“Sometimes we have success bringing out things they want to suppress by drawing up images of their childhood,” Jake said. “Ask him about his playmates and classmates in elementary school, his brothers and sisters, mother and father, anything that will cause his mind to give up the puppy and flowers charade as it reaches back into its past.”
Walters sighed. “It’s worth a shot.” He pressed the microphone button again and said, “Benjamin, just a few more questions and we’ll get you unhooked.”
“I’m going to piss my pants,” he said.
“You’re a big boy. You can hold it.”
Flash. Walters lying on the ground as urine sprayed on his face. Walters actually scowled. Flash. Back to the single puppy chasing butterflies. Jake knew at this point it was exhausting for Benjamin to keep up this mental game. He would give them what they wanted soon.
“Let’s talk about school, Benjamin,” Walters said.
“What?”
“School. You know—reading, writing, arithmetic.”
“Why?”
“Just humor me, Benjamin.”
This statement seemed to upset Benjamin more than anything else. Flash. The scene changed to the inside of Jennifer Milan’s apartment with her back turned to him reaching for glasses in her kitchen cupboard. She turned with a funny look on her face and asked him, “A hammer?” Benjamin’s voice could be heard saying, “Just humor me.” She smiled and then, flash. The puppy urinated on the flowers. The scene with Jennifer was the longest sustained memory of the killings they had seen yet.
Walters had a sad smile on his face. “Who were some of your classmates?”
“My friends?” Benjamin asked.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“You’re doing very well, Benjamin,” Walters said. “We just need to learn a little about your background and character, and we’ll have this all cleared up.”
Benjamin frowned, but nodded his head. “All right. Anything so I can go home. You people have kept me long enough. I haven’t done a thing.”
“Right,” Walters said a little impatiently. “Friends?”
The scene on the screens changed to a boy of about eleven or twelve with pudding running down his chin, one front tooth missing as he grinned.
“My best friend from grade school was Tommy Chesner. He was an idiot, but I liked him.”
“Did you like any girls?” Walters asked.
“Sure. Lots. Becky Prince, Laura Flacks…uh…Susan Eliott…I really liked Susan. But she didn’t like me.”
Flash. A pretty girl with pigtails laughed with her friends and pointed while they chanted, “Benny peed his pants! Benny peed his pants!” Flash. The pretty girl, crying with a bloody nose. Flash. Sitting in what looked like the principal’s office with an older, scowling woman who slapped Benjamin in the face. “Now, that’s enough, Mrs. Tolaver. No need for violence,” the principal said. Flash. Benjamin looking at his bruised face in the mirror. It was hard to tell it was him, but Jake could see the eyes. The eleven year old had been beaten severely.
“What about in High school? How was school for you?”
“How was High school for anybody?” Benjamin said. “I hated it.”
“Why?”
“I got beat up a lot, okay?”
Flash. Benjamin trying his best to defend himself against a much bigger boy of about seventeen. A small mob egged them on. Flash. Benjamin in the hospital while a doctor told his mother he had a concussion. Flash. Dogs attacking the older bully, shredding his skin with their teeth. Jake was pretty sure this last scene was Benjamin’s imagination. Flash. Flowers and puppies.
“No friends?”
“Yeah. Me and Tommy still hung out. He played football. I ran track. Cross country. I didn’t fill out until later. He got all the girls even though he couldn’t keep a grade above a D. Dumbass.”
“How about your parents? Were they good folks?”
Flash. Large man with large hands held another boy down and whipped him with a belt. The kid wailed in protest but this only made the man beat him harder. It must be Benjamin’s older brother. The man turned to Benjamin and, with a face filled with such rage it looked almost inhuman, snarled, “You stay right there, boy. You’re next!” Flash. A woman Jake now knew to be Benjamin’s mother, spread his butt cheeks and jammed a thermometer in his rectum with such force it snapped off. She had to dig it out while he squirmed and cried. “I told you not to get sick! I got things to do and don’t have time to take care of ya! Hold still, damn you! Look what you made me do.” Flash. He and his brother playing in a tree house and Benjamin accidently kicking loose a board, crying out in horror as his brother fell from the tree landing badly on his leg with a sickening crack. His brother screamed in agony. Flash. The man with large hands tying Benjamin to a chair and burning his skin with a lit cigarette. Flash. Puppies.
“My childhood was fine. My parents, good people. I really have to go!”
“We’re getting nothing,” Walters said to Jake. “His childhood was hell, but he’s not giving us anything we can use.”
“Hit him with one more question about his family, then bring up the hammer and say ‘Humor me’ when you do. You saw his reaction to that statement.”
Walters nodded and turned back to the microphone. “Did you have a sister?” Walters asked.
“Melissa. She died when I was nine.” Flash. Funeral where he and his brother were dressed in suits and his mother cried into a tissue. The man with large hands, scowled.
“What happened?”
“She just died.” Flash. His father held a struggling youngster in a white frilly dress under the water in a bathtub. She flailed violently as he shook with rage. “Stupid bitch! Just like your mother! Teach you to back talk me!” He let her up and she gasped for air. She turned to him and spat in his face. He slammed her head against the porcelain and then pushed her face under the water. She did not struggle. “Dad! No!” Benjamin screamed at the man and pulled at his arms, but could do nothing. “Get the hell out of here!” his father yelled and backhanded him into the wall. Flash. Puppies swimming in a pond in the meadow.
Jake nodded at Walters. “Where’s the hammer that killed Jennifer, Benjamin?”
Flash. A bloody hammer was flung through the air into an unknown body of water. There was nothing remarkable about the surroundings. Flash. Back to flowers.
“What? What did you say?” Benjamin asked.
“Your father killed your sister. Where is the hammer Benjamin? Humor me.” Jake tried to stop him.
“My father did no such thing. Why would you say that?”
“He doesn’t know we can read his mind,” Jake said to Walters.
Walters ignored him. “What did your brother do, Benjamin? What did your brother do?”
Flash. His brother held a shovel in his hands as their father lay at his feet in a bloody heap. His brother wept bitter, angry tears as he shouted at the dead man. “Bastard! Bastard! Bastard!” Flash. Benjamin crying and begging his brother, “I won’t tell! I won’t tell!” His brother approached him with a pillow and wept as he said, “It won’t hurt Benny. Just be still…be still.” The pillow covered his face and he struggled with the older boy but couldn’t break free.
Jake watched the screens as young Benjamin Tolaver began to lose consciousness. The muffled sounds of his protestations came through the speaker system as the panic Benjamin was feeling spread to Jake, Maddy, Walters and the DA. Jake expected the scene to break away and take them all back to the puppies and flowers, but it was as if Benjamin Tolaver’s memories had a will of their own. The vision on the screen started to grey out and shrink, like tunnel vision, and Jake had a sudden feeling this was going to a place he did not want it to go. Maddy moved next to him and grabbed his arm.
The scene quickly shrank to a pinpoint of light and then sprang back open with a view from above Benjamin as his brother killed him. A horrible screeching sound blared from the speakers and Walters stood up quickly as
the DA flinched and covered her ears.
“Oh no!” Maddy said, as Jake jumped to the controls and hit the abort button. The screeching immediately stopped and the screens went blank. Silence settled over all of them and Walters stared at the blank monitors with an expression Jake could not read.
“What the hell was that?” Rebecca asked, removing her hands from over her ears.
Benjamin shook uncontrollably in the chair inside the chamber and they could hear him gasping as he relived the memory.
“That was a Near Death Experience,” Jake said.
“A what?” Walters asked.
“A Near Death Experience. An NDE,” Maddy said. “He was reliving a time in his life where he actually died and came back.”
“You’re kidding, right?” Rebecca asked.
“Does it look like we’re kidding?” Jake asked.
“Why did you stop it?” Walters asked. “It looked like we were actually getting somewhere.”
“That may be,” Jake said, “but this type of activity I will not allow with this system. It’s too dangerous.”
“Why?”
“We’ve had sessions with subjects of NDE’s and they’re very powerful. The machine is able to see into their experiences and augment the effects of it.”
“Augment?”
“Yes,” Jake said. “Things happen and people have even been injured…or worse.”
“Or worse?” Rebecca asked. “What is worse?”
“I can’t say,” Jake said. “That information is classified and I’m prohibited from discussing it further. Just take our word for it. You don’t want to see what happens.”
“Maybe we do.”
“It doesn’t matter. I can’t allow the machine to take us there. It’s too dangerous.”
Rebecca Morney threw up her hands in exasperation. “Then you’re wasting our time,” she said. “What can you allow us to do?”
“You can continue your interrogation as long as it does not invoke the NDE memory or anything associated with it. We do not want him remembering the experience while he is hooked up to ANDEE.”
Benjamin’s whine disrupted the conversation. “I really need to go to the bathroom, people. I’ve told you that like ten times!”
“I knew this was a waste of my time,” Rebecca said. “Get him out of there so we can take him back to jail.”
“We need more,” Walters said.
“We’re not going to get more,” she said. “According to this scientist,” she pointed to Jake as if he were some disease, “he’s our killer. We just can’t prove it.”
“We need more,” Walters repeated.
“Then you do your job and get me more—the old fashioned kind—you know, police work where you actually find evidence.”
Walters scowled but said nothing.
Rebecca Morney collected her things, stood, and turned to leave. “Call me when you have some real evidence,” she said as she showed them her back. The door closed silently behind her.
Chapter 3
Jackson Hole, Wyoming
Bartholomew Guillott adjusted the chair and then stood, looking over his handy work. In the reclined position, it resembled a fancy dental chair but much more sophisticated. The chamber it sat in was what made it remarkable.
The chair was part of a system Bart had ‘stolen’ and improved upon. The chamber was a necessary component if he wished to take the next step along the evolutionary path which called to him. It was built to contain energy and nothing else. A lot of energy.
Bart grinned. His work could now begin.
Elise Boudreau walked in and wrapped her arms around him from behind. Her hand dropped to his groin and softly groped him there. He smiled and leaned against her, the scent of her filling his senses. He grew aroused, but pushed her hand away after a moment. He turned to face her and said softly, “Not now, my love. We have work to do.”
She pouted, but then smiled mischievously. “I’ll make you earn it afterwards.”
He grinned. “Of course.” And kissed her softly, then more urgently. An annoying whimper from outside the chamber brought him back. He broke away and grew serious. “Let’s invite our guest to relax,” he said.
They approached the bound man together and looked down upon him as he struggled against the bindings that held him captive. His name was John Miller and though he had somewhat of a simpleton’s name, he was nothing of the sort. John Miller was a natural born killer and bad all the way to the core. Bart liked him immediately.
John looked like a trapped animal as his head moved back and forth between him and Elise. The duct tape over his mouth prevented them from understanding what he was trying to convey, but Bart could put words in his mouth. He was sure it was not complimentary. Bart reached a hand out toward John’s face and watched the man flinch and turn away. Bart smiled and grabbed the tape, giving it a not so gentle yank. John screamed as the tape tore away a layer of skin from his cheek and lips. Blood started to drip from the abrasions almost immediately.
“Fuckers!” he yelled as spittle and blood sprayed over Bart’s shoes. Elise laughed and this simple gesture made John stop squirming and grow silent. Bart enjoyed seeing the realization in John’s eyes that he might end up like one of his victims. Of course, Bart had no intention of anything like that. John’s demise, or maybe re-birth, would be oh so much better.
“What the hell do you sickos want with me?” John asked after a moment. The blood continued to drip silently down his chin and onto his chest. It made him look like a horror flick actor.
“Just your memories,” Bart said.
“What?”
“You heard me. I need your memories. Actually, just one memory if I’m not mistaken. That shouldn’t prove too difficult, should it?”
John looked frantically back and forth between him and Elise and blubbered, “I’ll tell you anything.”
“I know you will.” Bart turned to Elise who smiled sweetly at him. John started thrashing again against the restraints.
“Come now, John. You need to simmer down. Do we need to sedate you again?”
“Don’t touch me,” he shouted. “Keep her away from me!”
Apparently John had not taken a liking to Elise and her abduction techniques. Bart sighed. Most men could not appreciate her talent. It had been a wonder he had even found her, but then again he always imagined they were destined to find each other.
She had seduced John Miller at a bar in his hometown of Billings, Montana, and taken him back to her hotel where she proceeded to beat him to within an inch of his life. For a big man, he hadn’t been able to fend her off, much less injure her. She had been very effective. That was two days ago. He spent the last twenty-four hours bound, gagged, drugged and abused as she drove him to the lab in Jackson Hole. It had not taken much to learn to fear her.
Bart and Elise went to either side of John and picked him up, carrying his thrashing body to the chair. “You need to simmer down, John. Elise is growing impatient.”
John stopped squirming and let them tie him down to the chair. They then began hooking wires and sensors to various points on his head and body. This took about ten minutes and John remained mostly still during the procedure.
“That wasn’t too bad, was it?” Bart asked.
The man said nothing. But if he could read his thoughts, Bart was sure they were full of expletives. He didn’t blame him.
After the leads were attached, Elise pulled down a tan, body length mold from the ceiling and lowered it so it covered John’s body from feet to the middle of his face. His eyes and the top of his head were all that could be seen. The body mold had numerous connections, which snaked up into the ceiling of the chamber and fed the massive computer system that served as the brain of the device.
“What the hell are you people going to do to me?” John asked quietly.
“We’re going to read your mind,” Elise said.
John winced at her voice. “You have a machine that can do that?”
He and Elise exited the chamber and sealed the door. The six-inch thick, clear, polycarbonate plastic making up one whole wall of the structure allowed them to view what was happening inside the chamber, but kept it soundproof. The only way to hear and communicate with the test subject was through an intercom system piped into the room and console area.
“Will he do what we ask?” Elise said.
“What choice does he have? We can tell what he’s thinking. He can’t hide from the Machine.”
Bartholomew Guillott held a PhD in biomedical engineering and a Master’s in computer engineering. He had been at the top of his class, but had little use for the scientific community. He wanted to be famous and was doing his best to promote that wish. In his own way.
He had heard of a technology developed by an engineer in Florida and studied what he could find on the subject. The man was either a genius or largely lucky. This is what Bart had been waiting for. He hacked into the databases at Encephalographic Systems and CRAY computers and basically stole everything he needed to reproduce the technology—only vastly improved. At least in his eyes. His Machine was more powerful and without the encumbrances in place at the Florida lab. He wouldn’t be holding back.
It had been fun testing the system on each other. Bart had been first and as Elise watched the monitors display his thoughts in a video representation, she smiled and removed all of her clothing, masturbating to his fantasy played out in living color. She told him it was like watching herself have sex on TV. Her mind reading display was something he couldn’t believe she could imagine. He had told her afterward they needed to act it out for real. He had been sore for three days.
The Machine worked flawlessly but the true test would be tonight. He pressed the intercom button and said, “Can you hear me all right, John?”
“Yes.” His voice sounded small and afraid.
“Good. This is easy on your part. All you have to do is relive your Near Death Experience in your mind and everything will be peachy.”
Near Sighted (A Jake Townsend Science Fiction, Action and Adventure, Thriller Series Book 2) Page 2