Marge took a swig from the can of soda and shook her head. “I think he was afraid to use the tuner thing on himself. The clones didn’t know it, but he was experimenting on them.”

“Were there any other weapons in the lab?” North asked.

“Loring had a couple of other gadgets around—a glass ball thing and a little metal box—but he said they didn’t require tuning, not like the gun. He said they were more like grenades or small bombs. One-time use.”

North opened the lockbox and took out the machine he had found in Loring’s lab. He set it on the table. “Is this what Loring used to try to tune the clones to the vibe in the crystal gun?” he asked.

Marge eyed the machine and snorted in disgust. “Yep. That’s it. How’d you get hold of it?”

“Found it in Loring’s lab at Riverview.”

Marge looked grim. “Too bad Loring and those clones got away.”

“We’ll get them,” North said. “Just a matter of time.”

Sierra looked at Marge. “Did the clones use the night gun on you and the other patients at Riverview?”

“Nah.” Marge grunted. “Between you and me, I think Loring and Garraway were scared to let the clones use it on us. They would have had to deal with a lot of dead bodies, or maybe a lot of people in comas. Hard to explain that to the local cops. Anyway, that wasn’t why me and the others were kidnapped. They needed us for something else.”

“What?” North asked.

“Most of us could see the energy around people, y’know?” Marge said.

“Auras,” Sierra said.

“Right. Auras. Loring shot us full of drugs that were supposed to jack up our senses. He wanted to see if he could make us do more stuff.”

“Like what?” Sierra asked.

“He made us hold old objects and describe the places where they came from.”

“Remote viewing,” Harmony said quietly.

“What kind of objects?” North asked.

Marge shrugged. “One time it was a desk tray, the kind you keep pens and pencils in. Another time it was a busted coffeepot. A lot of the stuff looked like it came from an old office. I could tell it made him crazy when I said I couldn’t feel a damn thing.”

Sierra smiled. “You lied to him, didn’t you?”

“Damn straight,” Marge said. “None of us ever told Loring the truth if we could help it.”

“Any idea why he wanted you to test the artifacts?” Sierra asked.

“The bastard never explained anything to us. He thought we were stupid, I guess. But some of us talked about it when he wasn’t around. We figured out that Loring and Garraway were looking for something. Guess they thought one of us might be able to pick up a vibe in an object that would somehow tell him where it came from. Heard Loring talk about a paranormal GPS or something.”

North whistled softly. “A dowsing stick.”

Sierra got a ping. “The artifact we picked up at Swan’s?”