End of Watch (Bill Hodges Trilogy #3)(92)

‘Yeah,’ Z-Boy said.

Freddi switched her attention to Brady. ‘Do you know who this Dr Z is?’

Brady shook his head slowly back and forth.

‘Sure it’s not you? Because this looks like your work.’

Brady only stared at her vacantly until she looked away. He had let her see more of him than Hodges or anyone on the nursing or PT staff, but he had no intention of letting her see into him. Not at this point, at least. Too much chance she might talk. Besides, he still didn’t know exactly what he was doing. They said that the world would beat a path to your door if you built a better mousetrap, but since he did not as yet know if this one would catch mice, it was best to keep quiet. And Dr Z didn’t exist yet.

But he would.

On an afternoon not long after Freddi received the electronic recipe explaining just how to jigger the Fishin’ Hole demo screen, Z-Boy visited Felix Babineau in his office. The doctor spent an hour there most days he was in the hospital, drinking coffee and reading the newspaper. There was an indoor putting green by the window (no parking garage view for Babineau), where he sometimes practiced his short game. That was where he was when Z-Boy came in without knocking.

Babineau looked at him coldly. ‘Can I help you? Are you lost?’

Z-Boy held out Zappit Zero, which Freddi had upgraded (after buying several new computer components paid for out of Al Brooks’s rapidly shrinking savings account). ‘Look at this,’ he said. ‘I’ll tell you what to do.’

‘You need to leave,’ Babineau said. ‘I don’t know what kind of bee you have in your bonnet, but this is my private space and my private time. Or do you want me to call security?’

‘Look at it, or you’ll be seeing yourself on the evening news. “Doctor performs experiments with untested South American drug on accused mass murderer Brady Hartsfield.”’

Babineau stared at him with his mouth open, at that moment looking very much as he would after Brady began to whittle away his core consciousness. ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’

‘I’m talking about Cerebellin. Years away from FDA approval, if ever. I accessed your file and took two dozen photos with my phone. I also took photos of the brain scans you’ve been keeping to yourself. You broke lots of laws, Doc. Look at the game and it stays between us. Refuse, and your career is over. I’ll give you five seconds to decide.’

Babineau took the game and looked at the swimming fish. The little tune tinkled. Every now and then there was a flash of blue light.

‘Start tapping the pink ones, doctor. They’ll turn into numbers. Add them up in your head.’

‘How long do I have to do this for?’

‘You’ll know.’

‘Are you crazy?’

‘You lock your office when you’re not here, which is smart, but there are lots of all-access security cards floating around this place. And you left your computer on, which seems kind of crazy to me. Look at the fish. Tap the pink ones. Add up the numbers. That’s all you have to do, and I’ll leave you alone.’

‘This is blackmail.’

‘No, blackmail is for money. This is just a trade. Look at the fish. I won’t ask you again.’

Babineau looked at the fish. He tapped at a pink one and missed. He tapped again, missed again. Muttered ‘Fuck!’ under his breath. It was quite a bit harder than it looked, and he began to get interested. The blue flashes should have been annoying, but they weren’t. They actually seemed to help him focus. Alarm at what this geezer knew started to fade into the background of his thoughts.

He succeeded in tapping one of the pink fish before it could shoot off the left side of the screen and got a nine. That was good. A good start. He forgot why he was doing this. Catching the pink fish was the important thing.

The tune played.

One floor up, in Room 217, Brady stared at his own Zappit, and felt his breathing slow. He closed his eyes and looked at a single red dot. That was Z-Boy. He waited … waited … and then, just as he was beginning to think his target might be immune, a second dot appeared. It was faint at first, but gradually grew bright and clear.

Like watching a rose blossom, Brady thought.

The two dots began to swim playfully back and forth. He settled his concentration on the one that was Babineau. It slowed and became stationary.

Gotcha, Brady thought.

But he had to be careful. This was a stealth mission.

The eyes he opened were Babineau’s. The doctor was still staring at the fish, but he had ceased to tap them. He had become … what was the word they used? A gork. He had become a gork.

Brady did not linger on that first occasion, but it didn’t take long to understand the wonders to which he’d gained access. Al Brooks was a piggy bank. Felix Babineau was a vault. Brady had access to his memories, his stored knowledge, his abilities. While in Al, he could have rewired an electrical circuit. In Babineau, he could have performed a craniotomy and rewired a human brain. Further, he had proof of something he had only theorized about and hoped for: he could take possession of others at a distance. All it took was that state of Zappit-induced hypnosis to open them up. The Zappit Freddi had modified made for a very efficient eye-trap, and good God, it worked so fast.

He couldn’t wait to use it on Hodges.

Before leaving, Brady released a few thoughtfish into Babineau’s brain, but only a few. He intended to move very carefully with the doctor. Babineau needed to be thoroughly habituated to the screen – which was now what those specializing in hypnosis called an inducement device – before Brady announced himself. One of that day’s thoughtfish was the idea that the CAT scans on Brady weren’t producing anything of real interest, and ought to cease. The Cerebellin shots should also cease.