Maybe it had been desperation? Maybe they were a bit mad themselves?
"Sir," a voice called from behind the cameraman, shocking her attention back to the video. "The subject is ready."
Weber looked at the camera again, licking his cracked lips like some hunger-crazed homeless man. "Shall we make history?"
The cameraman followed Weber out of the experiment chamber and into the observation room hidden behind a two-way mirror. There were three men in lab coats sitting at computers and readout screens. Weber stood at the center of the room and instructed the cameraman to focus his lens on the experiment chamber.
A short-haired naked woman walked into the center of the chamber. The sound of her bare feet slapping against the metal staircase echoed over the speakers in the observation room as she walked up to the mouth of the central tank.
Ira found herself whispering to the woman not to go through with it, as if she were watching some cheesy horror film, cursing the actions of the protagonist who was most assuredly about to die at the hands of some crazed knife-wielding psychopath.
An orderly helped the woman open the hatch, and she slipped into the solution; the orderly handed her a pair of goggles and carefully attached a breathing apparatus to her mouth.
A harsh clang sounded when the hatch shut. The orderly quickly left the room.
"Okay, let's begin," Weber said. "Anthony, why don't you do the honors and flip the switch?"
A man off to the left nodded and pressed Enter on his keyboard. That familiar reverberation, like a subwoofer, poured through the observation room's speakers. The particle collider glowed red-hot, causing the video to glitch out momentarily. The group of scientists had become so used to these experiments that they needed no instruction from Weber; they were like his little drones.
"Come over here." Weber waved the cameraman over to a readout screen, which displayed the young woman's biometrics in real time. "Here we can see that Mrs. Daniels' vitals are very strong, and over here, we can see that her alpha and beta brain waves have reached the appropriate look." He pointed to a comparison graph, which showed nearly identical waves. "Now, if I'm right, the combination of hallucinogens and the tank will allow Mrs. Daniels' mind to be able to reach the mind's horizon, pushing her body into a state of flux where the mind has the ability to change the frequency at which her atoms vibrate at. Then. The collider will smash two particles together at the speed of light and the resulting quantum shock wave will push Mrs. Daniels' body and consciousness into another universe!"
"Doctor, the particles are about to collide!"
There was a power surge, the lights flickered, and then...darkness.
The lights came back on a moment later, and everyone was silent.
Weber waved the cameraman over to the readout screen, and when the lens focused in, the screen showed nothing.
"Let's have a look, shall we?"
The camera once again followed Weber into the experiment chamber. Digital artifacts crept into the video.
"There's a charge in the air," Weber said. "Do you feel it?"
Weber climbed up onto the stairwell and popped the hatch to the tank, then waved the cameraman over. The next shot focused into the now empty sensory deprivation tank.
The saltwater had turned red.
"Hmm, we'll have to run some tests on the water left in the tank," Weber said. "Let's end this log and get a team up here to take samples."
The video stopped playing.
2
Ira rubbed her eyes and stretched back in her chair. If she wasn't careful, she might develop an oversensitivity to bright lights. Maybe she'd get some form of lamp set up in the mainframe room later? There were so many rooms down in the lower levels still unexplored.
Her eyelids burned. She hadn't slept all night, and her rainbow tables still hadn't cracked the passcode to unlock the security system. Although it also hadn't locked her out.
One way or another, it was only a matter of time.
Three knocks rang out like a gong. If it was Nico or Mathias, she'd tell them to leave her alone. She got up and shuffled over to the hatch, opened it, but no one was there.
She stood there, staring into the shadows in the tubular corridor. A nameless fear told her to shut the hatch.
The hatch latched shut. She locked it and turned back toward her workstation.
Before she reached her chair, she heard three more knocks on the door.
The hair rose on the back of her neck.
What does it want with me? she found herself thinking.
Part of her wanted to ignore it, just go right back to work and pretend she’d never heard the noise at all. But the knocking persisted.
Always in threes.
She found herself back at the door, her shaky fingers on the latch, twisting it slowly.
It unlocked, and she opened the door and found herself staring at Mathias's cold and calculating brown eyes. She wasn't quite sure, but there was something different about him.
He smiled; she frowned.
"You again," she said.
"Yes, me again," he said; his smile faded. "I wanted to check on you, make sure that you were well."
"So was that you earlier too?" she asked. "Think this is funny or something?"
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"Look, just tell me what you want, okay? We both know this display is completely unlike you."
"It's true, I'm not particularly good at socializing with people, and I'm sorry if I ever made you feel like you didn't exist."
"That's putting it lightly."
He gestured in at the darkness. "May I come in?"
Ira rubbed her temple and waved him on in. If nothing else, the distraction would keep her from falling asleep at the keyboard again.
"Have you managed to make headway on unlocking the security system?" Mathias asked.
"No." She sat down at her computer station.
"Well, perhaps what you need is another set of eyes, someone who can pore through the data that the scientists here left. There might be a clue as to what the password is there.”
She looked at him, cautiously. "You'd like that, wouldn't you?"
"Only trying to help, though I can't deny my curiosity."
"Those experiments were horrific and inhumane; how can you be so curious about something that led to so much suffering?"
"How can historians study ancient wars, which caused the deaths of untold innocents, with excitement and hunger? It's the same thing, really. A yearning to know and to learn from humanity's past mistakes, no matter how recent or distant."
Ira fell silent for a while, hoping Mathias would leave. He didn't, of course, he just sat there in the dim light, probably waiting for her to cave in to his offer to help.
She tried to focus on her job, make him sweat. The rainbow tables had been working on the next attempt, trying to decipher the passcode, but she'd set the program to manually accept her input when she felt like pressing Enter on the password interface was an acceptable risk to take. She tried not to think about Eddy, about where he might be. He'd been missing for far too long already.
She shook her head, rubbed her eyes.
How long had it been? She'd been holed up in this damned prison of hers, the days were running together, and she was deliberately avoiding sleep...she couldn't stand the nightmares anymore.
"You miss him, greatly," Mathias said.
She nodded. "He's my only friend here."
"That's no secret, and it's doubtless something that your brother knows as well."
"What do you mean?"
He seemed to hesitate. "I probably shouldn't say it...I'm sorry."
"No, if you're gonna say something, spit it out!"
"I only mean that your brother and Eddy have never gotten along, and have been close to coming to blows on more than one occasion. Everyone was talking about how close Nico was to hurting him after your recent sojourn out into the tundra. I may not like partaking in gossip, but
I do listen very carefully. Lena was especially keen on suggesting that the two of you were engaging in some form of secret romance."
"Of course she was." She punched the arm of her computer chair.
"Yes, ironic that she's the one in charge of maintaining our medical facilities, isn't it?" He smiled. "I mean, she's useful in that regard, no doubt, but it makes you wonder if she's some sort of idiot savant."
Ira almost chuckled. It was ironic.
"Anyway," he said. "Nico is no stranger to war, and if he were to suspect that you and Eddy were—" he cleared his throat, coughing into his hand "—copulating, then who knows what he might do?"
"Nico would never kill Eddy, if that's what you're suggesting."
"I'd hate to think it a possibility, but, in these uncertain times, you might be surprised what horrific actions we might be capable of."
Ira’s eyes narrowed. Maybe it was just the glow from the server towers...but did Mathias’s skin look a little gray? "Speaking for yourself? You spend an awful lot of time alone."
"Indeed." His face seemed to sulk, his shoulders hunched, and those large lips of his curled in on themselves. "Perhaps that's why I've reached out to you?"
"Afraid you might hurt someone?" Her fingers clawed into the rubber armrests.
"No, no." He smiled and put his hands up defensively. "But, madness, that's something I fear. As a scientist, it would be worse than death to lose one's grip on rationality, you know?"
She nodded, glancing back to her screen, where the most recent log entry had been playing. "I guess I understand."
"When I first came here, I was fearful of your group, as I'm no stranger to the unknown quantity that human behavior is when the rule of law has been tossed out the window. My quiet aversion to interaction was a subconscious defense mechanism, in a way, a way of trying to remain out of Nico's sight."
"You failed there."
"Yes, that much is clear to me now. I suppose I was lucky that my limited knowledge of engineering proved useful to him."
"Or what? He's not as big of an asshole as you and Hugo seem to think. He cares. He wouldn't just kick you out. Hugo's living proof of that."
"Yes, but after Hugo's latest flub, Nico did threaten just that."
"That's different!"
"Is it?"
She slouched back in her chair, and tried not to look him in the eyes.
Her computer beeped at her. The code breaker program halted in its constant shifting and changing of characters on the screen. Her finger hovered over Enter.
"Here goes."
She pressed it.
She gasped and thrust her hands up into the air. "I'm in!"
"You are?" Mathias shot up and quickly moved behind her; a shiver wormed its way up her spine when he did. "Try one of the cameras."
She didn't answer him, but activated the camera feeds in several of the facility's corridors. The first one to come up was an empty corridor near the reactor core, the second was just outside of Hugo's new quarters, the third was outside of a room just a few floors short of the top level of the facility. Her eyes locked onto that third camera feed. She tried not to cover her mouth when Nico emerged from the room wearing only his long johns.
"That's not where his quarters are," Mathias said.
Nico paused, wiped sweat off of his brow, and sat for a while in the corridor; his chest was falling and heaving, as if he'd been doing something strenuous.
"Why does he look so tired?" Mathias asked.
Ira shrugged. They sat there for a time, watching him do nothing. Then, after ten minutes, Nico got back up and reentered the room.
When the door opened, the room appeared to be completely dark inside.
"Can you find a camera inside that room?" Mathias asked.
"I'm not going to spy on my brother!"
"And why shouldn't you?"
"Because he didn't do anything to Eddy!"
"Then why was he so sweaty there?" Mathias edged around to the other side of the computer, the glow from her monitor making him look like a wraith. "Aren't you the least bit curious?"
"He was probably just moving around things from home, some of that stuff is pretty heavy."
"Not likely. We finished cataloging and bringing that stuff in before nightfall."
Ira placed her head in her hands. Why was he pressing her with these questions?
"Murder is, after all, a tiring act," Mathias said. "I find it odd that the slash across Eddy's throat consists of only one wound. Last I checked, cougars had more than one claw."
She shot out of her chair and threatened her finger at him. "Get out!"
"I'm sorry," he said. "I didn't mean to offend—"
"The hell you didn't! Get out, before I force you to!"
He shuffled off to the door, opened it, but turned to her one last time.
"If you won't ask the important questions, who will?" he said.
She held her head and sobbed like a stupid little girl.
3
At first, he’d seen only an infinite darkness. He was still aware of the pain in his throat, but little else.
Now, after untold hours floating in tank, the darkness was no longer purely black, and Eddy had lost the ability to tell whether he was awake or asleep. He saw the convincing likeness of Alli, wearing her favorite purple cardigan, floating, smiling, before him in that formless void. She was clutching something wrapped up in a blanket. Her eyes rose and met his. The thing bundled in the blanket wasn't a thing at all, but his one-year-old daughter, Elena.
He tried to reach out, to touch her, like he'd done the night before the looters broke in and murdered them both, but his hand wasn't there.
He had no body; his essence was everywhere.
Her smile faded into a twisting frown. Tears ran down her cheeks. She offered the child up to Eddy, but no matter how much he wanted to, he couldn't embrace her. He tried to call out to her, but he couldn't speak, and before he knew it, she'd fallen deep into the darkness, never to return.
He pushed himself forward, chasing after them. The darkness was like a doorway, like the canvas of a quarantine tent, thick and membranous. He pushed and reached and screamed and shouted.
When the barrier finally gave way, he was greeted by a phantasmagoria of color and sensation. A vortex which ended in a single point of light.
He seemed to fall for an eternity before being spit out into a blanket of stars. Now he was alone, and Alli and Elena were nowhere to be seen.
Their phantoms had opened up an old wound, one he'd thought that he closed long ago. If he had eyes, he would have been sobbing.
More faces from his past appeared around him; some had died in the war, fighting alongside him, and others were childhood friends whose fates he could only guess at.
They seemed to be shouting, warning him of something.
Was that it? Was he dead? Was this his own personal hell?
He tried to close his eyes, but he had no eyelids. He tried to sleep, but the phantoms continued to pass him by.
Then, the starscape faded into something else. It was still dark, but something blue pulsed in the darkness, and then, that dim blue light spread until it became slightly more recognizable. He'd recognize Ira's disheveled black hair anywhere. She was slumped over her keyboard in the mainframe room, probably passed out after working all night. He tried to call out to her, but his voice wasn't there.
He wanted nothing more than to go to her, put his arm around her, embrace her...and now he'd never get that chance. He was trapped, or dead, or who the hell knows what.
Something welled up inside of him; he tried screaming at the top of his lungs.
Ira stirred and sat up in her chair. Her sleepy eyes turned around to face him...but he saw only confusion written on her face. She didn't see him. She left the room in a tired shuffle.
His heart sank, and he couldn't help but wish that he would cease to exist.
There was a tapping sound now that he was alone. Like the gentle clicki
ng of a cat's claws rapping on the floor as it padded closer to its prey. It seemed to be coming from the shadows of the chamber. When he stared at it, he felt as though it stared back.
Curious, with nothing left to lose, he approached the darkness.
It was like a window into another world, and what he saw broke his mind into pieces. He saw hills, land with the consistency of a leathery hide beneath a pulsing, gray sky that had the texture of decaying flesh. Open mouths in the ground with sharp, black and yellow teeth, opening and closing, chewing on rotting body parts...human body parts.
Then, at the top of one of the hills, a great black shape. It seemed to be asleep. It was twenty feet long, or a hundred, or a thousand—he wasn't sure which—and had great spines, spiking off its back into that terrible pulsing sky. It seemed to be breathing in from its head, growling, rumbling, which made its shape rise and fall as though it was in many places at once. If it had eyes, he couldn't see them—
A single gray eye at the center of its head jerked open, revealing multi-segmented pupils.
He backed away from the window, tearing his eyes away from that beast and fleeing.
He tried to find Ira. He had to warn her about that thing!
But he found himself in the center of the void again, unable to move...
Maybe he was just imagining all this stuff?
Maybe he was still in the tank, alive and well, healing as Mathias had said he would.
4
Ira let the bittersweet aroma of the coffee wrest her from her own sleepiness. She sat down at the table in the lounge and rubbed her eyes.
The warmth radiating through the ceramic cup into her hands was almost enough to comfort her.
Now, even her dreams weren't safe.
She could have sworn she saw Eddy naked, strapped to some apparatus, screaming for her to help him...
There was more to it. A descent through an elevator shaft, the deeper it went, the stranger it became. There were moans near the bottom. Shapes she couldn't make out—didn't want to.
One of the shapes came for her, scrambling up the steel traction rope with fingers which were bent and wrong.
Mind's Horizon Page 16