Shady Pines wasn't too far from Boyd's office. Sasha called ahead and explained why he was coming, and they were glad to let him visit. Raz, however, was not old enough to visit a non-relative, so he was sent back to Milla with much protesting. When it was just Sasha and Fred in the car, it got very awkward. Fred was coming on his own desire to see what had become of Crispin.
Shady Pines was in a building somewhat removed from the rest of the world. The building itself was small, but the grounds surrounding it were spacious. The name was sincere; once they drove past the gate and the guard house, the path was surrounded by tall, thick pine trees that gave the whole place a cozy atmosphere as well as helped to muffle the noise from the nearby highway. By the time you got to the actual building, you couldn't sense anything of the outside world.
Sasha parked under a tree and got out. Fred tried twice and finally followed. He looked around with wonder as he followed Sasha, who as always looked straight ahead. You couldn't see the chain link fence from here, and it really felt like they were out in the middle of a forest.
Inside, it was a little dim. The floor was tile, the ceiling was sectioned, and the walls were cinder block, but it was by no means an unfriendly environment. The lobby chairs had salmon-colored padding, and the walls were covered with sloppy paintings done by patients and proudly displayed. There was a receptionist stand, but it displayed a sign that said 'Back in 5.' A nurse was passing by, but other than that it was quiet.
Sasha flashed his badge to the nurse. "I'm with the Psychonauts. We contacted here earlier today about your patient, Crispin Whytehead?"
The nurse looked from the badge to Sasha's face, and then she smiled. She was incredibly perky. It was just as heartwarming as it was annoying. "Oh, hello! Agent Nein, right? I'm nurse Rumi Hidaka, I'm the one you spoke with." She shook his hand eagerly. Sasha remained indifferent. "Well, it's like I told you on the phone. You can talk to him all you want, but he just can't respond. He's such a dear, too."
Fred almost laughed at that; clearly she was projecting her own perky personality onto the catatonic patients around her, because Fred would have never in a million years described Crispin as a 'dear'... unless it was a "dear, sweet lord what a pain in the neck he is!"
"As a Psychonaut, I'm expertly trained in cracking difficult minds."
"I don't know about that," said Nurse Hidaka, "I don't want you to damage him any further."
"Don't worry. In a situation like this, the only risk to the psyche will be of my own. I am very sensitive to my subjects."
"All right," said Nurse Hidaka. "Go wait in the patient lounge. I'll be there with Dr. Forever to supervise."
Sasha nodded, and then motioned for Fred to follow him. The lounge was just down the hall. It was a very nice, well-lit hall with bulletin boards hosting announcements and showing off more patients art projects. A potted fern sat in the corner, next to a dedication plaque that Fred couldn't read. It looked more like an elementary school than a mental hospital.
"Are you sure we're in the right place?" Fred asked.
"Of course. Why do you ask?"
"It just... doesn't look much like a mental hospital."
Sasha telekinetically opened the door to the lounge. Fred followed him in, banging his head on the top of the door frame.
"That must get old very fast," Sasha commented as he mentally pulled out a chair for himself. There were several round cafeteria-type tables over on one end of the room, near a shelf full of worn old games. The other half of the room had a battered old television and some tired furniture. Lively abstract paintings on the wall attempted to brighten up the room, and found moderate success.
Fred pulled out a chair and tried to sit down. After two failed attempts, he managed to fold his legs with his knees under the table and his feet behind the seat. "This, too," he said.
"Why do you say that?" Sasha asked, hands folded, now taking out a cigarette and lighting it. "I mean, that it doesn't look like a mental hospital."
"I dunno. Where are the chains? Where are the patients strapped to beds in the halls because there are no more rooms? I haven't heard any screaming since I got here."
"Not all mental hospitals are like Thorney Towers."
"But Thorney Towers was considered one of the best when it opened."
Dr. Forever entered then, silently. Nurse Hidaka was behind him, rolling in a wheelchair that carried a small, pasty white man with blue hair and milky eyes. "Here he is," said Nurse Hidaka. "Sit up straight, dear." She adjusted Crispin to a better sitting position, but he slumped right back down.
Fred had a gut reaction to Crispin the moment he saw him. His whole body tensed like a magnet and his stomach knotted itself and sank as if he had swallowed bricks. Spending the last year in peaceful contentedness had done wonders for him, and he was so at ease with himself that he'd forgotten just how much of a strong emotional reaction he had to this man.
Suddenly he had a memory, a memory that lasted for years. He was struggling, writhing, suffering, burning from the inside out. Constantly he cried out for help, for relief, and there stood this man, enjoying it as a relief from boredom, taunting and teasing, prodding and poking and driving him further into his madness.
Now he sat slumped, drooling and vacant. Fred would have felt pity for him if he didn't vividly remember what pity for Crispin had brought him before, and if there wasn't something nagging him about this.
"The poor fellow," Nurse Hidaka was saying. "They found him on the island the day after the tower blew up. He was so sick from all the smoke, and his eyes were infected. They brought him to the city hospital and treated him. He made a full recovery except for his eyes, poor guy. The cataracts were so bad, and mixed with the infection his vision couldn't be saved. All that time, he never did anything, never said anything. Couldn't even tell us his name. Someone else involved told us his name. A nice, tall fellow."
'That was me,' thought Fred, 'and the only reason I bothered was because we happened to be in the same room at the same time while the Psychonauts sorted this mess out. I should have let him rot as a John Doe, and I would have if I didn't suspect it would be doing him a favor.' Then: 'Whoa. Where did that come from?'
"He doesn't speak," said Nurse Hidaka, "and he can't see, but he knows voices and he likes it when you talk to him."
Meanwhile, Dr. Forever was nodding in agreement.
'That doesn't sound at all like Crispin,' thought Fred, 'unless that's her projecting onto him again.' Indeed, in this state Crispin was very much a blank slate, and every scarce movement of his was open to interpretation.
Nurse Hidaka straightened him up again, but he slid through her arms, which made Fred chuckle. He remembered how much like pudding Crispin was if you tried to scoop him up when he didn't want you to.
Sasha placed his psycho-portal onto Crispin's head. He focused, and both were still, until Sasha dropped his stance. "There is a mental block keeping me out. Razputin said it kept him out that night, but the block shouldn't hold after Dr. Loboto's death."
Nurse Hidaka and Dr. Forever glanced at each other. "Dr. Loboto?" said Nurse Hidaka in disbelief. "You don't mean Dr. Caligosto Loboto, do you?"
"Yes," said Sasha. "He headed the brain tank operation, but he didn't survive the night."
"We have Dr. Caligosto Loboto as a patient here."
"Could it be the same Dr. Loboto?" Sasha wondered out loud.
Nurse Hidaka raised an eyebrow. "How many Dr. Caligosto Lobotos do you think there are?"
"Let me see him."
"I'm not sure if-"
"This is very important," said Sasha.
"I suppose it's okay," said Nurse Hidaka, "if only the Psychonaut goes." She looked at Dr. Forever. "Don't you think?"
Dr. Forever shrugged.
"Okay. I'll stay here with Cris," said Fred, who had been eyeing Crispin this whole time.
Dr. Forever motioned for Sasha to follow, and led him down the hall. After several turns they moved to a different ward. Finally they stopped in front of a door. Dr. Forever took out a key and unlocked the door. Sasha stepped in and Dr. Forever closed and locked it behind. Sasha was in an area no larger than a broom closet, with a door in front of him that locked from his side. He unlocked it and slowly opened the door.
It was incredibly dark. The only light came from a fluorescent square in the alcove. Sasha could see the room was padded, and a glint in the corner.
"Turn on the light if you want," a high voice cackled. "That is you, isn't it, Nurse Hidaka?"
"It's Sasha Nein of the Psychonauts." He found a switch and flipped it. Then he saw what was undoubtedly the same Dr. Loboto from the brain tank operation at Thorney Towers.
"Psychonauts, Psychonauts, where have I heard that before?" Loboto rubbed his non-chin with his left hand- his gleaming metal claw having been removed for the safety of himself and those around him. "Oh, yes, that two-bit spoon-bending government agency. What brings you here?"
"I was under the impression that you had died after you were blasted from the top of the tower."
"Oh, yes, I did" said Dr. Loboto. "But I'm feeling much better now."
Sasha wanted to question that, but he had a feeling that, if an answer was to be found, it wouldn't come from Dr. Loboto.
"I bet you're curious about why they're coming," said Loboto. "They've been coming and they won't stop. What we had? They want it, that's why they did what they did. And they don't want you to know. That's why they won't stop until we're all dead. But don't worry. I'll be ready for them." Then he threw his head back and cackled, and gave Sasha no more information, no matter what Sasha did or asked.
"How are you keeping up the mental block?" said Sasha. "You're not a more powerful psychic than I am- how is the block strong enough to keep me out?"
"I'll not have you meddling around in my employees brains," said Loboto, "even if you are working on the experiment with me!"
"Very well," thought Sasha, "then I'll have to take a look inside your brain."
"How do you know Crispin?" Nurse Hidaka asked Fred after Sasha and Dr. Forever had left.
Fred looked away from his nemesis. "Oh, uh, I used to work where he was a patient."
"Was he a lot like he is now?"
"Yeah." Then, he told a lie to make Nurse Hidaka smile. "He might be doing a little better, actually."
It worked, and she did. "We do have some of the best treatments," she said proudly. "Oh, um, I'm sorry. I didn't mean-"
"No, it's fine, it's true," said Fred, remembering the rows of restrained patients, screaming out for want of sanity.
"I need to bring him back so I can start the afternoon meds," said Nurse Hidaka, standing up.
"Mind if I stick with him?" asked Fred. The nagging had finally reached solid fruition. He realized what it was.
"That would be so nice for him," said Nurse Hidaka. "He gets lonely in the afternoons."
'I'm sure he does,' thought Fred. They walked down the hall together in silence, and Fred decided that he liked Nurse Hidaka. She showed him to a small room where Crispin stayed. It was bare except for a single bed pushed against a window looking out into a cluster of pine trees. Nurse Hidaka eased Crispin out of the chair and onto the floor across from his bed. "He likes it better here," she explained.
Then she left, which meant Fred and Crispin were alone in the room. It was so quiet, you could hear a pin drop on the cold, unforgiving tile floor. Fred stood just inside the room, by the closed door. Crispin was slumped in the corner, blind eyes still staring ahead vacantly.
Finally, Fred spoke in a surprisingly cold voice. "You can drop the act Crispin. I know you're in there."
Crispin grinned slightly. "Can't pull one over on you, eh, General?"
Fred winced. "Don't call me that."
"Well, you're the first one to see through the act. I haven't broken the charade since they found me on the island. By the way, thank you for coming back for me," Crispin added with as much dignified sarcasm as he could muster.
"Thank you for all the years of friendly conversation and competition," replied Fred.
"Touché." No longer needing to slouch, Crispin straightened up and stretched his shoulder blades. He was no longer confined to a straitjacket; as Sasha had said, treatment of the mentally ill had improved leaps and bounds since Fred's imprisonment, and today straitjackets were a last resort rather than a default necessity on the mentally ill.
"So what's with the act?" asked Fred. "I mean- it wasn't always an act, was it?"
"Of course not, don't be so stupid. Maybe I don't remember why I was there to begin with, but I never wanted to be there. No more than you did, or Teglee, or Cooper..." Crispin shook his head.
"So why now?"
"Because they're coming after all of us. Don't tell me you haven't noticed. Of course you have; that's why you haven't left arms reach of the Psychonauts. You don't want them to kill you."
"Who's they?" Fred was getting confused.
"Who's 'they'? How should I know? I only know what I heard from Dr. Loboto and that short, angry man he was working with. There was more than one manner of intrigue going on there, you know. Or didn't you realize that we were there for fifty five years."
"That can't be true," said Fred. "I'm only thirty-four."
Crispin made a tch sound with his tongue. "Doesn't the world seem a bit different to you, Fred?"
"Well... I guess, but I figured-"
"Someone's trying to cover their tracks, or else track down the secret of what happened, and either way they can't risk the world finding out. And tell me, why would they go after a poor old vegetable like me when there are much more looming threats to revealing their secrets, threats that call attention to themselves whatever they do, or set up shows depicting what they're trying to hide, or sit in the laps of their enemies, the Psychonauts. I'm staying here and alive, thank you very much."
"Well, yeah..." said Fred, "but what kind of life are you surviving for?"
"This may surprise you, Bonaparte, but I lead a very active inner life." He sighed. "My only regret is that I never learned to read Braille. And who would teach someone like my façade to read?" Crispin seemed genuinely sad at that thought, but, again, Fred didn't feel inclined to pity him. He changed his tone quick enough anyway and said, "Have fun hiding with the Psychonauts. They'll come after them first, and you with them."
"Have fun doing absolutely nothing for the rest of your life," replied Fred.
Crispin grinned. "Oh, wait and see," he said in a sinister way.
Outside of Loboto's room, Dr. Forever was waiting patiently for Sasha to signal that he had finished. After a while, he heard the doorknob rattling. Instead of opening it, he tapped his fingernail on the surface of the door and waited until he heard the other door close and lock itself, thus ensuring that Dr. Loboto could not escape. Then he unlocked and opened the door, letting Sasha out. He looked up at him expectantly (Dr. Forever was not a tall man; he almost reached six feet, but not quite.)
Sasha looked back down at Dr. Forever, reading his expression. "There is nothing in that man that I can understand."
Dr. Forever shrugged sympathetically.
"This is a matter of urgent importance," said Sasha. "I know confidentiality is an important part of your profession, but lives are at stake. I need information on the patients I've come to see today."
Dr. Forever reached into his coat and pulled out a manila folder and a thick black Sharpie. He reached into the folder and pulled out a sheet of paper, which he made quite a few marks on and handed to Sasha.
Sasha took the paper and read it over. It had Dr. Loboto's name and physical information. His medical information had been blacked out just now, but a new piece of information had been added: an address.
Dr. Jonathan Kai
514 Industral Park West
Suite 26
Sasha looked back at Dr. Forever, who's expression hadn't changed. He nodded in understanding.