Free Vortex by Ray Garton Page B

part of the work Mr. Ryker’s been doing with Pyk.”
    “Work?” Karen said. “How does their work involve people from town?”
    “Well, they’re trying to understand how Pyk influences people, so they need him to do that while they’ve got him hooked up to their machines so they can... measure it, or record it, or whatever. Once the people get there, Pyk tries to get them to give him something. Something they value. Like... another person. Like a... a wife or husband. Or a son or daughter.”
    Karen and Gavin gave each other a long look, then turned to Crystal. “Like your friends Rhonda and Wendy maybe?” To Penny, Karen said, “You mean, Pyk persuades these people to give him... other people?”
    “Yes. But Mr. Ryker wasn’t very confident, so he also offered the people what he called incentives. Like a new car, or money.”
    Gavin looked at Crystal again. This time, her eyes had widened. He turned back to Penny and said, “What did they do with the people who were given to them?”
    A pained look crossed Penny’s face as she looked down at the tabletop and she began to squirm in the chair. “They... they...” Her voice was quieter, higher in pitch, and she sounded about to cry. She didn’t finish.
    “What about the children, Penny?” Karen said. “What did Ryker want with children?”
    Until that moment, Penny had been calm and relaxed. But Gavin’s question made her tense. She frowned and began to fidget. Her lips quivered and she looked, for a moment, as if she were about to cry.
    “You okay, Penny?” Karen said.
    Penny lowered her head and did not respond.
    “If it’s upsetting, Penny,” Karen said, “you can—”
    A cough-like sob escaped Penny and her shoulders shook once. Slowly, she lifted her head as tears rolled down her cheeks. She said something, but it was garbled.
    “What was that?” Karen said.
    Penny began to shake as she slumped in her chair and covered her face with her hands.
    Karen and Crystal both left their seats and hurried to Penny’s side. They comforted her, reassured her, told her she didn’t have to talk if she didn’t want to. Penny shook her head back and forth for a moment, then lowered her hands, sobbing.
    “No, I should talk, I should ,” she said. “I have to.”
    She coughed and sniffled as Crystal hurried away, then returned a moment later with a box of tissues. Penny wiped her eyes, blew her nose. Finally, she took a deep breath, then spoke.
    “The children are being fed to Pyk,” she said. “I’ve seen it happen. They’ve made me watch. He eats them.”
    Then she broke down again and slumped against Karen as she sobbed.

Chapter Nine
    O n Crystal’s computer screen via Skype, Burgess looked puffy-eyed and sleepy in his San Francisco hotel room, his hair spiked and tangled. He wore a black bathrobe and a pair of sweatpants and kept sipping from a cup of coffee. He claimed he hadn’t gotten three straight hours of sleep in 48 hours.
    “Look,” he said, “if I had any idea—any idea at all —that this was so... well, complicated , I wouldn’t have—”
    “This is more than complicated, Martin,” Gavin said. He was seated in front of the computer at the desk in Crystal’s office. Karen paced the floor behind him and Crystal was seated nearby in a chair. “If everything Penny says is true, these are incredibly dangerous people who have more power and resources in one pocket than all of us combined will ever have in our lives.”
    “I understand, I understand. And I don’t want you to take another step. Let’s just call the whole thing off. As long as you’re sure that what this girl has told you is true.”
    “You’re the one who told us these people are from Km Services,” Gavin said. “We don’t need Penny to tell us that’s a pretty shady organization with scary connections, right?”
    “Right, yes, that’s true. But this other stuff—the creature she said they were testing, she said children were, um—” He frowned and