"Somebody's been using it on me," I said. "Maliciously. Damn near
drowned in a lake of blood from a water faucet."
"Couldn't have been DTs?"
"I'm serious. It's been going on for three or four days now. Not the
blood. That's what gave it away. But other things."
"You've been working pretty hard lately," Newell reminded me.
"Which is why I'm on vacation and all nice and relaxed. Or at least, I
_was_. No, it's not that. Listen, Carson, I admit that I'm no technical
expert on telenosis. But a long time ago--seven or eight years ago, I
guess--I did a feature series on it. I learned a little bit. Enough to
save my life this time."
Newell shrugged. "Okay. You probably know more about it than I do. I
just know it's damned restricted stuff." He paused thoughtfully. "Any
missing telenizer equipment would cause a helluva fuss, and there hasn't
been any fuss."
"No machines in Palm Beach or vicinity that somebody on the inside could
be using illegally?" And then I answered that question myself: "No ... I
doubt it. The machines are used only in the larger hospitals."
"Don't suppose you have any hunches?"
I shook my head slowly, frowning. "You couldn't really call it a hunch.
Just a bare possibility. But I noticed on a news report the other day
that Isaac Grogan--you know, 'the Millionaire Mayor of Memphis,'
released about a month ago, bribery and corruption sentence--anyway,
he's taken up temporary residence in Palm Beach."
The boss rubbed his chin. "As I recall, you did an expose series on him
four or five years ago. Corroborated by official investigation, and
Grogan was later sentenced. You thinks he's after revenge?"
I raised a hand warningly. "Now, hold on--I said it was a bare
possibility. All I know is that Grogan hates my guts--or might think he
has some reason to. I know that Grogan is in Palm Beach, and that I've
been under telenosis attack. There's no necessary connection at all."
"No," Newell said. "But it's something to start on." He looked at his
wrist watch. "Tell you what. It's nearly noon now. Let's go out for
lunch, and while I'm thinking, you can tell me all you remember about
telenosis."
* * * * *
It's altogether possible that you may have no more than barely heard of
telenosis--its technical details are among the most closely guarded
secrets of our time. So I'll go over some of the high spots of what I
told Newell.
Mind you, I'm no authority on the subject, and it has been a full seven
years since I have done any research on it. However, I learned all I
know from Dr. Homer Reighardt, who, at the time, was the world's
outstanding authority.
Telenosis, nowadays, is confined almost exclusively to use in
psychiatric hospitals and corrective institutions. It's used chiefly on
neurotics. In cases of extreme dementia, it's worthless. In fact, the
more normal you are, the more effective the telenosis.
Roughly--without going into any of the real technicalities--it's this
way:
Science has known for a long time that electrical waves emanate from the
brain. The waves can be measured on an electroencaphalograph, and vary
with the physiological and psychological condition of the individual.
Extreme paranoia, for example, or epilepsy, or alcoholism are
accompanied by violent disturbances of the waves.
Very interesting, but....
It wasn't until 2037 that Professor Martin James decided that these
brain waves are comparable to radio waves, and got busy inventing a
device to listen in on them.
The result, of course, was telenosis. The machine that James came up
with, after twenty years of work, could not only listen in on a person's
thoughts, which are carried on the brain waves, but it could transmit
messages to the brain from the outside.
"Unless the waves are in a state of disturbance caused by alcohol or
insanity or some such thing?" Newell commented.