Quarantine (The Shadow Wars Book 7.5) (10 page)

But she couldn't get a grip on him. Allan suddenly began to feel extremely sleepy. His body felt like it was too heavy to keep upright and he sat down. The lethargy only got worse as he ended up laying down, his eyelids drooping, consciousness slipping away. He shifted, trying once to stand back up, then immediately gave up.

He was too tired.

Besides, he deserved a break, it had been a long day.

* * * * *

He was moving.

He was incredibly weak.

Allan opened his eyes. He stared up at a moving ceiling. He was lying perfectly flat on his back and it was an incredible effort to keep his eyes open.

“Hey, he's waking up,” someone said.

A face appeared, hidden behind a flat pane of glass. “Specialist Gray, can you hear me?”

“Yeah,” Allan replied weakly. “Who...”

“I'm with Hawkins, Gray. We got your signal. We're the retraction team. You're safe, you're okay,” the man replied.

“Hunter...” he whispered. “Where's Hunter?”

“We're still searching the ship. So far, you're the only one...”

But he was passing out again.

* * * * *

One more time, he woke up.

This time, he was lying on his back, he couldn't move and something was very much wrong. The world slid into focus and he scanned the room. He was in some kind of infirmary. The lights were on and very bright. His awareness felt heightened. The first thing that was wrong was that he couldn't move, he was strapped down to whatever he was lying on. The second thing that was wrong was that his armor was off.

Allan expected the miserable, screaming panic to swarm him then, the unmitigated terror that would blind his senses and leave him seeing red. But it didn't come, at least not as powerfully. He was scared, badly, but still fundamentally in control of himself.

“Allan?”

He looked down the length of his body and saw Hawkins standing at the foot of his bed. That sight alone was like a bucket of cold water on his psyche. He let out a long breath and tried to relax. “This isn't what I call a vacation, Director.”

Hawkins chuckled. “Yeah, well...me neither.” He seemed distinctly uncomfortable. He cleared his throat and shifted. “We had to take your armor off...I'm sorry. That's why you're strapped down. Intelligence reports you'd react violently. We were going to put it back on, fresh and polished, but...something has come up and to be honest, I didn't want you in a suit of power armor.”

Fresh, cold fear shot through. “Am I infected? Did the cure not work?” he asked.

“No, that's not it. You were cured. We reviewed the footage from the mission cam mounted in your suit and...I'm afraid you've had a psychotic break.”

Allan frowned, not quite understanding what he meant, then it hit him. He was referring to the hallucinations he'd had near the end of his journey. “You mean my visions of Hunter, right before I got the cure? I know, I was hallucinating.”

The troubled look on Hawkins's face didn't go away. Slowly, almost sadly, he shook his head. “No, Allan...we reviewed the footage from your mission and...well, I'm not quite sure how to put this lightly, so I'll just come out and say it. You were the only survivor from the speed ship. You were alone, the entire time, on the
Stygian
, in terms of friendlies.”

Allan's frown deepened. He continue staring at Hawkins. He wanted to say that he'd misheard the man, but he was sure he hadn't. “I'm...I'm not sure I understand what you're saying.”

“I'm saying that Duncan, Hunter, Colin, all those people you thought you were talking to for all those hours? You weren't talking to
anyone
. You were alone. You had a psychotic break and hallucinated.”

Allan shook his head again, and Hawkins pulled out an infopad. He passed it to Allan. “This is a...I guess you could call it a highlight reel from your mission, of all the times you thought you were talking to someone and you weren't. You should watch it.”

With numb fingers, Allan took the pad from Hawkins's hands, turned it around to face himself and pressed the play button. The first thing he heard was himself, talking, the relief obvious in his voice. It was the first time he'd heard from the others, that they'd survived. He heard his half of the conversation, but there was only silence in the times where someone was supposed to be talking. He fast-forwarded, came to his reunion with the others...except he was in an empty, bloody infirmary, talking to nothing and nobody.

“This...doesn't make any sense,” he whispered, continuing.

He continued watching, seeing empty corridors and rooms, hearing himself have a variety of one-sided conversations. He sounded utterly insane.

“Allan, it's obvious from your file that you didn't have the most stable of upbringings. The events of Lindholm only made you worse. It's also obvious that you're in desperate need of a psych-eval and therapy. Either you hit your head in just the right way, or just the wrong way, during your escape from the speed ship, or the events proved too traumatic for you. Before, I was willing to let you try and sort this out on your own, but now, if you're going to continue working for me, I'm afraid I insist that you deal with this psychological imbalance of yours,” Hawkins said.

Allan set aside the infopad after turning it off and stared fully at Hawkins. “What do you want me to do? Go to therapy? Start taking pills? While I'm out there with a gun and armor, fighting monsters and narcissistic megalomaniacs?” he asked.

Hawkins shook his head. “Unfortunately, we don't have that kind of time. I have another option. Something that will either cure you or kill you inside of a day.”

Allan frowned. “What...what the hell kind of device do you have that either cures mental illness or
kills
the patient that quickly? Russian roulette?”

Hawkins offered a grim chuckle. “Not quite. It's...well, suffice to say, it's a very complicated piece of technology and it's still experimental. Based on your file, I'd say you like to gamble with your life, and you also like things to be fast rather than slow. You're going to want to do this.”

“...maybe. What kind of odds?”

“Fifty-fifty.”

“Ha! Good odds, I guess. Better than I get facing down alien experiments or mad gods...” Allan considered it for a long moment, but, in the end, what choice did he really have? If he had hallucinated this thoroughly...

“It couldn't have been the virus, could it?” he asked.

Hawkins shook his head. “No. A hallucination that powerful, that quickly...no, the hallucinations you saw at the end were a result of the virus. What you started seeing from the beginning is a result of your refusal to deal with your issues. And it's only going to get worse, I imagine. We can't have an incident like this happen again.”

Allan sighed. “So, take the experimental treatment or get fired?”

“Basically. Under normal circumstances I'd honestly offer you more typical treatment but...well, we're playing with matches here and there's a fuse that we don't know the length of. Rogue Ops needs to go down, and I need you and your friends to do it.”

Allan smiled gently. “My friends...” He stopped considering the issue. “All right. I'll do. What do I need to do?”

Chapter 10

–
The Quiet Sleep & The Hard Wake
–

“So, tell me about this...procedure.”

It had been nearly a day since he'd woken from his near comatose state, Hawkins at the foot his bed, telling him that he was clinically insane. He'd taken it surprisingly well. Though that could be stemming from the fact that he'd had some kind of psychotic break. Maybe he was just tired, or it could have been the lingering aftereffects of the virus that Rogue Ops had synthesized. He'd had most of that day to recover, lying alone in the infirmary bed for most of the time. The others drifted in from time to time to check up on him.

Greg, Trent, Drake, even Enzo, surprisingly. Not Callie, though. When he'd asked, Hawkins had said that she was still away on her mission. He missed her, feeling a hollow ache in his chest. He'd slept the majority of the time, drugs perking through his system, accelerated agents that were being dripped into his body via a trio of IV bags hung around him. Hawkins said he needed to recover, the sooner the better, and he also needed to get his strength back. The procedure to get his sanity back was supposed to be very...taxing.

At the beginning of the following day, Allan had awoken bright and early, feeling physically much better. He was rested, fed, hydrated...and ready to face the new challenge. The fact that he was out of his armor took its toll on him, but it was nowhere near as bad as he'd thought it was going to be. He was generally nervous, his heart probably beating faster than it should have and he often found himself thinking paranoid thoughts.

But he wasn't panicking.

He'd had a shower, a shave and had changed into a fresh uniform. The shower had lasted close to an hour. That alone made him feel significantly better than he had been in a long, long time. After that, Hawkins had let him have a quick meal in the mess hall. He'd eaten meat and cheese enchiladas and drank several cans of Vex.

And then Hawkins had led him to what seemed to be a private medical suite. The whole room, no larger than his quarters, seemed to be centered around a single examination table. It was orbited by an array of medical equipment and gently beeping technology. A pair of med-techs in white-and-orange uniforms waited.

“The procedure is...experimental,” Hawkins replied. He motioned to the examination table. Allan lingered a moment.

“Do I need to get naked for this?” he asked.

Hawkins shook his head. “No. This isn't any kind of surgical procedure. This isn't like anything you'll have every quite experienced.”

Allan laughed nervously and laid down on the examination table. “You're making me a little apprehensive there, Director.”

“You probably should be. Like I said, fifty/fifty shot of survival.”

Allan looked around at all the gear and technology. “So, what's happening? Level with me. Tell me what to expect.”

“That's the problem, I can't. But I can describe to you the actual procedure. Basically, what we're doing is giving you the ability to go into your own mind.”

“I...what?” Allan replied, not sure he was understanding the Director.

Hawkins chuckled uneasily. “That's about as simple as it gets, I'm afraid. These machines will allow your consciousness to go into your memories, the landscape of your psyche.
Something
is triggering your insanity. Some singular event that you're likely repressing. You are going to search your memories for this event and...deal with it.”

“How will I deal with it?” Allan asked.

Hawkins shrugged. “I don't know. It's different for everyone. Given your past...I imagine you'll shoot it, whatever it is. I don't know what it is, what it will look like, how it will affect you...it's
your
head, Allan. You'll have to do what makes sense to you. I imagine it will be very confusing in there. The scientists that concocted this strange thing said things tend to be...figurative. Things represent other things...hell, listen to me rambling on. I don't really know much about this procedure. It should take somewhere between twelve and twenty four hours, real time. As for how much time will pass in your head...no idea. Unfortunately, after that, you're going to need some recovery time. At least a week, minimum.”

“Recovery time?”

“Yes. Everyone who has survived the treatment has reported needing days or weeks of recovery time. They found the experience very emotionally and physically taxing. So I'm slating you for a week minimum. I want you at your best,” Hawkins replied.

Allan sighed. “So much for a quick turnaround time.”

“Hey, it's better than years of therapy. Which, I'm going to admit, I'm still going to recommend you do after this.”

Allan hesitated. “What do you mean, I thought you said-”

“What I said was, this will cure you of any more psychotic breaks. No more hallucinations, no more needing to wear armor all the time. But the damage has been done. You're going to need to make slow, consistent repairs over the course of months or years with the help of therapy and medication if you want to experience a better quality of life.”

“I'll...take it under consideration,” Allan replied after a moment.

He thought Hawkins would leave it alone after that, give the word to begin the procedure, but he didn't. He continued to stare at Allan. “Why are you so averse to this?”

“Isn't it obvious?” Allan replied.

“I want to hear you say it.”

Allan sighed. “I guess, because...I don't know. There's kind of a stigma against it. Not as much as there used to be, but, it's like, you kind of get pegged as that crazy guy who couldn't handle the pressure, who needs help, who couldn't just tough it out and get drunk like a normal person.”

Hawkins laughed. “I think I delivered almost the exact same speech seventy years ago,” he said. “Right before I started going to counseling.”

“You? Really?”

“Yep. Let me tell you something. Picking up a rifle, slapping on some combat armor and going to shoot bad guys tends to fuck a person up. Only the really screwy individuals are perfectly okay with doing what we do. Everyone has different ways to dealing with that. I spent twenty years looking for help at the bottom of a bottle. A friend of mine finally talked me into trying therapy. I went, mainly because I owed him a few, he'd saved my life more times than I cared to count. I ended up staying in it for ten years, helped me work out a lot of problems. I won't make you go, Allan, but I'll heavily recommend it.”

Allan stared at Hawkins a moment longer, expecting him to say more, but the Director seemed to have said his piece. He gave a quick nod to the pair of med-techs, who had remained so silent and immobile during the conversation that Allan had forgotten they were there. One of them moved over to a large node of technology, a sophisticated workstation attached to the wall behind him, while the other approached Allan and gently placed a hand on one shoulder, indicating that he should lie back. He did, lying flat on his back, his arms at his side.

“Will it hurt?” he asked as the second tech moved to the joined the first.

“Physically? No,” Hawkins replied.

“I don't like that answer,” Allan murmured.

Hawkins laughed. “I don't either.” He hesitated. “If you don't make it...” He looked at Allan imploringly.

“If I don't make it...tell my parents I was killed the in the line of duty and give them another five hundred thousand credits.”

“And Callie?” Hawkins asked.

Allan laughed. “Why does everyone think there's something going on between us?”

“Because there is. Even if you won't admit it.”

Allan sighed. The med-techs were attaching leads to him now, sticking them to his temples. One of them injected him with something, while the other set up a banana bag of some strange bluish liquid, which was fed through a drip into his bicep.

“Tell her the truth,” he said finally.

“I'll do that. Good luck, Allan.”

The world began to swirl and get dark. Allan laid his head against the pillow that had been provided for him. “Thanks, Director.”

The world went black.

* * * * *

Allan groaned and shifted, trying to get his bearings. He was immensely tired, lethargy turning his mind to a sluggish, incoherent fog. He heard voices, lots of voices, and a great deal of activity going on. His head hurt, it felt like someone had fired bolts into both his temples. Slowly, he opened his eyes, and was immensely surprised to see a very familiar face leaning over him, staring at him intently, frowning.

“Welcome back to the land of the living, Sergeant Gray,” Carpenter said.

“Captain Carpenter?” Allan asked, the words more coming out as a moan than anything else. Carpenter offered his hand.

“The one and only. Come on, get up. We've got work to do and time is short.”

Allan took the older man's hand and was pulled roughly to his feet. The world tipped and swayed, slowly sliding into focus. He was in what looked to be a receiving area for a high-level prison complex. The room was large, ringed by automatic defenses and security stations. At the back of the room was a huge, metal door. Very much akin to a bank vault. A huge hole had been forcefully ripped through the door from the inside.

All manner of death and destruction seemed to have taken place within the receiving area. There were dead bodies, pools of blood, spent shell casings everywhere, dents in the floors and walls, debris strewn about. A couple of dozen men in Security-Investigations uniforms were sweeping up the bullets, mopping up the blood and hauling away the bodies. Allan slowly took this all in, at first immensely confused about where he was.

“What happened?” he asked finally.

“It escaped,” Carpenter replied bluntly. He turned and began walking away, towards another large door that been forcefully broken open. He raised one hand and motioned for Allan to follow. He did, moving slowly at first.

Everyone he passed stopped what they were doing and saluted him crisply, their expressions deadly serious. Usually a sharp 'Sir!' accompanied the salute. There was something disturbing about all the varied men and women that comprised the clean-up crews. They all seemed to vaguely resemble each other. They looked like generic raw recruits of SI: clean-cut, young, bland faces, hard bodies, tempered by training but not yet used by the job.

Something was really wrong here.

Where was he, again? What was he supposed to be doing?

He hurried after Carpenter, coming into a break room. Carpenter stood before a small kitchenette area. Allan stopped and blinked, surprised at the transition. Having a casual break room just beyond a receiving area for a high-level prison was extremely incongruous. Carpenter seemed not to have noticed. He turned as Allan approached, his left hand cupped, holding three white tablets, painkillers, Allan saw, the second one holding a Styrofoam cup of coffee.

“Drink,” he said.

Allan's head was pounding, and he felt like shit anyway, so he accepted both gratefully. Popping the pills into his mouth, he swallowed them with the bitter, black coffee. Almost immediately, the fog in his head began to clear and the pain in his head started to recede. He drained the coffee and handed it back to Carpenter, who threw it away.

“Feeling better?” he asked.

“Yes...you're dead,” Allan replied after a moment.

“As far as you know, yes, I'm dead. I very likely died back on Lindholm.”

“Which means...this is a hallucination.”

Again, Carpenter nodded. “Yes, or as close to. You remember now?”

Allan massaged his temples for a moment, then slowly nodded. “Yes. Hawkins. The procedure. I'm inside my own head right now.”

“Yes.”

“This is...nuts,” he muttered. He glanced back through the torn open door into the room he'd awoken in. “What happened? You said it escaped. What's 'it'?”

“For lack of a better term, your insanity, the seed of your madness. It was locked up, but after the incident on the
Stygian
, it escaped and began wreaking all kinds of havoc. It's done a lot of damage, and if we don't kill it soon, it may very well kill all of us.”

“What is it? What does it look like?” Allan asked.

Carpenter shrugged. “I don't know. I
can't
know. That's the point.”

Allan shook his head. “What? I don't get it.”

“Look,
you
don't know what's the root of all this, which means that no one in your head can know either, see?”

Allan sighed. “Yeah, I guess so.” He looked around the break room. There was only one other door. “Well, this sucks,” he muttered.

“You have no idea. Come on, I've already assembled the team. They're in isolation, going over all the relevant data, preparing for the mission. They're just waiting for you.”

Allan hesitated. “The team? What team?”

“The team of people most capable of dealing with this problem.”

“How are we going to deal with this problem?”

Carpenter stared at him. “How do you deal with all your problems in life, Sergeant Gray? You hunt them down and shoot them. So, come on.”