The first bite had not yet reached his lips when the commotion started up from the food line.
“Okay! That’s enough! I’m good! Stop! Stop!” A moment later, Tommy appeared, his tray dripping gravy. The lunch lady was right behind him, a ladle in one hand and the gravy pot in the other. “Opus, help! Hit the off switch!”
“Stop!” Jax said urgently. Louder: “Stop!”
But the woman continued to follow Tommy, spooning ladle after ladle onto his swamped tray. Jax realized with some alarm that the mesmeric link between them no longer existed. He had no PIP image through her eyes. All that remained was his command: Give him as much as you can. He tried to catch her eye and re-hypnotize her. But she was so focused on the need to deposit as much gravy as possible onto Tommy’s plate that she wouldn’t look in his direction.
Jax felt a rising panic. He had completely lost control of the situation. All around the cafeteria, kids were interrupting their lunches to watch the great gravy chase. It was only a matter of time before a teacher noticed. Then that poor lunch lady was going to be in big trouble, and all because Jax had broken Sentia’s number-one rule.
The general murmur of surprise was turning into a cheer as the excess gravy poured over the side of the tray. A passing sneaker slid in the puddle, and a sixth grader went down. It got a round of applause from the cafeteria crowd, which grew to a standing ovation as his flying meal sprayed soup over a wide area. At that moment, the parade from the food line reached the slick, and the wipeouts grew more spectacular. Shoes slipped, trays tipped. Total chaos reigned.
“How about a little help here?” Tommy cried.
Jax had to stop this before it escalated into a full-scale riot. Trouble at school was bad enough, but what about Sentia? If news of this somehow got back to Dr. Mako, Jax would have a lot of difficulty explaining how this didn’t count as frivolous.
With that random thought, help came from an unexpected quarter. The bell rang. The lunch lady took her ladle and her pot and quietly returned to her post. It was obvious that she had no recollection of the ruckus that had just ended.
Tommy set down his tray with a splash and looked at his entrée, floating in an ocean of brown. “Okay, I admit it. You’re a hypnotist, all right. The worst hypnotist in the world, but you can definitely do it.”
Jax made a face. “Be quiet and drink your lunch.”
Most of the experiment subjects at Sentia were volunteers who were paid fifty dollars a day to participate in “brain studies.” This brought in an interesting combination of college students and homeless people for the hypnos to work on. Few, if any, remembered the details of what happened to them at Sentia. Ray Finklemeyer — the Amazing Ramolo himself — was charged with implanting a post-hypnotic suggestion in the newcomers. Upon leaving the building, they were instructed to forget everything.
“Just once,” Wilson grumbled, peering out the lounge window as the volunteers filed inside, “I’d like to bend somebody who isn’t already used by the time he gets to me.”
“Used?” Jax repeated.
“He means that the subjects already carry some hypnotic architecture by the time we see them,” Kira explained. “But it’s nothing that would affect our work with them.”
“Says Ray,” Wilson countered. “What’s to stop the staff from adding a little spy suggestion to rat out anybody who might be getting his jollies messing with heads?”
Jax was genuinely mystified. “Who would do that?”
The burly hypno glared at him. “You don’t know anything, do you? You were born, like, yesterday.”
Jax’s first subject that day was Mr. Baltic. Sentia volunteers never used their real names. Jax wasn’t sure why, but the aliases usually came from a Monopoly board — Vermont, Pacific, Reading. Mrs. Park was short for Park Place. Jax’s panhandler, the man in the lumber jacket, turned out to be a regular named Mr. St. James.
Jax gave the young man across the table a double-barreled shot of his large color-changing eyes. The result was almost instantaneous. He was looking back at himself, the image faint, but absolutely distinct. He resisted the urge to glance over at Dr. Mako, who was overseeing the exercise.
“Okay,” Jax instructed the subject. “I need you to get out of your chair and jump up and down.”
Mr. Baltic stood up slowly and began to hop in place in an orderly, unruffled way.
This time, Jax did risk a look over at the director. Mako’s face was impassive, but surely he had to appreciate how quickly Jax had produced the required action.
At the next table, another hypno, Augie Cunningham, stood his subject up and said, “You’re standing on a bed of hot coals. If you stay at rest for even a second, the soles of your feet will be badly burned.” That was all it took to have Mrs. Tennessee up and dancing with great urgency.
Jax regarded Mr. Baltic’s halfhearted methodical jumps. Although Mrs. Tennessee was a middle-aged woman, Augie had generated a much higher energy level.
Mako looked on approvingly.
The third and final mind-bender took her turn. It was Kira Kendall. “A group of children is trapped in a burning house,” she told Mr. St. Charles in an impassioned voice. “Flames lick at them from the walls, and the room is filling up with smoke. Only you can save them! Your feet operate a pump that sprays water on the fire. Quickly! Pump! Their lives depend on you!”
The reaction was nothing short of astounding. The subject’s legs hammered like pistons in his mad effort to save the nonexistent children Kira had placed in his mind.
Mako was smiling and applauding. “Well done, Kira. Masterful. What you’ve shown us is that it’s not just a matter of whether someone is hypnotized; the important thing is what we construct in their minds while they’re under. A simple instruction is not as powerful as a feeling, like fire on your skin. And even that is not as powerful as something that speaks to your moral character, like saving the lives of the innocent.”
Jax shuffled out of the room the loser, the hypnotist who had performed the worst. Why was he the lousiest? What had happened to all the great potential Mako had spoken about?
The director must have noticed his crestfallen expression because, afterward, he pulled Jax aside. “Don’t be discouraged, Jackson. All the things that you lack can be learned. But a natural gift can never be created if it isn’t there in the first place.”
Saturdays at Sentia were the marathon days, since the hypnos came early and stayed late. The workload was intense, and included far more than hands-on experiments with volunteers. Jax and the others also studied the history of hypnotism and the lives of great practitioners of the art, like the monk Rasputin, and the legendary Dr. Mesmer.
Jax was amazed to learn how often hypnotism had played a part in key world events. Sir Edmund Hillary would never have conquered Mount Everest if he hadn’t been mesmerized to get over his fear of heights. Brahms was tone-deaf, and wouldn’t have been able to write halfway-decent music if his wife hadn’t been a gifted mind-bender. Lewis and Clark were both hypnotists, and had bent each other no less than twenty-seven times before they reached the Pacific. It was the only thing that kept them going.
The list went on and on. Some of the finest achievements, like the invention of the telephone; the most terrible disasters, like the Hindenburg tragedy; and the most daring crimes, like the Great Train Robbery, all had a hypnotic connection. Jax was startled to note how often the name Opus came up. No wonder Mako had scouted Jax for Sentia. Dad’s family was in it up to their necks. Scarcely did a generation pass without an Opus in the headlines.
“Wipe that grin off your face, Dopus,” Wilson snarled at Jax in the lounge during a break. “You may have a famous name, but the legend dies with you. You couldn’t hypnotize your way out of a wet paper bag.”
Kira rolled her eyes. “He just got here, Wilson. How many of us were as good as Mesmer in our first week?”
If Sentia had a schoolyard bully, it was definitely Wilson. But all the hypnos were standoffish. Kira had an in
nate sense of fairness that refused to let Wilson ride roughshod over the others. But she was too serious and dedicated to her craft to be very friendly. She was the best mind-bender because she tried ten times harder than everybody else. She was all work and no play. Not that there was much opportunity for playing at Sentia.
At seventeen, Augie was the oldest, and had been at the institute the longest. Although he had the most experience, it was plain that he had absolutely no sense of humor. He never even smiled, much less laughed, and making a joke was out of the question. Jax, who had always equated humor with intelligence, wondered if Augie would ever be able to think on his feet well enough to be a top-notch mind-bender.
There were the two Lancaster Singhs, first cousins named after a common grandfather. They were best friends, and competitive to the point of insanity. Each one thought he could be the Lancaster Singh by out-mesmerizing the other. The result was that these two talented hypnos expended so much energy bending each other that they had very little left to devote to the institute. Wilson called them Singh One and Singh Two. The guy was a lunkhead, but never at a loss for a nickname.
Grace Cavanaugh was a nationally ranked tennis player, and was constantly cutting short her work at the institute to rush off to a match or tournament. Natalie Ziegler was confined to a wheelchair, yet her piercing gaze enabled her to entrance a subject faster than any of them, except possibly Jax. DeRon Marcus was Wilson’s sidekick. He could be perfectly normal, and even nice. But then Wilson would walk into the room and DeRon’s pleasant personality would shut off.
During Jax’s second week at Sentia, there was also a red-haired girl of about sixteen, but by Saturday she was nowhere to be found.
“Does anyone know what happened to Clarissa?” he asked the others. His answer was no answer, a vaguely uneasy hum in the lounge. “I hope she isn’t really sick or anything like that.” More humming.
It was Singh Two who finally provided an explanation. “She isn’t sick.”
“She might be sick,” Singh One amended. “But the reason why she isn’t here has nothing to do with her health.”
Jax must have looked bewildered, because Wilson burst out, “Will somebody just tell him? She washed out, Dopus. They gave her the boot.”
Jax was shocked. “But why? Did she do something wrong?”
“She wasn’t the best of us,” Natalie reasoned, “and she was getting older.”
Augie, a year older than Clarissa, shuffled uncomfortably.
“Or maybe it was just getting a little crowded around here,” Wilson suggested cynically. “Someone had to go to make room for the fair-haired boy.”
Jax blanched.
“We don’t know anything for sure,” Kira jumped in. “Dr. Mako always does what’s best for the institute, but nobody can be certain exactly what he’s thinking and why.”
“True that,” said Wilson with a sneer in Jax’s direction. “Anyway, it’s not like we could look her up and ask her.”
“What do you mean?” Jax demanded. “Why not?”
Wilson shrugged. “You’re the big genius. You figure it out.”
“Last year,” Grace said timidly, “this kid Rory got bounced. About a month later, I was coming home from a tennis match, and I saw him on a subway platform. He definitely saw me — I’d swear to it. But he looked right through me.”
“You can’t be sure of that,” Kira reminded her. “Maybe he’s bitter because he washed out, and he was ignoring you.”
“Or maybe when you leave this place, you leave without your memory,” said Wilson. “Like cleaning out your desk. Only in this case, they clean out your head.”
“But that can’t happen!” Jax insisted. “Can it?”
“It happens to the Monopolies every day,” Singh One pointed out.
“But with them, you’re talking about a few hours,” Jax argued. “Clarissa was here for, like, years!”
“It would take planning,” Augie said thoughtfully. “A series of post-hypnotic suggestions that could be activated later. That’s Ray’s specialty. And who knows what Dr. Mako might be capable of?”
“He could have already implanted the groundwork for something like that in all of us,” mused Natalie.
“Count on it,” Wilson put in. “The doc’s not the type to leave things up to chance.”
“But Dr. Mako never bends us,” Jax protested.
Tolerant chuckles and rolling eyes greeted this statement.
“Clueless!” spat Wilson.
Kira was gentler. “How many times a day do you use some form of the phrase, ‘When you awaken, you will remember none of this’?”
Jax swallowed hard.
At the end of the long Saturday, Jax was on his way to the subway when a tug on his jacket spun him around on the sidewalk. There stood a hulking man, easily twice his weight.
“Daddy!” the man exclaimed in a basso voice that nevertheless sounded like baby talk. “I have to go to the bathroom!”
Shaken, Jax tried to keep on walking.
The man scrambled in front of him and blocked his way. “I have to go!” he insisted.
“Listen, mister, I’m not your daddy —”
To his horror, the big fellow clamped arms of steel around him and squeezed hard. “C’mon, Daddy, quit kidding around! I have to go really bad!”
Jax’s legs buckled under him, and he fell backward, drawing the big man on top of him. The guy easily weighed two hundred and fifty pounds — probably more!
“Jax?” All at once, the beautiful face of Ms. Samuels was peering down at him. “Are you all right? What’s going on here?”
A ringtone sounded, very close. It must have been the man’s phone. He rolled off of Jax and sat up on the pavement, his face a study in confusion. “What happened? Did I faint?”
Jax scrambled to his feet just in time to catch sight of two figures sprinting down East Sixty-Fifth Street, laughing and celebrating. Wilson and DeRon.
“Wow, kid, I’m sorry! Are you hurt?”
“I’m okay.” Jax’s eyes were on Ms. Samuels, who hadn’t noticed the fleeing hypnos. The assistant director had relatively little mesmeric ability herself, but had been around Mako and Sentia long enough to recognize hypnotic mischief.
Jax had to admit that using the cell phone to break the subject out of his trance had been a brilliant touch. If you could bend a grown man to think a twelve-year-old kid was his daddy, it probably wasn’t hard to get the guy to give you his number.
Ms. Samuels regarded Jax suspiciously. “Is there anything you want to tell me about this? Something Dr. Mako should know?”
Jax hesitated. Misuse of hypnotism was a very serious charge at Sentia. If it stuck, it would get both Wilson and DeRon kicked out of the institute. They were jerks, but he wasn’t sure they deserved that.
“It was nothing,” he said finally. “That guy must have had a dizzy spell.”
The picture-in-picture image was sharper than Jax had ever seen it in his three weeks at Sentia. It was himself, from a range of seven feet, the exact distance between him and Mr. Marvin, a shabby homeless man, probably in his mid-fifties.
The subject’s focus on Jax’s eyes — now a deep aquamarine — was so intense that he was like a statue. His only motion was the rise and fall of his chest as he breathed.
Dr. Mako sat behind Jax, overseeing the process. Ordinarily, the director floated around the institute, dropping in on the occasional session. He had insisted, however, on supervising this hypnotism personally. “Keep him relaxed,” Mako instructed. “Clear his mind of all thoughts.”
“You’re reclining on the softest feather bed in the world,” Jax said quietly. “The material cradles you in total comfort.”
The subject seemed to settle back on the hard wooden chair.
With the man deeply entranced, Jax risked a look at the director as if to say What next?
“Concentrate,” Mako whispered. “Hold him in your power. Don’t lose him.”
Jax was a little con
fused. He couldn’t lose this subject if he tried. The link was airtight, the PIP so vivid that it seemed as real as the room around him. It was like looking in a mirror.
This was the point where a staff member would usually tell him what to do to complete the exercise — induce an action or behavior. Last week, the Lancaster Singhs had convinced two subjects that they were chess masters, although neither had ever played the game. In spite of that, they had subsequently played a hard-fought match that was half checkers and half Parcheesi. Dr. Mako had called it inspired.
Jax had looked on with envy. How must it feel to have the great man heaping praise on you? He longed for it to be his turn.
This could be the day! I’ve never felt the connection stronger!
But first Mako had to give him something to do. Was the director waiting for him to come up with something on his own?
Am I blowing it?
A great weight of failure pressed down on him. He hadn’t chosen Sentia, but now that he was here, washing out was unthinkable. No wonder he felt so depressed. He was a loser, alone, deserted, his beloved wife lost forever….
Wife?
And then the image was upon him: a woman’s face — dazzling smile, soft brown hair, upswept brows. She was laughing, which for some reason only made Jax sadder. All at once, the picture was fading, receding into a maelstrom of billowing dust and smoke. He actually reached out for her, in spite of the fact that he knew it was only a vision — some kind of hypnotic side effect. And anyway, it didn’t do any good. She was gone.
The swirling mist faded to reveal a new picture: words engraved in marble, BELOVED WIFE AND MOTHER….
A gravestone.
When Jax began to cry, it was convulsive — great wracking sobs that threatened to tear him open. Nothing in his twelve years came close to this shattering loss. It was all-consuming, a tragedy so overwhelming that it would be impossible to move beyond it. It was the end of the world.