And there came that taste of Charlie. A shuffling of pages, a fanning of faded photographs. Hector joining the Army to pay for his college so Charlie wouldn’t be put in the position of being financially responsible for his younger brother. Because of that, Charlie had been able to work his own way through school along with quite a few scholarships and grants. MIT wasn’t cheap even with those things. What Hector had done had made it possible for Charlie, made it possible for them both.
Grumbling silently at myself, I felt the dark-edged emotions lighten some. I fought it, but you can’t escape knowledge, not really, even when it’s not your own. Ripping the foil off the yogurt, I said almost under my breath, “Maybe you’ll get a plaque in the mail.”
He blinked, confused at a comment that was far less razor-edged than what he expected. “Maybe. So … how are you doing?”
I took a few spoonfuls of the yogurt and gave it a moment. When my stomach accepted it without incident, I moved on to the oatmeal. “Didn’t you ask the doc?” I asked with a knowing quirk of my eyebrow. Of course, he had. He might have all the regrets in the world, but he still needed me for some reason. There wasn’t anything about my health that he wasn’t going to know.
“Yes, I did,” he responded, leaning back in the
chair and washing a hand over his tired face. He kept his eyes on me, though, somber. Sincere. “But now I’m asking you, and I don’t just mean physically.”
Ah. Talking about your innermost crap. First Eden, now Hector. Like the few times Abby showed up with the chick-flick movies and forced me and Houdini to suffer through the talk, talk, talk that fixed everyone’s problems, enriched their lives, and closed the hole in the ozone layer, all while she snuffled with her own box of Kleenex. What fun. Yeah, right … maybe later.
“Charlie was your brother, Hector, not mine. He was my roommate for a while and a nice kid, but that was a lifetime ago. A memory.” The banana was a little soft, but I ate it anyway. Concentrating on it was easier than concentrating on other things.
“A memory,” he repeated, then dropped the hammer. “Fine, I’ll accept that’s what he was before, but what is he now?”
Christ. He had to go there, didn’t he? He couldn’t let me enjoy the goddamn banana, he had to push it. I pushed the table and tray away, swung my legs over the side of the bed, and stood. “Where’s the bathroom?”
Eyes narrowed on me. “You’re stalling.”
“I’ve been in this bed almost twenty-four hours, and you think I’m stalling?” I folded my arms. “Hey, if it’s proof you want, pick a spot. I’m up for a challenge. I think I’ve got enough to spell my name
and
yours.”
He snorted. “I stand corrected. It’s down about fifteen feet and on your right.”
He was right, of course. I was stalling, but that didn’t make the need any less pressing. By the time I came back, I was feeling slightly more relaxed. The fact that I’d actually been able to walk there and back without anyone holding my hand or standing guard helped more than I would’ve guessed. Naturally, there would be someone outside the infirmary door to make sure I didn’t make a break for it, but I still wasn’t going to take that tiny bit of freedom for granted.
By the time I sat on the edge of the bed and folded my arms, I was more than ready to work toward having all my freedom back. “Okay, Hector. Let’s get down to business. I know what Charlie was doing. I know about the experiment, and I know that he died during it.”
Died
being the cleanest, safest word for what had happened. “Now for what I don’t know. What do you need me for?”
“You saw it all, then? You saw the experiment … you know what he was trying to do? You understand it?”
I shifted my shoulders. “Eh. Think of it like reading the blurb on the back of a book. I get the general outline. I know what Charlie was trying to do, but I don’t really understand anything. I don’t get the how, and I definitely don’t get the why. I’m not really up on my quantum physics and whatnot.” I shook my head and said dryly, “Astral projection.
What will you wacky scientists come up with next?” Because basically, that had been Charlie’s goal, the project’s goal: the dissociation of awareness from human form. Charlie had wanted to be able to come and go from his body like it was a summer-house at the beach. Wacky wasn’t quite the word.
“The military uses for it would be immense, I’m sure you’re aware.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out the bracelet that had taken me down so swiftly. I gave it an uneasy look as he turned it over in his hands. “But to Charlie, it was simply the pure love of doing what was thought to be impossible. To be able to travel instantly or nearly so. To perhaps see things no one had seen before. To be spirit outside of flesh.”
Good old Charlie, smart as hell but obviously crazy as a bedbug. “Yeah, okay, whatever … but it didn’t work out for him, did it?” I pointed out.
“No.” He studied the bracelet, then put it away. “There were successes of a sort, with computer models and animal experimentation.”
I didn’t ask them how they knew if Rover was taking a walk on the astral side or not. I already knew … almost. I saw it through Charlie’s eyes. Something about brain waves and measuring the ambient energy patterns in the air. I didn’t actually understand it or have anywhere close to a complete cataloguing of the information. It was more like hearing the occasional phrase, in Charlie’s voice, drift through my head. Bits and pieces that made up
an elaborate painting. I might not see or understand every stroke of the masterpiece, but I could see the picture.
“So it worked fine with Rover but not for Charlie. Anyone know why?” I met his eyes squarely. I knew why, but Hector didn’t … I hoped. Even if I knew for sure, spreading that knowledge couldn’t help my situation. It could only hurt it. What would a murderer do if he thought a psychic knew the motive for his murder and was only a mandatory project-personnel reading away from figuring out his identity? Nothing good.
“No.” He cleared a suddenly constricted throat. “There were no malfunctions found. No energy spikes. No reason for Charlie to die. We didn’t even know it was … painful until you told us. We thought his heart simply stopped while he was in a state very similar to a deep sleep.”
It wasn’t a moment I wanted to relive even in passing, and I went on quickly. “We still haven’t gotten around to why I’m here. What the hell do you possibly think I can do for your project?”
“We need you to find Charles.”
I turned my head to see my best pal Dr. Thackery standing by the curtain. He looked marginally more rested than Hector but not by much. He’d had a late night, too, apparently, but I would’ve been willing to bet the long-gone homestead that it wasn’t spent worrying about me.
“
What?
” I asked in disbelief.
“We want you to find Charles,” he repeated, “by reading him.”
All right, what was this? What the hell was this? “You want me to find what? His
ghost
?” I asked derisively. “I can’t read a ghost. Mainly because I don’t
believe
in ghosts.”
He stepped further into the room, face as bland as my morning oatmeal. “Charles isn’t a ghost … precisely. How shall I put this so you might grasp it?” he pondered in a tone so supercilious that I wanted to beat him on the head with my oatmeal bowl. “Charles is no longer living, true, but he’s not dead. Well, not
entirely
dead.” A long finger tapped his chin as he finished absently. “Not yet.”
Hector’s jaw muscles bunched at the casual dismissal of his brother’s life, but he said nothing.
All right, this was about as weird as it got, and coming from a homegrown Georgia psychic, that was saying something. “Hector,” I demanded, “what is this bullshit this guy is flinging? What’s he saying about Charlie?” I might not completely trust Allgood, but I damn sure trusted him more than Thackery. If I’d died on that cold bastard’s immaculate lab floor, his first thought would’ve been for the project, his second for calling the janitor to clean up my remains. Hector was far from perfect, but he was worlds away a better man than that. And right now, except for Eden’s sympathy and duty, he was the only one remotely on my side.
“He’s right,” he said thickly. “Charlie’s not gone.
Not completely. His body died, but not before the experiment succeeded. Apparently, he was passing into a state of astral projection just as his heart stopped. Meleah couldn’t … we couldn’t revive him. There was nothing for him to return to.”
“And he’s just floating out there?” This was nuts. Flat-out nuts.
“We’re not sure what he’s doing or even how aware he is, but he’s there.” Hector stood, stripped off his lab coat, and hung it over the back of his chair. “The machine activated. It flooded Charlie’s body with alpha-wave ions to trigger an OOB. It worked just as it had once before. He’d made it once before.”
OOB being an out-of-body experience. But this particular time, unlike the first, he hadn’t made it back.
“How do you know he actually made it the first time?” I asked skeptically.
“It’s possible to read a very unique energy signal after the OOB is initiated. Plus, we wrote a word on a piece of paper on a desk five offices down when Charlie was already in the machine. When Charlie came back, he knew the word. He’d traveled down there and read it. Only five rooms, but we thought we’d start small.”
I could see movement in his lab-coat pocket. He was running a thumb over the bracelet.
“The second time we read the same signal as Charlie went out, but when he died, it dissipated.
We thought he was gone, but …” Hector paused. “It turned out we were wrong. Unfortunately, it was weeks before we realized this, and during that time … people died.”
People were dying. That was the justification he’d used for the blackmail. People were dying. Now I was apparently about to find out why.
“What does one have to do with the other?” I asked with wariness. I had the sudden feeling that maybe I didn’t really want to know the connection. Considering the blackmail, my seizure on a cold lab floor, and Charlie’s murder, I couldn’t see any way the information could be classified as good, hopeful, or even remotely entertaining.
“People died,” I echoed. “Why?”
“There is no why,” he countered immediately. “Charlie wouldn’t be part of what was happening if he could stop it. He wouldn’t be able to stand it if he knew what he’d caused. Charlie …” His throat worked. “Charlie was a good man.”
At that, Thackery obviously made the decision that if the story was going to be told, he’d have to tell it. “Charles is trying to get back, but he has no place to return to. His body is no longer viable. But more than not having a destination, he also has no road, no pathway. There is no door, which was his body, for him to enter our layer of time and space, so he’s trying to
make
one. And that … that is not working out well for anyone.” He pursed his lips. “To say the least. We’re up to seven dead now. I
hesitate to guess where the body count might eventually top out. It doesn’t bode well for the experiment or our careers.”
“Yes, our
careers
should always be foremost in our minds,” Hector said acidly. “You son of a bitch.”
“If the government pulls our plug along with our futures, Dr. Allgood, then there will be no way to stop, or help, Charles. Is that what you want?”
“No,” Hector shot back harshly. “That’s not what I want, Thackery. So just shut the hell up and get on with it.”
Dissension in the ranks. Ordinarily, I might have exploited it. But now, with all I knew and Charlie’s memories, memories of a better man than I was, lurking in the back of my mind, I couldn’t force myself to do it.
“Wait, just
how
is Charlie causing people to die?” I aimed the question at Hector, but it was Thackery who answered.
“It’s complicated.” He frowned. “It seems that the normal ether that forms the backdrop to our existence functions as a mirror. Energy, events, nearly everything bounces off of it … is reflected. However, in incidences of extreme violence, mental or physical, the ether can be frayed. Raveled like old cloth. If it frays enough, instead of mirroring an image, it imprints one. Records it, basically. This is what gives you your stereotypical ‘ghost.’ It’s simply a recording.”
“Yeah, that’s fucking fascinating,” I interjected,
“but I’m still waiting to hear what it has to do with Charlie.”
The skin next to Thackery’s mouth whitened, but he deigned to explain. “The reason is twofold. First, these areas are weakened. Apparently, Charles senses this, and these are the places through which he’s trying to find his way back. Second, when this happens, the ether begins to rip. And when it does, those so-called recordings go from passive to active.”
Confused, I turned to Hector. “Plain talk, Hector. Tell me.”
Expression weary, he sighed and folded his arms. “Lizzie Borden took an axe and gave her father forty whacks, right?”
Okay. Simple enough. “Gotcha.”
“Suppose you went to her house and saw something. Maybe she was in the bedroom doing away with her mother or in the parlor with her father. You might actually see that if the place fit all the requirements of a true recording, but you would only see it. But if Charlie tries to come through …” He shifted his shoulders in discomfort but went on. “That recording goes from television to virtual reality. You wouldn’t be watching Lizzie. You would be the violence trigger. You would
be
Lizzie, or someone else in the house would. Charlie rips the ether, twists it. Your normal rules of physics and metaphysics go tumbling out the window, and the recording shifts to not-so-glorious three-D.”