Read Online Mindwalker by AJ Steiger - Free Book Online Page B

said about him, and he knew it. He bragged about what he’d done, right to my face. That’s when I lost it.”
    â€œWhat about his victim? Did she tell anyone?”
    He shakes his head. “She was scared.”
    â€œI see,” I say quietly.
    He studies my expression. His own is cautious—a look I’ve come to recognize, like that of a wild animal alert for threats. “So, are you afraid of me?”
    â€œWhy would I be?”
    He lifts an eyebrow. “I just told you that I attacked someone.”
    I hesitate. Maybe I
should
be scared. I don’t even know if he’s telling the truth. But I feel, deep in my bones, that Steven isn’t a violent person. Not in his core. “You did it for someone else’s sake,” I say. “Often, people who’ve been victimized early in life become victimizers themselves; they take on the role of the person who hurt them, in order to avoid feeling helpless. But in your case, your trauma seems to have given you empathy for other victims and a desire to defend them. I find that quite admirable, actually.”
    He blinks a few times. The corners of his mouth twitch in the faintest shadow of a smile. “Well, you’re the first person I’ve met who feels that way.”
    I wind a tendril of hair around one finger, then catch myself and interlace my hands in my lap.
    He turns his head, and the silver crescent of the collar glints in the dim light. I have an impulse to touch it, to slide my fingers over it.
    Aside from monitoring a person’s stress levels, the collar is also capable of controlling violent behavior. If a Four starts acting aggressively, it delivers a pulse of energy to the base of the brain, rendering the person unconscious. It’s notinstantaneous—there’s usually a lag, anywhere from a few seconds to a minute, while the computer analyzes patterns of brain activity—but it’s good enough for stopping most crimes in progress. It can also be activated manually. If a guard is watching a security camera and sees a Four about to do something violent, he can activate the collar with the push of a button. There are monitoring stations for that very purpose in every IFEN facility.
    All in all, it’s an extremely effective way of preventing violence without hindering someone’s freedom to move about. But of course, the collar has no capacity for moral judgment. It can’t sense whether its wearer is hurting an innocent person or acting in self-defense. It just looks for the neural red flags associated with intent to harm.
    Advocates are quick to point out that the collar is a better, more humane option than locking dangerous people in a treatment facility for life, and they have a point. If I were forced to choose, I’d take the collar over imprisonment. Still, I can’t deny that its existence makes me uneasy at times.
    My chai is cooling. Suddenly, I don’t want it. “Is there any way to get rid of it?”
    â€œThe collar? They replace it every few years, but there’s no way to take it off yourself. It’s wired into your brain. People have fucked themselves up really bad trying to yank it out.”
    â€œNo, I mean … legal recourse. If you’ve been collared unjustly, there should be a way …” He’s looking at me with an odd expression—part amusement, part weariness—that makes me feel silly for asking. But surely, there
must
be a way to fight back.
    We leave the restaurant and linger outside, under a sky blanketed with ash-white clouds. A monorail slithers along the curving track overhead, like a silver snake.
    I turn toward him. “Can I ask another personal question?”
    â€œAsk away. Can’t promise to answer, though.”
    â€œHave you really gone through Conditioning twelve times?”
    He smiles. “Thirteen.”
    All that, and it still didn’t affect his Type. But then, it’s rare for a Four to