Unwin gave Rick’s shoulder a gentle squeeze. ‘It’s normal to be in denial, but I’m afraid you have to accept reality, however painful it is. The truth is, you will never see your grandfather again.’
Liar! thought Rick, anger burning away the grey lethargy that had come to fill him. If Luis hadn’t passed on the message from Thelma that Les was awake and sitting up in bed, Rick might have believed them.
‘I want to see Thelma.’
Renfrew shook his head regretfully. ‘When I spoke to your grandmother she told me she was too upset even to think of visiting you at the moment. Later, perhaps.’
Another lie. Thelma would never pass up an opportunity to see him.
‘We’ll leave you alone, to grieve in private,’ said Renfrew, turning towards the door.
Rick leapt to his feet. ‘When’s the funeral?’ he demanded. ‘I have to be there.’
Unwin, clearly surprised at Rick’s vehemence, said with warm sympathy, ‘I understand entirely. It’s natural you would want to show respect to your grandfather, but I hope you appreciate why it’s impossible for you to leave the centre. Your mental health is simply too fragile.’
‘Stop feeding me all those drugs, and my mental health will be fine.’
Unwin chuckled. ‘Oh, come now, Rick,’ he said indulgently. ‘The very idea is laughable. This is simply a delusion of yours that isn’t –’
Rick’s fist hit Unwin in the middle of his smarmy smile.
Dr Renfrew called out, the door was flung open and Felix and Luis rushed in to grab Rick and wrestle him to the floor. As he felt the sting of a sedative being injected into his arm, Rick had the satisfaction of seeing that his punch had badly split Unwin’s lip.
That’s going to put a crimp in the doctor’s oily smile, was Rick’s last thought before he lost consciousness.
‘How’s Allyx handling your disconnection?’ Tal’s mother asked on Tuesday evening, as they drove to visit Victor O’Dell.
‘Okay, I suppose, but she misses us being in contact all the time.’
Tal winced to himself, recalling Allyx’s hostile reaction that morning at school when he’d told her he wasn’t available on Wednesday night. He hated to lie, but he couldn’t say he’d be seeing George, because of course she’d ask why. The excuse Tal had come up with was half true. He’d pointed out that on Wednesday afternoon he was having his orientation meeting for Dr Renfrew’s research project at The Farront Centre. He said he’d checked and found the session was open-ended and likely to run well into the evening. He’d suggested a date on Friday instead, since his mother had nominated Thursday evening for Allyx’s father to call by. Allyx had said she’d get back to him. They’d left it at that.
Turning into O’Dell’s driveway, his mother commented, ‘I’d feel claustrophobic if I had that close, moment-by-moment personal contact you kids take for granted. To me it would be suffocating.’
‘You’re getting old, Mum.’
‘That must be it,’ she said, laughing.
Victor O’Dell was surprisingly spry for an old man who’d been in an accident bad enough to total his car. He greeted Tal and his mother enthusiastically when he answered the front door. ‘Thank heavens! I’m dying of boredom here. Being without wheels is more than an inconvenience, it’s an unwelcome change in lifestyle.’
‘How are you feeling?’
‘Fine, Grace, fine. My ribs are strapped and I’m a bit stiff, but the cuts and bruises are healing fast.’
Using a walking stick, he made surprising speed down the hallway to the kitchen. ‘I’ve got the coffee on, and Marcia dropped in with a sponge cake she’d just made.’
‘How is Marcia?’ Tal asked once they were seated at the old wooden kitchen table.
‘Her nose is taped and she’s got two black eyes.’ He gave a creaky laugh. ‘You interested in her? You could do a lot worse, Talbot. Marcia’s a fine young woman.’
It was ridiculous, but Tal’s face felt hot. Amused at his discomfiture, Tal’s mother said, ‘Allyx is Tal’s steady girlfriend, Victor. You met her at the barbecue.’
‘Ah, yes, another fine young woman.’ He winked at Tal. ‘But you’re much too young to even think of settling down. Take my advice and play the field.’
While O’Dell poured the coffee from an antique percolator, Tal’s mother cut the sponge cake. Marcia had been generous with both the icing and the filling of whipped cream and raspberry. Tal took a bite and found it delicious.
‘See, my boy? Marcia can cook too. And she has a sense of humour.’
He seemed ready to enlarge on Marcia’s other excellent qualities, but Tal’s mother said, ‘I’m concerned for your safety, Victor. I don’t see any extra security, even though Rob strongly advised you to get more protection. After that hit-and-run you can’t afford to take any chances.’
‘Don’t worry, Grace, I’m not in the slightest danger now. Audrey Farront has effectively muzzled me with injunctions claiming I’ve set out with deliberate malice to ruin her company’s reputation. My legal guy is working on it, but in the meantime I can’t say a word about Farront without running the risk of landing in court.’
‘My, my, Farront’s lawyers have been busy,’ she said with a cynical smile. ‘This afternoon FinagleAlert was slapped with a slew of injunctions too.’
Tal hadn’t heard anything about this. ‘What about?’
‘Pretty well anything a creative law firm can think up,’ his mother said. ‘Among other things, FinagleAlert’s accused of copyright infringements, releasing stolen documents, industrial espionage, defamation and slander, invasion of privacy, and so on.’
‘Legal games,’ said Victor contemptuously.
‘Rob says FinagleAlert’s lawyers believe nothing will stand up to a challenge in court, but in the meantime the injunctions have the effect of smothering any criticism of the company, Audrey herself and, indirectly, Renfrew and Unwin.’
O’Dell said scathingly, ‘Audrey’s been taken in, hook, line and sinker. Until all this happened, I considered her a tough but ethical businesswoman. Now she’s so desperate to get the results of Renfrew’s research incorporated into the new iZod Excelsior that she’ll turn a blind eye to that unholy trio, Renfrew, Unwin and Villabona.’
‘Speaking of Dr Renfrew,’ said Tal, ‘my friend Rick Lawrence is locked away in The Farront Centre’s psychiatric unit under Renfrew and Unwin’s care.’
‘Care?’ snorted O’Dell. ‘That’s not how I’d describe it. Brainwashing is a more accurate word. Or in the case of your friend, who has, I believe, a history of depressive illness, I’d call it torture.’
‘Torture!’ Tal’s mother exclaimed. ‘Surely that’s an exaggeration.’
‘The pity is, I’m not overstating anything, Grace. Quite the contrary. Sensory deprivation, where the subject is isolated and cut off from the outside world, can be a devastating experience for someone with mental or emotional problems.
‘When I reviewed Carter Renfrew’s research plans, as Audrey had requested, I immediately had serious misgivings about several procedures. Most disturbing to me was Carter’s willingness to utilise this SD technique. When I told him so in no uncertain terms, Carter babbled something about how sensory deprivation was a valuable tool to strip away the surface of the patient’s personality and reveal the true self underneath. Naturally I told him this was dangerous nonsense, but he’s too puffed up with pride at his fame and influence. Refused to listen to me.’
‘I get what sensory deprivation is,’ said Tal, ‘but what’s it for?’
‘There are some positive applications. Certain meditation techniques use it to remove outside distractions and attain transcendence. Religious retreats and prayer circles may use modified SD to enhance the spiritual experience. However, it’s far better known as a method of interrogation or as a form of torture.’
‘So this could be happening to Rick right now, and there’d be no way to stop it?’
‘I share your outrage, Talbot, but there’s l
ittle to be done if his grandmother has officially given Renfrew and Unwin the power to make all medical decisions. Unless she takes legal action to remove Rick from their care, he stays where he is.’
‘Thelma Lawrence was pressured to sign the papers,’ said Tal’s mother. ‘She was given the impression that it was either commit Rick to the centre, or have him arrested for terrorism. The truth was that the authorities were looking for a way out, embarrassed that they’d overreacted and there was no hard evidence against Rick at all.’
‘Problem solved, Grace. Explain the true situation to her, make sure she gets a good lawyer, and her grandson comes home.’
‘Not going to happen,’ said Tal. ‘Thelma told Petra’s mother that she believes Rick is better off at the centre.’
His mother nodded agreement. ‘I’ve spoken to Thelma too. It seems to me that she feels guilty about committing Rick, and has persuaded herself that she did the right thing. Underneath I think she’s beginning to have doubts. I’ll talk to her again and see if I can change her mind.’
‘So for the moment Rick is stuck there.’ said Tal.
O’Dell grimaced. ‘What makes it all the more unfortunate, Talbot, is that sensory deprivation works particularly well on your age group, because you’re so accustomed to a continuous stream of communications all day, every day. When that stimulating torrent is cut off, your brain, to say the least, isn’t happy. In fact, it may resort to hallucinations in an effort to replace the missing input.’
Picturing what Rick was suffering at the hands of doctors who were supposed to heal, not hurt, Tal felt a steely determination to do something practical to save him. No matter what it took, no matter what Tal and the others had to do, Rick was getting out of that place.
On Wednesday Tal was on the lookout for George, and caught him between classes. Checking that no one could overhear, he asked, ‘Okay if Jennie and David come with me tonight?’
‘No Petra?’
‘She’s grounded, but she’s trying to work something out.’
George grunted. ‘She would.’
He brightened noticeably when Tal said, ‘Let’s order in pizza. I’ll pay.’
‘You’ll need heaps. Frank’ll be there too.’
Tal visualised George’s crammed room. ‘Where are we all going to sit? With Frank, there’ll be five of us.’
‘Six,’ said George morosely. ‘Petra will make it, you can count on it.’
The sliding entrance doors of The Farront Centre were set into a wall of glass, so the foyer was full of light. Tal counted fifteen others in the orientation group. He recognised four students from Braidworth High. Three he didn’t know personally, the fourth was Frank Arran, who for a change was dressed respectably in trousers and a plain blue shirt.
While the group was waiting to be escorted to the research facility, Tal said to Frank, ‘I didn’t know you’d applied for this.’
‘The money’s nice, but I was going to give it a miss until I was made a disconnect. Now I want to find out why.’
A three-person security team – two male guards and a woman – checked the list of names, then led them to the lifts. The research facility was on the third floor. Tal noticed that on the lift’s control panel the fourth and fifth floors were marked as restricted entry, for authorised personnel only.
Individual identity cards were distributed from the research facility’s reception desk. Once the guards had made sure that each person had his or her correct ID, they were given a stern instruction that these had to be clearly displayed at all times when in the centre.
Each person was assigned a locker. Visitors to The Farront Centre were banned from using any electronic devices. Tal wondered how many others in the group were disconnects like him and Frank, so didn’t have comms to lock away anyway.
The group was shown around the research facility by a young guy with a white lab coat and a haughty manner. His name tag held only one word: Graeme.
‘Questions?’ Graeme asked at the end of the brief tour, his tone indicating he was not expecting any.
When someone asked where Dr Renfrew was, Graeme said with a touch of impatience, ‘You won’t be seeing Dr Renfrew or Dr Unwin unless you earn a gold rating, which will indicate you are a superior subject for “Got to be Connected” research.’
‘More money?’ a skinny, sharp-featured girl asked.
Graeme agreed that gold-rated subjects were paid more generously.
‘That’s so not fair!’
Graeme frowned. ‘It’s a privilege to be part of Dr Renfrew’s groundbreaking work at any level. Those of you who don’t achieve a gold rating will nevertheless be included in the research, but to a lesser degree.’
‘What happens if you don’t even make that lower rating?’ Frank asked.
‘Then you’ll be thanked for your time,’ Graeme snapped, ‘asked to surrender your ID and shown the door.’
The next step of the orientation session was run by a severe, efficient woman called Stella. With genuine enthusiasm, Stella pointed out how fortunate they were to be considered for Dr Carter Renfrew’s cutting-edge research.
‘You have the opportunity to be part of scientific history,’ she assured them. ‘Any questions? No? Let’s get to work.’
In a short time she had the group silently sitting at desks filling out answers to page after page of personal questions. Many of them puzzled Tal. For instance, did it really matter what foods his most hated meal would contain, or if he believed in ghosts, UFOs and out-of-body experiences, or what his very earliest memory was?
Stella and two assistants then took the orientation group to a lab, where everyone was seated in a separate cubicle to perform various tasks. Tal found that his task – pressing a button each time a light of a certain intensity momentarily appeared on the monitor – soon became tedious. Identifying a sequence of words flashed for a fraction of a second was only slightly more interesting. These were followed by hearing trials, where Tal wore earphones and responded each time he heard a certain arrangement of tones.
He was rapidly coming to the conclusion that being a research subject was going to be very boring.
At the conclusion of the testing Graeme reappeared to announce that at the next session, on Friday after noon, brain scans were scheduled for all new participants in the program. ‘Metal objects interact with the scanner,’ he said, ‘so don’t wear jewellery or carry anything metallic.’
After collecting their equipment from the lockers, the group was escorted out of the building by the same security team that had met them at the beginning of the session. Tal noticed the guards were much more casual this time, chatting among themselves as he and the others straggled to the front doors, where their identity cards were scanned.
The sleepy-looking guard supervising the scanning raised his voice to say, ‘Remember, you need your IDs to get into the building and also to leave it. Don’t forget to bring them with you. No card, no entry.’
Once they were outside, Frank said, ‘See you tonight,’ and loped off to collect his Solarscoot from the security rack near the entrance.
Tal caught a shuttle, and when he was seated, he shut his eyes to run through everything about the layout and the security procedures he’d observed at the centre. He’d compare notes with Frank this evening.
It was maddening not to have his iZod or a mini-note to record the information while it was fresh in his mind. He’d have to rely on something really primitive, like a pen and paper.
TWENTY-FIVE
The empty pizza boxes were haphazardly piled on top of an already overloaded bench. George had squeezed everyone in by clearing a larger space in the middle of the room. He’d also provided enough seating with an assortment of stools and a rickety kitchen chair he’d arranged in a rough circle.
George had been right: Petra had made it. ‘I snuck out,’ she said, when asked how she’d managed to get around being grounded. ‘Mum and Dad are at a Garden Stuff meeting with suppliers that’ll go on for ages,
and Rosa’s watching some mushy movie marathon and thinks I’m in my room.’
Frank Arran pointed out that all Petra’s parents needed to do was check the global positioning on her comm and they’d know she wasn’t in the house.
‘Think I’m dumb? I left my iZod in my bedroom.’ She looked over at Tal. ‘Can we get going? Mum will check on me when she gets home, and I’d better be there when she does.’
‘Okay,’ said Tal, ‘we’ve talked it over enough, so let’s start planning exactly what we’ll do. We have two related objectives: rescue Rick; and bring down Villabona, Renfrew and Unwin.’
‘Targets One, Two and Three,’ George corrected.
‘Enough with the targets,’ said Petra impatiently. ‘We’ve already been through this, George, and everyone’s agreed that we’ll use names.’
He slumped in his chair, mumbling to himself.
‘If we discredit the doctors and Villabona, the Farront company will suffer damage too,’ David pointed out. ‘What about your mum, Tal? If it gets out that you’re involved, she could lose her job.’
‘Her job’s on the line, anyway. Joe Villabona’s trying to get rid of her.’
‘Let’s concentrate on the most important thing – rescuing Rick,’ said Jennie.
‘We all agree that has top priority.’ Because Tal couldn’t use his comm, he’d had George print out information from government building records. He passed out the pages, which showed architectural floor plans for each storey of the then-named Carter Renfrew Centre.
‘The lifts to floors four and five are restricted to authorised personnel,’ Tal said. ‘Floor five is Dr Renfrew’s penthouse suite. That leaves floor four. Check the north-west corner, where there are no windows. It’s marked Secure Wing. That’s got to be the psychiatric ward. Behind the security door there’s a series of small rooms, each with a separate bathroom. A couple have the bed, toilet and basin in the one room.’
‘Like prison cells,’ said Jennie.
‘So how do we get in?’ David asked.
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