Afterlife - Douglas Clegg [74]
Julie nodded. Their food came, and Julie picked at her French fries.
“But you don’t really believe,” he said. “Now.”
“I thought you said belief doesn’t matter. There are things I need to know.”
“About your husband.”
She nodded. “I know it sounds crazy, but…” “You’ve seen his ghost,” Diamond said.
“I wish that’s what it felt like. I think I’m losing my mind, since he died. I think my mind is flashing on and off or something. A few nights ago, I thought I saw him. As close as you are. I thought I saw him, but then, when I turned on the light, he wasn’t there. And then, on a video I made. He is in it. But the video goes bad. All the videos went bad.”
“I have to tell you, Julie. I don’t believe in ghosts. Not like you’re saying. I don’t believe there are physical manifestations of spirits where you can see them.”
“So, I guess I’m halfway to the psych hospital,” she said, and tried not to imagine Amanda Hutchinson.
“I didn’t mean that,” he said. “I meant, sometimes what happens is our brain gives access to projections— so what we see isn’t a ghost, so much as…well, a movie. A movie our mind creates, influenced by either our own psychic ability, or someone nearby who has that ability. Your daughter, for example.”
“Livy?”
“Well, you told me about her brain radio. She thinks she communicates with her dead father.”
“I didn’t tell you that.”
He grinned. “For all you know, you live in a psychic household. Let’s assume your daughter has some psychic ability. Anyone else in your family have this?”
“My mother thinks she does. But she doesn’t. Believe me, she doesn’t.”
“It’s usually genetic.”
“Ah.”
“I can tell by that ‘ah’ that you think this is one loony bin candidate talking to another. Think what you want, just stay with me on this. You’ve read my books. You know what remote viewing is. That’s why you’re here. You know about the Stream, don’t you?”
She nodded. “In your book. It’s what connects consciousness between people.”
“It’s fluid, and just because physics hasn’t yet described it, doesn’t mean it won’t eventually be mapped out just like DNA. I believe it’s the connection between entire species. Ants have it—and it’s obvious they do. Birds that migrate have it. As we go up the food chain, it seems to have been weeded out. Who knows why. And now, it just shows up as a genetic burp. That’s what I think I am: a burp.”
She laughed, and for just a moment forgot her headache—the one that hadn’t disappeared in days.
“I am here,” she said, “to find out if you know about something called Project Daylight.”
3
A strange look flickered across his face, as if he were deciding on something that might affect her.
“It was your father running that program. Am I correct?”
He nodded. “Yes.”
“It was on the sixth floor of an apartment building on Rosetta Street.”
Again, he nodded. “It began as a sleep study for children with certain disorders. My father hired several medical people to oversee aspects of it, but this was a cover for what it was really about. He had received funding from the Army to find out if there was a key to turning on Ability X in people. Children with the ability seemed to have an easier time of it. My father was misguided. He assumed all children were good. But they are not. Some children…well, particularly children who had come from abuse and were angry and had the seed of something more in them…well, the place was badly ventilated, apparently, and when the fire broke out—caused by faulty wiring, ultimately—many people died. My father was burned. Forty percent of his body, mainly his legs. He lived a few years beyond this, but ended up taking his own life. Project Daylight was a disaster, it cost too much money, and the Army wanted to hide it once the fire happened. So, it got buried.”
“My husband was in Project Daylight.”
“Then, your husband was psychic. Or had some level of ability. As a child.”
“He never told me about his childhood,” she said.
“Given what happened in Project Daylight, I doubt he would,