CHAPTER 21
We wrapped up our conversation with the professor. As I rose to leave, she seemed to really look at me for the first time and gave me a curious look.
“Forgive me for saying this,” she said, “but aren't you a bit young to be a DOJ field agent?”
I tried wear an exasperated expression as I answered, “Like I haven't heard that before.”
Dee laughed. “Don't get him started,” she insisted, “it's bad enough I'm stuck with a rookie, but I end up with babyface here.”
“It's bad enough the guys at the office call me that,” I replied. I tried to make my performance convincing. The professor seemed to buy it.
“I'm sorry I mentioned it,” said Simonson with a hint of laughter in her voice, “trust me, you'll appreciate that youthful look a lot more a couple decades from now. I just nodded, shook her hand, and left. Dee followed shortly behind me. She remained silent as we wound our way down the stairs, but then finally let laughter slip loose as we exited the building.
“Babyface...” she snorted, then began laughing again.
“Sure, laugh now, but it could have blown the whole thing, her being suspicious like that. It seems your 'I-Belong-Here' field doesn't extend to those around you.”
“You might be right. It was probably a good thing you didn't say much.”
“So why did I even come along?” I asked.
Dee answered with a question of her own. “Do you think she was telling the truth?”
I thought about it for only a moment. “Yes.”
“That is why I brought you, Barry.”
I stopped walking. Dee walked another two steps before realizing I had stopped, then turned and faced me. “OK, explain,” I demanded.
“Empathy, Barry. Your superpower. We need to know if the professor can be trusted, if we should act on her accusations. That's why I needed your read of her.”
“Wait... so you basically brought me along as some sort of human lie detector? I think you are making way too much of this empathy thing. I mean, just because I get a gut feeling on something doesn't mean it has to be right. People make wrong choices based on their gut all the time.”
“Have you?” Dee asked, “I mean, think back. Tell me about a time you had a first impression of someone that turned out to be absolutely and completely wrong.”
“Sure... just give me a sec.” We began walking again. As we strolled in silence, I cast my mind back down the years.
And came up blank. Worse than blank... all the examples that came to mind argued the opposite. My sister brought a college boyfriend home to visit, and I immediately disliked and distrusted him. He ended up cheating on her, and they broke up a month later. The first moment I met my 8th grade English teacher, I knew there was something special about her. I then watched her go above and beyond for her students. She later won a community service award because of it. Truth be told, I'd always been a pretty good judge of character.
Dee took my silence as an answer. “See what I mean,” she said.
“It doesn't mean anything,” I insisted, “you can't use a lack of evidence to prove something. It could just be dumb luck. I mean, a planet of seven billion people... A few of them are going to luck out and have all their hunches fall the right direction.”
“I think you know it's not that. You just need to trust yourself.”
“Sure. I'll work on that.” We walked on. I realized I didn't know where we were headed. As always, I was just blindly following Dee. Maybe there really was something to this superpower thing. How else could I explain her effect on me? I knew the situation was crazy... that she was crazy... and yet I kept avoiding the rational course and instead steered for the insanity. “So where are we going?” I finally asked.
“Youth hostel,” she answered, “We're almost there, actually.”
Sure enough, we soon approached a dilapidated colonial revival building, almost a mansion, though its best days were definitely behind it. A faded sign declared it The Grendle House, International Youth Hostel. We entered into a foyer that had been converted into a passable rendition of a hotel reception area. Behind the desk was a college age guy dressed like a 80's punk rocker, complete with moused hair spikes and numerous facial piercings. He confirmed our reservation with a soft-spoken Louisiana voice that was nothing like the loud British accent I felt would better suit the look. He seemed genuinely happy to see us, and spent considerable time telling us how to find our room, and where the shared bathroom on our floor was located, and about the various eccentricities of the building we should watch out for.
“The door to your room sticks sometimes, but it'll open if you just give it a good yank,” he advised, “I can't count the number of times people come back down here saying their key is not working when its just that old door swellin' in the humidity.” He handed us our room key... an actual brass key attached to a large plastic oval with the hostel's name on it. No electronic locks or keycards in this place. We thanked him and went in search of our room.
Room. Singular.
Suddenly I was very conscious of my own heartbeat. I knew going into this it was an overnight mission, but for some reason I hadn't really thought about the sleeping arrangements. I mean, I knew I shouldn't read anything into it. Dee was operating on a shoestring budget, so separate rooms would have been an expensive luxury. But she is an amazing, attractive woman, and I'm a young single guy, and there was that whole pretending to be her boyfriend thing... my head was a riot of conflicting thoughts as Dee unlocked the door and I briefly doubted the platonic nature of our relationship.
Then the door opened and I saw two twin beds.
Calm reclaimed my internal dialog, though admittedly some part of me remained conflicted. Dee, oblivious to my state, bounded over to one of the beds and claimed it by tossing her backpack onto it. I tossed my backpack onto the other and examined the room. Two twin beds, a futon sofa that could likely pull out into a third, a battered writing desk. The furniture was old but in decent shape. The walls were hung with a variety of artwork, probably from local artists. French doors led out to a balcony. Some of the window segments on the doors were cracked and even patched with tape in places, but it was all still very charming and nearly luxurious. Not what I expected from a 'youth hostel'.
We took turns in the restroom down the hall, changed into comfortable clothes, then discussed what to do about dinner. Dee wandered back to the reception desk to ask for restaurant recommendations. She came back with the name and phone number for “the best pizza joint this side of the Mason Dixon line”, at least according to our punk rocker friend. We called Mamma Buchellie's and had a medium veggie pizza delivered. It was as good as advertised. Hot, fast, and reasonably priced. The sauce was sweet and tangy and had chunks of garlic in it. We sat on our respective beds as we ate. I nearly inhaled my three slices and then had to enviously watch as Dee slowly finished her last piece.
Dee smiled at me as she popped the last of it in her mouth. “You really need to learn to savor. Eating is one of life's great pleasures. Make it last.”
“Yes, I eat too fast,” I admitted, “it comes from having siblings I think. Growing up in our house, if you eat slowly, you miss out on seconds.”
“That must have been nice, having brothers and sisters, a big family.”
“Yeah, I guess. Not always... we fought sometimes, but mostly it was good. I don't think I fully appreciated them until I moved away.”
“I was alone a lot growing up,” Dee admitted. Her tone was matter-of-fact, betraying no regret or negative feelings. “My dad was deployed a lot, and mom worked. Sometimes I had nannies, other times not. Mom found lots of activities for me to be involved in, so I hung out with other kids, but that's not the same as having siblings I think.”
“Activities,” I said, “like all that stuff on The Wall?”
“Yes, that was the start of it I guess... my mother finding things to keep me busy and o
ut of trouble. But there is one specific day that I think really lit that fire, the turning point that set me on my path to being a superhero.”
I raised an eyebrow in reply, silently asking her to explain.
“OK, well, this is going to sound weird and even a bit gross,” she cautioned, “I suppose its good that we are done eating.” She paused and appeared to consider her next words carefully. “When I was really young, I assumed gnats were just baby flies. Then one day I was wondering around in the woods near our off-base apartment. I came across a dead animal of some kind. Maybe a wood chuck or possum... hard to tell because it was in nasty shape. It was partially decomposed and had flies and maggots all over it. I remember it smelled horrible, but I was fascinated by it so I stayed upwind and got as close as I could. I'd never seen maggots before and didn't know what they were. There was a bunch of them crawling about, all different sizes, as well as the pupa they form when they start changing into flies. And as luck would have it, I happened to be looking at one of those pupa at the exact moment a mostly grown fly emerged from it.
“It was an epiphany. The whole life cycle of the fly was instantly clear. A truth that I hadn't even known existed suddenly snapped into being. And if this sort of thing, one creature transforming into another, could exist in the world... if something so common and humble as a fly could hide such mysteries... what else was the world hiding from me? I had to know.
“That's what set me on the road. That's what filled The Great Wall of Embarrassment with all those photos and trophies. A dead animal covered in flies and maggots.”
We were both silently for a while. “Wow,” I finally said.
“Yeah, like I said, weird and gross.”
“No, I get it,” I insisted. “It's like like how I got into computer science and electrical engineering. I mean nobody starts out understanding electricity or electromagnetism or any of the stuff that allows microelectronics to work. We are surrounded by technology so sophisticated it might as well be magic. But the more I learned about it, the more it fascinated to me. And understanding how it worked made it no less magical. I use invisible forces and strange languages to make inanimate objects do my bidding. If that isn't magic, I don't know what is.”
Dee laughed. “We really are a couple of nerds, aren't we.”
I laughed and agreed, and the evening rolled on like that. We talked late into the night, and at some point in mid conversation I drifted off to sleep. I dreamed, and in my dream I was searching for Dee. Wandering an endless maze of corridors and doors, I called for her but could not find her. Then I heard her. She was calling for help. My searching became frantic, but I still couldn’t find her. I tried to follow her voice. I would charge through a door only to then hear her cries coming from another direction. I became more frantic.
And then I found her.
I charged into a cavernous room. Dee was lying at its center, strapped to a metal table. A giant spinning saw blade descended slowly toward her from one side of the room. An enormous laser etched a smoking line along the floor from the other direction, gradually creeping toward her. She struggled against the straps, eyes shut tight, her cries now softer.
“No, no, no,” she nearly whispered. I stood transfixed. Horrified. I rushed to her side to try and remove the straps. They wouldn’t budge.
“Help. Somebody please help me,” she implored. Flies and maggots crawled on her.
I ran around the room looking for some way to deactivate the deathtrap. Nothing. No big buttons or levers. No giant fuse panel.
“Help me,” she shouted. The blade and the laser crept closer. Desperately I spun round and round, looking at the walls. Looking for anything that might help.
A window.
It hadn’t been there a moment before. Beyond the glass, a dimly lit room. A shadowy figure watching us impassively.
Siegleshust.
In that strange way you just know things in a dream, I knew it was him.
“Stop this,” I shouted, “please stop.” He ignored me. “We’re not a threat to you,” I yelled, “you don’t have to do this.” Still the death machines converged toward Dee. They were now only inches away. “Please STOP,” I screamed.
I was awake.
My bed covers had been thrown to the floor. I was sitting up in bed, my sweat damp skin chilled by a slight breeze. I turned toward the other bed.
Dee was gone.