Brain Child

  Everyone in Town Knew There Was Something Different about Lois Wilson.

  But Lois didn’t care. Lois cared only about Science. Behavioral Science.

  Even when the kids at school taunted her, Lois didn’t care.

  Even though her parents were disturbed by her, and her little brother worshiped her—Lois didn’t care.

  And when her father suffered a stroke and her mother began drinking, strong, implacable Lois was in complete control.

  Now her scientific curiosity could have full expression. If she could control the behavior of laboratory animals, imagine what she could do with... people.

  An Experiment In Terror

  Lois Thought About Her Father Upstairs in His Room.

  He was like a large one-celled animal with a man’s intelligence. What an object of study. What potential for understanding and developing concepts. She might do her greatest paper before she even entered college.

  Of course, her mother could be something of an obstacle. If that should happen, she could work around her or perhaps (and this possibility held out even greater potentials) work on her.

  “Well, what do you think?” Mother asked.

  “Think?”

  “About all that I’ve been saying. I’m going to need your help.”

  “I’d have to agree with the doctor. Bring Daddy home. Let’s try. Let’s give him the best care we can.”

  She got up and left her mother in the shadows. It was better that her mother didn’t see the light burning in her daughter’s eyes.

  Books by Andrew Neiderman

  Brainchild

  Pin

  Published by POCKET BOOKS

  This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Another Original publication of POCKET BOOKS

  POCKET BOOKS, a Simon & Schuster division of GULF & WESTERN CORPORATION

  1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, N.Y. 10020

  www.SimonandSchuster.com

  Copyright © 1981 by Andrew Neiderman

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

  For information address Pocket Books, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, N.Y. 10020

  ISBN: 978-1-4516-6649-6

  ISBN-13: 978-1-45168-177-2 (eBook)

  First Pocket Books printing December, 1981

  POCKET and colophon are trademarks of Simon & Schuster.

  For our children, Melissa and Erik—may they always feel compassion and know tenderness

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  Contents

  Acknowledgments

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Epilogue

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Ann Patty, the creative editor in a diminishingly creative world; Anita Diamant and Humphrey Evans III, personal agents in an increasingly impersonal business

  Brainchild

  Prologue

  Billy Wilson squinted as he studied the small white laboratory rat in the glass cage. The cage was really a converted aquarium his sister Lois had brought up from the basement. She had a small piece of plywood over the top of it. The rat sat peaceably and ate from the grains in the petri dish. Billy concentrated on the way the rat’s jaw moved. He was intrigued by how it handled the grains with its paws. He was fascinated by its petiteness, taking a special amazement in the way the rat’s eyes jerked from side to side as it chewed.

  The rat’s fur was a dull, almost grayish white. It was not smooth. Tiny clumps of it stood up, making the rat look disheveled, unkempt, and totally unconcerned about itself. Lois said that it was unconcerned because it suffered from a negative self-image. She claimed that she had initiated that negative self-image. With her thick-lensed glasses down on the bridge of her bony nose, she pedantically explained how she had accomplished the feat.

  “I prevented the rat from taking an interest in itself. I kept it from getting sufficient sleep. I deliberately created certain vitamin deficiencies. In effect, I changed the chemical balance in its brain. It became lethargic, sloppy, and uninterested in itself and its surroundings.”

  “Wow!” Billy said, although he wasn’t able to understand most of what she said. She ignored his exclamation. She wasn’t speaking to him in particular. She was merely verbalizing to put her thoughts in order.

  “One can see a clear relationship between the rat as it now exists and slum dwellers in our inner cities. That will be the thesis of my paper,” she concluded, closing and then opening her eyes.

  “Will I do a paper, too, when I’m in the twelfth grade?” Billy asked.

  Lois smirked, bringing the corners of her mouth in and up. She had a long, thin mouth that habitually dipped at the corners, giving her a sour expression most of the time. Dorothy, her mother, had long since given up telling her to smile more. Besides, her gapped upper front teeth made Lois self-conscious when she smiled. Not that she cared very much about her physical appearance. She was hygienic, but unconcerned about cosmetics or new hairdos.

  “Hardly. I expect you will be lucky to complete the regular lab workbooks, much less do extra reports. I’ve seen some of the report cards you’ve been bringing home.”

  “What’s a lab workbook?” Billy asked. He was rarely intimidated by his sister, since, at the age of seven, he wasn’t aware of her innuendos.

  “Forget it; just watch the rat. I’m going to shoot electricity through the wire and into its brain.”

  “Won’t that hurt?”

  “It’ll be too shocking to hurt,” she said, quite pleased with her own pun. She came the closest she allowed to a smile, sending the corners of her nostrils out and widening her dull brown eyes. The small freckles along her flat cheeks quivered and her heavy, untrimmed dark brown eyebrows raised slightly. She had a milky, sickly white complexion, despite the fact that she spent so much time outdoors.

  Billy turned back to the rat obediently. Lois had inserted an electrode into its head. The thin black wire ran along the glass cage, up the rear, and out to an electric-train transformer. Lois prided herself on her ingenuity when it came to supplies and equipment. She fingered the control while the rat continued to eat.

  Suddenly she turned on the current. The rat shuddered, stood on its hind legs, clamped its upper legs together, froze, and fell to the side. Lois turned off the current.

  “It’ll be catatonic for a short while.”

  “I don’t know what that means,” Billy said softly, staring at the animal. He was impressed and somewhat afraid now, although he wasn’t sure why.

  “It’s a lot like what they do to mental patients in the nuthouse. The electric current acts as a depressant. It can turn violent people into meek little kittens.”

  “Is the rat going to die like the bird?”

  “Eventually,” Lois said dryly. She made some notations in her n
otebook and then stood up and stretched.

  It was seven thirty on a Saturday morning, and although it was a gray, rainy day, she had gotten up early as usual and gone right to work. Billy had heard her walk by his room, gotten out of bed quickly, and followed her. He was still dressed in his pajamas, and she wore a robe over her faded flannel nightgown, the tattered bottom of which showed under the robe.

  Billy watched his sister reach toward the ceiling. She was big to him in many ways. Of course, at five feet eleven, she towered over many boys he knew and even stood four inches taller than their mother. At three feet ten, he looked up to most people, but Lois seemed even taller than their father, who was six feet tall. Perhaps it was the way he stooped since his “slight stroke,” a mysterious event that Billy couldn’t remember.

  In any case, Lois was tougher than he was. He had never seen her cry. There were times when he started to cry and stopped because she was there and would see it. Lately he had been contrasting himself to her more and more. When she got excited, her eyes always grew smaller, while his widened to emphasize their soft blue pupils and long, feminine eyelashes. How often had his mother sat him on her lap to stroke his fluffy red hair and said, “Can I steal your eyelashes?” His dimples flickered in and out in his puffy kissable cheeks whenever she teased him.

  Now he often tried to emulate his sister’s fast walk, a gait characterized by its self-assurance. He would catch his toe and stumble when he followed her, his short legs with their chubby thighs straining to keep up. He kept his fists clenched and pressed close to his body the way she did.

  Lois ran her hand through her short, dark brown hair. It had been cut at the nape of her neck and she took little time to brush it out. She was satisfied with the way the strands fell naturally, as long as she got the top to rest flat and the bangs to stay out of her eyes.

  “I’m going for night crawlers this morning,” Billy announced. Lois snapped around quickly and dropped her hands to her sides. The robe lay flat against her small, almost indistinct bosom. “I’m gonna get a lot of ’em.”

  “What for?”

  “Sell ’em. You can get a quarter for the real fat ones down at the hardware store. Mr. Raymond gave me nearly seventy cents for a bunch of smaller ones last week. You wanna see the money?”

  “If you had any ingenuity, you could create a worm farm.”

  “What’s in … jun …”

  “Imagination, brains.”

  “You mean, I could grow ’em?”

  “In a manner of speaking, yes.”

  “Wow! Would you show me how to do it?”

  “I don’t have the time for that,” she said, looking around the pantry.

  “But we could make lots of money,” he protested, standing up quickly.

  “I’m not interested in money,” she said. She looked at her rat. “Unless I could get enough to have a real laboratory and not have to work in this converted pantry. I need more room, I need …” She stopped and looked down at her little brother, who was staring up at her with pleading eyes. “Forget about it. I don’t have the time,” she added and walked out.

  Billy hurried after her. “What are you going to do today, Lois? Huh?”

  “If you must know,” she said, spinning around so quickly he ran into her, “I plan to read some Skinner, do some laundry, and try to catch a young squirrel. I have a theory about squirrels. …” She thought to herself a moment and then continued to her room.

  “Can I help you? Can I?”

  Without responding, she closed her door. Billy Wilson stood thinking a moment. Then he went back to the doorway of the old walk-in pantry and peered in at the rat again. It was just stirring. He thought about the electricity, rubbed his own head, and hurried to his room. He was eager to get dressed and get out. He expected it would be a good morning for night crawlers.

  1

  Lois Wilson closed her Physics I textbook and looked at George Hardy, her science teacher. Mr. Hardy was smiling widely as he thumbed through a copy of a year’s worth of “B.C.” cartoons. Everyone else in the class was still sitting with opened textbooks. Some were pretending to read while they did other things, but most were only about halfway through the assignment. Lois looked up at the big-faced IBM clock, thought for a moment, and then raised her hand. Mr. Hardy didn’t notice.

  “Mr. Hardy.”

  He looked up, the smile still across his long, narrow face, bringing his chin out. The kids called him Plastic Man because of his rubbery facial features and active facial expressions. He was always twitching his nose and pulling up the corners of his mouth. He often tugged on his ears. His eyebrows bobbed up and down when he made a major point in class. When he saw it was Lois Wilson who had called him, his smile faded quickly.

  “Yes, Lois?”

  “You said we’d only have fifteen minutes to read. If we don’t start discussing this soon, we’ll run out of class time.”

  There were groans all around her. Someone mumbled, “I don’t believe her.” Even Mr. Hardy looked unhappy. He scratched his cheek and studied the clock.

  “I guess she’s right,” he said.

  “But I didn’t finish yet,” Marlene Bockman said. There were a number of seconds. “We’re not all brains like Lois.”

  “Even someone on a fourth-grade reading level could have finished this on time,” Lois responded, sounding very matter-of-fact. “If she really read and didn’t do other things.”

  “I was reading. Who does she think—”

  “All right,” Mr. Hardy said, raising his big hand, “let’s not have any silly arguments. Lois happens to be right about the time.”

  “Well, I didn’t finish.” Marlene sat back in her seat and folded her arms across her chest. When she caught Bobby Baker’s expression, she nearly smiled. Her small but firm breasts had ballooned over the top of her bra, revealing an unusually inviting cleavage, exposed because of the three unbuttoned top buttons of her blouse. Even Mr. Hardy paused for a moment’s appreciation.

  Lois caught the direction of his attention. “There’s no point in making assignments if we’re not going to go over them,” she said quickly.

  “You’re right, Lois, and I fully intend to go over this assignment today, or at least start it, but”—Hardy leaned forward on his desk and folded his hands—“it looks as if I underestimated the amount of time most students would need. Soooooo,” he said, leaning back, “let’s just add what’s left of this to tonight’s assignment.”

  There was a uniform chorus of groans. Lois smirked and looked at the wall to her right.

  “Nice work, Lois,” Larry Sanders said. “Had to open your mouth.”

  “You shouldn’t have to open yours,” Lois snapped, “considering the stupidity that always comes out of it.”

  There was some laughter at Larry’s expense. Mr. Hardy clapped his hands for silence. All eyes went back to books, but Hardy looked at Lois because she was glaring at him. Finally, she looked at her notebook. He felt relief and shook his head, recalling the conversation he had had with her parents on Parents’ Night.

  “You rarely see a student as knowledgeable and as consumed by an interest as Lois is,” he had told them. “I think she read the entire biology textbook the first week of school.” His tone of voice made it a half compliment.

  “She reads constantly. Don’t you think she reads too much?” Dorothy Wilson asked.

  Hardy hesitated, looking first at Gregory Wilson. “Well … it’s difficult for any teacher to complain about a student reading too much nowadays, Mrs. Wilson. I think maybe you’re referring to the fact that Lois’s interests are somewhat narrow.”

  “Yes, that’s it. She doesn’t care about anything but her projects and books.” Hardy laughed nervously. Gregory Wilson remained silent, inscrutable. “And she doesn’t have too many friends, does she?” Dorothy pursued.

  “I don’t really know.”

  “The other kids just don’t like her. She never gets any calls from boys.”

  “
Oh, Dorothy, come on,” Gregory said. “Mr. Hardy’s not interested in any of that.”

  “Well, I am. Let me ask you this, Mr. Hardy,” she said, refusing to give up on him. He slouched lower and lower in his chair. “Would you like your daughter to be like Lois?”

  “That’s not a fair question, Dorothy, for God’s sake.”

  “Let Mr. Hardy speak for himself, Greg.”

  “I don’t have a daughter,” Hardy said. “I have two sons.” Dorothy pursed her lips in frustration and sat back. “But let me say that Lois is a brilliant student, brilliant. She does have some problems relating to other students, who naturally resent her academic abilities.”

  “That’s to be expected,” Gregory said quickly. “I suffered in a similar way when I was in college.”

  “But there’s something else,” the science teacher said quickly and then regretted it immediately when he saw Gregory Wilson’s eyes widen and Dorothy Wilson lean toward him, her face filled with interest.

  “Something else?”

  “I suppose you’ll get it from some of the other teachers and even guidance. It’s the way most of the students react to her and she to them. This is my first year with Lois, but from what I heard from the other teachers, it’s always been like this.”

  “What?” Dorothy asked impatiently.

  “Well, it’s not so much that the other students don’t like her. I mean, I wouldn’t put the whole problem in that perspective,” he said, directing himself more to Gregory Wilson than to Dorothy.

  “What would you put it in?” Gregory asked. Mr. Hardy recognized the source of Lois’s sarcasm in Gregory Wilson’s expression and tone.

  “It’s more like fear, Mr. Wilson. The other students act as though they’re afraid of her.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Gregory said.

  “It’s not ridiculous,” Dorothy countered quickly. “I know just what he means. Can’t you see how different she is from other kids?”