Fringe - the Zodiac Paradox (17 page)

When she looked over at him, his smile faltered slightly and he looked away. Things felt so strange between the two of them now, ever since the strange psychic link that they’d formed during the ill-fated acid trip.

The thing that had been so astounding about that link was that, while it was the most profoundly intimate connection she’d ever experienced with another human being, it was neither romantic nor sexual in nature. It was this powerful sense of commonality. Something not unlike the discovery of a spiritual twin, of intertwined destinies and an unshakable life-long connection.

All her life, Nina had found that nearly everyone she met was put off by her naked ambition. Men tended to feel threatened, and women were intimidated, but looking into Bell’s mind that night was like looking into a mirror, and Nina had seen her own voracious ambition reflected back at her with flawless synchronicity.

But it wasn’t just some kind of hippy-dippy soul mate “spiritual bonding” thing. Because, underneath it all, there had been something very dark and ominous about their connection. A connection that seemed to propel them both into some terrible unknowable future in which the fabric of their universe would be torn asunder by their twin ambition.

Yet that shared ambition felt stronger than ever in the face of such awful knowledge. And it was that understanding—that they were both willing to pursue their ambitions without regard for consequences—that had cemented the inexplicable bond between them.

Nina had experimented with a wide variety of hallucinogenic substances before, and many of the trips she’d experienced had presented her with images or ideas that seemed immensely weighty and significant at the time, only to be revealed as trivial and silly in the sober light of day.

In a way, she wanted desperately to believe that the dark bond she thought she had shared with Bell was just like that. An amusing figment of her chemically enhanced mind, like the time she became convinced that the paisley pattern of a friend’s shirt revealed the secret formula for a new clean-burning fuel that would revolutionize global transportation and make her a millionaire.

But every time she locked eyes with him, she could feel herself resonating inside like a tuning fork, hungry for the success that she knew she wouldn’t be able to achieve without him. The success that he would not be able to achieve without her.

And in the midst of all this impossibly weird mayhem, that small sliver of weirdness was the one that preyed on her, making her feel vulnerable and off kilter.

Standing there with Bell in her darkened hallway, she knew that he felt it, too.

“Crazy day,” she said softly, stepping deliberately forward into his personal space.

“Yeah,” he replied. He didn’t step back. “Listen, about last night...”

She reached up and pressed the first two fingers of her right hand against his lips. His breath was warm against her skin.

She hadn’t planned to sleep with him yet, even though she’d wanted to. Now, it seemed so much safer— and simpler than facing the true nature of the connection between them.

“Let’s go upstairs,” she said.

He just looked down at her for a long, weighty moment, some kind of private war going on behind his dark eyes. She turned away and headed silently upward.

There was a moment where she thought maybe he wasn’t going to follow her, and she paused halfway up, heart beating too fast. Then she heard the sound of his footsteps on the stairs behind her. She smiled and continued to her room.

In her bedroom, she didn’t bother to turn the light on. She just walked over to the pool of yellow streetlight pouring in through her sheer curtains and, without turning around, pulled her sweater off over her head. Her hair crackled with static as she tossed it aside.

She was very aware of Bell standing close behind her for a silent minute. Then she felt his big hands on the curve of her waist, tentative at first, then pulling her back against him and sliding over her belly and braless breasts. She leaned into him, feeling as if she was melting. All the madness, all the mayhem, all the strange and heavy events of the past twenty-four hours were melting, too, washed away in warm, dopamine oblivion.

She turned to face him and pulled his mouth down to hers, kissing him just like she’d wanted to so badly, back in March. Pretending they were in the French Quarter, happy and buzzed and laughing like nothing mattered. Holding on tight to the solid physicality of his long, lanky body. To the simple biological imperative of their desire. The smell of his skin, the taste of his mouth, the feel of his hands on her body.

All these things were so simple and so real.

It was exactly what she needed.

They tumbled together onto her bed, wrestling with buckles and buttons. Still half-dressed, but unable to hold back another second, they made love like over-eager teenagers. Graceless and hungry, as if it was the end of the world. Which didn’t seem all that far from the truth.

* * *

Afterward, Nina lay with her cheek against the black fur on Bell’s chest, listening to the slow, even rhythm of his heartbeat and dozing breath. She felt warm and satisfied, but all the questions and uncertainty about the true nature of their connection still lurked there in the background, like wind rattling the windows of a cozy room.

It was a long time before she slept.

When it became clear that the hippies were tucked in for the night, Allan decided he needed a little recreation. Something light hearted and non-committal.

A quickie.

One of the inexplicable side effects of having passed through the gate and into this strange and wonderful mirror world was that he rarely slept. His body and mind seemed fueled by the arcane energy burning inside his flesh, and the only time he ever felt tired was when he had gone too long between killings. As a result, he found that he got twice as much done, and became intimately acquainted with the fascinating, ever-changing rhythms of the twenty-four-hour city.

The graveyard shift was his favorite time of night. The feeling of passing between building after building packed full of sleeping, vulnerable citizens made him feel like a kid in a candy shop. And those who were awake and walking the streets were a fascinating blend of the wild, the lost, and the forgotten. Very few of whom would be missed if they were to meet Allan in a dark alley.

Still wanting to be thoughtful and pragmatic about his spur-of-the-moment plan, he figured it would be wise to head down into the Tenderloin, and not leave a dead mouse on the redhead’s doorstep. He didn’t want to spook his real prey.

He took a long, roundabout stroll down the hill, zigzagging along random streets and occasionally doubling back when the mood struck him. He wasn’t in any rush, just open for suggestion. Polk to Myrtle to Larkin, then Olive back to Polk again and up to the tawdry circus of O’Farrell Street.

The seedy single-room-occupancy hotels and low-rent apartment buildings in that neighborhood were like vending machines filled with victims. An embarrassment of riches. It was almost too easy.

A young couple leaving the O’Farrell Theater caught his eye, making him feel a warm, gentle nostalgia for his lover’s lane phase. She was bleached blond and fat-bottomed in gold-lamé hot pants and cheap boots. He was a male model type on the skids, still handsome but a little too thin inside his barely buttoned eye-searingly tacky shirt.

Following them for a few blocks, Allan started to get the feeling they were more likely just co-stars in the live sex show on offer at the theater, rather than a genuine couple. Which didn’t bode well for any kind of added emotional torment when he made one watch the other die. He was about to give up on the pair and start looking for inspiration elsewhere, when a female voice called out to him from a shadowy doorway.

“Hey, man.”

He turned toward the voice, which belonged to a skinny brunette with a pixie haircut and a silver raincoat. Her bony shoulders were slumped and defeated. Her eyes were already dead. She wouldn’t meet his gaze.

“Hey,” he replied.

“Got a light?” she asked, raising an unlit cigarette to her chapped lips.

He pulled a disposable lighter from his hip pocket, cupping his hand over the flame, and lit her cigarette. She inhaled deeply, gaze flicking up to him for a fleeting second, then away again.

“So,” she said. “You wanna...?”

She tipped her chin back toward the door behind her.

He nodded.

She led him past a row of warped, pried open and broken brass mailboxes, then into the dim and stinking lobby. She paused for a second, her back to him, then toed a crumpled Chinese takeout menu on the octagonal tiled floor. He thought maybe she was having second thoughts. Rightly so, considering what he planned to do to her. But then she plunged her cigarette into the dirty sand that filled the tall steel ashtray and motioned that he should follow her up the cracked marble stairs.

Her single room was on the third floor, at the end of a long, crooked hallway that smelled like urine, roach-spray, and despair. From behind one of the doors there came a vociferous argument going on between two drunks of indeterminate gender. This might be a good thing for Allan, because it would mask any sounds the girl might make during their encounter. Or it could be problematic if it became too violent and attracted the police.

Allan smiled to himself at his overly cautious thinking. After all, how often did the police get called by the denizens of a place like this? Not unless someone was dead, Allan surmised. And by that time, he would be long gone.

Inside the girl’s room it was dank and shabby. The kind of room that was destined to be immortalized in a crime scene photo. The only decoration was a torn and peeling black light poster of a topless woman with an afro and a pet panther. The bed was a spavined, overworked wreck that sagged in the center. The colorful Navajo blanket thrown over the worn-out mattress didn’t do a very good job at hiding the stains.

The girl’s name was Desiree, or that’s what she said it was anyway. Allan honestly could not have cared less. What he did care about was the impression that she was a woman who had completely and utterly given up on life. Under her raincoat, she wore only a bra and panties, both of them cheap and mismatched with worn-out, sagging elastic.

Her emaciated arms and legs were peppered with weeping, infected track marks. She moved as if hypnotized, face mask-like and eyes far away. Going through the motions, like a person who was already dead and just didn’t know it yet.

Like a Casanova who sees a frigid woman as a challenge, Allan found himself profoundly aroused by her indifference. How sweet it would be to torture her and make her want to live again, only to see that fresh, rekindled hope die in her eyes as she realized that wasn’t going to happen.

“Why don’t you lie on the bed,” he told her. “On your stomach.”

She did what she was told.

He took out his knife and smiled.

“Institute for the Advancement of Bio-Spiritual Awarness,” Walter read off the small, unassuming sign above the buzzer in a urine-scented Berkley doorway, between a delicatessen and a head shop. “Sounds intriguing.”

“Sounds like some kind of cult,” Bell said. “You know, like est, or the Moonies, or something.”

“Doctor Raley’s not a guru,” Nina said, pressing the buzzer. “He’s a scientist. You’ll like him.” A muffled buzz and a click, and Nina pushed the door open. Walter and Bell followed her through.

Inside was a clean, modern waiting area with several groupings of orange and white plastic chairs and low Lucite tables strewn with a variety of interesting scientific journals and magazines. It looked not unlike an ordinary doctor’s office. A slender young Asian woman in a lavender pantsuit was sitting behind a desk and reading a dog-eared copy of Erving Goffman’s
The Presentation of the Self in Everyday Life.

She stood when they entered and greeted Nina warmly.

“Hi, May,” Nina said. “These are my friends William Bell and Walter Bishop. They’re in town for the ABS Conference.”

“Nice to meet you both,” she said, reaching out a delicate hand to shake first Walter’s, then Bell’s. “I have a background in biochemistry myself.” She smiled, revealing gapped teeth. “I did my thesis on the circular dichroism of helical polypeptides, but more recently I’ve become interested in the use of biofeedback technology to regulate what up until now has been considered involuntary organ function.”

“Fascinating,” Walter said, utterly charmed by this lovely and studious young lady. “My colleague and I just presented a very well-received paper on hepatic microsomal drug-binding sites. Have you had any success using biofeedback to regulate other kinds of liver function? Perhaps we could compare notes sometime.” He reached into his pocket. “Necco wafer?”

“Walter...” Bell warned.

“Is the good doctor in?” Nina asked, suppressing a grin.

May reached out and selected a clove-flavored purple wafer from the roll. That was his favorite.

“Thank you,” she said, popping the candy into her mouth with what Walter swore was a flirtatious expression. Though he was the first to admit he was often wrong about such things. “Doctor Rayley is in the lab working on a new experiment. You can wait for him in the observation room, if you’d like. This way please.”

At that point, Walter was prepared to follow May anywhere, but he was disappointed to find that she had no intention of joining them. She just showed them to a door at the end of a long hallway, and then returned to her desk.

“I think I’m in love,” Walter stage-whispered to Bell, taking a lime Necco wafer off the roll for himself, before putting the package back in his pocket.

“I hardly think this is the time for sexual liaisons, Walter,” Bell said.

Nina said nothing, but her subtle smile and arched brow made Bell stammer and blush.

“Well,” he said. “I mean...”

“Come on,” she said, opening the door and ushering the two men inside.

The long narrow room reminded Walter of the viewing area adjacent to an old-fashioned operating theater, where medical students would observe various procedures, back before sterilization and the invention of closed circuit television cameras. There were three rows of stadium-like riser seats facing a large one-way pane the size of a movie screen. And, like an old-fashioned operating theater, there was a small group of enraptured young people with notebooks—students, presumably— observing the procedure occurring on the other side of the glass.