“More from his own head. It appears that extended use of his power causes increased pressure to the region of the brain where it originates. The result is something akin to migraine headaches that grow in intensity the deeper he reaches for his power.”
Chilgers rose tentatively. He tried to stretch his back muscles out but the motion proved too painful. “Any lasting effects?”
“Difficult to say. I’ll know better after stage two today. I plan to do a brain scan on him during the next experiment, to pin down the origin of his power and show us if any damage has been done by past use.”
“We’ll also have to come up with a surer way of controlling him. We can’t have any repeat performance of the havoc yesterday.”
“Your electroshock rigging is superb for negative conditioning, especially in view of the way the boy responds to pain. Today we add to that an i.v. needle placed in his arm with the flow of sedative pinched off in the middle by one of my assistants. If he releases the pressure, or circumstances force him to, the sedative will automatically enter the boy’s arm and knock him out.”
“That should do nicely,” complimented Chilgers. “What have you done about securing a subject?”
Teke leaned forward. “I’ve retained one of our human guinea pigs at twice the usual price with the usual security precautions observed. Of course, he has no way of knowing that his participation in the experiment will quite likely result in his death.” Teke hesitated. “What the boy did yesterday was truly amazing but virtually all of it was focused on inanimate matter. To fully gauge his powers, isolate and learn how to control them, we must push them to their ultimate extreme. How well the boy fares in that situation will tell us how far that extreme stretches. Mechanically everything will be about the same with the addition of the computer-enhanced brain scan which will provide us with a motion picture of his mind’s activity during a more demanding experiment. That will give us what we need to move on to stage three: control.”
Chilgers smiled. “You’ve done well, Teke. I haven’t missed the late Professor Metzencroy’s presence at all.”
“Then I assume Project Placebo is proceeding on schedule.”
“Our shipment of missiles will be arriving at Bunker 17 this afternoon as planned.”
“And yet your enthusiasm for it has waned in favor of the boy.”
“Vortex represents only the present, Teke. Davey Phelps is the future.”
Davey woke up disoriented, in darkness. He twisted about in bed and found, much to his surprise, he had freedom of movement. When he tried to swing his legs off the bed, though, his muscles resisted, balking at the simple commands, and Davey realized that part of the drug they’d been giving him hadn’t worn off yet.
He closed his eyes and pushed for The Chill to help himself, but he couldn’t focus; the drugs were still dimming his mind. He tried to remember everything that had happened the day before, found that was foggy too. The Chill had been strong then, too strong. It had nearly split his head in two. But still they made him keep using it. Didn’t they understand? They wanted him to control it for them when he couldn’t control it even for himself. And then those horrible jolts to his balls which shook all his insides apart and made him piss on himself. They had embarrassed him, made him feel weak. He hated them all, and he wasn’t weak anyway.
Davey heard keys being turned in the locks outside the door which opened slowly, permitting two large men in white coats to enter. They lifted him into a wheelchair manned by another while a fourth waited in the corridor holding a hypodermic. Davey didn’t resist, didn’t even move. Maybe if he played dumb, they’d lay off the drugs and he’d get The Chill back to use against them.
He let his head slump to his chest but raised his eyes to follow the wheelchair’s path, realizing with a start they were heading back in the direction of the laboratory. They passed the one he remembered from yesterday and stopped at another just down the hall. One of the men opened the door.
“The sedative should be wearing off right about now,” came the familiar voice of the bald doctor as Davey was wheeled in.
Then they were easing him into a chair that had arms this time. Two of the men held his wrists and latched leather straps across his flesh, fastening him tight to the chair.
“It’s just to keep you still, Davey,” the bald one told him. “We’ll be needing more precise readings this time and we’ll be scanning your brain throughout the experiment.”
“No pain,” Davey muttered.
“Not if you cooperate,” Teke said, but his eyes avoided Davey’s.
The doctor proceeded to supervise the attachment of wires to Davey’s arms, face, and head. The final set probably contained a hundred at least, all strung onto a round cap the size of a beanie. Teke fitted it personally over the dome of Davey’s skull until it was snug, squeezing his thick hair down tight.
“This apparatus will allow us to visually monitor the functions of your brain. It causes no pain whatsoever,” the doctor promised. “However, it will be necessary to inject you with fluid of a slightly radioactive nature — for the microbes to pick up for monitoring.” Here, a lab assistant held a tray out to Teke and he removed a single syringe from it. “Please don’t move.” He dabbed at a vein at the base of Davey’s skull with an alcohol swab and then gently plunged the needle in. It stung only briefly. “That could be the worst of it for today.”
But Davey knew he was lying. He felt his neck being strapped to the back of the chair to hold his head in place, after which his ankles were laced to the heavy chair’s legs as well. He could barely move a muscle. Even a deep breath would have been impossible. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a technician fastening a plastic tube with a needle on its end atop his arm. Then the needle worked its way into the vein at the top of his forearm and stayed there, the technician backing up to inspect his handiwork. He moved away, leaving the needle as it was and wheeling a tray closer to Davey’s side. Then he was doing something with the tube Davey couldn’t quite see.
“Ready, Doctor?”
The voice of the man called colonel sent fear up Davey’s spine. The holder of the horrible black box was back….
“Not quite. Just a little longer.”
Davey tried to move his eyes to find the colonel, but couldn’t until the man stood directly before him, grinning.
“How we feeling today, boy?”
Davey said nothing.
“Electrodes all check,” the bald doctor reported and Davey realized with horror that the hot wires from yesterday were being led up his nightshirt to be twisted about his balls again. There was a slight tugging and Davey felt them being wrapped tight.
“These should do the trick,” the doctor said, pulling his hands out and looking at the colonel.
“They’d better.” A brief pause. “Let’s try the lights, shall we?”
Somewhere Davey heard a switch being flicked and a small compartment twenty feet away in the room’s center was suddenly lit up. He picked up the trail of wires leading from his groin and followed them to the compartment’s front wall which was dominated by a large window starting a yard off the floor and stretching to within a foot of the compartment’s roof.
“Check systems,” Teke instructed.
“All monitors working,” came one response.
“All gauges working,” from another technician.
“All connections in place,” from a third.
“Do we have a brain picture yet?” Teke asked a technician standing just beyond Davey’s line of vision in the room’s front.
“Getting one now. Sharpening… Sharpening… I’m adjusting the focus. We’ve got it in clear.”
“Begin recording now,” Teke told him. “Tie the computer into all gauges this time.” The doctor turned toward the colonel. “We’re ready, sir.”