Eye in the Sky

"You're amazing," he laughed. "Yes it is fun. I do it at nearly every stop light. It drives Pops crazy. Try it again. Easier this time."

Sawyer eased the accelerator down this time and the Trans Am rolled slowly down the driveway. The complex was deserted on a Saturday, and the five miles of drives were empty. She drove for an hour and soon showed some mastery. They entered a long straightaway leading to a grounds keepers building over a mile away.

"Let the ponies gallop," he shouted and Sawyer pressed the accelerator to the floor. The big secondary's on the quadrajet howled and the Trans Am shot forward. At 55 it shifted into second gear and the car slid sideways a bit as it clawed for traction. At 85 it shifted again and the speedometer rushed for 100. She held it there for a moment then backed off and the throaty roar of the big V8 dropped to a snarl. Sawyer's eyes were shining and her face was flushed with excitement.

She coasted to a stop in front of the apartment. "Lawson; that was the most fun I've ever had. I love Trans Ams."

She got out and rushed upstairs to tell Mike about her adventure. Even Mike's jaded ears couldn't help catching some of her enthusiasm. Rawlins came in during the recounting and he couldn't contain his smile.

"Oh to be eighteen again," he said to Mike. "We need to talk."

The two men conferred at the bar while Lawson and Sawyer watched Dragon Ball Z on Netflix.

"I haven't been able to come up with a better plan than yours, Mike. I say we roll with it. Talk to your guy Monday and fix it up. Take Sawyer with you and have your guy forget about her after he does the job. It's too dangerous to leave loose ends."

Mike agreed to set everything up. "Boss, you know I don't work on Sunday. I always go to church and I was wondering if I could take Sawyer with me? I could introduce her as my niece from Santa Fe and kind of get her used to meeting new people."

"Good idea, Mike, but I doubt you can get away without Lawson. Would you mind taking him? You know I'm not a church-going man. I haven't been inside one since Kimberly died, but I know you're a God fearing man. I've kind of neglected that side of Lawson's education. It would be good for him."

"Good for you too boss, but I understand. You're not ready yet, but I'd be glad to take Lawson. He's a good boy, Rawlins."

"I know. Must be his mom coming out in him."

Lawson and Sawyer were having an argument about whether the spirit bomb was more powerful than the special beam cannon.

"This was my favorite show when I was a kid and I still love it," he told her. "I'm going to name my first kid Goku."

"I like that name," she giggled, "but I was thinking the Ox King."

He shouted with laughter, "Ox King Sloan! Wouldn't that be the coolest name ever?"

Sawyer laughed so hard she was crying.

"I hate to break up such a hilarious joke but I need to borrow Sawyer for a while," Rawlins told Lawson. They got in the car and he took her to his office while Lawson and Mike watched college football. He took her in and showed her around.

"I kind of wanted you to get a feel for what I do," he told her. "I also wanted to get a better feel for you and I want you to get to know me better, Sawyer. We're going to be depending on each other a lot from now on and I want to see you like you showed Lawson. He told me about it and he and I are always totally honest with each other. I want us to be like that too, and I want you to know what kind of man you're dealing with. Will you do that for me, honey?"

"Yes Rawlins, I will. Would you mind if we sit down? It kind of affected Lawson and he could hardly stand when we touched like that."

They took a seat and Sawyer stepped into Rawlins' mind. He was a complicated man. He followed his own rules. She had never met anyone who felt quite like him. He was tremendously loyal. Betraying a friend was the deepest treachery to him. He was hopelessly in love with Lawson. Everything in his life centered on his son. As she felt his emotion about Lawson's mother, tears sprang to her eyes. He had been desperately in love. His grief and loneliness were overwhelming, but his innate strength kept his focus on his living son and refused to give in to the darkness. It was so intimate that she almost pulled away. She felt his anxiety about the future. He didn't expect to live long. His heart condition had been worsening and he was desperately afraid for Lawson. He feared that he would die before Lawson was ready and she felt his heavy dependence on her and Mike to carry on his work and make sure Lawson would be okay.

She pulled away and stared at him, tears flowing down her cheeks. "Rawlins," she whispered? "I swear to you that Lawson will never regret being kind to a stranger he met on a bench outside a grocery store. I don't know yet how strong I am, but I will give my life for him. I'll find out and I'll be strong and I'll fight for him. But I want you to live. The world would be so much smaller without you. You have to live and fight with me. Will you do that?"

His dark eyes filled with tears as well and she moved next to him and held his face. "Let me show you," she said.

She let her emotions flow and Rawlins felt her in every fiber of his being. Her goodness was overwhelming. She loved him, he realized. Most of all, she loved Lawson. She was a vast reservoir of love, enough to set the world on fire. She had so much to give and much of it was directed at him, Lawson and Mike. She had never had a friend, never had a father and never had anyone who loved her and she was prepared to tear down the world to keep what she had found. Her emotions overwhelmed his mind and the world went black.

When he awoke, she was leaning over him with a bottle of water in her hand. She supported his head. "Here, drink this." He drank and his head cleared a little.

"I'm sorry Rawlins. I didn't know how much of me was flooding into you. I didn't mean to harm you. I don't think I did, but you had more input than you could take. I'm sorry."

"It's okay, honey. I'm okay. I just need to rest for a minute. That was amazing. Could you do that to anyone?"

"Sometimes. I think I respond to you more because I know you love me. It was the same with Lawson. I didn't know you felt like that about me and I just kind of got caught up responding to you. I never dreamed anyone could feel like that about me. I always hoped I'd find someone. Rawlins; is it possible for you to feel about me the way you feel about Lawson?"

"I already love you, Sawyer. I think you're one of the most wonderful and mysterious people I've ever met. I could love you like my daughter, I just haven't know you very long. You're so beautiful and smart and kind, how could I keep from loving you?"

She kissed his lips softly and held his hand.

Rawlins was feeling better so he got up and she tucked her arm in his as he gave her the grand tour. They ended up in his office and he pulled another chair around behind his desk for her to sit by him in front of the large monitor on his desk.

"Sawyer, I want to show you something. Do you know anything about computers or the Internet?"

"I know what they are. I played educational games on computers at the institute and I know things like word processing and data bases, but I've only been on the Internet with Lawson."

"That's what I thought. When those agents came to our house looking for you they spun some tale about you being a hacker."

"What's a hacker?"

"It's a name for someone who takes information off other people's computers without their consent. I guess you are a hacker, except you hack minds. They didn't mention that."

"I'm not a mind hacker," she protested. "I only do it to people that are threatening me."

"I know honey. I didn't mean anything bad. Have you ever heard of MK-Ultra?"

"No, what is it?"

Rawlins pulled up a web site that explored the details of the secret CIA program that started in the late 50's. It explained how the CIA employed hookers to lure johns to rooms where LSD was secretly administered and operatives observed the effects.

"It would be faster if I just looked at you and read what you know,"

"Okay," he agreed. "Nothing else though."

"No, I won't," she looked a little hurt.

"I'm sorry, Sawyer. This is all a little new to me. I know you're a good girl."

Sawyer felt his loathing and disgust at the program. Her experiences caused the same feelings in him. She absorbed the sordid details.

"That's awful, Rawlins."

"Well, I got to thinking," he told her. "How likely is it that one little girl would be born that could read minds? I suppose that given enough time it could happen, but the chances of it happening are mathematically indistinguishable from zero. Maybe it's the next stage in human growth, I don't know, but I've never heard of it before. Given that and government's proclivity to a lack of morals, could it be possible that they found something that they could give a little girl that would enable her to read minds? That seemed far more likely to me, so I started looking.

I have a lot of contacts, honey. I can get into places that most people can't because I design weapons control systems for the military. I need clearance to do that and I started poking around. You should never do this. I know what I'm doing. I went behind a dozen anonymous proxies. Look at me and see what those are. It would be impossible to trace. I poked around in secret files from the late 90's. I used the name Dr. Stephen Watts. I used Groom Lake, and Sawyer Raleigh. What I found shook me up a little.

It is called Operation Wormwood and Watts is the director. It is very hard to find anything out about it and it took me a while to put it all together. Most of what I could find is the intelligence you provided on terrorist cells. They had to explain how they got that information. If it wasn't reliable no one would act on it. I'll give you the rough outline. Watts was looking for a way to jump-start brains so that they could produce new phenomena. He tested for years on military personnel without their knowledge or consent. Many of them became insane. He was using ergot alkaloids and he finally found the one he wanted. It was something like LSD 25, but I couldn't find the chemistry. He tested two hundred thousand officers for intelligence and temperament in a battery of tests and selected 25. He used standardized tests administered to high school girls and selected 50 girls.

He followed them until they were 21 and then approached them with the proposition that they would bear children with his 25 male candidates. 22 of the girls accepted large payments to become pregnant. He collected sperm samples and fertilized eggs and implanted the young women. 21 succeeded in becoming pregnant. One changed her mind and aborted. When the babies had developed enough he introduced his psychodysleptic compound. Sawyer, you were one of those babies."

She began to sob. He pulled her close. "Be strong Sawyer. I'm almost through. All through their early childhood they were subjected to injections to heighten their abilities. One by one they became insane. They all died. I'm not sure if they died from the effects of the program or they were killed and disposed of after they became useless. Finally only two were left; a boy and a girl. I haven't been able to find much out about the boy. He seems to be very dangerous. They're very afraid of him and the reports are buried too deeply for me to get at.

But there are a lot of notes about you. You were very useful to the intelligence community. They want you back very badly. The later notes describe how you refused to help interrogate militia types, anarchists and whistle blowers. Watts got out of control and the trail goes dead. I thought you might want to know how this happened to you. You are a very special girl, Sawyer. You have very special genes and you survived something that drove 19 other very special children insane and you've become a remarkable young woman. I'm very proud of you, Sawyer."

She looked up at him, her long lashes sparkling with tears. "What kind of monsters do things like that to a baby?"

"I don't know. There are many of them out there though, lots of them in government, intelligence, law enforcement and the military. It wouldn't surprise me at all to find out that there are other programs out there; here and being run by other governments too."

She went to his bathroom and composed herself. When she came back, Rawlins was ready to go. "You like ice-cream, Sawyer?"

"Yes," she nodded vigorously, "I do."

"Let's go get some. I shouldn't eat it, but I'm going to."

He took her to Freddy's and ordered her a chocolate, caramel, pecan frozen custard. When she looked up at him on the ride home with whipped cream on her upper lip, he laughed delightedly. "You're the cutest little thing I've ever seen. Sawyer; you are altogether delightful. You warm an old man's heart."

"You're not old, Rawlins," she said. "We're just getting started. I want you around for a long time."

Chapter Six

Lawson picked Mike and Sawyer up the next morning in the Navigator. Sawyer thought he looked amazing in black pants, a pink shirt with a button down collar and a lavender tie. He thought she looked gorgeous in a little black dress and red heels. She was still very short, but she fit under his arm perfectly. Mike was as impeccable as always in charcoal flannel.

Church was a new experience for Sawyer. The music gave her goose bumps and the sermon stirred her heart. The pastor talked about kindness and she left determined to be more kind.

They went to Red Lobster for lunch and Sawyer had lobster and crab legs. Mike was very good at cracking crab legs and she was delighted with his instruction and very impressed when she managed to extract large chunks of delicious crab that she dunked in drawn butter.

They ordered coffee and Sawyer became very serious. "Lawson, do you believe in God?"

"Yes, I guess I do, beautiful. I'm not a bible-thumper, but it suits me to believe there's something out there watching over us. Life doesn't make much sense without something like that. I believe in good and evil and I know I want to be on the good side."

"What about you, Uncle Mike?" she asked.

"Yeah, I believe. I was raised like that. I've never understood how God could be interested in someone like me, but I'm grateful. I break all the commandments on a regular basis, but I always tell myself that I'm going to do better. You a believer, Sawyer?"

"I don't know. I'm like Lawson. I don't know how life makes sense just being random, but I think God must hate me." Her eyes filled with tears. "How else could he let those people make me like this and do all those things to me?"

Mike put his arm around her and squeezed her shoulder. "God doesn't hate you kid. I know you've had it worse than anyone I know, but look at you. You're so beautiful Lawson can't take his eyes off you. Hell, half the people in here can't stop looking at you. You're the sweetest girl I ever met. If I was 40 years younger I'd shoot Lawson and keep you for myself. You're kind and smart and everything that's happened to you can't change that. Look at you now. You've got the best boy in the world in love with you, you've got a very rich and powerful man acting like your father and you've got old Uncle Mike to look out for you. I think you're just hitting your stride."

"Yeah, what he said," Lawson squeezed her thigh under the table and stroked the silky skin.

She shivered a little and captured his hand with hers and pressed it into the firm flesh just above her knee. She leaned over and kissed Mike's cheek.

"Thanks, Uncle Mike. I guess you're right. I still don't know, but I'm going to keep looking. Maybe someday I'll feel like you. I do know how lucky I am that I found you guys."

"Well, Lawson said, "enough deep philosophy for today. If we leave now we can get home in time to watch the Broncos game."

On Monday, Lawson went back to school and Mike took Sawyer to the hanger and they boarded the Learjet. "Where are we going, Mike?"

"Atlanta, Georgia. I've got a guy there that makes people disappear. I don't mean he kills them and disposes of the body; he creates new identities. I've been talking to him since we found you and he's got everything set up. You've got a birth certificate, a social security number; hospital records, a credit card and the whole nine yards. Oh yeah, you've got a driver's license too."

Sawyer squealed with delight and kissed his cheek. "Thank you Uncle Mike."

"There's a hard part too, Sawyer. You might not like it, but it's got to be done. After he fixes you up, we've got to make him forget you were ever there."

Her face clouded and her eyebrows drew together in a frown.

"Now don't look like that, Sawyer. It's got to be done. There's a nationwide search going on for you. What if he hears about it and decides he can get rich by squealing on us? We can't leave any traces. What do you want your new name to be?"

"Why can't I be Sawyer?"

"It's an unusual name, kid. We've got to get rid of it. If you were Mary or Jane, we could just give you a new last name, but not with a name like Sawyer. We'll all still call you your real name, but for school and stuff you've got to be someone else."

She thought for five minutes. "I like Jack," she finally said.

"Jack? What kind of a name is that for a girl? What's with you and boy's names? All the names in the world and you pick Jack?"

"Yes. It's simple, like Mike," she said. "I didn't pick my name, you know. Someone gave it to me. I don't know who it was, maybe my mother. But I really do like Jack."

He laughed, "Okay, Jack it is. We've already got a last name."

"What is it, Mike?"

"It's my name, Sawyer. You're my niece, remember? My sister's not married so you have my name."

"You never told me your name, Mike. What is it?"

"You didn't read my mind and find out?"

"No, Mike. You're my friend. I wouldn't do that."

"Well, thanks Sawyer. It's Bishop, Mike Bishop."

"Jack Bishop," she said it several times. "I like it. Do you like it Mike?"

"Yeah, I guess I do. It sounds kind of sexy when you say it. Jack; kind of like some sultry female detective in an old movie."

"I still don't like the idea of making this man forget me, Mike."

"Why not? It's not like he's better or worse, he will be just the same as he was before he met you, right?"

"Not exactly."

"What does that mean?"

"Well, it doesn't hurt him physically or cause any pain, but when I take out that memory; it cuts a lot of threads. There are a lot of other things tied to it and it kind of leaves a hole in his mind that he will always have trouble thinking around."

"You mean it will make him stupid or something?"

"No, he'll be the same, but let's suppose he called someone and got a credit card, for example, for me. If I make him forget me, he'll still remember the call and getting the card, but he won't know why he made the call or who the card was for. You see what I mean?"

"Yeah, I guess I do. It's kind of like changing a light bulb with a sledge hammer. Can't you just take away all those other memories too?"

"Yes, but how far back do you want me to go? The hole just gets bigger and bigger because things are tied to those memories too. What if he met the love of his life on the way to get that credit card? Do you want me to take that away from him?"

"No, I don't guess so. Look Sawyer, we have three choices here. One, I can shoot him in the head. I can do that if you want me to. Two, you erase him. I can live with that too. Three, we leave him the way he is and maybe he squeals and maybe he doesn't. He probably won't. No one would ever go to him again and a lot of people would try to kill him, but the kind of payday he could get for that, he'd be set for life. If he rats, all of a sudden Rawlins' life is in danger. Lawson's life is in danger and they take you back to the torture chamber. I can't live with that, kid. I'd rather shoot him in the head. It's up to you Sawyer. I'll let you choose."