Certainly he would have recognized the dusty linoleum floor, with its checkerboard pattern of black and red squares, and the rolling chairs along consoles filled with blinking lights and glowing dials. And he would have recognized the skeleton in the corner, grinning above the frayed collar of its ancient uniform shirt.
She crossed the room and sat in one of the chairs. Above her, black-and-white TV screens showed dozens of pictures. Some were of Calla Bryn Sturgis (the town common, Callahan's church, the general store, the road leading east out of town). Some were still pictures like studio photographs: one of Roland, one of a smiling Jake holding Oy in his arms, and one - she could hardly bear to look at it - of Eddie with his hat tipped back cowpoke-style and his whittling knife in one hand.
Another monitor showed the slim black woman sitting on the bench beside the turtle, knees together, hands folded in her lap, eyes closed, a pair of stolen shoes on her feet. She now had three bags: the one she'd stolen from the woman on Second Avenue, the rush sack with the sharpened Orizas in it...and a bowling bag. This one was a faded red, and there was something with square corners inside it. A box. Looking at it in the TV screen made Susannah feel angry - betrayed - but she didn't know why.
The bag was pink on the other side,she thought.It changed color when we crossed, but only a little.
The woman's face on the black-and-white screen above the control board grimaced. Susannah felt an echo of the pain Mia was experiencing, only faint and distant.
Got to stop that. And quick.
The question still remained: how?
The way you did on the other side. While she was horsing her freight up to that cave just as fast as she damn could.
But that seemed a long time ago now, in another life. And why not? Ithad been another life, another world, and if she ever hoped to get back there, she had to help right now. So what had she done?
You used this stuff, that's what you did. It's only in your head, anyway - what Professor Overmeyer called "a visualization technique" back in Psych One. Close your eyes.
Susannah did so. Now both sets of eyes were closed, the physical ones that Mia controlled in New York and the ones in her mind.
Visualize.
She did. Or tried.
Open.
She opened her eyes. Now on the panel in front of her there were two large dials and a single toggle-switch where before there had been rheostats and flashing lights. The dials looked to be made of Bakelite, like the oven-dials on her mother's stove back in the house where Susannah had grown up. She supposed there was no surprise there; all you imagined, no matter how wild it might seem, was no more than a disguised version of what you already knew.
The dial on her left was labeled EMOTIONAL TEMP. The markings on it ran from 32 to 212 (32 in blue; 212 in bright red). It was currently set at 160. The dial in the middle was marked LABOR FORCE. The numbers around its face went from 0 to 10, and it was currently turned to 9. The label under the toggle-switch simply read CHAP, and there were only two settings: AWAKE and ASLEEP. It was currently set to AWAKE.
Susannah looked up and saw one of the screens was now showing a babyin utero. It was a boy. Abeautiful boy. His tiny penis floated like a strand of kelp below the lazy curl of his umbilical cord. His eyes were open, and although the rest of the image was black and white, those eyes were a piercing blue. The chap's gaze seemed to go right through her.
They're Roland's eyes,she thought, feeling stupid with wonder.How can that be?
It couldn't, of course. All this was nothing but the work of her own imagination, a visualization technique. But if so, why would she imagine Roland's blue eyes? Why not Eddie's hazel ones? Why not her husband's hazel eyes?
No time for that now. Do what you have to do.
She reached out to EMOTIONAL TEMP with her lower lip caught between her teeth (on the monitor showing the park bench, Mia also began biting her lower lip). She hesitated, then dialed it back to 72, exactly as if it was a thermostat. And wasn't it?
Calm immediately filled her. She relaxed in her chair and let her lip escape the grip of her teeth. On the park monitor, the black woman did the same. All right, so far, so good.
She hesitated for a moment with her hand not quite touching the LABOR FORCE dial, then moved on to CHAP instead. She flipped the toggle from AWAKE to ASLEEP. The baby's eyes closed immediately. Susannah found this something of a relief. Those blue eyes were disconcerting.
All right, back to LABOR FORCE. Susannah thought this was the important one, what Eddie would call the Big Casino. She took hold of the old-fashioned dial, applied a little experimental force, and was not exactly surprised to find the clunky thing dully resistant in its socket. It didn't want to turn.
But you will,Susannah thought.Because we need you to. We needyou to.