the old waterfront but this time she was too resistant so was dumped in a rural area again, after being given an amnesia drug, of course. Her mental history made it easy to cover that up. That wasn’t long before the operation at the waterfront was shut down in the mid-nineties. A few years later she was one of the first to be murdered when the decision was made to erase all traces of Dr. Kovac’s experiments. Your mother’s medical history helped make her supposed suicide believable. It was unfortunate that your father died as well. However, that seemed to make it more plausible to the newspapers, a loving husband trying to save his wife.”
“So that was your people,” said Max, struggling to contain his anger.
“Yes, we had a close call there when at least part of the incident was captured on the station’s security camera. Then we were able to get our hands on the film, courtesy of our friends in the police department. That guy with the conspiracy theory website claimed to have seen the film but we have any copies or simply destroyed them, so it was just his way of boosting his web traffic, I think.”
Max found it unnerving that Evans referred to Jesse and SecretConspiracyXpose in the past tense. Had they got to him too?
“So you killed everyone that had been at the waterfront?” asked Max, thinking about Deanna
.
“Yes, your mother’s death accelerated the process. We still had to spread it out over several years so we wouldn’t arouse suspicion. We eventually got them all, covering up their deaths, helped by our friends in the government and the police. We had to get rid of a few other people too, like a private detective. The police had been involved at the waterfront but that was all hushed up, and the authorities protected Dr. Kovac, myself, and the others from prosecution. The detective was told to drop the case but he kept on digging, stupid man really, after all the warnings. Jonathan Dexter, who ran the government department back then, kept pretty quiet afterward. Then when it looked like he might be choosing to come clean years later about his role in the operation, he died in a fire at his home. Very tragic.”
“You did that too?” asked Max, recalling how in the previous timeline, Jonathan Dexter had died of natural causes
“Like I said, this operation’s too important to leave anything to chance. The most recent one we killed was a woman working as a psychic medium. She was a very promising subject during the waterfront operation as I recall, one of the best we’d seen up to that point, similar to your mother. After the operation closed down, we lost track of her but were eventually able to involve Ms. Hastings in a fatal car accident.”
Max wasn’t surprised that Evans and her people had been responsible for Deanna’s death, along with so many others. He hadn’t even considered John Carrington. When Max had returned to the altered reality after saving the young David’s life, Carrington had still been alive in what Max knew as the present. He’d been listed in the phone book as a private investigator. In this altered timeline, it seemed he’d continued his investigation into Kovac and ultimately paid a terrible price.