She let herself into the observation booth, noting that Dr. Mako, Ms. Samuels, Ray Finklemeyer, and all the senior Sentia staff were present. Through the glass she could see Miss Ventnor one-stepping across the room as if she were on a tightrope, arms outstretched for balance.
Kira did not have to guess at the identity of the hypno who had bent the unbendable subject.
Jackson Opus.
The surge of emotion shocked her — and shamed her, because she knew she had no right to feel such resentment. How many times had Dr. Mako told them that they had no more control over the strength of their gift than they had over their height or blood type? It was not her fault that Jax could hypnotize Miss Ventnor and she couldn’t. She couldn’t dunk a basketball either. Or fly.
Then why did this hurt so much?
She’d always accepted the argument when it came to explaining why she could do certain things Wilson, or Grace, or Augie couldn’t. They’d all been at Sentia longer than she had. To them it must have seemed as if she’d parachuted out of nowhere and landed ahead of them in line.
It’s good for the institute, she’d told herself to deflect the sting of their glares.
Kira believed in the institute 100 percent. She believed in Dr. Mako.
This had to be good for the institute, too.
So why did it seem so different now?
Because I’m the one on the outside looking in?
In Lab 1, Miss Ventnor was now doing the tango with an imaginary partner, to music only she could hear.
“Impressive,” commented Ms. Samuels. “Do you think he could be the one?”
Dr. Mako nodded with satisfaction. “We’ll soon see.”
The change was subtle, but Jax couldn’t miss it. Suddenly, all the Sentia staff knew his name, even the cleaning crew. Whispered conversations broke out wherever he went. He spent more and more time with Dr. Mako himself. There was an air of expectancy, like something big was coming. It was exciting, but also terrifying in a way. It was pretty obvious that, sooner or later, Jax was going to have to produce, to deliver. And he had absolutely no idea what was about to be asked of him.
He had spent the past two months squeezing his way into the unwelcoming group of hypnos. Now he found himself ostracized again, not because he was the new guy but because he had become the chosen one. Kira would barely look in his direction, and Grace and the Lancaster Singhs were tight-lipped in his presence. Wilson had carved a voodoo doll from a bar of soap and hung it on a string from the bulletin board in the lounge. On its chest was tacked a note: DOPUS ON A ROPUS.
On Saturday morning, Jax entered Lab 3 and was surprised to find a large video camera on a tripod across the table where the subject should have been. He looked questioningly from Dr. Mako to Ray, who was crouched at the viewfinder.
“A new approach,” the director supplied. “We’ve decided to record you, so we can fine-tune your technique.”
Jax was still in the dark. “Record me doing what? Where’s the subject?”
“The camera is the subject,” Ray told him.
“Obviously, you can’t bend a piece of technology,” Dr. Mako explained, “but it’s important that you proceed as if there were a living, breathing person sitting across from you. It’s more useful than a live hypnotism, since I’ll have the recording to review multiple times, and not have to rely on my notes.”
Jax was uncertain. “What do I say to it? Do I tell it to act like a toaster?”
The director chuckled. “I’d like you to employ a post-hypnotic suggestion. This is different than convincing a subject he is climbing a mountain, or skating, or wrestling a bear. A post-hypnotic suggestion is delayed. For example, you might say, ‘When you hear the words pot roast, you will do twenty push-ups.’”
Jax nodded. He had never used post-hypnotic suggestion before, but there was always a lot of talk about it around Sentia. It was a very powerful tool, since the subject didn’t have to be under when the payoff occurred. The reaction could take place hours, days, weeks, sometimes months after the suggestion was implanted. The trigger didn’t even have to be a word. It could be a sound, or a picture, or even a gesture — like the pitcher in the 1932 World Series who’d been bent to throw a straight fastball over the center of home plate when Babe Ruth pointed at center field with his bat. It was a post-hypnotic suggestion that had enabled the Bambino to hit that historic home run.
The Lancaster Singhs were masters of the post-hypnotic suggestion in their ongoing hypno-battle. Every so often, one of the pair would do something wild and unpredictable, like tap-dancing on a cafeteria table, or stripping down to tighty whities and reciting the Gettysburg Address. And everyone knew that a long-embedded trigger word had come up in conversation.
“Since this is your first time,” Dr. Mako went on, “I’ll provide a trigger for you — a police siren. And the required action at that time will be to stand at attention and salute for thirty seconds. Remember, none of this is going to happen in reality. It’s purely so we can judge the quality of your work on the recording.”
It was unsettling to face not an actual person, but a camera, especially one so close that it seemed like the lens was a black hole about to swallow him. Jax caught a glimpse of Mako’s monitor. The shot was so tight that it was all eyes — not quite purple yet, but a turbulent blue that betrayed his discomfort. He took a deep breath, determined to justify the director’s faith in him. Dr. Mako wanted this, so Jax intended to ace it.
“Rolling,” Ray reported.
Jax forced the camera from his mind and convinced himself that he was looking across the table at one of Sentia’s most pliable subjects, Ms. North Carolina, perhaps, or Mr. Pennsylvania.
“Relax …” he said quietly. “Look into my eyes … clear your mind … you are very comfortable … very happy …” He blinked, startled, when a PIP image appeared. How could that come from a camera, which had no mind for him to link with? Was it just a reflection from the lens? The vision of himself seemed to be framed, like a picture.
He soldiered on. “Now you are content and at ease. When I clap my hands, you’ll be awake, feeling wonderful. You will remember nothing of this. But” — he paused, as he would with a live subject — “the next time you hear a police siren, you will come to attention in a salute, which you will hold for thirty seconds.” He wasn’t sure whether Dr. Mako wanted him to or not, since you couldn’t wake up a camera, but he went through the whole routine, finishing with a sharp clap.
“Excellent,” the director approved. He signaled to Ray to stop filming. “Now let’s run that back.”
“Sure thing, boss.” The cameraman fiddled with controls to call up the recording. All at once, he leaped to his feet and snapped to a rigid military salute.
It was only then that they heard the police siren in the street outside the institute.
Jax was thunderstruck. “He’s bent! I hypnotized him through the camera!”
Dr. Mako wore a triumphant smile. “It’s not as if it’s the first time your gift has touched our Ramolo. He does a very creditable chicken, I’m told.”
“But he wasn’t looking at me!” Jax persisted. “He only saw me through the lens! And the image I got — it was framed like the viewfinder!”
“You’re very powerful, Jackson.”
“Yeah — face-to-face! Ray was just looking at a monitor!” Another thought occurred to Jax. “Does that mean the recording can hypnotize, too?”
“No one has ever had the ability to hypnotize remotely,” the director lectured. “Surely Ms. Samuels has taught you that.”
“I know, but what’s a viewfinder?” Jax persisted. “A screen! The one that bent Ray is no different than the screen of any TV or computer or phone!”
“I wish I had an answer for you,” Dr. Mako admitted. “Hypnotism is not an exact science like chemistry or physics. We know that electricity is the movement of charged particles, and that light is made up of photons. But nobody truly understands the nuts and bolts of how mesmeri
c power is transmitted.”
At that moment, Ray broke out of his salute. As if nothing had happened, he ejected the memory card and offered it to Dr. Mako. “Where do you want this, boss?”
“Shouldn’t we watch it?” Jax queried. “You know, to make sure it came out okay?”
The director accepted the chip and tucked it into the pocket of his custom-tailored suit. “I saw it live on my monitor. It’s perfect. Excellent work.”
Another siren sounded outside, and Ray whipped into his formal salute.
Dr. Mako smiled. “I suppose I should have chosen something that doesn’t happen so frequently in New York City.”
Jax looked embarrassed. “I haven’t learned how to undo the suggestion yet.”
“Oh, I’ll take care of that,” the director assured him. He looked over at the Amazing Ramolo, standing ramrod straight. “That’s quite a fine salute. I wonder if Ray was ever in the army.”
Tommy slammed his locker shut and turned to his friend. “You should listen to yourself, Opus. All you do is complain. At least you got picked for something. The last time I got picked for something? Third grade. Hall monitor. Got so nervous I threw up, slipped in my own barf, and broke my wrist.”
“You don’t know what it’s like,” Jax said. “My dad won’t look at me because he’s afraid of being bent. My mother’s ticked off at Dad because he never told her about his family. And both of them would hit the roof if they knew about the night I went to the West Village to meet with sandmen.”
They started down the hall toward science class. “If I could hypnotize people, I wouldn’t be cooling my heels in any Laundromat,” Tommy grumbled. “I’d be out there using my magic powers. It would be Christmas twenty-four-seven.”
“That’s the one thing the Sandman’s Guild got right,” Jax countered. “It’s not good to get everything you want. That’s what those guys tried to do, and their lives went bad because of it. Half of them did time; they’ve lost their families, their homes; and now they’re breaking their necks trying to kick the habit.”
“You sound like my mother,” Tommy said sourly. “If you were a real friend, you’d be tossing a little of that alakazam my way.”
“The power isn’t transferable.”
“You could get Mrs. Baker to find a few extra points in that math test,” Tommy wheedled. “Maybe bump me up to a C-minus.”
“That’s exactly the kind of thing that lands you in the Sandman’s Guild,” Jax warned.
“What about Carol Ann Darby?” Tommy persisted.
“What about her?”
“You could hypnotize her to think I’m hot. And cool — not in the temperature sense, I mean —”
“Never!” Jax exclaimed. “Even the sandmen wouldn’t stoop that low! It was lesson number one in Hypno-Ethics class!”
“What’s so bad about it?” Tommy challenged. “Bringing two people together. It’s like an online dating site.”
Jax was disgusted. “First off, it’s sleazy. Second, it doesn’t really work. Sooner or later, it always wears off. Here’s a crazy thought: If you want Carol Ann to be into you, don’t act like a dork every time she walks into the room.”
“Thanks for being so helpful. You’re a pal.”
They took their seats and riffled through their lab books to today’s experiment. A group of girls sat down on the other side of the room, Carol Ann among them. Her eyes met Jax’s briefly, and for an instant he toyed with the idea of how easy it would be to bend her. Not to make her fall madly in love with Tommy. Just to make her appreciate him a little, maybe think he was funny, or something.
Of course, he could be kicked out of Sentia for something like that.
At the next desk, Tommy was folding his homework into an elaborate paper airplane. Jax elbowed him in the ribs, and shook his head no. But his friend was not to be discouraged. He was going to get Carol Ann to notice him or die trying.
With an artistic flick of the wrist, he launched his creation into flight. An updraft took it across the room, where it bumped the wall and began sailing back to him like a boomerang. He was about to pluck it triumphantly out of the air when a large hand snatched it away from his grasp, crumpled it up, and tossed it in the nearest wastebasket. The teacher, Mr. Morrison.
“Hey, that was my homework!” Tommy said plaintively.
The whole class laughed.
Carol Ann and her friends were rolling their eyes as Tommy rummaged through the trash to come up with his paper. There must have been food in there because the page was grease-stained as he attempted to smooth it out. This got a round of applause. Tommy took a bow, smearing his T-shirt in the process.
If he’s trying to get Carol Ann to notice him, he’s doing great. If he wants her to like him, then not so much.
A thought occurred to Jax. He couldn’t bend Carol Ann into loving Tommy. But would it be so terrible to use a little hypnotism to boost his friend’s confidence? Nothing fancy, just a bit of extra self-assurance so the poor kid wouldn’t think he had to be a clown to get a girl’s attention. It was for Tommy’s own good, after all. Even Axel Braintree couldn’t argue with that.
One problem: Jax hadn’t been able to bend Tommy before. But surely it was worth another try.
Tommy was in his seat again now, dabbing at the ketchup stain with a wadded-up Kleenex. Jax gave him the stare with both barrels.
He ratcheted his gaze up to full power. Thanks to his Sentia training, his mesmeric skills were so focused that he could usually rouse a PIP image in a matter of seconds. But to Tommy, the vivid blues and purples of the hypnotist’s eyes were bland shades of gray. He misinterpreted the stare as disapproval for the paper-airplane incident, and fired back an it-wasn’t-my-fault shrug.
Jax soldiered on. “You are a cool and happening guy,” he said in a low voice. “You don’t need to act like an idiot to get a girl to like you….”
“What are you talking about, Opus?” Tommy whispered back. “Even I don’t think I’m cool.”
A PIP image opened up in front of him.
That’s impossible! Tommy isn’t hypnotized!
Remembering the incident with the lunch lady, he looked around the lab to see if anyone had ended up in the line of fire by mistake. All eyes were on Mr. Morrison, who had begun lecturing. No one was focused on Jax with that vacant, expectant look.
Yet the vision persisted, growing more vivid.
Who did I bend?
According to Dr. Mako, it was impossible to generate the image without a hypnotized subject.
Am I so wrapped up in Sentia that I don’t know what I’m looking at anymore?
The picture began to come into focus. It was Jax in extreme close-up — already illogical, since the subject would have to be sitting in his lap for this point-blank view. Yet those were his eyes, his forehead, the bridge of his nose….
In that instant, Jax knew with absolute certainty what he was looking at.
It was the video — the one that had hypnotized Ray during filming!
Someone, somewhere, was watching that recording and getting bent. And the blowback was coming to Jax, miles away.
I was right! If an accomplished mind-bender like Ray can be mesmerized through a viewfinder, the same thing could happen to anyone watching that clip!
It was a major discovery! He had to tell Dr. Mako!
“Mr. Opus.” The teacher’s sarcastic voice penetrated Jax’s swirling thoughts. “Are you having a seizure, or do you need to go to the bathroom?”
“Dude, you’re bouncing like a Ping-Pong ball,” Tommy hissed.
“I — I gotta go!” He was up and out of the lab like a shot. The PIP was still dead center in his field of vision, so it was a miracle he made it to the bathroom without falling flat on his face or running full tilt into a wall.
He locked himself in a stall and waited, hyperventilating, for the vision to clear. It did eventually, but that did nothing to restore his calm. Trembling, he fumbled for his cell phone and dialed Sentia.
“It’s Jackson Opus.” He gasped. “I need to talk to Dr. Mako right away!”
“Dr. Mako’s in a closed session,” the receptionist informed him.
“Oh, for sure I know that!” Jax exclaimed. He’s showing someone my video — and he doesn’t know the effect it’s having!
As usual, getting through to the director was like calling the Vatican and asking to speak to the Pope. Eventually, when Jax would not be denied, they bounced his call to Ms. Samuels.
“Jax — what’s so urgent that it can’t wait until this afternoon?”
Breathlessly, Jax panted out what had just happened to him and his theory as to why. “Don’t you see? It should be impossible for me to have that vision unless I’ve bent somebody. But I haven’t! It must be coming from the video.”
Ms. Samuels was her usual unflappable self. “I’ll try to get your message to Dr. Mako, but I can’t guarantee anything. He’s absolutely booked solid, and he’s asked not to be interrupted.”
“Yeah, because he’s showing people my recording! And it’s hypnotizing them!”
“Calm down,” she soothed. “I’ll see you in a few hours. There’s nothing we can do now.”
The rest of the day was a blur. Who could concentrate on Robert Frost or the Stamp Act when there was something going on that even Elias Mako didn’t understand? The director had said it outright: No one has ever been able to hypnotize remotely. Yet that was exactly what had just taken place!
By the time Ms. Samuels greeted Jax at Sentia after school, Dr. Mako was out of the office at “important meetings.”
“More important than this?” Jax demanded.
“I gave him your message, and he’s looking into it,” she told him. “He doesn’t want you jumping to any conclusions.”
Jax thought his head was going to explode. “What other conclusion could there possibly be?”
The supermodel features relaxed into a sympathetic smile. “Dr. Mako’s on it. That’s all we can ask for.”
School had been hard enough, but to sit through History of Hypnotism when hypnotic history was being made right inside his head was pure torture. Who cared about the lost first draft of The Lord of the Rings in which Gandalf was a mind-bender, not a wizard? Who cared about the Gestapo interrogators who’d used mesmerism during World War II? The most important piece of news was breaking now — if Dr. Mako would bother to listen to him!