A second cable connected the box to a device that sat on a gray metal table. Paper drum and mechanical arm. The arm held several mechanical pens. Jagged graph lines peaked and troughed across the drum, which was rotating slowly. Next to the machine were several amber pharmaceutical vials and a white plastic inhalator.

Directly facing the woman was a large-screen television console. A close-up of a female breast, its nipple apple-sized, was frozen on the screen. The image shifted: close-up of a face. A pubic thatch. Back to the nipple.

A man stood next to the set, holding a black remote-control device in one hand, a larger gray one in the other. He was chewing gum. His eyes were hot with triumph that turned to alarm when he saw me.

The woman in the chair was Ursula Cunningham-Gabney. Her eyes were raw and swollen and wide with terror, and her mouth was stuffed with a blue bandana.

The man was sixtyish, with bushy white hair and a small, round face. He wore a black sweatshirt over blue jeans and work boots. His boots were crusted with dried dirt. His eyes widened and blinked.

His wife tried to scream around her gag; what emerged was a thin retch.

He never looked at her.

I moved toward him.

He shook his head and pressed a button on the gray remote. The high-frequency sound I’d heard outside filled the room, shrill as a bird being butchered as the needle on one of the meters jumped. Ursula’s body bucked and pitched against her restraints. She kept quaking as her husband’s finger remained on the button. He didn’t seem to be noticing her at all, was staring at me and inching backward.

The horror made me dizzy. Clearing my head, I took a step.

Gabney’s basso voice said: “Stop, damn you,” as he pressed another button. The high noise became a shriek and another needle arced to the right. The room smelled of burnt toast. Ursula growled around her gag and shook as if being throttled. Fingers and toes convulsed at the end of pinioned limbs. Her torso rose totally off the seat- only the strap seemed to prevent her from flying away. The veins in her neck swelled, her jaws were forced open, and the gag flew out of her mouth, followed by a soundless scream. Her body was as rigid as cordwood, skin silvery white except for the lips, which looked bluish.

I fought down nausea and panic. Gabney had danced farther away from me, half-concealed behind the big gray box, finger still on the gray remote.

I moved toward the barber chair.

Gabney stopped pushing long enough to say, “Go ahead. Flesh is an excellent conductor. I’ll turn up the voltage and cook both of you.”

I stood still. Ursula had sunk like a sack of rocks. Wheezing, whistling sounds came from her open mouth. She moved her head from side to side, throwing off sweat-drizzle, chest heaving, panting gutturally through grotesquely swollen lips. Her legs were the last to relax, parting slightly. The electrode between them was attached to some kind of sanitary napkin.

I snapped my head away, looked for Gabney.

From behind the gray box, his voice said, “Sit down- farther back. Even farther- that’s good. And keep your hands in full view. Exactly.”

He emerged, paler than before, one arm resting on the top corner of the chrome-shiny thing. Took a sidelong glance at the giant breast.

Wondering if he had help, I said, “Quite a setup. A lot for one man to handle.”

“Don’t patronize me, you insolent shit. Everything’s manageable, as long as the proper variables are controlled. No, don’t scoot forward or I’ll have to deliver more aversives.”

“You made your point,” I said.

His fingers danced above the buttons on the gray remote but didn’t touch them.

“Control,” I said. “Is that the primary goal?”

“You call yourself a scientist. Isn’t it yours?”

Before I could answer he shook his head in disgust. “Define, predict, and control. Otherwise, why bother?”

“How does that reconcile with your ideas about free will?”

He smiled. “My little disquisitions? How conscientious of you to read them. But if you were half as smart as you think you are, you’d see there’s plenty of free will in all of this. This is about free will- its restoration.” Glancing at the apparatus. “A person shackled by major personality defect can never be free.”

Ursula groaned.

The sound made his brow crease.

I said, “Where is Gina?”

He ignored me. Said nothing for what seemed like a long time. Looked at the floor.

Pulled on the chrome thing and brought half of it into view.

Bed on wheels. Pull-up caged sides. Adult-sized crib, the kind they use in nursing homes.

Gina Ramp behind the bars. Lying inert. Eyes closed. Sleeping or unconscious or… I saw her chest move. Saw her checkerboard scalp… cables attached to her, too.

“Listen carefully, idiot,” Gabney finally said. “I’m going to go over there and retrieve that bandana. But my hand will remain on the highest-voltage button. If you move, I’ll incinerate your precious Gina. Fifteen seconds at this level elicits death. Irreversible brain damage requires much less.”

Lightly tapping a button, making the prone body twitch.

I said, “I’m not moving.”

Keeping his eye on me, he crouched next to his wife’s chair, picked up the gag, stood, wadded it, and inserted it in her mouth. She coughed and made choking sounds but didn’t resist. The seam of her gown read PROPERTY MASS. GENERAL.

“Relax, darling,” he said. Using the black remote, he switched off the TV. Taking a stance in front of the screen, he gave her a look that I couldn’t categorize- domination and contempt, lust and just a bit of affection, which sickened me the most. I looked over at Gina, who still hadn’t stirred.

“Don’t worry about her,” said Gabney. “She’ll be out for a while- chloral hydrate, ye olde Mickey Finn. She responds well to it. Given her history and weak constitution, I’ve treated her with kid gloves.”

“What a guy.”

“Don’t interrupt me again,” he said louder, pressing a button that made the room scream and caused Gina’s body to flop like a cloth doll. No conscious perception of pain was evident on her face, but her lips drew back in a toothy rictus that stretched and puckered the skin on her bad side.

When the noise died, Gabney said, “A bit more of that, and all that lovely plastic surgery will have been for naught.”

“Stop,” I said.

“Quit whining. This is the last time you’ll get a warning. Understood?”

I nodded.

The burnt-toast smell filled my head.

Gabney stared at me, contemplative.

“This is a problem,” he said, and tapped the gray remote.

“What is?”

“Why the hell did you meddle? How did you find out?”

“One thing kind of led to the other.”

“ “Kind of led,’ ” he said. “ “Kind of led.’ Wonderful grammar- who wrote your thesis for you?” Shaking his head. “Kind of led- just a loose chain of events, was it? Knocking around aimlessly, damn near random?”

I looked at the machines.

His face darkened. “Don’t judge me- don’t you damn well dare. This is treatment. You’ve violated confidentiality.”

I said nothing.

“Do you have even the slightest notion of what I’m talking about?”

“Sexual reconditioning,” I said. “You’re trying to rechannel your wife’s sexual orientation.”

“Profound,” he said. “Just brilliant. You’re able to describe what you see. Freshman psych, second part of the first semester.”

He stared at me, tapping one boot.

I said, “What am I missing?”

“Missing?” Dry laughter. “Just all of it. The meat, the raison d’Être, the goddam clinical rationale.”

“The rationale is that you’re helping her become normal.”

“And you don’t think that’s worthwhile?”

Before I could answer he shook his head and cursed, then tightened the arm holding the shock remote. My eyes snapped reflexively to the gray plastic. I realized I’d broken out into a sweat. Waiting for the high-frequency shriek and the pain that was sure to follow.