Lost Signals (30 page)

“Let’s open up the floor now for suggestions on how we might resolve this pressing issue,” the Chairman said.

A senator stood up, leaning over slightly to speak into the gooseneck microphone mounted to the table in front of him. “I honestly don’t see why we should debate any of this or why I was called in here from my vacation. Based on what I’ve heard, this seems a lot simpler than what a lot of you have been saying. If we just keep him asleep, we don’t have to worry about anything.”

A collective grumble moved through the crowd. Pam watched as countless faces sank into scowls and frowns. Men leaned over and whispered to each other
 
; some pulled out phones and walked out into the hall, others began scrawling down notes.

“We can’t keep him asleep indefinitely,” an elderly doctor said. “It appears that he’s been building a tolerance to the sedatives.”

“Then switch drugs. With millions of dollars in tax breaks we give to our friends in the pharmaceutical industry, don’t try to tell me they can’t come up with something that can keep this bastard asleep.”

The doctor held up his hands. “Please. You have to understand that we’ve tried that. Everything new. Everything experimental that isn’t on the market yet. None of it really works. He’s developed a tolerance to the most potent stuff we have. And there’s still the risk that we might kill him.”

A businessman in a tailored three-piece suit stood up at the same time as a lobbyist for the pharmaceutical industry, beating him out for the floor. “I’d like to reiterate to you gentlemen that we
could
cryogenically freeze him. The technology has advanced a great deal since our last meeting. And with some additional funding, we could probably—”

“A technology that
your
company owns,” the usurped lobbyist said. “Why should everybody take a risk on something that doesn’t even work just so you can get a fat government contract
 
?”

“I’m not suggesting that we take any unnecessary risks. But if you want to accuse me of just trying to get a contract, how about you try to tell me your friends don’t want a contract of their own. Don’t act like you’re not looking out for your end just like I am. The fact is, without private industry, he would have woken up years ago. And we all know what’ll happen if he wakes up.”

For a few seconds, the room seemed to be still, unwilling to react, and then nearly everyone unleashed simultaneously, a hundred voices echoing off the walls and drowning each other out. People stood up by the dozen and grabbed their microphones, yelling at the top of their lungs to achieve maximum volume.

“The government only hangs onto him because they’re still trying to figure out how to use him as a weapon
 
!”

“Why the hell not
 
? We know what he can do. We should figure out how to use him against our enemies.”

“
You’ll never control him
.”

“Of course we can. We keep him asleep and use hypnotic suggestion to get him to target hostiles in Syria, Iraq, Iran, North Korea–”

“Are you stupid
 
? Are you going to tell me next you can turn a wolf into a vegetarian
 
? It’ll never happen. He likes hurting us too much.”

“He can’t do anything while he’s asleep.”

“
He can’t
 
?
Look at these numbers . . . let me just . . . yes, here. 1,298 suicides within a twenty-mile radius of the hospital last year, 331 fatal car accidents, 523 murders, 197 assaults. That’s thirty times higher than the national average.”

“That doesn’t prove anything.”

“You want to see the statistics
 
?”

“If we freeze him–”

“A seven percent increase in commercial airline crashes worldwide, a twelve percent increase in the national murder rate, eight percent international, six percent increase in suicides, fifteen percent increase in cases of assault–”

“Why
 
? Can somebody tell me why
 
?”

“It’s complicated. We think he emits this . . . this signal. It’s similar to EMF, but it’s not . . . it’s difficult to measure with existing technology. But in our studies, we’ve documented changes in Alpha and Delta and Theta waves in subjects who were in close proximity to the patient–”

“I’m tired of hearing your goddamn theories
 
!”

“It’s not a theory. He’s a transmitter, okay
 
? But he’s sending out a message telling people to kill themselves, kill their families, burn their houses down. If we can adequately shield him, we could–”

“Put him in a bunker
 
! Let’s bury the son of a bitch under a damn mountain
 
!”

“Are you crazy
 
? We can’t move him. If he wakes up during transport, it’s all over.”

“We can build a dome over the hospital, just like they did with Chernobyl.”

“And how much is that gonna cost
 
? How many construction workers have that kind of security clearance
 
?”

“We should be contracting out pharmaceutical companies to research new drugs.”

“He’ll just adapt to them.”

“Then you should perform surgery. Put the bastard in a real coma.”

“We tried that. We tried . . . Hey, shut up and listen. Fourteen years ago. An MRI showed he had normal formation of the cerebral cortex–”

“Why we are we even talking about this
 
? Who cares
 
?”

“Just listen. Please. We operated. Two doctors in the room had heart attacks and the anesthesiologist locked herself in a supply closet and gouged her eyes out with a pair of scissors.”

“That’s just the effect he has on people.”

“So what happens if he wakes up
 
?”

“He’ll kill us all.”

“Let’s kill him then, goddamn it
 
! Let’s just go in there and kill him
 
!”

“You want to piss his father off
 
? It’s bad enough as it is.”

“Shut up. Just shut up. I don’t believe he’s the anti-
anything
. That’s never been proven. I don’t need your Bible-thumping bullshit getting in the way when we have solid facts and figures. You’re just seeing what you want to see.”

“These figures don’t lie. Twenty percent increase in heart attacks in the US in the last year. Forty percent increase in strokes. That’s not a coincidence.”

“How about I kill
you
and we’ll see how much the murder rate goes up
 
?”

“Order
 
!”

The voices of the delegates became lost in the uproar. Somewhere, buried beneath the drone, the sound of the Chairman’s gavel tried and failed to compete in volume. After a couple minutes, the microphones were disconnected and security was called in to break up the fistfights in the aisles. Pam watched with perverse interest, wondering if she would see blood. She couldn’t understand it, but she
needed
to see. Ever since she’d woken up this morning, she had been thinking the strangest thoughts, laughing at the strangest things. The memory of her mother’s slow death from cancer. The thought of the cat she’d accidentally run over in college. The footage of the air crash she’d seen on TV while eating breakfast. It was hilarious. It was wonderful.

A powerful little thought emerged then, simple and perfect and warm within the confines of her skull. She saw flashes of it. A pony running through the wilderness. So strange. So familiar. She could remember seeing it before. In her dreams, in her oldest memories going back to when she was a little girl. She longed for it. She’d always longed for it. A companion. A friend who would never text her with dinner plans or send her photos of ugly children.

She got up from her chair, heat spreading all over her body, her skin beginning to sweat. She walked out of the room, giggling at the sound of screaming behind her. The sycophantic little man in the suit escorted her down the corridor, trying to impress her by bragging about his job in Washington, but he kept stumbling over his words, as if something was caught in his throat and he couldn’t manage to swallow it or cough it up. She imagined him with his throat ripped open. She saw it vividly, almost certain that it was going to happen to him very soon.

She smiled as he opened the door and headed up the steps. The soldier at the top of the stairs leaned against the railing, smoking a cigarette and rocking back and forth with his arms tucked tightly against his body. He didn’t bother to look at her or attempt to stand at attention. She saw death in his eyes. He knew his time was coming soon and was trying to come to terms with it.

She walked through the parking lot toward the hospital, seeing the rows of cars busting into flames in her mind. She could feel the warmth of it build and grow. With each step, it thickened, wrapping itself around her. Her feet scraped the asphalt, tiny pulses inside her brain tapping away in a counter rhythm, becoming more powerful with each passing second.

She walked through the emergency entrance of the hospital, ignoring the nurse with the nosebleed now lying on a stretcher and being given CPR by the bearded orderly. She stepped into the elevator, humming as she rode up to the sixth floor, not noticing as her nose trickled blood. The hallway seemed to be twenty or thirty degrees warmer than usual. She liked it better this way. The air conditioner had always been set just a little too cold for her.

At the nurses station, a pair of twitching legs stuck out from behind the counter, heels delightfully clicking on the tile floor. Joy swelled within her chest, making her body tingle and throb in time with the pulsing in her head. She remembered the merry-go-round now, the one she’d never been allowed on when she was a little girl, the one with the white pony she’d begged to ride. Her mommy and daddy had both been doctors. They hadn’t wanted their precious Pammy to grow up with her head full of childish ideas. Their daughter was going to grow up to be a medical professional just like them.

But she’d get to ride the pony now. She could see it vividly in her mind as she walked down the corridor toward room 603. It was smooth and white and beautiful. Powerful muscles moving beneath tightly stretched skin. Did the patient ever ride the white pony
 
? No. That was silly. She
knew
who the patient was. He didn’t ride ponies, but he loved them just as much as she did. He loved merry-go-rounds, too. He was the son of the amusement park owner, after all. He could go on the rides whenever he wanted to. He could stay out after sundown and eat cotton candy and curly fries. He could eat and eat and never get full.

Pam stopped at the gate outside the room. The guard stood there, his face pressed into his hands.

“Are you okay
 
?” she asked.

He shook his head. “Goddamn headache. Migraine.”

“Would you like me to give you something for it
 
?”

He pulled his hands away from his face and looked at her with bloodshot eyes. Sweat glistened on his skin, blood dripping from his nose.

“I think I need to go home.”

“You mean you don’t want to go home with me
 
?”

His eyes widened.

“You don’t want to bend me over and give it to me
 
? You don’t want to make me moan and scream
 
?”

The guard’s mouth fell open. He didn’t understand. She wasn’t sure she understood either. But she knew he’d been thinking it. She hadn’t just imagined it. She had seen his thoughts, read his mind and known what he had always wanted, to take her home and strip her naked and writhe on top of her until he was too exhausted to keep going. He wanted to see if that iron-hearted bitch could take it.

She smiled at him and reached for his belt. He stepped back and bumped into the wall, all that strength turning to fear.

“Don’t worry. I won’t tell anyone if you won’t. Let’s just take care of that headache first.”

He looked at her in disbelief, wide eyes blinking as she pulled his gun out of its holster, slid the barrel into his mouth and pulled the trigger.

The world exploded in her ears, the guard’s insides now on the outside. His lifeless body slumped to the floor, the feeling of delight radiating throughout every inch of her flesh, laughter pouring from her lips.

Pam dropped the gun and pulled the key ring off his belt. She unlocked the gate and stepped inside.

The patient was lying in bed as usual. He’d been imprisoned here for so long, not allowed to run free and play. Pammy wanted to play with him so badly. She’d ride the white pony and he’d build a beautiful bonfire.

She moved through the thick air, almost gliding over the metal floor, and reached out to shut down the machines. One by one, the lights and screens went dark, reflecting a soft orange glow rising from between the walls and floor. She wrapped her hands around the IV tubing and tore it free of the patient’s arms. The feeling within her swelled and expanded until her entire body ached. Her nose bled uncontrollably now. She reveled in it. The blood was part of the fun. Soon they’d both play in it.

The pulsing in her head pounded and roared. She heard voices and music and laughter, and she understood now that it had always been there, ever since she’d first started working at the hospital. She had simply tuned it out and ignored it, pretended that her body wasn’t an antenna like everyone else’s. But she was receiving now, loud and clear. The voices spoke to her and promised her everything she’d always wanted. They loved her and enticed her and sang to her. She stripped her clothes off, letting the warmth wash over her until she burned. The fluorescent lights overhead flickered and burst into showers of glass and sparks, throwing the room into the near darkness. The orange glow brightened, tracing the edges of the walls behind the wire mesh and expanding into bright cracks. Outside the window, dark clouds formed, fringed with deep red and orange. The walls caught fire, melting the wires like candle wax, the floor falling away as a fiery pit opened beneath her. She stood there, hovering in open space, watching the patient begin to stir. He was more beautiful than she remembered. In twelve years of watching over him, she’d never really taken notice of the horns or snout. Perhaps they hadn’t been there until now.