A MAN OBSESSED - Chapter 8

It could never have been done without hypnosis. Within broad limits, the human body is capable of doing just exactly whatever it thinks it is capable of. But the human body could hardly be blamed if the convention had long since decided that exertion was bad, that straining to the limit of endurance was unhealthy, that approaching—even obliquely—the margin of safety of human resiliency was equivalent to approaching death with arms extended. That convention had so declared was well known to the researchers at the Hoffman Center.

But it was also known that the human body under the soothing suggestion of hypnosis could be carried up to that margin of safety and beyond. Indeed, it could be carried almost to the actual breaking point without stir, without a flicker of protest, without a sign of fear.

And these were the conditions that were critically needed in testing for the Mercy Men. Yet, though hypnosis was necessary, the men who came to the Mercy Men without fail rejected hypnosis. Always they held the fear of divulging some secret of their past. Whether because of distrust of the doctors and the testing in the Center, or plain, ordinary malignance of character—no one knew all the motives. But those who needed hypnosis the most rejected it the most vehemently. This forced the development of techniques of hypnosis-by-force.

It would have annoyed Jeff if he had known. Indeed, it would have driven him to the heights of anger, for Jeff, among other things, was afraid. But he need not have been, and it made little difference that he was. Now Jeff was not suffering from his fear. His mind was in a quiet, happy haze, and he felt his body half-lifted, half-led across the room to the first section of the testing room.

Even now there was a tiny, sharp-voiced sentinel hiding away in a corner of his mind, screaming out its message of alertness and fear to Jeff. But he laughed to himself, sinking deeper into the peacefulness of his walking slumber. Dr. Gabriel's voice was in his ear, his voice smooth and soothing, talking to him quietly, giving simple instructions. Quickly, he took him through the paces of a testing series that would have taken long, hard days to complete. It would have left him in a psychotic break at the end if he had not had the recuperative buffer of hypnosis to help him.

First, he was dressed in soft flannel clothing and moved into the gymnasium. Recorders were attached to his legs and arms and throat. Then he was formally introduced to the treadmill and quietly asked to run it until he collapsed. He smiled and obliged, running as though the furies were at his heels. He ran until his face went purple and his muscles knotted. At last, he fell down, unable to continue.

This happened after ten minutes of top-limit running. Then came five minutes of recuperation under suggestion: "Your heart is beating slower. You're breathing slowly and deeply ... relaxing ... relaxing." Someone took his arm and he was off again, this time on the old, reliable Harvard Step-Test, jumping up on the chair and back down. He did this until once again he lay panting on the floor, hardly able to move as his pulse and respiration changes were carefully recorded.

Next in line came a lively handball game. He was handed a small, hard-rubber ball, and asked to engage in a game of catch with a machine that was stationed at the end of a cubby. The machine played hard, spinning the ball around and hurling it at Jeff with such incredible rapidity that he was forced to abandon all thinking. Instinctively, he reached out to catch the ball. His fingers burned with pain as he caught it and passed it in, only to have it hurled back out again, twice as fast. Soon he moved as automatically as a machine, catching, hurling, his mind refusing to accept the aching and swelling in his fingers, as the ball struck and struck and struck....

Then a small ladder was rolled in. He listened carefully to instructions and then ran up and down the ladder until he collapsed off the top. He was rested gently on the floor while blood samples were taken from his arm. Then he sat, staring dully at the floor. A voice said, "Relax, Jeff, take a rest. Sleep quietly, Jeff. You'll be ready to dig in and fight in a minute. Now just relax."

Several people were about; one brought him a heavy, sugary drink, lukewarm, and revolting. He drank it, gagging, spilling it all down his shirt front. Then he grinned and licked his lips while further blood samples were drawn. And then, he was allowed to take a drink of cool water. He was left staring at his feet for five whole minutes of recuperation before the next stage of the testing commenced.

The lights were in three long columns. They extended as far as Jeff could see to the horizon. Some were blinking; some shone with steady intensity, while others were dark.

"Call the columns one, two, and three," said Dr. Gabriel, close by, his voice soft with patience. "Record the position of the lights as you see them now. Then when the signal sounds, start recording every light change you see in all three columns. Do it fast, Jeff, as fast as you can."

The eye is a wonderful instrument of precision, capable of detecting an infinitude of movement and change. It is delicate enough to distinguish, if necessary, each and every still frame composing the motion picture that flickers so swiftly before it on the white screen. Jeff's fingers moved, his pencil recorded, quickly moving from column one to column two, and on to column three. The pencil moved swiftly until the test was over.

Then on to the next test....

Electrode leads were fastened to each of his ten toes and each of his ten fingers.

"Listen once, Jeff. Right first toe corresponds to the left thumb; right second toe to the right index finger. (Wonderful stuff, Hypno-palamine, only one repetition to learn) When you feel a shock in a toe, press the button for the corresponding finger. Ready now, Jeff, as fast as you can."

Shock, press, shock, press. Jeff's mind was still, silent, a blank, an open circuit for reactions to speed through without hindrance, without modulation. Another round is done and on to the next....

Doctor Schiml's pale face loomed up from some distant place. "Everything all right?"

"Going fine, fine. Smooth as can be."

"No snags anywhere?"

"No, no snags. None that I can see—yet."

"I want a smoke."

Dr. Gabriel relaxed, offered Jeff a smoke from a crumpled pack, extended his lighter, and smiled. He noticed that Jeff's wide eyes missed their focus, could not see the extended flame. "How do you feel, Jeff?"

"Fine, fine—"

"Still got a lot to do."

A flicker of fear crossed the dull eyes. "Fine. Only I hope...."

"Yes?"

"... hope we finish. I'm tired."

"Sleepy?"

"Yeah, sleepy."

"Well, we'll have everything on punched cards for Tilly in a couple of hours or so. All the factors about you that this testing will unearth would take a research staff five hundred years to integrate down to the point where it would mean anything. With Tilly it takes five minutes. She doesn't make mistakes, either."

"Nice Tilly."

"And after the results come through, you're assigned and you sign your release and you're on your way to money."

Again the flicker of fear came, deeper this time. "Money...."

More tests, more tests. Hear a sound, punch a button. See a picture, record it. Test after endless test, dozens of records, his brain growing tired, tired. Then into the bright, gleaming room, up onto the green-draped table.

"No pain, Jeff, nothing to worry about. Be over in just a minute."

His eyes caught the slender, wicked-looking trefine; he heard the buzz of the motor, felt the grinding shock. But there was no reaction, no pain. And then he felt a curious tingling in his arms and legs, as the small electroencephalograph end-plates entered his skull through the tiny drilled holes.

He watched with dull eyes as the little lights on the control board nearby began blinking on and off, on and off. The flashes followed a hectic, nervous pattern, registering individual brain-cell activity onto supersensitive stroboscopic film. This, in turn, was fed down automatically to Tilly for analysis. And then the trefine holes were plugged up again and his head was tightly taped, and he was moved back into another room for another five-minute recovery.

"Hit the inkblots yet?"

"Not yet, Rog. Take it easy, we're coming along. Inkblots and intelligence run next, and so on."

Something stirred deep in Jeff's mind, even though the soothing delusions of hypnosis. It stirred and cried out at the first sign of the strange, colored forms on the cards. Something deep in Jeff's mind forced its way out to his lips as Dr. Gabriel said softly, "Just look at them, Jeff, and tell me what you see."

"No! Take them away."

"What's that? Gently, Jeff. Relax and take a look."

Jeff was on his feet, backing away, a wild, helpless, cornered fire in his eyes. "Take them away. Get me out of here. Go away—"

"Jeff!" The voice was sharp, commanding. "Sit down, Jeff."

Jeff sank down in the seat, gingerly, eyes wary. The doctor moved his hand and Jeff jumped afoot, his teeth chattering.

"What's the matter, Jeff?"

"I—I don't like ... those ... cards."

"But they're only ink blots, Jeff."

Jeff frowned and squinted at the cards. He scratched his head in perplexity. Slowly he sank back down in the chair, didn't even notice as the web-belt restrainers closed over his arms and legs, tightened down.

"Now look at the pictures, Jeff. Tell me what you see."

The perplexity grew on his heavy face, but he looked and talked, slowly, hoarsely. A dog's head, a little gnome, a big red bat.

"Gently, Jeff. Nothing to be afraid of. Relax, man, relax...."

Then came the word-association tests: half an hour of words and answers, while fear curled up through Jeff's brain, gathering, crouching, ready to spring, waiting in horrible anticipation for something, something that was coming as sure as hour followed hour. Jeff felt the web restrainers cutting his wrists, as the words were read. He trembled in growing foreboding.

Dr. Schiml's face was back, still concerned, his eyes bright. "Going all right, Gabe?"

"Dunno, Rog. Something funny with the inkblots. You can glance at the report. Word association all screwed up too. Can't spot it, but there's something funny."

"Give him a minute's rest and reinforce the palamine. Probably got a powerful vitality opposing it."

Dr. Gabriel was back in a moment, and another needle nibbled Jeff's arm briefly. Then the doctor walked to the desk, took out the small, square plastic box. He dropped the cards out into his hand. They were plain-backed little cards with bright red symbols on their faces.

Dr. Gabriel held them under Jeff's nose. "Rhine cards," he said softly. "Four different symbols, Jeff. Look close. A square, a circle...."

It was like a gouge, jammed down through Jeff's mind, ripping it without mercy. A red-hot, steaming poker was being rammed into the soft, waxy tissue of his brain.

"My God, hold him!"

Jeff screamed, wide awake, his eyes bulging with terror. With an animal-like roar, he wrenched at his restrainers, ripped them out of the raw wood and plunged across the room in blind, terrified flight. He ran across the room and struck the solid brick wall full face. He hit with a sickening thud, pounded at the wall with his fists, screaming out again and again. And then he collapsed to the floor, his nose broken, his face bleeding, his fingers raw with the nails broken.

And as he slid into merciful unconsciousness, they heard him blubbering: "He killed my father ... killed him ... killed him ... killed him ... killed him...."

Hours later he stirred. He almost screamed out in pain as he tried to move his arm. His chest burned as he breathed. When he opened his eyes, an almost unbearable, pounding ache struck down through his skull. He recognized his room, saw the empty bed across from him. Then he raised an arm, felt the bandaging around his face, his neck.

He listened fearfully and his ears caught only the harsh, gurgling breathing of the man in the next room: the man called Tinker, whose doom as a Mercy Man had not been quite sealed, who breathed on, shallowly, breaking the deadly silence.

What had happened?

Jeff sat bolt upright in the darkness, ignoring the stabbing pain that shot through his chest and neck. What had happened? Why was he bandaged? What was the meaning of the pure, naked, paralyzing fear that was gripping him like a vise? He stared through the darkness at the opposite bed and blinked. What had happened ... what ... what?

Of course. He had been in the file room. He'd been caught. Schiml had caught him and he had been taken down for testing. And then: a bright light, nonsense words in his ear, a needle....

Gasping with pain, Jeff rolled out of bed, searched underneath for his shoes. With an audible sob, he retrieved the crumpled card from under the inner sole. Then they hadn't gotten the card. They didn't know. But what could have happened? Slowly, other things came back: there had been a scream; he had felt a shock, as though molten lead had been sent streaming through his veins, and then he had struck the wall like a ten-ton truck.

He groped for his watch, stared at it, hardly believing his eyes. It read seven P.M. It had been almost one A.M. when they had taken him down to Dr. Gabriel. It couldn't be seven in the evening again. Unless he had slept around the clock. He listened to the watch; it was still running. Whatever had happened had thrown him, thrown him so hard that he had slept for almost twenty-four hours. And in the course of that time....

The horrible loss struck him suddenly, worming its way through to open realization. Twenty-four hours later—a day went, a whole day for Conroe to use to move deeper into hiding. He sank back on the bed and groaned, despair heavy in his mind. A day has gone, a precious day. Somewhere the man was in the Center. But to locate him now, after he had had such time—how could Jeff do it?

He felt a greater urgency now. No matter what they had found in the testing, he had no time left to hunt. The next step on this one-way road was the assignment and the signing of a release—the point of no return.

And through it all, something ate at his mind: some curious question, some phantom he could not pin down, a shadow figure which loomed up again and again in his mind, haunting him—the shadow of fearful doubt. Why the shock? Why had he broken loose? What had driven him to punish his arms and legs so mercilessly on the restrainers? What monstrous demon had torn loose in his mind? What gaping sore had the doctors scraped over to drive him to such extremes of fear and horror? And why was the same feeling there in his mind whenever he thought of Paul Conroe?

He sighed. He needed help and he knew it. He needed help desperately. Here, in a whirlpool of hatred and selfishness, he needed help more than he had ever needed it, help to track down this phantom shadow, help to corner it, to kill it. And the only ones he could ask for help were those around him, the Mercy Men themselves. He needed their help if only to escape becoming one of them.

He dozed, then woke a little later and listened. There was an air of tension in the room, a whisper of something gone sharply wrong. Jeff forced himself up on his elbow, tried to peer through the darkness. Something had happened just before he awoke. He listened to the deathly stillness in the room.

And then he knew what it was. The breathing in the next room had stopped.

He lay back, his heart pounding, listening to the rasping of his own breath, fear, and despair rising up to new heights in his mind. Death had come, then. One man who would never see the payoff he so eagerly awaited. Jeff had felt death pass over the room, and he knew, instinctively, that the entire unit would know it too without a single word passing from a single mouth. For the sense of death was a tangible thing here, moving with silent, imponderable footfalls from room to room.

For the first time, Jeff felt a kinship, a depth of understanding to share with the Mercy Men. And there was a depth of fear, deep down, which he knew now that he must share with them too. Painfully, he rolled over on his side and stared into the darkness for long minutes before he fell into a fitful sleep.

Next: Chapter 9