Nate Kenyon - The Reach

Cruz was dying to know what exactly Chambers could do now, if anything. She had received four separate doses of the dimerizer drug, which should have been enough to induce psi gene expression for some time. But it was impossible to tell for sure without a blood test.

Through careful research, they had identified her as one out of a possible three carriers in the area. Shelley had been instrumental in making all that happen, using her many contacts in the medical community to identify those with a family history of the particular type of autism that served as a marker for psi, then working up detailed psych profiles based on any significant events or trauma in the subject’s past. The final step, DNA testing, was a relatively simple process that could be accomplished by acquiring hair, blood, or skin samples.

Their extensive research had shown that psi carriers often formed some son of mental link to each other. Shelley had hoped that Jess would be able to draw Sarah out and influence her to perform for them. The evidence was still foggy on that, as far as Cruz was concerned. She strongly suspected that it was her new formulation of the dimerizer drug that had caused the girl to come out of her fugue, but now they might never know for sure.

The ultimate plan had been to make Jess Chambers the second subject in the later phases of their testing model, in order to verify the effectiveness of the drug candidate. Psi carriers would be the first target, and she was a perfect choice since she hadn’t shown any obvious signs of ability before. The gene was natural to the carriers and simply had to be activated and then controlled, which was a much easier thing than cloning and implanting the gene on an adenovirus, then injecting it into the muscle tissue of a noncarrier.

One step at a time, Cruz thought. It was difficult for her to hold back, to let the science develop. She was so eager to try new things.

Now they would have to come up with an alternate plan. Another carrier, perhaps. Or she could just go ahead and clone the gene, multiple samples of which were still sitting in storage in a safe location. Either way, she would have to let the girl go for a while. The shiny new facility in Alabama was empty and waiting for them, but everything was too hot at the moment. She needed to sit out the storm.

Moving everything overseas for a year would serve the purpose nicely.

She opened the back door to the car and slid inside, welcoming the warm, dry puff of air against her skin. The Asian man in the back offered her a small white towel. She dabbed at her face and neck. The towel had been heated against the vent. That was the most pleasing part of Asian culture, their thoughtfulness.

That and the money this man could offer her. Enough to fund the project for two more years in relative quiet and seclusion.

The Asian man asked her if she was comfortable. She smiled, nodded. “Thank you,” she said. “Shall we go? I believe the plane is waiting.”

He gave the nod to the driver and they pulled out into traffic, the long black car blending in among the others as they wound their way toward a new future.

Jess and Charlie stopped briefly at a Hallmark gift shop, and then climbed back into the taxi for the ride to the group home in Cambridge.

The general feeling about public housing for the mentally ill in Massachusetts has seen a dramatic change in recent years. State-run permanent residence programs are few and far between. The Massachusetts Department of Mental Health, or DMH, provides mostly rehabilitative residential programs; group homes and shared apartments are the rule, and patients may remain in them until they learn how to live on their own.

The Young Adult Shared Apartment Program is part of DMH’s Specialized Rehabilitative Residential Programs, and it is exclusively for clients between the ages of eighteen and rwenty-seven. Residents share an apartment with other roommates, and receive twenty-four-hour counseling and support, including educational and community activities.

Charlie remained in the car. Jess was directed by a very cheerful woman to the third level of rooms, where Dennis Brigham was being introduced to his new surroundings.

The young man was sitting on his bed and a counselor was working with him on tactile impressions, letting him touch and examine the comforter, the pillow, the small study desk that would remain his property through the duration of his stay.

Jess stood in the doorway and studied him. He still had the same red baseball cap yanked down tightly over his head, and his socks were pulled up over his calves. He had been cleanly shaved this morning.

“Hello, Dennis,” she said. “How are you feeling today? I’ve brought you something.”

He cocked his head at her and offered a very wide smile, but she could not tell if he recognized her or not. She kept some respectful distance between them, and held out the fluffy white teddy bear with the red ribbon around its neck. It was the best the Hallmark store had to offer, and though it looked nothing like the one she had given to Sarah, the one Dennis had tried to take from her that day in the playroom, it would have to do.

The counselor, a pleasantly round man in his thirties with glasses and a receding hairline, took the bear from her and put it on the bed. “He’ll need to get used to it,” the man said. “There are a lot of new things in his world these days. We’re working on touch. He’s got a bit of an issue with personal contact.”

“I know,” she said. “I was with him, before. I helped out a little bit at the Wasser’man Facility.”

“Ah, okay. So you do know, then. Would you like a moment with him?”

She nodded. Dennis had picked up the bear and was clutching it to his chest, rocking with it, slowly rocking back and forth.

“Do you love me? Then say it. Saaaayyyy it.”

“I love you, Dennis,” she said. “I’m very sorry about what happened.”

The counselor had been taken by surprise when Dennis picked up the bear so quickly. Clearly there was some connection between the two of them. He watched the worn-looking young woman with concern as tears rolled down her face, made as if to touch her arm, then thought better of it. This one did not look like she liked to be touched either.

He left them alone, closing the door quietly behind him.

A day later, Jess was well enough to be released from the hospital. Otto howled at her when she returned to her apartment, wrapping himself around her legs and purring loudly. Charlie had been good enough to feed him, but he was clearly starving for attention. She gave him enough tight squeezes that he eventually wriggled out of her arms and went stalking off across the floor with his tail held high, as if suddenly offended by such a shameless show of need.

She spent the next two days answering a few more questions from investigators, painting in the eaves by her window, and watching the leaves fall. She was intent upon appearing to the outside world as though she were resuming her routine, and so she went shopping, saw Charlie for lunch, and played at the life of a normal twenty-something in the city.

But inside, she was itching to go.

A week after the fire that destroyed the Wasserman Facility, she made a few calls, notifying the school and landlord of her intentions, then packed Otto into the car and delivered him to Charlie, who accepted the burden without a second thought and gave her the information she needed. Jess saw her chance and took it.

The address she had been given was a single-family home in a residential pocket on the outskirts of Framingham, small but carefully kept on a corner lot. Traffic was light in this neighborhood.