Star Wars_ Millennium Falcon - James Luceno [38]
Jadak considered it. “What about the rest of it?” He worked his jaw. “It's beginning to get to me.”
Bezant moved her head-tails behind her shoulders. “I warned Sompa this might happen.”
“What might happen?”
“That post-traumatic stress might engender a form of dissociative disorder—feelings of depersonalization, accompanied by severe anxiety and depression. It's likely there are underlying organic factors as well.” She gestured to the display screen. “Your brain imaging shows damage to key areas of the cortex.”
Jadak glanced at the display. “I know starship engines, Doc, not brains. And I don't really care about the cause, I just need to know if I can be fixed.”
“There are drugs, but I'd caution against using them.”
“What do you suggest—twice-weekly sessions with you?”
“Even if that were possible, I'm not sure how much help I could be.”
“You're booked that far in advance, huh?”
“No, Captain. The fact is, you're being released.”
Jadak sat up straight in the chair. “When?”
“Soon. Your body is healthy, your legs are healed. Aurora specializes in rejuvenation, not rehabilitation. There's really nothing more we can do for you.”
“Then why was I brought here to begin with?”
Her eyes shifted slightly. “You'd have to direct that question to Dr. Sompa.”
“Sompa's too busy to see me.” Jadak rested his forearms on his thighs and leaned toward Bezant. “Just tell me about the accident and who's really been paying for my care. Obroa-skai stores data on just about everything in the galaxy, but nobody at Aurora can tell me a single thing about what landed me here.”
Bezant regarded him, her expression softening. “One moment.” Rising, she went to her desk and tapped a code into the control pad. “I've turned off the security cams,” she said when she returned to the chair. “Captain, believe it or not, I'm as curious as you are to learn what landed you at Aurora. Dr. Sompa has treated you like a special project for the past forty years—ever since he joined Aurora's staff.”
“Forty years? Where was I for the first twenty-two?”
“I don't know. None of us knows.”
“Except Sompa.”
She nodded. “Except Sompa.”
Insomnia had allowed Jadak to familiarize himself with the routines of the night-shift nurses and droids and security personnel. He had a window of opportunity to make his move while the staff were getting the rundown on newly admitted patients and receiving updates on existing ones. The beauty of Building One was that most of the security details were posted outside. Once inside, clients were allowed to roam about freely—to the entertainment rooms, the dining areas, the libraries and workout centers—and the med and maintenance droids were programmed to keep a low profile and refrain from speaking unless spoken to.
Sompa's office was on the fourteenth floor and overlooked the rear gardens. The broad corridors leading to it were dimly illuminated and empty, except for floor-polishing droids. Using the same code he had seen Bezant enter into the desk pad, Jadak deactivated the surveillance cams and tricked Sompa's office door into opening with a device he had cobbled together from parts liberated from the bank of monitoring machines in his own room. Once he had deactivated the waiting room cams, he entered Sompa's personal office and did the same. Raising the lighting a bit, he took a long look around. Holoscreens niched into the walls showed Sompa in the company of rejuvenated beings Jadak could only assume were wealthy, important, or both. Politicians, celebrities, lawyers, the executive officers of major corporations. In nearly every holo, Sompa looked the same age.
The neurologist's huge desk was cluttered with data cards, flimses, and durasheet documents. Jadak activated a shaded illuminator and began to rummage around. He got lucky almost immediately, discovering his name and patient identification number on a durasheet listing clients who were slated for discharge. The desk drawers were locked and the private files on Sompa's stylish computer were password-protected. Digging deeper