with a scowl, put it in the pile to his right, then shifted his hand to the desk drawer. He pulled it and rummaged inside it, retrieving a blank notebook and what looked like a large punch card.
He held it against the lamplight, turning it about, then put it away with a yawn.
Trumaine was still in a chair. Only, this time, he was in a modern, bright office. On the polished desk, a billowing cup of coffee waited to be sipped from, while plastic reports and charts on film had replaced Boyd’s books.
Trumaine had returned to Credence and asked Benedict to examine the database on the believers.
“Anything to help,” he had said.
The database contained all personal information regarding the believers, including all tests and the relative scores they had attained since they had entered Credence.
Matthews had been so kind as to stay after working hours to help him extricate from the mountain of data. She had patiently explained to him the points in Jarva’s theories he wasn’t sure about, so that he had now a better idea about how things were supposed to work inside the mind of a believer.
Still, there were many questions not even Matthews could answer. Was there any relationship between being a believer and being a telepath? Could telepathy been born from the mind of an exceptional believer? If talented believers were more likely to become telepaths, was it possible to narrow down Trumaine’s list of suspects to a smaller group of believers?
Matthews entered the room pushing an office trolley containing more folders and documents. She slammed them on the table, causing Trumaine to snap out of his thoughts.
“Here are the folders of the fifth and sixth year,” she said. “Our records include all thirty-two years of Credence’s activity, of course.”
Trumaine looked at the mound of paper in front of him with a groan, then went back looking at the chart in his hands.
“I was wondering ...”
“What?” asked Matthews promptly.
Trumaine pointed his finger at a red line in the chart. The line was positioned toward the bottom.
“This is Jimmy Boyd’s belief chart.”
“Yes?”
“Wasn’t his belief a bit low? I mean, there’s plenty of reports whose belief lines come in the middle or even top the chart.”
“You’re right,” explained Matthews. “Jimmy Boyd had a low level of belief. But it was perfectly within the range that is required to be in the chamber.”
Trumaine stroked his chin, pensive.
“If he were the crawler we’re looking for, shouldn’t he be capable of a higher belief? I’m wild guessing here, but if his brain was so developed to make him a telepath, shouldn’t his thalamus be at least as evolved, hence his Pistocentric stem cells?”
“I suppose so,” said Matthews, “but I’m no expert.”
“If my theory was correct, I would just need to focus on the strongest believers ...”
Matthews nodded her head. “I think so. You should also be aware that one-third of our believers score top points in the test, Detective. I’m afraid that makes—one hundred sixty-seven possible suspects ...”
She was right, it was a dead end.
Trumaine sighed and dropped the chart he was reading. Unexpectedly, the folder hit a stack of nearby computer punch cards, causing them to topple over. One of the cards landed on the chart’s written report, its holes matching some of its words.
Thunderstruck, Trumaine straightened up at once. He grabbed the punch card and shifted it over the report: through the punched holes, he could obtain various combinations single words.
His eyes went wide at realizing that the holes in the punch card could be used as an encoding system.
Could the large punch card in Jimmy Boyd’s desktop drawer serve a similar purpose? After all, there were tons of books in the apartment that could be used for a source. What if one of those thousands of pages he had leafed through matched the holes in Boyd’s punch card, forming some kind of secret message?
“Son of
He held it against the lamplight, turning it about, then put it away with a yawn.
Trumaine was still in a chair. Only, this time, he was in a modern, bright office. On the polished desk, a billowing cup of coffee waited to be sipped from, while plastic reports and charts on film had replaced Boyd’s books.
Trumaine had returned to Credence and asked Benedict to examine the database on the believers.
“Anything to help,” he had said.
The database contained all personal information regarding the believers, including all tests and the relative scores they had attained since they had entered Credence.
Matthews had been so kind as to stay after working hours to help him extricate from the mountain of data. She had patiently explained to him the points in Jarva’s theories he wasn’t sure about, so that he had now a better idea about how things were supposed to work inside the mind of a believer.
Still, there were many questions not even Matthews could answer. Was there any relationship between being a believer and being a telepath? Could telepathy been born from the mind of an exceptional believer? If talented believers were more likely to become telepaths, was it possible to narrow down Trumaine’s list of suspects to a smaller group of believers?
Matthews entered the room pushing an office trolley containing more folders and documents. She slammed them on the table, causing Trumaine to snap out of his thoughts.
“Here are the folders of the fifth and sixth year,” she said. “Our records include all thirty-two years of Credence’s activity, of course.”
Trumaine looked at the mound of paper in front of him with a groan, then went back looking at the chart in his hands.
“I was wondering ...”
“What?” asked Matthews promptly.
Trumaine pointed his finger at a red line in the chart. The line was positioned toward the bottom.
“This is Jimmy Boyd’s belief chart.”
“Yes?”
“Wasn’t his belief a bit low? I mean, there’s plenty of reports whose belief lines come in the middle or even top the chart.”
“You’re right,” explained Matthews. “Jimmy Boyd had a low level of belief. But it was perfectly within the range that is required to be in the chamber.”
Trumaine stroked his chin, pensive.
“If he were the crawler we’re looking for, shouldn’t he be capable of a higher belief? I’m wild guessing here, but if his brain was so developed to make him a telepath, shouldn’t his thalamus be at least as evolved, hence his Pistocentric stem cells?”
“I suppose so,” said Matthews, “but I’m no expert.”
“If my theory was correct, I would just need to focus on the strongest believers ...”
Matthews nodded her head. “I think so. You should also be aware that one-third of our believers score top points in the test, Detective. I’m afraid that makes—one hundred sixty-seven possible suspects ...”
She was right, it was a dead end.
Trumaine sighed and dropped the chart he was reading. Unexpectedly, the folder hit a stack of nearby computer punch cards, causing them to topple over. One of the cards landed on the chart’s written report, its holes matching some of its words.
Thunderstruck, Trumaine straightened up at once. He grabbed the punch card and shifted it over the report: through the punched holes, he could obtain various combinations single words.
His eyes went wide at realizing that the holes in the punch card could be used as an encoding system.
Could the large punch card in Jimmy Boyd’s desktop drawer serve a similar purpose? After all, there were tons of books in the apartment that could be used for a source. What if one of those thousands of pages he had leafed through matched the holes in Boyd’s punch card, forming some kind of secret message?
“Son of
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