The Rasner Effect (22 page)

“I see you do remember me.”

“I remember a good woman you
murdered
the day you escaped.”

“I’ve murdered many more since then,” Jen responded with pride, “so I suggest you shut up and cooperate.”

“Hey, what’s going on here?” Derrick broke in, stepping between James and Hefner. “Those facial tics or do you two have some sort of private communication going on...”

Officer James spun and grabbed Jorge’s rifle. The big men struggled, falling into a virtual “tug-of-war” that froze everyone else in place. James proved to have a decisive strength advantage, which he showed by thrusting his slightly smaller opponent up against the wall.

Obenchain’s jubilation at this was short lived when Hefner’s forward movement was cut off by the appearance of a handgun from beneath Derrick’s raincoat. He poked it into Hefner’s chest. “Back off, lady.”

A loud BANG echoed throughout the hallway. Officer James’ head snapped forward and then back. His hands dropped from the rifle. His body slumped to the floor. Hefner let out a shriek that also echoed off the brick walls. Blood gushed out of the back of Officer James’ head and puddled around him. Again the group stood mesmerized.

Like a cowboy on Gunsmoke, Jen blew away the smoke emanating from the gun barrel. “This is not a game, and I am not in the mood. I want to see Rick Rasner,
now
!” Jen pointed her pistol at Miller. The psychotic look in her eyes just about buckled Miller’s knees. “I won’t ask again.”

Miller stared into the gun, considering the options. Obenchain shook his head, hoping she’d pick up on the silent message—
Do nothing, just cooperate
. This was beyond what Miller or her staff could handle. “The therapy suite is the last door at the end of the hallway,” she said. “He should be in there.”

“Thank you. See how easy that was?” Jen lowered her gun, placed her left hand against Obenchain’s back and gave him a shove. “Let’s go, Doctor.”

“Jen, we can’t leave these people behind,” Derrick called. “One of them will most likely call the cops.”

“Then they can all come with us! But any problems and we start shooting!”

“Muevete ¡vaca!,” Jorge said to Hefner who’d knelt by the head of her colleague. She peered up at him, tears in her eyes. Jorge reached down and pulled her up. She placed her hands against her stomach. Her body trembled.

Miller walked ahead of them. Derrick followed, making sure to keep his own weapon at the ready. Obenchain noticed teachers, and even a few students, peeking through the glass windows of the classroom doors. God, what a massacre they’d have on their hands if they chose this moment to get curious.

“I want everyone to remain in your classrooms.” Miller shouted. “No one is to step out in this hallway until further notice.”

Such bravery impressed Obenchain, but in this case, it was a mistake. The members of the Duke Organization were more than capable of leaving this facility a morgue.

Miller stopped in front of the therapy suite and removed the key on a chain inside her blouse. She glanced at Obenchain, who avoided looking at her. “This is on your head, Doctor.”

Damn, somehow, he knew this would fall on his shoulders. “How could we know they’d figure out where he was?”

“I should have never let you place him here. That was
my
mistake.” One of many Obenchain had forced on the Brookhill residence. Never before had one of them bit him so hard in the ass like today.

“You knew well the arrangement when you accepted our contributions to the facility…”

“Would you two kindly shut up?” Jen said.

Hefner held back, looking at James’ body. The second raincoated man’s head lurched around as if something had caught his eye. He sprinted away from them, and back up the hallway.

“This is the therapy suite,” Miller said, watching him. “Mister Rasner should be in here.”

“Then let us in,” Jen said, mimicking Miller’s stiff voice.

Miller placed her key in the lock and turned it.

Chapter Twenty-Six

“Emotionally impaired, that’s what she called me.” Rick vented to Janet, who listened patiently. “I’m starting to wonder if she’s right. Miller is cruel, nasty, and merciless, but maybe she has a point.”

“She does not,” Janet said. “You should never think of yourself like that.”

“I know, it’s just…I’m beginning to wonder.” Rick touched his forehead with his left hand. “Recently, I’ve felt unusually paranoid, maybe even a bit off.”

“Off?” Janet looked at him, not as a friend, but as a therapist speaking to her client. “Can you clarify that?”

“Well, it’s just…I don’t know it might just be stress. I can’t be sure, but I think…”

Rick and Janet both turned toward the sound of a key scratching into the lock. The door opened. Somehow Rick stifled a groan of dismay seeing Katherine Miller enter the room. He did frown though. For the first time since meeting her, her eyes weren’t glazed with anger or revenge. As a matter of fact, she didn’t look either him or Janet in the eye. Rick’s nerves jumped into high alert. What did she want?

He stood up out of his seat. Janet did the same, apparently also sensing something wrong. Just inside the door, Miller stepped to the left. Doctor Obenchain—so he was the one Miller was not so anxious to see—pushed past her. The doctor was stiff and formal. Now Rick knew something was up. What was his relationship to Miller? Rick couldn’t fathom anything that could unite a congenial man like Obenchain with a nasty bitch like Miller.

“Is everything okay?” Rick asked, not really sure he wanted an answer.

Obenchain did not respond. He mouthed something to himself, then shook his head like he tried to decide something. Then he talked over his shoulder to someone behind him. “I will try my best to explain to him the situation before you come in. I don’t know how well it will alleviate the shock of it all, but perhaps if I could…”

A hand appeared on the doctor’s shoulder and shoved him aside. A third person entered, a blonde woman wearing a skin-tight pink blouse. She marched up to Rick and peered into his face. Her eyes squinted and she broke into a mile-wide grin. The face looked familiar. Blonde hair and a confident smile. Rick knew it well, but how could that be? All of a sudden familiar memories and feelings filled his head faster than he could process what they meant.

“I-I know you,” he stuttered.

“Oh my god, Rick, what the hell have they done to you?”

Rick’s eyes blinked as he looked back and forth, from Jen to Obenchain and then back to Jen. The confusion turned to anger and then to rage.

This triggered dizziness at a level he’d never experienced before. His vision blurred; his legs wobbled. Through the haze, he saw more people coming into the room. Hefner. She was crying. Behind her, a guy in a long raincoat smacked her with the tail end of a rifle, pushing her up to the wall beside Miller. Miller’s glance bounced off her and to the guy with the rifle. She was scared, Rick could tell but damned if she’d show it.

“Who are you people?” Janet asked. “Rick, do you know them?”

“No…I-I think I…yes. Yes!”

Still experiencing a major case of vertigo, Rick blinked to focus on motion in the doorway. Someone else came in. Doctor Barnes stumbled, almost falling to his knees. Jen eyed the newcomer in confusion. Still, someone else entered; another man in a raincoat. This one, like the woman, looked familiar to Rick. The guy held a handgun in the air. He said, “I caught this jerk peeking at us through one of those door windows. Can’t have him contacting the police, so I shot out the lock and brought him in here.”

Rick pressed fingers to his forehead, pushing hard to unify the double images in his brain. Suddenly, his legs gave out and he toppled forward, into Jen’s arms. Unable to support all his weight, she eased him to the floor.

“What in god’s name do you people want?” Janet screeched. “What are you doing to him?” There was a slight scuffle that Rick couldn’t see because Jen was in the way. Janet’s voice said, “Leave him alone, you…”

In his peripheral vision, Rick saw Janet wrenched backward. She gave a sharp ‘oof’ as her head hit the wall. He wanted to get up and help her, to give them what they wanted but his limbs had turned to jelly.

“Jorge, keep her over there with the others,” Jen commanded. “Derrick, get Obenchain over here! We are not taking him to a lab; we are doing this right here, right now!”

Derrick? Rick shook off a volley of woozies. Do I know a Derrick? Yes, of course I do and it’s him.

Janet’s voice broke into his avalanche of memories. “What are you doing? Get away from him.”

“What the hell happened to him?” Derrick asked. His face appeared over Jen’s shoulder. Memory flowed back into Rick, slowly at first. A gun. Fighting skills. I can kill all these assholes here, but how? Victims—hurt—killed by my hands. No, not victims. TARGETS!

Derrick grabbed Obenchain’s collar and yanked him down to the floor beside Rick. “Quick, find out what’s the matter with him!”

All these memories. What’s true? What’s not? Something happened. The bridge—not an accident—shot in the back of the head.

Obenchain placed two fingers against Rick’s carotid. He pulled up one of Rick’s eyelids and peered into it. Rick couldn’t ascertain his thoughts, but knew they weren’t happy.

The doctor spoke over his shoulder, “His emotions went completely erratic, probably a memory surge when he saw you all. That contradicted the intense conditioning. The microchip reacted and shut him down. His pulse is racing, his eyes are dilated. I don’t think you should try…”

“Conditioning? You mean brainwashing, don’t you, Doctor?” Jen jumped up.

Conditioning? Brainwashing? What the hell was going on here? Was any of this even real? Would he wake up and find it was another of his strange dreams? Or worse, was he now starting to hallucinate? Was this all a hallucination? He’d never done that before. Who knew they’d seem so real? He felt groggy, like whenever he woke up from a deep sleep, only he wasn’t waking up. What if this was actually happening?

He had to get out of here. Rick looked toward the door, trying to estimate the distance and number of obstacles in the way. Could he stagger to his feet, feigning illness, then race past them all? Sure, if he could ignore the pain in his head long enough to get his gummy-legs moving, and make the double images turn back into singles so he wouldn’t tumble all the way down the stairs. What was the difference? Even if he got past all these people, he’d never get by Officer James.

“I don’t think any of us asked for your opinion, Doc,” Derrick said.

“Doctor Obenchain, please do what they ask of you, quickly,” Miller demanded, “so you can all just get the hell out of my facility!”

“Jorge, keep them quiet!” Jen snapped. Rick couldn’t see past Obenchain, but there was a commotion, a thump, and a grunt. Then quiet.

He heard Derrick’s voice again. “Okay, Doctor, you heard the lady, let’s do this. Right now!”

“Are you completely insane?” Obenchain looked up at Jen with a distress that sent Rick’s senses reeling. Oh my god, what the hell were they planning? As he mulled over possibilities, the lightheadedness returned with a vengeance.

“Look,” Obenchain said, “we agreed to take him back to my office where it’s a more controlled environment. For what you need me to do, the dangers…”

“I won’t let him stay like…
this
for another moment,” Jen declared. “You will fix him right now!”

Fix? Shit. What the hell does that mean? Fix what? And why did it hurt so much to think?

“Derrick, keep an eye on the doctor, make sure he does everything exactly as the two of you planned out,” Jen ordered.

Derrick kneeled next to Obenchain. Rick trembled. He felt something, maybe a blanket, drape over him. It did no good. As a matter of fact, he thought he shook even harder. A knapsack—grass green—thumped beside him. From it, Derrick removed a small rectangular black thing.

“What is that?” Rick said, but no one replied. Could they hear him? Was he even speaking out loud? “Stop. Tell me what you’re doing to me.”

Still nothing.

“STOP!” Still no one reacted, not even Jen who’s back was to him as she spoke to someone across the room. He opened his mouth again. At least he thought he did. He heard the words, but apparently, he was the only one. Maybe it was all a nightmare. If he just relaxed and went back to sleep, he’d wake in the morning and it would all be over.

Derrick slapped the black thing into Obenchain’s palm the way a nurse would hand a scalpel to a doctor during surgery. Two silver prongs stuck out one end. They dangled off two copper wires—wait a minute! Electricity? It’s some sort of…shock stick. What the hell are they doing with
that
near him? They couldn’t be trying to subdue him, he couldn’t be more subdued if he were—dead.

“Okay, everyone, keep your mouths shut and don’t make a sound,” Jen yelled. “This will all be over soon. Meanwhile, we forget you exist and you may live to see this afternoon, understood?”

“Just do what she says and stay out of their way,” Miller said. “They are all criminally insane and quite obviously violent.”

“Okay, Doc, looks like it’s showtime,” Derrick said. He shifted position so he could hold Rick’s shoulders down against the floor. “Let’s hope your theory works in reality.”

“You realize the chances of this working…” Obenchain began.

“…Are the same as your living to see that little brat again,” Jen finished.

Obenchain’s eyes glared up at Jen and then they focused on the taser in his hands. He wiped the hair away from Rick’s forehead, his fingers lingering a moment on the protuberance on his forehead. There was sorrow in his eyes as they met Rick’s. He raised the probes. They disappeared from Rick’s line of vision as Obenchain placed them on what felt like spots above and below the lump.

“What are you going to do to him?” Janet called. “Are you trying to kill him?”

“¡Callate!” Jorge screamed the same time as Miller said, “Shut the hell up.”

Obenchain examined the taser and the two wires running up to Rick’s forehead. He looked down at Rick. He wrapped his left fingers on the knob, hesitating over turning the dial. Into Rick’s line of sight came the barrel of a gun. For a horrific second he thought the woman intended to shoot him and void whatever Obenchain was about to do. Then the gun settled against the doctor’s head. A small part of Rick relaxed, though he didn’t know why. He had the sneaking feeling that being shot might be infinitely better than what was about to happen. At the very least, it would put an end to the unbearable pain.