Page 69 of Brainwashed

“Come in,” Johansson hollers, quietly. His demeanor allows for zero loudness. I’m sure even when he shouts, it’s just like a regular person’s speaking.

Stepping into his office, I find his usual posse already inside. Johansson is seated at his desk, Dr. Templeton is across the room with his nose buried in some charts, and the one who’s apparently not a doctor, though he’s still treated like one by the others, Abel Figueroa, sits on a small love seat against the wall.

I’ve received nothing but warm welcome from this little trio, but if we’re being honest, I’m even more skeptical of them than I am of Officer Chevelle and his band of morally questionable meatheads. Basically, the moment I was done shaking their hands, I was looking into all of them.

Unsurprisingly, Figueroa is the one with the least amount of paper trail. He did attend university in Cartagena—conveniently where Manuel Blanco is from—though he never graduated. I couldn’t find any sort of work history, outside of a few odd jobs in Colombia, before immigrating to the States, roughly ten years ago.

Templeton is from Scotland. He graduated from the University of Edinburgh with his PhD in Behavioral Medicine, and I suppose it’s somewhere around there that he first made acquaintance with Dr. Johansson.

Dr. Jarvis Johansson is the most interesting of all of them, and of course that would make him the most suspect. Born in Norway, he attended school there, then got his PhD from The Karolinska Institutet in Sweden. After that, he began publishing journals on his research into methods like electroshock therapy and the trans-orbital lobotomy, and being that it was the eighties, he’d missed the boat on most of that stuff, and was shunned by the medical community.

He did, however, accumulate a bit of a cult following for his ideals, and was approached by the CIA for some off-the-books work. I’m sure he’d never expect me to know these things, but my connections are exceptional, and from what I understand, the bizarre methods of practice are exactly what led him here.

The main man offers me a curt smile and gestures to a seat across from him at his desk. “Please, Doctor, come sit.”

Doing so, I wander over and have a seat, subtly checking on the other two as I do. Templeton isn’t paying me a single glance of attention, seemingly fascinated by whatever he’s reading, while Figueroa is practically bouncing in his seat, looking all measures of eager.

I can’t help the appraisingly skeptical look I give him before turning back to Johansson. “So… what’s the news?”

Johansson leans in on his desk, giving me his full attention as he says, “I would like for you to sit in on more of our experiments.”

Folding my arms, I sit back in my seat. “I see…”

“Felix seems to have taken a shine to you. Moreover, he trusts you. And while I respect that the information you’re gathering during your sessions is exclusive to the Warden…” I give him a kind ofduhhead movement. I know for a fact he’s chomping at the bit to listen to my Felix tapes, but I’m all set. My job is to study The Carver and report to Manuel Blanco. No one else. “I also think that having you here and involved in the experiments could be only beneficial to our success.”

I’m quiet while I think about what he’s saying. Since the moment I started here, Johansson has been eager to collaborate with me. He thinks that if we put our heads together, our Darcey research could reach leaps and bounds over anything any of us have been able to achieve with patients before.

What he doesn’t understand, though, is that I work alone for a reason. I have my ways, and I don’t like other people entrenching on that.I’m sure I sound like a massive control freak, but if it looks like a duck, waddles and quacks like a duck, then guess what…

“I can see that you’re hesitant,” Johansson jumps back in. “But I assure you, you won’t be when you see what we’ve been working on.”

He gives a quick nod to Figueroa, who launches up excitedly, rushing over the wall on the far side of the room. He pulls down a white projector screen, then Johansson turns on the projector feature on his laptop. Instantly, a video begins to play on the wall.

It’s Felix. He’s being brought into the examination room and sat down in the chair. Then the orderly removes his pants. And his boxers.

The ones I got him.

I feel myself stiffen, but I ignore it and keep watching the screen as Johansson and Templeton ready their EEG machine, and the orderly shackles Felix’s ankles and neck to the chair, before stepping off to the side. Templeton snaps on a rubber glove and pours what looks like some kind of lubrication into his hand.

My eyes fling to the tall Scot, who’s still just standing across the room, reading through a file. He seems either unaware or uninterested in the fact that we’re all sitting here watching recorded footage of him touching a young man’s dick.

Literally.There’s a roughly sixty-inch projection on the wall of Dr. Templeton masturbating Felix Darcey while he struggles against his straitjacket and restraints.

The strangest thing happens inside me. This burning tightness knots my stomach, spreading its way up my esophagus until it feels like a man made of fire is sitting on my chest.

I don’t understand this reaction, or its source. It’s confusing as hell, feeling this way. But it won’t stop. And the more I watch of Felix’s dick now being pushed into a sex toy while Johansson stands there monitoring his brain activity, the more I feel like I might Hulk-rage right out of my clothes.

It could be because Felix clearly doesn’t want what’s happening in the video. His face is contorted in displeasure, tension, and unease, which only seems to fade partially when he closes his eyes. I’m not one to become uncomfortable on behalf of my patients, but I certainly possess empathy. And this is video footage of my patient being sexually assaulted in the name of research.

Or maybe that’s why I’m so upset right now? Because Felix Darcey ismypatient more than he is theirs—says the Warden, after all. If anyone is going to overpower him in order to obtain some kind of behavioral tidbit, it should be me.

I find myself gulping while I watch Felix squirm. His black-framed glasses sliding down his pointed nose a bit, chestnut hair mussed about and sort of sweaty at the temples. It reminds me of the shower yesterday, when I watched him. I’ve never seen someone shower with glasses on. I think Felix’s sight is very important to him. Removing his glasses makes him feel exposed, impotent.

Like he is right now, in this video.

Templeton picks up a black glass dildo from the counter and lubricates it. And the first hefty frisson of discomfort causes my spine to straighten.

“What is the point of this??” I turn and bark at Johansson, my eyes flinging to Templeton, who still isn’t paying any attention. But at my accusatory tone, his gaze springs up for just a moment. I clear my throat, remembering myself. “I just mean, what sorts of results are you looking for from sexual stimulation?”