A Cage of Butterflies Read Online Free PDF

you will see there are some marked departures from typical autistic behaviours. We need to work out what is going on inside their minds. That will be your job. You will have access to all the observational data and, of course, your brother’s research, but you will be spending most of the time in here with them. We need an expert eye … and you’re it.” Again, he struggled for the right words. “We believe … that the Babies may be highly intelligent. Though of course, having no way of communicating with them, we can only guess.”
    They passed down a narrow, high-ceilinged corridor, and stopped outside one of a number of identical wooden doors. MacIntyre turned the handle and led her into a tiny observation booth. Four padded office chairs stood before an empty desk, facing a window which stretched the full width of the wall and gave an unobstructed view into a huge, sparsely furnished room. To the left of the window, on a swivel mounting, she noticed a large video-camcorder. And on the back wall of the booth three TV monitors.
    â€œThe window is one-way glass.” MacIntyre, in tour-guide mode, was detailing the finer points of the complex. “We can observe the Babies – and record them” – he nodded towards the video – “without their being aware of us. There are two fixed remote cameras, so that we can picked up any movement in the room. Hidden mikes pick up any sound, and feed it directly onto the video. We can hear a mosquito sneeze in that room.” His tone was childishly proud.
    â€œVery high-tech!” Susan struggled to sound impressed. “But is it really necessary? I mean, they’re just five little kids, not a ring of desperate Russian spies.”
    MacIntyre turned on her, a strange, obsessive light in his eyes. “They are not just anything, Susan.” The way he said her name put her teeth on edge. “We call them the Babies because they look so much younger than they are. But they aren’t babies. And we’re pretty sure they aren’t autistic at all …” For a moment he paused as if he had said too much. “But you’ll make your own assessment. That’s what you’re here for. The cameras allow us to capture every movement. We think it’s important.” He sounded almost offended, and Susan made a mental note to avoid criticism of anything inside the complex – at least for a while. There was still so much to learn.
    They stopped talking as the door opened into the room beyond the glass, and Erik led two of the Babies, a boy and a girl, towards the long table in the centre. A moment later another little girl trailed in, taking a seat at the far end of the table and looking directly at the window. Susan knew that inside the room, the one-way glass would appear as a long mirror filling most of the wall; that she and MacIntyre were invisible to anyone on the other side; yet for an uncomfortable moment, she could swear that the little girl was looking straight at her. Then Erik returned with the two remaining Babies and the girl looked away. But Susan could feel the power of that look like a physical presence in her chest.
    * * *
    March 2, 1990. 2 am
    Just one week, and she was hooked.
    Outside, the moon had set, but the sky was alight with stars. There were no clouds in sight, and this far from the city there was no smog-haze to dull their brilliance. Except on overcast days, any pollution that drifted south from Sydney or the industrial centres of the Illawarra was blown inland or dispersed by the brisk, on-shore breezes, born in the southern oceans, sweeping upthe coastline from Bass Strait and the Tasman.
    Susan stared through the glass at the countless points of light, but only a small corner of her mind absorbed their cold beauty. She was thinking about the Babies. There was a disturbing quality, a power in their passive isolation, that reminded her of the one-way glass of the