Fragments

by James F. David

  “Asking if you know someone is as simple as it gets.”

  “It’s also emotionally charged.” Then, to the others in the room, “Those are the boys who were killed.”

  Wes worried about the effect of the policeman’s question on Frankie—but then remembered it shouldn’t be Frankie at all.

  Elizabeth took charge of the demonstration again. “Each of the savants is gifted in a particular way. Daphne is a calendar calculator.” Roy flipped open his notebook and wrote furiously. Irritated, Elizabeth paused, but the officer continued to write. “Archie’s gift is an extraordinary spatial ability. Luis’s is total recall—often called photographic memory. Yu’s ability is the most unusual for a savant; he makes remote associations—that’s the ability to make connections between unlikely events. You saw each of them demonstrate their ability when we began.”

  Lifting his pen, the policeman said, “What’s Gil’s special ability?”

  “Well, none, actually.” Elizabeth paused, unsure of why Gil was still part of the experiment. “We just needed another person, and—”

  “What about Ralph? What’s his special ability? How come he’s not hooked up with the others?”

  “Ralph doesn’t have a special ability,” Elizabeth said without thinking. Then she saw Ralph’s face reshape from a smile to concern. Flustered, she searched for a kind thing to say. Len covered for her.

  “Sure he does, Elizabeth. Ralph can carry five Slurpees at a time, can’t you, Ralph?”

  Ralph’s face reshaped into his usual lopsided grin. “That’s right, Elizabeth. I can carry five. And I hardly spill any. Course the lids help. Want I should get some now? They might be thirsty when it’s all over. I know where my box is.”

  Elizabeth agreed and Wes passed over a ten-dollar bill. Quickly, Ralph was out the door.

  “Ralph’s here because of Daphne. She needed him to adjust to living here. Ralph’s been a stabilizing influence on the others too.”

  The policeman stared, uninterested.

  “Remember that Yu has the association gift,” Elizabeth continued. Nodding to Shamita, Elizabeth whispered to Gil, “What one word connects ‘worm,’ ‘binder,’ ‘end’?”

  “ ‘Book,’ ” Luis said. “ ‘Bookworm,’ ‘bookbinder,’ ‘book-end.’ ”

  A single raised eyebrow was the only response from the policeman.

  “Roy, when’s your birthday?”

  “September twenty-sixth.”

  “Frankie, on what day will September twenty-sixth fall in 2040?”

  “Wednesday.”

  Still the policeman looked unimpressed.

  “Frankie, I’m going to read you a passage from a book. Please listen carefully.” Elizabeth read Edgar Allan Poe’s poem “The Raven.” The policeman sat quietly, for once not taking notes. When she was done reading she asked Frankie to repeat it.

  “ ‘Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary, Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,’ ” came Luis’s voice. “ ‘While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping . . .’ ”

  Word by word, line by line, Luis repeated the poem exactly, but emotionlessly. When done, Len applauded softly, and even the policeman nodded appreciation.

  “One last ability to demonstrate.” Taking the policeman’s puzzle, Elizabeth spread it in front of Gil. Signaling Shamita, Elizabeth asked Frankie to sit up. Gil sat up, and then looked around the room.

  “I can see you.”

  “Yes, Frankie. There’s a puzzle in front of you. Please put it together for me.”

  Gil continued to look around, then stopped, eyes on the policeman.

  “Frankie, please put the puzzle together,” Elizabeth prodded.

  Breaking the stare, Gil bent to work on the puzzle. Five minutes later the last piece was put into place.

  “It was too easy.”

  “Yes, Frankie. I know you can do much harder ones. Please lie down again.”

  With a last look around Gil lay down. Elizabeth signaled the cutoff.

  “Now do you see what this is all about?” Elizabeth asked. “Nothing sinister, just a simple experiment.”

  “Nothing simple about it.” Roy replied. “It gives me the creeps—I mean they just lie there like zombies until you make them do something with those machines.”

  “We don’t make them do anything!” Wes exploded. “All our equipment does is allow them to function as one mind. There’s no mind control involved!”

  “Maybe. But if you’ve got nothing to hide then why not let me question this Frankie person?”

  Hesitating, Wes exchanged glances with Elizabeth and his team.

  “You invited me here to convince me that you—and them—had nothing to do with the killings, didn’t you? Well, here’s your chance. Let me question this Frankie.”

  Fearing he would look guilty if he didn’t, Wes nodded agreement. “All right, but simple questions, and don’t suggest anything to her! And whatever you do, don’t accuse her of anything!”

  “Her? I’m talking to a man, and that boy over there is answering.”

  “It’s a blended personality. It’s not any one of them.”

  “Four boys plus one girl equals a girl? You must be using new math. OK, I still talk to this one, right?” The policeman opened his notebook again, then took his pen from his pocket, poised to take notes. “Frankie?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is that your real name?”

  Elizabeth glared at the policeman and mouthed, “No accusations.”

  “Yes.”

  “OK. Do you know a Pastor Phil Young?”

  “Yes.”

  The others looked around in surprise. Shamita watched for a cutoff signal, but Wes and Elizabeth let him continue.

  “How do you know him?”

  “I don’t know . . . I’ve just heard the name. I think I know what he looks like.”

  “When did you last see him?”

  “I’m not sure I’ve ever seen him. . . . But I must have. . . .”

  “Did you see him, or didn’t you?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Suspicious, Roy wrote in his notebook, the only sound in the room the scratching of his pen. “Have you ever been to Pastor Young’s house?”

  After a long pause, “No.”

  “Ever been to the Kappa fraternity?”

  “No.”

  “Have you ever left this house?”

  “No.”

  After writing much longer than it would take to write “no,” the policeman folded his notebook and put it in his pocket.

  “That’s all my questions—for now. Thanks for the demonstration. I’ll be in touch.”

  Elizabeth walked the policeman to the door, then returned to see the savants being disengaged. Gil herded the savants out of the room ahead of him, while the others went through their postex-periment routine. When Wes looked finished, Elizabeth sat next to him.

  “I thought you said we wouldn’t get Frankie.”

  “We shouldn’t have—not with those changes in parameters. To get their abilities we needed to overlap quite a bit; still, I would have bet money we wouldn’t have gotten Frankie and her memories. Perhaps Frankie’s memories are stored in the areas where their gifts are localized?”

  Shamita joined them. “I didn’t see any elevated activity in their gift regions. Besides, memories aren’t stored that locally. I wonder how much we could change the parameters and still get Frankie? I have an idea, why don’t we—”

  “Hey! Come on over here,” Len shouted. “You’ve got to see this.”

  Karon moved aside so that the others could gather around behind Len’s console.

  “While the policeman was questioning Frankie I noticed something strange in the physiological readouts—especially respiration, heart rate, and blood pressure.” Pointing at the monitor, he said, “Here’s Daphne’s readings in graphics mode.”

  Three readouts scrolled across, with a line indicating normal v
ariations up and down.

  “Now this is where he asks ‘Do you know Joshua Ringman, or Scot Salyer?’ ”

  A Q appeared at the edge of the screen and scrolled across, just above the readout. Behind it the three readouts suddenly elevated, then gradually returned to previous levels.

  “See, it’s acting like a lie detector.”

  “I don’t know, Len,” Wes said. “There could be other reasons for this. Maybe Daphne had a gas pain.”

  “Keep watching. Here comes the next question. What was that one, Karon?”

  “ ‘Is that your real name?’ ”

  Again, another Q and another elevation.

  “Another gas attack, Wes? I don’t think so,” Len said. “Watch what happens when he asks about Pastor Young.”

  Another Q scrolled by, but the readings remained unchanged.

  “No response. But watch the readings as he keeps asking about the pastor.”

  Gradually, Daphne’s heart rate and respiration increased, the blood pressure lagging behind.

  “What’s coming next, Karon?” Len asked.

  “He’s asking if she’d ever been to the pastor’s house. Next he asks if she’d ever been to the fraternity. Here it comes.”

  Immediately after the Q the readings shot up, remaining high until Len shut off the recording.

  “I think the gas-pains theory is pretty well shot.”

  “You’re reading a lot into this, Len,” Wes said. “Frankie couldn’t know about any of those people, so there would be no reason to lie. Besides, she didn’t respond when he asked about Pastor Young. Why the inconsistency?”

  “Maybe,” Elizabeth said, “because Frankie didn’t have anything to do with Pastor Young’s death.”

  “Elizabeth, you’re suggesting that Frankie killed the others. Frankie isn’t a person! She’s bits and pieces of other people’s minds. She doesn’t exist outside this room. Without this equipment there is no Frankie.”

  “I know, Wes. But the coincidences are piling up.”

  “It’s all circumstantial.”

  “You know what they say,” Len cut in. “If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck . . .”

  Gil worked with the savants through the rest of the afternoon, picking up bits and pieces of the others’ conversation about the policeman. They were concerned about the policeman’s suspicions, but also about Frankie’s appearance during the last session. They spent a lot of time analyzing the results of the last run. Gil didn’t understand their concern about Frankie, but he shared their concern about the policeman, and more. He still hadn’t dealt with Ralph, so he had to be careful not to use his powers to shape their behavior. Also, Shamita was onto something—something he didn’t want her to know. He’d only been able to deal with Pastor Young, but the police were suspicious of his death, and were somehow linking it to the savants. If it wasn’t for his new power—his growing power—he would have left long ago.

  He helped Karon fix lasagna for dinner, joking and teasing. He felt differently toward her now that he was beginning to feel lust. Len’s interest in her had only disgusted him before, but now he noticed things about her—her jeans tight across her bottom, the way her blouse gaped when she leaned over, and the way her breasts reshaped when she reached up to shelves above her. Yes, he was beginning to understand what he’d only scorned, and that was another danger. He didn’t care about Karon, or Elizabeth for that matter, but he found himself fascinated by them—like a kid on the edge of puberty. He didn’t like the way his body was taking control of his mind and wanted to be well away from here before his urges demanded satisfaction.

  After dinner Len and Karon decided to teach the savants to bake cookies. Only Daphne and Ralph would cooperate, and soon the others were back in front of the TV watching Wheel of Fortune. Gil laughed and joked with the others in the kitchen for a while, watching Daphne and Ralph try to roll out dough and cut out cookie shapes. Soon, he found his eyes wandering to Karon’s form and then to Daphne’s, and it unnerved him, so he excused himself and went to his room.

  He relaxed on the bed, trying to clear his mind of his lust. Failing that, he tried to summon his power, but couldn’t. Frustrated, he felt his anger grow, and with his anger came the power. He nursed the anger, and practiced using it to move objects. Though he never left the bed, he was soon exhausted and lost his anger and his power. Then he was asleep.

  A door slam woke him with a start. It was ten o’clock, and he’d not helped put the savants to bed. He checked downstairs, but the savants had already gone. They had gained so much independence in recent weeks, Gil worried they might realize he wasn’t really needed.

  From the stair he could see Len and Karon sitting on the couch watching TV, Len’s arm around Karon, his hand stroking her shoulder. Jealousy filled him—another new emotion. There were too many new feelings for Gil, all of them weakening his self-control. Gil returned to bed and began his relaxation routine, clearing his mind to regain control. Reaching deep into his mind for the cold emptiness that had always been there, he went blank.

  25

  CONTROL

  The yellow house was dark, so she watched from the bushes until she was sure the owners were out. Pulling on a pair of gloves, she broke a basement window, then crawled through onto a stack of lawn chairs. Pausing frequently to listen for sounds of movement, she picked her way through the basement clutter and up the stairs, emerging next to the kitchen, a bathroom directly across from her. Quickly checking, she went from room to room, making sure the main floor was empty. Then she crept up the stairs.

  The rooms on the second floor were all empty. The bed in the master bedroom was made, awaiting its owners. One room had a sewing machine and a game table covered with puzzle pieces. Only a few of the pieces had been fitted together. Strangely, she found herself drawn to the unfinished puzzle. Satisfied that the house was empty, she went downstairs to the kitchen and rummaged around until she found a knife, then she returned to the room and sat down to wait, working the puzzle as she did, quickly fitting the pieces together.

  Tom Floyd and his wife returned just after midnight from visiting their kids in Portland. It had been a long drive and his wife headed directly upstairs to get ready for bed. Wired from the coffee he had drunk to stay awake while driving, he flopped in front of the TV and began flipping channels, finally settling on a Cary Grant movie. The old pipes rumbled in the walls as his wife started up the shower, and he punched up the volume. A few minutes later a commercial break sent him to the kitchen for a bag of chips and a bottle of beer. His wife wouldn’t approve of the beer, but the sound of the shower told him he was safe. Beer and chips in hand, he stepped into the living room to see a man sitting in his chair.

  Startled, he staggered back into the kitchen. Starting to speak, but then stopping, he hurried to the wall phone. The line was dead. Frightened, he looked at the back door, ready to make a run for it—but his wife was upstairs, and he could never leave her. Instead, he crept back through the hall, checking to see if the man was still in the chair—he was gone. Now panicky, his eyes darted around the room, looking into every shadow. Seeing nothing he walked quietly to the stairs, his eyes and ears busy. Seeing nothing, he crept up the stairs.

  At the top he hurried down the hall to the closet in the sewing room. Opening the closet door slowly, he flinched at every creak the hinges made. Then he lifted a box off the top shelf, opened it, and took out a gun. It was a .38 revolver that he’d fired only once before. He’d bought it for protection when the house next door had been burglarized, but his wife hated it, and refused to have it in their bedroom. He reached deeper in the box and pulled out a box of cartridges. He was still loading the gun when the man stepped into the room holding a knife.

  Mr. Floyd trembled, dropping a cartridge on the floor. When the man saw the gun he rushed forward, swinging down with the knife. Mr. Floyd panicked, trying to snap the cylinder into place, then bringing his arm up to deflect the blow. The knife buried into his shoulder be
fore he could and he screamed with the pain, the gun dropping from his limp arm. The man stabbed again, this time into his arm, the knife creasing the bone. While the man was drawing back for another blow, Mr. Floyd looked into his savage eyes and managed a weak “Why?”

  Poised for another strike, the man paused, his eyes cold. “You raped me.”

  “What? I never—”

  “You and your friends. You held me down and you raped me.”

  “You’re wrong. . . . I don’t know what you’re talking about. . . . I’m bleeding.”

  “I know you, Tom Floyd. You were fourth on top of me. I begged you to stop, to help me, but you didn’t, you just kept doing it. Then you held me while the rest did it to me. I can still see their faces, red and panting as they hurt me over and over.”

  “How could you know?”

  “I got Jimmy, Steve, and the others. It was easy. They were all so sure I was a whore who couldn’t get enough. They wanted me again, so I let them think what they wanted, then I killed them.”

  “I don’t understand. . . . Who are you?”

  The shower stopped, the house suddenly quiet except for the sounds of Mr. Floyd’s ragged breathing. He realized his chance and opened his mouth to scream for help, but the knife plunged down into his chest, ripping through his lung, blood pouring into the chest cavity. He drew in a last ragged breath just as the knife plunged into his stomach. As his vision faded he felt the knife stitching its way down to his crotch.

  Groggy, Len was heading for a morning cup of coffee when he saw movement in the experiment room. Curious, he stepped in, yawning. Suddenly his mouth snapped shut. Yu, Archie, and Luis were sitting in a tangle of fiber-optic cables, bits and pieces of Len’s equipment spread around them.

  “What have you done!?” he shouted.

  Instantly, their chins pressed against their chests and they rocked in place.

  “It’s all in pieces. What have you done? . . . Why?”

  Looking up briefly, Archie said, “It’s too jumbled. It bothers Yu.”