“You’re Dexter’s kid, aren’t you,” he sneered, as Max felt the pressure at his temples and forehead ease. “Evans said you were here somewhere.”
He flashed a thin smile that made Max’s skin crawl.
“We’ve never met before, have we?” Kane asked. “I’ve met your father a few times, but it’s odd how you seem so familiar. Maybe I should take a quick look at your brain?”
Max could feel the uncomfortable sensation returning as Kane fixed him with an intense stare. In a matter of seconds, Kane would be inside his thoughts and would surely discover that David Dexter wasn’t quite what, or rather who, he appeared to be.
“Kane,” came Kovac’s voice from the overhead speaker. “Is the girl ready?”
“Yes, Doctor,” Kane responded, his expression returning to normal. “I’ll be right there. I have the Dexter boy too.”
“Bring him to me,” said Kovac.
“On my way,” replied Kane then turned to Max. “You’re coming with me.”
“What . . . what are you doing with those people?” Max asked, hardly able to speak, as Kane grabbed his arm and roughly escorted him from the room.
“Doctor Kovac still has some plans for the girl,” said Kane with that same unnerving smile that Max had experienced in the future, “but the man’s scheduled to leave. The operation’s winding down, after all. They’ll be given the amnesia drug, so that they’ll forget their experience. We’ll dump them in one of the city parks, or some other remote place, as usual. We’d prefer to release the man alive, but he may well be dead when the authorities find him.”
Kane never relaxed his grip as he pulled Max along. Max found himself wondering how long Kane had been working with Kovac.
“When I was around five or six, I started hearing voices in my head, then realized I could actually read people’s thoughts.”
Max suddenly felt as if a thousand miniature snakes were slithering around inside his brain. He glanced over at Kane, who wore a cruel smile. He was talking to Max telepathically.
“Soon I learned that I could hurt people, but wasn’t always able to control my power. I accidentally killed a boy at a park when we got into a fight, although fortunately no one suspected the true cause of his death. After his arrival from Europe, Doctor Kovac took me to a military base in Nevada, before they set up the operation here.”
Now Max understood what had happened to him when he’d met Kane at the police station. Kane had been probing his mind, just as Deanna had said. Max still had no recollection of just how long he’d been unconscious in the interview room.
“I’ve been working on techniques to initiate heart attacks and other causes of death that are virtually impossible to pinpoint as murder. Eventually Doctor Kovac plans to send me on covert missions all over the world.”
“Stop it, Kane.”
Kovac had stepped out into the corridor just ahead of them.
“Use verbal communication,” he told Kane. “His brain needs to be free of distortions if he’s going to be of any use to me.”
He then turned his attention to Max, who shuddered as he saw the interior of the room behind Kovac. It was the laboratory he’d seen in his visions from David’s memories.
“So David,” Kovac said as Kane ushered Max into the lab. “Doctor Evans told me you’d paid us a visit. And with a private detective, no less.”
“Is it that guy who’s been snooping around about the missing person cases?” Kane asked him.
“Yes, Carrington,” confirmed Kovac. “If Connor and Drake have finished, see what else you can get out of him. You can use him for practice, if you like?”
“Thank you,” said Kane, grinning. “I’ll get the girl first and send her over.”
He turned to head back down the corridor, closing the laboratory door behind him.
LAWRENCE AND EVANS
were working in the laboratory, which was filled with banks of computers, a variety of monitors and numerous consoles in different shapes and sizes. Almost filling one wall was a glass panel resembling a big screen TV. In front of it was a long narrow table, with an attached metal tray, filled with an assortment of surgical instruments. More ominously, at one end of the long table, on the end of an extendable mechanical arm attached to the floor, was a mysterious black circular object, from which
wires and cables trailed down.
“Your father’s agency helped pay for all this,” said Kovac. “He also secured us the resources we needed to not only abduct the subjects we needed for experiments, but also to keep it all quiet.”
“But how could he ever do such a thing?” Max demanded.
“This is a military program, David,” replied Kovac, matter-of-factly, with a dismissive sweep of his hand. “The ends always justify the means as far as the generals are concerned, no matter what it costs or how many people get hurt.”
“But surely someone would talk?” said Max. “You can’t keep something like this a secret.”
Kovac simply smiled.
“We’ve perfected drugs which create what you might term selective amnesia in the minds of those that we release back onto the street,” he explained. “Once we’re done with them, we leave them in a quieter part of the city in the middle of the night, in a deserted park perhaps, or even in a rural area. They’re temporarily confused, but soon recover. They go back to their daily lives, although they have no memory of ever having been here. Admittedly, sometimes people die, but if they have families and friends, an elaborate cover story is always developed. Ah, here she is.”
Connor and Drake entered the laboratory, pushing a gurney on which lay the unconscious Deanna Hastings.
“We have high hopes for this one,” Kovac explained. “Her test results were very impressive yesterday. We would never have heard about her at all, if she hadn’t alerted us to her presence. Most psychics are very reserved about their unique talent, keeping a low profile. But this one had taken to doing readings for her friends at parties at the university. All strictly private affairs of course, but to us, nothing stays private for long.”
Max watched as Connor and Drake left the room. Lawrence and Evans gently lifted Deanna from the gurney onto what Max could only assume was an operating table. Deanna appeared to revive a little as Lawrence tightly secured her with sturdy restraints. Meanwhile, Evans busily attached the cables leading from the circular device into a wide console filled with switches and dials. Once she’d made all the connections, she positioned the mechanical arm, then placed the round device over the top of Deanna’s head. Lawrence then took over, making a few adjustments to the device itself and the huge screen behind the operating table became active, although it remained blank.
“We’ve made significant progress with our research into psychics,” said Kovac. “You met Kane, of course.”
Max grimaced at the recent memory.
“Kane is one of my most successful subjects,” Kovac continued, “a star pupil, if you prefer. Since he first came to us, we’ve been able to channel his ability into a powerful weapon in what we call
Project Mindstorm
. The potential for military operations is almost limitless. Imagine an army composed of men like him, or even what just a handful of such people could achieve against the enemy? It’s simply . . .”
Kovac was interrupted by an ear-piercing screech. Deanna screamed again, struggling wildly against her restraints.
“Sedate her!” Kovac ordered.
Lawrence nodded in acknowledgement. Evans reached for a large hypodermic needle lying on the metal tray beside the operating table. Max shuddered as she injected something into the lower arm of Deanna, who then lay quiet.
“I’ve always been fascinated by near-death experiences,” said Kovac, as if nothing had happened. “I have a theory that if we can tap into a person’s memories at that crucial point, especially someone with psychic abilities, their mental powers will be almost limitless. Some of our test subjects have had very strong links to what some people refer to as the other side. This machine is able to access that surreal world, through the mind of the patient. We’ve actually viewed tantalizing glimpses of what may lie beyond the veil of death, right on that screen on the wall. We’ve never really been able to learn as much as we’d like, but we made a crucial breakthrough last month. I only needed one more live subject, but when your father announced that he was cutting off the funding, all my work was in jeopardy.”
Max noticed that the huge screen was no longer blank. Disjointed images began flashing across the surface of the glass. Max quickly realized that he was viewing images from Deanna’s subconscious mind. He saw a little girl, no more than five or six years old, running through a field, then a man and woman that Max presumed were Deanna’s parents. Then there was the little girl again, this time cradling a small puppy in her arms. The picture soon shifted to scenes of her playing with the same dog when it was older. Other episodes from Deanna’s childhood and adolescence flashed by in quick succession, before ones that had clearly taken place more recently at the university with her student friends. Then without warning, the screen began to show something else entirely.
Max watched in astonishment as swirling shapes flickered across the screen. At first, they resembled mere wisps of a light gray smoke, but then Max was convinced some were almost human or animal in appearance. He couldn’t tear his gaze away from the screen, sure that he was somehow watching spirits inhabiting another plane of existence. Then a teenage Deanna was once again displayed, but she wasn’t alone. She was seated on a bench beside a bus stop and behind her stood an elderly woman wearing clothes that Max imagined would have been fashionable over an hundred years earlier. Pinned to the woman’s pale blue blouse was a golden brooch, which looked to be in the shape of a flower, although Max couldn’t be sure. The woman was short in stature and quite heavyset, with brilliant white hair. She carefully placed a hand on Deanna’s shoulder. Deanna turned her head towards the woman, who smiled reassuringly, then gave a single nod.
Suddenly, on the operating table the unconscious Deanna looked to be having a seizure. Her back arched repeatedly and her limbs twitched violently in spasms of pain.
“What’s going on?” Kovac demanded.
“We’re losing her!” exclaimed Lawrence.
Of course you are
,
Max thought.
He began to understand what the presence of the old woman on the screen truly signified. Deanna’s great-grandmother was literally standing squarely behind Deanna in her struggle, helping Deanna to resist the penetration of her innermost mind. It was almost as if Deanna was prepared to sacrifice her life rather than give up her secrets. Lawrence and Evans were doing their best to save Deanna, but they looked to be fighting a losing battle. Yet Max knew that she couldn’t die, since she had to be alive in the future to send him back. Or did she?
He found himself wondering whether the previous sequence of events had now altered for Deanna too. But what would happen if Deanna died? What if he was trapped in the past? A monitor next to the operating table didn’t exactly indicate that Deanna had slipped away, but the pattern it displayed was terrifyingly close to a flat line. Then to Max’s relief, Deanna’s condition seemed to stabilize. On the monitor, her vital signs returned to something approaching normal, but the enormous screen on the wall was now blank.
“There’s too much resistance,” said Lawrence, reaching for the device placed over Deanna’s head. “I’ll try a higher setting.”
“That won’t be necessary,” said Kovac, shaking his head. “I don’t think she’s going to be any use to us after all.”
Lawrence nodded. He removed the circular device then quickly unfastened the straps binding Deanna to the table. He and Evans then eased Deanna’s almost comatose body onto the gurney.
“Your father was only here this morning,” Kovac told Max, “finalizing the arrangements to close everything down. To think that all I needed was one more live subject and your father was going to deny me that. But then you arrived here. It’s too good an opportunity to ignore, don’t you agree? A means to complete my research, while having my revenge against the high and mighty Jonathan Dexter. Secure him.”
Evans and Lawrence grabbed Max, pinning his arms behind his back.
“You’ll never get away with this!” Max yelled, struggling in vain as they pulled him towards the operating table.
“Really?” said Kovac. “Do you seriously think another missing person will be noticed? Even if your father does suspect that I’m somehow connected to your imminent demise, he can hardly go to the police now, can he? Not without drawing attention to his own involvement. On the contrary, David, I will most certainly get away with it.”
KOVAC AND LAWRENCE
roughly heaved Max onto the table then held him in place while Evans fastened Max’s wrists into the security restraints. Max coughed and spluttered when Lawrence finally let him go, before Evans placed surgical tape over Max’s mouth.
“Tell Connor to use Castlegate Park this time,” Kovac told Evans, “if they’re going to be dumping the girl in the daylight. They should probably leave the man in the woods. And get Kane back in here.”