Mind Games (33 page)

Amy walked past the changing screens and peeled back a layer of hanging plastic. The huge room ahead of her appeared to be nothing less than the lab of a mad scientist.

A small bookshelf lined the wall. Included in the library of titles was a row of indexed textbooks
:
Advanced Chemistry, Criminal Psychology, Modern Neuroscience
,
an
d
The Complete Guide to Circuitry and Electricity
.
Amy noticed how the bookshelf seamlessly blended into a raised, wooden balcony on the far side of the room. Since it loomed a full twenty feet above her, she could not see past the railing of the balcony. A layer of blue smoke billowed from above.

The ominous, blue light flared from a tall Tesla-style coil wrapped in a thick coating of copper. Just against the back wall, the coil was installed in the far corner of the balcony.

Cameron saw a large table off to the side of the lab. A variety of scientific apparatus covered the wooden surface: graduated cylinders, beakers, rows of bottles, wood glue, scissors, scalpels, remotes, springs, screws, Bunsen burners, colored liquids, old-fashioned ink pens, scattered staples and paperclips, a box of striped and multicolored wires, loose batteries, syringes, and several rolls of black electrical tape.

Above the wooden lab table, a row of glass panels were covered in white markings. The equations, formulas, and diagrams had been carefully extended from the black walls above the lab onto these glass panels. The anatomical drawings pictured on the glass explicitly detailed fold lines across the cerebral cortex of the brain. And posted next to the drawings, a colorful smattering of brain scan readouts was taped to the glass. The drawings detailed the brain imaging scans with impeccable accuracy.

“You brought your friend.” Jen’s voice suddenly came from beyond the wooden balcony. It was calm, even seductive. “I am sorry about your friend, detective.” Then she appeared from behind the balcony railing. Jen leaned over the railing and crossed her arms. “I made sure to change the filter on the water pump. There was a chance his body could hav
e
clogge
d
the pond. And I can’t afford to let the servers over-heat.”

Cameron’s body tensed up. “Jennifer.”

“Cameron, wasn’t I right about Sarah? She’s fine, isn’t she? By now, she’s probably all safe and warm back at Aunt Beth’s...waiting for us to come home.”

“You killed Vince, Jen.” Cameron stepped closer to Amy and widened his stance. “You killed our partner.”

“Oh, get over it. I know you two never really liked him anyway. Besides he was the one making threats.” Jen tapped her finger on the wooden railing. “You forget, Cameron. I lost something too. I loved that milk truck.”

Amy reached for her holstered gun.

“Don’t even think about it, Amy. If you kill me now, you won’t understand what all of this is really about. And I wouldn’t want you to miss the show.”

Jen typed a code into a touchscreen pad attached to the balcony railing. And with a mechanical hiss, the balcony split apart, moving the railing down and away just as a chrome platform extended forward. With the railing removed, Cameron and Amy saw the exposed floor of the balcony.

Straight down the middle, a conveyer belt came to life, rolling over the chrome platform, carrying along a medical gurney. The conveyer belt moved further away from the balcony until it stopped just above Cameron’s head.

Amy circled around the extended gurney while Cameron backed up for a better view.

Jen pressed a few more buttons. And upon her command, the entire conveyer belt tilted upright, exposing the contents of the gurney: Max.

Fastened between the sheets
,
now suspended in mid air, Max twisted his head, murmuring through the wad of cloth that gagged him. Thick sweat poured from his head. His arms and legs were strapped to the gurney’s mattress. And as Max tried to shift his body in the straps, the points of bondage maintained their rigid hold.

“Max.” Cameron felt the name slip from him on a cold breath. Jumping into the air, he tried to reach for the platform, but it was too high.

Amy turned to Jen. “So, you fished him out of that well while we were snooping around?”

“No, that wasn’t Max down there,” Jen replied. “I would never keep him in the well.”

“Then who was it?”

“Amy, you should know by now
.
He was your primary target
.
”

“Tell me...”

“You’re going to like this: I kee
p
Wilso
n
in the well.”

“Wilson?”

“Are you jealous, Amy? Tell me you aren’t just a little jealous that I captured him first. I ordered some guns from Stefani to get closer to their illegal weapons business. At the time, I had no idea Wilson was the San Fran Bomber. But you can understand my urgency to stop him once I knew. He was going to blow up the Golden Gate Bridge. He’s better off down there. And I’ve already given him something...the first stage of the treatment.”

“Treatment?”

“The wolves handled it alright, and since Wilson is basically an animal...the medicine should affect him about the same way.”

“Jen, listen to me,” Cameron said. “You need to release Max. We’re taking him with us.”

“Are you now? Oh, I see. You and Amy are on some kind of rescue mission. So, he’s the reason you came all the way out here? For him? I could never release him to you the way he is now. He’s far too unpredictable.”

Cameron walked closer to the balcony, speaking up to Jen. “You lied to me for years. You lied to everyone. And for what? The greater good? How is spying on innocent people going to clean up the city?”

“No one’s innocent, honey.”

“You’re watching all of those people in their own homes...with their families. What proof do you have that they will hurt anyone more tha
n
yo
u
already have?”

“Proof?” Jen walked across the balcony and flipped a sequence of switches. A generator next to the long bookshelf started to buzz. “Is that what you want? Proof?” She pointed to the writing on the glass panels. “What do you call all of that, Cameron? I can tell you right now which one of those people on the monitors are potentially violent. All I had to do was watch their behavior.”

“And what exactly are you looking for?” Amy asked.

“Good question.” Jen flipped another sequence of switches, and the generator vibrated even more. “There’s a whole list of things to watch for. Some people even fold their socks suspiciously.”

Cameron gestured towards Max as he squirmed in the airborne gurney. “Jen, listen to what you’re saying. It’s absolutely ridiculous. Max is my friend. And...look around you, Jen. You’ve spiraled into madness.”

“Cameron, you want to know why I didn’t tell you any of this?” Jen snapped on a pair of surgical gloves. “I just knew you wouldn’t understand. You’re too jaded by the blood and the guts that...I think you lost sight of the people who commit these atrocities.” Then, she placed a blue surgical mask over her mouth and nose. The mask muffled her voice as she spoke, so she spoke louder. “I didn’t just make these decisions...these facilities over night, Cameron! Believe it or not, you inspired me. When you first started working in forensics, the pictures you brought home repulsed me. Theft, homicide, and all the remains. It disgusted me. And then, after a while, it just made me angry.”

“You should have talked with me about this.”

“Why, Cameron? All you do is take pictures.”

“Don’t say that.”

Jen pointed to Amy. “At least she makes an effort. Because unlike you, Cameron, Amy does a hell of a lot more than just take pictures of blood spatter. She understands how these criminals think. So, wake up, Cameron. Listen to the facts. The psychopaths in this city are causing over half of the organized crime. It’s people like Wilson that I’m after.”

“And you caught him,” Amy said. “I’m glad he’s off the streets. I really am. But this kid...”

Cameron interrupted. “Max had nothing to do with Wilson. He’s nothing like him. It’s not too late, Jen. You can still let him go.”

“But I’m not going to do that.”

Jen flipped a final set of switches. Then she calmly walked across the balcony and put on a heavy, silicon apron. “Max can’t leave until he completes the treatment.”

“What did you give him?” Cameron asked.

“There’s no point explaining. Besides, you already saw the formulas on the way in. It’s just basic chemistry and biology.” She tied the silicon apron around her and lowered a joystick on the control panel.

A circular shaft opened in the ceiling just above Max, and a reflective sphere lowered from the opening held by a braided rope. The sphere emitted a static buzz that joined the noise from the generator.

Jen continued, “For thousands of years, humans punished criminals based on their past actions, after the blood went cold. But we are entering a new era. And it’s been a long time coming. With this machine, humanity will be able to prevent crime from ever happening.

“The criminal mind used to be a locked box, sealed from the inside. Through my calculations, through my hours of trial and error, I finally found the key. And once I’m inside, the circuitry that eluded us for so long will be revealed. Following the procedure that I’ve invented, criminal minds will be as open and clear as a glass room. The brain is just like a circuit board. But instead of copper cords and plugs, it uses neurons and synapses. Even these mysteries are now accessible through electricity. My machine just needs a little more tweaking. But once its ready, I’ll be able to rewire the craziest criminals on the planet. With this machine, I will be stronger than even the evolutionary powers of biology. I will not only be able to identify these outliers, but I will cure them, once and for all, of their criminal minds.”

“Let Max go!” Cameron shouted.

“Why are you so convinced of his innocence? Max here was kind enough to fill out my little survey. Robert Hare’s Psychopathy Test. And the results seem entirely conclusive to me. Even professional psychiatrists would agree, Max has enough traits to be considered dangerous.”

“You’re the dangerous one, Jen.”

“I’m simply preventing this boy from growing into the manifestation of his biological deformity. Society will thank me later.”

She threw the switch.

Blue flares snapped up the large coi
l
behind her, causing a droning sound like that of an old organ. The air around the copper coils popped, guiding the current to the top of the coil. When the energy reached its peak, a blinding bolt of lightning shot out from the coil, heading for the reflective sphere above Max’s head.

Amy watched the current hit the sphere, and she fired five rounds into the braided rope that held it. The current had already soaked into the sphere, but on the fifth shot, the bullet from Amy’s gun sliced the rope, causing the sphere to crash to the ground.

Without the sphere to absorb energy, the electrical current crackled in all directions. Cameron and Amy dropped to the ground, covering their heads just as the coil frayed the lightning into a million micro-bolts.

The generator continued to send waves of power to the coil, increasing its electrical output. And with each pulse of power, the coil released another set of jagged bolts.

The bolts started blue at the top of the coil and became bright white as they spread out like deadly tendrils. After two more crackles, the generator pushed out a huge surge of power, causing the copper wires around the coil to twitch and snap.

Blaaamm!!

The next blast sent the wires flying.

Without a structure to guide the electricity, the coil sprayed bolts in different directions, extending further than before. One of the streaks of white lit up the side of the hanging glass panels covered in writing. First, the bolt danced along the back of the glass, then it curved around, cracking it, then shattering the glass panel into gravity’s hold. The rain of glass fell just next to Cameron.

The noise from the generator screamed like an eagle, cawing with each surge of power.

Amy peered through the slits in her fingers and saw Jen clutching the balcony’s railing. The violent static had caused Jen’s hair to spread apart, strand-by-strand. Then, as if possessed by a dark entity, Jen’s body became stiff and defied gravity, rotating up at a steep angle while she desperately held onto the railing. The powerful lightning spread her feet apart. Amy saw Jen’s screaming face; tongue out, eyes bulging from her skull. Convulsing in fits, Jen’s body bent back and forth, thrown about by the live current.

Cameron lowered his elbow and saw the horrific site as well. Then, he looked up at Max. The glaring bolts of lightning frenetically licked across the back of the medical gurney, reaching around like spindly claws towards Max. But the bed sheets served as insulation. Even as the bolts grew brighter, stronger, and reached further, the split ends of the lightning zapped around the bed, leaving Max unharmed.