The Speed of Sound Read online

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2018 by Eric Bernt

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Thomas & Mercer, Seattle

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Thomas & Mercer are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781503950153 (hardcover)

  ISBN-10: 1503950158 (hardcover)

  ISBN-13: 9781503949317 (paperback)

  ISBN-10: 1503949311 (paperback)

  Cover design by Damon Freeman

  First edition

  For my mother and father, Connie and Benno Bernt.

  CONTENTS

  START READING

  Echo. Echo. Echo…

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  CHAPTER 36

  CHAPTER 37

  CHAPTER 38

  CHAPTER 39

  CHAPTER 40

  CHAPTER 41

  CHAPTER 42

  CHAPTER 43

  CHAPTER 44

  CHAPTER 45

  CHAPTER 46

  CHAPTER 47

  CHAPTER 48

  CHAPTER 49

  CHAPTER 50

  CHAPTER 51

  CHAPTER 52

  CHAPTER 53

  CHAPTER 54

  CHAPTER 55

  CHAPTER 56

  CHAPTER 57

  CHAPTER 58

  CHAPTER 59

  CHAPTER 60

  CHAPTER 61

  CHAPTER 62

  CHAPTER 63

  CHAPTER 64

  CHAPTER 65

  CHAPTER 66

  CHAPTER 67

  CHAPTER 68

  CHAPTER 69

  CHAPTER 70

  CHAPTER 71

  CHAPTER 72

  CHAPTER 73

  CHAPTER 74

  CHAPTER 75

  CHAPTER 76

  CHAPTER 77

  CHAPTER 78

  CHAPTER 79

  CHAPTER 80

  CHAPTER 81

  CHAPTER 82

  CHAPTER 83

  CHAPTER 84

  CHAPTER 85

  CHAPTER 86

  CHAPTER 87

  CHAPTER 88

  CHAPTER 89

  CHAPTER 90

  CHAPTER 91

  CHAPTER 92

  CHAPTER 93

  CHAPTER 94

  CHAPTER 95

  CHAPTER 96

  CHAPTER 97

  CHAPTER 98

  CHAPTER 99

  CHAPTER 100

  CHAPTER 101

  CHAPTER 102

  CHAPTER 103

  CHAPTER 104

  CHAPTER 105

  CHAPTER 106

  CHAPTER 107

  CHAPTER 108

  CHAPTER 109

  CHAPTER 110

  CHAPTER 111

  CHAPTER 112

  CHAPTER 113

  CHAPTER 114

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  It seems that for success in science and art, a dash of autism is essential. For success, the necessary ingredient may be an ability to turn away from the everyday world, from the simply practical, an ability to rethink a subject with originality so as to create in new untrodden ways.

  —Hans Asperger, 1944

  Richard Woodbridge III coined the phrase “acoustic archeology” in the August, 1969, issue of Proceedings of the I.E.E.E., the engineering journal.

  “We speak, and the sound waves vibrate the molecules in the air, bounce off the walls, and vibrate the molecules some more . . . ,” [sound expert] St. Croix said. “It wouldn’t be hard these days to reconstruct a conversation you thought you were having privately.”

  —“Audio Archaeology; Eavesdropping On History,” The New York Times Magazine, December 3, 2000

  Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo.

  Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo.

  CHAPTER 1

  Harmony House, Woodbury, New Jersey, May 19, 4:09 p.m.

  Dr. Marcus Fenton, the senior and most respected doctor on the grounds of the government-funded facility, studied the applicant closely. Skylar Drummond. The young lady’s résumé was impeccable, but that was only the beginning of what he knew about her. Humble background in Richmond, Virginia. Parents divorced when she was young. Raised by her father, who was a professor, but not much of one, at some forgettable state school. She played lacrosse well enough to get a full ride to the University of Virginia. Started all four years, and did even better in the classroom, which was why she didn’t have to pay a dime to attend Harvard Medical School.

  “You have a lot of other options. Duke. UPMC. Why Harmony House?”

  “I believe your patients could change the world.”

  “That’s quite a statement.”

  “I’m quoting you.”


  Of course, she was. He appreciated the flattery. Fenton’s expression then turned serious. “Would you mind if I ask about your brother?”

  She stiffened almost imperceptibly in her chair. “Not at all.”

  He admired her bravery. Her drive to help others because of the one she couldn’t. And whatever else had brought her into the cold metal chair across from him. “Could he have changed the world?”

  “Theoretically, yes. But it was a long way from Christopher’s ideas to meaningful translation in the real world.” A hint of sadness crept across her face. There was a long, uncomfortable pause, but she continued to hold his gaze.

  “What was his area of interest?”

  “Quantum physics.”

  “Specifically?”

  She paused for just a slight moment because she knew how ridiculous it sounded. “Black-hole travel. Christopher was convinced he was on the verge of revolutionizing the travel industry by being able to bend time and space.”

  The old man didn’t bat an eye, both out of deference to her deceased brother and in testament to some of the seemingly preposterous theories Fenton had encountered over decades of research with patients at the highest-functioning end of the autism spectrum. Because some of their far-out thinking turned out to have validity, which was exactly why Harmony House had been brought into existence. It was Dr. Fenton’s genius to recognize the potential lurking within his patients long before anyone else did. Special thinking in special people. The kind of research no one in the cognitive mainstream would pursue, which every so often turned out to have meaning—of a magnitude even the most acclaimed scientists in the world could only dream of.

  Few people knew that some of the most startling scientific advances in the last twenty years had come from people who couldn’t wipe themselves.

  “It’s quite possible Christopher was merely ahead of his time.”

  “If you had seen the crayon drawings he insisted were technical-design documents, you would appreciate how generous a statement that is.”

  “That’s the battle—to translate from their realm into ours.” He paused, reflecting on just how many of these battles he had fought over the years. Most had been losing campaigns, but he was the rarity who had more than a few notations in the win column.

  Fenton, and all that he had accomplished, was why Skylar had picked this facility when she could have picked from any number of more obviously prestigious and lucrative positions. She genuinely believed in Fenton and his work, and that a patient here just might change the world. That one of their radical ideas just might actually translate.

  Little did she know how many already had.

  After making one final notation, which Skylar could not see, Dr. Fenton closed her file. This was it. The moment of truth. He watched as she took a long, deep breath, like someone who had practiced it. Inhale through the nose. Exhale through the mouth. Slowly, deliberately. Control the breathing; control the mind.

  He stood slowly, relishing the moment. Dr. Marcus Fenton was confident in his decision. He extended his hand across the modern desk. “Congratulations. You got the job.”

  CHAPTER 2

  Eddie’s Room, Harmony House, May 19, 4:13 p.m.

  Eddie sat quietly on the bed in his room, which was exactly the same size as all the other patient rooms in Harmony House. Twelve feet by eighteen feet, or, as Edward Maxwell Parks preferred to think of it, 3 x 22 by 2 x 32. There was a symmetry to the dimensions that made Eddie feel comfortable, and feeling comfortable was important to him. Because he couldn’t think if he wasn’t comfortable. And if he couldn’t think, panic could set in. And if panic set in, well, that was not something Eddie liked to think about. But that didn’t stop him from occasionally dwelling on the matter, so he utilized a technique he had developed as a child to stop himself abruptly when thinking such things. And that was to SLAP himself as hard as he could.

  The slap left his cheek bright red, except for the areas covered in scar tissue—a number of small, haphazardly crisscrossing scars pockmarking his right cheek. There were no scars on his left cheek because Eddie was right-handed. When he self-mutilated, the right side bore the brunt. The scars were reminders of just how bad his outbursts could get.

  Eddie glanced in the mirror, inspecting his cheek. No blood. That was good. He checked his watch to record the exact time of the slap in a binder labeled #101 sitting next to him. It was his third slap of the day, which put today’s count over his daily average of 2.7. Eddie was certain that Dr. Fenton would have something to say about this at their next therapy session, because Eddie was supposed to be slapping himself less, not more, but at least there hadn’t been any picture frames or kitchen utensils involved. Those were among the items that drew blood and left scars. Hearing footsteps down the hall, he quickly put down the binder.

  Eddie’s room was unique in Harmony House in that it was the only patient room with acoustic tiles affixed to the walls and ceiling. He had been so excruciatingly sensitive to sound, upon arrival at the facility, that the staff couldn’t imagine how he’d survived in the outside world for as long as he had. Heightened sensitivities were nothing new among patients on the autism spectrum, but Eddie brought the matter to an entirely new level. Even the slightest noise could send him wailing. His agonal screams had been so unsettling to the other patients when Eddie first arrived that they almost caused an uprising of sorts. And no matter how valuable this particular patient and his gifts might be, he wasn’t worth more than the entire lot.

  At least, not yet.

  The acoustic tiles in Eddie’s room were not like those affixed around the interior of most recording studios. They were fabricated to Eddie’s exact specifications, at an initial cost of $91 per tile. There were 335 tiles in the room. With labor, the project ended up costing American taxpayers close to $35,000. Eddie brought the cost down slightly by developing his own epoxy-based resin to affix the tiles, but the money factor had nothing to do with it. Eddie didn’t grasp the concepts of commerce or currency. Money had never played a part in his life. His concern was that the installers had intended to use glue with an unacceptably low adhesion factor. The wrong glue could have ruined the acoustics of the room and, therefore, Eddie’s life. And Dr. Fenton wasn’t about to allow that.

  The tiles weren’t much to look at. In fact, they were downright ugly, but only because Eddie had given absolutely no consideration to their appearance. (The aesthetics would later be improved by the engineers tasked with fabricating them for commercial use. Total revenue to date had exceeded $17 million, making the initial outlay of $35,000 look like quite a prudent investment.) He cared about only one thing, and that was how the tiles made the space sound.

  The result was amazing. The very air in this room seemed to be quieter than anywhere else in the entire facility. And, in fact, it was. Measurably. Dr. Fenton had demonstrated it on numerous occasions for high-profile visitors. Any sound anywhere else in the facility seemed magnified in comparison. Like the FOOTSTEPS of the young woman walking briskly down the hall, away from Dr. Fenton’s office, which could be heard through the crack beneath his door.

  Eddie stopped moving as he listened intently. He even stopped blinking. The footsteps ECHOED lightly but clearly. The strange thing was that Eddie didn’t recognize these particular footsteps. He could identify everyone who worked at Harmony House—the doctors, nurses, cooks, janitors, security guards, deliverymen, repairmen, and even the regular visitors of certain patients, none of whom ever came to see him—by the sounds of their footsteps. He also knew most of their names, where they were from, and other odd tidbits he picked up from the snippets of conversation he’d hear from inside his room.

  But he’d spoken directly with very few of them. Eddie didn’t feel comfortable around most people, but particularly not around strangers. They made him nervous, because he never knew what they would do next. Eddie didn’t like surprises. To make matters worse, most strangers stared at him like he was some kind of oddity, remindin
g him just how different he was from most people. And how alone. In all his twenty-seven years, Eddie had never had a real friend. He often wondered what that would feel like, but knew that he would probably never have a friend, so he contented himself with listening to the comings and goings of others, learning as much as he could about each of them.

  The one person he knew nothing about was the muscular man Eddie sometimes saw sitting in a beige Chevrolet Impala in the parking lot. The man clearly worked at Harmony House, because he was there almost every day, but Eddie had no idea what he did. He had asked Dr. Fenton about this mystery man on several occasions, but each time Dr. Fenton insisted that the man was none of Eddie’s concern.

  Whoever the stranger in the hallway was, she’d been in Dr. Fenton’s office for one hour and thirteen minutes, which was an unusually long visit. The old doctor rarely met with anyone for more than thirty minutes, much less an hour. Eddie made a note of it in a binder labeled #37, where he kept a log of every meeting Dr. Fenton had had in the last six months. Logs of the doctor’s meetings from prior to six months ago were contained in binders labeled #1 through #36. Each contained approximately six months’ worth of meetings. The first date in binder #1 was April 14, 2001, the day Eddie had arrived at Harmony House at age eleven. The nursing staff referred to Eddie’s binders, at least #1 through #37, as “The Old Man’s Minutes.” They called #101 “The Book of Slaps,” but never to Eddie’s face. They were all too fond of him—and of their jobs.

  Other numbered binders, such as #121 through #125, contained logs of temperature readings; the ones beginning with #131 listed what kinds of food had been served in the cafeteria, and whether or not they were prepared to Eddie’s liking. The #150 series listed the number of people who’d walked past his door during certain hours. The clear winner was always 5:00 p.m.–6:00 p.m., because that was when the daytime staff left.

  The binders were all carefully arranged in numerical order along five evenly spaced wooden shelves. Eddie didn’t mind if any of the staff used his logs for reference, as long as they returned the binders to their original locations. He was surprised at how few of the doctors and nurses ever utilized his data. There was so much to be gleaned from it.

  One day, he would show them.