Well, this book is LOADED with plot holes.

They're not a problem for the reader, so much as the protagonist, though.

Layne was just doing his job, experimenting on human subjects in horrible ways as part of a shadowy extras governmental agency that has no oversight. He was basically a modern day Mengele, but with a fun playful side and a desire to learn to olaybthe banjo.

He was just as ruined by the LPE as Vera was but had different symptoms, and perhaps he started in a much more broken state, when we see how he ended up at the first big LPE.