Soul and Blade (11 page)

“Thank you all. I am excited to be here today, where miracle meets innovation. We have clearly made some exciting advances in science that we can’t yet share with you, but we can share some of the ideas we are throwing around. Essentially I need you to imagine your body has all but shut down on you, and your mind is left alert and sharp. Your family is devastated at not being with you cognitively and you are frustrated at being stuck in a lifeless body. Or imagine being the victim of something absolutely terrible and having no way of telling the authorities what happened.” He paces the room, before holding a hand up to a screen as faces flash. “These are all people without the ability to tell us what happened or what is happening.” He holds up a finger and offers a grin. “Until now.” He looks back at Angie and Dash. “These doctors are a special type of neurologist. I won’t bother us all with the big words that won’t mean a lick to you or me, but just know that they are skilled in a way most neurologists aren’t. They are also engineers in robotics. We took them fresh from school and started them on this path, choosing only the best, just like you.”

“What a windbag,” Rory whispers and leans in. “Ya wanna get a drink after this?”

I pretend to scratch my cheek, but instead offer up my middle finger. He leans back, chuckling.

I glance around the room, a bit stunned that there are only three girls and the rest of the dozen are guys. I don’t recall that at all. But I don’t think I paid attention the first time.

As the VP finishes his lengthy explanation, I realize I don’t know exactly what he’s said, but it doesn’t matter. Angie again speaks and clears it all up, “We are separating boys and girls. Ladies, you are with me. Gentlemen, you are with Dr. Dash.”

She walks from the room and we follow, just as we did last time. I remember this part.

The three of us end up in a lab, where we are tested for strength, energy levels, patience, aggression, skills in combat, and much more.

I pass the tests applicable to the military with ease. But the think-tank stuff is harder. So I work harder.

Exhausted at the end of a long day, I saunter into the mess. We have barracks, a mess hall, and a lounge set aside for us and the doctors and techs. I sit and open my sandwich, yawning and then stretching my neck before I take my first bite.

“Intense, eh?” Rory asks as he sits.

“Yup.”

“Ya think yer doing all right?”

I shrug. “Maybe. I am the last girl left. The other two went home today.” I realize I don’t know how long it’s been. Just that I am tired in a way I haven’t been in a long time.

“I think I’m doing all right too. I have an in,” he volunteers with a wink as he eats a chip from the tiny bags we are allowed one of. They have cut our calories to allow for the lack of exercise we are doing, in comparison to what we are accustomed.

“An in?”

“Yup.” He chuckles and gets up. I notice as he walks out that his left leg has a slight limp to it. I would guess a torn ACL at one point, but that the surgery wasn’t completely successful.

I finish my meal, ending it with another yawn, catching a flash of something in my peripheral. It’s little Rory, the boy. He waves at me to come with him and then vanishes around a corner.

I get up and hurry after him, catching just a glimpse of his legs rounding the next corner. I don’t catch up to him until I round the following corner. Then I nearly bump into him. I stop, skidding. He lifts a finger to his lips. “Shhhh.” He nods his head at the open crack of a door. A noise draws my attention. I glance in, realizing it’s a storage room with boxes of computer paper and other office supplies on shelves. The noise happens again.

I turn toward it, jumping back when I see Angie. She’s bent over the spare copy machine, with her leg up on it. Rory is behind her, thrusting inside her. His hands are around her, cupping her breasts in her shirt.

She moans and he slides a hand across her lips. She starts to push his hand away, but he’s caught up in the moment. His grip is tight on her lips and his head is back as he slaps his balls against her, pumping wildly.

She spins, pulling his cock right out with the turn and slaps him across the cheek. He laughs and pushes her back onto the machine and lifts her leg again, pumping hard the second his cock head reaches her slit. His hands wrap around her throat as she moans. It’s about the most disturbing thing I could have imagined for Angie. She seems so normal.

I close the door and step back, not even certain what I just saw. Little Rory is gone and I’m a Peeping Tom. But at least seeing, even for that brief moment, helps me start to recall the mission. I’d nearly forgotten him, for example.

11. BACK IN THE USSR

M
y head feels stiff with all the sensors and things taped to me. It’s my first run and the patient is actually Dr. Dash. He turns and offers a soft smile. It’s not authentic. If I’ve learned anything in the last few months, it’s that he has a smile filled with promises normal people don’t discuss. “When we get inside the dream I’ve created, I want you to try to change your outfit or your hair. I’ll show you the triggers I have. Then we can talk about yours and the ones you think you might want to create.”

I nod, taking a deep breath. I feel like I’m about to be launched into space, not a video game made up of the thoughts inside someone’s head.

I close my eyes, and prepare for the words to start filling my mind. They are prerecorded subliminal messages intended to pull me in and force my brain to focus on certain aspects of my past. Or, in this case, his past.

I take a breath and suddenly the floor falls out. I’m falling into the blackness, screaming and flailing.

“It isn’t real, Jane.” His voice fills the void.

“Dr. Dash!” I call as I land with a thump in a huge yard. The sun is bright, and the garden is greener than anything I recall seeing in a long time. Everything has been gray for weeks, or months, I don’t know how long.

There’s a large pool with a statue of a boy jumping over another boy’s back. I wrinkle my nose. Movement across the pool catches my eye. When I glance in the direction of it, my jaw falls. Dr. Dash, wearing beige pants and a white dress shirt, is walking along the edge, offering me a wave.

His dream is a resort?

I think my dream is
him
at a resort. Maybe we share this dream.

I wave back, not sure how it feels to walk in this world—if the gravity is the same. But the moment I take a step, I see it is our world. I see how you could get lost here. How you could make it so fantastical you wouldn’t ever want to leave. It is real and yet it is made up of the things you want.

“Change your clothes,” he says.

I look down at the hospital gown I’m wearing and blush, groaning quietly. “Great.” Closing my eyes, I imagine I’m wearing a white dress. Something someone would wear to a resort—strapless and floor length, with some flow to the skirt. I don’t normally wear dresses, but it just feels right here. In here I don’t have those scars.

My pale skin almost matches the dress when I open my eyes. I need a tan. I can’t help but notice he’s got a much more Californian look to him. His white shirt stands out against his golden skin. I almost wonder what it feels like to touch it. I swear I know already.

“You feel how real this all is?”

I nod, noticing the sparkle in his green-gray eyes. He offers me a hand. I stare at it, confused and out of sorts. Do I touch him? Is that inappropriate?

“So you know how it all feels. This is just practice.”

I take his hand, squeezing and holding. He feels warm—real and fleshy—and there’s a tingle inside me. When I glance up, he offers a dazzling smile, dimple and all. I sigh, actually aloud, earning a grin instead of a smile. It’s the grin he gives when I think he’s promising something neither of us is ever going to explore.

He smiles. “See that?” He points at the small dog, a beagle I think, sleeping next to the bushes. “He’s one of my triggers. He reminds me of being a small boy and being happy.” His look turns inward, like he’s reliving something amazing and heartbreaking all at once. I yawn, stretching and blinking.

“Shall we?” He nods at the small house that’s there behind the bushes. I didn’t even notice it before. I shrug and follow him, still letting him hold my hand. We enter the house, but it isn’t what I expected. There’s more inside than I might have imagined. It’s a mansion inside, but the outside looked like any house in a regular family neighborhood.

“It’s deceptively large,” I mutter as I gaze about the foyer. I swear I’ve seen a home this large before, but I can’t place it now.

“Do you like large houses?”

“No. It’s weird, maybe something left over from my childhood. But I like townhouses. I like my house touching the neighbors’. I like knowing someone’s there, so close. Just in case.” I don’t finish the sentence with “just in case you scream,” but it’s what I’m thinking.

He smiles like he understands, but I don’t think he can. “You are different from any girl I have ever met.”

“Why? Because I can kill you with my thumb or a paperclip?” I ask, and laugh. I don’t know why I feel so free here. “Ask me any medical questions you like and you’ll see I have my weaknesses.”

“Have you killed people before?”

“That’s not a medical question.” I don’t like the question, but I answer it; I know he knows the truth. “Yes.”

“How many?”

A grimace spreads across my face as the words slip out. “Sixty-three that I know of, but there have been more. Some were group assassinations like bombings, so that’s obviously going to bring the number up.”

He coughs. “Sixty-three?”

“That’s the minimum number.”

“Does it hurt?” He has the slightest accent when he says
hurt
. I’ve never noticed it before. It’s English though, for sure. He must be a Brit.

“Yes. The first few hurt. You watch them fall, and you realize they won’t ever get up again. The ones done from a distance hurt the most. It feels dirty, like you cheated by using the scope. But I don’t look for people to kill. I am given a name because they are doing something terrible.”

“Is the pink mist real?”

Meaning, do I know what it looks like when a sniper kills a human being with a head shot from a distance? I’m not ashamed of killing bad people, but that is likely to show through if we do talk about it. I simply nod.

“How is someone so small so brave?”

“I’m not brave. I just don’t have anything else. This fits. The holes in my memory make it easier to not care about things.”

His eyes fill with emotion, and I see the pity everyone gets when they hear about my family or my childhood. “One thing I promise you, you won’t remember much of this trip inside my head. The memories presented here are based on what I want you to see.” He steps closer, sliding one of his huge hands down my cheek and making a shiver run up my spine. He bends and kisses me softly.

I don’t know what my response should be, but I desperately don’t want to forget it all.

He steps back and everything starts to fall apart. He waves as his skin and body flake away, blowing in the wind created by the void taking over.

I close my eyes and scream, but when I blink I’m back out. I’m in the same room of the lab, and Dr. Dash is staring at me from his bed, and he’s holding my cat. I smile, but I’m crying on the inside.

A great realization has just crashed over me as I watch Binx jump down and saunter from the room.

Rory is in control. I am in a mind run.

Binx is telling me I am in trouble again. He is the clue.

There is no way Rory could have known what was in my head. He’s creating a cage for me, a place I never want to leave from. He’s making up lies and making me believe them.

But I don’t act like I know. I smile at Dash and get up off the bed with the help of the techs. I walk across the room, looking for little Rory or the elevator.

I have to get off this floor. I don’t know how much time has passed
since I entered, but I can imagine Dash is pissed out there in the real world.

I’m in here and he’s out there.

The hallway circles, just like the block did where I first met little Rory.

There’s a part of me that fears I won’t ever find my way out, but I have faith in the little boy. And the triggering of Angie’s plan in his head and mine.

There’s no way I am willing to stay in here forever, and he doesn’t yet know I’d be happy to kill him to get out.

“Jane!”

I turn to see Angie hurrying toward me with a piece of paper in her hand. “We just got two perfect patients for ya and Rory to finish yer testing on. They will be yer first assignments. Exciting, eh!”

I gulp, remembering the first one we ever did. They were a male and female. She was a victim and he was the perp, possible Russian mob ties and human trafficking. The girl had been missing from a small town in Russia, possibly having been sold. She was seventeen, just a child. My head still cramps with what feels like a brain freeze when I think about the case. I tap my finger against my thigh and nod, smiling. “Okay, I guess—I’m excited.” I can’t remember my reaction. I think I was balls-to-the-walls amped about finding answers in the girl’s head.

I don’t feel that way now, mostly because I know what’s in there. Now it feels scary and horrifying. I remember the way the girl was taken and the way she was kept. I can never forget the acts inflicted upon her just so she might eat and not have to shit in a can. The image alone of her losing her virginity scarred me for life.

But instead of being out of character and saving myself the misery of a second time in the dying girl’s head, I turn and walk with Angie. “What happened?” I ask because it’s what I would do. I don’t want Rory to know I have snapped back in control.

“There was a car accident in Mexico, near Monterrey. Feds are bringing them both in right now by life flight. She’s not stable, but he is. He’s being drugged to mimic a coma; remember, we talked about this. It’s not as easy as it is when they are in an actual coma. Rory will have challenges with this one. We need to ensure it’s done with the utmost care.” She hurries along.

I keep up, but I am bothered. I can’t even pretend not to be. She’s in love with him here; she’s passing him into the program because of it. I know this.

Surely some of the weird stuff has shown up since Rory started playing in people’s heads. And Angie let him in hers. I can’t even imagine what that was like.

I don’t really recall Dash’s when I was in the real world. I only have Rory’s twisted version of it, but I’m certain there was something about us playing cards and visiting a park he liked as a kid. Dash letting me in his head was soft and sweet.

We hurry to the lab, where a stretcher and a team of medics await. There’s a girl on the bed and Dash is leaning over her, listening to her heart. He gives the man next to him a look. “She needs life support. She’s going fast.”

I stay in the background as they hook the young girl up. She’s got blonde hair and a pretty face, from what I can see. She’s thin, too thin, and leggy. She looks older than she must be, but the halter top and pink lipstick smeared with blood might be making that so.

She’s a child. My skin crawls and my mind aches, but I watch and pretend I am excited and scared in an exhilarated sort of way.

I’m not. I’m upset and angry. Making a decision I shouldn’t, I back
from the room slowly, glancing about for Rory. The halls are chaos as the
fat Russian mobster is wheeled along to the other room. Rory strolls behind him, looking smug. He pauses, giving me a look. “Ya ready for this?”

“Born ready.”

“See ya on the flip side then,” he chuckles, and continues strolling after his patient. But I don’t go back into the room. I stay in the hallway, watching him get hooked up as the door closes. Then I hurry along the corridors, searching for the elevator or the stairs or little Rory.

I stop, letting my mind clear from the trap and the memories Rory is trying to create.

I close my eyes and take a deep breath.

When I open them I’m standing in front of the elevator. The hallway is dingy and gross again, except when I look back. Then it’s clean and white and full of the people I am leaving in this part of his memory. Just before I step onto the creaky elevator, I see me. The memory, or the vision of me, is there. She walks to the room where the Russian girl is and gets hooked up. The door closes before I can see any more.

I press the next floor, staying inside the elevator when it stops, and I see it’s Rory and Angie again. I press the next floor, a bit afraid of what’s in his mind. He kisses Angie as she yells at him for something, but his eyes dart to me. I just catch it in the crack between the closing doors.

My heartbeat speeds up when the elevator stops next. I take a breath, shivering and cold suddenly. I know where we are before the doors even open.

Rory’s standing at the door, in a white dinner jacket. His dark-blue eyes are lit with sarcasm and curiosity. He offers me a hand. “
Hello, Jane.”

I stay in the elevator.

“Ya know this is the floor ya were looking for. Ya know ya want to know why and how. So come on out, have a visit.” He looks like Jack Nicholson in
The Shining
, grinning like a madman and talking to no one. I am the ghost in the machine, not a person at the party.

But I step forward, taking his arm. The brothel ski lodge looks exactly the way it did when I was here before, only now it’s full of people.

“This is the time to visit a place like this—our season runs January, after New Year’s, through to May. By June the snow is gone and the weather is warm, and everyone disperses for the rest of the year. We find not being here really makes ya miss it.” Rory has gone mad.