“So you think the telepath was trying to erase their memories?” Zahira asked.
Ryan nodded. “Not all their memories, just the ones about the experiment. But it went wrong, somehow. He erased everything in the basement, but accidentally overwrote everyone’s past with his own. The memories wouldn’t even have to be that detailed—most of our actual, real memories are less precise than we think, but our brains fill in stuff. Mash different memories together.” He gestured with his fork at the twinkling tree. “If you grew up in a household that celebrates Christmas, you probably don’t recall every single tree you ever had. But if asked to picture a specific year, you’ll know there was probably a tree, and your brain will patch together an image of it, based on what you expect it to have looked like. The heirloom ornaments, the garland you made in fifth grade, whatever. Make sense?”
“Yeah.” John drummed his fingers on the back of the seat. “But what about the naga? Where does she fit in?”
“It doesn’t do you any good to erase memories if the experiment continues after.” Ryan leaned back and dropped his napkin on his plate. “She’d cause enough chaos that, taken alongside the confusion of the remaining subjects, continuing would be more trouble than it was worth. Then, when the coast was clear, the group would come back and make sure she was exorcised.”
“But if no one remembered…” John objected.
Ryan stared blindly at the Christmas tree. “The telepath would, wouldn’t he? You can’t do brain surgery on yourself. Oh, he would have convinced the adults that he didn’t remember anything, either. But then he fucked up, and the other three were shipped off to who-knows where, thinking they were him. And of course SPECTR wasn’t just going to let a telepath walk away. He’d been a stupid kid to think otherwise.”
Zahira pursed her lips. “I don’t know, Ryan. That seems like a lot of speculation.”
John took a long sip of coffee. Zahira had a point, but…“It feels right, though. Deep down. It’s exactly the kind of crazy plan a bunch of teenagers would come up with.” He let out a sigh. “I could be fooling myself, though.”
“Ryan is absolutely right about one thing,” Zahira said. “A telepath…until you told me about the rougarou, I never thought they might be real. If empaths have to wear green armbands in public to warn other people, what might a telepath have to do to prove he was safe to return to society?”
John shook his head. The exorcism after the mind-wipe made sense, if the NHE’s strength was needed to erase memories. But that still left someone who could read thoughts. People were scared enough of empaths sensing whether or not they were lying.
Was the real John even now rotting in a SPECTR black ops site? Or had he been made into…what? A spy? CIA and NSA would both love to get their hands on an actual mind-reader.
Goddess. While John had been out living his life, the real John Starkweather had probably never had a single choice about anything since that day at the Center.
Zahira’s eyes drifted to the big TV hanging on the wall of the breakfast area. Then she stiffened and grabbed John’s arm. “John, look.”
He twisted around to see the screen. The sound was off, the picture of a serious looking reporter standing in front of a familiar house.
Walsh’s house.
There wasn’t any closed captioning, but the chyron at the bottom of the screen read: BOCA RATON MAN FOUND MURDERED.
Since they hadn’t checked out of the hotel yet, they went back up to John and Ryan’s room to huddle around John’s laptop. It didn’t take long to find an article on the murder.
BOCA RATON MAN BLUDGEONED TO DEATH
Sixty-two year old Osmond Walsh was reported dead this morning by his daughter, Maryann Walsh, 35, who had arrived in the early hours of the morning along with her two children to spend Christmas with Dr. Walsh. According to police sources, Walsh had been beaten around the head and shoulders with a blunt instrument. Paramedics attempted to revive Walsh, but he was declared dead on arrival at a local hospital.
There were no signs of forced entry, and robbery does not appear to have been a motive. Dr. Walsh taught psychiatry at a small local university.
Police say there are currently no suspects. Anyone with information about the crime is urged to contact the Boca Raton Police Department.
“Good God,” Ryan breathed. “And he was fine when you left him?”
It dawned on John just how bad it would look if anyone found out about this trip. “I didn’t kill him, if that’s what you mean,” he snapped.
Ryan held up his hands. “I don’t think you did. Not that I would have blamed you, after what the guy did to you, but you don’t strike me as prone to extrajudicial murder. I just meant did he seem nervous, or I don’t know, off somehow?”
“The opposite,” John said bitterly. “He was smug. Pleased with himself. Annoyed that I wouldn’t consent to be a lab rat a second time, but fine otherwise.”
Zahira stood up and paced to the window, then back. “I don’t think you did anything to him, John,” she said, “but it is a huge coincidence that he died while we were here.”
“Someone killed the Starkweathers.” John powered down the laptop. “Or at least, I believe their death was just made to look like a murder-suicide. Now Walsh is dead.”
“People connected to Operation Mephisto are being picked off,” Ryan murmured, eyes unfocused with thought.
John stuffed the laptop back into his carry on. “It might have actually been a coincidence that they reached Walsh shortly after we did, then. There could be other murders we don’t know anything about.” He paused, a sick feeling in his gut. “If my contact with the Starkweathers sent up a flag in the system somewhere, whoever was on the other end might have decided the easiest thing to do was make sure no one was left to talk about Operation Mephisto. Which means those of us who were experimented on could be next.”
Ryan let out a low whistle. “Maybe you should stay with me for a while. Caleb can come, too, of course.”
John bit his lip. He didn’t want to subject Gray to constant hiding. But he also didn’t want to leave Ryan on his own. “You’re still in a hotel, right?”
“Right.”
“If you don’t mind, maybe we could switch you to the hotel where Zahira is staying. The place is pretty much deserted, and it wouldn’t be hard to get a room next to hers.” Technically, he, Caleb, and Gray could do the same thing so they’d all be together…but what about Night? Even if they used a Do Not Disturb hanger to keep the staff out, Ryan was bound to notice something weird about him at close quarters. Plus they’d have to either explain why “Agent Knight” was staying in the room with them, or get him his own room and hope he didn’t decide to wander off when they weren’t looking.
“I’m not worried about myself,” John went on. “I’m an experienced agent, and Caleb is a lot tougher than he looks.”
“Is he?” Ryan asked skeptically.
Tough enough to survive a bullet to the head, or being shot up by assault rifles, though of course Ryan didn’t know that. “Just trust me on that,” John said. “We’ll stay in the apartment for now. In fact, it might give us the chance to keep an eye out for anyone suspicious and catch them in the act.”