Broken Mirror (46 page)

He would be blessed with free time but not freedom.

Accept it
, a part of him whispered.
No more struggling. No more fear.
The speaker, his doubt personified, was a glittering obsidian shape winking and sparkling in front of his sightless eyes, tempting him to give up and let his destiny unfold around him.

“No,” Victor said.

A tiny flame burned in his chest. He wouldn’t calmly accept his predicament. He wouldn’t indulge delusions. He would never stop searching, never stop demanding the truth.

His body tensed against the restraints, testing the bonds. He flexed and relaxed his legs, earning a few millimeters of wiggle room. He flexed harder and heard a ripping sound. The straps must have been fastened with scratch loops. Not terribly secure. His feet jerked hard. A tearing sound. The straps ripped apart, and his feet and lower legs were freed.

“Hello? Is anybody there? I’m awake now.”

No response.

Victor wriggled forward, moving his shoulders like a swimmer, back and forth, jerking upward, lifting the rear legs of the chair a few millimeters off the ground each time. The chest strap climbed his torso until it pulled painfully at his underarms. He leaned forward, lifting his shoulders and arms as high as possible behind him and pressing as hard as he could. The chest strap slipped free and slackened, falling to his waist.

Victor tugged his wrists, trying to raise them higher, but his back muscles cramped. He bent forward and pressed his forehead into his knees. He breathed, trying to direct oxygen to the spasming line of tissue, willing the muscles to relax. He would try again in a minute. Pressure on his bladder became toxic, but he ignored it.

Victor raised his arms again, took a gasping breath, and pulled them higher, leaning forward, straining and stretching muscles that screamed for him to stop. A high-pitched whine escaped his mouth. Then his hands jerked forward. His face smacked into his knees. It hurt, but he didn’t care. His nose throbbed. His hands rested on the seat behind him, free from the chair but still bound together.

He twisted, feeling with his fingers around the left side of the chair behind him, where the strap circled his thighs. His middle fingertip found an edge of the strap and traced the seam where hooks and loops joined. He broke the bonds of one corner with his fingernail, running it back and forth until the edge of the strap pulled away. Twisting further, a back muscle strained. He ignored it, trying to make contact with more of his fingers.

It was too far. His breath rasped loudly in the lightless room.

He could almost pinch the edge of the strap with his fingers. Working his legs up and down, shifting the strap one millimeter at a time, he managed to grasp the free end. Finally, with a grunt, he peeled off the strap and released his legs.

Victor stood up quickly. Too quickly. The blood rushed out of his head. Losing his balance, he fell to one side, landing on the meaty part of his shoulder. He managed to keep his head from banging against the floor. Wriggling toward a wall, he hoisted himself to sitting.

One restraint remained binding his wrists. He slithered in the darkness. His shoulder bumped against the chair leg. He pushed it against the wall and used it to pry one end of the wrist strap away from the other. He repeated the motion, once, twice, three times, and the seal was broken, the strap flung to the side. He was unbound. Free.

Victor checked his pockets for his belongings, but they were empty. He crept in the darkness toward the strip of light under the door. People were talking outside. Holding his breath, he strained to listen. He could only pick out a few words: something about patience and money.

His hand hunted for the doorknob, and when he found it, he pulled himself up. A low hum filled his ears, and all his muscles clenched. A lightning storm of pain shot through him. He leapt back, electrocuted.

He howled, filling the small room with his cry. The pressure on his bladder seemed slightly relieved, and he felt a wet spot at his crotch. The doorknob had shocked the piss out of him. He slammed his elbow against the door.

A man’s voice, Bandit’s, said, “I wouldn’t touch that again. I just doubled the power setting.”

Bandit sounded amused and hostile. Had he been there the whole time? Listening to Victor struggle, refusing to answer his calls? Watching him, perhaps? There could be an infrared camera somewhere.

Victor resisted the urge to pound on the door and throw himself against it. Instead he asked Bandit, “Why did you bring me here?”

He put his ear against the door, avoiding the knob, and listened for any movement. Silence.

“Where am I?” he asked.

There was no answer.

“Did the Classification Commission hire you? You can’t extradite me without a trial, you know. Your jurisdiction ends at the SeCa border.”

Bandit chuckled softly. He sounded relaxed. “I couldn’t care less about jurisdiction. Don’t worry, we’re taking you back to SeCa as soon as we get paid.”

Paid by whom?

Victor’s forehead rested against the door. He said, “I’ll pay you to let me go. Please, if you give me my things I can make the transfer.” As he spoke, his breath rebounded in his face, a sour stench smelling of acid and heat, metabolic byproducts of the sedative they’d given him.

“We’ve already got a buyer.”

Victor slumped back against the door. A buyer? They must be ransoming him. Although, he had trouble believing anyone
—
even his family
—
would care enough to pay.

“What did you sedate me with?” he asked. “It feels like I was hit by a truck.”

Victor waited for a response. None came.

“Hello? I really I need my medicine. I have a condition
—
I’m sure you know.”

His hands searched the wall and found a touch panel. Light rained down from the ceiling.

Victor looked around. The box-like room was unfurnished. Thin beige carpeting covered the floor. There were no windows, only the single closed door. Plain and calming, the room looked like the one Dr. Tammet had designed to help him during blankouts. But Victor wasn’t deceived. He had to get out.

The door looked solid, but there was no mechanism for locking the knob and no deadbolt. Those were promising signs. This was just another test to see if he could keep his cool and solve the puzzle.

Victor checked his pockets again. Still empty. He didn’t have much to work with. The chair sat overturned in the middle of the room and the restraints lay nearby like shed snake skins.

Or insulators! The synthleather straps would let him grip the knob without getting zapped.

But Bandit was on the other side, and he was strong, probably steroid enhanced. Not the type that Victor could overpower. He would have to wait for a better opportunity.

Victor gathered up the straps. Minutes ticked by. Then shouting came from somewhere beyond the door.

“Hello?” Victor asked.

No answer, but he could hear strained voices.

It was now or never.

He stood and wrapped the restraints around both his hands. He tested making contact with the doorknob. A slight buzz tingled in his forearms, but it was nothing like the sharp zap he had received before.

He gripped the knob with both hands, but they slipped off. He pressed harder to create friction. His fabric-wrapped hands rotated uselessly. He tried again, felt the knob begin to turn, then accelerate on its own.

The door opened inward, and Victor stepped back.

An unfamiliar man dressed in black with glinting metal weapons strapped to each of his limbs stepped into the room. Definitely a Corp. He pointed a stunstick at Victor’s heart.

Victor closed his eyes, cowering and bracing himself for a Dirac pulse that, at such close range, could leave him paralyzed for life. It didn’t come.

He opened his eyes and caught a glimpse through the open door of a crowd of people dressed in battle gear.

Standing in the doorway, behind the man with the stunstick, as proud and authoritative as a military commander, with crossed arms and a wispy corona of hair, was his BioScan supervisor Karine.

“There you are, Victor,” she said. “Don’t worry. I brought some Personil. You’ll be feeling fine soon enough.”

I was living someone else’s life. In his body, in his mind, viewing the world through a roiling inferno of rage and pain. I witnessed his every thought and movement.

He was running through some sort of medical facility. Visible through the windows was a lake. Low rolling hills stretched into the distance. It wasn’t Oak Knoll. When I looked in the mirror, I saw the unknown man’s bloody nakedness.

—Victor Eastmore’s dreambook

Victor staggered forward, covering the damp spot on his crotch with his hands. He followed Karine and her band of Corps into a large room packed with cubicle dividers, desks, and chairs. A thin layer of dust covered everything.

The sun was setting outside. Victor looked out a set of dirt-streaked windows at lightposts, asphalt, and tracks leading into Amarillo’s train station. Low-lying neighborhoods, commercial strips, and farmlands stretched to the horizon, broken by the lighted line of the highway.

Someone cursed nearby. Victor turned. Lucky and Bandit were on the ground being tied up by the Corps and fuming. One of the Corps taped their mouths shut.

Karine whispered in another Corp’s ear, then pulled Victor gently by the arm to a pair of office chairs. They sat facing each other.

Victor nodded to the people guarding Lucky and Bandit. “Who are they?”

“Corps, our security partners.” She sounded genuine and even-keeled, yet queasiness churned his stomach. Until he sorted out who were his friends and who his enemies, he would suspect everyone. And none of it made sense yet. If Karine was working with the Corps, who were Lucky and Bandit working for?

Karine leaned forward, clasped her manicured hands in front of her mouth, grass green nails glinting, and watched him closely. After a moment, she said, “We’re taking you home.”

“What if I don’t want to go?”

Karine looked at him, surprised. “You may not be thinking clearly. We found herbs among your possessions.”

“Do you have the data egg too?”

She shook her head.

Victor lowered his head. He’d lost both the data egg and the Handy 1000. Not to mention his dreambook. Now Karine would drag him back to SeCa, where he’d spend the rest of his life in confinement.

“Listen, Victor,” she said, “I don’t expect you to be a fair judge of your recent behavior, but we’re going to help you get past this. Circe has arranged a place for you in Carmichael.”

His stomach flipped as he pictured a facility filled with vacant-eyed, piss-reeking invalids. But Carmichael was home to both a facility for Class Ones and a ranch for Class Twos. Which one would it be? He asked, “The ranch or the facility?”

“That’s up to you,” Karine said. “We need a full account of your activities over the past week so we can undo the damage you’ve caused. That includes the intrusion into our network. You can’t possibly have accomplished that alone. If you tell us everything that happened and who helped you, then you’ll go to a Class Two ranch. Otherwise, I’m afraid we’ll have to take you to a Class One facility. It’s your choice.”

“You don’t understand,” Victor said. “There’s a war over stims. They’re flooding into the R.O.T., and they’re part of it.” He pointed at the Corps. “Stims are being added to drinks and sold in
supermarkets
. Everyone is becoming addicted. Wait!” Victor remembered sitting in Karine’s office as she described how MRS and addiction were at the center of the project she wanted him to lead. “BioScan is going to benefit from this.”

“It’s time to get back on your medication.”

Victor reared back in his chair. She wanted to silence him, didn’t she? What did he really know about Karine LaTour?

An old friend of the family, she had worked with Circe in Madrid at the start of their careers. She was good at her job: fair, ruthless, and ambitious. She treated Victor as a project, a thing to be fixed and used, a resource. He’d always thought there was something more to her feelings than professional ties, a mysterious charge that filled the air when she looked at him, though he’d never known whether it was attraction or repulsion. Despite all that, he suspected she wouldn’t hesitate to lock him away.

Karine blinked at him, and he was surprised to see a pink glow of compassion in her expression. Maybe he could persuade her to help.

Victor said, “They’re not fantasies. Jefferson died of radiation poisoning. I found proof.”

“I’m not going to validate your delusions by discussing them.”

“My mind is not the problem. There’s something wrong with the way people with MRS are treated in SeCa. In fact, as far as I can tell, there’s nothing
right
about it. I know about plans to put ranches and facilities everywhere. Europe’s next too, isn’t it? You can’t do that.”

Karine crossed her arms. “We have a good system. A humane system. The rollout has been carefully planned.”

“You don’t even realize that what you’re doing is wrong. How can you not see it? How can you go against what Jefferson Eastmore stood for? He didn’t want the Classification System to expand. He was killed because of it. You have to see the logic in what I’m saying.”

Karine sighed and reached inside her blazer pocket. She withdrew a pill case, which she opened, displaying two doses of Personil and three pills Victor didn’t recognize. “You’re making exactly the kind of illogical deductions that indicate mania.” She was clinically cold, cruelly logical. She actually seemed to believe what she was saying. Laws, she was good at spinning the truth.

Except Victor knew that he was not the problem.

Karine held the pills out. “Last chance.”

“I’m not taking those,” he told her.

Karine signaled to one of the nearby Corps. Victor hadn’t realized they were lurking so close. He started to turn, then felt a cool sensation on his neck. A medpatch. He reached to remove it, but the Corp clamped a hand on his neck to prevent him.