The visualizer, or the man who alters reality

Isaac Moiseevich glanced once more at Vera Ivanovna and began describing his clinic:

— Our clinic is quite large — it can be compared to a multi-specialty medical center. There are not many facilities of this scale in the world, which is why serious academic circles take a keen interest in our work. That is probably why our physicians are respected in the West and are invited to attend various medical forums and symposia.

— Let me show you around. We have three six-story buildings, all connected to one another at the second-floor level — meaning there is a through corridor on that floor that allows you to move from one building to the next without going outside.

He pointed toward the elevator and pressed the button for the second floor.

— We also have our own landscaped grounds under permanent guard, he continued. Ill show you those a little later.

— The first building houses the registry, the intake wards for new patients, and the consulting rooms for general practitioners. This is where we issue certificates to the public and carry out initial patient assessments. Our clinic serves as a district facility, so anyone who needs documentation for a drivers license or a firearms permit must come to us. The physicians who see walk-in patients are highly experienced — they can identify an unstable individual from just a few words. If that person requires our medical assistance, they are immediately detained and referred to the staff psychologist. If you come to work with us, you too will learn to recognize those who suffer from various mental disorders, he said, looking attentively at his companion.

— On more than one occasion such referrals have led to individuals becoming our permanent patients. And the police have no doubt found themselves short a few serial killers as a result. That is precisely why the authorities pay such close attention to our clinic. No one wants unpleasant surprises, and everyone would prefer to avoid them.

After riding the elevator to the second floor together, the director and the young woman found themselves at the entrance to a long through corridor where a second guard was on duty. The man in a special protective uniform looked sternly at the director — he already knew the physicians were coming up by elevator and did not stop them.

Without a word he opened the turnstile for them using his own smart card. As he did so, the reader played a cheerful little melody from some familiar childrens cartoon.

— Every member of our staff has an identical smart card with a limited access radius, Isaac Moiseevich continued.

It was evident that he had a fondness for digital gadgets: modern color cameras were mounted throughout every floor of the hospital, and the doors were fitted with vandal-proof readers from the NPO Relvest access control and management system.

— If you do not have authorization to enter a particular security zone in any of the three buildings, your personal card will not open the turnstile. Only the chief medical officer and the director have the right to move freely through all three buildings. Other physicians have cards with additional restrictions tied to their professional duties and working hours. If they are not permitted to enter a given building or room, they will not get in, no matter how much they might wish to.

The clinic director then looked carefully at Vera Ivanovna and murmured, just quietly enough that the guards would not hear:

— If you turn out to be a good fit for us, we will make you a card exactly like this one, and you will be able to pass through every turnstile in the building, on whatever floor it may be.

Chapter 2

The sage who speaks of freedom

while in prison — who

counsels all to lose themselves in

wine — Is truly wise: in chains he

still is free, strong as a cliff,

when his soul stays noble.

Omar Khayyam

Kirill had ended up in the psych ward several years ago. He had long since understood that he was born a different kind of child — one who did not quite resemble his peers. After a while his parents noticed it too, unable at first to understand why their son had no interest in playing with children his own age, and why those children ran from him as though from someone carrying the plague.

It was probably connected to the fact that Kirill possessed some kind of innate, very powerful energy that affected other people and pushed them away from him. Or perhaps it was a matter of his character. He was an only child, raised according to the strictest family traditions, and that had its effect on ones psyche.

If he wanted someone elses toy, he would simply walk up to the other child and demand it be handed over — even though it did not belong to him. After receiving this command, the other child would meekly comply and surrender whatever had caught Kirills fancy. As a rule, parents sorted out these scandals as soon as they occurred and returned the pilfered trinket to its owner. But things could not go on that way forever.

As Kirill grew, so did his abilities. It turned out that he possessed a natural gift for hypnosis and could influence even adults. Once, riding a trolleybus, he was approached by an inspector checking tickets. The inspector asked to see his travel pass. Kirill reached into the pocket of his leather jacket. The pass was not there — it had probably been left in another coat, and searching for it was pointless. Kirill thought for a moment and remembered his hidden abilities. He decided to test them in practice.

He did not want to deceive the conductor, but he had no choice. He pulled out the first scrap of paper he could find and tried to convince the conductor that this was the very travel pass he had been asking the schoolboy to produce. It was the kind of thing he did with children in the yard — but up to this point it had only ever been a game. Strangely enough, the conductor saw no difference between the scrap of paper and an ordinary travel pass, and returned it to the young man who had shown it to him. Then he moved on to check the documents of the other passengers.

The boy smiled. His abilities had grown considerably, and they had been proven in practice. He now intended to put them to use in his own interests. At that point he was still considered a normal person, and he paid no particular attention to his gift.

Perhaps his new abilities might have served as a kind of magic wand in difficult life situations, had it not been for the nervous breakdowns that struck him from time to time — something resembling epileptic fits. The stronger his abilities grew, the more severe and prolonged these episodes became, until they began to resemble a serious psychological or neurological disorder.

The first episode occurred when he was twelve years old. The relentlessly negative news broadcast on the main television channels, the high bar he had set for himself in his schoolwork, and the absence of close friends all combined to bring about a deep psychological exhaustion and a severe nervous breakdown.

He did not know how to relieve it and fell into hysterics. His condition did not improve. Kirill could not shake the headaches and the bad moods that dogged him constantly, preventing him from studying or resting. The boy developed insomnia and could sit up through the night playing on his personal computer without sleeping at all. The psychological stress intensified and led to another episode, another bout of hysteria that would not let up for days. He shouted at his father, cried, and could not calm down. Sometimes he raised his voice at his parents out of resentment — out of the feeling that they did not understand him.

His parents grew worried and took the boy to a psychologist they knew. The psychologist listened carefully to the parents and prescribed breathing exercises and regular physical activity. For a time this genuinely helped. Kirill began attending a tennis section, and this held the development of his stress and emotional overload at bay for several years. During that period his episodes almost entirely ceased, and his parents relaxed a little.

But then bad luck struck. Moscow was being built up at breakneck speed, and some investor had set his sights on a small sports complex that stood very close to their home. Builders tried to profit at the residents expense under the cover of the renovation program. Many Muscovites found themselves in exactly this situation, and their complaints went unanswered.

The building was demolished, and within a year and a half a large residential complex had risen in its place, covering every available plot. Almost no open space remained in the yard of his building. The green plantings were felled without mercy and replaced by an enormous parking lot that swallowed every square meter of the surrounding grounds. There was no longer anywhere to meet with his peers — there was simply no room.

The parking lot was used by anyone and everyone, from passing taxi drivers to residents of the neighboring buildings. The new tenants who had moved into the high-rise next door were rough and ill-mannered people who had arrived in Moscow by chance, through personal connections and large sums of money. Many of them had come from the post-Soviet republics and Central Asia. Kirill was forced to give up the sport he had loved so much. And that took its toll on his health.

What was more, new students had arrived at their small school — students who immediately noticed the boy who spent so much time studying and spoke to no one, doing his best to avoid his classmates. They began taunting and bullying the child who differed from them in both his level of knowledge and his upbringing, and this too began to leave its mark on his psyche.

He became highly irritable, and this aggression eventually led to the development of schizophrenia and paranoia. He kept getting into fights with his peers, and sometimes took a heavy beating. The fights did not pass without consequences.

It seemed that someone had struck him hard on the head at some point, for he began to feel as though invisible forces were deliberately sending psychological waves against him, waves that made him feel worse. His accounts of this frightened his parents and acquaintances, and they were obliged to take him to a private psychological clinic for a second evaluation.

This time the doctors prescribed neuroleptics to correct his behavior, and that definitively altered his psyche. Added to the nervous breakdowns that would not cease was a new heaviness, a sluggishness and inattentiveness. He was no longer capable of concentrating even on his regular homework. Where once he had spent no more than an hour and a half on it, it now consumed all of his free time.

Kirills grades declined, and teachers began to take note. The persecution from peers and teachers intensified, while his condition became dependent on the medication. If it was not purchased on time, he would fly into a rage, plunging into a deep depression that could last for days.

The episodes began to recur at regular intervals, and in the end he was placed in the psych ward, transferred to the open inpatient unit in the hope of a quick recovery. He felt a little better at the clinic. But Kirill had not made his peace with his situation and dreamed of escaping from this private psychological clinic, for he considered himself a perfectly normal person and traced all his misfortunes to his parents desire to be rid of him.

Had the facility been any less secure, he would have made good on that dream long ago. His parents were prepared to pay for his care, and the doctors saw no reason to discharge the young man. His parents were exhausted by his constant erratic behavior and nervous episodes. They also wanted some time to themselves — to reach a decision about their sons treatment in a calmer state of mind.

His parents understood that only the doctors could pull him out of this difficult psychological state, correcting his behavior and his relationship to life, to his peers, and to his parents — whether through medication or through some other means.

Chapter 3

To cage one soul, I deem more

worthy far than setting free a

thousand slaves from war;

And by one tender act of

love to bind one heart — than

liberate all humankind.

Omar Khayyam

Walking the length of the corridor that connected the first and second clinic buildings, Vera Ivanovna and Isaac Moiseevich passed through into the second wing of the hospital. This section housed patients in the open inpatient ward.

As the director explained, the closed inpatient ward was located in the third and outermost building — the one with the strictest security of all. The third building also housed the administrative offices: the director's suite and the chief medical officer's office. That office, Vera Ivanovna was told, would soon be hers.

The arrangement was a practical one: only the director and the chief medical officer held the authority to prescribe the powerful psychotropic and narcotic medications that certain patients required. Every such drug was tracked and logged; misuse could — and did — result in heavy administrative fines and criminal liability.

Isaac Moiseevich mentioned, not without a certain rueful pride, that he himself had once been penalized for just such a violation — though he had been entirely innocent. The fine levied against the clinic had been substantial enough to cut directly into staff salaries; several employees had gone without their annual bonuses and had quit. Finding replacements had not been easy.

Patients receiving powerful medications were confined to the third and most heavily guarded building, which was watched around the clock by a private security firm.

The contrast between the first and second buildings was stark. The first received outpatients who came mainly for official paperwork; the second housed people suffering from genuine mental illness — mild forms of psychotic and schizophrenic disorders. As a rule, such patients did not stay long and made reasonably steady progress.

What struck Vera Ivanovna immediately was the absence of doors on the patient rooms. The windows were fitted with anti-vandal security grates, locked with ordinary door locks. Isaac Moiseevich explained the logic: keeping patients in plain sight at all times prevented attacks on staff or other patients, and made it impossible for anyone to attempt suicide — whether by self-harm or by throwing themselves from a window.

Patients could deteriorate without warning, and what followed could be anything — including a suicide attempt. Doctors and orderlies had to respond instantly to any incident or unusual situation anywhere in the building and render immediate assistance. Russian law and the clinic's own internal regulations demanded nothing less.

Security cameras were mounted virtually everywhere; all patient and staff activity was captured by video recorders housed in a small security booth. Most patients wore identical hospital gowns and drifted aimlessly along the long corridor, occasionally exchanging a few words with a nurse or an orderly.

It was plain that the patients had very little to do, and Vera Ivanovna took note of that immediately. She already had ideas — and she knew what her first priority would be. A few patients sat in the common lounge watching television from leather sofas. As the director explained, these were individuals whose illness presented in a milder form; they were even permitted supervised walks in the park adjacent to the second building, within a designated and guarded perimeter. The walks were scheduled at the same time every day, after lunch. A cafeteria was situated at the far end of the corridor. Isaac Moiseevich invited Vera Ivanovna to join him for a meal, but she declined — she had only recently had breakfast.

Making their way down the corridor, they encountered several nurses and one of the ward physicians. Everyone was occupied with their own duties and could spare only a few minutes. Isaac Moiseevich introduced Vera Ivanovna to each of them as the clinic's future chief medical officer — their future boss. He seemed in no doubt that she would accept the position.

The young physician they met on that floor was named Boris Alexandrovich Smirnov. He was a psychologist by training, and had spent years working with advanced and chronic cases of various psychiatric conditions — schizophrenia, dementia, and their complications. Isaac Moiseevich held him in high regard and took pains to introduce him properly to Vera Ivanovna, citing his accomplishments with evident respect. And yet, for reasons the director did not spell out, he had never promoted Smirnov to a higher position. Perhaps, Vera Ivanovna thought, the man was simply too young. Or perhaps there were other reasons — more serious ones.

After they had crossed the second building from end to end, they reached the next connecting corridor — the passage linking the second and third wings. Security here was a level above anything they had passed through before.

Vera Ivanovna had never seen screening equipment like it anywhere. At the start of the corridor stood a transparent airlock booth — an access control and management system that sealed from both sides, forming a pressurized chamber. The only way in or out of the secured area was through this airlock. As Isaac Moiseevich explained, identical units were installed only in the most tightly guarded government medical facilities and cost an almost incomprehensible sum of money.

The patients housed in the third building suffered from severe psychiatric disorders; some of them posed a genuine danger to those around them. If the patients in the second building might realistically expect to be discharged in a month or two, those in the third building were confined there more or less permanently. Only a small number could hope for a transfer back to the second building, and then only after an extended course of treatment.

Any such transfer required the approval of a medical review board, which would formally determine either the patient's complete recovery or meaningful clinical progress. Only from the open inpatient ward of the second building could a patient make it back to the outside world. The system was not arbitrary: certain patients had already contemplated escape, and the layered design was intended to make any such attempt as difficult as possible, despite the already formidable security measures. Board members were chosen from among the most experienced physicians on staff, since some patients had been known to convincingly simulate recovery.

The two physicians passed through the airlock into the third building and made their way toward the director's office, located just inside the entrance of the corridor. Standing directly outside the office door was yet another guard, armed with an electric stun weapon. Isaac Moiseevich clearly wished to feel completely safe at all times, and had granted the security detail broad authority accordingly. While they were in this wing, the guard followed a step behind him like a bodyguard lifted from an American espionage thriller.

"Unfortunately, I have to keep security around me twenty-four hours a day," the director said apologetically, nodding in the guard's direction.

"Your office is directly across the hall from mine, by the way. The two rooms are connected by that metal door right there," he said, turning to face her and pointing. "So you need not worry about your safety. The guard will make sure no one disturbs you while you are here — and that no one harms you, either."

Vera Ivanovna stepped into the director's office. In the center of the room stood a large, elongated conference table that joined Isaac Moiseevich's own desk in a single combined structure shaped like the letter T. Along the right-hand wall stood a cabinet housing a compact personal card index of the most difficult patient files. All the furniture was of fine quality, built from high-grade hardwoods.

As Isaac Moiseevich explained, the card index contained duplicates of the most complex and advanced cases — patients whose care required either his personal involvement or that of a consulting neuropsychologist. The originals were kept in neat folders in the reception office on the first floor of the first building. The registration clerk who managed them served as a model of professional conscientiousness: every file was immaculate, sorted alphabetically by name and surname, forming what amounted to a unified medical records system. The director liked to keep his finger on the pulse of things and would periodically review these files, reflecting on contemporary approaches to treating the many behavioral disorders he encountered in his patients.

On the wall directly above his desk hung a portrait of the President of the Russian Federation. Such portraits invariably adorned the offices of senior officials, and Isaac Moiseevich was not one to be found wanting. Senior bureaucrats visited the clinic from time to time when close relatives were ill, and they were always shown straight to the director's spacious office — a room that looked far more like a government ministry suite than the office of a typical psychiatric facility administrator.

After the tour was complete, Isaac Moiseevich settled into his executive chair and invited Vera Ivanovna to take the wooden chair drawn up to his desk, directly across from him.

"I'd like you to tell me about yourself and your previous work," he said. "Everything interests me. Where you worked before, what you accomplished, what you enjoy doing in your free time, why you're looking for a new position."

With that, he turned his full attention to Vera Ivanovna Maslova. And she began. She told only the truth — she had nothing to conceal from the man who was to be her supervisor, and who had, on the whole, made a good impression on her. There were no skeletons in her closet. Her conduct had always been beyond reproach.

Chspter 4

We drink not out of mirth or

revelry,

Nor do we seek unbridled liberty.

We drink to flee ourselves

for just one hour —

And that is why we yield

to wine's dark power.

Omar Khayyam

John met Winston at a small Irish pub on the outskirts of the city. Years ago they had worked together at the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations — an independent organization, as it styled itself. Both men were psychologists, and the friendship had held, even though John had left the Institute five years earlier to go into private practice.

Anyone who departed the Institute had first to sign a non-disclosure agreement covering all commercial and confidential information acquired during their time there. As a result, the only people either man could speak to freely were those still on the inside. Contacts with journalists or anyone in the creative professions were strongly discouraged. Perhaps that was why they always met at the same Irish pub on the city's edge.

The Tavistock Institute of Human Relations was, by any honest measure, one of the most fashionable and influential groups of researchers in the fields of governance, sociology, and mass psychological influence. Operating behind the cover of a non-profit organization, it had long since become a factory for brainwashing and engineering the so-called color revolutions and acts of sabotage that erupted in various corners of the world — some of them remarkably distant from the dominion that Great Britain still, in its own way, considered itself to be.

Psychophysical and psychotronic techniques were applied both to the Institute's own citizens and to foreign nationals who passed through its doors. Perhaps that was why the place had begun to look rather like a modern medical clinic. Among the Tavistock Institute's clients were major private corporations and foundations, as well as government regulators — including the British foreign intelligence service.