Free The Administrator by S. Joan Popek Page B

he had lips. “That’s okay. I really don’t mind it so much ... when it’s you ... the touching, I mean.” He swallowed hard and continued talking quickly to cover his embarrassment at admitting that he might enjoy her gentle touch on his shoulder. “Colonel Gordon will just say that I don’t need feet. Not to do what I do. You know that.”  
    She relaxed and returned to her seat.
    “Well. We’ll see. I’ll talk to him. Now tell me about your project.”
    He laughed harshly. “Trying to change the subject?”
    “No. I just....”  
    “That is the subject, Dr. Kate. Why am I here? Why have I had five mentors in the last fifty years? Why do you call yourself my mentor when we both know that you are my psychiatrist? Why do I need you? Why does my door open for you and the guards but never for me when I’m alone? Why are they hiding me seventeen stories underground?”
    Dr. Kate clasped her fingers together in her lap, lacing and unlacing them as though she couldn’t decide exactly what to do with them. “Adam, I....”
    “And the biggest question,” he interrupted. “What do you know about Roswell, New Mexico?”  
    She coughed as if her mouth had suddenly become filled with cotton and covered her lips with one hand while grasping her throat with the other. Finally, she gasped, “Ros ... what has that got to do with you? Or any of this for that matter? That’s a left fielder if I heard one.”
    “Left fielder?”
    “It’s an expression that my father used to use when something caught him by surprise. ‘Right out of left field,’ he’d say. It’s a baseball expression.”
    “Oh.” Adam looked at his desk for a moment and reached for the document he had just downloaded. “This is about the big celebration they had in Roswell. It was the fiftieth anniversary of the alleged UFO incident near there.”
    She took the paper and read it quietly. When she finished, she dropped it in her lap and looked at Adam. “So? What has all this got to do with what we were talking about?”
    He wheeled his chair close to her and turned his back to the monitor. He leaned close to her and whispered, “You really don’t know, do you?”
    “Know what?” She whispered back.
    Spinning his wheel chair around he said loudly, “I guess I just have too much time to think lately. Not enough work. Boredom does strange things to your imagination.” He swung back around to face her. “Do you think we could take a walk outside? It is night isn’t it? The sun isn’t out. I can’t take the heat of day, but it’s nice at night, especially if it’s cloudy.”
    She laughed throatily. “Well you’re in luck. There is a slight cloud cover, but you can still see the moon and some of the stars. Let’s go.” She looked up at the blinking red eye of the monitor and said, “I’m taking him topside for a while.” She grabbed the handles of his chair, palmed the doorway panel and ushered him into the elevator before whoever was watching the monitor had time to put down his coffee cup, get his feet off the desk and acknowledge.
    Adam chuckled quietly. He knew her reputation as a snap decision maker, and every one in the compound joked about her spontaneity in practicing her special brand of psychiatry. They’re probably joking about it right now, he thought.
    But tonight was one of the most serious nights of his life, and he suspected that, although she couldn’t know why, Dr. Kate felt it too. That was why she had spirited him out of his cubicle and away from the spy-eye, the name she had given the monitor, in such a hurry.
    Maybe I really can trust her, he thought, but his guts shivered with cold, icy dread while the elevator climbed swiftly toward the surface.
    Neither spoke as he activated the power on his chair and edged out of the elevator. She took long strides to keep up with him through the corridor and out the double doors that led to the enclosed patio.
    He steered over to a stone bench and parked beside it. He