Mary sighs. “Never mind that you were dating Cindy at the time.”
“I admit she influenced my decision. I fell for her big-time. We were together night and day. Cindy was full of life back then. But my interest in the professor’s work was genuine. I could see that he’d hit on an amazing tool with his array. The more people we brought aboard, and the better we got at screening them, the more impressive were our results. We didn’t just prove the existence of telepathy, we were able to do the same when it came to precognition.”
“When you talk about proving precognition,” I say, “you’re talking about playing the stock market, aren’t you?”
“When Cindy brought up using the stock market, it seemed a clever way of testing whether the array could predict events. Understand, we didn’t start down that road until after we’d been together a couple of years. Noel and Wendy were already married by then and had a kid, Angela. We were all surviving on our scholarships—except for Tom, Thomas Brutran, who had his own money—but we were living on the edge. We were often broke. When Cindy showed us how we could take a small sum and multiply it several times over, it seemed like manna from heaven.”
“Did Sharp approve of using his research to make money?” I ask.
“We didn’t tell him. At least not at first.”
“Why not?” Paula asks.
“Cindy asked us to keep it secret so we could prove that it worked before showing him the results. I felt kind of funny going behind his back, but I have to say Cindy wasn’t the easiest person in the world to argue with. She was so strong-willed, she had to have her way.”
“I believe you,” I mutter.
“When we finally did tell him, he yelled at us that none of the other academics would take us seriously now. The truth is, I think he was just looking for someone to blame for why he couldn’t get his results published. He said that Cindy’s money-making system had made his peers think he was operating a Ponzi scheme. Those were tense times. We’d been together for over two years and there was talk among the other teachers that Sharp was squandering the university’s money. He was still having to pay everyone who volunteered. When the array reached a thousand heads, you can see how funds started to be a problem. Ironically, it was Cindy who kept the experiments alive with the money she made on the market. That was true even after Berkeley shut us down.” He pauses. “I don’t suppose Sharp told you that.”
“He didn’t mention it,” I say.
“How did the Cradle come into existence?” Seymour asks, growing impatient. I sympathize with his mood. Freddy has begun to repeat several points Sharp has already told us. It’s time to cut to the chase. He tenses at the question and stares at his beer bottle. He doesn’t respond, not at first. Mary strokes his back and whispers in his ear.
“Tell them, honey. It’ll be good to get it off your chest.”
Freddy sighs. “It’s hard. It was my fault.”
“It was Cindy’s fault,” Mary says.
Freddy looks up. “Two unrelated events led to the creation of the Cradle. The first was definitely my fault. I’d heard a rumor that Tom—the man you know as Thomas Brutran, the president of IIC—had been seen kissing Cindy at some restaurant. I don’t know why I didn’t confront her about it. I guess I was afraid she’d tell me it was true. Suffice to say I was pretty upset to get the news. To make matters worse, I heard about it two hours before we were supposed to have a full gathering of the array. Back then we didn’t usually get everyone together in the same room to conduct our experiments. We’d discovered that a person could be on the phone and give us practically the identical support, as long as we were all on one line together.
“That day was different. Sharp wanted to get everyone together to see if we could boost our results. I forget his reason. I just know it was a pity I was chosen to lead the group. My brain was on fire. All I could think of was Cindy in Tom’s arms. And here I was the guy in charge of helping everyone focus.” Freddy stopped and shook his head. “I know that’s why it happened.”
“What happened?” I ask.
“During the session, Tom started having trouble breathing. His skin took on a bluish tinge. He gasped for us to help him. He felt as if he had a mountain on his chest, crushing him down. The professor was sure he was having a heart attack. We called for an ambulance. It goes without saying we broke up the array. After that, we were all afraid to do any psychic work. Especially me.”
“Why you?” I ask.
“Isn’t it obvious? I was the one who hurt Tom. I was the one who almost stopped his heart. I didn’t mean to, I couldn’t control myself. I already told you the state of mind I was in. Then, when I took my place in front of the crowd, and they closed their eyes, I felt this huge magnetic web encircle me. I can still recall how it felt to this day. It was like a huge spider entered the auditorium and spun a hideous web that somehow linked us together. It was real, it was as tangible as a physical object. There was only one thing that kept me from running screaming from that auditorium. The one thing that overshadowed the horror I felt.”
“It was a sense of power,” I say.
Freddy stares at me, stunned. “How did you know?”
“It’s a long story.”
He nods. “It was like my anger toward Tom got magnified a thousandfold and transformed into something else. Into an evil I’d never dreamed could exist.”
I suddenly have trouble breathing. I cannot stop thinking of Numbria in that crummy London motel room, and what I did to her. I know the evil he is talking about.
“What happened to Tom?” Seymour asks.
“He had a heart attack. He ended up spending over a month in the hospital. A twenty-five-year-old guy who didn’t smoke or drink and who played tennis before breakfast. He couldn’t have been in better shape. Yet somehow my mind, in connection with the array, almost killed him.”
“That’s quite a leap from answering yes and no questions,” Seymour says.
“You’re telling me. It was a power we just stumbled onto.”
“Did you tell Sharp about your state of mind during the experiment?” Seymour asks.
“I confessed to the others what I’d done. My guilt haunted me. But ironically the professor didn’t blame me. He felt it was a fluke. Still, to be on the safe side, he made it a rule that no one was to join an array if they were feeling emotional.”
“Did you confront Cindy?” Seymour asks.
Freddy hesitates. “No.”
“Why not?” Seymour persists.
“That’s none of your business!” Freddy snaps.
The room suddenly feels tense enough to prompt another visit from the psychic spider. I let Freddy calm down before I gently encourage him to explain about the other half of the Cradle. I have a feeling I’ve waited a long time to hear what he has to say.
Freddy finally tell us the big secret.
“Six months after Tom had his heart attack, the professor had a stroke and was forced to retire. For a time the members of our group went their separate ways. Except for us couples, Cindy and me, and Wendy and Noel. There were no more experiments with the array. There was no longer an authority figure to get the thousands of people together. I was glad. After my contact with that evil power, I lost all enthusiasm for the work.
“I told you that Wendy and Noel had a child, Angela. She was five years old when Cindy got pregnant with our child. Unfortunately, this was in the days before routine sonograms, although it’s debatable that knowing about the baby’s situation ahead of time would have made any difference.
“When Henry was born, he had a condition where his liver, his gallbladder, and portions of his small and large intestines were outside his body. The surgeons operated immediately. They skillfully shifted Henry’s tiny organs into their proper place and sewed him back up. For a few days it looked like he would make it. But the trauma of the surgery or else the pressure of the organs themselves was too much for the boy. He died and it broke Cindy’s and my heart.
“We didn’t have a funeral with a coffin. We didn’t believe in them. Cindy and I had Henry cremated. The old gang rented a boat and took it out on the San Francisco Bay. We prayed, sang songs, and sprinkled his ashes on the dark water. My heart felt so heavy that day. I kept thinking how unfair it all seemed.
“It was while I was driving home that night with Cindy that an idea struck me. I wasn’t a major follower of astrology, but I dabbled in it from time to time, largely because I’d noticed that many of the events the array predicted, the stars were also able to predict.
“I couldn’t stop thinking of Henry and it made me wonder if there was a sign in his astrological chart that would indicate that he was meant to die. Like so many people who had suffered a loss, I suppose I was looking for meaning in his death.
“The Internet was on the horizon but it didn’t yet exist. However, personal computers had begun to appear. The first were primitive Apples, which we all thought were miracles in a box. My point is that computers and their endless streams of data had begun to spread around the globe, and it struck me that this incredible wealth of information might somehow be harnessed to prove whether astrology had any validity to it or not.”