The Theta Patient Read Online Free Page A

a
completely emotionless voice, said, “It is crazy,
right?”
    “ Of course,” Bradburn said. “Of
course it is.”
    “ Good. And the next time someone
from the Tyranny asks you a question, don’t try to hide
anything.”
    “ Of course not. Rules are
rules.”
    “ Exactly. Now then, let’s start
watching the interviews.”

6

     
     
    Bradburn plugged a cord into the
side of his laptop, then reached over and turned on the television
in his office. Everything he could see on his computer was also
visible on the television screen for Agent Cooper to
view.
    “ How do you want to do
this?”
    “ One question at a time,” the
Tyranny’s man said. “Play a question and answer from the first
patient, then the same question and answer for the second patient,
and so on.”
    Bradburn clicked on all three
interview files so he could alternate between them. Before starting
the footage of the first interview, he looked to Cooper to make
sure he should proceed.
    The agent said, “One more
thing.”
    “ Yes?”
    “ Before we start, do you think you
know which patient is the Thinker?”
    Bradburn frowned. “It never even crossed my
mind.”
    “ I told you one of the three men
is a danger to the Tyranny, a radical, and you weren’t concerned
which one it might be?”
    “ I’m just so used to trying to
treat my patients as they come in. I guess I accept their behavior
for what it is.” When Cooper groaned in disbelief, Bradburn added,
“Which one do you think it is?”
    “ Oh, I don’t think,” Cooper said.
“I already know which one.”
    The doctor was about to ask why
they were going to waste time watching the three videos if the
Tyranny already knew which man was the Thinker. Bradburn had
already had to cancel three appointments that morning because of
the supposed Thinker. The last thing he wanted was to miss a fourth
and fifth. But he was also intrigued. As good as he thought he was
at treating mental ailments, he hadn’t picked up on whatever the
agent had figured out. If the Tyranny had ways to differentiate
between a man pretending to be crazy and a man who really was, he
wanted to see it for himself.
    More importantly, though, was that
this was what Agent Cooper wanted. That was all that really
mattered. It was the old adage of being told to jump and
responding, “How high?” If the Tyranny said they needed to know
what everyone was saying and doing, you asked how you could help
them monitor your calls and emails. If they said they needed to
take your valuables during routine searches, you asked if they
would also like to take your watch. Bradburn never complained with
any of these things. After all, rules were rules.
    On the television, an unshaven,
dark-haired man appeared. This was Anthony Station, the first of
the three patients. Following Agent Cooper’s direction, only
Station was on camera, sitting at a table that showed him from the
waist up. On the table was a small black box with wires protruding
from it. The wires ran to a set of five pads that each patient had
been told to slide onto their fingertips. The interview had been
conducted in a small room without any photographs on the walls.
Nothing but the table, two chairs, and the camera.
    Doctor Bradburn’s voice could be
heard off camera as he read the very first question: “Have you ever
been to Burnley Park before?”
    Station squinted in confusion.
“Burnley Park?”
    “ Yes.”
    “ Burnley Park?”
    “ Yes.”
    Station muttered, “Yeah, doc. I
was abducted there one time. By aliens. Mean things. Vicious. They
did experiments on me for ten years before they returned
me.”
    “ This was at Burnley
Park?”
    “ The abduction was. The
experiments were in outer space.” Station said this last part as if
Bradburn were a complete idiot for thinking the experiments might
also have taken place at the park.
    “ Next,” Agent Cooper
said.
    Bradburn paused the interview, then brought up
the footage of the next one.
    Logan Ford appeared