Origins (Remote) Read Online Free

unexpected. Even Merlin is still mulling around in the dark. So far, your results have been comparable to his, and now you’ve got the chance to outshine him. I understand your caution, but if there’s a chance you’re on to something we’ve got to pursue it. Tell me again about these two children.”
    Farrow took a breath and began speaking, taking Thorne through the whole afternoon. Farrow had been designated to take the boy: Ronnie Gilmore, age thirteen, a shy but bright young man in the eighth grade. The principal had pointed to Ronnie as being exceptionally talented in the areas of language and mathematics. Farrow had conducted basic intelligence test and found that to be true. The boy’s IQ was in the range of one hundred thirty. He was exceptionally quick with the language portion. The specialized tests had been extraordinary. Ronnie had been off the charts in the tests that compared chance guessing to the detection of extrasensory perceptions. Given a choice of ten pictured objects on cards placed face down on the table, the boy had confused only two, and they were both similar, an apple and a pear. The number perception had been even better. He was perfect, identifying correctly the numbers on ten cards turned face down.
    “If I were going to Vegas,” Farrow said, “I’d want this kid with me every minute.”
    ‘That’s all very interesting Dr. Farrow,” Thorne said. “But we’re not running a casino. I’m more interested in his reaction to the photograph.”
    Farrow nodded. “That was pretty weird, I have to say. I figured the kid would give me some story about a factory or a warehouse or something like that but it’s not what I got. This kid has some kind of imagination.”
    What Farrow had listened to after asking Ronnie Gilmore about the picture was still fixed firmly in his mind. The boy had been upset, but he came up with a very vivid story, one that Farrow wouldn’t soon forget.
    “I think this is a place where bad things are happening,” Ronnie had said. “The people inside are dressed in space suits with tubes attached to the wall. And there’s bugs all over the place and all over the people, but it’s like they don’t even know it. They’re just walking around with all these bugs all over them, like cockroaches and spiders and stuff and they don’t care. They like it. There’s a guy in there, a big fat guy, and he tells people what to do. Someone brought him a big glass jar full of bugs, really ugly bugs, and he smiled like it was a Christmas present or something.”
    Farrow had been stunned at the story and he was still shaking his head over it as he told Thorne.
    Of the three people sitting at the table, Thorne was the only one who had true knowledge of the building in the photograph and what Farrow had just related shook him, though he showed no sign of it.
    N517-5963 was a satellite photograph taken of a facility in the American Southwest. The area’s existence was unknown to all but a handful in the U.S. government. The carefully screened staff that worked in this facility were among the best chemists and microbiologists in the country, all highly paid, most either current or former military. They were single and unattached. Most existed and lived under an alias, their former lives wiped out of all records. That made them deniable and in a worst case scenario, expendable. They were as deep into black as they could be, working on the next generation of biological weapons technology, both offensive and defensive – mostly offensive. Every type of disease known to man was contained within the lab, some of which could wipe out entire populations if released.
    “And the girl?” Thorne asked, turning to Ruff.
    “High spectrum perception,” Ruff said. “Passed all the tests with flying colors. IQ in the upper one-forty range I’d say. She missed two on the number problems, but that’s still unbelievably high. I ran the object screening twice, and she aced it both times.