Nightmare

by Robin Parrish

  Derek and I looked at him in disbelief. Pierre held up his tiny device-a miniature Taser-and explained, "I cover some interesting parts of Boston."

  Ten minutes later, we were pulling up to the loading dock of the massive DHI building.

  I played my part, keeping my eyes closed and remaining completely limp as the DHI worker at the top of the ramp shoved my head to one side to inspect the symbol on the back of my neck. He must've been satisfied with what he saw, because he let me go and we were rolling again.

  I heard a hydraulic door slide open and the rush of warm air as we entered the building.

  "We're alone," Derek whispered.

  I opened my eyes and looked around. The place was white and sterile, though a closer inspection of the walls indicated that they were made of the same concrete as what we saw on the building's exterior, with more of the endless overlapping symbols carved into every part of their surface.

  Otherwise, it was a very high-tech facility, with lots of sliding doors, armed security, and the occasional computer terminal that looked like it came out of a spaceship.

  Derek and Pierre followed another gurney and two jumpsuited workers about twenty feet ahead of us, assuming we were supposed to be headed to the same place they were. They entered a large elevator up ahead, but the doors closed before we could reach them.

  When the car returned, the guys wheeled me inside and I sat up when the doors closed. There were about fifteen floors, but the one at the top was labeled New Arrivals, so with a glance at Derek and me, Pierre pushed the button.

  I lay back down as we ascended.

  "What exactly is the plan here?" Pierre asked.

  "The plan is to get my fiance back," Derek replied.

  "Assuming that's possible," I added, before realizing how insensitive I sounded.

  I closed my eyes as the doors parted but peeked out through slitted lids. I saw we were in a large, curved hallway. I imagined that we must've been on the outer edge of the building, tracing its circumference. A large set of stainless steel doors waited ahead on the left, and they parted as we approached.

  I heard Derek gasp and chanced raising my head just enough to get a quick glimpse.

  I couldn't stifle the similar gasp that escaped my lips, either.

  The brightly lit, spotlessly clean room was a perfect circle, yet it was enormous, easily the size of the building's entire diameter, minus the outer hallway we'd just been in. The chamber was filled with hundreds of tiny cubicles that rose about five feet high, dotting the interior with only a handful of narrow corridors in between to allow access.

  The walls surrounding the room were like nothing I'd ever seen. I only got a quick look, but they seemed to be on fire.

  A technician in a lab coat stood just inside the door but was facing the room's interior. I saw him starting to swivel in our direction and quickly snapped my eyes shut.

  "Name?" the man asked.

  There was a moment's hesitation as Derek and Pierre must've been deciding what to do. Derek was the one that spoke. "Maia Peters."

  Guess he figured honesty was the best way to go.

  "Let's see," said the technician, consulting a hand-held computer tablet. "Peters, yes. She goes to booth 1219. Hook up her IV and make sure she gets her sedative. They'll send for her when it's time for her procedure."

  Neither Derek nor Pierre offered a reply, but we started rolling again, and I could only assume that the cubicles were numbered somehow, because we found our way to an empty one after a few minutes.

  I opened my eyes when we were in and saw that the gray, drab cube was made of standard, movable wall dividers, and it was barely big enough to hold my gurney and the two men. I sat up, careful not to let my head rise above the low partition walls.

  "These cubicles. . ." I whispered. "Are they all-?"

  "Filled with unconscious people?" Derek finished. "Yeah. Saw a ton of them when we wheeled you in."

  "This is where they do it," I said. "It has to be."

  "You think this `procedure' kills its victims?" asked Pierre, oblivious to or uncaring about Derek's fears.

  But I had a different thought. "If the victims die, then why would they need all these booths?"

  Derek liked this line of reasoning, and nodded enthusiastically. "Maybe they have to keep their bodies alive for the whole thing to work. It could be how they keep the souls bound to the earth. Since they're never actually dead, they can't move on to heaven or hell."

  It made sense. But it was also a bit too easy. I suspected there had to be more to it.

  "Did you see the walls?" mentioned Pierre. "It looked like double-paned glass or Plexiglas or something, with fire burning between the panes."

  "There was a symbol etched into the glass," Derek said, turning to look at me. "A familiar symbol."

  "Which one?" I asked.

  "The one that means binding."

  "I saw something else," Pierre said. "It was on the far side of the room. It looked like some kind of grid, but it was enormous."

  Derek nodded. "I saw it, too. It was the only part of the room that wasn't uniform. It stands out, so it's got to be important. Probably where they do this `procedure.' But the place is so big, it was hard to get a good look at it from this distance."

  Pierre frowned. "I only saw a few of those lab techs or whatever they are, but maybe we could wring some info out of one of them."

  Derek looked at him sidelong. "I don't think holding one of these people at Taser-point is going to be enough to get them talking."

  "Then we'll use something else," I said.

  Ten minutes later, a scientist with a name tag that identified him as Dr. Michael Simms was standing inside booth 1219 with us. Pierre stood behind him, holding what looked like the barrel of a gun inside one of the pockets of his jumpsuit. In reality, it was a metal handle we'd pried off of the gurney, the end of it jammed into Simms's back. But he believed it was a gun and that was all that mattered.

  He was a tall man, middle-aged, with impossibly heavy eyelids. There was no emotion in his eyes, no passion, no life. His mouth was carved into a perfectly straight line, and you could easily imagine that he'd never smiled, even once.

  Simms wore the standard white lab coat that all of the scientists in the building wore. His shoes were shined, his hair slicked back, and he carried a hand-held computer tablet, which I quickly snatched away from him.

  "I have no idea how you found this place or got inside, but you'll never leave here alive," Simms said.

  "What are you people doing in here?" I asked, skimming through the information stored in the tablet. "Are you sucking people's souls out of their bodies?"

  "No, no," Simms replied. "You make it sound so crude. Our scientists are doing groundbreaking work that's beyond anything the world has ever seen, breaching the barrier between the physical and the metaphysical."

  "Then why not share your breakthroughs with the world?" I asked.

  "Our work is generations ahead of its time," he said. "It's been decided that the population at large is not ready to know what we've done. Can you imagine the reaction? The human soul is real. It exists, and we have proof!"

  "A discovery of that magnitude," Pierre chimed in from over Simms's shoulder, "carries with it significant religious, social, scientific, and even medical ramifications. You have no right to keep it a secret."

  "We have every right," Dr. Simms retorted. "We have no interest in converting anyone to any particular dogma or ideology. The research and development on this work cost billions, and only by keeping the process private are we able to ever dream of earning that back. The nature of our work would likely be interfered with if it became public knowledge, and we are simply moving ahead to the future we believe this technology can offer."

  "By ripping people's souls out?"

  His expression was unchanged. "Save the theatrics. We haven't harmed anyone. As you can see from the Body Chamber-that's what we call this room-every person that's undergone the procedure is
still alive and well. We have merely altered their state of being, taken the intangible parts of their essence out of their physical shells."

  "Incredible," Pierre remarked, though his voice was filled with revulsion. "And the symbol on the back of their necks?"

  "The glyph," said Simms. "It's the lynchpin of the binding technology. It came to us ... from an outside source."

  I couldn't believe this guy's casual disregard for what he and his friends were responsible for. "What about the people you're doing this to? I have a friend who signed up for it, but I know of plenty others who didn't. That's kidnapping, muchacho."

  Simms's expression was dead, unmoved, unconcerned. "Without experimentation, science is nothing but theory. Trial and error. There is no other way to perfect it. Animal testing yielded no results; they have no souls to manipulate. It had to be humans. We believe the end justifies our choices."

  "Why go to all this trouble to keep their bodies alive?" asked Pierre. "Why not just let them die?"

  "We tried it that way at the beginning," said Simms. "The glyph couldn't maintain control over the souls without their bodies remaining alive here, on the mortal plane. We can't brand the glyph directly on a soul, since it has no material substance. The soul is like a boat; it wants to float free. We use the physical body as an anchor, with the glyph acting as the tether that keeps the soul attached to it."

  "So what's the point?" asked Pierre. "What ends are you trying to justify?"

  "The eternal plague faced by mankind is an inability to find one unbeatable advantage over its enemies. Peace can never exist in such a world. And of course governments are willing to pay extravagantly to be the power holding that advantage."

  "Weapons," Pierre said. "Of course. A person for whom there are no walls, and for whom solid objects are not a hindrance ... It's the ultimate in stealth warfare. No enemy would be untouchable, and the soldier would be absolutely impervious to harm. Assuming you can control and manipulate the process."

  "But you'd need some kind of control over these ghost soldiers ofyours," I said, catching on. "And I'm betting none of the people here consented to play War Games for you, so how can you expect them to follow your orders unless you have some way of coercing them?"

  "You'd need far more than that," said Simms. "Apparitions can only interact with our plane of existence in very limited ways, most of which are unuseful for our purposes. When the technology is perfected, we intend to give our `souldiers'-and I'm spelling that s-o-u-l-full ability to interact with the mortal world."

  "And then what?" I asked. "You going to sell this technology to the highest bidder?"

  Simms looked at me and Derek, not confirming or denying.

  I was irked and about to press him further, but Derek jumped in.

  "Jordin Cole," he said with a restrained anger. "Where is she?"

  "Who?" There wasn't the slightest hint of curiosity in Simms's voice.

  "Please," said Derek in disgust. "She's probably the most famous person you have here."

  "The physical shell of every person to undergo the procedure is stored here, in the Body Chamber. Her soul has been extracted and is now ... elsewhere."

  I looked back at the tablet, remembering how the tech at the door had recognized my name.

  "So undo it," Derek demanded, his tone cold and threatening. "Put her soul back in her body."

  Though his expression remained unchanged, I got the strong impression that Simms was relishing the next statement he made. "I'm afraid ... our efforts thus far have only been focused on the extraction technique. We have not yet taken the step of reversing the process."

  This gave me an idea. A mad, crazy notion. But I couldn't help wondering ...

  I decided to keep the thought to myself.

  I never saw Derek move; I just blinked and Simms's head jerked back. He sagged into Pierre's arms, and I was surprised to see Derek's arm outstretched, fist first, in Simms's direction.

  "Help me," Pierre whispered, and as he and Derek put Simms onto the gurney I had formerly occupied, I began searching on the tablet, quickly finding the information we needed.

  "Feel better?" I asked Derek, still amazed that he'd done that.

  "Not really," he whispered back, rubbing his knuckles.

  "Never seen a minister hit somebody before," I remarked. "Aren't you supposed to turn the other cheek?"

  Derek was still fuming. "I'll seek forgiveness later," he said.

  "Booth 930," 1 said.

  I held up the computer. Derek nodded and was out of the cubicle before Pierre or I had even moved.

  Staying low and communicating only with gestures, we wound our way through the veritable city of cubicles in the Body Chamber. The most activity seemed to be happening in the middle of the giant room, so we altered course to move silently in that direction, avoiding all the workers we saw along the way.

  I got a much better look at the walls, and they were just as Derek and Pierre had described them. The curved outer wall was separated from us by an equally curved pane of glass that left only an inch or two of space in between. And in that space, fire burned all the way around the room. The glass seemed to be covered in etchings of the alchemical binding symbol, as well.

  About twenty-five feet from the core of the room, we found Booth 930 and ducked inside.

  "Jordin!" Derek whispered, rushing to the gurney on which her body lay, hooked up to an IV and various monitors.

  "She's not here," I whispered quietly. "This isn't her, Derek. This body is just an empty container."

  For all intents and purposes, Jordin was no longer alive. But Derek took Jordin's hand nonetheless and kissed it gently. His tears stained her wrist, and my heart pounded in grief for both of them.

  This was, in some small way, my fault. I had indulged Jordin's obsession when I should have deterred her. I watched Derek in silence. I've never been a terribly emotional person, so I stood perfectly still with no outward signs of how much his pain was gutting me.

  I took several calming breaths and turned my attention out over the nearest partition wall. Just a few dozen feet away, surrounded by a bustle of lab coat-decked scientists, was the machine they must have used to extract the soul.

  It wasn't what I'd expected. I didn't know what it should look like exactly, but not like what I was looking at now.

  It was about five feet high on one end, only three or so on the other. Between the two ends was a big clear tube that reminded me of a hyperbaric chamber, only its cross-section wasn't a perfect circle. It was flattened, oval in shape. Everything that wasn't part of the clear tube was stainless steel. It didn't look like something used for a surgical procedure. It was more like a high-tech torture device out of a futuristic sci-fi movie.

  On the taller end was an enormous control station with half a dozen screens and several keyboards and touch pads. It was all very clean and organized, fitting perfectly into the space available, obviously custom made. I imagined that this was probably the only such machine in the world, though it would only be a matter of time before DHI started producing more of them. Unlike nearly every other part of this crazed facility, I saw no glyphs, as Simms had called them, anywhere on the enormous device.

  We heard a deep rumble from somewhere in the chamber, so deep it hurt my ears. I wondered if it was an earthquake, or if this was part of the extractor in operation, but there was no one currently inside the thing. Even Derek was pulled out of his personal torment by the sound. He stepped over to see what we were looking at.

  As we watched, a new victim was wheeled up to the extractor on a gurney-a young man. Derek was poised as if he wanted to rescue the guy, but I put a hand on him and whispered that we needed to see how this machine worked, and that giving away our position for the sake of one person wouldn't help the hundreds of other victims. Including Jordin.

  So we remained silent as the clear tube split in the middle and slid open. The unconscious young man was disconnected from his IV, hefted from his stretcher, and laid insid
e, the tube immediately sealing around him. I noted that despite all of the complex monitors and keypads, the entire process appeared to be more or less automated. A technician standing at the controls checked over various settings but then hit a single yellow button.

  The machine buzzed to life, sounding like something within it was spinning hard and fast. I cringed when I saw a spiky needle extend from under the young man's head straight into the back of his neck-piercing the center of the symbol that was branded there. I couldn't tell how deep it penetrated.

  Every muscle in his body clenched tight, like an electrical current was searing through him. I saw the scientists nearby shield their eyes, and then as the roar of the machine grew deafening, a series of dangerously bright flashes seemed to fill the tube. It was as if the entire thing had become a fluorescent light bulb, only the illumination it created was brighter than lightning. It flashed several times in a row, and then there was a cracking sound like localized thunder.

  The machine suddenly wound down, and I could see the young man in the tube had gone totally limp. Two technicians quickly appeared and pulled his lifeless body out of the extractor and put it back on a gurney. They worked quickly, hooking him up to his IV again, along with several other medical devices, ensuring that his body remained technically alive, even though it was being kept that way only by machinery.

  "Dear God, save us," Derek whispered. "How can this be real?"

  There were no words. We had just witnessed the most profound violation of nature anyone had ever conceived. I felt sick.

  "Look," Derek whispered, pointing toward the far end of the room.

  There we could see the huge gridlike structure Pierre had mentioned in greater detail. It almost looked like a cage, with crisscrossing metal bars, but whatever was inside the thing was obscured by some kind of deep, black darkness.

  A man stood outside of the cage-a man I recognized from a photo I'd seen on the Internet.