“That’s not what’s happening,” Caitlin said. “Anita has seen things… Ben.”
“They saw shadows, they heard your words, your—what, acting out?”
“I cured those kids, Barbara!”
“By getting into their psychoses,” she said. “It was a masterful job of psychiatry. And then it was done.”
“You’re wrong.”
“We all want to support you, Caitlin. You say you destroyed the park. The FDNY says it was underground water and gas lines.”
“Which I broke.”
Barbara sat back. “I’m not going to continue arguing this with you. There’s no point. What you do in the hospital is between you and Dr. Yang. But as much as I find this topic personally fascinating, this approach is not doing you or Jacob any good.”
“Uh huh. And your recommendation?”
“Rest, girl. Those kids a few weeks ago—the situation between India and Pakistan boiling around you? That took a toll.”
Caitlin pouted. It was the only way she could stop herself from screaming.
“How about I do this?” she said, rising. “I’ll send you the recording of the session. Listen to it. Have Ben come over and listen with you. If there’s somewhere, some way, you’re convinced I’ve whiffed, call me. In the meantime, just do me one favor. Please reconsider what you’re doing with your son.”
“Sure.”
“I mean that, Caitlin.”
“I know. And I’ll think about it. I will.” She looked at her friend. “I may not agree with you, but you know how much I respect you.” Caitlin managed a half-smile. “And that’s the last word.”
Barbara gave her a squeeze on the shoulder. Collecting her phone cable, she sent the audio file then left with a little smile and a small wave.
Alone in the hospital room, Caitlin O’Hara knew then that her life would never be the same: to her, Standor Qala, Vilu, Bayarma, Yokane, and Azha seemed more real to her than anyone in her life, other than her son.
Which meant that either she was truly delusional… or two worlds were on the verge of colliding.
CHAPTER 16
Flora Davies gazed at the spot where Adrienne Dowman had been sitting.
All that remained of the young woman was a diploma on the wall and a stiff, blackened corpse on the floor. Strips of burned flesh hung from her bones with red, raw muscle peeking out from beneath. The odor was sinful.
Throughout the experiment, the laboratory associate had sat supernaturally still even as flames started to appear under her clothes. Then, in a flash, a ferocious blaze erupted, consuming her body from sole to scalp. As though entranced, she had not moved, had not cried out, had not even twitched. She just sat there as her flesh bubbled away, as her hair flew off in short-lived flamelets, as her eyes and the insides of her nostrils liquefied and ran down the white bones of her face—the entire process concealed more and more by noxious, oily smoke. It only took seconds for the ruddy fire to finish its job before dissipating.
The laboratory sprinklers had come on as the young scholar burned. The water not only doused the flames, it caused her body to collapse with a soggy crunch by its added weight. The shower also short-circuited the electronics.
The acoustic levitation hookup died. The olivine tile fell to the platform with a thunk.
As water rained down, Skett cried out an oath over and over, louder and louder. Flora forced herself not to think about Adrienne. It was the stone that had connected her with a Galderkhaani. There was no way to break the connection other than by learning to control the tile.
But Skett hadn’t expected an inferno, Flora thought. The Technologists never had sufficient respect for the tiles.
Almost at once, smoke detectors throughout the Fifth Avenue mansion went wild. An automated call went out to the New York Fire Department. Flora did not concern herself with that. Her three-person office staff was used to crises; this was one more. The ungoverned tile was her immediate concern.
She jumped from the seat where Skett had placed her and slapped on a large industrial-size fan whose location she knew by feel. Choking in the ash-filled air, she pulled a towel from a rack by the industrial-size lab sink, wet it in the spray from the overhead nozzles, and wrapped it around her mouth and nose. She shut the sprinklers from a panel above the sink then approached Casey Skett. He was coughing and leaning over heavily by a laptop on the lab table, pinned there by the opaque smoke.
Simultaneously, Flora’s wall-mounted landline beeped. It was her personal aide, Erika. The Group director picked up, after nearly slipping on the water-slickened floor.
“Ms. Davies, are you all right?”
“Yes,” Flora told her aide. “Shut the alarms and call the neighbors. Apologize for the incident, but assure them there’s no danger. Then call the fire department—tell them it was a smoke condition, nothing more.”
“I’ll call the FDNY first,” she said.
“I would hold off on that one,” Skett said, coughing hard as he turned toward her.
“Wait, Erika.” Flora regarded Skett with open contempt. “Why?”
“Let them come, you’re going to need them,” he said. “And tell her to leave the building. Quickly.”
Flora told Erika to hold off on calling the fire department and just to go outside. She could alert neighbors in person.
“If I need anything, I’ll call your cell,” Flora said. Hanging up, her eyes continued to burn into Skett. “Explain yourself. What else have you done?”
“Me? Nothing. We’ve both done this, Flora.”
“We’ve done what? And no lectures, please.”
“This tile,” he cocked his head toward the olivine stone. “It’s going to rip this place to sawdust.”
“It didn’t do that before we had the acoustic control,” she said. “Why should it now?”
Skett wiped his face with his sleeve. “Figure it out, dammit.”
“No, you’re going to talk,” she said.
“What’s your leverage?” he asked. He wiggled the phone. “This is drenched and dead. Jasso’s cut off.”
“The computer is, and has been, recording everything that has taken place in this room. The recording is being stored offsite. If this place comes down, if I die, that data will automatically be reviewed.”
He looked over at the laptop. “That’s soaked too.”
“It’s waterproof.”
Skett’s eyes narrowed in challenge. “You’re bluffing.”
“Not my style,” Flora assured him. “The Technologists really don’t know much about technology, do they? Everything in here is custom-built. Did you really think I submitted to you because of a knife? I let you run this because how else was I to find out who you really are, who you work for, and what you and your Technologist employers know?”
“Paranoia will always trump planning,” Skett said. He pushed back his wet hair and happened to glance at the charred body that, just moments before, had been a living woman. “And I always thought I was low on compassion!”
“Spare the psych profile,” Flora said. “She was beyond help before we started this. We’re wasting time. The fire department is only a few blocks away. What else do you know that you’re not telling me?”
He looked over at the tile. It was still vibrating and beginning to glow again. “That stone is now fully reconnected to the tiles in the South Pole, and it is probably getting a bump from the one in the freezer,” Skett told her.
“That one is dormant.”
“Is it?” he said.
“They don’t function in subzero. That’s why Galderkhaan was quiet for forty thousand years, until the ice began to melt.”