Mask of Flies (36 page)

Mr. Clyde
Greenfield
: Tell us something we don’t know.

Mr. Roger
Grasley
: Yes, Greenfield, I’m getting there. I have been
setting my sights elsewhere, one of those places being the Seneca
reservation in Salamanca. One day browsing the goods at the farmer’s
market, I had seen a beautiful Seneca woman. She met my eyes and ran
off into the crowd. I had never frightened a woman so; in fact I like
to think I have the opposite effect. Then I saw the Seneca girl two
weeks later, but this time she approached me and apologized. I asked
her why she ran; she said she felt my presence and knew I was like
her. Her name is Angeni Kingbird and claims to leave her body in an
outer consciousness.

Mr. Clyde
Greenfield
: Now you have my attention.

Mr. Roger
Grasley:
There is one problem, however: she is married and
pregnant. I asked her to join us here in Lily Dale to cultivate her
abilities, but she is reluctant to leave her family. I open the floor
for suggestions on how we move forward.

Mr. Clyde
Greenfield
: Where does her husband work?

Mr. Roger
Graisley
: At a grain elevator in Buffalo, what of it?

Mr. Clyde Greenfield
: That line of work is very dangerous. It
would be a shame if something were to happen.

September 3rd, 1905

Mr. Clyde
Greenfield
: I understand the prospect recently experienced a loss
in the family; her husband had an accident on the grain elevator?
Roger, have you heard from the young lady?

Mr. Roger
Graisley
: She has yet to answer any of my letters . . . I believe
your trifling has distanced her further away from us.

Mr. Clyde
Greenfield
: Or perhaps you’re not as charming as you think. I
have found that women with such sensitivities do not handle stress
well. Have some faith in me good boy, she will come around.

Mr. Morrow
:
Enough, I will not have my meeting commandeered by two bickering
little girls. Ms. Roux, please remind us that we are here to actually
talk business. Brief us on the progress of the Ayahuasca test sets.

Ms. Roux
:
Well, we have had mixed results. We only had the group of eight
subjects suitable for the tests. And then there is the prototype
monitoring technology, the Electroencephalograph, or ECG for brevity.

Mr. Clyde
Greenfield
: What is this thing?

Ms. Roux
:
It’s an array of electrodes placed across the subjects scalp to
measure brain activity. Readings are categorized in different
frequencies; we are primarily concerned with elevations in the Beta
and Gamma readings: Beta being tied to active concentration; Gamma:
cognition and sensory utilization.

ECG technology has
been around for some time now, but ours is modified to measure beyond
the range of normal brain activity.

Mr. Morrow
:
All right, what of the effects of the Ayahuasca so far?

Ms. Roux
:
Four became violently ill and couldn’t continue, and of those, one
died from massive cardiac arrest. Two of the remaining candidates had
strong spikes in Beta and Gamma readings and performed markedly
better on tests. The other two showed spikes in the desired readings,
but their Alpha levels fell off after an hour, indicative of being in
a coma. They regained consciousness a day later.

Mr. Morrow
:
Unacceptable. I want you to tweak the dosage and continue
experimentation. Do I need to bring in a chemist?

Ms. Roux
:
No. I have some ideas on how—

Mr. Morrow
: Do
whatever you have to. We need something for program by year end. They
need something and as of right now there is nothing.

September 9th, 1905

Mr. Roger
Graisley
: She came to my house last night, Angeni. She is unwell,
experiencing a depression.

Mr. Clyde
Greenfield
: She just lost her husband. Give her time to settle
in.

Mr. Roger
Graisley
: Ah, regretfully there is another matter. I lead her to
the impression that she will be provided medical attention if she
participates in the group’s studies.

Mr. Morrow
:
And who do you suppose will provide this attention?

Mr. Roger
Graisley
: Ms. Roux has a doctorate from the University.

Ms. Roux
:
My specialization is a bit obscure, but I think I can manage a
believable psychiatrist. I just hope she is worth the trouble.

Mr. Morrow
:
Bring the woman here Monday. Tell her she will need to learn the
cipher over the weekend to transcribe the meeting. Give her some old
minutes to practice on. That will give us time to see if she is worth
pursuing

December 24th, 1905

Mr. Clyde
Greenfield:
According to our tests, it seems sweet Angeni is not
what she was billed to be.

Mr. Roger
Graisley:
These tests are a joke, aimed at developing this town
into a viable tourist attraction. How do you explain her reaction to
hypnosis?

Mr. Morrow:
Do you think that I would lend Greenfield and those pretender
bureaucrats the sole responsibility of developing our tests? Simply
put, he’s giving away door prizes to the most entertaining act.

Ms. Roux, how are
the dosing adjustments coming along?

Ms. Roux:
The subject group has reacted positively to the new solution.

Mr. Morrow:
We
try it on the girl by weeks—

Roger Graisley:
No you cannot—This is Angeni’s diary here. In her writings she
has clearly experienced mental illness; hallucinations of an evil
spirit from a scary story Seneca mothers tell their sons to keep them
from wandering too deeply into the woods. She’s just starting to
recover from this, and you want to perform a psychoactive
experimentation on her? It will ruin her.

Mr. Morrow
:
(
Unintelligible
). You
think I’m clueless. You think I don’t know that she is staying in
your house? You have done little to keep your indiscretions a secret.
But you can’t keep her from what you brought her for.

Mr. Roger
Graisley:
You know it is too early for this. We treat her
illness, and then explore the possibility of this testing.

Mr. Morrow:
Dually noted. Leave that diary here with me. I will take a look at it
myself and sleep on your request.

December 24th, 1905 (Evening)

Mr. Morrow
:
I called this meeting to discuss Angeni without Roger. His judgment
is compromised and he should no longer be included at the table. I
fear he may cause us problems.

Roux, get a few
men and prepare the testing area. Get them to stock the braziers with
coal and prepare a dose of the Ayahuasca solution.

Ms. Roux:
We are proceeding with the tests on her tonight?

Mr. Morrow:
Yes, time is of the essence.

Ms. Roux:
Why the coals? I don’t understand.

Mr. Morrow:
She wrote of an intense image while under heat stress. I want similar
conditions. Oh, and there’s this mask.

Mr. Clyde
Greenfield:
That thing is hideous.

Mr. Morrow:
I had it retrieved earlier from her house in Salamanca. Similar masks
are used in Seneca ritual cleansing, but she wrote of this one being
a catalyst of her visions. I also want it incorporated in the
testing.

Ms. Roux:
I
think the Ayahuasca will be more than sufficient.

Mr. Morrow:
Just do as I say.

December 26th 1905

Mr. Morrow:
Two of our men dead and the test subject is driven to madness! What
the fuck happened?

Ms. Roux:
As of this moment, we are unsure. She needs to be kept under
observation in the chamber a while longer. We called on one of our
doctors for the autopsy on the two bodies.

Mr. Morrow:
Program will not be happy. . .

Mr. Greenfield:
You just had to push this thing to the absolute limit, didn’t you?
Those were two of my best men in there. Cranston had a three week old
daughter . . . Program will have my full report by tomorrow.

Mr. Morrow:
Is this you threatening me? Adorable, you finally decided to grow a
set of balls, a strong man indeed. Program knows that I’m dying;
they know what I’m trying to accomplish, and above all else they
already know I will stop at nothing. So leave us and write your
fucking report!

Mr. Clyde
Greenfield:
You’ve gone mad.
(Exits)

Mr. Morrow:
So
what of Ms. Kingbird’s readings?

Ms. Roux:
Elevated spikes like the other favorable subjects. However, there
were some major differences. Her brain stem was hyperactive,
indicative of a dreaming mind. The peculiar part was the prefrontal
cortex was running in tandem, in a supercharged state. This part of
the mind is the center of logic and normally inactive when dreaming.

Mr. Morrow:
What does this mean?

Ms. Roux:
I
can only speculate, but it appears she could have been able to
willfully navigate her dream, whatever hell the Ayahuasca dropped her
into. I fear she must have taken a wrong turn.

So what of Roger?

Mr. Morrow:
We
are showing him the utmost of hospitality.

January 2nd 1906

Roux:
It’s
falling apart. Greenfield left for Washington, the pathologist is
missing along with the corpses of Greenfield’s men, and Roger is
gone . . . What did you do to him?

Morrow:
Roger probably bribed one of the guards to let him out. I could care
less about Greenfield, he won’t get anywhere. The pathologist needs
my signature to transport the bodies, but that’s his ass not mine.

Roux:
We
still have several problems. The few personnel remaining are
frightened to travel to the lower levels. There is a rumor of a giant
snake. According to the chatter, it has a man’s face, Greenfield’s
man, the one with the little baby.

Morrow:
Enough garbage. They simply fear the woman. Morons fear what they
can’t understand and make stories to breed their weakness.

What is the status
of the woman? Has her condition stabilized?

Roux:
I
don’t believe that there will be any stabilization, or recovery. I
feel she is projecting unto me from below, something foul. I can tell
you, from the short observations that I can withstand, that she has
gone completely mad. She switches; her voice becomes deep, like a
man, and then everything down below changes. The air becomes heavy,
and that’s when I feel her seeping into me.

And her face has
progressively become more deformed.

Morrow:
She’s physically ill?

Roux:
Beyond ill. After the experiment, we lowered meals down in a basket
with a candle for light, but everyday it’s the same. She
immediately puts out the wick and we raise the basket the next day to
find the food and water untouched. This has repeated for the past
eight days, her survival is unnatural . . .

I motion to cease
testing and seal the observation ports.

Morrow:
I
didn’t expect this from you. The rest of these imbeciles are
jumping at the sound of their own farts. Now I have to count you
among them?

Roux:
If
you experienced the woman yourself, instead of being holed up in your
office, you would understand.

Morrow:
All
right, I cannot afford to argue with you. My health is failing
quickly and I have no choice but to hand this mess over to you. There
have been many failures here, we’ve unleashed something terrible, I
understand that. But we have proven a point in all this: that without
question, such minds exist, and they are dreadful weapons.

XXX1906

M:
Is it
done?

R:
No. She
survived the gassing.

M:
You gave
up after one try?

R:
No. We
went through three cycles—each iteration more virulent. I am no
expert in the matter of poison and execution, but our technician
assured me that each compound was more than sufficient.

M:
So what
do you propose? I took your word that the subject needs to be put
down, now you expect me to believe she is invincible?

R:
I don’t
know. Even with the lower level sealed, she continues to affect me,
each day worse than the last. I haven’t eaten in three days and
haven’t slept in a week. The nightmares, they’re all I think
about when I’m awake. To leave her in the chamber will be the ruin
of us all.

M:
I’m
not doubting you. Get a room in town and get some fresh air. Get away
for a day to collect yourself.

R:
. . . I
didn’t mean to laugh. You want me to relax? As the staff is
thinning out day by day. They leave in the middle of the night. I
gave up on trying to stop them. You put me in charge of this, this
sinking ship.

Oh, and that rumor
of the giant snake with a human face, I saw it hanging from the
ceiling in the archive room. Greenfield’s man, Cranston— his head
at least. And his body, the snake, looked and smelled like his
bowels, but attached to the base of his head.

M:
A
repulsive notion. So how do we end this—take your finger from there
you’re burning.

R:
If you
smell smoke, you should leave here at once.

To Whomever You Are,

If you are reading
this, then, I, Thomas Morrow, have left this world behind. The sole
intent of this letter is to allow insight into the Farseer project
and shed light on the mistakes that have happened here. As of this
moment, I am bedridden and unable to continue administration of the
project. I have had correspondence with program, and even with the
interference of Greenfield, they have announced that they are pleased
with the results of our work and plan continue moving the program
forward in a more stringently controlled location. Yes, the results
have had consequences at a great cost, but such is the nature of all
implements of power. We have proven that there are gifted individuals
out there, and that boundaries of the human mind are able to be
overcome; perhaps one day our findings can be used for the good of
this country.