F Paul Wilson - Novel 05 (32 page)

 
          
"No,"
Julie said, slowly, deliberately. "It's not unthinkable. You yourself said
he wanted to prove his theories but was turned down for research grants. And
then his wife bears a set of identical twins. What better experimental
subjects? They're genetically matched. Dose them with different sets of
neuro-hormones and see if their development follows the predicted paths."

 
          
Eathan's
face reddened. "I will not stand here and allow anyone, even his own
daughter, to slander my brother like that!"

 
          
"It's
not slander, Eathan. It's a horrible suspicion, and if Sam and I were more
alike, it never would've occurred to me. But we're not, so it did. I don't
want
to believe it. Talk me out of hs."

 
          
Eathan
sighed. "What can I say except that Nathan and I grew up together and,
unlike you and Samantha, we were very much alike. We had our disagreements, of
course. All brothers do. But on the whole we were best friends throughout most
of our lives. No one, not even your mother, knew him better than I. And tell
me, would the man who risked his life to carry you two out of that burning house
ever entertain the thought of experimenting on his own children?"

 
          
Julie
saw the flames again, felt the heat, and that strong arm wrapping around her,
lifting her, and carrying her through the smoke and flames to safety.

 
          
She
took a breath. Eathan's words made sense. The man who ran back into that fire
to save their mother would not risk harming his family.

 
          
"Deep
inside I think I knew it couldn't be true, but I needed to hear you tell me.
The idea latched onto me as I was reading the articles and I couldn't shake
it." She smiled sheepishly. "Pretty silly, I guess."

 
          
Eathan
didn't return her smile. "Ridiculous is more like it. And insulting to his
memory. Imagine, thinking that of your own father." Finally he did smile,
but only slightly. "Perhaps you and your sister aren't so far apart as you
think. That's the sort of wild idea I'd expect from Samantha."

 
          
"You've
got a point there. Sorry."

 
          
"I'm
not the one you owe the apology to."

 
          
Eathan
seemed tired. Perhaps things hadn't gone well with the lawyers.

 
          
As
he went back to unpacking his briefcase, Julie considered the next area of her
father's life that needed explaining: his financial problems. But she'd have
to be more circumspect here.

 
          
"Was
Dad well off financially?" she said.

 
          
"Why
do you ask?"

 
          
"Well,
you said he quit his job and went looking for research grants__ I was just
wondering where all the money came from. You know, our trust funds and all
that."

 
          
Eathan
didn't look up. "Oh, it came from insurance. Nathan was anything but rich.
He was going through especially tight times before the fire, and that made the
insurance companies act very suspicious."

 
          
"Suspicious?"
Julie felt her chest tighten inside. "Why would they be suspicious?"

 
          
"Note
I said 'act' suspicious. The plain truth is they didn't want to pay out two
million dollars
to
a pair
of
five-year-old orphans." He
looked up now and this time his grin was tight and very real. "But I made
them pay every dime they owed you."

 
          
"But
what was their problem?"

 
          
"Your
father and mother each carried a million-dollar accidental death policy on
themselves. You see, when you're young and healthy
—
like yourself, for instance
—
the
most common cause of death is an accident, so it was a smart, cost-effective
way to provide for their children's future should anything happen to them. But
if you think two million dollars is a lot now, it was an
enormous
sum in
nineteen seventy-two. The insurance company tried every trick in its arsenal
to keep from paying. It sent one investigative team after another to look for
evidence of arson, or that the bodies were not Nathan and Lucy Gordon."

 
          
He
leaned over the desk. "I tell you, Julia, it was infuriating. I'm glad you
two were too young to realize what was going on. To suffer through that fire,
and then the endless investigations, the repeat autopsies ..." He shook
his head in disgust. "But none of their investigators found anything
suspicious. So finally they paid up. And then I took the bastards to court to
force them to add the interest that would have accrued during the desk."

 
          
That
single word,
bastards,
punched home the depth of Eathan's feelings on
the episode. It was atypical of Eathan. Julie couldn't remember him cursing
once during her childhood.

           
"But let's talk about the
present," he said. "Any progress on Samantha?"

 
          
Julie
described her memoryscape excursion earlier today
—
neglecting to mention the fact that Dr. S. hadn't been along to monitor her.

 
          
"I'm
getting ready to go in again. Want to sit inr

 
          
"Yes.
I suppose I should. I just..." He shrugged.

 
          
Poor
Eathan. He still couldn't get used to the idea of peering into his niece's
mind.

 
          
"Good,"
Julie said. "I'll collect
Alma
, we'll get Dr. Siegal on
the line, and we'll be ready to go."

 
          
"I
wonder what we'll see this time?" he said softly.

 
          
Good
question, Julie thought as she left him at his desk. Hopefully I can steer
clear of whatever is lurking under the surface there.

 
          
If
a dream state is an accurate model for Sam's ruined memoryscape, maybe
I'll
encounter new
insights
there. The "undocking"
process
that results
from the
cholinergic PGO waves in
sleep
—
the dissolution of cognitive associations formed by the
awake brain
—
allows
new,
unconventional associations to form. Most of what we call
"inspiration" is the result of this free-form, dissociative process.
It's been shown that intense prayer or deep meditation can bring on a dreamlike
cholinergic state. When this
results
in a solution to a thorny problem,
usually
God
or a maharishi
gets
the credit, but real thanks should
go to
the
brain's PGO waves.

—
Random
notes: Julia Gordon

 
          
You
float in the center of the gallery. You wish you were alone, but Dr. S. is
watching. Alma and Eathan are nearby, also watching. The gang's all here.

 
          
And
everyone's got their secrets. You and Alma share one. And Dr. Siegal doesn't
know you've gone in without him. And you now know that Eathan has secrets: your
father's papers in his locked file cabinet, papers Eathan said were destroyed.

           
You're torn between the desire to
see your sister's memoryscape and to get back to Eathan's study.

 
          
You
look about the gallery. Against a wall, the lion of
Venice
still roars, and, farther
on, you see Sam's big painting. You go closer. More details have been added. As
the memoryscape deteriorates, is the painting being reborn? Yellow-orange
light flares from somewhere in the center of the painting. But the center is
empty. A dark, oblong shape blocks the light source. But the shape remains a
secret.

 
          
Another
secret. You have ideas about the big secrets.

 
          
They're
about your father, your mother. Their relationship, his work, his success, his
failure. Eathan has always been so protective. Does he believe you need
protection from the truth? Yes ... if he thought it would hurt you.

 
          
And
then, in another corner of the gallery, you spot a new canvas. You move to it,
and it's the strangest of them all.

 
          
A
bit like a Mondrian, with his stark lines and boxes, his abstract constructs
that always seemed to you to be devoid of feeling. Except this painting
—
whether it's Mondrian's or Sam's
—
is all jumbled. The lines are broken, disconnected. As if
someone took scissors to the canvas and cut it up.

 
          
You
notice something on the painting. You move closer.

 
          
It's
you.

 
          
Or
rather, a tiny paper-doll version of you
—
trapped
between two lines. Part of the jumble. So eerie and disconcerting to see
yourself reduced to a stiff paper figure.

 
          
You
move the glove over your image. You let the virtual hand hover over the image a
moment
—
and then you click.

 
          
The
paper doll comes to life. You see the tiny image of yourself smile. But then
the smile fades as the doll figure looks left and right, seeing that it's
trapped.

 
          
Then,
like a piece of bacon on a skillet, the Julie doll begins to brown and curl,
twisting into a charred knot before vanishing in a tiny puff of smoke.

 
          
And
without doing another thing, you seem to melt into the painting
—
through
the painting
—
and then you're outside, hovering
above the black sea.

 
          
It's
still dark out here, still tomb-silent and desolate, but now you notice there
are fewer islands, and the remaining ones have changed position: They've
gathered closer, as if huddling together until they too slip below the surface.

 
          
You
spot an island where the lines and boxes of the painting are now real. A confused
girderlike structure painted in garish primary colors stands on the shore. And
at the bottom is an opening, a doorway.

 
          
You
start toward it, then
—
like the paper doll
—
you're in the structure, in a long, featureless hallway.

 
          
I
don't like this, you think.

 
          
You
point the glove down the hallway and move.

 
          
The
hallway goes on forever. You keep moving but there's no break in the monotony,
no side paths, just this one endless hallway. And it's dark. Barely enough
light to see the virtual walls on either side, and only a few feet ahead.

 
          
Then
you hear sounds. People talking, voices overlapping. It's impossible to hear
what's being said, who's saying it.

 
          
You
stop moving. The sounds ... off to your left. You look that way and see another
corridor. You turn right and find still another corridor leading in the
opposite direction.

 
          
Finally
someplace to go, but where do all these bleak corridors lead?

 
          
The
voices fill the space, so it doesn't seem to matter much where you go. You move
the gloved hand left and begin gliding that way ... and that hallway opens
into a room with an enormous checkerboard floor surrounded by a dozen doors. A
single red bulb glows on the ceiling, like a bubble light from a police car.
Except it's not flashing. No emergency now.

 
          
All
these doors...

 
          
And
they aren't all the same. Some look like heavy riveted metal, die type you
might find leading to a loft apartment, while others have a rich wood finish,
much like the doors at Oakwood.

 
          
They
remind you of that line from Aldous Huxley: "The doors of perception lead
everywhere."

 
          
How
much perception can you handle?

 
          
Each
door begs to be opened. Which to choose? You pick randomly: a dark wood door.
You click the glove on it and it opens.

 
          
A
black corridor stretches before you as a tremendous gust of wind propels you
over the threshold, down the black corridor, into...

 
          
A
great public garden.

 
          
Sam
looks angry. Liam turns away.

 
          
"I
told you, Sammi, I'll not hear any of that damn crap from you. You just have to
accept who I am, how I live."

 
          
But
Sam doesn't let him get off that easily. She circles around to his front. She
ignores the French mothers strolling with their children in the early October
morning. She and Liam have been up all night, making love, drinking
wine.... This stroll was her idea.

 
          
And
in the brilliant
Paris
sunlight, she decides to
dig deep under the skin of Liam O'Donnell.

 
          
"I
know what my uncle says about you."

 
          
"And
what would that rich old fool be knowing?"

 
          
"He's
no fool. He told me that you're a wanted man, a terrorist. He said you're
wanted for arson."

 
          
Sam
watches Liam turn slowly toward her. She felt safe accusing him here, in the
sunlight with all the children and their mothers around. But now his dark eyes,
his tight lips, vaporize that security.

 
          
"He
knows nothing. And there's only one thing you need to know, my little crazy
artist
—
"

 
          
"Don't
call me crazy!"

 
          
The
beginnings of a smile vanish.

 
          
"No?
It wasn't you who asked me to break into your uncle's house, eh? Now what would
he be saying if 1 told him that?"

 
          
Sam
grabs Liam's arm. "You wouldn't."

 
          
Now
Liam allows the grin to reclaim his face. And Sam feels the loss of her
advantage.

 
          
"Sure
an' I wouldn't do that. No more than you would tell anyone about me. We all
need our secrets, eh love?"

 
          
Sam
looks to the left, and sees a boy holding a balloon, a bright red balloon. Of
course ... a giant red balloon. Do they make any other kind here?

 
          
As
she watches it she hears Liam's voice, his lips close to her ear.

           
"You need know only one
thing... I love you, Sammi. Love you to bits, I do. And I want to
—
"

 
          
The
balloon ... growing, brighter red. Impossibly big, swelling... except the
boy... the boy is
not
a boy.

 
          
The
balloon explodes, sending red everywhere over the scene, filling
—

 
          
This
black corridor is now red, a broad, painted red bar on the Mondrian canvas. A
giant red corridor.

 
          
The
bastard!
a part of you shouts.
Liam did this. God, it's so clear!

 
          
But
another part of you believes Liam loves Sam.

 
          
You
turn around and you're back in the big room, the room of doors with all its
many faceless, clueless choices. It's Monty Hall to the tenth power. You move
to a battered white door set in a far wall. It's not the entrance to a cheery
home ... more like something from an institution or
—

 
          
You
click on the door.

 
          
This
time it opens slowly, and you see another black corridor beyond the threshold.

 
          
You
enter, and half a minute later you come upon yourself sitting cross-legged on
the basement floor behind the furnace ... striking matches. You always loved to
play with matches. Not that fire itself fascinated you. It was research. Daddy
was always telling you you were too young for a chemistry set, so you had to
improvise. You were only five, but you'd learned how to strike a match without
burning yourself, and that allowed you to set up your own experiments, seeing
what caught fire and what didn't, what burned quickly and what burned slowiy.
You're careful. You always close the cover before striking.

 
          
You
leave yourself behind and enter another room. And then the brilliant lights
stab your eyes.

 
          
The
man stands at a long lab table, papers spread out behind him. Important
papers. Never touch Daddy's important Papers, Sammi.

 
          
And
little Samantha wonders: How could paper be that important?

           
She holds her mommy's hand. Tight.
Mommy doesn't have papers. No important ones, anyhow.

 
          
Sammi's
not crying anymore.