by James Sperl
“Exactly!” Zane said. He wheeled on Darlene. “See? That's what I been saying!” He faced Clarissa, Jon, and Cesare. “She's got it in her tricky little head that some bad goings on was happening, but I been saying all along that people came and went. It's how the place worked.”
“Yeah, but then why was they gettin' took out in the middle of the night?” Darlene countered. “I seen two guards take this man out half asleep. Lots of us saw it.”
Clarissa was intrigued by this. “More than one person saw this happen? Did anyone say anything?”
“Hell, no! Nobody wanted to risk it happening to them. They was just glad to be behind a wall instead of outside it roaming about.”
Clarissa wanted to pursue the topic further, but Andrew stomped back into the room. His face was in conflict with itself as if he couldn't decide which emotion to register.
“I can't believe I'm saying this, but I think this might just be Rosenstein or at least a fragment of it.”
“I knew it!” Clarissa said.
“But how?” asked Cesare. “It doesn't fit what Kap told us. The kind of things he said they did would require an enormous facility.”
“And I think they probably have that facility. Just not here.” Andrew nudged his head in the direction of the office. “I think what we have here is the black-ops equivalent of a shell corporation, wherein ADLS—or part of it at least—acted as an intermediary between Rosenstein and its contracted labor, i.e., Kaplinsky's lab. A sort of filter, if you will. There are no less than three designated phone lines in that office. Why? Why would there be a need for a diagnostics lab to have so many? And while I couldn't track down any one piece of paper that definitively said 'Rosenstein' on it, the letters 'R.S.' were stamped across the head of virtually everything I looked at, and none contained an address or a phone number.”
Jon leaned back onto a workstation. “What was on the papers?”
“Gibberish. At least to our untrained eyes. Pages and pages of lines of letters and numbers. I couldn't detect a pattern. It's encrypted information, but of what and for whom I haven't the first clue.”
“So we're thinking whoever worked in this office acted as a go-between?” Jon said. “That he—”
“Or she,” Clarissa amended.
“—or she, excuse me, received information then encoded it to transmit to another location. Is that our theory?”
Andrew tossed his shoulders. “In lieu of something better, yes.”
“But what would be the point of that?” asked Cesare. “Why not transmit whatever they had directly to the source?”
“Hard to say,” Andrew said, shaking his head. “Maybe this office was set up as a firewall. A digital dam, so to speak, so that no one could make connections between Rosenstein and its contractors. Like a buffer. Or maybe it was employed as another level of security. Maybe this tiny, innocuous office was the glue that held the key to everything. I just don't know. But what I do know is that if Rosenstein is going through this sort of effort to conceal Project Tunnel, everything Kaplinsky told us, as crazy as it sounded, is starting to gain real traction.”
“Okay,” Clarissa said, “but why lure people here? Whoever put out that transmission specifically directed people to this facility. What for? There's nothing here.”
Andrew put his head down and paced.
“I don't know. The only thing that springs to mind is that it was pretty early on when you and Jon heard that message. What were we, seven, eight days into the Sound?”
Jon nodded. “Something like that.”
“A lot has happened since then. Nearly three months have passed. Why they directed people here I haven't the first goddamned clue, but whatever the reason, the people responsible for the transmission may have underestimated the response they'd get.”
Zane snapped his fingers excitedly. “Bingo!” he barked. “That's sounding...There was a woman at Framingham—remember her, D?—we met her on our second day. Told us when she got here there was a shit ton of people. Like everywhere. Camping out and wandering about, wondering why they was told to come here.”
“Hundreds, she said,” Darlene added.
Zane snorted then spat something vile into the corner of the room. “Said she'd only made it to New Framingham after she got rerouted there from here.”
“Rerouted?” Clarissa said. “Rerouted how?”
“She said they was all piled into buses and taken there,” Zane said.
Andrew homed in on Zane. “Wait a minute. The people that were here were taken away in buses?”
“That's what the lady said. Bunch of 'em, too, the way she tells it.”
“Did she happen to say who sent the buses?”
“Of course. Rosenstein. That's how everyone knew they was in the right place.”
Andrew peeled away, deep in thought.
“What, Andrew?” Clarissa said. “What're you thinking?”
“I'm thinking...” he began but stalled momentarily to contemplate further. “I think we might know who sent that transmission after all, and it may be in line with one of the theories these two heard.”
Cesare regarded the haggard pair. “One of their theories? Which one?”
“Let's think about this for a minute. The idea that a disgruntled employee transmitted the broadcast doesn't jibe. This lab is too small to have a deep employee pool, and by the looks of things, that's a one-man office in there, so to think that someone from here would commit corporate treason—and against an entity as seemingly large as Rosenstein—doesn't ring true.” Andrew raised an index finger for emphasis. “But convincing people it was someone with an ax to grind...now that makes some sense.”
Andrew turned to Jon and Clarissa. “You guys said the broadcast sounded amateurish, like someone was reporting about something they had only heard about.”
“That's right,” Clarissa said while Jon nodded. “He came across as a...a conspiracy theorist, actually, more than anything else. What he said didn't smack of insider knowledge based on what I was hearing. At least not to me.”
“I'd agree with that,” said Jon. “It could've been an act, I suppose. But I'm having trouble understanding what the end game would be.”
“As am I,” conceded Andrew. “But think about what we know: There's a broadcast telling people about Rosenstein—mentioning the company specifically by name—and how they might know what's going on, and that people should come here to find out what. People were terrified back then. They still are. Most would've risked anything to learn how they could've stopped what was happening.”
“Gee, that sounds familiar,” said Clarissa, who pointed at herself.
“Precisely. But then people get here and it's not what anyone expects. And they come by the hundreds until the place is saturated with pilgrims looking for answers. Only there are none. At least not here.”
“I'm sorry, Andrew,” Cesare said with a confused smile. “I'm not sure I get what you're implying.”
Andrew inhaled, more to center himself than to catch his breath.
“I'm saying that I'm starting to believe something you suggested only moments ago—that Rosenstein used the broadcast as a recruitment tool.”
Clarissa's brows knitted. “But why would they do that? Recruitment for what? Why would Rosenstein need people?”
“At this point, that's unclear,” Andrew continued. “But for some reason they wanted to draw people here. My hunch is that they used ADLS as a...a staging area ahead of their big reveal.”
Jon crossed his arms and gave Andrew a sideways glance. “Which was what? What was the 'big reveal'?”
Andrew held out his hands. “New Framingham.”
Clarissa shrank back in disbelief. “You think Rosenstein's behind the New Framingham sleep farm?”
Andrew looked at her as if he couldn't determine whether she was serious or not.
“Of course they're behind it. According to the people Zane and Darlene spoke with—people who were on those buses—they were so much as t
old so.”
“Wait, wait, wait,” Jon said, wiping the air with an open palm. “What you're suggesting doesn't make sense. If Rosenstein is behind New Framingham, why wouldn't they just direct people there from the get-go? Why bring them to some nondescript lab that only has a tenuous link to it?”
Andrew nodded in response to Jon's points. “The only thing I can figure is that New Framingham was an in-process project at the time. If it's as big as these two say it is—”
“It's big, all right. Count on that,” Zane interrupted.
“If it is,” Andrew continued, “then they would have needed time to set it up. The short answer? It wasn't ready when they put out the transmission. That's why I think they chose this location as a staging area—because of its proximity.” Andrew pointed out the nearest window. “According to the map, it looks to be about ten minutes up the road to Framingham from here where, I assume, New Framingham is located.” He glanced at Arlin and got a nod of confirmation. “They could have recruited folks to any place in the country, but they chose here, and I think it was so they could move them with very little effort.”
“Yeah, but why here specifically?” Cesare said. “They could have sent people to any number of more suitable locations nearby: the city fairgrounds, a high school football field, a Target parking lot—anywhere that had more acreage than this tiny place.”
“Agreed. But I think they chose this place specifically to lend credence to the idea that there's a conspiracy behind what's happening.”
Clarissa, Jon, and Cesare shared curious frowns with one another.
“It's genius, really,” Andrew said. “You throw out the name Rosenstein over the airwaves by someone who sounds a little less than trustworthy, but he's saying things that speak to your fear. Better than that, he gives you a location where you can check things out for yourself. Then people start arriving, either from having heard the transmission themselves or by word of mouth, but they come. And they're confused when they get here, so they start poking around and come across the same documents I just looked at—documents, I might add, that were inexplicably left behind rather than taken out of here. Why?”
No one attempted to respond to the rhetorical question, even though it appeared as if Andrew expected one. He went on.
“The answer, I believe, is that they left them to convince folks they had stumbled upon something legitimate. That what they heard over the radio or from a friend was, in fact, real. So they stayed and waited and met other folks who heard things, and the rumor mill gets churning and theories move faster than a brush fire. Now the hook is set, so by the time Rosenstein shows up with buses to offer a safe living environment and some answers, there wasn't a person here who didn't clamber to get on board.”
Clarissa listened to Andrew's theory with rapt attention and found herself nodding in agreement with almost everything he said. There were still a lot of questions—questions she knew neither he nor anyone else in the room could answer—but of them all, one sent trickles of ice down her back.
“But why would Rosenstein need people?” she said. “Because that's what we're essentially saying here. That they duped everyone into coming here then rounded them up and took them somewhere for a reason. So what is it?”
Andrew sighed, perplexed. “That, as they say, is the million dollar question. But I think we can safely make one assumption.”
“What, that we're all screwed?” Jon said, evoking nervous chuckles. Andrew laughed as well, but it was decidedly more subdued.
“Perhaps,” he said with a diminishing smile. “But more than that, I think it's safe to say that Rosenstein is far beyond the parameters of a simple government project if it ever was one to begin with. What's happening here, what they did, how they've employed tactics to draw people out, and what they're doing now, well...it smacks of next level organization on a global scale. We could be witnessing the first iteration of a new, post-Sound government.”
Andrew's in-depth theory chilled Clarissa down to her bones. Not because it was so far-fetched, but because it was so plausible. After she and the others had evaded Travis, and she and Jon had the chance to sit down and tell the others what they had heard in the message, she felt heartened. Encouraged. Finally, they had a lead. It never occurred to her that the broadcast could have an ulterior motive.
Everything Andrew hypothesized was pure conjecture. He had nothing to go on other than the testimony of two individuals with questionable mental capacities, a stack of incoherent documents, and his instinct.
And yet Clarissa bought into every word.
Project Tunnel was happening. She was convinced of it now. It wasn't just some second-hand theoretical story told to her by a cross-dressing chemist. It was real. And Rosenstein was to blame. Everything pointed to them and their shadowy accomplishment. And while she had no proof, she felt in the core of her soul that New Framingham somehow lay at the heart of how they stopped the Sound.
She didn't have to ask anyone what the group's next move should be.
“We should go talk to the others,” Andrew said.
“Agreed,” said Cesare and Jon, nearly simultaneously.
Andrew regarded Zane and Darlene, who stared at everyone like abandoned puppies.
“I want to thank you for your help. What you've told us has been invaluable.”
“It's all good,” Zane said, trying to forge a twitchy smile.
Andrew panned around the room, then, failing to find what he was looking for, stuck his head back into the office. His brows crashed uncertainly.
“Where do you keep your supplies? Your food?”
Darlene glanced at Zane and teared up. “We, uh...haven't had much luck in that department lately. It's been a couple of days.”
“Since you've eaten?” Clarissa blurted.
Darlene nodded, her face pitiful. “All them people that come here pretty much cleaned this town out. We talk about moving along to somewhere else, but...we ain't got nothing.”
Clarissa was aghast. “That doesn't...Certainly, we've got something we could spare, huh guys?”
The objectionable glances from Andrew, Cesare, and Jon were brief. In the end, their humanity and decency triumphed.
“Absolutely,” Jon said emphatically. “Come on. Let's go see what we can put together.”
Tears shot down Darlene's cheeks. Zane glared at each person, kindness something to which he was unaccustomed.
“Y'all are saviors, I swear,” Darlene said.
“Not at all,” Clarissa replied. “Just helping out when we can. Like you just did, and as we all should.”
She meant every word. Guilt nagged at her conscience for the assumption she had made about the motley pair upon first seeing them. They had no reason to be so forthcoming with information, and now they had given Clarissa and the others a renewed sense of purpose.
Road Rage appeared to play an integral part of their daily existence, but Zane and Darlene were a far cry from the Rage-addicted creatures Clarissa had seen in the past. Did some people handle the drug better than others? Or were Zane and Darlene in the early stages of their dependency? She hated to admit it, but she didn't foresee a favorable ending for the pair, which made her sad. They seemed like otherwise friendly people, who probably would have been a hoot to be around under different circumstances.
“Clarissa,” Andrew said from the door of the lab, Jon and Cesare already having gone on ahead. “You coming?”
“Be right there. I just wanted to ask these two some quick questions. You know...about Val.”
Andrew scrutinized Darlene and Zane before saying, “Okay.” He pushed through the doors and offered a final look back before he left Clarissa alone with them.
Clarissa had no intention of asking Zane and Darlene about Valentina. Nor was she planning to pepper them with questions about the horrific side effects of Road Rage. She knew all she needed to know about it already. Even so, the drug figured prominently into her reason for staying behind.
“Here,�
�� she said, digging into her pocket. She held out her closed hand and dropped the contents from it into Zane's waiting palm. “Take these.”
Zane and Darlene looked at the red pills in Zane's hand in stunned silence. Clarissa was only marginally pleased that they didn't appear insulted.
“I was holding these for a friend,” she said ahead of their inevitable questions. “Just in case. But she doesn't need them anymore.”
Darlene lurched for Clarissa, overcome, and hugged her with the intensity of a long lost friend. Clarissa hugged her back, and Darlene started to cry.
Clarissa held her like that for a long time. She did her best to ignore the rancid smell that wafted from the shaking woman's body and pretended not to notice how skeletal her frame was. She wondered how long it had been since Darlene had shared human contact with someone other than Zane because this was not gratitude Clarissa experienced. The sobbing and the clutching and the clinging on for dear life, that was something else.
The hug meant something to Clarissa too. She thought she might hesitate when she gave Darlene and Zane the few doses of Valentina's Rage she had squirreled away before pitching the rest out Andrew's truck window, but it came easily. Part of her felt guilty and irresponsible as if giving them the drug not only enabled them but also condemned them to a future of dead-end misery. But they had started down that road long before Clarissa factored into the equation. By providing the pair with a small supply, she postponed them from having to do something desperate to obtain more. In a way, she was doing them a favor. At least, that's what she tried to tell her conscience.
For her, giving away the Road Rage also marked a transition. The Valentina she knew was gone. Even if things ever got back to normal, her lifelong friend had changed irrevocably, and not for the better. Clarissa needed to accept that, and this was the most effective way she could conceive of to do it.
She went outside to help Andrew, Cesare, and Jon lug in a small stash of goods. It would be enough to keep the struggling couple fed for the better part of two weeks. Everyone bid Zane and Darlene a subdued farewell, then Clarissa and her companions set their sights on what appeared to be the final stop of their months-long, cross-country expedition.