Tyler barely defeated the urge to roll his eyes. No way was he connected with those things. Not possible.
"I assure you, it is possible."
His scowl got ahead of his control. ''That's really annoying, you know. Reading minds is kind of rude." Saying so was, too, but he had to. Every time the guy picked a thought out of his head, his temper cranked a notch tighter. The past few months, Tyler found it harder and harder to bite his tongue.
The doc tilted his head a little and drew his eyebrows down slightly, not enough to be a frown. He stared at Tyler for a long moment, and Tyler started to worry he'd seriously overstepped some line he didn't even know about by reminding the doc of his manners.
The doc nodded, looking distracted. "Just so. I apologize. I so seldom deal with mortal humans, I admit to being out of practice." He turned back to the container. "For now, we need to begin. We will start with memory regression to find any commonalities." He snapped his fingers almost like an afterthought, and another area opened up off the main room.
Tyler looked around with interest at first, but didn't see anything really remarkable—just about a dozen retro-looking dentist chairs arranged in a semicircle. The open side of the arrangement was filled with a broad dark gray screen with a series of seemingly unrelated images flickering across it. Curious, he sat in the chair the doc indicated.
The doc opened the monkey men's cage and Tyler's gut tightened in alarm.
They kept right on with that junkie-stare he'd noticed earlier, seemingly unaware of their surroundings. The doc pointed at the nearest beast and a faint thread of glowing blue light left his fingertip and connected to the creature's chest. A small gesture from the doc lifted the heavy looking body into the air where it hung limp for a moment, then sailed across to settle gently into one of the chairs.
The thread disconnected and faded back into the doc's fingertip. A new thread, at least a different color, replaced the first and repeated the action with another creature, depositing him in one of the chairs.
Tyler had to bite his lip to keep from asking questions as he watched the same thing over and over, once for each creature, with a new color of thread every time. He shouldn't be all that surprised, considering the doc had the same ability as Lyght to transport through space in an instant. But the whole thing was awesome.
As soon as the last monkey man was in a dentist chair, before Tyler could ask anything, the doc thrust his hand, kinda like a flick, and filled every chest with a net of those colorful strings.
Tyler glanced down at the faint tugging on his own chest. Alarm set his pulse to thumping in his skull at finding one of those silver fibers burrowed into him! Within a second or two, he could literally feel the fear draining out of him through that little string and a peaceful calm and warmth replacing it.
He swallowed and watched, amazed at the happy juice being pumped through the thin thread. It just refused to allow him to be afraid. All he could do was observe and not really feel much of anything about it.
All the threads pulsed like living hairs, swaying as though submerged in water. Just like something from a horror movie. The doc stood at the center in a sort of trance, his eyes on nothing, aimed straight ahead. Another thread, the size of a thick vine slowly emerged from the top of his skull and connected with the TV thing. Writhing images lit the screen in a frantic confusion, fading into one another and overlapping. It reminded Tyler of that drug abuse prevention class he'd taken in school that had showed something similar to represent hallucinogenic drugs. He liked it even less this time around.
After what seemed a really long time, the screen went blank again and the heavy cord connecting the doc's head to it faded into nothingness and he came out of his trance. "No commonalities." He paused with a thoughtful scowl. "Our next step is an ancestral regression. With you it should be quite straightforward. Human lineage is simple mathematics, with each person leading back to two more, who each also lead back to two more, and so on." He gestured to include the monkey men. "These creatures, on the other hand, are an amalgamation of numerous species, both natural and supernatural. It will take time to decipher their ancestry."
Tyler started to reply, but for some reason, found it impossible. The words were in his throat but refused to leave his lips. He shook his head and tried again. Nothing.
The doc looked up. "Oh, I am sorry. I should have informed you. You will remain unable to speak for the duration of this exercise. The risk of unintentional duress is too high."
Great. So he was stuck just sitting and watching? Why had Dorn insisted he come along then?
"Because without you, I have nothing to analyze them against. Now if you don't mind?" The doc snapped his fingers and Tyler's head dropped abruptly as if a plug had been pulled.