City of Truth Read Online Free Page B

and Gloria flinched. "You did reasonably well, girl," the doctor continued, handing the mike to my sister.
    "Oh, yes, Connie," she said. "Keep up the awfully good work."
    "It's not fair." Sweat speckled Connie's forehead. "I want to go home." As Gloria surrendered the mike, the tachistoscope projected SNOW IS HOT.
    "Now, lass! Read it!"
    "'S-s-snow is ... h-hot.'" Lightning struck. The girl shuddered, howled. Blood rolled over her lower lip. During my own burn, I'd practically bitten my tongue off.
    "I don't want this any more," she wailed.
    "It's not a choice, lass."
    "Snow is cold ." Tears threaded Connie's freckles together. "Please stop hurting me."
    "Cold. Right. Smart girl." Merrick cranked up the voltage. "Ready, Connie?
    Here it comes."
    HORSES HAVE SIX LEGS.
    "Why do I have to do this? Why? "
    "Everybody does it. All your friends."
    "'H-h-horses have ... have...' They have four legs, Dr. Merrick."
    "Read the words, Connie!"
    "I hate you! I hate all of you!"
    "Connie!"
    She raced through it. Zap. Two hundred volts. The girl coughed and retched. A string of white mucus shot from her mouth like a lizard's tongue.
    "Too much," gasped Gloria. "Isn't that too much?"
    "You want the treatment to take, don't you?" said Merrick.
    "Mommy! Where's my Mommy?"
    Gloria tore the mike away. "Right here, dear!"
    "Mommy, make them stop!"
    "I can't, dear. You must try to be brave."
    The fourth lie arrived. Merrick upped the voltage. "Read it, lass!"
    "No!"
    "Read it!"
    "Uncle Jack! I want Uncle Jack!"
    My throat constricted, my stomach went sour. "You're doing quite well, Connie," I said, grabbing the mike. "I think you'll like your present."
    "Take me home!"
    "I got you a pretty nice one."
    Connie balled her face into a mass of wrinkles. "'Stones'!" she screamed, spitting blood. "'Are'!" she persisted. "'Alive'!" She jerked like a gaffed flounder, spasm after spasm. A broad urine stain bloomed on her smock, and despite the mandatory enema a brown fluid dripped from the hem.
    "Excellent!" Merrick increased the punishment to three hundred volts. "The end is in sight, child!"
    "No! Please! Please! Enough!" Sweat glazed Connie's face. Foam leaked from her mouth.
    "You're almost halfway there!"
    "Please!"
    The tachistoscope kept firing, Connie kept lying: falsehood after falsehood, shock after shock — like a salvo of armed missiles flying along her nerves, detonating inside her mind. My niece asserted that rats chase cats. She lied about money, saying it grew on trees. The Pope is Jewish, Connie insisted. Grass is purple. Salt is sweet.
    As the final lie appeared, she fainted. Even before Gloria could scream, Merrick was inside the cell, checking the child's heartbeat. A begrudging admiration seeped through me. The doctor had a job to do, and he did it.
    A single dose of smelling salts brought Connie around. Easing her face toward the screen, Merrick turned to me. "Ready?"
    "Huh? You want me—?"
    "Hit it when I tell you."
    Reluctantly I rested my finger on the switch. "I'd rather not." True. I wasn't inordinately fond of Connie, but I had no wish to give her pain.
    "Read, Connie," muttered Merrick.
    "I c-can't." Blood and spittle mingled on Connie's chin. "You all hate me!
    Mommy hates me!"
    "I like you almost as much as myself," said Gloria, leaning over my shoulder.
    "You're going to have a highly satisfactory party."
    "One more, Connie," I told her. "Just one more and you'll be a citizen." The switch pricked my finger like a tooth from the terrible hare that had attacked Toby.
    "A highly satisfactory party."
    A single droplet rolled down Connie's cheek, staining it like the trail left by one of Toby's beloved slugs. It was, I realized, that last time she would ever cry. Brainburns did that to you; they drained you of all those destructive and chaotic juices: sentiments, illusions, myths, tears.
    "'Dogs can talk,'" she said.
    * * *
    And it truly was a highly satisfactory party, filling the entire visitor's lounge and overflowing into