Extraordinary Lies

by Jennifer Alsever

  Charley took a dramatic bow.

  Cord turned away, his voice soft. “This place is neat. Kinda feels like the basement at SRI.”

  It did. Dark mystery wrapped in this creepy, ominous haze.

  “I reckon we should name the lab the Dungeon. What y’all think?” Minnie’s voice climbed an octave.

  “I like that!” Charley said.

  Samuel mumbled something.

  “The Dungeon it is!” Charley said, clapping her hands.

  A couple moments of silence passed as we leaned on the railing, gazing at the water. Charley spun around and leaned against the metal, almost rejecting the view. “Katerina should have come. She should know that you can sleep when you’re dead.”

  “You know how she claims she read minds?” Henry asked, shoving his hands in his pockets and joining her with his back to the rail.

  “Mmm-hmmm.” Minnie nodded.

  Henry smiled. “She’s a liar.”

  I frowned. Wow, the more I hang around this guy, the less I like him.

  He moved with a cocky swagger. “I could easily guess what you’re drawing too. Even if I weren’t psychic.”

  Charley practically swooned. “No way…” she sung.

  “Sure,” he said. “Katerina’s a phony.”

  “I wouldn’t assume that,” Samuel said, turning away.

  “Sammy here is right. Katerina ain’t no fraud,” Minnie said, rolling her eyes.

  Charley linked arms with me, which surprised and warmed me. We started to wander off to explore more, when Henry reached out to grab her arm.

  “Wait. Watch this,” he said.

  She turned around, head tilted, waiting.

  “A mirror. She simply put her hands up to her eyes, right?” He cupped his palms over his eyes and then extended his two cupped hands, as if he were going to drink water from them. “Slip a little mirror into my hands, and I can see behind my head. Just like Katerina did.”

  “Come on… I don’t believe it,” Charley said.

  “No?” he asked. “Katerina has motives to fool people. She wanted out of a crummy little country where you get arrested for just talking to Westerners. So sure, she’s going to make stuff up. That’s all I’m saying.”

  I was shaken. Why would she lie? She seemed like a good one to me. A jolt of irritation went through me. Does everyone always have to lie?

  “Things aren’t always as they seem,” Henry said, walking away through a doorway to a winding staircase. Charley let go of me and followed, along with Minnie, Cord, and Samuel. Henry’s lanky frame slipped through a dim archway.

  I turned the corner and for an instant, I couldn’t see them anymore and everything grew eerily silent. It was as if the dim light devoured us all, and another thought tugged at the back of my conscience.

  The idea was so odd that it slammed me in the chest. I blinked fast, like the second hands on a watch. Because for a brief instant, somehow, I felt like everything about Henry didn’t even exist. That somehow, even he wasn’t real.

  13

  Charley

  The next day proved to be more of the same at SRI. The structure, the rules, the boring vibe felt worse than school.

  Julia didn’t show up, and again the scientists chose teams: Samuel with Dr. Monson; Henry with Dr. Strong; and the rest of us with Dr. Carrillo. We all headed down the hallway toward the labs. Katerina leaned into a clump of grad students, and I overheard bits of her conversation. “I’d like to help clean up. What happens to the data?”

  She wanted to know everything.

  “How did it go, Henry? The testing?” I asked. We walked next to each other, matching the brisk pace of the scientists ahead.

  “I’m so new at this. Really new,” he said, shaking his head. He laughed through his nose.

  “So…?”

  “I guessed the colors on the backs of cards, stuff like that.”

  It seemed like he didn’t have much psychic ability, and I was surprised he was able to get into the program in the first place. He must’ve had some connection that got him in, I decided.

  “What do you mean, you guessed the colors?” Minnie asked, overhearing our conversation. She caught up to us. “Don’t you mean you seen those colors?”

  “I don’t know, gals,” he said. “I’m having a hard time with it as it is. I see the colors on the other sides of cards. What kind of shoes are behind walls. That sort of thing. Nowhere as good as you guys.”

  He turned to follow Dr. Strong into a room, and I whispered to Minnie. “Can that boy really see through walls?” That’s what those Chinese Extraordinary Body Function kids can do. See through walls. Maybe he’s better than all of us?

  She raised her eyebrows and grimaced. “He best not be lookin’ through mine, or I’ll give down the country.”

  I followed Dr. Carrillo into Laboratory E with a table and a large cage the size of a refrigerator, similar to a shark cage for ocean divers.

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  “The Faraday cage. It’s a shielded chamber.”

  The metal door squealed as Dr. Carrillo opened it, proud to show it off. “We’re going to start training select subjects on how to take advantage of it. It’s made entirely of metal and lined with copper mesh. It shields anyone inside from all electrostatic and electromagnetic waves, except ELF waves.”

  Whatever kinds of waves elves made. I blew a bubble with my gum and smacked it with my teeth. “Sure, yeah.”

  “Extremely low frequency waves.”

  My fingers drummed the table. Whatever the hell those are.

  “Once inside, extrasensory perception is increased by a healthy margin over scores obtained under ordinary conditions. It has been known to improve mental telepathy, map dowsing, astrological predictions, and palm reading.” Dr. Carrillo looked at a clipboard before pointing to a chair in the middle of the room with a table. “Sit.”

  I slumped in the chair and crossed my arms.

  She slid a glossy photo on the table. I picked it up and studied it: a log cabin with two windows and a little porch. I could make out broadleaf trees, vines and shrubbery, and a peaked mountain range.

  “Your vacation pictures?” I asked.

  She frowned. “I wish. No, I want you to look at the photo and tell me what else you see. Um, or as you say, feel.”

  “I only do that when I touch people’s hands. I told you that.”

  “This is a rare opportunity to expand, to try things you’ve never tried before.”

  It sounded stupid, but I really hadn’t tried anything new yet. I really had no reason to do so. The hand thing was all that showed up to me. It made pretty good cash—$10 per reading—so why did I need to try other schticks? Plus, I didn’t think I had it in me. I was a one-trick pony.

  “I don’t think so,” I said shaking my head and sliding the picture back to her. “I think you might be better off with one of the others.”

  Her pursed lips took the shape of a wilted flower.

  I threw my thumb over my shoulder. “Well, maybe I can try… doing it in the cage?”

  “You’re not doing remote viewing, though,” she said. “That’s what we plan on using the cage for.”

  Her body wiggled uncomfortably, as if she was a person only accustomed to straight lines. No detours for her.

  “What’s remote viewing?”

  “We’re experimenting with ESP and the ability to view persons, places, and things outside of your normal five senses.”

  “Uh, that’s what I do. You said the cage is good for like, boosting my psychic abilities…” I didn’t mention I needed all the help I could get. I really doubted I’d be able to see who was inside that log cabin or what happened there. What if a murder had taken place there? Or like some famous settler lived there? Like, Johnny Appleseed? Was he even a real person?

  “Letting the subject dictate our means of testing is highly unusual,” she said. She waddled over to the grad students, a shuffle of tall and short people with white la
b coats. They whispered, and I studied the strange metal cage.

  Panic swept through me. Just the idea of being locked in that metal contraption felt claustrophobic, as if I was an animal that would be held and poked and prodded for all eternity. “You know … never mind,” I said suddenly.

  “We’ll do it,” Dr. Carrillo said.

  “I think I can do the test here. At the table.” I popped my gum, tried to act natural even though my palms felt sweaty and my chest constricted.

  Dr. Carrillo reached out and touched my elbow, her hands soft and small. “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do. But if you think it will help…” Her touch felt like a feather, and her voice held an unusual compassion. That touch, that comment, might have been the first tender and seriously kind thing anyone had done for me in weeks. Maybe even months.

  My shoulders, which had been hitched up to my ears, loosened up.

  “Sure,” I said.

  Gripping the black-and-white photo, I stepped inside the metal box. The door shut behind me with a heavy metal clang.

  But then Dr. Carrillo swung open the door and plopped down next to me. She sat so close that I could seriously smell her breath. She reeked of stale coffee. The space was way too tight for the both of us, and touching her pudgy hips gave me the willies. This woman had some seriously scarred mojo. I didn’t want to pry, but I kind of did. What the hell happened to her foot?

  To find out, I’d need to touch her hand and really pick up impressions of her aura. But if I went there, I wouldn’t be able to undo what I saw. So instead, I just scooted over a couple inches.

  “Look at the photo. Describe what you see. What you hear. Taste. Feel. Anything.”

  “Okay.”

  A knot climbed up my throat. I couldn’t swallow.

  “Just relax,” Dr. Carrillo said. Her nose-breathing sounded too loud.

  “Um, can I have some space in here? It’s a little too close for comfort, if you know what I mean.”

  Dr. Carrillo frowned. “Fine.” With a heave, she stood up and left the cage, the door banging behind her.

  In the dark cage, I stared at the photo. What does she want me to see? Why is this even important? I thought of Cord, and how he’d been asked by the police for help on a recent bank robbery. I wondered if this had something to do with it.

  Stop thinking, Charley. I gazed at the photo for a long time, running my fingertips over the smooth picture, outlining the edges of the log cabin. Dr. Carrillo asked me questions about the color and the shape of what I saw. I felt incredibly calm, as if butter flowed through my veins.

  Soon, information flew from my mouth, coming from intuition, from my heart, and I had no idea how I knew what I was saying. “An underground storage area. A former missile site. Base launchers are still there.”

  Much like when I touched people’s skin, information and scenes rushed toward me. A storage facility, aluminum roll-up doors, long narrow, underground rooms with ceilings that reached some twenty feet high.

  “Describe what you see,” Dr. Carrillo’s voice echoed again. She sounded far away.

  In the photo, I saw rooms a hundred feet long, with fluorescent lights. “Several bays with computers, large maps. A bunch of display-type overlays?”

  I told Dr. Carrillo everything, then looked up at the woven cage above me. I knew this place belonged to the Army 5th Corps of Engineers, and I told her so.

  “Good.” It was Dr. Strong’s voice, not hers. When did he get there?

  Words came hurtling toward me. I just read them, as if they were a slide show. “Classified briefing on extrasensory perception to officers in the Medical Field Service School of the U.S. Air Force.”

  “How could she know what they’re working on? Impossible,” another unfamiliar male voice said.

  Dr. Carrillo hushed him. “Let her finish.”

  “There are code names, I think. They say, Flytrap and Minerva? Another one that says, Operation Pool? Cue ball. Haystack. I’m getting people’s names. Major General Michael Randolph. Major Scott R. Nielsen. Uh… something else. Soviet threat.”

  Someone gasped, and my heart expanded. What was the importance of the information I gave them? Something felt dark and twisted like a tornado, sucking my energy downward.

  I shook my head, blinked, and practically leapt headfirst out of the cage.

  “I’m done. That’s all,” I said.

  Dr. Carrillo opened an envelope and pulled out a card. “You were correct!” As if I won something on a game show.

  “I need air,” I said, glancing at her and Dr. Strong and the others, who stood flat-footed, like cardboard cutouts. I flung myself through the metal door, gasping as if I’d been underwater. Again, I sprinted down the hall and up the stairs.

  I needed to see grass and trees and blue sky. I needed a crisp salad or the taste of a tart lemonade. A sticky film of grime had been sprayed over me, and I wanted the sunshine to wash it off.

  I ran across the grass until I reached the cafeteria. Inside, I sat at a table by the window. Soon, Katerina slid up to my table with a tray of meatloaf. The sight of it, all gelled and wobbly with a thick, wood-colored glaze, made me ill. I looked out the window at a tree with waving mint-green leaves.

  “I heard you went to a military base today,” she said.

  I glanced at her, surprised she’d known. Maybe she wasn’t a fraud. “Yeah, I think.”

  “And you stormed out of the room,” she said, sliding a few grains of rice off the fork with her teeth. Graceful, like a movie star.

  “Yeah,” I said, taking a long gulp of my lemonade.

  “Surely, that must have been quite a sight.” Her voice sounded so light. A virtual stroke of my cheek. It made me stay put, not run away. I let the sunshine warm my skin.

  “Did you get a sense that something was wrong there?” she asked.

  I turned to look at her. She wore a dark blue blouse, and her long hair grazed her shoulders. Her lips looked as if they were permanently rose-colored—not the pasty kind of undercooked pink like mine. She appeared to move through the world effortlessly, despite escaping a country that she admitted was pretty harsh.

  “Your experience was very scary, however?” Her brows crinkled.

  “Yeah,” I said, gazing at the wall behind her.

  She waited for me to continue. “I was in a military base. American, and it was crazy, because the photo was just of a cabin. I assume that the base was beneath the cabin? But maybe it was just my imagination.”

  “Beneath the ground? Really? Tell me more.”

  I couldn’t remember everything I saw, and I didn’t know if I was even able to share anything about the test. “Why’d they send me there?”

  She nodded. “I do not know.”

  “I mean, unless she thought the photo was harmless and someone else fed it to her.”

  “Dr. Carrillo?”

  I nodded. “Because they wanted me to tell them things about that base. Hidden stuff.”

  “Hmm..”

  “But then, what if I just made up stuff?” I turned to her. “I mean, I could have just been full of bullshit. I’d never done that kind of psychic stuff before. I just touch hands.”

  Her slender hand sat in front of me, and I eyed it for a long moment. I wanted to see her story. Curiosity tugged at me. Katerina was a locked door to an alluring foreign castle. Would I get shocked if I tried to pry, just as I did when I touched Julia’s hand?

  I reached across the table, under the pretense to pick up the salt. She pulled her hand away and into her lap.

  She knew what I tried to do.

  That shouldn’t have been a big deal. I could just ask her about herself, right?

  “That must’ve been so scary for you,” she said. “What else are you thinking?”

  With those brown eyes, round and shaped like big, glassy footballs— how could you not want to vomit up all your private secrets?

  I shrugged and looked away, gazing at my own stubby hands on the t
able.

  “If you hear any more about the ongoings of this place—hidden agendas, if you will—please do let me know. I am most curious,” she said.

  I let my eyes roam the table, stopping at her hands, now folded in her lap. I wondered what it would be like to be her. I imagined what I’d see: a confident, alluring young woman, living in San Francisco, a magician. Lab tests that didn’t shake her. No heavy guilt over a sister left behind, over an empty Rolodex of friends, over parents who might not have even noticed you were gone. Just freedom. That’s all I’d see.

  14

  Julia

  Henry’s voice sounded low and urgent as I came around the corner. Near the end of our first week, I’d managed to avoid most everyone—including him and the scientists.

  “Minnie? Oh yeah. Her, for sure,” he said. Henry hadn’t shut the glass door to the telephone booth entirely, and I could make out bits and pieces of his phone conversation as I passed through the dormitory lobby.

  “Samuel … electronics … disruption.”

  When Henry noticed me, he pushed the door shut with his foot and flashed a half smile. His hunched back made him look like a vulture. In the soundproof seal of the phone booth, he was silent. His mouth moved and he held up a business card in his hand. I wished I could read lips—as if that superpower would serve me. That guy. Something is up.

  A few minutes later, across the lobby, Cord and I stood side by side at the vending machine, trying to make our selections. I felt the weight of Dr. Carrillo’s gaze heavy on me, felt her stop and stand a few feet away with hands on her hips. “You know, your parents signed papers saying you were going to do this.”

  I’d gone shopping, taken a long walk along the bay, and watched people fly kites in the park. Dr. Carrillo’s speech from Day 1 lingered in the back of my mind—the line about us being vital to our nation’s security. But my own family history gnawed at me. I wasn’t going to risk being tested.

  I shoved a quarter into the Dr Pepper machine and didn’t look at her.

  She leaned into my space. “There’s proof that you might have … a gift.”