David Ambrose - Superstition

She pushed through, her clothes and hair snagging on branches. She tugged them free and pressed on, until suddenly she found herself in relatively open space.

A soft carpet of moss and leaves cushioned her feet as she ran. With every step the dog's barking and the angry voices of the two cops grew fainter in the distance.

Sam walked into the lab and glanced around at the various open doors and lighted rooms beyond. He had prepared himself for this as far as possible, despite his fears of what he might find. He knew only that he was deep into uncharted waters, and reminded himself for the hundredth time that afternoon that, as a scientist, it was his job to chart them. He must hang on to that thought at all cost; it must be his anchor and his sanity.

Peggy looked up from the computer she was working at and smiled a greeting, then paid him no more attention as he crossed to the door that led to the cellar and Adam's room. He tried the handle. It was locked, but the key that was in the lock turned easily. He pulled open the door, felt for the light switch, and went down the stairs.

Despite the fact that he had half expected it, the shock of what he found at the bottom was still hard to absorb. The cellar was the same old junkyard of discarded furniture and obsolete equipment that it had been months earlier when the Adam experiment was first mooted. It was as though the intervening time, and everything associated with it, had been wiped out.

Yet he, Sam Towne, still survived. And so did his memory of what had happened. How could that be? Why? Was there some reason for it, some purpose? Or was he by now merely part of a process that was not yet over but soon would be, leaving him…where?

That these were questions without answers was no reason to not ask them. There was some quotation echoing at the back of his mind that he couldn't quite place, about how man must assume that the incomprehensible is ultimately comprehensible-or else abandon all attempts to understand the universe and his place in it. Goethe, perhaps. It didn't much matter. The notion was a simple truth that every scientist lived by, and which he more than most had been brutally reminded of in these last days and hours.

“Are you looking for something?”

He jumped at Peggy's voice on the stairs behind him.

“Not really,” he said, turning to her. “Just thinking.”

He continued looking at her, then said, “That name, the woman who called-Joanna Cross-still doesn't mean anything to you?”

Peggy seemed to search her memory for a moment, then shook her head. “Sony, I can't place her. Is she one of our volunteers or something?”

It was impossible to suspect that this was some kind of joke or game that she was playing.

“Yes…yes,” he said vaguely, “she was involved in one of our programs.”

He started for the stairs. “Come back upstairs, Peggy. I want to talk to all of you. It'll only take a couple of minutes.”

Tania Phillips, Brad Bucklehurst, and Jeff Dorrell were there. Bryan Meade, Peggy said, was off somewhere checking out some new piece of equipment he'd heard about. They all assembled in the open area in the center of the lab. Sam had already rehearsed in his mind how he was going to do this. On the way over he had decided it would be the second thing that he would do, after checking on Adam's room as he just bad.

“I'm going to ask you all a few questions,” Sam began. “I'm not going to tell you why or say anything about what's behind them. And I don't want you to ask me.”

“Will you tell us later?” The question came from Brad Bucklehurst. It was just an amiable inquiry, not challenging the rules in anyway.

“I may,” Sam said. “It depends how things work out. The first thing I want to know is whether the name Joanna Cross means anything to any of you.”

He gave Peggy a little sign to say nothing and let the others answer. They all shook their heads, shrugged, murmured, No, they didn't think so.

“Okay,” Sam said. “And Peggy, I know the name still means nothing to you other than that she called up this afternoon-right?”

“Right.”

“Next, how about Ward Riley? Does that name ring any bells for anybody?”

He watched as they exchanged looks, shook their heads, said no, they didn't think so. All except Peggy, who said, “I remember Ward Riley. He made several very generous contributions to our research funds, including a bequest when he died.”

Sam looked at her. “When did he die?”

She returned his gaze, puzzled. “You know perfectly well when he died.”

“When, Peggy?” he repeated.

“Spring, early April.”

“How did he die?”

“Sam, what's all this about…?”

“Please, Peggy, just do it my way.”

“He jumped from a window of his apartment in the Dakota Building. Nobody knew why. You were shocked, you couldn't understand it. We talked about it.”

“All right,” Sam said quietly, “thank you, Peggy. Now, the next name is Roger Fullerton. Does anybody know who Roger Fullerton is?”

This brought a chorus of response. They all knew who Roger Fullerton was. How could they not, he was world famous? They also knew that Sam had studied under him at Princeton.

“But he died this year, too, didn't he?” Jeff Dorrell asked.

“Aren't you sure?” Sam said, looking at him.

Jeff gave a slight shrug. “I'm fairly sure. Now that's odd-you'd think I'd be sure whether or not somebody like Roger Fullerton had died. Actually I know he did-I just can't remember when I heard it.”

Sam didn't pursue the question for the moment. Instead he continued with the list he had prepared in his mind. “Okay, who knows Drew and Barry Hearst?”

Again there was an affirmative response from everyone. Drew and Barry had been volunteers in a number of experiments, particularly the remote viewing ones with Brad and Tania.

“But they died,” Tania said, looking at Sam with a marked degree of suspicion now. “They were killed in a car crash about three months ago.”

“Maggie McBride?” Sam said.

Hers too was a name they recognized. Maggie had worked on remote viewing and several of the PK tests. “But I haven't seen her in a long time,” Tania said.

“And I'm afraid you won't,” Peggy added, her gaze too now fixed on Sam. “I got a note from Maggie's daughter just recently to say she'd passed away-a heart attack. I know I told you that, Sam.”

He made no comment, just went on. “What does the name Pete Daniels mean to any of you?”

This too brought a general response. They'd all known Pete.

“What is this, Sam?” Brad Bucklehurst said. “Some kind of obituary game or what? Why are you asking about all these people who've died?”

Sam held up a hand. “Please…I warned you I wouldn't say why I was asking. Just tell me about Pete, who he was, when and how he died.”

“He joined us about two years ago,” Brad said. “Worked as your personal assistant for six, seven months, then got knifed in some street fight. We never did get to the bottom of it. I was here when the police called. You went to the morgue to identify him. You can't have forgotten that.”

Again Sam made no comment. “Finally, Adam Wyatt,” he said, and looked around at them one by one. “Does the name Adam Wyatt mean anything to any of you?”

Blank faces gazed back at him, lips were pursed, heads shaken. The name meant nothing.

Sam was silent a moment. Then he pushed himself up off the arm of the chair where he'd been perched. “All right, that's it-thank you, everybody.”

True to their agreement, nobody asked questions or pressed for explanations. They all went back to what they had been doing, though full of curiosity and speculation among themselves.