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  “What’s this guy talking about?” Macy asked.

  “Quiet!” Allison snapped. Her eyes remained fixed on the screen.

  The film now showed a split screen showing two teenage boys, or the same teenage boy twice. “Meet Ross and Bob, they are one of very few sets of identical twins to have been involved in the project, and their contribution to comparative studies have been invaluable.”

  The film went into describing Ross and Bob. As the narrator calmly went about his business, explaining telepathic double blind testing with Zener cards, Allison began to get steadily more disturbed. The narration described statistical results the kids had with a human subject— more hits than chance— a mechanical device— no more hits than chance— and each other— close to five times better than chance. Allison listened, and heard nothing in the narrator’s voice that related to these twins as human beings.

  Ross and Bob weren’t names; they were labels for test subjects.

  It got worse.

  “Over the period of testing, both subjects became increasingly less cooperative. In some cases they both became violent and disruptive. It was decided that some means of psychiatric intervention was called for…”

  The passive voice of the narrator chilled her, a voice that denied responsibility for what was being shown. To Allison, what was happening to Ross and Bob wasn’t a psychological problem. They were being kept isolated at this Prometheus Institute for months, and they were climbing the walls. The film showed clips of them shouting at the lab assistants and doctors, breaking chairs. In one wrenching scene, Ross ripped his shirt off and began slamming himself into the wall of the testing room, crying. Allison could hear him say, “I just want to go home. Just want to go home.”

  I just want to go home too.

  “The decision was eventually made that the more violent of the two, Ross, would undergo a surgical remedy, and his brother would be given a tranquilizing regimen—”

  It wasn’t until the film showed Ross going into an operating theater, and the narrator began describing the procedure, that she realized that they were giving Ross a lobotomy.

  The film showed a surgeon take out an implement like a long, hooked knitting needle. She couldn’t turn away as the doctor inserted the wicked looking thing. Her eyes watered.

  Allison could only cry through the rest of the movie. She could barely hear the narrator say how Ross’ test scores on subsequent Zener tests— no longer any better than chance— showed how his telepathic ability had been localized somewhere in the frontal lobe of the brain.

  All Allison could really concentrate on was a teenage boy who seemed to have lost his entire personality. He had to be told to stand or to sit. He said practically nothing. The lab techs had to coax words out of him. His eyes didn’t follow the other people’s movement, but just stared forward, blinking occasionally.

  There was more to the film, almost fifteen minutes more; drug trials; the effects of depressants and hallucinogens; and the capping atrocity, a post mortem examination of both twin’s brains.

  Even if the narrator didn’t say so, Allison knew that even if one of the twins died naturally, to do the comparison they had to kill the other.

  When the film was over, and the film was flapping slowly to itself, all Allison could think of was that this was case history 867, over eight-hundred Rosses and Bobs. It had been over thirty years since. How many more case histories were there now?

  THIRTEEN

  EUCLID HEIGHTS, OH: Tuesday October 26, 1999

  4:35 PM

  “You have to go to the cops, girl.” Macy sat in the driver’s seat, as her sister’s car idled.

  Allison looked up at the gray stone facade of Euclid Heights City Hall. Her heart raced, and she tasted panic in her mouth. “Macy, these are federal agents. What if they can get to the cops?”

  “You don’t have a choice.” Macy shoved the ASI film canister across the seat at her. “These goons have taken over your house, and what they’re doing certainly ain’t legal.” She patted the film. “And you got this.”

  “What if they ask why they’re after me and Mom?”

  “Tell them the truth—”

  Allison shook her head. Tears were blurring her vision. “I don’t want another reason for reporters to be after me.”

  “I said tell them, not show them. You can tell them that these refugees from the X-Files are after you without showing them you’re a candidate for the show yourself.”

  Allison sighed. She really didn’t know what else to do. She hoped that Detective Teidleman was in. She opened the passenger door, taking the film canister. “Come with me, Macy?”

  Macy shut down the car and slipped out the driver’s side. There was a slight chill in the air, and the streets were empty of traffic for the moment. Macy looked almost as shaken as Allison felt, as if watching the movie had made Allison’s story more real to her.

  Allison knew it had for her.

  The people who had done the things on that film were capable of doing anything.

  The two of them crossed the sidewalk and walked up the stairs side-by-side. The doors to city hall gaped open ahead of them, beyond a dim corridor painted institution green. Macy’s running shoes squeaked on the floor when they walked inside.

  “Now where are the cops?” Macy asked.

  The two of them looked around until they found an old directory on one of the walls. A half-dozen white letters had fallen from the black felt, but it told them what floor held the Euclid Heights police. “Basement, figures.”

  Allison sucked in a breath and tried to build up her own resolve to go through with this. She knew that Macy was right. This was the sane course of action. The problem was, she was trapped in an insane situation.

  Just yesterday she had put someone in the hospital. She wondered how willing the cops, even Detective Teidleman, would be to help her against some government agency. Maybe they’d just as well hand her over and avoid the problem.

  Don’t think like that. It’s paranoid.

  Macy led her down the corridor and down a set of stairs to a glass-fronted lobby that faced the parking-lot behind city hall. Outside, ranks of patrol cars faced the entrance, closing in what would otherwise be a wide-open lobby.

  The two of them walked up to a desk where one officer sat, jotting something down on a clipboard. The man looked up— Allison was struck by how young he looked— and asked, “Can I help you with something?”

  Macy shoved her forward and Allison caught herself up against the desk. “Y-yes. I’d like to speak to Detective Teidleman, please?”

  “I can see if he’s available. What is this about?”

  “I-I— Just tell him it’s Allison Boyle.”

  There was a look of recognition in the policeman’s eyes, and it made her feel small and dirty. She tried to tell herself that it was nothing, that every cop in Euclid Heights must have heard the details of what happened to her by now. But she still felt violated by the cop’s look.

  At least that probably meant that she’d get to talk to Detective Teidleman.

  “Wait over there,” The man pointed over to a hard-looking bench that sat under a bulletin board plastered with pictures of missing children.

  She walked over and sat. Macy stood and rubbed Allison’s shoulder. “It’ll be all right, girl.”

  “Uh-huh.” Allison couldn’t help but think of those men in her house, closing on the garage. It was some perverse dream, and she half expected, if she got help from the police, all signs of what had happened would be gone from the house.

  The officer picked up a phone and talked to someone. During the brief whispered exchange, all Allison could hear was her own name a few times, and once her mother’s name. The officer nodded a few times, set the phone on the desk and stepped around, and opened a door that led into the police station.

  “Miss Boyle, would you come here?” The way he said it frightened Allison. She wanted to run away. But she thought of Mom, and how she would be letting h
er down if she panicked. Macy was right; this was the only sane, rational thing to do.

  Allison stood up and walked through the door. When Macy tried to follow her, the cop blocked her path. “I’m sorry, but you’re not allowed back here.”

  “Say what? Now listen here—”

  Allison grabbed Macy’s arm. “I’ll be all right.”

  “I said I was going to see you through—”

  “Wait by the car, I’ll be out soon.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Macy, it’s all right.”

  Macy backed away, looking displeased. The cop took the opportunity to steer Allison into the police station. He took her past a number of desks. Before she had any opportunity to look around for Detective Teidleman, she was ushered into a small room furnished only with a table and a trio of chairs.

  “Have a seat. Someone will be with you in a moment.”

  “Wait, I want to see Detective Teidl—” The door closed on her before she got the sentence out.

  “What?” She grabbed the doorknob and tried to open the door. The doorknob wouldn’t move. The cop had locked her in here. “Hey!”

  She felt an involuntary impulse. Her mind filtered through the mechanics of the lock in front of her. It felt like spun-sugar clockwork that one push would twist and shatter. She reigned in the impulse to push out with everything she could. These were the police. They were supposed to help.

  Breaking open a door also wouldn’t make the best impression.

  She turned around and looked at the room. A trio of windows, made of many rectangular panes of chicken-wire glass, faced the door across the table, letting in the afternoon light. An ashtray sat on the table and it gave the room the smell of stale cigarettes. The walls had been painted a dingy institution green. Up in one corner a small video camera stared at her.

  When she saw the camera, she slowly let go of the doorknob and did as the officer had told her. She took the chair at the end of the table so she could keep an eye on the door, the windows, and the camera.

  She could tell just by looking that the windows weren’t made to open.

  When she sat, she tried to adjust the chair and discovered that the chairs, and the table, were bolted to the floor. She started to feel less and less like this had been a good idea.

  They kept her waiting, which made Allison notice that they didn’t have a clock on the wall. This had to be the place where they interviewed suspects. Why put her here? They weren’t planning to arrest her. Were they?

  The door opened and Allison was disappointed to see that it wasn’t Detective Teidleman. Instead, it was the black woman who had accompanied him on her front porch.

  The woman extended her hand, “Hello, Allison. My name’s Jean Harrison. I want to help you.”

  Allison didn’t take Jean’s hand. She didn’t like the way she talked. She sounded like a teacher who only knew your name because it was on the attendance sheet. “Why am I locked in here? Am I suspected of something?”

  Jean sat down. “No, no. But because of the situation, the police believe you may be a material witness. Now I’m not a police officer, I work for the county. I’m here because you’re a minor.”

  Allison almost laughed. “Material witness? I was there with Chuck. Of course I’m a material witness.”

  “Why did you come here, Allison?”

  Allison sucked in a breath. They knew. The police knew what had happened at her house. She didn’t know whether to scared or reassured. “It’s Mom,” Allison began, and she felt her voice catch.

  Jean tried to sound reassuring. “I know, Allison. It’s all right now. Do you know where she is?”

  Something in the way she spoke raised Allison’s suspicions. Allison sucked in a breath and said, “No, all I know is she was supposed to come home, and these men are at my house.”

  Jean took Allison’s hand and said. “I know this whole situation is frightening, but it isn’t your fault.”

  Allison grabbed her hand away and asked, “What isn’t my fault? There are strangers breaking into my house!”

  The look of sympathy on Jean’s face was almost too much to bear. Allison stood up. “What’s going on?”

  “Those men were FBI agents.” Jean said. “They were there looking for your mother.”

  Allison’s mouth hung open. She tried to say something, but the words wouldn’t come. She’d suddenly returned to the same surreal nightmare she had escaped in the garage. She slowly sank into her chair, feeling the pulse throb in her temples.

  Eventually, she whispered, “What are you talking about?”

  “Your mother’s a fugitive, Allison. She has been since the early seventies. She sabotaged a chemical plant in 1972—”

  “This is some bizarre mistake—”

  “The plant made napalm. I'm sure she thought she was fighting the war. But two security guards died in the explosion.”

  “No. You’re wrong…” Even so, there was a seed of doubt there; planted by the pictures she’d seen in her mother’s album. It was almost believable.

  It was a lie. It had to be.

  “Allison, it’s true. Your mother disappeared from her office with a substantial amount of her company’s escrow accounts in her possession. There were airline tickets and packed bags in her house.”

  “You don’t understand.” That isn’t what this is about. Allison almost showed her what it was about. She almost lifted the ashtray off the table just to show that this wasn’t about something her mom did decades ago.

  She didn’t.

  She didn’t trust Jean.

  “I know this hurts, but you have to be strong. Now there are some agents here who want to talk to you.”

  The panic must have shown in her face because Jean tried to reassure her. “Don’t worry. I’ll be here the whole time.”

  Allison nodded. She had to get out of here.

  “I need something to drink,” she whispered, trying to sound as weak and defeated as possible.

  “Sure,” Jean nodded. “I can go down and get you a Coke if you want.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Then we’ll have that talk?”

  “Sure…”

  It seemed an agonizingly long time before Jean got up and left her alone. The moment the door shut, Allison’s mind began racing. Literally, it felt like. It was as if the essence of her mind swept through the walls and doors around her while she tried to appear meek and motionless to the camera.

  The only escape route was the window, and she felt the malleable clay of her mind envelop a quartet of panes nearest her. She tried to solidify that mental clay around the wooden lattice that held the panes in place. She didn’t have time to experiment with methodology, as soon as she felt firm in her grip on the cross-shaped lattice, she began pushing.

  It felt as if she was slamming her head into the window. The wood seemed to groan in time to her pulse. Then, suddenly, the resistance was gone with a sound like a rifle-shot— the sudden shock making her lose contact with her teeking senses. She turned around, opening eyes she didn’t realize she’d screwed shut, and saw a new, gaping hole in the unopenable window.

  The camera was a moot point now; all she could do was run.

  As she dove out the window, onto the asphalt of the parking lot, she could almost imagine she heard Agent Jackson’s voice cursing from beyond the closed door of the room.

  She rounded city hall, convinced every cop in the city was after her. She thanked God that Macy was still parked in front, waiting.

  Allison yanked open the passenger door and before Macy could finish saying, “What, girl?” Allison yelled, “Drive!”

  Macy peeled away before the door shut.

  7:00 PM

  “I don’t believe you ran from the cops, girl.”

  “I know,” Allison sat, legs folded, forehead resting in her hands. After city hall, the two of them had gone to Macy’s house and had taken over the basement.

  “I just hope that the cops don’t trace the plates
on my sister’s car. I’ll never be able to borrow a ride again.”

  Allison just nodded, still too much in shock to say much of anything.

  The room around them wasn’t like the box-filled netherworld under Allison’s house. It was a furnished rec room with wood paneling, a pool table, a bar, and, in one corner, a Commodore 64 computer that had been left behind by the march of progress.

  It did share a characteristic with Allison’s basement. Most of Macy’s rec room had been taken over by storage. The pool table was buried under boxes of clothes. Behind the bar were stacks of magazines, predominantly National Geographic. Even the computer table was swamped by electronic debris, including an old Atari game system, maybe even Pong.

  Allison’s head felt just as cluttered.

  Macy sat on a folding chair she’d retrieved from under the pool table while Allison sat on a bar-stool that’d been cleared of 1982’s run of National Geographic. Macy hefted a cue ball.

  “How come now?” Macy asked.

  Allison shook her head and sighed. “Fred and Barney must have known what I did to Chuck before I did.”

  “Weren’t using your name on the news last I checked.”

  “Can’t be too hard to find out.”

  “You know what it sounds like? Sounds like these guys were watching you already.”

  Allison hugged herself. “That’s really paranoid.” But wasn’t that just what Mom had been worried about? Maybe she knew about these guys.

  No “maybe” about it.

  Mom had that film, so she knew what these people were about, and knew what they were capable of. On one point Jean Harrison had been right. Mom had been a fugitive for a long time. Just not because of some stupid Vietnam demonstration, and not from the FBI.

  Macy echoed Allison’s thoughts. “From what you’re telling me, your Mom was about to split town with you, and it sounds like she knew a lot more about this psychic network than you did.”