ACADEMY FOR THE DAMNED

Chapter Five

Chapter Five

"No such thing as a free lunch," said Dr Lahr.

He spoke with a west coast American accent. His intonation of each word was precisely enunciated and proclamatory. He gazed at Durand.

"A universal law," he said. "Even the cosmos works on profit and loss."

Dr Lahr liked to frame what he said by holding his hands just below his head with the palms outward, accompanied by his rictus smile.

"What do you mean doctor?" said Durand.

Durand, Juliette, Lahr and Dr Frank were in Durand's apartment at the apex of the tower. There were two men standing between Juliette and the rest of the staff. These were the two men Dillon had seen at the main assembly. The room was expensively furnished and Durand, as the head of this operation, had made sure her financiers had not spared any expense for her comfort and costly tastes. The apartment had wide windows on two walls and was air conditioned.

On one windowless wall was a large video screen on which the recorded events in the library had been viewed.

"Neutral," commanded Lahr to the voice operated systems.

The images on the screen changed to small views around the building showing other teenagers in various regions. The views remained for a few minutes and then changed as the computer chose to show other images from different cameras.

"I think I know what he means," said Juliette. She sat on an expensive leather arm chair. "Dido St Claire over reached herself. By forcing Dillon into those hallucinations she caused a psychic backlash."

"What happened to her arm?"

Dr Frank shook her head. Frank was Dutch but her English was excellent. "I examined her and there is a clean cut where her arm had been as though it had been sliced off with the sharpest possible guillotine. The blood vessels at the incision were all open and seemed to be still transmitting blood. Miss St Claire was in no pain but she does suffer from phantom arm syndrome and swears she can feel her arm and even manipulate her hand but, of course, it is gone. I've never seen anything like it all my years as a physician, and I have worked in the Balkans during their recent wars."

"Can it be reversed? Can we get her arm back?"

"I can answer that," said Juliette. "I believe what has happened is that Dido's arm was moved to another dimension. It still exists and receives Dido's blood from her heart and blood from the arm passes back into her body but the arm no longer exists in this space."

Durand's jaw dropped. She stared at Juliette.

"I don't know if we can get her arm back," finished Juliette. "I wouldn't know how. She is not suffering from phantom arm syndrome. She really can feel her arm and manipulate her right hand. It will respond to nerve impulses from her brain. Her arm is just moving in a different reality."

Lahr directed his rictus grin towards Juliette.

"This gets stranger but I like it. What a tremendous opportunity we have been given. We are dealing with a wholly new phenomenon the exercise of which produces results we cannot forecast with any precision. Miss St Clare is guilty of hubris. She attempted to use her ability in a way she had no experience of, little knowing she had gripped the tail of a tiger."

"I don't like it," said Durand. "I don't like what I can't control. Is there going to be a repetition of this?"

"A little late in the day to voice such concerns," said Lahr.