The Reincarnation

Victor Grey departed the plane and was driven to the Lab. His senses immediately heightened. He was “on.” He noticed some tire tracks in the wet sand alongside the road a few hundred yards from the Lab’s gate.

“Driver, I want the road examined for two miles in every direction from the Lab. I want to know everything. I want every trace of every vehicle that has passed through this area for the past forty-eight hours. I want to know if any squirrels have been run over. I want a report of every car in the state that’s been stolen over the past seventy-two hours. I want a list of the people who live in a five mile radius of the Lab, and I want them questioned, their houses searched if they act suspiciously. I want to know everything. Do you understand?”

The driver looked into the rearview mirror at his passenger and nodded his head. “Yes, sir.”

The barrier-arm rose mechanically as the car approached it. Grey peered inside the guardpost. Empty. That’s the problem, he thought. Machines have taken over everything.

Inside the Lab, Grey met with Dr. John Persey. He was briefed, and felt briefed. They didn’t know a goddamn thing. The Lab had no surveillance cameras anywhere. Dr. Persey sounded almost apologetic when he explained that nothing had ever really happened there before. Nothing to warrant cameras. At least not until last night.

Peggy underwent hypnosis, but could reveal only two things; that she frequently fell asleep on her shift, and that whoever she had seen this morning was wearing a very expensive coat. Trivial perhaps, but not to Grey. Every piece of information was useful to him.

The day nurse, Laura, failed to show up for work. Grey called her house personally. The line was engaged. A breakthrough revealed a dead line. He was driven to her house. He searched it inside and out. She wasn’t there, but Grey got a good scent impression of her by burying his face in her pillow. He now knew her, in his own way.

He ordered all of her relatives interviewed immediately and questioned thoroughly: When was the last time you spoke with her? Did she say anything that might help us identify where she is? We’re terribly worried about her, she seems to have disappeared, maybe even been kidnapped. Please let us know immediately if you hear anything.

Grey surveyed the room David had been in. He studied the bullet hole in the wall at the head of the bed. The impacted bullet itself. Turning off the lights, he sat on the bed and smelled the room. Under it all, under the smell of gunpowder, the hulking machines, the sweat, the cat’s dander, the morguelike smell of the place – which after all, Grey thought, until Friday night, was essentially what it was – he smelled something new, something not known to him. Breathing deeper, he still couldn’t identify it. It intrigued him a great deal.

He studied the hallway, the floors, the doors. He lifted the footprints off the linoleum and contemplated them. He noticed the “X” on the wall outside the room when he surveyed the grounds. He scrutinized the imprint of the tire track he had noticed on the way in. There were no fingerprints anywhere – the person either had none or was wearing gloves.

After assembling the evidence, Grey knew not only that a man had fired the gun, but he knew his height. He even had a pretty good idea how much the man weighed. What he didn’t know was if the man had kidnapped the patient, or if the nurse had, or if they had worked together. And the bullet hole – why? What he also didn’t know, and what perplexed him the most, was what the man had eaten recently, if anything. There was a blank spot in his sense of smell there, and it disturbed him.

He did, however, know enough to go on.

David and Laura had been talking nonstop for hours as they sped north, finding similar interests and opinions about almost everything they discussed. They had almost forgotten that they were most likely being hunted.

As much as David was curious to turn on the radio, to hear some rock and roll, or David Michaels – the symphony he had heard when he first awoke Friday night had stayed with him – he hadn’t even considered asking, more interested in talking with Laura than anything else.

Laura had a plan in mind, something about her hippie sister, and David relaxed at the thought of getting out of the car and having his feet on the ground again. He noticed that the palm trees had ended, and deciduous trees had taken their place along the road. He read a street sign informing him they were fifty miles from Canada. Eventually, he thought, there would be pine trees, and maybe even snow. Looking out at the landscape, snow seemed like a wonderful thought.

He kept it in his mind as he fell asleep.