No one stopped her from going, but as she entered an old sedan,
one of the cars in the parking lot quietly started its motor and
followed her. She appeared to be in no hurry and made no attempt
to elude any followers, but drove straight to a small house set
among a tangle of shrubs and trees not far from the station. The
car that trailed her halted just far enough past the house to
keep it in view and then radio in.
While this was going on, Superentendant Jamison was on his way
downtown, after having called in to his Superiors, to report on
the events. With him in the car were three of the men who had
witnessed the scene in his office. They were silent in the
presence of their superior officer but their minds were churning
with questions and thoughts. They would have to wait and find out
what the force was going to do before they errupted. They didn’t
envy the position of Jamison right now. He was going to have to
go some to convince the brass on what he had.
An hour later in the offices of their commanding officer, Chief
Superentendant Aldon Barker, Jamison was standing tight lipped in
front of a group of men. Browning, Grear, and Leskie, had just
given their evidence and gone through a preliminary intorrogation
and were in the outer office. He had asked for permission to
follow up on the identification of the children, who’s names and
addresses he held in his hands.
He had just received a firm ‘no’ from the man that he now faced.
'Until we go into this more thoroughly and get all the
information we can on this Mrs. Fairway, I want a lid clamped on
any leak out of this office. I’m not getting peoples hopes up
over nothing. Or worse still - over a wierd hoax. I want that
womans background from the day when she was born. And just what
do we have on her so far? Not much. We know her as Mrs. Fairway
and that she is at an address in Burnaby and that she is driving
a car that belongs to a kid named Ed Howe, who claims she
borrowed it from him for $50 bucks. We’ve also found out she just
rented the house three weeks ago.
In other words, Gentlemen, we have absolutely zilch on her. No
phone in her name, no hydro bill in her name...why? Because she
offered the owners a fat advance for them to keep it in their
names. She hasn’t broken any laws that we know of; unless it’s
driving without a license.And that we can’t find out because she
might have a real name that goes along with a real license. None
of the neighbors know her. We have no record on her before three
weeks ago. I want her picked up now!" Aldon Barker sat back in
disgust after his tirade.
Like any other official these days, he was under a tremendous
strain and it was beginning to show, in extra lines that had been
added to his long, thin face, the new grey hairs that were
streaking the dark brown, and the lessening of his control.
He had never been a dreamer in his life and he believed you made
it by hard work and effort; not luck. That’s how he had made it
and he had no depth of understanding for those who had dreams of
luck or dreams of any kind. Now here was one of his most trusted
men...one he had watched with pride work his way up the same
ladder of command, asking him to believe in a dream.
Out of all the big brains in the entire world, trying to bust
their guts to solve this problem, he gets the answer dumped in
his lap? Just like that? It just walks in off the street in his
baily-wick...in the form of a middle aged housefrau? Things just
didn’t work like that. There had to be something wrong with it
and he was going to find it real quick.
He now faced Jamison again and tried to take the edge out of his
voice. "Do you have any idea of what would happen if we sent even
one of those names out over the wires? Someone, somewhere, would
start to wonder how we got the name of a child from another
country that’s missing and why we’re trying to prove it up. Hell,
man, this world is a powder keg about to explode. Can you imagine
the press getting hold of a thing like that and the results if we
can’t deliver? Or give them a reasonable answer? They’d tear us
apart."
Jamison stood looking down at the list of names in his hand.
"Then you tell me how she can make five children appear out of
thin air using a contraption made out of a bunch of tubes. She’s
either the cleverest magician I’ve ever seen or she has abilities
we know nothing about. And if that’s true then maybe the rest of
her story is too."
He walked over to Aldon Barker and shook the papers at him. "Look
at these...they could be kids who have parents going crazy
wondering where they are and if they are still alive. All I’m
asking is; can you take the responsability for losing us all the
only bit of hope we have? You didn’t meet her...I did. You know,
she said to me, 'have faith' and that’s all we do have left,
isn’t it? What are you going to do if you can’t find out anymore
about her than we have now? Drop it?"
After listening to Jamison,Aldon Barker sat staring at his desk,
deep in thought. Looking up, after a long silence, he answered,
"That’s not going to be my decision to make, no matter what I
think, the report will go to Ottawa, and they’ll have it in their
laps to chew on. I don’t have any more authority to decide on
this than you do. What I do know is this: I can’t afford to
gamble with this thing either way. If it’s a hoax, I’m playing
with dynamite and I don’t intend to have it blow up in my face.
"If she’s for real then it’s even more important to find some
proof at this end to put in my report. If that’s the case then I
want that to be the best damn report possible. So let’s go. I
want a first hand look at the ‘cage’ and put an order out to pick
up that woman now. At least that’s simple enough. The reports
state that she hasn’t left the house yet. Oh, and let’s take some
experts on electronic’s and lighting with us. I want to find out
if that was some sophisticated form of Holograph."
When the R.C.M.P. arrived to pick up Mrs. Fairway they found the
house empty and no sign of occupation. She had slipped away from
them somehow. The house was devoid of furniture of any kind
except two lamps standing forlornly in the living room. Save for
the fact that she had a lease in her name it was as if she had
never existed. The rent for the house had been paid one year in
advance and in a generous amount by a cheque signed by a 'Lorne
Bernson’ on a joint account. On investigation he turned out to be
a young drifter who had picked up the woman on the road from
Squamish, hitch-hicking. She had set up a joint bank account with
him with the sum of $200,000 after setting him up in a small
apartment,no questions asked and only the stipulation that he
sign one blank cheque for her and then he could use anything that
was left for himself.
Like the kid said "Who’s going to turn down that kind of money
when they’re broke and hungry?" That blank cheque went for the
rent. She had bought the secret existance with plenty of cash and
no laws broken. The R.C.M.P. had come to a dead end as far as
tracking her down went.
When Jamison and Barker arrived back at the Burnaby Headquarters
from downtown Vancouver, they found the ‘cage’ still sitting
where the woman had set it up and left it. The two men were
followed by a larger group of men hurriedly called in to try and
determine how it worked and what it was.
"While she was here she warned us not to touch it or the kids
inside, or it would injure them in some way and us." Warned
Jamison.
"That could have been to stop you from finding out it was only a
holograph set up." one of the technicions snorted as he moved in
closer to take a look at it.
"All right now, all of you...just hold it a minute. Let’s not go
moving in on this thing too quickly." Barker motioned the men to
move back. "Make whatever examination you can without touching it
until we have what we can find out about them first. Then we will
see about going further."
The ‘cage’ was still giving off a faint glow and the centre
connecting piece she had called the ‘crown’ was a bright red. One
of the men stood near it and slowly moved his hand forward. "I
can feel a tingling sensation in the tips of my fingers about a
foot away from the rods. Ken, see if you feel it on your side?"
"Yea! It gets stronger when you go any closer than that. It’s
quite a force!"
"I can’t see any power source that would give off a charge, can
you?"
"Not unless they’re in the tubes and that’s unlikely but not
impossible, I guess."
"What about some form of Pyramid Power? Is that possible?"
"I don’t see how...it’s not lined up right and it’s not
mathematically correct in the angles. I don’t think it works
unless you have those two factors right."
An hour later they had done as much as the could without touching
it and the report was perplexing to them all.
They could see an alteration of the air around the ‘cage’ and
light, but no light meter recorded it. Nor did it affect a
photograph. They could feel a change in the atmosphere but the
only thing they could register on any instrument was a slight
change in the humidity of the area of the ‘cage’. There was no
registration on the gieger counter at all.
One of the men shook his head and said to Barker with a grin,
"Think you’ve been had, Boss. If that thing is more than just a
nutty group of rods, I’ll eat my shirt. She must have hypnotized
the men."
The man that had first noticed the tingling when his hands moved
near it, looked at the speaker in disgust. "I,d like you to give
me the benifit of that mighty brain of yours then and explain how
a ‘group of nutty looking rods’ give off a glow and the top thing
or ‘crown,’ lights up?" He too turned to Barker, only his face
was grave.
"This thing gives me goose bumps for some reason. I’ve got a
feeling that what we are faced with here so far, is so far out of
our league, it’s like comparing the space age with aboriginees in
New Guinea; with us as the abo’s. Do what she says; leave it
alone. Don’t touch the damn thing."
Barker chewed his lip in vexation. This wasn’t what he had hopped
for. It came nowhere near what he had expected to find. He was
getting deeper into mystery with every move he made and not one
thing definite to make a decision about either way. A cage that
could be just a set of rods joined together or something more. An
ordinary woman from all accounts, that can’t be checked out any
further, who could well be a plain nut, but just might be more
and if so, that meant she just might have the answers they wanted
about the children. He was beginning to understand how Jamison
felt.
He walked over and stood in front of the ‘cage’ lost in thought.
A nothing or a something; which is it? I have nothing concrete
for a report and the further you get away from being a
participant in an event, the less credability it has. All they
looked at were the fact sheets, and the emotions and feelings and
hunches had been all watered down or left out by then. It would
be up to him to write a report that would make his superiors in
Ottawa act and he knew he couldn’t do it because he was afraid to
believe in luck. What was it that woman said to Jamison?
Faith...that was it...faith. Well, I don’t have that faith. And
one week isn’t going to be enough time to make the slow wheels of
investigation turn, let alone build a world wide net of
communication.
"Okay, let’s leave this for now... and I want this room sealed
off. Jamison, have your papers moved out of here and use another
office for the time being and then speak to your staff. Not a
word of this is to leak. I’ll get in touch with Ottawa. It’s in
their hands now."