He opened the next cabinet, and he felt a pricking sensation across the back of his neck. Dingdong, collective consciousness calling, he thought. Wasn't there some way of putting a Do Not Disturb sign in his brain? He didn't have time to deal with that stuff right now.
Max heard the click of boot heels coming down the hall, and he realized that the neck prickling wasn't coming from the collective consciousness. It was a response to the fact that he wasn't alone in the apartment.
He swung around. Sheriff Valenti stood there, his eyes hidden by his mirrored sunglasses.
"Oh my God!" Max blurted out. "You scared me."
Valenti smiled.
"I guess you want to know what I'm doing here." Great start, Max, he thought.
Valenti nodded.
"I wanted to check on my boss, Ray Iburg," Max said. "This is his place. When I showed up for work today, the museum wasn't open. So I came up here. Ray gave me a key a while ago."
"Any idea where he is?" Valenti asked. "The museum was closed yesterday, too. I became concerned."
Maybe you should have been concerned before you shot him, Max thought. What was the sheriff's game? Was he trying to figure out if Max knew the truth about Ray? Or had Valenti tortured Michael into telling him that Max and Isabel were the two remaining aliens Valenti had been searching for all these years? Max was getting no clue from Valenti's expressionless face.
"He didn't say he was going out of town or anything," Max answered. His scalp felt all itchy. He wanted to scratch it, but he thought he'd look too nervous. He used both hands to shove his blond hair off his face instead.
"Uh-huh," Valenti answered. "Well, when Mr. Iburg does return, please tell him to check in with me. And if you hear anything, call." He turned and strode out of the kitchen, obviously expecting Max to follow.
He knows more than he's saying, Max thought as he trailed Valenti down the hall. But how much more?
"All right," Dr. Doyle said. "Now I want you to link to Bill and see if you can tell me what his mother looks like."
"Do I get a piece of cheese if I do?" Michael muttered. Adam seemed perfectly happy to do anything the doctor asked. He seemed to believe all the tests were games, just like crazy eights. And why wouldn't he? This was his only reality.
"Are you tired? Do you need a break?" Doyle asked Michael.
"No. Let the games begin," Michael answered.
Michael reached out and touched the arm of Bill, the lucky test subject. He took a few deep breaths as he tried to make the connection. Come on, Bill. Give it up, he thought. Yeah, there. He had it. The images were starting to flow. A spilled glass of orange juice on a tile floor. A geeky teenage Bill trying to pin a corsage on a girl's strapless dress. A casket being lowered into the ground. Yoda.
The images kept speeding by Michael. He'd never tried to pull a specific memory out of anyone's head before, which was what Dr. Doyle wanted him to do. Michael concentrated all his attention on one of the images as it sped by and managed to freeze it.
It was a car. A Plymouth Barracuda. As he studied it, some information came to him. He just knew that the car belonged to Bill's grandmother. He called her Honey because she thought being called Grandma made her sound too old. Honey and Bill had made a trip to Vegas in the Barracuda when Bill was ten and a half. She snuck him into one of the casinos and he won five bucks on a nickel slot machine.
Very nice. Touching. But Michael was supposed to find out what Bill's mother looked like. He released his hold on the image of the car, and the images started streaking by him again. A cat with a torn ear. Sheriff Valenti. An airline flight attendant.
Come on, Mom. Where are you? Michael thought. Then he felt his hand being pulled off Bill's arm. The connection broke.
"Were you able to get a picture of his mother?" Dr. Doyle asked.
Michael shook his head. "I don't control what I see," he answered. He wouldn't mind playing around with this on his own to figure out if there was a way to pull out specific information during a connection, but he wasn't all that eager to give the Project Clean Slate guys any helpful hints about acquiring this technology. If he did, Big Brother wouldn't be satisfied with just watching. Big Brother would start opening up peoples heads and poking around with a stick.
Dr. Doyle made a note on his little pad. "Adam hasn't been able to select the information he receives, either," he said. "I'd like to try the same test again. Except this time I'd like you and Adam to link to each other and then link to Bill."
Adam shot Michael a questioning look. Michael nodded his permission. He didn't want Adam to connect to him again, but he didn't think there was a way around it. If he refused, Daddy Valenti could just strap him to a table and then have Adam connect.
When Adam touched Michael's wrist, the connection was instantaneous, effortless. As soon as the images from Adam started, Michael grabbed Bill's arm, and the images from Bill replaced the ones from Adam.
Okay, we're looking for Bill's mother here, Michael thought. The images from Bill sped by faster and faster until they were a blur of color. Michael couldn't make out anything at all. Then-bam!-one image exploded in front of him, filling his entire field of vision. Hello, Mom.
Information about her started pouring into him. Dr. Doyle broke the connection before he could absorb even a fraction of it.
"She smelled like lemons," Adam announced.
Dr. Doyle shot a look at Bill. "Yeah. She liked this lemon shampoo," Bill confirmed.
Michael felt energized and alert. He had connected with Max and Isabel many times and even used his power at the same time they'd used theirs. But he'd never connected with one of them and then used their combined power. Who knew what they'd be able to do?
"Let's try it again. This time I want you to see if you can get the code to open the door to this lab. Of course, if you do, we'll have to change it." Dr. Doyle gave a little laugh.
You should have your own HBO special, Michael thought. You're a regular laugh riot.
Just as Adam reached for his wrist, the lab door swung open. Sheriff Valenti entered, followed by the girl from the cell across from Michael's. "This is Cameron Winger, the one I told you about," Valenti informed the doctor. "I'm interested in how her parapsychological powers can be used in conjunction with their abilities." He jerked his chin toward Michael and Adam. "I assume you've devised the appropriate tests."
Parapsychological powers. Was that like ESP or what? Michael thought.
"Of course," Doyle answered quickly. "Come over here and sit between Michael and Adam."
"What's their deal?" she asked, glancing at them.
"There's no need for you to speak unless you're asked a direct question," Valenti answered.
"Fine. I'll just squeak once for yes and twice for no. How's that?" Cameron sauntered over and slid into the chair next to Michael. She glanced over at him. "What was your name again? Mickey?"
"Uh-huh. And you're Minnie, right?" he asked.
"No. The Brain. World domination meeting at midnight. My cell," she whispered, leaning a little closer.
He caught the scent of something familiar. What was it? He knew he'd smelled it before. The beach, he realized. She smells exactly like the beach. Michael had only been to the beach once in his life. The Evanses took him there on vacation once. The best week of his life. He pulled in a deep breath, trying not to be too obvious about it. Oh, yeah.
"I need to ask you not to talk to each other," Dr. Doyle told them, with an anxious look at Valenti. "I'm going to have you do some telepathy drills, and it will taint the results if you know anything about each other."
"I'll expect a full report on my desk by the end of the day," Valenti told the doctor. He turned and started toward the door.
"Dad!" Adam called out to Valenti excitedly. "Michael and I made a link, then linked to Bill. It only took us two seconds to see his mother."