Christa Faust - Fringe The Zodiac Paradox

Nina and Bell both nodded, silent and thoughtful.

“What about the psychic bleed through?” Bell asked. “We can’t risk allowing the same kind of deadly telekinetic phenomenon to endanger those innocent people in the park!”

“When you were in the trip,” Walter said, struggling to remember, “didn’t you notice, about a minute after the gate opens, that it starts to grow these... well, tendrils?”

“Yes,” Bell said. “I saw that, too.”

“Well,” Walter said. “I’m almost positive that’s the moment at which the psychic side effects begin to manifest. If we could set up some kind of failsafe that would stop the trip and close the gate the moment those tendrils begin to appear...”

“A valium injection, perhaps,” Bell suggested.

“Yes, that would be perfect,” Walter said.

“Of course,” Nina said, “that leaves us with a pretty short window of time to get the killer through the gate.”

“It’s the only way!” Walter insisted. “We can’t let this monster continue to threaten—or, God forbid—succeed in killing more victims.”

“He’s right,” Bell said.

Nina didn’t respond, but Walter could tell by her grim expression that she agreed.

“We should prepare individual doses of the special blend,” Walter said. “A sugar water suspension, maybe. Simple to hand out and easy to ingest.”

“And we’ll need to borrow additional equipment from Rayley,” Bell said. “Do you think he’ll be amenable?”

“I think we need to get some rest,” Nina said, weary hand over her eyes. “We can head over to the Institute the first thing in the morning.”

36

The drive out to the Institute in Nina’s Beetle was tense and quiet, a weighty sense of anxious expectation like a fourth passenger inside the little car.

There were so many ways their scheme could go apocalyptically wrong, and only one way for it to go exactly right. Walter had been unable to sleep a wink, even though he was so tired he felt as if his eyeballs were made of sand. All he could do was think and rethink the plan, turning it over and over in his mind, searching out flaws and weakness.

Although if he stopped to really think about it, he knew, the whole thing was absolutely crazy. Impossible.

Yet it was their only hope.

When they arrived at the Institute, there was no one at the front desk. Walter couldn’t help but feel a little disappointed that May wasn’t there. They found the good doctor in his lab, brewing herbal tea in a large Erlenmeyer flask. He was wearing nothing but fuzzy pink slippers and boxer shorts under his lab coat.

“Well, isn’t this a nice surprise?” he said with a childlike grin. “Would you like some tea?”

He gripped the neck of the flask with tongs and poured the tea through a strainer, into several small beakers. He handed a beaker to each of them and then took one for himself.

“Now, to what do I owe this pleasure?” he asked.

After much debate, the three of them had agreed to let Nina do the talking this time, since they already had an existing friendship, and Nina was by far the most socially adept out of the three.

“We’ve been getting the most extraordinary results in our early trials of the psychic biofeedback alpha-wave theory,” she said.

“Is that right?” Doctor Rayley said, leaning one hip back against a tall stool and taking a sip of his tea. “Do tell.”

“Fascinating stuff,” Nina said. “We’ve been able to achieve near perfect synchronization within a dual-subject model. Including several verifiable incidents of parallel ideation.”

“Why, that’s wonderful,” Doctor Rayley said.

“Isn’t it?” Nina smiled over the rim of her beaker of tea, turning up the charm.

“So what’s your next step?” Doctor Rayley asked. “Something on a larger, more ambitious scale perhaps?”

“Exactly,” she agreed. “We have a plan worked out for a large scale, wide-ranging experiment that, if successful, could very well shatter all preconceived notions of human brain function. But...” She batted her lashes, going in for the kill. “But where could we possibly find such a large number of appropriate and willing subjects?”

Walter took a swallow of the strange, medicinal tasting tea to cover his excitement. Nina was playing this brilliantly. Setting Rayley up to think helping them was his idea.

“Why, my morning class on nurturing bio-spiritual wholeness has more than a dozen students,” Rayley replied. “Bright, young, and open-minded, every one of them. I’m sure you could find plenty of willing volunteers from within that group.” He winked and patted Nina’s arm. “I’ll tell them it’s an extra credit assignment. You three are welcome to sit in on the class. It starts in about thirty minutes.”

“Jeremey, you’re the best,” Nina said, leaning in to kiss his cheek. “Thanks!”

Rayley flushed and grinned.

“My pleasure, my dear,” he said. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to prepare my notes for the class. Help yourself to any parts or equipment you may need for your experiment. And have some more tea, if you like. It’s specially formulated to encourage digestive regularity.”

Walter frowned into his beaker as Doctor Rayley shuffled off into another room. Bell arched an eyebrow. Nina smiled and held out her open hands.

It almost seemed as if they could do this.

* * *

While Bell stayed in the lab to make the necessary adjustments to the various machines, Walter sat in on Doctor Rayley’s lecture.

Rayley seemed like a genuinely decent, intelligent, and progressive man, full of controversial ideas and bold, thought-provoking theories. But his teaching style left something to be desired. He seemed to wander aimlessly from one topic to another, motivated by pathways of internal logic unfathomable to anyone but himself.

Whenever he seemed about to touch on a topic of particular interest, such as the role of putative neurotransmitters like dopamine and serotonin in empathic spiritual bonding, he would become sidetracked by some irrelevant tangent, and end up talking about the health risks of wearing pants that were too tight.

So Walter found his mind worrying at the details of their plan, like a dog chewing a bone. Thinking and rethinking every detail they had mapped out, and searching for weaknesses. All he succeeded in doing was increasing his anxiety.

The lecture just went on and on, and even though the Zodiac wouldn’t be anywhere near that park for more than another two hours, every passing second felt excruciating.

He tried to distract himself by studying the faces of the students in the large round lecture hall. It seemed like an interesting and intelligent group. A little bit more than half male, almost all college age, all white with the notable exception of the lovely May Zhang, who was taking dutiful notes in the far corner.

She was wearing a dress instead of the pant suit Walter had seen her in before. Her legs seemed too delicate for the clunky brown boots she was wearing. She didn’t seem to notice him, as she was completely engrossed in Doctor Rayley’s baffling lecture.

“So in closing,” Doctor Rayley said, “using biospiritual connectivity to stimulate the production of empathy inducing neurochemicals is the only viable way to break through the jaded modern malaise, and know the kind of pure and unadulterated love for which the human brain was intended. For you see, we must never stop learning, never stop questing into the heart of the mysterious and unknowable.

“And so I leave you with a quote from the great Albert Einstein. ‘The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious.’”

The members of the class gathered their books, stood, and had begun breaking into small, chatting groups when Rayley waved his hands in the air. Bell appeared in the doorway that led to the lab, wiping his hands on a rag.