Mad Skills (19 page)

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Authors: Walter Greatshell

BOOK: Mad Skills
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The waiter flipped open his cell phone, saying, “I will check. What name is it?”
“Dr. Chandra Stevens at the Braintree Institute. Tell them it’s about Madeline Grant—they’ll know who I am.”
She watched as he fiddled around uselessly. Finally, she said, “Let me do it.” He reluctantly handed her the phone, and she repeated the information. The electronic operator replied that there was no listing for either a Braintree Institute or a Dr. Chandra Stevens.
“Come
on
,” Maddy groaned. “Half the people in this town are patients there. All right, let me try my house. It’s gonna be long-distance, okay?”
The waiter nodded warily.
She was just glad she could still remember the number—it had been a long time since she had called home. But it was no good—the number rang and rang and finally went to voice mail. They weren’t there. And she knew their cell phones were unlisted because of prank calls after they were on the news. This was getting ridiculous. She left a brief, urgent message and hung up.
“Do you think of anyone else?”
“Just the hotel. If you’d let me go down there, I’m sure they can clear this up.”
“Hotel is closed.”
“What?”
“There is no hotel.”
“
Motel
, I mean! It’s a recovery facility, like a halfway house. For the neurological clinic. I’m a
patient
there.” She yanked off her hat to show him the scar.
He misunderstood and became even more obstinate, believing she was a runaway mental patient, some kind of nutjob. “No, no. You owe money. I’m sorry, we must tell the police—it is restaurant policy.”
“Oh, God …”
Maddy slumped in her seat, trying not to cry. She felt humiliated and furious. She couldn’t believe she had been put in this situation. How dare they just cut her off like this! No money, no support—it was insane.
Strictly supervised
, my butt! They had left her ass blowing in the breeze.
She could feel all the employees watching her, staring at her.
Look at the crazy homeless girl, trying to eat without paying.
They were enjoying it, this chance to shake their heads over her foolishness:
No, no, miss—we work too hard for our bread to let you steal it. This is America.
The police were taking their sweet time getting there. No one talked to her or was seated near her. They might as well have roped her off. That was it: She was taboo. Her corner table became an island of quarantine, an object of idle curiosity and whispered discussion among newcomers, then, as the minutes dragged on, pointedly ignored. But there was an undercurrent of anticipation, everyone waiting for the real show to begin with the arrival of the cops. It was like a public execution.
Just get it over with,
she thought, putting her head down.
“You know, you don’t have to sit here. You can just leave.”
Scalp prickling, Maddy looked across the table. It was the raccoon again. He was standing on a chair, eating her leftover olives.
“Oh no,” she said.
“Sorry—were you saving these?”
“What are you
doing
here? I’m not dreaming!”
“That’s a question you should be asking yourself. It’s not going to be very much fun if you wait till the police arrive. Better to get it over with now.”
“This can’t be happening …”
“Look, I’m just trying to be helpful.”
“What
are
you?”
“You know what I am. I’m the bandit, the rascal, the wild one—like Brando. I’m chaos, baby, one hundred percent raw sexuality. Frankly, I’m a friggin’ nuisance. My name’s Moses.” The raccoon reached out its tiny black paw as if to shake. When Maddy just stared, he withdrew it with a smirk. “In case you haven’t noticed, lady, my habitat has been shrinking down to nothing lately, and I’m pissed off.”
“Moses?” she said. It suddenly clicked that one of Lukie’s stuffed toys had been a raccoon named Moses—a character from some old children’s book.
“That’s my name, don’t wear it out.”
“You’re a hallucination.”
“That’s right,” said Moses. Then, in a stage whisper, he added, “But that doesn’t mean I’m not real. I’m you, Maddy—what’s left of you. This is the last of your free will talking, and if you don’t do something soon, I’m going to die.”
“Die? What does that mean?”
“It means that all these people are robots, drones, and you’re rapidly becoming one of them. This whole town—it’s really not real. It’s only a test bed for the next big trend in social engineering: taking hostiles and troublemakers and turning them into good little soldiers. Where do you think these people came from?”
“What do you mean?”
“Duh! Afghanistan, Pakistan, Syria, Iraq, you name it, all courtesy of Uncle Sam. They’re al-Qaeda, stupid!”
“What?”
“Sure! They’re al-Qaeda and Taliban and Hezbollah and every other terrorist organization you can think of, plus a whole lot of political criminals and mental cases. They’ve all been transferred here. The government is desperate; it can’t hold on to them forever, and it doesn’t dare kill them, so it has to find some way to make them … act nice.”
“But … that sort of makes sense.”
“Sure it does. And Mussolini made the trains run on time.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“It
means
, sweetheart, that this is just the beginning. Oh, they’ve been working up to this for some time now, centralizing wealth, privatizing government, globalizing big business. Destabilizing society to favor monopolies and the consolidation of power. Making everyone ignorant and paranoid and helpless … and poor. Every country’s competing. It’s the next great space race: your frontal lobe. The final frontier. Whoever gets there first wins, because from then on, they get to
decide
reality.”
“This is crazy. I’m talking to a Marxist raccoon.”
“Raccoons aren’t Communists or Capitalists—we’re pests. That means we believe in using whatever works to survive. Oh, we’re clever. We’re natural problem solvers. We’re cute as hell. But we know we’ll never have great wealth or power, so we don’t trust anyone who does, whether they say they’re on the right, the left, or the Varmint Party. Power is the natural enemy of Nature; money poisons the water. Communists hate sharing just as much as Capitalists hate free markets, free minds, and a level playing field—which is to say a lot. It’s human nature to be greedy. But greed is destructive; it reveals itself in the damage it causes. Screw people over for too long, and even the biggest sucker will eventually wise up. Communism didn’t fail because it failed, honey, it failed because everybody
knew
it failed, just as they know this war has failed. It’s a matter of perception … but next time around, they’re taking care not to repeat the mistake.”
Someone tapped Maddy on the arm. It was the waiter.
“Excuse me,” he said. “You can go.”
“What?”
“You can go. The man he pay your bill.”
“What? Who?”
“Him.”
Maddy looked behind her, toward the dim alcove with the EXIT sign. At first she didn’t understand who she was looking at, only that he was familiar. Then her whole body reeled like a calving glacier—a million tons of falling ice that left her weightless. Shooting skyward.
“No,” she said, lips trembling. Then: “Ben?”
Ben Blevin, her former stepbrother and the first boy she had ever kissed, nodded back at her.
TWENTY-TWO
 
BEN AGAIN
 
BEN Blevin was alive.
There he was, unshaven, older, and even more good-looking than she remembered him, cowboy-rugged in jeans and a sheepskin coat.
It was impossible—or was it her memories that were all wrong? Maybe Ben’s death was just one more thing she had dreamed. Between Ben’s resurrection and Moses the Talking Raccoon, Maddy was terrified she had gone mad. But the raccoon was gone; Ben wasn’t.
She went to him. There was no joyous embrace, no tearful reunion—Maddy was too much in shock to feel anything. Ben must have sensed it wouldn’t have taken much of a nudge to start her screaming hysterically, so he wisely refrained from touching her.
Eyes round as two pale moons, Maddy said,
“Ben?”
He nodded somberly. “I know. It’s okay. Come on, you want to take a walk?”
She nodded, and they left the restaurant. It was getting dark outside. They strolled aimlessly across the plaza.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I wish I could have told you.”
“Told me what? What is this?”
“It’s part of the research.
I’m
part of the research—just like you.”
“I don’t get it, Ben, and it’s really, really scaring me.” She hugged herself to quiet the shaking.
“We’re both part of the same study. The only difference is, you lived, and I died.”
“But you’re not dead!”
“I am—legally, I don’t exist. I never woke up from the carnival accident. After two weeks in a ‘profound vegetative state,’ I was determined to be brain-dead. My parents signed a DNR order, and the hospital pulled the plug. Then they donated my body to science and went back home. I heard it was a hell of a funeral—I wish I coulda been there.”
Maddy covered her ears. “Stop! Stop it before you make me crazy!”
“You’re not crazy, Maddy. That’s what I thought, too, when they woke me up. Recovery’s been a long process. But you’ve had it way tougher than me, having to go back home and deal with everybody’s bullshit. I had the luxury of being dead. No awkward questions. No expectations.”
“But
how
?”
“I was just chillin’. Literally. As soon as I was pronounced dead, the hospital froze me stone cold and shipped my body to the Institute. The cold protected what was left of my brain. It was theirs—they had all the rights to it. Then they operated, gave me an implant just like they did you. Shocked my heart back to life. The rest is history.”
“But that’s a miracle! Why keep it a secret?”
“Are you serious? There are whole organizations whose only purpose is to find things to scream about. Litigate about. Create a crisis, make everybody panic, so then the lawyers swoop in, and the religious groups and the politicians and the media. Everybody all muddled over who lives and who dies. Soon it’s a feeding frenzy. And by the time the last investigation ends, the last lawsuit is resolved, we can all turn the clock back on science another twenty years.”
“I don’t know …”
“It sounds messed up, I know, but think about it. This kind of experiment is very controversial. There are privacy questions, human-rights questions, questions about how you define life and death, matters of informed consent. The law hasn’t caught up with the technology, and people are dying while the courts work it out. So the Institute has two choices: Either move forward with their work in secrecy or do nothing. They’re moving forward. But it’s a temporary situation. As soon as the ethical issues are resolved, we’ll all be able to go public. In the meantime, the work is more important than the risk of a lawsuit. They saved my
life
, Maddy—I’m in no position to question it. I’m a wholly owned subsidiary of Braintree, Inc.”
“You can’t mean that.”
“No, I’m joking. But I do believe in what they’re doing. It’s all about saving lives. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this.”
“Sounds like it.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I mean it sounds like you’ve worked this all out in your head, and it’s all very reasonable. The problem I’m having, Ben, is that I don’t trust my head anymore. None of what you’ve just said explains what’s been happening to me these last few days. And I’m very worried. In fact, I’m scared to death.”
“About what? Maddy, you have to give yourself time. You’re still adjusting. Healing.”
“No.”
“It’s normal to feel—”
“
No.
That’s what they told me, and that’s what I keep telling myself, but it’s a
fucking lie
! There are times when I’m
not me
, when there’s somebody else pulling the strings, and it’s like they’re deliberately making me do things I would never do, just to prove they can. And it keeps getting worse, like I’m possessed or something.”
“Oh, come on.”
“And the worst part is, I
love
what they make me do! It feels good. But that’s not really me either, because afterward, I just want to curl up and die. That’s what just happened in that restaurant! You were there! I would have gotten arrested if you hadn’t come along.” Maddy stopped. “How did you happen to come along just then, anyway?”
“Your name is registered with the police. They called Dr. Stevens, and Dr. Stevens called me. She thought I should talk to you.”

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