When we reached the lab, Thurston pulled a key from his pocket and opened the door. Cheater and Torchie went to scrounge up the parts we needed. The rest of us headed downstairs.
Thurston waited by the door of the room where I’d been kept. I thought I could walk right back in. But I froze for a moment at the doorway, as if I’d hit a force field.
“Take your time,” he said.
My hands hurt. I realized I was clenching my fists. I uncurled my fingers, then stepped into the room and stared for a moment at the plain, white walls. Thurston set up the table. The sight of the steel marble made my stomach flutter. I went to the bathroom and washed the blood from my arm.
Martin joined me. “The bad part’s over,” he said as he scrubbed his hands. “No more blood.”
Cheater set the camera on a tripod. Then he and Flinch made sure the angle was just right.
I looked around for Torchie, but he’d wandered off. Martin and Flinch moved aside so they wouldn’t be in the shot, and Cheater crawled under the table.
“Ready?” Thurston asked.
I nodded.
He started the camera, then stepped back. I stared down at the marble and put my hands to my temples like I was deep in thought. The steel marble rolled in a figure eight across the surface of the table. I glanced up at Thurston, who mouthed the word, “Again.”
We did it a couple more times. Then Thurston stopped the recording. We took the camera upstairs and played the video through a monitor. It looked like I was moving a marble on a table with the power of my mind. But the open door of the bathroom was also in the frame, along with the mirror above the sink. You could see something in the mirror. At a glance, it seemed innocent enough.
“Zoom in on it,” I said.
Close up, in the reflection of the bathroom mirror, you could see Cheater’s arm under the table, moving a magnet that pulled the steel marble. I thought about the reflection in the bank drive-through window that got me into all of this trouble. Now, a reflection would get me out of trouble.
“Perfect,” Thurston said. He pulled the memory card from the camera and put it in his shirt pocket. “I’ll see this gets into the right hands. After that, there’s no way Bowdler will ever be able to convince anyone that you have powers.”
“Will that be enough to make him leave me alone?”
“I intend to be fairly persuasive when we meet, and show him the error of his ways. Bowdler isn’t stupid. Besides, he’s been sneaking around for months, setting something up. I suspect he has other projects that will bring in more money than he can spend, even if he is trying to buy every overpriced piece of war memorabilia he can find.”
“What about the rest of it?” I said. “I’m supposed to be dead.”
Thurston smiled. “When you dedicate your career to spreading lies, you also learn how to spread the truth. I can get your resurrection started on Monday. By next Friday, nobody will remember that you were ever dead.”
I couldn’t believe the nightmare was over. But there was another nightmare I was eager to end. “I need to take the disrupter where it will do some good.”
“Give me one more moment.” Thurston went to the room with the electronics equipment and pulled a cell phone from his pocket. It looked like the one he’d found on the guy at the funeral home. He took apart the phone, removed one of the chips, replaced it with another that he got from a drawer in the workbench, then said, “Here, hang onto this. We need to stay in touch until I get everything straightened out. It’s not traceable through the GPS system, so it’s safe to leave it on. The charge should last long enough. Who’s good with numbers?”
“I am,” Cheater said.
“Memorize this one.” He recited a string of digits, then had Cheater say it back. “You can always reach me at that number—day or night. Don’t write it down.” He handed Cheater the phone.
“What about the guy you locked up?” I asked.
“I’ll take care of him as soon as I get my car,” Thurston said.
I wasn’t sure I wanted to know what he meant by take care of him.
Thurston put away the tools, then glanced at the box that held the prototypes. “I hadn’t seen this.” He picked up the note, then started to sift through the devices. “Maybe there’s something useful here.”
“Come on.” Torchie pointed toward the door. “We’d better get going.”
“Relax,” I said. “We’re going in a minute.”
“I’ll meet you outside.” He picked up his damaged accordion and dashed ahead.
I left the lab with the rest of the guys. As we headed down the street, I asked Torchie, “What was that all about?”