Free Armageddon?? by Stuart Slade Page A

earlier. They’d even brought John Edwards and
Sylvia Browne in, over those two unworthies angered protests. It had taken only
a few minutes testing to discredit that pair of mountebanks, after which they’d
been unceremoniously ejected from the building. As Agent Stella Carter had
remarked ‘Hey, guess what. Sylvia didn’t bounce.’
    Up
to now, that had been par for the course. There were still the palm-readers and
card-players who waited in the antechamber for their turn, all dressed up in
beads and eye liner and all sorts of clothes that looked mysterious in smoky,
underlit rooms but just appeared absurd under fluorescent business lights. They
were the routine dross that had to be inspected, just in case. Even so, there
was hope for the plea for any real psychics or necromancers to come forward had
brought in five or six possible hits – all quiet, shy people who worked
ordinary jobs and lived ordinary lives.
    He
was just about to call the next person in when his cell phone rang. He checked
it; it was a 555-1000 number. He answered. “Randi here.” After a moment, he
nodded and said, “Will do. Please bring her in.”
    At
last. Randi sighed the words to himself. Ever since his discussion with that
charming Thai General, he’d been waiting for the first of the medical subjects
to arrive. Then, he squared his shoulders and opened the door to the
antechamber and just stood there, looking out toward the outside door. It
opened, and eight national guardsmen marched in, wearing full combat fatigues.
Two of them were carrying what appeared to be a heavily sedated woman, her
glassy eyes half-open and a bit of drool trailing down her cheeks. Behind them
were three men in lab coats, looking like stereotypical doctors. As they
reached where Randi stood, one of the men in lab coats strode forward past the
soldiers and offered his hand. Randi shook it, and the man said, “James Randi? Dr
Ed Bullmore, psychiatry and neurology at Cambridge. Pleased to meet you.”
    “The
pleasure’s mine, Dr Bullmore. What do we have here?”
    Bullmore
spoke with a pleasant British accent. “Untreatable schizophrenia patient from
New York. Name: Julie Adams. Onset at age sixteen. Reported ability to read
minds.” He looked meaningfully at one of the soldiers, who spoke up, sounding
shaken. “On the way over here, she told me about my daughter who drowned. No
way she could have known about that – she was locked up for years before Kelsie
was born.”
    Randi
thought for a moment. “Bring her in.” Briskly, the white-bearded man walked
back through the door. He glanced over at his secretary. “Jane, please request
brain-imaging at the nearest hospital ASAP. Play the DoD card if you have to.”
    Neuroimaging
Center, Arlington Hospital, Arlington, VA
    Julie
Adams woke up in a little tube of metal, found herself immobilized, and felt a
little whisper in the edge of her mind. “See? I told you soooo!” Then she
slipped back into unconsciousness.
    When
she next woke up, she was sitting in a chair, leather straps holding her wrists
to the chair arms. Sitting across the table from her was a
grandfatherly-looking man, bald but with an enormous white beard. A voice
danced across her vision, and she said, “James Randi?” The man raised one
eyebrow, dropped it, and continued to regard her over clasped hands. She
struggled with the bonds.
    “They
told me you’d do this to me! They told me!”
    He
spoke, his voice, calming and authoritative. “Who told you?”
    She’d
never been asked that before. Before, they’d always assumed the voices weren’t
real, that she was crazy. She wasn’t crazy; she just heard voices. “They did.”
A warning buzzed across the back of her mind – “Don’t trust him. He’s going to
rape you.”
    The
man smiled. “Have they ever told you who they are?”
    These
questions were completely foreign to her. “Uh … I … no … .”
    His
eyes twinkled through his spectacles. “Well, Julie, we want to help