Christa Faust - Fringe The Zodiac Paradox

“How was the lecture?” he asked Walter.

“Interesting,” Walter replied. “But a little frustrating. I think—”

“Ah yes, just a moment class!” Doctor Rayley called, cutting Walter off. “If I could just have your attention for one more minute.”

The students quieted down and turned back to him.

“An esteemed colleague of mine is visiting from... MIT, is it? Yes, yes, that’s it. Anyway, he’s been conducting some fascinating experiments involving alpha wave synchronization and telepathy.” Rayley paused dramatically, letting the word telepathy resonate through the lecture hall. “He’s had some truly extraordinary results. Just extraordinary. So, without further ado, please welcome Walter Bishop.”

Walter looked around, startled. He hadn’t been expecting to be called upon to speak, and had nothing prepared. Nina gave him an encouraging smile as he shuffled nervously up to the front of the room.

“Um...” He stuffed his hands in his pockets. “Thank you, Doctor Rayley. I... we... well, that is to say...”

Pull yourself together, Walter, he told himself. Everything is riding on this.

He cleared his throat and took his hands out of his pockets.

“We’re looking for participants in an important experiment,” Walter said. “Nine bright, open-minded people who want to be a part of neurochemical history. This isn’t just hyperbole, I assure you, we are attempting something that has never been done before. We will be using a combination of hallucinogenic chemicals and biofeedback technology to link multiple minds in multiple locations. If you are intrigued, please join my colleagues and me in the lab for a complete briefing.

“Thank you.”

To Walter’s surprise, the first person to approach him was May.

“I’ll admit,” she said, “I’m intrigued. Where do I sign up?”

Looking at her, with her charming gap-toothed smile and clunky boots, Walter felt deeply conflicted. Of course, he would love to work with her, to get to know her better. But involving her in this deeply dangerous endeavor made him feel queasy. As did the realization that if he didn’t want to involve someone he liked in this experiment, how could he with good conscience involve anyone at all.

After all, human beings aren’t lab rats, to be used, tested, euthanized, necropsied, and disposed of, he thought to himself. Didn’t May and her fellow students deserve to know what they were really getting into?

Looking over at Bell, Walter knew what his friend would say. Bell would say that they needed to think of the Zodiac’s victims, that sometimes sacrifice was necessary to defeat a greater evil.

And he was probably right, but that didn’t make Walter feel any better about it.

37

A small curious group gathered around Walter and May.

“Come on into the lab,” he said, motioning for the students to follow him. Once they were there, Nina counted heads. Amazingly, they managed to gather exactly nine students. Five men and four women.

“Let’s all introduce ourselves first,” May suggested. “Most of you know me already, I’m May Zhang.”

She held her hand out to the man standing at her left. A handsome young man with a scruffy attempt at a mustache, shoulder length dirty blond hair parted on the side and piercing blue eyes.

“Yeah, hey,” he said with a roguish smile that probably got him a lot of action with the ladies. “Gary Keyes.”

“Simon Tausig,” the next man in the circle said. He was British—a dapper, slightly effeminate lad with neat, trendy sideburns and large ears. The man to his left was a quiet, studious type with heavy black glasses and dark hair just starting to recede on his high, round forehead.

“David Zweibel,” he said, eyes on his shoes.

Next up was a skinny and slightly anxious young woman with an unflattering bowl haircut and restless hands.

“Judy,” she said. “Judy Rusk.

“Payton Jarvis,” the next guy said. He looked like any of hundreds of students they might have seen at a American Biochemical Society meeting. Socially inept, questionable hygiene, mismatched socks. Walter liked him immediately.

“Kenneth Van Hoften,” the next guy in the circle announced, barely waiting for Payton to finish before jumping in with his hand out to Walter like a campaigning politician. “But my friends call me Van.” He was expensively dressed, his thick dark hair professionally disheveled. Likely a child of old money, Walter guessed, trying to shake up his square family with drug use and consciousness expansion.

He had a girl with him, a beautiful young thing with a sleek chestnut ponytail and a sensuous mouth. Her body was tall and lean, all legs. That fact was accented by a micro-mini skirt.

“This here is the lovely Miss Susan Keswick,” Kenneth said, as if showing off a new pair of shoes. She smiled gamely, though it was clear that she wasn’t even really sure why she was there, let alone why she had been volunteered to participate in some crazy experiment.

“Leslie Elowitz.” This from the last student, a woman. She said her name like a target shooter cracking a skeet plate in half. Quick, precise, and to the point. She was studying Walter with dark, skeptical eyes behind large round glasses.

Her thick curly brown hair had been unevenly chopped into a shortish non-style that would have been equally forgettable on a man or a woman. She wore no makeup and was dressed in baggy, androgynous clothes, including a frumpy tweed jacket that could have been the twin of Walter’s own beloved Norfolk.

“It’s good to meet you all,” Walter said. “And thank you for agreeing to participate in our experiment today. Time is of the essence in this particular endeavor, so I will get directly to the point.”

He looked over at Doctor Rayley, who winked and grinned.

“To begin, we will divide into four groups of three,” Walter said. “Each group will consist of two test subjects, who will ingest our special hallucinogenic formula, and one team leader, who will act as ground control, monitoring the subjects, communicating with other groups, and taking all precautions to ensure the safety of the subjects.”

Bell stepped up beside Walter.

“The first test group will consist of Walter and me,” he said. “With our associate, Nina Sharp, functioning as control. And, since Doctor Rayley knows you all much better than we do, I will be asking him to choose the members of the other three teams.”

“Ah, yes,” Rayley said. “Excellent. For starters, I would suggest May Zhang, Leslie Elowitz and Kenneth Van Hoften as team leaders.”

Walter glanced over at Kenneth, curious about Rayley’s decision to choose him over, for example, Payton Jarvis, who seemed to be a far more appropriate choice. But Rayley knew his students better than he did, and Walter was always the first to admit that he wasn’t the world’s best judge of character.

“Fine,” Bell said. “Leaders can I have you all here by me, please?”

“As for the rest of the teams,” Rayley said. “Gary and David, you’re with May. Simon and Judy, with Kenneth.”

“Hold on a sec there, doc,” Kenneth said. “I really think Susie should be on my team.”

Rayley shook his head.

“From what I’ve been told, we can’t have a preexisting relationship coloring the results,” he said. “Susan and Payton, you’re with Leslie.”

To Walter’s surprise, Susan gave a thoughtful nod, then walked over to stand beside Leslie. Kenneth looked stricken, as if his cat had just decided to go sit in someone else’s lap.

“Okay, listen up,” Bell said, once everyone had repositioned themselves in their assigned groups. He unfolded a map and spread it open on the table. “Here’s how it’s going to go.”