November 15, 1943 – 2:00 PM93Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZcNGhGUmSo
Three weeks passed.
Three weeks of ordinary life. Three weeks of leaky faucets and clogged drains and Mrs. Grimaldi's toilet, which had finally given up the ghost and required a full replacement that she blamed on the international communist conspiracy. ("They poisoned the pipes, Sal. I read it in a pamphlet.") Three weeks of Maria's drawings covering the kitchen walls, of Rosa's gravy filling the house with warmth, of the ordinary rhythm of a family living their ordinary lives.
Three weeks of Sal pretending he'd forgotten.
But he hadn't forgotten. He couldn't. The voices were still there—not loud, not intrusive, but present. A background hum in his awareness, like a radio playing in another room. The thirty sailors of the USS Eldridge went about their lives, scattered across the country, reassigned to new posts, trying to forget what had happened to them. And Sal felt them all. Their joys, their fears, their small triumphs and quiet despairs. They were connected to him now, whether he wanted it or not.
He didn't tell Rosa. He didn't tell anyone. He just went about his business, fixing toilets, raising his daughter, loving his wife, and pretending he was normal.
It worked. Mostly.
Until the afternoon of November fifteenth, when a black car pulled up outside his house and a man in a suit got out.
Sal was under Mrs. Grimaldi's sink when Rosa called.
"Sal! There's a man here to see you. From the government."
Sal extracted himself from the cabinet slowly, wiping his hands on a rag. Mrs. Grimaldi hovered nearby, her eyes darting between Sal and the window.
"The government?" she whispered. "Is it about the communists? I told you they were in the pipes."
"It's not about the communists, Mrs. G."
"How do you know? They could be anywhere. They could be anyone." She squinted at him suspiciously. "How do I know you're not a communist?"
"You've known me for twenty years, Mrs. G."
"That's exactly what a communist would say."
Sal left her muttering to herself and walked home. The black car was parked outside his row house, sleek and official-looking. A man in a dark suit stood beside it, holding a briefcase and looking at his watch.
He was medium height, medium build, medium everything—the kind of man designed to be forgettable. But Sal recognized him immediately.
Reynolds.
"Mr. Lombardi." Reynolds smiled. It didn't reach his eyes. "So good to see you again. I was hoping we could have a chat."
Sal stopped on the sidewalk, ten feet away. "I thought we were done chatting."
"Were we? I don't recall saying that." Reynolds gestured toward the house. "Shall we go inside? It's chilly out here."
Rosa appeared in the doorway, her face carefully neutral. She looked at Sal, then at Reynolds, then back at Sal.
"It's all right," Sal said. "I'll handle it."
Rosa nodded and disappeared inside. Reynolds followed Sal into the living room.
The living room was small but neat, furnished with Rosa's careful touches—crocheted doilies on the arms of chairs, family photographs on the mantle, a crucifix above the door. Reynolds looked around with the assessing gaze of a man who noticed everything.
"Charming," he said. "Very... authentic."
"What do you want?"
Reynolds set his briefcase on the coffee table and clicked it open. Inside were files—thick ones, stuffed with papers. He pulled one out and handed it to Sal.
"Take a look."
Sal opened the file. Inside were photographs. Men's faces, young and old, all in Navy uniform. He recognized some of them—Miller, the cook, the signalman from the bridge. Others were strangers.
"What is this?"
"The sailors from the Eldridge. All thirty of them. Or rather, what's left of them." Reynolds's voice was flat, clinical. "Take a closer look at the dates."
Sal looked. Each photograph had a date stamped on the back. Recent dates. Last week. The week before.
"What am I looking at?"
"Four of them are dead, Mr. Lombardi. Suicide, all four. Couldn't handle what happened to them. Couldn't handle the voices, the connections, the feeling of being scattered across a ship that no longer exists. They left notes. Interesting notes. They mentioned you."
Sal's blood went cold. "Me?"
"By name. 'Tell the plumber we're sorry.' 'Tell the plumber we couldn't hold on.' 'Tell the plumber the pressure was too much.'" Reynolds closed the briefcase. "They were connected to you, weren't they? All of them. You pulled them out of that ship, but you didn't pull them all the way. Something stayed behind. Something that ties them to you. And to each other."
Sal sat down heavily. His hands were shaking.
"I didn't know," he said. "I could feel them—in the background—but I didn't know they were—"
"Of course you didn't. Why would you? You're a plumber, not a psychiatrist." Reynolds sat across from him, his expression almost sympathetic. "But here's the thing, Mr. Lombardi. The Navy is very concerned about this situation. Thirty men who share a psychic connection? Thirty men who can feel each other's emotions, who might be able to communicate across distances, who might be vulnerable to... outside influences? That's a security nightmare."
"They're not a threat. They're just—"
"They're just men who were broken by an experiment that never should have happened. I know. I agree. But the Navy doesn't care about that. The Navy cares about containment. About control. And right now, these men are neither contained nor controlled."
Sal looked at the photographs. At the faces of the dead. At the faces of the living—twenty-six men, scattered across the country, each carrying a piece of something they didn't understand.
"What do you want from me?"
Reynolds leaned forward. "I want you to help me fix this. Permanently."
The plan was simple. Horrifying, but simple.
Reynolds had located all twenty-six surviving sailors. They were at various bases around the country, going about their duties, trying to pretend they were normal. But they weren't normal. They were connected—to each other, to the ship, to Sal. And that connection was driving some of them mad.
"We need to sever it," Reynolds said. "Cut the thread. Let them be ordinary again."
"How?"
"That's where you come in." Reynolds pulled another file from his briefcase. "We've been studying the phenomenon. The connection seems to be centered on you—you're the anchor, the point of origin. If we can sever your link to them, the whole network might collapse."
"You want to cut me off from them."
"Yes. But not physically. Psychically. We need to find a way to—" Reynolds hesitated, searching for the right words. "—close the door. The one you opened when you pulled them out of the ship."
Sal thought about it. About the voices in the background. About the thread that connected him to twenty-six strangers. About Miller's promise to watch over Maria.
"If I do this, what happens to them?"
"They become normal. Ordinary sailors with ordinary problems. They'll still remember what happened—we can't take that away—but they won't feel each other anymore. They won't feel you. They'll be free."
"And me?"
Reynolds met his eyes. "You'll be free too. No more voices. No more connections. Just your life. Your family. Your toilets."
Sal looked at the photographs again. At the faces of men who were suffering because of him. Because he'd saved them.
"What do I have to do?"
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and then Add to home screen.