Psycho by Onley James
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’s A 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.”
Thomas scoffed. “You’re joking.”
“I’m not. He reads faster than anyone we’ve ever seen and has a great understanding of concepts far beyond his years. We tested his IQ. 155. Just a few points shy of Hawking himself.” Thomas couldn’t hide his startled response. “So you can see our problem.”
Thomas nodded. “If he’s a psychopath with that level of intelligence, he would be a plague on society and smart enough to hide in plain sight. Any bed-wetting, arson, harming of weaker children?”
“Not so far. In truth, he lives in his head. He listens to music and reads. He’s bored, no doubt. There’s nothing in this facility that could keep a child like him entertained. Being locked in that room, in silence, with nothing but the few books his mother gave him must have been torture for a boy with that level of genius.”
“He’ll lack for nothing with me,” Thomas assured him. “I’d like to meet him now.”
“I’d advise you not to touch him. Also, do not turn on the overhead light. He becomes quite…feral.”
Thomas nodded, making to leave the observation room.
“Will you keep me apprised of his progress?” Dr. Stryker asked, expression tight.
“Of course.”
Thomas opened and closed the door to the room quickly to keep the harsh fluorescent lights of the hallway away from the child. Once inside, the child didn’t acknowledge him in any way. He moved forward, dropping to sit cross-legged near the boy, but not close enough to touch him.
“What are you reading?” Thomas prompted, unsure whether the boy could hear him over the music playing in his headphones.
He responded by lifting it enough for Thomas to read the cover. Light in August.
“Faulkner, huh? That’s a pretty advanced book for your age.”
The child flicked an irritated gaze towards Thomas, like he was intruding. Perhaps he was.
“What if I told you I have a library in my home with thousands of books?”
This time, the boy tugged a headphone free, eyeing Thomas suspiciously. “Have you read them all?”
Thomas chuckled. “No, and I suspect you might beat me to it. You speak very well.”
The boy shrugged. “I could speak before I could walk. It frightened my mother. She was…unwell.”
He spoke with the vocabulary and affect of a grown man. Thomas wasn’t entirely convinced the boy wasn’t, in fact, a fairy tale creature or perhaps an extraterrestrial. “I heard. I’m sorry for what you had to endure for the first few years of your life.”
The boy shrugged again. “She couldn’t help who she was.”
It was such a simple statement of fact. No bitterness or malice.
“They tell me you don’t like to be touched,” Thomas said.
The boy’s expression looked almost prim as he said, “Not against my will, no.”
Thomas couldn’t help but smile. “That is valid. Nobody should touch you without your consent.”
Once more, the boy observed him shrewdly, as if trying to guess at his motivations, but said nothing.
“Would you like to come live with me and read your way through my library?”
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why would I want to live with you? Other than your library?”
Thomas shook his head. “Well, to be honest, I have a lot of money but no family. Just one son who is a bit older than you. I want to fill my house with boys just like you.”
“Like me?” he queried, frowning.
“Yes. Children who are gifted. Children who have a certain psychological makeup.”
The boy nodded as if that made perfect sense. “Do you have any more books like the one by Mr. Hawking? I find his theories—” He paused as if looking for the correct word. “Thought provoking.”
Thought provoking… This child might be too smart for even Thomas. But he had resources. Far more resources than anybody else, thanks to an accident of birth that left him with more money than he could ever spend.
“If you come live with me, we can stop at the bookstore on the way home and you can choose as many books as you like.” At the boy’s apprehension, Thomas corrected himself. “Or you can tell me what books you’d like and I’ll have them delivered.”
The boy narrowed his eyes at him, as if he thought it might be a trick. “Any books?”
Thomas might regret this but he said, “Any.”
The boy nodded once. “Then yes.”
Now, to the other task at hand. “They tell me your name is Isaiah.”
His lip curled. “I hate that name. My mother was very religious but also quite superstitious.”
Thomas leaned in closer. “Well, my family has a somewhat silly tradition of giving siblings names that all start with the same letter. My brother was Teddy, and my sister was Thea. I’m Thomas. You have a brother at home, who I’ve called Atticus. Would you like to choose another name? One that starts with A?”
The boy closed his book, eyes glued to the cover. “August. Can I be August?”
Thomas grinned. “Absolutely. Would you like to come home with me, August?”
August gave a huge sigh. “Yes, I think I would.”
