Memory Maze

by Gordon Korman

  “And I’ve been screaming all that time?”

  “No, but something’s been going on for the past half hour.” The doctor indicated the tycoon’s forest of monitor wires and IV tubes. “I was beginning to wonder if I’d have to order up a second set for you. What happened?”

  “It’s hard to explain.” Dr. Pavel already knew that Jax was a mind-bender, so there was no secret to keep. But he didn’t feel comfortable discussing his power with a medical man, who might bring up the subject with colleagues. Any buzz about a boy hypnotist could get back to Mako. “It’s a side effect of the mesmeric link. I got too far into his head. I hope it didn’t upset Mr. Quackenbush.”

  “On the contrary, you succeeded in putting him into a deep, relaxing sleep. His vital signs are stable. I can’t say for sure what you’ve done to yourself in the process.”

  “No, it’s good news,” Jax countered. “This is why he hired me in the first place. To slow down his metabolism to keep him alive until the new treatment is ready.”

  Dr. Pavel’s expression was skeptical. “I told him it was a faint hope. There is no medical evidence about this so-called human hibernation.”

  “But it’s still worth a try, right?” Jax persisted. “I mean, if he’s going to die anyway, he’s got nothing to lose.”

  “He’s got nothing to lose,” Pavel agreed. “You, on the other hand, are a healthy twelve-year-old with your whole life ahead of you. I watched you. Respiration and heart rate elevated, probably your blood pressure, too. Extreme emotional disturbance with the possibility of post-traumatic stress. If I were your doctor and not Mr. Quackenbush’s, I’d recommend that you never try this again.”

  Axel Braintree had a way of keeping his ankles limber by gripping his toes and rotating his feet, first clockwise, then counterclockwise, a hundred times in each direction. He did it sitting on the edge of his bed, which shook the bed itself, the attic floor, and the entire house. Added to this sound was the noise of Jax’s mother banging a broom against the ceiling. Of all the old hypnotist’s habits, she found this one the most infuriating.

  “Fascinating!” he exclaimed without a break in the foot-rhythm. “I read years ago that Quackenbush won a Silver Star in the war. It must have been for that very incident. And you lived it!”

  “It was horrible!” Jax complained. “I killed three people — blew them to bits!”

  “You didn’t. Quackenbush did.”

  “But it felt like me,” Jax practically moaned. “And even though it’s over, I still have the guilt. I don’t know how he lives with it.”

  “There was a war on,” Braintree reminded him. “ ‘Kill or be killed’ is a very strong incentive, and that applied not just to soldiers, but entire countries. When Quackenbush looked inside that pillbox — as awful as it was — he saw a necessary piece of a much larger puzzle. But without the big picture of a world at war, you saw only a hideous massacre. I warned you that this was the risk of opening yourself up to the memories and experiences of someone who had lived so long and done so much.”

  “What I can’t figure out,” Jax wondered, “is how was he so relaxed? Wouldn’t he have to be reliving the same memory I was trapped in?”

  Braintree switched ankles. “There’s no textbook on this, Jax. Just as your remote hypnotism was unique in the world, you are breaking new ground with this extended mesmeric connection. In a brief, shallow link you pick up current thoughts and impressions. But a longer exposure can take you on a journey anywhere inside your subject’s mind. And all the while, Mr. Quackenbush is relaxing as you’ve instructed him. Although your minds are joined, you have gone your separate ways.”

  “So how do I protect myself tomorrow?” Jax asked anxiously.

  The pounding resumed from downstairs.

  Braintree let go of his foot and stood up. “Has your mother bought a new meat tenderizer?”

  “What? No. I mean, I don’t think so.”

  The old man shuffled into his slippers. “Well, I’m glad we had this little chat….”

  “That’s it?” Jax was irritated. “Axel, are you even listening to me?”

  Braintree shook his head. “I’m sorry, Jax. I have to confess I’m a little distracted tonight. I’m concerned that something might be happening with my sandmen. No one has seen Evelyn in weeks. I told Ivan it was probably a coincidence, but now I can’t reach him either.”

  “Well …” Jax didn’t want to appear too critical of the guild members. Braintree had a fatherly view of his flock of New York–area hypnotists, despite the legal scrapes their special talent always managed to get them into. “I mean, it wouldn’t be the first time one of the sandmen had to lie low for a while.”

  “Yes, one of the sandmen,” Axel agreed. “Not two. And when Elias Mako is out for revenge. He knows that I’m helping you and he knows my connection to the guild. But that’s my problem, not yours. What was your question?”

  “How do I keep myself from getting sucked into Quackenbush’s memories?” asked Jax, feeling a little selfish to be focusing on his own problems at a moment when the sandmen could be in trouble.

  “I fear that it can’t be avoided,” the old man told him. “Mr. Quackenbush is asking for a deep and intense mesmeric connection. It stands to reason that the side effects will also be deep and intense. In fact, in future sessions, you’ll probably find that you’ll slip into his memories more quickly each time, now that the hypnotic pathway has been opened.”

  In other words, Jax reflected glumly, all I have to look forward to is more of the same.

  The reflection that peered back at Jax from the surface of the lake was completely unrecognizable. Seventeen-year-old Avery Quackenbush looked nothing like the ancient, shriveled figure encircled by tubes and wires in the high-tech wheelchair opposite Jax. The face on the surface of the water was rugged, with a strong jaw framing an expression of equal parts determination and confidence. It was almost as if the young Quackenbush could see the fabulously successful businessman he would one day become. Certainly, there was no sign of it in his current life — a high-school dropout struggling to help his mother make ends meet at the height of the Great Depression.

  Jax never learned these details; it was more like he knew them already. Just as a new computer or phone came pre-loaded with software, he went on his mind-trips through the billionaire’s life equipped with the knowledge and memories of the Avery Quackenbush of that moment. For example, he recognized the handsome teenager perched in the bow of the ancient wooden rowboat as his brother, Oscar — two years his junior. And he instantly understood that the impish grin on Oscar’s features irritated him to no end. Didn’t he see there was nothing to smile about? Their father was hundreds of miles away, looking for work. They were poor and perpetually hungry. Even those lucky few with money found little to spend it on. Years of drought had turned most of the country into a great dust bowl. Although Jax’s stomach was full, he could feel the gnawing emptiness of his subject’s belly that afternoon in 1934.

  “Take us out to the deepest water,” Oscar ordered. “If you want the biggest fish, you have to go where they are.”

  “There haven’t been fish in this pond for two years,” Jax heard himself retort. These days, if it could be cooked and eaten, it was probably already gone. People who were hungry added to their food supply however they could. There were hardly any birds or squirrels either. Only the rats had been able to hold out. So far.

  But he rowed to the center of the lake because Oscar always got his way. This was not Jax’s thought — he had never even met Oscar Quackenbush. Yet he was aware of himself thinking it via the older brother’s mind.

  It was Jax’s second mesmeric session with the billionaire, and he had accessed his subject’s memories much more quickly, just as Braintree had predicted. He was in character — almost as if he were the starring actor in The Avery Quackenbush Story, coming soon to a theater near you. A new medical man — Dr. Finnerty — stood over the wheelchair monitoring the patient’s vi
tal signs today. Dr. Pavel was nowhere to be seen, and no one had answered Jax’s question about where he was. Jax thought back to Pavel’s statement from yesterday: If I were your doctor and not Mr. Quackenbush’s, I’d recommend that you never try this again. Apparently, now he wasn’t the billionaire’s doctor either. That seemed to be the price of telling the famous tycoon what he didn’t want to hear.

  The brothers’ fishing poles were homemade — tree branches, string, bent safety pins as hooks. Bait was stale bread because Oscar was too squeamish to use worms. Jax wasn’t sure just how long they sat in the boat, getting not so much as a nibble. It was probably hours, but luckily, Quackenbush’s memory edited out the boring parts. All at once, Oscar threw down his pole and leaped to his feet, causing the craft to rock dangerously.

  “Move us forward!” Oscar yelled. “Quick!”

  “Sit down, idiot!” Jax snapped. “Unless you feel like swimming!”

  Oscar snatched up their “net” — a length of old lace curtains. “Hurry! There’s a whopper over there!”

  “Sit down, I told you,” Jax said irritably. “I’m not capsizing us so you can chase some old boot —”

  And then he saw it, just below the surface — a long silver body, the great-granddaddy of all trout. “Don’t lose him! If he’s survived this long, it’s because he’s wily! Give me the net!”

  “In a pig’s eye! He’s mine!” Grasping the curtain with both hands, Oscar made a low scooping motion through the water and missed.

  “He’s nobody’s if you let him get away!” Jax could feel Quackenbush’s excitement. He had not expected this fishing trip to bear fruit. But now the possibility of bringing something home to Mother for the dinner table had acquired a desperate urgency. It would be nice to see her smile again. He couldn’t remember the last time that had happened….

  Oscar took another swipe, deeper this time. For a moment the trout was in his net, all sixteen inches of it, flopping and fighting for its life. The effort to hold on sent the boy staggering across the flat-bottom craft. He tripped on his abandoned fishing pole and somersaulted over the side, whacking his head on the gunwale as he fell. He sank like a stone, leaving a trail of bubbles in his wake.

  In an instant, the picture of Mother’s grateful smile vanished. Coming home fishless was one thing; coming home Oscar-less was quite another. Without even kicking off his shoes, he jumped out of the boat in search of his rash young brother. The lake was ice cold, which made his heart race. But his biggest concern was that the water was dark and murky, and he couldn’t see a thing. Panic rose in his throat. How was he ever going to find Oscar?

  His lungs burned from lack of oxygen. He kicked for the surface, took a great gulp of air, and dove again, the water stinging his eyes as he flailed his arms in the hope of encountering his brother. The sickening crunch of Oscar’s head hitting the wooden gunwale still rang in his ears. If the blow had knocked him unconscious, he was probably already at the bottom of this deep lake.

  “Wake up!” came a voice that rang with alarm.

  “I have to save Oscar —”

  “Wake up and wake him up, too!” This was punctuated by a sharp slap across Jax’s face.

  He came to himself with a start to find Dr. Finnerty shaking him by the shoulders. The two nurses were also there, leaning over their patient.

  “What’s happening?” Jax blurted.

  “He’s having heart palpitations,” the doctor explained briskly. “I don’t want to treat him until I’m sure he’s free of whatever trance you’ve put him in.”

  Jax approached the billionaire and intoned, “When I snap my fingers, you’ll come back to yourself, feeling refreshed and happy, and breathing deeply —”

  “Don’t worry about the details,” Dr. Finnerty cut in. “Just wake him. Now.”

  Jax snapped his fingers and Quackenbush opened his eyes. But before he could say anything, the doctor injected a small syringe of liquid into his IV tube, and his eyes closed again.

  Jax hung back, waiting, as the three medical people worked on his subject. Forty-five minutes later, Dr. Finnerty escorted him in to speak to the billionaire, who was resting comfortably in his bed.

  “Was it my fault?” Jax whispered to the doctor. “Was it something I did?”

  Dr. Finnerty shrugged. “I don’t presume to understand what you do.”

  The billionaire overheard and emitted a snort of disgust. “Don’t tell the kid that — he’ll blame himself! It’s my bum ticker, which works about as well as everything else I’ve got. This kind of thing happens every time the wind blows — it’s part of the Catastrophic Systemic Shutdown.”

  “Yeah, but I’m supposed to make things better, not worse,” Jax said ruefully.

  “There’s no medical evidence,” put in Dr. Finnerty, “that you can make things either better or worse.”

  “Another county heard from,” snarled Quackenbush. “You know, you wouldn’t be the first doctor I fired this week.”

  Mystery solved: Dr. Pavel got the boot.

  “I’m just pointing out,” Finnerty said, “that I’m here to look after your physical health, but any paranormal activity is beyond my ability and experience. I couldn’t even begin to guess what happens when you two are ‘connected.’ ”

  “Yeah, I’m kind of curious about that, too.” Quackenbush turned his sharp eyes to Jax. “What’s it like inside this old head? Any cobwebs? Stalactites? Tow-away zones?”

  Jax smiled timidly. “I get caught up in your memories.”

  The billionaire’s face clouded. “You can read my mind?”

  “It’s not something I’m doing,” Jax tried to explain. “It just happens. When you hypnotize somebody, there’s a link between you. Normally, it doesn’t go very far, because you can plant a suggestion and get out pretty fast. But with you, I have to stay connected for a long time, and your mind washes back into mine. It starts off with just feelings and impressions, but eventually I end up inside your memories.”

  Quackenbush propped himself against his pillows and folded his arms in front of him. “Like what?”

  Jax took a deep breath. “Like Normandy. When you went up the bluff and took out that enemy pillbox.”

  The old soldier raised bushy eyebrows. “I never tell anybody about that.”

  “You didn’t tell me either,” Jax tried to explain. “I was inside your memory. In a way, it became my memory. When I think back on it, it’s like it happened to me.”

  “Well, you can keep it,” Quackenbush grumbled. “I’ve been trying to forget it every day since. Maybe that’s why it came up — because I’ve been subconsciously looking for somebody to take it off my hands. What else did you dig out of my head?”

  “You and Oscar were fishing on a lake,” Jax supplied, “and Oscar went overboard. You jumped in to rescue him, and that’s when Dr. Finnerty woke me up.” He hesitated. “Did you save him? What happened?”

  The tycoon laughed out loud. “Of course I saved him. That was my life’s purpose — pulling that fool out of some jackpot. But you know what?” His faded eyes twinkled with the memory. “When I heaved him back into the boat, damned if he didn’t have that trout clutched in his arms like a football. We had a real feed that night, let me tell you!”

  “Interesting,” Dr. Finnerty put in. “I understand why D-Day came up so readily. It was one of the most important dates of the last century. But two brothers on a fishing trip?”

  “I thought you were only interested in the medical side of this,” Quackenbush growled.

  “There’s a psychological component to medicine,” the doctor reasoned. “Something in your relationship with your brother puts this simple memory on a par with the invasion of Europe. Were you and Oscar very close?”

  All at once, the pale features became suffused with purple. “I’m not paying good money to have my head shrunk by the likes of you!”

  The heart monitor began to beep.

  “Clear the room,” Dr. Finnerty ordered.

&n
bsp; Quackenbush was still sputtering, the veins pulsing in his temples. “I can’t keep the kid out of my head, but you’re not invited!”

  “This isn’t helping, Mr. Quackenbush. Try to calm yourself.”

  “I’ll be calm when you stop minding my business!”

  A nurse tried to hurry Jax out of the room. He shrugged her off and fixed his dark, serious gaze on the billionaire. “When I clap my hands, you will remember nothing of this conversation, just that you are relaxed and in a pleasant mood….”

  Behind him, he distinctly heard the doctor whisper, “There’s a first time for everything.”

  The return had not been planned.

  Axel Braintree hadn’t been to New York since going into hiding with the Opuses. But the disappearances of Evelyn Lolis and Ivan Marcinko had brought him out of hiding. He had purchased a prepaid throwaway cell phone and gotten in touch with Dennison Cho. He’d heard nothing for two hours, and then his throwaway unit rang. It was Cho calling from the 78th Precinct in Brooklyn, under arrest on misdemeanor fraud charges — selling paper cups filled with dirt to hypnotized customers who thought they were purchasing exotic orchids. He’d been given one phone call. This was it.

  As Braintree came up out of the subway, the sights and smells of the city brought him something like joy. Oh, how he missed this place! There was something about the heartbeat of New York that was in sync with his own. He was not meant for Connecticut, with its open spaces and strip malls.

  Today’s trip, though, was strictly business. At the precinct house, Braintree posted the bail and led Cho out into a nearby park.

  “I hope you’ve learned your lesson, Dennison,” Braintree scolded. “We have a gift, but the greatest gift is the willpower not to use it. No amount of hypnotism can change the fact that crime doesn’t pay.”

  “That was just rotten luck,” the arrestee explained. “Some satisfied customer was so delighted with his orchid that he had to show it off — to a cop!”

  The old man sighed. “Well, at least you weren’t foolish enough to try to bend the police officer.”