mindsc@pe Ch. 05

Chapter 5
And If You Call In The Next Half Hour...

Jayce shifted in the waiting room chair. The whole place seemed so sterile; more like a hospital than a psychiatrist's office. Possibly on purpose, the walls all blended together, not a solid corner in sight; even the chairs and shelves had only curved edges. With the exception of the new magazines on the table, everything was white, and that's what made Jayce uneasy.

The speaker on the wall chirped to life. 'Jayce Winslow.' He looked around the room, nearly a dozen chairs; all empty. He sighed at the formality of it all before getting up and headed for the door marked "Dr. B. Theloneus Ph.D., Psy.D, M.D." in bold, black letters. He pushes open the door, and stares in confusion at the room behind it.

Bookshelves line the walls of the small room with no gaps anywhere to be seen, each shelf stocked full of books; two deep in some places. A simple darkwood desk juts out of the wall, books stacked neatly upon it. A woman in a grey suit sits on a basic swivel chair, gesturing to another swivel chair near the door.

'Please, take a seat Mr. Winslow.' The Doctor says as she flips through a clipboard of notes. Her red hair is held back in a tight bun by a Biro, a single lock having broken away from the bun and rests just behind her left ear. She's larger than the average woman, but by no means fat; her body seems toned and healthy but quite curvy. Across her nose a thin pair of reading glasses sit, pushed up occasionally only to slip forward again.

Jayce closes the door and sits, tearing his gaze away from the grey-suited woman; choosing instead to shift his eyes along the titles of books. Before he can absorb any though, she speaks up again.

'Mr. Winslow,' Jayce's attention snaps back to the Doctor.

'You can call me Jayce.' He smiles back, trying to seem as innocent and normal as possible.

'Mr. Winslow,' the Doctor seems unphased by his attempt at informality. 'It says here you received a traumatic blow to the head whilst at work.' Her silence promped Jayce to respond.

'Um, yeah; that's right.'

'And you were in a coma for five days.'

'Yep.'

'There's a substantial list of medications and treatments on here, what are you currently taking?'

Jayce sighed trying to remember the name of the meds he was given. 'Zyprexa Olanzapine for the "depression",' he made fingerquotes in the air much to the Doctor's annoyance. 'And a whole bunch of painkillers that I stopped taking because it doesn't hurt anymore. Unless you poke it. You won't poke it will you?'

The woman looked up from her notes with eyes that seemed to slap him in the face. 'No, that's not my department.' She says before flipping one last sheet then putting the clipboard down; folding her glasses and placing them neatly in her inner-breast pocket. 'Is there anything you'd like to tell me to start with?'

Jayce mulled the question over in his mind. He was sent here to "get better", but this doctor – if the various letters after her name were any indication – might actually be able to tell him about the powers of the mind. 'Telepathy.' He blurted, as if he was unsure midway through the word whether he should've said it in the first place; hurrying to get it out as quickly as possible.

'What?' The woman seemed more curious now, but she still held the same steely expression as before.

'Telepathy. You know, being able to see into another person's Mind? Reading a pers-'

'I know what it is,' she says, cutting him off 'What I mean is: What do you want me to say about something that has never been proven to exist? There's no conclusive tests on the subject, no evidence of a separate mind-state that allows multiple people to interact, no- Why are you looking at me like that?'

Jayce grins mischievously. 'You want to take a look at my mind, figure out if I'm healthy right?' The Doctor doesn't respond, choosing instead to stay silent while he audibly finishes his thought. 'Well, I can show you my mind.'

The woman reaches over to her notebook and scribbles the words "concuss" and "dmg cerb?" 'Telepathy? So you're under the impression that you are telepathic?'

Jayce reaches up to trace a finger across the bandage. 'I think the bullet fused some mental wiring that shouldn't be fused. I just hold a person's hand and think of somewhere in my mind, and we go there. Or we go into the other person's mind. It's a difficult thing to control sometimes.' A quick smirk crosses his face as he remembers the experience with his boss.

'So you can prove this?' She asks, resigning herself to having to deal with yet another nutcase 'You want to show me I suspect?' The doctor puts the clipboard and pen down again, turning to face Jayce with her hands on her lap.

'It's easy, though I know it sounds weird.' Jayce shuffles on the chair's caster-wheels towards the woman, extending his hand palm up. She looks at his hand, then at him. 'Just two seconds. If you don't believe me I'll go back to the other side of the room and stop sounding as creepy as I'm sure I do.'

The doctor sighs, extending her hand palm down above his. 'One...' she counts as Jayce brings his hand up to hers.

'Two.' He says as the room around them spins off into the darkness.

Jayce is the first to speak as they sit there in the nothingness, beneath them a solid floor of darkness; the only remnants of the room being the seats each figure remains sitting in. 'So yeah...'

The woman stares at him, gobsmacked as she tries to figure out where they are. Realising her professional façade cracking away she shakes her head and regains some composure. 'I take it we're now in your mind?'

'Yep.'

'It's a little... "empty" isn't it?' She says, a bearly concealed smirk flashing at him for the briefest of moments.

'Yeah yeah, I've already heard that one before...'

'Before?' She reaches for a clipboard that isn't there, instead deciding to note it in her near eidetic mind until later. 'You've been here with someone else?'

'In my mind, only once properly.' Jayce stands up, the chair vanishing as he leaves it. 'But I've been in others a few times now.'

Still unconvinced of exactly where she is, the Doctor rises as well, her chair enveloped by darkness just as Jayce's was. 'We shall have to talk about that some other time.' She waves the thought away as she turns to the man, hoping the polite way is the easiest way to continue. 'As we're in your mind, what are the rules?'

'Rules?' Jayce cocks an eyebrow; the thought of needing "rules" never really occurred to him. He was in full control, so there was nothing anyone could really do to him aside from be annoying.

The Doctor put hands on hips, staring at Jayce with an expression of indignant frustration. 'Rules. Things you don't want me to do or see. It's your mind, I'm sure there are places you don't want me going.'

'No rules.' Jayce's nonchalant attitude shocks the woman 'You're supposed to evaluate me, what's the point of hiding anything?' He stretches his neck, rolling it from side to side as he rotates his shoulders; shaking the tension out through his hands. 'I will warn you though, some parts can be a little disturbing.'

'Consider me duly warned.' The woman walks over to him, standing a few feet directly in front, the two figures facing each other.

'Actually, one rule...' Jayce says, his heart beating faster.

'Yes?'

'First names only.' He raises an eyebrow in the hopes of looking more innocent, and fails miserably.

'Why?'

'Well, if I have to call out or something, "Doctor Theloneus" is six syllables, and a bit of a tongue twister. "Mister Winslow" is an extended four. "Jayce" is just one. Shorter is better.'

The woman sighs as she thinks about the ramifications of first names with clients. Having previously kept everything so professional with her other cllients she really didn't want to be so informal for someone she's barely even met. But the thrill of actually being inside someone's mind, able to look at everything from their point of view was just too much of a temptation; especially with the thesis 'Bronwyn. Call me Bronwyn.'

Jayce extends a hand to the woman, shaking hands firmly but not squeezing, using what little he knew of human behaviour to keep both hands level as a sign of equality. 'Thank you, call me Jayce.' He notices a slight look of concern in her eyes. 'Don't worry, You'll only be Bronwyn in here-' he taps his head '-anywhere else and it'll be Doctor.'

Jayce breaks the handshake and they stand at a crossroads in a field. The surface curves away far quicker than it should, with the pair only really able to see a few hundred meters down each path before it vanishes beyond the horizon. 'So, where to first? Do you start with memories of childhood or something? I kind've only have Hollywood to go by...'

Bronwyn laughs, then covers her mouth in embarrassment.

'Don't worry, you get used to that.' He says, smiling at the redhead. 'Self control is a really big thing here. Let slip and you never know what'll happen.' The last few words hang there as some imaginary cricket starts chirping in the grass.

'Hmm...' she says, again shocked at her somewhat involuntary action. 'That is somewhat more "Hollywood" than how I work.' She confesses, looking down the identical paths, trying to find some form of signpost or marker, to no avail. 'I normally begin by asking what brought you to my office in the first place and go from there.'

'Well in that case.' Jayce says as he walks to the center of the road 'We need to go this way.' As he gets close to the middle of the crossroads the ground pulses and bends, contorting itself into a hole. Doing his best "David Bowie a la Labyrinth" impression he walks towards the hole and then down into it, gravity pulling him in ways it shouldn't. 'he pokes his head back through 'Come on.'

Hesitantly Bronwyn heads for the hole, she can feel the universe bending around her as she continues to walk down, into and through to the other side where there is... an entirely identical crossroad. Jayce stands over at one of the paths. 'This is... exactly the same' she couldn't help but say as she approaches the man.

'Only if you don't know what you're looking for.' Jayce points over to a cinema lobby far off in the distance as she stands on the threshold of that particular path. 'Each road goes somewhere specific; memories, experiences, sensations, they've all got their own path.' Jayce starts walking down the road and after taking a few steps he stops, waiting for Bronwyn to catch up. She strides over and the two match speeds somewhat awkwardly as they head towards the flashing lights.

'So where are we going?' she asks, remembering that she's supposed to be evaluating, not sight-seeing.

'Pretty much memory central. I won't take you to the "repressed" section just yet; I'll need to give you some firearms training first.'

Bronwyn keeps pace but is visibly taken aback by his comment. The words tick over in her mind as she comes to a realisation. 'Can- Can I die here?' she asks, her nerves breaking through the solid demeanour.

'No. Or at least, I can't. I'm pretty sure you can't either.' Jayce rubs his beard, thinking.

'How do we get back?'

'Ah,' Jayce stops and turns to the woman, rubbng the back of his neck nervously in the process. 'That's a good question. Most of the time it's just skin-on-skin contact, "wishing" yourself out of here. Haven't been able to experiment much with that though,' he admits, a little red in the face 'Things keep happening a little "fast" on exit... so far...' He picks up the pace again, Bronwyn immediately matching stride as they reach the front door in silence.

Moving through the empty foyer Jayce heads over to the candy-bar; acquiring various food and drink from behind the counter. 'Lemonade or cola?'

'Lemonade I guess... Why only two?'

'Not sure,' Jayce replies as he fiddles with the dispenser. 'I'd have thought my mind would at least have root beer, but no matter how much I try to replace the other nozzles, cylinders or syrups, all I get is Coke or Sprite.' He laughs as the drinks are capped 'At least it's not "caffeine free" or something similar...'

He hands the waiting woman a drink and a box of popcorn. Before guiding her to the appropriate cinema. They sit as the trailers begin to roll. 'This'll be interesting.' He says as he settles down in his seat; dead centre of the cinema with a perfect view of the screen. He pats the seat next to his 'Trailers in here are my way of looking at possible futures; conversations I expect to have and so on. Some are downright hilarious. Others, not quite so much.'

The screen comes up bright green with the "PG" logo in the middle.

'Coming this Fall to a theatre near you' the American voice pours out of the cinema with so much syrupy Hollywoodism that both figures roll their eyes. A pan shot of the city during morning peak hour crawls its way across the screen. *A fun family comedy that verges on Farce – L.A. TIMES* fades in and out as the shot turns to that of a street view from the civic centre; Jayce walks down staring comically at the shop windows.

'A Movie about a man,' Jayce waves to some passers by, who look at him strangely and talk amongst themselves as he continues down the arcade. 'looking for friends in all the wrong places.' The shot now pans to a bikie gang as they pull up in front of him, weapons swinging menacingly. He nods, waves and walks through the pack as they stand confused, their chains and baseball bats limp.

'I just want a friend who likes me for me, you know?' the twenty-foot-tall representation of Jayce confesses to the considerably more sexily dressed Bronwyn on screen. The real one turns to him with a cocked eyebrow as he sinks a little lower in his seat, mumbling apologies.

'But little does he know,' the shot changes again to that of Jayce at work, serving a long line of customers 'that you can't find good friends;' A silhouette of a woman blocks the camera view as Jayce looks up from his till, ready to serve the next customer; his eyes sparkling as he looks to her 'Good friends find you.'

A brief slide of credits flash onscreen along with the title "The Man Who Found Nothing".

'I could spends months analysing that particular trailer.' Bronwyn states, her arms crossed.

'Sorry, my mind tends to wander a little, and you have to admit, you are-'

'Shh!' Bronwyn presses her index finger against her lips as she turns back to the screen; an "R" rating message appearing in red.

A woman's pleas for help shakes the seats as the screen goes black. A slap is heard, flashing the picture of a naked woman battered and bruised across the screen before fading back to black. Another slap; another image of the bloodied woman. More cries for help.

Jayce appears on screen, his oilskin trenchcoat drenched from the night-time downpour, the only dry spot directly underneath his Akubra. He walks slowly towards the camera as flashes of lightning off in the distance bring up the girl's body for just a few frames; the subliminal nature of the images only just realised in conscious thought.

*Saviour?* the word fades into the picture, disappearing with a flash of lightning, replaced by *Or Killer?*. As Jayce draws nearer to the camera his body blurs; his black shirt darkening the screen as raindrops fall on to an invisible surface, his mind conjuring the stunning CG effect. *THE PATH* is finally spelled out in the displaced raindrops before one final flash of the girl and a credits slide, a disembodied girl's voice once again pleading for mercy.

This time Bronwyn looks at Jayce very seriously, her brow furrowed. 'I can explain... Just... How about after the movie?' He stumbles over words as she continues her worried expression, turning back to the screen just in time for an ad.

'Are you tired of the daily grind?' A very staged shot of someone bored in an office cubicle appears onscreen. He nods to the camera. 'Ever feel the need to escape?' he nods again, this time more pathetically. 'Then try the new "Mindscape" service from Winslow Group™.'

The logo appears onscreen, making Bronwyn let out an annoyed sigh 'Really?' as the letters float past the full motto can be read; *mindsc@pe: if you can't, we can*.

The Hollywood voice starts up again 'Just call your local representative and they'll rush to you, service in under an hour, guaranteed.' A footnote pops up at the bottom, far too small to read properly but stating something about prime locations and service areas. It disappears almost as soon as it had arrived. 'We can create any dream you desire, and only charge by the second. One second in reality is an amazing Hour of dream time.'

The office environment has now become a badly bluescreened slideshow of the man enjoying playing beach volleyball, climbing a mountain and floating through space. 'Thank you Mindscape!' he says as he waves at the camera. 'You turned my Can't into a Can.' He gives the screen a thumbs up as he floats away to a very fast talking voiceover 'OnehourofferonlyvalidwithintenkilometersoftheCBD,termsandconditionsmayapply;seewebsitefordetails.'

Bronwyn's head is buried in her hand as she keeps repeating the phrase 'Really?' REALLY?'

A yellow "M" floats back on screen as Jayce lightly jabs her with his elbow. 'Last one, I promise' he says, flicking a piece of popcorn in the air; expertly catching it with his tongue.

Dramatic music comprised mainly of drums helps open the scene of a mass of futuristic craft barrelling through mountain passes and over lush hills; twisting and turning, climbing and falling their movements are both purposeful and beautiful. The volume of the drumming increases as the craft level out and engage their full thrust as a city comes into view in the distance. The camera zooms in, just ahead of the fleet, slowing down in the last second to the face of a screaming man, who looks as though He-Man, Chesty-Bonds and Johnny Bravo had given Jayce a makeover.

Suddenly the image changes to that of a CGI Jayce waking up, a piece of notepaper stuck to his forehead; as the rest of the university class look at him with mocking amusement. A Danny Elfman-style soundtrack starts up as the narrator from the first trailer pitches in once more. 'Jayce is a man like most others.' The shot changes to him trying to wave down a taxi, beaten to the punch by hot girl after hot girl. 'He lives an ordinary life,' now Jayce is sitting on the couch, watching a movie. He drops a cushion after something dramatic happens and tries to reach for it, but picks up the cat instead, who he then tries to rest his arm on with obviously painful results.

'He has an ordinary job,' Jayce is scooping popcorn into the popcorn machine, but accidentally takes some from the "Super-Large Kernels" bag, the mistake shown a few seconds later with him being chased by an avalanche of baseball-sized kernels as he runs down the cinema hallway. 'He has ordinary friends,' Jayce is now sitting at a café with several people, all talking around him to each other as he tries to but in with various unfinished comments as the awning above him slowly gives way, falling onto his head; knocking Jayce out of his seat as the others pause their conversations for a full second before resuming.

'And he has an ordinary family.' A postcard comes through the post of an older couple riding an elephant. He sighs as he takes the postcard and pins it to a corkboard, in the one small space free amongst dozens upon dozens of postcards from around the world.

'But in his mind,' the camera pans past a postcard of a waterfall in Africa and then into Jayce's left eye, the latter dissolving through spinning lights and back into the dramatic drum music as he takes a running leap off the waterfall 'He's more than just ordinary, He's Extra-ordinary.'

The shot zooms in close on the character's face before quick-cutting to the word *Jayce*. Another credit slide appears as the drumming stops.