by Clara Ward
In the moment when Sarah decided she had to wake Emma because she had to know the answer no matter how selfish that was, Aliana nodded.
Sarah gently shook Emma’s arm. “Emma, wake up.”
The exhausted teenager didn’t react, and Sarah convinced herself to wait, to let the girl sleep. But five minutes later, when Emma stirred slightly, Sarah couldn’t resist trying again.
“Emma, wake up.”
Her eyes opened and shut a few times. Sarah thought she looked like a much younger kid when waking up, and Aliana smiled with a repressed laugh. Emma didn’t react to the thought, which probably would have annoyed her, and Sarah felt a renewed surge of hope.
Once Emma sat up and rolled her shoulders until she seemed reasonably awake, Sarah asked her, “Can you still not hear Aliana’s thoughts?”
Emma shook her head and her chin jutted forward disapprovingly at Sarah.
“And you can’t hear mine?”
“What? I could never-- What’s going on?”
“Bizarre,” Sarah sighed, with a huge feeling of personal relief. “Get this, Aliana can now hear my thoughts.”
“How? Are you sure?” Emma’s face shifted in that moment from the soft inexpressiveness of sleepy youth to the dramatic raised eyebrows and tucked chin of adolescent skepticism.
Sarah stiffened a bit, and Aliana gave her shoulder a calm squeeze without saying a word. “We tested it lots,” Sarah ventured, “But so you’ll know, tell me something to think about.”
“Think about what I told you my favorite new food was two days ago at lunch,” Emma said without hesitation.
Fast as Sarah could think it Aliana said, “Vietnamese spring rolls.”
“Okay, now tell me what I’m thinking,” Emma said quickly.
Emma and Aliana stared at each other for half a minute, but in the end Aliana just shook her head.
Emma asked, “Can you hear the guy dreaming in the next room?”
“No.”
“You wouldn’t like it anyway.”
Sarah pretended outrage, “Maybe your parents shouldn’t let you out.”
“Yeah right,” Emma smirked. “So you want to explain to me how you first blocked her thoughts and now this?”
“I guess I’d better,” Sarah sighed, and she explained to Emma what had happened to Tom and the relevant bits of what happened with Aliana. They were still trying to make sense of it when the train bumped to a stop in the Bangkok station.
It was full morning and the gleaming modern transit center pounded with the footsteps of busy people. Silent now, the three women carried their belongings toward a taxi stand, eager to get back to the Johnsons’ house. Then Sarah heard a shot, felt it hit her head, and was swallowed into nowhere.
Chapter 20
June 3, 2025 – Bangkok, Thailand
“But can you tell us why the Americans want that patent?”
If Alak were speaking aloud, James imagined he’d be talking through his teeth. James wove a pencil through his fingers, then through the fingers of his other hand, trying to stay calm. He wondered if Alak was specifically annoyed with him or just relaying tensions from above.
“I’ve told you it might relate to telekinesis, but with so few teeks to study, it’s hard to find any answers. Now if you’ll let me return to my work—“
“And you still haven’t explained what the teek did to Tanit.”
“I had only one case to study, and the problem was clearly not genetic.”
“What good is genetics if it can’t answer any of our questions?”
James set down his pencil, took a deep breath, and glanced at the Swiss results on his screen. After weeks of delay, Heiss had at least provided excellent data. He’d sent blood samples from thirty paranoid schizophrenics and forty-six members of their immediate families, along with a psychiatric history for each.
These samples included only one patient who was homozygous for the telepathy predecessor. She also had the bipolar sequence the Americans wanted. Her mother shared all of the genetic factors, but was classified as mentally healthy. So even if latent or partial telepathy might be in play, perhaps causing delusions, it was not a sure path to schizophrenia.
Realizing Alak was still waiting, James said, “Look, I’m frustrated too. Do you know what I’d give to know if this patient and her mother are teeps or teeks? But even if I could convince Heiss to let me visit and run some follow-up tests, the subjects must not be doing anything too obvious.”
Alak squared his shoulders and sat back, as if he was considering a serious proposal.
“You don’t think it could be arranged, do you?” A quick shake of Alak’s head dashed those foolish hopes.
“No, but there’s something you should know.”
James refused to play the impatient one. He just waited, not even moving his hands.
“Your man Heiss has been silenced.”
James froze for about ten seconds, pressing his hands down hard, then blurted, “You do mean to telepathy, not killed?”
Alak nodded.
“Was it because of me?” First Nigel, now this. James needed to untangle himself from this web, and yet, he was looking for a pattern in the threads.
Alak shifted sideways, as if the soft office chair was too hard for him. “We don’t know.”
“But you’ve been watching him?”
“Just peripherally. We never saw him with any Americans or even any high ranking Swiss. But our observer there reports his mind is now silent. We want you to go ahead and talk to him at the conference this weekend, but be careful what you say.”
“You think the Americans are involved? What’s going on?”
“Just remember anything Heiss says.”
“And tell you, when you won’t tell me anything?” James had reacted without thinking, and Alak ignored him until he amended, “I might guide the conversation better if I knew what you suspected.”
“If we knew anything, and you knew what we knew, then that information would be at risk.”
“I see.” James tried to see this as a fair challenge.
“But afterward, there’d be no reason not to tell me. After all, I gave this country my best discoveries and was promised scientific freedom and support. If they want to understand the Americans or some double agent, they can ask their spies. I have my own work to do.”
“As do I.” Alak nodded and brought his hands together in something short of the traditional wai. He turned to leave and was just reaching the door as it sounded a brief knock and swung inward.
Lisa stood in the doorway, an arm’s length from Alak, and for a moment it seemed as if the hand he’d been reaching for the door would connect instead to Lisa’s hip.
Lisa gave a quick smile and met Alak with wide-open eyes.
The Thai man nodded his head and stepped back.
“I didn’t mean to interrupt,” Lisa said.
“I was just leaving,” Alak answered softly, and Lisa stepped aside just enough to let him pass, though James thought their clothing brushed in the process.
James was silent for a moment, tapping his thumbs together, reining in annoyance, and Lisa timidly shut the door.
“I hope this wasn’t a bad time.”
“Well, actually—”James saw Lisa’s big childish eyes, “I can’t talk long. I have a lot of work to do.”
“I’ll be quick then. I just wanted to thank you for taking me out, and I hoped I could make dinner for you sometime?”
James clasped his hands together tightly and remained seated at his computer.
“It’s a very nice offer, Lisa. But Robert already invited me to dinner with your family once, and I just don’t think—“
“This is just me offering. I thought maybe I could cook for you at your place.”
“I don’t think that would work.”
“I could bring everything, even the cooking pans.”
“It’s not that, just, Lisa, you’re young, and I don’t want you to get the wrong idea.” Jam
es really didn’t want to deal with this. He had to force his eyes down to the keyboard to keep from drifting back into the data on the computer screen. “You’re a very nice person, but—“
“You just want to be friends.”
James decided that was close enough. “I’m glad you understand.”
Lisa gave a weak smile as she drifted out the door. James felt his fingers begin to type, even as he felt guilty for making her sad. Still, it was better that she knew.
He sorted the Swiss sample for those with auditory delusions and those without. His hypothesis was that if some patients were experiencing partial telepathy, it would be most likely to show up as auditory delusions. But none of the sequences correlated with such symptoms, no matter how he grouped them. And he only had the one patient and her mother with the predecessor telepathy sequences. He still needed more data.
June 7, 2025 – Zurich, Switzerland
Back at the Zurich hotel where he’d met Nigel, James stood staring at the mask-like sculptures near the mezzanine elevators. The swirly green oval was about as he remembered, but the dark lump next to it refused to look like a face no matter how he squinted. James shifted foot to foot, then reversed the pattern. He wondered how Nigel was, if their interaction had caused the postdoc trouble. Then he thought of Heiss and went to the rail overlooking the lobby. He’d spent most of the day watching for his supposed collaborator, unable to focus on science until the required conversation was done.
Around three o’clock he spotted Heiss down below, wearing a midnight blue dress shirt that tucked surprisingly neatly into gray slacks. James first thought was that he now understood tailored shirts. Then he thought to wave. He seemed well within the man’s peripheral vision, but Heiss sauntered by as if he hadn’t noticed.
James trotted down the curved, showy front staircase as fast as he dared. His feet clip-clopped in rhythm, and he only had to reverse the pattern once. Heiss was nowhere to be found. James checked the nearby conference rooms and finally the poster area, but without luck. Was Heiss avoiding him? Or had he merely caught a convenient elevator? James wandered back down the hall wondering if he shouldn’t just give up. What was he likely to learn in casual conversation? Wouldn’t he just be calling attention to himself, attention from those within the conspiracies he wanted to avoid?
He sat though a lecture he should have enjoyed, ringing his hands and not learning a thing. The speaker’s words flew past him. His own attempts to plan for eventually meeting Heiss kept slipping beneath concerns about whether some plot was advancing around him and whether he truly wanted to find out.
Leaving the talk, he automatically scanned the halls for Heiss, then stopped short when he finally saw him. A few doors down, Heiss in his midnight blue was talking to a man in an even more adventurous amber, long sleeved shirt. Heiss had one hand on his hip, the other man dangled a jacket over his left shoulder. They looked like posed mannequins in a shop window, and James wondered how one overheard fashion critique could so greatly affect his observations. As far as James could tell, both men’s minds were silent.
Walking forward as casually as he could James said, “Heiss, good to see you. Do you have a minute?”
“Certainly.” Heiss raised one shoulder in a half shrug and the man in amber wandered off. Heiss took a step toward James and kept walking as they talked. James wondered where he was being led, or if movement was supposed to prevent eavesdropping. Or maybe it was just chance.
“Are you on your way somewhere?”
“A talk down there in five minutes, but how’s your investigation?”
Was it odd that he chose the word “investigation”? “No luck so far with the cultures, though I’ve plenty more to try. I found some potential correlates when clustering by symptom. Have you tried that?”
“No. Clustering by what?
“Oh, different sensory modes of delusions, family correlations. Have you come across anything interesting in your analysis?”
“We’re still completing our double blind drug trials, but I’ll know more in a few weeks. What sort of correlates?”
“It’s all pretty tentative so far. Do you have any more detailed records on the subjects’ symptom presentations?”
“Afraid not, our privacy laws are pretty strict here.”
“Of course,” James detected condescension and realized he was making a fool of himself, and he wasn’t even learning anything. His hands lifted to tap against his legs but he redirected them into his pockets. He gave it one last try, “Anything new on the horizon?”
Heiss smiled in a way so sincerely patronizing that James wished he could erase the last few minutes and face Alak’s scorn instead. But he smiled as Heiss said, “Just the usual fun of working with nut-cases, one side of the desk or the other. Now if you’ll excuse me?”
James answered, “Certainly,” in pale imitation of the man in amber. Turning away, James almost laughed, because he was so relieved the conversation was over and because he’d realized his ivory shirt could literally be a paler version of amber.
His relief and amusement lasted all the way back to his room where he found a note, lying as before, just inside the door. He picked it up and fell back on the bed laughing aloud before the words even registered on his brain. It was all too much, the note, his attempts to gather covert information. Whatever happened, he was going back to his lab and rededicating himself to research. No more pressing Alak for answers, no more pressing other people for Alak. He rolled onto his stomach, letting his laughter subside to chuckles. There, with his eyes firmly pressed to a pillow, he realized he’d already read the new note. His brain was already grinding through diverse explanations for:
Be ready on July 28th.
Chapter 21
June 3 - 16, 2025 – Bangkok, Thailand
Reggie stepped from the dazzling afternoon sunlight into the dim shop on the edge of the courtyard. With Sarah off to visit Chiang Mai, Reggie knew exactly what he wanted to accomplish. He intended to inspect every jewelry store in Bangkok, and today he’d just about done it. Owlish old men had tried to hustle him and feline young women had asked about his girlfriend. Playing the smitten suitor was easy; escaping to look some more, a fitting challenge. At times, he’d been tempted to just buy a big diamond, knowing it would require the least explanation and wondering if deep down Sarah harbored such clichéd hopes. But his instincts kept drawing him back to this place.
The front window of the shop housed a riparian scene on mounds of deep green velvet. Cut glass baubles created a sparkling river; blown glass ornaments dangled above. Along the bank, gnarled metal sculptures of jungle animals, trees, and laborers drank the water or wandered about. To one side, resting atop the same velvet, lay little gold rings. Each ring was really several loops woven together to form a knot. But one ring had been left in pieces, to show that they were all truly puzzles.
Inside the dim shop, Reggie studied a sculpted metal tree trunk that formed the base of a lamp. He found a belt of chained metal where every link was a different shape. A young man, European, maybe German by his features, came out from the back.
“Can I help you?” The accent wasn’t quite German, maybe Polish?
The man’s fingers were smudged and his shoulders slightly hunched. “Are these your creations?” Reggie asked.
“Most of them,” his shoulders rose, his head cocked back.
“Did you make the puzzle rings?”
“Yes, all my own designs. Did you want to try one?”
Reggie drifted toward the window display. The one he liked best, a set of wavy lines like cumulus clouds, looked much too large on closer inspection. He hesitated, and the other man spoke.
“You like that one? It’s subtle, harder to unravel than it looks.”
“But I need something smaller, about the size of my pinky.”
“For a woman? I have more.” He ducked into the back and returned with a shoebox holding a couple dozen more rings. The artist picked through carelessly and presen
ted a smaller ring with more wavelike horizontal lines. Reggie knew it was the right ring without checking the size.
“Could I take it apart and try the puzzle?”
“Take your time,” the Polish fellow smirked, pulling a chair up beside a glass display case and motioning for Reggie to have a seat.
Reggie sat and instantly had the ring in six pieces. How hard could a puzzle be with only six pieces?
Twenty minutes later, Reggie’s phone rang. He glanced at the caller ID and saw it was Phil. He stepped outside to take the call, leaving the ring still in pieces on the display.
“Hello?”
“We’ve got financing! Another ten or twenty mil wouldn’t hurt, but with Scott on our side, we might carry a vote of the shareholders.”
“You’re amazing.”
“Just following a damn good idea, which was yours.”
“Because I made a mistake.”
“Que sera sera.”
“Send me the figures by email?”
“You bet.”
Reggie walked back into the shop wishing he could propose to Sarah on the spot. Then he sat down to solve the puzzle. After another fifteen minutes he tried lining the pieces up to see which band held the lowest point and which one rose the highest. Ten minutes after that, triumph. The metalsmith polished it up and promised he could resize it if needed.