Suspicious Minds (Stranger Things Novels #1)(36)

Ken had promised she’d know when his distraction came—they’d agreed he would time it early enough in the acid trip that she’d still be on the uphill swing, and not the downhill tired paranoia spiral. And he didn’t lie. A fire alarm screamed and then a young orderly knocked on the door to the room.

“Is there an emergency? A fire?” Brenner demanded. He’d been pleased at her report that no one knew she’d placed the bug—and he’d seemed to already know it was there. Bless Gloria’s quick thinking in actually doing it.

“I, uh, I don’t think so. I have a patient emergency.” The orderly was flustered and babbling. “Dr. Parks sent me to get you. Come quick! Oh, and she said bring sedatives.”

“Prepare them,” Brenner barked to the orderly attending him, their looming, bearded driver as usual. He walked over to Terry and crouched beside the cot where she reclined. “I want you to stay here and relax. The alarm is all in your mind.”

“All in my mind,” she said, as blissed-out as she could manage. “Like pretty music.”

“Let’s go.” Brenner waved for the orderlies to come. Terry watched through slitted lids. She was up as soon as they cleared the door.

The hall was busy with staff evacuating or asking whether they had to evacuate. A security guard passed Terry and said no to one of them, that the alarm system had been manually triggered and there was no evidence of a fire. The threat was being investigated and the alarm would be off soon.

She kept her head down and hurried along the wall. A glance into a door and there was Alice, grinning, an enormous machine like a portable iron lung beside her.

The route to where she met Kali felt burned into her brain, but she made a wrong turn. Then another. She’d almost given up hope when she recognized the corridor, the wing separated by the keypad. She hurried to it and entered the code Alice had given her.

The keypad beeped and the door released with a click.

Terry rushed through, past the doors of empty rooms until she reached one with bunk beds and a little table with crayons on it. But Kali was nowhere to be seen.

At least that probably means she’s not staying here. Terry hadn’t been able to get the horrible idea out of her mind, unlikely as it seemed.

So the next step was to try to find Brenner’s office. If Kali called him Papa, it must be close by, right? She was either his daughter or important to him in some other way.

Terry turned back and tried the other hall past the keypad. She came almost immediately to another set of doors with yet another keypad, where the code also worked, and was encouraged when this hallway had offices instead of exam rooms. There were placards with names beside the doors.

She scanned each one, praying the letters would stop vibrating and dancing and knowing the acid meant they wouldn’t.

DR. MARTIN BRENNER. She traced her fingers across the raised letters.

Hallelujah. She tried the door and it opened, unlocked. The fire alarm abruptly stopped, but she knew Ken would do his best to stretch out his disruption. Still, she didn’t have endless time. They couldn’t afford for Brenner to know what they were up to.

Not yet.

She tried his middle desk drawer and it was locked. Gloria called that.

But then how many files could it hold? There was a tall wooden filing cabinet behind the desk. She said a silent prayer and pulled at the second drawer down.

It slid free. She paged through the files, seeing the words MK ULTRA and then INDIGO typed at the top, along with CLASSIFIED stamps. Neither meant anything to her. She skimmed, looking for the terms Gloria had mentioned, and came up empty. Next drawer, then.

Terry’s interest spiked as she took in what she’d found.

There were no names on these files. Numbers. 001. 002. 003. And on they went, up to 010. The words PROJECT INDIGO after them. More CLASSIFIED stamps at the top of the pages inside. But it was the physical descriptions that told her what she’d found. The low weights. The heights that started at 3′2″. And then the ages listed as entered at.

Age 4.

Age 6.

Age 8.

If these were anything to go by, Kali wasn’t the only child involved. But involved in what, exactly? The notes were mostly focused on the progress of each, and not much had been made apparently. Except for the file of 008, which contained encouraging but cautionary notes…

You don’t have time to read all this.

She shut the drawer.

Terry’s heart pounded as she left the office and hurried down the hall and around a corner, retracing her steps. She chanced looking for Kali again and found her back at the table, drawing, once again in a gown.

She could have appointments the same day you’re here.

Before Terry could knock on the door to ask, a hand grabbed her arm. Kali didn’t see her as a man in an ill-fitting suit moved her back up the hall.

“What are you doing here?” the man asked. “This is a restricted sector.”

She scrambled for a story. Then she realized Ken had given her the perfect cover. “I heard the alarm and was trying to evacuate.”

“But how did you get back here?” he pressed.

“I’m not sure…I followed someone, I think?”

She couldn’t tell if he bought it.





5.


Alice had to stop herself from clapping as the alarm filled the air and glee filled her. A fresh-faced, panicked orderly appeared at the door a moment later and, before Dr. Parks could even ask about a fire, begged her to come see another test subject.