Seldom Seen in August (6 page)

“But now you
are?”

Cochran sat
back again and appraised Wade for a long moment. Then he offered
him a tight smile. “Yes. Many lives have been lost trying to
perfect this thing. The initial project was deemed a failure and
shut down until I decided to fund a new version of it. As you might
imagine, the old concerns were revived right along with it, but I
had done my homework this time. We had planned to go public until
someone in my staff leaked word of the project to the press. It was
not received well. They accused us of trying to steal the last of
mankind’s secrets, invading the only place left the government
hadn’t already probed. During this wave of negativity, the
government men showed up, stirred from their nest by the media and
on the warpath. After an admittedly impressive demonstration, I was
able to keep them from shutting us down, but only if I agreed to
sign the whole thing over to them when complete, with my role
reduced to advisor.”

“That had to
suck,” Wade said, grinning.

“Not nearly as
much as I thought. You see, the advances we made in that three year
period were phenomenal. We broke barriers we never imagined we’d
break, and extended the realm of possibility almost infinitely.
There is very little we can’t do with this technology, but of
course claims are nothing without proof.” He smiled and joined his
hands. “Which is where you come in.”

Wade nodded his
understanding. “I’m the guinea pig.”

“Yes.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

Wade was sweating again, but this time
he was glad of it. Enough lubrication and he stood a better chance
of slipping free of his restraints. Not a much better chance, but
anything was better than nothing. And if he got free, the first
order of business would be to strangle the boring old bastard with
his own tie. He could think about what to do with the cops
upstairs—assuming they were still there—later.

“So what’s next?” he asked
Cochran.

“We’ve already run through the first
stage. Exposure to select memories to gauge your
reaction.”

“Which was disappointing if the reviews
are to be believed.”

“Yes, but as I said, hardly
surprising.”

A thought occurred to him then. “You
said you weren’t able to isolate individual memories, didn’t
you?”

Cochran seemed pleased. “So you were
listening after all?”

“Can’t help it,” Wade said. “My ears
don’t listen to reason.”

“Well, you’re correct. We
weren’t
able to isolate individual memories. But we figured
it out. Now, not only can we pick and choose the memory, we can
transfer
them.”

“What does that mean?”

“
It means,” Cochran told
him. “That the memories you experienced upstairs didn’t
significantly affect you for a good reason.”

“Which is?”

“Not all of them were
yours.”

“Hardly a shock,” Wade said. “I wasn’t
there to see the kid die. I’ve never even seen the old w…your wife
before. And…”

“Correct, but the last one, the hooker,
couldn’t have come from anybody’s brain but yours.”

For the first time since meeting the
old man, Wade felt a pinch of anger in his belly. There was no
denying that Gail, a girl he had loved, if only for a short time,
had been a prostitute. God knows she’d turned him away enough times
or asked him to wait in the diner downstairs because she was
“entertaining” but then as now, he hated hearing her called a
‘hooker’. It was, he knew, the typical reaction of the blind, those
people who judged her based on how she looked and what she did
rather than who she was. And if they’d known, they might have been
surprised to find that she had a college degree (though in what, he
no longer recalled), and a six-year old child she’d adored (but who
lived with her mother for obvious reasons), and that she’d played
piano like a virtuoso. She hooked to make enough money to buy a
house for herself and her son, and she’d been pretty close to
realizing that goal when she’d decided she’d had enough of Wade. A
violent man by nature, he nevertheless managed to rein in his
temper for her. Hurting her wasn’t the way to secure her love, to
persuade her that her life would be better with him in it, even if
it only served as a constant reminder of what she’d done in the
years before she made a clean break. So instead of beating her,
he’d introduced her to drugs, and that had worked like a charm.
She’d grown to depend on him again, to appreciate him, and that had
lasted until the night she threatened him with his own gun. By that
time, the drugs had completely taken hold of her, leaving her
delusional, unreachable. When she’d pleaded with him to let her go,
he knew she was talking to the cocaine in her system, in her brain,
so that when he killed her, it was a mercy.

“Did I strike a nerve at last?” Cochran
asked.

“Nope.”

“Ah well,” Cochran said, sounding not
at all disappointed, “There’s plenty of time.”

Wade sighed. “Okay, let’s quit fucking
around. What am I doing here?” As he spoke, he tugged his arm up as
much as the restraint would allow. The zip tie caught on his
wrist-bone and moved no further. It would though, he was sure of
it.

Cochran smiled broadly and gestured at
the room around them. “It’s actually quite clever. I shifted the
focus of the project as needed to keep its validity in the eyes of
those who might be swayed to pull the plug.”

Wade closed his eyes, exasperated.
“Good for you.”

“I proposed, instead of concentrating
solely on mental patients, that we expand our scope to include
violent criminals. Not that I believe there’s much of a difference,
mind you. I suggested we build a fully functional neighborhood
right in the middle of Harperville’s black zone, where recidivism
is out of control.”

“Black zone?”

“The area worst affected by
crime.”

“Careful Reverend Sharpton doesn’t get
wind of that.”

“It was to be, what my workers
affectionately called a ‘glue trap’. The objective would be to lure
or force pre-selected criminals into the house chosen for
them.”

“Where they would be visited by the
ghosts of Christmas past,” Wade said with a smirk.

“In a sense, yes. Each house contains
two-dozen hosts, which are units installed in the walls behind
perforated plaster. When triggered—remotely, of course—they send
out spores, nanobots, which are then inhaled. Once inside you, they
begin to acquire your information, much like a system search on a
hard drive. When they find what they want, they shoot signals
against your eyes like a cathode ray will shoot electrons against a
television screen. So what you’re seeing in front of you, isn’t
really there.”

“But why images that weren’t
mine?”

Cochran’s smile disappeared. “A
personal touch. A signature. For that, I’m sorry. It’s not
something I’m permitted to do, but I wanted you to see them. You’ve
gone so long not feeling a damn thing for the lives you’ve
destroyed. You killed a man. A child killed himself over it, and
his mother went mad. I married her and watched it happen. And I
didn’t help. Didn’t know how. Instead I buried myself in my work.
Dedicated myself to finding a way to make remorseless killers
regret what they did, and experience in vivid detail the pain
they’d caused.”

“Doesn’t seem to have worked though,
does it?”

“We’re not finished, Wade.” Cochran
tilted his head and spoke in a low voice to someone who wasn’t
there. “Monitors, please.”

Immediately the bank of screens behind
him came to life. Each one showed a different man, and in one case
a woman, exploring rooms similar to those in the house above Wade’s
head. Some of them had weapons, others looked as if they were the
weapon.

“Who are they?” Wade asked, but already
knew the answer.

“Criminals, just like you,” Cochran
said, without looking at the screens. “Murders, rapists,
drug-dealers, arsonists…”

“And you think the glue trap is going
to work on them?”

“That’s the hope, yes.”

“Rats in a cage,” Wade said bitterly.
“To me it doesn’t look like you’ve come that far from sixth grade
biology.” He watched as, on one of the screens, an enormous man
riddled with tattoos, bent down to inspect something on the stairs
in front of him. It looked like a jack-in-the-box.

“Perhaps,” Cochran replied. “Or perhaps
the key to our worst fears can be found in childhood
games.”

Wade thought of something and studied
the television screens for a moment before he brought it up.
“Where’s Cartwright?”

“Hmm?” Cochran said, the faintest hint
of a smile on his lips. “Oh, Cartwright, yes. He’s not currently
active.”

“Active? You killed him?”

“I didn’t, no. And the intent was never
to take his life, but it would appear we still have a few bugs in
our system.”

“Huh.”

“Does that surprise you?”

Wade nodded. “A little. You talk about
this project of yours like it’s going to be the greatest gift to
mankind, but don’t blink when you talk about someone dying because
of it.”

“It would be hard to defend my position
without sounding like a Bond villain, Wade. Or worse, making me
sound like you.”

“Why stop now? I was enjoying the
monologue.”

“I’m sure, but I’m afraid you’re not
the only subject I have to deal with today.” He half-turned and
indicated the monitors with a sweep of his hand. On one of them,
Wade saw that the woman was fishing through the kitchen drawer. She
stopped and withdrew a long carving knife, then smiled.

“There’s something I don’t get,” Wade
said.

“Yes?”

“What was with the text
messages?”

“How do you mean?” The sparkle in the
old man’s eyes suggested he already knew exactly what it
meant.

“Who sent them?”

“Why, Cartwright, of
course.”

“What did they mean? That he’d talked
to you?”

Cochran nodded. “Yes. Unfortunately, he
was not as inclined as you were to follow the predetermined path.
He strayed, so we had to rely on backup to bring him in. From the
outset he knew the house was a ploy of some kind. He just didn’t
understand the nature of it. Before he died, we asked him one
question, and one question only. It concerned you, and he was most
forthcoming.”

A chill spread like cold hands across
Wade’s back. He jerked on his restraints, to no avail, and decided
he might have to try dislocating his arm. “What was the
question?”

Cochran stood and checked his watch. “I
must be off. The day’s only a quarter done. I will, of course,
check back in with you later.”

“Wait.” Wade tried to keep his voice
calm, but it was getting difficult. The implications of what
Cochran had said about Cartwright nagged at him.

“Yes?” Cochran asked, clearly
amused.

“What did Cartwright tell
you?”

The old man seemed to consider his
answer, then smiled. “Something that proved that the host settings
for each subject need tweaking because not every mind is the same,
and the ability of a subject to repress memories may be stronger in
some than in others.”

He nodded his farewell and walked
around the table. In frustration, Wade tried to lunge at him,
hoping at the very least he might be able to pin the scrawny old
man down with his body weight if he timed it just right. But
Cochran merely stepped aside and Wade hit the floor, still bound,
the dirt floor rough against his skin.

“I’ll kill you, you know,” he promised.
“When this is over—”

“When this is over, Wade, you won’t
feel the need to harm anyone ever again. And I suspect you’ll be
referred to as the project’s greatest success. They only gave us a
month, you know. They gave us August, the hottest month, which
suited us just fine. Nothing pushes a man closer to the edge than
heat, and entrapment. I think we managed to recreate that scenario
quite well, don’t you? The pressure, the panic, the cops, the
backstabbing friend… ”

“The cops....”

“Actors.”

“I killed one of them. I saw
it.”

“You saw a hologram. No cop would be
dumb enough to stick his head out knowing you were armed. They
would have waited for the SWAT team. You
know
that.”

He did, but it hadn’t occurred to him
at the time. He’d been fighting to survive, to escape. Now it
seemed he’d been feeling that way because it was how
they’d
wanted him to feel. They’d played him like a chump from the very
beginning, and somehow that, above all else, enraged him. He began
to thrash against his restraints, but only succeeded in making the
ties slice through the skin on his wrists.

“While you’re waiting,” Cochran said,
and he sounded farther away now. “It might do to ponder something
else about this month that’s of personal significance to you. I
must apologize in advance that we had to condense the experience
into what’s left of it.”