Chapter 284: Lobotomy

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Danny would have been tapping and fidgeting in frustration, but he knew that Freakshow would notice that and try to use it against them. Instead, he stayed still, perfectly, inhumanly, so, and stared.

Freakshow didn't seem intimidated, sadly. He just sneered back.

"You aren't getting out of this," said Ishiyama. "You might as well make things easier for yourself and just tell him."

"And how would removing my leverage make things easier for myself, pray tell? No, I don't think I will."

"We can make your stay with us very uncomfortable, son," said Colonel Grey.

"We've got a whole bunch of experience with that, partner," said Sunset, tipping back his hat.

"Oh, I'm sure. Maybe someone less intelligent would be trembling in their hospital gown. The problem, your problem, is that you're too soft to use that experience." He smirked at Danny. "At least, your leader is."

"You think so?" asked Danny, voice falsely light and sharp like broken ice.

"I know so," said Freakshow. "I know how this little farce plays out. You made some kind of 'deal' with that simpering moron that calls himself a president. You can't keep me, can you, boy? All I have to do is ride out what I'm sure will be a very comfortable stay here, and back there, well, I've proven what I can do with ghosts."

"We could kill you, you know," said Sam. "You'd have to stick around, then."

"You'd take that risk, girl? No, I don't think so."

The worst thing was, he was sort of right. Danny was going to have to bring him back to face American justice, whatever that looked like, and he wasn't going to kill or torture Freakshow.

"Maybe Danny won't, but what about the rest of us?"

"He'd let you dirty your pretty little hands?" taunted Freakshow.

"You're going to die eventually," said Danny, interrupting.

"Do you think I'll be this easy to subdue, after that? You think my hold will loosen with my death? No. I don't think I'll say anything."

Danny stared down at him and took a step closer. His breath tasted cold in his mouth.

"I know what you're really like, ghost," said Freakshow, something wild in his eyes. "Underneath all that pretend civilization. You don't scare me at all."

"Don't I?" asked Danny. "I rather think, with what you know about me, you should be more scared of me, not less. After all, it means that I have more reason to get rid of you."

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"I can't believe we went through all that and we didn't even get anything useful from Freakshow," said Sam, perched on a chair in a hospital meeting room She did not fidget with her bandages. Danny had been… upset… when he realized how hurt she had been and that she (and, to a lesser extent, her mother) had more or less blown off the doctors earlier in her eagerness to get home.

There had also been a lot of arguing about how to handle Freakshow, and, except for the three of them, everyone had left to take a break.

"I know," said Danny, trying not to let on just how upset he was. He gripped the back of the chair he was sitting backwards on, careful not to squeeze it too hard and break it.

"You did get something useful from him," said Clockwork, surprised.

"What?" asked Danny, scowling. He schooled his expression into something less annoyed. It wasn't Clockwork's fault that Freakshow was terrible.

"He expects his 'hold,' as he put it, to last past his death. This suggests that your use of your powers is not the cause of the continuing, ah, altered state of his victims. Or, I suppose, he could just be bluffing, but he seemed much too certain for that. In any case, I would advise against bringing him near any of those still under control. Although I do not believe you would have, regardless."

"Mhm," said Danny. He hadn't been. He wasn't stupid.

"And he seemed to think he could extend the effect through the shield… Although that might have ultimately used a different form of control." He drummed his fingers on his staff, contemplative. "The time scale narrows down some things, some techniques he could have used."

"Mm," said Danny. "Jazz said it looked like he'd done something with magic circles or runes in the holding facility. Chalk on the walls and the tanks. That should narrow it down more, right?"

"Indeed," said Clockwork.

"Should we go and see if messing up whatever he drew will do anything?" asked Danny. "On the way to deliver him, I mean."

"Yes," said Clockwork. "But that would be a very insecure anchor, for him to be so certain that it would remain. Unfortunately, the key may be with 'Miss Forest' as she, unlike Freakshow, had the ability to come and go. Or Freakshow may have deposited an anchor elsewhere, during the time we lost track of him – or even before he was sent away."

"It does seem like he was planning this before he was sent away," said Danny. "According to Lydia, he definitely was, even if it looked different." He sighed. "Another hunt, then. If the president will even let us do it." He rubbed his eyes. "Should we even let him know about it?" The president was so concerned about appearing vulnerable. Maybe Danny should be worried about that, too.

"No," said Clockwork. "I don't believe we should. At least, not until we have undone the spell. Best not to have anyone tempted by something like that."

"Okay," said Danny. "But will Freakshow say something?"

"I don't think he'll say anything that will make someone try and take control from him," said Sam. "Which they would."

"I don't like relying on him to act a certain way," said Danny. "Even if it's what would benefit him the most."

"I don't either," said Sam. "But we don't have a lot of choice, do we? I don't know what you had to agree to, exactly, but we can't break the agreement. We'd lose our progress with peace talks." Sam was too careful to mention Danny's frailty out loud, even here.

Danny shrugged.

"Maybe we can do something to him," said Sam. "So he won't talk."

"We'd have to keep him from communicating at all," said Danny. "I don't think we can do that."

"We could," said Clockwork. "There is a flower which can be processed into a serum that, in large doses, can utterly destroy a person's ability to communicate."

"Really?" asked Danny, surprised.

"Yes. It is called Pseudomyosotis alexiconia. We could likely acquire some in short order."

Danny made a face. "That seems… really unethical."

"More unethical than letting him spread around how to control ghosts?" asked Sam.

"Okay, maybe immoral would be a better word… Can you imagine that happening to you? It just seems over the top."

"Like, compared to killing him?"

"We've been over why we can't kill him," said Danny, massaging his face. Too many times, in fact. If they killed him, then, more likely than not, he'd be loose in the Ghost Zone.

They'd beaten him. Why did it still seem like they'd lost? Or maybe Danny was just being pessimistic.

The door opened and Ishiyama, Pamela and the other Amity Park leaders walked in. "We've made a decision about Freakshow," she announced.

"I thought that was what we were trying to do here," said Sam, gesturing at the small meeting room.

"We thought it was better to have adults make the decision," said Ishiyama.

Both Sam and Danny gestured at Clockwork, who, in a case of either bad or humorous timing, currently appeared to be about their age.

"Yes, well," said Ishiyama, looking pained. Sunset and the ghosts looked guilty, and perhaps a bit frightened.

"You know, if you decide to lock him up, I'm going to have to go get him," said Danny. "He's part of my deal with the president."

"We don't have extradition with the US yet," said Ishiyama.

"Yes," said Danny, "but I said I'd bring him back."

"We know," said Ishiyama, soothingly, "and we're going to let you. We just need to do some things first."

"Oh," said Sam. "You're going with the drugging route, then."

Ishiyama sighed. "Yes, we're going to drug him."

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It evolved that Freakshow, being the kind of person he was, had an extensive history with altered states of consciousness, and also that there were several reasons that one shouldn't drug a mage with hallucinogens, even one who worked mainly through the artifacts of others. Thankfully, the damage to the hospital room was largely cosmetic.

Which left them with this. More specifically, it left Pamela with this.

Pamela walked into the room after dark, the room's lighting making everything uncertain. She pulled up a chair next to the bed and took out her mother's knitting needles.

"Please," said Freakshow, "tell me you're going to threaten me."

"I think we're past that," she said, examining the long, thin needle.

"Do you?"

"You're a monster," said Pamela. "Negotiation, threats, compromise… None of those things work on you. Only abject surrender. Complete obedience. We've talked to Lydia. Classic domestic abuse situation."

Freakshow's face twisted. "She's dead—"

"Please. We both know how much that matters. I know you're suffering from a superiority complex, but at least you can do me that courtesy." She pulled on a pair of blue latex gloves.

"What are you doing?" asked Freakshow.

"I studied medicine when I was younger," she said. "It's how I met my husband. When I got pregnant with Sam, well, I wanted to be present as a parent. I love my daughter very much, you see. I kept up on medical history as a hobby."

Freakshow stared at her with disdain. "Is there a point to this?"

She held up a knitting needle. "Do you know how easy a lobotomy is?" she asked. "Transorbital lobotomies in particular. You go through the bone in the back of the eye socket. You need something sharp. An orbitoclast is the preferred tool. But an icepick would work in a pinch. And a hammer. To make sure it goes through the bone." She pulled a ball hammer from her purse. "Then- a few quick twists. That's all it takes, to sever enough of the connections between the thalamus and the pre-frontal cortex to render a person a shell of themselves. And it was a procedure that could be carried out in the average psychiatric office." She offered up a thin smile. "Fascinating, don't you think?"

"You're bluffing," said Freakshow. He lacked the certainty he had earlier.

"Am I?" asked Pamela. "You wouldn't be dead. Not even brain dead, if I did it right. And, oh, you'd be so much easier to handle. That was the intention behind those initial ones." She twirled one of the knitting needles between her fingers, drawing his eyes to it. "I think it's a neat solution to our problems, don't you?" She stood up, looming over him. "Now, you'll understand that we don't have a lot of anesthetics to spare – you wasted far more than you're worth when we sewed up your ugly face – so you'll have to stay still—"

Freakshow swore at her and bucked uselessly against his restraints.

"No one is coming for you, you know," said Pamela, sweetly.

"You're bluffing," said Freakshow, this time significantly more desperate.

She put one hand on his forehead, and pushed down, peeling back one of his eyelids with her thumb. "I'm really not." She tutted. "Are you wearing red contact lenses? Really?" She peeled the one out of his eye. "Wouldn't want to break them, hm? Get all that glass in your eye."

"You're crazy."

"You hurt my daughter. I have an interest in making sure you never get the chance to do that again. Now stop struggling."

"If you do this, you'll never know how I'm controlling the ghosts!"

"As if you'd tell us anyway. That's what you were saying before, wasn't it?" taunted Pamela as Freakshow thrashed.

"It's in the White House!"

"What's in the White House?" asked Pamela, pitching her voice into something amused and distracted. "Now, stay still, silly. You don't want extra holes in your brain."

"The anchor! The anchor I used to control them!"

Pamela paused. "Oh? Do tell."

A variety of emotions crossed Freakshow's face. First relief, then anger. "You- You weren't going to do it, you—You bi—!"

Pamela slapped him across the face and gathered up her things. By the time she left the room, he was sputtering in impotent rage.

"Wow," said Sam, once the door had snicked closed behind Pamela, faintly awed. "I didn't think you had it in you, Mom."

"And my father said my degree in theater arts was useless," said Pamela, tossing her hair over her shoulder.

"Where did you even come up with that?"

"We're in a hospital," said Pamela. "We've had lots of suggestions. But, you know, Hippocratic oath and all. You see why we wanted adults to make decisions about this, dear?"

"Not really," said Danny. "We've run scams like this before. Clockwork's run scams like this on me before."

"Just one," corrected Clockwork, "and the circumstances were quite different. As was the content."

"You went after me with a scythe."

"What?" said Pamela.

"What?" said Danny.

"A scythe?"

"He wasn't going to actually hit me with it," said Danny. "If he meant to kill me, I'd be dead."

"That isn't actually comforting for a parent to hear. You're a child."

"Eh. We've moved past it. It was ages ago. Plus, he did have a good reason."

"To chase you around with a scythe."

"It was a very good reason."

"What could the reason have possibly been?"

"Dan," said Danny.

Pamela stopped, massaged her temples. Rumors about that sure had gotten around, hadn't they? Probably inevitably, given that Amity Parkers had been on the jury, among the witnesses, in the audience, and just generally involved in the trial Dan had testified in.

"Jeremy told me about that," she said, after a moment. "I wasn't sure it was true."

"It was probably understated, if anything."

"I get it," said Pamela.

"It was really bad," continued Danny.

"Stop tormenting your friend's mother, Daniel," said Clockwork, tapping him lightly on the head.

"Right, right," said Danny. "So, we know the anchor is somewhere in the White House."

Sam sighed and crossed her arms. "We're going to have to figure out how to get it without letting the president know, aren't we?"

"Yep," said Danny. He made a face. "Sorry. That's mostly going to fall to you guys on the diplomatic team. Do you think you're up for it?"

"We have people who can turn invisible and walk through walls," said Sam. "How hard could it be?"