Placebo

by Steven James

  A string of facts, of connections, only he was aware of.

  As long as the twins did their job.

  Adaptation.

  Survival.

  Adding twenty healthy years to the average life span of Homo sapiens.

  Twenty years or more.

  And he would be at the forefront, leading his species’ foray into a bold and uncharted future.

  Dr. Tanbyrn arrives, greets Charlene and me, as well as the man who was waiting for him when we came in. “May I help you?” Dr. Tanbyrn asks him.

  He stands, shakes Tanbyrn’s hand. “Dr. John Draw. I contacted the center and they told me I’d be able to meet with you at three. I’m doing some research in superstring theory and its connection to the emerging research in M-theory. I’ve been a fan of your work for a long time. I was in the Northwest and hoped that perhaps we could sit down and chat for a few minutes.”

  A question mark crosses the doctor’s face. “With whom did you speak? To set up the appointment?”

  “Honestly, my office manager made the arrangements. I can come back another time—if that’s better?”

  “No, no.” Dr. Tanbyrn taps the screen of his tablet computer, checks the time. “I’ll be glad to meet with you. Can you give us half an hour?”

  “That would be perfect.”

  Then Tanbyrn addresses me and Charlene and gestures toward his office door. “Let’s take a look at these results.”

  Yes, Glenn had been somewhat arrogant, talking so freely in front of them, trusting implicitly that they would not recognize his voice. But it was just another part of the thrill he was tapping into.

  He waited until the three of them entered the office before limping to the far end of the hallway to take care of the exit door.

  Entombed

  Dr. Tanbyrn’s office is a small, paneled cubicle. Overstuffed bookshelves line the walls, and a computer monitor that must be at least ten years old sits on his desk next to a dusty ink-jet printer, all a stark contrast to the cutting-edge technology of the research room.

  The office isn’t as small as the Faraday cage, but it’s certainly not one I would want to spend much time in. Windowless, cramped, dominated mostly by the behemoth gray industrial desk. A calendar and a variety of papers with dozens of scribbled equations lie pressed beneath the thick sheet of glass covering the desk.

  An overwhelmed inbox sits beside the computer.

  Tanbyrn ambles around the desk to have a seat in the chair on the other side. “Forgive the clutter. I’m afraid my cleaning lady is off this week.” I’m not sure if he meant that as a joke or not, but I smile. Two folding chairs are propped against the bookcase, and I set them out for Charlene and myself.

  Despite the fact that I want to talk to the doctor, the tiny office distracts me, reminds me of a time when I performed a show in Rome three years ago. A Vatican official who’d attended the performance and had been impressed by my escapes took me and Charlene on a tour—albeit an abbreviated one—of the tunnels and crypts that lie beneath the Vatican.

  The guide told us that in medieval times, some monks would use bricks and mortar to seal themselves into small alcoves, leaving out only one brick—just a small opening through which the other monks would deliver food and water, and out of which the entombed monk would pass his waste.

  For years that cell would serve as the monk’s home as he prayed and reflected on God in solitude—until he died, and the other monks would slide the final brick into place, making the cell their brother monk’s tomb.

  Our tour guide praised the monks for their “sacrifice of holiness,” but I wondered how anyone who purposely cut himself off from the opportunity of ever serving someone else could be considered holy. Charlene, calling on her university classes in religion, had asked our guide how the actions of these monks squared with Basil’s words in his Rule, the guidebook for monks since the fourth century: “Whose feet therefore will you wash if you live alone?” Our guide had simply told us somewhat cryptically that there were different kinds of service and different levels of sacrifice.

  It’d struck me then, and in the doctor’s office now, it strikes me again that in medieval times the holiest men chose to live in solitary confinement, but today we consider that to be one of the worst punishments imaginable and reserve it for only the most heinous of our criminals. We sentence our greatest sinners to the life the Church’s saints used to freely choose.

  Dr. Tanbyrn spreads a sheaf of papers across his already cluttered desk and looks up at us. “Let’s just be honest with each other, now. You’re not here for the program, are you?”

  I feel a stone sink into my gut. “Excuse me?”

  His gaze shifts from me to Charlene, then back to me. “Kindly tell me what you’re really here at the center for.”

  Glenn finished chaining the far exit door shut.

  Strode toward the door to the stairwell to take care of that as well.

  I stare at Tanbyrn, taken aback, unsure how to respond.

  Option one: try to keep up the charade that Charlene and I are lovers and simply entered this project to be a part of the study in the emerging field of consciousness research and the entanglement of love.

  Option two: be honest with him, lay my cards on the table, and see where that might lead.

  Obviously he knows you’re here under false pretenses. He knows or he wouldn’t have said anything.

  I wonder if it’s possible that the test results he ran have something to do with his conclusion about why we’re here. Could they have given something away? As extraordinary as that seems, it’s possible.

  Tell him the truth.

  Get some answers.

  “Truthfully, Dr. Tanbyrn, you’re right. When we applied for the program, we did have a different agenda in mind than simply participating in your research.”

  Charlene gives me a look of surprise.

  “And that was?”

  “Debunking it.”

  A pause. “I see.”

  “But how did you know? How did you—”

  “Philip told me about the blood he cleaned up from the floor. When I accidentally grabbed Jennie’s arm—is that even your real name? Jennie Reynolds?”

  “Charlene Antioch,” she tells him.

  “And I’m Jevin Banks,” I add.

  “I see.” He takes a long breath. Intertwines his fingers. “Yes, well, after I grabbed your arm, Charlene—and I am quite sorry about that—I noted the amount of bleeding, and since no one had checked in with our staff nurse last night or this morning, it got me to thinking. I looked up the address you provided on your application forms and found that it doesn’t exist. It did not require a great deal of deduction to conclude that you were likely the one in the Faraday cage last night, the one bleeding on the floor.”

  This is it. This is where he asks us to leave, tells us that we shouldn’t be here. I’m about to speak, to try to finesse whatever information I can from him, but he leans forward. “However, two questions remain: why were you bleeding on the way out of the building and not on the way in, and who left the blood going in the other direction?”

  “We weren’t the only ones here,” Charlene tells him. “A man attacked us with a knife; Jevin was able to wound him before he left.”

  The doctor looks more than a little concerned. “Attacked you with a knife?”

  She nods.

  I cut in, “We think he was trying to find something on the computer in the room with the Faraday cage. Is there anything in your files or on that particular computer that’s sensitive? Something an intruder might be interested in?” I think back to last night, add one more question. “Perhaps someone from a pharmaceutical company?”

  “RixoTray?”

  “Or a competitor. Yes.”

  Tanbyrn is quiet.

  Charlene gestures toward her injured arm. “The man might have hurt me much worse if my arm hadn’t been in the way when he swiped that blade at my abdomen. Thankfully, Jevin knew what he was doing and
stopped him. The man threatened to kill us both if we didn’t tell him who’d sent us.”

  “And who did send you?”

  “EFN,” I tell him. “Entertainment Film Network.”

  “Entertainment Film Network.”

  “I have a television show.”

  “Oh. I see.”

  Guessing that the information Fionna found out for us earlier is the key here, I go on quickly: “The computer files the man in the room last night was looking for, I think they have something to do with the military, a suicide bombing attempt earlier this week in Kabul.”

  He stares at me. “Who did you say you are again?”

  I decide to go with the truth and launch into telling him everything he needs to know.

  Interruption

  Glenn chained the stairwell door shut, snapped the lock closed.

  Walked to the elevator.

  Disabling one is remarkably easy.

  You simply insert something into the base while the doors are open in order to keep them from closing. As long as they don’t close, the elevator won’t leave that floor.

  Glenn reached into his pack and pulled out a hammer, pressed the up button, and waited for the doors to open.

  When they did, he jammed the handle of the hammer into the opening between the floor and the shaft, then pounded it down with his heel, making sure it was so tightly forced in that it wouldn’t come out without something like a crowbar to pry it loose.

  He took care of the remaining stairwell but left the exterior exit door closest to the doctor’s office alone for the time being so that after he’d started the fire he would have a way out of the building.

  The other rooms on this level were small meeting rooms. No other offices. No other people.

  The floor was sealed off.

  Glenn returned to the reception area, removed the magazines from the end table, then carefully and quietly tilted it beneath the doorknob to the doctor’s office. He wedged it securely in place so that there would be no opening that door from the inside.

  When you’re lighting a fire in a building that you’re trying to bring down, you need to direct the flames to where they’ll spread the quickest. Typically, that means starting the fire on the building’s lowest level in a corner where there’s plenty of combustible material, where the walls and ceiling reflect both the heat and the movement of the combustible gases even while channeling the flames upward.

  Which was precisely what he was about to do.

  There were six chairs in the lobby outside the doctor’s office. The plastic coating along with the latex foam and the gasoline would form a fast-growing fire with plenty of smoke. By using two piles of chairs, Glenn was confident the reception area would be fully involved within minutes.

  He began to stack the chairs, making sure that one pile was directly beneath the vent that fed air into the doctor’s office.

  The more I tell Dr. Tanbyrn about my history of researching psychic claims, the less pleased he looks that Charlene and I are here. I finish by admitting that our test results matched the ones he’d been finding, the ones he’d published in the literature. “I’m no longer trying to debunk anything you’re doing. I’m just trying to get to the bottom of what’s going on here.”

  As he evaluates what I’ve said, he slowly and gently rubs two fingers together.

  Charlene leans forward. “Dr. Tanbyrn, do you have any idea who that man last night might have been?”

  He takes a small breath. “Your life was in danger last night, Miss Antioch, Mr. Banks—both of you. That troubles me deeply. I think there are a few things you should know.” He nods toward Charlene, then gestures toward a manila folder on the bookshelf near her. “My dear, do you mind getting that folder?”

  She rises.

  Retrieves the folder.

  Dr. Tanbyrn lays it out on the desk in front of him and begins flipping through it, carefully scrutinizing each page of equations as he does.

  Glenn finished with the chairs and was reaching into his bag to get out one of the two-liter bottles of gasoline he’d brought with him when the nearest exit door opened and a slim black lady wearing a gaudy African dress walked in.

  She looked at him, then at the stacks of chairs. “What are you doing?”

  He set down the bag. Folded it shut. “Oh, I’m sorry, didn’t they tell you?”

  “Tell me what?”

  “We’re cleaning the floors.”

  She lowered her head slightly, one eyebrow raised. “Cleaning the floors?”

  “I’m from the agency.” Glenn smiled innocently.

  “What agency?”

  He smiled. “Here, let me show you my ID.” As he approached her, he made like he was reaching for his wallet, but instead, with his side turned to hide his hand, he was sliding it along the back of his belt toward his knife’s sheath.

  Her gaze went past him to the end table he’d propped against the door to trap the doctor and his two visitors in the office.

  “Why is that table leaning against the door?” Caution bordering on suspicion. She took a small step backward toward the exit.

  He found the sheath, snapped it open. “I just needed to slide it out of the way.”

  She was about ten feet away, but he knew he could be quick when he needed to be, even with his wounded leg.

  The woman leaned to the side and called, “Doctor Tan—” but that was as far as she got. It was all she could say, all she would ever say, because then he was on her. He clamped one hand over her mouth and whipped out his knife with the other. She tried to call for help and was certainly a squirmy one, but he managed to hold on to her long enough to tuck the blade up into her tight little belly.

  Even though he still had his hand over her mouth, he could hear her gasp.

  “Shh, now. Don’t fight it.”

  She was still trying to pull free, but the strength was beginning to seep out of her, allowing him to firm up his grip.

  He slid the blade out, raised it to her throat. Drew it to the side in one swift, firm motion and let go of her body.

  She fell clumsily to the floor. The only sounds she made now were the wet, sputtering ones from the base of her throat, and she didn’t make those for long. Her body twitched a little before lying still at last, a dark gaping wound across her neck, a spreading stain of blood across her belly.

  Quiet now.

  No more trouble.

  That’s a good girl.

  Glenn wiped off the blade on his jeans.

  Alright.

  It was time to finish this up.

  He dragged her toward the chairs.

  Pulled out the gasoline bottles.

  And set to work.

  “There it is.” Dr. Tanbyrn points to a page, spins the papers around so we can see what he’s pointing at. “Project Alpha. I work with two men. They fly in, do some tests, fly out. I don’t even know their real names. We call them ‘L’ and ‘N.’ It’s funded through the Department of Defense.”

  The Pentagon. Yes. The same thing Fionna had uncovered about the research at RixoTray.

  The page is covered with detailed algebraic and scientific equations that I have no idea how to decipher. “What kind of tests?”

  Dr. Tanbyrn has been surprisingly open with us, but now seems to second-guess himself. “I’m not sure how much more I should . . .” His eyes come to rest on Charlene’s arm and he hesitates.

  The chapters I’ve read of his books flash through my mind: quantum entanglement, nonlocal communication, the interconnection of life on the subatomic level, relationships—

  That’s it. That has to be it.

  “They’re twins, aren’t they? ‘L’ and ‘N’?”

  He looks at me long and hard. “Yes, Mr. Banks. They are twins. Quite special twins indeed.”

  Glenn soaked the chairs with gasoline, then splashed some on the dead woman, just because he thought it might be interesting to watch that dress stick to her skin, and then take her with it as it went up in flame
s.

  “How are they special?” I ask him.

  For a moment I think I smell gasoline.

  Gasoline? But that’s—

  “Well, you see—” Dr. Tanbyrn begins.

  Charlene grabs my arm to stop me. “That’s gas, Jevin.”

  “Yes.”

  I stand. Start for the door.

  Glenn backed up.

  Lit a match.

  Tossed it onto the stack of chairs beneath the air vent and watched the flames lick up the fabric. They were hungry and immediately fell in love with the wood.

  No, this fire would not take long at all to devour the building.

  I smell smoke and tell myself it’s from outside the building, just like when I smelled wood smoke last night when Charlene and I first entered our cabin.

  But I know that’s not the case.

  I try the doorknob. It turns, but the door won’t open.

  Oh, not good.

  Not good at all.

  “What’s going on?” Dr. Tanbyrn asks.

  “Grab your things. We’re getting out of here.”

  Glenn lit the other stack of chairs.

  Lit the dead black woman.

  Then he splashed the rest of the gasoline on the floor as he backed toward the exit door.

  I slam my shoulder against the door, but it stays firmly in place. Smoke is beginning to curl beneath the door and billow down through the vent above my head. It’s acrid and black and it’s coming in fast.

  “It’s the project.” Dr. Tanbyrn coughs. “‘L’ and ‘N.’”

  “What’s it about?” Charlene urges him. “What makes the twins so special?”

  I go at the door again, harder, hoping to jar loose whatever is jammed up against it.

  Glenn lit the pool of gasoline on the floor. Stepped out the exit door. Pulled out his remaining chain, lock, and key, threaded the chain through the door handle, wound it through the metal post of the fence beside the walkway, and snapped the lock shut.