* * * *
It was Brett and Leah’s turn to see Sidney, and the same sight greeted them upon entering the room. Leah’s breath quivered at the ache in her chest at seeing him. She stared at him and wondered what she would have done without him. His sleepy eyes seemed unsurprised when they opened, and his visitors laughed and sighed in relief at the tiny smile that cracked across his face.
“It’s true, you know,” he said, eyeing them as they stood on either side of him.
“What’s true, Sid?” Leah asked, looking at Brett.
“What they say about your life flashing before your eyes when you die.”
“Yeah, but you’re not dead, Sid.” Brett said, cautiously teasing him.
“Came pretty damn close,” he said.
Leah’s face hardened at his accuracy. He was right, and she knew it. Images of him lying on the floor, silent and moribund in the blood that soaked the floor beneath him flashed through her mind. How she wished she could clear her mind completely.
Sidney obviously saw the mounting stress and turmoil on her face because he asked her what was wrong. She looked up, unable to lie to him, as they were kindred spirits, connected through their fates. Susan had advised her and Brett not to say a word about Ryan’s disappearance. Any shock or stress could cause Sidney to relapse, but she would do her best to be discreet.
“I have been worried about you, what else?” She thought for a moment to tell him about the visions that had been plaguing her, then thought better of it. His eyes cast a suspicious sideways glance at her, so she spoke fast, changing the subject before it began.
“What is the last thing you remember, Sidney?”
“I was getting ready to meet you,” he said in a euphoric lull. “The pain in my head...was worse. There was static...I heard Tracy...pipeline.” He swallowed to moisten his parched mouth. “Then there was blood.” He kept his eyes closed for a few seconds, as though erasing unwanted memories.
“Tracy Kimball made a pipeline connection after she died?” Brett was surprised to hear this, but kept his voice at a soft, tranquil minimum. Sidney responded with an affirmative hum through his closed lips.
“I saw her on the other side when I almost died,” he said. “I saw her, David, my grandfather...I saw us.”
“You saw us?” Leah asked, but her heart sank as she silently realized that Sidney’s life really had flashed before him. That’s how close we came to losing him, she thought. “Well, you’re going to be out of here, soon, Sid. So, get some rest. We can’t stay long.”
He nodded his head, and she kissed him on the cheek. She and Brett had made it out of the room with no mention of Ryan.
* * * *
His head didn’t hurt, not the way it had before. He felt wasted, immovable, and his visitors, as well as the nurses that checked on him, confirmed that he was, in fact, alive. He had made it back; his grandfather had told him he would. There were no more corridors, no more strange light, just the inside of University Hospital that he knew well.
After Leah and Brett had left, he fought to open his eyes and think quickly before he dozed off again. They were hiding something—all of them. He could tell by Susan’s slow responses and Dylan’s lack of them, the look of terror and turmoil on Leah’s face, and the strange way Brett kept looking away. Something was up, but what?
Tracy had told him that he had to save Ryan. He knew what he had seen was real; Tracy had never known, nor heard of Ryan Quinn, yet she was insistent that he must help him.
Danger. She had used that word.
As he wondered more about Ryan, the sleep began to take over once again, and the thought was no more.
* * * *
After seeing Sidney, the four of them reconvened back in the lounge, exasperated from the day’s chaotic events and unaware that outside, dusk had turned to nightfall. Only moments had passed before a tall, blond man entered the lounge and approached them. He was told exactly where to find them—and he had. The man with the unfamiliar face walked right to the long table where they sat; he nodded his head in greeting.
“Dr. Susan Logan?” He addressed her, his leather wallet readied in his hand.
“Yes, I’m Dr. Logan,” she said, rising from the table.
“Agent Wiley; FBI,” he said, flipping open his wallet and displaying his ID. “We were notified that a child went missing from this hospital tonight.”
Agent Stuart Wiley was one of the Bureau’s top veteran’s, experienced in missing person’s cases, and somewhat intimidating at six foot-three and a rough, stony, expressionless face of fifty-five years.
“Yes,” she said. “Ryan Quinn is his name. His mother had to be admitted when she realized he went missing. You see, Agent Wiley, Ryan is what’s known as a clairaudient, and at one time, was being studied by the university’s Paranormal Research and Investigative society.”
She motioned to the three sitting alongside her at the table, and Agent Wiley drew an empty chair and sat with them. She explained who Sidney was and Ryan’s connection to him, as well as how Ryan had come to be at the hospital. She knew the FBI was experienced with remote psychic studies, and that’s why she felt they were the obvious choice to deal with the situation.
“Well,” Agent Wiley said. “I know that the Bureau disbanded all of its research projects on the subject back in the seventies.”
“We can also identify a suspect in this case,” Susan said. “In fact, we think he may have been FBI at one time. His name is Roman Hadley.”
Wiley’s eyes stared directly at her; his eyebrows arched upward in some unspoken recognition. Dylan described Ryan’s insistence when the boy was brought to the lounge, and how Hadley was one of the heads leading the society, yet no one had ever seen him. Then, Wiley stunned them with what he said next.
“You should know that Roman Hadley was never an FBI agent; that is part of his false identity. We have been investigating and searching for this ‘Roman Hadley’ for years. Whoever this man really is, he has been using, and hiding behind your society, and you seem to have found him for us.”
Shock was once again unleashed, as this day and night became one and the same of endless confusion. The FBI had been investigating Roman Hadley all along, and they sat reeling from the realization that they’d been in the dark, unaware. Wiley’s words were spoken with an uncompromising and straightforward directness. He spared no time or feelings.
“This person calling himself Hadley was part of a rogue group of psychics that broke away from the Bureau’s remote psychic experiments in the late sixties, early seventies. They were a small group that wanted to expand the studies further than the FBI was willing to coordinate, or explore, so they successfully disappeared from the view of the government. Apparently, they continued studying and researching in some underground fashion, whether figurative or literal, and working toward an agenda involving the retrieval of top-secret government information, security plans, trade secrets, mainly through the use of the highest order of remote listeners and viewers. All of it, a grand scheme of psychic espionage conducted under our nation’s radar for decades.
“Their ultimate goal is to create a state of national and world security that would rival everything we have so far, triumphing in their psychic research and pursuits. Though what goal they would hope to ascertain beyond that point is anyone’s guess: world domination, mass financial embezzlement, toppling governments, who knows?
“All information that was recorded about the participants of that time has either led to dead ends, been lost, or wasn’t much in the first place. We don’t think Hadley was one of the original members, but he came aboard at some time in the late sixties. The fact that he posed as an FBI agent actually worked in his favor for a while; it was like being right under our noses, as they say. But, it didn’t work forever. The agency eventually discovered more than a few imposters within our framework, one leading to another, then others.
“Roman Hadley, as I’m sure you were all aware, is said to be an extremely c
apable remote listener that has managed to evade us for over thirty years.”
“We didn’t know that Hadley was a listener until today,” Dylan interrupted, explaining that when Ryan revealed what he’d heard, it was only then that they had put it together, and then it had all made sense.
“Sidney had suspected that Hadley possessed some sort of psychic ability,” he explained further. “He said that Hadley seemed to know everything as it happened.”
“He knew details of our cases,” Leah chimed in, “as we were working on them, and we hadn’t told him the particulars yet.”
“He seemed to know our every move also,” Brett said. “That is what triggered Sidney’s suspicion. He even thought Hadley might have been ‘listening.’”
“So none of you ever found it suspicious that you never actually laid eyes on Roman Hadley?”
“Sort of,” Dylan said. “But he always kept in touch, and—”
“We thought he was a former agent,” Leah said, as though Wiley had forgotten. “And overall, when we spoke to him, he sounded like a very nice man. Sidney is the one who initiated the suspicion, what there was of it.”
“What about his interest in your society? Didn’t you all wonder what that might have been?” His tone was not accusatory, but persistent to understand.
“Again, Agent Wiley,” Dylan said. “He did mention once working in the area of remote listening with the FBI; we assumed it was as an agent, not as a participant. You see our board members have various reasons why they maintain an interest in our society through their patronage. Some have had their own experiences; some are buffs who love excitement. We also have an author on our board whose interest is research. Hadley’s reason fit right in.”
“Dr. Logan, I understand you haven’t been on the board that long?”
“I was inducted only a few days ago.”
“So, as a board member, you haven’t met Hadley, either?”
“No, I haven’t.”
“All right, then what we’re going to do first,” Wiley said, “is place tracers on all of your phone lines at the university, as well as your personal phones in case Hadley tries to contact any of you.”
“Look, that’s fine,” Leah said, “anything to find Ryan. But what you must understand, Agent Wiley, is that if Roman Hadley is a listener, which we are now convinced that he is, you can bet that he is listening right now to this very conversation.”
Wiley’s face seemed to soften, as though he hadn’t considered that one.
“That’s right,” Dylan said. “We can now prove that he has been listening with his remote ear to us the entire time we’ve known him.”
“That may be so,” Wiley conceded. “But there may be the slightest chance that he will call in; if so, we need to be prepared.”
“You all don’t think Hadley would hurt Ryan, do you?” Susan’s question was directed at the team, who stayed silent.
“His goal is not to hurt him,” Wiley said. “His goal is to use him, to hone him, to make him the perfect listener. He is aware of the boy’s talents, and he will try to exploit them to the fullest. Ryan is much too valuable to him to harm a single hair on his head.”
“Let’s hope so,” Susan said. “Because I’m not so sure what will become of his mother. I think there is a lot of guilt there. She may be blaming herself for this.”
“Either way,” Wiley said, “when can I speak to Sidney Pratt or the mother?”
The words increased the tension in the room. The cards they were trying to hide were now being forced from their hands, though they couldn’t sidestep Sidney forever.
“Dr. Talbot says that Sidney is not to hear a word of Ryan’s disappearance yet,” Susan said. “He fears a setback, if he does. You will just have to discuss an appropriate time with him. As far as Annie Quinn is concerned, I can tell you that I have not yet had the chance to examine her. She’s been sedated and won’t wake until tomorrow. I will let you know.”
Wiley nodded in understanding. Brett told Wiley everything that had occurred from the moment Ryan left the lounge, to the point where he himself entered the men’s room, finding nothing but paper towels on the floor. They then walked together, retracing Brett’s steps.
When they returned to the lounge, Wiley described how the search for Ryan was now in place, and how both Sidney and Annie were now under surveillance for their own protection. He asked to accompany the team back to the university, having requested from them a copy of Ryan’s file and all information concerning Hadley. They complied, and together they left the hospital.
Susan made her way back to the office, secretly thankful that this disastrous day was drawing to a close.
* * * *
She sat in her office, unwinding for a few quiet moments before she left the hospital, thinking about Sidney lying there helpless. Susan thought back and remembered why her interest in him had been roused all those years ago; it was when she realized what he was. She’d never told Sidney, but Mark, her fiancé, the same man that Sidney heard that day in her office, had possessed the same ability—clairaudience.
When they were teenagers, she had witnessed Mark’s psychic ability. He had heard the voices of the dead and even the living. He was able to hear everything from loved ones who passed, to the occasional comment made by a classmate distances away. She recalled how the whole thing had frightened his family and himself to some extent. He even swore himself against it, which had been fine with her. She loved him for who he was.
She had never seen him again after he’d left for Vietnam; he was reported MIA, and when the young Sidney mentioned him the way he had, she knew he had made contact. The shock of that moment had turned her world upside down. So, privately, she devoted herself to the study of such psychic abilities and paranormal phenomena. She had to learn more, and soon, it had encompassed her life, enveloping her every moment; for if life did continue afterward, the prospect of proving it would be immense.
Through the years, especially after the last American POW was released from captivity, she assumed that Mark’s status was changed to KIA. It wouldn’t surprise her; Sidney had heard him the same way that Mark had heard others all those years ago. Obviously, Mark was dead, but Sidney had brought back so much of him that it made her content, relieved to know that in some way, Mark waited for her.
Now she sat at her desk reading the society’s file on Ryan that Dylan had emailed her. In so many ways, Ryan reminded her of Sidney, and Sidney of Mark, as though they were all connected. She realized how Ryan was more in touch with his telepathic side, being able to hear the living also, much like Mark. This fact made them both different types of clairaudients from Sidney; Sidney only heard the dead.
But something struck her; Ryan told Dylan that Sidney heard him when he projected with his mind the night of Tracy’s accident. How could Ryan be sure? She would have to ask Sidney himself when the time came...soon.
She noticed a notation in Ryan’s file...
Subject’s mother has terminated all sessions with the society.
Just like Sidney’s parents, she thought, fear. She would have to address Annie’s fear as soon as she was able to, but for now, Annie was safe here in the hospital. The FBI was working fast to pinpoint Roman Hadley’s whereabouts, and there was nothing more she could do tonight. She would catch up on Ryan’s file at home, where she was headed to call it a day, once and for all.
Chapter Nine
He awoke, groggy and half-slumbering, lazing in the comfort of the soft bed within the dimly lit nest that had been prepared for him. He lay lulled by the pallid glow and the warmth of the room that coaxed him into the comfortable acceptance of his surroundings. He swallowed, heaved, and coughed as the taste and smell of almonds still lingered like the stink of the skunk that sprayed him once in the woods.
Ryan tried to pull his thoughts together into one cohesive binding, but all recollections seemed to be lost, evading him like the flying creatures he strived to catch in the video game. He was so sure he�
��d gone to the hospital to see Sidney, but he must have fallen asleep. Yet, he was there, because Mom had followed him; she must have brought him home. He went to the men’s room, and then...what had happened next?
Someone grabbed him from behind...
Ryan threw himself up from the single bed that was not his own. Terror swept him with the invisible pricks of pins and needles down the length of his body, and panic pushed his breath out in rushing gasps. This was not his room. The overhanging lamp that clouded the light it housed, causing the comfortable dimness, was not his. The dim light displayed a room devoid of anything except the bed, the light, and a small table and matching chair.
Where am I? It was the only thought he could muster as all others were obliterated by the barrage of paranoia, panic, and fear. His eyes fought to focus, but the blurriness made everything fuzzy, and the fuzziness fought his focusing eyes. He could make out the door to the room with its small, rectangular window through which he saw nothing but outside light. He couldn’t look anymore; the strain caused a pain in his eyelids.
So, the man had found him. Had he been hiding in the hospital, waiting for him?
“Help!” His scream echoed through the small room, and he was answered with only the minor refrain of his own voice returning. He called out again, but no opposite sound responded.
He fell back on the bed as the dizziness turned his stomach. He dry-heaved again and swallowed hard, the sweat spanning in rivulets across his forehead. He let his breathing simmer with exhales through his mouth that quelled the queasiness. Now he would focus with his mind. If the man couldn’t hear his screams, he could hear him another way.
And Sidney, he would also call out to Sidney.
The snugness of the bed combined with the dimness of the overhanging lamp and the soft purr of the heating system cajoled him into relaxing, resting, and remembering to focus. He remained still, lulling his body into peace and initiating his mind into action.
Sidney...
The soft silent thought projected out into a vast, unhearing world.
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