by L. J. Smith
She thought she was going to vomit.
"Muh-muh-muh," Sasha said, beaming. His teeth were wet; wetness spilled onto his chin. He made a wormlike movement toward her.
I should run, Kaitlyn thought dispassionately. Her thought seemed to die somewhere before it got to her legs. She stood still and watched the swollen white grub thing inching across the floor toward her. It was like a human being in the process of mutating into something.
They weren't going to let her get to the crystal. She could feel the power of their minds like a curtain across the room. So strong it almost knocked her over, invading all her senses. The touch of their minds made her think of rotting things, bugs, pus.
Parte King was making a clicking noise in his throat. Pushing himself into a sitting position. They both wore canvas jackets which held their arms behind their backs with many straps.
Straitjackets.
Below that they wore garbage bags. Kaitlyn couldn't make sense of that until she realized: diapers.
Run, you stupid girl. Please run now.
Parte King fell over backward, his stick legs waving slowly in the air.
"Ch-ch-ch-ch-ch." He was still grinning.
So this is what happens to Mr. Z's old students. It could happen to you, too. A little too much time near the crystal and . . .
Hey, but they're still terrific psychics!
Please, run.
At last she seemed to tune in to her brain's terrified whimpering pleas. She turned around to run. She saw the open door of the office, took a wavering step toward it.
And ran into a sort of invisible wall, a thickening of the air. Cold air. Or maybe there was nothing wrong with the air, and it was just her muscles.
She couldn't move a step closer to the door. They had her, they were draining her volition, her will to run.
She couldn't get away, and maybe she'd known that all the time.
Sasha laughed bubbles, like a baby.
"You poor things," Kaitlyn whispered. Pitying them didn't change an ounce of her loathing for them. She knew somehow that they were beyond any kind of healing. Hurt worse than Marisol in her coma.
Even if they would let her approach them with the crystal shard, even if she were a healer like Rob, it wouldn't help. Kaitlyn knew.
Her knees were giving out. She let it happen, sitting on the floor and watching the creatures who shared it with her crawl closer. There was nothing to do.
Nothing except wait for Mr. Zetes to come.
"I thought you'd bring that to me," Mr. Zetes said. "Thank you, my dear."
He held his hand out for the shard. Kaitlyn looked at the long fingers with their square, perfectly manicured nails. She tried to stab him.
It was stupid. There were the human pupae behind her, dragging her every gesture into slow motion, and there were the psycho psychics behind Mr. Z. They'd all come to see the fun. Besides, Mr. Z himself was strong.
He took the shard from her, hurting her wrist. Deliberately, she thought.
"In a way, it's too bad you decided to come out of the closet now," Mr. Z said. "I wish you'd kept the pretense up for just a few more days. My next job for you was silencing the Diaz family."
His handsome old face was absolutely diabolical.
"I like your old students," Kaitlyn choked out. "The ones with very good minds. What a waste."
"Muh-muh-muhhhh," Sasha drooled behind her. "Muhhh."
Mr. Z glanced at him almost fondly. "They're still useful" he said "The crystal has made them more powerful than ever; in a way, it's allowed them to achieve their true potential. I'm afraid you can't join them, though." He turned slightly, speaking over his shoulder.
"John, please put this in Joyce's room. Laurie and Sabrina, take Kaitlyn upstairs and get her ready. Paul, watch them."
Who are all those people? Kaitlyn thought whimsically. Jackal Mac took the shard and disappeared, presumably heading for Mr. Z's car. Frost and Bri stepped forward and each took her by an arm, leading her out of the office. Renny followed.
Joyce and Lydia were standing in the hallway by the hidden panel. Frost and Bri marched Kaitlyn by them.
As they reached the second floor, Kait spoke. "What's going to happen to me?"
"Never mind." Frost gave her a push and Kaitlyn stumbled into the room Frost and Bri shared. Frost's face was sparkling with malicious triumph. She looked almost beautiful, like a Christmas tree angel with hair made of spun glass. She had on bubble-gum pink lipstick, so glossy it reflected light.
"Bri? You going to tell me?"
Bri looked angry instead of triumphant. "You sneak. You dirty spy." Her deep boyish voice was rough with anger and revulsion. "You get what you deserve."
Renny stood just outside Bri's door, arms folded, his clean-cut narrow features severe. He looked like an executioner.
Frost was groping through a pile of clothes on the floor. "Here. Put this on."
It was a bathing suit, one piece, black-and-white striped.
Kaitlyn thought of saying "Why?" but there wasn't any point. She said, "I'm not going to undress in front of him."
"Mr. Z told me to watch," Renny said. Not lecherously. Flatly.
"You got better things to worry about," Bri said, her voice harsh.
Kaitlyn decided not to argue. Bri was right; what difference did it make at this point? She turned her back to the door and stripped, ignoring Renny like a piece of furniture. She tried to hold her head high, make every movement regal and indifferent. Even so, by the time she had pulled the bathing suit on her face was burning, her eyes full of tears.
Frost tittered and snapped the elastic on Kaitlyn's back. But Bri said nothing and kept her head down.
Even Renny seemed to avoid Kaitlyn's gaze as she turned around again.
"I'm ready."
They marched her downstairs.
Not back to the crystal room. Into the front lab. The door to the back lab was open.
And then Kaitlyn knew.
I will not scream, she told herself. I won't whimper and I won't scream. They'll just enjoy it more. They'd love me to start screaming.
But she was afraid she would scream. Or that she might even beg.
"Is everything ready?" Mr. Z asked Joyce. Joyce was standing in the doorway to the back lab. She nodded.
Jackal Mac was staring at Kaitlyn as if he wanted to drink her face through his eyes. His evil jackal eyes.
His mouth was partly open, making her think of a panting dog.
Loving this. Loving it.
"You're going to end up like the ones downstairs," Kaitlyn told him. Jackal Mac grinned like a fox.
Mr. Zetes made a gesture, a formal gesture that reminded Kaitlyn of the first time she'd heard him speak.
When he'd welcomed her and Rob and the others to the Institute, telling them how special they all were.
It seemed like years ago.
"Now," Mr. Z said, addressing the whole group, "I think you all know the situation. We've discovered a spy. I'm afraid I suspected this from the beginning, but I decided to give her a chance." He looked at Joyce, who looked back with a blank face. "However, there's no longer any doubt about why she came to us. So I think the best solution is my original one."
He looked at each of the others in the room and spoke with genteel emphasis. "I want you all to witness this, because I want you to understand what happens when you break faith with me. Does anyone have any questions?"
The lab was silent. Dust motes hung in the slanting afternoon light. No one had a question.
"All right. John and Paul, take her in. Joyce will handle the equipment."
Fight, Kaitlyn thought. That was different than screaming. As Mac and Renny reached for her, she ducked sideways and tried to run, throwing a mule kick as she went.
But they were ready for her. Mac wasn't going to be faked out again. He simply tackled her as if she'd been a two-hundred-pound quarterback, knocking her to the floor. Kaitlyn saw stars and had a horrible sense of not enough air. She
'd had the breath knocked out of her.
There was a confused time, and then she realized she was sitting up being whacked on the back. She whooped in air. Then, before she could really get her bearings, she was being hauled to her feet.
Fighting was no good. She was helpless.
Then she heard a voice, thin, high, and frightened. To her astonishment, she realized it was Lydia.
"Please don't do it. Please don't-Father."
Lydia was standing in front of Mr. Z. Her pale hands were clenched together at waist level, not as if she were praying, but as if she were trying to hold her guts in.
"She can't fight you anymore, and you know it. You could just send her away. She'd never tell anyone about us; she'd just go away and be quiet and live. Wouldn't you, Kaitlyn?" Lydia turned huge green eyes on Kait. Her lips were white, but there was a fierceness in those eyes that Kaitlyn admired.
Good for you, Lydia, she thought. You finally stood up to him. You spoke out, even when nobody else would.
But someone else was speaking.
"Lydia has a point, Emmanuel," Joyce said in a low, carefully controlled voice. "I really don't know if we have to go this far. I'm not entirely comfortable with this."
Kaitlyn stared at her. Joyce's hair was sleek as seal fur, her tanned face was smooth. Yet Kaitlyn caught a sense of inner agitation almost as great as Lydia's.
Thank you, Joyce. I knew it couldn't all be an act. There's something good in you, deep down.
Kaitlyn glanced at the others.
Bri was shifting from foot to foot, scratching her blue-streaked head. Her face was flushed; she looked as if there were something she wanted to say. Renny was scowling, seeming angry but uncertain.
Only Jackal Mac and Frost still looked eager and enthusiastic. Frost's eyes were shining with an almost romantic fervor, and Jackal Mac was licking his lips with his pierced tongue.
"Anyone else?" Mr. Z asked in a voice of terrible quiet. Then he turned on Joyce. "It's lucky for you that I know you aren't serious. You've managed to overcome your discomfort in much more squeamish situations than this. And you will now, of course- because you wouldn't want to join her in that tank. Or visit the room downstairs overnight."
A sort of shudder passed over Joyce's face. Her aquamarine eyes seemed to unfocus.
"And the same goes for the rest of you," Mr. Zetes said. "Including you." He was looking at Lydia. He hadn't raised a fist; he hadn't even raised his voice. But Lydia flinched, and everyone else went still. His very presence cowed them all.
"Every one of you would go to jail for years if the police found out what you've been doing these last weeks," Mr. Zetes said, his face composed and satanic. "But the police will never have to deal with you.
Because I will, if you cross me. Your old classmates downstairs will help. There is nowhere you can go to get away from us, nowhere you can hide that we can't find you. The power of the crystal can reach out across the globe and swat you like a fly."
Silence and stillness. The psychics watched the floor. Not even Frost was smirking now.
"Now," Mr. Z said in a grating whisper, "does anyone still have any objections?"
Some people shook their heads. Lydia, her shoulders hunched miserably, was one of them. Others just stayed still and quiet, as if hoping Mr. Z wouldn't look at them.
"Gabriel?" Mr. Zetes said.
Kaitlyn looked up in surprise. She hadn't realized Gabriel had arrived; she'd barely noticed his absence before.
He was frowning, looking like somebody who's arrived at a party to find it had started an hour earlier without him. "What's going on?" he said. He repeated it to Kaitlyn silently, his narrowed eyes on the black-and-white bathing suit. What's going on? What did you do?
"A disciplinary matter," Mr. Zetes said. "I hope there won't be any more like it in the future."
Kaitlyn didn't wait for him to finish, but spoke to Gabriel over his words. None of your business. I despise you. She threw the full weight of her contempt at him like someone throwing beer cans and rocks and bricks. And then, because Rob had taught her how to hurt him, she added, Jailbird. You'd better do everything he says or he'll send for the police.
She hadn't realized how much she hated him before this moment. All the loathing that she somehow hadn't felt toward Renny or even Jackal Mac and Frost, she felt for him. All the anger and betrayal. If she'd been closer, she would have tried to spit on him.
Gabriel's face hardened. She felt him pull away, felt the ice of his shields. He didn't say another word.
"All right," Mr. Z said. "You boys take her in; then we'll all go into the city for dinner. I think this calls for another celebration."
There was no point in fighting any longer. Mac and Renny dragged Kaitlyn into the back lab. She stood motionless in their grip while Joyce forced a mouthpiece into her mouth. It was connected to an air hose like a scuba diver's.
Now Joyce was pulling gloves over her hands and forcing her into a canvas jacket like the ones the creatures downstairs were wearing. Kaitlyn's arms were crossed, useless. Weights were being attached to a belt around her waist, and to her ankles.
She heard a voice behind her: Mr. Zetes. "Goodbye, my dear. Pleasant dreams."
And then Joyce was sticking something in her ears. Some kind of earplugs. Suddenly Kaitlyn was deaf.
They were pushing her forward.
The isolation tank still looked like a Dumpster. A lopsided Dumpster with a hurricane door. The door was open and they were forcing her inside.
She couldn't help it; she was going into this thing. This thing that they were going to close on her, that they were going to bury her in alive.
As the dark metal walls rose around her and the water came up to meet her, Kaitlyn's nerve broke. She did scream. Or at least, she tried. But the thing in her mouth muffled it like a gag and the earplugs dulled the rest of the sound. There was only silence as water enveloped her. And darkness.
She twisted, trying to get on her back, to see the door. To see the light for one last instant. . .
But all she saw was a rapidly diminishing rectangle of white. Then the metal door clanged shut. It was the last sound she was to hear.
Right from the beginning, it was very bad.
Remembering Bri's words ("Sure, it's cool. Cosmic, man!"), she had hoped that the tank might be pleasant at first. Or at least bearable. But it wasn't. It was a death trap, and from the first instant Kaitlyn felt a screaming inside her that wouldn't stop.
Maybe the difference was that she knew she was in here for good. They weren't going to let her out in an hour or a few hours or a day. They were going to keep
her in here for as long as it took, until she was a thing, a drooling, vacant-eyed lump of flesh with no mind.
Her first thought was to try and beat the system. She would make her own noise; she would make herself feel. But even the loudest humming was dim and soon her throat grew sore. After a while she wasn't sure whether she was humming or not.
It was very difficult to kick with the weights on her legs, and when she did manage, she found the tank was lined with something like rubber inside. Between the drag of weights and water and the give of the rubber padding, she couldn't feel much of anything.
She couldn't pinch with her fingers, either, the gloves prevented that and dulled all sensation. Her arms were immobilized. She couldn't even chew her lips-the mouthpiece prevented it..
More, all these exertions tired her out. After trying everything she could think of, she was exhausted, unable to do anything but float inertly. The weights were gauged to keep her floating right in the middle of the water, away from the top and bottom of the tank, and the water temperature was gauged so that she had no sensation of hot or cold.
It was then that she began to realize the true horror of her situation.
It was dark. She couldn't see. She couldn't see anything.
And she couldn't hear. The silence was so deep, so profound, that she began to wonder if she really remembered w
hat sound was.
In the endless dark silence, her body began to dissolve.
Once, when she'd just turned thirteen, she'd had a nightmare of a disembodied arm in her bed. She had half-woken one night to find that she'd been lying with
her arms pressed together under her body, and that one of them had gone to sleep. She could feel it with her other hand: a cool, unnaturally limp arm. In her not-awake state, it seemed as if someone had put a severed dead arm in her bed. Her own arm was foreign to her.
After that, all her nightmares were of the cool blue arm snuggling up to her chin and then dragging her under the bed.
Now Kaitlyn felt as if all her limbs had gone to sleep. At first it seemed that her body had gone dead, and then she realized she didn't have a body anymore. At least, there was no way to prove she did.
If there were arms and legs in the tank, they weren't hers. They were dead, unholy, other peoples' limbs, floating around her, ready to kill her.
After a while, even the sense that there were other peoples' limbs around her faded. There was nothing around her.
She had no sense of being trapped inside the little Dumpster tank. She had no sense of being anywhere.
She was alone in pure space, and around her was nowhere, nothingness, absence, emptiness.
The world had disappeared because she couldn't sense it. She'd never realized it before, but the world was her senses. She had never known anything but her internal map of it, made up from what she saw and heard. And now there was no sight, no sound, no map, no world. She couldn't keep hold of the conviction that there was a world outside-or that there was an outside.
Did the word outside have meaning? Could something be outside the universe?
Maybe there had never really been anything except her.
Could she really remember what the color "yellow" was? Or the feeling of "silk"?
No. It had all been a joke or a dream. Neither of those things existed. These ideas of "touch" or "taste" or "hearing"-she'd made them up to get away from the emptiness.