by Brian Craft
Orion notices her posture and sits beside her.
“Jax died. Terrence, I bet he never hurt anything in his whole life. He and Scryberg are gone, probably brain-fucked by Burroughs, if not dead, too.” The truth in her statements is genuinely scary. “And we’re in here, trapped like rats. Who knows how deep in this building? And Burroughs is going to come for us.”
Orion lets the intensity of her statement wane. She’s right about all of it. He can’t deny that. He glances around, allowing the blank room to calm his mind. Then a different idea hits him. “He’s afraid of us.”
She looks around like he did, trying to see what he saw.
“It’s not as bright in here. The dome and walls have no images,” he rubs his flat palm on the floor, “no extrusions. As little power as necessary.”
“He’s afraid we’ll draw on it,” she realizes. She puts her hand on top of his and they feel the floor together. “Feel it?”
Her delicate touch propels the memory from when they stood on the maglev platform. Who knows how long ago?
“What was your thing?” he asks. His question is a matter of trust.
“I knew our escape wasn’t real when you reached out to me and tried to touch my hair.” Her eyes lock on his.
He remembers. “In the cell last night.”
“You moved the hair out of my eyes.” Her answer is her trust. “It’s a memory that I knew Burroughs wouldn’t know. I thought of you.”
Orion finishes his promise by reaching over and physically clearing the hair from her eyes with his finger.
The pressure around the pin-dome door releases and changes the density in the room slightly. The door swings open, and Plummer steps in with a small tray of processed food cubes.
“What the hell is that?” GL barks at him.
He extends the tray to GL in offering. “I don’t know what the doc is going to do, but it seemed cruel to leave you hungry.”
“You think that’s the cruel part?” she says. “You’re going to get the same as the rest of us. You have to know that.”
“Just take it,” Plummer says. He looks unnerved being in their presence and clearly wants to leave.
GL accepts the tray, snapping it away once in her grasp. Plummer quickly turns, eager to exit. He stops in the doorway, realizing there’s no table for them. “Leave what’s left in the middle.” He points to the floor where the table should be, and then he exits.
The door seals and locks.
GL kneels by her friends. “Last meal?”
CHAPTER 23
The sudden jolt from behind throws Pace off guard and knocks him to the floor. He quickly rallies and jumps to his feet, one second in this confined red room, and he knows he’s in trouble. As he spins toward the door, he immediately locks eyes with Burroughs, blocking the door. A second later, a red beam of light links to his forehead.
Pace slackens as his knees buckle. The beam follows him to the floor as he lands on his side and rolls to his back. Within seconds his body relaxes and any chance of struggle is totally gone.
Burroughs glances down the hallway ensuring that both directions are empty. He steps inside the red room and stands over Pace. He methodically crouches one knee on either side of the unconscious man's torso. Then Burroughs carefully wraps his hand around Pace's throat, adjusting to the correct soft spot, and then he squeezes. Pressing his thumbs deeper and deeper into the throat. He savors the sensation of deliberately, and completely choking the life out of Director Pace.
When the deed is done, Burroughs releases his hands in a flourish as if to say, ‘You're welcome'. He pauses long enough to ensure the remaining breath escapes, and nothing replaces it. Then he stands, carefully straightens each of his sleeves, and gazes down on Pace's dead, blue face. "I told you to not get in your own way."
He steps over Pace and exits the red room.
…
The hours in pin-dome drift by in suffocating silence and dreamy whiteness, trying to lull the three companions. But GL’s growing mental capabilities compel her to explore. She’s hunting for any seam around the door, no matter how small or tight, that she might be able to exploit. Meticulously inching her way along, then holding her hand over a spot to feel it, or possibly manipulate it.
Orion sits calmly with eyes closed, breathing rhythmically; he is the composed eye of the storm. The momentary reprieve he’s created provides an opportunity to explore the expanding awareness that comes from having a thousand minds inside your own. Iris has her head on his lap. Her eyes wide open while staring intensely into space. She knows they are close to the end and will resist even the urge to sleep. This is her life and she wants every single second of it.
“We’re going to have another shot,” Orion says, breaking the silence.
GL pauses her hunt to consider his words before responding. "I'm remembering things. It's almost like they aren't my memories at first because they're fresh, but not. Those memories scare me." She grows quiet while she searches her mind for these new points of reference. "I remember Joshua, and the fact Burroughs ripped out pieces like that makes me want to claw his fucking face off."
Orion opens his eyes. “We’re going to have another shot,” he repeats.
“You are,” she says, staking her opinion bluntly in the ground between them. “There’s this fuzzy memory floatin’ into my head, it stays out of reach. I can’t wrap myself around it yet, but something tells me I picked you for a reason.”
“From Hive?” he asks.
“People will follow you.” She steps over and quickly kneels, leaning close to command his attention. “I felt it before, and now you got this freaky brain thing going on. Who better to lead the people than the guy that’s got `em all in his own head?”
“I feel that, too,” Iris joins in.
“You had position in Hive that people respect. They’ll believe you,” GL continues. “Now you have a gift that can’t be taken away. And you’re going to use it. And they’ll follow.”
There are too many unexplained things swirling around them for Orion to make sense of it all. Fate, resistance, freedom, they were all mere words until only a few days ago. But he knows something is going to happen. He can feel it. He won't admit yet, but he's wrapping his courage around the idea that he will be a leader.
The light in pin-dome brightens as full power surges back into it. A second later Burroughs huge face materializes above them across the video-dome. The surprise rouses them to their feet to face the looming image.
Orion steps forward with Iris by his side in a show of resistance.
“I kept believing that I didn’t know what to do with you now,” Burroughs booms down on them.
Pressure releases the door behind Orion and he turns in time to see two techs snatch GL from behind. She screams like a defiant animal as she’s dragged away.
Orion lurches for the door, but it seals shut too quickly.
“Then a slippery little image wormed into my mind, and I knew exactly what to do,” Burroughs says, snaking the sentence out right before his image dissolves.
Orion rages at the empty white dome. He tries forcing the door. Then he gathers a state of calm and presses his forehead to the white window. It clears in time for him to see GL struggling as they drag her down the hall, and then she’s gone.
Orion concentrates and forces a thought to project toward her, ‘Gloria.’
GL lurches and bites and claws and does everything she can think of to fight off her captors until Orion's thought hits her mind, and she instantly gives in so she can hear him. ‘Set yourself free, Gloria.’ And then the connection is severed as the techs drag her into Exam One.
They lift her off her feet and dump her into the chair, mag-cuffs force her arms down and locks her in. Then the neuro-helmet slides over her head. The brain mapping beams hit the helmet and form the brilliant neuro-web. GL strains furiously against the cuffs as Burroughs observes her struggling in vain.
“GL,” he states calmly, displaying hi
s control because he knows she’s not budging an inch. “I tried and tried and tried to help you break free of your tiny little status in life. And you simply, I don’t know, you kept thinking small.”
She glares at him like an animal smelling blood in its prey's veins. Then she seems to become aware of how she's allowing his presence to change her, so she eases and breaks eye contact. Her body and with it her self appears to recede, appearing smaller but also more impassable. She closes her eyes as she calms, searching for a plan, and then pop open again to stare with utmost intensity at the mag-cuffs.
The cuff on her wrist begins to shake, and above her, the neuro-web shows many of the highlights converging on a single point. The point grows brighter and brighter as the cuff shakes more violently.
Burroughs runs to the control panel as GL's cuff releases. A second later the intense highlight above GL vanishes as the doctor deletes the connection and with it her expression. She slumps a little and the cuff re-engages to secure her.
"Ooh, that was interesting." Burroughs delights in the mini-event. He steps over and bends uncomfortably close to GL's face. "I marveled from afar while you expanded your minds. A benefit until you strained the leash."
“Just let me out of this nightmare,” she grumbles. If she could reach his face she’d bite it off.
“G…L. GL, GL, GL, GL. You’re too dangerous now, Gloria," he says, toying with her. "Your body will eventually drift away, somewhere here in the protection of my facility." He looks at the floor as if he can see the hundreds of people wasting away in the green murk of their cells below. "How did you keep your self? That fighting spirit. How did you do it?"
“Screw you. I won’t tell you a thing,” she says. “I won’t help you, I won’t even think if it means you’ll get another ounce of information.”
“You helped me unlock everything,” he states, dragging out the last word like a man who discovered the treasure of all time.
“Don’t taunt me you son-of-a-bitch.” She lays back, unwilling to engage with him anymore. “Do what you’re going to do.”
“I won’t even have to miss you, dear.” The sickly inviting calm in his voice squirms across her skin. “I’ll have you here, forever.” He waves around the room, finishing with fanfare on the video-wall. “Do you see your little synapses firing? They’re beautiful.”
Burroughs exits as the neuro-web above GL sparkles. The lights converge and then disappear. In front of GL, images of her life pass before her and she cries as it flashes away one precious memory at a time.
She closes her eyes in a gesture of total surrender and serenity. As the last memory appears on screen, she utters, “Free.” Barely able to finish the word before the video display turns all white and the last image disappears, replaced by a mirror image of GL in her chair now.
Then the screen fades to black.
Orion and Iris interlock their hands in a show of solidarity and love. Their faces inches apart.
“Remember me as long as you can,” he whispers.
She looks at their hands bunched together between their chests. “The feeling, it’s getting stronger.” She’s referencing the energy of his telekinetic powers.
“Not fast enough,” he replies.
“This,” she says with total faith, referencing their own emotional connection, “you shouldn’t resist.”
The door opens. Plummer leads several techs in with him.
They waste no time in seizing Iris first. Orion snatches the tech by the forearm to protect Iris and the man’s grip on her springs open involuntarily. Orion squeezes the arm, the urge is so strong that the man’s fingers spread wider and wider like an electric current is surging through his body. He tries to pull free, staring in disbelief at his inability to control his own hand.
“Let go of me!” the tech begs.
His face contorts in pain as his fingers hyper-extend, a stressful crunching sound scares the man, and he screams for help. Another tech grabs Orion, and he grabs the tech back. The same action repeats as the man drops to his knees. He pulls back, trying to escape Orion as his fingers strain toward snapping. The fear in his eyes betrays the reality that the man destroying his hand is some kind of super being and might be capable of killing him right there on this spot.
Iris struggles until she sees what’s happening, both her and the tech stop and behold in wide-eyed amazement until a voice in her head says, ‘Run.’
She immediately reverses and sprints for the door.
Plummer advances toward Orion, ready to subdue him until Orion’s eyes lock on him next and, instantly, Plummer winces as a painful jolt spikes into his brain.
He heaves forward and slams Orion on the head.
The impact hurls Orion backward, dazed. The tech's release and their crooked fingers relax. Plummer shakes off the assault and locks Orion's cuffs together. One more heavy-handed blow to the jaw and this supernatural occurrence is out cold.
“Quickly!” Plummer shoves the wounded techs into action and they collect Orion.
…
Orion wakes already strapped down in Exam One. Heavy nylon straps wrapped around him instead of the mag-cuffs that he can easily release on his own now. The blow to his head has left him woozy, but the neuro-web projecting from his helmet overhead is more alive with highlights than ever. Nearly the entire web of intricate pathways and synapses is animated and bright. Orion scans the room, expecting the doctor to be present, and then Burroughs appears on the 180-degree video screen in front of him.
“Oh, I saw what you did, Orion,” Burroughs taunts. “I won’t risk being in there with you now. But I don’t have to.”
Orion directs his mind to the control panel. He calmly attempts to impress the controls with his mind, but nothing happens.
“We can’t do that again,” Burroughs says. “I’ve changed a few things in there since your, breakthrough. Stunting access on a hardwired physical circuit is work a plumber can do.” The doctor considers his next words carefully. “I never wanted you, Orion. I was after chair #2 at Hive. So, I added a little hiccup to her routine, but the strange, and marvelous, and fortunate thing for me is that you woke that day.”
“You killed Aoki?” Orion asks.
“No, that was a…surprise. I simply wanted a less high-profile person to work with. Chair #2 was conditioned and ready, too. And perhaps less deviant.” Burroughs’s face grows to fill the display in front of Orion, a kind of grotesque intimacy, and invasion. “How did you wake yourself?”
“Go to hell,” he replies.
"Maybe I'll find out in time," the doctor continues. "Look at your neuro-web. It's amazing. And it's mine. I thought I needed a conditioned mind in your head. But I amaze myself at what I've discovered. I'm going to transfer every little bit of your thoughts into Icarus, Chair #1. Not your personality, of course, just your conditioned mind. You will give my creation life."
“Why don’t you open the circuit and we’ll see what happens together,” Orion challenges him.
“I’ll have your mind, but not you. All the parts, without the pest. Your revolution is my revolution. Another surprise. You showed me how to give life to Icarus.” Burroughs steps back from the display and moves aside to reveal that he and Nurse Mina have Iris in an exam chair in another room. She's linked like Orion.
The controls in Orion's room spring to life and his neuro-web goes to work downloading then erasing his mind. Images of his life appear and disappear as the process continues. He resists, but every time he tries, an image of Iris appears, the snag clears and the machine continues. Burroughs voice echoes in the room, "I can find the back door, too. She's your Achilles heel, my friend."
In the second exam room, Iris is forced to watch Orion being erased. Nurse Mina sits cross-legged next to her, viewing as if it’s the last seconds of a beautiful romantic movie playing.
“Surrender and bliss,” Mina muses.
Iris observes helplessly. She views Orion’s life memories appear and dissolve. Some intense memories
he has of Iris resist deletion, but then they go too. With methodical coolness, Burroughs machine squeezes the essence out of Orion’s life, collecting it to become the tool that will rule everyone in the city.
“Orion,” Iris calls to him as only a few memories remain, the last of his self, teetering on the edge of oblivion. “I love—“
Before she can finish her sentence, the feed from Orion’s mind turns pale blue.
“So be it,” Burroughs states bluntly. Without additional fanfare, he starts the cycle on Iris.
"You're a monster," she says quietly as her gaze falls to her lap. His ugliness is matter-of-fact, and not worth witnessing anymore.
Iris's mind streams onto the video-screen in front of her. Images replaced by blue-wash, as each memory is erased; the warmly saturated remains of her childhood, erased; vivid memories of a sparkling city full of people and lights, erased. All the tiny intimate moments of life and self, erased. Image, blue, image, blue, image, blue, in a clockwork machine-like precision...
Burroughs exits, leaving Mina the final spectator to the drama of Iris’s life playing out. The computer works quickly, and the video-screen shows fewer and fewer images, her neuro-web becoming less and less brilliant as the pathways are stripped and deleted. She resists with momentary success, but the technology overpowers her.
“Sleep, and limbo,” Mina whispers to her like she is putting a child to sleep. “Forever.”
One last memory appears on screen, Orion’s face from pin-dome from only minutes ago.
“Bittersweet,” Mina smiles. “My favorite.”
CHAPTER 24
‘…disconnect is impossible.’
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