Firestarter(105)

She looked back at the tray of woodchips.

It wasn't a push; it was a shove. She thought about doing it and was again disgusted and frightened to find herself wanting to do it. She thought about doing it the way a hot and hungry person might sit in front of a chocolate ice-cream soda and think about gobbling and slurping it down. That was okay, but first you wanted just a moment to... to savor it.

That wanting made her feel ashamed of herself, and then she shook her head almost angrily. Why shouldn't I want to do it? If people are good at things, they always want to do them. Like Mommy with her double-crostics and Mr. Douray down the street in Port City, always making bread. When they had enough at his house, he'd make some for other people. If you're good at something, you want to do it...

Woodchips, she thought a little contemptuously. They should have given me something hard.

13

The technician felt it first. He was hot and uncomfortable and sweaty in the asbestos clothing, and at first he thought that was all it was. Then he saw that the kid's alpha waves had taken on the high spike rhythm that is the hallmark of extreme concentration, and also the brain's signature of imagination.

The sense of heat grew-and suddenly he was scared.

14

"Something happening in there," one of the technicians in the observation room said in a high, excited voice. "Temperature just jumped ten degrees. Her alpha pattern looks like the f**king Andes-"

"There it goes!" Cap exclaimed. "There it goes!" His voice vibrated with the shrill triumph of a man who has waited years for the one moment now at hand.

15

She shoved as hard as she could at the tray of woodchips. They did not so much burst into flames as explode. A moment later the tray itself flipped over twice, spraying chunks of burning wood, and clanged off the wall hard enough to leave a dimple in the sheet steel.

The technician who had been monitoring at the EEG cried out in fear and made a sudden, crazy dash for the door. The sound of his cry hurled Charlie suddenly back in time to the Albany airport. It was the cry of Eddie Delgardo, running for the ladies" bathroom with his army-issue shoes in flames.

She thought in sudden terror and exaltation, Oh God it's gotten so much stronger!

The steel wall had developed a strange, dark ripple. The room had become explosively hot. In the other room, the digital thermometer, which had gone from seventy degrees to eighty and then paused, now climbed rapidly past ninety to ninetyfour before slowing down.

Charlie threw the firething at the tub; she was nearly panicked now. The water swirled, then broke into a fury of bubbles. In a space of five seconds, the contents of the tub went from cool to a rolling, steaming boil.

The technician had exited, leaving the testing room door heedlessly ajar. In the observation room there was a sudden, startled turmoil. Hockstetter was bellowing. Cap was standing gape-jawed at the window, watching the tubful of water boil. Clouds of steam rose from it and the one-way glass began to fog over. Only Rainbird was calm, smiling slightly, hands clasped behind his back. He looked like a teacher whose star pupil has used difficult postulates to solve a particularly aggravating problem.

(back off.)

Screaming in her mind.

(back off! back off! BACK OFF!)

And suddenly it was gone. Something disengaged, spun free for a second or two, and then simply stopped. Her concentration broke up and let the fire go. She could see the room again and feel the heat she had created bringing sweat to her skin. In the observation room, the thermometer crested at ninety-six and then dropped a degree. The wildly bubbling caldron began to simmer down-but at least half of its contents had boiled away. In spite of the open door, the little room was as hot and moist as a steam room.

16

Hockstetter was checking his instruments feverishly. His hair, usually combed back so neatly and tightly that it almost seemed to scream, had now come awry, sticking up in the back. He looked a bit like Alfalfa of The Little Rascals.

"Got it!" he panted. "Got it, we got it all... it's on tape... the temperature gradient... did you see the water in that tub boil?... Jesus!... did we get the audio?... we did?... my God, did you see what she did?"

He passed one of his technicians, whirled back, and grabbed him roughly by the front of his smock. "Would you say there was any doubt that she made that happen?" he shouted.

The technician, nearly as excited as Hockstetter, shook his head. "No doubt at all, Chief. None."

"Holy God," Hockstetter said, whirling away, distracted again. "I would have thought... something... yes, something... but that tray... flew..."

He caught sight of Rainbird, who was still standing at the one-way glass with his hands crossed behind his back, that mild, bemused smile on his face. For Hockstetter, old animosities were forgotten. He rushed over to the big Indian, grabbed his hand, pumped it.

"We got it," he told Rainbird with savage satisfaction. "We got it all, it would be good enough to stand up in court! Right up in the f**king Supreme Court!" "Yes, you got it," Rainbird agreed mildly. "Now you better send somebody along to get her." "Huh?" Hockstetter looked at him blankly.

"Well," Rainbird said, still in his mildest tone, "the guy that was in there maybe had an appointment he forgot about, because he left in one hell of an ass-busting rush. He left the door open, and your firestarter just walked out."