* * *
The elevator stopped on floor 55. Two SGs led the way and the other two brought up the rear. He followed through a dark, narrow passage, passing a series of numbered doors on both walls. Not a word was said nor a sound heard save for thumping of boot heels echoing down the corridor. He felt like he was being led to an execution. The possibility entailed no stretch of the imagination. He counted down the numbers on the pristine doors until the two SGs in front finally stopped outside a black door; the number “7773” etched on a silver plaque on the front.
Silence…
Seconds later, a voice came from the other side:
“Enter.”
The door opened and the two Guards in front turned, then stood aside.
He eyed them warily as he walked through and came into the empty, windowless room.
A single source of dim pale light shone from the middle of the ceiling over two chairs set opposite one another. He stopped as soon as he entered. The door shut automatically behind him, causing his eyes to shoot over his shoulder.
In one of the chairs in front of him, there sat one of the only people in Sodom he knew, a man with whom he had been acquainted since the very first day. The man sat with both arms on the rests of his seat. Two cobalt eyes flashed perspicaciously behind the clear, frameless lenses of his pince-nez. After a quiet intermission, the man spoke in a low baritone.
“I cannot tell you what a delight it is to see you again… Saul Vartanian.” Dr. Augustus Pope bore the semblance of a man on the brink of old age, which, these days, meant he could have been anywhere between 50 and 150. The ice-blue eyes behind the pince-nez were pupilless so that it was never clear where the neuralist was looking, much less what he was thinking. “Please sit.” Pope waved a welcoming hand over the opposite chair.
The vacuous eyes pursued him as he came forward and lowered into his seat. He silently determined not to speak unless Pope spoke first, and to say as little as possible whenever he did.
A small turtle-shell table was set between them; on top of it were set a slim crystal tablet, two glasses and a silver, cubic article which he could not identify as anything in particular. He glanced over each item, before looking back up at the neuralist, who appeared to be anatomising everything from the dilation of his pupils to the intervals between his breaths. “You are thinking,” said Pope, “about how long it has been since we last met, correct?” His voice was low and calculated. “I have no doubt you remember precisely how long.”
“Eleven months and –”
“… Thirteen days,” Pope nodded slowly. The formless smile crept further up his lips. “You have been using the Gregorian calendar. A most peculiar habit. You had started counting the days that way the first time we cleaned you.”
“How long ago was that?”
The smile retreated from Pope’s face and his air became instantly more daunting. “Never ask questions which are either unanswerable or irrelevant, Saul. It is the definitive stepping stone to defection.” He stopped and adjusted the pince-nez over his cold eyes.
A silence followed which he dared not break. One thing was certain about neuralists; they knew more about you than you did about them. Being face to face with Doctor Pope again was only slightly less unnerving than the prospect of a summary execution.
“You require my seal of approval to return to active duty.”
“Yes,” he replied, after a long delay of contemplation.
“Very well… Then, we may begin.” Pope leaned forward, took the slim tablet off the table and leaned back again, crossing one leg over the other. He laid the tablet on his raised lap, took out a long pen-shaped implement from the breast pocket of his waistcoat and started tapping at the screen.
“Apollo; record,” he pronounced in a raised voice.
The small box on the table started to glow with a pale light.
“Day: seventy-five, eighty-seven, thirty-one, eight-hundred and forty-seven hours,” Pope began to recite. “Subject: Martial Saul Vartanian. Caste – First Tier Ares. Three-hundred and forty-seven days since previous session. Cause of visit: General evaluation.” Pope leaned back into his seat and the hollow eyes looked up again. “I shall now proceed to ask you a number of questions, which you shall answer truthfully. I need not tell you that if you lie, I shall know…”
He assented to the neuralist’s words with a silent stare.
“I suppose we can start with a more generic question,” said Pope: “What have you been up to for the last three-hundred and forty-seven days?”
“Not much,” he replied, after another delay.
Pope bowed his head somewhat disappointedly and tapped away at the tablet screen. “You withdrew most of your savings from your martial account about four days after we had last met.”
“Yes.”
“Five million Dimitars… Quite a fortune. Was there a reason?”
“Bank transactions are traceable,” he said.
“Then, you were hiding from us,” said the neuralist
He paused to consider his response, but gave none.
“Is that why you have taken such pains to change your appearance?” The neuralist’s eyes studiously hovered over him, and another long silence followed.
At this point, he took out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter from his coat pockets. He leaned forward, sparked the lighter, puffed and the smoke rose from his lips.
“You are not making this easy, Saul,” said Pope. “Are you trying to give the impression that you are on the brink of defection?”
“I am here, am I not?” He flicked the lighter away with a clink and held the cigarette in his lips. “Whist we are on the subject; what is the definition of defection these days?”
“The definition is quite standard.”
“Your definitions are constantly changing,” he said, blowing a mist of smoke.
“Defection is an advanced state of psychological rebellion against martial order,” Pope elucidated sternly. “It occurs in varying degrees, naturally; however, defectors tend to deteriorate over time and they very seldom recover.”
When he finished, Saul surveyed him through upturned eyes. He took the cigarette from his lips and blew another cloud of smoke. “We all have problems with society,” he rumbled. “You must be more specific.”
A clear smile across the ashen visage sent a chill through him. Pope reclined further back into his seat and tapped at his flashing screen again.
“Answer ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to the following questions,” he instructed. “The truth, as always.”
He held an affirming silence and took another draw of his cigarette to hide his unease.
“In the last three-hundred and forty-seven days,” Pope began; “have you procured an assignment?”
He removed the cigarette from his lips and exhaled.
“No.”
“Have you had regular intercourse?”
“Define regular.”
“Once every ten days.”
“Yes,” he lied.
“Different partners?”
“Yes.”
“Good…” Pope hummed and tapped away at his screen. “Have you ever cohabited with anyone for more than thirty to forty days, intermittently or otherwise?”
“No.”
“Have you indulged any sort of affection for…”
“No,” he answered promptly.
“Have you dabbled in any form of transcendentalism, spiritualism…”
“No.”
The light from the tablet screen flashed reflecting off of the round, opaque lenses with each question.
“Have you ever considered or attempted escape from martial order?”
“…No.”
He had paused too long with his answer.
The vacuous eyes shot up piercingly over the lenses. Pope cocked his head back and slowly removed the pince-nez over his eyes. “I feel I should remind you, Saul, that the confidentiality between a neuralist and his patient is inviolable as a matter of UMC law.
Even in a hearing before a martial court, nothing said here can be used as evidence against you. We are clear on that, are we not?”
He did not believe any of it for a minute.
“Yes.”
“Good.”
Pope tucked the glasses away and leaned back in his seat.
“Then, I shall repeat the same question … Have you…”
“Yes,” he answered promptly.
The same insidious smile crept subtly up the neuralist’s lips once again. “It’s perfectly natural for the mind to desire what it cannot have,” he said, with a hollow tenderness in his voice. “But, then, there are several undesirable things that are perfectly natural. Do you understand, Saul?”
Pope uncrossed his legs and slipped the pen into the breast pocket of his waistcoat. “I think we can skip right to the question upon which hang all the rest…” he said, placing the tablet gently on the table-top. He leaned back into his seat and laced his thin, grey fingers over his abdomen. “The neural program…”
The cigarette hung loose in his lips as he breathed in another lungful of smoke and held his silence.
“Saul, do you know what the neural program is for?”
He had very definite ideas about what the neural program was for, none of which he would dare utter in present company. He chose his words carefully.
“The neurals stop us from… feeling things,” he said.
Pope’s lip vaguely curled.
“Your phraseology, though clumsy, is accurate enough,” he replied. “To be more precise; neurals correct all the useless neurological appendages of your long and blundering past. We are all born sick. That is nature’s way. No organism is perfect.
He puffed away at his cigarette with a glower and did not answer.
“Would it not be so immensely conceited, Saul,” Pope continued after a brief silence, “to believe that every thought, sensation, emotion; every pathological inclination that enters the skull is worth preserving? Some inclinations of the mind must be tempered. Others… must be eradicated.”
Pope stopped when he perceived the contempt growing in him, then bowed his head. “You must know, Saul, that the Commission does nothing for its own sake. We are not tyrants and we are certainly not interested in deceiving you. You are valuable to us. Our world – our order – depends on you. Can you understand that?”
He took the last draw of his cigarette and flicked the butt away.
“I understand,” he nodded.
Pope nodded and the formless smile resurfaced. “Splendid,” he declared rapidly. “Then, there is nothing more to say.” He drew the pince-nez once again and placed them over his eyes. “You will immediately resume with the program and follow all the recommended directives.”
The neuralist reached under his suit jacket and took out a small black canister with a white label on the front and held the canister up in the air. “Tailored to your individual neurology,” he assured with a cold, cobalt gleam in his eye. He opened the canister and rolled one small, silver tablet onto the turtle shell table-top. “One to three tablets every day. Five days’ intermission every thirty-day cycle.” He recited the prescription like a mantra. “You would do well to plan your prescription around your time in the war zones. There should be enough there to last you three cycles. I expect to see you in at least one-hundred days to restock, so that we may track your progress. Agreed?”
The question went unanswered.
He leaned forward, took the canister and tucked it under his coat. Meanwhile, Pope also bent over and reached under the table, and when he straightened up, he was holding a glass bottle containing a clear liquid. He took the top off the bottle; poured two measures of the viscous fluid in either glass, and the sweet fume of distilled ambrosia filled the air.
“To your health.”
Pope raised his glass and waited for him to take his own, which he did, then popped the tablet into his mouth and gulped down the ambrosia.
When the last bulge in his neck receded, Pope knocked back his own drink and exhaled triumphantly. “Congratulations,” he pronounced. “You have passed evaluation.” The neuralist rose from his seat and took his coat. “Your record will be updated by tomorrow,” he reassured. “All that is left is to wish you the best of luck on your assignment.”
Pope took the computer tablet and the small cubic device off the table, tucked both underneath his coat, arranged himself and pressed back on the pince-nez, sparing one last vague smile as he walked past Saul’s chair.
“Welcome back, Martial Vartanian.”
He heard the door open and close behind him. When the footsteps faded away down the empty corridor, he placed his hands on the side of his chair and rose to his feet, stood and waited.
About a minute later he raised his head, poked around the back of his jaw with his tongue, cocked his head forward and cupped his hand over his face. The tablet rolled out of his lips and into his hand and he tucked it discretely into his pocket.
He emerged from the Vanguard main entrance just under an hour after arriving. The big GMDs in the plaza broadcast a commercial for the latest in Landis Corp.’s wartech line as he made his way across the bridge and back to the capsule terminals.