Free The Shadow of Reichenbach Falls by John R. King Page A

headed for the surgical theater. I leaned over to Silence and whispered, “We’re in!”
    “We’ll see.”
    Not a moment later, the door to the surgical theater burst open, and out rushed a jowly doctor with eyes ablaze and fingers riling. “Where’s the amnesiac?”
    The nurse strode out behind him and gestured to Silence. “Right here.”
    “Excellent! Excellent!” The doctor gripped Silence’s good arm and levered him up from the chair. “Mr. Thomas, my name is Gottlieb Burckhardt.”
    “Gottlieb …” Silence muttered. “That’s German for ‘God’s love.”’
    “Come this way, Mr. Thomas. I have just what you need. Just the thing to restore your mind.”

15
    ELECTROCUTION
    M y misgivings only deepen as I clap eyes on Dr. Gottlieb Burckhardt. The man’s wide eyes, florid cheeks, and slack mouth show that he believes he has just found his salvation. But why would I be this man’s salvation? What doctor ever greets a patient this way? “Gottlieb,” I say wonderingly. “That’s German for ‘God’s love.”’
    He practically hauls me out of my seat and across the floor to the surgical theater. I glance back at Thomas, but he only nods, proud of the little deceit he has pulled off.
    But who is deceiving whom?
    Dr. Burckhardt ushers me into the surgical theater. The room hosts two examination tables surrounded by tiers of benches. Dr. Burckhardt guides me to one of the tables, arranged in a star shape with separate sections for head and body and legs and feet. “Guten Morgen. Sprechen Sie Deutsch?”
    “Ah—English, actually.”
    “Sit here, sir,” he says, patting the middle of the table.
    I do sit.
    The doctor goes to a closet, where he plucks out a strange contraption—a machine about the size of a breadbox, with a crank jutting out one end and thick black wires emerging from both sides. The wires are woven copper with a coating of black rubber over them, and each wire ends in a metal alligator clip.
    “What’s that?” I ask.
    The doctor crooks a look my way and says, “You’re an amnesiac, yes?”
    “Yes.”
    “Then I imagine you do not know of the Austrian inventor named Nikola Tesla.”
    “I imagine I do not,” I respond.
    “Nikola Tesla and scientists on both sides of the Atlantic,” begins Dr. Burckhardt with a professorial air, “have developed the therapeutic form of electricity—‘alternating current.’ Unlike the dangerously powerful ‘direct current’—which can slay an elephant—alternating current is as safe and therapeutic as bath water. This contraption—called an AC generator—has proved the most powerful device imaginable for restoring memory.”
    I nod nervously, seeing the six black wires reach out spiderlike, each tipped in a steel pincer. “How does it work?”
    “Well.” He lifts one of the clips and lets the jagged metal jaws slap shut again. “It’s very simple. I dip each of these clamps in a solution of lamp oil—yes, the same harmless spermaceti that lights your home—and clamp it to your flesh.”
    “Where?” I ask.
    He shrugs. “Ears, fingertips, and toes—the outer extremities. Your body completes the circuit.”
    “You’re going to electrocute me?”
    The doctor’s hands spread defensively before him. “Not electrocute. Electrify . This isn’t a lightning bolt, but alternating current—the very kind your brain uses day in and out. The alternating current will help sort out your own confused brain patterns, will help align them.”
    It all seems to make sense—the science of it. I still have to wonder about that eager face, though, those smiling jowls. “All right. I’m ready.”
    “Excellent,” says the doctor, pushing me to lie down on the segmented table and slipping my shoes off. The doctor seems to relish the preparations. He lifts one alligator clip, dips it into a jar of spermaceti, and fastens the thing to my right ear. He does the same with more clips—for the left ear, and the fingertips, and the toes. Then he