Chapter 19:
John’s relations with his guards didn’t return to what they had been, although they seemed to on the surface. They could do what they wanted to him, whenever they wanted, and when he thought about his helplessness to prevent it, he felt very badly frightened. His behavior became more erratic, and his recklessness in the trees, and often on Davies’ equipment, worried his minders. When he rode, it seemed as if he just wanted to gallop as hard as he could. He was sometimes hard to control, and they were changing horses every day now, as he always wanted to gallop hard enough to thoroughly tire the horses.
They heard him apologizing to the horse he rode once, burying his head against its neck. They suspected that he cried. There were times when he’d decline to go out of the Compound, so that at least he’d be off the lead. Adam and Ernie reported that on these occasions, his horse would often be bucking furiously, as if viciously, though he never looked to be in the slightest danger of falling. It was an expression of John’s turmoil.
He exercised rigorously, swimming constantly whenever he was allowed, and working determinedly in the gymnasium at other times. He was walking too, hard and fast, around and around the perimeter track, seldom stopping to talk to the guards who had been his friends. The leaves colored, and started to fall from the trees. Autumn again.
His telekinesis was finally beginning to become more reliable, and when he conjured a bread roll out of thin air, he abandoned the term, and thereafter thought of it simply as magic. Unfortunately, the bread roll tasted vile. But if he could do magic, he must be able to escape. Sometimes he looked at his guards with a shadowed gaze which made them nervous. But still, he didn’t want to hurt anyone, and didn’t even know if he could hurt anyone with his magic.
One morning, he made his escorts quite nervous when he sat on his horse, and watched through the fence at a sergeant who was drilling some of B Force. He watched a long time, not saying anything, just looking closely at the men, who glanced nervously at him whenever their sergeant wasn’t watching. Nothing happened though. They still put as few constraints on him as they could.
Quite suddenly, his rides were limited, and he was no longer allowed to go anywhere near the external fence. It took a while for him to find out why. His escorts wouldn’t tell him, and he finally overheard some talk at dinner time. Demonstrations against Germ Warfare, becoming larger and more organized all the time, at the gates that B Force guarded, and at spots around the fences, too.
The true reason for the well guarded area of army land was secret, so in the absence of an alternative explanation, rumors spread. When he mentioned it to Adam and Ernie, making it obvious that he knew what was happening, their tongues were loosened. “It was on TV last night,” said Ernie. “Apparently there’s rumors we’re developing a Flu/Ebola cross.”
John laughed and his escorts grinned. Poor John didn’t laugh enough these days.
John was docile the following day as they led his horse out the gates of the Compound. Adam and Ernie were relieved. He wanted to walk as close as they allowed him, staring at the crowds of people beyond the fence, almost out of sight of even his guards. “You know, they’re the first people I’ve ever seen who don’t work here, and almost the first civilians.”
The pair who accompanied him, gaped at each other. They knew theoretically that he had amnesia, but didn’t comprehend the reality.
John was gazing across at those far in the distance. He was feeling now, trying to feel those in the crowd, not noticing the way that Adam and Ernie looked at him. He turned back to them, and said persuasively, “It wouldn’t do any harm just to go a little closer.”
Adam nodded. “A little closer.” They couldn’t satisfy John, who yearned to see those people from outside.
There was a new horse for him the next day, and, as Ernie wasn’t available, there was Marinon, who’d done the job a few times before. The black mare was a beautiful animal. There was a slash of white on her rump, and the black mane and tail had white strands. “She’s called Naji,” said Adam, as John greeted the animal. “Only a five year old, bred in England, a stud that specialize in hunters. Colonel Bedville chose her for you personally - he said that black hair with white strands - it had to be meant for John.”
“She’s beautiful,” said John, moving close. The mare whickered to him and blew in his face, so that he laughed and hugged her.
Again, John wanted to go as close to the crowds beyond the fence as his guards would allow. The mare went kindly for him, but horses always did. He didn’t know why this one should make the homesickness rise in him so much more than usual. He reminded himself as he had before, that he may not even have a home. He didn’t know. He only knew that his prison, the only home he remembered, was not home, no matter how Mark might try to make it as if it was.
Adam’s zoster vibrated in his chest pocket. He listened briefly, closed it, and said to John, “We have to take you much further away. A couple of them have binoculars.”
John looked back as they started to lead him away. But suddenly the misery rose in him and his mare reared, pulling the rein out of the hand of Marinon and breaking the one held by Adam. And then she streaked away, heading towards a stand of tall trees, much closer to the fence. He had the single remaining long rein in his hand by now, so that Naji wouldn’t trip over it.
There were still sharpshooters with rifles stationed in jeeps around, but while they aimed, they didn’t shoot. Guards of B Force were aiming as well, to the shocked exclamations of civilian spectators, especially those with binoculars.
Naji jolted to a stop under a tree. John swiftly knelt and then stood on the saddle, grabbed a high branch, and climbed. Trees were his friends. Without any waste of time, he went as high as he could. He wanted to see the people who were free. Naji shook her head and moved off, alertly watching the swearing, furious guards. RABs were being consulted, and jeeps were moving closer to the trees where the subject was hiding, far too close to the boundary.
The demonstrators started chanting again. They were just a colorful blur in his sight. There was a woman in red right at the front and suddenly, he could see her. There were children. John thought he’d never seen children, except on film. The soldiers were trying to make them go further back, off army land, which extended only a hundred yards or so back behind the twin high fences. One raised a hand, threateningly, to the woman in red. The woman stood her ground.
John felt the soldier, felt his cruelty, felt his mind. The soldier fainted. John had his head tilted. He’d done it, but was the man all right? He waited. He thought he was all right. If he could make a soldier faint, he thought he might be able to escape, though he also had to make the RAB stop.
He glanced down. There seemed to be at least a dozen soldiers beneath him. He swung himself to a different tree, leaping recklessly across the intervening gap. Rifles followed him. They’d shoot him if he gave them much further excuse. He dropped to a low branch, and he whistled. Naji came galloping, and he swung himself down, onto her back, and crouched, as Naji streaked back towards the Compound. Marinon and Adam turned their horses to follow, galloping hard. The stables were outside the Compound, surrounded by a fence. John had never been allowed there, but now he slowed and trotted Naji through the open gate.
Marinon and Adam were warned. The subject was very tense, and might fight. Try not to provoke a confrontation. They watched, and hung back.
John was very tense. He might be miserable, but he was somehow going to go home. He didn’t want to be shot. As if casually, he greeted Gus, who looked after the horses. He’d never met Gus. “I rode her too hard,” he remarked.
Gus grunted. “You’re always doing that. I’ll walk her a while.”
John regarded him. “Would you mind walking me back into the Compound first? If I’m escorted, they probably won’t shoot me.”
Gus nodded, and gave a sidelong smile. “They might give me a medal.”
John was beginning to relax.
He shrugged ruefully, “I’ll be in trouble.” He stroked Naji. “She’s the most beautiful horse.”
Naji whickered, and then stepped closer, putting her head over his shoulder. He hugged her, holding her very tight for a moment. Gus grunted, looked away, and then said they’d best be going.
Gus was commended. John was confined to his room for the rest of the morning, and advised that he wouldn’t be allowed to ride out of the Compound for a week, and after that, only on Bess. He could still ride inside the Compound. They were lenient, but Isaac and Mark spent an hour looking at film and reading the reports about John’s almost magical communication with his horses. He’d ridden Naji for the very first time that morning, and she’d done exactly what he wanted her to. She’d even galloped straight to him when he whistled from the tree. They learned more when John was disobedient than when he was being docile.
In his room, John thought carefully of the soldier whom he’d made faint, and suddenly knew he was fine. A picture came to him, somebody mocking his faint, and he felt the anger of the soldier, who wanted to punch. It was a triumph. He could make a soldier faint, and without really hurting him.
At lunch, Mark dropped into a chair next to John. John wasn’t alone. He was listening to Rossi’s girl problems again.
John looked up and smiled. “Naji is the most wonderful horse!” he said enthusiastically, and proceeded to amuse Mark by describing at length just how wonderful she was.
Mark smiled at him. “She only cost us as much as one of the cameras you break whenever you’re in a bad mood.”
John shook his head. “If I broke cameras whenever I was in a bad mood, you’d have none left.”
The soldiers didn’t like it when Colonel Bedville ate in the staff dining room with John. Officers should leave them in peace while they ate. Rossi finished his meal quickly and left. Others of the soldiers were quiet, constrained. None of them lingered. Mark thought with amusement that only his prisoner treated him with no respect whatever, and yet he totally ruled John’s life. He didn’t rule his soldiers’ lives.
“You’re an awful lot of trouble, you know, John,” he said.
John looked frowningly at him, and suddenly said, “Come for a walk with me?” Mark looked his surprise and John said again, “After lunch. Come for a walk with me.”
Mark slowly nodded, and once they’d both finished their meal, John led the way to a large open area. There were no trees. The guards, at Mark’s look, stayed out of earshot.
John stopped after a while, and looked all around, head up, almost as if feeling the air. He started to slowly walk again. “The trouble with soldiers,” he said, “is that they don’t think.”
Mark was silent.
“They obey orders, but if only they’d think for themselves, wars would be impossible for a start.”
Mark said firmly, “Soldiers have to obey orders. Sometimes wars are necessary.”
John turned, pacing back slowly the way they came, keeping to the same open area where he’d seldom been. Backroom analysts were undecided. This sort of behavior would normally have them aiming long distance microphones. But John was talking to Colonel Bedville, the one in charge of the whole facility.
John stopped a moment, looking directly at Mark. “You’re a soldier, and you’re not thinking. It was twenty-four years or so before I came under your control. No disasters occurred, the world didn’t end. I am not dangerous.”
Mark was silent. John stood looking at him. Mark wished he wouldn’t ask, but he did, quite simply. “Mark, let me go?”
Mark started walking again, John paced him. Quietly, he said, “It would be my career, of course.”
John said nothing.
For ten minutes they quietly paced, back and forward across the open area of land where no microphones listened to what they said. In the end, Mark sighed heavily. “If I thought it was the right thing, I would sacrifice my career. But it is not the right thing. The right thing is to do my duty, and I firmly believe that my duty is to keep you confined, and try and discover, if possible, just what the strange power is that you have.”
John said sadly, as if sincerely, “I have no strange power. I’m just an ordinary man who’s been very badly damaged. But I won’t ask again.”
Mark glanced at him. “Ask for whatever’s reasonable, and I’ll try and do it for you.”
John was feeling a bitter depression, but he smiled brilliantly at Mark. “I want the store to start carrying ice-creams, and in at least twenty-four varieties.”
Mark clapped his shoulder, laughing. “Done!”
That night there was a power failure. The emergency generators failed. Even the RABs that ran on batteries, failed. They searched and searched for John. All that day, and most of the next, they searched, until the RABs quite suddenly started working again. They found him hidden in a wet hole, not far from the external boundary, past both sets of high fences, but still on army land, just near the low, perfectly ordinary fence that ran alongside the road. He was covered with mud and scarcely visible, even when one stood almost on top of him. The area had been searched several times without result.
John was in a deep coma. The illness had struck at the most fortunate time for his jailers, the least lucky for John. On the other hand, he was very cold, and his illness continued for the next week. Undiscovered, he would have died.
Mark came into Ward 3, very softly, on the third day. The light was dimmed. John was awake, but his eyes showed the agony that attacked him. Mark stood looking at him for a while until John turned glazed eyes to him. Mark silently stepped back.
John was becoming more blatant in his use of his power, although there was still no evidence caught on film. Mark thought they wouldn’t hold him for much longer unless he was brought more firmly under their control. Option C, they called it, but it was still not ready. About three weeks, they thought. They couldn’t test it on humans. Even on a condemned criminal, it would be unethical.
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