That nightstick smacks the cell door with an ear-ringing clang.
“Now, motherfucker!” screams the other guard.
Rough hands reach through the slot and ratchet cold steel around my wrists. I stumble forward. Behind me, the solid metal door glides open on oiled hinges. I hunch my shoulders instinctively as a burst of fresh air hits the back of my neck.
“Turn around, asshole.”
Two guards stand in the hall, a big one and a little one, framed by the doorway. Both men are wrapped in black armored vests, with kneepads and helmets. No writing and no insignias. The big one has a riot shield clutched against his barrel chest.
I’m standing here, cuffed, my baggy bright-orange jumpsuit hanging off my thin frame. In the weeks since I was captured, I’ve barely eaten or exercised. My bruises have gone from black to green to yellow. Healing.
The little guard flips up his protective face shield and grabs me by the front of my shirt. He drags me stumbling forward into the hallway. I crane my neck, soaking up the new sights and smells and sounds. Retinal reengaged, I can almost feel the electricity flashing spiderwebs through my visual cortex. My brain soaks up the novelty of information, drinking deeply after absolute deprivation.
Big puts a paw on Little’s shoulder. Through his helmet mask I see that he’s got worried brown eyes.
“Careful with him,” says Big in a deep voice. “They warned us for a reason.”
“Check his temple,” says Little. “This is just another Autofocus job. A fucking smarty-pants. What’s he gonna do, hurt me with his brain?”
Little smirks at me, shoves me forward down the hall. Big hangs back, almost cowering behind his Plexiglas riot shield. He palms his Taser holster with black-gloved fingers.
“Let’s just get him there, okay?” asks Big.
Little makes a high-pitched giggle. He prods me in the back with the nightstick, keeping me a few feet ahead, walking down the middle of an empty hallway.
My internal clock says it is one seventeen in the morning.
“Where are you taking me?” I ask.
In response, a wasp sting tap from the nightstick on my ear. It smarts like a bastard. I feel a trickle of blood running down my jawline.
Well, that answers that.
The long, low hallway has the feel of a submarine, running deep and quiet and unknown through midnight seas. Identical steel-plated doors line the walls. Taupe colored, the paint flaking. Each has one slot at crotch level and a slice of mesh-laced glass at eye level.
We reach a reinforced door at the end of the hallway. My breath catches in my throat as Little wrenches on my handcuffs, grinding my wrist bones together. I bite my lip and stop walking, trying not to react.
Little seems like the sort who wants to be provoked.
Big walks around me to clear the way. I notice he leaves a trail of watery boot prints on the hallway floor. It must be raining outside. A rumbling groan of distant thunder reverberates through the hallway. Must be a real hell of a storm to reach all the way in here.
Somewhere, a buzzer emits a quick grinding ring. The noise races up and down the hallway, as if searching for a way out. There isn’t one.
The horizon of my life is shrinking down to my line of sight. There are no moves left on the old chessboard. The little guard walks in front of me, cocky and armed. The bigger guard, cautious and wary, is hanging back. The hallway ends ahead in a yawning doorway, fluorescent lights humming on the other side.
An interrogation room.
This is it. All the decisions and possibilities of my life, stripped off and sent fluttering away into nothingness. I can see only one path now. And it doesn’t lead anywhere I want to go.
But there’s still that goddamn question blinking in my head. Begging me, pleading for me to just say the word. You have to see it to believe it. But I don’t want to see what Lyle was trying to show me. You go whole hog and you’re giving it all away to the machine.
One Lyle is enough.
The interrogation room is a dense cube of space. The air inside is heavy, moves like water, sloshing into my nose and out of my mouth. In the middle of the room, a squat steel table is bolted to the floor over thin, stained carpet. A stool crouches on either side of the table, also bolted down.
And perched on one of the stools is a familiar tall man, graying at the temples, beckoning me lazily with one arm. Today, he looks just like he does on television.
“Take a seat, Owen,” says Senator Joseph Vaughn.
Big shoves me into the room and I land on the stool. The little guard pulls out a serpentine chain and threads it from my handcuffs through a U bar welded to the top of the metal desk.
“Sit tight,” says Little, snickering.
Vaughn nods, and Big and Little step out. The heavy door closes with a hermetic hiss. I clear my throat and the rough dirty walls chew up the sound and swallow it. I imagine that I can feel far-off thunder coursing through the bones of the building, through the floor, into the soles of my feet.
Vaughn peers at me with birdlike intensity, chiseled face held at a slight angle. He doesn’t blink. As he watches, I can feel the information pouring off me in waves: my body language, facial expression, rate of breathing—all of it being absorbed and categorized and assimilated by this perfect-seeming man thing.
I wonder if Vaughn can feel that I’m afraid.
Is it visible over the castle walls of my body? The mayhem of my mind leaking out through trembling fingers? The man sitting across from me is famous for his tendency to orate nonstop for hours, but right this second he is silent as a vacuum. His eyes are so green and still, and God I just wish he would blink for Christ’s sake.
“You,” he says.
Me.
“You have been quite a surprise.”
I don’t say anything, but Vaughn goes ahead and answers the question that I was thinking: What did you expect?
“I was expecting that you’d be more cunning. Defying Lyle couldn’t have been easy. I suppose I’d hoped you’d be dangerous in some way, shape, or form. But I suppose not. Look at you. Weak.”
He leans forward, palms down on the table, long manicured fingers outstretched, eyes locked on mine. A row of even white teeth swells from beneath cherry-red lips, lupine.
“Weak. And scared.”
“Tell me where I am,” I say in a voice that sounds small in my head but comes out so much smaller.
He blinks, finally, mercifully.
“You’re in a federal detention facility in Pittsburgh. I want to thank you for joining me all the way out here. More convenient for me than for you, perhaps. I would have tried to visit sooner, but I’ve been just swamped dealing with the aftermath of some very nasty extremist attacks.”
Vaughn leans over, examines my face. “Your eyes are different from Lyle’s. Clearer. Honestly, it gives me the shivers when he uses his amp.” Vaughn leans back on his stool, relaxing. “He led you down a dark and dangerous road, Owen. Left you there, alone in the night. No one else knows where you are or even that you’re missing. You’re all mine. And all I’m asking you to do is cooperate.”
“What do you want?”
“It’s not what I want. It’s what’s best for you and your nation. For your fellow man.”
This doesn’t sound good.
“You’re going to confess your role as the leader of Astra. Admit to orchestrating the timed explosions that destroyed or severely damaged skyscrapers in Chicago, Houston, and Detroit. Admit to training the amp teams who infiltrated those sites in the dead of night using light-sensitive retinal implants. Admit responsibility for killing six thousand three hundred and forty-seven citizens of the United States.”
“What? That didn’t happen.”
He waves his long fingers through the air, miming falling stars.
“I warned them for years. Told the people that someone like you would do something like this. And now you’re going to make me the most powerful man in America.”
“Wha
t did you fucking do? You and Lyle killed six thousand people?” I ask, adrenaline lacing hot and cold through my forearms.
“Oh, and you’re an angel?” responds Vaughn.
I think of Lyle’s little speech. Plants, animals, men, angels, then God.
“Not quite,” I say.
Vaughn abruptly stands up. “You crushed a man’s face with a cinder block. He happened to be a part of my field organization and a friend of mine. And he would very much like to see you again. If you will not cooperate, then that is exactly what will happen.”
Poor Billy. In a hospital somewhere, eating through a tube. The Zenith’s question is still there in the corner of my mind. A locked door with the black faceless unknown crouched and hungry on the other side.
“Why do you hate us?” I ask.
“I don’t hate you. I pity you. You people can’t see it, but you are no longer human. Does a worm know it’s just a worm? I even understand that what you are is not your fault. Yet I cannot let that affect my decisions. I have a duty to the children of humanity.”
“You bribed Lyle to commit crimes,” I say evenly. “Created a fake catastrophe and killed thousands of people. Is that part of your duty?”
“That is exactly my duty. Future generations will retain their humanity thanks to the sacrifices we make. Six thousand today is nothing compared to the countless millions yet to be born. Without me, a generation of children will be cheated of their one and only chance to live out their lives as God intended—as human beings.”
Vaughn stops, his eyes refracted with tears. He dabs his face with a pale handkerchief. Some terrible memory seems to pulse under his features, like a living thing, insane and in agony.
“Unfortunately,” he continues, gathering his composure, “you’ve already lost your opportunity. But others haven’t.”
“I’m not confessing to anything.”
Vaughn watches me silently, eyes wide and lucid. Finally he stands, hooks a crooked smile at me. “Deep down, I’m glad it’s come to this. There’s something I’ve been dying to share. You aren’t the only one I’ve brought out east. The lady with freckles is very pretty, don’t you think? And I hear her deformed son makes up for it in personality.”
I can feel my heart expanding in my chest. Things going dull around the edges.
“Lucy and young Nicholas are now residents of the west Pittsburgh Federal Safety Zone, compliments of me. And I want you to picture this scene, amp. On my word, a dedicated member of Elysium enters the safety zone. He drags mother and son out of their beds and into the night for questioning. Beyond the razor-wire fence, he puts the cold barrel of his gun into the mother’s mouth. And I mean really pushes it in there. He pulls the trigger and sprays her brains all over her own son.”
I can’t help it and I wince. Vaughn soaks it in.
“Ah, but don’t worry,” says Vaughn. “He doesn’t kill the kid. Instead, he produces a pair of pliers and forcefully removes the boy’s implant. And I do mean all of it this time. Digs it out of his overdeveloped brain and leaves him there … an orphaned, slobbering vegetable. Now, how do you like that picture?”
I flex my arms against the cold steel cuffs.
“And for your part, well, it’s not looking good. The agents here don’t have much compassion for you amps. Understandably, I’m afraid. There really have been so many atrocious crimes. So, either you walk out with me to attend your confession or you and your little family face a very different fate. You see—you’re either going to be useful, or you’re not going to be anything at all.”
“No,” I mutter, pulse pounding in my ears. “No.”
Thirty seconds scrape by. My thoughts hover and dart like mosquitoes. The world has collapsed to two choices. Trust a mass murderer or die. Or … open this door in my head. Step into the same dark woods that swallowed Lyle.
Vaughn ambles to the door. Knocks three times.
“I suppose I’ll have to inform America that I’ve overseen your killing instead of your capture. Perhaps instant gratification is better, after all. They’re going to love me even more than if you’d confessed, I suspect. Who knows? Maybe I’ll run for president.”
A gap opens and Vaughn slips out, nods at the guards.
Now, Big and Little stand in the doorway. Little has a nasty grin on his face. Big looks blank and resigned and solid as an oak tree.
“End of the line, buddy,” says Little.
I squeeze my eyes shut. In the darkness, I stumble back into the room with the question. The words wait impatiently for me, implacable and alien. Level five. Full sensory networking. Long horizon mission planning. Command and control. Enhanced mobility and survivability. Do you consent? Do you consent?
Yes, I think to the beast. Yes, yes, yes. I’m saying the motherfucking word. Keep me alive, technology. Come on inside and make yourself right at home.
And something clicks.
I don’t feel any different. Whatever I woke up inside my head isn’t talking to me. I’m asking it one very important question: How do I live? How do I stay alive in this situation? Please.
But the oracle doesn’t speak.
Instead, the answer appears—painted before me like dance moves on a gym floor. Bluish footprints emerge glowing from the tile, flickering slightly between various configurations as the seconds pass by. Next, a swathe of scaly orange-red mountains rises up—a dull reddish tide that burns bright orange in the shape of those watery boot prints. I’m looking at a topographical map of wetness. Mountains of probable slickness.
I blink my eyes, but the additions to the landscape remain. This is coming from me. Nobody else can see this. Retinal talks to cochlear talks to neural talks to executive. I’m telling me what to do. Or the technology in me is telling me what to do. How is this happening?
Never mind. I don’t care how it works. I just want to live.
“Got fucking dirt in your ears?” bawls Little.
I look down at the U bar jutting from the top of the metal table. A chain rises from the desk and through my handcuffs and back, keeping me pinned. Now a bluish circle emerges to indicate the maximum perimeter based on the chain length.
Can you hurt someone with your brain?
Without thought, I fall into the dance moves painted on the floor. One quick step forward. Little’s eyes widen. I pivot to the right but slow. Drag my left foot. Give him time to react to the feint, time to lean forward with that nightstick rising like an angry cobra. Now I twist around the desk, planting my left foot and springing forward. He falls past me, a high-pitched eek coming from his black-soled boots on the slick tile floor.
As Little sails past me, I bow my arms out and catch his head under my left elbow. My ass lands on the cold metal desk and I pull my arms up to my chin, pinching Little’s windpipe under the unforgiving chain links.
“Hlurgh,” says Little, weakly waving his nightstick.
“Back,” I say to Big. “Stay the fuck back and I let him breathe.”
Little’s nightstick clatters to the ground.
Big considers, looking curiously at the twisted snarl on the face of his colleague. I’m breathing hard, but Little isn’t making a sound. He’s just turning a bright shade of red, eyes squeezed closed. The seconds seem like minutes to me. And they probably seem like hours to Mister “I’m quickly suffocating to death” here, his sweaty head wedged under my arm.
“All right,” says Big, flashing me his black-gloved palms. “Take it easy, fella.”
“I am willing to crush his windpipe,” I say, staring at Big with what I hope is a stern face. I relax the chain across Little’s neck. Just enough so he can take a ragged breath.
“Uncuff me,” I say to Little.
Little’s breathing sounds like gravel being sucked through a straw. He responds sluggishly, fumbles for his keys. I never lift the cold chain from his Adam’s apple, and I never take my eyes off Big.
Click.
My handcuffs are undone. The chain drops from Little’s neck and sli
thers away, coiling on the desk. For a split second, nothing happens. Then Little yanks his head up and Big dives forward.
And faster than my brain can process light, those blue lines blink back into existence. Luminous guardrails guiding me toward survival. Just stay on the road, Gray, and you’ll live through this.
Two arrowed vector lines shoot away from Little’s rib cage. As he drags himself up, back facing me, I reach down and smoothly unfasten his body armor. I yank it up from behind and dump the rear portion over his head. As he staggers forward under the weight of those heavy ceramic plates, I snatch his cuffs out of his belt.
Big charges forward and shoves the flailing Little out of the way, onto the desk. He’s too massive to stop. A rhino. Big brings down that nightstick toward my head with both hands like it was a battle-ax, but I’ve got the cuffs up and waiting. The stick lands between the cuffs and I pull them down toward me and twist the nightstick out of his hands. It hits the ground, clanging like a tire iron. Big lunges at me with his hands, and I pivot away and snap one of the cuffs onto his wrist. The other end I snap onto an ammo loop on Little’s body armor.
I dart out of the room. As the solid door swings closed behind me, it cuts off the bellowing of the two guards. I stand in the hallway for a few tense seconds, listening to myself breathe and feeling the storm coursing through the jail walls. I’ve done the thing I said I would never do.
I’ve woken up the beast inside my head.
Now it whispers to me in fans of blue light. In glowing mountain ridges of probability erupting from the walls and floor. Schematics of similar detention facilities. Blind spots. Routes and patterns.
I was wrong before. The beast is not silent. It speaks through my actions.
Turns out, the beast says, you can hurt somebody with your brain. In fact, you can fuck a person up pretty severely and steal supplies and sneak out of a perfectly secure detention facility—if you’ve got an okay grasp on the physics of it.
And I most certainly do.