Fringe The Zodiac Paradox

She backpedalled, heart racing and thinking that she ought to try to call the police or something, but the nearest pay phone was two blocks back on 16 th’ and she was only a few feet away from her car.

The lot looked empty. No one was passing by on the street.

She should get in her car and get away, right away. Then she could maybe stop at a gas station and call the police. That was the sensible thing to do, and despite her fantasies to the contrary, Miranda had been raised to be a sensible girl.

Rooting through her overstuffed purse for her car keys, she walked around her little white Honda to the driver’s side.

There she found Dio.

He was dead, that much was clear, slumped up against her car as if propped there like a rag doll, ready for a tea party. His neat white shirt and navy blue uniform jacket were soaked with blood, but that wasn’t the worst thing about him. The worst thing about it was his face.

He didn’t have one.

Where his face should have been was a charred red crater lit from within by a strange pale glow emanating from a network of fissures in the red ruin that used to be his features.

Then she quickly realized that it wasn’t the worst thing after all. The real worst thing was the note.

A handwritten note, stuck to the center of his chest with a small folding pocket knife.

HELLO MIRANDA

Her purse fell from her numb, shaking hands, spilling its contents across the asphalt as she stood, frozen in horror. That’s when she started to notice her lips tingling unpleasantly, a weird itchy feeling that spread deep into her gums and tongue. There was a sensation sort of like heat radiating from the faceless corpse, causing her skin to tighten and pulse all along the front of her body.

That’s when a hand clamped down over her mouth. A large, calloused hand crawling with sparks. The sparks leapt from his fingers and burrowed like hungry maggots into her tingling skin, burning trails of excruciating agony deep into the meat of her cheeks.

She screamed against the muffing hand, but the sound was reduced to an impotent squeak. Then the fat blade of a large hunting knife appeared before her tear-blurred eyes. The terrible sparks flashed and reflected in the blade, then the knife buried itself in her vulnerable throat.

* * *

When Nina turned into the parking lot, she slammed on the breaks so hard that Walter banged into the back of Bell’s seat.

“Look,” she said.

In the pool of yellow cast by their headlights, Walter could see a pair of thin female legs in tan pantyhose, sticking out from behind a white Honda CVCC. One shoe was off, lying a few feet away.

Walter had one hand on the door handle and was about to jump out of the car and rush over to the fallen girl when Bell grabbed a fist full of his shirtfront and shook his head.

“We’re too late,” he said.

“Maybe she’s just hurt and needs help,” Walter said.

Nina ignored him, swiftly reversing and squealing backward out of the lot.

“Hey!” Walter shouted, wrenching himself free from Bell’s grasp and looking back at the receding parking lot through the rear window. “What the hell is the matter with you two?”

“What the hell’s the matter with you, Walter?” Nina asked. “Have you forgotten about the gamma radiation the Zodiac leaves behind?”

“We’re clearly too late to save her,” Bell said, “but not more than three hours late. Remember, Iverson said that the radiation lingers for approximately three hours. We can’t afford to jeopardize our own lives, especially when there’s clearly nothing we can do.”

Walter slumped down in the back seat, feeling utterly defeated.

What’s the point of all of this? he thought morosely. The killer was clearly way ahead of them at every turn. They just weren’t cut out for this kind of thing. We might as well just admit defeat.

* * *

When they arrived back at Nina’s, they parked several blocks away and cased her house from a distance, on the lookout for feds, the killer, or both. There was no one. The feds may have had Walter and Bell’s personal info, but they clearly hadn’t traced them back to Nina. Not yet, anyway.

The weary trio stumbled in through the door and found Abby in the hallway.

“Oh, hey,” she said with a big stoned smile. “You just missed your friend.”

Walter didn’t think he had any more adrenaline left in his glands, but they somehow managed to pump out just enough to make him feel sick and light-headed.

“What friend?” Nina asked, scowling.

“He didn’t say his name,” Abby replied. “But he was very polite. He just stopped by to pick up his notebook. He left a note for you.”

She reached into a large decorative pocket in her dress and handed a folded piece of paper to Nina.

35

Nina opened the note, revealing several lines of code and the familiar cross hair symbol instead of a signature.

“Abby,” Nina said, not taking her eyes off the page. “Your parents are in Santa Cruz, right?”

“Yeah,” Abby said. “Why?”

Nina handed her the keys to the rental car.

“Do me a favor,” Nina said. “Take my rented LeSabre and go visit them. Stay for a few days. A week maybe.”

“Gee, that’s awfully nice of you,” Abby said. “Roscoe and I will head down first thing in the morning.”

“Abby,” Nina said. “Go now.”

“Now?” A cute little frown creased Abby’s brow. “But it’s after midnight, and my folks go to bed real early. Besides, I can’t leave without Roscoe. Where is he, anyway? I though he was with you guys?”

“He can take the train down and meet you tomorrow,” Nina said. “Please, no more questions. Just go.”

The frown deepened, not so cute anymore.

“Hold on a minute,” Abby said. “I think maybe something funny is going on around here. Where’s Roscoe?”

“You’re right, Abby,” Walter said. “Something funny is going on around here. Something dangerous. So please, if you value your life and the life of your baby, you’ll do as Nina says.”

Abby looked from Walter to Nina and back again, still unsure.

“Is Roscoe okay?” she asked in a small child’s voice.

“Of course he is,” Nina answered without batting an eye. “Now please, go.”

Walter looked away, unable to meet Abby’s pleading gaze. Reluctantly, she took the offered key and pulled her shearling coat down off a peg by the door.

“Okay,” she said. “But you’ll tell Roscoe to call me as soon as he can. He knows my parents’ number.”

“I will,” Nina said, opening the door for her.

“Well, all right then...” Abby said, trailing off. She turned and walked away.

Walter, Nina, and Bell just stood in the doorway, watching her make her slow and steady way down the slanted street, waiting until she got into the car and drove off.

They were all thinking it, but Bell was the one who said it.

“Now what?”

* * *

The coded note was almost insultingly simple, based off the same keyword as the final section of the last page in the notebook. Walter felt no sense of accomplishment as he dutifully translated it for Nina and Bell to read.

It would have been so easy to kill the pregnant cow. She is so trusting and so open. Almost too easy. Here’s what I will do instead.

I will shoot everyone on the Golden Gate carousel at noon on September 25th.

Have fun trying to stop me.

“This is completely pointless,” Bell said. “What can we possibly do to stop him? Every single thing we’ve tried has been a complete and utter failure.”

Neither Walter nor Nina had an answer. It just felt so hopeless, like trying to stop a river from flowing with their bare hands.

Walter paced, folding and unfolding the killer’s letter over and over.

There had to be a way. There just had to be.

Then, just like that, it came to him.

“What if...” Walter paused, pushing his fingers through his hair. “Just bear with me for a moment, but what if we were to, for lack of a better metaphor, bring the mountain to Mohamed? After all, we know exactly where the killer will be, and at what time, right?”

“So what,” Bell said. “You’re suggesting that we try to open the gate there?”

“Exactly,” Walter said. He grabbed another sheet of paper from Nina’s desk. “See, what we would need would be three teams, each one consisting of two trippers and one ground control.” He started to sketch a rough triangle. “We’d place the alpha wave generator here at the center—” He pointed with the pencil. “—and we could use three smaller slave units to boost the signal.”

“Right,” Bell said, but he didn’t sound as skeptical. Walter could see the excitement building in his face. “Right, of course. Then we sync the teams, triangulate the signal and...”

“Open the gate.” Walter tapped the center of the triangle. “Right here.”

“Well, I hate to rain on your little eureka moment,” Nina said, “but where the hell are we going to get these teams you’re talking about? I don’t know if Roscoe and the rest of the band have been arrested or not, but I’m pretty damn sure they aren’t going to want to participate in any more of your ‘exciting experiments.’”

“Fair enough,” Walter said. “So who else do you know who might be willing to help?”

“Ideally,” Bell said, “it would need to be people who are intelligent, open-minded, and familiar with the use of biofeedback techniques.”

Walter immediately thought of the lovely May Zhang, with her charming, gap-toothed smile and bright, brainy banter.

“How about volunteers from Doctor Rayley’s Institute for Bio-Spiritual Awareness?” Walter suggested. “Students, maybe, or other test subjects who have worked with Rayley in the past.”

“Great idea,” Bell exclaimed. “Nina, what do you think?”

“I suppose we could ask,” she replied with a grudging shrug. “But let’s say we are able to recruit enough people for these teams you have in mind. Then what?”

“Then it plays out just the way we planned,” Walter said. “We chloroform him...”

“You’ll need to get a new bottle,” Nina reminded him.

“Yes, yes, but let’s say we have—then we just chloroform him, cuff him, and sedate him like we originally planned. Once he’s under, we radio the teams to start the mental synchronization, and when the gate opens...”

Nina and Bell both nodded, silent and thoughtful.

“What about the psychic bleed through?” Bell asked. “We can’t risk allowing the same kind of deadly telekinetic phenomenon to endanger those innocent people in the park!”

“When you were in the trip,” Walter said, struggling to remember, “didn’t you notice, about a minute after the gate opens, that it starts to grow these... well, tendrils?”

“Yes,” Bell said. “I saw that, too.”

“Well,” Walter said. “I’m almost positive that’s the moment at which the psychic side effects begin to manifest. If we could set up some kind of failsafe that would stop the trip and close the gate the moment those tendrils begin to appear...”

“A valium injection, perhaps,” Bell suggested.

“Yes, that would be perfect,” Walter said.

“Of course,” Nina said, “that leaves us with a pretty short window of time to get the killer through the gate.”

“It’s the only way!” Walter insisted. “We can’t let this monster continue to threaten—or, God forbid—succeed in killing more victims.”

“He’s right,” Bell said.

Nina didn’t respond, but Walter could tell by her grim expression that she agreed.

“We should prepare individual doses of the special blend,” Walter said. “A sugar water suspension, maybe. Simple to hand out and easy to ingest.”

“And we’ll need to borrow additional equipment from Rayley,” Bell said. “Do you think he’ll be amenable?”

“I think we need to get some rest,” Nina said, weary hand over her eyes. “We can head over to the Institute the first thing in the morning.”

36

The drive out to the Institute in Nina’s Beetle was tense and quiet, a weighty sense of anxious expectation like a fourth passenger inside the little car.

There were so many ways their scheme could go apocalyptically wrong, and only one way for it to go exactly right. Walter had been unable to sleep a wink, even though he was so tired he felt as if his eyeballs were made of sand. All he could do was think and rethink the plan, turning it over and over in his mind, searching out flaws and weakness.

Although if he stopped to really think about it, he knew, the whole thing was absolutely crazy. Impossible.

Yet it was their only hope.

When they arrived at the Institute, there was no one at the front desk. Walter couldn’t help but feel a little disappointed that May wasn’t there. They found the good doctor in his lab, brewing herbal tea in a large Erlenmeyer flask. He was wearing nothing but fuzzy pink slippers and boxer shorts under his lab coat.

“Well, isn’t this a nice surprise?” he said with a childlike grin. “Would you like some tea?”

He gripped the neck of the flask with tongs and poured the tea through a strainer, into several small beakers. He handed a beaker to each of them and then took one for himself.

“Now, to what do I owe this pleasure?” he asked.

After much debate, the three of them had agreed to let Nina do the talking this time, since they already had an existing friendship, and Nina was by far the most socially adept out of the three.

“We’ve been getting the most extraordinary results in our early trials of the psychic biofeedback alpha-wave theory,” she said.

“Is that right?” Doctor Rayley said, leaning one hip back against a tall stool and taking a sip of his tea. “Do tell.”

“Fascinating stuff,” Nina said. “We’ve been able to achieve near perfect synchronization within a dual-subject model. Including several verifiable incidents of parallel ideation.”

“Why, that’s wonderful,” Doctor Rayley said.

“Isn’t it?” Nina smiled over the rim of her beaker of tea, turning up the charm.

“So what’s your next step?” Doctor Rayley asked. “Something on a larger, more ambitious scale perhaps?”

“Exactly,” she agreed. “We have a plan worked out for a large scale, wide-ranging experiment that, if successful, could very well shatter all preconceived notions of human brain function. But...” She batted her lashes, going in for the kill. “But where could we possibly find such a large number of appropriate and willing subjects?”

Walter took a swallow of the strange, medicinal tasting tea to cover his excitement. Nina was playing this brilliantly. Setting Rayley up to think helping them was his idea.

“Why, my morning class on nurturing bio-spiritual wholeness has more than a dozen students,” Rayley replied. “Bright, young, and open-minded, every one of them. I’m sure you could find plenty of willing volunteers from within that group.” He winked and patted Nina’s arm. “I’ll tell them it’s an extra credit assignment. You three are welcome to sit in on the class. It starts in about thirty minutes.”

“Jeremey, you’re the best,” Nina said, leaning in to kiss his cheek. “Thanks!”

Rayley flushed and grinned.

“My pleasure, my dear,” he said. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to prepare my notes for the class. Help yourself to any parts or equipment you may need for your experiment. And have some more tea, if you like. It’s specially formulated to encourage digestive regularity.”

Walter frowned into his beaker as Doctor Rayley shuffled off into another room. Bell arched an eyebrow. Nina smiled and held out her open hands.

It almost seemed as if they could do this.

* * *

While Bell stayed in the lab to make the necessary adjustments to the various machines, Walter sat in on Doctor Rayley’s lecture.

Rayley seemed like a genuinely decent, intelligent, and progressive man, full of controversial ideas and bold, thought-provoking theories. But his teaching style left something to be desired. He seemed to wander aimlessly from one topic to another, motivated by pathways of internal logic unfathomable to anyone but himself.

Whenever he seemed about to touch on a topic of particular interest, such as the role of putative neurotransmitters like dopamine and serotonin in empathic spiritual bonding, he would become sidetracked by some irrelevant tangent, and end up talking about the health risks of wearing pants that were too tight.

So Walter found his mind worrying at the details of their plan, like a dog chewing a bone. Thinking and rethinking every detail they had mapped out, and searching for weaknesses. All he succeeded in doing was increasing his anxiety.

The lecture just went on and on, and even though the Zodiac wouldn’t be anywhere near that park for more than another two hours, every passing second felt excruciating.

He tried to distract himself by studying the faces of the students in the large round lecture hall. It seemed like an interesting and intelligent group. A little bit more than half male, almost all college age, all white with the notable exception of the lovely May Zhang, who was taking dutiful notes in the far corner.

She was wearing a dress instead of the pant suit Walter had seen her in before. Her legs seemed too delicate for the clunky brown boots she was wearing. She didn’t seem to notice him, as she was completely engrossed in Doctor Rayley’s baffling lecture.

“So in closing,” Doctor Rayley said, “using biospiritual connectivity to stimulate the production of empathy inducing neurochemicals is the only viable way to break through the jaded modern malaise, and know the kind of pure and unadulterated love for which the human brain was intended. For you see, we must never stop learning, never stop questing into the heart of the mysterious and unknowable.

“And so I leave you with a quote from the great Albert Einstein. ‘The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious.’”

The members of the class gathered their books, stood, and had begun breaking into small, chatting groups when Rayley waved his hands in the air. Bell appeared in the doorway that led to the lab, wiping his hands on a rag.

“How was the lecture?” he asked Walter.

“Interesting,” Walter replied. “But a little frustrating. I think—”

“Ah yes, just a moment class!” Doctor Rayley called, cutting Walter off. “If I could just have your attention for one more minute.”

The students quieted down and turned back to him.

“An esteemed colleague of mine is visiting from... MIT, is it? Yes, yes, that’s it. Anyway, he’s been conducting some fascinating experiments involving alpha wave synchronization and telepathy.” Rayley paused dramatically, letting the word telepathy resonate through the lecture hall. “He’s had some truly extraordinary results. Just extraordinary. So, without further ado, please welcome Walter Bishop.”

Walter looked around, startled. He hadn’t been expecting to be called upon to speak, and had nothing prepared. Nina gave him an encouraging smile as he shuffled nervously up to the front of the room.

“Um...” He stuffed his hands in his pockets. “Thank you, Doctor Rayley. I... we... well, that is to say...”

Pull yourself together, Walter, he told himself. Everything is riding on this.

He cleared his throat and took his hands out of his pockets.

“We’re looking for participants in an important experiment,” Walter said. “Nine bright, open-minded people who want to be a part of neurochemical history. This isn’t just hyperbole, I assure you, we are attempting something that has never been done before. We will be using a combination of hallucinogenic chemicals and biofeedback technology to link multiple minds in multiple locations. If you are intrigued, please join my colleagues and me in the lab for a complete briefing.

“Thank you.”

To Walter’s surprise, the first person to approach him was May.

“I’ll admit,” she said, “I’m intrigued. Where do I sign up?”

Looking at her, with her charming gap-toothed smile and clunky boots, Walter felt deeply conflicted. Of course, he would love to work with her, to get to know her better. But involving her in this deeply dangerous endeavor made him feel queasy. As did the realization that if he didn’t want to involve someone he liked in this experiment, how could he with good conscience involve anyone at all.

After all, human beings aren’t lab rats, to be used, tested, euthanized, necropsied, and disposed of, he thought to himself. Didn’t May and her fellow students deserve to know what they were really getting into?

Looking over at Bell, Walter knew what his friend would say. Bell would say that they needed to think of the Zodiac’s victims, that sometimes sacrifice was necessary to defeat a greater evil.

And he was probably right, but that didn’t make Walter feel any better about it.

37

A small curious group gathered around Walter and May.

“Come on into the lab,” he said, motioning for the students to follow him. Once they were there, Nina counted heads. Amazingly, they managed to gather exactly nine students. Five men and four women.

“Let’s all introduce ourselves first,” May suggested. “Most of you know me already, I’m May Zhang.”

She held her hand out to the man standing at her left. A handsome young man with a scruffy attempt at a mustache, shoulder length dirty blond hair parted on the side and piercing blue eyes.

“Yeah, hey,” he said with a roguish smile that probably got him a lot of action with the ladies. “Gary Keyes.”

“Simon Tausig,” the next man in the circle said. He was British—a dapper, slightly effeminate lad with neat, trendy sideburns and large ears. The man to his left was a quiet, studious type with heavy black glasses and dark hair just starting to recede on his high, round forehead.

“David Zweibel,” he said, eyes on his shoes.

Next up was a skinny and slightly anxious young woman with an unflattering bowl haircut and restless hands.

“Judy,” she said. “Judy Rusk.

“Payton Jarvis,” the next guy said. He looked like any of hundreds of students they might have seen at a American Biochemical Society meeting. Socially inept, questionable hygiene, mismatched socks. Walter liked him immediately.

“Kenneth Van Hoften,” the next guy in the circle announced, barely waiting for Payton to finish before jumping in with his hand out to Walter like a campaigning politician. “But my friends call me Van.” He was expensively dressed, his thick dark hair professionally disheveled. Likely a child of old money, Walter guessed, trying to shake up his square family with drug use and consciousness expansion.

He had a girl with him, a beautiful young thing with a sleek chestnut ponytail and a sensuous mouth. Her body was tall and lean, all legs. That fact was accented by a micro-mini skirt.

“This here is the lovely Miss Susan Keswick,” Kenneth said, as if showing off a new pair of shoes. She smiled gamely, though it was clear that she wasn’t even really sure why she was there, let alone why she had been volunteered to participate in some crazy experiment.

“Leslie Elowitz.” This from the last student, a woman. She said her name like a target shooter cracking a skeet plate in half. Quick, precise, and to the point. She was studying Walter with dark, skeptical eyes behind large round glasses.

Her thick curly brown hair had been unevenly chopped into a shortish non-style that would have been equally forgettable on a man or a woman. She wore no makeup and was dressed in baggy, androgynous clothes, including a frumpy tweed jacket that could have been the twin of Walter’s own beloved Norfolk.

“It’s good to meet you all,” Walter said. “And thank you for agreeing to participate in our experiment today. Time is of the essence in this particular endeavor, so I will get directly to the point.”

He looked over at Doctor Rayley, who winked and grinned.

“To begin, we will divide into four groups of three,” Walter said. “Each group will consist of two test subjects, who will ingest our special hallucinogenic formula, and one team leader, who will act as ground control, monitoring the subjects, communicating with other groups, and taking all precautions to ensure the safety of the subjects.”

Bell stepped up beside Walter.

“The first test group will consist of Walter and me,” he said. “With our associate, Nina Sharp, functioning as control. And, since Doctor Rayley knows you all much better than we do, I will be asking him to choose the members of the other three teams.”

“Ah, yes,” Rayley said. “Excellent. For starters, I would suggest May Zhang, Leslie Elowitz and Kenneth Van Hoften as team leaders.”

Walter glanced over at Kenneth, curious about Rayley’s decision to choose him over, for example, Payton Jarvis, who seemed to be a far more appropriate choice. But Rayley knew his students better than he did, and Walter was always the first to admit that he wasn’t the world’s best judge of character.

“Fine,” Bell said. “Leaders can I have you all here by me, please?”

“As for the rest of the teams,” Rayley said. “Gary and David, you’re with May. Simon and Judy, with Kenneth.”

“Hold on a sec there, doc,” Kenneth said. “I really think Susie should be on my team.”

Rayley shook his head.

“From what I’ve been told, we can’t have a preexisting relationship coloring the results,” he said. “Susan and Payton, you’re with Leslie.”

To Walter’s surprise, Susan gave a thoughtful nod, then walked over to stand beside Leslie. Kenneth looked stricken, as if his cat had just decided to go sit in someone else’s lap.

“Okay, listen up,” Bell said, once everyone had repositioned themselves in their assigned groups. He unfolded a map and spread it open on the table. “Here’s how it’s going to go.”

38

After Bell had finished outlining the basics of the plan to the students, he looked over at Walter, signaling him with a wordless nod.

Walter opened the little case he’d been carrying and looked at the small, stoppered vials that lay within. The individual doses of their special blend that he and Bell had prepared. Danger, death and madness lurked within the clear, innocuous liquid, but also salvation for those people in the park, and for all of Zodiac’s future victims.

Or so Walter hoped.

He looked up at Doctor Rayley and the gathered groups of students, and put on what he hoped was a reassuring smile.

“Here it is,” he said, setting the case on the table beside the rumpled map. “This is the mixture with which we have had all our previous successes, and which I hope will give us the ultimate proof we are seeking this afternoon.” He started handing out the vials as Bell cleared his throat and held up a cautionary finger.

“I want to make sure that we’re all clear on what we’re doing and where we are going,” he said. “Leaders, can you confirm your destinations, please?”

May spoke up first.

“Gary, David, and I,” she said, “will be in the middle of the Sharon Meadow, just north of the playground. We’ll pretend we’re having a picnic lunch, and keep the feedback machine in our picnic basket.” She poked at the map with a slender finger. “We will be there and set up no later than 11:45.”

“Payton, Susan, and I,” Leslie said, “will be in the parking lot of the lawn bowling club on Bowling Green Drive, also no later than 11:45.”

“Good,” Bell said. “Kenneth?”

“I still don’t see why the time is so important.” Kenneth shrugged. “I mean, there’s no real reason we can’t just take our time, is there? It’s an acid trip, not a bank robbery.”

“It is a scientific experiment,” Walter snapped. It made him feel sick to have to keep lying to the students, but it was imperative to impress the importance of timing upon them. “And we must treat it as one. If we do not want to be dismissed as a bunch of spiritualist phonies, our methodology must be precise, and our standards exacting. The experiment will begin at the stated time, the duration will be recorded to the fraction of the second, with all our impressions recorded immediately.

“Timeliness is of the essence,” he concluded.

Kenneth looked sullen.

“Whatever you say, professor,” he muttered.

Walter still wasn’t sure why on earth Doctor Rayley had chosen him as a leader.

Bell cleared his throat again.

“Kenneth,” he said. “Can you please give us your destination?”

Kenneth scowled, but nodded.

“We’ll be parked on Kezar Drive,” he said, “just north of the stadium.” Then he added, “At 11:45.”

“Good.” Bell nodded. “And our group will be here at the center.” He tapped the map with a capped pen. “Inside the burnt-out Sharon House. Walter?”

Walter inclined his head, then turned back to the students.

“Right,” he said. “Here we go. If the six subjects will ingest their doses now, along with Bell and I, and if the monitors would please record the time of ingestion, then we will be on our way.”

Walter handed Bell one of the vials and took the last one for himself. When he unstoppered it, so did the others. Some of the students grinned nervously.

“The things we do for science,” Simon said.

“To science,” Gary said, as if toasting friends in a bar.

And with that, they all tipped their heads back in unison and let the ounce of sugar water spill over their tongues. After they had all swallowed, they paused and looked around at each other.

“It will be precisely fifty-four minutes,” Walter said, “before you begin to feel any effects. So it is imperative that we all get ourselves settled in place within a forty-five-minute window, before initial onset.

“Now, I would ask the team leaders to please try to remember that the safety and peace of mind of the test subjects will be in your hands. Nina, May, Kenneth, Leslie, we are depending on you. Take good care of us.”

The four team leaders all gave a solemn murmur of assent, and Walter smiled.

“Good,” he said. “Now, if you’re all ready, lets get the cars packed and get underway.”

* * *

The lab phone rang as the students gathered their packs and jackets and started loading the biofeedback machines onto lab carts. Dr. Rayley answered it, then frowned, turning to Walter.

“Er, Doctor Bishop. It’s for you.”

Walter blinked. It couldn’t be for him. Nobody but the people in this room knew he was there.

He looked at Bell and Nina. They looked as scared as he felt. He stepped to the phone and reached for it like it was a live cobra, then brought it to his ear.

“Hello?”

“Bishop. Iverson. Listen to me. Latimer is coming for you. At the Institute. I wish I could have warned you sooner, but I was being watched. You have ten minutes at the most. You have to get out now.”

39

“But...” Walter stammered. “But how did he... I mean...”

“Rayley’s been on a watch list for years,” Iverson said. “And once your descriptions got passed around the office, after the fiasco up at the cabin, his surveillance picked you up. You have to go to ground. Whatever you’re planning, just drop it and go. It has no chance of success now. Go!”

There was a click, and Walter was listening to a dial tone. He looked around to see Bell and Nina staring at him, questions in their eyes. Rayley and the students weren’t paying attention. They were pushing the loaded lab carts toward the door.

“It was Iverson.” Walter swallowed. “Latimer’s on his way. We were seen here. He said we have ten minutes to get out.”

Nina swore.

“Then we better get on the road,” she said, turning resolutely toward the door. “Come on.”

Bell nodded.

“Right,” he said. “Let’s go.”

Walter didn’t move. He shook his head.

“No,” he said. “No, not again. This was already so dangerous, and morally problematic. Now? With the federal authorities involved? No. I feel bad enough about what may or may not have happened to Roscoe and the rest of the band. But...” He looked over at May, who was smiling and laughing with Gary. “We just can’t ethically involve any more people without letting them know what they’re really getting into. They deserve to be told the truth of what’s going on.”

“Walter.” Bell’s voice was a warning growl. “You can’t be serious.”

“Even if I thought that was a great idea,” Nina said, “which I don’t, you said it yourself, there’s no time.”

“There has to be.” Walter stepped past them and raised his voice. “Doctor Rayley. Testers. Can you all come back, please? I have one more thing to say before we go.”

“Damn it, Walter.” Bell and Nina groaned in unison.

Looking curious, Rayley and the students all made their way back to the lab table and peered expectantly at Walter. He wiped his coat sleeve across his lips, then closed his eyes.

“We... I... Well, we haven’t been completely honest with you. Not that we’ve lied, we just haven’t told you the whole story. And now I’m going do that. As much as I can anyway. This is going to sound completely crazy, but I hope that, once you know exactly what we are up against, you will still be willing to help us today.”

He paused for a moment, looking into the curious and expectant faces. Weighing exactly what to tell them and what not to tell them.

He looked over at Bell, who was frowning, arms crossed.

Then at antsy Nina, who gestured to her watch.

“We aren’t just conducting theoretical experiments,” Walter said. “We are fighting to stop a killer. And we can’t do it without your help.” He let that sink in for a few heartbeats, then continued. “There’s no time to go into detail and answer all the reasonable and relevant questions you may have. Because the federal government is also after this dangerous, murderous man. Only they don’t want to stop him, like we do. They want to capture him and use him as what would undoubtedly turn out to be one of the most deadly nuclear weapons ever unleashed against humanity.”

Expressions on the faces of the students ranged from skeptical to angry to amazed. But he had no choice but to keep going. Time was not his friend.

“Worse, these same federal agents will be here in just a few minutes to arrest, interrogate, and violate the civil rights of every last one of us. And while we’re in their custody, the killer will be free to shoot everyone on the Golden Gate carousel in exactly...” He looked at his watch. “Sixty-two minutes.”

“Shoot them?” Kenneth frowned. “You don’t mean... the Zodiac Killer?”

Walter didn’t answer, but he didn’t have to. Suddenly the mood in the lab went from casual skepticism to intense interest. So he just nodded.

“What we are planning is very dangerous,” he said. “With potentially lethal side effects for all of us, and everyone around us. But there are deadly consequences for the killer’s future victims should you chose not to participate. So, while I cannot make you help us, if you are unwilling, I sincerely hope that you will.”

“It’s no choice at all,” May said, stepping forward without hesitation. “I’m in.”

“Right,” Leslie echoed, stepping up beside May. “In.”

All the other students swiftly gathered around them. All of them in.

Walter hung his head, humbled and grateful.

“Thank you,” he said. “This is a wonderful thing you’re doing.”

“Yeah, fantastic,” Nina said. “But we’re not going to do it at all if we don’t get going. Now, come on. Let’s move!”

She clapped her hands and the students all hurried back to the lab carts and rolled them out into the hall. Walter let out a long, shaky breath and started to follow, but Nina put a hand on his arm and gave it a squeeze.

“Way to go, Walter,” Nina said. “You should have been a politician. Ask not what science can do for you...”

Bell nodded in agreement.

“Honestly,” he said. “I can’t believe you managed it.”

Walter shivered, suddenly chilled.

“I almost wish I hadn’t.”

They hurried into the hall and down the stairs.

* * *

Walter looked uneasily around the parking lot of the Institute as he followed Nina and Bell out. He was afraid they would find unmarked black cars, filled with Latimer’s men, blocking the drive. But everything seemed quiet. The students were loading the individual biofeedback machines into their vehicles and scrambling into their seats. May was driving a tan Ford station wagon. Kenneth drove a teal Volkswagen microbus, and Leslie drove a white eight-seat passenger van owned by the Institute.

“Maybe we made it,” he said, more to himself than to anyone else.

Nina climbed into the driver’s seat of her Beetle, and fired it up as Walter got into the back seat, and Bell slid in beside her. Before Walter had a chance to get buckled in, she was surging toward the drive and pulling out into the street.

“Easy,” Bell said. “The last thing we want to do is draw attention to ourselves.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Nina said. “But Walter’s little speech cost us some precious time. We’ve got just under an hour to get to the park before that psycho starts his rampage.”

“Still,” Walter said, “we’ll be even more delayed if we get stopped for speeding.”

“Okay, okay,” she replied. “I suppose you’re right.” She slowed reluctantly as the bus, the van, and station wagon swayed out of the Institute lot and fell in behind her. They trundled down Stanford Avenue toward the Bay Bridge at a reasonable thirty miles an hour, while Walter and Bell swiveled their heads in every direction.

Walter was positive that he was going to spot a line of unmarked black Fords following them, or coming to intercept them.

And finally, just when he had begun to hope they might have made it into the clear, the dreaded black cars cruised into view.

40

The Beetle was just coming down the ramp on the San Francisco end of the Bay Bridge when Walter heard Bell suck in a quick breath, and he turned to look.

There, on the opposite side of the highway, starting up the ramp that would take them to the east-bound lower tier of the bridge, was a line of unmarked black cars in the middle of heavy traffic. In the driver’s seat of the first car, he saw a recognizable face with a square jaw and Hollywood tan.

“Oh, hell,” Walter said. “It’s Latimer.

Nina turned and looked, then laughed.

“This is great,” she said. “Look at them. They’re stuck. They won’t be able to turn around until he gets to the Oakland side of the bridge. And he won’t know that we’ve left the Institute until—”

She cut off when, as though he had heard her, Latimer turned his head and looked right at them. He did a double take and stomped on his brakes, nearly causing the cars behind him to rear-end him.

“Damn,” Walter uttered.

“No, no,” Nina said, knuckles white on the wheel. “We’re still good. He still can’t turn around. He still has to go all the way to Oakland.”

Bell shook his head.

“But he can call it in, can’t he?” he asked. “And I’d be willing to bet that’s exactly what he’s doing right now.”

Walter craned his neck as the black unmarked cars started to disappear under the upper tier. Latimer was, indeed, on the mike. He was shouting, the cords of his neck standing out like cables, obviously putting out an all points bulletin, or whatever they called it.

He was alerting the cops.

All of a sudden the maze of San Francisco wasn’t just a puzzle of traffic snarls and one-way streets. It was a trap, poised to close on them.

Nina swerved the Beetle into the left lane and started speeding up. Walter turned to her, but Bell beat him to it. He put a hand on her arm.

“Steady,” he cautioned. “We still can’t give ourselves away.”

She slowed again.

“Sorry,” she said.

“The good thing is,” Walter said, “Latimer can’t possibly know where we’re going. He’ll tell them we’re headed west. Change directions and we’ll throw them off.”

Nina whipped around a corner, still too fast, and started heading north. Walter slammed against the door, then pushed himself upright.

“Nina...”

“Sorry. Sorry.”

The walkie-talkie crackled. Leslie’s sharp, whip-crack voice came through the static.

“Everything okay?” she asked. “What the hell just happened?”

Walter looked out the back window. He could see her at the wheel of the passenger van, holding the walkie-talkie and looking a bit surprised. The others were swinging into the street behind her, swaying a bit on their wheels.

Nina grunted and picked up the walkie-talkie.

“Everything’s fine,” she said. “Almost missed my turn, that’s all. Nothing to worry about.”

“Not for them,” Bell muttered. “The police won’t have descriptions of them.”

“Fine,” Leslie said over the crackly speaker. “But give us more warning next time.”

Nina let out a breath, and put down the walkie.

“With luck,” she said. “There won’t be a next time.”

She took them up the side street to Market, then turned west again, which deposited them into the middle of mid-afternoon traffic. Bell scanned for police cars. Walter reflexively checked his watch.

“Plenty of time,” he said, seemingly half to himself. “Plenty of time. We’ll get there. We’ll hide the car. Everything will be fine.”

But as they passed Stockton Street, the walkie-talkie squawked again.

“Nina? Bell? Come in?” Leslie said. “We have to find a bathroom. The dose isn’t agreeing with Payton’s digestion.”

A crackle and a laugh interrupted Nina as she tried to respond, then a loud scraping noise and Gary’s voice, singing loud and off-key.

“Plop, plop, fizz, fizz! Oh, what a relief it is!”

More shuffling noise, then May’s calm voice replaced Gary’s.

“Knock it off, Gary!” she said. “Sorry about that, Nina.”

“No problem.” Nina clicked off, then keyed in again. “Okay, Leslie, find a bathroom. Just get to your location as quickly as you can.”

“Roger,” Leslie said. “Over and out.”

Behind them, Walter saw the white passenger van peel off and take a left at the next street.

“We shouldn’t be splitting up,” Bell said. “It just multiplies what can go wrong.”

“Like herding cats,” Nina said.

Two blocks later, a red light stopped them. Walter looked out his side window and found himself staring at a cop in the next lane. The officer was an older man, with a thick salt-and-pepper mustache and aviator glasses, sitting in the passenger seat of a cruiser and talking with his partner, who was driving. Walter nearly jumped and drew back, but forced himself to move slowly, so as not to draw their eye.

He leaned back in his seat, hiding his face.

“Don’t look, but there are police next to us,” he said out of the side of his mouth.

Nina and Bell looked anyway, then turned back.

“Crap,” Nina said. “He’s looking.”

“Green light,” said Bell.

Nina nervously hit the gas too fast, and they surged forward. Then she eased off, and drove up the street with her hands white-knuckled on the wheel. Walter angled his head to look in the rear-view mirror. The cruiser was easing in behind them, putting itself between them and Kenneth’s Volkswagen bus, and the cop in the passenger seat was talking on the microphone.

“That’s it,” Walter said. “We’re sunk.”

“What should we do?” Nina asked. “Abort?”

“Keep driving,” Bell said. “Nice and slow.”

Another block of agonized crawling, with Walter’s fists clenched so hard his knuckles creaked, and finally the cop in the passenger seat nodded to the driver, and the driver flipped a switch. With a whoop that made all of Walter’s hair stand on end, the siren and lights came on, and the cop’s voice came through the cruiser’s megaphone.

“Please pull to the side and turn off your engine.”

“No way,” Nina said. “We’ll never talk our way out of this and even if we could, there’s no time!”

“But...” Bell began.

“Sorry, baby,” she said.

Nina stomped on the gas just as the light ahead of them was turning red and roared across the intersection to a cacophony of blaring horns. The cruiser leapt after them, but had to swerve and brake in order to avoid crashing into the crossing cars.

It was through in another second, but Nina had bought them a block and a half lead.

Walter put a hand to his chest. He could feel his heart thumping through his shirt, like an angry prisoner protesting unfair treatment.

Bell was clutching the door handle and the dash to stop himself from being thrown around.

“You’re out of your mind,” he said. “You can’t outrun the cops. It never works in real life. Never! Especially not in a goddamn Volkswagen Beetle!”

“Maybe not for long,” Nina said. Teeth clenched, she barreled through another red light and kept going. “But hopefully long enough. I have an idea.”

“Oh, God,” Bell muttered.

On the seat beside her, the walkie-talkie was a confused clutter of voices. Kenneth’s nasal whine won out in the end.

“What the hell was that?” he asked. “What’s going on?”

Nina snatched up the walkie-talkie, driving onehanded as she barked into it.

“Kenneth!” she said. “May! Listen to me. Don’t do anything stupid. They don’t know any of you guys. Just keep driving up Market. Act normal. I’ll check back in with you all as soon as I can.”

“Are you sure?” May asked.

“No,” Nina replied. “But do it anyway, will you?”

“Well, okay,” Kenneth said. “If you say so...”

He didn’t sound so sure. This could all go to hell at any moment. There were too many factors, too many variables.

Walter looked back. The police car was swerving through another intersection, and gaining.

“What are you going to do? What’s this ‘plan’?” he asked.

“Shut up,” Nina snapped. “I’m working on it...”

Bell hissed as she narrowly missed a car in an oncoming lane. Nina cried out so suddenly that Walter flinched, afraid they were about to hit something, but she was pointing excitedly ahead. Walter looked forward, following her gesture.

Down a long green mall that angled due west on the north side of the street, he could see the domed neoclassical massiveness of San Francisco’s city hall. And in front of it, what looked like a massive throng of people, all waving signs and banners.

“Perfect!” she cried.

She tore onto the next side street, Grove, which bordered city hall on the south, and roared toward the edge of the crowd that was spilling out of the plaza and into the street. Walter could make out some of the signs now. In fact, they were becoming clearer by the second.

Transportation Workers on Strike!

We Want a Living Wage!

Bell’s feet stomped the floorboards as if he could work the brakes from the passenger seat.

“What on earth are you doing!” he asked.

“Losing our tail,” Nina said. “I hope.”

41

Walter looked behind them. He didn’t see how it was possible. The police car was fishtailing after them into Grove, only a block and a half behind. There was no way Nina could lose them, when they had line-of-sight on her.

“Okay,” she said. “Be ready to get out. And don’t leave anything behind. Sorry, Nitida.” She patted the Beetle’s dashboard. “But we won’t be coming back.”

Bell looked incredulous.

“We’re getting out?”

“Stay if you want,” Nina snapped. Her foot was still all the way to the floor. “But I’m not coming to visit you in jail.”

Walter gripped the seat back.

“Nina,” he called. “Look out!”

Several seconds beyond the last possible second, Nina stomped hard on the brake, sending the car into a screeching skid that stopped just inches from the shrieking, scattering crowd.

“Out!” She grabbed the walkie-talkie and shouldered out through her door. “Out!”

Walter and Bell threw open their doors and staggered out as Nina ran around the car and hooked arms with them.

“Into the crowd. Come on!”

Walter looked back as he followed her, and saw the police car skidding to a stop right behind her Beetle. The two cops spilled out, guns raised.

Nina raised her voice.

“Don’t let the pigs through, brothers!” she called. “They’re here to bust up the protest!” The crowd roared and seemed to fuse into a single, solid organism behind her as she dragged Walter and Bell through it and across the plaza.

Bell looked over at Nina, face lit from within with admiration and other, more complicated emotions.

“That... that was brilliant.”

She shook her head.

“Not unless we get to the park, it isn’t.” She raised the walkie-talkie and clicked in. “Kenneth. Are you there? Have you reached McAllister yet?”

“Uh...” A long crackly pause. “I don’t think so.”

“Well, take it when you reach it, and keep an eye out. There’s a protest going on at City Hall. A lot of traffic and a lot of people. When you arrive, look for us.”

“Uh, okay.”

“What about me?” It was May’s voice.

“Just head over to the park on your own, May. And just stay calm. We’ll meet you there.”

“Roger.”

Walter pulled up short, hauling the others back.

“Cops!” he hissed.

Nina and Bell looked around. A line of policemen stood and blocked off the steps of the city hall, and more were walking through the protest, keeping an eye on the picketers.

Nina slowed her step and took a deep breath.

“It’s okay,” she said. “They’re not looking for us. As long as we don’t stand out, we’re fine. Just take it slow, and try to look like you’re here for the protest.”

A crowd of men and women in bus driver uniforms marched past in the direction they wanted to go, all shouting and raising their fists. Walter, Bell, and Nina followed in their wake, chanting along with the rest.

“More say! Higher pay! More say! Higher pay!”

The marchers turned at the north side of the square, and started south again, but Walter, Bell, and Nina left the train and melted into the crowd that had gathered to watch it all.

They were almost to McAllister Street.

“Kenneth,” Nina called in on the walkie-talkie. “Where are you now?”

“I’m on McAllister, about a block from the plaza,” he replied. “You sure this is where you want me to be? It’s completely jammed.”

“That’s fine,” she said. “Just keep coming.”

Nina squeezed through to the street side of the crowd, then pulled back. There were cops there, trying to move everybody onto the sidewalk, but people were streaming across the street in both directions, weaving through the cars and slowing traffic to a standstill.

“Do you see them?” she asked.

Walter craned his neck and looked east, but all he could see were people’s heads.

Bell, however, nodded.

“He’s moving, but it’s slow.”

Walter looked back into the plaza, scanning for the cops that had chased them there. He couldn’t see anything in that direction either, and the shouting of the protesters drowned out all other sounds. He felt as if he was in a cornfield on a windy night, with wolves prowling somewhere nearby. He’d never know they were on him until he felt their teeth in his leg.

Nina ground her teeth, frustration creasing her brow.

“All we’ve got to do is stay here and stay calm,” she said. “Just stay calm.” But she looked about as calm as a chihuahua in a firecracker factory. All that adrenalin still seemed to be churning through her veins. Walter was feeling anything but calm, himself.

He looked east, going up on his tiptoes.

“Another half block,” he said. “Almost there.”

He looked behind again, and his heart seized up. Through a gap in the crowd he could see the cop with the salt-and-pepper mustache. He and his buddy were striding across the plaza, scanning for them. He grabbed Bell’s arm.

“Duck down!”

“What?” Bell frowned.

“The police are here!” Walter said. “You’re too damn tall!”

Bell crouched down, dropping his head between his shoulders. There was a guy holding a huge sign to their left. Walter pulled Bell and Nina behind it, then snuck a look around it and back toward the plaza.

The two cops were walking along the edge of the crowd, heads moving constantly. Walter pulled back, heart hammering, just as the one with the mustache started to look his way.

Had he seen?

Was he coming?

“There’s Kenneth’s bus. Come on.” Nina took his arm.

Walter turned toward the street and followed Nina and Bell as they stepped off the curb. One of the cops in the cordon stepped up to stop them, but Nina pointed past him.

“Our ride’s here,” she said sweetly. “We’re just trying to get out of this mess.”

The cop waved them by and kept pushing the rest of the crowd back. In the minibus Kenneth, Judy, and Simon were looking for them. Judy saw them first and threw open the side doors.

“What happened?” she asked, her little ferret face looking even more anxious than usual.

“Tell you later,” Nina replied, pushing past her onto the back bench and lying down with her hands over her head. “William. Walter. Lie on the floor.”

Walter squeezed down between the seats under Judy’s feet while Bell did the same under Nina’s.

“Close the doors!” Nina said. “Quick!”

Judy pulled the doors closed again and looked down at Walter.

“Don’t look down!” Nina whispered. “Pretend we’re not here! Act natural! Relax!”

Judy raised her head, quivering, and kept her eyes front.

“Anybody coming?” Walter whispered.

“Not yet. Not...” She pressed a thin spidery hand to her mouth. “Oh, God. They’re right outside. They’re—” She held her breath for a tense moment, then let it out. “They’re crossing the street. They’re looking through the crowd over there.”

Walter closed his eyes and let out his own held breath.

“So what happened?” Kenneth asked over his shoulder, keeping his eyes on the street. “Why did the cops chase you?”

“Why do you think?” Nina asked. “Keep driving.”

Kenneth grunted, annoyed, but did as he was told. It took ten more minutes to get through the crowd and get moving again. Walter thought it was the longest ten minutes of his life.

42

Leslie sat in the idling van. They were in the parking lot of a fast food joint called Butchie Burger, waiting for Payton to come back from the bathroom. The restaurant’s mascot was an anthropomorphic Boston Terrier in checkered pants and a bow-tie, holding a huge hamburger. He seemed to be leering down at Leslie with a maniacal grin.

She looked at her watch, even though it had been less than a minute since the last time she’d looked at it. They were bleeding time at an alarming rate.

She had no idea why she’d wound up being assigned the weakest team members. She liked to think it was because she was the strongest leader, and Doc Rayley figured she could handle shepherding these two lame ducks. But she was afraid it was more likely a kind of subtle punishment for her refusal to dress and behave in a traditionally feminine manner.

“Do you think Payton is going to be okay?” Susan asked.

Speaking of traditional femininity, Susan was the dictionary definition. Cloying floral perfume, perky smile, vapid gaze. But Leslie didn’t want to write a sister off just because she’d been brainwashed by patriarchy. Never one to miss out on an opportunity to encourage free and radical thought among women, she reached into the inner pocket of her coat and pulled out a mimeographed flyer.

“He’ll be fine,” she said, handing the flyer to Susan. “Listen, if you’re not doing anything tomorrow night, why don’t you stop by my place for the weekly meeting of our feminist consciousness-raising group.”

Susan looked dubiously at the flyer.

“What kind of group?” she asked.

“Consciousness raising,” Leslie repeated. “It’s nothing uptight or structured or anything like that, we just meet once a week to share our experiences and feelings and talk about the ways in which we have been oppressed by the male-dominated culture.”

“Oh,” Susan said. “Um... thanks.”

Payton picked that moment to show up, sipping a large strawberry Butchie shake. Leslie frowned at the shake as he slid open the back door and climbed into the van.

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” she asked. “If your stomach is upset...”

“It’s better now,” Payton replied.

“If you say so,” Leslie said, shoving the van into drive and pulling out of the parking lot. “But I’m gonna tell you this right now, if you toss your cookies back there, I’m not cleaning it up.”

A huge tan ’68 Chrysler Newport skewed across the driveway of the burger joint, smoke pouring out from under its hood, and blocking the only way out.

“You have got to be kidding,” Leslie said. She laid on the horn and stuck her head out the window. “Hey, move that boat out of the way, will ya? We gotta be somewhere!”

The driver got out of the Newport. He was a tubby, red-faced guy in a pair of skin-tight white pants that did extremely unfortunate things to his nether region. He threw his hands up in the air.

“Engine no good,” he said, with a thick, Eastern European accent. “Is overheat!” He made a pushing motion with both meaty hands. “You help?”

“Oh, crap,” Leslie muttered. “Come on,” she said over her shoulder, checking her watch again. “The sooner we get this guy’s car out of the way, the sooner we can be on our way.”

“What?” Susan looked at her as if she’d lost her mind. “I’m not pushing anybody’s car. That’s a man thing. Let Payton do it.”

Leslie restrained herself from raising Susan’s consciousness with a boot to her skinny little ass, and got out of the van.

“Payton, you coming or not?”

“Okay,” he said, following her like a reluctant child.

“Thank you, thank you,” the man said when the two of them approached. “I steer, you push, yes?” Leslie nodded, struggling not to look down at his catastrophically squashed and all too visible crotch.

“Right,” she said, grabbing Payton by the arm and dragging him around to the rear of the enormous vehicle.

She placed both palms on the trunk.

“Don’t just stand there,” she said.

Payton put his hands on the car like he was petting a Doberman of questionable temperament. Leslie rolled her eyes.

“Now,” the man called, putting the car in gear and then getting out to steer with one hand and push with the other. “Push!”

Leslie did so with all her strength, but the massive beast of a car was so heavy that even with the three of them, it rolled up the driveway slower than a slug. Not that Payton was doing much in the way of pushing. More like just resting his hands on the car.

“Come on, push!” Leslie said. “We’re already nearly ten minutes behind. The other teams are depending on us!”

Payton put a little more effort into it and the Newport started moving a little faster, rolling into the parking lot. The man in the tight pants guided it into an empty parking place and then came back to shake both of their hands, thanking them and offering to buy them a couple of Butchie burgers as a reward.

“No time,” Leslie said. “But thanks anyway.”

Payton, who had started to look a little green as they were pushing the car suddenly lurched off to the left and threw up the strawberry milkshake into a nearby trash can.

“Gee, imagine that,” Leslie said. “Who knew?”

Payton continued to retch, while Leslie crossed her arms and checked her watch again.

They were never going to get out of this parking lot.

43

As May worked her way through the snarled traffic around City Hall, dipping down into the Lower Haight to avoid the worst of it, she heard her mother’s voice in her head, criticizing her every move.

So aggressive, the way you change lanes. No wonder you don’t have a husband.

May hadn’t seen her mother in over a year, estranged as she was from her large family, but that voice was alive and well in May’s head. She could still hear the sharp little tooth-sucking sound of disapproval she would always make, wordlessly cutting May to ribbons over some unforgivable moral transgression, like wearing a short skirt or taking too much food for herself at the family table, instead of making sure her brothers all had enough first.

Ever since she got the job at the Institute, May felt as if she’d found a brand new family of open, like-minded people who accepted her for who she really was, and didn’t think she was a whore because she took birth control pills or failed to live up to some antiquated stereotype of how women should behave. But the ghost of her disapproving mother wasn’t so easily exorcised. And whenever May was worried or anxious, that voice came back to remind her of what a disgraceful failure she was at every single thing she did.

She distracted herself from the critical ghost by thinking about that guy from MIT, Walter Bishop. There was something about him that she found appealing, with his terrible coat and wild hair and gentle, curious eyes. He didn’t seem at all intimidated by her intelligence, and shared many of her most passionate interests. She had been deeply moved by the bravery and determination he’d showed in choosing to fight against the Zodiac Killer and was exhilarated to be a part of that fight.

And she’d always thought she was the only one in the world who actually liked Necco wafers.

“I don’t feel a thing,” Gary said, leaning his head out the window like a dog. “Are you sure this stuff is gonna work?”

“Remember,” May replied. “It’s supposed to take fifty-four minutes to kick in. It’s only been...” She looked at her watch. “Thirty-seven.”

“Do you believe all that business about the Zodiac?” Gary asked. “I mean, what if that’s just a part of the experiment? Testing to see how we react when an element of danger is added in to the mix.”

May hadn’t thought of that.

“I suppose that’s possible,” she said, heading up Divisadero to Fell. “I mean, it sounds a lot more plausible than the idea of fighting a psychic serial killer, doesn’t it?”

“No,” David said quietly from the back seat.

“No?” May asked, looking up into the rearview mirror. But his head was down, gaze aimed at the floor. “No, it doesn’t sound more plausible?” she said.

“No, that’s not what’s happening,” David said. “This is real.”

“What makes you say that?” Gary asked, turning back with one arm thrown over the top of his seat.

“I just...” David looked away, out the window. “I can just tell. Ever since I was a kid, I’ve always... known things. And as soon as I saw Doctor Bishop, I knew that this was real. That this, being a part of this, is what I was meant for. All of us, we have to be a part of this.”

“Wow,” Gary said, turning back around. “That’s heavy.”

“I see men,” David said. “Watching me.”

May frowned, looking up into the mirror again, and then down at her watch.

“Right now?” she asked. “You shouldn’t be hallucinating yet.”

“No,” David said quietly, speaking to his folded hands in his lap. “All the time. They wear hats. Like Alain Delon in Le Samourai. And they never say anything, they just... watch.”

May looked over at Gary, who smirked and pointed a very unsubtle circling finger at his temple. This revelation was actually deeply worrying to May. David was clearly suffering from some type of mental illness, probably schizophrenia, and the idea of linking minds with a person like that seemed like a spectacularly bad idea, especially with so much at stake.

Yet, many progressive thinkers had recently suggested that so-called mental illness was really nothing more than freedom from culturally imposed restrictions on the mutually agreed upon “reality.” It was possible that May was being too uptight in her thinking. She should allow herself to be more open about unconventional views of reality.

After all, just because she couldn’t perceive them, who was she to say that mysterious men with fedora hats weren’t actually watching David?

Still, she had no way of knowing how David’s unconventional view of reality might effect the experiment.

Only one way to find out.

44

Walter, Nina, and Bell stayed lying on the floor the rest of the way to Golden Gate Park, but even hidden Walter felt as if the whole of San Francisco was watching him. He kept thinking he heard police sirens coming after them, but every time he strained his ears they seemed to fade away again.

He had to keep wiping his face.

Sweat was soaking his collar.

“Paranoia,” he murmured. “I’ve never noticed paranoia as a side effect of our special blend before.”

“It isn’t paranoia if they really are after you,” Bell said with a smirk.

At last they were turning off Fell onto Kezar drive and entering the park, the lush green of the trees and lawns swallowing up the noise and visual chaos of the city and enveloping them in soft shady silence. But what should have calmed him down only made Walter more tense.

They might have escaped the scrutiny of the police, but they were closing in on a much more fearsome adversary, and a much riskier enterprise. Their showdown with the Zodiac was only minutes away. Their chance to get rid of him once and for all. Or perhaps to perpetrate the greatest disaster in San Francisco since the Great Earthquake of 1906.

Kenneth pulled off the road and parked just south of the playground that lay adjacent to the carousel. Walter rose up cautiously and looked around.

“Have we heard from Leslie lately?” he asked.

Nina picked up the walkie-talkie.

“Leslie?” she said. “Report in please.”

Leslie’s voice popped from the speaker.

“Going a bit slow,” she said. “Payton is really feeling the bumps. Don’t know if he’s going to be okay for this.”

“Damn delicate flower,” Nina growled. She keyed the mike. “Well, get there as soon as you can, please. The clock is ticking.”

Bell shook his head.

“Our blend should have no impact whatsoever on the digestive system,” he said. “It has none of the impurities of mushrooms.”

“It’s fear, Belly.” Walter pressed his dry lips together. “Garden variety. I’m feeling pretty sick to my stomach myself.”

* * *

Leslie barreled down Fell Street like a race car driver on speed, pushing the crotchety old van to its limit, swearing out the window and cutting off cars with the horn blaring. Lucky for them, Payton didn’t seem to have anything left inside him to throw up, but he still looked pretty queasy.

To Leslie’s surprise, Susan seemed exhilarated by her aggressive driving, even letting out a little cheer when she finally cut in front of a cigar-smoking cabbie who was being a jerk and wouldn’t let her into the lane. Leslie was even more surprised when Susan gave the cabbie the finger as they passed. Maybe there was hope for her yet.

“I don’t know if this is such a hot idea,” Payton said.

“That milkshake wasn’t such a hot idea,” Leslie snapped. “But you survived, didn’t you?”

“I think this is fun,” Susan said with a big happy grin. “It’s like being in a cool spy movie or something. And I didn’t even want to come to this class in the first place, because I thought it would be boring!” She patted Payton’s arm. “You’ll be okay. Just visualize peace inside your stomach, like Doctor Rayley says.”

“Uh... okay,” he said with a wan smile. “You’re probably right.”

Leslie tried not to be bothered by the fact that men always listened to women like Susan, and almost never listened to women like her. There was too much on her mind to let something like that get to her.

She drove into the park, searching for Bowling Green Drive. She’d never driven in the park before, since she normally rode her bicycle everywhere, so she got a little bit flummoxed by the one-way streets. The ticking clock made each minor mistake seem epic, and she hated to make any mistakes in front of Susan. It was important for her be perceived as a strong, competent leader, especially given the stakes of this particular mission.

She forced herself to remain calm and double back without comment, searching for the entrance to the parking lot for the lawn bowling club.

* * *

May parked the station wagon on Stanyan Street. Gary ran around to the back and grabbed the picnic basket containing the biofeedback machine, along with a folded plaid blanket. David just stood quietly waiting at the curb.

“How are you feeling, David?” May asked as they waited for a break in the traffic.

“Good,” David said, a little half smile playing over his lips. “I feel good.”

“I don’t feel good yet,” Gary said. “But we should be feeling good any minute now, right?”

“Right,” May replied, crossing the street and motioning for the two men to follow. “Any minute now.”

The Sharon Meadow wasn’t too crowded when they arrived. There was a birthday party taking place in the far northern corner, and several trees had been decorated with cheerful, brightly colored balloons and streamers. All the revelers were gathered around a picnic table, clamoring for slices of a large pink cake being doled out by a tiny, grandmotherly woman in a sweater that was almost the exact same color as the cake.

A pretty young woman with a long black braid that hung nearly to the backs of her knees played fetch with a brindle Boxer puppy. An earnest young Latino man was playing an acoustic guitar while two female friends sang in harmony. On the far southern end, a young couple was enthusiastically making out on a blanket, willfully oblivious to everyone else in the park. The wide center of the meadow was basically empty, with the majority of the population sticking to the shady parts.

It wasn’t a ton of people, but there were more than May might have preferred. In fact, a public park seemed like a pretty risky place for a dangerous experiment. If it really was dangerous.

Was this all just part of the test, like the famous Milgram experiment in which students had been told they were delivering painful electric shock to subjects, when in fact they themselves were the ones being studied?

As May and Gary spread out the blanket for the three of them to sit, she could see the burnt-out shell of the Sharon House through the trees, and wondered if Walter and his friends were in place yet. Real or not, dangerous or not, the experiment would begin in just ten short minutes.

45

“Alright,” Bell said to Kenneth. “Are you good to go?”

Kenneth looked a little unsure, but did his best to cover it with a mask of cocky confidence. Judy and Simon sat side by side in the back seat of the bus with the hushed expectation of kids waiting for a puppet show to begin.

Walter checked his watch. In about three minutes, the special blend of acid would be kicking in.

“Excellent,” he said, without much conviction.

“Start the biofeedback machine,” Nina said to Kenneth. “As soon as we’re out of sight.”

“Let’s go,” Bell said. “We have to be in place before the killer arrives.”

He headed north, through the trees, toward the carousel. Nina followed close behind him. Walter cast one last glance back at the bus and its occupants before hustling to catch up.

When the carousel came into view, the three of them paused and hung back, scoping the area for any sign of the killer. The carousel itself was open and running, with a small group of people waiting for the current cycle to end so they could have their turn. The organ music was cheerful and upbeat, accented by excited, high-pitched squeals and laughter. A little less than half of the colorful menagerie animals were occupied.

Beside the carousel stood the Sharon House, a Romanesque stone building stained with soot. It had been closed down and fenced off after a fire gutted the place. Many of its tall arched windows were broken and boarded up. There was a large, charred hole in the north side of the roof.

Just as they suspected, this burnt-out building would be the perfect hiding place for a sniper who wanted to shoot people on the carousel. It was also perfect as the epicenter for their psychic web, a place where they could open the gate in private, away from curious bystanders.

When they circled around the back of the building, they spotted a large slit cut into the chain-link.

Bell put one hand on the fence, eyebrow raised.

“He must have beat us here,” Nina said.

“Could have been kids,” Bell said. “Or vagrants.”

“Should we go in?” Walter asked. “Or...”

A scrawny black kid about sixteen years old sidled up to them. He had an impressive Afro, sunglasses and an orange leather jacket that he had clearly borrowed from a much bigger friend.

“Hey, man,” he said. “You from Reiden Lake?”

Walter and Bell exchanged a look.

“Who are you?” Bell asked.

“Your friend said you’d be here,” he said, instead of answering. “He gave me five bucks and asked me to give you this note.”

The kid held out a slip of paper. Walter frowned, scanning the tree line. No one. The deep sense of unease in his belly twisted like a knife.

“You want the damn note or not?” the kid asked.

Walter took it.

“Did he say anything else to you?” Walter asked.

“Nope.”

The kid strolled away, uninterested now that his job had been fulfilled.

“Well,” Nina said. “What does it say?”

Walter unfolded the note. It was written in code.

“God dammit,” Walter said. “We don’t have time for this. We’re going to start tripping any second now!”

“Look,” Bell said, pulling a pen from an inner pocket. “He’s obviously using Reiden again as the key. He wants us to read this.” He drew up a quick Vigenère cipher and started laying out the key on the back side of the note. The message was short, and once the key was established it translated swiftly.

My dearest friends,

I have taken a hostage, but I am growing tired of this world. Leave Miss Nina Sharp behind and come to me so we can talk. Come around to the north side of the house. If I see that redheaded bitch I will kill the hostage. If you come alone, I will let the hostage go.

I want to go home.

Again, the note was signed with the infamous cross hair symbol.

“I don’t trust him,” Nina said immediately.

As Walter stared at the cross hair symbol, it seemed to swell and welt up on the paper like a fresh brand on raw flesh.

The acid was starting to kick in.

“Belly?” Walter asked.

“Yeah,” Bell replied. “Me, too.”

Nina rolled her eyes.

“Oh, this is just great,” she said.

“What are we going to do?” Bell asked.

“Look,” Nina said. “Here’s the plan. I’ll go into the building from this side, set up the central biofeedback rig, and then I’ll come through to the north end from the inside, and cover you two with Lulu. Agreed?”

“We don’t seem to have much of a choice,” Bell said.

“You have the extra walkie-talkie?” Nina asked Walter.

He checked inside the bag that contained the chloroform and handcuffs. The extra unit was there, right we’re he’d left it. He turned it on.

“Good,” Nina said. “If you get into trouble, use it.”

“Seems like a probable outcome at this point,” Bell said.

“Maybe he really does want to go home,” Walter suggested.

Nina turned away from them and squeezed through the slit in the chain-link fence.

“Go find out,” she said.

46

Nina followed the tan stone wall around the corner of the building, and slid alongside one of the boarded-up windows. The lowest board had been pried loose on one end and if she got down on her hands and knees, she could just wiggle through.

She looked around to see if anyone was watching. The sound of the carousel was clear, but from this angle she couldn’t see it. That meant all the people there and in the neighboring playground couldn’t see her, either. She pushed the canvas messenger bag in through the window frame ahead of her, and then squeezed in after it, loose nails scratching at her skin like metal claws.

Inside, the building was dim and redolent of char. Nina could see the cloudy sky through the hole in the roof, reflected in tarry puddles on the ruined floor. She remembered reading about the fire in the paper, something to do with glass blowing or kilns or something, but whatever the cause, the devastation was extensive. The interior had been burned down to the bones, nothing left intact but the exterior stone walls.

She could still hear that happy organ music from the carousel, an eerie counterpoint to the lonely, haunted house feeling inside the burnt-out building. She had never been a superstitious person, but found herself wondering if anyone had been killed in the fire, and shuddering at the thought.

Shrugging off the childish willies, she surveyed her surroundings and selected a spot near a descending staircase that seemed close enough to the exact center of the building, She unloaded the biofeedback rig and set it up, thumbing the power switch. Satisfied that it was working at maximum capacity, she drew Lulu from her purse and, barrel pointed at the damp floor, made her cautious way toward the north side, to check on Walter and Bell.

The big open space echoed her footfalls back at her, multiplying them and making it sound as if someone was following her. She paused for a moment, scanning the hazy corners and archways around her as the echo died off. Her eyes strained to separate the dim, sooty shadows. Pale ash kicked up by her feet swirled in what little light managed to find its way in.

Nothing. No one.

She continued, skirting another large black puddle and making her way toward a window on the north wall—a window with a single missing board.

* * *

Walter and Bell stood on the north side of the fence that surrounded the burnt-out building. The acid was really starting to make itself known, and shadowy figures seemed to lurk at the far edges of Walter’s peripheral vision. But if the killer was there, he didn’t make himself known.

“What should we do, Belly?” he asked, gripping his friend’s upper arm to steady himself. “We can’t wait here forever. The synchronization must begin in less than a minute!”

“I don’t know,” Bell replied, staring intently at the ground between his shoes. “I simply don’t know.”

That’s when Walter noticed the folded note tucked under the edge of the chain-link fence. He bent to pick it up, almost reluctant to unfold it. The paper seemed to pulse with a feverish infection in Walter’s hands.

“Do you see this?” he asked Bell.

“Yes,” Bell said. “But that doesn’t mean it’s real.”

He opened the note and found a message in plain, uncoded English.

I never had a hostage. But I do now.

The cross hair symbol winked at Walter like an eye. He dropped the note, wiping his hand on his pant legs as if it had touched something rotten.

“My God,” Walter said. “He’s got Nina!”

* * *

Nina reached the window with the missing board, and peered out. She could see Walter and Bell on the other side of the fence, waving their arms and having some kind of intense debate. No sign of the killer.

She checked her watch. Time was running out.

She was about to call out to them when she heard a stealthy, sliding footstep behind her. She spun, gun raised. The dappled shadows taunted her with a dozen hiding places, but she couldn’t see anyone.

“Show yourself!” she called.

Her echoing voice disrupted a brooding pigeon, who took off through the hole in the roof with a noisy flutter. A single white feather seesawed down from the ceiling and landed at her feet.

She waited.

Nothing.

No one.

Her ears rang with listening, eyes wide in the dim, shadowy building. Outside, the carousel started up again, taking a new batch of excited children for a ride with a burst of jaunty music.

The walkie-talkie in her purse crackled with static, causing her to jump, startled. Then Leslie’s voice.

“Nina? Nina, do you read me?”

She took out the unit with her left hand and keyed the mike.

“Everything okay, Leslie?”

“We’re in place,” she said. “I didn’t think we were going to make it, but we’re in place here at the parking lot. Ready when you are.”

Nina looked at the walkie-talkie in one hand and the gun in the other. No point scaring the students. Their only option was to proceed as if everything was normal. Stick to the plan.

“Roger that, Leslie,” she said into the mike. “Get your equipment set up, and begin the synchronization.”

“You got it,” Leslie said. “Over.”

Nina hoped she was doing the right thing. She put the walkie-talkie back into her purse.

That’s when she was grabbed from behind, the cold blade of a knife biting into the exposed flesh of her throat.

“Drop the gun, sweetheart,” the killer whispered, his breath hot against her ear.

47

“What are we going to do?” Walter asked.

Before Bell could answer, he heard a sharp piercing whistle. When he turned toward the sound, he saw Nina’s pale face in the lower corner of a partially boarded window. Her expression was masklike and unreadable. Then Walter noticed the gloved fist twisted into her red hair, and the knife pressed against her throat.

“He wants you to come inside,” Nina called, lips barely moving, her voice a flat monotone.

Bell took a step toward the building, hands clenched into shaking fists, but Walter gripped his shoulder.

“If we do what he says,” Walter said, “what’s to stop him from killing Nina? Once he has us, he won’t need her any more.”

“But what other choice do we have?” Bell asked through gritted teeth. “The bastard has the upper hand here.”

The walkie-talkie in Walter’s bag crackled and squawked.

“Nina?” It was Kenneth. “Nina do you copy?”

Walter dug out his unit and fumbled with it for a moment. It seemed to have far too many buttons, many of which were weirdly organic looking, like clusters of shiny spider eyes.

Bell snatched it out of his hand and hit the button.

“Bell here,” he said. “What is it?”

“A bunch of black Fords just pulled up behind us on Kezar,” Kenneth said. “And a bunch of guys in suits got out. I’m pretty sure they’re feds, and they’re headed your way!”

“Copy that,” Bell said. “Stick with the plan, no matter what. Do you hear me?”

“Will do,” Kenneth said. “Good luck.”

Walter looked back through the trees and saw the agents headed their way, but there seemed to be thousands of them moving in robotic lockstep, like mechanical Nazis. This was really the worst possible time to be tripping.

“They’re coming, Belly,” he said. “We have to go into the building, like it or not. This is our last chance before the feds turn this whole thing into a fiasco.”

Resigned and resolved, the two of them ran for the hole in the fence.

“Attention team leaders,” Bell said into the walkie-talkie. “Tell your subjects to visualize a gate, and to open it! Do you copy?”

“Copy,” Kenneth replied. “A gate.”

“Will do,” Leslie said.

“Got it,” May said.

“And stand by with the tranquilizers,” Bell said, folding his long body nearly in half to squeeze through the slit in the fence. “Be ready to stop the trip if I tell you to do so. Over and out.”

Walter followed Bell through the hole, but when he looked back at the feds, he saw Latimer front and center.

Worse, Latimer saw him.

Or did he? Was Latimer even there at all, or just a figment of his chemically enhanced perception?

There was nothing to do about that now, though. Either the man was there, or he wasn’t. And he would either catch them, or he wouldn’t. They had no choice but to try and go through with the experiment. Stick to the plan, and hope they weren’t too late to save Nina.

When Walter caught up, Bell had pried a loose board off one of the windows and was climbing through. The remaining boards looked disturbingly skin-like, and the hole Bell was crawling into seemed like a giant wound. Its edges oozed and pulsated, making Walter pull back with disgust.

“Come on,” Bell’s voice called from inside. “Hurry!” So Walter closed his eyes and climbed into the gaping wound, trying not to notice how feverish and slick the edges felt.

Inside the dim, char-stinking interior of the burnt-out building, Walter felt completely disoriented. He could no longer trust anything he was seeing, but he definitely didn’t see any sign of the killer—or Nina. Although in his current state, that didn’t mean they weren’t there.

Then he heard the killer’s voice.

“Here we all are,” he said. “Just like old times.”

The stocky man with the reddish-brown crew cut stepped out of the gloom and into a shaft of light that streamed through the broken roof. He was like an actor taking the stage, arm around Nina’s neck and the knife pricking the skin beneath her left ear. A trickle of blood seemed to flow out into the air between them, floating in weightless globules. A gory lava lamp.

“Okay,” Bell said, palms held up and out. “Okay, just take it easy.”

“Tell me,” Zodiac said, “since I just can’t seem to figure it out. Which one of you is nailing her?”

The killer turned Nina’s body toward Walter, then toward Bell.

“Ah,” the killer said to Bell. “It’s you, isn’t it? But...” He leaned in over Nina’s shoulder, squinting. “It’s not just that, is it? You’re not in love—no, this is much more... complicated. Mmmmmm.” He pressed the knife harder into Nina’s neck, eliciting a stifled hiss and a more vigorous flow of blood. “I can’t wait to see how you react when you watch her die.”

“Wait,” Bell said, taking a cautious step forward. “The FBI is on our heels. They’ll be in here any minute. If you kill her, you won’t have a hostage to use when you negotiate with them.”

“Nice try,” the killer said. “But I don’t need this bitch as a hostage. The FBI, they know me. They know what would happen if they hurt me.” He waved his left hand in an expansive circle. “I’m holding this whole park hostage!” He grabbed a fist full of Nina’s hair and cranked her head back, stretching her pale throat taut. “Say goodbye, sweetheart.”

“No!” Bell cried.

A sharp crack sounded in the hollow space, and for a moment, Walter was sure someone had been shot. Maybe even him.

“Freeze! FBI!”

Bright light washed over Walter and he realized that the door had been kicked in. Three dark, backlit figures stepped into the building, two ahead with guns drawn and one slightly behind. He felt as if he really should do something about this turn of events, but nothing was coming to mind. In fact, he still wasn’t even sure they were real.

But the killer was, and reacted to the arrival of the newcomers far more swiftly and efficiently. He let go of Nina’s hair and drew a gun from his waistband, drawing a bead on the figure in the center.

Having been released, Nina ran to Bell. The two of them seemed to melt into each other like conjoined twins, outlines blurring and blending. Walter shook his head, struggling to keep it together.

“Don’t shoot!” Bell cried. “If you shoot him, you’ll kill us all!”

The dark figure in the center stepped forward, features resolving out of the sticky, viscous light.

Latimer.

“We don’t want to kill you,” he purred, ignoring Bell and approaching the killer with open hands. “We want to give you a job. We have a lot to learn from someone like you.”

The killer let out a contemptuous bark of laughter.

“I’m nobody’s lab rat,” he said, gun aimed between Latimer’s eyes.

“Shoot me if you like,” Latimer said. “There are a dozen more just like me right outside that door. You’re coming with us today. It’s up to you if you want come willingly, or...”

“Or what?”

Walter still couldn’t trust what he was seeing, or what he thought he was seeing, but he was pretty sure that the other two agents had begun a slow creep around either side of the killer.

He knew it was real when the killer shot them both, first left, then right, with blinding speed and precision.

They dropped almost in tandem, uncapped syringes falling from their twitching hands. One rolled across the floor and bumped against the killer’s muddy boot. He looked down at it with a smirk, then lifted his foot and crushed it under his heel.

“Plan B?” he asked Latimer.

Latimer started backing away.

“I didn’t think so.” The killer started to strip the gloves off his hands, revealing the swarming sparks flowing over the surface of his skin. “You want to study me? Learn about me? Find out what makes me tick? Take a good long look, Agent Latimer.”

He stepped in with the smooth, fearless grace of a boxer, but instead of throwing a jab, he reached out and grabbed Latimer’s face.

The agent let out a horrible, muffled scream as the killer’s fingers sank into the burning flesh. The skin bubbled and split around his fingertips, peeling back in charred flaps. Latimer’s exposed skull started to effervesce into the air around him, emitting a sparkling cloud of atomic particles.

48

Walter was staring at this hideous display with his jaw hanging open when Nina grabbed him and shoved him toward the open door—the one that led to the stairwell. She pushed so hard that he nearly fell, dropping his bag. It slid across the floor and landed in a large puddle.

“What the...”

“Get into the basement now,” she said. “Or we’re all cooked!”

“But the chloroform!” Walter cried, taking a step toward his soaked bag.

Over her shoulder, the sickly green glow from Latimer’s melting face was spreading outward like ripples in a pond, until it was just inches away from the back of Nina’s head.

“It’s too late,” she said. “Just GO!”

Walter didn’t need to be told twice. He could feel the burning heat on the back of his neck as he dove for the basement stairs. In mere seconds, the upper level of the building would be awash in deadly gamma radiation. They had to get to the relative safety of the solid stone basement.

Bell went pounding down the stairs ahead of him as Walter half-fell and half-ran right behind him. Nina was reaching out to pull the heavy old door shut behind them when a powerful blast of energy slammed it, knocking her down the stairs and into Walter’s arms.

The two of them nearly smashed into Bell, who was standing awestruck at the bottom of the stairs.

The gate had opened.

It was to the left of the stairs. Still just a glittering slit, but bigger than ever before. Nearly eight feet tall and bulging in several places along its length, like a gecko’s pupil. As Walter watched, the bulges dilated and joined together to form one larger opening, swirling and pulsing at its heart.

“How long do you suppose the gate has been open?” Nina asked, looking at her watch.

“There’s no way of knowing,” Walter said. “Just watch for the formation of tendrils around the outer perimeter. That’s your signal to call the teams and tell them to end the trip.”

“But what if we haven’t had enough time to get him through?” Bell asked.

“Doesn’t matter,” Walter said. “I won’t risk any more innocent lives.”

Flickering images of carousel horses seemed to be careening through the air around Walter’s head. He waved at them, as if they were pesky insects, and struggled to keep himself focused.

“Look,” Nina said, pointing to the gate.

Sure enough, tiny threads were appearing around the top, growing and stretching.

Nina pulled out the walkie-talkie.

“Talk to me, team leaders,” she said. “How’s everyone doing?”

“Rocky.” May’s response was immediate. “Both of my guys have been really agitated. I’m doing my best to keep them calm, but I don’t think they can take much more.”

Another voice.

“This is Leslie. My trippers are... well, they aren’t moving at all. They seem almost comatose. I hope they’re okay. Also...” She paused. “I’m starting to get this weird headache, almost like I’m getting sucked into the psychic link.”

“Me, too,” May said. “But I get a lot of headaches, so I figured it was just me.”

“We have to stop this,” Walter said. “Stop it now.”

“One more minute,” Bell insisted. “We need to try and lure the killer into the basement.”

“And how the hell are we supposed to do that,” Walter snapped. “Stop it now, Nina!”

“Kenneth?” Nina said into the walkie-talkie. “Kenneth, do you copy? Are you and your team all right?”

“Can I play, too?”

The Zodiac stood at the top of the stairs, head cocked and curious. His hands were slick with half-cooked gore, but otherwise normal.

He started down the stairs, gun in hand but pointed at the floor.

“You think you can get rid of me like this?” he sneered. “That I’ll just stroll right out of this world like a good little boy. Idiots.”

He reached the bottom of the stairs. Walter backed away, while Bell put out an arm to push Nina behind him.

“I have a better idea,” the killer said. “How about you three go through that gate? See how well you can do in my world.”

He raised the gun and pointed it at Walter.

“You first,” he said.

At that moment something unexpected happened. Walter felt like he’d been hit by a psychic truck as the remote teams suddenly linked minds with him and Bell. The strength and power of that connection started to pull the killer in, revealing that ugly soulless void that was the mind of the Zodiac, struggling against their influence.

Walter could feel Bell close by, and the other minds— all intimately connected, sharing a kaleidoscopic cascade of personal memories and images.

A chubby dark-haired woman with a black eye and a sad smile.

An illicit kiss from a fellow student in the stairway of an all-boys high school.

A music box with a twirling ballerina.

An old woman in a casket, dressed in a frilly, dated frock.

A turquoise parakeet, perched on a child’s finger.

A man turning away, utterly uninterested in a drawing of two smiling stick figures, holding hands.

A backlit silhouette standing in a bedroom door.

All these memories, each one so deeply personal and fraught with significance, felt overwhelming. They distracted Walter from the task at hand. He struggled to shut out all the psychic noise, and hone in on the mind of the killer.

But at the same time as the killer’s dark consciousness was being drawn into the circle, like a snared and panicking bird, Walter could feel Bell’s mind slipping away, lured by the lone bright flame of Nina.

“Belly,” he thought he said. “Stay with us!”

But then, Bell was gone—and in his place, the dark, ferocious psyche of the killer.

Just like that night at Reiden Lake, the world dropped out from under him. Walter felt as if he was plunging through cracked ice, and into the arctic water below.

Then the hallucination changed. The room around him ceased to exist as he plummeted down through a spinning tunnel of images, dragging the linked group of minds behind him like tin cans on a string.

A paper cup full of pills.

A lab filled with children’s toys.

A strange device shaped like a window.

A blond woman with a gun.

But whose images were these? Not the killer’s this time, he didn’t think. Maybe the other members of the group?

Then, just as suddenly as they started, the whirlwind of images stopped, and Walter was in a child’s bedroom, sitting on the edge of a little boy’s bed.

The room was decorated with a space theme. Posters of rocket ships and planets, and a hanging mobile of the solar system over the high-backed wooden bed. A calendar on the wall featured fun facts about astronomy.

It was dated 1985.

Under a striped comforter and propped up on several pillows, was a small boy with a pale, drawn face and dark hair falling over shadowed eyes. He was looking up at Walter with such love and trust that it made his heart ache.

This was his boy. His son.

When they joined minds at Reiden Lake, the Zodiac had shared the most powerful emotional moment in his future. So, too, was this a profoundly significant moment—one from Walter’s future.

He looked down at his open hand, and saw that he was holding a coin. A silver dollar. He looked back up at the little boy. The boy offered a wan smile.

“Will you wake me for dinner?” the boy asked. “I don’t wanna miss it.”

Walter could feel the other minds there, poised like an audience, watching him. The killer’s consciousness was front and center, like a darkening bruise.

The boy reached up his skinny arms, asking for a hug, and Walter was suddenly hit with a terrible realization. The boy was sick. He was dying. And although he couldn’t imagine why, Walter was sure that it was his fault.

He hugged the boy—too hard, but he couldn’t help it. The sweet smell of freshly shampooed hair mingled with a powerful odor of medicine. Walter’s heart felt as if it was shattering into a million pieces.

The boy’s breath hitched and then let out, long and slow. His heavy little head sagged against Walter’s shoulder as Walter waited from him to inhale.

He never did.

The boy was dead in his arms.

Raw howling anguish flooded Walter’s mind, echoed and amplified by all the linked minds in the chain. The vision of the lifeless boy and his cheerful room disintegrated into ash, but that bottomless grief followed Walter back into the real world, resonating to the depths of his being and making him feel as if his chest had been torn wide open.

He staggered with the weight of that terrible emotion, crushed and so consumed by it that he thought he would die. Then he opened his eyes and saw the killer, standing less than a foot away, gun pointed at the floor. The Zodiac had a hand over his eyes and was swaying as if he was about to faint. An emotionless sociopath, suddenly broadsided by empathy, he had been devastated by unknown emotion.

Meanwhile, the tendrils around the edges of the gate were reaching critical mass. It was now or never. Walter didn’t have a second to think.

He threw himself at the disoriented killer, driving them both toward the undulating gate.

49

Nina had been struggling to stay alert, and focused on the gate, but the narcotic comfort of linking minds with Bell again was so tempting. He was standing about six feet to her left, facing away, but she could feel his consciousness inside her, like a twin heartbeat.

She would snap out of it for a second, gripping the walkie-talkie so tight that her knuckles ached, and ready to call a stop to the experiment. But then she would find herself drawn back in to the seductive Möbius strip of the psychic connection.

Meanwhile Walter and the killer were almost nose to nose, both frozen and locked into some psychic encounter Nina couldn’t even begin to comprehend. Their eyes were closed and twitching beneath their lids, as if they were dreaming.

Then, just as she felt herself starting to slip away again, Walter suddenly tackled the insensate killer. He ducked down, driving one shoulder into the killer’s chest and wrapping both arms around his waist.

They fell together toward the gate, Walter on top and the killer on the bottom. Nina screamed Walter’s name, but it was too late. They were both certain to fall through.

What happened next was so astonishing that she could hardly process what she was seeing. The top third of the killer’s head entered the opening, disappearing up to the bridge of the nose, as if plunged underwater. Then in the blink of an eye, the gate seemed to destabilize. It disintegrated into something that resembled jagged, whirring fan blades that sliced the killer’s head to ribbons, filling the air with a fine mist of blood and brain matter.

His death was instantaneous. It had to have been.

The rest of the killer’s body—along with Walter, whose head was tucked down and pressed against the man’s shoulder—were thrown violently backward, as if from an explosion.

Nina could almost feel her connection with Bell tearing and bleeding as she ran to help Walter. Bell seemed to feel it, too, and he turned toward her, shaking his head and squinting as if reacting to a persistent loud noise. When he saw what had happened, he joined Nina at Walter’s side.

The killer’s heavy, headless body had fallen on top of him, and so Nina and Bell worked together to move the dead weight. He was spattered with the killer’s blood, and clearly disoriented, but seemed otherwise unharmed.

“Walt,” Bell said. “What the hell happened? Why did the gate suddenly close.”

“I...” He wiped his lips on the back of his hand and looked up at the two of them. “I have no idea.”

* * *

Two Observers stood beside the carousel, watching the FBI agents escorting handcuffed Walter, Nina, and Bell away from the Sharon House.

“They aren’t ready to know,” one said to the other.

“Not yet,” the other replied, adjusting the brim of his fedora.

Together they turned and walked toward Kezar Drive.

“What about the rest?” the first Observer asked.

“They are necessary casualties,” the other said, gesturing toward the group of FBI agents who were removing three bodies from a Volkswagen minibus. “We had no choice but to close the gate. As a result, catastrophic timeline disruption has been effectively averted.”

The two watched dispassionately for a few minutes as the bodies were bagged and loaded into a waiting vehicle.

Then they were gone.

50

Walter and Bell sat together in the same featureless interrogation room where Walter had first met the late Dick Latimer. Nina had been taken elsewhere.

They were both shaken and exhausted—Walter even more so, because he couldn’t get that dying boy out of his mind. He told Bell everything, every detail of his terrible vision, and how that powerful emotion and helped him beat the killer.

“The future isn’t set in stone, Walt,” Bell said. “Linda’s grandma and all the other passengers on that bus are alive today because of you. You saw her die, but she didn’t. You changed the future. You saved her life— you saved all of their lives.” He put his hand on Walter’s shoulder. “Don’t you see? Just because you saw your son die, doesn’t mean you can’t still save him.”

“My God,” Walter replied. “I hope you’re right.”

The door opened and, to Walter’s surprise, Iverson walked into the room.

“Gentlemen,” he said. “I had to pull more strings than the Howdy Doody Show, but you’re free to go. However, I’m afraid you’re on the map now. We’ll be keeping a close eye on both of you.” He gave them a wry smile. “Who knows, we might even offer you a job someday.”

Walter and Bell stood, and Bell reached out to shake Iverson’s hand.

“What’s going to happen to you, now that Latimer is out of the way?” Bell asked.

“Well,” Iverson replied, “it looks like I get my paranormal investigative unit after all. Although it will probably take years to develop it into a workable division. It’s not like we have a precedent to follow.”

“Good luck with it,” Bell said.

“But Agent Iverson,” Walter said, “there were several other students involved in this experiment. A young woman named May. Is she... are they okay?”

Iverson’s expression turned grim.

“They didn’t make it,” he said.

Walter staggered as if punched in the stomach. If Bell hadn’t been there beside him, he might have collapsed to his knees.

“All of them...?” he asked.

“Strangest thing,” Iverson said. “The bodies were entirely unmarked, with no sign of any injury or trauma. They were just dead, as if their lives had been switched off like light bulbs.”

“Did...” Walter was reeling, devastated. “Did we kill them?”

“No way of knowing, really,” Iverson said. “I’m sorry.”

Walter thought of smart, charming May, picturing her gap-toothed smile as she took a purple Necco wafer from the roll he had offered.

Just moments earlier he had felt so shell-shocked and numb, he was sure there was no way he could feel more grief. Yet there it was, fresh and stinging like a brand new paper cut.

He barely heard Iverson’s goodbye, barely reacted when Nina was released with them, and said nothing on the whole ride back to her house. It was as if he was under water, everything icy cold and distant.

They had survived, and they had beaten the killer. But at what cost?

51

Nina unlocked the door to her house, almost unable to believe that it still existed. That her normal day-to-day life was still there, just the way she had left it. Food in the fridge. Bills to be paid. Her half-read book on her bedside table, waiting to be finished.

The world was going on with its mundane business as if none of this had ever happened.

But it had, and Nina knew in her heart she had reached a critical crossroad. That the life she might have had if she had just met Bell that one time, and then never seen him again, was no longer an option. That whatever complex endeavor she might be engaged in with Bell was well on its way to becoming a reality.

Her two companions followed her in like a couple of refugee war orphans, devastated by everything they’d been through. When the phone rang, they both nearly jumped out of their skins.

Nina grabbed the receiver of the wall-mounted phone in the front hallway.

“Hello?” she said, tucking the receiver between her shoulder and ear as she took off her coat.

“Hi, Nina,” a familiar voice said. “It’s Abby!”

“Hey, Abby,” Nina replied, stretching the spiral phone cord as far as it could go, to hang her coat on the hook by the door. “Is everything okay?”

“Sure, fine, no problem,” she said. “I just wanted to thank you for letting me borrow your rental car. Roscoe is here, and I bet you’ll never believe what happened to him.”

“I bet I will,” Nina said.

“He got arrested. By spooks!” she said. “The FBI, who totally hassled him for no reason, and kept him for twelve whole hours. The fascists!”

“Really?” Nina said. “Imagine that!”

“He says they asked him a bunch of questions about your two friends,” Abby continued. “But he didn’t tell them a thing, did you honey? Anyway, it’s all fine now.”

“Glad to hear it,” Nina said. “Everyone else in the band okay?”

“They nailed Chick on possession,” she said. “But he’ll probably just cop a plea, like last time. Everybody else is totally fine.” Nina could hear her taking a big hit off a joint. “But hey, listen. Me and Roscoe, we’ve decided to stay down here for a little while, just to take it easy and find our spiritual centers after everything that happened. We’ll turn in the rental car and pay off the rest of what you owe, okay?”

“That’s fine, kiddo,” Nina said. “Thanks.”

“What about your two friends?” Abby asked. “Are they okay?”

Nina looked over at Bell and Walter, who were standing together as if they were using every drop of their combined willpower not to fall flat on their faces. At that moment, she had no idea how to answer Abby’s question.

“They’re fine,” she said, for lack of a better response.

“Okay, then,” Abby said. “I better go. Mom’s making coconut cake.”

She hung up before Nina could reply.

Nina looked down at the receiver, and then put it back on the cradle. Although it didn’t ameliorate the loss of all those innocent students from the Institute, it did make her feel just a little bit better to know that Abby, her baby, and all of the band members had escaped the madness unharmed.

Walter and Bell, on the other hand, looked far from unharmed.

“Come on, boys,” she said, leading them into the living room.

Cat-Mandu, Roscoe’s Himalayan cat, jumped down off the couch to greet Walter, demanding attention as if he were the center of his own little feline universe. Walter smiled and crouched down to pet him, but Nina could still see tension in his face.

Something was bothering him and not just the events of the day.

“Belly,” Walter finally said, standing back up again and turning to Bell. “We have to destroy the formula for the acid. We must never, ever make that blend again.”

“What?” Bell frowned. “That’s insane! It’s the single most significant breakthrough we’ve ever had! We can’t just abandon such an important line of research. We need to study it. Refine it.”

Walter shook his head vigorously.

“It’s far too dangerous,” he said. “The risks far outweigh the benefits.”

“In it’s current state, yes,” Bell argued. “And I agree that further use of adult subjects would be ill advised. But with a few minor adjustments, we might be able to use it on subjects whose minds are more flexible and open. Like children.”

“Have you lost all sense of ethics and decency?” Walter said. “We can’t experiment on unsuspecting children! No, I insist that you destroy the formula immediately, and that we make a pact never to recreate it. The world just isn’t ready for the kind of uncontrollable psychic power that it can unleash.”

“Walter,” Bell said, that deep, soothing voice of his, pitched low and gentle. “Why don’t we sleep on it for a few days. After everything we’ve been through, we’re not in any shape to be making important decisions about the future.”

“My decision-making process has never been clearer,” Walter insisted. “Destroying the formula is the only rational option.”

“Well,” Bell said, taking his little red notebook out of the pocket of his sport coat. “While I want it to be known that I strongly disagree, I supposed I have no choice.”

He opened the notebook to the formula for the special blend and tore the page out, crumpling it into a tight ball.

“William, don’t!” Nina said, hand on his arm.

He shot her a look and set the balled-up paper into an ashtray on a low coffee table. She withdrew her hand slowly.

“Give Walter your lighter,” Bell said.

Nina narrowed her eyes at him, but he just nodded, expression serene. She did what he asked.

Walter took the lighter.

“This is the right thing to do,” he said.

He sparked the flame and touched it to the crumpled paper. The page went up quickly, burning brightly for a moment, and then dying down to thin black ash.

For a full minute, no one said anything. The three of them just sat there, staring at the crisp, delicate blossom of ash. Then Walter prodded it with the butt of the lighter, and it collapsed to powder.

“Well, I don’t know about you, Belly,” he said, setting the lighter down beside the ashtray and getting to his feet, “but I feel better already. It was the right thing to do.”

“I suppose so,” Bell said, his face unreadable.

“So,” Walter said, clapping his hands together. “Who wants pancakes?”

“That would be great,” Nina said, her curious gaze still locked with Bell. “Thanks.”

Walter disappeared into the kitchen. Cat-Mandu followed, mewing in anticipation of Tender Vittles.

Nina stepped up beside Bell, silent questions in her eyes. He smiled and opened the notebook, revealing the formula for the special blend, unharmed on a previous page.

Beneath the complex chemical formula was a list of several potential brand names for the blend. The last one on the list was circled twice.

Cortexaphan.

That had a nice ring to it.

“He’ll come around,” Bell said. “Just give him some time.”

Nina smiled. She knew that he was right.

Bell closed the notebook and put it back in his pocket.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The author would like to thank Al Guthrie, Steve Saffel, Anna Songco, JoAnne Narcisse, Angela Park, Noreen O’Toole, Rob Chiappetta, Glen Whitman, Joel Wyman, and Nathan Long.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Christa Faust is the author of a variety of media tie-ins and novelizations for properties such as Supernatural, Final Destination and Snakes on a Plane. She also writes hardboiled crime novels, including the Edgar Award-nominated Money Shot, Choke Hold, and the Butch Fatale series. She lives in Los Angeles. Her website is christafaust.net.

COMING SOON FROM TITAN BOOKS

FRINGE

THE BURNING MAN

By Christa Faust

As a child, Olivia Dunham is “Subject 13,” exposed to the experimental drug Cortexiphan. It has strange effects upon her—effects that manifest when her stepfather assaults her mother—with dire consequences.

All of her life, Olivia hides the strange things Cortexiphan has done to her. But the older she gets, the more difficult it becomes to suppress them. And when faced with a life-or-death situation, she can no longer deny her true nature. For if she does, someone close to her will die.

July 2013

TITANBOOKS.COM

Table of Contents

Also Available from Titan Books

Title Page

Copyright

Contents

Part One

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7

Part Two

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Acknowledgements

About the Author

Also Available from Titan Books

Table of Contents

Also Available from Titan Books

Title Page

Copyright

Contents

Part One

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

Part Two

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

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17

18

19

20

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51

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Also Available from Titan Books