Pandemonium

I hadn’t sent any of them. The problem was this: Demons didn’t write letters to neurologists; therefore I wasn’t possessed. Perhaps I had been possessed, but in that I was no different than thousands of other victims. There was no such thing in the literature as half-possessed—

demi-demons weren’t on the menu. So I was either a possession victim unique in the annals of the disorder, or I was crazy—and frankly, my credentials for crazy were impeccable.

I had managed to work up the courage once to call his office. He wasn’t accepting patients—at least not walk-ins like me. I’d considered flying to California and pitching my case personally, but then I’d read on his website that he’d be attending this year’s ICOP. I’d convinced myself that this was my best chance to get to him. I put on the blue shirt and hung up the white one, and changed from jeans to beige, wrinkle-free khakis. I looked in the mirror. My hair was sticking up in the back, but otherwise I looked perfectly normal. Just another sane, reasonable person who had every right to walk up to a neurologist and introduce himself.

The thing in my head shifted like a toolbox sliding around the bed of a truck.

In the lobby I acknowledged the security guard with a nod and tired smile and walked through the frame of the metal detector. Detector and detective were silent. I followed the registration signs down an escalator to a long windowless room. A line of registration booths divided up the alphabet.

ICOP registration procedures were designed to keep out curiosity seekers, religious nuts, and especially the attendees of DemoniCon, ICOP’s shadow conference. The $185-a-day fee immediately scared off the merely curious and the average fanboy. But even if you had the cash, only members and guests of ICOP sponsoring organizations (APA, AMA, WHO, and a dozen other acronyms) were allowed to register. Fortunately, a DemoniCon fan site had offered an alternate entrance mechanism.

Go to www.apa.org and apply for a $45-a-year student membership—don’t worry, you’re not going to pay for it. Choose Check or Money Order not credit card. Enter a disposable e-mail address (you just need it for a couple minutes) and a fictitious street address. After the site tells you that your membership is inactive pending payment, go to the site’s Forgot My Password page and enter your temp e-mail address. That’s right, the site automatically generated an account for you when you applied. Thanks, morons! The site will e-mail you the password (in plain text of course—these people haven’t heard of encryption). Now log in to the Members Only section and go to Edit My Account. See that 15-digit membership ID? Copy that bad boy to the clipboard. Next, go to the ICOP website. In the conference registration form, choose APA from the organization dropdown list, and on the next screen, paste in that membership ID (evidently this is a web service to APA’s server, because it actually checks if the ID’s in their database—fake IDs don’t work). Last, pay $15 via credit card (sorry folks, there’s no “check or money order” option here). Voila. Your only problem: now that they have your credit card, if they ever bother to check that you’re not a student, they’ve got you for FRAUD. Enjoy the conference!

I stepped up to the “M-N-O-P” booth, and presented my driver’s license and web receipt. The woman spent a long minute looking over the receipt and studying a laptop in front of her. I realized I’d made a mistake. Anyone from ICOP could have run across the site. How many DemoniConners had tried this scam? How could they not notice the unusual number of APA student registrations?

The woman handed me a conference badge. “Keep this with you at all times,” she said. Then she gave me a program book and complimentary nylon tote bag. I walked a short distance away and sat heavily on a couch. I looked at the program book first. Most of the speeches and panels were being held in the dozens of small rooms under the Hyatt, but the bigger