Chapter 16

Our concentration was broken by the sound of the front door slamming shut followed by a female voice vainly calling out, “Hi Mom, it’s me!” Katarina, Dimitri’s sister, was home.

Inspiration hit me. “A test subject,” I said to Dimitri, keeping my voice low so nobody outside the computer room would hear us. “Before Katarina comes in here, ask her whether she thinks I’m gay.”

Dimitri nodded and left the computer room. Just in time by the sound of things, because we could hear them talking quite clearly just outside.

“Hi Pip,” Katarina said to her brother, calling Dimitri by his pet name.

“Hi Kat. I’d like your help with an experiment. It won’t take long.”

“Sure, let me put my stuff away first.”

“Actually, Kat, it’s kind of important that we do it right now.”

“Okay, it had better be quick though.”

“Just a few simple questions. Do you think I’m straight or gay?”

“Judging by the video you keep watching of the girl with the dog, I’d say neither,” Katarina sniggered. Some form of non-verbal communication must have taken place because Katarina them added, “Straight,” in a more serious tone.

“Thank you. And what about Michael, straight or gay?”

“Straight.”

“Dennis, straight or gay?”

“Straight.”

“Kevin, straight or gay?”

“What is this?” protested Katarina. “Are you going to list all your friends one-by-one until we get to one I think is gay?”

My heart raced. Did that imply Katarina thought I was gay?

“According to you, that wouldn’t take long, would it!” snapped Dimitri irritatedly. “Please just answer the question, do you think Kevin is straight or gay?”

“Jeez, Pip, keep your hair on. Kevin’s straight of course.”

I silently cheered, accompanied by a triumphal fist-pump.

“Thanks Kat, you’ve been an enormous help.”

“Is that it?” asked Katarina, with a note of incredulity in her tone.

“That’s it,” confirmed Dimitri. “I’d better warn you that the guys overheard everything you just said.”

“So what! It was all true, including about the video with the girl and the dog.”

Dimitri re-entered the computer room with a broad smile on his face, closely followed by Katarina. The room suddenly felt overcrowded with two such large-bodied individuals standing in it.

“Aren’t you going to tell me what that was all about?” Katarina groused. Then she noticed us. “Hi losers,” she said.

“Hi Kat,” we chorused.

Katarina looked at us one-by-one as though expecting one of us to have grown a second head. When she got to me she stopped and stared, lost for words. I braced myself in case she decided to hug me.

“You tricked me!” Kat angrily accused Dimitri.

“How did I trick you?” asked Dimitri, stunned by the accusation.

“You reeled off the names so quickly I didn’t have time to think. Look at Kevin. Of course he’s gay!”

“Kat,” said Michael, “something weird is going on. We all somehow know Kevin is gay, except Kevin himself. But that apparent knowledge is a direct contradiction to all the available evidence.”

“But look at him,” protested Katarina.

“That’s just it,” said Michael. “Before you saw him, you based your opinion on evidence. Once you saw him, something affected you and changed your opinion. We’re trying to find out what.”

“I knew Kevin was gay,” insisted Katarina. “I was tricked.”

“I recorded Dimitri’s test,” said Michael. He played back the conversation between Dimitri and his sister. “Does it sound like you were rushed? It sounds to me like you actually gave Kevin more consideration than the rest of us.”

Katarina stood silent for several moments. “If I were to humour you by seriously considering what you just told me, what could be causing it?”

Dimitri, Michael and I didn’t say anything because we hadn’t made positive progress on any leads. That left Dennis. “Witchcraft,” he said.

Katarina’s expression went from curiosity to contempt; that was the wrong thing to say to someone studying physics. “No such thing,” scoffed Katarina. “You’re all a bunch of jerks.” Then she stomped out of the computer room.

“That could have gone better,” said Michael.

“We learned something valuable thanks to Dimitri’s self-sacrifice,” I said. “Whatever is distorting people’s perceptions relies on them seeing me for its activation.”

“If you come round to my place tomorrow,” said Michael, “I can check you with some detectors to find out whether you’re giving off some kind of radiation.”

“No can do,” I replied. “I’ve got a race tomorrow. And the guy in the teleconference was affected so any radiation could only be in the visible spectrum.”

“Couldn’t it be sound?” asked Dennis.

“He’s got a point,” said Michael. “It couldn’t be audible because we can’t hear anything, but it might be ultrasonic or subsonic.”

“I don’t think so,” said Dimitri. “Kevin and my mom called out greetings to each other when he first arrived, but she didn’t start started acting weird until she saw him.

We all nodded our agreement.

“Now that’s settled,” said Michael, “let’s see the girl and dog video that Kat talked about.”

“I can’t show that to you,” said Dimitri. “It’s illegal. If the rental units found out, I’d be grounded for the rest of my life and lose all my computer equipment. That would be like Kevin losing his legs or Dennis losing his lips.”

“We won’t tell anyone,” said Michael, “and your rental units aren’t home.”

“We all know you’ve got the video, including Kat,” I said. “What if we all downloaded a copy to our laptops? That way we’d all be on the hook - if one goes down, we all do.”

“Yes,” agreed Michael and Dennis eagerly.

I wasn’t overly convinced of my own argument but it seemed to sway Dimitri. He allowed us each to copy the video to our own laptops. I encrypted and passworded my copy.

“Play it on the big screen so we can all watch,” said Michael.