The Hollow City (12 page)

“Nothing but me.”

“Perhaps.”

I step forward again. “There’s something you’re not telling me.”

He opens his mouth to answer, but in that moment the computer speakers chirp loudly and my head explodes in pain. I clutch my ears, trying not to fall over, and somewhere nearby a cell phone rings. Arms grab me, supporting my weight, and my entire body is a knot of agony. Someone drags me down the hall to the commons room and the pain lessens instantly; by the time someone props me in a chair my head is already beginning to clear—at least as clear as it can get with the lingering fuzziness of the Seroquel. I look up and see Dr. Little on one side, the large orderly on the other. The room dances madly.

“Are you okay?” asks the orderly.

“What did you do to me?”

“We didn’t do anything,” says Dr. Little. “My cell phone rang and you had an acute phobic reaction.”

“The headache hit before the phone rang,” I say, closing my eyes and breathing deep to slow my pounding heart. “It wasn’t the phone that did it, it was that chirp from the speaker—it was like a sonic attack. You deliberately incapacitated me!”

“That chirp was the phone,” says the orderly. I open my eyes to look at him in surprise, and I see Dr. Little doing the same.

“You’re sure?” asks the doctor.

“Speakers like that produce sound with a magnetic field,” says the orderly. “A cell phone signal that crosses the field warps it enough to change the sound. It happens to my home computer all the time.”

Dr. Little looks at him, then at me. He pulls out his phone and I shy back.

“Stay here, Michael. Carter, come over here.” He nods toward the hallway, twenty or thirty feet away, and the orderly follows him over. “You have a cell on you?”

The orderly nods and pulls it out. Dr. Little gives him his number. “Dial that in, but don’t call yet.” He walks back toward the nurse’s station, and I stand up to get a better view—keeping well clear of the orderly and his phone. Steve and a couple of other patients wander over to watch as well. We’ve never seen Dr. Little this concerned.

“All right,” says the doctor, standing next to the speakers, “call me.” He holds his phone up to the speakers, and the orderly hits a button on his phone. I take another step back, just in case. A few seconds later the speakers chirp—a loud, syncopated rhythm. A second after that the doctor’s phone starts to ring. Dr. Little stares at it a moment, then presses a button to stop the call. The ringing stops, and with it the chirp. “Well,” he says. He takes a step, glancing up at the speakers. “Well.”

A nurse steps out from the office. “The monitor image flickered too, not just the speaker. What did you do?”

Dr. Little puts his phone away, takes a few steps, and stops. He pauses, turns, and stops again. “It could still be a psychosomatic reaction.”

I stare, incredulous. “What?”

“If you knew about the speaker effect, even subconsciously, your mind could produce the same reaction to that chirp that it does to a cell phone ring.”

“It’s not mental,” I say, “it’s a real, physical reaction. That signal is screwing with something in my head, the same way it screws with the speakers—it’s a microchip or a transmitter or one of those damn alien bugs!”

“Of course it’s a physical reaction,” he says, walking toward me. “Your brain is a physical thing—even your hallucinations are physical reactions, produced by real, physical impulses and chemicals. There’s no implant in your head, just regular ears; they hear a sound and tell your brain, which consults your delusion and creates a psychosomatic pain response.”

“But you can’t be sure!” I shout. “You’re just guessing now—you’re brushing this off like you ignore everything else I say!” I step closer and the orderly reaches for me, but suddenly Dr. Little pulls his phone back out of his pocket and I shy back, cringing at the memory of pain. He holds it up like a cross and I step back again.

The doctor stands silent, watching me. “It’s nothing,” he says at last. “Nothing at all. I’m ignoring your ideas because they are patently ridiculous: you do not have an electrical signal or some kind of alien being locked inside your head.” He looks around at the gathered patients. “Back to your … We’re done here.” He turns and walks away, the massive orderly flanking him protectively.

*   *   *

I HAVE A TRACKING DEVICE
. It’s the only explanation. In one of my episodes of lost time I was abducted, by who or what I do not know, and they planted something in my brain that reacts to electronic fields—that’s how they track me, that’s how they control me, that’s how they do everything. Dr. Little either doesn’t believe it, or he’s deliberately lying. But is he lying to me or to himself? Is he ignoring the ramifications, or covering them up?

“Hey Mike.”

I look up; Devon is standing in my doorway. He grins.

“Someone’s here to see you, man.”

Lucy! I stand up quickly and step to the door. “Finally!”

“It’s your father.”

I stop short. My father. We’ve been apart so long—nearly a month in here, plus the two weeks before that I still can’t remember. My father. My face falls, and I step back. “What does he want?”

“Well he wants to see you, man,” says Devon. “He’s your dad, of course he wants to see you.” I don’t move, and he reaches for my shoulder. “Come on, Mike, you’ve been in here five weeks and this is only your third visit. Come say ‘hi’ to the guy. Come on.”

I hesitate a moment, but Devon grabs my shoulder and pulls me to the door, and I let him lead me through the hall and into the commons room. My father is there, standing stiffly by the wall, his hat in his hands. He wears a wool hat every time he goes anywhere.

He straightens when he sees me, but his face is hard. I keep my face impassive and walk toward him. I stop a few feet away.

“Dr. Little told me to come,” he says brusquely. I wait for more, but he says nothing.

I look at the floor. “He probably thinks it will help me.”

My father grunts. “Doesn’t know us very well, then.”

“Do you want to sit down?”

“I won’t be here that long.”

I nod. It figures. I don’t want to spend much time with him anyway. I stare at the wall, not sure what else to say. “Was the traffic bad getting here?”

“Bad as ever.”

“Ah.” I nod again. Am I nodding too much? Is it the … the tar-something? Dyskinetics? I worry a lot these days, maybe too much. I fix my eyes on the wall and try to hold still.

“Doctor’s been asking about your mother,” he says, a hint of anger entering his voice. It’s subtle, but I’ve learned to identify it before it gets out of hand. “Medical history and such; wants to know if she was crazy like you. What are you telling these people about your mother?”

“Nothing,” I say quickly. “They’ve never asked me about her.”

“I didn’t ask what they asked about her, I asked what you told them.” His voice is rising now. I feel like a child again, standing in a corner, listening to him yell about breaking something or playing too far away. He never liked me to go far. I think he was scared they’d come after me again.

I shake my head, looking at the floor. “I haven’t said anything, sir. Not about Mom. She has nothing to do with this.”

“You’re damn right she has nothing to do with this,” he says. “I don’t like you running around crazy and stupid, but I like you making your mom look crazy and stupid even less. You hear me, boy? She doesn’t deserve this.”

“Excuse me, sir,” says Devon, stepping forward, but my father cuts him off fiercely.

“You keep your nose out of our business, you got that?”

Devon pauses a moment, then walks around us, headed for the gate.

Something about this doesn’t make sense. Dr. Little got a full medical history on me and my parents last time I was in here, years ago; there’s no reason to be asking more questions now. Dead medical histories don’t change.

“What kinds of questions was he asking?”

“What do you care what kinds of questions he was asking?”

I shift my feet, trying to summon more courage. I keep my eyes on the floor. “I just want to know what they’re asking,” I say calmly. “I need to figure out what they … what they think is wrong with me.”

“What’s wrong with you is you’re weak,” he says. “You always have been. I don’t have time to come running down to the loony bin every time you can’t deal with whatever stupid thing sends you over the edge. Your mother deserves better.”

My mother. It always comes back to her.

Dr. Little steps up behind my father; Devon is a few paces behind him, looking stern. “Excuse me, sir,” the doctor says, taking my father by the shoulder. “If you don’t mind, I have a few more questions for you.”

“Of course,” my father says gruffly. He turns and walks with Dr. Little to the gate, never saying good-bye or even giving me a final glance. I watch him go, relieved.

My mother deserved better than him.

TWELVE

“VERY GOOD,” SAYS LINDA
, smiling, “that’s excellent, Gordon.”

Gordon looks up with a grin, his hands still moving the broom: back and forth, back and forth, a full six inches off the commons room floor.

“Remember to keep it on the ground,” says Linda, and Gordon’s eyes grow wide with despair. The broom slows, but doesn’t lower, and Linda steps in looking as gentle and loving as she can. “It’s okay, Gordon, you’re doing a great job!” She guides his hands down, lowering the broom until it touches the floor. “There you go—you did it! Now keep going back and forth, just like that.”

Gordon smiles again.

“This is stupid,” says Steve. “We shouldn’t have to sweep the floor—they have janitors who do that for us. This is like a hotel. I need to order room service.”

“This is your home,” says Linda. “Don’t you think you should help to take care of your home?”

“They have janitors for that,” says Steve. “I’ve seen them. There’s one who comes at night.”

“They do have janitors,” says Linda, “but it’s important to learn how to do it for yourself. Are you going to live here forever?”

“I’m leaving soon. Jerry and I are leaving next week.”

“I don’t think you’re leaving us that soon,” says Linda, “but you will be leaving eventually. Our job is to make sure you know how to act when you go.”

“I already know how to sweep,” says Steve. “See? Gimme that broom, Gordon, gimme that broom so I can show them.” He wrestles with Gordon for a moment, Gordon still struggling mutely to move the broom back and forth across the floor. Linda steps in and separates them.

“You don’t need to show me, Steve, I believe you. Would you like to try something else? Job skills?”

“I worked in a bookstore.”

“We have a cash register right over here,” she says, leading him over to a lunch table. “You come too, Michael, you can be the customer.” I follow her a few steps, then stop. The register squats like a dull metal toad on the table. “We have a bag of plastic groceries right here,” says Linda, pointing to a pile on the table. “All you have to do is…” She turns and sees that I didn’t follow. “It’s okay, Michael, it’s fun. You can help Steve.”

I don’t say anything.

“He’s afraid of the register,” says Steve. “He thinks it’s going to kill him.”

“It’s not going to kill me,” I say.

“He thinks it’s going to read his mind, or write on it, or do something else like that. He’s kind of crazy.”

I don’t say anything. What’s the point?

“We have some kind of weird people in here,” says Steve, leaning close to Linda and whispering, “but I think there’s something wrong with Michael. He should probably see a psychiatrist.”

“Why don’t you see if you can figure out the register,” says Linda, “and I’ll have a talk with Michael alone.” She leaves him by the table and comes to me, smiling faintly. “Are you okay today, Michael?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Why not?”

I shake my head. “I’m never getting out of here. Not alive.”

“Do you think your life is in danger?”

I look away. I don’t want to tell her what a waste I am; she’ll just give me a pep talk about sunshine or happiness or some dumb thing.

“Come with me, Michael, I need to show you something.”

I follow her; we walk through the commons room, past patients wiping down tables and reading books to each other and playing all kinds of weird little games. I’ve been in here two months now. What’s the point? I’m never getting out alive.

How much longer can I last?

“I have a treat for you today,” says Linda, stopping by the couches. “This is the best therapy session you’ve ever had.” She pauses, waiting for me to talk, but I say nothing. After a moment she continues. “We’re doing social therapy today, like I was telling Steve. We’re helping to give you the skills you need to live out in the real world again. For most of these guys that means cleaning up, but everyone’s different. Steve’s getting pretty good at cleaning, so he’s moved on to job skills. It seems simple, I know, but playing with an old cash register and some toy food is going to help him get ready to move back outside and have a real job. He’s probably pretty close.”

I stay silent, staring at the floor, listening to a train whistle howling in the distance. There are other voices, whispering angrily, but I ignore them. They never say anything good.

“What would you like to do?” asks Linda.

I shake my head. “I don’t want to clean anything.”

“That’s good; I wasn’t going to ask you to. Sometimes social therapy is even simpler than that. Sometimes social therapy is just learning how to fit in. How to stop being scared.”

I look up, wary, but it doesn’t matter what she asks me to do. Nothing matters anymore.

“I want you to sit right here,” she says, leading me around to the front of the couch, “and watch TV.”

I step back firmly, yanking my hand away. “I can’t.”

“All you have to do is sit here,” she says, smiling. “For everyone else TV is leisure time—it’s like a reward. I’m giving it to you for therapy, how lucky is that?”

“I can’t do it.” I’m shaking my head. “I can’t sit here, and I can’t turn it on, I can’t watch it—”

“I thought you said nothing mattered?”