he had been knocked out. Suddenly he remembered the test Dr. Hamlin had given him, and now he knew what it had meant The electricity hadn’t killed him the first time, and now it couldn’t hurt him at all.
Very close by, he heard the other dogs. Letting go of the dead animal at his feet, Randy reached out and grasped the fence.
Again, there was the strange tickle, and the sensation of warmth, but nothing more.
So everything he had been told while he was growing up was wrong.
Electricity didn’t hurt you at all. In fact, it felt kind of good.
A moment later he dropped to the ground on the other side.
Chapter 23
DARKNESS SHROUDED the parking lot of Eastbury Community Hospital, but still Mark Malone drove around to the back entrance and switched his lights off before he pulled in and parked his car next to his office.
“No sense alerting everyone that we’re here,” he commented. Sally nodded her agreement as she got out of the car and waited for Malone to unlock his office door. Only when they were inside, with both doors securely bolted and the lights turned on, did Sally speak.
“I feel as though I’m doing something illegal.”
“You’re not,” Malone assured her. “Although you were when you broke the codes to the medical records the first time. But this time, it’s perfectly legal If anyone ever asks any questions, I hired you as a computer operator to compile some statistics for me. Okay?”
“Okay.” Sally set her purse on Malone’s desk and switched on the computer terminal. Moments later she began tapping in the proper codes. “First things first,” she murmured. Her fingers flew over the keyboard, finally coming to rest on the key marked ENTER. Sighing slightly, she leaned back in her chair and smiled wanly at Malone. “It’ll take a couple of minutes.”
Malone shrugged. “How’d you know what to tell it?”
“It’s all one computer,” Sally explained. “Even though I spend most of my time with the college records, the instructions are pretty much the same for anything. Right now it’s putting together a list of the names and birth dates of every child ever born in this area that CHILD is studying or has ever studied.”
Even as she spoke, the screen was filled with a list of names. Sally pressed the cursor key that would allow her to scroll down the cathode ray tube until the entire list had been exposed.
“My God,” she breathed. She glanced up at the information line at the top of the screen. The list stopped at line 153, and there were five names on each line. She glanced at the printer that sat a few feet away. Three lights, one red, one amber, and one white, glowed softly, indicating that the machine was ready for use.
Seeing her intent, Malone moved to the printer and rolled a sheet of paper into its platen. “Okay.”
Once again Sally’s fingers flew over the keyboard, and a second later the printer began chattering. “It’ll take three pages,” she said. Malone nodded silently, wishing he’d bought the automatic paper feeder he’d seen last year.
While the printer worked, Sally studied the screen. “I wonder if they’re all part of the same study? But they can’t be,” she went on. “CHILD does all kinds of surveys, doesn’t it?”
“As far as I know.”
Once again, Sally’s fingers moved over the keyboard. “I’m having the computer analyze the code numbers CHILD uses and see if it can find any relationships,” she said.
The printer suddenly stopped for the last time, and Malone pulled the final sheet from the platen. “The name Carl Bronski gave us is here,” he said. “Adam Rogers.” He stapled the three pages together. “What shall we do with these?”
“Keep them,” Sally replied. “They may be all we get.” But then the screen suddenly came alive again, this time filled with four blocks of numbers.
Malone frowned at the screen. “What’s that mean?”
“Apparently CHILD is doing four studies, and they’ve assigned the code numbers by multiples of certain other numbers.” She pointed to the block of numbers in the upper left-hand quadrant of the screen. “Those are all multiples of 13. The others are multiples of 17, 19, and 21.”
“I’m not sure I get it,” Malone said.
Sally’s voice became grim. “It means that Dr. Wiseman is lying. According to him, CHILD uses random numbers to decide whom to survey. But these numbers aren’t random—they only appear to be when they’re all mixed together. What CHILD is really doing is studying selected children and