“Hello?”
“Jack Bishop,” the voice answered. “Thank you for finally answering your phone. Would texting have attracted your attention sooner?”
Alex caught my eye and mouthed, Who is it? I shrugged.
“Who is this?” I asked.
“I am the generous man who gave you a box full of answers forty-two minutes ago,” he replied. “The real question is who are you?”
What the heck? This guy was going a bit overboard on the cloak-and-dagger stuff. “You obviously know who I am, so tell me why you are calling, or I hang up.”
The voice tsked on the other side of the call. “If you hang up, I won’t help you find your father.” He paused for a moment before continuing. “Well. Since I didn’t hear you hang up, I assume you are willing to listen for a moment, yes?”
I nodded, unable to find my voice.
“Jack,” the voice said. “I suggest doing more than nodding when you are on the phone. I can’t read minds.”
He could see me. I spun in a slow circle scanning the parking lot for anything that would give the man away. A running car. The light from a cigarette. Anything. “I’m listening.”
Alex appeared as confused as I felt.
“Let’s back up a few steps, shall we?” His voice reminded me of a grandfather. Old, dry, and expecting to get his way. “I know who you are, Jack. I know your father. I knew your grandfather who died the day you were born. I know more about you than you do. I need you to understand yourself, to know who you actually are. Because you won’t ever find your father until you do.”
“Where is my father?” I managed to say. “What have you done with him?”
“Me? Don’t be absurd.” The man laughed briefly. “I’m not some idiot villain calling you to brag about my ‘caper’ and monologue at you. I’m the one trying to help you. Do I know where you father is? No. Do I have a general idea who took him? Perhaps.”
“Then spit it out.”
“Why should I?” he said. “It seems absurd for me to be the one giving you all the answers when your little friend there knows most of them herself.”
Chapter Seven
The phone almost slipped from my hand. “What do you mean?”
“I mean Alexandra Courtney is keeping information from you,” he replied. “She hasn’t been totally honest with you about her reasons for wanting to help you find your father. Ask yourself if it seems far too coincidental that she suddenly is around to talk to you and help you out?”
I wanted to hang up right then and there, but I realized he was right. A strange expression crossed Alex’s face. As if she knew what the mysterious guy on the phone was saying. “Everybody holds back information.” I said. “Why should Alex be any different?”
“Because people can’t hold information back from her.”
I laughed into the phone. This was just ridiculous. “Riiiight. She can always tell what people are thinking. She must be able to read minds.” My laughter died when I watched the demeanor of Alex’s face change yet again. She looked guilty. Like someone whose secret had been found out.
Holy crap. No…no freaking way.
“I don’t believe in that kind of stuff,” I said. My voice lacked any shred of conviction. Things had been…weird lately.
“Of course you do,” he laughed. “Think hard on it. I’ll call you back in a day or two. We can chat more about your progress then.”
“My progress?” He acted like he was a scientist and I was a research project. “Why are you helping me? Not that I’d even call it that right now.” Frustration burned in my gut. He had answers, and I wasn’t going to let him distract me by putting the focus on Alex. “Hello?” The line went dead.
He’d never even given me his name.
I glanced from the display on my phone to Alex. I didn’t even know where to start. “Supposedly we have an ally.”
“We?” she asked quietly. It was the most vulnerable I’d ever seen here. Alex and I had never really talked before our encounter in the woods yesterday, but you can’t grow up in a small town without constantly running in to the kids your age. Every time I had ever looked at Alex she always seemed in control. It was like…
Well, it was like she always knew what people around her were thinking. It was like she always knew what a person was going to do next.
“We,” I nodded. “But I need you to be honest with me.”
“Can you promise you’ll never lie to me?” she shot back.
A loaded question, that one. Could I promise that? Unfortunately, no. “I can’t promise I’ll never lie to you, Alex,” I said. “Though if what the guy on the phone said was true, it hardly matters does it?”
“It matters to me.”
“Fair enough.” I paused for a long moment before speaking again. The temperature was dropping outside, and Alex hugged herself against the slight chill. I took a few steps to her, closing the distance between us until we weren’t even a foot apart. When I spoke again my voice was quiet. Could anyone else be listening to us right now? “Is what the guy said true?”
She nodded.
Oh man.
Did I believe it? I wanted to believe. There was only on way to find out.
“I’m going to think of something,” I said. I held up my hands to keep her from jumping all over me. “Look, I think I believe you. I just…I need proof.”
“I’m not a carnival act.” She shook her head.
“Never said you were,” I replied before adding, “and I never thought it either, did I?” She shook her head grudgingly. “Come on. I gotta know.”
She turned her back on me, leaving me staring at the back of her head. Finally she sighed and said, “Fine. Go for it. I’ll keep my back to you so you don’t think I’m cheating somehow. I’ll wave my hands around like all the bad psychics in the movies too!”
She knows her sarcasm well, I thought.
“I wasn’t being sarcastic.”
Whoa.
Okay then. I thought of one of my favorite desserts. A root beer float with cookies and cream ice cream instead of regular vanilla.
“Wow.” She shook her head in disbelief. “Why would you ruin a classic like that?
"Because it’s delicious," I muttered, blown away. This was incredible. I couldn’t really say unbelievable because she had proven her ability. Another thought ran through my head. This would be good.
I pictured Alex in a swimsuit. In my imagination she was stunning, of course. Alex stiffened. She spun around and shoved me, an expression of shock on her face. I couldn’t help but laugh at her outrage, and soon she laughed along with me. The laughter felt good. She seemed to need the release of tension as much as I did.
Our laughter died off after a minute or so. "You aren't angry," she said. It wasn’t a question.
"Not really. What am I supposed to do? Storm off? Scream and yell? And all because some mysterious voice on a phone tells me something super personal about you? Look, I’m just trying to wrap my head around the fact you can hear what everyone is thinking and see what they’re picturing."
She appeared confused. "How can you trust me?" she asked. "I wouldn’t trust me. It’s why I don’t tell anyone. Ever."
"Who else do I have?" I asked, my voice barely above a whisper. "The only family I have is an aunt that hardly strings two words together, and my friends don’t understand what I’m dealing with right now. Heck, I barely understand it myself, and I’m living it." I ran hand through my hair and sighed.
"I want to trust you. I need to. But you've got to trust me too. We could work together with me constantly wondering if you are judging my thoughts, and you trying to catch me in a lie, but I’d rather we not have to resort to that. What do you say?"
"All right," she agreed. "You want to know the truth? We're going to need a place to sit down." She rubbed her arms against the chill. "You hungry?"
"Always."
"I’m starving," she said. "And it’s going to take a while to explain. Plus I want
to hear what the guy on the phone said."
"You didn’t hear? I mean, you know, in my head?"
Alex shook her head. "Just bits and pieces. Mostly when you would repeat something. The electronics of the phone tend to block or scramble people’s thoughts. So does distance."
"Unreal. I can’t believe I’m having a serious discussion about this."
"I can’t believe someone told you about my ability," she countered. "There aren’t too many people who know. This is a serious breach of security."
I frowned. What an odd thing to say. "You say that like you’re part of a security team or ... something ..." She stared at me. I was beginning to realize I knew nothing.
"Let’s go. I've got a lot to tell you."
Chapter Eight
Alex kept her eyes on the road ahead as they drove. She had so much to explain to Jack, but they both seemed to need a breather from the revelations already discussed. She admitted to herself the need for a break benefitted her own needs more than Jack’s. He viewed the world in a completely different light now, and likely dying to take it in with huge chunks at a time.
For Alex it was different. She had always lived in a world where she could hear what other people thoughts. Creatures like the Hounds that had taken Jack’s father were just another part of it. Hardly anyone knew about what really went on in the world. Alex had been part of that group. Special. Gifted. To have her secret casually thrown out there for another to hear and judge…
She had planned on telling Jack eventually. She understood it was important he know of her ability, but to have the power of that decision yanked from her hands infuriated her. How had the guy on the phone known? she wondered. She already knew she couldn’t trust him. She couldn’t trust anyone. But still…
Who was the man on the phone? And how did he know so much?
In the back of her mind Alex heard Jack’s thoughts. In her experience, most people’s thoughts had no structure to them. Jack’s thoughts were no different. Scrambled one moment, predictable the next. And with the phone call he’d received from the supposed “ally,” coupled with the realization of her own ability…well, his brain seemed to be working overtime. She half-expected to see smoke pouring from his ears.
Jack had mentioned papers, and now she wondered what they were. His mind wasn’t thinking on them all. It was one of the frustrating aspects of being able to hear thoughts, yet be unable to direct them without asking leading questions.
Just after 10:00pm she pulled her Civic into the parking lot of a local diner. It was one of the few places in town open twenty-four hours. Jack was thinking eating fast-food this late was always a bad idea. The burgers would be cold, the fries rubbery. Alex agreed completely…or at least she thought she did. Sometimes the thoughts of other people rubbed off on her and made it hard to distinguish her own from the person she was listening to. They walked inside, ordered some food, and found a back corner where they could talk.
After a few silent moments, Alex began talking. “There are a few things you need to understand. I was going to tell you about…what I can do eventually. I just didn’t want to scare you.”
“Oh I believe you,” Jack said. “I just want to know the real reasons why you offered to help me, and I want to know what you know about my dad. And can other people do what you do?”
“OK,” Alex nodded. “I’ll start with the last bit since it all goes towards why I’m helping you. Can other people do what I do? Yeah. Last I heard every Helix Corp location has a person employed that can read minds. Reading minds isn’t the only crazy thing people can do. Some people have exceptional strength, others speed. A lot of times people don’t even realize they have a special power. They just think they have natural talent in something—sports for example.”
“So people in the world are born with these…abilities? Can they do more than one thing?”
Alex shrugged. “Born with them? Sometimes. Or they are given to people in experiments. I’ve never heard of a person with more than one ability. Something about the brain not being able to handle any more. I don’t know the details.”
“Is that what Helix does?” Jack asked as he leaned forward in his chair. “Are they experimenting on people?”
“They have, and still do, though as far as I know the experiments are all pretty tame. Mostly Helix hunts down creatures and experiments on them. Most of the human experimentation these days is done by Whyte Genetics.”
“Creatures?”
Alex rubbed her eyes. It was so easy to forget everything was strange and new to outsiders. “Creatures. All those TV shows and books that have weird paranormal monsters in them? Or all those myths about extreme mutation? There is almost always a large helping of truth behind them. Look, I know you have a ton of questions—your mind is absolutely saturated in them—but let me explain things my way. Please.”
Jack nodded in complete agreement. She didn’t start up talking again right away as she could hear the cashier bringing their food over. The girl—Jessica Stewart was their age, and the prom queen type. She was wondering if she might catch the two of them making out in the back corner. Alex laughed. Girls around here had one-track minds.
Once Jessica left disappointed she hadn’t caught the two doing anything, but already planning to start some rumors anyway, Alex started talking again. “Like I mentioned before, Helix Corp started back during the Cold War. There was a huge amount of paranoia in the country, and there were quite a few groups in the US worried about spies running around giving away secrets to our enemies. Many of these same groups were aware of the ‘monsters’ running around the world, and they instituted a program to hunt down these various monsters and try to merge some of their traits and DNA with humans. That way we could supposedly protect ourselves better.
“It may sound a little thin,” Alex went on, “but from what I understand people were in constant fear during the Cold War. They thought the world was literally going to end. They formed Helix using weather and geological surveying as a cover. In reality they search for anything paranormal they can scientifically exploit, usually at the request of the government.”
Even if she hadn’t been able to read Jack’s thoughts, she could tell just by his expression the sobering effect her words had on him. She was serious, and he believed her.
“How were people at Helix in the old days able to find these…creatures…or the people with gifts?”
“They were approached by a man who claimed to be able to sense abilities in people,” she answered. “Honestly I’ve always wondered how this man—I’ve only heard him referred to as ‘The Recruiter’—knew to go to Helix in the first place. The information is above my pay-grade. Anyway, it was shortly after he joined the company the experiments began. To protect Helix and the secrets it possessed, they sought out people who could read minds to work as internal security.”
“Security?” Jack asked. Alex heard the questions a moment before he spoke them. “Do you work for security at Helix? Did you work with my dad?”
“Jack, your dad was my boss.”
“Did he know?”
“He knew about my ability, yes,” she answered. “He knew about almost everything going on at Helix, I imagine. That’s why I’m helping you, Jack. I think one of the reasons your dad was taken was because of his position at Helix. He knows things that could put our company and our country in extreme danger if they got out.”
“Like what?” he asked. “I’m sorry but I have a hard time believing the stuff he knows could do as much harm as you say.”
“Jack, there’s stuff I know that could harm the country. I know about experimental viruses, genetic experiments, locations of federally protected supernatural creatures, and a fistful of other crap. Your dad knows way more than I do. I imagine—as do the head-honchos at Helix from what I’ve been told—he was taken for something much more sensitive than even the stuff I just mentioned.”
“Oh.”
“Exactly,” she said. “But I don’t want y
ou to think that I’m only trying to find him because of impersonal reasons. I like your dad. He was a better dad to me than my own dad. His training is partly why I’m good at what I do. You should know better than anyone how patient and calm he is.”
Jack nodded, and Alex experienced a rush of thoughts as he thought about the dozens of times his dad had shown those traits. Jack had no idea how lucky he was to have a dad that cared so much.
“OK,” Jack said, all eagerness and doubt gone from his voice and thoughts. “What really happened the night my dad was taken?”
“Something broke into Helix and freed an experiment. An old experiment.”
“Something?” Jack prompted.
“We call them Hounds,” Alex said more quietly. “They are genetically manipulated humans. One of them got in, freed the experiment, and killed a bunch of people in the process. I called your dad that night—”
“That was you on the phone?” he interrupted.
“Yeah. I was in charge that night.” She gave Jack a moment to verbalize his thoughts, but he never did. He was torn between shock, anger, then…then it was like it didn’t matter to him.
“I expected you to be angrier,” she said finally.
Jack shrugged. “Me too. I feel like I should want to jump across the table and strangle you. But I just can’t. It isn’t your fault. My dad wouldn’t blame you, I don’t think. So why should I?”
Not at all what I expected, Alex thought. She noticed neither of them had touched their food. “When things get crazy—which hasn’t really happened much—the first person I call is your dad. I respect him, and he’s one of the very few people I trust. That’s why I want to find him.”
“Fair enough,” he said, and then shook his head. “I have so many questions…”
Alex chuckled, “I know. Ask away.”
“My dad always talked about how he got all his knowledge from his dad—my grandfather, Wyatt Bishop—he worked for Helix too. Did he know about all the…stuff?”
Residue Page 4