Firestarter(114)

Set around this testing room that used to be a chapel are eight huge Kelvinator air conditioners, all running at high speed, all pumping freezing air into the testing room. All eight kicked into operation as soon as the room's overall temperature passed ninety-five.

Charlie had got very good at directing the stream of heat that somehow came from her at a single point, but as anyone who has ever burned his or her hand on a hot skillet handle knows, even so-called nonconductable surfaces will conduct heat-if there is enough heat to conduct.

With all eight of the industrial Kelvinators running, the temperature in the testing room should have been minus fifteen degrees Fahrenheit, plus or minus five degrees. Instead, the records show a continued climb, up over a hundred degrees, then a hundred and five, then a hundred and seven. But all of the sweat running down the faces of the observers cannot be accounted for by the heat alone.

Now not even extreme slow motion will give a clear picture of what is happening, but one thing is clear: as the cinderblocks continue to explode outward and backward, there can be no doubt that they are burning; these blocks are burning as briskly as newspapers in a fireplace. Of course, an eighth-grade science book teaches that anything will burn if it gets hot enough. But it is one thing to read such information and quite another to see cinderblock blazing with blue and yellow flame.

Then everything is obscured by a furious blowback of disintegrating particles as the whole wall vaporizes. The little girl makes a slow-motion half turn and a moment later the calm surface of the icy water in the tank is convulsed and boiling. And the heat in the room, which has crested at a hundred twelve, (even with all eight air conditioners, it is as hot as a summer noontime in Death Valley), begins to go back.

There's one for the sweeper.

2
INTERDEPARTMENTAL MEMO

From Bradford Hyuck

To Patrick Hockstetter

Date October 2

Re Telemetry, latest C. McGee Test (No. 4)

Pat-I've watched the films four times now and still can't believe it isn't some sort of special effects trick. Some unsolicited advice: When you get before the Senate subcommittee that's going to deal with the Lot Six appropriations and renewal plans, have your ducks in a row and do more than cover your ass-armor-plate it! Human nature being what it is, those guys are going to look at those films and have a hard job believing it isn't a flat-out shuckand-jive.

To business: The readouts are being delivered by special messenger, and this memo should beat them by no more than two or three hours. You can read them over for yourself, but I'll briefly sum up our findings. Our conclusions can be summed up in two words: We're stumped. She was wired up this time like an astronaut going into space. You will note: 1) Blood pressure within normal parameters for a child of eight, and there's hardly a jog when that wall goes up like the Hiroshima bomb. 2) Abnormally high alpha wave readings; what we'd call her "imagination circuitry" is well engaged. You may or may not agree with Clapper and me that the waves are rather more even, suggesting a certain "controlled imaginative dexterity" (Clapper's rather fulsome phrase, not mine). Could indicate she's getting in control of it and can manipulate the ability with greater precision. Practice, as they say, makes perfect. Or it may mean nothing at all. 3) All metabolic telemetry is within normal parameters-nothing strange or out of place. It's as if she was reading a good book or writing a class theme instead of creating what you say must have been upwards of 30,000 degrees of spot heat. To my mind the most fascinating (and frustrating!) information of all is the Beal-Searles CAT test. Next to no caloric burn! In case you've forgotten your physics-occupational hazard with you shrinks-a calorie is nothing but a unit of heat; the amount of heat necessary to raise a gram of water one degree centigrade, to be exact. She burned maybe 25 calories during that little exhibition, what we would burn doing half a dozen sit-ups or walking twice around the building. But calories measure heat, damn it, heat, and what she's producing is heat... or is she? Is it coming from her or through her? And if it's the latter, where is it coming from? Figure that one out and you've got the Nobel Prize in your hip pocket! I'll tell you this: if our test series is as limited as you say it is, I'm positive we'll never find out. Last word: Are you sure you want to continue these tests? Lately I just have to think about that kid and I start to get very antsy. I start thinking about things like pulsars and neutrinos and black holes and Christ knows what else. There are forces loose in this universe that we don't even know about yet, and some we can observe only at a remove of millions of light-years... and breathe a sigh of relief because of it. The last time I looked at that film I began to think of the girl as a crack-a chink, if you like-in the very smelter of creation. I know how that sounds, but I feel I would be remiss not to say it. God forgive me for saying this, with three lovely girls of my own, but I personally will breathe a sigh of relief when she's been neutralized.

If she can produce 30,000 degrees of spot heat without even trying, have you ever thought what might happen if she really set her mind to it?

Brad

3

"I want to see my father," Charlie said when Hockstetter came in. She looked pale and wan. She had changed from her jumper into an old nightgown, and her hair was loose on her shoulders.

"Charlie-"he began, but anything he had been meaning to follow with was suddenly gone. He was deeply troubled by Brad Hyuck's memo and by the supporting telemetry readouts. The fact that Brad had trusted those final two paragraphs to print said much, and suggested more.