by Mark Jeffrey
The first room she entered was very different from the one she had been in during her first visit. Instead of antique accoutrements, everything was polished black and chrome. Several large cylindrical tanks lined the walls, mist spilling off the labyrinth of pipes that forked in and out of them. Writing on their sides read:
BIOHAZARD: Medical Nanobot Units #34A-44D
Nanobots? Her mind raced. Is that what this whole prison was for?
Nanobot experimentation on live human subjects? She’d read about such things in medical journals. Nanobots were theoretical, tiny molecular machines — robots at the atomic level. Doctors had written papers about using them to repair the body on a cellular level, even going so far as to construct entirely new organs from scratch. Or limbs.
Or fingers.
Fingers! She wiggled her regrown pinky involuntarily.
Yes, working nanobots would explain the miraculous reappearance of her severed digit. Weaving carbon and oxygen, a small army of nanobots could stitch together a new finger literally our of thin air …
While she pondered this, Elspeth kept a close eye on her companion guards. None of them seemed to be taking off their helmets. The suits must offer some kind of protection against the nanobots, she reasoned. True, the tiny engines could be beneficial, but that same power cut two ways: nanobots could also be extremely dangerous. Why, entirely new classes of nanobot-based diseases could be dreamt up. They could rip apart a body at the cellular level, like a form of super leprosy …
Ice flushed in her veins.
The Vizier.
Oh boy. Of course. That fit so perfectly. Was that what happened to him? Had a nanobot swarm sheared him apart by his molecules? A ghastly cloud, infecting him like a virus … Yes, it would look like leprosy, producing lesions and rough white patches on the flesh, like scar tissue. It would consume him, cover him.
Dear God.
Here it is, boys and girls! Leprosy of the future! New wave leprosy, brought to you by the magic of nanotechnology.
Elspeth tried to fight down the gibbering of her mind: was this the US government? Or China? Or …. Who else?
Enemy Combatants were the new lab rats.
Nanotech. Rich horrors filled her mind: flowers with teeth, or even teeth growing out of eyes; petals and leaves twisting in terror skyward, skittering out of the soil in which they were born. Contrast this with luscious immortality: smooth baby flesh, forever. Both were made possible by the same thing, by machines the size of atoms. And why not? Biology itself was basically nature’s own nanotech.
Elspeth marveled at the beauty of such power. But she also found it radioactive, cringe-worthy, repulsive: something to be contained and restrained.
One of her fellow guards shook her from her reverie. “Hey! Help me bring this over to the pad deck!” He grunted at a smaller cylinder that had just received a healthy filling of something from one of the larger cylinders.
Elspeth didn’t dare hesitate: she nodded in return, trying to look masculine. She knew she was tall enough to be automatically assumed to be male: so long as she played the part, she would be fine. And she was plenty strong enough: she lifted her end of the weight and moved the small container to a shipping palette.
After several back and forth trips like this, Elspeth found a way to move away from the main gang and go deeper into the Panopticon. But each room was filled with only more nanotech-looking tubs and containers. The color of the molecular machine goo shifted somewhat from green to grey to mustard, but it still had a metallic tinge no matter the shade.
She debated with herself now: had she discovered enough information for the Order of the Black Dove? Should she return with this discovery of the nanotechnology vats? Or should she double down and go further into the Panopticon, learn more secrets?
Two nearby doors opened briefly, providing tantalizing glimpses into adjoining rooms. She saw dense plastic flaps and a heavy air fan that roared to life, blowing air back into the room she was in, which then switched off when the door was closed again.
Nope, time to boogie. Those adjoining rooms looked like they were insulated from the nanotechnology, which meant she would probably have to take off her helmet if she entered them. Better to escape with what she had.
"Hey Munson," came a voice. She turned. Two of the shorter guards stood there. "That's you in there, right Munson? Suit 15?" The guard tapped a finger on her wrist where a serial number was inscribed that she hadn't noticed before: 0015.
"Who else could it be, that tall? Hey. How's the weather up there Munson?"
She froze for a moment while they laughed. Then she nodded and sort of grunted a Yeah. But it wasn't good enough. Instantly, their body language changed. She felt suspicion light up their nerve endings.
"Hey ... who are you?"
"None of your beeswax, Lollipop Guild." Elspeth suddenly lashed out with her whole body, shoving both men away from her.
Then, she turned and ran.
The door out of the Panopticon opened for her, no problem. After all, she was a guard. Probably some RFID thing in the suit keyed the doors.
But the bridge was not extended all the way. In her rush, she had forgotten about that.
They were going to start shooting at her now. She even thought she heard shots. Her breathing echoed raggedly in her ears, amplified by her helmet. Claustrophobia shot through her in a gelid sizzle.
Her feet kept running. Primal fear had her, all her magical doctor calm fell away. Instinct took over, flight at all costs.
That's when she ran right off the end of the partially extended bridge.
She plunged, falling from the middle of the hollow moon all the way to its South Pole.
She landed crookedly with a sickening snap. Somehow, she remained conscious and numb. Her legs were a mess, mess, mess. Bones jutted out of both of them. Oh dear. Those would need to be sterilized and set. And the bleeding stopped and bags of flesh and muscle sewn shut.
She knew that with immediate and proper medical care, she could live. Like Humpty Dumpty, she could be put back together.
But her hopes fell when the air above her shimmered and a tight fist of fiery stars appeared. These whirling wraiths, these candle-less tongues of flame paused for only a moment, assessing her. Except now she knew what they were: nanobots, programmed to sever atom from atom, rip flesh from bone.
They pounced. She screamed.
They were killing her, ripping her apart. Just like they had that old man, Milton.
An exquisite pain seared her. But now all she thought about was Oscar, and how she would never see him again. I'm sorry, honey. I failed you. I failed us both. I'll never find you, I'll never save us.
Her body jumped and flopped around involuntarily while the numinous stars burned her nerve endings.
Then, she succumbed to her fate. The lights went out.
SHE AWOKE on a stone table in one of the crudely-cut passageways. David was here, as were several others of the Order of the Black Dove. She was lying down. A makeshift I.V. was plugged into her arm, feeding her from a drip bag.
"What's in it?" She demanded groggily.
David laughed. "Coconut water. Elspeth. Doctors really do make the worst patients."
She looked down at her legs. They were whole. No traces of her injury remained.
She sagged. She was sick of saying, Impossible.
"So the fire things kill Milton. But they saved me. Why?"
"You're a lot prettier than Milton?” David offered.
She laughed. "Was that a question?"
"You know I think you are. Sigh. If only you weren't married …” He said it like a joke, but she could tell by the look in his eye that he was half-serious. Maybe all serious.
"So what happened?" She sat up. David tried to push her back down but she hissed him away. "I'm fine. Really, and I would know, being both me and a medical professional. Now tell me what happened."
"Doctors. Alright. You fell. We all saw it happen. We thought you were dead. Y
ou were in pretty bad shape. But then the fire things came. They stitched you back together, and vanished. Meanwhile, you passed out and the guards started going crazy. They ordered everyone back into their cells and put the place on lockdown.
“So all of us in the Dove, we went into the tunnels right away. We beat them down to the South Pole, and we grabbed your body and made a run for it. It wasn’t so hard really, since there’s not much between the cells on the east and the west all the way down here. And it’s hard for the guards to move downwards quickly. By the time they arrived, your body was gone.”
Elspeth nodded. “So what’re they going to do when they find out I’m not in my cell during lockdown?”
“Oh, lots of people aren’t. It’s chaos. Prisoners are locked two or three in a cell, in the wrong cells. They’ll assume you’re around somewhere. They won’t assume it was you in the suit.”
“They know it was someone tall.”
“There are lots of tall people here. They —”
“They know it was a woman. They heard my voice. They know it was a tall woman. Kind of narrows it down.”
David shook his head. “I doubt it. You’re being paranoid. You were in a suit. They could barely hear you.”
“Never mind,” Elspeth said, shaking her head. “You’re probably right.”
“So. What did you see?”
She told him.
NEWS OF THE NANOTECHNOLOGY spread like wildfire throughout the caverns. Many of the Order of the Black Dove stopped by to wish Elspeth well, and to thank her personally for the risk she’d taken. “We understand a lot more now, thanks to you,” they said. “Now we may have some hope of escape.”
Bold new plans were discussed in the hallways. Elspeth caught snippets here and there. The general consensus was that the Prison was a large experiment. Each Prisoner had been chosen because in aggregate, they formed a representative sample population of the globe.
But were their captors trying to heal the world? Or unleash a new nano-disease? On this point there wasn’t much agreement. If they were trying to heal it, they must have concluded that drastic means were necessary: people would have to be abducted against their will to be test subjects. And other than Milton — who miraculously returned to life after each earthquake — there was no evidence of the nano-particles killing anyone. Well, Milton and the Vizier. But the great majority of prisoners were not affected.
LATER, WHEN she had returned to her cell, she heard James Card cursing up a storm. “What it it?” she asked him.
“Goddamn record,” he replied. “It’s scratched again. Can you believe that?”
“But I thought that scratch went away?”
“Yeah it did. And now it’s back again. It skips right in the same goddamn place.”
“Did you do it?”
“No! Not this time! I have no idea how this happened. I could swear the scratch was completely and totally gone until today.”
“Weird,” Elspeth said, and for some reason her gaze drifted towards the hexagon map scratched into her wall. The hieroglyph of the bee at the top seemed to mock her lack of understanding. There were no bees here, she recalled someone saying. Nothing pollinated the plants that grew, nevertheless and in spite of that.
So what was this map of? Some kind of giant beehive?
Bzzz Bzzz!
THAT NIGHT, SHE DREAMED of being nailed shut in a coffin.
She hated closed spaces, she was claustrophobic in the extreme. This was the worst thing you could do to her — or to anyone, in her opinion. Even worse, her long form did not quite fit in the coffin right, her legs were bent, and she hunched. And screamed.
Her arms — those long arms, like helicopter-wing-long arms — had nowhere to go. They bent around, going from one type of bent to another, seeking release, seeking straightness, anything …
At least she would be dead soon. She realized than. That was the only solace. You couldn’t be awake long buried alive.
Then she realized cats were in here with her. Starving cats. Squirming fur, meowing and clawing. Tribbles with fangs. Tribbles that would slurp blood like milk as their claws raked throughout flesh …
She had to get out!
But miles of dirt were piled on her.
Miles and miles up to the surface. Rock and stone and soil. After all, she had been down here forever.
But how could she know that? Unless … unless she remembered it? Forever. How could she know that?
Because she was immortal. Because she couldn’t die. The cats were immortal also, little gods of Egypt. And they were hungry. And they would eat her, and she would just regenerate and regenerate and they would keep eating her … Prometheus on his rock …
Dr. Elspeth Lune awoke in the Prison in a great sweat. She nearly screamed herself awake — yet even that would not have been enough to drown out the din of the films.
NINE: SANCTUARY
THE MORNING CAME like an avalanche as it always did, and Elspeth Lune stood next to James Card for the line-up.
Guards in black armor swarmed, checking everyone. Elspeth watched them with a new trepidation, wondering if they would somehow know it had been her inside the Panopticon just the previous night.
“Hey stretchy McTwitch,” Card whispered. “Stop fidgeting.”
She nodded, appreciative of the warning. Then she turned to him suddenly. “I have something I haven’t told you.”
He nodded. “I know. I’ve been waiting for you to come clean.”
“You have?”
“Yes. You don’t get as far as I did in business without being able to read people. And you, longshanks, are an open book.”
“Okay, don’t rub it in. Breakfast. I’ll tell you over that slop they feed us in the morning.”
THEY PLAYED PANTHEON CHESS while Elspeth finally spilled everything about the Order of the Black Dove and Ione to James Card.
“Jesus, Elspeth,” Card said. “You really have been holding out on me.”
“I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to find the secret door, and the secret passageways and all these people people in them. It just sort of … happened.”
“Yeah. Well …”
“Well, I’m telling you now, which should make up for it.”
“I don’t buy the nanotech cover story. It doesn’t ring true. Remember, I have a nose for this sort of thing.”
“But I saw it! I was inside the Panopticon! I’m telling you, it was all real. I fell — you must have heard about that …”
“About the guard that fell to his death yesterday? Everyone knows about that — even I saw it.”
“Well, I came back to life — because those nanotech things put me back together. That’s proof right there, as far as I’m concerned.”
James Card moved his Pantheon piece and noodled with his sour soup. “Nope. That David character is hiding something. I can feel it. He’s fibbing to you.”
“I think he’s got a crush on me.”
“Oh, he most definitely has a crush on you. But he’s also lying to you. Simple as that.”
“What do you think I should do?”
“I think you should tell me how to open a secret passageway in my cell so I can —”
“Not every cell has one! Yours doesn’t, I checked.”
“Okay, well if I can’t come play with you and the Order of the Whackadoodles, then you should tail this David person when he thinks you’re gone for the night. See where he goes. He says he’s a prisoner, right? Well. Have you ever seen him around the prison during the day?”
That got her. She stopped for a moment, and then said: “Well, no … but there are a thousand other people here. It’s possible that —”
“Nuh uh. What cell is he in?”
She shrugged.
“Right.”
“Okay. Point taken. Your move, by the way.”
David moved his Loki-knight into position, thinking to take her Isis. But a few moves later, his Odin was pinned down in the corner.
“Okay. No
w that’s weird,” Elspeth said.
“What is?”
“The Pantheon Chess board … it’s in the exact same configuration. Again. These games all end exactly the same. How can that be?”
“Huh. Yeah, you’re right. So tell me, gentle giant: how does your nanotech theory explain that?”
Elspeth had to admit she had no answers.
“Just follow David,” Card urged. “Do it. Do it tonight.”
IT TOOK HER the full day and part of the night to come to the decision to follow David. But James was right: something was fishy here. She would wait until the end of the night, when the Order cleared out of the tunnels and made their way back to their cells for the morning count.
If David was really a prisoner, he would go back to his cell. If not …
Well. She would see just where it was that he went to.
It wasn’t hard to separate him from the others in the Order. She flirted with him harder than she had ever before, giving him little looks and smiles. She asked him to show her the digs and escape tunnel projects, which he did eagerly. All of this put the two of them far, far away from anyone other prisoner by the time morning rolled around.
“Well then,” David said with a gooey smile. “I guess … that’s it for tonight then. Time to get back in our cages.”
“Yeah,” Elspeth said. “Let’s do this again tomorrow night. Okay?”
“Sure, sure!” David replied. For a moment it looked like he might try to lean up for a kiss … but Elspeth stepped away before he tried to go that far. “Well. On my way then. Good night!” He waved goofily.
“Good night,” she said, and turned and walked away. She waited only a moment before doubling back and following him through the stone labyrinth at a safe distance.
THE DOOR opened. A shaft of light poured out, as if David had opened a portal to heaven. He gave a quick furtive glance around — and ducked through. The door snicked shut neatly behind him, its lines vanishing perfectly in the rock.