by Mason Adgett
Directly below me lay a woman on an operating table – not just any woman: India Phoenix – nude, apparently unconscious.
“You’re a sick man, Kantsky,” I said, disturbed more than I cared to admit by the sudden sight of her helpless form.
“This demonstration is for scientific purposes.” His voice in my ear confirmed my suspicion that he was listening to me. “It is not for carnal pleasure.”
“Sure,” I said.
“Watch,” he commanded.
I did though I assure you I derived no carnal pleasure from it, just a nauseous feeling in the pit of my stomach. It grew worse when two robot surgeons entered the room. Some robots were designed to simulate the appearance of humanity. These were not those. These were like gadget-monsters on wheels, each with several arm-like extensions ending in things like lasers, razors, and needles. They had no “head” per se – instead on each of the robots one of the extensions ended in a camera shaped like the head of a snake with two optical sensors designed to look like eyes. The serpent-like way the extensions moved made me think the designer had based the design on Medusa or Hydra or some such mythological demon – evil snake-heads attacking from every direction.
Not designed I gathered with sympathy for the patient in mind. One of them had the manufacturer emblazoned on the side, the same I had seen on Kantsky’s chair earlier: KrossTek. I had never heard of the company but if these were typical examples of their product anyone who worked there needed immediate psychological evaluation.
The larger of the two robots – they were each about the size of a child if you didn’t count all the extensions – extended its optical sensor and one of its arms and quickly applied several medical sensor pads to various points on India’s body. I counted twelve in total – two I could see ended with longish needles that made me cringe. Throughout the process India didn’t stir.
Despite the limitations of the technology it still felt almost like I was there. I felt impotent, the robots right in front of me, but powerless to do anything. It was strange to be in such a semi-immersive experience with the low-resolution visuals and tiny speaker. Unlike modern immersion which hijacked much of the sensory experience beyond just sight here I could feel my hands, my body, outside of the scene still trapped in the hot jail cell.
Through the goggle’s tiny speakers I heard a series of rapid irregular beeps, then the second robot approached India and used a large clamp to turn her head to the side, exposing the back of her skull to my view. It hadn’t been visible at first but now I was able to see where a large patch of hair had been shaved from the back of her head. As I watched in horror the smaller robot extended an arm and drew a perfect “X” right in the middle of the exposed spot.
“No!” I said as the next extension to appear was a tiny spinning saw. It seemed Kantsky’s plan was to perform a lobotomy right in front of me. “What’s wrong with you? What the hell are you hoping to accomplish?”
“You will see,” his voice came over the speaker. “Just watch.”
“No,” I said, “just stop! What has she ever done to you?”
“What do you care?” he demanded, and now his voice was no longer pleasant. He had dropped the act, lost the surface cheer, and now I could hear the rage, the petty childishness that no doubt drove all his psychotic actions. “Why pretend she matters to you? You only just met her, and tell me, what did you really think? What did you honestly make of India Phoenix, society’s darling child just grown up into a woman? Admit it, you thought she was a silly fool, a rich, spoilt princess. But physically what a specimen! So very sexy, am I right?”
I had, it was true, thought all those things. “That doesn’t give you the right to screw with her head,” I said.
“I don’t need anyone’s permission,” he said coldly. “But I’ll make you a deal. You don’t want to watch me carve open Miss Phoenix, you don’t have to watch. You can experience it yourself instead, how about that? I’d planned to do both of you. If you beg, I’ll wait on India and do you first. Would that be better? What do you think?”
Some deal, I thought. It was another one of his games, another attempt at psychological torture. I profiled him as a mental bully, a verbal abuser, a lonely child seeking to force his own psychological anguish on others.
I didn’t answer right away. Even with India laid out before me, it took me a moment to process his intention to lobotomize me, myself, I. Besides the preparations of the two monster-bots he had given no real indication what this brain surgery would entail.
But two can play games, I thought. If he could take me to the operating room immediately as he claimed it meant India was somewhere nearby. The worst possible outcome if I agreed to his deal: he succeeded in lobotomizing us both and then what did it matter who went first? But if I were to escape and free India... Yes, escape seemed unlikely, and finding and freeing India even more so, but certainly neither would be accomplished from this jail cell. Transport, however, could provide an opportunity.
So – before I could think too deeply about it – I agreed. “Fine,” I said. “Me first. But I want to see her before it happens. I want to know you haven’t touched her yet.”
India faded out and Kantsky appeared again, closer this time, grinning. “You’re in no position to make demands. But I will accommodate you. This time.” The image faded but before it did he winked at me.
My hands itched to strangle his wiry neck.
····9····
The image remained black. I took off the goggles and a moment later heard the sound of something approaching, a smooth motorized hum and wheels on the tile. A second later a chair-bot appeared in the hall. Not a comfy lounge-bot either but something that looked more like the ones they carried mentally divergent patients around with, the dangerous patients, the kind you couldn’t trust to let their hands or their teeth free. It had straps, bars, and chains – the lightweight synthetic rigiplast kind, but still.
The cell door slid open automatically and the chair entered, the bars sliding shut immediately behind it. I wouldn’t have had time to get up and run through the door even if I had thought of it, it was timed too precisely just to allow the chair in. After entering the chair-bot stopped in front of me and waited patiently. I set the goggles on top of the books by the cot and inspected the mechanics of the chair a little before sitting in it. It appeared to have retractable restraints, one for each arm and two for each leg, one for the upper leg, one for the lower leg, and a helmet – protected by slim rigiplast bars – to surround the head.
Not surprisingly it was made by KrossTek. Did Kantsky own KrossTek? It seemed like a good bet. He obviously had money.
If I sat in the chair I sure didn’t see how in the hell I was going to get out of it. I worried briefly that I might not be smart enough to outsmart Kantsky but dismissed the idea. Sure it was potentially true but the thought was of no real value in the current situation.
I finally sat in the prison-chair as there seemed to be no way to avoid it. The straps tightened and the helmet lowered as expected. Nothing was particularly uncomfortable about it, there was even a nice plush pad against the back of my head, but a quick pull on the straps showed them to be secure. The barred helmet blocked my vision a little but not so much I couldn’t see and I could still turn my head – though not very much – to either side.
As soon as I was strapped in the chair beeped, the cell door opened, and I was wheeled down the hallway. From my perspective the chair wheeled backwards so I couldn’t see where we were going, just where we had been. For the first leg of the trip this meant all I got was a view of the receding hallway, which extended maybe three more cells down before ending in a solid undecorated wall. I could also see jail cells to my left and my right, all of which were empty and looked similar to the one I had just left.
That a madman like Kantsky had power over such facilities was something to mull over. Had he built this himself? How many people had he kept prisoner here in the past? Or had he somehow taken over
an abandoned facility of some sort? But everything looked too clean, too modern, too new for that to make sense.
We ended up in an elevator. I couldn’t tell if it went up or down. It was as sterile and undecorated as everything else I had seen. I hazarded a guess that I was being held in some sort of mental hospital. A prison of course, but the sanitary medicalized environment made me think it was an insane asylum or something similar. Maybe we had a situation where the nut had taken over the nuthouse.
Usually such places were crowded with people, sometimes even more than one species. So far I hadn’t encountered anybody but Kantsky and the bots, if you counted bots as anybody (which I do for the most part, though civilization was largely still split on the question). But mental divergence often required higher than human care as robots simply weren’t up to the cognitive nature of the task and humans were still classified as a third galaxy species. This seemed to me a human facility, not a gobo one – though I’m not sure what exactly made me conclude this – but even so it would have been run by a first galaxy specialist.
It was the design I guess that seemed human. The halls were straight lines, the walls were at nice human ninety degree angles. I wondered if I had been unconscious long enough for Kantsky to have transported me all the way back to the Solar system. It seemed unlikely if not impossible, but why, I wondered, would there be a human mental facility in the Pyramus system?
Most likely it was owned by Kantsky, some facility designed for his own insane purposes. He styled himself a doctor. Maybe he was or had once been a member of the medical profession, though these KrossTek devices didn’t seem designed with current civilization standards in mind. If he owned it, it was something he had built off the grid.
I didn’t know who I was dealing with but I confess I was intimidated. He obviously had a lot of power and influence to be able to infiltrate both the Phoenix family’s security and to control the halikari. Hacking was considered the most serious of crimes and he was good enough he had clearly been at it a while. I didn’t know how it was possible he had escaped detection. It could be why, I thought, he was hiding out in the Pyramus system, having apparently built a base on Asitot or one of its moons.
When I escaped – if I escaped – I had no idea how I would be able to get us back to Vavaka’s estate. I just had to hope he hadn’t taken us very far. I had to escape, there was no way I was going to allow myself to be operated on by that madman.
As we descended or ascended in the elevator – which took some time – I had what might seem a rather silly idea. I had been reading recently a lot about the Den-Den. If you’ve heard of these adorable little aliens it was probably in a cartoon as a child and I promise what you saw had no basis in reality. When I was a kid – when the stuffed toys and cartoons were so popular – nobody knew anything about them because no one had translated any den into anglish yet. None of the stuff from the cartoon is true. Anyway they’re shy and don’t mix well with the volatile socials but they are one of the few humanoids (if you call being less than a meter tall and covered with fur humanoid) that has demonstrated consistent, controllable telekinetic activity across the species. Of course lots of nucleites are telepathic on some level but the development of prehensile limbs and psychokinetic abilities together is highly unusual. The Den-Den were the only species I knew to have the two in equal measure.
Of course I am no Den-Den, just a human humanoid with the normal human amount of psychic ability (negligible). But the Den-Den occurred to me then and since I had my hands tied I thought I might as well try my mind. I figured with no other available option why not try to psychically influence the situation, try to manipulate reality with the power of my focused will alone? My den, the Den-Den called it.
Silly, right? But other nucleites could do it. Other humanoids had done it. And my only other option was to see what Kantsky had in store for me.
So I closed my eyes and tried to gather my den.
I had read how the Den-Den regarded what they described as an inner light – this is all translation, of course, so most of the useful stuff probably got lost – but how they had an inner light, and when this inner light shone as brightly as the outer light the two operated on reality in equal measure. Did I possess such an internal light capable of operating on reality like the Den-Den? I didn’t know. But I closed my eyes and tried to imagine one. Mine was an overhead light plate, bright white, which I mentally placed on the ceiling, covering the tiny space of the elevator entirely. I tried to imagine it filling the elevator with a harsh light that transcended and overtook the elevator’s actual interior light which came from a small grid of light panels along the wall.
I knew based on what I had read of the Den-Den that for this to work I needed to do more than just gather my den. I also needed to imagine as clearly as possible the alternative reality I wanted to create. From what I gathered I had to see it in my mind’s eye with more clarity than I saw with my actual eye. This was not easy for me – I am a bit mentally impaired when it comes to the inner eye. If you walked out with a red shirt on and come back in with a blue one my eyelash wouldn’t so much as flicker. My visual memory just isn’t that great.
But in the desperation of the moment I made the attempt. When the elevator stopped and I heard the doors open behind me I visualized the simplest thing – really the only thing – I could think of.
To my surprise it worked: As the chair-bot exited the elevator, it stopped its backward motion and shut down.
At first I couldn’t believe it. I thought for a moment I my imagination had simply gotten the better of me but after I stopped gathering my den the chair remained in the elevator, not functioning in any way that I could tell. Whether I had succeeded in crashing its system software – which was my intention – or whether it was just a lucky coincidence is impossible to say. I personally choose to believe that I had learned something important from the Den-Den and while I doubted I would ever be able to replicate such a feat again I believed then my den was fully responsible for the failure of the chair’s software at that particular moment.
Still I had not entirely solved my predicament. The chair was stopped so I had a moment to think but the helmet cage remained lowered and my limbs were still strapped securely in their places. I tried repeating the trick, imagining the straps becoming loose, but this was apparently too complicated a procedure, too divorced from reality for my den to accomplish the change. Instead I worked my wrists physically, trying to squeeze my fists through the loops. It did no good. I was no better off than when I had been locked in the cell, I thought.
I breathed a sigh of frustration and a moment later heard a beep behind my head. This was followed by a click and two more beeps. I realized the chair had powered back on and was rebooting itself.
This allowed me the slimmest of hopes. “Evtree?” I said, a common passcode to bypass an operating system and dive into a machine’s central processor. It didn’t work so I tried another. “Whizbang?” Still nothing, and I only had another second or so before the OS would kick in. “Contralt!” I said in desperation.
Three beeps sounded and a digital voice announced: “You are accessing the KT-BioSettings Voice Panel. Please say a command. Speak the word ‘help’ for a list of settings.”
“Factory reset,” I said.
“Resetting to factory settings,” the chair said and a moment later the faceplate rose and my arms and legs were released from their confinement. I jumped out of the chair and rubbed my wrists, restoring a little lost sensation. Now with my hands free and no one watching over me I felt I had truly made some progress. But I had no idea where I was or where I was headed.
“Power down,” I told the chair.
“Save settings?” it asked, and I declined. The chair shut down again. It remained half in, half out of the elevator, blocking it from closing. I left it there. If I was being taken to the same torture chamber – or operating room, if you prefer – as India then I presumed I was already at the right facility and we had
now arrived on the correct floor. All that remained was for me to work my way through the halls until I found where Kantsky had taken her.
I idly scratched an itch at my hairline, thinking. Not about where to go next – the hall only led one direction – but about how to prepare myself for the security droids that would no doubt be showing up any minute. Based on what I had seen so far Kantsky had access to plenty of advanced technology. I assumed there were cameras and other sensors and I could only hope he hadn’t been watching my entire ride in captivity. If so he’d already seen my escape. But even if he hadn’t there was no way I could hide from today’s digital security. There could be heat sensors, pressure tiles, audio alerts, proximity panels, you name it. All I could do was move quickly and try not to trigger any automatic defense mechanisms that might be in place.
I walked briskly – running could sometimes set off alarms – to the portal at the end of the hall, a twisted circular thing that looked more like an airlock than a doorway. It didn’t open on my approach and the keypad with optical scanner on the wall indicated it was some kind of security door. My laser app would have come in handy right then but the bastard had taken my cell. I brushed away a lock of hair scratching at my brow and considered my next move.
The security door, I thought, had to be keyed to the chair or it wouldn’t have been able to get through with me in it. In fact the entire route was probably programmed into the chair – unless of course it had been operated remotely. I figured it hadn’t or Kantsky would already know I’d escaped. It had been foolish of me, I realized in retrospect, to shut the chair down in the first place. I returned to it, again walking briskly but with care, and touched a spot I had seen on its back, a small discolored square that seemed like a touch sensor. Nothing happened. I frowned. It seemed the obvious spot for a power button.
I tried another approach. “Power on,” I said.