"See the upper reading?" Kracowski said. "That's his energy field as measured across the meridian points I devised. Did you notice how erratic the reading was before my treatment?"
"You mean before you gave him electroshock?"
"Mr. Bondurant, that's a crude comparison. I'm not a psychosurgeon. I don't try to cure by destroying the brain. I don't give frontal lobotomies, or whatever term they use these days for systematic depersonalization. I merely drive away the traumatic residue that blocks the normal functioning of the brain's neurotransmitters."
Gobbledygook, Bondurant thought. Kracowski's tech-nobabble was as bad as me counselors' psychobabble.
Mario looked around unhurried, curious. It had taken three grown men to restrain the boy during his first night here, when the lights were turned off in the Blue Room and the boy fled for the exit, clawed at the walls, rammed his skull against the steel door. Now the boy sat in the dark as if meditating with open eyes.
"He's not screaming," Bondurant said.
"He doesn't seem to be uncomfortable in the confined space," Kracowski said.
The monitor showed the top line on the chart had leveled out while the bottom line rose and fell steadily. Kracowski waved a hand to indicate the pattern. "Calm as a nursing infant."
"I must admit, the treatment is impressive. How long do the effects last?"
"My initial research shows that it may be temporary. But even if the neurotransmitters must be, shall we say, 'realigned' every month, that's a much better success rate than any of your shrinks can claim."
Mario looked at the mirror, and for a moment, Bondurant was struck with the impression that the boy could see him. "What about potential cardiac damage?"
"No chance. It's as if a light switch was flipped off and then back on."
"Let's hope so. One incident, and the state licensing board and the Social Services investigators will sweep through this place like storm troopers. I don't think they would find your techniques in the chapter on standard practices."
"Your job is to keep them away. At least until I've finished my work. Then they, like the rest of the world, will finally see the light."
Bondurant shuddered at the way Kracowski had emphasized the word work. He'd said it with an almost religious fervor. Kracowski might have made a good pastor. But the man found his pleasure in healing a troubled brain instead of leading a troubled heart to the Lord.
Inside the darkened room, Mario called out. "Hello? Are we finished yet? I'm hungry."
Kracowski pressed a button and the lights blazed in Thirteen. "I didn't say I could cure his eating disorder. Let's save that for next time."
Randy and Dr. Swenson entered from the hall and removed Mario's restraints. Dr. Swenson asked "Mario, are you ready to play a game of cards?"
"Cards?" he said. "Que Clase?"
Kracowski smiled.
Bondurant was afraid to ask if an SST treatment caused any other negative side effects besides temporary death.
NINE
Figured it wouldn't last.
Yard Time had been nice, and Freeman was able to score a good spot on the rocks, bathing in the sun with his eyes closed. He was surprised the kids were allowed near the lake since it might prove tempting to the potential suicide cases among them. Many of the kids had broken into groups near the main building. The shouts and rubbery thuds of a soccer match rose from the lawn.
Freeman opened one eye against the orange blaze of sundown. The mountains huddled like great beasts around the group home. Farms and pastures stretched beyond the fence to the base of the rocky slopes, giving Freeman a sense of unease, as if with two leaps the mountains would be on him, with no trees in the way to slow them down. He hoped he wasn't developing a case of agoraphobia to go along with his other problems.
Deke and his goon squad were hanging out in a worn spot amid the shrubbery, by the fence at the rear of the property. A gray thread of smoke spun from the shadows, either tobacco or marijuana. Deke probably had a steady supply of contraband, yet another way to maintain his throne and win tribute and loyalty from his dimwitted subjects.
"A penny for your thoughts," came a voice below him. A girl's.
Vicky.
Freeman's breath caught in his lungs, as if he had inhaled one of the high clouds. His pulse jumped in his wrists and his scar itched. He snapped his eye shut and wondered if he should pretend to be asleep.
"How about a dime?" she said.
Freeman blinked and sat up, feigning drowsiness. She'd claimed to have ESP, and unless she had learned to lie telepathically, he couldn't ignore her forever. And he wasn't sure he wanted to. "Hi."
"You're new."
Brilliant powers of observation.
But before he could twist his mouth into a frown, their eyes met and again Freeman felt his chest expand and his heart float. Or maybe his medicine was screwing with him. "Just got in today."
"First placement?"
"Nah. I'm chronic."
She rolled her spooky, dark eyes. "Nobody's born this way."
Oh hell. She's not trying to ask me about HIM, is she? Not Dad? Quick, change the subject, change the subject, change the subject.
He thought of some of the silly come-on lines he'd seen in those after-school specials that group homes loved to pipe in. What are you doing after the game? What's your cat's name? How was your summer vacation? None of them seemed to fit. Freeman had yet to see a heartwarming treat for the whole television viewing family that featured a bunch of caged mental fuck-ups.
"Maybe we get born with some of it," he finally said.
"Yeah. Believe it or not, I hear I was a chubby baby." She played with a dead leaf, running her finger over its veins, then over the veins on the back of her hand. Freeman had never so plainly seen the inner mechanics of a hand. Her knuckles were knots, her nails too large for the scant flesh of her fingertips.
Let's not talk about our problems. That's Rule Number One for faking sanity and normality. And the faster you can fool them into thinking you 're normal, the faster you can get the hell out of Dodge. Because there's got to be a place out there where people aren't trying to crack open your skull twenty-five hours a day and probe it with their microscopes and questions. Second chances, no matter what Mom used to say.
Mindless chatter was way easier than talking about the real stuff, so he tried the obvious. "How long you been at Wendover?"
"Six months. Or two hundred years, depending on whether you're talking the calendar or how long it really feels like."
"I've been to worse. Just came up from Durham Academy. Two weeks before my transfer, a seven year old got gutted with a plastic knife."
"Harsh. We don't have that kind of thing here. But we have other stuff to worry about."
Freeman wasn't sure what would play better, De Niro in The Last Tycoon or Eastwood in The Bridges of Madison County. And he still wasn't sure if he wanted to get to know her. He'd already sworn off being Defender of the Weak, and Vicky looked pretty damned weak. "There's always something to worry about, if you look hard enough."
"That's what Starlene says," Vicky said. "About worrying. Says God doesn't send you anything you can't handle. It's easy for her, though. She's on a Jesus kick that makes Franklin Graham look like a hopeless heathen by comparison. And she has way better hair."
Freeman rolled up on one elbow. Vicky sat cross-legged on one of the gray-blue boulders. She looked across the lake, her face blank, as if she'd already forgotten her last statement and could care less about his response.
"I like Starlene okay," Freeman said. "She doesn't seem as weird as the others."
"Oh, she's nice, I guess. I just don't like people trying to solve my problems for me."
"Me, either."
"You don't look like you have any problems. Despite your little act."