by Sam Nash
Plender ingratiated himself by stealth, feeding on her goodwill and placid nature, all the while hiding a predatory raptor inside. It was pointless to mourn the loss of the PhD offer that Professor Haas discussed with her when they were dancing together, but it gouged at her ego nonetheless. She would be lucky if she escaped with her life, let alone further her career. All the same, the barrage of emotions left her bewildered.
Regrets were never an indulgence Mary subscribed to, but in this moment, her heart ousted all rationality. She should have carried on travelling when Parth had insisted on returning to England for their wedding. She should have applied for post graduate courses following her graduation. She should have started a family with Parth years ago, before his work became his reason for living. She should have spent more time mourning with Grampy instead of leaving him to fend for himself and running off around the World. She should not have argued with her parents the day of her graduation ceremony when they were driving home to Brighton.
The bolt slid and rattled. She wiped her damp eyes with the T shirt and sat upright, trying to feign an unperturbed air. Visser strolled in looking stern, his hair unusually ruffled. She watched him settle on the plastic chair and arrange his legs, smoothing the wrinkles in the cloth as he sat down.
Raising both hands to his head, he tamed his locks, and then looked up. Those stony, discerning eyes scored a pathway into her thoughts. They bored into her, tethering an intense connection along her optic nerve. It felt like he was physically extracting the information he desired. An ethereal memory drive, plugged into her consciousness ready for the download. The invasion felt surreal. For a few moments, she sat transfixed, his hold on her binding. The intrusion prickled the right side of her brain, spiking the neurons and increasing blood flow. Mary shut her eyes. These symptoms usually preceded a migraine.
“Please may I have some tea? I need to take my medication.” Mary broke Visser’s concentration, rising from the bed and walking across the room to her handbag. “Stress is a known trigger for migraines and you are making me anxious.” She could sense he was attempting to re-establish the connection, trying to catch her stare and refusing to answer her request. “Fine, if you are just going to sit there like a spectre, I’ll have water, or I’ll ask Alexi. He at least is human enough to take care of me.” She needed him to go. If that guard was going to carry out his threats of visiting her room and overpowering her, she needed to find a way out, and fast.
“Tell me about your husband’s work, Mary. What project is he currently running?” Visser folded his arms across his chest, determined to appear unfazed.
“He doesn’t talk about them. Most of his work is confidential.” She carried the satchel back to the bed and sat with it balancing on her knees.
“But you are involved in one of his studies, are you not?” He watched her closely, biding his time till she would look up at him.
“Well, yes, but that was just to make up the numbers in his study group. It’s only basic psychology stuff.” She located the plastic case containing her tablets in her handbag. Mary spun the package idly in her palm, considering whether the migraine alarm inside her head was worthy of expending one of her few remaining tablets.
“Like the one you were conducting in the University Library that night you saw me?” A disturbing smirk spread between his drooping jowls.
“Um, yes.” She shivered. It rippled from her neck and down the length of her spine in recollection of the experience.
“You attempted to recreate Ingo Swann’s famous remote viewing experiment. How did you fair?”
“How did you know that?” Mary barked, regretting her response the moment it had left her lips.
His implacable façade registered her discomfort. He had rattled her. A cool smugness radiated from him as he unfolded his arms, flicking each wrist outwards in turn, to adjust his gaudy cufflinks. “I have my sources.”
Sources indeed. Now Plender is Temporary Head of Faculty, he can snoop into all of Parth’s studies. Hateful little man.
“So… was it a success, Mary?” Visser’s shot at charm was making her ill at ease, missing his target by a country mile.
“I wasn’t the one being tested. It was another participant. He was quite accurate.” Careful now, don’t implicate Dan. Tell him just enough to pacify him. Change tone. If he thinks you are being obstinate he might resort to violence.
“Hmm, perhaps. And during this study, did Dr Arora give you any tablets or injections prior to the tests?” He refolded his arms, allowing the upper hand to stray to his face, tapping his lip pensively.
“No of course not. They were simple preliminary experiments.” Too pushy - be the harried victim.
“Preliminary to what, exactly?” He snapped, shuffling more upright on the chair.
“I don’t know. You would have to ask my husband.” She opened the plastic sheath of her migraine treatment and removed a foil covered blister pack.
“And you are sure that you neither imbibed nor injected any kind of drug?”
“Imbibed? Where did you learn your English?” Stop goading him. What is the matter with you? She couldn’t help herself. Her new found gifts were giving her a confidence that she had never possessed before. It was a heady rush. In any other situation, she would have time to reflect on her actions - to take stock and learn to curb her more audacious inclinations.
It felt like the first time she rode her pushbike without her father holding the saddle; the exhilaration of mastering the balance and control completely unaided. The freedom of movement it represented. The proud look on her father’s face as she turned in a huge arc in the park and peddled closer. His features set in a sustained smile. Her first steps towards independence.
Her second solo ride was less graceful. The conceit of youth, fooling her into believing that one successful trip equalled mastery. Her father had been there on that occasion too, ready to scoop her into his arms and sooth the bumps and grazes. He had always been her set of stabilisers. Now she rode fate alone.
“Forgive me if the Dutch are better at educating their children, Mary. Please answer the question.”
“Dutch, I thought that you were Russian?”
Visser sighed. “I have been very patient with you, Mary. I have explained the rules. I’m sure that you would prefer the carrot to the stick. I can have one of the guards remind you of the penalties for non-compliance, or perhaps we can arrange an accident for your husband, if you prefer?”
“That won’t be necessary, thank you. I’m just curious. It helps to pass the time. No, Parth has not used any drugs on me during the experiments.” The threat pulled her up sharply. This was no game. These people meant business. Despite the risk, she felt the need to pry and to gather intel for her cause. It was a gamble, but if she could just act a little ditsy, it might throw him off the scent.
She must pretend to be captivated by his authority and let him ramble. “Dutch you say? I loved Amsterdam when Parth and I visited. Such a beautiful city and the people are so nice; so tolerant and welcoming. So, you are not Russian, but you speak it so fluently. You must be very talented with languages. I never really got the hang of them myself. I gave up learning French in my third year at school.”
“I speak a number of languages. I find good communication is a vital key to success.” He straightened his collar and adjusted the cuff links of his crisp white shirt once more.
“I imagine it is. And particularly useful here, since everyone else seems to be Russian.” She moved the satchel and pill case to the bed, swinging her limbs up and into cross-legged position like a school girl on an assembly hall floor.
“Mostly they are, yes. I think of myself as a citizen of the world. A world in which the balance of power is changing, and you, dear child, will be the instrument of change.”
“Me? Don’t be silly. I’m not involved in politics. I forgot to vote during the last general election.” Careful… not too ditsy. Mary ran her fingers through her hair, gathering the cu
rls into a bunch and pulling them down over one shoulder, distraction being her main aim.
Visser stood up and paced around the room, puffing out his chest and bolstering his posture. He peered down at Mary’s tiny frame, perched on the edge of the bed. “You will see. A great change is upon us. It will begin in Japan and then in the US, across Europe and the antipodes and soon every continent will see a profound difference. A new and sustainable world.” There was a sparkle in his eye; a glint of devilry that disturbed her. He was ambitious and calculating and his cool reaction to killing the guard showed her that beneath the poised façade, there was an unequalled ruthlessness.
“You plan to stir up a third world war? That’s ridiculous.” Don’t anger him. For God’s sake, hold your tongue.
“War? No, child. Wars are so last century. Countries are won and lost on debt. Debt is an affluent nation’s power. Politics become irrelevant when you control the world’s resources and the key to that is data.” His perpetual use of the term ‘child’, reassured her that he felt she posed no threat. His affirmations seemed to her no more than the rantings of a madman. How he had persuaded her boss, Plender, to become involved was baffling.
Alexi came in with a tray. On it, he carried a mug of steaming tea, some plain biscuits and a bag of salty crisps. He placed the tray beside Mary on the bed. “For headache. You wish for ice pack or hot bottle?” It didn’t surprise her that the guards were listening in on their conversation. The sentiment was kind, were it not for the realisation that Alexi knew about her individual requirements of symptom relief. Only Parth knew her well enough to know that sometimes she needed a cold compress on her head while other times she required heat. Only her husband knew that sometimes a salty snack and hot tea would relieve the tension and other times a plain biscuit would do the trick. Not even Grampy knew of her preferences. Visser continued to waffle on about the greatness of nations but she heard none of his impassioned speech.
Her mind reeled. Had they bugged her home? Was Parth aware of the wiretap in their house? Was that why he refused to discuss the bizarre events that had happened to her when they were together in the lounge? Was he part of the scheme to abduct her? That one didn’t bear thinking about. He was her most beloved. It was unthinkable. Alexi was urging her to take her medication.
“You feel well. We have more work to do.”
What were they training her for? Why was she so crucial to their plans? It was some assurance that she was going to live, at least while she was being useful to them. It gave her a measure of command, an ounce of leverage. How she could use it to aid her escape was not yet clear to her. It did not, however, convince her that she would remain unharmed if she failed to comply with their demands. What would they make her do?
With such global goals, Visser could be planning something catastrophic, something of immense magnitude. But what role could she have in that? So far, all she was able to achieve was to fuse a few electrical appliances and empathise with an Earthquake victim. Visser could not possibly know about her recent endeavours in leaving her body behind. She had only told one person in the whole world and Dan Wildman, her study partner, had no ties to Visser at all. Had he?
Mary sipped the tea and dissolved the migraine medication under her tongue. She made a mental note that there were only two doses left. Keeping calm and well hydrated were methods known to reduce the frequency of attacks in most sufferers. She would need to ration herself until she could escape.
“So you see, Mary, a few eggs must be broken in order to create a better omelette.” Visser had not noticed her lack of attention. He had lectured for a couple of minutes on the state of world politics and national debt and assumed she had kept up with his monologue. “And you maintain that your husband does not augment your abilities with any drug use. So how did he initiate your gift in the first place?”
Augment. That was a most familiar word. Parth had mentioned an Augmentation Set when he threatened to move Dan out of her study group. He had wanted to test Dan with dangerous drugs to see how they effected his abilities in Psychology tests. She remembered that there had been close to a full blown row over it. One of very few rows that they had ever had during their marriage.
The acid in her stomach erupted high into her throat. For a moment, she forgot her subterfuge. “How many times must I say it? Apart from prescription tablets, I take no drugs what so ever. You should know, you have my blood test results. There was no initiation, no augmentation. You have kidnapped the wrong person.” As soon as the words passed her lips, she was furious with herself.
“You know about the test results?” Visser returned calmly to the chair. He sat as still as an alabaster tomb carving, more gargoyle than angel. The colour leached from his already pallid skin. Those lifeless eyes locking on to hers once more, probing her thoughts for answers.
So, this is his skill, is it? To extract information by creeping the bejeezus out of me. He is trying to read my mind. Well it’s bloody rude to stare you nasty, eerie, Dutch freak! Mary squinted her eyelids, turning the direction of focus to his pale irises, locking him out of her mind and intensifying her gaze. The animosity welled up inside her, a level of hatred she had never experienced before. A cogent intention to preserve herself at all costs, even at the risk of harming others.
Alexi fussed about tidying things and muttering anxious worries in a quiet Russian vernacular as the stare down continued. The whites of Visser’s eye balls were flecked with capillaries, as the blood pressure in his head rose, bursting a vessel and coating the outer rims of each iris in a layer of crimson. The more he concentrated, the bloodier his eyeballs became, until she could see a picture forming in her thoughts. Like a ‘magic eye’ image, she immersed herself in the jumble of mixed messages, until she could make out a three-dimensional vision forming in her mind.
Visser fought against her penetrative scan; flooding his thoughts with random pictures and images from his past. A framed masterpiece, a girl with a pearl earring, her luminous face fading into a monochrome skull on a pirate’s flag; the Black Pearl from Jonny Depp movie fame. Depp’s pirate dreadlocks shrinking and then vanishing beneath a beanie hat as he peeps through the Secret Window, Stephen King’s haunting tale of a writer’s dwindling grasp on reality. Secrets… a playground full of children, encircling the young Lars Visser, all chanting Vis Jongen, Vis Jongen – Fish Boy. The young Lars standing in a scalding bath, tears spilling down his face and scrubbing his body raw with a nail brush. The series of medical tests confirming his rare disorder. A large bottle of potent cologne on Visser’s dressing table.
He snapped his mind back from the rolling train of thoughts. He had strayed into his own personal realm and was fearful of what she might discern. In the spaces between his thoughts, she locked on and located the images he was desperate to conceal. In that one instant, he knew what power she had acquired. She had progressed farther than he and Alexi had anticipated. This was no docile captive. She was rapidly becoming a threat.
Mary sensed his apprehension, the resistance visible in those feline eyes. They darted about the room, first at Alexi, his expression deeply troubled, then back to Mary. It didn’t matter. He could not break the connection she had forged into his stream of consciousness.
And there lie her mistake. In her pursuit to gain an insight into their scheme, she had laid bare her abilities. Training her was no longer an issue. Channelling her power for their own ends was now their primary goal. She knew that they would increase security as a precaution from her attempts at escape. Visser would enforce a tighter rein of control to assure her cooperation. That would inevitably put her loved ones in greater jeopardy. Mary lost focus for a split second, her mind drifting to those she loved most.
A pang of separation pierced her heart and induced a jagged intake of breath. If she could just get away from this megalomaniac, she might be able to protect her husband from harm. She had to get Alexi on side. He seemed a reasonable sort of person. Maybe she could persuade him to stand up to
Visser’s demands and help her to flee.
Before she released her captor’s mental state, she extracted a scene from his thoughts. It was a confusing and disconcerting vision, resembling the one she had viewed on the guard’s monitors. Row after row of motionless people in hospital beds. Men in scrubs, unhooking intravenous bags of fluids from patients and zipping those that had perished into opaque body bags. Each of the remaining unconscious people, were being physically turned on their medical cot and injected with more drugs.
Above them, she saw a large electronic wall chart showing exact positions of the world’s tectonic plate boundaries. The great seams of the Earth’s crust where volatile shifts and upwelling from the core result in volcanic eruptions and earthquakes. Japan, was lit up like a beacon.
Chapter Eleven
The lights dimmed in her room. They left Mary to sleep off her migraine, which in truth, was not severe. She could hear Lars Visser and Alexi in a fiery debate down the corridor. If only she had paid more attention to language lessons at school. Not that they would have taught her Russian at the time, but she might have developed enough of an interest to learn later in life. Mary assumed that they would be discussing how she had blocked Visser’s attempts to read her mind and how she had caused him physical harm when she had turned the proverbial tables on him.
Three peculiar abilities, as a result of recent traumatic events. Three potentially useful gifts, plus an over developed sense of remote controlled empathy. And yet, she could not fathom how best to use those abilities to escape. She could fry electrical circuits, which is fantastic if they had used digital keypad locks. The huge iron bolt, supplemented with the mortice lock inside the door cavity was enough evidence to support their knowledge of that ability.
Travelling without a body and being able to look into other peoples’ minds are handy gifts if your occupation just happens to be an international spy. It is not especially useful to a kidnapped senior lab technician. She was tying her brain in a knot thinking of possible routes to freedom, all the while aware of how time was plodding its weary steps closer to the night guard’s duty.