It was vital that Williamson was on board with this — the funding depended on it, and it was important that the twins were reassured about the efficacy of the program, since it would affect how things went with the president’s policy speech tomorrow morning here in Philly in front of the Liberty Bell.
The Liberty Bell.
How very patriotic of him.
Cyrus carefully opened the package.
According to the administration’s press releases, the speech was going to “contain broad and far-reaching initiatives aimed at strengthening the economy and regaining the confidence of the American people in Washington’s ability to make a positive and lasting impact in their lives and throughout the free world.”
The speech would include policy proposals for reinvigorating the economy, decreasing unemployment, broadening health care coverage, enhancing the development of alternative energy to reduce dependence on foreign oil, and making “judicious” cuts to the military — pretty much the same topics the president had tried to tackle during his last three years in office but had made almost no headway on.
But if Cyrus’s sources were right, this time the announcement he was going to make regarding health care was going to change everything in the pharmaceutical industry for years to come.
Cyrus flipped open his laptop, inserted the DVD.
Waited for the password prompt to come up.
Really, the footage was the fulcrum upon which everything balanced. That, and the work of—
What about Riah? What will she think when she sees it?
Well, yes, what about Riah?
Truthfully, she’d become more of a distraction lately than she was probably worth. It might be necessary to get her out of his hair in a way that she would not bother him again. If the video showed what he thought it would, she wouldn’t be needed anymore.
Maybe when this was over, that thug Glenn Banner would be interested in making another twenty-five thousand dollars.
A possibility.
Either that or Atabei.
Yes, the woman from Haiti, the one he’d met on one of his trips down there to help out after the earthquake. She might actually be a better choice.
In either case, Cyrus decided he could deal with Riah later, when everything was completed; for now the main issue was the video. He couldn’t take any chances that the footage would be unconvincing to Williamson and the twins.
The prompt came up, he typed in the password to unlock the video and pressed Play.
Loving Thoughts
I return to the room that contains the Faraday cage.
Dr. Tanbyrn and Philip walk quietly beside me.
We find Charlene standing in the corner near the computer workstation, chatting lightheartedly with Abina. I’m struck again by the contrast between how innocuous things in here seem now compared to how menacing they’d become last night. Charlene smiles at me. “So, how do you think it went?”
Although I’m glad to see her, I’m a little upset at myself for not discovering anything so far about how — or if — the staff here might be faking the tests. “I’m sure it went as well as it could,” I tell her vaguely.
She turns to Dr. Tanbyrn. “When will you have the results?”
“In about an hour. There are some numbers I still need to run, and I have to check in with another couple. If you could kindly meet me in my office at, say, a quarter to three?”
I would’ve expected that he could use his tablet computer to analyze the data within seconds, but when I think about it, actually, this would give Charlene and me a chance to see if our tests, the ones taken from the heart rate monitor that Xavier had given her, showed anything close to the findings that the doctor and his crew typically found. Charlene and I might even have enough time to look over the footage I took with the button camera I’d worn during the test.
“Alright,” I tell him. “We’ll see you at 2:45.”
We leave the building and find that the day is still foggy, still devoid of wind. The smokelike tendrils of mountain mist seem to drain sound from the air, creating an almost eerie stillness that not even birdsongs are able to taper into. Even the squish of our steps on the soggy trail seems dampened by the heavy air.
“Seriously, Jevin, how did it go?” Charlene asks. “Did you do your best to think of me in a positive light?”
“I did.”
“And to think loving thoughts?”
“And to think loving thoughts. Yes.”
I wait for her to ask a follow-up question or crack a joke about how difficult that must’ve been — sending loving thoughts to her — but she’s quiet, and I’m not sure if that’s an invitation for me to speak or a way of letting the conversation drift in another direction entirely.
“Hopefully, it’ll be enough,” I add.
“Yes.” She takes a few steps. “Considering.”
“Considering?”
“That we’re not in love.”
“Of course. Exactly… So what were you thinking about while you were in the cage that whole time?”
Her answer comes without any hesitation. “I was thinking about you.”
“About me.”
“Yes.”
Her words both surprise and do not surprise me, assure me and unsettle me. “Well …” I’m really not sure how to proceed here. “It’ll be interesting to download the data. Print it out.”
“Yes, it will.”
And we wouldn’t have long to wait.
The outline of our cabin lies fifty yards ahead of us in the fog.
Dr. Cyrus Arlington ejected the DVD from his computer.
The video was convincing.
Very convincing.
After watching it, he didn’t foresee any problem in assuring Williamson and Akinsanya of what was possible. And the twins would certainly be heartened by the footage.
He looked at the clock.
4:51 p.m.
So, 1:51 in Oregon.
In just over an hour the doctor would be dead and there wouldn’t be any chance of him going public with his findings regarding Project Alpha. With what he knew, there was just too much of a possibility that he could piece things together, and now that things were this close, it wasn’t the time to take any chances that Tanbyrn would be able to do that.
Cyrus’s eyes landed on the two aquariums in the corner of his office.
Last week Riah had asked him about them, but he’d never explained why he kept the Ampulex compressa wasps or the Periplaneta americana roaches. So now, perhaps the best way to explain would be through a little demonstration.
And besides, letting one of the wasps do her work would lend a certain irony to the occasion of the four people watching the DVD in the next room. Considering what the footage contained.
Predator.
Prey.
Submission and helplessness.
Two hours might be cutting it a little close for the wasp to finish her burrow, but at least it would be enough time for her to get started with the roach.
Cyrus walked toward the aquariums.
It was time to let his little parasitoid play.
Parasitoids
Back at the cabin, Charlene and I connect her heart rate monitor to the small printer we’d brought along and print out the results of her EKG. Then I compare the results with the times recorded on the lap timer of my watch, which denoted specifically when her image appeared on the screen.