Escana (82 page)

He laughed then. Perhaps having
such thoughts meant that the institute was the perfect place for him,
he could only imagine the reaction of the psychologists had he told
them of the world inside his own head.

The grass was cool against his
head as he lay there pondering his life, the blinding light he had
thought was another invasion from the stranger had been but the glare
of a sun that he had not witnessed in such a long time.

A voice cut through his thoughts,
calling him from the bridge. The police officer was still there, he
had witnessed the jump and was presumably here to take him away to
the institute again.

He closed his eyes and listened
as the footsteps grew closer, refusing to acknowledge the man until
his hand was laid upon him.

'Can you hear me?' the officer
asked as Jakob opened his eyes.

'Yes,' he said, his voice a faint
croak as he turned toward the man, it always sounded different in his
mind.

A flicker of recognition passed
over the officer's face. 'Hey, you're that guy from the news!'

Jakob had no idea what the man
was talking about, he wasn't well up on current events thanks to his
feverish writing schedule.

'If it's any consolation at all I
don't believe you did it, you were clearly screwed over by the
circumstances. Can't believe they locked you up out here when you're
clearly innocent.'

The man's statement did little to
improve Jakob's understanding, he gave a faint nod and wondered to
himself where this was going and why the man was being so chatty.

'I've read your book, the
serialised version they keep putting out. Keep up the good work,
you're a terrific writer.'

Serialised? So they had been
releasing the book anyway, albeit in a different form. Now they were
running out of material and desperately needed more chapters from
him. Why not get someone else to write it in his name instead? So
many popular writers did that anyway, selling copies off the back of
a bigger name, why was it that they needed him alone to do it?

'Is there anywhere you want to go
before you get taken back to the institute? They'll catch up with you
eventually, I'll just say I didn't find anyone by the bridge.'

Jakob briefly recalled the lack
of splash that the stranger's descent into the water had made. Had
the odd character been there at all or was this another ploy? At any
rate it was too late now if he had dove into the waters before Jakob
and still not surfaced.

'I'd like to go home,' he said,
knowing what he had to do now and how little time he had left to do
it.

The policeman nodded and gave
Jakob a surprisingly warm smile, he couldn't recall specifics but he
knew it had been some time since he had seen a smiling authority.

They made their way up the slope
and back to the man's car, the lights were still flashing as they
approached and Jakob wondered whether he was being coddled into
accepting a ride back to the institute. It didn't matter really, he
was too wet and tired to carry on with this escape, a weariness ate
at his bones that hadn't been there when he was last on the bridge.

The policeman opening the back
door of the vehicle was all the sign Jakob needed, if that man was
really escorting him home as his friendly demeanour had suggested
then he would have simply let him ride shotgun. He sighed and stepped
forward, awaiting the cuffs.

A blanket was tossed at him, he
caught it wordlessly and draped it over his dripping clothes. No
sense in getting the man's car wet and souring his disposition.

The policeman shut the door with
a resounding slam, giving Jakob a look of apology when he saw the
noise had startled him.

'Sorry about that, the door has
been playing up lately. Need to get that looked at soon but there's
little funding for the squad cars these days.'

'You're not arresting me?' Jakob
asked, realising as he spoke that his assumptions were clearly
mistaken.

The man chuckled, 'Son, in the
eyes of the law attempted suicide isn't a crime, you've not done
anything wrong there. I'll take you back to the institute tomorrow
morning, your day of freedom is on me.' He opened the front door of
the car and beckoned him to come forward. 'Now what say you show me
where this home of yours is and I take you there, hmm?'

The inside of the cop car was
much like any other vehicle, there was a large radio interface that
reminded Jakob of the old taxis he used to see about the place. A
small Christmas tree dangled from the mirror with a cloying fragrance
that he couldn't name. As the man started the engine (apologetically
after two botched attempts) Jakob felt a hollow sickness grab at his
guts.

Much like his first journey to
the institute the officer was a chatty chauffeur, willing to go on at
length about the troubles of the precinct and the news of the day.
Jakob nodded to most of it silently, hoping that the man would still
his tongue so that he could focus on not vomiting over the radio.

They eventually wound their way
up a familiar gravel path, Jakob was relieved to see no cars parked
in the vicinity. Presumably everyone was out at work, he didn't feel
in any fit state to answer the inevitable slew of questions he'd be
faced with.

'Looks like nobody's home,' the
police officer mused, clearly an expert at pointing out the obvious.
'Have you got a key?'

Jakob nodded. 'I know where they
keep the spare, thank you for the lift, officer...?'

'Stapleton, Jim Stapleton.' the
man said, reaching out and tapping Jakob's badge sombrely, which had
remarkably stayed clipped to his shirt in spite of his thrashings in
the water an hour before. 'Suicide isn't against the law but
involuntary escape of Clearer Minds is. I will be picking you up
personally next morning, if I find you have done a runner it won't go
well for you, understand?'

He earnestly agreed with the man,
he couldn't wait to exit the car and be done with the stifling
atmosphere. He had one day, that should be enough if he pushed
himself hard.

Watching the car head back up the
driveway and out of sight felt strange, the afternoon sun had a
pleasant heat to it and the lawn was immaculately cut as always. He
turned back to the house and approached it, pondering to himself how
symbolic a gesture this would seem.

The spare key was still under the
plant pot, that was fortunate as Jakob didn't enjoy waiting for
anything, especially a family that weren't expecting him back.

His first destination was the
bathroom and a hot shower, in order to complete the task before him
Jakob needed to be at his best, not wet and bedraggled like some
drowned rat.

Still dripping, he made his way
to the bedroom and as he suspected it was identical to the last time
he had been there. It filled him full of hope, this was his
sanctuary, his fortress away from the world. From here he could do
everything that was required and not have it strong-armed out of him.

He staggered slightly, a wave of
dizziness hitting him with a vengeance for putting his body through
so much. When was the last time he had slept?

Staring down at the notepad in
his hands he carefully pried the soggy pages apart until he came to
the appropriate entry. Three days. It had been three days since he
had slept, constantly jotting ideas and turning them into chapters in
the endless hours of captivity. As refreshed as he had felt from the
shower he knew he couldn't complete his task without rest, regardless
of the problems that might bring.

He sank into bed and closed his
eyes.

'You didn't think you could get
away, did you?'

Jakob was startled into
wakefulness by the voice of the stranger.

'No, I'm not in the dream any
more, you can't be here.' He shut his eyes but the voice remained,
laughing.

'You
thought
that
everything
you
saw
was
a
dream
?
My
good
man
I
had
you
pegged
as
more
clairvoyant
than
that!'

Jakob tossed in the darkness, not
knowing how long he had been asleep or even if he had woken.

'I assure you, you are quite
awake.' the stranger replied, lying next to him.

He fell out of the bed with a
loud thud, cringing at the thought of having woken someone.

'I'm so glad you could finally
come round to my way of thinking, there's no sense in you not seeking
publication considering the visceral reality of your writing.'

'Who are you?' Jakob asked. 'Why
are you here? How did you get in? Is this some kind of sick joke?'

The stranger had vanished.

Picking himself up off the floor,
Jakob came to the slow realisation that the man had never been there,
this stranger was a part of his own mind. He really did belong in the
institute, he knew that now.

There was still one last thing he
had to do before returning there.

He settled himself down into the
comfortable leather of his computer chair and fired up his trusty
desktop machine. The glow of the monitor illuminated the room as he
waited patiently for the disk check to end. He knew this meant that
the computer had been booted a number of times since he had last
accessed it, he was beginning to regret not password-protecting the
machine. Then again Brian could probably have circumvented that
anyway, what had they done to it?

The familiar sight of his desktop
greeted him, though it seemed that all his start up applications had
been disabled and a number of files had been left on the desktop.
They were labelled 'Jakob's book' and 'transcribed notes', among
other things. He read through them and came to the conclusion that
this was the computerised version of everything he had done in
Clearer Minds. He had expected a harder search for it than this, then
again if his mother had been involved as she inevitably would have
tried to be then either Aaron or Brian would be forced to place them
in plain sight for her.

He loaded up the book in the word
processor, skimming over the chapters, each of them causing a faint
echo of memory within him. It was all here.

Carefully opening the notepad up
on the first page, he started to write.

S
he had tried
her best to stay within the confines of Alissandra's abode, the
corpulent woman had left her alone for the time being, claiming to
have some undisclosed business to attend to. It was suffocating her,
to be trapped in a small place with no hope of escape from the
reality of the lies she had been fed. Everywhere she turned in this
accursed place was a stark reminder of just how misguided she had
been in placing her faith in such a monstrous creature. Why had she
even suspected that the things it had told her were truthful?

Her throat felt like it was
closing over in protest, she had to get out of this place and into
the open air. Her footsteps carried her at a fast pace as she fought
down the urge to run, nothing would be gained by betraying her
feelings to the people she may encounter. She had no doubt that
somehow she was being watched, it was a familiar sensation of
wandering eyes that crept up the nape of her neck but without a
determinable source.

So be it, let her be watched, it
made no difference at this juncture.

She left the confines of the
boudoir and ventured out into the concourse, all the while knowing
where her supposedly undetermined steps were really taking her.

The once-majestic brightness of
the floating city now sickened her, no amount of polished purity
could hide the innumerable manoeuvrings she saw being waged upon this
plateau. She turned a blind eye to it all, her eyes set upon that one
familiar path that would lead her into a potentially dangerous
conflict. She had assurances from the Emperor himself that El-Vador
would do nothing to harm her but she still failed to see how a man
such as he could be anything but a figurehead when tasked with
keeping such a powerful force in check. She idly wondered what
leverage the man could possibly have over the Elf, was it really a
sense of duty to humanity that kept him servile? What would happen
when the Emperor commanded things of him that he did not agree would
better humanity as a whole?

She reached her destination and
began climbing the steps, knowing that all eyes were upon her in this
action, she wondered what her hidden observer must think of this turn
of events.

Casting aside the unanswerable
questions she walked into the room and found him lying in the bed,
eyeing her with a strange look. Of course he had known that she would
arrive here, that was to be expected. Now what was he going to do
about it?