“A bomb that isn't a bomb,” Paul whispered.
“Exactly. In fact, it was the words in your article that we ultimately adopted. A bomb that isn't a bomb. Ingenious. I guess that's something else I can thank you for.”
Paul suddenly remembered the documents he'd scooped from the floor of the hospital's parking garage, and the telephone conversation Morales had had right before trying to kill him.
“The girl. The girl you were looking for, she's involved somehow. She’s the key to this.” He thought back to that night, racking his brain for the details of what had happened. A sinking feeling settled over him, a rock in the pit of his stomach.
“I was supposed to talk with her that night, but she never showed.”
“Well, well, well. You're quick.” Morales' smiled faded.
“But you didn't kill her, because you were still looking for her even after the hospital.” Paul said, falling deep into concentration. The pain in his head and face seemed to fade as he focused on that night and tried to remember.
“Maybe you were supposed to talk to the mother?” Morales asked. “She was always such a talker, thought that if the truth came out about her daughter, they would be safe. I did kill her mother that night. But never mind.”
Morales shook his head as if he'd been distracted from the task at hand. He stood, carrying his leather straps with him. The buckles clinked together, barely audible over the constant squeaking. Paul eyed the covered box on the table, sure that the squeaking was coming from within.
“You asked me once what was in Room 101.” Morales quoted, “I told you that you knew the answer already. Everyone knows it. They think that what is in Room 101 is the worst thing in the world.”
Morales walked behind Paul and touched his shoulder, still sticky with blood. Morales traced his finger from Paul's shoulder up the side of his neck and face, circling his ear, and then laughed.
“Now,” Morales said, “I don't expect you to know where those words came from. You did not write them, but you did refer to them in your piece.”
“Why are you after the girl? Who is she?”
“It's something O'Brien said in Nineteen Eighty-Four, which you so lovingly attributed to me and the organization I work for. Do you remember what Room 101 was? What it stood for?”
“Who is the girl?” Paul demanded. “How does she have anything to do with the attack in Miami?”
Morales suddenly lashed out, punching Paul in the bloodied mess of his ear. Flashes exploded in Paul's head, and he fought the wave of nausea that flooded over him.
“You really know how to push the buttons,” Morales said, studying the blood on his knuckles. “The girl makes no difference to you. We'll take care of her soon enough. No, you have more to worry about now, my friend, than this girl you've never met.”
Paul closed his eyes, steadying his swirling mind and thoughts, trying to focus on the pain to keep him steady. Focus on the pain to keep him grounded, alert and aware. Morales was crazy, and he had to escape. Paul thought if he continued talking about the girl, that whatever Morales had planned would be delayed. It was like a thousand movies he'd seen, where the bad guy always monologued about their badness at the end, delaying the death of the hero long enough to be saved.
“Other people know about the girl too, and they'll stop you,” Paul said.
“Room 101,” Morales ignored him and continued, “was a torture chamber in Nineteen Eighty-Four, meant to force a person into submission. You see, Room 101 forced a person to face their greatest fears or submit. The fact that the authorities knew each person's fears so intimately is yet a testament to the omniscience of those in power. Information is omnipresence. Information is god.”
Paul struggled against his bonds, straining so hard that blood rushed through his body and spurted in a fresh wave of warmth from his ear. His muscles burned and the words “must escape” became a stuttering, flitting chant in his mind.
Morales seemed not to notice. Instead, he straightened the harness, extending it out before him and examining the straps.
“Let's see here.” He flipped the harness over and then smiled. “There we go. Had it upside down.”
Morales wrapped the harness around the front of Paul's face, fitting it to his chin and forehead.
“In the book, which I doubt you've read, given your irrelevant and free association to our work in Miami, the main character is deathly afraid of rats. So afraid, in fact, that even the thought of the rats is enough to cause him to betray the only person he has ever loved. I know, I know. You betrayed your lover long before now, rather, you let your work do that for you, but I think we can still do a little something to break your spirit. And your body.”
The squeaking. Paul stopped struggling as Morales finished with the straps on his head. He gaped in disbelief. There was no way, no possible way that Morales was crazy enough for this.
“I thought you might appreciate the irony,” Morales said, crossing the tiny room and lifting the sheet of plastic from the table to reveal a cage made of tightly woven mesh. The squeaking grew louder and Paul felt his heart sink.
“Please. You don't have to do this.”
“I do, and it’s such a beautiful thing, really.” He lifted the cage and tilted the top of it so Paul could see the round hole cut into the mesh, just large enough to fit around someone's face. He couldn't see clearly inside the cage, but saw a mass of squirming and writhing. The squeaks and clicks of tiny claws was deafening.
“You see, Mr. Reporter Man, you accuse us of the kind of atrocities depicted in Orwell's nightmare, without even knowing the purity of our purpose. Well, it’s time to follow through with that accusation. To pay the piper, so to speak.” Morales suddenly chuckled, realizing the unintended relevance of his words to the situation.
“Dennis will report that I'm missing.” Paul's voice was soft now, the threat empty and useless.
“Oh, your little errand boy from the Gazette?” Morales said. “Yes, I'm sure he will. But if he digs too deeply, we'll take care of him too.”
Morales licked his lips as he stood in front of Paul. He tilted the cage until the opening aligned with his face. Morales pushed it forward, and Paul felt something furry brush against his lips and nose.
“Please don't do this!” Paul screamed.
“Don't be so loud,” Morales whispered, “it only excites them.”
Morales connected the cage to the straps on his head, and Paul felt the weight of the cage and the animals inside. When he was done, Morales leaned close to Paul's good ear.
“I want you to think about something over the next few hours. I can't imagine it taking much longer than that, because, you see, they haven't eaten in such a long time.
“I want you to think about how much you still don't know about me, or the Contionum. All your digging and obsessing and sacrifice for the truth, and you still know nothing. There is a certain heroism in that, to have given everything you have, and now your life, in search of truth.”
The swarm of little warm bodies had pushed up against Paul's face. He felt a tentative scratch, or maybe a bite, he couldn't tell, and was hardly listening to Morales. The terror churned in his mind and body, and it tasted like bitter bile.
Morales stood and smiled, patting Paul on the back.
“Well, good sir,” he said cheerfully, “I've got other things and people on my agenda tonight.”
Through the squirming mass of fur and tails, Paul watched Morales pull the cord to the flood light, and the room fell into darkness.
The sound of clamoring and squeaks and clattering claws grew to a roar.
Paul screamed.
Chapter Thirty-Two
“My dad has a lot of money.” Ryan said, “like the kind of money where I never have to worry about anything.”
Mae didn't say anything because she could tell that Ryan didn't want her to say anything. His eyes were closed and his forehead was furrowed in concentration, as if he were lifting something heavy off his c
onscience.
“You think that's a good thing, at first anyway, and I suppose there are people born into this kind of life that never actually realize how having everything you could ever want is just like having nothing. Your entire life revolves around want you have and what you don't have, and you get focused on getting the next thing you don't have, just because you can. But soon, you realize that you can't have everything, that there are some things about who you are that you can't buy.
But by that time, you've already become your possessions. You are defined by what you own and possess, and your entire life comes wrapped in a package, or with a purchase agreement, or strings attached, or a membership to this club, and ownership in that company, and that isn't really living. I was taught that I could be anything, that the there were no limits because of my privilege, but it's a lie.”
He paused, and Mae couldn't help but chime in.
“Sounds like you've never been on the other end of it,” she muttered.
Ryan opened his eyes and looked at her, hurt, but then nodded.
“You're right. I haven't been on the other end. I've always had what I wanted, and always thought that I could be and do anything that I ever wanted.”
“Sounds like the bemoaning of a brat,” Mae said before she could stop herself. The words stung her as much coming out of her mouth as they did for Ryan.
“The angst of the privileged class,” Ryan said, turning away from her and looking at the snow building up on the window of his car. “Maybe it's not the most exotic of problems to have, but it's real. I felt like I was drowning, and no matter what I did to escape that feeling, that crushing sensation that you can't get air in your lungs, that nothing means anything, I couldn't escape. Once you've tried everything and nothing works, you just give up. I think that's what happened to my parents. They just gave up and became shells of what they once were, a long time ago. I didn't want that. I want to feel alive, to breathe and live.”
“So what, you got rid of all your stuff and went to live with the grizzly bears?”
He smiled at her and rubbed at the little bit of stubble on his chin and cheeks. Mae frowned to hide the exhilaration she felt at discovering yet another aspect of him that she found incredible.
“Nothing so dramatic as that.” He hesitated and then chuckled. “The first time, maybe in my entire life, that I really felt alive was when I totaled the car my father had purchased for me on my sixteenth birthday. It was beautiful, a work of modern art that was a dream to drive. Not that I ever got to drive it. See, with the car, I was given a driver to take me everywhere. It was suffocating, and the drowning sensation was at its worst when I was stuck in the backseat of that car, unable to choose the direction we drove. I was at the mercy of the driver, and there was nothing I could do.
“So I took my car, or stole it, if you talk to my dad—”
“But it was your car?”
“My car, his car, the driver's car, it was all the same. I stole the car and went for a drive. Maybe I was driving a little too fast, but I wasn't drunk or high or anything. I'd given that up long before that drive.”
“Well, that's good to know.”
Ryan didn't seem to hear, but continued his story with a faraway look in his eyes.
“I drove faster and faster, so fast that it felt like I was flying. I lost control of the car on a patch of snow. Just a bit of snow and ice in the road, and it changed my life. The car slid into the turn, and the tires caught on the dry pavement. I was going too fast, and I had already lost control when it flipped. It all happened in just a few seconds, but the feeling played out much longer than that. I was afraid, of course, but it was more than fear. I had lost control in my life and it was only then that I realized I didn't need control. The car rolled through the air, as if in slow motion, and for the first time in my life, I swear to you, I felt alive. I was fine, of course. There probably was never much of a chance that I would be seriously hurt. Cars like that, nowadays, are like giant steel bubbles--capable of withstanding more than just a wreck. But when I climbed out of the car, the air was sweeter and life was just a little bit less murky. The rush and clarity that came with that crash went beyond anything I'd ever felt before, so I did it again. And again. Before long, other people with resources similar to mine joined in, and we started driving and crashing and destroying and living. You've heard that saying, I don't even know if its a real saying, but order is born in chaos. All the fear and despair and sense of meaningless drivel are driven out by this ultimate sense of no control. You could live or die, and there is absolutely nothing you can do about it, and from that writhing chaos you feel alive.”
Ryan fell quiet, almost out of breath. Mae thought for a moment, stunned at Ryan's story and taken aback.
“That has got to be the stupidest thing I've ever heard.” She said finally, “what happens if you aren't okay? If you die? What then? Or when you hit someone with kids in the car, coming home from the grocery store?”
“Crashing into civilians--that's what we call them--is against the rules. And so is driving in traffic. We drive in remote areas, places where people who aren't playing won't get hurt.”
“Playing? Rules?” Mae could hardly believe what she was hearing. “This is a game to you?”
“Not a game, those are just words we use. It's not a game, I know that—”
“And that's how you broke your arm?” Mae cut in. She couldn't help but think of Adam in that moment, how sweet and calm he'd been. And she hated herself for thinking of Adam. She was right here with Ryan, here and now, and no matter how crazy all this was, she was still with Ryan, and she thought she loved him. Despite this, she loved him, and it terrified her.
“Yeah.”
“Has anyone died?”
He paused, and that was answer enough for Mae. The anger rose quickly within her as she thought about the many times she’d almost died. She thought about her mom and dad, all those people in that building in Miami. So much death, all around her, and Ryan played with it. Tempted death as if it were just a game.
She had to get out of the car and organize her thoughts, and even then, she dreaded spending any more time here with Ryan.
“Ryan, I think you need to take me back to the hotel,” she said softly.
“Are you kidding me?” Ryan said, “I'm trying to be honest here, to share something deep and dark with me, and you're shutting me out?”
“Not shutting you out, no,” Mae said, deliberately. “I have to think about this. This is crazy, Ryan, and maybe it's because you've been doing it for so long, or maybe there is really something wrong with you, but if you don't see how crazy that is, then ...”
“Then, what?”
“I don't know!” Mae said. She was frustrated and upset, and immediately she began to repeat the mantra in her head that her father had taught her.
Paper and ink.
She visualized a white sheet of paper until it expanded to reach all corners of her mind, even while feeling that familiar buzz and rush of warm air.
“You can't shut me out!” he said.
Paper
Mae drew a line down the center of the white space in her mind
and ink
the dark line fractured outward, spilling a scene that was familiar to her yet at the same time, foreign.
She was on the beach and it was snowing.
Paper and ink and the world opens.
“Mae,” Ryan said, his voice softer now, more in control.
She didn't hear him over the growing buzz. The image in her mind flickered, and she was horrified that she couldn't stop it. Warm air surged around her and the smell of static grew. She opened the door and jumped out.
“Don't follow me,” she said.
She shut the door and ran down the sidewalk, ignoring the cold.
Chapter Thirty-Three
The sound of his screaming seemed to draw the bites and scratches to his face, centered around his wounded ear.
They're after the blood,
and the sounds are making them agitated, Paul thought, and the feeling of the warm furry bodies on his face in the dead of darkness, and the sounds of their squeaking, were making him crazy.
Crazy, he thought, insane, psychotic, mental, deranged. It was like he stood on a cliff overlooking the depths of madness, and he was on the ledge, and then falling, falling into the dark insanity.
He had to get the rats away from his face, and he had to escape. This was not how he was supposed to die. Alone, in the dark, and eaten alive. He felt madness skirting the edges of his reality, amidst the squeaking, clawing, swarming mass of warm fur against his face and neck. A sudden stab of pain in his cheek, right below his eye, and he screamed. The sound drew the rats closer, and their claws skittered over his face.
Quiet, he thought, biting his lip and humming a crazy-mad tune to stave off the panic. Panic, the color of red balloons, rose within him, and he had to concentrate on breathing and slowing the rushing pounding of his heart.
Escape, he thought. Quiet escape.
The rats were attached to his face, and he was attached to the chair. He had to get the rats away, but how?
Another animal rushed his face, nipping at his nose. He felt a warm rush of blood, but didn't scream. Stay quiet, quiet, quiet, like a church mouse. Or a church rat, and Paul wanted to laugh hysterically at his funny joke.
I'm going insane, he thought, mad as a hatter, kooky like luki, and he closed his eyes and thought of the country store from his childhood. He centered his thoughts on those hot summer days, the sweat on his forehead and sometimes dripping in his eyes, the smell and taste of dust in the air, with maybe a rolling thunderstorm in the distance. He heard the fizzing pop of his soda bottle as he opened it and drank the cool liquid.
little teeth gnawing, biting, claws scratching
The sudden burst of fire as he sucked on an atomic fireball and savored the burn.
The Snow Swept Trilogy Page 41