For now . . . well, Joyce hadn't wanted her to see the testing. So Kait would start with the labs.
The front lab was as she remembered it, weird machines, a folding screen with seashells appliquéd on it, chairs and couches, bookcases, a stereo. There was no graffiti. Kaitlyn looked briefly into each of the study carrels that lined the walls, but she knew already that the crystal could never fit into something so small. She found only more equipment.
I wonder what their powers are? she thought, envisioning each of the students she'd met. I forgot to ask Lydia. Gabriel said something about Frost being clairvoyant, but the others-I'll bet they do something bizarre.
She turned to the back lab ... and found it locked.
Aha!
It had never been locked before. Kaitlyn found it extremely suspicious that it should be locked now.
But her jubilation changed to despair a minute later as she realized a basic truth. If it was locked, she couldn't get in.
But wait, wait. Joyce had always kept a house key on top of the bulletin board in the kitchen, for anybody to grab when they were leaving the house. Sometimes people had the same locks on the inside doors of a house as the outside. If that key were still there ... and if it fit...
In a moment she was in the quiet, darkening kitchen, fingers searching anxiously on the top of the bulletin board's frame. She found some dust, a dead fly ... and a key.
Eureka! Praying all the way, Kaitlyn hurried back to the lab. She held key to lock, almost dropping it in her nervousness.
It's got to work, it's got to work. . . .
The key slipped in. It fit! She waggled it. It turned!
The doorknob turned, too. Kait pushed and the door was open. She stepped in and shut the door behind her.
The back lab was dim-it had been a garage and had only a small window. Kaitlyn blinked, trying to make out shapes. She didn't dare turn on a light.
There were bookcases here, too, and more equipment. And a steel room like a bank vault.
A Faraday cage.
Kaitlyn remembered Joyce telling her about it. It was for complete isolation in testing. Soundproof, electronically shielded. They had put Gabriel in there.
Kait remembered herself begging Joyce to promise she'd never have to go in.
Her mouth was dry. She tried to swallow, but her throat seemed to stick together. She walked toward the gray bulk of the steel vault, one hand lifted as if she were blind.
Cool metal met her fingers.
If I were a crystal, I'd be somewhere like this. Shielded, enclosed. With enough room for everybody to get in and crowd around me.
Kaitlyn's fingers slid over the metal. Her former tranquility in the face of danger was gone, and her heart wasn't just pounding, it was thundering. If the crystal was really in there, she had to see it. But she didn't really want to see it-and to be alone with that obscene thing ... in the dark. . . .
Kaitlyn's skin was crawling and her knees felt unsteady. But her fingers kept searching. She found something like a handle.
You can do it. You can do it.
She pulled.
At first, she thought the sound she heard was the vault door clicking. Then she realized it was somebody opening the lab door behind her.
What does a spy do when she's caught?
Kait's stomach plummeted. She recognized the voice, even before she whirled around to see the figure silhouetted in the door.
Light shone behind him. Broad shoulders, then body lines that swept straight down. A man wearing a greatcoat.
"Are you finding anything to interest you?" Mr. Zetes asked, his gold-headed cane swinging in his hand.
Oh, God. The buzzing was back in Kaitlyn's ears and she couldn't answer. Couldn't move, either, although her heart was shaking her body.
"Would you like to see what's inside there?"
Say something, idiot. Say anything, anything.
Her dry lips moved. "I-no. I-I was just-"
Mr. Zetes stepped forward, snapped on the overhead light. "Go on, take a closer look," he said.
But Kaitlyn couldn't look away from his face. The first time she'd seen this man, she'd thought him courtly and aristocratic. His white hair, aquiline nose, and piercing dark eyes made him look like some English earl. And if an occasional grim smile flashed across his face, she was sure that he had a heart of gold underneath.
She'd found out differently.
Now, his eyes held her with an almost hypnotic power. Boring into her mind, gnawing. He looked more telepathic than Gabriel. His measured, imperious voice seemed to resound in her blood.
"Of course you want to see it," he said, and Kaitlyn's throat closed on her protests. He advanced on her slowly and steadily. "Look at it, Kaitlyn. It's a very sturdy Faraday cage. Look."
Against her will, Kaitlyn's head turned.
"It's natural that you would be interested in it- and in what's inside. Have you seen that yet?"
Kaitlyn shook her head. Now that she wasn't looking into those eyes, she found she could speak-a little. "Mr. Zetes-I wasn't-"
"Joyce told me that you had come back to join us." Mr. Z's voice was rhythmic . . . almost soothing. "I was very pleased. You have great talents, you know, Kaitlyn. And a keen, inquiring mind."
As he spoke he unlocked the vault with a key, grasped the handle. Kaitlyn was speechless again with fear. Please, she was thinking. Please, I don't want to see, just let me go.
"And now your curiosity can be satisfied. Go in, Kaitlyn."
He pulled the steel door open. There was a single lamp inside, the battery-driven kind that clamps on walls. It gave enough light for Kaitlyn to see the object below.
Not the crystal. A sort of tank, made of dark metal.
Bewildered, forgetting herself, Kaitlyn took a step forward. The tank was almost like a Dumpster trash can, except that instead of being rectangular it had one side which slanted steeply. A door was set in that steeply slanting side. It looked like the door to a hurricane cellar, leading down.
There were all sorts of pipes, cables, and hoses attached to the tank. One machine beside it looked like the electroencephalograph Joyce had used to measure Kaitlyn's brain waves. There were other machines Kaitlyn didn't recognize.
The tank itself felt like a giant economy-size coffin.
"What ... is it?" Kaitlyn whispered. Dread was clogging her chest like ice. The thing gave off an aura of pure evil.
"Just a piece of testing equipment, my dear," Mr. Zetes said. "It's called an isolation tank. The ultimate Ganzfeld cocoon. Put a subject inside, and she is surrounded by perfect darkness and perfect silence. No light or sound can penetrate. It's filled with water, so she can't feel the effects of gravity or her own body. There is no sensory stimulation of any kind. Under those conditions, a person-"