Poltergeist

CHAPTER 3

It drizzled on Wednesday, the sky that homogeneous Seattle gray from horizon to horizon that lasts from mid-October through the first of May. This is the weather some people claim induces suicide—difficult to credit when you consider Seattle's death rate is lower than most US cities its size and its homicide rate equally small. I suspect it does contribute to our large number of bars, though.

I'd decided to pack the ferret along for the investigation of the séance room since she was curiosity personified most of the time and good at finding small openings and hidden things—usually when I didn't want her to—which could be useful.

I spotted Quinton outside St. John Hall. He was standing under a tree near the doorway, wearing a full-length waxed drover's coat and hat against the rain, though some had managed to get into his close-trimmed beard, somehow. His long brown hair was pulled back and tucked into his collar. He kept his coat on as we collected the keys and went upstairs.

"What's the setup?" he asked.

"This group is trying to create psychokinetic phenomena in a series of monitored séances with a fake ghost. Some of what they get is caused by the sitters, but some of it is caused by the technicians in the booth and a ringer in the room. What I need to know is what equipment are they using, what does it do, and has any of this stuff been tampered with or added to.”

"OK," he replied, opening the door to room twelve.

"Is it always like this?" Quinton asked, looking at the small room and its overload of furniture.

"I'd assume so. It was this way yesterday." Well, physically, at least.

Quinton hung his coat up by the door while I put the ferret on her leash. Once harnessed, she scampered around, digging at the floor and looking for holes. I glanced around and noted that the ball of energy threads was hot and bright under the table—even hotter than the day before and grown to the size of a beach ball with an unpleasant, beach-wrack stink and streaks of red. The sound was now a buzzing howl. I pushed the Grey away and used a trick Mara had taught me, pulling the edge of the Grey around me and Chaos to make a shield between us and the pulsing thing under the table.

Quinton walked around for a while, then stopped.

"I'm going into the observation room for a minute. I'll be right back," he said.

I could hear nothing but some creaking of the floorboards once he'd left the room, closing the door behind him. I guessed the room was pretty well soundproofed. I shouldn't have been surprised, but I was. Tuckman had gone to a lot of trouble with this room.

Quinton returned and put a sensor wand against one of the walls. "Thought so—power switch for all of this is in the other room. Now that it's on, I should be able to find the toys." He lay down on his back under the table, waving various devices at the furniture and rug, then began crawling around the rug itself, following some kind of invisible electronic spoor. I cut a glance into the Grey and saw that the ball of energy almost seemed to shy from him. He didn't notice.

Chaos discovered a shallow pit in the wall near the floorboards, obscured by the dark molding, and dug her claws into it, scrabbling and trying to make the hole big enough to crawl into. I went to see what she'd found.

A series of holes had been made in the walls near the floor and hidden behind fine-mesh screen the same color as the dark molding. Chaos had managed to find a small tear in one bit of screen and rip it open. Behind the screen was a small speaker cone. Chaos and I crawled around the room's perimeter and found a total of eight hidden speakers of several sizes. After a while, we ran into Quinton, who was now moving along the walls as well, waving his various sensors up and down the heavily plastered surfaces.

"What have you got?" he asked.

"Speakers. There's a whole bunch of them at floor level." I showed them to him as Chaos lost interest and attacked the rug, darting at the edge of the Grey, like a dog challenging the surf.

"Don't let her bite that rug too much," he cautioned. "It's got a lot of live wiring in it and she could get a shock." That wasn't all she'd get, but Chaos had had her run-ins with the Grey, too, and knew better than I when to head for cover.

"There are a bunch of plates and things on the bottom and on the floor under it, too," I said, moving my pet farther from the table.

"I figured there would be. I'll get to that in a minute.”

We looked at all of the speakers and Quinton ran some more tests of the walls before getting me to help him move the table and rug for another inspection. The ball of energy rolled around when we moved the table.

I followed the ferret around the room, though it appeared she was just taking a general tour now. Quinton stopped near the observation room mirror and looked around to catch my eye.

"Make some noise and move around. I'll be right back.”

I picked up Chaos and tried out a few old dance steps, muttering the words to "You Are My Lucky Star" to the ferret as I did.

Quinton returned, looking bemused, and grinned at me. "Keep that up for a while," he instructed as he repeated his crawling and waving, stopping a few times to take a spot reading of something in the walls or floor.

I'd faked my way through the first two numbers of 42nd Streetwhen Quinton called out again. "OK, you can stop." He was chuckling, but I didn't mind. I knew I was out of practice—and I never could sing worth a damn—but if you ask me to make frivolous noise and motion, Busby Berkeley dance numbers are the first thing that comes to my mind. I'd been dancing since I was eight due to my mother's ambition—pro since eleven—and the happily goofy routines were as natural to me as English.

At last, we sat down at the table. Chaos ran around on the table-top, snuffing the surface and chuckling to herself. I gave her a couple of treats to keep her busy.

"What have we got?" I asked.

"The room's pretty wired, but it all comes back into the booth. There's nothing here that's either run by a remote location or sending information to one. There's a lot of passive sensing that I couldn't pick up until there was something to send—that's why I needed you to move around and make noise. About half the monitoring equipment uses passive sensors so, in theory, they ought to be unobtrusive and largely immune to most interference. Most of it's built into the walls or furniture so it's out of the way and safe from knocks and rough handling. It's a nice setup—and pricey, 'cause the antenna and power technology on those subminiature units is pretty cutting-edge. Some of the stuff under the table is passive and remote sensing equipment, too, with slightly bigger antennas.

"Beyond all that, there's the active systems. This is the interesting part. Those speakers you found have a sister set of speakers in the crown molding. Now, I'm just guessing, because audio isn't really my thing and I haven't run numbers or made diagrams, but the positioning and type of speakers suggests to me that the room is one big sound cabinet. The speakers at the floor level don't put out much sound per speaker, but their cumulative wattage, aimed as it is, would make the whole wooden floor one giant subwoofer—not a very well-tuned one, but sufficient for subaudible frequencies. When it's firing and properly timed, the effect would be very disturbing, but you wouldn't perceive it as sound. The people in the room might think it was an earthquake or they might just experience unexplained disquiet.”

"That would probably be controlled by that console marked ambient sound, " I suggested.

"Yeah. With the upper range speakers in the crown molding, the combined sound effects could be used to manipulate mood very effectively, or even to cause vibrations and knocking sounds in the floor and walls. Basically, they can 'haunt' the room with sound waves. Even at a low level, it would make people very suggestible. That's just the walls and floor. Most of the furniture in the room is normal, but this table isn't.”

"I figured. Tell me about the table.”

"It's not as heavy as it seems. It's only heavy enough to be awkward for a single person to lift. Now, one of the large black pads you found in the floor is an electrical induction feed hardwired directly into the booth through a cable that's hidden under the boards—there's a little panel of wood covering the channel cut in the floor for it. The rest are induction or magnetic plates. It's nicely done, very neat. But the feet of the table are metallic and the rug has enough electrical coil in it to induce a very mild magnetic field that would make the table seem to get lighter or heavier—and would also make it easier or harder to shove around. Selective activation of the coil in the rug and the magnetic plates in the floor could also make the table bounce up and down or rock side to side a little—it wouldn't be dramatic, but to someone who's already suggestible and wants to believe, it would be a pretty convincing poltergeist.

"I'd guess they keep the table 'heavy' most of the time to make movement seem more dramatic when it happens. The table is also wired through the legs, picking up electricity through the induction plates and feeding a grid of tiny electromagnets embedded in the tabletop from below. This is all concealed by a wood veneer thin enough to allow someone with a control to move a metallic object around on the surface without touching either the table or the object—it would be a little hard on people's electric watches, but who'd notice? Now, you couldn't make the table jump or become heavier or lighter while you did that, but it would be a pretty cool effect and would distract almost anyone from noticing that the table was a little lighter than usual. It's a nice setup for making a ghost. Most people couldn't afford it and it wouldn't be worthwhile to most stage magicians, since it requires control of the room. But it works great in a setting like this one.”

I scooped the ferret off the table as she attempted to jump down and stuffed her into my purse. She began digging around. "Just how much movement or noise could you get out of this equipment?" I asked.

"Nothing flashy—this is a subtle setup and it's supposed to create subtle effects. It's all based on the suggestibility of the people in the room," Quinton replied. "You could get some dramatic effects with some kind of mechanical rig, I imagine, but that's not my field. You'd need to talk to a stagehand or a magician for that. I'm not sure you could hide the mechanism, though. You want to take a look in the other room with me?”

"Sure." I stood up and followed him out of the séance room and into the observation room.

Quinton identified which monitors recorded what and identified the location of recording cameras and microphones; then he sat down and made the chandelier and side lamps in the other room flicker and the table jump and turn. The table was wobbly and jerky and moved very little, though it still moved enough to see and measure on the equipment. He ran through some sound combinations that made me cringe, hearing them through the speakers in the booth. If I hadn't known the source of it, I would have been squirming around in restless discomfort. I could see an occasional flare of red or yellow in the other room, but it didn't seem to be connected to the sound Quinton made. It woke the ferret, who abandoned my purse for Quinton's pocket.

He shut down the effects and reached into his pocket to pet Chaos. "Hey, stinky." He looked up at me, then cocked his head toward the room. "Tricky, huh?”

"Yeah," I replied. "Very tricky. What about the board of Christmas lights?”

"That's what it is—Christmas lights. It's plugged in, but there's no separate control for the board or the plug. It doesn't have any switch or controls on it, either. As far as I can see, it's there just to be there— maybe it's a control unit. I don't know.”

"So some of this stuff is here for legit purposes.”

"A lot of it. It happens that you can also manipulate some of it, but the recording and monitoring equipment is on the level and there are good reasons to have the sound and light manipulation capability. Now, the modifications to the table I can't see any purpose for except demonstrating fake table movements and sliding objects around, but the rest are solid.”

"Then, except for the table, this stuff is mostly meant to create a conducive mood for belief, not to fake phenomena.”

"Yeah. And to record the phenomena and associated conditions with a high degree of reliability. It's a good arrangement and the distances are so short there'd be little chance for signal loss or interference with the antennas from outside the room. It's a decent old brick building without a lot of iron framing to interfere electrically, but built solid enough to block a lot of outside sound and vibration.”

I sat and thought about that for a moment, until we were interrupted by a knock on the observation room door.

We looked at each other before I opened the door to find a young black man standing in the hall with a large manila envelope in his hand.

I looked at him. "Hi. Can I help you? Dr. Tuckman told me we'd be undisturbed here.”

His face was as unrevealing as an ebony mask and his tone was dismissive. "I don't intend to disturb you. Tuck told me to deliver these— assuming you're Harper Blaine—and since he knew you'd be here, I thought I'd come over early.”

This was not helpful and neither was his lofty attitude. "Yes, I'm Harper. Do you work for Tuckman?" I asked.

He rolled his eyes. "Yeah, I do. I'm his graduate assistant on the poltergeist project. Terril Dornier. Terry." He didn't offer me his hand or a smile, just held out the envelope.

According to his dossier file, Terry Dornier had an undergraduate degree in psychology and was continuing on to a specialization in abnormal behaviors. His cold outward reserve bordered on disdain. I wondered if that was usual or if he just didn't like me for some reason.

"Hi, Terry. What have you brought?”

"Recordings of the séances and the recent monitoring and notes.”

Quinton stepped into the doorway. "Which codec did you use to encrypt the video?”

Dornier looked startled. "Nothing special. The school can't afford the licensing fees for proprietary software. It's all open source 'nix.”

Quinton grinned. "Great.”

"Terry," I interrupted. "Has anyone been in these rooms since the last session?”

Dornier gave me a flat look. "No. Frankie was going to check the room today, but Tuck told us to leave it be until you were done. He told everyone to stay out until three.”

It was hard to resist grinding my teeth at how thoughtless Tuck-man had been about securing the room. I couldn't be certain no one had nipped in to change anything before Quinton and I arrived—the security of the front desk being what it was. Damn Tuckman for complicating the investigation.

"Who's Frankie?" I asked.

"Denise Francisco," Dornier said, "the department secretary. She used to work for the project, but she quit. She volunteered to reset the room after the sessions since she helped set it up in the first place.”

"Why would she make extra work for herself?" I asked.

Dornier gave me a sideways stare and a frown. "What extra work? She does it all the time. I think she just likes to keep some kind of tabs on the place, feel like she's still involved." Then he closed up as suddenly as an anemone catching a fish. "You should ask her yourself.”

I held out my hand for the envelope. "Thanks, Terry, I'll do that.”

He handed over the envelope without enthusiasm and stared at me a moment before he turned away and headed down the stairs. I stayed in the doorway until he left.

Once we were alone in the booth again, Quinton looked at me with raised eyebrows. I shrugged. "No idea what that was about," I said.

"Are we done here? I don't think there's anything more I can tell you.”

"I wish I knew how long Dornier'd been out there and if he heard or saw anything.”

"Wouldn't matter how long he was in the hall, he couldn't see or hear anything from there and" — he pointed to a red light on the monitoring console—"there're indicators for the door and both windows that show if they're open or closed.”

"Why would they monitor that?" I asked.

"Control. To confirm the condition of the room at all times, make sure no one was sneaking in or out or throwing something through the window, I'd guess. There's a bit of a blind spot near the mirror and in that corner near the door.”

I nodded and looked down at the envelope full of discs. "What was all that business about codecs and 'nix?”

Quinton chuckled. "Just geek-speak. Basically, PNU is too cheap or too broke to use Microsoft or Apple or some other licensed computer system, so all the discs were encoded using free software systems. To be honest, I'm surprised they've sunk so much money into this room if they're running that close to the bone, but there's nothing wrong with the systems they're using—it's pro stuff, even if it's free or cheap.”

"So, am I going to need some kind of special machine to watch the rest of this video?”

He shook his head. "Nah, the video format is about as basic and universal as it gets. You just need a computer with a DVD drive or a decent DVD player. The files are in really basic formats—that's the easiest way to be sure your information's compatible with as many other systems as possible, and it sounds like the school is using whatever systems they can get. It isn't fancy, but it's reliable.”

"All right. Are you free later to look at some of these DVDs with me? I want to be sure I understand what I'm seeing.”

That earned a huge grin from Quinton. "I'm so free I float.”

I snorted at him, then caught a look at the clock in the hall. "Damn. It's later than I thought. The session's going to start in a little over an hour." Chaos stuck her head out of Quinton's pocket and tried to escape to the floor. I grabbed her as she made a leap for the lino. "Oh, no, bandit queen. No wild rampages for you.”

She thrashed around and slipped out of my hand, doing her punk-ferret pogo and chittering in annoyance.

Quinton scooped her up. "What's the matter, tube rat? Past your nap time?" He stuffed the ferret into his sweater. She wriggled about for a moment, then calmed down and poked her head out of his collar, resting her body in the sagging knit. She flipped open her head and yawned.

"Great, now I have to get her to come out of your clothes, then drive back to West Seattle to drop her off, and get back here before three," I groaned.

"I can keep her.”

I peered at him. "What?”

"No problem. I like ferrets. If you give me those treats—and if you trust me—she can hang out with me until you're done, then we can hook up and look at those DVDs.”

I wasn't certain it was a good idea. "I'm not sure how long this is going to take," I said.

Quinton shrugged. "I can keep her all night, if I have to—if you're OK with that. I know what ferrets eat and I can put her on her leash if she's too crazy. I have plenty of warm pockets for her to sleep in. I don't mind if you don't.”

I thought about it. I liked Quinton and I'd trusted him to do some pretty strange jobs for me—including one that could still get us both arrested. I'd trusted him with my life and my freedom—I guessed I could trust him with my pet. I took a deep breath, feeling a little nervous.

"Well. All right. Don't let her eat anything sugary—it's like speed— or anything rubber—”

He grinned and patted the air between us. "OK, OK. Atkins ferret diet: no carbs, no tubber. Really—I've kept ferrets before. She'll be fine with me.”

I laughed. "OK. I'll page you when I'm done." Quinton took the ferret's stuff and we went downstairs. I caught the furry little traitor nuzzling him as we headed out to get some food before I had to return to observe the séance.