Suspicious Minds (Stranger Things Novels #1)(23)

Gloria accepted the sheet. It reminded her of test questions for high school, but was either a dummy or a real military report of the movements of enemy troops. “Got it.”

When she finished, Green exchanged the large paper for the small one, a yellow circle in the center, and she placed it on her tongue. Then he left her there alone to “meditate.” Unlikely.

Gloria settled in and ran the information from the page—which he’d taken with him—over and over through her head so it would stick.



* * *



—

The wall clock’s numbers had a tendency to appear as if bleeding once the LSD took effect. Gloria discovered that if she closed one eye and waited five full seconds, she could correct for it. So when young Dr. Green returned, she knew it had been roughly three hours since she’d taken the hit of acid.

She’d be at the peak of her trip, or close. Which explained the colorful lights that danced around him. Tripping was pointless to her and she couldn’t believe anyone enjoyed it. Maybe if they teased out some useful application of the drug through these experiments, her mind would change.

She doubted it.

He carried his clipboard and nodded to her. There were three of him.

“Miss Flowers?” he said.

He’d called her Gloria before, she was almost certain. An orderly let himself into the room, tall and looming, standing in the corner.

“Yes,” she replied.

“Could you please tell us the whereabouts of the troops in sector nineteen?”

The frown made him seem older. He’d told her earlier to resist, and she’d woven that through her memorization. They would want the strongest possible controls for an experiment in gaining information under the influence of drugs, yes? That had to be the entire point.

“I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean,” she said.

Or at least that’s what Gloria thought she said. Certainty became slippery after the LSD kicked in.

He pulled a chair away from the desk and sat down across from where she perched on the hard edge of the cot. She reached to adjust her skirt and remembered the thin hospital gown she was wearing. Suddenly the idea of how translucent it must be occurred to her.

Focus.

“Are you sure?” he asked.

“Sure?”

“That you don’t know what I mean, about sector nineteen. About where the troops are heading.”

“I am,” she said, with a hint of a smile at how well she was performing her task.

Green threw a glance back at the orderly. The giant stepped forward. He seemed too large to fit in this room but there he was, looming over her. A shadow. A threat.

“Are you sure you’re sure?” Dr. Green asked.

She wanted to lecture him through the bright colors and the drug haze, tell him that this was no way to run an experiment. His phrasing was off. He was misusing a set of circumstances that would be difficult to replicate in the field.

“Miss Flowers?” Green demanded. “Where are they?”

The giant’s expression wasn’t a smile but it certainly didn’t indicate disapproval. He’s enjoying this.

Gloria remembered the whispers and case studies none of her teachers ever talked about. Men with syphilis untreated. Slaves sold to doctors for experiments, black cadavers at every medical school. Not much more than ten years ago, the army and the CIA had released mosquitoes with yellow fever on black folk in Florida. Her skin made her a candidate for study to some people, and disposable to most of those same people.

Gloria found that, as always, to stay in the game, she had to pretend she didn’t know there was one. They’d never be content to let her win a round. Not even if it involved best practices.

“Of course! I didn’t realize what you meant. They’re moving north at approximately seven klicks per day…” She held out a hand. “If you give me a pencil, I can draw you a map.”

Dr. Green raised his eyebrows and shot a cocky grin at the giant orderly. Now the orderly did look disappointed.

“Very good,” Dr. Green assured her.

Sorry, Gloria thought at both of them, no, it’s not.





6.


The first part of Alice’s trip stretched out in a calm blur and she relaxed. Maybe today there’d be no electricity. She wanted that tray of tools, to take something apart instead of lying on the cot being lazy. But she kept that inside, kept everything inside and quiet, in the hope that they’d forget she was here until it was time to leave.

Dr. Parks had removed a tube of blood, which they did every few weeks, and labeled it with a date and Alice’s name on a thin strip of tape. They’d listened to her heart, checked her vision, then handed her a dose of bad medicine. Sometimes Alice fantasized about the printing press that had brought the ad to her uncle’s garage and to her attention. As with the elevator before, she imagined a slow dismantling, each piece laid out in a row until no message could be delivered at all.

That made her wonder about Ken’s experience here. He seemed just the same as when they’d started. If he was a psychic, then she’d like to punch him in the nose for telling them to get in the van that first day.

Alice, said her mom’s voice in her head, we don’t punch young men.

“Not even if they deserve it?” she asked.