Centralia (21 page)

Sometime later Nichols returned and sat in the chair again. Peter couldn’t tell how much time had passed, but it must have been hours because his stomach was beginning to grumble.

“Are you ready to hear more?” Nichols said.

“Where’s Karen and Lilly?”

Nichols ignored his question. “When you failed, my colleagues wanted to discontinue you.”

“You mean kill me.”

Nichols smiled. “We prefer
discontinue
.”

“Of course.”

“That was protocol. It’s how we handled the other agents that didn’t . . . work out.”

“There were others?”

Nichols’s eyebrows lifted. “Of course. We were building an army unlike any the world had ever seen. Others came after you, Peter. But you were the best.”

“And you killed them?”

Again, the smile. “Discontinued them. But I convinced them to let you live. I had plans for you. I, unlike my colleagues, have a heart, and I hated to see such talented agents
 
—soldiers
 
—gone to waste. So I convinced them to let me experiment with you.”

An image of being underwater flashed through Peter’s mind, and the feeling of drowning, suffocating, was there too. “You tortured me.”

“No, no. Nothing barbaric like that. I wanted to put you back into society. Let you live a normal life again. But the information you had, the training you had, the missions you’d carried out
 
—it was all very classified. We couldn’t trust you to sign a few forms and promise to keep your mouth shut. Time changes people. And besides, if you would have ever fallen into the hands of our enemies . . . well, they can be very persuasive. We couldn’t take any chances.”

“That’s why you killed the others?”

Nichols tightened his lips and breathed in deeply and noisily through his nose. “Discontinued. We couldn’t take any chances. But I had this idea, see. What if we could erase your memory? Scrub your mind clean and give you a new memory. A new identity. A new life. We could introduce you back into society as someone totally different and give you a second chance.”

Like a cauldron of oil over an open fire, anger boiled inside Peter. He clenched his fists and clamped his jaw.

“Easy now, Peter,” Nichols said. “You haven’t heard everything yet. There’s more to this story.”

“You brainwashed me.”

Nichols shrugged. “Call it what you like, but we prefer to call it scrubbing and imprinting. We scrub your mind of the old and imprint the new. Kind of like erasing the hard drive in a computer and reprogramming it with all brand-new information. But with you it was different. Your mind was extraordinarily strong. It’s what made you so unique, so valuable. We had to imprint three different realities to block out the original.”

Peter rubbed his temples in a futile attempt to ward off the ache that had settled there. Of course
 
—that’s why he had different memories that didn’t coincide. They weren’t his; they were false memories, junk they’d gotten from some box off a shelf and fed him. It also explained the four rooms in his dream. He was a lab jockey in one, a cop in the other. He’d never searched the third room, and the fourth, the locked door, must be his original reality, who he really was.

“You’re figuring it out,” Nichols said. “I can see it in your eyes.” He sounded pleased. “That’s good. You deserve to know. The truth is liberating, isn’t it?”

“What about Amy Cantori? How does she fit into this?”

“Well, we couldn’t just drop you back into the world without a support network. You were a dangerous man, and we’d tinkered with your brain an awful lot. We weren’t sure how you’d get along, if it worked at all. Amy worked for the project . . . sort of. She was contracted by us to keep an eye on you.”

“So everything that happened between us was an act? It was all scripted?”

Nichols paused and stared at his hands for a long time. “Your relationship with Amy had gotten too close. It had to be changed. We needed to remove her.”

“You had her killed.”

“That, unfortunately, was not part of the initial plan.”

“But she never said anything.” Peter wasn’t going to mention Amy’s words at the very end, her warning. He realized now it was a kind of confession as well.

“No. She didn’t. She was quite the actress. They all were.”

“They?”

“Yes. There were others who had knowledge too, but in varying degrees. Dean Chaplin, Dr. Lewis, Susan and Richard Greer. Keeping you away from the truth proved to be quite an elaborate and expensive task.”

Peter sprang to his feet and rushed across the room at Nichols with every intent to strangle the life out of the old man.

Nichols put up both hands. “Wait, Peter. You haven’t gotten your question answered yet, the most burning question.”

Peter stopped, panting, sweating, clenching his fists. A sense of great betrayal ate at his heart like a raging cancer. They’d turned him into a monster and then erased his very existence. Populated his new world with false friends, with lies. “Where are Karen and Lilly?” He almost didn’t ask it because he was afraid of the answer, afraid Nichols would tell him that the funeral was indeed real and Karen and Lilly were gone.

“Sit down,” Nichols said. He lowered his hands to his lap. “If you want to know the truth, you need to sit down and take it like a soldier, like the soldier you still are.”

Peter drilled Nichols with burning eyes, then turned and sat in his chair.

“Peter . . . Karen and Lilly don’t exist. They aren’t real.”

Peter gripped the seat of the chair so hard he nearly bent it. “You’re lying.”

“I wish I was, son. In order for the imprinting to work, we had to give you some strong connection to each reality, a common factor that would travel through each one, something you’d be willing to die for in order to hold on to your life as you knew it. Some emotional tie that bound you to it. So we created Karen and Lilly. We were all very surprised by how quickly and fiercely you latched on to them, by how thoroughly you accepted them. The emotional tie was incredible. Unbreakable even. It was a perfect scenario. A little too perfect, though, and that’s why we had to make you believe that they had died in a car accident. You’d still have the emotional tie, the anchor, but without the problematic issues of keeping their existence going.”

Peter shook his head. “No. You’re lying.” The room spun around him as if his chair were the axis of a giant wheel. His head swam; bile pushed its way up his throat. He thought he’d vomit right there in front of Nichols.

“I wish I was, son. I do.” Nichols stood. “I’ll leave you alone to process this. I know it’s hard news to accept. I wanted to tell you the truth, though, and you wanted to hear the truth. Now you have the truth. I’m sorry.” He walked to the door and opened it. “Some guards will be by for you in a little while. I suggest you be on your best behavior when they arrive.” He left, and the door closed.

Peter stood, picked up the chair, and threw it against one of the walls. It clattered and landed on its side on the floor. It was a lie
 
—it had to be. Everything else felt fabricated and mass-produced, except Karen and Lilly. It wasn’t possible that they were mere figments of his imagination, concoctions of some lab tech who’d fed him information while he was being
imprinted
. They were real; the memories he had of them were as real as the skin on the back of his hand. Uniquely his. He refused to believe what Nichols had told him.

But what if Nichols was right? What if he was telling the truth? Everything else he’d said made sense. It was a twisted, demented form of sense, but it all added up. Why would this be different? If Karen and Lilly really didn’t exist, then Peter had no reason to live, no reason to fight and go on. His life was a sham, his relationships phony; everything about him came out of a lab, where his mind had been
scrubbed
and
imprinted
. He was a man who didn’t exist, a mirage. No one would miss him if he died now because no one knew he was still alive. All his old friends, relatives, and whoever else knew him from his original life had probably accepted his death and moved on.

If he didn’t have Karen and Lilly, he had nothing.

Peter was about to fall asleep in a very uncomfortable position in the chair when the door opened and three guards entered. They all wore black commando garb and carried Glocks, standard issue for these types of grunts.

The lead, a broad-shouldered guy with a wide, angular face and deep-set dark eyes, stepped forward and said, “Mr. Ryan, please stand and turn around, and put your hands on the wall.”

Peter didn’t move. He sat in the chair and stared at the guard as if he’d suddenly gone deaf and hadn’t heard a word the man said. The other two had positioned themselves on either flank of the lead. Both had their guns trained on Peter’s head.

Peter noticed that each of the guards wore a utility belt that contained several magazines of ammo, pepper spray, handcuffs,
and a Taser. They’d come prepared for whatever might transpire. He also noticed the lead gripped the gun with his left hand; the guard to the right of the lead was sweating terribly, soaking the collar of his shirt; and the guard to the left continuously shifted his feet.

“Sir,” the big lead said. “I’m going to ask you again to stand and put your hands on the wall.”

As if he were a Trappist monk and had taken a strict vow of silence, still Peter said nothing and did not move.

The lead guard circled Peter and stood behind him. The barrel of his gun nudged Peter’s head. “I’m not going to ask you again.” He spoke forcefully, confidently. “If you don’t stand on your own, I can make you do it.”

Peter knew he could. He had a Taser, and its fifty thousand volts would incapacitate Peter long enough that the three could pounce on him and cuff him in seconds.

Slowly Peter complied. He rose and walked to the wall. The lead guard followed.

Peter stood a foot from the wall.

“Hands on the wall,” the guard said.

Peter hesitated, testing the man. If his stare didn’t hold the power to atomize concrete, the least he could do was try to draw the man in closer. It worked. The guard stepped nearer and pressed the barrel of his gun against Peter’s back, between the shoulder blades.

Quicker than the lead could react, Peter spun to his left, knocking the guard’s arm out of the way. The gun discharged, sending a round into the concrete inches from where Peter stood. The gun then clattered to the floor. Peter continued his spin, using his momentum to place a tight choke hold on the guard with his left arm while grabbing the man’s Taser from the utility belt with his
right hand. It took him less than a second to aim and fire and hit the sweating guard in the thigh. The guy twitched and grunted like a marionette dangling from a tangled mess of string and finally collapsed to the floor.

The remaining guard shouted something unintelligible and squeezed off a round that nearly struck Peter’s head but slammed into the wall behind him. Shards of concrete bit the back of Peter’s neck. Still holding the lead guard, Peter groped for the man’s pepper spray canister, found it, and coated the remaining guard’s face. The guy stumbled back, pawing at his face; he gagged, sputtered, spit, and wheezed.

Peter released the lead guard from the choke hold and smashed his elbow into the side of the man’s head, then delivered a kick to the chest of the man he’d just hit with the pepper spray. The guard backpedaled and slammed against the far concrete wall. Peter followed and easily disarmed him. He went to the guard he’d Tased, who was still lying on the floor, salivating and sweating profusely, and retrieved his gun. The lead guard’s gun was in the corner. Peter picked it up too.

All three guards were suffering the effects of the pepper spray now, coughing, wheezing, clawing at their eyes. It was only then that Peter noticed his own eyes burning and nose running. Ignoring the pain, he quickly handcuffed the three men together, both at the wrists and ankles, forming an interlaced mess of arms and legs. He crossed the room to the door and cracked it open. A woman stood there as if the sudden burst of violence had telepathically drawn her to the room. She was young, blonde, and dressed in a neatly pressed navy-blue pantsuit and white blouse. “Come with me,” she said.

Peter hesitated, unsure if he should trust her. He held one of the
Glocks in his hand and had tucked the other two into the waist of his pants. He raised the gun and pointed it at the woman.

She looked at the gun but didn’t seem alarmed. Then, as if she’d peered inside his head and seen the question there, she said, “I’m on your side.”

Whether or not he could trust her, Peter decided he’d take the risk at this point. He slipped out the door and closed and locked it behind him.

“Quickly
 
—this way,” the woman said. She hurried down the hall with the confidence of someone who had traveled these corridors many times. It was like the other halls Peter had seen in the underground bunker. Concrete, lights every fifty feet or so, electrical wiring and plumbing running along the ceiling. Vents at even intervals with the lights.

They passed a couple rooms until finally, at a solid brown door, the woman stopped. “In here.” She placed her thumb over a fingerprint scanner, the door unlocked, and she pushed it open.

Once they were in the room and the door shut behind them, Peter pushed the woman against the wall and pointed the gun at her. “Who are you? Why are you helping me?”

Lips parted, muscles tight in her neck, she shifted her eyes from the gun to Peter. “You mind getting that thing out of my face first?”

“Actually, I do,” Peter said. He suddenly felt he’d been led into a trap.

The woman forced a smile and glanced at the barrel of the gun again. “You have a gun and I don’t. You have me by at least fifty, sixty pounds. And you’re some kind of karate ninja guy. I don’t see how I pose much of a threat to you. Not nearly enough to warrant a gun in the face.”

Peter released his grip on her and lowered his gun. “Who are you?”

“I’m April. I’m a counselor here.”

“Did you work on me? Were you part of brainwashing me?”

April shook her head. “No. Not my department. I work with other kinds of subjects.”

Peter looked around. They were in some sort of control room. Television monitors with blank screens lined one wall. Against an adjoining wall were three desks, empty. The other two walls were bare. “What is this place?”

“It’s a monitoring station. One of many. This one is rarely used.”

Peter nodded toward the door. “Won’t they be looking for me?”

“They already are. But they won’t look here. This is a red room, off-limits to everyone but techs and counselors like me. The only way you could gain access to this room was if you were a counselor.”

“Or have a counselor helping you,” Peter said.

April smiled, genuinely this time. “Exactly.”

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why are you helping me?”

April walked over to the wall of monitors and sat at a computer. She punched the keys on the keyboard, and one of the monitors sprang to life. On it was the image of a small boy in a room just like the one in which Peter had been held. Concrete everything except for one metal chair. The kid couldn’t have been more than ten. He had thick brown hair and a face full of freckles. He sat slumped in the chair until a woman entered, carrying a box. It was April.

“This is a recording from yesterday,” April said.

“What is this?”

“Just watch.”

On the monitor April said,
“Good morning, Tyler. How was your night?”

Tyler shrugged.

“Well, how’s your morning going so far? Did you enjoy your breakfast?”

Again, only a shrug.

April set the box on the floor in front of Tyler and squatted next to him.
“Are you ready to get started?”

Tyler did nothing. He stared at the floor, his mouth tight and jaw tense.

“We have something new for you today.”
April opened the box and pulled out a small birdcage containing one finch.

Tyler stiffened and shook his head.

“What’s he doing?” Peter asked. “Why does he look so frightened?”

April said nothing.

On-screen, April placed her hand on Tyler’s shoulder.
“You have to, Tyler. You know what they’ll do if you don’t. Do what you have to do and your mother will be fine.”

Peter’s muscles tensed. Something about this was wrong.

Seated on the chair, Tyler squirmed and shook his head. He moaned and whimpered.

“Tyler,”
April said.
“You must. You have to.”

Tears spilled from Tyler’s eyes and tracked down his cheeks. He ran a hand over his face, wiping them away. Then he fell to his knees in front of the cage. The bird flapped its wings furiously but got nowhere.

“That’s it, Tyler. That’s a good boy. Just do it and it’ll be over.”

Tyler lifted a shaking hand and placed it on the cage. The bird flapped and flitted, screeched. Tyler focused on the bird and
clenched his jaw. The camera zoomed in on the cage. Suddenly the bird burst into flames and fell to the bottom of the cage.

Tyler yanked his hand away and began to sob.

April rubbed his back.
“There you go. Now it’s over. You did it and it’s over.”

April tapped a button and paused the image on the screen. She turned to Peter. “That’s not what I signed up for here.”

“What is it? How did he do that?”

“The Centralia Project is about more than training soldiers. There’s another branch, experimental but gaining a lot of traction.”

Peter pointed at the monitor. “That?”

April nodded. “That. They found that training children was a lot easier than training adults. Less baggage. More pliable minds. More willingness to comply. Easier to coerce.”

Peter stared at the monitor. Nichols had called it the glaring flaw in the Centralia Project:
“Too old. Too much past. Too much baggage.”

“Kids are easy pickings,” Peter said.

“Something like that.”

“But what did that kid do? Tyler. How did he do that?”

“They look for children with extraordinary abilities and then hone those abilities, perfect them to be used for military purposes.”

“Yeah, but what he just did
 
—”

“Pyrokinesis. It’s not a trick. There are documented cases. And you just saw it. Seeing is believing, right? These military types, they see this and begin to think large-scale.”

He had seen it; there was no denying that. “So they kidnap kids and weaponize them?”

“Well, the weaponizing part will come later, when they’re adults. But they’ll be raised here, in Centralia, and that will be their purpose in life.”

Peter wanted to smash the monitor’s screen. “That’s sick. They’re treated like lab animals.”

April dropped her eyes to her hands. “Like I said, it’s not what I signed up for when I took this job.”

“Does the name Abernathy mean anything to you?”

April’s eyes widened. “Haven’t heard that name for a while.”

“Why? Who is he?”

She shrugged. “Not sure, really. Every now and then someone around here will mention him. He’s like some kind of enigma or something. Just disappeared one day and no one knows where he went. Rumor is that the brass had him
 
—”

“Discontinued?”

“Yeah. Something like that.”

April turned to the computer and tapped more keys. “Look, there’s another reason I brought you here.” But before the monitor sprang to life, she looked back at Peter. There was sadness in her eyes. “Your daughter is here, in Centralia.”

A tingling started in Peter’s scalp and ran down the back of his neck like someone had poured cold water over him. “Lilly? She’s here?”

“And your wife.”

“Karen?”

“It’s how they get the children to do what they want them to do.”

“With threats to harm their mothers?”

“Like I said, with the right motivators, children are quick to comply.”

Again the anger was there. Peter’s face flushed and his breathing quickened. “Where’s Lilly? Let me see her.”

April turned to the keyboard and tapped one key. The monitor flickered to life. It was another concrete room like the others. In the
middle of the room was a metal chair and on the chair sat a young girl. Next to the girl was a cart that contained a blue box. Wires extended from the box and connected to the girl with electrodes placed at even intervals over her arms and legs.

Peter stepped closer to the monitor and shook his head. “No. That’s wrong.”

April remained quiet as the scene played out. A red indicator lit on the box and the girl twitched. The camera zoomed in on the box. On the top was a meter measuring voltage; the needle steadily climbed. The camera zoomed out again. The girl twitched but did not cry out. And though her muscles tensed as tight as strained ropes, her face remained calm.

“That’s not right,” Peter said.

April put a hand on his arm, but Peter pulled away. “No. That’s wrong.” He looked at April. “That’s not Lilly.”