Christa Faust - Fringe The Zodiac Paradox

He had to keep wiping his face.

Sweat was soaking his collar.

“Paranoia,” he murmured. “I’ve never noticed paranoia as a side effect of our special blend before.”

“It isn’t paranoia if they really are after you,” Bell said with a smirk.

At last they were turning off Fell onto Kezar drive and entering the park, the lush green of the trees and lawns swallowing up the noise and visual chaos of the city and enveloping them in soft shady silence. But what should have calmed him down only made Walter more tense.

They might have escaped the scrutiny of the police, but they were closing in on a much more fearsome adversary, and a much riskier enterprise. Their showdown with the Zodiac was only minutes away. Their chance to get rid of him once and for all. Or perhaps to perpetrate the greatest disaster in San Francisco since the Great Earthquake of 1906.

Kenneth pulled off the road and parked just south of the playground that lay adjacent to the carousel. Walter rose up cautiously and looked around.

“Have we heard from Leslie lately?” he asked.

Nina picked up the walkie-talkie.

“Leslie?” she said. “Report in please.”

Leslie’s voice popped from the speaker.

“Going a bit slow,” she said. “Payton is really feeling the bumps. Don’t know if he’s going to be okay for this.”

“Damn delicate flower,” Nina growled. She keyed the mike. “Well, get there as soon as you can, please. The clock is ticking.”

Bell shook his head.

“Our blend should have no impact whatsoever on the digestive system,” he said. “It has none of the impurities of mushrooms.”

“It’s fear, Belly.” Walter pressed his dry lips together. “Garden variety. I’m feeling pretty sick to my stomach myself.”

* * *

Leslie barreled down Fell Street like a race car driver on speed, pushing the crotchety old van to its limit, swearing out the window and cutting off cars with the horn blaring. Lucky for them, Payton didn’t seem to have anything left inside him to throw up, but he still looked pretty queasy.

To Leslie’s surprise, Susan seemed exhilarated by her aggressive driving, even letting out a little cheer when she finally cut in front of a cigar-smoking cabbie who was being a jerk and wouldn’t let her into the lane. Leslie was even more surprised when Susan gave the cabbie the finger as they passed. Maybe there was hope for her yet.

“I don’t know if this is such a hot idea,” Payton said.

“That milkshake wasn’t such a hot idea,” Leslie snapped. “But you survived, didn’t you?”

“I think this is fun,” Susan said with a big happy grin. “It’s like being in a cool spy movie or something. And I didn’t even want to come to this class in the first place, because I thought it would be boring!” She patted Payton’s arm. “You’ll be okay. Just visualize peace inside your stomach, like Doctor Rayley says.”

“Uh... okay,” he said with a wan smile. “You’re probably right.”

Leslie tried not to be bothered by the fact that men always listened to women like Susan, and almost never listened to women like her. There was too much on her mind to let something like that get to her.

She drove into the park, searching for Bowling Green Drive. She’d never driven in the park before, since she normally rode her bicycle everywhere, so she got a little bit flummoxed by the one-way streets. The ticking clock made each minor mistake seem epic, and she hated to make any mistakes in front of Susan. It was important for her be perceived as a strong, competent leader, especially given the stakes of this particular mission.

She forced herself to remain calm and double back without comment, searching for the entrance to the parking lot for the lawn bowling club.

* * *

May parked the station wagon on Stanyan Street. Gary ran around to the back and grabbed the picnic basket containing the biofeedback machine, along with a folded plaid blanket. David just stood quietly waiting at the curb.

“How are you feeling, David?” May asked as they waited for a break in the traffic.

“Good,” David said, a little half smile playing over his lips. “I feel good.”

“I don’t feel good yet,” Gary said. “But we should be feeling good any minute now, right?”

“Right,” May replied, crossing the street and motioning for the two men to follow. “Any minute now.”

The Sharon Meadow wasn’t too crowded when they arrived. There was a birthday party taking place in the far northern corner, and several trees had been decorated with cheerful, brightly colored balloons and streamers. All the revelers were gathered around a picnic table, clamoring for slices of a large pink cake being doled out by a tiny, grandmotherly woman in a sweater that was almost the exact same color as the cake.

A pretty young woman with a long black braid that hung nearly to the backs of her knees played fetch with a brindle Boxer puppy. An earnest young Latino man was playing an acoustic guitar while two female friends sang in harmony. On the far southern end, a young couple was enthusiastically making out on a blanket, willfully oblivious to everyone else in the park. The wide center of the meadow was basically empty, with the majority of the population sticking to the shady parts.

It wasn’t a ton of people, but there were more than May might have preferred. In fact, a public park seemed like a pretty risky place for a dangerous experiment. If it really was dangerous.

Was this all just part of the test, like the famous Milgram experiment in which students had been told they were delivering painful electric shock to subjects, when in fact they themselves were the ones being studied?

As May and Gary spread out the blanket for the three of them to sit, she could see the burnt-out shell of the Sharon House through the trees, and wondered if Walter and his friends were in place yet. Real or not, dangerous or not, the experiment would begin in just ten short minutes.

45

“Alright,” Bell said to Kenneth. “Are you good to go?”

Kenneth looked a little unsure, but did his best to cover it with a mask of cocky confidence. Judy and Simon sat side by side in the back seat of the bus with the hushed expectation of kids waiting for a puppet show to begin.

Walter checked his watch. In about three minutes, the special blend of acid would be kicking in.

“Excellent,” he said, without much conviction.

“Start the biofeedback machine,” Nina said to Kenneth. “As soon as we’re out of sight.”

“Let’s go,” Bell said. “We have to be in place before the killer arrives.”

He headed north, through the trees, toward the carousel. Nina followed close behind him. Walter cast one last glance back at the bus and its occupants before hustling to catch up.

When the carousel came into view, the three of them paused and hung back, scoping the area for any sign of the killer. The carousel itself was open and running, with a small group of people waiting for the current cycle to end so they could have their turn. The organ music was cheerful and upbeat, accented by excited, high-pitched squeals and laughter. A little less than half of the colorful menagerie animals were occupied.

Beside the carousel stood the Sharon House, a Romanesque stone building stained with soot. It had been closed down and fenced off after a fire gutted the place. Many of its tall arched windows were broken and boarded up. There was a large, charred hole in the north side of the roof.

Just as they suspected, this burnt-out building would be the perfect hiding place for a sniper who wanted to shoot people on the carousel. It was also perfect as the epicenter for their psychic web, a place where they could open the gate in private, away from curious bystanders.