Christa Faust - Fringe The Zodiac Paradox

The walkie-talkie in her purse crackled with static, causing her to jump, startled. Then Leslie’s voice.

“Nina? Nina, do you read me?”

She took out the unit with her left hand and keyed the mike.

“Everything okay, Leslie?”

“We’re in place,” she said. “I didn’t think we were going to make it, but we’re in place here at the parking lot. Ready when you are.”

Nina looked at the walkie-talkie in one hand and the gun in the other. No point scaring the students. Their only option was to proceed as if everything was normal. Stick to the plan.

“Roger that, Leslie,” she said into the mike. “Get your equipment set up, and begin the synchronization.”

“You got it,” Leslie said. “Over.”

Nina hoped she was doing the right thing. She put the walkie-talkie back into her purse.

That’s when she was grabbed from behind, the cold blade of a knife biting into the exposed flesh of her throat.

“Drop the gun, sweetheart,” the killer whispered, his breath hot against her ear.

47

“What are we going to do?” Walter asked.

Before Bell could answer, he heard a sharp piercing whistle. When he turned toward the sound, he saw Nina’s pale face in the lower corner of a partially boarded window. Her expression was masklike and unreadable. Then Walter noticed the gloved fist twisted into her red hair, and the knife pressed against her throat.

“He wants you to come inside,” Nina called, lips barely moving, her voice a flat monotone.

Bell took a step toward the building, hands clenched into shaking fists, but Walter gripped his shoulder.

“If we do what he says,” Walter said, “what’s to stop him from killing Nina? Once he has us, he won’t need her any more.”

“But what other choice do we have?” Bell asked through gritted teeth. “The bastard has the upper hand here.”

The walkie-talkie in Walter’s bag crackled and squawked.

“Nina?” It was Kenneth. “Nina do you copy?”

Walter dug out his unit and fumbled with it for a moment. It seemed to have far too many buttons, many of which were weirdly organic looking, like clusters of shiny spider eyes.

Bell snatched it out of his hand and hit the button.

“Bell here,” he said. “What is it?”

“A bunch of black Fords just pulled up behind us on Kezar,” Kenneth said. “And a bunch of guys in suits got out. I’m pretty sure they’re feds, and they’re headed your way!”

“Copy that,” Bell said. “Stick with the plan, no matter what. Do you hear me?”

“Will do,” Kenneth said. “Good luck.”

Walter looked back through the trees and saw the agents headed their way, but there seemed to be thousands of them moving in robotic lockstep, like mechanical Nazis. This was really the worst possible time to be tripping.

“They’re coming, Belly,” he said. “We have to go into the building, like it or not. This is our last chance before the feds turn this whole thing into a fiasco.”

Resigned and resolved, the two of them ran for the hole in the fence.

“Attention team leaders,” Bell said into the walkie-talkie. “Tell your subjects to visualize a gate, and to open it! Do you copy?”

“Copy,” Kenneth replied. “A gate.”

“Will do,” Leslie said.

“Got it,” May said.

“And stand by with the tranquilizers,” Bell said, folding his long body nearly in half to squeeze through the slit in the fence. “Be ready to stop the trip if I tell you to do so. Over and out.”

Walter followed Bell through the hole, but when he looked back at the feds, he saw Latimer front and center.

Worse, Latimer saw him.

Or did he? Was Latimer even there at all, or just a figment of his chemically enhanced perception?

There was nothing to do about that now, though. Either the man was there, or he wasn’t. And he would either catch them, or he wouldn’t. They had no choice but to try and go through with the experiment. Stick to the plan, and hope they weren’t too late to save Nina.

When Walter caught up, Bell had pried a loose board off one of the windows and was climbing through. The remaining boards looked disturbingly skin-like, and the hole Bell was crawling into seemed like a giant wound. Its edges oozed and pulsated, making Walter pull back with disgust.

“Come on,” Bell’s voice called from inside. “Hurry!” So Walter closed his eyes and climbed into the gaping wound, trying not to notice how feverish and slick the edges felt.

Inside the dim, char-stinking interior of the burnt-out building, Walter felt completely disoriented. He could no longer trust anything he was seeing, but he definitely didn’t see any sign of the killer—or Nina. Although in his current state, that didn’t mean they weren’t there.

Then he heard the killer’s voice.

“Here we all are,” he said. “Just like old times.”

The stocky man with the reddish-brown crew cut stepped out of the gloom and into a shaft of light that streamed through the broken roof. He was like an actor taking the stage, arm around Nina’s neck and the knife pricking the skin beneath her left ear. A trickle of blood seemed to flow out into the air between them, floating in weightless globules. A gory lava lamp.

“Okay,” Bell said, palms held up and out. “Okay, just take it easy.”

“Tell me,” Zodiac said, “since I just can’t seem to figure it out. Which one of you is nailing her?”

The killer turned Nina’s body toward Walter, then toward Bell.

“Ah,” the killer said to Bell. “It’s you, isn’t it? But...” He leaned in over Nina’s shoulder, squinting. “It’s not just that, is it? You’re not in love—no, this is much more... complicated. Mmmmmm.” He pressed the knife harder into Nina’s neck, eliciting a stifled hiss and a more vigorous flow of blood. “I can’t wait to see how you react when you watch her die.”

“Wait,” Bell said, taking a cautious step forward. “The FBI is on our heels. They’ll be in here any minute. If you kill her, you won’t have a hostage to use when you negotiate with them.”

“Nice try,” the killer said. “But I don’t need this bitch as a hostage. The FBI, they know me. They know what would happen if they hurt me.” He waved his left hand in an expansive circle. “I’m holding this whole park hostage!” He grabbed a fist full of Nina’s hair and cranked her head back, stretching her pale throat taut. “Say goodbye, sweetheart.”

“No!” Bell cried.

A sharp crack sounded in the hollow space, and for a moment, Walter was sure someone had been shot. Maybe even him.

“Freeze! FBI!”

Bright light washed over Walter and he realized that the door had been kicked in. Three dark, backlit figures stepped into the building, two ahead with guns drawn and one slightly behind. He felt as if he really should do something about this turn of events, but nothing was coming to mind. In fact, he still wasn’t even sure they were real.

But the killer was, and reacted to the arrival of the newcomers far more swiftly and efficiently. He let go of Nina’s hair and drew a gun from his waistband, drawing a bead on the figure in the center.

Having been released, Nina ran to Bell. The two of them seemed to melt into each other like conjoined twins, outlines blurring and blending. Walter shook his head, struggling to keep it together.

“Don’t shoot!” Bell cried. “If you shoot him, you’ll kill us all!”

The dark figure in the center stepped forward, features resolving out of the sticky, viscous light.

Latimer.

“We don’t want to kill you,” he purred, ignoring Bell and approaching the killer with open hands. “We want to give you a job. We have a lot to learn from someone like you.”