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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.

“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.