Christa Faust - Fringe The Zodiac Paradox

Nina came out through the back door of Mrs. Baumgartner’s apartment.

“The paramedics have arrived,” she said. “Want to fill me in on what the hell happened out there?”

Walter looked from Bell to Nina and back again. He nodded.

“Right,” he said. “Let’s go back inside.”

As they stepped in through the back door of Nina’s house, Roscoe and Abby were coming in through the front door.

“Man,” Roscoe said. “Looks like somebody bombed the building next door!”

“I don’t think anybody was hurt,” Abby said, looking back over her shoulder. “But, oh, that poor piano!”

“Crazy, huh?” Nina said, hustling Walter and Bell up the stairs. “We’ll see you later.”

Walter heard Roscoe’s voice echo up after them.

“What’s with them anyway?”

Then Abby’s faint response.

“Are there any more Ding Dongs? Little Bobby is starving.”

Nina shut her bedroom room door and then ran over to the windows, peering out into the street below.

“This formula we’ve created is obviously extremely dangerous, and unpredictable,” Walter said. “I can’t help but wonder if we will be causing more harm than good by continuing to experiment with it.”

“But how else can we hope to send that monster back where he came from?” Bell asked. “I just don’t see any other way.”

“We could just shoot him,” Nina suggested.

“Maybe so,” Walter replied. “But putting aside the moral ambiguities of vigilantism, do we even know that he’s human? Maybe he can’t be killed, in the conventional sense of the word.”

“He definitely seemed human,” Nina said.

“I still think we need to stick to our original plan,” Bell said. “We brought him into this world, it’s up to us to send him away.”

“Walter,” Nina said. “Before all of the craziness, you said you saw the gate, didn’t you.”

“Yes,” he said. “But it was smaller than the first time, and seemed kind of... I don’t know... unstable. I’m fairly certain that, because Belly was distracted and wound up linked with you instead of me, my own chemically enhanced ability wasn’t strong enough to keep it open single-handedly. Or, should I say, single-mindedly?”

“So,” Bell said. “We need to figure out a way to link our minds together deliberately, rather than leaving it to chance.”

“What about some kind of biofeedback?” Nina said. They looked at her, and she continued. “I know a guy doing cutting-edge research on the use of biofeedback to regulate organ function. We should be able to borrow equipment from him.”

“Biofeedback?” Bell grinned. “Yes, yes, a portable biofeedback setup might work as a basis for the type of machine that we would need. We’d need to find a way to synchronize our alpha waves and link our minds together during the trip, so that we can concentrate on holding the gate open long enough to force the killer through.”

“We’ll need to make some slight modifications to the standard rig,” Walter said, grabbing a piece of paper from Nina’s desk and swiftly sketching out a schematic. “See here, if we can eliminate the need for wiring each person in individually, through the use of multi-wave broadcasters like this...”

Nina turned away and began to leaf through the newspaper as Walter and Bell brainstormed ideas. But without warning, she leapt up with a gasp of excitement.

“Guys,” she said. “You need to see this.”

16

With a feeling of apprehension, Walter accepted the paper Nina thrust under his nose.

“Here,” she said, pointing out a classified advertisement about a third of the way down the page. “Look at this!”

“Regarding incident at Reiden Lake,” Walter read out loud, pausing to exchange a significant glance with Bell. “Meet me at the northwest corner of Alamo Square Park at midnight 10/23. Crucial new information has come to light. A friend in the Bureau.”

“A friend in the bureau?” Nina said.

“Iverson,” Walter said.

“Who else could it be?” Bell replied. He looked down at his watch. “But it’s nearly 11:45 now!”

“Right,” Nina said. “Come on!”

They dropped everything and went thundering down the stairs.

“Hey,” Abby said as they barreled past her, holding a large wooden spoon slick with some kind of sauce. “Do you want some...”

Whatever she was offering, they were out the door before she could finish her sentence.

* * *

The small park was bordered by colorful Queen Anne houses and seemed nearly deserted at that hour, except for a single older man in a trench coat and long, bright green plaid scarf, walking a large slobbery sheepdog.

The northwest corner featured a break in the low wall that surrounded the park, marked by a pair of rounded stone posts like silent sentinels. A sloping path, bordered by whispering pine trees and willows, led up into the dark interior.

There was no sign of Iverson.

Walter nervously toed a crushed bottle cap while Bell alternated between scanning the street and looking at his watch. Since Iverson didn’t know Nina, and might be spooked by the presence of a stranger, she had decided to keep an eye on them from her Beetle, parked across the street. Walter couldn’t see her face, just the glowing tip of her cigarette.

“Where is he?” Bell asked.

“Do you think something might have happened to him?” Walter asked anxiously. “Latimer? Or maybe...”

He didn’t finish that sentence, but didn’t need to. He could see that Bell was thinking the same thing.

Had the killer gotten to Iverson somehow? Was yet another person dead because of them?

Still, they waited. A young couple passed them, holding hands, all oblivious dreamy smiles and leaving behind a trail of pheromones. An old Chinese woman passed, going the other way, bundled up against the night like an Arctic explorer on a grim race to the North Pole.

Still no Iverson.

* * *

They waited nearly two hours, but it was becoming increasingly clear that, for whatever reason, he wasn’t going to show.

“Now what?” Walter asked.

Bell shrugged.

“It’s not like we don’t have work to do,” he said. “We still have the deadline from the killer’s notebook. Even though we don’t know the exact date and time of his next murder, we do know that it will be sooner, rather than later.”

“Very well,” Walter said. “Right. So we continue our experiments on getting the gate open and stabilized. But in the meanwhile, we should watch the classifieds, in case Iverson tries to contact us again.”

Walter looked up and down the intersecting streets one last time.

Nothing.

No one.

He couldn’t help but speculate what it was that Iverson wanted to tell them. Some new breakthrough regarding the gamma radiation? Or maybe something to do with the true nature of the killer? Or the nature of the gateway.

Of course, this kind of speculation was a waste of mental energy, and he knew it. All they could do at that point was watch and wait.

The two of them returned to Nina’s Beetle with slumped shoulders and glum expressions.

“What the hell happened?” she asked, flicking the butt of her latest cigarette out the widow to join its slain brothers in a pile on the sidewalk. “Why didn’t he show up?”

“No idea,” Bell answered. “He just didn’t.”

“All we can do right now is go back to your place and get some rest,” Walter said.

“Yeah,” Bell agreed. “I think we’re all feeling a little punchy.”

“All right,” she responded, cranking the ignition and putting the Beetle in gear. “But I don’t like this. It seems, I don’t know. Weird.”

Walter climbed into the back seat, hoping again that Iverson was okay.