Mindstormer
Page 14
“I am so very proud of you, Lainy.” His voice is warm, soft. “You made the right choice. Just like I knew you would.”
I take a slow, deep breath. This doesn’t feel like a dream or an illusion—it’s too crisp, too clear. My rational mind tells me it can’t be real, and yet, what if it is? What if, somehow, in some way, he’s still alive, still conscious within this dreamspace?
He holds out his arms. “It’s all right,” he says, very quietly. “You don’t have to be afraid anymore. I’m here now.”
Almost against my will, I take a small, shaky step forward. Then I stop. I squeeze my hands into fists, focusing on the pain of my nails digging into my skin. “That woman,” I say. “The one you fell in love with. The one who died. The one you never wanted to talk about. What was her name?”
His brows draw together. “Why do you want to know that?”
“Just tell me.”
He hesitates, and his frown deepens. Of course. He doesn’t know, because I don’t know it either. “You aren’t Father,” I say.
He’s silent, his expression inscrutable. “I’m exactly as you remember, aren’t I? Isn’t that enough?”
A dull burn of anger pulses inside me, spreading through my chest. “My real father was more than my memories of him. He was a person with his own thoughts and feelings. He had a whole life before I existed. And he’s dead. The dead don’t come back.”
“Lainy, I told you. Death is only an illusion—”
I slap him, hard. He blinks a few times. There’s a pink mark on his cheek where my hand connected. “Stop it.” My voice shakes.
He rubs the mark. His eyes narrow. “You wanted to see him, didn’t you? That’s what you’ve been wishing for, all this time.”
“Not like this!”
The corners of his mouth curve in a tiny smile. His eyes have changed from brown to a cool, light gray. “Well,” he says in a voice that’s not my father’s. “I expected no less of you.”
“Who are you?” And then realization clicks. “Zebra. You’re Zebra.”
His smile widens, just a little.
I back away. “Let me out of this—this simulation, or whatever it is.”
“Not yet.” He takes a step toward me, hands interlaced behind his back. “We aren’t finished.”
I keep retreating until my back is pressed against the wall. The room warps and bends. Somehow, he’s influencing what I see and hear. Gates don’t normally work this way. “Let me out.” I can’t keep playing this game. Seeing Father’s face, hearing his voice, was like having a half-healed wound ripped open and nettles rubbed into the raw, bloody flesh. “Let me out!”
He pauses, head cocked. And then his body contorts and bends, limbs thickening, face stretching as he transforms into an animal, a huge dark beast out of nightmares, a thing of claws and fangs and red, glowing eyes. He runs at me, snapping and snarling. Before I can move or react, he’s upon me. Teeth sink into my shoulder. I open my mouth to scream—
Then the living room vanishes. I’m strapped to a table in a white room, and the air is frigid against my bare skin. A glaring white light fills my eyes, blinding me. Dr. Swan looms over me, a surgical mask over the lower half of his face. “Such a bad girl.” He holds a rusty saw in one hand. “Something must have gone wrong on the assembly line. A missing part, perhaps? Or one too many? We’ll have to open you up and see what the problem is.”
I struggle, panting. Panic whites out the inside of my head. Not real, I think.
The saw bites into my flesh, slicing through the smooth skin of my stomach, sinking into me. I freeze in surprise. There’s no pain, no blood, only an uncomfortable pressure. He pulls the saw out, leaving a neat slit, like I’m a doll and my skin is made of rubber.
No. This isn’t. I’m not. This—
And suddenly it’s not Dr. Swan standing over me. It’s Steven. “How about it, Doc?” he says in that throaty voice I know so well. “You’ve seen my insides. How about showing me yours?” He slides his hand into the cut in my stomach, disappearing up to the wrist. It doesn’t hurt, but I can feel his hand moving inside me. His fingertips press against the inside of my stomach; I see their shape under my skin, moving. Caressing. A shiver runs through me.
Not real not real not—
His arm slides deeper, vanishing almost up to the elbow. “You want to tell me, don’t you?” he whispers against my ear.
My shuddering breaths echo through the room. I’m not cold anymore; I’m warm. My head has gone soft and fuzzy, and suddenly I’m having trouble remembering why I’m here or what’s going on, but I don’t really care. “About what?” I murmur drowsily.
“Your secret.” His hand moves deeper still. Up, into my ribcage. “It’s okay. You can let me in.”
My breath hitches. “I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because you’ll hate me, if I tell you.” What am I talking about? Tell him what?
“I could never hate you, Lain.” His voice lowers. “Just whisper it to yourself, in the darkness of your mind. Whisper it.”
My eyes slip shut. Don’t be afraid. Is the voice mine or his? I can’t even tell. I exhale softly, and something clenched inside me loosens. His fingers touch my beating heart. He wraps his hand around it, squeezing lightly. “Oh… there you are.” He laughs, low and husky. “Interesting.”
A chill ripples through me. That’s not Steven’s voice. “Zebra.”
“Had you going for a minute there. Didn’t I?” He smiles, cold and thin. “Of course, I pushed you harder this time. All you have to do is suppress the activity in the medial prefrontal cortex, and people will accept whatever’s in front of them as truth. Though you put up an admirable fight.” There’s a teasing note in his voice. “So feisty.”
“Get your hand out of my chest,” I say through gritted teeth.
His hand slides out, covered not with blood, but with a silvery, translucent fluid. He shakes it off. “I apologize for the intrusion, but it was necessary.” He smiles, his pale gray eyes alien and chilling in Steven’s face. “Let’s move on, shall we?”
Blackness sweeps over me. And then I’m standing in a huge outdoor arena under a hot, cloudless blue sky, surrounded by the blur of a crowd and the roar of cheering. Rhee stands across from me in a gold and red gladiator’s outfit, holding a huge axe. She tosses me a broadsword. I fumble and nearly drop it. The sunlight half-blinds me, making me squint. “Where are we?”
She charges at me with a roar, swinging her axe. I let out a startled cry and lunge to the side, and the axe buries itself in the ground. She wrenches it out and faces me, chest heaving. “If you want to live, then fight me.”
“Rhee!” I gasp. “What are you doing?”
She charges at me again, swinging. I thrust the sword out, and the axe clangs off of it. “Stop this!” I shout.
“I’m going to kill you if you don’t fight back.” Tendrils of brown hair have slipped from her braid, and cling to her sweat-damp face. She glares at me with her tigress eyes. “Do you understand?” She comes at me again, swinging.
Again, the axe bounces off my sword, and I feel the impact down to my bones. “This is ridiculous! I don’t even know why we’re fighting!”
Her eyes narrow. “It doesn’t matter.” Her boot cannons into my stomach. I collapse, wheezing. She towers over me, drowning me in her shadow, and raises the axe high above her head. “So, what will you do, Lain?” Her heel presses into my sternum, pinning me like an insect to a board. “Will you die or live? The choice is yours. It makes no difference to me, either way.” Her expression is flat, impassive. “Personally, though? I think you’ll let me kill you.”
The thunder of the crowd fills my ears. Red pennants snap in the wind, and the world tastes like dust and metal. “Rhee.” I gasp for breath. “Listen to me. Please. We don’t have to do this. Just put down your weapon.”
She stares at me, her eyes utterly empty. “Sometimes,” she says, “there are only two paths. And they’re bo
th ugly.” She raises her axe high above her head with both hands.
There’s no time to react. I thrust my sword out with a ragged cry. The blade punctures her throat, and blood bubbles out of her mouth. Her eyes glaze over. Horrified, I yank the sword free and take a few steps back. The hilt slips from my numb fingers as Rhee crumples to the ground. Blood pools beneath her, shockingly red.
I just killed her.
It’s not real. It’s not real. But it feels real. I can’t look away.
Then Rhee vanishes, along with the crowd, the sky and ground. The world dissolves, and I’m floating in emptiness. My own irregular breathing echoes in my ears, the only sound.
“Hello?” I call out. My voice falls into the void. There’s no echo, no nothing. The blackness is perfect and endless. I can’t even feel my body. I’m nothing but a mind, a voice. An icy, primal terror spreads its tentacles through my brain. I force it down.
“I know you’re there, Zebra. Where are you?”
Silence.
The fear is fading, smothered by anger. It feels surprisingly good—something solid to grab onto. “Do you enjoy this? Do you like rummaging around in people’s heads, controlling what they think and feel?”
No response. But he’s there. I feel him.
“Rhee told me about you. She said that you hide in the shadows, that you don’t even tell people your real name. If you can’t even look me in the eye—if you can’t even give me that much—then I want nothing to do with you or your rebellion. Do you hear me?”
An echoing male voice replies, from nowhere and everywhere: “And where will you go? What will you do, once you’ve left the Citadel?”
“I don’t know.” I don’t care.
He doesn’t respond, but I sense him weighing me, examining me.
“Show me your face!” I scream. “Stand in front of me!”
Another long pause. “Stand in front of you, you say.” He chuckles, as if at a private joke. “I must confess, I am intrigued by you, Lain Fisher. Perhaps a meeting could be… advantageous.”
I feel myself sinking, slowly, as if through layers of quicksand. Then something breaks, and I plummet into nothingness.
14
I come to, blinking, in the Gate room. I pull the helmet off, and cool air washes over my feverish head. My hair clings to me in loose strands. Everything looks a little fuzzy and spinny, and a sharp ache pulses behind and between my eyes. When I lick my lips, they feel like sandpaper.
A low, grinding rumble fills the air. I stand and turn around to see the back wall open inward like a huge door, revealing another room.
“Come in,” calls a man’s voice. It’s the same voice I heard in the Gate, but smaller, less imposing.
Slowly, I stand. My legs almost give out, and I clutch the arm of the chair, waiting for the vertigo and weakness to pass.
“Don’t be shy.”
My heartbeat is far too loud. Cautiously, like I’m stepping into the den of a wild beast, I enter.
The floor is dark, lacquered wood, decorated with gold-tasseled rugs. The walls are paneled with creamy-white marble. A fire crackles in a stone hearth; I can’t tell if the flames are holographic or real. Behind me, there’s a low groan, and I spin around in time to see the door swing shut. It’s actually an enormous bookshelf, filled with leather-bound volumes, the authors’ names shining in gold letters on the spines—Thomas Paine, Friedrich Nietzsche, Ayn Rand, Edgar Allan Poe, Jean-Paul Sartre, and countless others.
“I’m over here.”
I turn. In front of me, a small man sits in a sleek black chair. He nods toward an empty chair. “Sit.”
I’d prefer to stand, but I’m still weak and shaky, and my legs are in danger of giving out. Slowly, I make my way over to a red-leather-upholstered chair and lower myself into it. I look at him. He’s short and thin, with fine, mouse-brown hair—it’s starting to gray at the temples, though he only appears to be in his forties—and thick-framed glasses perched on his long, narrow nose. His face is forgettable in a pleasant, mild-mannered way. “So,” I say. “You’re Zebra.”
“You were expecting someone a bit more impressive-looking, I suppose.” He gives me a wry smile. “But yes. I’m Zebra.” He extends one gloved hand. “Pleased to meet you.”
I don’t take the hand. After a moment, he withdraws and lowers his head slightly. “Fair enough,” he says. “I just put you through something rather unsettling.”
“Unsettling? That’s how you describe it?”
“I wouldn’t have done it if you weren’t strong enough to handle it. And I knew you were. After all, you chose to reveal the truth to your country, even knowing the considerable risk. ‘In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.’”
The words sound familiar. I frown, trying to place them.
“George Orwell,” Zebra supplies. He tilts his head. “You’ve read his work, haven’t you?”
“My father had copies of everything he wrote. He collected old books.” I look away. “Of course, you already know that. Don’t you?”
“I, too, am a collector. As you may have noticed.” He stares at me through those cool, unnerving gray eyes. They seem both flat and unfathomably deep. Empty and not empty. “We lost something, as a society, when we stopped producing paper books. But then, we also lost something when we transitioned from handwritten books to printed ones, and when we first gave up clay tablets and parchment for flimsy pulp paper. Something is always lost. But something is always gained.”
“I’m really not in the mood for a philosophical conversation about books.” Pain pulses behind my eyes. An after-effect of the drug or just stress, I’m not sure. “You had no right to look through my mind.”
“An interesting perspective, from a former Mindwalker.”
I try to rekindle my anger, but I feel tired and deflated, like I’ve used it all up. “I’m still a Mindwalker. But I would never snoop through someone’s memories without their permission.”
“I had to make sure you weren’t a spy. I’m placing a considerable amount of trust in you simply by allowing you into the Citadel.”
I remember Zebra’s cold gray eyes in Father’s face, Steven’s hand working its way into my chest. I shudder. “Even so, you didn’t have to deceive me. You didn’t need to use the faces of people I care about. What was the point of all that? Nicholas called it a test, but I don’t see what it was supposed to prove.”
“When I faced you as your father, you chose to reject a comforting lie in favor of an uncomfortable reality. And when I confronted you as Rhee, you chose to fight me, to save yourself, proving that you are willing to do what’s necessary even when it means getting your hands dirty.”
I’ll probably be seeing that moment in my nightmares for weeks to come. “And when you pretended to be Steven… what was that? You kept asking me about a secret. I don’t have any secrets.”
“Don’t you? Sometimes the biggest secrets are the ones we keep from ourselves.”
“What do you mean?”
“We are not always who we believe ourselves to be. As someone who has studied psychology, you should be aware of that. You might say I had a glimpse of your true self… of what drives you, at your core.”
I grit my teeth. Is he trying to make me question my own motivations, to doubt myself, so I’ll be more vulnerable to his manipulation? If that’s his game, I’m not going to play it. “I’ve been through plenty of psychoanalysis. I don’t need yours. Whatever you think you saw, you’re not the one who decides what drives me. I am.”
He raises his eyebrows slightly, then smiles. If he’s at all annoyed with me, he hides it well. If anything, he seems pleased. “In that case, let’s get down to business. I must say, despite my initial misgivings, I’m glad to have you here. You’re a bit of a celebrity, you know. If word gets out that you’re on our side, it could be very good for the Blackcoats. Though I realize, of course, that you have your qualms about our methods.”
“One could easily call IFEN a terrorist organization,” he replies. “They use fear to manipulate public sentiment and achieve their goals. We must fight terror with terror. This is a war. Everything we do, we do out of necessity.”
“Sacrifices for the greater good?” I ask, bitterness creeping into my tone. Dr. Swan said the same thing.
His lips tighten. He leans forward, looking straight into my eyes, and lowers his voice until he’s almost whispering. “You have no idea what sort of danger the world is in.”
I hesitate.
I have no reason to take him at his word. But I remember the holographic message Father left for me after his death, telling me about IFEN’s sordid history. Secrets within secrets. “What do you mean?”
He averts his gaze. “Simply that IFEN will not be content to rule over the URA. Sooner or later, they’ll reach for more. Their influence will spread to every country, every corner of the world… unless we do something to stop them.”
He’s being vague, which makes me wonder if he knows as much as he claims. I feel a twinge of frustration. “So what can I do?”
“You’ve already made quite an impact on people, you know. Watch.” He waves a hand, and a holoscreen appears in the air between us.
In spite of myself, I’m curious. I lean forward.
The screen displays a street in Aura, crammed with people. They surge forward, shouting. A wall of police officers blocks their path, brandishing neural disruptors. I’m looking at a protest.
Quickly, I realize that this isn’t an ordinary recording. Certain details are in sharp focus, while others are blurry. Most of the buildings are just fuzzy shapes, vague impressions, but the protestors are crystal clear. “What is this?” I already know, but I want to hear him confirm it.
“It’s a memory. One of the protestors uploaded this to the Net.”
“Where did they even get a Gate? Those are closely monitored.”