Fringe - the Zodiac Paradox (31 page)

Walter looked back into the plaza, scanning for the cops that had chased them there. He couldn’t see anything in that direction either, and the shouting of the protesters drowned out all other sounds. He felt as if he was in a cornfield on a windy night, with wolves prowling somewhere nearby. He’d never know they were on him until he felt their teeth in his leg.

Nina ground her teeth, frustration creasing her brow.

“All we’ve got to do is stay here and stay calm,” she said. “Just stay calm.” But she looked about as calm as a chihuahua in a firecracker factory. All that adrenalin still seemed to be churning through her veins. Walter was feeling anything but calm, himself.

He looked east, going up on his tiptoes.

“Another half block,” he said. “Almost there.”

He looked behind again, and his heart seized up. Through a gap in the crowd he could see the cop with the salt-and-pepper mustache. He and his buddy were striding across the plaza, scanning for them. He grabbed Bell’s arm.

“Duck down!”

“What?” Bell frowned.

“The police are here!” Walter said. “You’re too damn tall!”

Bell crouched down, dropping his head between his shoulders. There was a guy holding a huge sign to their left. Walter pulled Bell and Nina behind it, then snuck a look around it and back toward the plaza.

The two cops were walking along the edge of the crowd, heads moving constantly. Walter pulled back, heart hammering, just as the one with the mustache started to look his way.

Had he seen?

Was he coming?

“There’s Kenneth’s bus. Come on.” Nina took his arm.

Walter turned toward the street and followed Nina and Bell as they stepped off the curb. One of the cops in the cordon stepped up to stop them, but Nina pointed past him.

“Our ride’s here,” she said sweetly. “We’re just trying to get out of this mess.”

The cop waved them by and kept pushing the rest of the crowd back. In the minibus Kenneth, Judy, and Simon were looking for them. Judy saw them first and threw open the side doors.

“What happened?” she asked, her little ferret face looking even more anxious than usual.

“Tell you later,” Nina replied, pushing past her onto the back bench and lying down with her hands over her head. “William. Walter. Lie on the floor.”

Walter squeezed down between the seats under Judy’s feet while Bell did the same under Nina’s.

“Close the doors!” Nina said. “Quick!”

Judy pulled the doors closed again and looked down at Walter.

“Don’t look down!” Nina whispered. “Pretend we’re not here! Act natural! Relax!”

Judy raised her head, quivering, and kept her eyes front.

“Anybody coming?” Walter whispered.

“Not yet. Not...” She pressed a thin spidery hand to her mouth. “Oh, God. They’re right outside. They’re—” She held her breath for a tense moment, then let it out. “They’re crossing the street. They’re looking through the crowd over there.”

Walter closed his eyes and let out his own held breath.

“So what happened?” Kenneth asked over his shoulder, keeping his eyes on the street. “Why did the cops chase you?”

“Why do you think?” Nina asked. “Keep driving.”

Kenneth grunted, annoyed, but did as he was told. It took ten more minutes to get through the crowd and get moving again. Walter thought it was the longest ten minutes of his life.

Leslie sat in the idling van. They were in the parking lot of a fast food joint called Butchie Burger, waiting for Payton to come back from the bathroom. The restaurant’s mascot was an anthropomorphic Boston Terrier in checkered pants and a bow-tie, holding a huge hamburger. He seemed to be leering down at Leslie with a maniacal grin.

She looked at her watch, even though it had been less than a minute since the last time she’d looked at it. They were bleeding time at an alarming rate.

She had no idea why she’d wound up being assigned the weakest team members. She liked to think it was because she was the strongest leader, and Doc Rayley figured she could handle shepherding these two lame ducks. But she was afraid it was more likely a kind of subtle punishment for her refusal to dress and behave in a traditionally feminine manner.

“Do you think Payton is going to be okay?” Susan asked.

Speaking of traditional femininity, Susan was the dictionary definition. Cloying floral perfume, perky smile, vapid gaze. But Leslie didn’t want to write a sister off just because she’d been brainwashed by patriarchy. Never one to miss out on an opportunity to encourage free and radical thought among women, she reached into the inner pocket of her coat and pulled out a mimeographed flyer.

“He’ll be fine,” she said, handing the flyer to Susan. “Listen, if you’re not doing anything tomorrow night, why don’t you stop by my place for the weekly meeting of our feminist consciousness-raising group.”

Susan looked dubiously at the flyer.

“What kind of group?” she asked.

“Consciousness raising,” Leslie repeated. “It’s nothing uptight or structured or anything like that, we just meet once a week to share our experiences and feelings and talk about the ways in which we have been oppressed by the male-dominated culture.”

“Oh,” Susan said. “Um... thanks.”

Payton picked that moment to show up, sipping a large strawberry Butchie shake. Leslie frowned at the shake as he slid open the back door and climbed into the van.

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” she asked. “If your stomach is upset...”

“It’s better now,” Payton replied.

“If you say so,” Leslie said, shoving the van into drive and pulling out of the parking lot. “But I’m gonna tell you this right now, if you toss your cookies back there, I’m not cleaning it up.”

A huge tan ’68 Chrysler Newport skewed across the driveway of the burger joint, smoke pouring out from under its hood, and blocking the only way out.

“You have
got
to be kidding,” Leslie said. She laid on the horn and stuck her head out the window. “Hey, move that boat out of the way, will ya? We gotta be somewhere!”

The driver got out of the Newport. He was a tubby, red-faced guy in a pair of skin-tight white pants that did extremely unfortunate things to his nether region. He threw his hands up in the air.

“Engine no good,” he said, with a thick, Eastern European accent. “Is overheat!” He made a pushing motion with both meaty hands. “You help?”

“Oh, crap,” Leslie muttered. “Come on,” she said over her shoulder, checking her watch again. “The sooner we get this guy’s car out of the way, the sooner we can be on our way.”

“What?” Susan looked at her as if she’d lost her mind. “I’m not pushing anybody’s car. That’s a man thing. Let Payton do it.”

Leslie restrained herself from raising Susan’s consciousness with a boot to her skinny little ass, and got out of the van.

“Payton, you coming or not?”

“Okay,” he said, following her like a reluctant child.

“Thank you, thank you,” the man said when the two of them approached. “I steer, you push, yes?” Leslie nodded, struggling not to look down at his catastrophically squashed and all too visible crotch.

“Right,” she said, grabbing Payton by the arm and dragging him around to the rear of the enormous vehicle.

She placed both palms on the trunk.

“Don’t just stand there,” she said.

Payton put his hands on the car like he was petting a Doberman of questionable temperament. Leslie rolled her eyes.

“Now,” the man called, putting the car in gear and then getting out to steer with one hand and push with the other. “
Push!”

Leslie did so with all her strength, but the massive beast of a car was so heavy that even with the three of them, it rolled up the driveway slower than a slug. Not that Payton was doing much in the way of pushing. More like just resting his hands on the car.

“Come on, push!” Leslie said. “We’re already nearly ten minutes behind. The other teams are depending on us!”

Payton put a little more effort into it and the Newport started moving a little faster, rolling into the parking lot. The man in the tight pants guided it into an empty parking place and then came back to shake both of their hands, thanking them and offering to buy them a couple of Butchie burgers as a reward.

“No time,” Leslie said. “But thanks anyway.”

Payton, who had started to look a little green as they were pushing the car suddenly lurched off to the left and threw up the strawberry milkshake into a nearby trash can.

“Gee, imagine that,” Leslie said. “Who knew?”

Payton continued to retch, while Leslie crossed her arms and checked her watch again.

They were never going to get out of this parking lot.

As May worked her way through the snarled traffic around City Hall, dipping down into the Lower Haight to avoid the worst of it, she heard her mother’s voice in her head, criticizing her every move.

So aggressive, the way you change lanes. No wonder you don’t have a husband.

May hadn’t seen her mother in over a year, estranged as she was from her large family, but that voice was alive and well in May’s head. She could still hear the sharp little tooth-sucking sound of disapproval she would always make, wordlessly cutting May to ribbons over some unforgivable moral transgression, like wearing a short skirt or taking too much food for herself at the family table, instead of making sure her brothers all had enough first.

Ever since she got the job at the Institute, May felt as if she’d found a brand new family of open, like-minded people who accepted her for who she really was, and didn’t think she was a whore because she took birth control pills or failed to live up to some antiquated stereotype of how women should behave. But the ghost of her disapproving mother wasn’t so easily exorcised. And whenever May was worried or anxious, that voice came back to remind her of what a disgraceful failure she was at every single thing she did.

She distracted herself from the critical ghost by thinking about that guy from MIT, Walter Bishop. There was something about him that she found appealing, with his terrible coat and wild hair and gentle, curious eyes. He didn’t seem at all intimidated by her intelligence, and shared many of her most passionate interests. She had been deeply moved by the bravery and determination he’d showed in choosing to fight against the Zodiac Killer and was exhilarated to be a part of that fight.

And she’d always thought she was the only one in the world who actually liked Necco wafers.

“I don’t feel a thing,” Gary said, leaning his head out the window like a dog. “Are you sure this stuff is gonna work?”

“Remember,” May replied. “It’s supposed to take fifty-four minutes to kick in. It’s only been...” She looked at her watch. “Thirty-seven.”

“Do you believe all that business about the Zodiac?” Gary asked. “I mean, what if that’s just a part of the experiment? Testing to see how we react when an element of danger is added in to the mix.”

May hadn’t thought of that.

“I suppose that’s possible,” she said, heading up Divisadero to Fell. “I mean, it sounds a lot more plausible than the idea of fighting a psychic serial killer, doesn’t it?”

“No,” David said quietly from the back seat.

“No?” May asked, looking up into the rearview mirror. But his head was down, gaze aimed at the floor. “No, it doesn’t sound more plausible?” she said.

“No, that’s not what’s happening,” David said. “This is real.”

“What makes you say that?” Gary asked, turning back with one arm thrown over the top of his seat.

“I just...” David looked away, out the window. “I can just tell. Ever since I was a kid, I’ve always... known things. And as soon as I saw Doctor Bishop, I knew that this was real. That this, being a part of this, is what I was meant for. All of us, we
have
to be a part of this.”

“Wow,” Gary said, turning back around. “That’s heavy.”

“I see men,” David said. “Watching me.”

May frowned, looking up into the mirror again, and then down at her watch.

“Right now?” she asked. “You shouldn’t be hallucinating yet.”

“No,” David said quietly, speaking to his folded hands in his lap. “All the time. They wear hats. Like Alain Delon in
Le Samourai.
And they never say anything, they just... watch.”

May looked over at Gary, who smirked and pointed a very unsubtle circling finger at his temple. This revelation was actually deeply worrying to May. David was clearly suffering from some type of mental illness, probably schizophrenia, and the idea of linking minds with a person like that seemed like a spectacularly bad idea, especially with so much at stake.

Yet, many progressive thinkers had recently suggested that so-called mental illness was really nothing more than freedom from culturally imposed restrictions on the mutually agreed upon “reality.” It was possible that May was being too uptight in her thinking. She should allow herself to be more open about unconventional views of reality.

After all, just because she couldn’t perceive them, who was she to say that mysterious men with fedora hats
weren’t
actually watching David?

Still, she had no way of knowing how David’s unconventional view of reality might effect the experiment.

Only one way to find out.

Walter, Nina, and Bell stayed lying on the floor the rest of the way to Golden Gate Park, but even hidden Walter felt as if the whole of San Francisco was watching him. He kept thinking he heard police sirens coming after them, but every time he strained his ears they seemed to fade away again.

He had to keep wiping his face.

Sweat was soaking his collar.

“Paranoia,” he murmured. “I’ve never noticed paranoia as a side effect of our special blend before.”

“It isn’t paranoia if they really are after you,” Bell said with a smirk.

At last they were turning off Fell onto Kezar drive and entering the park, the lush green of the trees and lawns swallowing up the noise and visual chaos of the city and enveloping them in soft shady silence. But what should have calmed him down only made Walter more tense.

They might have escaped the scrutiny of the police, but they were closing in on a much more fearsome adversary, and a much riskier enterprise. Their showdown with the Zodiac was only minutes away. Their chance to get rid of him once and for all. Or perhaps to perpetrate the greatest disaster in San Francisco since the Great Earthquake of 1906.