Through the fence and across the brush and sand, he saw more children—hundreds of them—walking between the bungalows. His hand drummed on the steering wheel.
Stella was still his daughter. He could still see Kaye in her. But the differences were startling. Mitch did not know what he had expected; he had expected differences. But she was not just growing up. The way Stella behaved was sleek and shiny, like a new penny. She was unfamiliar, not distant in the least, not unfriendly, just focused elsewhere.
The only conclusion he could come to, as he turned over the big engine in the old Ford truck, was a self-observation.
His own daughter scared him.
After the nurse filled another tube with her blood, Stella walked back to the bungalow where they would watch videos after dinner of human children playing, talking, sitting in class. It was called civics. It was intended to change the way the new children behaved when they were together. Stella hated civics. Watching people without knowing how they smelled, and watching the young human faces with their limited range of emotions, disturbed her. If they did not face the televisions, however, Miss Kantor could get really ugly.
Stella deliberately kept her mind clear, but a tear came out of her left eye and traveled down her cheek. Not her right eye. Just her left eye.
She wondered what that meant.
Mitch had changed so much. And he smelled like he had just been kicked.
15
BALTIMORE
The imaging lab office was separated from the Magnetic Resonance Imager—the Machine—by two empty rooms. The forces induced by the toroidal magnets of the Machine were awesome. Visitors were warned not to go down the hall without first emptying their pockets of mechanical and electronic devices, pocket PCs, wallets, cell phones, security name tags, eyeglasses, watches. Getting closer to the Machine required exchanging day clothes for metal-free robes—no zippers, metal buttons, or belt buckles; no rings, pins, tie clasps, or cuff links.
Everything loose within a few meters of the Machine was made of wood or plastic. Workers here wore elastic belts and specially selected slippers or athletic shoes.
Five years ago, right in this facility, a scientist had forgotten the warnings and had her nipple and clitoris rings ripped out. Or so the story went. People with pacemakers, optic nerve rewiring, or any sort of neural implants could not go anywhere near the Machine.
Kaye was free of such appliances, and that was the first thing she told Herbert Roth as she stood in the door to the office.
Slight, balding, in his early forties, Roth gave her a puzzled smile as he put down his pencil and pushed a batch of papers aside. “Glad to hear it, Ms. Rafelson,” he said. “But the Machine is turned off. Besides, we spent several days imaging Wishtoes and I already know that about you.”
Roth pulled up a plastic chair for Kaye and she sat on the other side of the wooden desk. Kaye touched the smooth surface. Roth had told her that his father had crafted it from solid maple, without nails, using only glue. It was beautiful.
He still has a father.
She felt the cool river in her spine, the sense of utter delight and approval, and closed her eyes for a moment. Roth watched her with some concern.
“Long day?”
She shook her head, wondering how to begin.
“Is Wishtoes pregnant?”
“No,” Kaye said. She took the plunge. “Are you feeling very scientific?”
Roth looked around nervously, as if the room was not completely familiar. “Depends.” His eyes squinched down and he could not avoid giving Kaye the once-over.
“Scientific and discreet?”
Roth's eyes widened with something like panic.
“Pardon me, Ms. Rafelson—”
“Kaye, please.”
“Kaye. I think you're very attractive, but . . . If it's about the Machine, I've already got a list of Web sites that show . . . I mean, it's already been done.” He laughed what he hoped was a gallant laugh. “Hell, I've done it. Not alone, I mean.”
“Done what?” Kaye asked.
Roth flushed crimson and pushed his chair back with a hollow scrape of the plastic legs. “I have no idea what in hell you're talking about.”
Kaye smiled. She meant nothing specific by the smile, but she saw Roth relax. His expression changed to puzzled concern and the excess color faded from his face. There is something about me, about this,she thought. It's a charmed moment.
“Why are you down here?” Roth asked.
“I'm offering you a unique opportunity.” Kaye felt impossibly nervous, but she was not going to let that stop her. As far as she knew, there had never been an opportunity like this in the history of science—nothing confirmed, at least, or even rumored. “I'm having an epiphany.”
Roth raised one eyebrow, bewildered.
“You don't know what an epiphany is?” Kaye asked.
“I'm Catholic. It's a feast celebrating Jesus' divinity. Or something like that.”
“It's a manifestation,” Kaye said. “God is inside me.”
“Whoa,” Roth said. The word hung between them for several seconds, during which time Kaye did not look away from Roth's eyes. He blinked first. “I suppose that's great,” he said. “What does it have to do with me?”
“God comes to most of us. I've read William James and other books about this kind of experience. At least half of the human race goes through it at one time or another. It's like nothing else I've ever felt. It's life changing, even if it is very . . . very inconvenient. And inexplicable. I didn't ask for it, but I can't, I won'tdeny that it is real.”
Roth listened to Kaye with a fixed expression, brow wrinkled, eyes wide, mouth open. He sat up in the chair and folded his arms on the desk. “No joke?”
“No joke.”
He considered further. “Everyone is under pressure here.”
“I don't think that has anything to do with it,” Kaye said. Then, slowly, she added, “I've considered that possibility, I really have. I just don't think that's what it is.”
Roth licked his lips and avoided her stare. “So what does it have to do with me?”
She reached out to touch his arm, and he quickly withdrew it. “Herbert, has anyone ever imaged a person who's being touched by God? Who's having an epiphany?”
“Lots of times,” Roth said defensively. “Persinger's research. Meditation states, that sort of thing. It's in the literature.”
“I've read them all. Persinger, Damasio, Posner, and Ramachandran.” She ticked the list off on her fingers. “You think I haven't researched this?”
Roth smiled in embarrassment.
“Meditation states, oneness, bliss, all that can be induced with training. They are under some personal control . . . But not this.I've looked it up. It can't be induced, no matter how hard you pray. It comes and it goes as if it has a will of its own.”
“God doesn't just talkto us,” Roth said. “I mean, even if I believed in God, such a thing would be incredibly rare, and maybe it hasn't happened for a couple of thousand years. The prophets. Jesus. That sort of thing.”
“It isn't rare. It's called many things, and people react differently. It does something to you. It turns your life around, gives it direction and meaning. Sometimes it breaks people.” She shook her head. “Mother Teresa wept because she didn't have God making regular visits. She wanted continuing confirmation of the value of her work, her pain, her sacrifices. Yet no one actually knows if Mother Teresa experienced what I'm experiencing . . .” She took a deep breath. “I want to learn what is happening to me. To us. We need a baseline to understand.”
Roth tried to fit this into some catalog of social quid pro quos, and could not. “Kaye, is this really the place? Aren't you supposed to be doing research on viruses? Or do you think God is a virus?”