The Miracle Woman's words were softer now, caressing, and the other voices faded like a radio dropped down a hole and the smoke shifted, became more solid, and the ghosts dissolved and the Miracle Woman smiled and the gray gave way to the darkness.
And Freeman was alone in the darkness.
How long was forever?
Just as he reached for his chest, to see if his heart was still beating, another voice reached him like a golden shaft of light.
It was Vicky, and she said, "Told you you're not alone."
THIRTY-FOUR
"My, how you've grown," Dr. Kenneth Mills whispered to the dark-tinted window.
In the room on the other side of the glass, Freeman stared blankly at the ceiling, lips forming nonsense syllables as he struggled against the restraints. Kracowski watched Dr. Mills's face. No protective parental instinct flickered on those intense features. The only resemblance between father and son was the wild panic in their eyes. At least Freeman had the excuse of an electric shock jarring his flesh against his skeleton.
Dr. Mills had no excuse. Unless madness was an excuse. Mills's defense attorney had certainly used madness as a motive. So Mills had only served six years in a state psychiatric hospital, and McDonald's people had enough pull to have him pronounced "cured" and fit for society. Even spouse mutilators were redeemable in the modern mental health care system.
Kracowski pulled a sheet of data from the printer and matched it against the graphs on the computer screen. Freeman's EKG was strong, with a few aberrant spikes, but nothing that would indicate serious damage. The magnetic signatures of the middle frequency ranges showed decreased amplitude, and the PET scan painted Freeman's brain in warm colors.
"You've expanded my theory in dramatic fashion," Mills said.
McDonald frowned from the corner of the lab. Kracowski pretended to study the data. Mills bent forward, his breath making a mist on the glass. The walls vibrated slightly from the machinery that created the calibrated array of electromagnetic waves.
"But your data are still unreliable," Mills said. "You should have stuck to my ratios of magnetism to electricity. And you've totally ignored the subjective elements of my theory. Focus on the hippocampus, where you can scramble memories before they're even made."
"This wasn't part of the deal," Kracowski said to McDonald. "I thought you were going to give me more time, not bring in somebody to meddle."
"I didn't hear you object when we opened our files and gave you all the research," the agent said. "Who else would have funded you and given you access to our brave little volunteers? Unloved children don't exactly grow on trees, you know."
"That was the hardest part for me," Mills said. "Finding subjects. In the end, I found it was easier to grow my own."
In Thirteen, Freeman writhed against the canvas straps, back arched face contorted.
"Ooh, that must have been a good one," Mills said. "I like the way you've increased the voltage in your version. That risky bilateral shock is bound to wipe out some short-term memory."
Kracowski's hands tightened on the sheet of paper. Synaptic Synergy Therapy was his idea. Mills had made some advances in the ESP theory, adding classic brainwashing techniques to me delight of his backers, but Kracowski saw the mistakes Mills had made. Mills counted on subjective influence, human interaction, the power of suggestion. All smoke and mirrors.
Kracowski had reduced the process to pure science. Cold numbers and waveforms and logic. Quantum thought. Truth. He'd accomplished in only two years what Mills had fumbled around with for nearly a decade.
"Dr. Mills, I'm afraid I have to disagree with you," Kracowski said.
Mills turned from the window as if reluctant to miss Freeman's agony but compelled to win any argument, no matter its nature. "How can you disagree with results?"
"Your work was impure. Your adherence to traditional psychiatric techniques affected your outcomes."
"Wrong, Dr. Kracowski. The Trust wanted ESP, and I gave it to them. Freeman. The first human in the history of the world to have the gift induced through scientific means."
"But you were only able to generate it in one patient." Kracowski looked over Mills's shoulder at Freeman, then glanced at the clock. "I have a dozen case histories that prove my therapy has widespread applications. For improving the overall operation of the brain, not just focusing on a single power. I'm the one who is discovering scientific proof of life after death."
McDonald watched as if the doctors were two bugs battling in a Mason jar. He finally spoke. "You forget who your boss is. That's a mistake you can't afford to keep making. We decide what is proof, and we decide who is alive and who is dead."
Mills grinned at Kracowski like a fanged jack-o'-lantern. "He's right. He's always been right."
McDonald took the paper from Kracowski's hand and scanned the data. "Nothing too unusual here."
"How long?" Mills asked.
Kracowski checked the computer. "Ten minutes, fourteen seconds."
"I have to confess, Dr. Kracowski, maybe you have made some advances. Under my formula, Freeman would be dead by now."
Freeman had been lucky to survive in the first place. Mills's experiments went too far. All because Mills relied on emotional turmoil in the subject. All because Mills needed that final shock to push Freeman over the edge. Mills's case files on his son were filled with enough trauma to fill a dozen mental wards. And those sessions in which he force-fed his own sick thoughts into Freeman's brain "Stop at eleven minutes," McDonald said.
Kracowski rankled at the agent's self-righteous tone. As if McDonald had even the vaguest understanding of the work. At least Mills understood that discovery was more important than the resulting effects of that discovery. McDonald only wanted something he could show his superiors, a weapon so abstract that it could never be applied toward military objectives. Knowledge had never served a positive political purpose, and wisdom had rarely intersected with knowledge, at least where political power was concerned.
"Why do you want to stop at eleven?" Mills turned back to the window, savoring the torture etched into his son's face.
"Supposed to be a mystical number," McDonald said.
Kracowski pressed his lips together to keep from speaking and watched the digits blink upward.
"What do you suppose he's seeing?" Mills said.
"For his sake, I hope it's the future and not the past," Kracowski said.
THIRTY-FIVE
Not alone. Not alone. Not alone.
Freeman peered into the dwindling gloom. Vicky was in here somewhere, trapped in this same gray deadscape. Her voice came to him again.
"Triptrap, Freeman. Reach out to me."
How could he reach with arms that were heavy as mud? The ghosts had dissolved and the darkness pressed in on all sides. He wanted to speak but his throat was clogged with black oxygen. Then he remembered he didn't have to speak. Not out loud, anyway.
"Where are you?" he thought.
"The Green Room," came Vicky's voice. "They made us go to our beds."
"I saw them. The dead people. The Miracle Woman-"
"I know. I was with you the whole time."
"How did you do that?"
"My brain works better now. Even when I'm not in Thirteen. They must have really juiced up the machines and maybe it's spilling over or something."
"How am I supposed to get out of here?"
Freeman turned his head, looking for any sort of dismal sunrise in this land of midnight. He hoped he wasn't dead.