The Dream Machine: Book 6, The Eddie McCloskey Paranormal Mystery Series (The Unearthed) by Evan Ronan Page A
Authors: Evan Ronan
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something that actually ends up happening?"
"Pater isn't here to give us his logistical regression models, but I'd figure chances are pretty high."
"Chances are pretty high," I said. "Even if you cut it in half. Shit, even if you cut it to one billion. Chances are pretty good. And then you factor in memory bias, which is exaggerated when it comes to dreams."
"You read too much."
"That’s impossible.” I gave her my crooked smile. “Dreams make sense but they're not logical. In the span of a few minutes you've imagined the weather, your mother, your high school bio class, characters from a movie you just saw, your younger self, the girl you never talked to in grade school...it's easy to divine almost any meaning from your dreams. You have carte blanche to make them significant."
"You don't think Alison has precognitive abilities through her dreams."
"I doubt anybody does. Just play out the odds. There are a lot of dreams happening every night."
She nodded.
"But you knew that already."
"Somebody did. And the people watching her didn't take it seriously for awhile."
"Until?"
"Until we were halfway through when the Atlantic hurricane season began."
"Which we're coming to the end of."
She nodded again. "Alison is eight for eight."
So maybe there was something there. "Sure, but how much advance notice did she give you guys? It's easy to dream about a storm the hurricane chasers have been talking about for a few days—"
"Sometimes as much as a week."
"Still, a storm isn't much. She could dream about drizzle and—"
"I'm going to show you the images."
"The images." I shook my head. "I need to know how you're doing this."
Manetti turned back to the building. "I'm working to get you security clearance."
"Look, Manetti, you called me out here for a reason. You want to know if she has precognition. What I do best is sifting through the paranormal, hocus-pocus, mumbo-jumbo bullshit to get to the truth of a thing, or at least, to the possibility of the thing. The very first thing we do on ghost hunts is be skeptical of the equipment we're using. That means starting every job with new tapes and new batteries. That means doing quality assurance on your recorders, making sure they're not creating sounds or visuals themselves. That means making sure everything is working properly. So the first place I'd start is with the tech, or however you're capturing somebody's dreams. Has it been tampered with? Has Alison figured out a way to trick it? Is somebody on the research team influencing the output?"
Manetti said nothing.
On our last gig together, she’d repeatedly made sports references so I threw one at her. "I can't help you if you force me to play ball with a blindfold."
Manetti said, "I'll get you cleared. But I need to go through channels. I brought you in because I like how you play flyers, Eddie. But you have to understand that I can't."
I nodded, trusting her. "Okay. So what else did she predict?"
Manetti gave me a look.
I smiled, knowing I had her. "They don't bring you and the team out to chase hurricanes. They would have brought you out here to stop something major."
"Not just one. She predicted a shootout at a mall—"
"Around here? I read about that."
"And something else." She checked her watch. "Briefing in ten minutes."
"Okay. How much lead time do you have left on this other thing?"
"A day, maybe two," she said.
"Good thing we work well under pressure."
She laughed, a rarity. "We always work against the clock and come in late. Alison had this dream five nights ago. At first the researchers didn't know what to do with it, tried to figure it out themselves. They were afraid to bring local LE in because of the security concerns, this bounced around a few federal agencies before it got to Pater. We had boots on the ground yesterday midday."
"God bless you. What about the criminal you've got locked up here?"
"I'll give you the vitals but remember I didn't share this with you."
"How can I
"Pater isn't here to give us his logistical regression models, but I'd figure chances are pretty high."
"Chances are pretty high," I said. "Even if you cut it in half. Shit, even if you cut it to one billion. Chances are pretty good. And then you factor in memory bias, which is exaggerated when it comes to dreams."
"You read too much."
"That’s impossible.” I gave her my crooked smile. “Dreams make sense but they're not logical. In the span of a few minutes you've imagined the weather, your mother, your high school bio class, characters from a movie you just saw, your younger self, the girl you never talked to in grade school...it's easy to divine almost any meaning from your dreams. You have carte blanche to make them significant."
"You don't think Alison has precognitive abilities through her dreams."
"I doubt anybody does. Just play out the odds. There are a lot of dreams happening every night."
She nodded.
"But you knew that already."
"Somebody did. And the people watching her didn't take it seriously for awhile."
"Until?"
"Until we were halfway through when the Atlantic hurricane season began."
"Which we're coming to the end of."
She nodded again. "Alison is eight for eight."
So maybe there was something there. "Sure, but how much advance notice did she give you guys? It's easy to dream about a storm the hurricane chasers have been talking about for a few days—"
"Sometimes as much as a week."
"Still, a storm isn't much. She could dream about drizzle and—"
"I'm going to show you the images."
"The images." I shook my head. "I need to know how you're doing this."
Manetti turned back to the building. "I'm working to get you security clearance."
"Look, Manetti, you called me out here for a reason. You want to know if she has precognition. What I do best is sifting through the paranormal, hocus-pocus, mumbo-jumbo bullshit to get to the truth of a thing, or at least, to the possibility of the thing. The very first thing we do on ghost hunts is be skeptical of the equipment we're using. That means starting every job with new tapes and new batteries. That means doing quality assurance on your recorders, making sure they're not creating sounds or visuals themselves. That means making sure everything is working properly. So the first place I'd start is with the tech, or however you're capturing somebody's dreams. Has it been tampered with? Has Alison figured out a way to trick it? Is somebody on the research team influencing the output?"
Manetti said nothing.
On our last gig together, she’d repeatedly made sports references so I threw one at her. "I can't help you if you force me to play ball with a blindfold."
Manetti said, "I'll get you cleared. But I need to go through channels. I brought you in because I like how you play flyers, Eddie. But you have to understand that I can't."
I nodded, trusting her. "Okay. So what else did she predict?"
Manetti gave me a look.
I smiled, knowing I had her. "They don't bring you and the team out to chase hurricanes. They would have brought you out here to stop something major."
"Not just one. She predicted a shootout at a mall—"
"Around here? I read about that."
"And something else." She checked her watch. "Briefing in ten minutes."
"Okay. How much lead time do you have left on this other thing?"
"A day, maybe two," she said.
"Good thing we work well under pressure."
She laughed, a rarity. "We always work against the clock and come in late. Alison had this dream five nights ago. At first the researchers didn't know what to do with it, tried to figure it out themselves. They were afraid to bring local LE in because of the security concerns, this bounced around a few federal agencies before it got to Pater. We had boots on the ground yesterday midday."
"God bless you. What about the criminal you've got locked up here?"
"I'll give you the vitals but remember I didn't share this with you."
"How can I
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