Fringe - the Zodiac Paradox (22 page)

“He appears to be in the midst of a grand mal seizure,” Walter told Bell over his shoulder. One of the man’s flailing hands was encircled by an engraved medical alert bracelet featuring the Hippocratic snake and staff, and the word
EPILEPTIC
in large red letters.

Bell squeezed in on his left.

“Do you think his epilepsy might have been triggered by our... event?”

“Undoubtedly,” Walter said, nodding. “And the electrical storm going on in his head is manifesting in the physical world as that psychic cyclone outside.” He started through the debris, ducking through flocks of flapping paper and slowly spinning pens. “But a seizure usually lasts less than a minute. No more than two. We saw that car flatten the fence at least four minutes ago.”

“A feedback loop,” Bell offered. “The psychic pulse triggered the fit which triggered a larger psychic burst which in turn...”

Walter knelt by the man.

“What can we do for him?” he asked.

Bell knelt beside Walter.

“Nothing,” Bell said. “Except maybe turn him on his side so he doesn’t choke on all that drool, and make sure he’s not going to bang his head on anything.”

“Ah, yes. We can do that. Although...” Walter looked up at Bell, uneasy. “I’m concerned about what happens when he comes out of it. Do the things in the air settle gently to the ground, or do they drop all at once? There could be a lot of damage. Someone could get hurt.”

“Not much we can do about that, either,” Bell replied.

* * *

Allan stepped under a floating boat hull and into the clearer air around the trailer. Only a few smaller things—wrenches, pipe fittings, and beer cans—drifted there. He glanced behind as the sound of sirens grew louder. It seemed so unfair that capricious circumstance would force his hand like this, but it was becoming increasingly clear that it would be best to take out the Reiden Lake boys right now.

They were too dangerous and could not be allowed to live. All the other connections to his old life, his old world, had been severed, all except these two. With them gone, the final tie would be cut, and he would be free.

But all the arbitrary killings were wearing on him, making him feel like a butcher, rather than an artist. This was not his destiny, not who he was meant to be.

Should he kill them? Or not?

He crept closer to the trailer door.

* * *

Walter put his hands on the man’s shoulder and hip, and pushed to rock him over onto his side. His body was so rigid that it was easier than he expected, and the man nearly flopped face first onto the floor. Walter grabbed awkwardly at him to save his teeth, and touched his hand—flesh to flesh.

All at once every floating object in the trailer dropped straight to the ground.

Bell gasped, and began to speak.

He was drowned out by a thunderous crash that shook the trailer. Walter thought he heard someone outside let out a stifled cry, but he couldn’t be sure. A bookshelf full of ring binders tipped forward and dumped its load on him, and the battering he received made every other sensation take a back seat.

After a few seconds of coughing and brushing off and sitting up, Bell squinted around, waving at the clouds of dust.

“So much for gently lowering anything to the ground.”

Walter looked toward the door.

“I thought I heard someone outside,” he said. “We should check. They might be...”

He cut off as the sirens they had been hearing in the background suddenly pushed to the foreground. They could see flashing red and blue lights through the windows of the trailer, and heard the slamming of doors.

“Or perhaps...”

“Wha... what the hell was that?”

They both looked down. The confused watchman was looking up at them, an expression on his face that was equal parts fear and embarrassment.

“I had another one of my fits again,” he said. “Didn’t I?”

Bell nodded, then shot another glance at the window.

“Er, yes, sir,” Walter said. “I’m afraid so. But you’re fine now, and there is an ambulance here to help you. We’ll just go let them know where you are.”

“Yes,” Bell said, edging toward the door. “We’ll send them your way.” He turned. “Come on, Walter.”

Walter didn’t want to leave the man alone. In fact, he wanted to question him, ask him about the experience. But trying to give the police a rational sounding explanation for what had happened here would be an exercise in futility. So he gave a guilty salute to the befuddled watchman, then edged around him.

“Right behind you,” he called after his friend.

* * *

Allan hurried away down the street, police sirens bouncing off the surrounding walls and painting the night in a wash of blue and red. He had been less than three feet from the trailer door and about to reach for the knob when all of the mysteriously suspended objects around him had suddenly lost their animation and dropped to the ground.

A large jagged chunk of rusty metal the size of a washing machine had dropped down an inch from his toes. So close that he could feel the wind of its passage. If he’d been reaching for the knob, his right arm would have been crushed, broken, or perhaps even severed.

He got the message. He was being impulsive, over-eager. He had been thinking of deviating from the plan. And look where that kind of thinking got him.

He would still have his special moment with those two, and with Miss Nina Sharp, as long as he stuck to the plan. He just needed to be patient. Let them make plans of their own. Watch it all play out, and act accordingly.

They got back to Nina’s house just as the sun was coming up. Pregnant Abby was curled up on a couch, dozing with Cat-Mandu. Looking down at her, Walter felt a pang of guilt for involving the father of her child in all this madness.

The three of them dragged themselves up the stairs to Nina’s room, mentally and physically exhausted.

“So what’s our next move?” Nina asked.

“Next move?” Walter ran his hand through his hair. “I don’t know about you, but my next move is to collapse from exhaustion.”

“But what I want to know,” Bell said, “is how did he find us?”

Walter shuddered. He’d been thinking the same thing, and wasn’t happy with the conclusions he’d come to.

“There’s been something bothering me since last night,” Walter said. “But you know how bad my memory is, so I just told myself I was wrong.”

“What?” Bell asked.

“Well,” Walter said, “I’m pretty sure we never told Iverson about Reiden Lake.”

Bell got it. His eyes went wide.

“The classified ad,” he said.

“It said ‘regarding events at Reiden Lake,’ right?” Walter asked. “But we never told Iverson, or any other authorities about where the initial trip took place. There’s only one other person who knows that.”

“The killer,” Bell said.

“How could we have been so stupid?” Walter said.

“You know what this means,” Bell said. “This means he’s probably following us. He may be watching us right now!”

“But if he’s been watching us all this time, why doesn’t he just kill us?”

“Look,” Nina said. “It’s obvious that he wants to toy with you—with us. That’s his thing, right? Psychological torture, mind games, taunting letters.”

“Okay,” Walter said. “I see your point.”

“But what do we do now?” Bell asked.

“We beat him at his own game,” Nina said.

“Beat him how?” Bell asked.

“We’re no good at hand-to-hand combat,” she said. “We know that. But mind-to-mind combat, that’s a whole different ball game.
Our
ball game.”

“In theory, yes,” Walter said. “That’s likely to be a superior strategy.”

“But how...” Bell said again.

“Will you let me finish?” Nina asked.

“Right, sorry,” they both said simultaneously

“We talked about needing to get him through the gate, right?” Nina continued. “But clearly, even the rehearsal space isn’t remote enough. We need some place even more remote. I have a good location in mind, but then the problem becomes how to get him to that remote location.”

“Kidnapping seems a little more physically demanding than any of us are capable of,” Walter said. “Plus, we don’t know where he is.”

“Yet he knows where we are,” Nina said. “If he’s following us, we need to use that to our advantage.”

“You’ve lost me again,” Bell said.

Nina sighed like a teacher dealing with a recalcitrant student. She went over to her desk and slipped a blank sheet into the typewriter.

“Dear Special Agent Iverson,” Nina read aloud as she typed. “We want to warn you that the Zodiac has been imitating you in order to trick us, so be suspicious of any communication that is delivered by any method other than this, our previously arranged drop spot.”

“Excellent,” Bell said, catching on immediately.

“Brilliant,” Walter said. “The bit about him tricking us adds an extra element of credibility.”

“At this point in time,” Nina continued, “the danger has become too great, and for our own safety, we feel that we have no other choice but to return to the east coast. However, we have an encrypted notebook in our possession which we feel would be invaluable to your case.

“We will hide the notebook under the third flagstone from the left in the fireplace of a cabin up in Fairfax, CA. There is no address, but it’s the second building on a private, unmarked, and unpaved driveway off Iron Springs Road about 100 yards east of the junction with Timber Canyon Road.

“Please see included map.”

“Map?” Walter said.

“Yes,” Nina said, opening a desk drawer and pulling out a neatly folded map. She opened it and drew a neat red X to mark the location. “We can’t take chances that he might not find the cabin.”

“You are amazing,” Bell said. “Will you marry me?”

“Marriage is an outdated relic of patriarchal oppression,” Nina replied, arching a russet brow. “But if you ever need someone to run your business affairs, you just let me know.”

“Not to spoil your special moment,” Walter said, “but what are we going to do with our friend the Zodiac once he arrives? Chase him through the gate with harsh language?”

Nina reached into the box of chemicals that Bell had scored to mix the acid blend, and pulled out a large brown glass bottle.

“Chloroform,” she said. “As soon as he comes through the cabin door, we chloroform him and then toss him through the gate.”

“We’d need to seriously sedate him,” Bell said. “I mean, chloroform is fine for the initial knockout, but we’ll need to keep him under while we open the gate, and that will take time. It’s not like we can just flick a switch.”

“Definitely,” Walter said. “It’s been made terrifyingly clear that there’s a direct link between pain or heightened emotion and his strange radioactivity. We don’t want him going off like an atom bomb while we’re trying to put him through.”

“Agreed,” Bell said. “You go and drop off the trick letter and I’ll work on formulating an appropriate anesthesia blend for our friend. Meanwhile, Nina, we need you to talk to the band, and see if you can get them to join us at the cabin for another epic acid trip.”

“Free acid in a beautiful pastoral setting?” Nina smiled. “Won’t be that hard to convince them.”

“But...” Walter stood, pacing. He pictured dumb, sweet Abby sleeping on the couch downstairs. “I mean... well, it’s not exactly ethical to experiment on human subjects without making them aware of the potential dangers inherent to their participation.”

“It’s even less ethical to let this monster continue to kill without restraint, just because we got squeamish about ethics,” Bell countered. “This isn’t just an ordinary experiment, Walter.

“Besides,” he continued, “you were the one who always used to say that free acid for everyone would make the world a better place.”

“Nevertheless,” Nina said, “we don’t want to plant the note for the killer to find until we’re absolutely sure the band will be willing to participate in setting up our chemical trap. They have a gig tonight night at a club called the Downward Dog. We can talk to them when they get off.”

“Yes,” Bell said. “Meeting them after the show would be the best way to gather them all in one place and, more than likely, in an inebriated and agreeable mood.”

Walter remained silent. In spite of everything, he couldn’t help but feel a twinge of excitement at the prospect of seeing his favorite band live. While it was true that it would have been ideal to see them at the height of their fame, back in ’66, and that their psychedelic folk style was considered by many to be passé, his own inner teenage self was doing a little happy dance.

He hoped that they would play “Hovercraft Mother.”

Yet that excitement was tinged with guilt. He still felt that it was wrong to involve the band members in something so dangerous, and he would feel absolutely awful if something were to happen to one of his musical idols.

It was like mentally weighing the value of the band members’ lives against the lives of Miranda and all the other Zodiac victims yet to come. Could there really be a lesser of these two evils?

Unfortunately there was.

There was every chance that the band would come out of the experiment unharmed. But there was no question what would happen to Miranda if they didn’t send the Zodiac back to his own world.

“I suppose we don’t have a choice, do we?” Walter said.

“No,” Nina said. “We don’t.”

Having come to that decision about what had to be done, they still had a whole day to kill before the show at the Downward Dog. They were getting more than a little bit ragged around the edges, and Nina didn’t have to ask Walter to leave her bedroom so she could get some rest.

He staggered down the stairs and found Abby awake and bustling in the kitchen. He waved to her in a haze and collapsed on the couch that she had recently vacated. It was still warm from her body. Cat-Mandu snuggled up to him, seeming unfazed by this personnel change.

Within seconds, he fell soundly asleep.

* * *

He didn’t budge until Nina shook him gently awake several hours later.