Wallace, page 5
“I agree,” she said, with a murmur. “I was quite surprised that MI6 was looking at doing something like that, but, of course, they’re just building on an old CIA program done during the Second World War. But then again, Russia had also been doing the same thing, so not much difference here.”
The three minions leaned forward, remaining silent—until now. One frowned, asking, “Seriously?”
She nodded. “Yes, quite a bit of research is online. They would have somebody sit in a room and mentally place themselves in these other buildings across the world—all to get an idea of what people were up against, what was happening to prisoners, thinking they could see things that would help them win the war,” she shared. “I don’t think we’ll ever find the actual data on paper that gave the true results as they came about. Much more likely, the papers they released are highly cleansed versions that they think the public can handle. Because, if you can believe in all that, then what’s stopping us from believing in UFOs?”
One of the minions in the back laughed and admitted, “I definitely believe in UFOs.”
The burly man glared at him and snapped, “Shut up.” The head guy returned his gaze to her. “If MI6 is doing a program like this, and you were brought in, then you must have some ability.”
“MI6 is basing that on some things that happened to me when I was a child,” she explained. “I woke up from a car accident, speaking about all kinds of stuff. … For a while afterward I did have abilities, things that I could do.”
“Like?”
“I could look at you and say, Hey, you’re wearing white underwear, or He’s wearing blue underwear, or whatever,” she shared, with a laugh. “And it went on until I hit puberty. Then, … man, it all changed,” she said, with a shrug. “Yeah, it was fun while it lasted, but it’s not as if it was useful at all.”
All the men stilled as they contemplated that information.
Burly noted, “There’s no record of you having an accident.”
She stared at him. “Wow, so you checked out my history, but you didn’t do a deep dive into my background?” she asked lightly. “Or you were just checking out my recent history as it pertained to England and the US? When all this happened, I was a child, living in Brazil, where my father was working at the university at the time,” she shared. “I’m sure if you checked that history, or at least took your search in that direction, you would find that several newspaper articles were published back then. My parents tried to squash as much of it as they could, not wanting it to become an unhealthy obsession,” she murmured.
Some of the men nodded.
The man across from her announced, “My name is Dominic, by the way.”
She looked over at him and nodded. “Thanks, Dom.”
His eyebrows shot up. “How do you know people call me Dom?”
“It’s hardly a paranormal thing,” she stated in exasperation. “Almost nobody will let that mouthful out all the time. Dominic is just way too long, so it’s bound to get shortened to Dom.” She shrugged. “That’s what people do, and it’s not psychic. More about common sense.”
He sat back and stared at her. “We’ve tested several other people in here before,” he murmured. “It didn’t go so well for them when they didn’t agree to the testing.”
“I haven’t been asked about any testing,” she pointed out, staring at him. “By the way, what do you mean, it didn’t go well for them?”
From the back corner, the burly man snapped, “That’s enough. She doesn’t need to know anything.”
Dom nodded. “I guess I was looking for some reaction, something empathetic, something …”
“Like fear?” she interrupted. “That’s what you want, right? You want me afraid. You want me terrified of what you’ll do to me, so that I start spitting out whatever it is you want to hear. The problem with that technique is that people then spit out information in the hopes that it’s what you want to hear, but it’s not the truth. It’s them just trying to survive. It’s them trying to save their sorry ass in order to not die or whatever it is they think you’ll do to them. Is that what you want? You want people to start making up things in order to get you some answers that will hopefully make you stop this madness and leave them alone?” She looked around the room, directing her gaze at each one.
The burly man glared at her.
She nodded. “I didn’t think so. Surely whatever reason you have for getting me here is because you want the truth, whatever that means. If I can’t help you, I can’t help you. If I can, then I can. It really is as simple as that.”
“It’s not that simple,” Dom declared. “People think they know something, but, in truth, they don’t.”
“They’ll know something,” she argued, staring at him sharply, “but it’ll mean something to them, not necessarily to you. If I look at you and tell you something about your life, it’s only because of whatever symbolism I see. It doesn’t mean that I’m reaching into your mind and that I can see you and the folder that states, ten years ago, you did this, this, and this,” she said. “I’ll see an image, like a water cooler, and it’s telling me that your life is running away because that tap is broken, and the water is just filtering away rather quickly,” she explained, trying to describe the images that were in her head right now.
She continued. “That’s what I see, but that water cooler won’t mean anything to you. If you can relate to the fact that the water is running away and that your life is running away, yet you have no control because it’s broken, then maybe you would understand what I meant. Otherwise, it won’t mean anything to you. So, it’ll sound false or made up, when in fact it’s not because it’s exactly what I see and how I interpret the information, versus what you know and receive.”
The burly guy walked several steps forward and looked at Dom. “Is that correct?”
Dom settled back in a negligent and almost arrogant manner, but he nodded. “To some extent, yes. A lot of people do not get statements or actual words, they get images. They get pictures of things that have a symbolism to them. She’s right. That symbolism isn’t something that anybody would necessarily relate to but her.” Dom gave her a grin. “Which, in fact, supports the idea that we probably are talking to the right person.”
“You haven’t found anything. You’ve somehow learned that I was at a meeting with MI6,” she pointed out. “And you also know that they dropped me off at my hotel, which is where you kidnapped me. However, if that MI6 meeting had been deemed top secret or of any importance, I would never have been allowed to return to the hotel.”
At that, the burly man stiffened again and nodded. “I did consider that,” he muttered. “It’s not good news that you were released, and the other man wasn’t.”
“Wallace, you mean,” she clarified. “That’s quite true. … I felt very much as if I had just failed the interview,” she muttered, but then she shrugged. “They didn’t even tell us what we were there for, outside of the fact that they’re trying to put together a team. But they’re always putting together teams, but the kinds of teams, the testing, and the work those teams will do, that’s an entirely different story.”
Burly asked, “What did they say? Tell us exactly what you were told.”
She pondered that for a moment, and then, with her hands out in front of her, she ticked off the items. “The job would start in about a month. I would have to relocate to England. The work would be top secret, so I would have to pass all their clearance testing before I could be allowed in. They didn’t give me very much in the way of details, something about extrasensory perception work. Of course I would have to pass certain proficiency tests in order to get in.” She shrugged. “The range of pay was lovely, at least three times what I’m currently making, but they also told me, more or less, that I couldn’t talk about my job to anybody, including family, friends, or loved ones, and that I wouldn’t have any personal life for at least three years, while they worked to develop this.”
At that, the men just stared at her silently, as if processing what she’d shared, but not really understanding if it was of any value.
“And because they dropped me off at the hotel and kept Wallace, who I thought was staying at the same hotel as well, I assumed I didn’t make the first cut,” she shared. “I am female after all, and we’re well aware of the fact that women tend to get hired way less than men. So, if Wallace was the stronger candidate, then it makes sense that, out of the two of us, he would be the one to be hired.”
Dom smiled. “I have met more male psychics than females. I’ve met more female charlatan psychics.”
“Sure,” she conceded, “the tarot readers in the carnival tents, where people come in, pay five bucks, and want to be told that they’ll meet a tall, dark, and handsome person tomorrow,” she noted. “That’s a very different story than what MI6 was talking about.”
“How do you know that?” Burly asked. “I thought they didn’t really give you an idea.”
“No, but they told me that they were setting up a government-sanctioned program. So, we’re not talking colorful turbans and dark tents and big fancy rings on my fingers,” she said, with a laugh. She shook her head. “But I really don’t know who, what, where, how, or why this plan matters to you, and I don’t understand why you care,” she declared, bewildered. “Unless you’re trying to set up your own group.”
“That’s what we’re trying to do,” Dom admitted, smiling at her. “But, in order to do that, we have to find people who have abilities.”
“Most people with abilities hide them,” she stated, with a shrug.
“Why is that?” one of the minions behind her asked.
She turned to look at them and realized that two of the men behind her looked similar, maybe not brothers but potentially related. “Because of things like this,” she said, waving her arm around the room. “You wouldn’t give a crap about me if you didn’t know that I had gone to that interview. And, having gone to that interview, you’re immediately wondering what I know, what I can do, and trying to figure out whether I would work for whatever it is you want,” she offered. “But anybody who has abilities, either they use them as entertaining tricks at college dorm parties,” she added, with a sneer, “or they keep to themselves. And, of course, you have those who work with the police.”
“You don’t work with the police,” Dom pointed out, leaning forward. “Why not?”
“Remember that time period when I still had all those abilities? I did work with the police back then,” she clarified, “and it was brutal. I was dealing with rapists and child murderers and missing children,” she shared, even now the tears catching in the back of her throat. “When I hit puberty, and I lost that ability, it was such a relief to not have to deal with that dark side anymore. I was just grateful.”
“So, you’re saying you don’t have those abilities anymore?” Burly asked.
“That’s exactly what I’m saying,” she murmured. “I have this faint bit of something, maybe 10 percent of what I used to have. … It’s not anything where I could go to the police and say, Hey, I know where this missing kid is, which is what I could and did do back then.” She shrugged. “But then the hormones kicked in, and apparently my brain turned off, so here I am, not a teenager, and all this is just a shit show.” She snorted at her half-assed joke.
Yet, as she stared around at her audience, and they stared back at her uncomprehendingly, she realized none of these guys knew about humor or had any understanding as to what she meant. She sighed. “So now that you know that, what else do you need to know?”
They looked at each other, and Burly motioned at Dom. “Take her back to her room. We need to talk this over.”
Dom hopped up and said, “Let’s go.”
She got to her feet, and, with a quick glance at the others—who were all staring at Burly—she followed Dom back to her room. As she got inside, she turned to him. “I guess I said the wrong thing, didn’t I?”
“If you told the truth, it’s fine. If you lied, yeah, it won’t go so well.”
And, with that, he slammed the door in her face.
*
Wallace kept walking underground in the sewers, trying to figure out where the hell he was going. He passed a couple people, asked them if they knew anything about rooms, dungeons, or places where a prisoner could be held, but they just stared at him and shuffled away silently.
He hadn’t meant to upset them, but obviously it was a hard thing for anybody to deal with. That was not far from how he was feeling himself right about now. When he found another homeless man sitting at one of the entrances, he stopped and spoke to him for a few minutes. He was at least a little friendlier. He had already heard through what appeared to be an instant sewer grapevine about the other man called Wallace and his rescue. When the homeless man realized he was talking to the man who had been part of that rescue, he became friendlier.
“We’re just trying to find a missing woman now,” Wallace shared. “She’s been kidnapped, and we believe she’s being held down here somewhere because Wallace was kept down here.”
“Don’t that just figure,” the man muttered, shaking his head and waving his hands. “This is a place for people to come and get away. We like the privacy we get down here.”
Wallace pondered that. “Do you though? Is it that you really enjoy it down here, or is it more about getting away from all that up there? Do you all use this as a place to hide from the chaos up there?”
The other man stared at him for a long moment and nodded. “Good point.” He gave him a half smile. “As far as the woman, I don’t know of a place where they would have kept her, but some parts of this tunnel we consider haunted,” he murmured. “You might want to check out those places.”
“Haunted because you hear voices and see tracks and things like that?”
“Exactly.” He nodded. “You’re thinking that maybe it’s your gal?”
“I’m wondering if it’s the people who are holding her at least,” Wallace clarified.
“An awful lot of old storage rooms down here could have been converted to holding rooms,” he shared.
“Wallace told me that his room had no outside light, no windows, at least where he was kept.”
“That could be it then,” the man agreed, as he spat some chewing tobacco onto the slime all around them. “I don’t know why anybody would want to use those spaces though. It’s a pretty rough place.”
“If you’re kidnapping people, rough becomes relative, you know?” Wallace noted. “Where would I find these places?”
At that, he was given directions deeper and farther into the maze. Taking his leave, he sent off a message on his phone, hoping it would transmit something to Riff eventually. He added a short telepathic message too. Still, it would be damn hard to keep up any communication down here. Yet he kept trudging along, picking up the pace, knowing that whatever was going on with Amy would be happening now, given the time frame from Gerry Wallace. The closer Wallace got, the more worried he became that it had taken far too long. The last thing he wanted was for them to hurt Amy, then dump her and run.
He felt an odd energy, almost … not shifty but unsettled, as if, indeed, ghosts were around the place. That was a little disturbing after what the homeless man had mentioned. Yet Wallace also knew that, if somebody was hanging around this place, those inside could very easily start rumors to keep people away.
If people heard an area was haunted, that would bring in seekers too, so Wallace doubted the homeless down here would encourage tourists, not if the homeless truly liked the respite this underworld provided. So maybe they kept the rumors to themselves to protect their privacy.
And, with that, Wallace picked up the pace, running now, using his flashlight and headlamp in a searching motion to stay on track. When he came to the next Y, he shifted direction and headed into what was even blacker and smellier, coated with an even slicker slime. As he ran another good one hundred feet in, he reached a bend and another break in the sewer line, with another line joining it.
As he approached, he found footprints coming into this line, so another entrance in and out was nearby. Taking a moment, he headed down the new tunnel, where the footprints had been coming from, and quickly found himself at an outside exit that could be a sewer pipe, draining into some sump pond.
It was just big enough for him to walk without any trouble. And that also worried him because what if somebody or something opened these drains and flooded the tunnels? Also, if someone was using these tunnels, did they have cameras installed? It was so dark he could barely see where he was going, let alone see cameras.
He would feel better if he knew for sure either way, but there really wasn’t any time to sort it out. If he had to take a bath in sewage, it would not be the worst event of his life, but it would stick with him for a long time and likely make his top ten worst things list. Shaking that thought from his mind, he headed back down the way he’d come and followed the footsteps back onto the main line that he had been previously on. Looking carefully, he saw quite a few tracks, which meant it was heavily used, and people were even now active on this path, and that meant something completely different.
He needed to confirm he wasn’t seen, and, if a guard was up ahead, Wallace’s lights would be the first thing noticed. He took a quick look around to check that nothing unforeseen was in his immediate vicinity and quickly shut down his light and his lamp and doggedly headed on, going in deeper and deeper.
Chapter 4
Since that strange meeting, Amy had had no other communication with the group. The new room where the meeting had been held and her locked room were just a short hallway apart. She still didn’t know whether she was in some basement or further underground. She detected the overpowering smell of ground coffee, which always were stronger than the brewed version or the used grounds. She doubted it was to serve to their guests but to cover up the smells otherwise around here.
