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cure. Finding a cure for autism interested him not at all, except that it might be a source of profits if he chose to market it.
Instead, he pursued these experiments because if he could impose and relieve autism at will, he should be able to learn to impose selected degrees of it. This might have valuable economic and social benefits.
Imagine a factory worker whose productivity is low due to the boring, repetitive nature of his job. Selective autism might be a means by which said worker could be made to focus intently on the task with an obsession that would make him as productive as—but cheaper than—a robot.
The lowest level of Epsilons in the precisely ranked social strata of Victor’s ideal society might be little more than machines of meat. They would waste no time in idle chatter with their fellow workers.
Now he threw the switch that activated the spherical device in which Randal Six was strapped. It began to rotate, three revolutions on one axis, five on another, seven on yet another, slowly at first but steadily gaining speed.
A nearby wall contained a high-resolution nine-foot-square plasma screen. A colorful ultrasound display revealed the movement of blood through Randal Six’s cerebral veins and arteries as well as the subtlest currents in his cerebrospinal fluid as it circulated between the meninges, through the cerebral ventricles, and in the brain stem.
Victor suspected that with the properly calculated application of extreme centrifugal and centripetal forces, he could establish unnatural conditions in cerebral fluids that would improve his chances of converting Randal’s autism-characteristic brainwaves into normal cerebral electrical patterns.
As the machine spun faster, faster, the subject’s groans and terrified wordless pleas escalated into screams of anguish and agony. His shrieks would have been annoying if not for the wedge in his mouth and the chin strap.
Victor hoped to achieve a breakthrough before he tested the boy to destruction. So much time would have been wasted if he had to start all over again with Randal Seven.
Sometimes Randal bit the rubber wedge so hard for so long that his teeth sank in it to the gum line, whereafter it had to be cut out of his locked jaws in pieces. This sounded as if it might be one of those occasions.
A WHITE PICKET FENCE met white gateposts inlaid with seashells. The gate itself featured a unicorn motif.
Under Carson’s feet, the front walkway twinkled magically as flecks of mica in the flagstones reflected moonlight. Moss between the stones softened her footsteps.
Almost thick enough to feel, the fragrance of the magnolia-tree flowers swagged the air.
The windows of the fairy-tale bungalow were flanked by blue shutters from which had been cut star shapes and crescent moons.
Trellises partially enclosed the front porch, entwined by leafy vines graced with trumpetlike purple blooms.
Kathleen Burke, who lived in this little oasis of fantasy, was a police psychiatrist. Her work demanded logic and reason, but in her private life, she retreated into gentle escapism.
At three o’clock in the morning, the windows revealed no lights.
Carson rang the bell and then at once knocked on the door.
A soft light bloomed inside, and quicker than Carson expected, Kathy opened the door. “Carson, what’s up, what’s wrong?”
“It’s Halloween in August. We gotta talk.”
“Girl, if you were a cat, you’d have your back up and your tail tucked.”
“You’re lucky I didn’t show up with a load in my pants.”
“Oh, that’s an elegant thing to say. Maybe you’ve been partnered too long with Michael. Come in. I just made some hazelnut coffee.”
Entering, Carson said, “I didn’t see any lights.”
“At the back, in the kitchen,” Kathy said, leading the way.
She was attractive, in her late thirties, molasses-black with Asian eyes. In Chinese-red pajamas with embroidered cuffs and collar, she cut an exotic figure.
In the kitchen, a steaming mug of coffee stood on the table. Beside it lay a novel; on the cover, a woman in a fantastic costume rode the back of a flying dragon.
“You always read at three in the morning?” Carson asked.
“Couldn’t sleep.”
Carson was too edgy to sit. She didn’t pace the kitchen so much as twitch back and forth in it. “This is your home, Kathy, not your office. That matters—am I right?”
Pouring coffee, Kathy said, “What’s happened? What’re you so jumped up about?”
“You’re not a psychiatrist here. You’re just a friend here. Am I right?”
Putting the second mug of coffee on the table, returning to her own chair, Kathy said, “I’m always your friend, Carson—here, there, anywhere.”
Carson stayed on her feet, too wound up to sit down. “None of what I tell you here can end up in my file.”
“Unless you killed someone. Did you kill someone?”
“Not tonight.”
“Then spit it out, girlfriend. You’re getting on my nerves.”
Carson pulled a chair out from the table, sat down. She reached for the mug of coffee, hesitated, didn’t pick it up.
Her hand was trembling. She clenched it into a fist. Very tight. Opened it. Still trembling.
“You ever see a ghost, Kathy?”
“I’ve taken the haunted New Orleans tour, been to the crypt of Marie Laveau at night. Does that count?”
Clutching the handle of the mug, staring at her white knuckles, Carson said, “I’m serious. I mean any weird shit you can’t wrap your head around. Ghosts, UFO, Big Foot…” She glanced at Kathy. “Don’t look at me that way.”
“What way?”
“Like a psychiatrist.”
“Don’t be so defensive.” Kathy patted the book with the dragon on the cover. “I’m the one reads three fantasy novels a week and wishes she could actually live in one.”
Carson blew on her coffee, tentatively took a sip, then a longer swallow. “I need this. Haven’t slept. No way I’ll sleep tonight.”
Kathy waited with professional patience.
After a moment, Carson said, “People talk about the unknown, the mystery of life, but I’ve never seen one squirt of mystery in it.”
“Squirt?”
“Squirt, drop, spoonful—whatever. I want to see mystery in life—who doesn’t?—some mystical meaning, but I’m a fool for logic.”
“Until now? So tell me about your ghost.”
“He wasn’t a ghost. But he sure was something. I’ve been driving around the past hour, maybe longer, trying to find the right words to explain what happened…”
“Start with where it happened.”
“I was at Bobby Allwine’s apartment—”
Leaning forward, interested, Kathy said, “The Surgeon’s latest victim. I’ve been working up a profile on the killer. He’s hard to figure. Psychotic but controlled. No obvious sexual component. So far he hasn’t left much forensic evidence at the scene. No fingerprints. A garden-variety psychopath isn’t usually so prudent.”
Kathy