Page 115 of Lovely Darkness

“Fine. I’m curious. I find it intriguing.”

“Well.” I pause to sigh and think back on what I know about sound so I can give her details. “The nine frequencies are called the solfeggio frequencies. And if you look them up on the internet, or whatever, sometimes you only find six. Because the lower ones—the ones I’m going to use—can really fuck with your head. If you don’t know what you’re doing, you can hurt yourself. Open yourself up to… suggestion.”

“Like hypnosis.”

“Not exactly. It’s much more powerful than that because hypnosis is a trick. The frequencies are not a trick. It’s physical. When you find the right one, and then combine it with this drug, Lectra, it’s fuckin’… well. State of the art mind control.”

She pulls out her phone and starts tapping.

“You’re not gonna find any of this on the internet.”

Sasha looks up at me. “No?”

“Hell, no. It’s all scrubbed. Can’t have a secret superweapon if you can find the plans to build it on the internet, now can you?”

“OK. But you know how to do it, right? I mean, you’ve done it before?”

I glance over at Donovan. Really, really wishing I had said no to this job. “Yeah. A couple times. Back in the military.”

“That was a long time ago. Are you sure your technique isn’t out of date?”

I just stare at her for a moment. Is she being weird about this? “Do you have something you need to tell me?”

“What do you mean?”

“This curiosity of yours—weird.”

“Forget it then.” She laughs. But then her smile falls and she gets serious. “I’m worried about him.” She nods her head to Donovan. “I want him to pull through. And Indie is expecting him to pull through. I don’t think she’s prepared if it doesn’t work out.”

“That makes sense. But the technique hasn’t changed. It’s just a set of frequencies. And the Lectra. I’m gonna do the tests first,” I say. Trying to ease her mind. Before I start picking around in his memories and shit. I won’t fuck him up.”

“So you’re not worried about any of it?”

“Well. Yeah. I want to know who I’m talking to. But I’m fairly certain I know the right frequency to split apart a personality. It’s gonna be 174 Hz. But I need to try them all, just in case.”

She sighs and looks past me. Out the window at something. Like she’s distracted by her own thoughts. “It sounds pretty complicated.”

“Yeah. I would call this complicated. And if you want to know the truth, think last night was a setup.”

“What do you mean? Why do you say that?”

“They have different accents, Sasha. It’s a major tell. Why would they make it so easy?”

“So you think they’re both in on it? That we’re all being played? That Donovan has been playing—”

“No. That Carter has been playing. I’m not sure about Donovan, yet. I can’t quite figure out his angle. That first night, Adam kind of explained that he needed Donovan to keep Indie sane.”

“You don’t believe him?”

“Yeah, I believe him. But what was Donovan getting out of it?”

“He said some research paper on Indie’s childhood… conditioning.”

“Which ended, right? She was a grown-up. And Adam said that after she was triggered to kill herself on her first job, Donovan cut the project off. So why was he still coming?”

“Obviously, she needed him.”

“That worked so well. I mean, if you ask me”—I pause here, looking Sasha in the eyes—“I don’t think Donovan helped her, Sash. I think he and Carter were working together.”