The Cure by Douglas E. Richards Read Free Book Online Page B

chairs must have been the world’s leading expert on the human body to be able to design one this unsuited to the human posture.
    Erin watched the dean’s glowering face and wondered if he had bought these chairs on purpose to unsettle his visitors. Not that he wasn’t fully capable of making visitors squirm and become miserably uncomfortable all by himself.
    The dean handed her a section of the Wall Street Journal once she was fully locked into the torture chair, doing so with such contempt that he threw it on her lap more than handed it to her. She glanced down. It was one of the weekend sections of the paper that boasted the highest circulation of any in the country. The lead story, which took up the entire front page of the section, top and bottom, and continued onto the next page was entitled, “The Psychopaths Among Us.”
    Erin handed the paper to Apgar beside her, having learned on her way here that he didn’t have any better idea than she did as to why the dean had demanded an audience, and why the man seemed so unhappy. Apgar scanned the title as well.
    “Have you seen this?” demanded the dean.
    Erin and her advisor both shook their heads no.
    “Really?” said the dean to Erin pointedly. “I find that hard to believe.” He leaned toward her with a scowl. “Since you’re quoted in it.”
    Erin blanched. “What are you talking about?”
    “Don’t tell me you didn’t know.”
    “I didn’t know. I don’t read this paper. And there has to be some mistake. If I had spoken with a reporter from the Wall Street Journal , believe me, I’d remember it.”
    “Can you give us a few minutes to read this, Richard?” said Apgar.
    Dean Borland fumed but nodded, handing Erin the same section from a second copy of the paper he had on his desk. She and Apgar read silently while the dean drummed his fingers on his desk impatiently.
    The story spoke of the progress being made in the study of psychopathy, especially focusing on the differences in brain physiology that were continuing to be uncovered almost every year now. And then the story got to Erin, who was quoted on the second page. She was introduced as a graduate student at the University of Arizona, studying differences in the brains of psychopaths and normals, both with respect to their structure and the electrical patterns given off in response to certain stimuli. The article went on to say:
     
Ms. Palmer says that her ultimate objective is to perfect a diagnostic that can identify a psychopath from the electrical patterns of their brains—and do so remotely. “The technology isn’t quite there yet,” she explains. “But great progress is being made on two fronts. First, scientists are learning how to pick up electrical impulses from the brain to control artificial limbs, video games, and the like. If we can download movies wirelessly, we should be able to detect brain waves wirelessly—at least from a short distance. The trick is to find identifiable differences in electrical patterns between psychopaths and normals, which is one of the things I’m working on. My ultimate goal would be to develop a device you could have on your key ring that would vibrate, or alert you in some other way, when a psychopath is within fifty feet. An early warning system.”
    The article continued, this time switching gears to another topic in the study of psychopathy. She and Apgar finished the article at about the same time, and she wasn’t mentioned further.
    Erin glanced at her advisor and winced before turning to the dean. “This is from years ago,” she explained. “ Three years ago to be exact. It’s from an interview I did with a tiny local paper.” Her features darkened. “Can a reporter do that?” she demanded. “I mean, a reporter can’t just take a quote I gave to another paper and use it three years later like it’s a fresh one,” she finished, her voice filled with outrage.
    The dean shook his head in disgust. “Well, I’m guessing a