“Calm down, Daniel, you’re okay,” the Colonel returned.
“What happened, Daniel?” Marian asked.
“I was there. In the dog, Sassy,” I shuddered. “He locked me out of the house so I went into a crow. Flew through the upstairs window. Down into the hallway. Someone whacked me with a broom. Broke my neck.” My hands raised to feel, but the bones were intact. “The crow died. Me, too. I felt what it felt.”
“Gaines house is over 2000 miles from here,” the Colonel murmured. “Daniel, could you hear and see them clearly?”
“I couldn’t hear them outside and only caught a few words inside before he killed me,” I said wearily. My head was splitting and my entire body felt the aftereffects of being shocked. All I wanted to do was roll over and sleep.
“What did Gaines say?” The Colonel insisted.
“Something about Puerto Rico and second honeymoon,” I mumbled. I don’t know why I lied but the voice in my head that was the other me, smiled and gave me a high five. I’d meant to say Washington, DC and Jake James but those words never made it past my lips.
She slapped me lightly, but I was sinking so deep I barely felt it. “Let him sleep,” she said. “His body needs it. In the morning, we can…”
*****
The smell of bacon woke me. I rolled over and pulled at an IV line in my arm. It burned. I was in a hospital bed in the infirmary of some government installation. I saw armed guards outside the glass-fronted door. A private in BDUs had brought in a tray, laying it on the swing out table.
“Breakfast,” he said and before I even thought about anything, I was diving in cramming my mouth full before he could take it back. Although I didn’t know where that thought came from. “Hey, dude,” he laughed. “Slow down. Plenty more where that came from.”
Eggs Benedict, Maple bacon, hash browns. Coffee, juice, buttered toast with jam. No calorie counting here. Ate all of it, the voice in my head telling me I should be wary of drugged food.
“Shut up,” I said. “I’m too hungry to care.”
“What?” The soldier asked.
“Not you.”
He looked around. “Just you and me here, kid. No one else.”
Careful, he warned. They’ll think you’re crazy if you talk to me.
“Just who are you, anyway? I asked and the airman replied.
“AFC Billy Steinglass.”
“No. Great, hiya,” I dismissed him, waiting for the other dude to answer.
Dunno, he said. Seems like I’ve always been here but asleep. Woke up when you called the owl down.
“You got a name?”
“Billy,” he repeated. I ignored him.
Same as yours. You’re me but not me.
Oh man. I was creeped out. “You were watching when I fucked that chick?”
Now, Billy AFC stared at me. “Dude, you aren’t talking to me, are you?”
No, the other, Danny said. But I can sometimes see your memories. The strong ones. I had some. They faded. I can’t remember anything. He sounded lost and sad. I just know I came in here to escape bad things. I want to go home!
“How old are you?” I asked him and out of the corner of my eye, I saw the AFC head for the door. Heard it lock behind him.
Fourteen, he told me. I closed the vault door on fourteen. I’m still fourteen I think. Did you like what you did to that girl? Did it feel good?
“Didn’t you ever jerk off, kid?” I asked him, feeling the urge to piss. Climbing out of bed, I dragged my IV lines and found they reached the toilet. Did my business, washed my face and opened the new toothbrush and paste as I stared at my face in the silvered mirror.
My contacts were out and I felt vaguely naked, since both my eyes were exposed to the world as one blue and one brown. Cohen had stressed that I was never to go out when my blue contact lens wasn’t in. Touched my reflection.
My eyes are like that, too, he said sadly.
“Are you me?”
No. I think… you’re a part of me.
“No way, dude. I’m not rolling over and giving a voice in my head the steering wheel!” I protested. Turned around as the door opened. Cohen and a doctor stood there, eyeballing me. I looked for the Colonel, and he was just outside the door waiting.
“Daniel, who are you talking to?” She asked calmly.
“Myself.” I leaned against the porcelain sink, my insides clenching as adrenaline flooded my system.
“You’re hearing voices, Daniel?” she questioned, and made a gesture with her hand.
Danny, he said. She’s going to say three words. The winter ice. It’s the trigger. Come with me. He held out his hand just as she said them. My fingers brushed his as my mind fractured. I’ve got you, he said calmly.
I stared at the vault we were in filled with light and impregnable, images so faded and blurred you could only tell they were vaguely human, mostly just blobs of color. He was nearly as tall as I was, pretty in a soft boyish way, sweet faced and scared. I wanted to reassure him, but in truth, I was scared, too.
What’s happening? I asked and he shook his head. Dunno. Without your eyes open, your ears hearing, I’m blind in here.
Can’t you do your animal mind meld thing?
He laughed softly. That was you Danny.
What are we doing now, if not reading minds?
Internal dialogue.
What do you think she's doing to me? To us?
I don't like her. She made me hide in here. She's a bad person. I tried to warn you about her. You listened twice, but it made you want to do bad things.
The barn and the rope?
You thought maybe if you killed us, the pain would go away. Who is Mitch?
My dad. Adoptive dad. It’s weird, like I have two sets of memories, me and some French kid who was abused.
That’s another construct she made. Neither of you are real, Danny.
And you are? I sneered. You’re just a voice in my crazy head.
If you think that, go back out there! He snapped and he pushed me out.
*****
Cohen was staring into my eyes as the two orderlies manhandled my body onto an exam table strapping me in. By the time I was back and started to struggle, I was already restrained. She and the doc hooked my IV up to a drip and injected the port. In seconds I was floating in the remembered haze of Thorazine.
“Daniel.”
“Yeah,” I mumbled.
“Do you hear voices?”
“Just… one,” I returned.
“Whose voice, Daniel?”
“Mine.”
“Is it the same thing as Hutton?” The Colonel demanded. I tried to spot where he was standing but couldn’t turn my head. My mouth filled with saliva and she wiped the drool from the corner of my lips.
“What do they tell you, Daniel?” Her tone was patient.
“Lies. He tells me lies. His eyes are so pretty. Like mine. But sad. Did I try to hang myself, Mary, Mary, Marian. Maid Marian.” I looked at her, brought up images of her doing things to me I thoroughly enjoyed at the time, but knew were totally unethical and illegal. All the more titillating. “Was my Robin Wood performance adequate, Maid Marian?” And snickered, although it came out as a soft snore.
She flushed and tried to divert my attention with another question.
The Colonel asked, “Were you fucking him, Doctor Cohen? That’s what the paid hooker was for. Or did you add that cash to your escape fund? Was that part of his therapy, too?”
“Yes,” she returned. “It bonded him even further to me. Made him eager to come back every time and reinforce the programming.”
“Did you wait till he was sixteen, doctor? Seventeen? Or did you start molesting him at fourteen?” The Colonel yelled.
“She likes it doggy style,” I added helpfully as she flushed a deep, angry red.
“You can’t listen to him, Colonel. He’s displaying all the signs of the schizoid break. He’s confusing reality with fantasy!”
“She has a birthma
rk on her pussy shaped like a rose. She shaves her pussy bare so she can show it to me,” I mumbled. She went for my face and they hauled her off me, but not before she smashed her hand into my nuts. I barely felt it, the Thorazine muted everything. Last I saw and heard was her shrieking as they carted her away.
Chapter 23
I wandered in a padded room. In a one-piece coverall of pale blue and slip on sneakers. There wasn’t a piece of furniture in the box so when I was tired; I just lay on the floor. I was always tired. Being tired kept me from reaching out to the voice in my head. I couldn’t concentrate long enough to find the vault or him.
Didn’t know how long I was in the box. They brought me food, sandwiches and little cartons of milk and chocolate shakes. I ate them because I was hungry even when after, I felt even dopier. I knew that meant something, couldn’t pierce together what, though.
Sometimes, the door (it was padded too) opened and people came in and asked me questions, asked about the voices, and did I know who I was. I told them the voices were silent, gone. But I knew they were still in my head. I told them I thought I was Danny, but I wasn’t sure. Sometimes, I was everyone and no one. They asked me if I remembered Townsley Hutton or my dad, Mitchell Gaines. They said they were names I knew, but I didn’t remember who or why.
The Doctor I didn’t know looked in my eyes, took my vitals, pulled blood, and told me the winter ice had broken the ice jam. I told him that was not my problem because I didn’t skate on the ice and he asked me what I meant. I shrugged, said I didn’t know.
“That’s Doctor Cohen trigger,” he said to the Colonel.
“Marian, where’s Marian?” I asked and pulled at my dick. “I got something for you, Marian.”
“Doctor Cohen is no longer your therapist, Daniel. I am,” the new man said. “I’m Doctor Andrews.”
“Do you want to fuck me, too?” I had a mild interest in that, Doctor Cohen said it was okay to have sex with men if it would get me what she wanted. She always wanted something she called Power. I liked sex with Doctor Cohen; it was like scratching an itch.
“No, Daniel. Tell me what Doctor Cohen told you, in your sessions?”
“Sleepy. Want to sleep. Lemme alone. Too hard to think,” I slurred. I lay over my side.
“Let off on the Thorazine. We can’t get far with him if he’s this doped up. He may be schizoid, but he’s still cognitive enough to reach and reason. I don’t know why the trigger phrase isn’t working. Is there any way I can discuss this with Doctor Cohen?”
“Do you need her?”
“He is her creation. I’m afraid without her; I won’t be able to direct the subject.”
“The doctor will be available for your use,” the Colonel said.
I laughed. “She was available for my use, too.” They left me on the floor. Seemed like a waste of energy to get up so I stayed there.
*****
The pig-faced man in green scrubs brought me a PB&J sandwich and a carton of chocolate milk. Left them on the floor near my hand. Smelled them. Slowly, picked up the pasty white bread off the paper plate and chewed. Grape jelly. Sweet. Instant rush of sugar. The carton took longer to open, the ends of my fingers didn’t seem to belong to me. Finally, I used my teeth to tear a hole in the flap. Guzzled it down and then remembered to shake the chocolate syrup in the bottom. No cookies. I was still hungry so I slowly climbed to my feet and went to the door banging on the thick padding. I yelled. Asked for more. Heard the locks disengaged and the orderly stood just outside in the hallway. Long hallway white with bright overhead lights and cinder block walls. Only two doors like mine. Halfway up was a cart with covered plates and paper plates wrapped in plastic. I saw cookies. Oreos. Pointed.
“Please. Hungry.”
He shoved me back in and I fell onto my butt. Stayed there. Watched as he placed two plates, two milks and two packages of Oreos on the floor. Slammed it shut and locked it.
I scooted over on my butt and heels, ate everything and piled the trash near the door. I felt more alert, more myself after the food. This batch wasn’t drugged. Time passed slowly, excruciatingly slow. Without the drugs to pacify me, boredom became my enemy. I couldn’t amuse myself with memories; all of them seemed to be cardboard cut outs with as much meaning to me as those pictures that came with a new wallet or photo frame.
After lunch, I had to go to the bathroom. Thought about that for a while. Got up and banged on the door again hollering.
Different orderly this time. “Whaddya want?” He yelled through the peep-hole slot. It was square. I’d not noticed it before.
“Gotta take a piss. And a dump.”
“Stand back from the door,” he ordered and I did. When it opened, four dudes stood there, armed with Tasers and those whippy batons cops used.
I laughed. “Think I’m some kind of ninja assassin? I wish. Where’s the toilet?”
Boxed in by 800 pounds of raw muscle, I shuffled down the hallway to a communal bath with concrete brick stalls, showers, a whirlpool and chain restraints hanging in one empty shower stall. Hand held nozzles; the chain one had only a cold water spigot. None of them looked wet. I took the closest commode, dropped the elastic waistband and sat. No boxers or jockeys. They kept my view down to their chest and abdomens, blocking any other sights but them, and the concrete walls.
No toilet paper, but the orderly who’d opened my door handed me a wad of sheets.
“His eyes look more alert. You feeling better, Daniel?”
“Better than what?” I quipped. I waited for his voice to kick in, but he was quiet. Tilted my head and listened.
“Back to your room. The Colonel wants you nice and rested before we test you.”
“What kind of tests?” I wiped, flushed, pulled up my bottoms. They let me wash my hands in the sink with that liquid soap and hand sanitizer. I looked longingly at the shower but muscle mass steered me back down the hallway. I stopped at my door but they guided me past, turned around a corner I didn’t know was there. Double doors that one of them unlocked with the key card and we entered a world of high tech offices and government research.
I goggled at the plush leather couches, fancy desk and personnel dressed in high-end clothing looking like they had just stepped out of Brooks Brothers and DKNY. The women gave me flirty smiles and I returned them, and the men stared as if I were a turd stuck on the bottom of their shoe.
They brought me to the corner office where an older, mature dragon woman guarded the gates. She wore a captain’s uniform, Air Force and her hair was pulled back in a tight bun. It made her eyes narrow and pinched.
“The Colonel is waiting,” she announced. “Go right in.”
She pointed to the door on her left and the orderly stayed behind as the first meet blocker knocked, opened the door and escorted us into the room. Massive. Thick carpeting, windows that looked out over the top of the complex, a sprawling campus on the prairie. Helicopters and Lear jets were parked on their own runway. I recognized a Black Hawk helicopter.
“Military base?” I asked, flopping onto the leather couch. My guards stayed behind me.
“How are you feeling, Daniel?” The Colonel asked.
“You care?”
“Of course we care,” he said mildly. “You’re a million dollar project. Your health and sanity are our first priority.”
“I’m not nuts,” I returned.
“You had an uncle, Daniel. He had the same talent you have. Unfortunately, it drove him insane and then into dementia. He died two years ago. In an institution. Unless you learn how to control your…problem, it’ll take you, also.”
“What problem?” I turned to look out the windows. Twenty feet to the first floor.
He tapped my head. “There are programs in here that Doctor Cohen downloaded, Daniel. Programs you should be following, yet you’re not. Why is that?”
“Because you’re nuts,” I retorted. “I’m not a… program. I’m a person… me.”
“No, you’re not.” He spoke the phra
se in French and my whole body froze up. I couldn’t move, speak, and the boy in the vault wasn’t there to help me.
“You hear me now, Danny?” He sounded like her. “You may answer.”
“Yes.”
“You will obey the programming?”
“Yes, Marian.”
“Which Danny are you, Marian’s Daniel, who came from a Nice whorehouse or the Danny who wants to play at being a real teenage college boy?”
“I am whoever you want me to be, Marian.”
“Good. Doctor Andrews, download your tape. When he’s done, place him in the cell and do your tests. We’ll put him into the center to begin the experiments.”
Pressure on my temples. Voices whispering in my head, stealing Danny. I screamed for him to take me, to save me, but he didn’t hear. Slowly, piece by piece, the voices stripped away who I was and right before I ceased to exist, I knew I wasn’t real, anyway. I gave up to the oblivion.
Chapter 24
“Rohan, sit here.” I pulled up my pants leg; made sure the crease was perfect and smoothed the line of my silk jacket with a casual stroke I knew looked elegant. The man behind the fancy office door had asked to see me specifically and my handler wanted me to pull as much information from him as I could.
“Your boss has told me nothing but fantasy stories about you,” the Arab billionaire said smoothly. “He swears you can walk on water.”
“He exaggerates a little,” I returned, smiling. I saw genuine masterworks on the walls.
“So, what can I do for you, Rohan de Chevalier?”
“Mister Sufi would like to inquire into the Salt Water Reclamation Project you are financing in Sadik al Tofi. He is interested in investing.”
“Really? It is a nonprofit enterprise. What is in it for him?”
“An adjustment in his world reputation,” I returned.
“He’s an arms dealer,” the Saudi Prince smiled to take the sting out of it.
“He has turned to humanitarian interests, Sir.”
The prince snorted. “I’m not saying I wouldn’t be interested in a cash endowment.”
“To sweeten the pot, my employer has sent you a thank you gift for seeing me,” I added.
“Really?” His eyes searched the room and me.
“It’s waiting in the lobby, Sir.”
He rose and gestured for me to precede him back out to the spacious waiting room where my PA held a satin covered cage from which came an interesting rustling. I nodded and the PA slowly pulled the sheet off to reveal a magnificent peregrine falcon, hooded and in jesses.