Page 1 of Psycho
SUBJECT: AUGUST
This boy would be his youngest find yet. His first subject, who Thomas had named Atticus, had been eight upon his adoption. He was a gifted child, a born mimic, with the ability to turn his personality on and off like a light switch. It was fascinating.
The boy behind the glass was much younger. Barely four. He huddled in the corner, headphones in his ears, a thick paperback book on his knees. He was painfully thin and pale and had dark brown hair that fell over big eyes. Thomas ached for him. He looked so small in the large room, lit only by the small lamp beside him.
Thomas was wary of bringing in another boy so soon but felt it necessary for the study to have subjects of various ages, to see how each one did with the tools he would give them.
Initially, he’d thought to adopt just one, but any good experiment meant having a large subject pool. Since Thomas was doing this without the watchful eye of a review board, he couldn’t have the amount of subjects he’d like. At least, not without resorting to keeping the boys behind lock and key. And he wouldn’t do that. He wanted these boys to think of him as a father, a confidant, not a prison warden. He wasn’t a supervillain. He understood the potential hidden away behind that glass, and it only worked with patience and care.
The door behind Thomas opened, and a man with snow white hair and a beard appeared. “Dr. George Stryker,” he said in lieu of a greeting. “Sorry to keep you waiting.”
“Dr. Thomas Mulvaney,” Thomas said, extending a hand.
The elderly doctor shook it. “I know who you are. We have mutual acquaintances. That’s why I called.”
His project was top secret, but there were a small number of people in the fold, those with the contacts Thomas needed. People who wanted to see his experiment succeed so they could recreate it, and others who watched, hoping he’d fail. But Thomas didn’t care about those people. They were a means to an end. He knew he was right about these boys. His research subjects.
His sons.
“What’s his name?” Thomas asked, nodding towards the boy beyond the glass.
“According to his birth certificate, Isaiah. But he doesn’t respond to it. He doesn’t respond to much, if I’m being honest. But given how he was found, that’s not surprising.”
Thomas’s heart rate accelerated. This part was always the hardest—hearing about their pasts, especially when he had to leave them behind. “Tell me.”
“He was found during a wellness check on the mother. She suffered from severe schizophrenia. Both auditory and visual hallucinations. But, for a time, she was stable on her medications, which is why she was permitted to keep her child, but with scheduled supervision for the first year of his life to ensure medication compliance. Sometime after the year was up, she clearly went off her medications.”
“And nobody noticed?”
“He wasn’t old enough for school, so there was nobody to notice. Her neighbors had concerns about her behavior, but they didn’t even know she had a child.”
Thomas’s gaze strayed to the other physician.“She was abusing the boy?”
Stryker sighed. “According to the woman’s diaries, she thought the boy was a changeling.”
“A changeling? Like out of Irish fairy tales?” Thomas asked, unable to keep the surprise from his voice. “She thought somebody replaced her real son with a fae child?”
Stryker nodded grimly. “She was deeply disturbed. When she saw his remarkable intelligence at a young age, she convinced herself it had to be supernatural.”
Thomas looked back at the small boy, shaking his head. “That’s…”
The older man wasn’t finished. “She locked him in a room sometime after he turned two, and that’s where he stayed. They found a stained crib mattress, a stack of books, one light, and a bucket on the floor. He was filthy. It took the nurses hours to get him clean, mostly because he wouldn’t stop fighting them.”
“He’s aggressive?” Thomas asked.
Dr. Stryker shook his head. “It’s more complex than that. He’s been deprived of human interaction for at least a year and a half, maybe longer, during his most formative years. He was only found because the mother killed herself. A neighbor heard the gunshot and called the police to check on her. While doing a sweep of the house, they found him.”
“Jesus,” Thomas muttered.
“He’s not overtly aggressive. He will not become violent unless somebody attempts to touch him. He’s been deprived of light and touch and sound. He reacts violently to all three. The only exception seems to be music. We’re not sure why, but he keeps headphones in almost round the clock.”
Interesting. Thomas would have to bring him into the real world slowly and with great care. “Diagnosis?”
The man picked up the folder from the metal holder beside the window, opening it. “Attachment disorder. Panic disorder. Post traumatic stress disorder. But I called you because, even though we cannot make a definitive diagnosis, he certainly displays many psychopathic tendencies. He has no sense of fear. He reacts violently to any unwanted attention. He lies easily. Is extremely possessive of anything given to him.”
Thomas mulled that one over. This one would be difficult, but he was up to the task. He wanted a vast array of psychiatric maladies as well as the psychopathy. He needed to understand how the research affected each of them.
Stryker sighed. “While I can’t say for certain, I suspect he was born a psychopath. I think his behavior helped shape his mother’s delusions. He’s exceptionally gifted, especially given his lack of education. I can see how the mother believed his abilities to be unnatural. The boy can read. Far beyond his years. Hell, far beyond mine. We’ve had him for a week and he’s blown through every book in our library including the Bible, the Koran, and Stephen Hawking’sA Brief History of Time. He’s also since taught himself to write with the help of a handwriting workbook one of the nurses brought him.”
