Free Mindwalker by AJ Steiger Page B

scared stiff.”
    â€œWhy?” I ask gently.
    He gives me a dry smile. “You’re about to go into my head. If you don’t know why
that’s
scary, you need to retake your psychology classes.”
    I ignore the barb. “Do you want to talk about it?”
    He shakes his head. “I suck at that touchy-feely stuff. Back in the nuthouse, they tried to make me do talk therapy a few times. I hated it.”
    â€œWhy’s that?”
    â€œIt’s kind of like puking your guts out on the floor and letting some creep poke around in the bloody mess and take notes.”
    â€œYou don’t like psychologists, do you?”
    â€œGee, what clued you in?”
    â€œI’m just curious about your reasons. I’m a psychologist, after all.”
    He rolls the squirrel saltshaker across his palm. “I get tired of all these rich people in white coats pretending they understand my pain.”
    â€œBut that’s what they’re trained for. To understand.”
    He unscrews the squirrel’s head and peers into its hollow ceramic skull. “Dissecting something isn’t the same as understanding it. You can cut open a rat and pick its brain apart and label every little piece. But that doesn’t tell you what it’s like to be that rat.” He sets the squirrel’s head on the coffee table and places its body next to it.
    â€œDo
I
make you feel like you’re being dissected?”
    There’s a pause. “No.” He looks away. “I haven’t figured you out yet. But I don’t think you’re one of them.”
    â€œI’m glad.” I catch myself twirling a pigtail around one finger, a habit I’ve tried hard to break. Pigtail twirling doesn’t inspire confidence when you’re about to rewire someone’s brain. I drop my hands to my lap and interlace my fingers. My pulse drums in my wrists. Don’t think of him as a boy, I remind myself. Think of him as a client. This is just another Mindwalking session. I keep telling myself that, but the nervous flutter in my stomach won’t subside. “Is there anything else you want to discuss, or …”
    His fingers clench on the chair’s arms, the skin around his nails whitening. “Let’s just do it. Before I lose my nerve.”
    I screw the squirrel’s head back onto its body, stand, and walk over to the bookshelf. It’s filled with thick, leather-bound volumes. I trail my fingers over the books’ spines until I find the familiar copy of Thomas More’s
Utopia.
When I pull it out,the massive piece of furniture slides to one side with a low rumble, exposing a door.
    Steven raises his eyebrows. “A hidden passage. Have to admit, I’m impressed.”
    I smile over one shoulder, then open the door and lead him down a set of cement stairs. There’s another door at the bottom, a heavy, solid metal one with a keypad. I pause, fingers hovering over the keys. I remember the code, of course. My father used to see clients here, in his home. But since his death, I haven’t been inside this room even once. I’m afraid that if I step through that door, the memories will hit me like a roaring wind. My throat knots. I swallow, trying to loosen it.
    I key in the code, and the door slides open. A light comes on, revealing a large room with white walls and a white-tiled floor. Two black-padded reclining chairs stand side by side, and between them is the Mindgate. The Gate, for short. For all its sophistication and power, it looks rather ordinary—a sleek black hard drive, about the size of a briefcase, atop a metal counter. Next to the hard drive sit two white plastic helmets. They’re similar to bicycle helmets, rounded and smooth, with black visors. There are no wires, nothing visibly connecting them to the computer.
    The rush of grief is less overwhelming than I expected. There’s a brief prickle in my sinuses, then it passes, leaving