“Okay,” Aaron says. “So Pruitt gave them our description. It’s not like they have names or anything.”
Something occurs to me, and even though I kind of dread the answer, I ask him anyway. “What identification did you use to get the fishing permit for us to go out to Overhills that night?”
The color drains from his face. “The one Magda gave me. Which . . . I also used to rent the RV site and the hotel rooms the other night. Damn.”
We don’t speak for a few minutes, and then I say, “It doesn’t mean anyone will trace us here. Lots of people get those permits, right?”
He shrugs. “I guess? Pruitt’s description of me could be pretty much anyone, and you weren’t there when I got the permit, so . . . they may not connect the dots. Even if they did, forensics will show that the kids died before I got the permit.”
“I don’t understand why you got that stupid permit to begin with,” Taylor says. “I seriously doubt that Dacia’s crew bothered with that. So now there’s a record of us going onto the property, but not her.”
Aaron responds through clenched teeth. “The point was to give us a legal cover for being on federal property. In case someone stopped us. Because, yes . . . they do check. There are cameras at the gates. And those MPs by the lake? They would have called in our tag as a matter of routine.”
“You mean the MPs who are dead now? That just proves my point, Aaron. They didn’t even have to search to find who was connected to the truck. You just handed them that information on a friggin’ platter.”
They’re gearing up for a Quinn family shouting match, and I’m not in the mood. I slam my hand on the counter. It’s marble and doesn’t really do much other than hurt, but it’s enough to make both of them look in my direction.
“What the hell difference does it make?” I ask. “It takes the police no time at all to track down that kind of information. So . . . enough already.”
“Fine,” Taylor says, although I can tell she really doesn’t want to let it go. “Moving on to what I was about to say . . . Two national sites are running some version of Pruitt’s story. Not the most reputable ones, but that means the click-bait sites will be all over it. And some of the fringe groups have already picked it up as well—the ones with an agenda.”
She ticks off five or six sites, none of which are familiar to me, but then I’m usually an NPR-and-done girl when it comes to the news.
“I don’t know about you,” Taylor continues, “but the quick spread doesn’t feel . . . organic to me.”
I’m about to ask her to clarify, but Aaron answers my question for her. “Possibly. But you’ve got to admit that the story has all the ingredients to take off on its own . . . murder, conspiracy, possible government involvement. Psychic abilities are just the icing on the cake.”
“So then it should be on all the fringe sites, right, regardless of political leaning? Not just the ones that match Unify America’s political views.”
Aaron nods reluctantly, and Taylor gives him a grim smile.
“And . . . it’s not. As of this morning, only the UA-friendly sites are running the story . . . although I’m pretty sure that’s about to change.” Taylor reaches over to retrieve the tablet from Aaron and clicks a link to send a video to the monitor behind the bar. It’s from the same morning show she was watching when I walked in. “I think you’ll find this interesting.”
When the picture comes on-screen, Senator Cregg is in midsentence. The Unify America banner hangs behind him, and the chyron across the bottom reads: WOCAN Terror Group Responsible for NC Child Slayings?
“I’m getting really tired of that guy’s face,” Aaron says.
Taylor eyes him caustically. “You only see the curated stuff. I have to wade through all of Cregg’s garbage. Hold on, though . . . you need to see the first part.”
She restarts the video where the dark-haired female anchor recaps the fire at Port Deposit, noting fourteen bodies instead of the twelve that Taylor mentioned a few days ago. I’m not exactly surprised that they’re finding more bodies, given the flood of spirits that rushed me in their testing lab. Dozens of people died in The Warren, and I have no idea what they did with their remains. The investigators may well have literally uncovered skeletons in the closets when they dug through the ashes.
“Government officials report that the left-wing separatist group known as WOCAN set the fire to cover their tracks as authorities closed in on a human-trafficking ring the group used to raise funds.” The graphic behind her displays the group logo superimposed over a map of the United States with four Western states—Washington, Oregon, California, and Nevada—highlighted. “While their movement has been mostly peaceful, WOCAN has blocked roads in and out of key oil fields in California, and even occupied the Midway-Sunset oil field briefly before the National Guard was called in to remove them. WOCAN has vehemently denied any connection to the events in Port Deposit or to Franco Lucas, who was killed in the fire, but sources close to the investigation say that correspondence found at Lucas’s apartment near DC indicate he was a leader in the separatist movement. There are still questions, however, about how the fire began. With more on this, we go to Jason Whelan in Port Deposit, Maryland.”
The scene shifts to a male reporter under a dull gray sky standing in front of a sign that reads, Welcome to Historic Port Deposit. Enjoy Our Terraces and Granite, which is the most oddly specific welcome sign I’ve ever seen. A small, round woman who looks to be around eighty is standing next to the reporter, so dwarfed by his height that I thought she was a child at first. She’s dressed in a yellow windbreaker, and I get a flash of memory—a teddy bear owned by one of my hitchers, or maybe one of their kids.
“For the past several years,” the reporter begins, “residents of this sleepy little port town have experienced odd—some might even say supernatural—events. When asked why, residents without fail point to the Bainbridge Naval Training Center, long presumed abandoned, that sits on the hill overlooking the town . . .”
He turns toward the woman—Paddington Bear, that’s who she looks like—and says, “With me is Mrs. Edith Parry, who worked as an administrative assistant at the Bainbridge center for nearly two decades. So, Mrs. Parry, when did you realize that something odd was happening in Port Deposit?”
The camera closes in on the woman’s face. “Well, I’ve lived here pretty much all my life. And we all knew—well, at least everyone I worked with in the section that used to be the Tome School knew—that there were secret tunnels running underground, connecting the old section to the newer buildings farther up the hill.”
Her voice drops to a conspiratorial whisper, which strikes me as kind of funny since she’s talking into a reporter’s microphone. “I think there was weapons research going on. Nuclear, or maybe even chemical, and that’s why the government hasn’t let anyone develop the property. But the place has been vacant for decades, and the weird things didn’t begin until a few years back. My cabinet doors started opening and then slamming shut when I was all the way on the other side of the room. Sometimes, I’d be watching one of my old CSI shows, and the TV would flip channels. Every single time it landed on that stupid reality show about that boy band where they barely wear any clothes. If this sort of thing hadn’t been happening to other people in town, I’d have thought I was going crazy.”
The scene shifts to the riverfront, and a college-aged white guy in a Baltimore Ravens cap replaces the old lady. “Yeah, there’s been a lot of insane stuff goin’ on around here. This ain’t the first fire, you know. There have been weird fires all over town, especially for those of us who live close to Tome School. My bathroom rug caught on fire two years ago. Fire department was clueless. It was like it just spontaneously combusted while I was in the shower.”
Ravens Fan morphs into an Asian American couple. The man is carrying a chubby baby in one of those front-pack infant carriers. “Things . . . moved,” he says. “All the time. The saltshakers would just slide across the table for no r
eason.”
His wife nods. “A picture that was straight on the wall would tip up a few inches while you were watching. A floor lamp would twitch like it was going to fall over and then right itself. It drove our dog crazy. We even had a structural engineer come out to check the place over, but the problem wasn’t the house.”
A middle-aged man in a business suit is next, and this time there’s a name on the screen beneath his face: Bill Clenney, Port Deposit Town Council. “Yeah, we had one or two people sayin’ things, and we laughed it off. There’s crazy people in any town, and, hell . . . we got an abandoned school and military base right here. That’s gonna get the superstitious types goin’, right? So, yeah, at first we’d joke about it at town council meetings, but by this time last year, most of us weren’t jokin’ anymore. When you see a message write itself on the iced-over window of your car one mornin’ like I did? You become a believer real quick.”
“Do you remember what the message said?” the reporter asks.
Clenney gives the reporter a withering look. “If words literally drew themselves onto your car window, would you forget? The message was Have lovely day! Not have a lovely day . . . just Have lovely day.”
“Well, missing word or not, I can’t say that message seems very sinister,” the reporter says with a laugh.
“But that was pretty much the pattern overall. Aside from the fires a few people reported and some”—Clenney pauses, flushing slightly—“uh . . . violations of privacy, no one reported anything threatening. Sometimes it was even helpful. One woman heard a voice telling her to check on her baby daughter, who she’d just put down for a nap. She was in the shower at the time and ignored it, thinking it was just her bein’ overprotective. But then the voice shouted the warning, and Marcie wrapped a towel around herself and ran to the nursery. Sure enough, that little girl had swallowed something she found in the crib. She was turning blue, and if Marcie had waited—if that voice hadn’t insisted she go check—her little girl wouldn’t be alive today. So . . . weird stuff to be sure, but not your typical Hollywood haunted house scenario with someone comin’ after you with an ax or whatever.”
“How many of these occurrences have happened, would you say?”
Clenney shrugs. “Two or three reported each week for the past few years, but people kind of got used to it after a bit, and the reports tapered off. But since that underground facility burned down last week? Nothing. Zip. Zilch. Nada.”
“Any idea who might have been using the place? Or what they might have been doing over there?”
“None at all,” Clenney says. “We all knew there was some activity over that way from time to time because trucks came in. But the property has changed hands a couple times in the past decade, people plannin’ to develop it. We sure didn’t have any idea there was an active terrorist cell half a mile away. All I can think is they must have developed some sort of chemical that works on your brain.” There’s a long pause, and it looks to me like he’s trying to convince himself.
“So . . . you’re thinking this could all have been a sort of mass hallucination caused by a chemical in the air?” the reporter asks. “Or the water?”
Clenney nods, but his face is still conflicted. “That would certainly be the most logical answer, even though I have to say it felt very real to me. And . . . I’m not sure how the logical answer explains the baby bein’ saved. Or the fires.” He laughs. “Maybe the Feds can figure it out. I’m just glad it’s over.”
As the picture fades back to the studio, the anchorwoman smiles. “Thank you, Jason. While we don’t currently have an official answer from ‘the Feds’ to the Port Deposit puzzle, we do have one member of the federal government with us this morning—Senator Ronald Cregg, who is joining us from his home in Pennsylvania. Thank you for speaking with us, Senator Cregg.”
“Always a pleasure, Carissa,” the Senator says, smiling broadly. Behind the purple-and-white Unify America logo, a computer background of gently waving red and blue horizontal stripes gradually move toward each other to merge into a solid purple wave, then fan out again.
“So, Senator Cregg, first . . . how is your son?”
“Recovering nicely. I expect he’ll be back out here on the campaign trail with me any day now. Graham is . . .” Senator Cregg’s smile falters the tiniest bit. Every other time I’ve seen his face, he’s worn one of two expressions—either the too-wide smile of a used-car salesman or the concerned-father look. This new look is more calculating, and for the first time, I see a similarity between the older Cregg and his son.
His mask slips for only a moment, however, and then the politician’s smile is back. “He’s great at keeping me on track at these events. I tend to wander off and start chatting with people. Need a little more of Graham’s focus!”
Having encountered Graham Cregg’s focus firsthand, I have a pretty good idea what the Senator means. Aaron catches the look on my face and gives my hand a squeeze.
“I’m glad to hear he’s doing better, Senator. Moving on now to the events at Port Deposit, we’ve both just seen the interviews with local residents, and I’d like to pick up on what the town council member said near the end about the possibility of a chemical that affected townspeople. Is that something you can talk about at this stage of the investigation?”
The Senator’s face shifts into concerned mode. “I’m not sure that we can count on the administration to give us a straight answer on this, since the existence of a terror cell so close to the nation’s capital doesn’t reflect well on the president’s ability to keep Americans safe. I can assure you based on my own sources that a chemical agent was definitely involved, but there’s absolutely no evidence that it was used on the people of Port Deposit. The things they witnessed over the past few years were not figments of their drug-laced imaginations but were instead fallout from an abandoned government project that landed in the hands of the WOCAN terrorists who were occupying that facility and, I’m quite certain, their globalist allies.”
“So . . .” The anchor looks confused. “You’re saying that something was left behind by the Navy when they abandoned the Bainbridge Center back in the 1990s?”
“No. First, the project in question was not something left behind by the Navy. It was run initially by the Army as part of the Stargate Project, later by the CIA as the Delphi Project, and then finally under government contractors. I won’t trace the full course of events—that will be covered in my press conference on Tuesday—but suffice it to say that one of the individuals who was connected to the Delphi Project several years ago was Franco Lucas, who we now know was also working with the WOCAN terrorists prior to his death.”
“So then, what exactly was the goal of the research?” the reporter asks, looking a little confused.
“The goal of the Delphi Project was to magnify certain . . . abilities . . . already present in the human brain so that they could be harnessed for national security purposes. Espionage, and so forth. To create superspies. Supersoldiers.”
There’s a very long pause, and then the woman asks, “What sort of abilities?”
“Telekinesis. Telepathy. Clairvoyance. WOCAN was using that facility for two different purposes, and I don’t know if the pranks on the people of Port Deposit were part of the experiments or simply kids acting out. They’ve been importing young women—and some young men—from Eastern Europe and selling them into sexual slavery. But they were also using that same group of individuals as lab rats to test a serum stolen from the Delphi Project several years ago. WOCAN and their globalist allies have also abducted, and continue to abduct, children right here in the United States for these purposes. And now, having gotten the data they need, they’re getting rid of the evidence. The fire in Port Deposit and the murder of those six children in North Carolina are just the two most recent examples.”
The anchorwoman blinks and then stares at the Senator’s image on the screen, owl-eyed, seemingly at a loss for words. “That’s . . . that’s a very serious allegati
on. Do you really expect our viewers to believe that WOCAN separatists—who, I must add, have never engaged in any sort of violent activity before—”
Cregg cuts her off yet again. “They’ve engaged in plenty of illegal activity, Carissa.”
“I said violent activity. Do you have any evidence linking this group—”
“Personally, I consider the takeover of privately owned business a violent action.”
She gives him a tight smile. “Fine. But, hopefully you’ll acknowledge that the takeover and occupation of a business falls considerably short of murdering children? This sounds more like a Stephen King novel than reality. Do you really expect viewers to believe that there is a drug out there that turns normal—”
“Carissa, I never expect anyone to believe anything. The current administration has ensured that people trust absolutely nothing that government officials say, so I always provide proof for my claims. What you’re about to see is video obtained by a police officer who was working undercover with the WOCAN group. And keep in mind that this is only a select sample . . . We have dozens of additional clips like these.”
The Senator steps to one side, and a video pops up where the UA logo was a moment before. I recognize the room the instant it appears. I’m not the only one—Jaden and Daniel come to attention as soon as I see the white cement-block walls, white tiled floors, and rows of white cabinets at the back. If the camera were to pan around, there would be black curtains extending halfway down from the ceiling along two of the walls. The only splashes of color in the scene are the red fire extinguisher near the back and the pink shirt worn by the young girl in the foreground.
I grab the remote from the counter and press pause. “That’s the lab at The Warren. I think it’s the one Deo and I were in.” It’s hard to keep my voice steady, because this is also the room where Jaden and three other people were executed to see if I could pick up their psychic abilities as well as their spirits. The room where I watched as Senator Cregg’s son hijacked Deo’s mind and very nearly killed him. The room where one of my temporary hitchers used my body to somehow explode Graham Cregg’s phone and set the lab on fire.