* * *
When I got out of the car that afternoon I heard what seemed to be a hissing sound. I circled around it looking for a flat tire, and it was only when I heard my name being whispered that I realized what it was. I stepped into the wooded area behind the driveway, where I found Dartmouth and Wang hiding behind an oak tree.
“We’d appreciate it, sir, if you didn’t look our way,” Wang admonished as I stepped toward them. I stopped and pretended to scan the sky for whatever interesting phenomena might have been up there. Two shiny ID badges protruded from either side of the trunk. “We won’t keep you long, doctor,” Dartmouth whined. Added Wang: “We just need to know what time we should send over our neurobiologist on Wednesday.”
“I’m sorry,” I told him, “but something unexpected came up today and I wasn’t able to discuss the matter with fled. I’m not sure she will even be available on Wednesday.”
Wang’s head poked around the tree, like a turtle with a wooden shell. “Can’t you put a lid on her?” he politely snarled. “We may not have much time.”
I wasn’t about to ask why the rush, perhaps because I didn’t want to hear the answer. “I need to wrap up some things with her on Wednesday, and if she shows up I’ll definitely schedule your guy for Friday morning unless there’s an unavoidable conflict. Fair enough?”
Dartmouth whined again. Wang just stared at me. Somehow he brought to mind a vicious dog a neighbor once had. Dartmouth, on the other hand, reminded me of Goofy.
“Can you tell me his name? I’ll need to clear him with security.”
Both of them jumped toward me as if they had been goosed. “He doesn’t have a name,” whispered Wang.
“Huh?”
He snarled again. “It’s classified. But don’t worry—we’ll take care of your security people. And he’ll have a photo ID.”
I forgot myself for a moment and turned to face him. “Without a name on it.”
“That’s correct, sir. And may I say that our military people are very interested in what our man learns about her. Now, doctor, would you mind turning around again?”
I presumed they wanted to slip silently away. Instead, I heard the government boys crunching through last autumn’s leaves, Dartmouth grunting and crashing as he fell and got up again. Finally, after several noisy minutes, they were gone.
Neither had mentioned the upcoming magazine interview or television show. I wondered whether their sources knew about them.
* * *
I had planned to spend the rest of the afternoon catching up on e-mail, but when I signed on I was surprised to find more than a hundred messages asking for further information about fled—in particular, what brought her to Earth, when she was going back to K-PAX, and did she have room for a couple of passengers. That’s the price you pay for having a website, I reminded myself.
I chose to answer only a token few, those that posed unique or interesting questions for me or fled. For example, one correspondent, who identified himself as a fourteen-year-old boy who wanted to be an animal trainer, asked, CouldIhavefledforapet? A teenage girl said, Imadeadressforfled.WherecanIsendit? An older man: Iwouldliketodancewithfled. An unidentified person: Idon’thavemanyfriends.Couldfledbemyfriend? But the ones that got to me most were from a Palestinian boy and an Israeli girl. Both asked exactly the same question: Canfledtellushowwecanlearntogetalongwitheachother? I forwarded both of these messages to the other correspondent. Perhaps nothing would come of it, but what was there to lose?
Another, an American, requested that I ask fled to stop global warming. I already knew what she would say to that: get a new government, one that gives a fuck.
* * *
That evening we watched the first half of the 2005 version of KingKong, and the rest on the following night. It could’ve been cut by an hour or so, I thought, but it was beautifully photographed, the performances were good (especially that of Kong), and the special effects were outstanding. The thing that made it a truly great film, however, was that it illustrated remarkably well the emotional life of the gorilla, which, if accurate, isn’t much different from our own, really. Even Flower seemed to enjoy it, whining like Dartmouth when Kong was captured by the money-grubbing humans, just as they used to kidnap human slaves. I wondered whether the government boys were somewhere nearby watching it, too.
We had to pause it during the second half to take a call from Will. He reported that the video camera had been set up and all I had to do was turn it on. He even told me where the “hold” button was. “I’d help you get it going, Dad, but I’ve got a group session tomorrow morning.”
I thanked him and assured him that I wouldn’t start the hypnosis unless I was sure I had the camera rolling. “Besides, I’ve got fled to help me if I run into any problems.”
“That reminds me,” he said. “She’s back again. But no bonobos came with her this time.”
I was suspicious. “Anyone else come with her?”
“No, Dad, not as far as I know.”
After I turned him over to Karen, a ridiculous thought occurred to me: couldfled’salteregobethebonobochimpanzeeOkeemon? But I realized, of course, that this was impossible. For one thing, both of them were present in my office at the same time, something that had never happened in the case of prot and Robert (or any other multiple personality patient). Still, where aliens were concerned…
I didn’t much enjoy the movie’s final reel. When Kong was shot down by the military, I wondered whether we might not have seen a preview of fled’s departure from this world.
CHAPTER SIX
We watched the rain dribble down the window in Room 520. “Fled, we need to talk.”
She crunched down on a bunch of carrots. “I’m all ears.”
I couldn’t suppress a laugh.
She chortled, too, and bits of the orange root sprayed from her mouth. “There may be hope for you yet, doctor b!”
“Before we get started, though, just a quick question about a couple of e-mail messages I got the other day.” I related the ones from the Palestinian and Israeli teenagers and asked her what I should tell them.
“Very simple,” she said. “Tell them their governments should refrain from any form of retaliation, regardlessofwhattheothersidedoestothem, for six months. If they find they can’t live without the killing, they should feel free to go back to their plan to wipe each other off the face of the EARTH.”