If Blake was ever to find out what actually saved him from dying at the hands of the notorious serial killer, he would be devastated. It seemed that his interactions provided the other victims with just enough doubt about their situation that they became erratic, allowing their subconscious to throw twisted nightmare scenarios at them that pleased Franks enough to keep Blake around. But all of that changed when Renee was introduced into the equation.
As the memories faded and the tightening around her chest subsided, Renee felt physically ill. Her head throbbed with the overload of information and she wondered if there was a therapist on earth who would be capable of working through the issues she would undoubtedly develop after all that she had learned. All she wanted to do was curl up into a ball and scream until the vivid images of Serge Franks’ victims faded from her memory, but that wasn’t an option. She knew it was just a matter of moments before Franks realized where she was.
Using the information she had gathered, Renee pulled herself up and ran over to the glowing matrix of Dr. Grantham’s mind, noting the near blinding light at the center. Shielding her eyes, she made her way closer to the source of the light until she found the exact synapse that would allow her to manipulate the doctor’s body as her own. Out of the corner of her eye, Renee saw the outline of the door begin to take shape. With no time to lose, she reached out, placed her palm on the pulsing node, and braced herself for the unpleasant transition.
Dr. Ethan Gasparo stared down at the unconscious body of his senior associate, wondering, not for the first time, what had happened to the man he used to know. Dr. Thomas Grantham had been a personal hero, not just to Ethan, but also to a number of his colleagues in grad school. When he was selected from a vast pool of candidates to assist the brilliant doctor in his latest study, it had been the highest honor he had ever received. Fifteen years later, he wished he had never heard of Dr. Thomas Grantham.
His fingers tightened around the handle of the scalpel he held. How easy it would be to drag the razor sharp blade across the thin skin of the defenseless doctor’s neck. After all, no cameras monitored the activity this deep underground. Ninety-nine percent of the research hospital’s staff was not even aware of the laboratory’s existence. Not even the benefactors from the Department of Justice were allowed entrance as part of the confidentiality agreement signed more than a decade and a half earlier. He could make it look like an accident or he could make the doctor disappear completely.
Of course, he knew he wouldn’t do it. Not while Deborah’s life hung in the balance. It frustrated him to no end, knowing that his wife lay unconscious in a secured room in this very facility and knowing that he was powerless to reach her. Dr. Grantham had been cunning enough to set up additional security parameters that would kill her if Ethan so much as tried to gain access to her room. The codes weren’t logged in any of the lab’s secured systems. If he wanted them, he would have to risk a trip into Dr. Grantham’s mind. He could do that now if he wanted. While the doctor was traipsing through the girl’s mind, his own was vulnerable, but Dr. Gasparo wasn’t entirely sure he was strong enough to survive the trip.
Still, it was tempting to simply end his misery, he thought as he brought the blade closer to the doctor’s neck. Surely, there were code breakers working for the government who would have the intelligence required to gain access to the secured area without compromising his wife’s safety. Explaining exactly how he ended up in the situation, however, was an entirely different matter, but if Deborah was free, wouldn’t it all be worth it?
He pulled the scalpel away quickly when he saw Dr. Grantham’s eyelids flutter. If he was going to be a coward, there was no sense in further angering the doctor with a perceived threat, though there really wasn’t much more that Dr. Grantham could take from him at this point. Instead, Dr. Gasparo pasted a neutral expression on his face and waited for the doctor to come completely out of unconsciousness. When moments later he did awaken fully, the wide-eyed, almost terrified, and certainly uncharacteristic expression was the only indication that something wasn’t exactly right.
“Dr. Gasparo!” Renee cringed as the words came out in Dr. Grantham’s smooth, even tenor. “I need your help,” she continued, pulling the needles from her arms with a practiced ease, even though performing the act made her squeamish. “I know everything. The blackmail, your wife’s abduction, all of it.”
Dr. Gasparo’s face paled and the scalpel slipped from his grasp, clattering to the floor, but Renee barely noticed as she moved past him to the bed where her body lay. Seeing herself fully for the first time came as an awful shock and Renee all but shrieked in horror, covering her mouth with her hand as her stomach lurched. Like Blake, her hair had been shaved to accommodate the electrodes and she was noticeably thinner than she had been. Of course, she already knew that her leg had been amputated after the accident, but it was still shocking to see. But if that had been all that was wrong with her, she might have maintained her composure.
The skin on the side of her head was a knot of twisted flesh where she had hit and broken the driver’s side window. A long, jagged scar ran from her forehead to her chin, slicing an angry red gash diagonally across her face that marred her eye, nose, and lips. Peppering her cheeks were scores of tiny red slashes from where the windshield had exploded in on her. She wasn’t just disfigured; she barely looked human.
Renee tore her gaze away from the awful scene. She didn’t have time to waste dwelling on the extent of her injuries. With shaking hands, she began unhooking her body from the bank of machines behind the bed. In doing so, she was able to prevent Franks from doing any damage while inside her mind. His consciousness would become dormant until she woke him again.
“Leave… her… alone… you… monster.”
Renee whirled around at the sound of the harsh, hoarse voice that was barely more than a whisper.
“Blake!” she gasped and turned to see him glaring at her. “You’re alive, oh thank goodness!”
Blake flinched as she leaned in and tried to wrap her arms around him. When she tried to kiss him, he pushed her away with all of his remaining strength.
“What the hell?” he wheezed, glaring daggers at her.
Renee felt as if she had been punched in the stomach at Blake’s rejection, until she realized how it looked from his point of view. She was in the body of Dr. Grantham, the man who had tried to kill them, and she had just tried to kiss Blake with the doctor’s lips.
“Oh my gosh! I’m so sorry!” she squeaked. “Blake, it’s me… I mean, I’m not the doctor, I’m Renee!”
Blake’s eyes narrowed, but his expression softened slightly.
“How?”
Renee spun around and saw Dr. Gasparo staring at her as if she were an alien.
“This is going to be rather hard to explain,” she admitted. “The man that you’ve known as Dr. Grantham is actually Serge Franks. He’s currently being held prisoner in my body.” She turned back to Blake. “I saw the rest of his memories,” she explained. “Franks laid a trap for the doctor and took over his body. That’s why the memories I saw were so disjointed. They were for two different people.”
“So if you’re in there, and the doctor isn’t the doctor…” Blake trailed off, confused and exhausted.
“Franks is trapped in my body. I disconnected him so that he can’t do anything to me while I’m here. Dr. Grantham, that is, the real Dr. Grantham, is trapped in Serge Franks’ body. He has been for a very long time.”
“That’s… but… that’s impossible!” Dr. Gasparo sputtered. “Serge Franks died years ago. He didn’t respond well to the rehabilitation treatments.”
“Dr. Gasparo,” Renee said, taking a deep breath. “I think you need to know the complete truth. Come with me. There’s something you need to see.”
Chapter 28
Before Renee led Dr. Gasparo out of the room, she disconnected Blake from the terminal behind him and increased the drip of fluids that were keeping him alive, promising that s
he would be back soon to explain everything. She then went to her own body and increased the nutrient dosage as well. Franks had been keeping them alive, but just barely. It was no wonder that every movement while in her body had felt like a monumental task.
Dr. Gasparo followed, but at a distance, still not quite sure what he believed. For all he knew, this was just another one of Dr. Grantham’s sick jokes. It certainly wouldn’t have been the first time that his superior played his emotional anguish against him. He wanted to believe that it really was Renee or anyone other than Dr. Grantham. That he had been manipulated by someone else all these years certainly would have explained the sudden shift in the doctor’s behavior so many years ago. But even after all Dr. Gasparo knew about manipulation of the subconscious for rehabilitative science, the idea that someone’s consciousness could inhabit another’s body was preposterous.
Renee keyed the code to open the door leading to a secured utility access area. When the door swung open, she led the doctor down a long, dark hallway, noting that he hung back and seemed wary of her. Not that she could blame him. From what she had seen in the memories, Franks had all but destroyed the man by kidnapping his wife and terrorizing him with blackmail. Though he had demanded Dr. Gasparo’s help, Dr. Grantham had revealed very little of what he was actually doing to his assistant. At the end of the corridor, she stopped and held her arm out to prevent the doctor from going any farther.
“I think you already know who is in here, but I don’t know if you understand the extent of the security measures he had placed on this room,” she said, keeping her voice as neutral as possible.
“I… I’ve been warned of what could happen,” he said, finding it suddenly difficult to speak as his pulse quickened.
“Serge Franks is a sick man,” she continued cautiously. “But he is also extremely intelligent and now, he has all of the knowledge that Dr. Grantham possessed as well. Even though I too now know everything they do, I’m not going to pretend that I understand any of it. All I know is that the security system that I am about to override is extremely sophisticated. I know all of the access codes and proper sequences, but just to be safe, I’d like you to stay out here until I’m certain that no one is in danger. Is that okay?”
Dr. Gasparo nodded, unable to speak.
Renee keyed the entry code, paused for five seconds exactly, and then keyed the second sequence. When she was done, she stepped into a box that had been drawn on the floor, and lifted her chin, keeping her eyes focused ahead so that the retinal scanner could identify her. With an audible hiss, the door slid away. Inside the dimly lit chamber, she stepped carefully in between the two beds, taking care not to look at the occupants of either. She knew, having seen all of Serge Franks’ memories, that both Dr. Gasparo’s wife and Serge’s physical body were in worse shape than even Blake’s had been, but she didn’t want her physical reaction to distract her until the security system was deactivated. At last, she keyed the final code and began the process of disconnecting them from the computer system
“Dr. Gasparo?” she called out quietly, still unnerved by the sound of her voice. “You can come in now.”
Dr. Gasparo crept into the room and froze. Though he had tried to prepare himself mentally, he was still overcome with grief by the sight in front of him. The thin, skeletal body was almost indistinguishable as the beautiful, vivacious woman he had married nearly twenty years before.
“She’s very weak,” Renee said softly. “He kept her alive, but barely. We’re going to need to bring up her vital signs before we try to wake her. I imagine this is going to be very stressful for you. I’m very sorry. I can’t even imagine how much you have suffered for so long.”
“Y-yes, I understand,” he replied, looking from his wife back to the doctor with a bewildered expression. “You’re really not him, are you?”
“I promise you, I’m Renee Ward,” she said with a glance at the occupant of the other bed. As he followed her gaze, Dr. Gasparo flinched, recognizing the body of the serial killer who he had believed to be dead for many years. “The real Dr. Grantham is in there,” she added. “Even though he’s been here longer, he’s in better condition because Franks has woken him many times before.”
Renee cut the flow of sedatives that kept Franks’ body in a coma. Several minutes later, his eyelids fluttered and he opened his eyes, frowning as he saw his own face staring back.
“What do you want this time?” he asked in a hoarse, but wary voice.
“Dr. Grantham, I am not Serge Franks,” Renee said softly. “My name is Renee Ward. I’m an eighteen-year-old girl and I am one of Serge Franks’ victims. I… apologize for using your body at the moment. Franks is currently trapped in mine.”
He eyed her skeptically. Renee knew the doctor was going to have a hard time believing her because Franks had taunted him in different ways over the years.
“I promise you, I’m telling the truth,” she pleaded. “Once we get you back to the main lab, I’ll connect you into the terminal and give you your body back. Dr. Gasparo will destroy the one you occupy and Franks will die.”
Dr. Grantham then noticed Dr. Gasparo, who stood just inside the doorway, behind Renee, and his eyes went wide.
“Ethan, my god, I’m so sorry,” he said quietly. “This is my fault. I should have known better than to try to enter the mind of a sociopath.”
Dr. Gasparo’s mind was spinning. He vividly remembered the exact day that Dr. Grantham spoke of. The rehabilitation treatments had produced a much higher success rate than either had expected. Of the twenty-seven original test subjects, all young men who had been incarcerated at least twice for violent crimes, only two had found their way back into the criminal justice system. Not long after the guilty verdict had been passed in the Franks case, a liaison from the Justice Department came to the laboratory with a rather daunting request. The department wanted the doctors to study the mind of Serge Franks, who had just received the death penalty for his decade long murder spree. They held no illusions that treatment would rehabilitate Franks. But they felt that if anyone could determine what malfunction of the brain caused a monster like him to exist, it would be Dr. Grantham.
The idea was that if the doctors could discover exactly what it was that caused a violent criminal like Franks to behave as he had, they might be able to identify and potentially stop similar behaviors in others. Dr. Grantham and Dr. Gasparo were given access to a secret, secured facility buried deep in the basement of a military research hospital in New Mexico. Because the department maintained the illusion that the execution had gone on as scheduled, the doctors were also bound by a confidentiality agreement to keep the true nature of their study and the identity of their subject secret. None of their equipment was accessible by the hospital’s network. No one but the two of them had access in or out of the lab, and they were given a list of trusted government employees in the area that they could seek out if they ran into trouble.
Dr. Gasparo had never been comfortable being in the same room as Franks. Though he was securely restrained and kept on a constant flow of sedatives, there was an intelligence in his eyes that was terrifying. The computer analysis of his brain activity showed a higher functioning level of intellect that seemed to prove the theory that there was a fine line between genius and insanity. When Dr. Grantham made the decision to put himself under so that he could observe Franks’ subconscious mind for himself, Dr. Gasparo did everything he could to talk him out of it. In the end, it was Dr. Grantham’s own superior intellect and curiosity that was his undoing.
He had been under for nearly a week. Though Dr. Gasparo could monitor the brain activity of both men, the complex printouts had no way of telling him exactly what was happening. When Dr. Grantham finally gave the signal to be awakened, it was immediately apparent that something had changed. Aside from some basic, curt, and almost dismissive answers, he shared nothing of his experience with Dr. Gasparo. A day later, the body of Serge Franks had been removed. Again, the doctor gave only
a short reply, stating that the treatments had been too much and Franks had died as a result.
When several more patients began to die from the treatments, which should not have been fatal, Dr. Gasparo began asking questions. It was then that his wife went missing. The police found no sign of struggle and no evidence that she had plans to go anywhere. It was as if she had simply vanished from their suburban home. The next day, Dr. Grantham cornered him in the lab and handed him a photograph of his wife lying in a hospital bed, hooked up to a very familiar machine. He then produced notes in Dr. Gasparo’s own handwriting implicating trouble between the couple, stating that he would go to the police with both if his assistant did not do as he requested. That was all it took for Dr. Grantham to buy Dr. Gasparo’s silence and assistance.
“I… I’m sorry as well,” Dr. Gasparo said at last. “I assumed the changes in your behavior were a result of dealing with Franks’ mind. I had no way of knowing that what he did was even possible.”
“We need to move them,” Renee informed Dr. Gasparo. “Even though I deactivated the security measures, I don’t feel comfortable staying in here any longer than we need to. And I’m sure Dr. Grantham wants his body back.”
“I just want out of this mind,” Dr. Grantham said in an ominous tone. “You have no idea of the things I’ve seen.”
Kind of Like Life Page 20
