Marsdale released a hearty laugh. “I’m pulling your chain. Honestly, I don’t know what Abel does, only that much of it’s classified.”
Aiden felt guilty for lying about his reason for being here. Marsdale had a warm and open demeanor. He decided to drop all pretense.
“Listen, Professor, I have to tell you something that–”
“Call me Ed.”
“Ed, there is no science project. I mean, there is in a way, but I kind of got you here under false pretenses.”
Before Marsdale could respond, a waitress appeared. The professor ordered a small salad and bottled water. Aiden, who’d skipped lunch, opted for a chicken sandwich and fries.
“Well, now,” Marsdale said after the waitress left. “So what is this about?”
“The Doc said you might be able to help me with another matter.”
“And that would be?”
“Tau Nine-One.”
Marsdale’s face underwent a subtle change. Candor gave way to guardedness.
“What exactly has Abel been telling you?”
“Not much. Just that you were there.”
“More than twenty years ago. And my work remains classified.”
“Understood. I was just hoping you could give me a little background on the place. Nothing that would violate a security oath.”
“Let me guess. You’re writing a book or an article. Or planning a documentary on America’s secret military installations.”
“I’m a quiver kid.”
Marsdale’s eyes widened.
“I’m trying to find out what was done to me, how and why I was experimented on.”
For a moment, Aiden had the feeling that Marsdale was going to get up and leave. But the retired geoscientist settled back in his seat with a wry nod.
“Over the years, I’ve found myself wondering what happened to the seven of you. For a time, my wife and I had even considered being one of the adoptive parents. But she got pregnant and that put the kibosh on the idea.”
“All of us found homes?”
“As far as I know, although I wasn’t privy to the details of the adoptions. All I know is that the people in charge wanted the babies to be raised in emotionally stable environments by caregivers with high IQs.”
Aiden nodded. That criterion certainly fit Byron and Alice Manchester.
“Do you happen to know your color?” Marsdale asked.
“My color?”
“You weren’t given traditional names. Instead, each of you was designated by a specific hue. I thought then, as I do now, that the idea of color-coding babies was demented. Of course, I suppose the same might be said for the whole experiment.”
“Green,” Aiden whispered slowly. “That was my color.”
Another piece fell into place. He told Marsdale about his recurring dream.
“Sounds like you might be re-experiencing facets of early memories. Feeling that you’re in a prison cell, the bars rising above you, those three giant faces above peering down at you. Maybe you’re an infant in a crib.”
Aiden was astonished. The idea made perfect sense. He was surprised it hadn’t occurred to him earlier and said so.
“You could have been too close to the problem to see the obvious answer,” Marsdale offered.
“Are memories from such an early age even possible?”
“That sort of thing might be more up Abel’s alley. But some theorists believe that with the right stimulus, individuals can recollect primal sensations and images from very far back, even pre-birth.”
“If I’m reliving actual memories, why is everything green?”
“Perhaps because Green was your name, the word that your infant mind heard uttered numerous times. Later in childhood, when you developed sufficient mental acuity and came to understand the more general meaning of the word green, your subconscious made a connection, fused those two things together. When you dream, that fusion becomes prominent. Your early name, Green, becomes synonymous with the color green.” Marsdale allowed a faint smile. “Just a theory, you understand.”
It sounded plausible to Aiden. “The dream always ends with a woman’s voice that says, ‘Singularity beguiles, transcend the illusion.’ Does that phrase mean anything to you?”
Marsdale shook his head.
“Do you remember me as a baby?”
“I do. The seven of you were mostly sequestered in a special area but the researchers apparently wanted at least some degree of normal socialization. The five or six nannies who cared for you around the clock occasionally brought you into the cafeteria or other public areas.” Marsdale smiled with the recollection. “Many of us got a kick out of watching seven curious babies crawling and toddling around.”
“And what was being done to us when we weren’t being socialized?”
If Marsdale sensed the bitterness in Aiden’s words, he didn’t show it.
“I don’t know what the experiment was about, just that it supposedly was considered groundbreaking. But I have no idea of its purpose. We were told repeatedly that you weren’t being harmed, that the research was totally innocuous.”
“And you have no idea what they did to us?”
“The rumor was it involved some sort of infusions given during your first weeks of life.”
“What does that mean? They injected us with something?”
“Honestly, I don’t know. Infusion was the only term I ever heard. It was never made clear what that entailed.”
Aiden believed him. Still, he suspected the professor knew more than he was letting on. This time, Aiden made no attempt to constrain his rancor.
“So, you simply accepted the word of these Tau Nine-One researchers that everything was harmless. You had no trouble with the idea of seven orphaned babies being experimented on in a secret military facility. All just fun and games, huh?”
Marsdale sighed. “Did I have doubts? Of course I did. I wouldn’t be human if I didn’t. I know this will sound like an excuse, like I’m trying to let myself off the hook in terms of taking any responsibility for what happened out there. But I had no input or control over the experiment.”
“Maybe so. But you could have gone public, told the world what Tau Nine-One was doing.”
“Not as easy as it sounds. There can be severe repercussions for whistleblowers, particularly when you’re dealing with top-secret government programs. Frankly, I had no desire to go to jail or be forced to seek asylum in another country. But let me ask you a question. Do you believe that what was done to you caused you harm or has had injurious effects on your life?”
Marsdale seemed reasonably honest. But talking about chunkies wasn’t in Aiden’s game plan. He shifted the conversation.
“What about the other quiver kids? You have no idea what happened to them?”
“I don’t.”
“What were their names? Their color names.”
“Blue, Red and White were the other boys. The three girls were Gold, Magenta and Cyan.”
“Why name us after those colors?”
Marsdale shrugged. “No deep mystery. One of the researchers apparently spotted a TV color-bar test pattern and suggested using the seven colors on the top row. His idea received a final tweak – someone figured gold sounded better than yellow. The thinking was that once the babies were adopted, their parents would give them regular names.