diversity?
He itched to return to Upper Heywood, collect his equipment and process the data. But duty kept him nailed to the waiting room chair.
Eventually, Louise appeared in the corridor. With the bandage removed and her ear lobe sealed and microstitched, no one could have told she'd been injured. Only the garishly blood-stained jumper and slightly matted hair gave her away.
"What were you saying earlier about Pendennis's scan?" she asked as she came nearer. "Tell me the last two days weren't a complete waste of time."
"Time spent in the pursuit of knowledge is never a waste . . ."
She stopped him with a look. "Just tell me."
"I need to process all the data first—the imager I was monitoring only analyses part of the spectrum—but I can say there was no attempt at telepathic bonding. I had an imager trained on him from the moment he stepped through the door."
"But that doesn't mean that there wasn't the first time."
"No, but why stop? He wouldn't have known what my equipment was there for. And if he was trying to lure you closer to him why didn't he try to read your mind to gauge how he was doing or plant telepathic suggestions? It would have made things easier for him."
Louise shook her head. "So, where was John? Ziegler didn't do anything different today. So, why didn't John appear? How come we got that . . . that thing instead?"
"Hypnosis is not an exact science. He might have had John at the beginning but, if it had been me, I wouldn't have been happy about his level of distress."
"Why?"
"It can interfere with hypnotic control. Ideally you want your subject calm and submissive. Too much emotion and—zap—the subject's flooded with adrenaline and you're liable to lose him. I would have taken John deeper, established a solid baseline, and then begun."
Hindsight. The second greatest power in the universe, after chocolate.
"So, you don't think he was faking it the first time?"
"I like to keep an open mind. But from what I saw today, Pendennis has a far greater agglomeration of higher dimensional matter around his brain than any subject I've ever encountered. And most of it looks distorted, ripped even. Now, is that because his MPD has segmented his mind? Was I looking at the billowing strands of a fractured consciousness? Or is there another cause? I can't wait to analyse the rest of the data to find out."
"How long will that take?"
"About thirty minutes to process the data, an hour or two to map and analyse." Not to mention the drooling and speculating while the numbers crunched. "I'll start as soon as I've dropped you off."
"You'll start sooner if you call a cab now. I'm perfectly capable of driving myself home."
Nick's equipment was waiting for him, packed and roughly stacked in a corner of the Upper Heywood reception area, along with the implicit message, 'never darken these doors again,' etched in the atmosphere. Two warders glared at him from behind glass screens. The same two warders who'd made him take everything apart earlier so they could scan and tick everything off against their ridiculous register.
"You'll have to sign for it first," said one of the men.
Not before he'd checked the crates, he wouldn't. He squatted next to the stack and began the inventory, making sure that everything was present and that nothing had been broken or reset.
"I'd check the big crate at the bottom," said the other warder. "Peter likes to play hide and seek."
Highly amusing, thought Nick, though somewhat disconcerting for a man whose hand happened to be hovering over the big crate's latch at the time.
He flipped the catch and peered inside, jumping only slightly at the shout of 'boo' from over his shoulder. He shook his head and tuned out the laughter, and sifted through the crate. Everything present, intact and functioning.
It took several journeys to carry everything over to his van. No offer of assistance was either offered or asked for. Nick staggered while the two
He itched to return to Upper Heywood, collect his equipment and process the data. But duty kept him nailed to the waiting room chair.
Eventually, Louise appeared in the corridor. With the bandage removed and her ear lobe sealed and microstitched, no one could have told she'd been injured. Only the garishly blood-stained jumper and slightly matted hair gave her away.
"What were you saying earlier about Pendennis's scan?" she asked as she came nearer. "Tell me the last two days weren't a complete waste of time."
"Time spent in the pursuit of knowledge is never a waste . . ."
She stopped him with a look. "Just tell me."
"I need to process all the data first—the imager I was monitoring only analyses part of the spectrum—but I can say there was no attempt at telepathic bonding. I had an imager trained on him from the moment he stepped through the door."
"But that doesn't mean that there wasn't the first time."
"No, but why stop? He wouldn't have known what my equipment was there for. And if he was trying to lure you closer to him why didn't he try to read your mind to gauge how he was doing or plant telepathic suggestions? It would have made things easier for him."
Louise shook her head. "So, where was John? Ziegler didn't do anything different today. So, why didn't John appear? How come we got that . . . that thing instead?"
"Hypnosis is not an exact science. He might have had John at the beginning but, if it had been me, I wouldn't have been happy about his level of distress."
"Why?"
"It can interfere with hypnotic control. Ideally you want your subject calm and submissive. Too much emotion and—zap—the subject's flooded with adrenaline and you're liable to lose him. I would have taken John deeper, established a solid baseline, and then begun."
Hindsight. The second greatest power in the universe, after chocolate.
"So, you don't think he was faking it the first time?"
"I like to keep an open mind. But from what I saw today, Pendennis has a far greater agglomeration of higher dimensional matter around his brain than any subject I've ever encountered. And most of it looks distorted, ripped even. Now, is that because his MPD has segmented his mind? Was I looking at the billowing strands of a fractured consciousness? Or is there another cause? I can't wait to analyse the rest of the data to find out."
"How long will that take?"
"About thirty minutes to process the data, an hour or two to map and analyse." Not to mention the drooling and speculating while the numbers crunched. "I'll start as soon as I've dropped you off."
"You'll start sooner if you call a cab now. I'm perfectly capable of driving myself home."
Nick's equipment was waiting for him, packed and roughly stacked in a corner of the Upper Heywood reception area, along with the implicit message, 'never darken these doors again,' etched in the atmosphere. Two warders glared at him from behind glass screens. The same two warders who'd made him take everything apart earlier so they could scan and tick everything off against their ridiculous register.
"You'll have to sign for it first," said one of the men.
Not before he'd checked the crates, he wouldn't. He squatted next to the stack and began the inventory, making sure that everything was present and that nothing had been broken or reset.
"I'd check the big crate at the bottom," said the other warder. "Peter likes to play hide and seek."
Highly amusing, thought Nick, though somewhat disconcerting for a man whose hand happened to be hovering over the big crate's latch at the time.
He flipped the catch and peered inside, jumping only slightly at the shout of 'boo' from over his shoulder. He shook his head and tuned out the laughter, and sifted through the crate. Everything present, intact and functioning.
It took several journeys to carry everything over to his van. No offer of assistance was either offered or asked for. Nick staggered while the two
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