Origins (Remote) (7 page)

On an international scale the war in Viet Nam was not going well. It was merely a matter of time before the Unites State would tuck in its tail and go home, leaving the North Vietnamese and the communists to cry victory. Domestically things had settled down but there were still plenty of hard targets in what the current administration saw as a wave of anti-American movements. Those people would bear watching. As for the Soviet Union itself, a state of unrest also existed and the peaceful resolution of those conflicts was in the interests of everyone. As always, information flowed freely but it was the timely use of that information that mattered and questions of accuracy would always be there.

What Thorne saw with Ronnie Gilmore and
Cassie Reynold was the opportunity to trump it all. It was almost like magic, this ability to have eyes anywhere at any time. The possibilities were endless not only on the military side but perhaps even more so on the political side. Whichever group within the U.S. government could control these two would wield immense power. Nothing could be hidden, nothing held in reserve, and certainly there wouldn’t be anyone to step up and publicly oppose those with the control. Everyone in politics had something to hide.

But the control had to be absolute. The idea of allowing these two to continue on with their lives, traipsing around in public, was as unthinkable as allowing an atomic bomb to be stored in an unprotected warehouse. National treasures were kept under lock and key. Should knowledge of their talent reach the wrong ears and control of their ability fall into the wrong hands, there was no telling what would happen. The idea that his hands were the right ones was a given. Thorne simply wanted the control. He would pass on the military and political power to others but control of the asset he wanted to remain in his hands and his hands alone. He began to plan accordingly.

Ronnie Gilmore sat on the corner. He had a few minutes left before Cassie was supposed to show and he still wasn’t sure how to find out what they needed to know. He thought back to all the sessions he’d had with Farrow in the closed room at school. Farrow always showed up lugging a briefcase. From that briefcase he’d produce whatever it was he wanted Ronnie to look at, usually photographs. Sometimes, like when he did the pilot, Farrow would just feed him information and let Ronnie take it from there. While Ronnie was never sure of anything, he did get the feeling that Farrow was surprised, sometimes even excited about what he got. From Cassie’s description the same thing was going on with her. Except maybe she was a little smarter than he was. She’d been basically playing Ruff, giving him something but not everything. Apparently Ruff was someone who could be conned.

He was still sitting and thinking when he saw
Cassie coming out the corner house. She caught his eye, waved, came over and plopped down next to him on the corner. “Hey,” she said. She was carrying a paper book of piano music and set it down on the pavement between them.

“I think Mrs. Bench is getting too old for piano lessons. She must be about a hundred years old by now. Did you know my mother took lessons from her? Can you believe that?”

“How long have you been playing?”

“About two years and I still can’t play anything good. I wanted her to teach me how to play something modern, something I like you know? Maybe “The Long and Winding Road” or something. But she won’t do it. I asked her to teach me “Crocodile Rock” once and she almost had a heart attack.”

Ronnie laughed. “Crocodile Rock would be neat but if she’s that old she might not be able to take it.”

Cassie
changed the subject. “So what are we going to do?”

Ronnie spent the next five minutes laying things out. Somehow or another they had to get a look in one of the briefcases, which meant they had to get either Farrow or Ruff out of the room long enough for one of them to open it up and see what was inside. It might give them a clue as to what was happening. But they couldn’t get caught and they couldn’t keep anything they found. They’d have to read it and put it back. Maybe they’d find something and maybe not but it was worth a try. Going to their parents didn’t seem to be an option. Who would believe them? They’d think they were just trying to get out of going.

“How do you think we can get them out of the room Mr. Smart Guy?” Cassie asked.

“That’s the problem. I haven’t figured that part out yet,” Ronnie said.

“How about this?” Cassie said. She flopped straight back onto the grass behind her, her arms flung out to her sides, her head rolling on her shoulders. She moaned once and was then absolutely still. Ronnie was stunned. He shook her by the shoulder. No response. He patted her on the cheek. No response. He was about to get up and run to her house, get her mother, and call an ambulance or something when she opened one eye.

“Think that’ll do it?” she said.

“Aw, man Cassie. Don’t ever do that again. You scared the crap out of me,” Ronnie said.

“Just think what it will do to Ruff. It might be enough to get him and Farrow both in my room. Then you can get to the briefcase.”

Ronnie looked at her.
This girl is something else
, he thought. The more time he spent with her the more he liked her. All the years he sat back and just watched when he was too shy to approach her seemed stupid now. She was easy to talk to, she was smart and she was fun. Being around her was a heck of a lot more interesting than catching fly balls, his usual afternoon pastime, despite the thing that had thrown them together.

“You’re something else,
Cassie. But yeah, that might work.”

“There’s another thing we might have to think about too, Ronnie.” She was serious now, watching him with her head turned down, her brown eyes turned up.

“What’s that?”

“You know how they have us looking at people? And things? What if there’s something to it? What if we can see things other people can’t?” Ronnie has been avoiding that subject. It seemed a little too far out there. He was having too much fun to chance her thinking he was some kind of weirdo. Now that she was the one who brought it up, it seemed less risky to get it out in the open.

“Okay, so maybe we can.”

“I know we can. Look, if we couldn’t do it they wouldn’t be wasting their time with us. My Aunt can do it but nobody in my family talks about it. I think you can do it because of the whole pilot thing. If you had been wrong they would have just dismissed you and that would have been the end of it. We’re different. Different from other people I mean.”

Ronnie wasn’t sure where this was going. He liked the idea that he shared something with Cassie. He didn’t much like the idea of being singled out as different from everyone else. But right now, Cassie was going somewhere else with the thought.

“If we can,” she said, “we might want to think about looking at Farrow and Ruff. I mean take a look at them when they don’t know we’re watching.”

James Cutter was fighting a growing sense that things were beginning to spin out of control. He was intent on maintaining leadership of COSMOS and the subjects now under his control. While it had been his idea to change the focus of the program from adults to younger subjects he realized now that he hadn’t considered everything kids might involve. It had been a stroke of genius on one hand. Adults tended to have their thinking clouded by too much experience, their emotions worn away by times and trouble. They were far less likely to react emotionally. It was also more likely that any innate talents had been allowed to erode and prying it back into use was much more difficult. His idea that younger subjects would operate on a much more intuitive level, would be more in contact with their talent, had proven correct, at least in the case of Cassie Reynold and Ronnie Gilmore. But being kids made things more complicated. They couldn’t be bribed with money. Their parents wouldn’t just give them up. How could they be used?

Another thing he hadn’t banked on was the outstandingly elusive quality of that talent. Had children with the ability to remote view been found in more abundance, the value of the two he had would have been greatly reduced. He’d stumbled by chance on a pair with outstanding ability. He prayed for more like them. It would have made his position much easier. He was vehemently opposed to changing the lifestyle of two kids for both moral and scientific reasons. Who knows how they would react if they were stripped of all normality and placed in cages? That was exactly what he sensed Thorne was suggesting. With the only two known human beings on the planet capable of that kind of insight, Cutter felt extremely protective of them. He was aware of the need for secrecy but felt strongly that whatever is was this pair possessed, it could be tenuous or temporary or easily destroyed by trauma. What’s more, ripped from their normal lives, the kids could refuse to cooperate. What could you realistically do then, short of physical and psychological threats? An academic at heart, Cutter wanted no part of anything like that. Much better he thought, to treat them well, allow them to develop under a watchful eye, and get a better understanding of what was in play here. The more he knew, the better his chances of finding or creating more like them. Thorne would have to be held at bay, at least until he could find some verifiable method of duplicating what he was getting from
Cassie and Ronnie.

Cassie
pulled her stunt the following Wednesday afternoon. Ronnie was just beginning his session, reeling off details on a man in a uniform whose picture Farrow had laid on the table. From his chair Ronnie could hear the shouts from Ruff as he came running down the hall. He stuck his head in the door and yelled for Farrow then took off running back down the hall. Farrow got up quickly and walked out of the room. Ronnie waited five seconds, stood up, checked the hall through the crack in the door; nobody. Stepping to the desk he got Farrow’s briefcase and popped the latches open. Lying on top was a badge in a plastic holder. There was a picture of Farrow on it, some numbers and a red line underneath. On one side was a blue circle with an official looking emblem of some kind. Around the circle was written Central Intelligence Agency and Ronnie’s stomach turned to water. He pushed the badge aside and looked at the papers stacked inside.

The top sheet carried only one word and that word was COSMOS. Ronnie flipped the sheet up and scanned the second. Some kind of report. He caught the words “Top Secret” and “Remote Viewing”. Another string of numbers with his name next to it. Beneath that was a series of dates. Ronnie stepped back toward the door and checked again, still all clear. He could hear Farrow and Ruff talking rapidly. Ruff stepped out the room, headed down the hall away from Ronnie. The briefcase was still lying open on the desk. Ronnie moved back to it and ruffled through the papers underneath. He scanned it quickly, catching bits and pieces. There were descriptions of earlier sessions written in a clinical language. One phrase jumped out at him. Written in red in bold strokes across the bottom of one page were the words “Successful Recovery” and a star. He arranged everything back as best he could and closed the briefcase, went out into the hall and stopped at the door to the other room where Ruff and Farrow were leaning over
Cassie, who was sitting on a chair.

“I’m okay I think,”
Cassie was saying. “I just got really dizzy.”

“Just relax a bit,” Ruff said. “Catch your breath. You scared me there. You sure you feel okay? Need some more water?”

“No. I’m fine now,” Cassie said and turned her head to look at Ronnie. Farrow and Ruff were watching her but Ronnie could catch the pleased look in her eye and nodded his head at her.

Farrow turned and saw him. “Head back to the room Ronnie.
Cassie just got a little dizzy. She’s alright now. I’ll be right there.”

Ronnie went back to the room and sat down in his chair. There was nothing else he could do right now. A few minutes later Farrow returned and told him the sessions were over for the day.
Cassie needed a little rest and could Ronnie sit with her outside in the fresh air until her mother got there?

“Sure,” Ronnie said. “My Mom’s coming too.”

Ronnie picked up his books and went out into the hall where he met Cassie, who was waiting with a big smile on her face. Like the cat that ate the canary, Ronnie thought and smiled back. Only this time it was two cats. Stepping outside, they could see Ruff and Farrow on the way to their car, Ruff waving his arms. Farrow turned and looked back once, gave a wave, and they both got in the car and drove off. Ronnie could still see Ruff jabbering away as they made the left turn in front of the school and passed down the boulevard. He watched them go. It wasn’t until they were out of sight that he turned to Cassie.

“Well?” she said.

“We’ve got a problem,” Ronnie said.

“We’ve got to think about getting them under some kind of custody,” Thorne said.

Archer, on the other end of the phone on a secure line, seemed unmoved. “And why do you think such a drastic step is necessary?”

Archer had been unimpressed by Cutter’s idea when he first heard it but after the episode with the pilot he was ready to deal with the reality of what Cutter and Thorne had uncovered. What he wasn’t prepared for was the attitude he was picking up from Thorne.

Thorne was his specialist, maybe the best he’d ever seen at digging out intelligence assets and holding on to them. They’d run across each other in Viet Nam when things began to fall apart and knowing which assets could be trusted and which would end either your career or your life had been vital. Thorne had never steered him wrong but he was beginning to wonder if the man was losing control now.