John Saul - Shadows

Dover stared at the boy. “The vents? A generator? What are you talking about?”

“He killed them!” Josh shouted, almost hysterical now. “Don’t you understand? That’s how he killed them!”

“Take it easy, Josh,” Dover broke in. “Let me make a call, and then I’m going down there.” Flipping his radio out of the holster on his belt, he spoke quickly, asking for three ambulances and more officers. “I don’t know what’s going on yet, but I’ll get back to you in a few minutes.” Putting the radio back on his belt, he started toward the elevator.

“I’m coming, too,” Josh announced.

Dover stared at the little boy. “Son, I don’t think—”

“Amy’s down there,” Josh said, his face setting stubbornly. “She’s my friend, and she saved my life. Hildie was going to kill me, and Amy stopped her. Now I have to help her!”

Dover thought it over quickly. The boy had already seen what was down there, and he didn’t have time to argue with him. Besides, Josh seemed to know what had been going on in the lab. He made up his mind. “All right,” he said. “Come on.”

The elevator descended slowly. Josh, standing silently next to Alan Dover, unconsciously slipped his hand into the sergeant’s, who squeezed it reassuringly.

The elevator came to a stop and the doors slid open.

“Jesus,” Dover muttered as he stepped out of the car and saw Jeff Aldrich’s body lying just inside the laboratory door.

With Josh following behind him, Dover went into the lab, quickly stooping to check both Jeff Aldrich and George Engersol for signs of life.

Both of them were dead.

Turning away from the two bodies, Dover gazed at the smashed tank and the mass of tissue that lay on the floor amidst the broken glass. Then his eyes shifted to the other tank, and the strange-looking object inside it.

A brain.

A human brain, suspended in some kind of fluid, a maze of wires sprouting from its cortex; tubes and more wires protruding from the arteries, veins, and nerve cord at its base.

A shiver passed through him as he scanned the complicated machinery surrounding the tank. A small pump was running steadily, and on a monitor above the tank the activity of the brain in the tank was still displayed.

Beneath the monitor a neat placard identified the brain waves it was tracking:

AMY CARLSON

A wave of nausea swept over Dover, but he managed to control it. “It isn’t possible,” he breathed, not even aware he’d spoken aloud.

“It’s just like the class,” Josh whispered.

“The class?” Dover asked, looking down at the boy standing next to him. “What class is that, Josh?”

Josh’s eyes never left the monitor as he spoke. “Dr. Engersol’s class. The seminar on artificial intelligence. W-We were monitoring a cat’s brain.” He fell silent, staring at the monitor.

Amy?

Could it really be Amy?

He wanted to cry, but clamped down on the sob that rose in his throat, threatening to choke him. “Sh-She’s not dead,” he whispered. “It’s just like I said. She’s still alive.”

Dover hesitated. “Josh, do you know how to work this computer? Can you shut it down?”

For the first time Josh’s eyes left the monitor, and he gazed up at the police officer. “Shut it down?” he asked. “B-But if we shut it down, Amy will die.”

Alan Dover squeezed Josh’s arm reassuringly. “She’s already dead, son,” he said. “She must be.”

Josh shook his head adamantly. “She’s not dead,” he insisted. “Look at the monitor. If she was dead, there wouldn’t be any brain waves. And they’re not even flat. It’s like …” He cast around in his mind. “It’s like she’s asleep or something! M-Maybe I can talk to her. Maybe I can wake her up!”

“Son, that’s just plain—”

“I have to try!” Josh exclaimed.

As Josh went to the keyboard and began exploring the programs that were not only keeping Amy alive, but had allowed Engersol to communicate with her, Dover picked up the phone that hung on one wall of the lab, knowing that this far below the surface of the ground, and surrounded by concrete, his radio would be useless.

“Phil?” Dover said when the desk sergeant at the police station answered his phone. “You know where Amy Carlson’s folks are staying?”

“Don’t have to ask,” Phil Rico replied. “They’re here, wanting to know what we’re doing about their daughter.”

Dover sighed. “Have someone bring them over here, Phil. It — Well, it seems like maybe their daughter isn’t dead.”

There was dead silence from the other end. Then: “Don’t jerk my chain, Dover!”

“Just do it, Phil,” Dover replied. He hung up the phone, then returned to Josh. He stared uncomprehendingly over the boy’s head at the computer screen, feeling more useless than he ever had before in his life.

Frank Carlson maneuvered his rented Toyota into a narrow space next to the police car that had escorted them up to the Academy. Two ambulances were already there, and though he switched off the engine, he made no move to get out of the car. Instead he gazed mutely at the crowd that had gathered in front of the mansion. Margaret, sitting next to him, slipped her hand into his.

“What’s happening?” she whispered. “Why are there ambulances here? What’s going on?”

Was it really less than half an hour ago that they had gone into the small Barrington Police Department to demand more information from the team investigating Amy’s death? All day yesterday they had agonized alone, asking themselves what they could accomplish by staying in Barrington. Margaret, still numb from the shock of her daughter’s death, had wanted to go home. “It won’t bring her back, Frank,” she said over and over again. “Even if they find that teacher, it won’t change anything.”

“We can’t just go home,” Frank had argued. “That son of a bitch might still be alive! And if he is, I want to see him! I want to hear him admit that he killed my daughter!”

That morning, Margaret had given in, and they’d gone to the police department to find out what progress had been made. But as they were talking to the detective in charge of the case, the sergeant on duty had interrupted them, sending them here.

“Talk to Sergeant Dover. Alan Dover. He’ll tell you what’s going on.”

Now, as they sat in the car watching the crowd in front of the Academy, a terrible sense of apprehension came over them. What did the ambulances and squad cars have to do with them?

Or with Amy?

“Are you going to be all right?” Frank asked his wife.

Margaret took a deep breath, then nodded. “I think so.” Steeling herself for whatever might be about to happen, she got out of the car and started toward the murmuring throng.

“Dr. Engersol’s dead!” she heard someone say.

“So’s Hildie Kramer,” someone else replied. “They found her in some kind of lab that no one even knew was there!”

Dead? Dr. Engersol and Hildie Kramer? Margaret heard the words, but they meant nothing to her. The Carlsons threaded their way through the crowd as quickly as they could, finally coming to the steps that led up to the loggia. A police officer blocked them from going farther. “Sorry, sir. Nobody’s allowed in the building right now.”

“I’m looking for Sergeant Dover,” Frank told him. “We’re Amy Carlson’s parents.”

The officer murmured into his radio for a moment, then turned back to them. “He’ll meet you in Engersol’s apartment. On the fourth floor.”

Nodding, Frank and Margaret Carlson moved into the building and started up the stairs. When they stepped through the door of George Engersol’s apartment, Margaret gasped and Frank instinctively put his arm around her.