Extraordinary Lies

by Jennifer Alsever

  Dr. Carrillo left Carol in the room and appeared in the hallway next to us. She was breathless. “This is amazing.”

  “Yes,” Dr. Strong said.

  “Truly amazing. We’ll repeat these experiments under tight laboratory conditions and submit the results to the American Society for Psychical Research.” She grinned, showing a gold cap on a back molar.

  Dr. Strong rubbed his mustache, lost in thought. “Yes. Of course.”

  Dr. Carrillo turned to another scientist who had appeared next to her, tall like an aspen tree with thick cat-eye glasses. “Lesley,” she said in a low voice. “This is amazing. I think the CIA will give us our contract. For sure with this test result. Start the proposal tonight. I want it on my desk tomorrow.”

  This Lesley girl nodded as if her head was tied to a puppet string.

  Dr. Carrillo didn’t even seem to notice us. Dr. Strong opened his mouth and pointed at me, looking as if he were about to introduce us, but Dr. Carrillo continued talking at a frantic pace. “But why couldn’t she say what was inside? Why did she draw it?”

  She was a stutterer. Maybe that was why. I had never tried to go out of my body. When my episodes happened, though, I wished I could have left my body. Gone someplace else.

  “I understand that psi subjects need time to gather their wits and let their impressions start coming in.” The voice was nasal and came from a young woman in a white lab coat behind me. She reminded me of a sunflower. Pretty but a bit stiff, a bit prickly and kind of in your face.

  “Thank you, Dr. Monson,” Dr. Carrillo nodded swiftly, studying the scientist behind me for a long moment.

  On the other side of the glass, Carol’s face looked peaked, like she was melting into the floor. “I believe that perhaps … Carol’s sick,” I said.

  We all watched her for a moment. The girl’s shoulders heaved, and she laid her head over her crossed arms atop the table.

  “She gets tired, that’s all,” Dr. Carrillo said before looking at me, really looking at me.

  Like a switch triggered by a timer, she abruptly gave me a who the hell are you look. Then she noticed Cord and Henry. “Which ones are you?”

  “This is Julia, the one I told you about,” Dr. Strong said. “And then Henry, who is, um, the one capable of manipulating matter.”

  “You’re the one who can manipulate matter.” Dr. Carrillo gazed at him blankly.

  “I just said that.” Dr. Strong’s voice petered out.

  “Awww…” Henry said, waving a hand and trying for bashful. Very badly trying.

  “And—” Dr. Strong began.

  “I’m really just a rookie,” Henry said.

  Cord extended his hand to greet her. “Cord Ayala.”

  She shook his hand limply and slowly. Her eyes skipped down to his tennis shoes, and she squinted to read his Grateful Dead T-shirt.

  “And Missus Carrillo? I’m gonna blow your mind.”

  Part I

  Smoke

  CHARLEY

  When I was ten, I went to this magic show with my parents. The magician drew a picture of a rose on a notepad and then he freaking lifted a real, live red rose off the page. Petals, stem, and all.

  My parents stood up, clapping wildly, and I copied them. Dad said afterwards that the performance was a great trick—simply smoke and mirrors.

  But sitting in the back of the station wagon on the drive home, I kept wondering: What if it was real? What if this man was more like me? Able to do things that defied logic? That challenged science? Even then, I knew that blooming inside me was a seed of something strange, something supernatural.

  Then I came to a creepy place like SRI, filled with white lab coats and graphs and electrical equipment. A place that operated on scientific principles.

  My problem: science operates on the natural. Not the supernatural.

  Where does that put people like me? Who live by another truth? Who move through the world differently? Are we truth? Are we smoke? Or simply lies?

  1

  Charley

  “Where are you?”

  Cindy sounded like the little girl whose hair I had braided just a few months ago. Back then she had been a kid who’d draw pictures for me and hide them at the diner. Under bowls. In the cash register. In a coffee cup. Then suddenly, boom, she got little hills of boobs on her chest and started sticking out a hip and sneering when I asked her to do things like take out the trash. No more drawings. No more surprises.

  But standing there the first evening, wrapped up in the long, curly cord of the phone, I could hear that little-kid version of Cindy.

  From my hemp purse, I pulled the drawing she had made for me two years earlier, when she was ten. I’d shoved it in my bag as I left the house.

  She’d written my name and hers on the top of the paper in neat handwriting. Below it was her kid-drawn version of us. Me, my hair black and flipped up on the edges, wearing a miniskirt and high heels, a nose that was too long. She held my hand and wore neat braids. Small dots for eyes and a large smile that filled half of the circular head.

  I ran my fingers over the picture, remembering the little girl who needed me to lie with her at night and cover her ears when Mom and Dad played music too loud. I’d wrap us up in a thousand stuffed animals. She’d giggle. It felt good.

  “In California.” I paused, stuttered the next line. “Just for … for a bit. I’ll come back.”

  “What?” Confusion clouded her word.

  “California?”

  “You just left.” Ahh, now the angles of her voice sounded more like present-day Cindy, the one who popped her gum with her tongue and pretended not to see me when I got home from the diner.

  “Yeah. Sorry, I—”

  “Mom and Dad are going berserk. Why’d you go there?”

  “I’m in a special program at this school, and at the end of it, I’ll have some money to help—”

  “You left.”

  “Don’t worry.”

  “You left.”

  “Listen. Ruby said she’d check on you and pick you up after school—until summer break starts next week.”

  “Her?” I pictured her sneering.

  Ruby usually forgot to brush her own teeth. She was not the girl you wanted picking a kid up from school. But she was my only choice.

  “She said she’d—”

  “Ruby’s a pothead.”

  “Come on, Cind—”

  “You too.”

  Wow, she was taking lessons from Mom. Words like a whip.

  “Hey, be good, ’kay? And do me a favor. Don’t tell Mom and Dad I’m here.”

  “Why?”

  “Because … it just complicates things.” The truth was, I didn’t want them getting involved and ruining everything. Bringing their shit to this program—the one place I felt like I could breathe. I just needed a break from it. From them. From everything.

  “They’re gonna be mad.”

  “I know—”

  “Collect calls are expensive.”

  “I know, but I’ll fix it.”

  She didn’t respond.

  “Hey, so how you doing?”

  “Fine.” Her voice sounded sour. “Do you really think the world revolves around you?”

  “Cind…”

  “What, like I need you so I can walk in on you and one of your creepy boyfriends.”

  I exhaled.

  She kept going. “So ... you can lie there so high you can’t get up.”

  “That’s not—”

  “Just like Dad.”

  “I wasn’t high. I was sleeping.”

  “You reeked of pot.”

  “Sleeeeeeeeeping.” I said. “There’s a difference.” Is that how she sees me? My face felt hot. She used to see me differently. I’d have to say it was almost as this sort of light, and it made me kind of better. But maybe I was screwing her up just as bad as my parents had. Maybe it was best I was gone.

  But you’re not her mom, Charley. That’s what I told myself.
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br />   Still, there was this big glob of guilt. I folded up the drawing and stuffed it back in my purse.

  “So anyway. What’d you do today?” I asked.

  “Nothing.” The Three Dog Night song “Joy to the World” played on the radio in the background and something rustled on her end of the phone, followed by a slurping sound. I imagined her ducking her head in the fridge, licking four-day-old cupcakes from the diner.

  “I love you.”

  Silence.

  “Be smart, okay?”

  “Yeah, ’kay.” Her voice sounded hollow, and the same emptiness opened up inside me. Maybe I never should have left.

  An hour later, I made the long walk over to the dim basement of the Stanford Research Institute. There, Dr. Carrillo lined me and a bunch of other kids up against the wall, as if we were military recruits. She paced in front of us in that wibbly-wobbly way.

  First in our lineup of psychic freaks was Samuel, who stood like he was squeezing a lemon between his buttcheeks. Then Minnie, who chewed the lipstick off her lips and spoke with a bit of a Southern accent. Next to her stood a guy named Cord, who beamed and acted like he was at frigging Disneyland.

  My bell-bottom hip-huggers pinched my skin, and I rubbed my hip. I caught Cord’s eyes following my fingers as I adjusted the bottom of my ruffled blouse.

  A girl named Julia stood inches from my other shoulder. She was a mouse of a girl who hid in her hair. On the other side of me was an older girl, maybe in her early twenties, named Katerina. She was built like a willow tree and tossed her hair over her shoulder like every minute. When Dr. Carrillo said her name, Katerina would always correct her with some accent. The first part of her name sounded like “caught” followed by the rolling r on the tongue. I began wishing she’d just stop calling Katerina by name.

  And at the end of the line was a foxy guy named Henry, slumped sideways on the wall. He wore his hair longer and had this smoldering look, like he was a teen idol plastered on the pages of Tiger Beat magazine. Older than us—maybe in his early twenties? I bet he’d be the type to light ants on fire or steal kids’ bicycles and make them buy them back. I seemed to be a magnet to guys like that. Ask Cindy.

  “You’re all here because you have special abilities,” Dr. Carrillo said.

  I slumped against the wall and eyed the others. They didn’t look like the kind of people you’d expect to be psychic weirdos. In fact, it was crazy weird to be surrounded by other people who were supposedly like me. I’d always been that lone psychic misfit, and until Mom found out and decided I could make some good money from it, not many people knew about it.

  I couldn’t imagine any of these people sitting at a card table in the back of a stuffy diner giving people readings, like me. Maybe some of them weren’t really psychic. Maybe some were —what’s it called again?— yeah, a control group for the experiments.

  “Not long ago, a black-and-white film surfaced of a woman named Nina Kulagina—a Russian psychic who could move objects without touching them. The film showed her moving compass needles, bread loaves, salt shakers— all with her mind.”

  Cord’s eyebrows inched up his forehead.

  “She stopped the heartbeat of a frog and apparently caused the heart rate of a scientist to climb to a dangerous level. You see. If the Soviets have access to more psychics like this—like you—then we have a new kind of arms race on our hands.”

  She paused for emphasis. The only sound was awkward silence and her weird foot dragging along the floor.

  “It is vital—vital—to our nation’s security that we better understand the scientific nature of these gifts,” Dr. Carrillo said. “Of your gifts.”

  She gazed directly at Julia, who looked away.

  “Or supposed gifts,” Dr. Carrillo said.

  I glanced at the others. That guy Henry looked at his watch, bored, too busy for her talk. Samuel, meanwhile, was fully there. It looked like he used every muscle to squeeze his eyebrows together.

  Dr. Carrillo clasped her hands behind her back and turned to pace the other direction. “In China, scientists are studying children with EHBF, or Extraordinary Human Body Function,” she said, emphasizing each word as if we were going to write it down or something. “These are kids that can bend metal. They cause spontaneous combustion with a flick of their hand. One young girl proved she could see through lead containers.”

  We all glanced at each other. Cord’s eyelids were roller shades stuck on open. I wondered if any of us could do that. Make things spontaneously combust. I only felt emotions and saw pictures and scenes play out when I touched people’s hands. None of that kind of crazy poltergeist shit.

  “Brain-wave analysis of these children showed they might possess a unique, but still unknown, form of radiation. Their minds, in essence, could produce rays similar to microwaves. We’re talking ten million times stronger than the most powerful radar equipment out there.”

  Julia stirred at this comment—it was if her body actually folded inward. She raised a hand by her shoulder like she was in school.

  “Yes, Julia?” Dr. Carrillo said, nodding to her.

  “This is a mistake… I’m … I’m not supposed to be here.” Her voice sounded like gauze.

  For a long couple seconds, Dr. Carrillo just squinted at her from behind thick glasses. Julia glanced up at her, hopeful, silent. The seconds hung heavy in the air while we waited for Dr. Carrillo to respond. Maybe the lady was having a seizure. Or she was trying to read Julia’s mind.

  Then Dr. Carrillo simply continued talking, as if Julia hadn’t even said anything.

  “You kids,” she said, pointing slowly at each of us, “are the American EHBF program. One by one, we’ll see if such abilities are real. And we’ll use science to understand how they even work.”

  2

  Julia

  We toured the facility with the entire group, and it was just as bad as I expected. The only light from a buzzing halogen at the other end of the hall. I passed a room with large, refrigerator-sized pieces of equipment. Torture chamber. I still simmered at the way Dr. Carrillo had ignored me when I told her I wasn’t supposed to be here.

  The boy with the brown skin, Cord, stepped closer to Dr. Carrillo. “Why’s the lab way down here?”

  Dr. Carrillo walked briskly in front of us. Her lab coat fluttered behind her. “Because we’re investing most of our grant money in you people—the cash compensation for your participation.”

  “Oooh-eee. It’s colder than a penguin’s balls down here,” Minnie whispered. She rubbed her arms, despite wearing a long-sleeved blouse that fit snug across her full body.

  “What’s upstairs?” Henry asked. I glanced up, and again, he stood just a few inches from me. This guy is made of glue.

  Dr. Carrillo’s brow flickered, and her upper lip curled under slightly. “Upstairs they’re doing artificial intelligence research. Some ridiculous robot named Shakey. Pointless work. We were lucky to get what we have.”

  We walked past a room with an open door. I slowed my pace and took inventory of the room: electronics, cameras, a young woman. She looked familiar and wore a powder-blue dress with a Peter Pan collar. She stood stock still, her arms dangling at her sides. Her dark hair hung to her shoulders.

  “Who’s that?” I asked, catching up to the others.

  “What?” Dr. Carrillo didn’t turn to look at me.

  “The girl with the blue dress.” I threw my thumb over my shoulder.

  She frowned. “What?”

  “In the other room we passed…” I said, the power dwindling from my voice.

  “No one should be down here.” She stopped in her tracks and spun around to glare at me. “What on earth are you talking about, Julia?”

  I pointed over my shoulder. “There was a girl? Blue dress? Dark hair?”

  “Where?” Henry asked.

  “In that room.”

  Dr. Carrillo gave a series of short, irritated head shakes. “No. All of the scientists are in a meeting.”

>   “But.” I saw her. I did.

  “It’s just the seven of you. No one else better be back here…” She turned around and marched back to the open door where I’d seen the girl.

  We followed her, but the room was empty, aside from the black and silver boxy equipment and cameras. No closet doors—no place for the girl I’d seen to go.

  “No one’s there,” Dr. Carrillo snapped. The weird light in the basement made her look older than maybe she was, the lines around her mouth and along her cheeks severe.

  I frowned. There had been a girl there. Where’d she go?

  “Maybe you done seen the plat-eye,” Minnie said.

  I frowned.

  “Plat-eye. The ghost that takes over your body and make you do awful things?” she said, as if I should have known what that was.

  I shook my head.

  “What’d she look like? The girl?” Charley said.

  “Dark hair,” I said.

  “Pretty?” Henry asked, grinning.

  My shoulders barely inched up in response.

  “You didn’t just catch a glimpse of yourself in a mirror?” He laughed.

  I gazed at him, confused.

  “Uh … you?” he said.

  Minnie turned to me and dramatically spun her arm in the air. “He’s tryin’ to say you look like that.”

  “Yeah, that he thinks you’re pretty,” Cord explained with a shrug.

  “Pretty, mm-hmmm.” Minnie nodded, striding on ahead down the hall.

  “Looks like you. Except for the blue dress,” Henry said.

  “Onward, subjects,” Dr. Carrillo shouted down the dim hallway.

  I looked down at my plaid maxidress. Henry put an arm around my shoulder, as if to comfort me, but I silently wriggled out from under it. We weren’t friends. We didn’t even know each other.

  We followed Dr. Carrillo, and the salty girl, Charley, leaned into me. “So, that’s your deal? You see ghosts?”