Diamond Eyes (28 page)

‘Off actually,’ Zhou said. ‘I switched the laser off.’

‘No! You switched it on!’ Mira insisted. ‘It was dark, I told you — like having my eyes closed, even though I knew they were open. Then I heard the switch, and I blinked, and then I was up in the sky. Up there!’ She pointed, but swiftly returned her fingers to the exact same positions on the fingertip sensor pad. ‘Everything was blue!’

‘I thought you said everything was invisible?’

‘Yes, in the room. Not in the sky. When the sky sucked me up, everything around me was foggy blue, while everything touching me was invisible. Don’t say I’m crazy, though. I’m not! The light switched off and now I’m blind again. Even the blue fog is gone. Except my eyes are still open, aren’t they? So what did you do to me?’

‘I’m not sure,’ Zhou said, checking his instruments. ‘But I can assure you the laser was on — and it’s on again now. It’s only when I switched it off that you had the negative reaction.’

‘I don’t understand this either,’ Van Danik added. ‘As far as I can tell between each spike in my readings, her conscious mind and subconscious agree with everything she’s said.’

‘See? I told you! I’m not lying.’

Zhou sat back in his chair.

‘Oh, great,’ Van Danik grumbled. ‘We had a perfect success rate, and now she’s screwed it.’

‘Hey, don’t take it out on her,’ Ben warned.

‘Dr Van Danik!’ Sanchez snapped at the same time. ‘Please conduct yourself in a civil manner!’

Van Danik snorted. ‘That
was
civil for me. Look at it from our point of view, Matron. She’s not firing on all cylinders. We came here expecting to prove it — an open-and-shut case. At best, she might have provided us with a case for misdiagnosis. Instead, she’s revealed a glitch in our system that’s so gaping our financiers could park an aircraft carrier in it sideways and still have room to back up.’

‘If that’s the case,’ Ben cut in, ‘why don’t you just remove her results from your statistics?’

‘That’s disreputable!’ Van Danik snapped. ‘A tactic used by pen-pushers and toothpaste-makers to prove they’ve got the best test results. It’s not science.’

‘And it doesn’t fix the problem,’ Zhou said. ‘It could even be counterproductive, because if there’s something wrong with our system — even the slightest glitch — we need to know about it now, not after it’s gone into production. If it doesn’t work one hundred per cent of the time on one hundred per cent of test cases under every kind of test condition, it’s not good enough to hold up in court — or for the interrogation of spies or terrorists when lives are at stake. It must be infallible.’

Van Danik slumped back in his seat. ‘So what do we do?’

‘We ask more questions,’ Zhou decided. ‘This system is designed to tell the difference between visions, dreams and memories, even when the test subject can’t, so I suggest we persist along a line of questioning about this blue sky she’s mentioned and try to figure out if it’s part of a dream, memory or hallucination.’

‘Regardless,’ Van Danik argued, ‘she’s not sitting in any sky surrounded by invisible people or ghosts at the moment. She’s right here with us — and she knows it. According to this, however, her subconscious and conscious minds are both convinced she’s in two places at once. That’s impossible, no matter whether her sky is a memory, a dream or a blue flying elephant!’

‘It doesn’t sound impossible to me,’ interrupted the matron. ‘It shouldn’t really surprise you either, if you take a second to remember where you are, gentlemen. The Serenity Centre specialises in care for clients with intellectual handicaps, so it’s highly likely that Mira’s subconscious and conscious minds are equally affected by Fragile X syndrome.’

‘That’s not the indication from our first set of control questions,’ Van Danik replied. ‘That’s why we ask them — to initialise our equipment to suit each person’s specific metabolism using questions that can be easily verified.’

‘What if Mira really is in two places at once?’ Ben asked. ‘At least from her perspective? Then your equipment would still be infallible, wouldn’t it?’

Zhou shook his head. ‘I wouldn’t want to argue that against a defence lawyer. Would you?’

Sanchez paced the room and the others watched her, all of them deep in thought.

‘Maybe the laser is strong enough to blind her,’ Ben suggested. ‘So, from Mira’s point of view, the light is off when it’s on and vice versa? I don’t know much about eyes, other than what I learned in high-school science about refraction and focal lengths, but if the laser is reflecting out of her eyes, doesn’t that mean it’s not focusing where it’s supposed to inside her head?’

Zhou nodded. ‘You just earned a B in your science test. It would have been an A, except the human eye isn’t suppose to reflect light like this — and if light can’t get in, I can’t see what’s going on in there without surgery. I can only watch the responses on the surface.’

‘I suppose,’ Van Danik said, ‘it’s possible that it’s only that specific frequency and wavelength of the scope that’s reflecting. Or maybe she does have a fraction of light getting through, since she could see some things before we switched it on … even if we haven’t figured out what those “somethings” were yet.’

‘I already reached that conclusion,’ Zhou replied. ‘I just don’t like the options it’s leaving me.’

‘Like what?’ Sanchez asked. ‘A little more explanation might benefit us all, not the least poor Mira, who must be out of her wits with worry by now.’

‘Oh no, I’m not,’ Mira assured them. ‘I get scared all the time, but you’re listening to me now. Not just hearing me, but actually listening and trying to help me. Do you know how rare that is? I’ll do anything — honestly, anything — to cooperate now, no matter how much it hurts.’

‘It won’t come to that,’ Ben promised. ‘We’re not here to hurt you.’

‘Actually …‘ Zhou sighed and shifted in his chair, making it squeak. ‘I’m sorry, Miss Chambers, but that’s exactly what it’s come to. Maybe not physical pain, but you certainly seemed distressed when I switched off the laser. And to figure out what you’re really experiencing, we’re going to need a period of question-and-answer time while you’re enduring it. And that,’ he said, before Ben or Sanchez could protest, ‘is why I was so hesitant in revealing my thoughts just now. I promised I wouldn’t hurt any of the volunteers here, and I’m loath to break that promise.’

‘On the other hand,’ Van Danik said, ‘she’s the only one who can help us work out the gaping glitch we just found, and there’s only six hours left before we have to meet with our financiers.’

‘She’s not a lab rat,’ Zhou argued. ‘I’m not going to force her —’

‘You’re not forcing me,’ Mira cut in. ‘I’ve lived with this curse since before I was ten. I could open my eyes tonight, tomorrow or the next day — what does it matter how long or how soon it is before it hurts me again? Or how long it is before the sky takes me? I know it will. And I’d much rather it was now,’ she said decisively, ‘while there are so many people here who want to help me, who’ve got the tools to try, and who I …’ She sucked in a breath. ‘Who I trust not to hurt me deliberately. Whether you can figure out what’s really wrong with me or not doesn’t matter so much. Not as much as knowing you want to try, and that I’ll regret it for the rest of my pathetic life if I don’t cooperate while I’ve got the chance.’

‘Yes!’ Ben cheered. ‘Now that’s what I’m talking about! Matron, can you look me in the face now and tell me she’s as immature as her file suggests?’

Sanchez didn’t reply. She retrieved her mobile phone from her pocket, the buttons chiming musically as she dialled.

‘Hello, Neville?’ she said within seconds. ‘I want you to shred the hard copy of Mira’s file … You heard me. Cancel all future medication, restore all privileges and fetch me a clean set of diagnostic papers. We’re starting from scratch.’

Neville Kenny hung up the phone shaking his head. He wondered what Mira Chambers could have done or said to change the matron’s mind so decisively — and whether it involved him.

If it didn’t yet, he knew it soon would. By starting from scratch, the matron would have to cover old ground, right up to recent incidents and arguments with Mira.

When she did that, she’d be documenting every word; conversations that he’d already taken great care to delete from Mira’s file to ensure that his point of view couldn’t be misunderstood.

Disciplinary action wasn’t something he could afford to fight at his age, especially since he knew he lacked the communication skills he’d need to stand up for himself in a legal dispute. If he lost his job now, he knew he’d also lose his small boat and boathouse, which also doubled as his hobby-shed for leather work. Together, these were the things that made his lonely life bearable since the death of his wife.

He gathered the blank documents the matron had requested and told Steffi Nagle he had to duck up to B-block for a few minutes. He didn’t go there directly, though. He took a long detour via the staff parking lot and the boot of his old Ford sedan, which contained the evidence of his late-night visits to Mira’s bedroom.

‘I’ve got a hand-held scope in my bag,’ Zhou said, reaching for it. He couldn’t remember a time he’d been more excited. ‘It can only examine one eye at a time, but it’s non-intrusive, meaning it uses mirrors to magnify up to fifty times without needing to touch you.’

‘No lasers?’ Mira asked.

‘No lasers,’ he promised.

‘Does she need a safe word?’ asked Ben. ‘Something she can say if the pain or distress gets too much, so you know when to stop?’

‘How about “Stop"?’ Mira suggested. ‘It worked last time.’

‘"Stop” works for me,’ Zhou replied.

‘Likewise,’ said Van Danik.

Zhou raised the hand-held ophthalmoscope close to Mira’s right eye, then shifted it to examine her other eye, and whistled.

‘I can’t believe what I’m seeing here. It looks as if you’ve got crystalline deformities in both eyes, and not only are they faceted and mirrored, they also seem to be symmetrical and identical. The phenomenon doesn’t just occur on the surface of each lens, it also replaces the pigment of each iris!’

‘Eyes are the mirrors of the soul,’ Sanchez said. She moved her head closer behind Zhou until both their faces appeared as fractured images in the many tiny facets of Mira’s eyes. ‘Except her eyes really are mirrors, so the souls we’re looking at are ours.’

‘I should be recording this.’ Zhou adjusted his ophthalmoscope to a higher magnification for a closer look. ‘I could set up two of these hand-held scopes on a tripod, but we might as well make sure this works before we go to too much trouble.’

‘You’ve only got one of those hand-held scopes here,’ warned Van Danik.

‘Unfortunately, yes. I can only watch one eye at a time, and I still can’t see inside either of them, so I’ll only be able to register surface changes, which won’t be easy to read either, because every move I make is reflected and distracting.’

‘Sounds like a catch-22,’ Ben said.

Zhou nodded, automatically considering how he might explain it when writing his report for the scientific and medical communities.

‘What about the video?’ asked Van Danik. ‘Can you magnify her eyes later using that?’

‘Good idea.’ Zhou shifted his hand to the power switch on the side of the scope. ‘Ready, Mira? This will probably make you go back into the sky, or wherever you thought you were, so you can describe it to us.’

‘Can Ben keep his hands on my shoulders?’

‘I’m not going anywhere,’ Ben said, massaging her gently.

‘He can,’ Zhou agreed.

‘Well, okay …‘ Mira closed her eyes. ‘This is as ready as I get, Dr Zhou.’

‘Zan,’ he said. ‘You can call me Zan from now on, Mira, and he’s Mitch.’

‘Tell us anything you need to. Don’t hold back,’ Van Danik added. ‘No matter how strange it sounds. And don’t forget to yell “stop” if it gets too much for you.’

Mira nodded.

Zhou flicked off the switch and Mira began — ever so slowly — to reopen her eyes.

‘Everything’s blue,’ she said, obviously stricken with fear again, but she kept her eyes straight ahead and tried not to blink. ‘Light blues and darker blues, but everything is blue.’

‘True,’ said Van Danik. ‘The EEG spikes are off the scale regularly and those unusual patterns of brain activity are back. However, the troughs and other indicators still confirm that her conscious and subconscious minds are both in agreement. I wish I knew how that could be true, though, when there’s barely a speck of blue in this whole room.’

‘Let’s try to find out. Okay, Mira, try to move your eyes to look around. Just don’t turn your head too much, so I can keep the scope close to your eye without poking you.’

Mira blinked to keep her eyes moist and Zhou asked her to describe the blue in more detail.

‘It’s definitely the sky.’ Mira turned her eyes upwards, scanning from side to side. ‘I’m sure of it. The paler blues are clouds. When I was young, I remember clouds that thick were white or grey, but these have all been washed over by a watery blue paintbrush. They look ghostly.’

‘True,’ said Van Danik, still watching her bioelectrical responses.

‘I know what’s below me if I look down, but I don’t want to. This has happened so many times before … I just … need a second … ‘ Her voice faltered and her eyes reddened around the edges with fear. ‘Don’t let go of me, Ben. I’m going to …’

Her eyes turned down a little; Zhou followed her movements with his hand-held scope.

‘Treetops! I knew it.’ She glanced up again and panted to catch her breath. ‘I’m scared of heights, sorry.’

‘No need to be sorry. I used to be scared of heights too,’ Zhou confessed. ‘How high are you? Aeroplane high, or treetop high?’

‘A bit higher than treetops — about the same as three rooms off the ground.’

‘Coincidence?’ asked Sanchez. ‘We are three storeys high.’

‘Good point,’ Zhou agreed. ‘Are you still in this building, Mira?’

‘Yes and no. I can smell it — it’s stuffy in here, but it’s all invisible.’

‘True.’ Van Danik huffed in frustration.

Mira wavered, nearly falling off her chair. ‘Don’t let me fall!’ She gripped harder onto the table and sensor glass.