John Saul - Shadows

Nevertheless, he added another mental note to his list of things to attend to later on.

Check with Hildie, and find out what’s going on with Adam .

“What’s going on with Adam?” Josh asked that night. It was an hour after dinner, and he was in Jeff Aldrich’s room, working out a problem in trigonometry that had stumped him. Amy Carlson, who had come with him, was flopped on Jeff’s bed, a history book open in her lap. As Josh asked the question, she looked up from her reading to hear Jeff’s reply.

Jeff, who had been concentrating on the computer monitor on his desk, turned to peer at Josh. “Maybe,” he began, his voice dropping into the same mysterious tone he’d used when he was telling ghost stories at the picnic the previous weekend, “he’s seen Mr. Barrington.”

Josh groaned. “Come on, man. That’s such a lie! There’s no such thing as ghosts.”

“Really?” Jeff drawled. “You mean you haven’t heard him at all?”

Josh frowned suspiciously, remembering once again what Jeff had told him about Timmy Evans. “Heard what?”

“The elevator,” Jeff intoned, making the word itself sound ominous. “Sometimes, late at night, you can hear it running, but if you go to look, it’s not moving, and there’s no one in it”

Amy, her eyes wide, gazed raptly at Jeff. “Then if it’s not the elevator, what is it?” she asked.

Jeff’s eyes shifted from Josh to Amy, and bored into her. “It’s like I told you at the picnic,” he whispered. “It’s old Eustace Barrington, creeping around the house at night, looking for the people who killed his son. Or maybe,” he added, deliberately edging his voice with menace, “he’s really looking for his son!”

Josh swallowed the lump that had risen in his throat. “Wh-What son?” he asked, his voice catching despite his efforts to control it. “You said the boy might not even have existed!”

“But he did,” Jeff declared, returning his gaze to Josh. “He disappeared when he was five years old, and nobody ever saw him again or found his body. No one knows what happened to him. But they say he died in this house, and the old man’s still here, looking for the people who killed him. And maybe that’s why Adam’s acting so weird. Maybe he’s seen Mr. Barrington! Maybe,” he added, “just maybe, Timmy Evans saw him, too!”

“Come on,” Josh protested, trying to shake off the chill that had gripped him. “Don’t ten Amy stories like that! You’ll scare her!”

“Her?” Jeff echoed. “What about you? You look pretty scared. And maybe the story’s true.”

“Who’s Timmy Evans?” Amy demanded, then listened, entranced, as Jeff repeated what he’d told Josh a few days earlier. “What if it’s true?” Amy whispered when Jeff was finished. “Adam was acting really strange today. Could he really be afraid of a ghost?”

Jeff shrugged. “Don’t ask me. Nobody ever knows what goes on with Adam. Sometimes he just gets real quiet.”

“He wasn’t quiet today,” Josh told him. “He talked back to Mr. Conners.”

Now Jeff turned to look at Josh. “Aw, come on,” he said. “Adam? He wouldn’t talk back to anyone.”

“Well, he did this morning,” Josh shot back. He told Jeff what had happened in the English class that morning. “What’s he doing with Dr. Engersol?” he asked when he was finished.

When Jeff hesitated, Amy glared at him. “What is it? Some kind of big secret?” she demanded.

“It’s a special seminar,” Jeff replied. “It’s about artificial intelligence.”

“There isn’t any such thing as artificial intelligence,” Amy announced with the absolute certainty of her ten years. “There can’t ever be, until someone figures out how people think. And so far, nobody has.”

“Yeah?” Jeff teased. “What makes you so sure?”

“I read about it,” Amy replied. “In Scientific American . It was all about what they’re trying to do at Stanford and M.I.T. and all those places. So far, they can’t even make a computer think of putting on a raincoat if it’s raining outside.”

Josh giggled. “So what? Computers don’t go outside.”

Amy rolled her eyes. “I mean if they did. Besides, it wasn’t like it was anything real. It’s just one of the things they were trying to do to get the computer to think. And it couldn’t.”

“But it’s what we’re working on,” Jeff retorted. “Dr. Engersol’s trying to figure out how people think, and if he does, it’s going to change everything.”

Amy frowned curiously. “So what was Adam doing this morning?”

Jeff’s brows lifted and his air of mystery returned. “It’s a secret,” he said. “Nobody in the class tells anyone what we’re doing. I shouldn’t have told you as much as I did.”

Amy rolled over. “That is so stupid. I don’t believe you. I bet if I asked Adam, he’d tell me.”

Jeff’s lips twisted into a knowing sneer. “Bet he wouldn’t.”

The three kids immediately trooped over to the room next door, where Adam was sitting at his computer, the helmet of his virtual reality setup on his head, the glove on his right hand.

Jeff, signaling Josh and Amy not to say anything, moved to the computer and glanced at the screen. Then he picked up the microphone that sat on his brother’s desk, pressed the button on its side and whispered into it.

“I’m here, Adam. I’m here, and I’m watching you.”

Adam froze, then jerked off the helmet, glaring at his brother. “What the hell do you want?” he demanded.

“Hey,” Jeff told him. “Chill out, huh? We just wanted to talk to you for a minute.”

Adam noticed Josh and Amy standing uncertainly near the door. “I’m busy,” he said. “Couldn’t you see my door was closed?”

“We just wanted to ask you what your class with Dr. Engersol is about,” Josh told him, already edging toward the door. “What’s wrong with you, anyway? How come you’re acting so weird?”

A guarded look crossed Adam’s face, then disappeared as quickly as it had come. “I–I’m okay,” he stammered. “I’m just busy with something, all right?”

“But what?” Amy asked. “What’s that helmet thing?”

Adam licked his lips nervously, his eyes flicking toward his brother. “It’s something Dr. Engersol gave me,” he said.

“Why don’t you tell her?” Josh asked. “You showed it to me the other day.” He turned to Amy. “It’s called a virtual reality helmet. When you put it on, it shows you things on a screen, but it looks just like you’re really seeing them.”

“Really?” Amy asked. “Can I try it?”

“No!” Adam shouted.

Amy, smarting from the rebuff, glared at him. “Well, who wants to see your stupid helmet? I’m leaving!”

Turning on her heel, she stamped out of the room, while Josh eyed Adam curiously. He’d never acted like this before. Until today, he’d always been quiet, letting Jeff speak for him most of the time, and he’d always been nice. “You didn’t have to be mean to her,” he began, but Adam cut him off.

“And I didn’t invite her in here, either, did I? Or you. So why don’t you just go with your girlfriend and leave me alone?”

Josh felt himself turning red. “All right, I will,” he said, wheeling and stomping out of the room, slamming the door behind him.

When Josh was gone, Jeff gazed steadily at his brother. “Is it going to be tonight?” he asked.

Adam shrugged uncertainly. “I don’t know. It might be. I haven’t decided yet.”

Jeff’s eyes hardened. “Well, when are you going to decide?”

Adam dropped down in the chair in front of his desk, avoiding his brother’s gaze. “I don’t know,” he said. “I–I don’t even know if I want to go yet.”