by Blake Banner
I smiled. “Is it?”
She nodded. “You have been unconscious for over three days. Today is the day of the conference that you were talking so much about. Marni and Professor Gibbons will give their talk. Abbassi will detonate the bomb.”
I shrugged, closed my eyes and smiled. “If—if—that is the case, then I am pretty sure that Ben has it in hand. I don’t want this fight anymore.”
She gave a single nod and pursed her lips. “How about if I told you it was Monday? Monday 21st?”
I sighed. “I don’t know what you want me to say, Dr. Banks.” I spread my hands. “It’s not my fight anymore.”
She leaned forward and turned her laptop to face me. In the bottom right-hand corner of the screen I saw the time and date. It said it was the 21st of May, 2018. I stared at it a long time, assimilating what it meant. Eventually I gave a single, slow nod and said, “What happened?”
“Why do you want to know?”
I narrowed my eyes, thinking about the question and the answer. Finally, I said, “Closure?” Then I nodded. “Yeah, closure.”
“There was no bomb, either physical or metaphorical. The papers and the TV are full of the damp-squib of Dr. Gilbert and Professor Gibbons’ revelations. There was really nothing that any reasonably informed person wouldn’t already have known.”
I restored my rueful smile and stared for a long time at my hands in my lap. “Ain’t it always the way,” I said. “It is the destiny of your idols to let you down.”
She nodded. “Their destiny, and perhaps their most important purpose.”
I frowned at her. “How’s that?”
“Because as individuals, we are all flawed and fallible. It is only when we pull together as a family, as a society, that we can truly overcome our weaknesses.”
I sighed deeply. “I hear you, Dr. Banks. But that is a very big pill to swallow for me. I’m going to need a bit of time. All my life it has been me, alone against the dragon.”
An ironic smile, but a kind one. “And how’s that working for you?”
I responded with a small laugh. “Not so good. But please, give me a little time. It hurts to realize that everything you have lived by, and depended on, is false.”
“I know. Take the time you need. The drugs should help. You’re making good progress, Lacklan.”
I nodded. “Thanks.” I hesitated. “Maybe it’s the drugs talking, but I mean it. Thank you.”
“Sure.”
I made my way back to the lounge and sat for a while gazing out at the gardens. Then I took a walk through the grounds around the house. I was aware that I was being watched, but I was still in that blissful state of unconcern. Nothing mattered, because nothing was capable of triggering my adrenal glands and increasing my blood pressure. Everything was cool, man. I would have fit right in in the summer of love of ’67.
I wandered down by the stream and saw that it was actually a small river, maybe eighteen or twenty feet across. It was hard to gauge the depth, but judging by the reeds that were poking up out of it, it was at least four or five feet. The position of the sun told me it was flowing due south.
I turned and walked away. I came eventually to a small copse where there was a group of four young men and three women sitting in a circle around an older man on a chair. In the shade of the trees there was a comfortable recliner, and in the recliner there was a young woman lying back with her eyes closed. The older guy was talking incessantly, in a strange, undulating cadence, while the others watched and listened. At first, what he said seemed to be gibberish, to make no sense at all, but then I listened more closely.
“…and naturally your unconscious all the way down knows perfectly how to make deep changes are occurring even now as you listen to my voice sinking deep down all the way down into your unconscious and ever more unconscious than you were before is behind you and a part of the past that you are letting go away as far as it is possible to become so small that it disappears completely and you feel peaceful and happy as you observe how it becomes black and white like an old newspaper that has burned to ashes and you can turn and walk away because your unconscious knows exactly how to turn and walk away into a state of perfect peace and happiness…”
I paused to watch and listen. There was something deeply hypnotic about the rhythm of his voice, and I realized that that was what he was doing. He was hypnotizing the girl, probably as a master class for his students.
I moved on and eventually came to a rear entrance to the building. I moved into a long, tiled corridor with a series of doors set on either side opposite each other, maybe twenty five feet apart. Each door had a small window in it and I peered through the glass in the first on my right. There were young men and women sitting in a horseshoe around a woman in her forties, in jeans and a sweatshirt, had her ass on a small desk, talking to what I assumed were her students. I opened the door and stepped in. They all looked up at me, and the woman smiled.
“Hello…”
“Hi. I’d just like to hear what you’re talking about, if that’s OK.”
“Sure,” She gestured to a chair. “Join us?”
I shook my head. “I’m not sure if I am ready yet. I’d like to just listen.”
“Sure.” She turned back to her class. “So, guys, can you think of any kind of thought that is not a picture or a sound or a feeling?”
A guy with a blond ponytail and something that would be a beard when it grew up, raised his hand.
“Art?”
“What about smells and tastes? We can have them as thoughts, memories…”
“But remember, as we discussed earlier, smell, taste, and touch all come under the same group of kinesthetic, because taste and smell are actually physical feelings. So, is there any thought you can have, that is not a picture or a sound or a feeling?” They all agreed that there wasn’t. So she went on, “So our next step is to realize that sounds, pictures, and feelings all trigger each other in our minds.”
Art raised his hand again. “Can you give us an example?”
“Of course. If I say to you the words ‘violent car crash’ what happens in your imagination?”
They all gazed into the middle distance and Art shrugged. “I see a red sports coupe hitting another car and going off the road, smashing into a tree and bursting into flames…”
“Did I show you a picture of a red car?”
“No…”
“So the sound of my voice triggered not just a picture but a whole movie in your head.” They laughed and grinned at Art. She went on, “Now let me ask you this. I want you all to play Art’s movie in your heads…”
They all closed their eyes and she waited. Eventually they started to open them again. She said, “What did you experience…?”
Art said, “I heard the grating of metal, the screech of the brakes…”
A Chinese-looking girl held up her hand. “I felt the jarring impact when the car hit the tree.”
The woman nodded. “We have three systems of thinking, and each one triggers the other two. Now, let me ask you this, in which category do emotions fall?”
The Chinese girl said, “Kinesthetic, because emotions are feelings triggered by electrochemical and biochemical changes in the body, and the brain.”
“Exactly, so if I know what pictures and what sounds to present to you, I can remotely control, and alter, your body and brain chemistry…”
I thought of the man sitting in the copse with his pupils, the strange cadence of his voice and the odd syntax, with one sentence flowing into the next. I thought then of the billions of people, all attached to their screens, their telephones, their tablets, and their laptops, receiving an endless flow of images and sounds, all from the great matrix. What was it Ben had said? “There is a matrix of thought and information, with a nexus within the World Wide Web …”
A matrix of pictures and sounds with a nexus in the World Wide Web, all triggering biochemical and electrochemical changes in our brains and our bodies, to make us
feel emotionally connected to each other, and terrified of our enemies. It was science fiction, but then again, so were cell phones. So was ninety-nine percent of information technology. The future was not now—we had left the future behind.
I left the class and wandered around for a while until I found the lounge again, and from there I wandered back to Dr. Banks’ office. I knocked on her door and waited for her reply. When she called for me to enter, I opened the door and moved to her desk.
“Hello, Lacklan. What can I do for you?”
“I’ve been for a walk around the grounds. I saw a man teaching a class in hypnosis, and a woman teaching what I think was neuro-linguistic programming, or something similar.”
“Yes, that is all part of what we do here.”
I shrugged. “I was thinking, if I am going to be here for a long time, possibly the rest of my life, I would like to take some of those classes, if it was possible. It might help me to integrate my experiences, come to terms with them. They have been pretty horrific, but I am not alone in that. Soldiers, cops, criminals, victims of violence—all of these people have had experiences similar to mine. Maybe, in time, I could learn to help other people to become better integrated.”
She frowned at me for a long while. Finally, she said, “Integrated…?”
I searched for a word to better describe what I meant. I fumbled, “With other people… Not to be an eternal enemy, at war with the world, but…” I spread my hands, “To integrate…”
She raised her eyebrows high, “Into society, Lacklan! Into society!”
I laughed out loud. “Yes, exactly, into society….”
“Sooner or later, Lacklan, we all have to learn to share in a common experience, a common consciousness.”
I nodded. “Yes, I am becoming aware of that.” I hesitated. “In ancient Japan, the samurai, after a lifetime of war and violence, would often become Buddhist monks. They would seek to let their egos go, silence their minds and become one with…it. I think I am ready for something like that.”
She smiled. “Yes, you know, I think you may be, at that.”
Twelve
I spent the afternoon wandering around with a stupid smile on my face, and receiving stupid smiles in return. In my rambles I noted where Nurse Roberts had her little clinic and I popped in to say hello a couple of times. It was a small office with a couple of chairs and two storerooms. On my third visit, I sat in one of the two chairs while she carried out a stock take. While she worked, I told her about my visit to Dr. Banks. She seemed to think my spaced-out state of mind was amusing and told me, “I think we may need to reduce your dosage!”
I smiled at her. “Aw, don’t do that. I haven’t felt this good since…” I shook my head. “…ever! You know, drugs affect healthy people faster, and I am really, really healthy.”
“Well there is more to positive change than feeling good, Mr. Walker, you know?”
“Lacklan. I’d like you to call me Lacklan. Hey, Nurse Rogers…?”
She glanced up at me from her clipboard.
“Well?”
“Do you think, if I wasn’t high on drugs, and if I was properly dressed, do you think you could fancy me?”
She raised an eyebrow. “Now that is not appropriate, Mr. Walker! But…” she winked. “As a matter of fact, I think I could.”
I grinned at her with sleepy eyes. “You’re cute.”
She spoke to her clipboard. “You have no idea…”
“Can I close my eyes for a bit and just sit here?”
“Sure, honey.”
She went about her business, working her way through the store rooms, and I sat there in my state of bliss, listening to her. When she moved into the second store room I stood and followed after her, taking my time, scanning the cabinets. When I found the Epinephrine I took one, slipped the bottle out of the box, closed the box and replaced it at the back of the shelf. Then I palmed a syringe and stepped into the second room, still smiling like an idiot.
“I’m going to go now.”
She gave me one of her cute winks. “OK, honey.”
“Do you film me in my room?”
“Not anymore, sugar, that was just in the beginning.”
“Then maybe tonight you can give me a kiss before I go to sleep.”
She grinned. “Well sure I will, honey! Now you run along and let me work, and I’ll see you later.”
“OK.”
The rest of the day continued in that same strange, peaceful state of mind. I knew it was drug-induced and I kept expecting it to start wearing off, but it didn’t.
Lunch was at one thirty in the dining room. The dining room—at least the one where I ate in my bathrobe—was a large space with a foam-tiled ceiling and plate glass walls all along one side. The tables were round and seated eight people at each. I noticed that none of the students I had seen earlier, or their teachers, ate with us. The people who did eat in that dining room were all like me, really peaceful, and smiled a lot. It dawned on me then that the water, or the food, was drugged. But I didn’t mind. It was all part of the peaceful, integrated matrix.
As I ate and drank, I was aware that I didn’t especially want to do what I was going to do. In fact I would have been very happy to stay in that place, in that integrated state. It was very enjoyable. I had not lied to Nurse Rogers. This was the best I had felt as far back as I could remember. It was a real nice state to be in.
The only reason I was going to do what I was going to do, was because I had formed an intention. I intended it. And you always see through your intentions. That is why they are intentions.
After lunch I spent the afternoon meditating in the garden. I had a very special meditation technique that originated in Tibetan Buddhism, which was used widely in martial arts. You visualized a person—or sometimes a god—doing a movement or an action that you wanted to master. You watched them do it perfectly over and over again, however complex, and then you closed in on them and joined with them until you were actually looking through their eyes. And then you performed the movements as though you were that person, or that god.
And that was how I spent the afternoon. The semi-trance state, though drug-induced, was very helpful for that.
At six PM we were called for supper, and then we all went to watch a movie together, and then we all went to brush our teeth and go to bed. But before going to bed, while I was still in the bathroom, I took the vial of Epinephrine, which is basically adrenaline, drew 5 ml into the syringe, and injected myself with it.
My heart began to pound and I felt a twist of anxiety in my belly, followed by a rush of excitement when I thought about what I was going to do. It was the result I had been hoping for. I’d figured that, whatever cocktail they’d been feeding me, there was a good chance adrenaline would counter the effect. I took my bathrobe off and climbed into bed to wait for Nurse Rogers.
She came in about half an hour later with a glass of water and some pills. I kept my eyes closed but smiled. I heard her say, “Are we ready for our medicine?”
I opened one eye. “First the kiss you promised me.”
“Now, now, first the medicine and then the kiss. Open wide.”
“OK.”
I opened my mouth and she leaned forward to pop in the first of the pills. I gently took hold of her wrist with my left hand and smiled at her, then I seized her throat with my right and sat up, forcing her down on her back. She dropped the pills. Her eyes were wide. She was getting enough air to breathe, but not to scream. I leered at her. “Guess who’s been a very bad boy, Nurse Rogers…”
I stood up, stark naked, holding her up by her throat, and forced her to lie on the bed. Then I sat astride her. Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes were bright. I leaned over her and spoke quietly.
“Did they tell you what I do for a living?” She nodded. “I kill people for a living. I am a very, very bad person, Nurse Rogers. Now I want you to ask yourself, do you think I would have any problem at all killing you, considering the fac
t that you have been actively trying to destroy my mind? Please think about that for a moment.”
She took her time, then gave a single nod. I said, “I am going to let go of your throat, Nurse Rogers. If you scream I will put your head in an arm lock and break your neck. Are we clear?”
Another nod. I released her throat. She gave a ragged gasp and whispered, “What do you want from me?”
“First, I want information. Where are we, and what is the real date?”
She swallowed, then whispered, “We are two miles northeast of Maplecrest, two and a half hours north of New York. Today is Thursday, 17th May.”
I smiled. “Aren’t we a good girl?”
She nodded.
“Now, clothes and a car.”
“Next to my clinic is the nurses’ changing room. You’ll find nurses’ uniforms in there, and the clothes of the nurses on duty…” She reached in her uniform pocket and pulled out some keys. “Cream Ford Focus, parked out front.”
I took them and our eyes locked. I said, “Now, take your stockings off. I need them to tie you up.”
Her chest was rising and falling fast and there was a strange expression on her face.
“Lacklan …”
“What…?”
“I am so hot right now…”
I looked down at her, and after a moment I smiled.
An hour later, scratched and bruised, but smiling, with a pocket full of various narcotics, I made my way in my bathrobe toward the nurses’ changing rooms. The place was still and silent. The lights had been dimmed, the doors were locked, and the main reception area was empty. Banks’ office was closed and no light showed under the door. The next passage along took me to the small clinic, and next to it the changing rooms. They were not locked and I let myself in. I closed the door before putting on the lights. There were a dozen lockers, wooden benches, and, against the far wall, a row of showers. There was also a row of hooks against the wall where jeans, shirts, and jackets had been hung. I selected some clothes that were more or less my size, got dressed, transferred the medication to the jacket, on the basis that you never know when you’re going to need to dope somebody, and stepped into the corridor again.