Several times she had caught herself briefly lapsing into a sequence of visions, each producing a variation on something she had been observing, each vision ending with a different predicted outcome. The visions had become so real that she had difficulty bringing herself back into the present. Anything might trigger them.
Yesterday, Heather’s mom had bumped into the back of a chair, triggering a sequence of visions of her mom falling and catching herself on the table, or tipping over the flowerpot, or cutting her arm on the vase. Always the visions converged into a single projected outcome, but for that brief instant in time, while under the influence of her waking dreams, Heather remained frozen, unable to move or respond.
Heather had once read about people who experienced fugues, trancelike states where they lost touch with reality. It was typical of the institutionalized insane. If this continued, it was only a matter of time until others began to notice. And it was getting worse.
Refocusing her attention on the clock, Heather saw that it read 5:34. Okay. That was probably different enough from the dream that she could go downstairs with some confidence. Pulling on her robe and slippers, Heather padded softly down to the kitchen and flipped on the light. Just to be sure, she made herself a cup of hot chocolate instead of her usual cup of tea. Something about that made her feel really stupid. Next thing you knew she would be hanging up horseshoes and tossing salt over her shoulder.
It just wasn’t fair. She was going to be a senior in high school. Wasn’t she supposed to be having fun, not worried about going insane? Dear God, why did they ever have to find that starship? Why couldn’t she just be normal?
A single teardrop rippled the thick surface of the dark brown liquid in her cup, but Heather, lost in yet another one of her newfound visions, didn’t notice.
37
Freddy Hagerman was used to cold trails, but this one had gone cold as a penguin’s ass. If it wasn’t for pure stubbornness, he would have given up a long time ago. Of course, knowing that he wouldn’t have a job to go back to if he didn’t come up with something had added a little extra motivation. Even so, amidst all the glowing interviews with the Rondham Institute staff and follow-ups with the cancer survivors, he had almost missed it.
Of the thirty-eight experimental subjects, he had tracked down all but one, a fourteen-year-old boy named Billy Randall. By all reports, Billy had been every bit as successful in his recovery as any of the other patients. But tragically, he and his entire family had been killed in an automobile accident on their drive back to Arizona, after his release from the institute. The horror of the news had shaken the small community of Wickenburg, Arizona, to its core.
The entire town had planned a welcome-home celebration, complete with banners and a parade. Instead, the collision between the family Taurus and a semi-truck just outside Barstow, California, had left the bodies so disfigured that the people of Wickenburg were left to bury three sealed caskets.
The thing that had attracted Freddy’s attention was the Barstow medical examiner’s report. Containing a detailed description of the fatal injuries suffered by each member of the Randall family, the report was well ordered and typical. It had taken Freddy three passes through it before he could place a cause for the feeling of wrongness.
All three family members had suffered fatal head injuries as several pipes from the semi’s load had penetrated into the car’s passenger compartment. Everything was thoroughly described in the report. There was absolutely nothing unusual about it.
There was only one problem with that. The car had been carrying one very unusual young man who had been injected with nanites derived from Rho Project research. Freddy had read Priest William’s journal, had seen the evidence of what those nanites could do. And even if these people should have been killed instantly, those microscopic machines didn’t just give up without trying to repair broken bodies. There should have been signs of unnatural healing on Billy’s corpse, even if that healing had not saved his life. But the report contained no mention of anything unusual about the boy’s mortal wounds.
Freddy straightened his aching back and looked up. It was unbelievable how many stars you could see at 2:00 a.m. in the high desert of Arizona, especially on a night with no moon. Well, staring at the stars wasn’t going to give him his answers.
Freddy stomped down, driving the shovel deep into the soft dirt. There was no way around it. He was going to have to see Billy Randall for himself.
38
“You’ve hardly touched your breakfast.”
“Sorry, Mom. Guess I’m just not that hungry this morning.” Heather couldn’t bring herself to look into her mother’s eyes. The air was thick with her parents’ distress at her situation, a mixture of sympathy, worry, and disappointment. She hated not being able to tell them that she hadn’t plagiarized anything, no matter what she had been forced to admit to.
Her father’s gentle voice caused her to look up from her eggs. “Heather, tough as this situation is, it will pass. In the meantime, you just have to press on with your normal routine.”
“And not eating won’t help,” her mother continued.
“I know, Mom.”
When she didn’t move to put more food in her mouth, her mother shrugged in defeat.
“Oh well, I guess you can be excused. Maybe visiting with Mark and Jennifer will help more than breakfast.”
“Thanks,” Heather said, rinsing her plate and sliding it into the dishwasher.
Mark opened the door as she stepped up onto the Smythe front porch.
“Hi.”
Something about seeing him standing there in the doorway waiting for her, his chiseled face filled with protective concern, pulled down all her defenses. Without warning, sobs wracked her body. Then he was there, his arms enfolding her in bands of steel as she buried her face into his chest, and somehow, for the first time in days, Heather felt truly safe.
When she finally managed to push herself away and stand erect, she thought she saw a strange light sparkling in his eyes. Then again, why wouldn’t there be? Christ. She’d been bawling like a baby.
“Sorry.”
“Why?”
“Hey, what’s going on out here?” Jennifer asked, poking her head out the door. Seeing Heather’s red eyes, Jennifer turned toward Mark, punching him hard on the arm. “Mark! What did you say to her?”
“Ow. Crap! What is it with you and those fists?”
An involuntarily chuckle escaped from Heather’s lips. Then, unable to contain herself, she burst into laughter. No matter how bad things got, the Smythe twins were the cure. God how she loved these two.
Seeing the puzzled look on Jennifer’s face, Heather managed to establish some semblance of control over her emotions. “It’s okay, Jen. Mark was actually being really nice.”
“Mark? Really?”
“Hey, I can be nice.”
“Humph,” Jennifer snorted. “Anyway, I knew the TV coverage would upset you.”
It was Heather’s turn to look puzzled. “What TV coverage?”
Mark rolled his eyes at his sister. “Open mouth, insert foot.”
A look of horror spread across Jennifer’s face. “Oh, Heather. I’m so sorry. I thought that was what had upset you.”
“Now you’re scaring me,” Heather said, stepping inside the Smythe’s front door. “Is it still on?”
Mark followed on her heels. “Still on? They won’t get off it. You’d think nothing this big had happened in Los Alamos in years.”
Without waiting for her friends to slow her forward progress, Heather walked into the Smythe living room, sliding onto the couch directly across from the television, thankful that there was no sign of Mr. or Mrs. Smythe.
Sure enough, there was Maria Sandoval, news anchor for KOAT, Action 7 News, her face a picture of surprise and disapproval at the story of how three Los Alamos High School students had been caught cheating at the National Science Competition.
“…and although only one member of the Los Ala
mos team has admitted to plagiarism, a young lady by the name of Heather McFarland, her actions have embarrassed her team, her school, the communities of Los Alamos and White Rock, even New Mexico as a whole. Unfortunately, the review board of judges did not spot the attempt to take credit for someone else’s work before the Los Alamos team had been announced as the winner.”
Maria paused and turned to Barry Jenson, her co-anchor. Barry shook his blond head slowly for the benefit of the camera. “That is unbelievable.”
The camera shifted back to Maria. “That isn’t the worst of it. The communities of Los Alamos and White Rock had already welcomed home their winning team with a big celebration at the Los Alamos High School, complete with the mayors, school staff, and a large crowd of townspeople.”
The camera panned to Barry. “I can only imagine how betrayed the good people of those towns are feeling right now.”
As the camera zoomed out to catch a shot of both anchors, Maria raised her left eyebrow in a manner that indicated that the biggest news was yet to come. “If you think it couldn’t get worse, you’re wrong. It turns out that another member of the team was Los Alamos High School’s pride and joy, all-star, all-state basketball point guard, Mark Smythe.”
“I’ll tell you, Maria. If I hadn’t seen the reports myself, I would think you were making this up.”
“And I wouldn’t blame you.”
The camera shifted back to Barry’s handsome face one last time. “Well I’m sure that all our viewers out there are as shocked by this as Maria and I. You can bet we haven’t heard the last of this one.” Barry leaned back and shuffled the papers on the news desk. “That’s all for this morning. Maria and I will be right back here tomorrow morning, bringing you the latest from Action 7 News.”
The impact of the story left Heather numb. “Oh God. We’re…”
Mark nodded. “We’re screwed.”
39
“Heather. Hey, Heather. You all right?” Mark’s voice sounded as if it came from a great distance.
Heather shook her head to clear away the sequence of clear visions within which she had been wandering, each of them playing out different outcomes to their current situation. As her eyes refocused on Mark and then Jennifer, there was no doubt in her mind what they had to do. The time for crying was past. They had to take action and soon. She flipped off the television.
“Where’s the cell phone number of that contest judge? Never mind, I remember it.”
“Dr. Caldwell?” Jennifer asked. “Why?”
“Because we’re going to call him right now and cut a deal.”
Mark stepped closer. “Are you out of your mind? He wants us to give away our cold fusion device.”
“It can’t be helped. We have to get this damped down or we’ll have mobs camped on our doorstep.”
Mark shook his head. “No way. Without the cold fusion device, we can’t run our subspace transmitter. We won’t be able to hack into secure networks anymore.”
“Mark’s right,” Jennifer chimed in. “We’ll be completely blind. And right now, I get a very bad feeling about that.”
“Look,” said Heather, “I know it’s bad, but I don’t see any other way out. Even if we didn’t worry about getting into college, I think the press will start following us. Think about it. We’ll be watched twenty-four seven.”
For several seconds silence filled the room.
Finally, Mark looked up from his study of his hands. “I’ll go along with this on one condition.”
“What’s that?”
“You let me try to contact Jack Johnson using the quantum twin device I implanted in Janet’s laptop.”
“Jesus, Mark! How’s that going to make things better?” Jennifer asked.
“You know Jack and Janet are on the run or dead,” Heather added. “Even if they’re alive, they probably scrapped the laptop.”
“Then it won’t hurt to try. Anyway, that’s my offer. If we don’t all sign the release papers, then Dr. Caldwell isn’t going to agree to the deal.”
“But how can it work out?” Jennifer continued. “The last thing we need is Jack finding out about us. At this point he’s a hunted terrorist.”
“I don’t believe Jack’s a terrorist and neither do you. We won’t let him know who we are, just that we are the ones who originally contacted the NSA. Right now, he’s cut off. He needs to know he has a powerful source of information he can contact.”
Heather shook her head. “Even if we can come up with a way to convince him of all that, after we give away the cold fusion device, we won’t be able to snoop classified networks anymore.”
“I’m sure you two little geniuses will come up with a solution to that.” Mark turned and grabbed the wireless telephone, holding it out to Heather. “Do you want to make that call to Caldwell or not?”
After a moment’s hesitation, Heather took the telephone from his hand and began to dial.
40
It had been two nights since Freddy had dug up Billy Randall’s empty coffin in Wickenburg. As soon as he’d pried the lid open with a crowbar and shined the flashlight inside, Freddy had hopped in the rental car and done his best impression of a NASCAR driver, hauling ass back to Barstow. A brief pause at a truck stop to dump his dirty sweats, tennis shoes, and shovel into a dumpster had been the only delay in getting back to the Desert Inn. Since he’d never checked out of the Barstow motel, Freddy had stuck the “Do Not Disturb” sign on the outside door handle, stumbled into bed, and slept the day away.
Now Freddy found himself looking over the top of his hamburger, watching the setting sun shimmer in the heat that radiated up from the diner’s asphalt parking lot. The waitress had stopped by to ask if he wanted coffee, and he’d laughed at her. What he wanted was water with enough ice to frost up the outside of the glass. Every time the diner door opened, it felt like he was sitting beside a blast furnace.
Freddy wanted to talk to Dr. Bertrand Callow, the Barstow medical examiner who had signed off on the Randall report, but at home and after dark. Only a couple of things could make a man like that falsify an official report. Either he was one of the key conspirators in this whole mess or someone had scared the crap out of him. Freddy was pretty sure that it was the second, but if he was wrong about that, getting fired was going to be the least of his worries. Actually, now that he thought about it, he probably wouldn’t live long enough to have many worries.
Dr. Callow’s house wasn’t difficult to find. You just got off Old California 58 and headed north on Camarillo Avenue until it stovepiped into Palermo Street. It was one of a handful of nice homes on the far north side of the street, backed up against desert open space. By the time Freddy walked up to the front of the house and rang the bell, the sky had taken on a dark shade of purple with a few wisps of burgundy still licking the horizon. At least the Western skies gave these poor desert rats something worth looking at. You damn sure couldn’t watch the grass grow.
Freddy pushed the doorbell a second time. He could hear it buzzing inside. The light from the television flickered through the front windows although the plantation shutters prevented him from getting a good look inside. So the doctor was home, just not responding. Probably on the crapper.
After another minute, Freddy reached out and rapped the door hard with his knuckles, feeling the door move inward slightly under his hand. The thing wasn’t locked. Hell it hadn’t even been closed hard enough to latch. A sudden uneasiness raised the hair along the backs of his arms, despite the heat of the evening. On impulse, Freddy pulled out his shirttail and wiped down the doorbell and doorknob, before nudging the door open with his toe.
The television blared loudly from a room just out of sight from the foyer, the sounds of battle amplified through a sub-woofer blared so loudly that he could feel the concussion of cinematic artillery. Freddy stepped across the threshold, pushing the door closed with his foot.
Jesus H. Christ. If the bastard was taking a dump, he should at least light a match. The place r
eeked.
“Dr. Callow?”
Nothing.
Freddy felt himself move slowly forward, drawn toward the flickering light from the next room like some goddamn moth.
The living room opened up before him, the large flat-panel television occupying the wall on the left, its screen filled with combat as the war movie reached a crescendo of violence. Across the room a man sat in a recliner, his hand dangling over the padded leather arm, fingers open as if reaching for the gun that lay on the floor beside it. The television flared bright as another explosion shook the speakers, its light leaving little doubt about what Freddy was seeing. There sitting in the splatter of blood and clumps of brain matter was Dr. Callow.
41
Heather glanced down at her watch. 10:43 a.m. Her mom had said she would only be in the bank for fifteen minutes, but it had already been twenty. Maybe she should have gone in with her mom, but banks were so darn boring. Add a little elevator music and they’d be as exciting as an elevator.
She’d always loved these shopping trips down to Santa Fe, but today she just felt wired. Perhaps someone had spiked her herbal tea with a healthy dose of caffeine. Whatever it was left Heather feeling irked.
It probably had nothing whatsoever to do with her mother or even with today. After all, it was Saturday, arguably the best day on the planet. More likely, her sense of hyperactivity was related to everything else that had happened this week.
Dr. Caldwell had arrived, they had all signed the papers, and he had gone off, redirecting the shipment of their cold fusion science project to parts unknown. The judging committee had issued a statement that read:
“Upon further review, we the judges of the National High School Science Competition, hereby conclude that, although the team from Los Alamos High School failed to properly document the derivations in one section of their report, the omission appears to have been unintentional. Nevertheless, the disqualification of the Los Alamos team remains in force. Although the error in documentation was an oversight, it was an egregious one…”
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