“Not especially,” I told him.
Elias nodded as he began to pace.
“You were a soldier, or so I’ve been told. I assume you’ve seen your share of grisly things, leading that kind of life one would tend to expect that. I’d imagine you’ve heard the term ‘PTSD’ a few times as well?” He looked at me waiting for a nod that he wasn’t going to get. He nodded anyway as if I’d answered him. “PTSD isn’t anything new. ‘Post-Vietnam Syndrome’, ‘Shell Shock’, ‘Soldier’s Heart’? They’re all more or less the same thing. As a species we’ve come so far in terms of our technological advancement, yet we still seem to resort to hacking each other to bits with sharp pieces of metal. All modern technology has done is give us the ability to do it from slightly further away from each other.”
He was still warming to his subject, but I wasn’t really up for a lecture, not when I was literally a captive audience. A night’s sleep would normally have left me rested and ready for most things, no matter what I’d done the day before. Of course, that would be a night’s sleep in a bed, or even on the ground. My sleep when chained up to the wooden frame tended to be fitful and broken, and I was too tired still to put up with much more of the man’s crap. “What’s your point, Doc?”
“My point is that war does things to the human mind. Combat and battle aren’t anything new. What is new is our advanced level of medical knowledge, and more specifically, our trauma care. Those who witnessed the true horrors of warfare in the past didn’t generally survive to tell of it. It’s only in the last few decades that we’ve come to accept PTSD for what it really is. The mind can be wounded just as easily as the flesh; some wounds are harder to heal.”
I sighed. I didn’t want to hear this. “Why are you telling me this? I’ve read the pamphlets.”
“Because of what we’re doing here, John,” Elias said, stopping his pacing and spinning around to face me. “You don’t mind if I call you John, do you?”
I laughed at that. They had abducted me, chained me up naked in a room whilst they shot things at me, but he was suddenly worried about being overly familiar?
“No, by all means,” I managed, still laughing.
“Your abilities, and the abilities of everyone we have discovered, have one thing in common. They all come from someone who is psychologically damaged in some way. Some are worse than others, there are one or two I would go so far as to call broken. It was this that first led me to the hypothesis that these abilities are rooted, or dependent, on our notion of reality.
“Essentially, that they rely upon an ability to reject or bypass our beliefs of what we know to be possible or not. From there it was an easy step to experiment with sedation, hypnosis, even consciousness expanding drugs.” He stopped to glance at me, probably checking I was still awake. “Are you following this?”
“Yeah, you’re saying that this thing comes from the fact I’m a little bit crazy. I’m a soldier, Doc. I’m not an idiot.”
Elias grimaced. “Crazy isn’t a term I’d use but, yes, the ability to break with reality, to effect a ‘disconnect’ if you will, seems to be central to bringing out these abilities.”
“You’re obviously building up to something here, Elias,” I said. “Why don’t you just spit it out?”
“This break comes at a cost, John. It seems to be that as much as the power of a given ability is increased by the depths and profoundness of the break, the break itself is intensified the more the ability is used.”
I sucked on my lip, digesting that as he watched me. “So, your little experiment here, shooting tennis balls and bullets at me until I found a way to stop them? That has the side effect of possibly driving me nuts?”
“No, nothing quite as dramatic as that,” Elias said with a smile, waving away the accusation. “I think you misunderstand in any event. You seem to be remarkably resistant to the negative effects, despite your ‘visitors.’”
“So, it’s the other poor bastards you have locked up in here you’re talking about?”
He winced. “There have been a number of minor incidents, yes.”
“And what happens when they finally lose the plot and start chewing on the furniture?”
“I don’t think that’s really the point here,” Elias said, clasping his hands behind his back. “What’s more important is how you are managing to maintain the plateau you’ve reached, so to speak. Tell me about this ‘Johnson’ you’ve been talking to.”
“Tell him to get fucked,” muttered Johnson from the corner. I hadn’t even noticed he was there.
“Go fuck yourself,” I said, looking back at the doctor with a smile.
“I’m sorry?” Elias sputtered. “Mr Carver, I don’t think you’re really understanding the situation.”
I shook my head, still smiling. “No, Doc. I think for the first time in weeks I understand perfectly. It’s you that’s got it wrong. You need something from me. You’ve been picking away at the others you’ve got chained up in this place, and now that the rubber bands inside their heads are starting to snap, you’ve found you can’t cope with the mess. You want me to help you with that? Get fucked, mate.”
Elias grimaced. “Carver, it’s a little worse than I said. Just think for a minute, imagine someone with enhanced abilities like your own, but with only the most tenuous grip on reality. Someone who has achieved these abilities through hypnosis and a Cocktail of consciousness expanding drugs and sedation, focusing on their anger to bring them to the fore.”
I nodded. “They don’t sound like they’d be much fun to play with, mate. Good thing we’re all chained up, isn’t it?”
“If only, Mr Carver. If only.”
I shrugged and flashed him a quick grin.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Mackenzie stared at the wall. The crashing had been muffled, but clear enough that she didn’t doubt her own senses.
“Hello?” She didn’t wait for the answer, calling out again, louder this time. “Is somebody there?”
She listened hard, straining her ears into the silence that followed until she called out again. And then again. A cycle of calls and listening that faded into a stillness broken by her own tears of frustration.
The feeling came over her all at once and she remembered that somewhere, somebody was watching a screen with her on it. She felt exposed in a way she hadn’t in months, her nakedness rushing back to the forefront of her mind as she felt the unseen eyes crawling over her.
The sensation was like a bucket of cold water. What was she doing? She’d been cooperating with Elias and Janan, helping them with the research as if it would somehow help her. They were never going to let her go. They’d already given her a taste of freedom and she’d used it to try and escape. If she did somehow manage to get out, then the risk that anyone she told might actually believe her story was minuscule; but even that risk was large enough that they couldn’t take the chance on it. They would never let her leave this cell again. She was destined to become just another Armond. They would test and examine her until they decided they couldn’t replicate her ability, and then they would test her limits until it killed her.
She shook her head at the thought. Just how many Armonds had there been? Was the crashing she had heard caused by Janan’s latest plaything? Some other specimen for him to test to death? Or was it someone recently captured, and was she now the one waiting for Janan to grow frustrated with her, and begin experimenting with just how far her powers could be pushed?
The idea didn’t worry her as much as she thought it would, and she pondered the notion of dying. It would mean an end to all of this, at least. A release from it all. Suicide had never been an option before now. Other than starving herself, she hadn’t had the means even if she’d had the desire. Was it possible now? Could she concentrate long enough to actually kill herself?
“Stupid,” she muttered. Summoning the flame needed her to focus. Even in a blind rage she would still feel the pain. If, by some miracle, she could maintain the power long e
nough, there was always the danger that she might live. That was the real worry. She might survive and be forced to live out her days as a maimed and charred mess, driven half-mad by the constant agony.
She glanced at the metal cuffs. That was why they’d replaced them of course, in case she attempted to burn through them. She looked to the smoked-glass wall, running her gaze over it as she searched for the red light of the camera. It didn’t take her long to give up. With the glare from the lights it would be harder to spot anyway, and who was to say the new camera even had a red light, or that they hadn’t covered it up? The only thing she could really be certain of was that they would be watching.
“It’s time,” she murmured to herself. Whoever it was that had made the crashing noise, if it actually had been another captive or not, didn’t matter. Sooner or later they would bring in another one like her. Another victim to be tortured and twisted as they ran their tests. And what if they did eventually succeed? What kind of monster would Janan become if he gained a power like hers?
She bit down on her lip as she took a deep breath. It was time to get out of here; the only question was how. The door wouldn’t be a problem. She’d melted through the glass to destroy the camera, she could handle the door. It might take some time, but she was confident she could burn a way out. No, the issue was the metal cuff binding her to the frame, and the collar around her throat. She was going to need help, and that help wouldn’t come willingly.
The thought came from nowhere and she burst out laughing at the simplicity. The problem would be how to practice without the camera watching. Her eyes rose to the ceiling. The smoked glass wall didn’t reach from floor to ceiling and there was a section of maybe a foot and a half between the top of the glass and the ceiling. The smile that curved her lips was cruel and born of vengeance.
She had no visitors that day. No technicians, no tests, and rather than bothering her, she revelled in the time alone. Where before it would have just led her to worry and then despair, now she had a plan. She tilted her head back enough that she could focus on a white tile just above the edge of the smoked glass, but not so far that anyone watching would be curious what she was staring at. She didn’t need this to be big. If anything, smaller would be better.
She concentrated, bearing down as she forced the flame to her will. It was harder than before, her excitement seemed to work against her in the same way that the rage had worked for her, but eventually she succeeded. The flame was tiny, not much larger than the head of a match, and she concentrated as she blinked it in and out of existence, the flame turning from orange, to blue, to incandescent white, until she was too exhausted to raise a spark.
They left her the next day, and then again on the next; ignored and forgotten. The days she had been without food as Janan punished her for her escape attempt had left her weak, and so she ate and slept whenever she could. Practise with the tiny flame was building her endurance up, but this would only be half the struggle. She deliberately did not think about the ordeal she might face if she actually made it out of the complex.
The muffled crashes and screams continued intermittently. She tried calling out, shouting until she was screaming herself hoarse, but there was never a reply. Whoever was making the noise either couldn’t hear her or was unwilling, or perhaps unable, to answer.
It was another three days before Elias returned. Mackenzie tensed as the door hissed, swinging to one side on the metal struts as it opened. She forced herself to relax as Elias burst into the room. There was a risk in this. If this plan failed, she wouldn’t simply be punished, she’d be killed.
“He did it!” The big man blurted. “Janan, he did it. He made the disconnect.”
“He made a flame?” she did her best to sound pleased, but doubted it was convincing. It was time to get out of here. If she died trying, then so be it.
“No, not a flame.” Elias shook his head, still grinning. “Something else, but that’s not the point. He’s made the first steps, the process works. It’s possible that we could harness almost any power from here.”
She glanced past him at the doorway, but he looked to have come alone.
“Can you take me to him?” she asked.
Elias stopped in mid-flow, glancing down at the control device in his hand. “I suppose…” he said, giving her an odd look.
Mackenzie smiled, trying to look eager. Acting had never been anything she’d been good at. If he fell for this, it would be a miracle. “You’ve got the keys to these, don’t you?” she nodded at her wrist.
“No,” Elias said, still frowning. “They don’t have a lock, it’s just a bolt on the back.”
“Let me out, Elias.” The smile fell, dead, from her lips.
He looked genuinely regretful as he spoke. “I can’t do that, Mackenzie. Not yet, you know that.”
She took a deep breath. This was it. This was the moment. “Let me out, Elias. Or I’ll burn you right down to your fucking toes.”
He shook his head with a sad smile, waving the shock collar’s remote trigger at her. “I don’t think so, Mackenzie.”
“Do you really think that little toy can stop me?” she said, using the words to cover her frown as she concentrated. The fire was tiny, little more than the size of a ball-bearing, but within the confines of the trigger’s housing it bloomed like a miniature sun. The fragile circuitry melted in less time than it took to take a breath.
Elias dropped the smouldering device as it burst into flames and looked at her in shock.
Mackenzie focused again and summoned a ball of flame, letting her anger grow. This man had lied. He had feigned ignorance of Armond’s death when he had known full well that it was exactly what Janan had planned. He’d probably had a hand in the whole thing.
Elias fumbled with the bolts as she watched. The fat man was sweating. She’d never thought of him as fat before, just big, but then she’d never been ready to burn him to death before either. She’d lost any kindly thoughts towards him the moment she realised he’d been a part of Armond’s death.
“You’ll never get out of here like this, Mackenzie,” he sputtered. “The guards will stop you the moment they see you dragging me along.”
The first of the restraints came loose and clattered to the ground as she pulled an arm free. He was right. She hadn’t thought this through. She couldn’t afford to take him with her. She climbed free of the frame, working the clasp open on the shock collar and glaring at Elias as he shrank back against the wall.
“Give me the key-card.”
He looked at her blankly until she pointed at his pocket, snapping her fingers.
“They’ll kill you,” Elias told her as he handed the card over.
She smiled at that, shaking her head in disbelief. “Wouldn’t you have killed me anyway? Come on, Elias, admit it. You were never going to let me go.”
He had no answer to that, but his silence said everything she needed to hear.
She looked him over, considering.
“Give me your shirt,” she snapped.
“My shirt?”
“I’ve been naked long enough.”
It didn’t take long. Within minutes she was dressed in his shirt and was tightening the bolts on the steel cuffs as she tied him into the frame. Somewhere a camera was watching her. She’d known this from the moment she decided to escape. There was nothing she could do short of burning the lens out, and without the red light she couldn’t see the camera right now anyway. She just hoped it was set to record, rather than being monitored.
She shoved the sleeve of Elias’ jacket into his mouth, binding it around his head in a make-shift gag that should take him a while to work free. The hours she’d spent screaming in this place made it unlikely he’d be heard, but it was better not to take risks.
“I should burn you, Elias,” she told him. “But that would be too quick. I know someone will find you in here, sooner or later. I just hope it’s later.”
The observation room was empty, and she passed t
hrough quickly, pressing an ear to the door she knew led out into the hallway.
Silence.
She grimaced, and glanced back at Elias, just visible as the glass-fronted door pivoted back into place. She’d made her choices, it was time to go.
The hallway was silent and empty; Mackenzie scurried along it, keeping close to the wall. She’d made the trip from her rooms to Elias’ office, or to the dining hall, a hundred times or more, but she’d only made the journey out of this place once.
She passed two doors before she paused. Were there others like her behind those doors? Did she have the time to find out? Indecision gripped her and she froze beside the door until she realised what she was doing. Time was her enemy right now. She needed to move.
The door opened easily at the touch of Elias’ key-card on the reader. She threw it open and lunged inside. The observation room was identical to the one outside her own cell, and just as empty.
Mackenzie pressed her fingers to the window. From this side, the glass didn’t even look tinted and the man strapped into his frame was clearly visible. He looked broken. Even at this distance she could see the expression on his face, despair etched so deep it had become his face at rest.
She paused at the door. A keypad sat next to the card reader on the wall. She stared at it until she shook her head at herself. Either the card alone would work or it wouldn’t. The reader beeped as the card made contact and the low hiss of the pneumatics began easing the door open. Mackenzie reached over to the video camera, positioned on its tripod before the glass, and lowered the lens until it pointed at the floor. With luck, anyone seeing it would think the tripod had just slipped.
The man didn’t look up as she made her way into the room. The stone floor felt cold under her feet and she walked in silence, as if afraid to wake him.
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