by J. Thorn
Mills noticed his discomfort. “Claustrophobic, Doctor?”
“Have you ever heard of ‘empathy’?”
“I’ve successfully avoided that weakness. It tends to make you worry a little too much about other people.”
“So all you care about is yourself,” Kracowski said.
“Wrong. You’re the one who’s in this for personal gain. I’m after something that’s bigger than all of us.”
A soft shuffling arose in the hall outside. McDonald opened the cell door and shined his light in a sweeping arc. “Who’s there?” he called in his authoritative voice.
No one answered. Kracowski stood behind McDonald and peered into the shadows. The hum of the machinery grew louder, and the glow from the main basement area pulsed like a heartbeat.
“That’s not supposed to happen,” Kracowski said. “The program is triggered by the computer in my office.”
“I know who it is,” Mills said, sitting on the corroded and moldy cot.
Kracowski grabbed at McDonald’s flashlight. The agent elbowed him away. The hum increased in intensity, like a jet engine warming for takeoff.
“Something’s wrong,” Kracowski said.
“She wants to play,” Mills said.
McDonald directed the beam onto Dr. Mills’s face. The man’s eyes were as large as Ping Pong balls, the irises glittering with a faraway and secret pleasure.
Then Mills broke into laughter, the kind that Kracowski had heard during his internship at Sycamore Shoals Hospital. On the upper floor, the terminal cases, those who had crossed over into a land beyond reason. A land where only a few were invited, and from which no one ever returned.
McDonald crossed the room and yanked at Mills’s shirt. “Tell me what’s going on, damn you.”
“It’s better than I ever dreamed,” Mills said.
Kracowski stepped into the hall and looked toward the row of circuit boards and the holding tanks. The boards lit up in random splashes of green, red, and yellow. The main dynamo whined like an animal caught in a steel trap. The air was warm and the smell of hot copper filled the basement.
“She’s the ghost in the machine,” Mills said. “Remember that old album by The Police? Spirits in the material world. Eee-yo-oh. Eee-yo-oh.”
McDonald grabbed Mills by the shirt and pulled him from the cell. The agent shoved Mills against a wall and pressed the flashlight under his chin. The strange angle of the light made Mills’s eyes look even more bulging and deranged.
“Tell me what’s going on,” McDonald shouted above the roar of the machines.
“She’s taken over,” Mills said. “Didn’t you read my paper on mechanical anomalies?”
Kracowski recalled some talk years ago of studies conducted at Princeton University, of how random number generators could be influenced by telepathy. Back then, he had ridiculed the notion along with the rest of the professional establishment. Such nonsense had been the realm of the Rhine Research Center and other New Age illusionists.
Now, the nonsense was real and crawling up his spine.
Kracowski felt a faint pull against him, and realized the intense magnetic field was tugging at the metal in his zipper, his belt buckle, the pen in his pocket, the eyelets of his shoes.
“She’s here,” Mills said.
Kracowski looked down the hall toward the black heart of the basement. Nothing stirred, though the shadows had an undulating, liquid quality. What had Freeman and the others seen in that darkness?
“Suffering,” Mills said. “I never knew it would taste so sweet. Freeman’s misery was a joy, but this . . .”
McDonald shoved Mills. The deranged doctor shook off the blow and smiled. “Ordinary pain. You can’t touch me with ordinary pain. I eat that kind of pain for breakfast.”
Kracowski stopped McDonald from delivering another blow, this one to Mills’s face. “It won’t do any good.”
McDonald looked toward the equipment, face wrinkled with worry. “We can’t replace this stuff if it melts down.”
Kracowski checked the meters on the closest amperage box. The needle flickered in the red zone, but the flux was erratic, not the way electricity behaved under normal circumstances.
“It’s the Miracle Woman,” Mills said.
McDonald looked at Kracowski. He shook his head. Mills was done, cooked. Whatever secret agency McDonald worked for, it had made a mistake by bringing the doctor out of the institution. Or maybe the mistake had been made years ago, when Mills first decided that the mind could be mapped and directed, and from there, believing that the spirit could be enslaved.
Kracowski felt a sudden rush of shame for his own foolish ambition. Even if God didn’t exist, there was a domain that was off limits to those who lived and breathed. And that domain had been invaded with all the carelessness and brute force exhibited by Attila’s hordes, Hitler’s tanks, and Stalin’s KGB.
McDonald pressed his face close to Mills’s. “Talk to me. Tell me what’s going on or your ass will be in a strait jacket so fast and so tight you’ll crap your pants before the Thorazine kicks in.”
“Don’t you know what this is all about?” Mills shouted. “I’m with her. I’m inside her. She’s dead and I’m reading her mind.”
His cackle ran through Kracowski’s ears and into his bones, where it settled with a chill as deep as the grave’s.
“Okay. Fine.” McDonald’s face was blank, as if he were used to Mills’s maniacal spells. “Let’s start with the Barnwell girl.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
“Dr. Kracowski asked me to get him,” Starlene said to Randy.
“I’m sorry, honey, I can’t let you do that,” Randy said. “I can’t release Freeman to anybody but the doctor himself.”
“You can’t keep him locked up all day.”
“He’s got some books. Besides, these brats keep themselves amused with their own little mind games.”
“Randy.” She looked into his eyes, but none of the former passion burned there. “Tell me what’s going on. Please.”
“You know more than I do. You’re the one who keeps having visions.”
“Don’t be like that.”
“Look, everything’s gotten too complicated. I shouldn’t have been interested in you in the first place.”
She pretended to be hurt, and bit her lower lip while gazing past him to the door of the Blue Room. One keyed lock and one operated by an electronic combination. Randy wore a ring of keys on his belt, but how could she trick him into revealing the pad’s combination?
“You know about Room Thirteen,” she said.
“You lived through it, didn’t you?” He looked down the hall toward Kracowski’s labs, which were around the corner.
“Did Dr. Kracowski make you have a treatment?” She touched her head as if suffering a migraine.
“That’s none of your business.”
“Dr. Kracowski’s hiding things from you. You can’t trust him. Did you know about the ESP?”
“Now you’re getting paranoid. Maybe you need to take a few days off.”
“In case you haven’t noticed, Wendover has turned into a concentration camp. Barbed wire and armed guards.”
“They’re not armed.”
“Not that you can see. But Kracowski does compare unfavorably closely with Josef Mengele, wouldn’t you say?”
“Kracowski never hurt anybody. He heals the kids. Improves them. I’ve seen it with my own eyes, many times. This work is important, and it doesn’t help that you’re sticking your nose into everything.”
“Sure, he healed me, all right. When I had the SST. Do you want to know what I saw?”
Randy swallowed hard. “I . . .”
“Or can you read my mind?”
“Wait a second. I said I never had a treatment.”
“I almost believe you. How many treatments does it take before you can read minds outside of Thirteen? Because I could only do it for a few minutes, then the effect faded. But I saw a whole hell of a
lot while the juice was running through me.”
“I don’t believe that stuff. Ghosts aren’t real. God would never allow such a thing.”
“Yet He allows people to read each others’ minds?”
Someone was coming down the hall, the footsteps of hard shoes echoing in the next wing. A door opened and the steps trailed off up the stairs.
Starlene lowered her voice. “I never believed in ESP and I only believed in one sort of life after death. I didn’t ask for any of this. All I wanted was to help the children.”
“You can help Freeman by leaving him alone. Dr. Kracowski knows what’s best. And this is bigger than any of us.”
“Are you sure you haven’t been through some brainwashing? Whatever Dr. Kracowski’s up to, I’d bet that turning you into a zombie would be child’s play. Maybe ESP can be manipulated to work like a one-way street, put thoughts in there but not let them out.”
Randy grabbed her arm. “I’m serving the Lord, too, the same as you. You spread His glory through love and understanding and I do it by helping our mission of improving the human soul.”
“You were hand-picked by Bondurant, no doubt. That’s his brand of salvation.”
“God made Jesus suffer.”
“Oh, so you think you’re God, too? Or is Kracowski the real God and you’re just one of the prophets?”
The small walkie-talkie on Randy’s hip hissed. He pulled it from his belt and turned away from Starlene. He spoke in low tones, then took several steps down the hall so she couldn’t overhear. Starlene took the opportunity to make a closer examination of the lock.
Randy put away the walkie-talkie and stuck his key in the Blue Room door. His hand flew over the electronic lock’s keypad, too quickly for Starlene to memorize the sequence. “You’d better go now,” he said.
“I want to help.”
“You can help by getting out of the way.”
The door swung open, Randy’s key still in the door. Freeman stood waiting. Behind him, the row of cots were neatly made. No one else was in the room.
“I’m ready,” Freeman said to Randy. He glanced at Starlene. “You’d better stay out of the way, like he said.”
“I only want to help,” she said.
“Yeah. Everybody’s always wanted to help. That’s the problem. I’ve been helped so much I’m sick and tired of it. I’m about helped to death. At least the people in the Trust are sincere about what they want.”
“The Trust?”
“Be quiet,” Randy said to Freeman.
“Oh? She doesn’t know? I thought you guys were soul mates.” Freeman gave a smile that was even more elusive and sardonic than usual.
“What’s he talking about, Randy?”
“I thought having a Psychology degree automatically made you a know-it-all,” Freeman said to her. “Certainly worked for my Dad. He has three of them so he knows more than everything.”
Freeman pointed to Randy’s walkie-talkie. “And that’s a great way to keep a secret. Except from people who can read minds.”
Randy stepped forward, mouth twisted in anger. Freeman scooted back into the room.
“Come here, you little smartass,” Randy said. Freeman winked at Starlene and ran between the rows of cots. Randy yelled and gave chase. Starlene waited until they were at the far end of the room, checked the hall in both directions, then went inside and pulled the door nearly shut. Freeman was cornered now, and Randy climbed over a cot, watching the boy’s eyes.
“Head him off that way,” Randy shouted to Starlene. She closed in to trap Freeman. Randy lunged at Freeman, who tried to dodge, but Randy was too fast and strong. He wrestled the boy face-down onto the cot. His walkie-talkie fell from his belt and bounced to the floor as they struggled.
“My back pocket,” Randy said to Starlene. “Restrain the little twerp.”
Starlene pulled the handcuffs from Randy’s pocket. Freeman kicked and squirmed, the pillow pressed against his face so that his screams were muffled. Randy put a knee on the boy’s back, then stuck one hand behind him, reaching for the cuffs.
“Here,” he said. “Hurry.”
Before Starlene could think, she snapped one of the cuffs on Randy’s wrist. He turned toward her in surprise and, as he hesitated, Starlene closed the other cuff around the cot’s metal frame.
“Damn you,” Randy said, swinging his free hand at her. The blow caught her across the cheek and she fell onto the concrete floor. Randy fumbled at his belt where he’d kept his keys. When he realized he’d left the keys in the door, his face contorted into a mask of rage.
Freeman rolled off the cot while Randy tried to free himself. Freeman wiped blood from his lips and helped Starlene to her feet. She rubbed her face. Her skin hadn’t split, but her pulse roared beneath her skin.
“I feel your pain,” Freeman said.
“So do I,” she said.
Randy jumped from the cot and clawed at them, tugging at the handcuff. The cot was bolted to the floor, though its frame rattled with his effort. “I’ll kill you both.”
“Great,” Freeman said. “I can’t wait to be a ghost so I come back and haunt your ass.”
Starlene took Freeman’s hand. “Let’s get out of here.”
“Where are we going?” he said.
“I thought you could read my mind.”
“Well, I figured you were trying to rescue me, but you don’t have any kind of plan, do you?”
They reached the door. The hallway was still empty. Starlene looked back at Randy, who’d stopped pulling at the handcuff. He was busy unhooking the springs of the cot. He’d have to work his way down, removing one spring at a time, but soon he’d reach the end and be able to slide the cuff through a gap in the folded corner of the cot.
“Damn,” she said. “Well, I guess our secret will be out soon.”
“One thing about this place,” Freeman said. “Secrets don’t stay secret very long.”
“So I’ve learned,” Starlene said. She slammed the door closed, yanked the key back and forth until it broke off in the lock, then stuck the key ring in her pocket. “Hope that locks the jerk in. What now?”
“We need Vicky,” Freeman said. “She’s smart and she knows her way around Wendover.”
“What about the other kids?”
Freeman looked at her with his piercing eyes. “You ought to know by now, you save the world a little at a time, not all at once. Even your old pal Jesus H. Christ figured that one out.”
Starlene let the sarcasm pass. “To the Green Room?”
“She’s not in the Green Room. She’s in Thirteen.”
“What’s she doing there?”
“Dying,” he said. “That’s what we’re all doing. Some of us faster than others.”
As they ran down the corridor, Starlene wondered if Freeman could read her mind enough to know how terrified she was.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
He should have known better.
If he had played the game and kept his thoughts to himself, this never would have happened. He should have stuck with the loner act, the Clint Eastwood bit, or the tough guy swimming against the current, like Pacino in “Serpico.” Sure, he was special and he could read minds and it was only a matter of time before the Trust broke him. But now he’d crossed the line, stepped up as yet another miserable Defender of the Weak and Protector of the Innocent.
Just what the world needed. Another freaking unsung hero.
Freeman ran beside Starlene, triptrapping outward to see if any of the Trust’s goons had been tipped off by Randy. But too many of them were shields. When it was working, his ESP was as reliable as radar or sonar, but he could never be sure about the thoughts floating around that he wasn’t intercepting. When he was on the up cycle, the gift was golden. And he was definitely up now, the hairs on his neck like antennae, his skin alive with the force radiating from the basement.
He’d read Starlene easily enough, but she’d just undergone a treatment and was susceptible. Soft
on the brain. Vicky was even softer because she’d been through several of the treatments. But the freaky thing was that the treatment did different things to some people, and to others nothing at all seemed to happen. Maybe it was a natural talent, a third eye or sixth sense or some other baloney. Maybe Freeman would have been able to do it anyway, even without the years of Dad’s experiments.
Either way, he wished that God would take the gift back, because it had been nothing but a pain in the ass from the very beginning. But God hid away up there in the sky where only people like Starlene could believe in Him. Because no matter how hard Freeman tried to read God’s mind, he drew a blank. God, if He even existed, probably had the thickest shield in the universe.
After all, if God could read everybody’s mind at the same time, He’d probably gone bonkers way back around the time of Adam and Eve.
And the thing about being in a manic phase, a thing that he’d only recently been able to catch himself at, was that his thoughts rambled on about stupid stuff like God and love and other people and being afraid he’d never go to sleep again and stupid, stupid, stupid worries even when he ought to be concentrating on more important things.
Like surviving.
Freeman squeezed Starlene’s hand as they slowed. She made an unnecessary hushing motion with her finger against her lips. Thirteen was around the next corner, and Kracowski’s lab two doors down from that. And if Vicky was undergoing an SST, then for sure the Trust would have a guard on hand. Freeman expected a walkie-talkie to crackle with Randyspeak at any moment.
“Is she in there?” Starlene mouthed silently at him.
He closed his eyes and concentrated. He’d heard Vicky clearly while he was locked in the Blue Room, triptrapped through the space between them as if they’d been talking via a cellular telephone at close range. But now, he picked up nothing. That could mean several things: she was shielded somehow, or she had slipped into unconsciousness and couldn’t transmit her thoughts.