7th Son: Destruction (Book Three in the 7th Son Trilogy)

By J.C. Hutchins

Destruction is the final novel in J.C. Hutchins' 7th Son thriller trilogy.

As day four in the 7th Son adventure begins, John Alpha's quest for anarchy and genocide enters its final stage.

At every turn, the global terrorist has been triumphant. The world reels from a nuclear attack. An unprecedented energy crisis is upon us. Alpha himself has exclusive access to the White House, and secret weapons primed to propel his conspiracy into the endgame. His goal: planetary chaos.

Amidst this turmoil, the 7th Son project's surviving Beta Clones must defy their creators and hunt Alpha on their terms. Their mission: to stop the greatest assassination plot in history. The secrets John and his brothers discover will press them toward a final battle with their progenitor ... a battle in which the clones are outgunned, outnumbered and out of time.

Alliances will be made. Heroes will die. The end is nigh.

(For a limited time, readers who purchase 7th Son: Deceit can receive a free personalized and autographed print copy of Descent, the first novel in the 7th Son Trilogy, shipped to them at no cost. See the "A Special Offer" section inside the ebook for more information.)

• Language: English
• Publisher: J.C. Hutchins
• Release date: Dec 15, 2012
• ISBN: 9780988772045

Book preview

THE STORY SO FAR

A Recap of 7th Son: Descent and 7th Son: Deceit

The year is 2007.

Three days ago, seven strangers—all named John Michael Smith—were torn away from their normal lives and brought to a beyond Top Secret government facility in rural Virginia. There, they learned a horrifying truth about their pasts: These men were human clones, unwitting participants in a decades-old experiment called 7th Son.

These seven men not only shared the same DNA; they also had identical childhood memories. This biological and emotional information hailed from their progenitor, the original John Michael Smith—a man the 7th Son project had code-named John Alpha. Alpha had once been a key member of the experiment, but escaped several years ago, and was found dead not long after.

But the recent assassination of the U.S. president—and clues left behind at the kidnapping of the clones’ mother, Dania Sheridan—indicated that John Alpha was still alive, and planning more destruction and chaos. The seven clones—Michael, Jay, Dr. Mike, Kilroy2.0, Jack, Father Thomas and John—had been assembled by 7th Son staffers Dr. Kleinman and General Hill to stop Alpha before the villain could realize his plans.

Over the next day, the Beta clones split into two groups. One group, armed with clues gleaned from a Morse code riddle left by John Alpha, traveled to California to rescue their kidnapped mother. The other team remained at the 7th Son facility. With help from Kilroy2.0’s flock of conspiracy theorist followers—and Kilroy’s mysterious ally binary_fairy—the clones hacked into governmental websites and followed a trail of reports that led to even more encrypted clues left by the villain.

But the clones were unaware of John Alpha’s full plans. Using stolen brain-erasing NEPTH-charge technology, Alpha had commandeered a nuclear missile outpost in Russia. His NEPTH-charged army—all possessed by the mind of former government-spook-turned-assassin Doug Devlin—was prepping the missiles for launch. In addition, John Alpha’s own psyche was now residing in the mind of U.S. Vice President Charles Caine. Unlike the NEPTH-charge used for Alpha’s army (the side effect of which is a neural liquefaction weeks after the procedure), Alpha used the upgrade of this technology, a system called Psyjack. Alpha had full access to the VP’s memories and mannerisms.

The clones’ mission in California was a disaster. Although they rescued a severely-beaten Dania Sheridan from the abandoned building, Beta clone Michael and John Alpha himself were killed when a bomb beneath the night club exploded. At the 7th Son facility, Father Thomas learned the dark past of the 7th Son project from his father, Hugh Sheridan. 7th Son was the brainchild of Nazi doctor Klaus Bregner, Sheridan explained. In exchange for his life, Bregner brought his cloning research to the States, and helped create 7th Son.

As the second day of the clones’ adventure concluded, Vice President Caine—or more appropriately, Caine-Alpha—contacted his other Psyjacked selves, and confirmed that his scheme to hijack nuclear weapons in Russia was still going as planned. While speaking to a villainous collaborator, a computer hacker named Special(k), Alpha also learned the recent activities of the Beta clones.

On their flight from California to Virginia, Dr. Mike and John mourned the death of their brother Michael, the firstborn of the Beta clones. They spoke to Dania Sheridan about Psyjack, and how Alpha could have obtained its secrets. She didn’t know.

At the 7th Son facility, the clones reviewed the data they’d recently stolen from the government sites. According to reports, eighty men and women across the U.S. had died in the past five months—all from brainrot, NEPTH-charge’s horrifying side-effect.

The mystery deepened as Kilroy realized Alpha’s likely delivery method for NEPTH-charge and Psyjack: special prototype DNACs—DNA computers. These stolen portable devices have ultra-high data storage capacities, they learned.

The men decoded some of Alpha’s cryptic messages, finally understanding that the sequence of the riddles was based on the birth order of the clones themselves. The riddles commanded the clones to split into two groups—one heading northward from their Virginia location, and the other, southward.

Dr. Mike, John and Dania Sheridan returned from California. The clones were ordered back to the Common Room, and the injured Dr. Mike and Dania were sent to the facility’s infirmary.

Meanwhile in Houston, megalomaniacal oil tycoon A.U. Rookman—the man bankrolling Alpha’s conspiracy—hosted a meeting with the villain. He spoke with a version of John Alpha lurking in the brain of Mira Sanjah, the nurse who had Psyjacked Vice President Caine. Rookman’s incompetent son Lionel was brought in, and became the latest victim of Psyjack. A.U.’s consciousness was now in his son’s brain ... and elderly Rookman (who suffered from Alzheimer’s and cancer) was killed by Sanjah not long after.

As the third day of the Beta clones’ adventure began, the men solved a critical puzzle and discovered a locale that Alpha apparently wanted them to visit: a Texas ghost town called Prophecy. They also discovered the identity of Alpha’s NEPTH-charge assassin, Doug Devlin. Jay left the clones’ Common Room to visit his mother, still in the infirmary. There, Dania Sheridan murdered her son. She had been Psyjacked by John Alpha.

The 7th Son facility was put on high alert, not because of Jay’s death—but because of the launch of the hacked Russian nuclear missiles. The nukes struck their targets: Saudi Arabia.

Alpha’s takeover forced John, Jack, General Hill and Dr. Kleinman to visit a room well beneath the facility, called the Proto-Womb. The project’s first cloning experiments were performed here, and it is where John Alpha cloned himself twice before escaping the facility in 2003. He had stolen disk space from the mammoth MemR/I hypercomputer array to record and store his memories for his Alpha clones. Those clones were now dead, the most-recent perishing in the showdown at the California nightclub.

The Betas and their allies stopped Alpha’s takeover of the facility, but not without a price: Hugh Sheridan murdered Dania-Alpha, and was left to wander the halls of the facility in a booze-fueled depression. The already-depleted 7th Son security force was further reduced, due to Dania-Alpha’s killing spree. Jay was dead. And Alpha had stolen—and transmitted—special protected information using Dania Sheridan’s Code Phantom access privilege. Her keystrokes had been scrambled and the transmissions encrypted. Several Ops computers were damaged during the re-takeover, as well.

As the clones regrouped, the world reeled from the recent nuclear attack. The planet’s largest supply of oil reserves was destroyed. A global economic collapse was imminent. The international community screamed for sanctions against the attacking nation, Russia. A nuclear winter may be imminent.

While the world outside was in chaos, the immediate crisis in 7th Son was over. Dr. Kleinman began an autopsy on Dania Sheridan, searching for clues about Psyjack. The Betas solved another critical element of Alpha’s clues, learning that John and Dr. Mike must travel to Arctic Village, the tiny Alaskan community where Doug Devlin was born. There, they learned, Devlin’s mother would reveal a secret. The duo vowed to leave that day for Arctic Village. The other clones chose to head to Prophecy, Texas.

Using Top Secret Aurora hypersonic aircraft—commandeered from Area 51, thanks to General Hill’s Code Phantom security clearance—the groups quickly arrived at their destinations. Father Thomas, Kilroy2.0 and Jack cracked a final piece of Alpha’s puzzle—Find the A in Main—which led them to John Alpha’s secret lair: the high-tech renovated interior of Prophecy’s water tower.

The headquarters was abandoned, save for a computer monitor with a live video feed of hacker and Alpha collaborator Special(k), a former understudy of Kilroy2.0.

Special(k) promised to reveal Alpha’s location via GPS coordinates ... but only if Jack remained at the water tower. Thomas vehemently resisted this, but eventually acquiesced. Special(k) gave them the coordinates of Alpha’s location. But as Thomas and Kilroy2.0 were departing the tower, the evil hacker revealed a double-cross: the town of Prophecy—and Jack—were to be destroyed by a network of explosives.

As Thomas and Kilroy departed, Jack gleaned important clues from Special(k)’s taunts, and plotted his escape from the lair. In a spectacular race against time, Jack leaped from the top of the water tower, smashed through a tree canopy, and successfully piloted his car through the streets of the exploding town.

Jack reunited with the others. They deduced that John Alpha had lured them away from his true conspiracy—and, in the process, was murdering the Beta clones in the order in which they were born. As the jet was prepped for departure to Alaska (after all, Dr. Mike and John were heading into a deathtrap), Kilroy2.0 researched the GPS coordinates he’d received from Special(k). These coordinates matched the location of a Texas-based private airstrip, the perfect locale at which to murder Kilroy and Father Thomas, were they to travel there.

Meanwhile in Alaska, John and Dr. Mike learned that Devlin’s mother was dead, but connected with Josephine, the killer’s sister. Based on a riddle left at Devlin’s mother’s gravesite, the duo flew to Brownlow Point, in the northern-most region of the state, just west of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. ANWR is a federally-protected nature preserve known for its vast supply of untapped oil reserves.

There, they discovered a vast Rookman Oil drilling camp. The employees there were apparently awaiting orders to roll into ANWR to begin extraction. The clones’ Aurora jet landed—and then a monstrous Komatsu dump truck rolled onto the camp’s airstrip, accelerating toward the jet. Dr. Mike and John escaped before the house-sized truck slammed into the aircraft. Both smashed vehicles rolled onto the frozen surface of Camden Bay ... and then, as the ice cracked, sunk into the water.

The clones were soon held at gunpoint by a NEPTH-charged Devlin soldier. During a brief interrogation, Mike accidentally identified himself by name, and was murdered for his misstep. John was severely beaten, and abandoned in the wilderness to freeze to death.

John awoke sometime later, and trudged to the drilling camp, determined to find a way to communicate with General Hill and the other Beta clones. On the way, he spotted two NEPTH-charge soldiers. Eavesdropping on the killers, John learned of the Alpha-Rookman connection, and that the psyche of A.U. Rookman had been downloaded into his son’s mind. He was soon spotted by the Devlins. John stole a fuel tanker truck to escape them.

The story then shifted to the villains. In Washington DC’s Pentagon command center, Vice President Charles Caine chatted with the United Nations’ Secretary-General via telephone. John Alpha—whose psyche was still in Charles Caine’s mind—learned that world leaders would soon convene at the U.N. headquarters in New York to discuss the planet’s fate.

In Texas, the Psyjacked Lionel Rookman convinced U.S. President Vincent Hale to urge politicians to begin drilling in ANWR, to alleviate the world’s new oil shortage.

Finally, the bona-fide John Alpha and hacker Special(k) flew eastward in a private jet. They discussed the final stage of their scheme. Hidden bunkers containing stolen low-yield Red Mercury nukes had been built five months ago ... and now, thanks to a new crop of NEPTH-charged Devlins, the endgame would begin. At 10:07 tomorrow morning, the Devlins would attack.

Meanwhile, the Aurora jet containing Jack, Father Thomas and Jack red-lined it to Alaska. As the aircraft screamed northward, the clones pieced together clues from the past day. They realized that John Alpha’s original plan at the 7th Son facility was to flood the complex with poison gas, killing nearly everyone inside. Alpha may have wanted to clear the facility for a later return.

They shared this information with Gen. Hill, but the General said that Alpha’s biometric security clearance—his retina scan—has been purged from the 7th Son security system. No one can enter the complex now, not even the clones, Hill told them. He then reported that Dr. Kleinman was creating a diagnostic brain scan to identify Psyjack victims. And Hill himself was supervising the decryption of the valuable data Dania-Alpha had transmitted during her takeover that morning. If successfully decrypted, that data would help to finally reveal Alpha’s real plans.

In Alaska, John’s fight for survival continued. Thanks to some resourceful—and lucky—driving of his fuel tanker, John narrowly escaped collision after collision from two pursuing Rookmail Oil semi-trucks, each piloted by a Devlin. But the killers corralled his vehicle past the relative safety of the drilling camp, and out into the wilderness beyond.

The two Devlin rigs behind John were gaining. Inspired by a plan, John drove toward the nearby airstrip. As he turned onto the runway, John activated the semi-truck’s decoupling device, separating the fuel tanker from his rig. During this, John lost control of his own truck. It screamed off the runway, into a field of snow, and crashed.

The pursuing Devlin trucks, unable to turn, smashed into the rolling tanker trailer. The trailer detonated, vaporizing one of the rigs. The second truck rocketed through the flames, and—despite its damage—pulled up to John’s destroyed ride.

John climbed out of his truck, dazed and exhausted. The Devlin assassin strode across the snowscape and aimed his pistol at the clone. John was finished.

But strange scarlet light suddenly appeared near the killer. The lights became bullets—red tracer fire screaming from the Aurora overhead, the jet containing the other Beta clones.

As the Devlin evaporated in a gore-filled mist, John collapsed onto the snow, and wept.

ONE

It felt good, damned good, to be laying down. To be at rest.

John stared up at the bright fluorescent bulbs of the recovery room. Kleinman’s pale face loomed again into his field of vision like a giant. A memory came to John: His waking moments here in 7th Son, strapped to a gurney, surrounded by moon men. That was when his life had begun the roller coaster ride. That was when life had still been simple, if that made any sense. John held back a smile at this paradox, primarily because it would bend his bruised face. It didn’t just hurt to smile. It hurt to blink.

And then John was fighting the urge to flinch as Kleinman’s tweezers slipped into another laceration beneath his eye, digging for one last sliver of glass. One last hitchhiker from Alaska. Kleinman was a mouth-breather when he concentrated, John had learned. With the old man’s every exhale, John caught the withering aroma of halitosis. He’d be happy when this was over, if only for the fresh air.

There, Kleinman said, plucking the last bit of shattered mirror from John’s cheek. The shard chittered into a metal pan on the doctor’s instrument table. That makes sixteen. It’s a wonder none got into your eyes.

They were closed, John replied. I was too terrified to watch. Are we done?

Kleinman nodded. These wounds aren’t deep enough for stitches, but they’re nasty enough to scar. You might be carrying these reminders for the rest of your life.

The rest of my life, John repeated. He turned his head, eyeing Jack in the infirmary bed beside him—and Thomas and Kilroy2.0, who were sitting between them. As usual, Kilroy was tapping away on his laptop. I have you three to thank for that.

Thank the pilot, Thomas replied. He offered a smile that radiated an understated gentility. John wondered if Thomas knew how effective that smile was. The man was born to be a priest—which was yet another paradox to gnaw at John’s mind.

Pascoe did the flying, and the shooting, Jack said from his bed. I only wish we’d figured out Alpha’s scam sooner.

The plan to kill us off, John said. Kleinman dabbed the clone’s face with peroxide. John flinched, feeling the tickly sting of the stuff. I figured it out way too late. Mike.

We all did, Jack whispered, nodding. Crimson scratches covered his bearded face. A thundercloud bruise had bloomed over his right eyebrow. Black stitches covered a blood-red lightning bolt. All souvenirs from his own great escape in Texas. I had to drive through hell to make the connection.

We should all be dead now, Kilroy murmured. He looked up from his computer, hopeful. Alpha may not know we’re still alive. We have ... a window of opportunity.

Kleinman stepped to other side of John’s bed, examining the clone’s face. Bite down again. Gently, he ordered. Does it still hurt?

Damn it, man, I told you already, John snapped. "Yes, it hurts. Yes, I know there’s probably some wobbly teeth in there. Yes, I know my cheeks, nose and ears are frostnipped, and will likely blister like a motherfucker. Yes, I know I’ve probably suffered a mild concussion. And though you haven’t mentioned it, yes, I’m certain this battered mug isn’t going to win any beauty pageants in the next few weeks. Now could you give me some space?"

Kleinman gave him a mournful look.

I’m sorry, doc. I just don’t trust your kind, John said. Don’t take it personally—I don’t trust salesmen, either. Sawbones and salesfolk. Bad medicine. It’s just how I’m built.

I know, Kleinman said, a smile glancing his lips. You never did like doctors. It’s fine. I’ll dote on my other guest here.

Jack rolled his eyes. Great, he said.

Actually, I’m joking, the old man said. I’ll be back in a moment. There’s something important I want to show you.

If it’s an insurance waiver, I’m leaving, Jack said.

Kleinman winked. He stepped over to the doorway, allowing the wall-mounted security scanner to take a picture of his retina. He stepped through. The door shut—and locked—behind him.

Freakin’ mother hen, John said. All that hovering. Gets on my nerves.

Thomas chuckled. You know, Kilroy’s right. Since the Devlin at the Alaskan airfield was the last one up there, Alpha won’t know that we’ve survived. That not-knowing could play to our advantage.

We’re on the dark side of the moon, Kilroy said, nodding, still staring at his PC. "And we know things we were never meant to know. A carefully organized scheme to wipe out Saudi crude production, justifying a drilling project in the wildlife refuge. Duplicitous assistance from one of my Twelve. And let’s not forget the pièce de résistance: The patriarch of big oil—A.U. Rookman himself—Psyjacked into his own son’s mind."

Are you sure that’s what the Devlins said? Jack asked.

I was crouching six feet away from the chatty Cathys, John replied with a nod. They were bitching about how Rookman got the royal Psyjack treatment. They specifically mentioned his son. ‘The world’s none the wiser,’ Devlin said.

Kilroy glanced up from his portable. According to obits on the ’net, the elder Rookman died last night from a heart attack. Lionel Rookman, his uberschmuck of a son, holds the company reins, as specified in Rookman’s will. That bit has shocked the talking heads—the ones who aren’t wailing about the global economy going down the toilet, I should say.

It’s true, Jack, John said solemnly. I know it is.

What else have you dug up on the dead man? Thomas asked.

The hacker frowned. Rookman’s obits are basically glorified press releases—at least from the mainstream media. Outrageous character, extremely influential, closed-door power player. Married a Penthouse Pet a few years back, ala Anna Nicole Smith. Some folks say she did it for the money, but Rookman himself said he did it for the headlines. The company is extremely diversified: Rookman owned the land, the pumps, the refineries, petrochemical byproducts, aftermarket manufacturing, you name it. He was diagnosed with lung cancer and early Alzheimer’s in 2001. Since then, the company’s board of directors has been trying to chip away at his authority.

This is one helluva way to get back in the driver’s seat, John muttered.

Kilroy nodded, looking back to his screen. So. The usual humdrum stuff on the surface. But I was able to collate some more data from my flock.

Thomas started. You went online? he asked. "You went online now? When we’re supposed to be dead? They’re looking for us!"

It’s not what you think, Kilroy said. I’m not stupid. I know my ‘Kilroy2.0’ persona is under Special(k) surveillance. So I logged onto the boards under another user profile.

What name? Jack asked.

ConspiraC:, Kilroy said. ConspiraC: is my well-informed white-collar alter ego who likes to ask questions. My Clark Kent. It’s just one profile I use when I want to pump my people for information, but don’t want to be slammed with the adulation.

Even a cyber-prophet needs his downtime, John said. He grinned, then winced.

How many alter egos do you have? Thomas asked.

Twenty-three, the hacker replied. One for every mood, for every purpose. On one board, I play a cat. SweetKitty99. I prowl around the chatroom and purr. People give me milk. It’s quite liberating.

A whole other world, Jack marveled.

It is what it is, Kilroy said, and shrugged. I spoke to my people. Of course, there’s been a surge in Rookman-related discussion threads now that he’s ‘dead’ ... though none of them come remotely close to the truth. Murdered by Azerbaijani militants? Please. Bloody amateurs. Rookman reportedly had close ties to the military. Military contractors, to be precise. He invested in high-tech R&D firms, many of which conduct design and feasibility studies for the Pentagon. If you believe the talk—and I do—his money paid for the first stealth bomber’s radar-busting ‘blackball’ paint. He dumps cash into the cutting-edge stuff. High risk, high payoff.

DARPA, John said.

Unconfirmed, Kilroy stressed, but likely. It’d certainly explain how Alpha learned about Mom’s Psyjack research.

Zee plot, it thickens, Jack said. For the old man, it’s about cheating death. Alpha offers to make it happen for a price. Rookman’s one of the richest men in the world. He could afford Alpha’s setup in Prophecy, the theft of the DNA computers, the cash needed to hire Alpha’s personal hacker. What else? Twelve lords a-leaping?

A drilling camp, John said. Drilling will start in ANWR, and it’ll start soon. Rookman becomes America’s biggest supplier of crude, maybe the world’s after that. Which means absurd profit margins ... not to mention prices. What does Alpha get out of this, other than us dead? The chance to watch the world writhe on the spit. Not bad payment, if you’re a lunatic.

Watch it, Kilroy said. There are lunatics present.

You seem well-adjusted enough for me, Jack said, for a man who calls himself SweetKitty99.

So what happens next? Thomas asked.

The clones considered this.

We crack it wide open, John said, his voice firm. We call the feds, call the media, call the frickin’ cavalry and tell them what’s going on. Hill will know who to contact. Jack and I saw him down in the Proto-Womb this morning, covered in that slime, nearly cracking up. I think he’ll play ball. If he doesn’t, we do it anyway. We tell the world that Rookman’s behind the attack, that Alpha’s been executing the plan. NEPTH-charge, Psyjack, the works. Let the sun shine in.

You’re serious, Thomas said.

If we want to stop Alpha—and Rookman’s plan to hijack the oil industry—it’s the only way, John said. From his chair, Kilroy nodded thoughtfully.

No way, Jack said. "We’ll be exposed along with 7th Son. People will ... they’ll know. You’re willing to take that bullet?"

I’m gonna have to be, John replied.

I’m not. It’s easy for you three. But. My family. Jack uttered this last word in a pained whisper.

It can’t stay in the bottle, Jack, John said. Not anymore. Too many people have died.

But the Ops files, Jack said, hopeful. We don’t know what’s in them. We should wait. Wait until—

The door unlocked, and the clones hushed. In stepped Kleinman. The old man was pushing a metal cart. Resting atop the cart was a flat-panel monitor. On the wide shelf underneath were two PC towers. He wheeled it over to the clones.

What’s this? Kilroy asked.

You’ll see. Do me a favor. Plug it into the wall there.

Kleinman, Thomas said. What’s the story on the Ops files? He glanced at Jack. The files Hill has been trying to decrypt all day?

Kilroy was squatting by the cart now, his enormous belly hanging between his knees. He looked like a burly, bearded Buddha. You know, Hill should really have me take a look at the system, he said. I could help.

Orlando seems to think you’ve done enough tinkering for one day, Kleinman said.

That’s a load of crap, the hacker muttered, plugging the cart’s thick electrical cable into the socket. He stood up.

Kleinman turned his gaze back to Thomas. Hill and Sgt. McKeever—he’s one of the few security officers we have left around here—are still parsing the files, trying to find a hole, a cipher. Kleinman pressed the power button on the computer keyboard. The PCs chimed, whirring to life. I, on the other hand, have discovered my own cipher. Just before you arrived, I isolated the Psyjack brainwave.

John and Jack started in their beds at the same time, trying to lean forward. Both cringed in pain, also at the same time.

Can you show us? Thomas asked.

I’m afraid there’s no getting around it, the doctor said. Demonstrations for the whole room. You’re all to undergo a brain scan. Hill’s orders.

Joking, Kilroy2.0 said. He was on his feet now, backing away from the cart. He licked his lips. Right? Joking, yes?

Not at all, Kleinman said as he pulled several small foil packets from his lab coat. We’re not taking chances with people’s identities around here. Not after what happened this morning with Dania.

Bring it on, doc, John said, clearly curious. I’ve got nothing to hide. At least I don’t think I do. The clone paused, pondering. "Huh. Would you even know if you’d been Psyjacked? Your psyche, I mean. Your consciousness, the thing that makes you you."

The person who’d know is dead, the old man said, stepping over to John. He tore open the foil packets. Each had a disc-shaped electrode inside. Each electrode was topped with a small silver nub in its center; a tiny antenna. But if it weren’t for Dania, I couldn’t have ID’d the Psyjack wave.

Kleinman placed the electrodes on John’s head. He then walked back to the computer.

That’s another development Alpha doesn’t know about, Thomas said. The cracks are showing.

Let’s hope it stays that way, John said. He watched, fascinated, as the cart’s monitor suddenly displayed a series of jagged, colored lines as he spoke. They spiked and plummeted in real-time, like a oscilloscope. John’s eyes widened. Is that my brain I’m seeing?

The lines surged in an explosion of activity. From across the room, Kilroy watched the monitor, his face pale. He gnawed on a thumbnail, tearing it to the quick. His thumb was now bleeding. Kilroy didn’t seem to notice.

Indeed, Kleinman said.

I’ll be damned, John said. More furious patterns filled the screen. John chuckled. Again, the lines danced on-screen.

Like any other electrical appliance, the brain emanates frequencies, Kleinman explained. He nodded at the monitor while hitting buttons on the cart’s keyboard. Brainwaves. Different brainwaves perform different functions. Alpha waves are dominant when you’re awake, relaxed. Beta waves kick in when you’re hyper-alert. Even during sleep, the brain’s humming along, producing Delta waves. As you know, the key to 7th Son’s MemR/I technology was isolating another brainwave and recording it.

From the hippocampus, Thomas said, mesmerized by the activity on the monitor. The Memory Totality, the ‘flash memory’ facilitator. That brainwave is always running in the background, like a tape hiss.

Very good, the doctor said. He pressed a button on the keyboard. A window popped over the streaming lines. The Psyjack wave is similar in that it also emanates from the hippocampus. Best I can tell, that’s how the ‘Psyjacker’ accesses the Memory Totality of his victim. Thanks to the kind of research we do here, 7th Son’s systems were designed specifically to identify the hippocampus’ waves. That’s how I was eventually able to locate the Psyjack wave.

A garden-variety brain scan wouldn’t pick it up, Jack said.

No. It would be like trying to hear a whisper in Grand Central Terminal, Kleinman said. He typed the word EXECUTE in the PC’s window prompt, his finger hovering above the enter key. The Psyjack wave is subtle, insidious. But when you calibrate scanning equipment to isolate it...

Kleinman tapped the key. One by one, the jagged brainwave lines disappeared from the screen.

...you quickly discover if you’re scanning the mind of a Psyjack victim, he finished. The monitor was completely black, with the exception of the command window.

What does that mean? John asked, electrodes still stuck to his head. Did I pass?

Yes. If you were Psyjacked, this filtering program would’ve identified the wave and displayed it. It would be the only wave on the screen now. Since it’s not, you’re not.

Man oh man, John said. A Psy-detector.

Kleinman removed the electrodes on John’s head and repeated the process for Thomas and Jack. Both were amazed by the sight on their thoughts on a TV screen. They also passed Kleinman’s Psy-detector test.