“No. In this room.”
“Well, he isn’t here, Jax. It’s as simple as that.”
Jax’s eyes panned the main work area of the Hypnotic Warfare Research Department — the drab walls painted battleship gray, the beige furniture that clashed, the round table that served as their dining and break area, the various work stations, and —
His gaze landed on his own computer, its monitor still displaying the night sky of Constellation Factory. A faint connection registered in his overheated brain.
He was searching for the source of the mesmeric energy radiating from FreeForAll. Mesmeric energy came from mind-benders.
Stanley was a mind-bender.
Suddenly, he had the answer. Or, at least, a theory.
Monica Opus peeked around the kitchen doorway to regard her son. Jax was seated at the dining room table, where the family kept the computer. He was facing away from the screen, staring off into space, motionless, his head slightly cocked.
“What’s he doing?” she whispered to her husband.
“He’s hogging the computer,” he replied irritably. “I need to get on there to water my lawn.”
“Ashton, be serious! He’s been like that for at least an hour and a half. Why would he need the computer and then sit there and ignore it?”
Jax’s father frowned. “He’s not ignoring it exactly. He looks like he’s concentrating on something.”
“Uh-oh.” Mrs. Opus’s eyes narrowed. “I smell hocus-pocus.”
“Please don’t call it that. I don’t love hypnotism either. My mother bent me every time she needed someone to take out the garbage. But our son is so gifted that his own government called for his talents to help the Department of Defense. How many of us are ever that good at anything?”
“I wish he wasn’t,” she said fervently. “What kind of life is this for a twelve-year-old? He should be hanging out with classmates, not colonels.”
Her husband nodded sadly. “We’re so fixated on how miserable we are that we’ve lost sight of how hard this is on Jax.”
“But that still doesn’t explain what he’s doing there,” Mrs. Opus persisted.
“He’s probably not doing anything,” Mr. Opus soothed. “There’s nobody here to hypnotize but us, and besides, he’s facing away from the webcam. Chances are, he’s just staring off into space while his life marches on without him. I know I’ve done my share of that these past few months.”
“Ashton, what are we going to do? When does the time come for us to tell Colonel Brassmeyer that he’s going to have to find a way to get along without our son?”
Her husband frowned. “You’re forgetting Mako. Just because we can’t see all this hypnotism doesn’t mean the air isn’t crackling with it. A construction worker killed Axel Braintree, but there’s no question that Mako compelled him to do it. And we both saw him make Jax take a dive off a fifteen-story balcony. We need the army’s protection.”
At the dining room table, Jax was so lost in concentration that he missed his parents’ urgent whispering from the kitchen. For the past hour and a half he had been listening to the background noise of Constellation Factory — futuristic electronic music mixed with bleeps and pings from outer space. It was so boring that the biggest challenge was to keep from nodding off in his chair.
But this was the site that had been giving off strange mesmeric energy. It was also the site that had been open when Jax had heard Stanley’s voice during the brawl with Wilson. Those two facts had to be connected. And Jax had a theory that might explain everything.
Everyone believed that Jax was the only mind-bender who could hypnotize remotely. What if someone else could do it, too — someone like Stanley? The kid was powerful enough. Jax was Opus and Sparks, but Stanley was Arcanov. And Stanley had bent Jax one-on-one at HoWaRD that time.
The theory was this: A hypnotic message from Stanley was going out over FreeForAll. That’s what Jax had overheard while he’d been wrestling with Wilson. And why hadn’t he noticed the message during his many hours playing Constellation Factory? The answer came from his own role in Operation Aurora. At the end of the video clip, he had commanded his viewers to forget ever having seen or heard him. Surely Stanley would be using the same order — and Stanley was capable of hypnotizing Jax!
Jax hadn’t missed Stanley’s message on FreeForAll. He’d probably heard it dozens of times. But he’d been bent and instructed to forget it.
There was only one way to prove this crazy hypothesis. He had to sit here — facing away from the screen — until the message came up again. If he could hear it without seeing it and becoming hypnotized, he’d be able to remember it.
His father emerged from the kitchen to stand over him. “Penny for your thoughts, kid?”
“Hi, Dad.”
“Any chance of me getting on the machine?” Ashton Opus grinned sheepishly. “My grass is dying as we speak.”
Lawn Master was a FreeForAll game, just like Constellation Factory. If, as Jax suspected, Stanley’s hypnotic message was being distributed via the entire site, it should come up anywhere on FreeForAll.
“Sure, Dad. Knock yourself out.”
He relinquished the seat, and leaned against the side of the table, careful to keep his eyes averted from the monitor.
“Will you look at that!” complained Mr. Opus as his virtual lawn appeared. “It’s turning brown already! And is that crab grass?”
“At least there are no dandelions,” Jax soothed.
“What I really need is Weed-n-Feed, but I don’t have enough coins. Hmmm, the Lawn Doctor pack is nine ninety-nine, but I can upgrade to Greens-Keeper level for another five bucks….” His voice trailed off.
Jax waited for more. His father was focused on the screen with a fierce intensity.
A child’s voice came out of the speakers. “Look into my eyes….”
Stanley!
Jax whipped his phone out of his pocket. It was already set to the microphone app. Breathlessly, he tapped RECORD.
“You are very relaxed…. Everything is wonderful, and you’re happy to listen to what I have to say. In a few seconds, I’ll clap my hands, and you’ll remember nothing of me or this message. You’ll go back to your regular routine — until Wednesday, October Twenty-Fourth, at nine AM Eastern time. That’s six AM Pacific, two PM Greenwich Mean, ten PM in Japan. Take a moment to think about what time this will be for you…. At that moment, you will stop what you’re doing and remain motionless. It is incredibly urgent that you do this exactly the way I’ve described it….”
Jax listened in growing horror. It was Operation Aurora all over again! But this time it wasn’t happening in one isolated test town in the middle of the desert. FreeForAll was the most popular site on the web, with users in the billions. This was going worldwide! Why else would Stanley make such a big deal of getting the time zones right?
How could Brassmeyer be so crazy? They saw what happened in Delta Prime! It was a total meltdown! Who could guess how many people would have died if helicopters hadn’t been standing by to pluck out the injured and fly them to medical attention?
But there weren’t enough helicopters on earth to respond to an Operation Aurora that was happening everywhere at the same time!
It would be nothing less than a catastrophe on a global scale.
“You will stay perfectly still,” Stanley’s voice continued, “until you hear this special word — the name of what I’m holding in my hand right now. Remember it well …”
Jax was torn in two. He had to see what the boy was holding. But the instant he looked, he’d be in danger of being hypnotized and forgetting everything he’d just heard. And then he’d be unable to sound the alarm.
“You will have no memory of what I’ve told you.” The sound of Stanley’s clap made Jax jump.
Mr. Opus blinked as he came out of his mesmeric trance.
“Dad,” Jax ventured tentatively, “do you remember what you just saw?”
“Of course,” his father
replied. “The Greens-Keeper pack is a better deal. You get triple the coins, plus Weed-n-Feed….”
Jax’s heart sank. Before his very eyes, he’d watched Dad fall victim to this Super Aurora. He fought off the impulse to hypnotize his father himself and try to undo the damage. Once planted, a post-hypnotic suggestion was virtually impossible to counteract. Besides, Stanley’s message was running constantly. A FreeForAll fanatic like Ashton Opus would be bent and re-bent dozens of times in the coming weeks, along with millions of others. Who knew how many had already been implanted with the post-hypnotic suggestion? If this continued on the world’s top website, by October 24, billions could be impacted. And the destruction and loss of life — he thought back to little Delta Prime. It was beyond imagining.
He shuddered with a surge of anger toward Colonel Brassmeyer. And Captain Pedroia, too. The psychiatrist had told him that Stanley had been adopted, knowing full well that the eight-year-old had been removed from the rest of HoWaRD in order to lead this horrific experiment!
And how gullible was I to believe it?
Jax felt himself reddening with shame. He’d actually considered Pedroia a nice guy. Now he realized the psychiatrist was no different than Brassmeyer or any of those military types — ruthless, single-minded robots programmed to do anything to complete the mission, no matter what the cost.
I ought to take my size-eleven boots back!
But a pair of boots, or catching someone in a lie, meant little compared with the huge cataclysm the Hypnotic Warfare Research Department was about to unleash on an unsuspecting world. Jax had to stop it.
But how?
Colonel Brassmeyer’s aide was gone for the day, so the outer office was deserted.
Jax kicked open the inner door and barked, “What do you think you’re doing?”
The colonel didn’t glance up from some papers he was examining. “What now, Opus?”
“It’s another Aurora, isn’t it?” Jax accused. “With Stanley this time.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about. Stanley’s gone —”
“From here maybe!” Jax cut him off. “You moved him someplace safe, because this time your little experiment is going to trash the world, not just a fake town!”
Now Brassmeyer did look up, his face a mixture of anger and concern. “I’m not sure where you got this crazy idea, Opus, but you’re way out of line. What are you talking about?”
In answer, Jax tapped the PLAY button on his phone. “You are very relaxed,” came Stanley’s voice. “Everything is wonderful, and you’re happy to listen to what I have to say….”
Brassmeyer sat forward in his chair, listening intently as the message played out. “Where did you get that?”
“Like you don’t know,” Jax shot back. “It’s on FreeForAll, playing over and over, reaching two billion users. Come October Twenty-Fourth, what happened in Delta Prime is going to happen worldwide — and this time you won’t be able to control it with a few helicopters and a field hospital. Why would you do such a terrible thing? Did the army order you to do it? Does the president know?”
For the first time, Brassmeyer’s voice was deathly quiet. “Sit down and shut up.”
Jax was too agitated to sit, but he folded his arms in front of him to await the explanation that surely must be coming.
“I can’t tell you what the president knows. He doesn’t give orders to me. He doesn’t even give orders to the guy who does give orders to me. There are a lot of levels between the president and me. It’s called a chain of command, and it’s something that you’re completely incapable of figuring out. Maybe it’s your fancy New York upbringing, but for some reason you think you’re always entitled to ask the question why? In the army that’s the one question that is none of your business. You take orders, you give orders, you follow orders. That’s all there is.”
Jax opened his mouth to protest, but Brassmeyer held up his hand. “Just this once, I’m going to answer your big fat why. It’s a hoax.”
“I heard it with my own ears,” Jax persisted. “My dad got bent by it.”
“Unleashing that message on a global scale isn’t an exercise, it’s a doomsday machine,” the colonel insisted. “Nobody’s crazy enough to do that! That’s what operations like Aurora are all about — to see what a weapon is capable of and analyze the consequences of using it. Think logically! How does the army benefit from wrecking the world? We’d be destroying ourselves, too.”
“If the army isn’t doing it,” Jax challenged, “then who is?”
“That’s what I’m telling you. Nobody is.”
Jax waved his phone in Brassmeyer’s face. “Then what’s this recording? That’s Stanley’s voice!”
The colonel shook his head. “It’s a kid’s voice, I’ll grant you that. But it can’t be Stanley. He’s out of the picture. Besides, you have no evidence that he’s capable of the kind of remote hypnotism you are.”
“Is he?” Jax probed.
“That’s classified.”
“I have all the evidence I need — the fact that he did it! I’ve got it on tape! What more do you need? The only thing I don’t have is the trigger word to turn it all off. I couldn’t see what he was holding without looking at the screen and getting bent myself!”
Brassmeyer picked up the phone. “I’m calling Pedroia. You may be my problem, but the fact that you’re losing it is his problem.”
Jax’s mind raced. If he let this call go through, the psychiatrist would be there soon. As long as Jax was still one-on-one with the colonel, he had an advantage.
He opened his eyes wide for maximum power and turned them on Brassmeyer. The colonel reached to clamp a hand over Jax’s face, letting go of the receiver, which clattered to the desktop. Jax backed away just a step, keeping his mesmerizing stare trained on his opponent.
Brassmeyer turned his face aside. “You’re making a big mistake!” he gasped.
Jax lunged to get himself back into his subject’s line of sight, but the colonel kept his eyes averted. Determined to regain his attention, Jax snatched a vase off a shelf and smashed it to the floor. It broke into a million pieces. Involuntarily, Brassmeyer wheeled in the direction of the sound of shattering pottery. Jax was in position to intercept his gaze. For a moment, the PIP was right there — himself as the colonel saw him. Then the image swung away as Brassmeyer nearly broke his neck to avoid Jax’s hypnotic assault. Jax could see his face mirrored in the glass of the framed West Point diploma on the wall.
How am I going to get him? Jax thought desperately. All he has to do is keep staring at that diploma!
And then he had the answer. He focused in on his subject’s image in the glass and shuffled forward until their eyes locked. And there, through the reflection, the mesmeric link was formed.
The connection was slow and weak, and when the PIP reappeared, it showed Jax’s face in the glass of the frame, his eyes dark and luminous, but not any distinct color. He felt like the hypnotic equivalent of a lion tamer, trying to control a powerful and unpredictable beast through feeble, unreliable means.
“That’s it,” Jax said nervously. “No reason to be so angry…. Everything is going your way, and you’re very calm….” He almost giggled. Calm was a word that could never be used to describe this man. “Now relax…. All is well…. Have a seat.”
The PIP image vanished for a moment as the colonel all but collapsed into his chair. Jax hurriedly sat on the edge of the desk and reestablished eye contact. The connection was stronger now, and Jax’s comfort level grew.
“You have to believe what I tell you because it’s true.” Now that he was sure that the army was not behind Stanley’s message, it was urgent to convince the colonel that the danger was real. “Someone is using Stanley X to create a ginormous Operation Aurora that will affect the whole world. This is the greatest threat that you have ever faced as an army officer. Nothing else even comes close. Do you understand?”
“Acknowledged.” Bent or not, he was all mil
itary.
“So what do we do?” Jax asked urgently.
“Stanley has become an unacceptable threat. Threats must be neutralized,” Brassmeyer replied immediately.
“How?” Jax persisted.
“Targeted assassination.”
“No!” It was like a blow to the stomach. “I mean — uh — isn’t there a less drastic way to handle it? He’s just a kid.”
“Mesmeric power is a military asset but also a potential danger, as human nature is impossible to control. The only fail-safe way to contain a rogue mind-bender is to eliminate him altogether.”
It was an automatic reply that sent a chill down Jax’s spine. The way Brassmeyer recited it made it clear that this was not just a spur-of-the-moment response. It was policy — and it would apply to every single one of them. If Jax, and not Stanley, were the threat here, he would be the one in the crosshairs.
I should have known!
Of course the army had a plan for what to do to hypnotists who went off the rails. The army had a plan for everything. While HoWaRD was welcoming them to use their powers to serve their country, there was a contingency in place to eliminate them if those same powers ever got out of hand.
“Okay,” he said in a small voice. “Scratch that. You will forget everything I just told you about Stanley. You will leave Stanley alone.” His heart was racing. This didn’t solve the problem of the global Aurora that was coming.
He had a flash of inspiration. “Tell me everything you know about the people who adopted Stanley.”
Instantly, Jax sensed a change in the colonel’s attitude. A prolonged mesmeric link conveyed more than words and images. It was a connection of two minds — a sharing of emotion and personality. Brassmeyer was a hard man. His no-nonsense toughness came through every bit as clearly as the picture-in-picture image of what he saw. Yet as soon as Jax mentioned Stanley’s adoption, a warmth and even joy began to leach through the mental conduit.
“His name is Ferguson,” Brassmeyer replied. “A family man, a good man. He was so happy to have found the child of his long-lost cousin….”