It was trippy.
A worker opened the second processing chamber door on the right. He was wearing a green outfit and white gloves. In his hand was a chart that sat on a standard clipboard.
“Mr. Dex?” he called out, though I was the only person in the room. “Mr. Ian Dex?”
“Yeah,” I sighed, getting up and heading over to him. “I’m right here.”
“Your tattoo, please?”
I turned over my arm and the guy scanned it. He then verified my name, occupation, date of birth, where I lived, and the car I currently owned.
Finally, he said, “Are you still an amalgamite?”
My head dropped to my chest.
“Yes,” I groaned in reply.
He checked a box on his form. “Please enter the chamber, remove all clothing and place it in the plastic bin on the right. Once you’ve completed that, have a seat on the chair and the computer will provide you with the next steps.”
“All right.”
He stepped out and I took off all my stuff, carefully folding it so I could tell if anyone messed with it while I was in the mind fuck machine. Yes, that’s what I called the damn thing.
Finally, I looked at the chair and let out a long breath.
The entire process of reintegration sucked, but the chair was the worst part. It was covered with fresh plastic for each person who sat on it…I hoped it was fresh, anyway. That plastic stuck to your skin and it was cold, but knowing what could happen during this step in the process, I completely understood why they employed its use.
On top of the chair was what looked like a hairdryer, and not the kind that smacked me in the nuts earlier, either. I’m talking about those types you see at the hair salon hanging over people’s heads. But this one was different in that it covered your eyes and everything. Okay, so maybe a motorcycle helmet was a better description. Regardless, the thing was clear and it had wires running from it to the ceiling.
That’s where the fun was housed.
I took a seat, adjusting myself until the plastic was as comfortable as could be expected. Then I put my hands on the arm rests and waited.
Straps came out and locked my arms and legs in place as the helmet lowered onto my head. This was not a place you wanted to be if you were claustrophobic, let me tell ya.
Once the helmet was on, it turned from clear to pitch-black.
I couldn’t see or hear a thing.
“Mr. Dex,” said a computerized voice that was just above a whisper, “you are about to undergo the entrainment phase of reintegration.”
Here is where all the magic happened. It would feel like you weren’t being altered or anything, but something happened in this unit that caused your beliefs and base desires to get tinkered around. I didn’t understand how it worked, and I didn’t really care. I just wanted it to be over with so I could get back to the real world.
The computer continued.
“You will feel renewed and refreshed at the end of this cycle.” That was bullshit. “Everything that happens during this level of reintegration will be deemed confidential. Please note that you may become slightly disoriented. This is normal. However, if you find yourself agitated or wracked with a sudden desire to soil yourself, please let us know.” It was said with such a sweet voice, too. “We hope you enjoy your entrainment procedure.”
And that’s when the music started.
Chapter 9
The music was classical, but there was a warbling sound that I could hear playing underneath it.
Based on the literature I was forced to read when I’d joined the PPD, the warbling happened at a particular frequency that synced with your brain. After a certain amount of time, the speed of the warble lowered, bringing your brain along with it. Supposedly, this made it so you would slowly fall into a meditative state.
It sounded dubious to me, but I’d be damned if I had ever remembered the last few minutes of the entrainment process.
In conjunction with the sounds, there was a light show. Blues, yellows, reds, and greens bounced around across my visual field. There was no flashing but rather just movement of light.
It was soothing.
Like the sounds, this was supposed to work to calm the mind, making it receptive to the suggestions that were to follow.
“Normals are your friends,” I heard the first whispering words. “You would never wish to harm a normal.”
Obviously, this thing hadn’t met a lot of normals.
I had to keep thoughts like that away, though. There was nothing in the literature about the entrainment system being able to read your thoughts, but I wasn’t going to risk it. I just wanted this to be over with so I could get back to saving my beloved city of Vegas.
Again, I really didn’t expect there to be an attack against the people there, seeing as I believed the mage in charge of this little assassination play would want to be certain that we were all dead first. But I wasn’t one hundred percent certain of that, either. For all I knew, there were four amalgamites ripping through the Strip as I sat here getting reprogrammed.
“You would not wish to bite a normal,” whispered the machine. “They taste sour and they carry disease.”
I could feel myself getting groggy already. I hated that, especially because it was out of my control.
It was like getting drunk. You start out thinking you’d just have a couple of drinks, but then your judgment becomes suspect and you end up facedown in the gutter, singing show tunes while some homeless guy steals your wallet.
Not that such a thing had ever happened to me, of course.
Anyway, the whispers now felt like someone was tickling my ears.
“You would find it disgusting to mark a tree in your neighborhood.”
At least the computer had moved on from focusing on the vampire part of my psyche to targeting the werewolf part, instead. That was progress anyway. It didn’t matter. I knew it would go back through them all over and over again during the next half hour.
“You should always clean up after yourself when you are in the park.”
My eyes were already closed, but they were threatening to roll up into my head now.
Just once, I wanted to make it through this entire ordeal fully conscious. I’d always wondered how it wrapped everything up at the end. What was it that it did to make people get violently ill, and why did it always happen to me? Maybe it happened to everyone?
“You are very handsome,” said the computer, “but you should strive to see the beauty in others as well.”
Fae.
I fell asleep for awhile, which I only knew because I jolted back awake and heard the computer say, “You may feel it’s important to call someone creative names, but remember that not everyone appreciates your use of vulgarity.”
So we’d moved on to the pixies.
That was…
I woke up again.
“Your wool is wonderful and has many uses that can benefit not only supernaturals, but normals as well.”
I found myself nodding. It was true. I could turn into a weresheep and make enough wool to…
The next time I awoke, it was to the sound of faster music. Light was coming back into the world, and there was a smell that indicated something disturbing had occurred.
“It is perfectly normal that you have soiled yourself,” the computer said in a relaxed voice. “The plastic will be changed before another person enters the chamber, and you may find cleaning resources directly ahead and to the left. Please be sure to bring your bin of clothing with you.”
Feeling like I’d just woken up from an all-night bender, I groaned as I looked down at what I’d done to that poor chair.
“Well, that’s embarrassing,” I said as I pushed myself up, cringing as the plastic pulled against my skin. “Where’s the fucking shower again?”
“Ahead and to your left.”
“Right, thanks.”
Chapter 10
By the time I was showered and off to the next station, m
y brain had come back to full awareness. Cold showers did that to you. Why they didn’t offer hot water, I couldn’t say, but it certainly added insult to injury.
“How do you think I feel?” grumbled The Admiral. “I’m the one who shrinks in cold water.”
I rolled my eyes and walked to the next station. This was the room of odd questions. That wasn’t what its technical name was, but that’s how I remembered it.
A stool sat in the middle of the room with a light shining directly down on it. Everything else was dark.
I took a seat.
A voice came across the speaker system. “Are you ready to begin?”
It wasn’t a computer, but I couldn’t see a face or anything. My guess was that the voice belonged to a magic-user since we didn’t have any empaths in the supernatural world. Or, if we did, they weren’t made public.
Regardless, this person wasn’t there to read my thoughts. They were there to dismantle my thoughts and activate deeper programming. Any time a person was allowed to go topside, they were programmed with certain triggers that kept them from doing bad things. Many people had learned ways to bypass those triggers over the years, but for the most part, they worked just fine.
“I’m ready,” I answered.
I tried to look through the dark to see if someone was actually in the room with me. I had excellent vision in dark situations, but the overhead light made it difficult to spot anyone. My guess was they were behind a one-way glass of some sort.
“Does the worm in the moon sense the water of direct sunlight?” she asked.
I blinked.
“What?”
“How many eggs are there in a field of daisies?”
“Uh…”
“If you were to administer a firm handshake to a square meter of dark matter, would the color green still manifest itself to the eye of a mountain range?”
“Are you smoking weed back there or something?” I asked, though I had to admit that my brain felt like it was tingling. “Wait…maybe you’re feeding some funny-weed smoke in here instead?”
“What is one plus seven multiplied by potato?”
“Thirty-six?” I attempted, though I don’t have any idea why. It did sound right, though. “Yeah, thirty-six.”
“Who wrote the woodgrain of endlessness?”
“Your mom?”
Okay, that was probably not the correct answer, but it was the first thing that came to mind.
There was clearly something strange going on in this room. The questions being asked were nonsensical, but they were unlocking areas of my mind that felt like gaskets releasing. I couldn’t really sense any differences in my thought patterns, aside from being somewhat discombobulated, but I knew something was going on that was flipping my head around. By way of example, I never used words like ‘discombobulated.’
“Trouble comes in two forms,” she said, “but it is never discussed where the edge of volcanic activity starts and the mouse begins. Do you know why?”
That made me feel queazy.
“I’m not going to shit myself again, am I?” I asked.
“It’s been said that the whirlwind is naught but the ending of a sentient thought whereby subatomic particles interface with a cereal box. Is this true?”
“I haven’t a fucking clue, lady.”
The questions went on and on, each seemingly more baffling than the last. The me in my head was not the me I was used to having live in there. Okay, even I couldn’t understand what I’d just thought.
And that was the problem.
It was like my brain was being scrambled with all these weird questions. In fact, it had gotten so bad that I wasn’t even able to answer them any longer. I just sat there drooling as I leaned over and waited for it all to end.
Suddenly, she asked a reasonable question. “What is your favorite color?”
“Huh?” I said, wiping the drool from my mouth. “What?”
“What is your favorite color?” she repeated.
“Teal,” I answered, after a few moments.
“Who is your favorite person to have sexual relations with?”
“Your mom,” I said again.
It seemed like a more fitting response to that question than to the one about the endless woodgrain thing.
There was a pause, and then she repeated the question. “Who is your favorite person to have sexual relationships with?”
I took a deep breath, feeling much better now.
“Rachel,” I answered, “but why does that matter?”
“Is there gold at the end of the rainbow?”
Clearly, I was not going to get an answer to my question.
“No.”
“Is there gold in the rainbow?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because gold is a color,” I answered, returning fully to my normal self as my mind felt sharp and clear. “Are we done?”
“Have you completed your officer evaluations?”
I squinted. “Huh?”
She was clearly the most patient person in the world.
“Have you completed your officer evaluations?”
“Oh, uh…not yet.” I pulled my collar. “I still have to do that.”
“Why haven’t you completed your officer evaluations?” she asked.
“There just hasn’t been much time,” I answered.
I suddenly felt like I’d rather be getting questions about what it would take for a lightbulb to fuck a tissue box so they could give birth to a sunspot.
“I know I have to get to it,” I said finally. “I’ll…uh…make it a priority or something.”
“Do so,” she stated matter-of-factly. “The final phase of your reintegration is complete. Please exit through the door straight ahead and sign the paperwork.”
I stood up and walked over to the door. After one last look back into the room, I shrugged and walked out.
Chapter 11
The exit paperwork was usually simpler than the entry paperwork, but there were still a number of things to sign and pledges to make, etc.
It was frustrating because I needed to check on things topside.
Unfortunately, it required special authorization to make a connector call from the reintegration chamber. Fortunately, Griff was just exiting the completion area and I called out to him.
“Griff, please see if you can get an authorized call up to Lydia to check on things.”
He nodded and walked out.
I knew we needed to get my training going before I could successfully battle the amalgamites, but if they were hitting the town already, I’d have to take my chances in order to stop them.
With a sigh, I plopped down in the chair in front of a kind-looking older gentleman. If I had to make a guess, which I wouldn’t do aloud due to the debacle that happened with the werebear/fae from before, I would say he was a vampire. Usually, I could tell straightaway what a particular super was, but sometimes I failed at it horribly. The odd part about thinking this guy was a vampire was him looking like a decent sort. Vampires were known to be rather snooty. Then again, Chuck was a vampire and he was one of the coolest people around.
“Mr. Dex, yes?” the fellow asked.
“Yes.”
“Amalgamite, correct?”
“Yes.”
“Any changes since your last reintegration?” he asked.
“Yes,” I answered without control.
I really didn’t want to answer the question at all, but one of the things that happened during reintegration was the unleashing of previous mental programming. That included the need to speak truthfully when asked questions by the officers down here.
He took out a fresh piece of paper. “And they are?”
“I can cast magic like a full mage now,” I said, struggling to keep my mouth shut. “I can pop out my fangs, utilize the power of tattoos, hunt like a werewolf, fight like a werebear, curse like a pixie—”
The man held up a hand and tapped the pen on the t
able.
“As an amalgamite, could you not do all these things before?”
“Not really, no,” I answered. “I mean, I could cast spells, sure, but not like I can now. I’ve always been faster and stronger than most, of course. But the teeth thing? No.”
He leaned back. “Is it a problem for you?”
“It makes me lisp something fierce, but Rachel finds it sexy.” I paused. “The teeth, not the lisping.”
“Rachel?”
“My girlfriend.”
“Normal or super?” he asked, his eyes thinning.
“Super,” I answered. “She just went through reintegration before I did.”
He thumbed through his papers for a moment, picked one out of the bunch, and started scanning it from top to bottom.
“Rachel Cress?”
“Yes.”
He jotted something down on her paper before tucking it back in with the rest.
“Are you having any issues controlling these newfound powers, Mr. Dex?”
That was a good question. I wasn’t experienced with things yet, but I could control whether or not they fired off. Still, I had the feeling that wasn’t what he was asking.
I’d have to word my response carefully, making it truthful but guarded.
“My powers don’t happen without my expressed desire that they do,” I answered.
He held my stare for a few extra moments before nodding at me. Then he started writing a bunch of stuff out. I wanted to peek down and see exactly what he was putting on that page, but I didn’t want to chance getting caught.
“Okay,” he said finally. “Is there anything else you’d like to declare before exiting the area?”
“Not that I can think of, no,” I answered truthfully.
He picked up a clipboard that had a small stack of papers attached to it. This was the signing phase. Talk about hand cramps. You had to either sign or initial a good fifty times before you were let go.
“Each page will have a red or blue checkmark next to a line,” he said, pointing at an example. “The red checkmark signifies that you are to sign your full name, the blue one means you are to initial that spot.”
Clash of Flames: An Ian Dex Supernatural Thriller Book 7 (Las Vegas Paranormal Police Department) Page 4