by Ian Williams
She agreed wholeheartedly.
“So who’s your friend?” Rhys asked as they separated. He still held her in place with a hand on each shoulder.
“That’s what I’m hoping you can help me answer.”
His raised eyebrow said everything his mouth did not. “Care to give me a little more to go on than that?”
The large metal door slammed shut behind her, which caused her bones to almost jump out of her skin. Not quite the hard-as-nails image she tried to uphold. She turned to see the man who had given them the all-clear through the small hatch. By the look of his highly visible and coffee stained teeth and general unkemptness, he rarely entertained guests.
“Can we talk in private,” she asked while returning a suspicious sidelong look back at the door guard.
“Sure,” Rhys replied softly. “Give us a minute, would ya, Matt? Why don’t you show Phoenix’s friend here where we keep the drinks?”
Matt evidently did not much enjoy using words and answered with a sigh instead. He waved to Ninety-three to follow and then disappeared behind a curtain hanging in the door frame. As soon as her companion had entered the next room and let the material swing back into place, she heard him begin his barrage of questions. Except she thought Matt the worst person to be asking for information, unless Ninety-three could interpret grunts and derisive snorts.
“So what’s the story? What happened to you after Anthony went nuts?” Rhys asked.
“That’s a long and boring list of shit really. I’ve kept my head down since it all blew up, been living back on my parents’ farm. Coming back to the city was the last thing I wanted to do again, but something came up, something that I can’t just turn my back on.”
“Your friend?”
“Yes, well no, not that guy anyway. I owe someone for saving my life. That guy in there, I have no idea who he is.”
Rhys wandered over to the curtain door and peered through. He pulled it open only a small amount, keeping his spying a secret for now. “So why hasn’t he told you his name?”
“He can’t remember anything.”
“So where did he come from then?”
“No, I mean he can’t remember anything at all, Rhys; his name, where he came from, even what a fucking city looks like. I’ve been calling him Ninety-three.”
“Ninety-three?”
“Yeah, he remembers being given a number, but that’s all.”
“Why bring him to me then? What can I do?”
Joining Rhys by the door, Phoenix took a look from over his shoulder. “See that thing on his head?”
“How could I not? What is it?”
“I was hoping you could take a look and tell me. Whatever it is, I think it’s why he can’t remember. It looks damaged to me.”
A moment of unexpected silence was almost instantly interrupted by another mundane round of quizzing from Ninety-three as he followed the disgruntled Matt around the room beyond. Being trapped in a confined space with someone so curious was like being left with an excited puppy. He was unwilling to leave any stone unturned either, anything he saw was worth another question.
They both watched from the safety of their room. She could tell Rhys was weighing up whether to help or not. The way he had been left vulnerable after Anthony’s rampage meant she could not take for granted that he would. All she could do was hope his curiosity was as strong as Ninety-three’s.
He let go of the curtain and spun around to face her suddenly. “I’m going to ask you this once and you have to be completely honest with me, OK?”
“Sure.”
“Is there any chance this could put me or my people in danger? Cos if I help, I don’t want to have to work for free again afterwards. I had to do that for long enough to prove I wasn’t a part of that shit Anthony caused last year.”
One hand on his shoulder and the other on his right cheek was better than any apology she could ever manage with words. He had been through a lot because of her. They shared a quiet smile together before each found a dangerous ease between them. She felt this once before with Rhys, only on that occasion he had the good sense to put the brakes on. Getting close was never a good thing in their line of work. If she was honest with herself she thought this was really the reason she had expected a bad reception; they had both left something on hold for far too long.
“I wouldn’t have come if I thought it would put you in harm’s way,” she said. It was the truth too, even if it was a promise she could never guarantee she could keep. The man she had brought with her was as unknown a situation as she had ever found herself facing before. It was not a matter of good or bad, it was all a game of knowledge. And at that current moment she still knew nothing.
“OK. Let’s bust him open and see what falls out,” Rhys said with a smile. He then pulled the curtain open and ushered her through ahead of him.
Where the last room had served as a lobby of sorts, this next room was the heart of Rhys’ operations. An orderly arrangement of older computer systems filled the room; the type he preferred over the flashy new tech the rest of the population used. Each one was manned and appeared to be in the process of running flat out on whatever scheme they all had going on at that moment. Rhys worked for anyone who could afford his price, so it could have been anything.
His workers were too engrossed to even raise their heads.
“Hey, come on, this way,” Phoenix said, quickly tapping Ninety-three on the back. He stood watching one of the workers. If not for her interruption he would have probably stayed there for hours. He followed without question, his head swinging from left to right each time he spotted something else he wanted to ask about.
Through a narrow corridor and another door covered by a curtain, Rhys showed them to where his table and personal stash of tech resided. His small space was in stark contrast to the room of whirling equipment he used to crunch the big numbers. For starters it was a complete mess of tools and flashing panels, each connected by a bundle of cables – most of which she suspected were not being used at all. This area was also much cooler than the other room and had been setup specifically to make for a more comfortable place to work.
After swiping his arms across the table a few times to remove the clutter, he pulled over an office chair and did the same with it. With his working area now ready to tackle a new problem, he patted the seat and began filtering through the drawers of the table to find what he needed. He eventually removed a pair of pliers and magnifying glasses, which made his eyes ten times bigger the moment he put them on.
“Right, Ninety-three,” he said. “If you can just sit here, I should be able to get a better look at that thing on your head.”
Ninety-three took a seat and immediately began to talk again. “Your eyes have expanded to a much larger size. Why do you require this?”
“First rule. Hey!” Rhys clicked his fingers to bring Ninety-three’s attention back to him again before he continued. “First rule is no talking, OK. Second is to keep your head still while I take a look.”
Phoenix was glad to see the message sink in straight away; her companion had finally stopped moving about. She watched for a few minutes while Rhys investigated the device with his improved eyesight. He pulled at the two glowing wires inside, cleaned out the dirt with a small brush he dug out of his drawer, even tried to pull one of the wires out completely. From his reaction to each part he looked at, she knew he was having difficulty understanding anything about it.
Once deciding that he had seen all he needed to at close range, he removed his magnifying glasses and slid them onto the table beside him. “I can honestly say I’ve never seen anything like this before,” he said, as if apologising for having failed.
“Any idea what it’s doing to him though? It’s connected to his brain isn’t it?”
“I’ll need to go deeper and see what kinds of signals this thing is sending into his skull. At this stage all I can say for sure is, yes, it’s linked to his brain. But whether it’s influencing him o
r not, I can’t say right now.” He stopped for a second and stared at the device before adding one more thing. “There is one thing I could try quickly that might give us some idea of how much it’s taxing his brain though.”
It was something at least. Phoenix was happy for anything at this stage. “Sounds good. How?”
“EEG,” he replied, and when she gave him a confused look, he elaborated. “Electroencephalogram. It’s what hospitals use to see brainwave activity. If that device is really doing something odd to his brain, we should see something straight away. I’ve got one around somewhere. Let me go find it.”
Rhys raced excitedly out of the room and a short while later could be heard cursing at his messy search area. When he came back, he was carrying a small box, roughly the size of a microwave oven, with a handful of thin wires hanging by his side. The instrument was covered in small knobs and dials that made it look far older than anything else in his collection. He set the device down on the table and quickly attempted to untangle each wire. When he was happy with the state of the machine he then plugged it into a wireless power adapter, one he had made to work with his favoured older tech. It came to life with a beep and a hum that died away only seconds later.
“OK, now I haven’t used this in a while, so bear with me. First I need to attach these electrodes to your head,” he said to Ninety-three. “This won’t hurt so don’t worry about that.”
“Thank you for the reassurance,” Ninety-three replied. He had forgotten the first rule already.
Phoenix lent a hand in sticking the electrodes in the correct places and checking each was secure before continuing. When all were ready, Rhys then connected the machine to his more modern, resizable tablet computer.
“We should get a readout on the screen in real time. Let me just get it working here,” Rhys said as he twirled dials and pushed buttons. “There. Whoa!”
“What, what does it say?” Phoenix asked. Her impatience was getting the better of her. All she could see were lines drawing a path across Rhys’ tablet computer. She did not understand anything it was saying.
“That’s not right. Look here,” he said, pointing at part of the graph. “That’s his Alpha Wave reading. In a normal working brain it should be mainly Alpha and a little of the Beta waves, for when we’re concentrating. I was expecting to see a constant Beta wave signal even when he was relaxed. But this? This is weird.”
“What’s weird? Rhys, talk to me.”
“Hang on a sec,” he replied, shifting his position to be directly in front of Ninety-three. While staring into the man’s eyes, Rhys then asked a set of questions that threw Phoenix’s mind off in a confused internal rant. “Are you awake, Ninety-three? Does any of this feel like a dream or even a nightmare? Where are you right now?”
“I am here with Phoenix and you, Rhys.”
“What’s going on? Why are you asking him that?” Phoenix asked.
Rhys finally turned to face her. “He shouldn’t be awake right now. His brainwave activity shows mainly Delta waves, which we only produce while asleep. His Alpha and Beta waves are minimal. He shouldn’t be able to think and move about like he is. As far as I can see, he’s sleepwalking.”
“It must be wrong then. Try it again,” Phoenix insisted. How could he be sleepwalking? No, it was not possible, she had been talking to him all morning and had watched him operate like any normal person – well not every normal person.
“OK, then explain this. Hey, catch.” Rhys threw his pliers at Ninety-three and held up his screen as he caught them. The readout on the display barely changed, but there was a small increase in the Delta wave signal. “He’s reacting to a waking world while stuck in a sleep state.”
Phoenix was shocked and delighted to see an unexpected spike in the Alpha and Beta wave signal readout. It was a large burst of activity that disappeared as quickly as it had appeared. It had been a good few seconds later than Ninety-three’s reaction though.
“What was that then?” she said questioningly.
Turning the screen back around, Rhys checked a few seconds earlier to see it for himself. “Shit, that’s crazy,” he said. “The readout’s a second or two behind. So he’s giving out a high rate of Delta waves almost constantly, then when something surprises him it kicks back in a shed load of Alpha and Beta, as if that’s a back-up system or something. Phoenix, look, this guy is something else. But I’m pretty sure that thing on his head isn’t influencing him or holding back his memory at all. I’d bet my life on it in fact.”
“Then what is it doing?” She was quickly becoming swamped by Rhys’ excited explanations.
“If I’m right, then I have something that could completely mess it up, temporarily of course. It should show us what he’s like when it’s deactivated. That way we’ll know what it’s really doing to him.”
He leapt up again and left the room in search of yet another piece of equipment. This time when he returned he carried a small black paddle in the shape of a figure-of-eight, attached by a coiled cable to a small white box with even more dials than the first. He pushed the EEG machine aside and sat this new gadget down in its place.
“Can you take the electrodes off his head while I set this up?” He did not wait for an answer before he began setting the dials to the desired level.
“Where did you get all this stuff from?” she asked as she gently pulled each electrode free from her friend’s skin. He flinched as the last came free with some hair stuck to it. “Sorry.”
“Do not worry, Phoenix,” Ninety-three replied without moving again.
Rhys laughed. “You’d be surprised what I’ve collected over the years. This medical stuff is just a bit of fun. Well, it is usually.”
“So what’s this one called?”
“It’s a Magnetic Stimulator. These were used in an old technique called Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation, to treat some types of depression and an early form of pain management. What I’m hoping to do is use the magnetic field that will form around the paddle to depolarise the device on his head. It should dampen the effect it has over him.”
With the paddle in his right hand and raised, he switched on the white box and waited as it came online. After a few seconds, he looked to Phoenix. “Ready?”
She nodded nervously.
“And how about you, my friend?” Rhys asked Ninety-three with a tap of his shoulder.
“I am also ready,” he replied.
“Here goes then.”
Slowly, Rhys moved the figure-of-eight shaped paddle closer to the small black box. As it moved nearer Ninety-three began to blink repeatedly, almost at the same rate as the flashing of the glowing wires inside. Something was happening already. Phoenix watched his every movement until the paddle gently touched the edge of the black box on his head. At which point Ninety-three slumped into the seat, his eyes glazed and lifeless. Had it killed him?
“What did you do?” Phoenix asked, a gut load of worry suddenly racing up her body.
“Hang on, it’s fine, it’s fine, just give it a minute,” Rhys replied with his hand raised to keep her back. When nothing changed, he then began to explain his theory. “I knew it. See, I told you that box isn’t blocking his memories. The box is him!”
Her mind cleared instantly after hearing this. There was no need for him to say any more, she had already begun to figure it out.
“It’s as if it’s overriding the body somehow, like the box is a brain all by itself! My God, do you have any idea what this could mean? Phoenix? Hey, you there?”
“I’m here,” she replied, as her eyes bore deep into Ninety-three’s.
“I have no idea what this thing really is.”
Phoenix on the other hand was pretty sure she knew already, even if it was insane to be thinking such a thing. She looked Ninety-three over while his dead eyes watched her. What she had seen the previous night was only the start of it, it appeared. Suddenly she could make some kind of sense of what was going on. Somewhere behind his eyes was a presence
that had invaded and taken control. It had to explain what the strange black box attached to the side of his head was for.
The Sentients had dug a path through the earth to the city and were, until now, in the middle of an unknown plan. Now she could see a part of what that entailed. And it was not the first time she had heard of something like this happening. If Stephen could have transferred his mind temporarily into the Sentient world, what was to say the opposite could not be possible too? Not only did she now believe it had been achieved, she also believed she had one sitting right in front of her.
Ninety-three was a Sentient!
She realised she had already broken the promise made to Rhys not long ago. He and everyone there were in danger because of her. Knowing this spurred her into action. Without taking the time to explain to Rhys what was going on, she swung her bag around, pulled out the submachine gun and aimed it at the Sentient’s stolen face.
“What are you doing? Phoenix, hey, take it easy,” Rhys pleaded with her.
“I can’t do that. He can’t be trusted.”
“Why? I don’t understand what’s happening. You brought him to me to help you, not to kill him. Where did you get that gun from anyway?”
“I’ll tell you everything later. But you need to tie him up or something first.”
Rhys’ tone had changed rapidly in the seconds since she pulled the gun on Ninety-three. Now it sounded closer to anger. “Phoenix, what’s wrong with him? Why can’t he be trusted? Answer me goddammit!”
“Because he’s not human, he’s a fucking program inside one.”
That silenced him instantly.
What then silenced her immediately afterwards was the scared expression spreading across Ninety-three’s very much awake face. He had awoken again somehow. At least that was what she assumed had happened. When he spoke, it was quite clear something else entirely had.
“Where am I?” he said, his eyes darting about him and welling up quickly. “Who the fuck are you? What have you done to me? Oh Christ, please don’t let him take control again.”
“Wait, what’s he talking about?” Rhys asked.