Programmed

Chapter 1

Standing behind Castle, Kate stroked his hair as he examined her research on Michael Bellows. "Castle are you sure you want to get into this? You've barely had time to recover."

"Kate," Castle insisted, "I'm not going to be recovered until I understand what happened to me and why. I need to solve this as much as you needed to solve your mother's murder."

"All right," Kate agreed, wrapping her arms around his neck and resting her chin lightly on his head. "You know I'll help you in any way I can."

"I have to find out what Michael was really doing around 1983," Castle explained. "That's when he did whatever he did to me, and maybe to the other kids. There's almost no information. I have to find the others who were there with me then, maybe even track down Christina again."

"How much do you remember about them?" Kate asked.

Castle shook his head. "Not that much. First names. But they lived in the same building I did. I can start with that, see if anyone still lives there. Since the apartments were rent controlled, someone might have wanted to hang on to them. I can start by knocking on doors."

"Do you want some company?" Kate asked.

Castle covered her hands with his. "Absolutely."

To say that the building in the East Village was run down would have been a compliment. The cement was crumbling. Windows showed cracks and behind a gate, the air shaft was littered with trash. Once it had been secure, requiring a buzzer to unlock the downstairs entrance, but the lock was long gone. Cobwebs occupied corners of the lobby and the locks on most mailboxes were gone. Castle pressed the button to call the elevator, but after a wait of several minutes realized that it was no longer functional. He and Kate took the stairs, creaky and indented from years of traffic.

Castle knocked on the first door on the first floor. There was no answer. Allowing for the chance that the resident might be slow to answer due to disability of some sort, Castle knocked several times and waited for an answer. Finally he moved on to the next. A young woman answered after seeing Kate's badge through the peephole. The apartment had passed to her from her recently deceased grandmother, but she had no knowledge of previous residents. Castle and Kate worked their way from apartment to apartment, floor to floor. Either there was no response or the residents knew nothing of what happened in 1983.

Finally, on the fourth floor, Castle saw a face with an air of familiarity. The man might have been about Castle's age, but the years had taken more of a toll. His face was deeply creased and his hair dull and streaked with gray. He showed no signs of recognition until Castle introduced himself.

"Ricky?" the man asked hesitantly. "Weren't you Ricky Rodgers?"

"I was," Castle affirmed.

"Ricky, I read in the paper that you were missing. That you disappeared on your wedding day. Of course, this is Detective Beckett, your fiancée. I read your books, when the library has them. I've been waiting for Raging Heat. Do you remember me? Jerry Sonnenberg."

"Jerry," Castle repeated with an awkward hug. "I do remember you. We used to play games in Michael's apartment together. Actually, that's what I came to talk about."

"Why?" Jerry inquired, confused.

"The reason I disappeared," Castle explained, "seems to have something that had to do with what we all did back then. I need to find out what and why."

"Ricky," I'd invite you both in," Jerry admitted, his eyes on the floor, "but the water keeps going out, I've been out of here as much as possible. The place is a wreck."

Castle laid a hand on the shoulder of his old friend. "It's fine. Let me take you to lunch. You'd be doing me a favor."

"All right," Jerry agreed.

Castle quickly consulted his phone for a restaurant nearby. He chose one fairly downscale, hoping to make Jerry feel more comfortable. He and Kate slid across the vinyl upholstery on one side of a high walled booth while Jerry took a seat opposite them. The menu was simple, composed mostly of various forms of burgers and fries, but the burgers were moist, the fries crisp, and Kate was able to order a strawberry shake.

"Ricky, I'm not sure how I can help you," Jerry explained after the waitress had retreated.

"Tell me what you remember about the games we played," Castle requested. "When we were playing them, did you see anything or maybe feel anything strange, especially after Michael fed us the cookies he was always baking."

Jerry rotated a french fry in his fingers as he tried to recall a time that had retreated so far into the distance. "I don't remember anything while we were playing," he told Castle. "But sometimes I had weird dreams afterward, come to think of it, especially when I had a lot of those cookies. I think I ate more of them than you did. Our grocery budget was very thin and my mother couldn't buy anything that we didn't absolutely need. Snacks were pretty much out of the question."

"What did you dream about?" Castle asked.

"Numbers," Jerry replied. "There were numbers. Sometimes they were in shapes: squares, rectangles, or circles. The shapes were connected like a giant web. I remember a couple of times I dreamed about a giant spider. Scared the hell out of me. I remember I couldn't play with you guys for a while. I got behind at school and one of the teachers stayed late to tutor me until I caught up."

"Maybe that's why you weren't taken," Castle mused. "You were missing pieces."

"What do you mean taken?" Jerry asked. "Is that why you disappeared? What happened?"

"It doesn't matter," Castle said, trying to be reassuring. Castle and Kate joined hands under the table. "I'm back now. I'm just trying to understand what led up to it."

"Is what I told you of any help?" Jerry asked.

Castle and Kate looked at each other, feeling the wheels turn in each others' minds. Castle nodded. "I think it might be. Can you think of anyone else in the building we could talk to?"

Jerry's already furrowed brow became more so as he thought. "Maybe Mrs. Jenkins. You remember her son Bobby?"

"Yeah," Castle replied, "very good with the guns in the games."

"Maybe not good enough with them in real life," Jerry opined sadly. "Bobby died in Operation Desert Shield. His mother still lives in the building and her apartment is almost like a shrine to Bobby. He's all she talks about. She remembers every moment of his life. She's up in 4C."

Castle thanked Jerry and taking him back to the aging building, assured him that he would talk to Mrs. Jenkins. When Castle knocked on the door of 4C, Kate again had to show her badge through a peephole, but when the door opened, it was on a time warp. Furniture, carpeting, an old style VCR, all screamed the early nineties. The walls were covered with pictures of Bobby, from early boyhood to the a young man proudly decked out in full military gear. Kate and Castle were invited to sit on a well worn but clean couch.

"Mrs. Jenkins," Castle began, "Jerry Sonnenberg suggested we might talk to you about Bobby. He told us how you lost him. I'm so sorry. I don't know if you remember me, I lived in the building in the early eighties. Your son Bobby and I were friends. I was Richard Rodgers then."

Mrs. Jenkins snorted. "Ricky Rodgers, of course I remember you, always spinning wild excuses for why Bobby spent the afternoon playing video games instead of doing his homework."

Beckett hid a smile behind her hand, as Castle sought to continue. "Yes ma'am. I'm sorry. Playing those video games is what we're here to talk about, though. They may have had some strange effects on some of us. Did you ever notice anything different about Bobby after he played them?"

Castle was startled as Mrs. Jenkins asked, "Like brainwashing?"

"Ma'am, why did you ask that?" Kate questioned while Castle recovered.

"The guns, the war play," Mrs. Jenkins answered, tears starting to well in her eyes. "He loved it. I think that's why he wanted to be a soldier. If he hadn't..."

Castle silently handed her his handkerchief, letting Kate continue with the questioning. "Mrs. Jenkins, was there anything you can remember, maybe unexplained behavior, strange dreams, or nightmares?"

Jenkins swiped at her eyes with the linen and nodded. "Yes. Bobby used to scribble little diagrams with numbers in them. When I asked him what they meant, he said nothing, that he was just doodling. Then he had a nightmare, actually he had it several times. A giant number spider was coming after him. Does that make any sense?"

Castle nodded slowly and, with Kate, stood. "Actually it does. Again, I'm so sorry about Bobby, but what you told us may help find out what happened."

"If you do, will you let me know?" Jenkins asked as they turned to leave.

"You'll be my first call," Castle assured her.

Castle slammed his hands against the steering wheel of his newly replaced car. "Castle?" Kate asked quietly.

"If I hadn't been such a wise ass and helped Bobby to play those games, he might not have died."

"Castle, you have no way of knowing that," Kate comforted. "Boys like guns. Some of us girls like guns too. People become soldiers for all sorts of reasons. His mother was just trying to make sense of his death, but if anyone was responsible, it was Michael Bellows. Did you ever have the kind of dreams Jerry and Bobby had?"

"Kate," Castle responded. "I have vivid dreams. You know that. I always have. Sometimes it's helped me as a writer. But dreams about numbers or number spiders, I don't know. I know I really hate spiders and I can't stand walking through spider webs. I'll try to remember." Castle reached out a hand, enfolding her fingers in his larger ones. "Thanks for being with me on this."

Kate could only respond, "always."