Free Surrogate by James Ellison Page A

surveyed the monitors as the two rooms
came into view. Marla appeared in one of the monitors. She walked
around the room, looking at the furniture. The other room was dark.
Katrina had not turned on the light yet, so she pushed a button on
her large console, bringing light to the room. The other room was
set up exactly like the first, with the exception of a large
monitor, used to view the subject in the other room. Only, the
monitor was not there!
    "Where's the monitor for test room number
one?" Joanne didn't bother turning to look at Katrina.
    "Remember?" She heard Katrina respond. "The
monitor broke. You sent it out for repair."
    "Yeah, I remember," Joanne heard the pitch of
her own voice rise as she spoke. "But you were supposed to pick it
up from the repair shop yesterday."
    "The repair shop never called me."
    Joanne fumed but did her best to hide it from
her intern. Katrina had been acting strange ever since their last
set of tests with Holly, their chosen sender. She'd been
absent-minded about other things too. Maybe she'd just been given
too much of a workload. After all, the kinds of experimentation
they were performing went well beyond anything Katrina was learning
in her college psychology classes.
    A voice thundered from the intercom, making
Joanne and Katrina jump in unison. It was the front desk announcing
their other visitor waiting at the front desk. Joanne clapped her
hands together, her anger quickly replaced by excitement.
    "You want me to get our guest and escort her
to room number one?" Katrina giggled at her own statement, flashing
a wide smile.
    Joanne was embarrassed at her own excitement.
"No, I'll go get her and bring her here," she said, hoping her
forced nonchalance masked her giddiness. "I'd like to show her the
control room and some of the monitoring equipment we'll be
using.
    Katrina shook her head in agreement but still
had that big wide smile stretched across her face. Joanne held her
breath as she moved to the door so she wouldn't burst out in
laughter. She made it through the doorway with her composure
intact, but as the door clicked shut, she found herself skipping
down the long corridor to the reception area. She stopped before
going around the corner and took some deep breaths. Composed and
professional again, she walked to the reception desk with her arm
outstretched and a half-smile, but on the inside, she was still
skipping and giggling.
    ***
    Holly shook Doctor Mueller's hand, and then
followed her down the long corridor to the control room. She was
glad to be the one chosen to take part in this experiment and,
having passed all their other tests, was excited to be a part of
stretching the boundaries of remote influence. She spent a lifetime
preparing for something like this. She'd suffered through people
calling her gift 'fringe science' and those studying her gifts
being labeled as parapsychologists. Nonetheless, she continued to
learn and expand her skills because, in her mind, her gift wasn't
just what she did, but who she was.
    "You remember Katrina Simms?" The Doctor
said, as they entered the small room.
    Katrina turned and smiled.
    Holly certainly remembered her. Katrina's
tanned skin and soft features haunted her dreams since they first
met. She was surprised she was even able to complete the battery of
tests the first time she visited the clinic. She pushed past Doctor
Mueller to reach Katrina and give her a friendly girl hug.
    "How could I forget such a beauty," Holly
said, winking at Katrina as she spoke.
    Holly thought back to the day she first met
Katrina and the Doctor. She spent an entire afternoon performing
tests. They even had her blow out a candle burning in another room.
But, it was that last test that set her mind hopelessly on Katrina.
She was asked to sit in a room by herself. The room was completely
dark except for the light from a large computer monitor. On the
monitor, she watched Katrina sitting in a chair in the next room.
Her task was to attempt to project