thing they’re most associated with in the public mind is the energy research they’re funding and supervising-electromagnetic stuff” and fusion power. They’re actually involved in a lot more. Charlie and I are part of an experiment that happened a long time ago. It happened before Charlie was even born. Her mother was also involved. She was murdered. The Shop was responsible.”
Irv was silent for a while. He let the dishwater out of the sink, dried his hands, and then came over and began to wipe the oilcloth that covered the table. Andy picked up his beer can.
“I won’t say flat out that I don’t believe you,” Irv said finally. “Not with some of the things that have gone on under cover in this country and then come out. CIA guys giving people drinks spiked with LSD and some FBI agent accused of killing people during the Civil Rights marches and money in brown bags and all of that. So I can’t say right out that I don’t believe you. Let’s just say you haven’t convinced me yet.”
“I don’t think it’s even me that they really want anymore,” Andy said. “Maybe it was, once. But they’ve shifted targets. It’s Charlie they’re after now.”
“You mean the national government is after a first- or second-grader for reasons of national security?”
“Charlie’s no ordinary second-grader,” Andy said. “Her mother and I were injected with a drug which was coded Lot Six. To this day I don’t know exactly what it was. Some sort of synthetic glandular secretion would be my best guess. It changed the chromosomes of myself and of the lady I later married. We passed those chromosomes on to Charlie, and they mixed in some entirely new way. If she could pass them on to her children, I guess she’d be called a mutant. If for some reason she can’t, or if the change has caused her to be sterile, I guess she’d be called a sport or a mule. Either way, they want her. They want to study her, see if they can figure out what makes her able to do what she can do. And even more, I think they want her as an exhibit. They want to use her to reactivate the Lot Six program.”
“What is it she can do?” Irv asked.
Through the kitchen window they could see Norma and Charlie coming out of the barn. The white sweater flopped and swung around Charlie’s body, the hem coming down to her calves. There was high color in her cheeks, and she was talking to Norma, who was smiling and nodding.
Andy said softly, “She can light fires.” “Well, so can I,” Irv said. He sat down again and was looking at Andy in a peculiar, cautious way. The way you look at people you suspect of madness.
“She can do it simply by thinking about it,” Andy said. “The technical name for it is pyrokinesis. It’s a psi talent, like telepathy, telekinesis, or precognition-Charlie has a dash of some of those as well, by the way-but pyrokinesis is much rarer… and much more dangerous. She’s very much afraid of it, and she’s right to be. She can’t always control it. She could burn up your house, your barn, or your front yard if she set her mind to it. Or she could light your pipe.” Andy smiled wanly. “Except that while she was lighting your pipe, she might also burn up your house, your barn, and your front yard.”
Irv finished his beer and said, “I think you ought to call the police and turn yourself in, Frank. You need help.” “I guess it sounds pretty nutty, doesn’t it?” “Yes,” Irv said gravely. “It sounds nutty as anything I ever heard.” He was sitting lightly, slightly tense on his chair, and Andy thought
“I suppose it doesn’t matter much anyway,” Andy said. “They’ll be here soon enough. I think the police would actually be better. At least you don’t turn into an unperson as soon as the police get their hands on you.”
Irv started to reply, and then the door opened. Norma and Charlie came in. Charlie’s face was bright, her eyes sparkling. “Daddy!” she said. “Daddy, I fed the-”
She broke off. Some of the color left her cheeks, and she looked narrowly from Irv Manders to her father and back to Irv again. Pleasure faded from her face and was replaced with a look of harried misery. The way she looked last night, Andy thought.
“You told,” she said. “Oh Daddy, why did you tell?” Norma stepped forward and put a protective arm around Charlie’s shoulders. “Irv, what’s going on here?” “I don’t know,” Irv said. “What do you mean he told, Bobbi?” “That’s not my name,” she said. Tears had appeared in her eyes. “You know that’s not my name.” “Charlie,” Andy said. “Mr. Manders knew something was wrong. I told him, but he didn’t believe me. When you think about it, you’ll understand why.”
“I don’t understand anyth-“Charlie began, her voice rising stridently. Then she was quiet. Her head cocked sideways in a peculiar listening gesture, although as far as any of the others could tell there was nothing to listen to. As they watched, Charlie’s face simply drained of color; it was like watching some rich liquid poured out of a pitcher.
“What’s the matter, honey?” Norma asked, and cast a worried glance at Irv.
“They’re coming, Daddy,” Charlie whispered.
Her eyes were wide circles of fear. “They’re coming for us.”
11
They had rendezvoused at the corner of Highway 40 and the unnumbered blacktop road Irv had turned down-on the Hastings Glen town maps it was marked as the Old Baillings Road. Al Steinowitz had finally caught up with the rest of his men and had taken over quickly and decisively. There were sixteen of them in five cars. Heading up the road toward Irv Mander’s place, they looked like a fast-moving funeral procession.
Norville Bates had handed over the reins-and the responsibility-of the operation to A1 with genuine relief and with a question about the local and state police who had been rung in on the operation.
“We’re keeping this one dark for now,” A1 said. “If we get them, we’ll tell them they can fold their roadblocks. If we don’t, we’ll tell them to start moving in toward the centre of the circle. But between you and me, if we can’t handle them with sixteen men, we can’t handle them, Norv.”
Norv sensed the mild rebuke and said no more. He knew it would be best to take the two of them with no outside interference, because Andrew McGee was going to have an unfortunate accident as soon as they got him. A fatal accident. With no bluesuits hanging around, it could happen that much sooner.
Ahead of him and Al, the brakelights of OJ’s car flashed briefly, and then the car turned onto a dirt road. The others followed.
12
“I don’t understand any of this,” Norma said. “Bobbi… Charlie… can’t you calm down?”
“You don’t understand,” Charlie said. Her voice was high and strangled. Looking at her made Irv jumpy. Her face was like that of a rabbit caught in a snare. She pulled free of Norma’s arm and ran to her father, who put his hands on her shoulders.
“I think they’re going to kill you, Daddy,” she said.
“What?”
“Kill you,” she repeated. Her eyes were staring and glazed with panic. Her mouth worked frantically. “We have to run. We have to-”
He glanced to his left. Mounted on the wall between the stove and the sink was an indoor thermometer, the kind that can be purchased from any mail-order catalogue. At the bottom of this one, a plastic red devil with a pitchfork was grinning and mopping his brow. The motto beneath his cloven hooves read: HOT ENOUGH FOR YA?
The mercury in the thermometer was slowly rising, an accusing red finger.
“Yes, that’s what they want to do,” she said. “Kill you, kill you like they did Mommy, take me away, I won’t, I won’t let it happen,
Her voice was rising. Rising like the column of mercury.
“
Her eyes cleared a little. Irv and his wife had drawn together.
“Irv… what-”
But Irv had seen Andy’s glance at the thermometer, and suddenly he believed. It was hot in here now. Hot enough to sweat. The mercury in the thermometer stood just above ninety degrees.
“Holy Jesus Christ,” he said hoarsely. “Did she do that, Frank?” Andy ignored him. His hands were still on Charlie’s shoulders. He looked into her eyes. “Charlie-do you think it’s too late? How does it feel to you?” “Yes,” she said. All the color was gone from her face. “They’re coming up the dirt road now. Oh Daddy, I’m scared.”
“You can stop them, Charlie,” he said quietly.
She looked at him.
“Yes,” he said.
“But-Daddy-it’s bad. I know it is. I could kill them.”
“Yes,” he said. “Maybe now it’s kill or be killed. Maybe it’s come down to that.”
“It’s not bad?” Her voice was almost inaudible.
“Yes,” Andy said. “It is. Never kid yourself that it isn’t. And don’t do it if you can’t handle it, Charlie. Not even for me.” They looked at each other, eye to eye, Andy’s eyes tired and bloodshot and frightened, Charlie’s eyes wide, nearly hypnotized. She said: “If I do… something… will you still love me?”
The question hung between them, lazily revolving.
“Charlie,” he said, “I’ll always love you. No matter what.”
Irv had been at the window and now he crossed the room to them. “I think I got some tall apologizing to do,” he said. “There’s a whole line of cars coming up the road. I’ll stand with you, if you want. I got my deer gun.” But he looked suddenly frightened, almost sick.
Charlie said: “You don’t need your gun.”
She slipped out from under her father’s hands and walked across to the screen door, in Norma Manders’s knitted white sweater looking even smaller than she was. She let herself out.
After a moment, Andy found his feet and went after her. His stomach felt frozen, as if he’d just gobbled a huge Dairy Queen cone in three bites. The Manderses stayed behind. Andy caught one last look at the man’s baffled, frightened face, and a random thought-
Then he and Charlie were on the porch, watching the first of the cars turn up the long driveway. The hens squawked and fluttered. In the barn, Bossy mooed again
