Free Mindwalker by AJ Steiger

recover. Something happens once a person crosses that line. It’s difficult to go back. “You must be pretty accustomed to it by now.”
    â€œDoesn’t make me like it any more.” He stands, hands in his pockets, jaw clenched. “You know what I hate most about it? You can’t
think.
When they’ve got you strapped into that machine, you’ll believe anything that anyone says.”
    â€œIt does make people more open, more suggestible. The treatment wouldn’t work otherwise.”
    â€œSuggestible? It’s brainwashing. If someone told me that I was the All-Powerful Princess Petticoats from Planet Zoot and that I could fly using the power of moonbeams, I’d have jumped right out a window.”
    I open my mouth to say that there are precautions preventing that sort of thing, then close it. Now isn’t the time for a debate on the merits and drawbacks of Conditioning.
    â€œAnyway, they can’t do it to me again,” he says. “Thirteen times is the limit. After that, if you cause any more trouble, they give you a total mindwipe.”
    The words send a chill rippling through me. “That’s not true,”I say firmly. “I don’t know who told you that, but IFEN doesn’t mindwipe people.”
    His eyes harden. “Maybe not officially. But I’ve heard about it happening. And I’d rather die than end up a drooling, pants-crapping zombie, locked in some godforsaken institution while some smarmy nurse teaches me to color inside the lines.”
    â€œWell, that will never happen,” I say. “I can promise you that.”
    â€œNice to know,” he mutters, sounding utterly unconvinced.
    â€œYou don’t believe me?”
    â€œI believe that
you
believe what you’re saying,” he says. “As for the system, I trust it about as much as I’d trust a half-starved panther with rabies. Maybe less. At least while the panther gnawed your brains out, he wouldn’t tell you it was for your own good.”
    I don’t really know how to respond to that.
    We walk toward my car. Steven pulls a handful of tiny pills from his pocket. I start to tense, but none of the pills are pink. Just white. He tosses them into his mouth and swallows. “It’s medicine,” he says, in answer to my unspoken question. “Keeps my nerves steady.”
    â€œIs it safe to take that many?”
    He shrugs. “Probably not, but what the hell. Everyone needs a vice or two.”
    I stop in front of the car, my hand on the door handle. “People don’t
need
vices.”
    â€œOh yeah?” He smirks. “What about you?”
    I shift my weight. “Well, I do like chocolate. But something doesn’t become a vice until you need it. I don’t wake up in a cold sweat at three in the morning craving brownies.”
    He chuckles. The sound has a throaty roughness, like a fingernail scratching over rusted metal. “I’ll bet there’s
something,
though. Something that gets all the neurons in your pleasure centers firing.” His pale eyes are sharp, penetrating. “So, what’s your drug of choice, Doc? What do you need?”
    I freeze. I feel like he’s looking straight into my head, like there’s nothing I can hide from him. A flush rises into my face, and I gulp, resisting the urge to drop my gaze.
    He’s testing me. Pushing me. I have to be careful.
    Mindwalkers follow a strict ethical code. One of the most important rules is that, outside the sessions, we must never become emotionally involved with our clients. It only leads to trouble. The voice of my old psych-ethics professor, from my training at IFEN, echoes in my head:
While a Mindwalker may disclose truths about herself to make the client more comfortable, there are certain lines she must never cross, or she ceases to be an objective figure. For those clients who ask intrusive questions, I’ve found that the best way