"You're Bergman," Will said, cutting him off.
Bergman didn't respond, but closed his mouth and turned to the others with a serious look.
"I am Bergman," he finally replied. "Have we met?"
Will ignored the question.
"All these people are here to observe your new abilities," Bergman said.
"What abilities?" Will asked. "Did you come to hear me scream?" He could sense this man was somehow responsible for everything he had gone through.
Bergman reddened. "I think you know exactly what I'm talking about."
Will did not respond.
"I only want you to do something simple," he said, nodding to a technician who set down a bottle in the corner of the room. "I want you to tip over that bottle, Mr. Thompson," he said and then walked back to join the others. "If you do, you'll get the whole day off—no treatment today."
"Let me out of this thing," Will said. He couldn't hide his anger any longer.
"We can do this the easy way, or the painful way, Mr. Thompson. Your choice. I thought you'd appreciate a break after thirty-four days of treatment."
Will had lost count again: had it only been thirty-four days? He shook it off. "If I were you, I would think very carefully about my next move," Will warned.
"Well then, it looks like you have chosen," Bergman said and then turned to Halbreath. "Is everything ready up there?"
Halbreath nodded to Bergman, then spoke in the direction of the control booth. "Load the bone bender program, the right femur, and start on my mark." He turned back to Bergman. "Give it a minute, then tell me when you want to start."
Bergman walked up to Will."This is your last chance."
"Actually, it might be yours," Will whispered back.
Bergman backed off and nodded to Halbreath, who motioned "go" towards the control room.
The program started a few seconds later, and Will felt the Exo exert pressure on the middle of his right thigh. After a few seconds he felt his femur start to flex, and the dull pain quickly began to sharpen. It finally reached a level where he had to scream. The people in the room covered their ears and looked away.
Will soon had enough, and he separated. He watched from above as everyone slowly took their hands off their ears and looked at each other. A military man walked a little closer. "Look at his eyes." The others walked up to have a closer look as well. Will's anger increased exponentially as he watched them.
Halbreath suddenly noticed a new sound; like screeching static.
"What the hell is that?"
Bergman grinned and looked around. "Now we're talkin' ... "
Will saw Bergman pull a pistol out of his coat, and release the safety.
*
Denise screeched to a halt near the emergency entrance and rushed into the hospital. She ran to the elevator and hit the button for the eighth floor. It stopped twice on the way up, during which she was crawling out of her skin with anxiety. She finally got to the eighth floor and ran past the nurse station to room 822, stopping short a few steps past the threshold. There was no one there.
She ran out and went straight to the nurses' station. A woman was on the phone, and Denise interrupted. "Where's the girl from room 822?"
The nurse held up her hand, and continued to talk.
Denise snatched the phone from the woman's hand, and hung it up. "This is important, where the hell is she?"
"I'm going to call security," the woman said, picking up the phone again.
Denise grabbed it, and held on to it as she walked around to the other side of the station and looked at a computer monitor. "You can call security after you tell me where they moved Cynthia Worthington."
"Yes, I'd like to know as well," a man said from behind Denise.
Denise spun around and saw a large man pull a gun with a silencer from his pocket, aiming it at the nurse.
"Tell me, please," the man said with a subtle accent.
Denise froze. Her gun was in her pocket, but there was no way she'd be able to pull it before he could turn on her.
The nurse's eyes widened with confusion for a second, but she quickly came to her senses.
"She was moved last night, but I don't know where."
"Last chance," the man said.
"I don't know where she is!" the woman screamed.
Denise heard a muffled shot, and the woman fell to the floor, holding her shoulder.
"Okay, now this is your last chance," the man said, and aimed the gun at her head.
The woman whimpered, "They moved her to the secure wing,"
"And where's that?"
"Fourth floor, east wing," the woman replied, crying now.
"Thank you," the man said, shooting her in the head. He was turning the gun towards Denise when she jumped over a desk on the opposite side of the station, knocking down a computer monitor in the process. She landed heavily on the tile floor, and fumbled around in her coat for the Glock. She found it, removed the safety, and aimed in the direction of the man as he walked around the station. As soon as his head came into view, she fired, missing far left.
The shot startled him however, and he ran in the direction of the elevators—headed for the fourth floor.
*
Will watched his body suffering below him, and observed all of the people watching it suffer. This enraged him to the point where he heard a ringing sound build in his mind. The people in the room covered their ears and tucked their heads into their chests—he knew they must be hearing it, too.
He had to fight the strong urge to destroy them, and thought maybe he should try to depart—to leave his body behind before something awful happened. There was nothing left for him in this world now.
He passed through the wall into the next chamber where another inmate, presumably Number 522, was undergoing a "treatment." The man's voice was hoarse from screaming. A doctor Will hadn't seen before was operating on the man's lower abdomen. He wanted to stop it, but in this case he couldn't; a disruption in the middle of an operation might kill the man. For a split second, Will considered killing the patient himself to end his misery. But then he thought it was not his place to do so—this man might want to live.
The next room was empty, and he knew that that could only mean one thing; 521 was part of the twenty-seven percent that didn't make it out alive. He wondered if 521 was that horrible aberration he saw—the wraith. The thought made him feel an overwhelming sense of guilt, both for his own suffering body that he was abandoning, and for the man who was 521. He looked back in the direction from which he came. Maybe he could do something before he left. Maybe he could stop the compressed punishment program himself—all the important players seemed to be within his reach.
He would go back.
He would become the wraith.
*
Denise ran for an exit she hoped would lead to a stairwell. It did, and she leapt frantically down the stairs, two or three at a time. She twisted her ankle on the final landing, and limped to the door leading to the fourth floor. Through the window to her right, she saw the man exit the elevator, and turn right down a hall.
She had two choices: she could take a route opposite that of the man's and hope to find the girl first, or she could turn right, and intercept him before he found her.
Denise opened the door and turned right, towards the elevators, then left to follow the direction in which the man had gone. She walked as quickly as she could without making a scene, dodging patients and nurses, until she came to a large door with a sign that read: Have Security Pass Ready. It was the secure wing. She opened the door slowly, and saw a security guard slumped over a desk, dead. She walked quietly around the desk, and proceeded down the hall, navigating smaller, tributary halls to the left and right. She realized she had to move faster—she had to get to him before he got to the girl.
Denise started running, no longer worried about being quiet. She came to the end of the large hall, and turned left, down one of the narrower passages. After a few strides
, she heard a deafening blast behind her. It startled her so badly she fell down to her left side, and slid against the wall. Having dropped the Glock in the fall, she scrambled to pick it up, and spun to see what was behind her.
The image was seared into her memory, and would frequently haunt her nightmares. The assassin was facing her, but he'd fallen to his knees, his gun beside him on the floor. Another thirty feet behind was Jonathan, weapon in hand, running towards the man. He pushed the man down, and kicked the gun down the tile floor, towards Denise.
"It was a good thing you turned left," Jonathan said, breathing heavily.
"What? What are you ... ?" Denise asked, shocked and somewhat dazed.
"I got here an hour ago," Jonathan replied. "I left at 3:30 a.m., after I'd convinced the local police to at least move the girl to the security wing."
Security guards rushed in, disarmed Denise and Jonathan, and called the medical staff for the wounded man.
"Is he going to live?" Denise asked.
"Looks like he took it in the shoulder," Jonathan said, looking over the now unconscious Lenny. "No better place to get shot than in a hospital."
"Did you see the girl?" Denise asked.
"Yes, she's fine," Jonathan said. "There is a lot happening. Let me fill you in ... "
*
Will pressed through multiple walls and returned to his treatment room. He heard Bergman instructing the controllers to increase the pain level, and observed the extreme distortion of his right thigh. Then something happened that put him over the edge.
Will actually heard it—it broke. His body shook violently in response. He saw his upper thigh bent at an unnatural angle. The femur had snapped.
Will felt an anger surge through his being that was far beyond anything he had experienced in his life. He knocked Bergman to the floor. Someone made a move for the door, and he smashed it closed; the steel door buckled, and the frame warped as though it were hit by a truck. He ripped off the door handle, and dragged the would-be runner back to the middle of the room. He smashed the one-way window of the control room and dragged people through it down to the chamber floor. He attacked the Exoskeleton. It was all happening simultaneously.
*
Richard was completely disoriented. He tumbled and rolled up against the walls. The room was a vortex of smoke, and smelled like burning electronics and plastic. Sparks flashed like lightning in a storm cloud, producing images in strobe: pieces of broken metal, torn wiring, bodies strewn about—all in a constant whirlwind of motion.
Through the smoke and intermittent flashes of light, Richard saw Halbreath struggle with the access door, but manage to squeeze through a gap in its warped frame. He heard Bergman screaming to the controllers to initiate the injection, but nothing was happening. Bergman pulled himself off of the floor and raised his gun to shoot Thompson. Richard anticipated the shot, but it was never fired.
He saw Bergman's expression change to panic and then to pain: he was trying to pry his hand from the pistol, but couldn't. His panicked cries quickly turned to shrieks. Richard was confused until he saw threads of smoke rise from Bergman's hand: the gun was getting hot, but he couldn't let go. His screams grew even more frantic as the gun began to glow, a dull red at first, but it quickly turned orange, and got brighter and brighter until it was practically white. The sickening stench of burnt flesh diffused through the room, and Richard flinched and ducked as the rounds in the gun exploded—the weapon deforming and melting, glowing lumps of molten steel splattering onto the floor.
Suddenly Bergman's entire body went up in flames. His screams faded as he collapsed to the floor, after which the only sounds made were the crackles and snaps of his smoldering corpse.
Richard's thoughts quickly shifted: this would be his only chance. He navigated through the kinetic chaos get a clear shot.
*
Halbreath barged into the control booth and understood immediately why no one had pushed the injection button: the room was empty. He ran to the window opening and looked out: below him was a whirlwind of dynamic activity. The Exoskeleton was in the center of it all, with long strands of electrical discharge spraying in all directions, seemingly probing the space around it. People tumbled in the air, and then disappeared back into the smoke and debris.
Halbreath ran over to a control consol and pushed a small red button. A moment later, he heard a computer-generated voice say, "Injection initiated." He almost made it to the exit before he felt something wrap around his entire body. He felt himself being dragged through the window, and then landing hard on the treatment floor.
*
Will seemed to be sensing and acting upon multiple threats simultaneously. When Bergman had pointed the gun, Will's anger seemed to automatically channel toward the threat—first, through the man's gun, then through the man himself.
Now he heard the Exo's injection hatch open, even through the background noise. He ripped the offending mechanical component from the Exoskeleton before it activated. His fury increased—his responses becoming involuntary—they were becoming natural reactions. It was a snowballing effect, and he felt a great power building up inside of him.
*
Richard struggled to avoid the flurry of debris—human bodies and mechanical parts—as he made his way across the experimental floor. A body hit him from the side, knocking him down. He got up and limped to the wall in front of the Exoskeleton, trying to find some sort of cover.
He had to fire without hesitation. That way there would be no time for Thompson, or the wraith, to react.
Richard waited for a clearing in the whirlwind of debris, aimed and pulled the trigger.
*
Will heard the shot from all places at once. His reaction was instinctual, although he wasn't sure what that reaction was: it was as if time had stopped ... Or maybe he was reacting so quickly it only seemed like time had stopped.
He saw the muzzle flash, and saw the bullet halt about two feet along its projected path, which he intuitively traced to the head of his body, just above his right eye. Will's anger had reached the point of no return—now a cascading wellspring of fury. His entire field of vision turned to white, and a deafening blast drowned out every other sound. An instant later he felt a giant mass press him down. He pressed up against it, but he felt himself fading away. He was in his body again, and that was his last thought.
*
Will knew he was no longer inside the Exoskeleton, but he had no point of reference to the physical world. He tried to look at his hands, but they were not there. He couldn't determine whether or not it was a dream, but he thought he was talking to Landau.
"What happened? Where am I?" Will asked.
"Everything is going to be okay now, William," Landau said.
"Is it over?"
"It is over ... You are free."
*
Will heard whispering voices, and the light was blinding white. With much effort, he forced his watering eyes to stay open, and human-shaped silhouettes began to form. One of them spoke louder now. It was calling his name.
"Will ... " it said. "Will ... you there, Will?"
He recognized the voice. "Dad?"
Other voices acted up, but he couldn't tell if it was crying or laughter that he was hearing. The silhouettes slowly turned into blurred images, and then cleared. Will couldn't believe all that stood before him: it was his mother and father, his sister and brother-in-law, and a few other people he didn't recognize.
"Dad?" Will asked again. He was in disbelief.
"Yes," Dale Thompson said and smiled.
"Where am I—am I in Heaven?"
Will heard a loud bout of laughter.
"No, Will," his father said and laughed with the others. "You're not in heaven. At least I don't think so."
"Am I in Hell?"
This brought on a longer and louder bout of laughter.
"You're here on Earth with the rest of us," Dale replied.
"But you were all dead. You're dead ... "
"No, Will, no," Dale said, his face became very serious. "They told you that. But it's not true. They pumped you full of drugs that made you hallucinate. They made you believe all kinds of things that weren't true."
"How did I get here?" Will asked. He noticed now that his right leg was in a cast, and his body was riddled with other bandages and patches, covering smaller wounds.
"You almost died—there was an explosion, and a part of the building you were in collapsed on top of you," Dale explained. "That was three days ago—you're in Chicago now."
"I ... I don't remember ... did anyone die?" Will asked. Bergman's face entered his mind.
"Over twenty people died," Dale replied. "You were lucky. If it weren't for that metal contraption they had you in, you would have been crushed too.
The Exoskeleton had saved him. The thing that had caused him the most pain in all of his life had, in the end, saved him.
Will glanced up at the ceiling-mounted television above their heads. It was on a news channel, but the sound was turned off. The lights of fire trucks and ambulances flashed, and people were scurrying about. The camera panned up to the Red Box: about a third of the way up the building was a huge hole, fifty feet in diameter, Will estimated. Wires and rebar splayed out from the vertical crater, and pointed to the massive debris on the street below. He could see that some of the floors had collapsed, and was sure the damage extended well into the interior of the building. He was starting to remember what had happened—he had caused the explosion.
"They thought it was a terrorist attack at first," his mother said.
EXOSKELETON - A Novel Page 22