One Jump Ahead-ARC Page 22

As I turned the corner onto Dean's Folly, the Busted Heart in sight a block away, I felt bug stings, lots of them, more than I could immediately count, on my arms, neck, and back. I had time enough to realize I couldn't see or hear any insects, and then the world went black and I was out.

  Chapter 22

  I came awake slowly. My eyes opened before they could focus, and they focused before I could process what I was seeing. It wasn't much: a smooth white expanse, the whiteness blurry at the edges. I tried to roll over, but I couldn't move my body. I lifted my head and looked down my chest. I was lying on some sort of table, naked but not cold, the surface below me warm and my body wrapped securely in restraining plastic. An IV hung from each of my arms, the attached tubes running beside my body and behind my head to destinations I couldn't see. I felt nice, warm and secure, no worries, no troubles. I closed my eyes briefly and enjoyed the warmth, then opened them as I realized I missed the pretty whiteness, so soft and pure and far away. I smiled at it. I thought I saw it move, and when I squinted I was sure it was smiling back at me. I realized it was a ceiling. It was a great ceiling, and I was happy to be there with it.

  A pressure grew in the back of my head and distracted me from the whiteness. I didn't like the pressure, but it wouldn't stop, it wouldn't leave me alone, and then it burst into a thought, a realization that filled me: This was all wrong. I was drugged, and I needed to get away. Nanomachines. I needed to release some nanomachines to remove my bindings. I waded into the dense cloud of my brain, trying to concentrate, and then I heard a soft chime, a tiny faraway sound, and I was out.

  * * *

  I was asleep, and then I wasn't, the line between sleep and waking unclear and shifting, my eyes shut, then open, then shut again. I felt a smile, then realized happily that it was mine. My eyes cleared enough that I could see whiteness above me, and I remembered it was my ceiling. I smiled more broadly, glad to see it again. Right after the memory of the ceiling came the recollection of the lovely warm bed, the happy hugging plastic, and the tubes in my arms. I knew where I was: I was where I'd been before. I was glad I'd figured that out. I wondered why I'd left. There was certainly no reason to leave such a comfy place. I must have been acting silly. Yeah, that was it: silly.

  I remembered something else silly: a tiny little chime, one I could hear but not see. I was happy to remember it. As I lay there thinking, I realized I was happy about everything, though everything wasn't very much: the ceiling, the chime, the bed, the plastic, the IVs, and me, all together, all part of each other, all happy.

  Except the chime wasn't there, and that bothered me, bothered me enough that I stopped smiling. Where was the chime? The question bounced around in my mind, a fuzzy ball ricocheting off the walls of the empty room of my brain, gaining speed until I realized I only heard the chime before I went to sleep. More knowledge followed that realization, a rapid-fire tumble of blurry recollection: I went to sleep after I heard the chime after I tried to concentrate after I figured out this was wrong.

  This was wrong.

  I remembered that I needed to focus so I could instruct the nanomachines to decompose the plastic and free me. Focusing was difficult, but I tried. I thought hard for what might have been a split second or an hour; I couldn't tell. Then I heard the chime again and just had time to figure out that I didn't want to go to sleep before I was out.

  I realized I was awake when I noticed that instead of dancing swirls of yellows and red I was now seeing white, the white of the ceiling, the lovely ceiling.

  Memories accompanied the vision of the ceiling: the warm bed, the warm plastic, the IV tubes in me, the bad chime. I remembered now: When the chime played, the ceiling vanished. Or did I vanish? One of us definitely went away; I was sure of that.

  I lay still for a bit, enjoying the ceiling, happy in the realization I'd achieved, until a question shoved the happiness away: What made the chime play?

  The chime. I repeated the word in my head, enjoying how it felt: chime, chime, chime, chime, chime.

  The knowledge crept into my mind so slowly I couldn't be sure when it first appeared: I made the chime play.

  Why would I do that?

  I made the chime play, which made the ceiling go away, but I liked the ceiling. It was a puzzle, and puzzles are fun, but the pieces of this one weren't fitting right.

  Like me, I realized, like the way I didn't fit here, not in the bed, not under the plastic, not here at all. I should leave. The tumble of memory—or was it imagination?—rolled over me. To leave I needed the nanomachines, and to get them I needed to focus, to think hard, and when I tried to do that, the chime rang.

  More memory, or more imagination: I'd done this before.

  I needed to know if I was remembering or imagining, but that could cost me. Still, I had to know.

  I started a little song in my head, a gentle tune, two words repeating over and over: Concentration costs. Concentration costs. I tried to keep it going, make it something I couldn't forget, and then I focused on the nanomachines, focused as directly as I could manage. The ceiling vanished.

  I woke with a song playing in my head, two words repeating: Concentration costs. Memories flowed like water into the bowl of my mind, filling me: bed, warm, ceiling, plastic, tubes, chime, concentration costs, concentration brings chime brings sleep.

  I wanted to stay awake, so I stayed loose, kept my eyes open, enjoyed the ceiling and let time ease by, not focusing or concentrating but not sleeping, either. I kept my eyes open and let my thoughts dance in slow motion through my mind as I waited to see what was next. My awareness slowly increased. I noticed the slight pressure of the plastic covering, the contrast of temperature between my cool, uncovered face and my warm, plastic-wrapped body. Each time a thought tempted me to pay it more attention, I turned my attention away from it. Concentration costs.

  "Very good," a voice said from all around me.

  Another temptation, this voice was, another test, so I let the words wash through me but didn't allow them to send waves across the mental pond on which I was floating.

  "We were wondering," the voice said, "how long it would take you to figure out that you had to stay completely relaxed. I'm sure you'll be pleased to know you beat our expectations."

  It wasn't a nice voice, was nowhere near as nice as the ceiling, and that surprised me. Slowly new knowledge crept over me: The voice was harsh because it was the product of a cheap synthesizer, and it was all around me courtesy of speakers. I smiled and felt happy at the way my subconscious was injecting bits of information into me without requiring me to concentrate. Good subconscious; I wished I could pet it to thank it.

  "I'm going to raise the brain-wave tolerance level slightly," the voice said, "but don't take this as an invitation to do anything. With the IVs we can knock you out in less than a second, and if that fails we can jettison the room you're in. You're in a low orbit, and we'd aim you into the atmosphere, so you wouldn't last long."

  I fought to relax but an image of burning smacked into my brain and I suddenly realized I had to get out, to escape. . . .

  The chime sounded.

  "At this level," the voice said, "you get one warning tone. Let your brain activity rise much further, and we'll take you down again."

  The voice paused. I used the quiet to relax further, shutting my eyes and grabbing at the edges of sleep without giving in to it completely.

  "You showed us once that you know how to relax," the voice said. "Show us again."

  I bathed in the colors on the inside of my eyelids, letting them wash over me and relax me, then slowly opened my eyes and enjoyed the ceiling. Time passed, maybe another few seconds, maybe an hour; I couldn't tell, and I couldn't let it matter.

  "Well done," the voice said. "Now we can begin."

  I closed my eyes again, mentally crawling as far toward sleep as I could while remaining able to hear, knowing I needed to listen but not to concentrate on what I heard, the words a gentle shower I had to let rain on me.

 
"On Floordin," the voice continued, "you evaded security, stole a weapons control system, and escaped, while the man in charge went missing."

  Floordin. The name rolled across the floor of my mind, accumulating debris as it went: Trent Johns vanishing, Osterlad setting me up, Lobo whole again.

  "On Macken, you rescued a girl, and you did it, as best we can tell, without any real help."

  Jasmine's face materialized in my mind, mouth open in fear as I took her on the cart to her kidnapper, to Slake. Slake, who was the man behind all my troubles, who was also, I suddenly realized, almost certainly the one who'd arranged my kidnapping. The two images assaulted me: Jasmine and Slake, pain at what I'd done and anger at being used, the two of them combining to generate more emotion and mental temptation than I could manage while remaining this calm. The chime sounded its sole warning.

  "Relax, Mr. Moore," the voice said. "We simply want to know how you did these things. Something is unusual here, and we want to know what."

  Paranoia joined the pain and the anger as I realized that if I lost control and talked then they'd know the truth about me and never let me go. I'd end up a corporate research guinea pig, because they'd know that nanomachine/human integration was not only possible but alive and well. I couldn't let that happen, I couldn't tolerate it, I had to get away, I had to—another chime sounded.

  Awareness crawled over me like a foggy dawn, my mind waking up but remaining soft, fuzzy, and unfocused. Memories slowly took form, as where I was, what was happening, and what I had to do to stay awake congealed in the ooze that was my brain. I remembered the voice that surrounded me, but I couldn't recall whether I'd heard it once or many times, nor was I sure how many times I'd passed out from whatever drugs they were using on me. I knew I had to stay awake to have any chance of escape, so I tried to remain relaxed; perhaps more memories would return.

  A door snicked open somewhere behind me. I heard the soft footsteps of someone entering the room and walking toward me. The person stopped far enough away that I couldn't see who it was.

  "Mr. Moore," a male voice said, "because you've been unwilling to answer our questions thus far, my employer has decided to pursue a more aggressive option. Up to now, we've merely kept you sedated and used some drugs to knock you out each time you showed any sign of significant mental activity. I'm here to apply some additional incentives."

  I felt the man's hands working on my head and neck, jabbing me slightly and sticking cold things to me. I kept my breathing light and avoided concentrating on anything in particular.

  The voice I'd heard before flooded the room. "Mr. Moore, Jon," it said, the synthesized speech harsh and unpleasant, "I encourage you to answer our questions, spare yourself pain, and save us all time. How did you manage the theft on Floordin, and where's the man who was in charge there? How did you rescue the girl on Macken all by yourself? And, I must now add one more question: What has Jose Chung said to you?"

  Images of the people washed across my mind: Johns, his head dissolving; Jasmine, her face drugged and afraid; and Chung on the medbed, anguished over Jasmine. I worked on my breathing and gently pushed them away, not wanting to focus so much I ended up asleep again. I alternated gazing at the ceiling with studying the colors inside my eyes, and time passed. I have no clue how much.

  "Your choice," the voice said.

  I heard the man behind me step away, and for a few moments I thought they might wait for me to make another mistake, cause the chime to sound, and be drugged into sleep again.

  Pain smashed into my head. A jagged lancing sensation ripped through my neck and into my mind. I screamed, a long loud roar that hurt my throat, and even as I was screaming the pain increased. For a split second I wondered how they could hurt me without putting me back into sleep, but the pain shoved aside all thought and filled me, cut me, crushed me, my head and neck and shoulders flexing and tensing uncontrollably, my body spasming, my bowels emptying. I grabbed at the possibility that the pain would bring me focus and let me control my nanomachines, but as fast as the thought came it flew away. I couldn't think, couldn't do anything other than hurt, hurt, hurt.

  Still the pain slammed into me, growing and filling me and pushing at my edges until I was sure I would explode. A higher, screeching scream erupted from me as if it were an animal fleeing a fire. The pain increased until it obscured all thought and I was sure I was dying, and then black unconsciousness overtook me.

  * * *

  I didn't want to wake up, though I couldn't remember why, so I fought to stay asleep, resisting awakening by clinging to wispy dream images that became more and more faint even as I struggled to maintain my grip on them. Despite my attempts, however, my mind came more and more awake, until I remembered with the fuzziness of a dying display where I was, what my captors were seeking, and the pain. The memory of the pain triggered an involuntary flinch, as I sought to run away even though at some level I knew I was restrained. No pain hit me now, however, so I quit resisting consciousness and opened my eyes. My body ached a bit, as if I'd been exercising strenuously for a long day, and my neck and head were tender, but I otherwise felt more normal than I would have believed possible under the onslaught of the torture. My skin was dry, and my groin and rear felt dry against the plastic and the bed. After a few moments, my fuzzy brain realized someone must have cleaned me. I was grateful for that courtesy, and I clung to the positive feeling of gratitude like a drowning man clutching a float.

  "Welcome back, Jon," the voice said. "I really don't understand what could be important enough for you to endure this ordeal. We've studied what little data we can find on you, and nothing appears extraordinary. Your records begin less than forty years ago. You've worked for the Saw and a few other mercenary groups before it, you've acted as a rather expensive but apparently successful private courier, and that's about all we know. Explain the girl's rescue and the episode on Floordin, tell us what Chung had to say, and we'll stop all this."

  I wasn't sure how much I could take. I'd sometimes dreamed that I'd be able to resist interrogation by finding a mental safe house, a place to retreat within my mind, but in my heart I knew that I, like all other people, would break eventually. I had to get out before I did; once they discovered the truth about me, I'd never be free again. My mind seemed sharper than before, so I tried to focus enough to communicate with the nanomachines.

  A chime sounded. Before the noise could fade, the pain stabbed again into my head and neck, filling my vision with a black-red darkness. One intense jolt, and then the pain stopped, but it was enough to make the point. I did my best to relax, to think of nothing, to exist but do no more.

  "Jon," the voice said, "I hope you understand that I'm not enjoying this. None of us wanted it to come to this. Answer the questions, and we'll be done."

  For a moment that seemed the most reasonable solution in the world, the residual shock waves of the pain in my body leaving me longing to make the voice happy. I opened my mouth to speak, ready to do whatever the voice wanted. Then the reality of what would happen flooded back into me, and I realized that the time might come when I'd talk without even realizing I had. That knowledge was, inexplicably, the funniest thing I'd ever thought. I started laughing, lightly at first and then wholeheartedly, my body twitching with laughter under the plastic. I laughed and laughed, unable to stop, unable to remember why I was laughing, and weaving among the laughter was a wispy thread: I was going crazy.

  Maybe crazy was the safe place you went so you wouldn't talk.

  "Jon," the voice said, "as you must know from your experience in the Saw, the issue isn't whether you'll answer; it's when you'll answer. I regret your choice."

  The pain arced through me, cutting off the laughter as the muscles in my neck tensed so tightly my screams emerged as tight, compressed squeaks. More intense this time, so sharp I couldn't imagine anything else existed, the pain hit me and hit me and hit me, until I could take no more and passed out.

  We continued in this manner, the voice
and the pain and I, though I don't know for how many times and or for how long. I screamed sometimes, laughed others, and often cried, but the episodes blurred until each one began as if the first, a birth into pain, a new short life with no significant data from any prior ones, just awakening and then pain. After a time, I cringed as I awoke, enough memory lingering that I knew bad things were coming even though I couldn't remember what any of those bad things were.