Mindbend

When they reached the double doors to the innermost building, Dr. Nachman opened them by gently pressing his thumb against a small electronic scanner. Beyond the doors, the covered bridge was glassed on both sides, and Adam saw the attractive landscaping he’d appreciated from the roof the night before.

There was a second set of double doors at the end of the walkway, which Dr. Nachman again opened with his thumb. The minute the men went through, Adam recognized the familiar smell of a hospital. After passing through a three-story foyer illuminated by some of the bubble skylights Adam had seen the night before, they walked past a series of small operating rooms to a nurses’ station that boasted all the latest telemetry equipment. One of the nurses showed them into the locked ward beyond. Dr. Glover introduced Adam to several of the patients.

The doctor presented each case, impressing Adam with the amount of information he had committed to memory. The few details he couldn’t remember, he was able to call up on one of the computer terminals that were in each room.

There were several diabetics who had received fetal islet-cell infusions and who were now completely off insulin.

Adam was impressed in spite of himself, though he knew the ends could never justify the means.

On the far side of the ward were the patients with central nervous system implants. Adam met a young woman whose spinal cord had been severed in an automobile accident. After having been a paraplegic for over a year, she now was able to move her legs, thanks to infusions of fetal central nervous system tissue. Her movement was uncoordinated as yet, but the results were astounding when compared with the hopelessness of traditional treatment.

She greeted Dr. Glover with a hug. “Thank you for giving me hope,” she said.

“You’re welcome,” said Glover, beaming with pride, while Dr. Mitchell glanced through the chart.

“Bacteria count is going up in the urine,” Mitchell criticized.

“We are quite aware of that,” said Dr. Glover.

“Let’s move on,” said Dr. Nachman.

They saw another ten or fifteen patients before Dr.

Nachman led them back to the foyer, where they took the elevator to the next level. This was the psychiatric floor, and the minute they walked down the hall Dr. Mitchell seemed to come alive. Stroking his beard, running his hand over the smooth crown of his head, he described his patients with the enthusiasm of a born teacher.

“Our main treatment modality is psychopharmacology,” he stated. “Once therapeutic psychotropic drug levels are achieved, we then use a type of behavior modification.”

They came to a set of double doors similar to those that blocked access to the hospital proper. Dr. Mitchell pressed his thumb against the scanner.

“This, of course, is the nurses’ station,” said Dr.

Mitchell as he waved to two middle-aged women dressed in white blouses and blue jumpers. They just nodded, but two orderlies in blue blazers jumped to their feet. Adam immediately noticed their stiff smiles and unblinking stares.

“Some spontaneity is sacrificed,” thought Adam wryly.

As they continued down the hall, Mitchell described all the technical devices, until Dr. Glover interrupted, saying,

“Adam understands all this, for God’s sake. He’s been to medical school.”

But Dr. Mitchell didn’t even pause in his narrative. Using his thumb, he opened the double doors leading to the ward, and Adam and the others filed in.

For such a modern hospital facility, Adam was surprised to find the ward laid out identically to the one at University Hospital. But aside from the floor plan, everything else was different. At University Hospital the beds, the nightstands, and even the ceilings were about to collapse from lack of maintenance. In sharp contrast, the ward at MTIC was so spotlessly clean that it looked as if it had just opened.

Even the patients were lying well cared for in their beds, their covers uniformly pulled up to their chests. They were awake but immobile. Only their eyes moved as they followed the visitors’ progress down the ward. Adam had never seen such a peaceful ward and certainly not such a peaceful psychiatric one.

Adam’s eyes roved over the blank faces. Dr. Mitchell had begun another of his interminable lectures. Adam was wondering how long he’d have to listen when his eyes fell on the patient in the second bed to the right. It was Alan Jackson! Adam’s heart began to pound. He was horrified that Alan might recognize him. He turned quickly to hide his face, but when he glanced back, Alan’s expression had not changed.

He was obviously heavily sedated. Adam permitted himself a closer look. Alan’s head was swathed in bandages, and there was an IV dripping clear fluid into his right arm. Adam realized that the Fjord must have stopped in Puerto Rico the day before. No wonder they had kept Alan so heavily sedated.

They had scheduled him for involuntary surgery all along.

When Mitchell paused in his patient survey, Adam pointed to Alan and asked, “What was this man’s problem?”