Chapter 13
T ag was sitting in a chair along with six other students outside an interrogation room at school. He was taken out of his first session by a security officer that told him to wait until it was his turn. His heart was hammering in his chest and he was very close to panic. He saw absolutely no way out of being interrogated. Eric was in there being questioned, and he knew he was probably next. “I have to calm down,” he thought. “If I go in there like this then they’ll know I’ve got something to hide.” He closed his eyes, began taking slow deep breaths, and focused on the psychic field. The patterns usually calmed him. “Only think about the patterns,” he thought. He almost started to panic again when the shadows showed him that every inch of the hallway he was sitting in was being watched. Then something new caught his attention. There was a new kind of shadow pattern coming out of the room Eric was in. It actually had color. It fluctuated from light blue to navy. Suddenly it turned red, and then went back to fluctuating blue. “This has to be the truth field,” Tag thought. He could actually feel it in his mind, and he could tell that the fluctuations were emotions that Eric was having during the session. The red was when a falsehood was detected. The patterns were soothing to Tag, and then he had a thought. “Red!” he thought, and the field turned red. “Blue!” and the field turned blue. Tag then noticed that the fluctuations grew noticeably. “Ah, that red must have startled the examiner,” He realized. He felt sudden hope, but he had to be sure. He wasn’t going to try to manipulate the field while Eric was being questioned. “Please don’t let me be the next one,” he prayed. Then he saw a security officer coming with Danielle Ashford in tow.
“How many times do I have to go through this before you people get it through your thick heads that I don’t know anything?” she said.
The security officer marched her up to a chair and said, “Sit down and wait until it’s your turn. Try to behave.”
Danielle stuck her tongue out at the security officer as he walked away, and then she sat down and saw Tag. She looked at him for a moment and then started giggling.
“What’s so funny?”
She said, “Tag, I guess you’re it this time,” and then she laughed out loud.
He smiled at her and said, “Yeah, I guess I am. You’ve forgotten one thing though.”
“And just what is that?”
“It appears you’ve been it several times. I guess you could say you’ve been tagged.”
Everyone in the hall laughed, including Danielle. She got up and sat down beside Tag. “So Mr. Fourth Level Tag Master, are you too hung up on Leila to ask anyone else out?”
Tag looked at her for a long moment, wondering how she could know about Leila, and said, “I’m not like Eric. It’s not easy for me to approach girls and ask them out.” He looked at the floor and said, “Any girls.”
She was again struck by the intensity of his eyes. Then she said, “Well, what if a girl asked you out?”
“I might go. It would depend on the girl that asks.”
“What if it were me?”
“Are you asking?”
“Yes I am.”
“Then you’re right again.”
“Huh?”
“Of course I’d go out with you. I guess that makes me it again. By the way, every boy in our class is planning to ask you out or already has, because if you haven’t noticed, you are pretty nice to look at. How can you have any room on your calendar for me?”
Danielle looked at him and said, “Thank you, however, I keep tight control of my calendar, Tag. I’m very selective about who I spend my time with.” She had decided to ask Tag out to see if there was any possibility of his being Superman. She felt somewhat guilty about the deception, but sensed it was something she needed to do. According to school records he would turn eighteen years old in three weeks. She had just turned nineteen a month before, so she was actually only a little over one year older. She wasn’t robbing the cradle, just rocking it.
Eric came out of the interrogation room followed by the interrogation officer. The officer looked at Tag and Danielle for a moment, then selected another student sitting across from them. “It’s your turn,” he said. Then he went back into the room.
Eric said, “Wow! You were right, Tag. These people don’t mess around. They have absolutely no sense of humor. Heck, you would think they could go out and buy one, but it would probably get them fired if they smiled. Oh, hi Danielle. Have you thought about my offer? I’m a great tour guide.”
“I’m so sorry, Eric. I’ve just hired a tour guide for Friday and Saturday night.”
“Who’s the lucky tour guide?” Eric asked.
Danielle looked at Tag, and he slowly raised his hand and said, “That would be me.”
“Outstanding,” Eric said. “Now let me warn you, Miss Danielle, that you better not hurt my good friend here or you’ll have it out with me. Believe me, I can talk a long time and make one minute seem like it will never end. No one should endure that punishment. So you better just watch yourself, Ducky.”
Danielle and Tag laughed and she said, “I’ll do my best.”
Eric winked at Tag and left for his next session.
“Danielle, I want to try and relax before my interrogation if you don’t mind.”
“No, not at all. Go ahead.”
“Thanks. I’ll see you in class later about this weekend.” Then he put his head back against the wall and closed his eyes.
Tag sensed the truth field and let his mind get in step with its fluctuations. He thought, “Red!” The field turned red. Tag kept the thought of red in his mind and the field did not change but stayed red. Then Tag thought, “Blue!” And the field turned blue. “That’s enough,” he thought.
The door opened and the interrogator stepped out and raised his com. Another technician came running down the hall and entered the room with a small tool bag. The student that was being interrogated stepped out and was told to wait. She stood next to Danielle.
“What happened?” Danielle asked.
“I don’t know. Evidently, every answer I gave was not true, including my name and birthday,” the student said.
“That’s odd,” Danielle thought. “Could Tag be doing this or is it just a malfunction?”
The technician came out and the interrogator called the student back in.
Tag then sat up and started humming.
“If he’s Superman, he doesn’t feel any pressure. He’s relaxed. This is not acting. Could I have been so wrong about him being our suspect? Or does the truth field no longer scare him?”
Then it was Tag’s turn. The interrogator came out pointed at him and said, “Come in, please.”
Tag stood up, smiled at Danielle, and followed the interrogator into the interrogation room.
“Mr. Gardner, please sit in this chair. I am going to ask you a series of questions. I want you to answer them with either yes or no. The first four questions I want you to answer honestly. The second four, I want you to answer dishonestly. Do you understand, Mr. Gardner?”
“Yes sir.”
“Okay, let’s begin. Is your name Thomas Gardner?”
“Yes,” he said, while he thought, “Blue field.”
“Are you nineteen years of age?”
“No.” He again thought, “Blue field.”
“Is your birthday in January?”
“Yes.” He thought of a blue field.
“Do you have a girlfriend?”
“No.” He imagined a fluctuating blue field.
“Do you live south of the school?”
“Yes.” This time he thought, “Red field.”
“Have you ever failed a class?”
