by V. E. Lemp
“I’d live here by myself?” A frisson of cold ran up Karen’s spine.
“Well, we’d be here during the day.” James’s soothing voice washed over her. “And of course someone would stay with you through the night. I’ve even arranged something with the art department. You can have full use of a studio in your free time.”
“So what exactly is this job?” Karen asked. “More monitoring and recording of my dreams?”
“Not exactly,” Leena Rebani said. “Perhaps we should let Dr. Wythe explain it to you. It was his idea, after all.”
“Yes, Karen, you’d be working with me.” Alex turned and met Karen’s gaze with a look that sent her heart plummeting down into her shoes and rocketing up into her throat. “I had this idea after I visited your senior show. It occurred to me that what we’re trying to do in recording dreams is to capture images, more so than words. And who better to capture images than an artist? So I suggested we run a test to see if it might be beneficial to target artists or filmmakers or other visual thinkers.”
“Alex decided you’d be the perfect test subject,” Jasper James said, “and I have to agree. In the first trial no one was better at capturing their dream states than you. Turning the focus to visual images—well, it’s a brilliant idea, I have to admit.”
“Yes, very commendable.” Ian Vance’s tone was dry. “But perhaps we should allow Karen time to think? She looks a bit shell-shocked.”
Karen opened her mouth and closed it again without saying anything. The others faded away. All she saw was Alex, looking just as had the night they met, the night of the meteor. His expression conveyed a sense of shared secrets.
“I hope you’ll agree, Karen,” he said. “I think this may be a promising new path for our research.”
Karen studied the four expectant faces. Their obvious interest in her answer was flattering. Still, it was baffling why her participation in their project seemed so vital to its success. “Of course I’d love to keep working here,” she said. “It’s a wonderful opportunity and I … well, I guess I’m surprised you asked me, is all.”
“Who else would I ask?” Alex’s smile burnt away all Karen’s doubts.
“Wonderful,” Vance said. “We’ll expect you to be ready for work after the weekend. Leena will handle the paperwork, so check in with her Monday morning.”
The others, obviously sensing the dismissal in his words, moved swiftly toward the door, Alex lingering long enough to allow Karen to rise to her feet.
“That worked out well, don’t you think?” he whispered in her ear as they walked out the door. He was so close behind her she felt his breath on her neck.
“You’ve been planning this? Ever since that night?”
“Of course. You and your art inspired me.”
She could offer no response to that. She simply turned her head to look into his eyes, which were clear and guileless as the rain.
“I always have a plan, Karen. Keep that in mind and don’t be so insecure, kiddo.” He patted her shoulder and stepped around her to stride off down the hall, catching up with Rebani and James and engaging them in lighthearted banter.
ELEVEN
Karen walked on air for the rest of the weekend. She immediately telephoned her parents to explain why she wouldn’t be coming home for the summer. After that unpleasantness, she called Thea and delivered her news with a giddiness that made her friend question her sanity.
“Don’t worry, Thea. For once I feel like everything’s working out as it should.”
“If you say so.” Thea didn’t sound at all convinced.
“Don’t worry. I feel great about this. For the first time in my life I feel everything’s falling into place.”
She spent that Sunday wandering campus, drawing everything that caught her eye. In the late afternoon she found a quiet spot behind the main quadrangle and sat on a stone bench to capture some quick sketches of crimson roses spilling over a salmon brick wall. The scent of the flowers hung heavy in the still air. A soft hum of insect wings was all that broke the hush blanketing the enclosed garden. Colored pencils in hand, her gaze focused on the shapes and hues of the scene before her, she felt at peace.
But when a shadow fell across the grass, she turned her head. Another person had entered the garden. Much to her dismay, Karen recognized her.
It was the dark-eyed woman from the lobby of the Indigo Building.
Karen leapt to her feet, dropping her sketchpad on the bench and casting a handful of pencils across the ground.
“Please don’t be alarmed.” The woman’s voice was low and strangely lacking in intonation.
“Who are you and what’re you doing here?” Karen gazed into those odd eyes and realized the reason they appeared so dark—there was too little white encircling too much iris.
“My name is not relevant, but you may call me Alice if you wish.”
“Alice? Alice what?”
“Just Alice.” The woman moved a few steps closer.
Karen instinctively backed away. “You were in the lobby of the Indigo Building the other day, asking for Dr. Vance.”
“Yes, but I was looking for someone else. I thought Ian Vance’s name might get me into the back offices, but that did not work out as I had planned.”
“Who were you looking for? Me?”
“No, not then,” said the woman who called herself Alice. “But I am glad to have found you now. I have a message for you. And another for someone else, if you will deliver it for me.”
“I don’t understand. What kind of message? I don’t know you. Why would I deliver any messages for you?”
“You don’t have to do so, but it might be in your best interest for you to agree.” Alice turned her head slightly so her discomforting gaze was focused over Karen’s shoulder. “I am actually taking quite a risk in coming to you like this. I hope you will grant me the courtesy of listening to what I have to say.”
“Very well.” Karen sank down onto the bench. “Give me this message, or messages or whatever. I’m listening.”
“Ah, but are you really?” Alice turned her gaze on Karen, who bit her lip and tried not to look away. “I wonder. But I feel compelled to warn you, despite your intention to dismiss what I say.”
“What, you can read my mind now or something?”
Alice stared at Karen for a moment. “Or something. At any rate, Karen Foster—yes, I know who you are—here is my message for you. Leave the Morpheus Project now, before more harm is done.”
“Harm? What in the world are you talking about?”
“‘What in the world’?” A faint smile crooked the corners of Alice’s mouth. For some reason this smile was more disconcerting than any of the woman’s previous expressions. “The Morpheus Project is not what you think, Karen Foster, and you were not recruited on a whim. There is great harm in what a few individuals are doing. I know I cannot stop them. But I can at least warn you. These people—what they plan to do—could be very dangerous for you, and those around you. This is all I can tell you.”
“What do you mean, recruited? For your information, I met one of the project researchers by chance, the night that meteor struck the campus.”
“Meteor? Ah yes, I see. Clever,” Alice muttered, as if talking to herself.
“Anyway, the Morpheus Project is just a university research study,” Karen said. “You must be mad, showing up and talking about harm and danger and I don’t know what else.”
“You are probably right. I am acting irrationally.” There was a hint of sadness in the woman’s voice. “But I can assure you I would be in great danger if I were to be discovered warning you. Or contacting you at all, for that matter. I can tell,” Alice added, with another of her piercing stares, “you will undoubtedly ignore me. Very well—at least I will have the comfort of knowing I attempted to change the course of events.”
The deadly seriousness of Alice’s expression raised the hair on Karen’s arms. “Was it you, then, in the street that day?”
“It looked like you. Do you have a twin?”
“A twin? I suppose you could say so.”
“You either do or you don’t.”
“Things are not always so unequivocal.” Alice appeared lost in thought for a moment. When she spoke again her voice was tinged with sorrow. “You are in great danger. Perhaps less physical than mental, but I am concerned …” Alice met Karen’s stubborn gaze. “You have a talent, Karen Foster, granted to only a few. There are those who wish to exploit it, and you.”
“I don’t understand. Are you still talking about the Morpheus Project?”
“That is part of it, yes.” The odd, dark eyes looked Karen up and down.
Karen refused to glance away. “I’ve freely chosen to continue working there.”
“Have you? I thought perhaps you had been persuaded. And by someone who should know better,” Alice added, in a softer voice.
“It’s my choice.”
“But do you know what you are choosing?” Alice sighed and turned away. She walked to the open gate, pausing only long enough to cast one more glance at Karen. “Leave the Morpheus Project, Karen Foster.” Her voice rang out across the small garden.
“Wait!” Karen jumped from the bench and took a few steps toward the dark-haired woman. “You said you had another message, one for me to deliver. What is it?”
Alice turned and her expression, full of pity and remorse, stopped Karen in her tracks. “Yes, that is correct. One more warning, though I daresay it will fall on deaf ears just as this one has. But I must try. Very well, here is the message: tell Alex Wythe now is the time to choose. Tell him to think deeply and consider all that means anything to him and then to choose wisely.”
With that, the woman left the garden as silently as she had entered. Karen, frozen in place for a moment, finally shook her head and ran after the dark-haired stranger. But when Karen reached the break in the brick wall and stepped onto the gravel path outside the garden, she couldn’t see Alice anywhere.
TWELVE
Karen desperately wanted to talk to Alex about the strange woman, but the following morning his office was locked and dark. She still had his private number, but something stopped her from using it. She’d be bothering him, just like all the others.
In Leena’s office, Karen fumbled with the papers and dropped the pen Rebani handed her. It couldn’t be a coincidence. Alice resembled the other dark-haired strangers closely enough to be a sister. Maybe that was it. Perhaps some family held a grudge against one or more of the Morpheus Project researchers. After filling out the necessary paperwork, Karen decided she had to tell someone about these strangers, if only to alert the staff to a possible security risk. Leena Rebani, who always listened to Karen’s dreams as if they were the most important information in the world, was as likely a confidante as any.
“So you see why I might be worried,” Karen said, concluding the recital of her encounters with the strangers.
“Yes, that would be quite unnerving.” Halfway through Karen’s account, Leena had risen to her feet and moved to the other side of the room. She stood with her back to Karen, staring out the office window.
“I wanted to talk to Alex—Dr. Wythe, that is—about yesterday since it involves him, but he wasn’t here …”
“No, Alex drove to the mountains for the day. He’ll be here later this evening.”
A dart of jealously pierced Karen’s heart. Who went to the mountains alone? There must be some companion Alex took on such excursions.
“But I wouldn’t worry,” Leena said. “The man, or men, may be relatives of this woman, assisting with her schemes. And the woman’s obviously a poor deluded creature. Perhaps she’s read about the Morpheus Project and taken it into her head we’re some evil cabal. You know the type. They think aliens have abducted them or scientists are experimenting on them without their consent—spiking reservoirs with LSD or something. Totally insane, but harmless.” Leena turned and smiled encouragingly at Karen.
“But she knew my name. And she mentioned Dr. Vance as well as Dr. Wythe.”
“Easy enough to find our names. You say you’ve seen them in the building? One of them probably lifted some pamphlets from the lobby and stitched together this whole crazy story out of a few facts and names.”
“But my name isn’t listed anywhere …” Karen’s determination to solve the riddle of Alice faltered in the face of Leena’s supreme confidence. “I suppose you’re right. There are lots of people wandering around, off their meds and such, here on campus. Guess I had the bad luck to become a target of someone’s fantasies.”
“A target of what?” Mark Hallam asked, as he paused by the open door to Leena’s office.
“Oh, nothing, Mark,” Leena called out. “Karen’s experienced a few run-ins with some strangers. Street people, no doubt. It unnerved her, but I think she’s fine now, aren’t you, Karen?”
“Yes, of course.” Karen stood, thanked Rebani again for the job, and fled the office.
Mark Hallam was still there but had moved several feet away from the door.
“So what’s going on?” he asked. “You didn’t sound enthusiastic about Leena’s explanation.”
“It’s nothing. I’ve encountered a few strange people. One seemed to know more than I expected about the Morpheus Project, that’s all. An odd-looking woman, with the strangest dark eyes. She told me I should leave. Seemed rather insistent about it. I’m sure it’s some poor soul suffering from delusions, like Dr. Rebani said.”
Hallam sucked in a deep breath, as if her words had knocked the wind out of his lungs. “Come with me.” He grabbed Karen by the elbow and shoved her into an empty office, where he forced her to sit in the room’s lone chair. “Now tell me everything that’s happened.”
Karen looked at him in surprise. “What are you doing, Mr. Hallam? I told you it was nothing.”
“And I asked you to tell me what happened.” Hallam’s brown eyes were narrowed behind his heavy glasses.
“All right, I’ll tell you.” Karen quenched a flicker of fear and launched into a full description of the dark-haired strangers and her encounter with the woman called Alice.
Hallam’s growing tension was obvious in his raised shoulders and clasped hands. He was good at covering his agitation, though. She’d give him that.
“You saw her once before, in the lobby?” he asked.
“Yes, the day of graduation. She didn’t say anything to me then. According to the receptionist she was asking for Dr. Vance.”
“Have you alerted security yet?”
“No,” Karen said. “Should I? I was going to talk to Dr. Wythe, but he wasn’t here, so I told Dr. Rebani.”
“Great.” Hallam sighed deeply. “Now it’ll be buried six feet under.”
“What do you mean?” Karen jumped up and crossed to Mark Hallam, who was standing with his head lowered and his back pressed against the office bulletin board.
“Oh, there are weird aspects about this project, but when I attempt to get to the bottom of things Vance or James or Rebani provide me with the most rational explanations. And Alex Wythe smiles and says nothing, or at least nothing that answers my questions.” Hallam lifted his head and smiled ruefully at Karen. “Sorry to act like the Grand Inquisitor, but I thought I might finally get a jump on the lot of them.”
“What kind of weird aspects?”
“Perhaps I shouldn’t go into that. This is just your summer job, after all. Not something you should worry about. By the way, why did you decide to continue with the project? Didn’t you graduate?”
“Of course I graduated.” Peevishness sharpened her tone, but what did he expect? Men who shoved people into offices couldn’t ask for good manners. “But I didn’t have any immediate plans, and this was a good opportunity to make some additional money and figure out what I want to do next.”
“I see.” Hallam appraised her in a way that made Karen feel he saw rather t
oo much. “I suppose you’re considering grad school?”
“That’s one option.”
“My wife—she’s a history professor at the community college—just completed her doctorate. I know that’s a long haul. But I suppose, being an artist, you’d be going for something else.” He studied her face with a look that could strip varnish.
“My degree would be an MFA.” Thank goodness the conversation had veered off the issue of the dark-haired strangers. “I didn’t know you were married, Mr. Hallam.”
He held up his left hand. The ring on his third finger was clearly visible. “I thought visual thinkers were more observant.” His smile took some of the sting out of the words. Some. “That’s the excuse Wythe used to hire you, isn’t it?”
“Did he need an excuse?”
“Apparently not. Well, perhaps you should run along and do whatever it is they’re paying you to do around here. God knows I wasn’t told anything about it before they hired you. Not your fault, of course.”
“I think I’ll do that.” Karen turned on her heel and left the room as quickly as she could.
“Karen,” Hallam called after her, “if you see that odd man or woman again, tell me right away, will you?”
Karen walked on without answering. She had no intention of doing any such thing. No matter how unnerving another encounter might prove to be. Better to keep silent than to endure Leena Rebani’s dismissive disbelief, or another grilling by Mark Hallam. She was probably blowing things out of proportion, anyway, and she certainly didn’t want to lose this job to her overactive imagination.
Because that would mean being cast out of Alex Wythe’s orbit, and she wasn’t ready for that unhappy day. Not yet. Not just yet.
Dream Journal, June 29th:
I was seated at one of many long tables in a large, open room. It was a utilitarian space, like a factory floor. Every seat at each of the tables was filled with individuals of various ages, races, and ethnicities. There was a tiny computer on the table in front of me. I’d never seen such a small computer before. Next to the computer was a variety of unusual objects, and I instinctively understood these objects were used to access and manipulate the data on the computer.
