by Kal Spriggs
“Good. Let me know as your experimentation progresses, Doctor.”
***
Shaden dreamed of cards.
He didn’t know why. He knew it was a dream, but in his mind he saw the green table and the cards, turning over and over as if by some strange magic.
The final card turned face up: black jack, twenty one.
He awoke to pain.
His world became a red haze. All other sensation dissolved beside the agony in his head. He felt razors dig into the back of his neck and press upwards. He thrashed and fought the restraints that held him. His mouth went wide in a silent scream as he couldn’t push his voice past the torment.
“Hold him still!” Someone shouted. Shaden’s body arced. He heard pops and snaps that could have been his spine for all he knew. The pain didn’t ease.
Instead, it grew worse.
“Stop, please!” He grunted the words and felt his own spittle splash across his face. He felt burning hot tears coursing out of his eyes. The shards of burning hot metal seemed to dig deeper into his head.
A woman’s calm voice spoke over his grunts, “Pulse rate rising, Doctor.”
“Activate electrodes three and five, check the brainwave scans for any changes.”
He didn’t care about his pride. Shaden felt no shame. He begged, he sobbed, but the pain just went on.
“No signs of desired activity on the scans,” the woman’s voice said. The words no longer held any meaning to Shaden. He tasted blood as his face pulled back into a rictus and his teeth tore at the inside of his lips.
“Terminate experiment.”
The pain vanished. Shaden sagged in relief. He felt his muscles twitch as random synapses fired in his brain. He tasted a sour bite of vomit in the back of his throat. He hurt too much to move, too much to do more than cry silent tears.
“Put him under. We’ll try again as soon as we assimilate the data.”
***
Halving frowned as he examined the dream-state of the male subject. There was something odd about it. He'd come to trust his intuition as he sorted through the mental impressions. Something about the male's mental state was off. Why the cards?
“The mental conditioning,” Halving asked, looking at Cyrus, “You verified that it held, correct?”
His expert in the field nodded, “Of course.” He gave a little grimace as he looked at the young man on the table. “Granted, it's the brain butchers that ESPSec brought in, so his head is a mess, but they wiped everything. There might be some fragments of memory here or there, but the rest is gone.”
Halving stroked his chin in thought as he stared down at the male subject. The short, stocky young man had become gaunt under the experimentation processes. A variety of the chemical treatments Halving used were extremely hard on the human body.
The young man's shaven scalp showed a variety of scars, most of them put there by Halving, though a few had been done by the good Doctor Sheng, who'd done the mind-wipe. “Any chance of subconscious bleed-over?” Halving asked. Though in truth, he knew the answer. Who knew what might remain in the subconscious?
Cyrus didn't answer and Halving sighed. “Well, electro-stimulus hasn't had the desired effect but we'll try prompting other regions of the brain.”
“It's the frontal lobes that we've targeted so far,” Cyrus said. “That seems to be where he's had the most success manifesting his abilities.”
“Yes,” Halving said, “but I don't want to permanently damage him. All the work we've put into him and the female, it'd be a shame to burn them out with nothing to show for it. We know he can manifest those abilities, we need to prompt another response. He seemed to respond to pain, we'll attack the pain centers next, see if that gets us what we need.”
Cyrus nodded. The older man had an expression of distaste, but Halving didn't blame him. This part was always some of the least pleasant. Exposing themselves to the dreams and thoughts of the subjects made it dangerously easy to sympathize or even humanize them.
Cyrus was one of Halving's oldest employees, he'd been a mentor to him... but Halving knew that Cyrus's heart wasn't in the project. The old man just wanted to be left alone. Still, he knew that cooperation with ESPSec was the safest route... and he wouldn't let his qualms get in the way of his job.
“Begin electro-stimuli of the pain centers,” Halving said.
***
In Shaden’s dreams, a ball spun around the checkered wheel. Black, then red, then black again. Ghostly hands moved black and red chips forward onto a number. The ball slowed, clattered over the slots and then stuck.
He won again.
A needle drove through his forehead.
Shaden screamed. He threw his head side to side and screamed as the needle drove deeper into his brain.
He felt the cold metal, felt savage hands twist it back and forth. He screamed until his voice gave out. Then, again, he sobbed and begged for the torture to stop. He begged for an end to his pain. Finally, he begged for death.
The agony went on.
A calm voice spoke over his hoarse pleas, “Electrode stimulation of the region does not seem to have the desired effects. Reset and we'll try again.”
***
“I think we're seeing some mental conditioning issues,” Halving said. He'd called in Doctor Sheng for this meeting. While Halving had his doubts about Doctor Sheng's capabilities, he might be able to lend an outside perspective. Besides, worse comes to worse, I can blame any further issues on his advice.
Doctor Sheng scowled, “The issue cannot be his mental conditioning. If there were issues with the mind wipe or any of the underlying programming, my people would have identified it already.”
Halving met the doctor's angry gaze without fear. He didn't care about the other man's connections and political ties. If Halving wanted, he could snap the doctor's mind and cause him to commit suicide in a fashion that wouldn't lead back to him. A more and more tempting prospect every day, Halving thought absently.
“He's presenting dream images of gambling scenarios,” Cyrus said. “He shouldn't have any experiences to create those and they weren't in the proscribed memories that you put in his head.”
Doctor Sheng flushed. “Gambling? I fail to see how this is an issue...”
“These are dream-state images,” Halving said. “That suggests his sub-consciousness has presented them... his mind is playing the odds on... something. My concern is that whatever you missed, it has manifested as a block to him utilizing his abilities as desired.
“Impossible,” Doctor Sheng snapped. “Anything the mind wipe missed, the mental conditioning would have made inaccessable. Even if his sub-consciousness could access some of these memory fragments, like this 'gambling scenario' then it would be a disjointed thing, triggered only by something your people prompted as a stimuli.”
Halving stared at the Doctor suspiciously... yet the argument made more sense than he'd like to admit. If the male subject had undergone some kind of previous trauma or other experience which had imprinted itself upon his brain, then perhaps Halving's people had triggered it with the pain responses.
That didn't explain why these dreams manifested after the pain. It almost felt like the subject's mind seemed to view each pain sequence as a test and survival as the method of passing.
“We'll test your theory,” Halving said, looking down at the sleeping male subject. “Begin him on the Apollorine doses. We’ll see if his brain responds to that.” Apollorine should reveal any personality that had survived. The Bureau of Internal Security used it for interrogations, though one had to be careful, in heavy doses it could lead to hallucinations and Halving had seen cases where it could snap a person's mind.
Halving nodded at Doctor Sheng, “Have your technicians confirm his conditioning and call me if there's any issues.”
***
A horse galloped through Shaden’s dreams. It raced around the track. It drew closer and closer to the finish line. Shaden could feel his heart match t
he hoof-beats of the horse, beat for beat.
Then the horse stopped. It turned towards him and its eyes lit up with a crimson flame. It reared and suddenly it stood above Shaden, sharp hooves trailed by fire came for him. Faced with that terror, Shaden fled.
Shaden ran, but the demonic horse came close behind. He ran through a crowd of people, all of whom wore his face. They watched him as the horse continued its pursuit. Shaden screamed as he felt the flaming breath of the demon on his back. He felt his skin crisp, smelled his own burning flesh.
Suddenly, his eyes went wide as he found himself face up on a table. A white-coated man stared at him with cold eyes.
Shaden howled and thrashed against the restraints that held him. He knew the demon horse would catch him. When it caught him, it would burn him to death. It would crush him under its hooves into a red ruin. He shrieked again, through a voice raw and animal. Finally, he saw the demon horse. It stood behind the lab-coated man. It was here for him and he saw his death in its eyes.
He reached inside himself and pushed.
The restraints exploded away. Pieces of leather and metal bounced off the ceiling and walls. Shaden rolled to the side off the table. He felt his legs sag underneath him. But he felt the hot breath of the demon horse right behind him. The room spun oddly around him. He let out a hopeless wail as he saw other demons leap forward towards him.
Again he pushed and he saw his assailants fly back. They collided with the walls and exploded into shards of glass. Shaden wobbled towards the door, but the room tilted under his feet. The floor slammed into him and briefly tinted the world in shades of lavender. He crawled towards the door across a ceiling that spun and twirled.
A pair of infinitely tall boots walked forward into his vision. The familiar cold voice spoke. “Finally... a reaction.” He heard satisfaction in the voice, satisfaction and amusement.
Shaden pushed out at the boots with every ounce of energy he had left. He saw them stumble back slightly. The voice took on a harsh tone, “None of that, now.”
Shaden cried incoherently as a pair of massive dark eyes peered down at him from untold heights. “I’m putting him out again. Cut his dosage of Apolloine, immediately.”
The nightmare faded into blackness.
A moment later, Shaden smiled as the horse crossed the finish line. He had beat the odds, he’d won again.
***
“What the hell was that?” Colonel Givens met Halving as he stepped into his office.
He frowned in a preoccupied manner, “Excuse me?”
“The entire building shook. I saw four corpses and two critically injured pulled out of the Archon Section,” The ESPSec Colonel face was flushed in anger and her voice rose to a dangerous pitch. “What the hell happened in there?”
“I finally got some data and results from the Apolloine administrations,” Halving said . A broad smile creased his face. He stepped past his watchdog and moved to his desk. He pulled a crystal decanter of brandy out of a cabinet from behind his desk and a small crystal brandy snifter.
“So the Apolloine drug triggered one of the subject’s abilities?” The anger vanished from the Colonel’s face, replaced by a look of pure avarice.
Halving poured himself a generous measure and after placing the decanter back, sniffed it appreciatively. “Oh, no,” He waved a hand in dismissal. “The drug had no measurable effect at all on the subject’s abilities.” He waved a hand absently as he seated himself.
“Then what happened?” Colonel Givens had clearly lost the last of her limited patience with him.
His smile grew wider at the obvious frustration on her face, “The drug triggered a hallucinogenic episode in the male subject. He had a truly terrifying nightmare of a demon of some kind pursuing him.” Halving shrugged, “The idiot lab technicians of Doctor Sheng's didn’t think to cease the experiment or even contact me. The hallucination extended to his wakeful state. I felt him wake up and got to him just as he manifested macro psychokinetic abilities. He threw the restraints off himself, smashed up the lab, pulverized the lab techs and then tried to flee the monster he saw pursuing him.”
Colonel Given’s gray eyes lit up, “What level of ability?” It amused Halving how dynamic she could become when excitement caused her to forget her poise. Stringing her along became a game in itself… one that he would enjoy all the more when she realized that he did it on purpose
“Level Three, at least. We’ve purposely kept both subjects in a weakened state. He could barely walk when he got free. I think if he were in full health, we might just get Level Two, maybe even Level One out of him.”
“And the female?” Again he noticed her particular interest in the woman subject. He wondered if this was some sexist aspect of her or if she had some more personal stake. Perhaps she had some side bet with one of her fellow ESPSec agents. He had seen that sort of thing before, where agents would go as far as to deliberately sabotage a project or experiment, solely for the purpose of their own petty victories.
He wondered what it said about him that they amused him.
“Now that I know the progress achieved with the male, I can compare the accomplishments on him with what we’ve done to her. I’m reasonably certain we can achieve similar results… hopefully in a less expensive manner,” Halving said. He let none of his amusement show and he kept his own thoughts carefully shielded. He knew ESPSec had “tame” mind readers to do spot checks on both their own personnel and most of their civilian “contractors.”
Colonel Givens gave one sharp nod, “Understood. However, now that we’ve shown some concrete progress, I will give my approval towards further funding. The lab and personnel will be replaced. We need these weapons; they’ll prove invaluable.”
Halving smiled slightly and took a sip of his brandy. He swirled the expensive liquor around his mouth and enjoyed the bouquet before he swallowed. The alcohol burned its way down to his stomach. “I agree. I would go so far as to say that these two will exceed your expectations.”
Those limited expectations were another source of amusement to him. The Command Council wanted weapons to unleash against their enemies, many of them political ones. Amalgamated Worlds remained the central authority of all of humanity thanks to the threat of rogue psychics. The only people who contested that were a handful of Colonial Terrorists and some random terrorist factions.
Project Archon will see use against civilians as much as it will against actual rebels, Halving thought. Such a poor use for weapons of such potential, in his mind.
“So what now?” Colonel Givens’ voice had returned to her normal, professional tone. She understands all the work that remains to be done, Halving thought. The only thing he liked about her was that she had somewhat realistic expectations about the project, unlike her predecessor.
“I’ll move the male to the next step of the process. We’ll verify the mental programming has had the desired effects. Truthfully… that’s the area I’m most worried about,” Halving said. He wished he hadn’t made that admission a moment later.
“Why is that?” The ESPSec Colonel stared at him with calm, brown eyes.
Halving felt the icy touch of death lurking behind those brown eyes. Despite his position, the woman would not hesitate to sign his death warrant if she thought he might be unreliable. The uncertainty of his survival was another part of the game that he enjoyed. Even so, he chose his next words with care, “Human psychology is very complex, Colonel. Children grow to adulthood over a period of years. Their minds have a long time to adjust their personalities to their positions and abilities.”
“And?” She cocked a blonde eyebrow at him.
Halving reclined in his chair and sipped at his brandy. He knew he couldn’t afford to let his watchdog smell even a hint of fear. “Ideas like loyalty and service are difficult to instill in people. We’ve essentially crammed an entire childhood and a life’s worth of memories into their heads. On top of that, we’ve psycho-programmed them to be loyal to Amalgamated Worlds
. Against my better judgment, it was decided to go for fanatical loyalty rather than a reasoned desire for what Amalgamated Worlds offers.”
“Which is?” She baited the trap, letting him have enough rope to hang himself. If he had harbored disloyalty, he might have stated his own loyalty to their regime. She could then compare that to earlier statements and build a case against him.
Halving snorted slightly at the trap, “Security, authority, and stability. I won’t lie to you and say I’m an ideological dedicate to a government that views me as a threat to its very existence.” He raised his brandy snifter, “I will say there are a lot of very nice perks to being on the right side.” Those perks go far beyond this position, he thought to himself, and you have no idea what I’ve been able to accomplish under your watchful eyes… or those of my prior watchdogs.
Colonel Givens nodded, almost despite herself. He could tell that she’d heard what she expected: the views of a mercenary... though a loyal one. Halving wondered how much of the party line she believed herself. Few of the senior ranks in government believed in much beyond their own ambition and power. Then again, with psychics like him as the boogeyman to the populace, they could well afford to believe in little beyond power. No citizen terrified of mind-reading psychics would care how corrupt their government was, not with the manufactured threat to keep them all in line.
“Very well, go ahead and move the male to the next step. I want a full update on the female, however, and I want to see significant process with her as well,” Colonel Givens said, again with the emphasis on the female. If he wasn’t quite so busy, he would investigate further.
“Understood, Colonel,” he answered with a crisp nod. Then, because he couldn’t stand not to twinge her a bit, Halving smiled, “As soon as I finish my own private little celebration, I’ll get right on it.”
***
Chapter 3
Who are you supposed to be when they take everything from you? When you have to question every memory, every assumption… when they have corrupted the meaning of words and have changed your very thoughts?