“We test his response to the stimulus. If he reacts in any way to that word…” His narrow chest expanded as if he had to prepare himself for the end of that thought.
She gripped his arm and pulled him back, suddenly afraid he might do something rash. “You aren’t going to hurt him, right?”
“Not unless I have to. The only way we can know for sure is by giving away our position. If he responds to the stimulus, the clock starts ticking, do you understand?”
Penelope nodded, unable to shake the feeling this was all one big nightmare. “They’ll be able to figure out where we are.”
“Who we are, where we are, what we’ve told him. But if my plan works, we might be able to use that technology against them, reverse engineer it to give us the upper hand,” he explained. The excitement in his voice was a touch disturbing, but he was an eccentric recluse, so it was understandable.
Wesley set up a recording device, centering the subject in the middle of the camera shot from a distance. She pulled out one of the wooden chairs opposite Cameron as he walked around his back. When he was poised to lift the headphones off, he whispered, “The word.”
With her index finger, she scrawled out the word on the wooden tabletop, the large letters faint shadows in the dust.
S-T-A-S-I-S
He frowned, hands freezing just inches above Cameron’s head. “You’re sure?”
“Yes, absolutely. Why…” But she didn’t have time to finish her sentence before Wesley tore the headphones away.
The look of near-joy on Cameron’s face as the pillowcase was lifted was made worse by what came next. “Pen,” he grinned. “You have no idea how good it is to…”
Wesley’s booming voice cut him off. “Stasis.”
Penelope thought she might actually be sick as she watched the transformation on Cameron’s face. His expression flattened, the smile erasing with such speed she wondered if it’d been there to begin with. It was almost impossible to describe, but it was as if all his humanity drained away, leaving a shell of a human. It was a hundred times worse watching it happen then dealing with a patient already in the throes. His soulless, empty eyes left hers and focused entirely on Wesley who had moved to the end of the table.
That’s when she realized Wesley was staring not at Cameron, but at her. Instinctively, she pushed away. “What are you look at me for?”
“I knew he had one, but I needed to know if you did as well.”
“If I? Christ!” She jumped to her feet, the very idea violating. “And what if I did? What would you have done then?”
The old man waved her away. “That’s irrelevant now. But this,” he said, pointing to Cameron. “I’d say that’s a definitive reaction,” he said with awe. “Is this the type of behavior you saw in the hospital?”
Penelope could only nod. She covered her lips with one hand, partly because she feared she’d throw up and to keep from crying out Cameron’s name. He wouldn’t react, but the idea of those eyes moving in her direction… She swallowed the sour saliva collecting in her mouth and tried to access the scientific part of her brain.
“So, we know that he has a Seed implanted… somehow. We need to switch it off, right?”
“It needs to go, yes,” he replied cryptically. Wesley leaned in close to Cameron who remained unflinchingly focused on the old man. “It’s obvious if you know what to look for. You see his pupils? They’re huge.”
“Our first theories were that it was a drug,” she whispered, unnerved.
“Forgivable assumption. He’s also sweating, see? And I bet,” he said, putting his hand directly on Cameron’s chest. “Yup. His heart is racing like he’s just sprinted a hundred yards.”
Penelope wasn’t comfortable with the clinical discussion of her very alive, very old friend. “Okay, so we switch it off. Then we move somewhere safe.”
“We can’t switch it off.”
“Of course we can. They do it all the time. I’ve sent patient referrals to get the damn things turned off. They stare at some blinking lights, feel a little dizzy, and life goes back to normal,” she snapped. A frantic panic touched her voice, raising it as she spoke. Wesley glanced at her as if questioning her worth or liability. “I’m fine, really. This is all just a little overwhelming,” she said, trying to reassure him.
Cameron’s eyes followed Wesley as he walked from his left to his right. He had that same impassioned, dull, slightly threatening gaze she’d seen on the faces of dozens of patients… all of whom were now missing.
“No Seed has ever been switched off. The system they use in those offices, the blinking lights, as you call it, only puts the Seed into hibernation.”
Penelope’s world tilted once again. “The body doesn’t expel it?”
Wesley shook his head, hardly acknowledging her question. He was intent on Cameron whose symptoms appeared to be fading. His pupils were less dilated, his breathing slowed, but the awareness hadn’t yet returned.
“What does this mean?”
“The only way to know he’s completely clean is by physically removing it.”
“Okay, we do that then,” she breathed, uneasy but happy with that solution.
“But doing so might kill him.”
Penelope moved Cameron to the sofa, settling next to him as Wesley paced the vast room. She told herself she was trying to be a reassuring presence, but in reality, it was she who needed the comfort. His solid frame, the heady, familiar scent of his sweat… she had to reaffirm everything that made him Cameron and not the shell of a person she’d just seen. With each passing minute, he seemed to be more aware of the world around him.
She almost cried out when he whispered into her ear. “What’s going on with the hermit?” He nodded at Wesley who paced and muttered in front of them.
Penelope wrapped her arm around his shoulder and tried not to cry. “It’s okay. I think he’s just figuring things out.”
It’d taken Cameron close to ten minutes to fully come back around. He shook off the stupor like someone recovering from a fainting spell. Disoriented, a little agitated, but otherwise fine.
“How did I get over here?”
She tried to explain with as few details as possible, and realized he had no memory of falling into that trance-like state. It was better to not make such a big deal out of it. Harping on the loss of time and awareness would do nothing but make things worse.
In the short time she’d known Wesley, she’d started to understand his way of thinking. He was a quiet man who chose not to speak until he was absolutely sure of what he wanted to say. He didn’t like hypothesizing aloud, choosing only to voice his opinion once it was made. She found it both admirable and frustrating, because when he finally decided to share, it came in one flood of information.
He stopped his constant muttering and looked out the wide window, the azure swath of the lake in the distance. He spoke without looking at them, almost as though he were addressing the trees. “We developed the Seed to require a multi-authorization sequence for direct access. The last thing we wanted was the ability for someone to be able to remotely control another. Well, the last thing I wanted.”
“Yeah, that wouldn’t be good,” she replied dryly.
Wesley ignored the sarcasm and continued. “The authorization begins with a codeword. When this word is uttered, it puts the Seed into a ready mode. The next step in the authorization is sending the client a unique packet.”
“A packet?” Cameron asked.
“For security purposes, it could be anything. A word, phrase, even a mathematical equation. The user chooses. This is sent directly from a scientist at headquarters to the Seed. The third step then requires the user to input the unique answer along with their own security information. Then, and only then, should a user at Steele Industries be able to manipulate an implanted Seed.”
Cameron whooped with happiness. “I knew it! I fucking knew it!” he cried as he rocked forward on the sofa. He wobbled and nearly toppled over, catching himself with
a hand on the floor. With her help, he righted himself and leaned back, dizzied but no less excited. “I always told you there was something wrong with those Seeds.” Penelope retracted her comforting arm, but Cameron was far too involved in his celebration to notice.
It was only with this outburst that Wesley realized Cameron had fully come to. She had a sudden urge to put herself between the two men, to protect Cameron from that critical gaze. “Are you feeling better, Doctor?”
“Considering I’ve been essentially living in a sensory deprivation tank for the past few days? Yeah, I feel incredible.” He frowned and looked to Penelope as she stood beside him, threading her arm through his. “Speaking of which, why am I allowed to see and hear again? Did I pass the test? I told you I didn’t have a…”
Penelope didn’t want Wesley to deliver the news, so she blurted it out. “You have a Seed.” She watched the initial resistance in his eyes morph into disbelief, then back to denial.
“You know I would never…”
Wesley approached so fast Cameron braced himself for another tackle. “The people who took you, did they let you sleep? Do you remember any dreams?”
He blinked at the veracity of the questions. “I, yeah, I slept. Like I told Pen, they treated me well.”
“But did you dream?” Wesley’s eyes darted back and forth between Cameron’s, studying, analyzing.
“I don’t know, Jesus!” He yanked his arm away and took a step back. “I do know I wouldn’t ever let that trash inside of my body.”
Wesley strode toward the island in the kitchen. “We don’t have time for this. Explain it to him,” he commanded. “Show him the video if you have to.”
Both she and Cameron watched as the old man began boiling water, sterilizing equipment, and spreading out everything he would need for the extraction. Penelope knew what was coming. Cam didn’t.
He backed away even further, suddenly looking at her as if she were dangerous.
“He’s right,” she sighed. “Don’t say the word, but you remember a couple weeks ago you got the patients to look at you when you spoke?” He didn’t respond, but she kept going. “We tested that on you just now. That’s how you moved from the table to here. You have one, somehow.”
“Show him the video,” Wesley repeated in a gruff voice.
Penelope carefully pulled up the video they’d taken, the paused image still and oddly framed. She pressed play and handed it over, unable to watch Cameron’s reaction. She felt ill simply hearing the recording, the memory of the event too fresh in her mind. When the sound stopped, she looked back.
Cameron squatted down on his heels. He balanced himself with one hand on the floor. The tablet dangled from the other.
“Are you okay?” she asked, rushing to his side.
He replied with a furious gaze. “Get it out of me.”
A few minutes later, they were in position. Wesley had placed Cameron in a chair, sitting backwards, with his neck exposed. From this angle, Penelope could clearly see a tiny scar at the base of his skull. It wasn’t a fresh, red incision like she would’ve expected from a new implant. The centimeter long scar was white and slightly raised.
“I thought the Seed burrowed into the brain after insertion,” she said as she watched him organize his equipment. The scalpels and gauze were one thing, but the oddly taped together pieces of homemade electronics were worrying. The main tool looked like a repurposed old radio. A long cable extended from the body, it and the remote on the end wrapped in layers of black electrical tape.
“It does, but that doesn’t mean you can’t lure it back out,” he said as he fiddled with the controls. She recognized some of the equipment as items she’d pilfered from work, but the other pieces were obviously the scientist’s own design. Trust was becoming a rare commodity, but given their position, she realized she didn’t have much of a choice.
She gave Cameron a sidelong look before crouching down beside him. “You doing okay?”
Beads of sweat gathered at his temples, but he gave her a brave smile. “I’ll be fine. Don’t you worry about me.”
“I’m sorry about all this.”
“It’s not your fault, Pen.”
“I should’ve listened to you weeks ago, with those scans. I’ve always been so blind to what my…”
The doctor cut her off from across the room. “Okay. We’re all set. Once I start, we have to move fast. I’m sorry you have to be awake for this procedure, but I’ve been told it isn’t an entirely unpleasant experience,” Wesley said as he snapped on a pair of latex gloves.
The moment between the pair was gone. Cameron’s expression hardened again, his knuckles turning white as he gripped the chair. “Great to know.”
“Can I talk to you for a second?” Penelope asked, pulling Wesley so gruffly he had no choice but to follow. When she had him in a private conversation, she kept her voice low. “You said earlier this might kill him.”
The old man looked at her as if he were reconsidering her mental state. “I’m rooting around in his brain. That comes with risks.”
“But that’s it? Have you done this before?”
Wesley shrugged as if unbothered by that minor detail. “I’ve seen it done, yes.”
Penelope shook her head violently enough she felt dizzy. She was about to call the whole thing off when Cameron called out from the living room. “I’d like to think I’m a brave man, but if we don’t hurry up, I’m gonna lose my nerve here.”
“We don’t have a choice,” Wesley reminded her.
“If you kill him…” she warned, the empty threat sounding more like a prayer.
The returned to the makeshift operating theater. Penelope couldn’t stand to watch the gore, so she knelt on the floor beside him and grabbed his hand. He turned his head slightly and smiled down.
“I’m not going anywhere,” she insisted.
The sharp scent of rubbing alcohol hit her nose as Wesley cleaned off Cameron’s neck. “Like I said, this might tickle.”
Cameron’s grip on her hand tightened, doubling in strength over a few seconds until she was sure he was crushing her fingers. He let loose a horrible scream, a soul-chilling cry that made her want to flee. His face contorted into a grotesque mask, pain etched into his expression as if it’d never leave. Another cry loosed from him, this time through a clenched jaw.
“Stop it! You’re killing him!”
“I’m not doing anything,” Wesley shouted back.
She jumped to her feet ready to slap away the scalpel. But there was no cut. No scalpel. Wesley stood over Cameron’s body holding the homemade device at arms’ length away.
“He started screaming the second I turned this on,” he mumbled in surprise. “It shouldn’t have had that effect.”
“But it did. You heard him! Did that sound like nothing to you?”
“It’s meant to recall the Seed. Almost like a magnet. There shouldn’t have been any real pain until I cut for the physical extraction.”
Cameron grabbed Penelope’s sleeve and weakly pulled her down to his level. He was covered in a thick sheen of sweat, beads of it dripping from the point of his nose to the floor.
“It felt like I was dying,” he panted. His eyes rolled in his skull, like he was on the verge of passing out. “It felt like… that was the worst thing I’ve ever felt in my life.”
“Okay, it’s okay. We’ll find some other—”
“Did it stop as quickly as it started?” Wesley asked, utterly unconcerned.
Cameron’s licked his dry lips. He squeezed his eyes shut and nodded. “Yes. It was like a switch flipping on and off.”
Wesley seemed satisfied by that answer and brought the device back to his neck.
Penelope launched herself at him. “Wait!”
“The Seed protects itself from removal. They were originally designed to sink their hooks in if physically attacked.” He stared at the back of Cameron’s soaked head like he was studying a diagram. “But apparently the technology has become
more sophisticated since I’ve been away. It seems that the threads make it feel as though the body were in imminent danger, most likely to get the host to stop the removal by any means necessary.”
Cameron shifted on the chair, gripping the back with both hands like a team of horses was about to pry him off. “Let’s get this over with,” he grunted.
Wesley moved into position. Penelope stayed his hand, unable to shake the abject horror of the moment. “I can’t let you do this. Even if it’s just simulating a threat to his life, the stress on his body might be too much.”
“I’m healthy. I have a good heart. Goddamnit Pen, I need it out of me.”
Outnumbered, overwhelmed, she was utterly defeated. Still, she wouldn’t leave him alone. She took her position on the floor and held his hand, sure her fingers would need resetting afterward.
The scientist worked quickly, but the screams she heard in that room would forever haunt her dreams. That sort of primal terror soaks into your bones, forever leaching out into your body as a distant mortal memory. Cameron loosed a final shout the moment the doctor cut into his skin. The next sound was a gurgle of relief.
Penelope couldn’t stop herself from watching as Wesley pulled the Seed from his neck. Impossibly strong threads stretched from the cut in his skin, collecting into one long, wet strand held high above his body. She stared at the device, mesmerized.
“I never thought it’d be that big,” she mumbled.
Cameron dropped her hand, his breathing steady and slowing. Wesley set the Seed inside a prepared container and made quick work of bandaging the wound. With his heart pumping and blood pressure so high, the tiny wound had bled quite a bit. Penelope collected the bloodied towels to soak in the sink. She then helped Cameron change into clean, dry clothes and guided him to the spare bed so he could get some well deserved rest.
Penelope pulled the blanket tight around his shoulders and kissed him softly on the forehead. His weary eyes fluttered open and shut as he smiled. “Was I brave boy? Do I get a sticker?”
She chuckled and tucked in the rest of the blanket. “After going through that, you can get whatever you want.”
Stasis (Part 2): Iterate Page 16