256

Chapter 10

"I thought Dr. Shaw already gave me an examination. Why do I need another one?" Alex asked.

"Who's Dr. Shaw?" Death asked, swabbing his arm with antiseptic.

"The therapist lady. She told me to call her that," he said.

"Oh, you mean Cindy. Um, she was examining your mind and how you took the sudden silence. I'm going to find out why you were hearing voices in the first place."

"You aren't going to find anything," he said dryly.

"You would be surprised what you can find out if you just have the right push. I may not be a fancy doctor like Cindy, but I'm going to try my best to get you answers. You deserve that, at least," she said.

"You aren't a doctor?" Alex nervously eyed the syringe lodged in his vein.

"Well, technically, no. But I know what I'm doing, honest," she said quickly.

"Isn't practicing medicine without a license is illegal?"

"So is kidnapping, but no one seemed to care about that."

"What?"

"Hold still, please," she said. She held a weird metal stick with a G shape on the end above his head, adjusting the dial at the base of the handle.

"What is that?"

"A micrometer. It's for measuring really tiny stuff really accurately. Typically metal thickness, but obviously not in this case," she said.

"What are you measuring, then?" he asked.

"You ask a lot of questions. I wish I could answer them," she set the ruler down and scribbled on a pad of paper, tearing off the sheet and giving it to him.

"Would you mind giving this to Marc on your way out? Thanks."

Alex looked at the yellow paper in his hand as he walked. It read: 24.963. 37 miles north-northeast. Downtown Fairview?

"Death told me to give this to you. I'm not sure it actually means anything, but," he shrugged.

Marc and Dr. Shaw were in his office. There was a whiteboard on one wall with just '256' written on it. The space around it was smudged gray from being written on and erased over and over.

He took the note and read it, then crumpled it and tossed it into the trash. "Thank you, Alex." He picked up his phone and sent a quick text.

"What was that all about?" Cindy asked after Alex left.

"Just making sure Zora doesn't get into trouble. Why would someone send a message again?"

"Right. Since we've ruled out random chance, then that means someone has to be directing all of this, reaching out and trying to send a message. There are 5 reasons to send a message: to warn, to threaten, to ask a question, to impress, or to give information. All we have to do is narrow it down to which is most likely," she said, writing the list on the board.

"'Give information' is promising," Marc said. "This could easily be that. Then all we'd have to figure out is information on what."

"I don't know," Cindy said. "Whoever we're dealing with is extremely powerful. If they were out to simply send data, you'd think they would just use a phone."

"You could use that logic to eliminate all the possibilities," he said.

"No, but it would definitely get rid of some of them. People are more dramatic if they want to impress or threaten, and sometimes when they warn. But they're more humble if they have to ask something, and if they have to give information, then they don't want it to be misinterpreted, so they'll be as direct as possible," Cindy said.

"So you think our best options are a threat, a warning, or someone trying to make a good first impression. That's great! That means there is a 2/3 chance this person is friendly," Marc said. His phone buzzed with a text alert.

Marc opened the message and clenched his jaw. He left the room.

"Hey, we were in the middle of a conversation. Huge, international message going out, sort of trying to figure out why," Cindy said, following him.

"Alex! Hi. How are you liking it here?" he asked. Alex was sitting in the lounge-like room that separated the main labs, reading a book.

"Uh, good, I guess," he said.

"Great. That's good. You know what would make it better? Pie. There's this awesome restaurant in Fairview, they have the best pie around. Why don't you go pick some up? You can even take the van," Marc said.

"But I don't know how to drive."

Marc gave him a set of keys. "You will learn. It's not that hard. And people learn by experience, right? Consider this your experience."

Alex stared at the keys in his hand. "Okay. Cool."

"What? No. No, this is not happening. Marc, Alex is not your personal assistant. If you want a snack, go make one or get it yourself. Alex, you have to have a license to do certain things, okay? And one of those things is driving. You could've killed someone," Cindy said.

"Death practices medicine without a license and driving is a lot less dangerous than that," Alex reasoned.

"What? Did you know about this?" she turned to Marc.

"Well, duh. I don't see why you're freaking out so much. Here," he gave Alex some wrinkled bills. "Why don't you just take the bus. Be back in an hour. There. Now everybody's happy."

"You are acting like this is normal but this is not normal," Cindy said.

"If you want normal, feel free to go back to college," he said.