The Talented (14 page)

Before she knew it, she had already stopped and we scooted into the backseat of her candy-apple red Toyota Yaris. The problem was that I didn’t fit. This was the tiniest car I had ever seen. If one of these tried to drive around in Detroit a GMC Yukon would gobble it up for breakfast. Alicia squeezed in behind the driver’s seat with her knees uncomfortably high up in the air. I leaned in and greeted Amber, “Hi, I’m Adam and this is Alicia, do you mind if I sit next to you?”

Amber’s cheeks turned red.
OMG he really seems to like me! Is this some kind of scam? No way is this a scam, just look at those green eyes of his. Nothing to worry about.
“Okay,” she replied, “Hop in. So where are you guys headed?”

“Downtown Norfolk,” I answered, “You?”

“Well, kind of the other way, but I can swing by Norfolk, no problem!”
Norfolk! That’s so far! I don’t want to drive to Norfolk…but I can’t back down now. What would I say?

“Really?” I said, “That’s so nice of you. We so totally appreciate it, don’t we, Alicia?”

“We do,” she agreed with a flat tone, which I interpreted as criticism of my taking advantage of poor Amber, “Thanks so much.”

With the front seat slid all the way back, it finally offered almost adequate legroom for me. Almost instantly I fell asleep and by the time I awoke, the Yaris was parked in a small lot next to a large body of water, and towering above the water was a tall gray battleship with enormous guns. Based on my reading on the airplane, this was the U.S.S. Wisconsin, the last battleship ever to be put into active service. We were back in Norfolk.

“So, I guess this is it!” Amber chirped with forced enthusiasm.

“Thanks, Amber. You are so great.” Then I leaned in close enough to raise her heart rate and whispered, “This is only the beginning for you. Now you have the courage to take on anything. No longer will you accept disrespect from others. You respect yourself too much for that. Oh…and drive safe.”

As I got out of the car, Amber’s pupils slowed went from fully dilated back to normal. Hopefully my little pep talk would do her some good.

After we exchanged goodbyes, Amber set off on her long drive home.

“Don’t feel too good about yourself, Dr. Phil,“ Alicia said, “That poor girl might fall asleep at the wheel.”

With a shrug, I replied, “But if she doesn’t, she just might make something of herself.”

We walked silently for a few blocks along the waterfront. I breathed in the salty air and admired the way the sunlight reflected off the water, creating a shimmering effect.

Alicia broke the silence. “What you did to that girl, toying with her mind…that is what you did to me.”

“There is a huge difference,” I pointed out. “You were willing. You agreed to it.” She pondered that in continued silence, but now walking faster, more deliberately. Without another word she crossed the street and walked right into a cute little breakfast place. Considering our filthy, ragged appearance I extended my mind throughout the crowd and drew their attention away from us. Alicia was standing by the server station gulping icewater from an oversized carafe. It’s a miracle she didn’t choke on the lemon slices. Maybe she ate them. With a sigh of relief she placed the now empty carafe into a nearby tub of dirty dishes, then grimaced as she steepled her fingers around her nose. Brain freeze.

I stood, waiting, but now having difficulty keeping all of the restaurant patrons and staff distracted. Finally, Alicia looked up at me, looking like herself again. We walked out together, and I started to worry about how bad this water addiction was going to get.

The closest hotel was the Marriott, and I influenced the clerk to check us into a room without putting our names into the system. My head started to ache as I silently commanded everyone around not to notice our dirty, bloody, torn up clothes. After a quick stop in the gift shop, we headed straight for our room. Once there we showered. Separately, of course. Lady first.

It was sunny and warmer than we were accustomed to, so we had to get by with shorts and t-shirts bought in the rather limited gift shop. By “get by” I mean completely embarrassed. Give me a break, I’m accustomed to well-made designer clothes, not an extra large U.S.S. Wisconsin T-shirt with exercise shorts bearing N-O-R on one cheek and F-O-L-K on the other.

Emerging from the bathroom with her long wavy hair in a ponytail, wearing a bright white Virginia Beach t-shirt and matching shorts to my own, she looked like nothing worse than the college student she ought to be at her age. Somehow she survived our experience in the tunnel with no worse than minor scrapes and bruises. And she looked nowhere near as ridiculous as me. After a very long shower, I got dressed in the absurd garments and opened the door to find Alicia sitting up in bed flipping channels. Upon seeing me she failed to suppress a giggle before saying “It…it’s not that bad…really.”

I glared. “Right.”

“You…you forgot your…flip-flops.” Alicia managed to get out before busting out laughing.

“Go ahead, laugh it up. Make fun of the…the…”

“Dork,” Alicia added helpfully, “You look like a big dorky tourist.”

“Thanks a lot.”

“Don’t mention it,” she chirped and put on her big sunglasses. “Are you ready to pay a visit to the doctor?”

“Yes, well, if he still lives there. Let’s go.”

Ocean View Avenue is a long road bordered by multi-million dollar beachfront homes with amazing views of the Chesapeake Bay. We didn’t know in which house Dr. Kildare lived, so we had the taxi drop us off at the corner. We tried to look like a couple, holding hands, taking a leisurely stroll along the beach. It wasn’t too difficult. There was a cool breeze off the bay, so Alicia closed her eyes and absorbed the warm rays of the sun. She pulled her long hair out of the ponytail and shook it free, the light bringing gold and copper highlights out in her cinnamon brown curls. My thoughts turned to Gus and his beachfront dream world. He would like it here.

After a few more minutes of walking, Alicia sighed and said, “I suppose you should do your thing now.” Stopping, I replied, “Can’t we just enjoy this time together a few minutes more?” Our eyes met, then Alicia shrugged and sat in the warm sand, and I sat beside her. When enough minutes had passed, I breathed deeply and evenly, extending my consciousness over the beach, the houses, and the coast. Hearing a cacophony of disparate thoughts, I drifted my focus from one to another until I heard the word “Kildare”. It came from the mind of a gardening neighbor who took offense at the apparent neglect of the doctor’s property. We stood and continued our stroll until I saw the elderly neighbor busy pulling weeds, and the Kildare estate next door.

The grand Victorian mansion featured a wraparound porch and thick columns. The house shined white at a distance, but as we approached the flaws surfaced. Peeling paint, overgrown landscaping and damaged roof tiles were the most obvious signs of neglect. We walked around to the front of the house to the steps leading up to the front porch.

“Okay, boss,” I said, “What do we do now?”

Alicia raised an eyebrow and replied, “Can you help me out here, tell me what you sense inside the house?”

I took a moment. “Nope. It almost seems like the house is enveloped in gray fog. He must have some way of blocking me.”

“Well that leaves us with only one option,” Alicia concluded, “so lets do it.” She skipped up the steps and rang the doorbell. We waited for at least a minute, and rang again before the “click-clack” of a pump action shotgun sounded behind us. We turned to find a stocky, robust old man who could have been as old as 90 pointing a very serious looking single barrel shotgun right at my chest. This would have been quite scary if not for the silk pajamas, black socks and bulky leather headgear. Being in no mood to be threatened, I focused on the gun. It flipped out of the old man’s hands and sailed in the air over the bay until it splashed safely into the waves. Stepping toward him, I smiled and said, “Dr. Kildare, I presume?”

He did not return the smile, “Just like on the old television program.”

That elicited blank stares from Alicia and me.

Kildare huffed, “Forget it. Who are you, and what do you want?”

Alicia introduced us and said, “Doctor, please let us have a few minutes of your time. Some friends of ours are in trouble and we need your help.”

“Who?” Kildare barked.

“Kate Scott and her old pals from the old boarding school. From the Program. You should remember them. They remember you.”

That drew an emotional response that I could feel, even through his helmet. The goofy-looking helmet didn’t project random images the way the other ones did. It just seemed to dampen the man’s thoughts until they were almost imperceptible. Almost.

“Come inside,” he sighed, “It isn’t safe out here.”

Yeah, I thought, someone might point a shotgun at me.

Kildare led us through the house and into his study. The interior was cluttered with everything you could imagine, but more than anything it was filled with stacks of books. Hardbound and paperback books were stacked together with newspapers and spiral notebooks. An old school chalkboard hung on the back wall, littered with equations and illegible notes. There were leather helmets in pieces, surrounded by rolls of lead solder, wires, circuit boards and cathode ray tubes. On a side table there were various sizes of prescription bottles.

Sinking into the office chair behind his desk, the doctor looked haggard and old. He took a deep breath, turned his eyes to Alicia and asked, “How can I help you?”

Alicia told Dr. Kildare about Fortress Investments and the assassinations, then went on to include how I got involved and dragged her into it. The old man just steepled his fingers and listened. Finally, she got to the part when Harrison Kirkwood showed up to ruin my life.

“Harrison Kirkwood,” he interrupted, “I remember when he was a baby living in the compound nursery. He never cried. Not once. Whenever he wanted something he got it. A nurse would stop changing another baby’s diaper in order to change his. One time one of our breeding mothers nursed her baby to sleep, only to realize that she had been feeding Harrison instead of her own child. Back then I knew that he was special in a way that none of the other subjects were, except for Clare.”

“Breeding mothers?” Alicia questioned, “What kind of operation were you running?”

That drew a sly smile from the doctor. “The Program,” he said, “was a product of its time. Something you could never do today, except maybe in some third world dictatorship. I’m committing treason by just talking about it, but what does it matter now,” gesturing to the medicine bottles, “I already have my death sentence. What more can they do to me.”

At my raised eyebrow he responded, “Brain cancer. The earliest diffusion helmets used radioactive material to try to confuse a hostile telepath. Those helmets were moderately effective, and we used them until we found a way to replace the uranium with an electric pulse synced with the brain waves of the wearer. Too late for me, though.”

We all were silent for a moment. “I’m sorry,” I said finally. “Don’t be,” the doctor replied, “If you knew everything I had done, you would be happy to see me go. The first thing I gave to the Program was my soul.”

“But what was the Program?” I asked.

“You want the entire history lesson?” He asked.

“Sure,” I replied, although I hoped for the abridged version.

The old man began, “The Program began in the late 1890s, when scientists began to apply Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution to human beings. Some scientists at the time theorized that the poor and uneducated were that way because they were less evolved versions of humanity, almost a sub-species. Researchers scrambled to isolate physical traits and determine if those traits were indicators of how evolved an individual was. On the lowest end of the evolutionary spectrum were the insane, so insane asylums across the country were tasked with documenting 136 different physical traits on every one of their inmates. The task took over a year to complete, and the results were inconclusive. Although many argued to the contrary, no one set of traits clearly stood out.”

“Well, of course,” Alicia added, “because their theory is garbage.”

“Quite right,” Kildare agreed, “But by that point a lot of time and money was spent trying to prove it, and reputations were at stake, so the senator who commissioned the study took it a step further. He ordered the asylums across the country to send their most delusional patients to a compound in Virginia. There the United States implemented its most secret reverse eugenics program.”

“Wait a minute,” I interrupted, “What is eugenics?”

“Eugenics is the breeding of human beings like dogs in order to produce desired traits. If you think people with blond hair are more evolved, then you would mate blond people together in order to improve the species. The idea was to steer and direct human evolution rather than leave it to chance, and it was a wildly popular idea.”

“Seriously?” I asked, “Popular with who, Hitler maybe?”

Ignoring my outburst, Alicia asked, “You said ‘reverse eugenics’. So what would that be?”

“Exactly what you would think. It was an effort to breed people with undesirable traits in order to create a lower subspecies of human. Then those so-called subhumans could be studied and their physical characteristics documented. This was intended to prove all their theories. They expected each generation to be more de-evolved than the next, eventually taking on an ape-like appearance. That didn’t happen, of course. The first generation was interviewed daily, and one of the more observant interviewers noticed an anomaly in the results. Whenever his session with one of the more severely psychotic patients drifted close to lunch, the patient would ramble on about food. This was not unusual, he thought at first. The young woman was probably just hungry. He presumed this until one day, when he was particularly hungry himself, and with his wife sick with the flu, all he had brought in his lunch pail was a large piece of chocolate cake. And as lunch-time approached, perhaps coincidentally, this woman began talking about chocolate cake.”