Tunnel Vision (25 page)

I replace the pin and the lid, turn off the water, and flush the toilet. I pull up my own shorts, tucking the tiny, vital piece of fabric deep in the pocket.

When I come out Eric’s leaning against the wall by the door, arms crossed. I fold the Dockers, hand them over. “Thanks. Sorry, they got a little Coke on the back.”

He unfolds them and does a quick once-over, checking that all the buttons are there.

See.

“No problem. No objects today, so you’ve got the rest of the day off, unless Liesel comes up with something.” He grins, a flash of the old Eric I trusted. “See you Monday, Jake.”

I nod, fall into my chair, and fire up the X-box as he leaves, for cover.

No, Eric. If all goes well, I’ll see you tonight.

*   *   *

I don’t expect to get any intelligence from this tunnel—Eric probably doesn’t have much intelligence for me to find. Handpicked or not, he’s an agent and enforcer for Liesel, a worker bee like Bunny was, but not an equal. I don’t figure she tells him many of her secrets.

This trip is just to see if the cloth worked, and test if I can control him.

I lie on the bed until the lights go off, close my eyes, and pinch the cloth between my fingers. Here we go.

It comes right away. I surge past my own relief into him.

A man. Stocky, red haired, freckle faced. Wearing a hooded sweatshirt and jeans. Location: New York, Brooklyn. An apartment on Flatbush Avenue—192, Apartment 8B, just north of Prospect Park. He’s doing the dishes in a tiny, cramped kitchen not meant for cooking or doing dishes. This whole apartment wasn’t meant for a family. Still, he’s glad they can be together, for a while.

“Eric?” A woman’s voice floats from a back room. “Come and say good night.” He smiles to himself. He dries wet, soapy-slick hands on a rough towel, takes the few steps to the bedroom. There they are, his boys, his girl. The two boys are curled together, head to toe, in a crib stuffed into the space at the foot of the double bed. He squeezes the woman’s neck, briefly, and she sighs in pleasure. He leans over, the crib rail pushing into his belly, and kisses each baby on a fat little cheek. This is happiness, he thinks. This is worth it.

I almost want to stop. For the first time it feels like real intrusion, like I’m somewhere I’m not supposed to be. But this test is too important. I go deeper, spread myself thin.

Feel his calmness, centeredness. He knows about the threats out there, the danger. He knows all about the harshness of the world. But that isn’t here, in this apartment, with Joanna. He circles his arms around her in the dark bedroom. She’s soft, still with the extra baby weight, her breasts bigger, swollen. He likes it, pulls her tighter against him. Stiffens. Leans in to kiss her.

Here’s my chance to test. Lick her instead, I think. Lick her. You want to taste that skin next to her mouth, there. Quick, a small taste.

He leans in and licks her, a stripe across her mouth. She squirms away, frowning. “Eric! Why did you do that?” She wipes at her face. He shakes his head, laughs, low. “I don’t know. I just wanted to.” Then he pulls her close again, kissing her for real.

I come away. Enough. Much as I ache to have a little of that, I’m not going to do it through Eric, with Eric’s wife, in front of his babies.

Who would’ve thought he had a wife, a family? With my assignment alone he’d been gone for weeks, undercover at school, and then here. I’d assumed he was single, available to go wherever DARPA sent him. Are field agents even allowed to have families?

What a weird life. And he
chose
it.

But in the end it doesn’t really matter. I have an object, and I proved I could do it. I went to him and made him do something he wouldn’t have otherwise. A grand slam for the day.

I wish I didn’t feel uncomfortable about it. But it doesn’t matter. I have to ignore my feelings now. All the pieces are in place. So far, the plan is working. Now it’s time for the next phase.

I need to recruit some outside help.

29

“Connection” by the Rolling Stones

I try to connect to Myka, every night, for hours.

I grit my teeth, fists clenched, trying as hard as I can. I focus on her: her long, thin face hiding behind her hair, her knobby legs, her clear eyes. The way she loves numbers and chemicals, the lab smell of Lysol and Bunsen burners, or reading a thick book in her room. The way she read all the Harry Potter books three times but didn’t like the movies.

I try to imagine what she might be doing now, at 9:20 p.m. It’s hard to be sure, since I don’t know even what month it is. Is she doing homework? Asleep already? On summer vacation, watching TV? I try to go, to feel her, to connect with her like I used to.

I can’t do it. I stare at the dim, white ceiling in total failure.

I don’t have an object from her, and I can’t get one. But I thought … maybe … I could tunnel to Myka without one. My connection has always been stronger, deeper with her than anyone else. If I could do it with anyone, it would be her.

But no matter what I try, I slam into a brick wall of nothing. It doesn’t work.

Maybe it’s because so much has happened in the past few months. She thinks I’m dead—maybe our connection is cut off. Or maybe it’s just a real, hard-core limitation of tunneling, and I need an object no matter who I’m tunneling to.

Damn it. I need help to get out of here. I don’t know how to get out without help. I’m not sleeping, and every waking moment is spent lying, pretending to be the ignorant dunce they think I am. Plus I’ve had a couple more headaches, and more T-680, since they don’t have any other solutions. The hallucinations are getting worse. There are multiple visits a day now, from everyone I’ve ever met. Chatting to me, telling me nonsensical things. Wandering around the cell singing numbers from
Oklahoma
.

I’m starting to lose it. Before long I won’t need to pretend—I’ll be a basket case gibbering on the bed. Useless.

I’m in the middle of a session with Dr. Tenney when Dedushka appears behind him.

His arms are crossed, eyebrows locked down. Even his beard is jutting at me.

I glance at him quick, then away. There’s no point. It’s kind of cruel, actually. The people I most want to see, right there, but totally in my mind.

“Is anything wrong, Jake?”

I shake my head at Dr. Tenney. “Completely normal over here.”

“Okay, then.” He leans in, all confidential, even though the cameras are on. “Dr. Miller has approved for us to do a tunnel today. Revisit the beach, and see if you have any luck with that subject again.”

I won’t, thanks. But I’ll take some beach time. I can pretend I’m really in the sun, escape that way. I can stay there as long as possible.

“You do this for them?” Dedushka paces behind Dr. Tenney’s chair, gesturing. “For these pigs? You do whatever they ask you to?”

I sigh. He’s always pissed at me in these visits. Like all my guilt on overdrive.

“You don’t want to do the tunnel? I thought you’d be pleased.”

Guilt in stereo.

“No, it’s good,” I tell Dr. Tenney. I don’t look at Dedushka.

“It’s good,” he mocks. “It is not
good,
Yakob. It is slavery. You are their
slave
.” He yells the last, spit flying over Dr. Tenney’s head.

“Just give me the object,” I say, edgy. “Please.”

Dr. Tenney passes me a bag with a key in it. “Try to move him,” he says. Tension creeps into his voice. “You really need to try.”

It’s the same beach and the same soldier: Ritidian Beach on Guam, Lance Buckley. Buck.

He lies on the sand, soaking the tropical sun into his skin. There’s a new scar, still-healing, puckered against the rest, on his shoulder. He doesn’t think of it beyond noticing the twinge of pain and letting it go. Only the moment. That’s all that matters. Colonel Martin must be satisfied with his work, to send him here again. He stretches out on the soft sand, the waves crashing at his feet.

I don’t try to control him. I let him lie there and enjoy the sand, the warmth. I enjoy it too, molding into his skin, feeling what he feels.

I could stay here, I think suddenly. I could not come back. I could become Buck, get up from here and go on with
his
life. Leave Jake Lukin back at Montauk, dead.

Like he is.

“Yakob!”

My eyes fly open. The moment’s snapped. Dedushka’s leaning down next to Dr. Tenney, their faces even. Both of them blaring disappointment.

My lip curls. “Just go.” I mean both of them.

Dr. Tenney protests, tries to get me to try it again, but I don’t respond. Finally he packs up and leaves.

Dedushka’s still sitting there.

“Go
away,
” I say. But I look at the cameras. I can’t do this on camera. Even if Liesel knows about the hallucinations, I don’t want hard evidence of my insanity.

I turn my back on him, go to the chair. Turn on the TV. Pawnshop reality show. Good enough.

He moves between me and the TV, frown carved deep. “It is
not
‘good enough.’ You must get out of this nightmare place.”

I can’t answer. I can’t answer.

I’m trying,
I think. I look straight at him—since he’s in front of the TV, it won’t look crazy.

He spreads his hands wide. “No trying. Do. Do you ever think of coming to me?”

My mind stills, and my vision blurs. Coming to him. Tunneling to him without an object, instead of Myka.

Because he has “abilities” of his own. Because he knows I’m alive. Because he’s the one I really want to talk to. Why didn’t I think of that?

I blink, and realize he’s gone. It doesn’t matter. Message delivered. I know what I need to do now.

I think it’s time for an afternoon nap.

*   *   *

I imagine him the way I remember him best: out on the water, fishing. He always had gear with him. Wherever we were living, he’d find water—and then he’d bundle us all up, me, Myk, Dad, sometimes Mom—and head out. In Standish he had his own boat, and he went out on the lake every day he could.

Fishing is a good time for talking, he said. Away from the TV, computers, video games, cell phones, all the things he hates. Also conveniently away from surveillance cameras and spies. In a boat you can see and hear somebody coming a mile away.

I like that idea.

I picture him on his boat, perched on the old patchwork quilt Babushka made, fishing hat low over his eyes. Beard splayed out over his chest. He’s alone, tossing out his trusty silver minnow lure, retrieving, over and over. A splatter of rain starts to fall. Then a hit, a fat rainbow pulling hard at the line, dancing. He smiles to himself as he brings it in, twists the lure off with his calloused fingers, drops the fish in a bucket of water. Dinner. It is good he can manage for himself. So much easier to stay hidden from the
durnoy glaz
when you can find your own food.

I open my eyes. Did I
imagine
him thinking that? It was so vivid, the thoughts so clear. But it wasn’t a real tunnel—there wasn’t a buzz, or warmth, or a location. It felt different. And he couldn’t be on his boat in Standish. I gave DARPA that location.

It was Standish I was picturing, wasn’t it? I can’t remember the lake well enough to be sure. But I
am
sure there was a connection, something …

I try again. Picture the same scene, same place. This time the boat seems different. Smaller, and he isn’t sitting on Babushka’s quilt, just a dark blue towel. The rest is the same: the hat, the lure, the beard. But those would be the same anywhere. I try tentatively to go into him, to
feel
him.

A breeze brushes his cheeks, ruffling the beard. He checks the sun—two o’clock. Still time to catch another one or two. He must call Abby tonight on the safe line, see how they are. Abby is struggling,
bednyaga
. Sometimes he wishes to tell her, give her hope. He cannot. If he is wrong, or if the boy cannot be retrieved …

This is a real tunnel. I did it. May be pure luck that he’s fishing, doing what I remembered. But it might be my only chance. I have to make him
know
I’m there. I hadn’t felt the location. I try to sense it, see if I can tell.

Location: Canada. Quebec, not far over the border from Vermont. Lac Bromont.

He can’t sense me, not like Myka can. I’ll have to be more obvious. I’ll have to control him, show him. I go deeper.

He casts again, the motion sore to his old arm, but familiar. Come on, little
riba
. I know you are there, fish, hiding beneath the waves. Nothing. Again …

I nudge him as he lifts his arm back for another cast.

No. You need to stop and open the tackle box. Right there, the top. Flip it open.

He sighs. Why does he want to get into the tackle box? The lure is fine, working. Always the same lure, silver for afternoon. He ignores the thought, casts again, reels.

Open it. You need to write it down on your notepad. You didn’t record that last fish, did you? You always record your fish. Take care of it now, before you forget.

Reluctantly he props the pole against the side of the boat and leans over to the tackle box. Little voice, you are annoying to me. You grow more annoying as I get older, pushing me to do things. I can record when I want to record! Should you not let an old man alone?

Still, he opens the lid, pulls out his notepad and small pencil, and starts to write.

I concentrate. I’ve never tried to write through anyone. I don’t know if I can. I fill his fingers, his thumb, with my own. He’d written RAI, but I stop his hand, scratch the letters out with big, dark scratches. I’m not even trying to convince him to do anything. Just doing it.

He stares at the page, puzzled. Watches as his hand moves on its own. He feels it move, part of him, but he did not do it. J-A-K-E, his hand spells. The letters are shaky, too large, like a child’s. But he can read them. He lets his fingers move. A new line.