The Theta Patient

By Chris Dietzel

After receiving three new patients at the mental institution he runs, Dr. Bradburn is immediately visited by an agent of the State who insists one of the men is a radical. Only by asking each patient a series of questions will the supposed threat be identified. But the questions Dr. Bradburn is told to ask will make him rethink everything he knows about the world around him:

- Do you believe in time travel?
- Is the world a better place today than it was a hundred years ago?
- If you could go back in time and change any event, what would you change?

A Theta Timeline short story.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Chris Dietzel
• Release date: Dec 21, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311699381

Chris Dietzel

Chris graduated from Western Maryland College (McDaniel College). He currently lives in Florida. His dream is to write the same kind of stories that have inspired him over the years.His short stories have been published in Temenos, Foliate Oak, and Down in the Dirt. His novels have been featured on the Science Fiction Spotlight, been required reading at the university level, and have been turned into award-winning audiobooks produced by Podium Publishing.Outside of writing, Dietzel is a huge fan of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu (BJJ) and mixed martial arts (MMA). He trained in BJJ for ten years, earning the rank of brown belt, and went 2-0 in amateur MMA fights before an injury ended his participation in contact sports.

Book preview

The Theta Patient

A Theta Timeline Short

Chris Dietzel

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidence.

THE THETA PATIENT, Copyright 2015 by Chris Dietzel. All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Watch The World End Publications.

Cover Design: Levente Szabo

Cover Edit and Text: Matt Butterweck

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By Chris Dietzel

Dystopian

The Theta Timeline

The Theta Prophecy

The Theta Patient (short story)

A Quiet Apocalypse

The Man Who Watched The World End

A Different Alchemy

The Hauntings Of Playing God

The Last Teacher (short story)

The Last Astronaut (short story)

The Last Voter (short story)

Epic Space Fantasy

The Green Knight - Space Lore I

The Excalibur - Space Lore II

The Round Table - Space Lore III

Lancelot - Space Lore IV

The Sword in the Stone - Space Lore V

Avalon - Space Lore VI

The Gordian Asteroid (short story)

Satire

The Faulty Process of Electing a Senior Class President

Table of Contents

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About the Author

You have nothing to fear, if you have nothing to hide.

Joseph Goebbels – During Nazi Germany

No one should be against our mass surveillance unless they have something to hide.

Various leaders – During the rise of the State

1

There was never enough time in the day. Dr. Bradburn knew this better than anyone.

Being in charge of the largest mental hospital in the state, there was simply too much work for one person to do. Each morning, he had the daily staff meetings. These were supposed to be routine. No longer than thirty minutes. But after discussing issues from the previous night, patients who were having problems, and any missing staff members—assumed to have done something the State didn’t agree with and likely never to be seen or heard from again—they lasted at least an hour or two every day.

Just three days prior, his head nurse hadn’t shown up for work. Calls to the man’s home went unanswered. Most likely, he was in a secret prison or else dead in a ditch, a single blast in the back of his head. Bradburn didn’t agree with the harshness of the penalties brought down by the State, but he went along with it for two reasons. The first was that the State’s leaders were adamant that everything they did was to keep the public safe. Each time they took someone away, it turned out that individual had been some kind of a threat. The second reason Bradburn accepted missing friends and coworkers was because he knew that if you didn’t give the State a reason to take issue with you, you could live your life in peace and quiet. The people who were being tortured or were already dead, no matter how nice they had seemed, were partially to blame for what happened to them because if they hadn’t said or done something the State didn’t like, they would have been left