by B. V. Larson
Jenna came awake with a gasp.
“Who’s there?” she said.
“It’s just me, Jenna,” I said. “I’m sorry.”
“Dammit, Draith, you shouldn’t do that! I know you have the power, but you can’t just wander into a woman’s room at midnight.”
“It’s more like four in the morning.”
“No wonder I feel like I’m having a heart attack,” she said. “Don’t you ever sleep at night?”
I thought about it. “No,” I said. “I don’t seem to. Not often, at least.”
I told her why I’d come. I told her about Holly. There was no one else to tell, really. I told her and sipped my alcohol. It was warm and mixed with clashing flavors. I didn’t care. It tasted like gasoline, but I still drank it.
Jenna tried to comfort me, but it didn’t work. After I finished my drink, I took a shower, then I passed out on her bed. The last memory I had was of dawn gleaming under the heavy hotel curtains and of Jenna gently pulling a sheet over me.
At about noon, I got up to find she had ordered room service. She sat at the small, round table with me and ate it.
“What are you going to do next?” she asked.
“Put you on a plane home while I go back to where it all started for me: Dr. Meng’s sanatorium,” I said.
Jenna blinked at me for a moment. “No, I don’t think so.”
“Well, I do. I’m not losing you too.” I couldn’t get Holly’s face out of my mind—the way she’d looked as I pulled the sheet over her.
“You forget, I want revenge as much as you do. I’m in this with you. I might not have quite as good a reason to be pissed off as you do, but that remains to be seen.”
“Revenge? You mean against Robert?”
“I mean against whoever it was that changed him. He wasn’t the same man when he stepped out on me. I think this place changed him, and he might still be alive somewhere, needing my help.”
“You’re still not going with me.”
“How are you going to stop me?” Jenna was giving me a look that didn’t brook interference.
I nodded, chewing bacon. I figured Jenna was one of those women who made up lists of excuses for husbands that cheated on them. But she did have spine. She had some good points too. Maybe something had happened to Robert to change him. With all the strange things going on, it was very possible. I kept going back and forth about whether I should let Jenna have her way, while she waited patiently, arms folded as she leaned back in her chair.
“OK,” I said when we’d finished breakfast and I felt human again. “You can come with me to Meng’s, but only because you might be safer with me than staying here. And you have to do what I say. It might get dangerous.” The truth was, I needed company, and I really didn’t know what would be more or less dangerous for her. At least with her by my side, I knew where she was at all times.
“Yes, boss,” she replied, but somehow it didn’t sound all that respectful.
We reached the sanatorium in the early afternoon. Jenna clearly knew it was Holly’s car, but didn’t say a word. We didn’t park out front, but pulled to the curb a block or so away.
“What are you planning, exactly?” Jenna asked me.
I shrugged. “Nothing special. We’ll walk up to the door and ask to see the good doctor.”
“What if she doesn’t want to see you?”
“Then we’ll insist.”
I adjusted the talisman around my neck. The purse strap was uncomfortable. The finger in the small, narrow bottle rolled around inside at times—I could feel it fall over with a tiny thumping movement when I walked fast. I tried not to think about it, or the three other objects on my person. If McKesson was right about objects attracting one another, I had to be akin to a giant cartoon magnet about now.
The sanatorium was built of heavy cement bricks. Other than sheer gray walls, the institution had only one distinguishing characteristic: a tower that loomed over the front entrance. I’d read up on the place online. The building had once served the neighborhood as a chapel. The tower looked unoccupied, but I now suspected Meng lived up there. I was quite certain she never left the premises, as this was her seat of power.
I put my hand on the worn brass door handle and pulled. It didn’t budge. There was a buzzer to my left and a camera lens above that. I pressed the button for several seconds before letting up.
After a pause, I heard a female voice come over the intercom. “I’m sorry, sir, visiting hours are over for the day.”
The intercom was scratchy, but I thought I recognized the voice of the nurse I’d met some days earlier under unpleasant circumstances. What was her name? Miranda, as I recalled. Her tone was professional, but I could tell that Miranda didn’t want to meet me again.
I looked into the camera, but I didn’t smile. I hadn’t shaved for a while, and my eyes weren’t welcoming. All I could think of was Holly and other friends, most of whom I’d apparently forgotten about. Someone was going to have to do a lot of explaining, and possibly pay a price.
“Open the door, Miranda,” I said.
Another pause. “I’m sorry, Mr. Draith, but you’ll have to—”
“I’m coming in, one way or the other. Tell Dr. Meng I’ve got a lot of things to report.”
Five seconds later, the door buzzed. I pulled it open and Jenna followed me inside. She looked worried. There was something about mental institutions that made people nervous.
There was a waiting room inside, but it was empty. Nothing but dusty, green-upholstered furniture and a few well-worn magazines. A TV mounted high in one corner played a video loop of health ads. Maybe visiting hours really were over. I didn’t care.
There was only one set of doors, so I pushed through them. They led into a hallway that looked vaguely familiar. My earliest memories were of this place. These walls didn’t fill me with a homey feeling, however. Quite the opposite.
When we reached the nurses’ station, there was no one there. A phone blinked on hold. Another TV was tuned to security cameras, showing the exterior of the building. A cup of coffee, half-empty, sat next to a keyboard. Closed doors lined the hallways beyond the station. Each door was built with thick steel and had a small glass window above the handle. The windows were crisscrossed with silvery wire.
“Miranda?” I called.
No response came back, not even an echo. I looked around and realized the entire floor was quiet. Since when was a building full of crazy people as silent as a morgue? I frowned. When I’d been here before, I’d figured it was around 5:00 a.m. so the other patients were asleep. But that excuse wasn’t working for me now.
“Where is everyone?” Jenna whispered to me. She was standing close to me now, almost leaning up against me.
All I could hear was the buzz of fluorescent lights overhead. I glanced at Jenna, and wondered for the hundredth time since entering whether it was a colossal mistake for her to be here.
“This place is really creepy,” she said. “Should we ring the bell or call someone?”
I looked at her. “Why don’t you go back outside and wait?”
I could see in her face she liked the idea. She seriously considered it. She’d faced a few security guys before, and had seen the air shimmer and open up to other places. But this was different, somehow. We were invading a dangerous place and we had no backup plan to escape.
Jenna’s face tightened and she shook her head. “No. I’m in this with you.”
I didn’t have time to argue with her, so I nodded and led her down the hallway to Dr. Meng’s office. I didn’t bother to tap on the door; I just tried to open it. The door was locked, so I used my sunglasses and let myself in, Jenna behind me. If they could be rude, so could I.
Dr. Meng was inside. She didn’t look at all surprised to see me. She wore a welcoming smile. When she saw Jenna following me, however, she paused and raised her eyebrows.
“Hello, Quentin,” she said. “Who’s your friend?”
Jenna spoke up b
efore I could tell her not to identify herself. “I’m Jenna Townsend,” she said.
“Oh,” Meng said, nodding. “The bride, of course. Please come in and make yourselves comfortable.”
We walked in, but we didn’t sit down. Jenna walked closer to the doctor’s desk and stared at her. “You know who I am? You know what happened to Robert, don’t you?”
“I know of him, yes,” Dr. Meng said. “Please sit down.”
“No, I don’t think so,” Jenna said. “Not until you tell me—”
Jenna broke off then. Her face had gone blank. Frowning, I stared from her to Dr. Meng, who had something in her hand now. I recognized it. A metal object of old bronze. It was the hood ornament. She lifted it up and placed it on the desk between us. I eyed the small figure of a woman in a gown with wings upraised.
“I know you’re doing something to Jenna,” I said, digging in my pocket for my pistol. “Let her go.”
“This is my place, Mr. Draith. I make the rules here. Don’t be rude and upset me.”
I wasn’t entirely sure what she could do, but I recalled the time she’d somehow thrown me out of her building. Maybe my talisman would protect me from such things—but maybe it wouldn’t. It was untested. I decided to play it as coolly as I could.
“OK,” I said, sitting down. “Is that thing supposed to be an angel?”
Dr. Meng ignored me, turning to Jenna. “Now, my dear, for the third time, sit down.”
Jenna immediately did as she was told. If the chair hadn’t been right there, she would flopped onto the floor. I saw the wooden way she moved.
Jenna stared expressionlessly. Her anger was gone. She just stared at Dr. Meng.
“An odd thing to witness, isn’t it?” Dr. Meng asked. “At first, I found it disturbing. But now I like the effect. It makes life more orderly. And much quieter.”
I thought, in a rush, of the dozens of silent rooms that lined the halls. Who was inside them? Were they empty, or filled with staring zombies like Jenna? I was horrified by the idea. My hand squeezed around the pistol in my jacket pocket, and my thoughts turned dark. If I simply kept it out of sight in my pocket and tilted up the barrel, I could fire without warning. I could shoot Dr. Meng and free Jenna. I could shoot her before she could turn me into a zombie and put me in one of her cells with the rest of them.
I sucked in a deep breath and tried to relax, thinking of the several objects I wore. I was a technomancer now—maybe as dangerous an individual as the good doctor herself. Her complete confidence was disturbing, however.
“So that’s your power?” I asked. “To blank people’s minds?”
“It’s more than that,” Meng said. “I can write new thoughts upon the walls of a blank mind.”
“Did you damage my brain?” I asked. “Is that why my memory is incomplete?”
“You were in such a state. Really, it was a mercy. We had to repair your body and your mind, you see. What do you do with a computer when it will not operate, Mr. Draith? Why, you turn it off and restart it. Please try to understand and don’t upset yourself.”
“But when I left, I was transported out of here. You dropped me from this place onto a stairway in front of the exit.”
Dr. Meng smiled and slowly shook her head. “No. That’s not what happened. I simply ordered you to leave, and when you reached the limits of my domain, my grip on you faded. I’m not surprised you fell down the stairs. That’s a common side effect when my grip suddenly lets go.”
I gazed at her with growing alarm. I had been in her grasp from the beginning. “Why don’t you just blank me right now?” I asked.
“I’m hoping you have information for me. You always do.”
Those last words burned into my mind. You always do. I’d been here before, I thought. Maybe many times. Somehow, I knew that was true. My heart raced in my chest. I felt fearful and sick.
“Aren’t you a little worried?” I asked. “Why don’t you order me to put my gun on the table, at least? You know I’m armed, don’t you?”
“Of course you are. Your work is inherently dangerous. You often find a weapon and use it. But to answer your question, I can tell you I conditioned you long ago not to harm me. I was never in any danger from you. Not this time, or any other time you’ve been in my office.”
I wanted, more than anything else at that moment, to kill her. Maybe I wouldn’t be able to do it, but I should at least try to free myself and Jenna. I looked at Jenna. I couldn’t stand seeing her that way. Meng was a monster.
I stood up and pulled out my pistol.
“What are you doing?” Meng asked.
Was there the slightest tinge of worry in that voice? I hoped so. I hoped I made her nervous.
“Testing your theories, and mine,” I said. I aimed the gun at her—or rather, I tried to. I couldn’t do it. My arm refused to obey. I recalled the last time I’d invaded her office. I’d flashed the pistol and aimed it confidently at the ceiling. I’d thought at the time I was in charge. But I never had been. I hadn’t aimed it at Meng because I couldn’t do it.
It was a very strange thing to order your hand to obey you and have it steadfastly refuse. It wasn’t as if it were numb, or as if another mind controlled it. My arm simply didn’t get the message I was sending. The muscles didn’t contract or loosen. Nothing happened.
I turned back to Meng, my face white. “I can’t do it.”
“No, you can’t. Now, give me your report.”
My eyes narrowed.
Meng frowned. “I said, give me your report,” she repeated. This time, I thought I saw the metal statuette glitter—but it could have been my imagination.
I caught on then. She was trying to exert her dominance over me. But I didn’t feel it. I didn’t feel any urge to obey her at all. My mind raced. What had she said? That she was able to write new thoughts into a person’s mind. Right now, it wasn’t working.
I sat down then and forced my face not to grin. It was difficult.
“After I left, I wandered the streets…” I began, recounting my adventures for her.
While I spoke, she relaxed again. Everything was as it should be—but it wasn’t. I was free to do anything but harm her. I paused now and then while I told my tale to think about my situation. Soon, I had a plan.
I bided my time, talking for about half an hour. There was a lot to tell. I learned a little from her by the questions Dr. Meng asked—what interested her and what didn’t. She was particularly interested in the cultists. She didn’t know much about them. I told her all about Gilling and his crew. I left out, naturally, everything about the finger that was hanging around my neck. She didn’t need to know I could resist her magic.
The part she liked best, oddly enough, was when I told her about placing the photo against McKesson’s shoulder and firing a bullet into it. She laughed aloud, saying that she wished she could have been there to see that. I gathered that the Community members all relied on McKesson—he was something like a shared Igor for them all—but none of them liked him.
At one point she turned and poured herself a fresh cup of coffee. I paused.
“Continue,” she said, glancing back at me.
That imperious order left me with a flash of anger. I don’t know why that particular moment caused me to feel such rage. Maybe it was the arrogance, the automatic assumption I was her plaything, her puppet.
I struggled to continue my story in an even tone of voice. While I did so, I reached up and ripped loose my talisman. The strap didn’t break, but the weak metal clasp we’d attached to the bottle did. I slipped the thing down into my lap and held it there in my fist.
Next, I quietly popped the magazine out of my .32 automatic, letting it clatter onto the floor. Before she could turn around, I quickly took the photo of my supposed family and threw it on the desk between us. When she turned back, she noticed it. Her eyes slid up to me, and once again she was frowning.
“Where did this come from?” she asked.
“From my p
ocket,” I said.
Dr. Meng stared. “I didn’t tell you to put it here. Is it part of your report?”
Finally, at long last, I allowed myself to smile. In fact, I grinned broadly. The grin turned into something feral, the kind of grin the wolf must have had when it ate good old Granny.
“No, it’s not,” I said. I slowly lifted my gun and aimed it right at her. The look on her face was worth a year’s pay to me. “I’m sorry, but I have a confession to make. I’m not in your power. I haven’t been since I walked in.”
She stared at the gun in absolute horror. That single expression made my day. I could aim the gun at her now because it was unloaded—but she didn’t know that.
“But how?” she said.
I shrugged. “New objects,” I explained.
“Why would you pretend?”
“To see what you asked about. How much you knew.”
“So, your stories were real?”
“With a few omissions, yes. Now I want to know some things. Let’s call it your report.”
“I’ll grant you one question for initiative,” she said.
I eyed her. She still sounded self-confident, but that could have been an act. I decided to ask my question regardless. “Why did you send me out there to wander around?”
“I thought that was obvious. To locate rogues with objects and mark them for death.”
“Death,” I said, somehow surprised to hear her admit that was the mission. I felt hot and mildly sick. I really had been an assassin of sorts. The hound leading the hunters. “So you fed this information to the Gray Men? They weren’t trying to kill me all this time, they were trying to kill the people I located?”
Meng shrugged. She eased herself into her chair across from me. I let her do it. I reached out to her desk and tapped the picture.
“Is this my family?” I asked her.
“I honestly don’t know. You had it with you when we picked you up. It was your sole object, your qualification as a rogue.”
“What does the photograph do?” I asked.
She smirked at me. “Haven’t figured that out yet?” she asked. She reached toward it, slowly stretching her arm across the table. As if by chance, she brushed against her bronze statuette. My empty gun tracked her movements. I realized she was about to give mind control another try. I didn’t blame her.
