by Schow, Ryan
Heading back to the Wynn from the airport, they drove the city streets, the overhead street lamps rushing past them in a blur of white, the pavement a flat, dry black. Night had fallen. Midnight was an hour away and the city was brilliant, a sea of lights on the desert floor. This was the time the vampires came out. Wanting to hunt, to suck the life out of strangers, to swallow the night.
He thought about Aniela, and Georgia. He thought about Netty and about Becky. And then he thought about Abby, and how there were no vampires in Vegas as much as the only real vampires were not murderous night creatures, but men like Gerhard, a.k.a. Dr. Holland. The thought of him and all he ruined was as depressing a thought to him as his hearse was to Georgia.
Changing subjects, pulling himself out of the emotional mire, he said, “If you want, I’ll run you a bath and order room service when we get back.” Georgia said that was nice, and so when they arrived at the Wynn, when they finally got upstairs and she was able to relax, he did just that. Hamburger, French fries, chocolate shake. The man on the phone said forty-five minutes.
Brayden asked him to make it an hour.
Since the moment she walked into the suite, she hadn’t once turned her eyes from the brilliant view of the strip outside. She was mesmerized by the lights. By all the sights the Vegas strip had to offer.
In the oversized bathroom, he ran her a hot bath, and when he told her it was ready, she stripped naked and got in. It wasn’t polite to stare, but he stared anyway because he was a man and men like the look of naked women. It wasn’t like she minded. Modesty was one of those things that got thrown out the window as a result of her last transformation.
He was about to leave when she said, “Stay with me.”
Who was he to argue? Of course he’d stay.
“My mother is scared of me,” she finally admitted. “She says no human being can start fires with their mind, certainly not any daughter of hers.”
“You shouldn’t have told her what you can do,” he said.
“I hated that plant.”
“Why did you burn it? It’s just a plant.”
“When my brother died, she put all her love into that stupid plant. Sometimes it felt like I died, too. My current brain carries the memories of me wanting her to love me more than I wanted her to love that plant.”
He told himself to keep his eyes on her eyes. Not anywhere below. Even though he could see her everything and her everything was perfect and exciting.
She’s not real, he told himself. It was the first time he’d ever said that about any of his friends. Georgia was real. Just like Abby. Just like Cicely and Tempest and Maggie, before she killed herself. They were all true flesh and blood, just modified. And modified isn’t fake, he told himself.
It’s still real, just different. A sign of the times.
He snapped out of his reverie enough to listen as Georgia told him about how uncomfortable she felt at home, but all he could think was: whore. As in, that’s what he was becoming. A guy wanting the company of too many women without any strings attached.
The problem was he liked Aniela. And Abby. He liked Netty and Becky. The problem was, he wanted to be in love with someone who was in love with him, but he could very well lose all four if he continued to act as if there weren’t consequences. Aniela was already gone.
Who was next?
Looking at Georgia, he chastised himself for obsessing over her body. His wanton impulses had him feeling guilty. They were natural impulses, he reasoned, but carnal never-the-less. Were they really wrong as much as they were part of the male DNA? The jury was still out on that one, procreation being the main argument. Besides, he truly believed he could have sex with her if he wanted. And he wanted that, but also he didn’t. He’d had sex with enough people lately.
Too many people, in fact.
So he kept his eyes on her eyes. And not once did he glance below the line of her neck. Okay, maybe he looked once. Or twice.
But not more than three or four times.
Or five.
Slave
1
Delgado opened the box-top lid, peered at the thing inside. He could see it already. What she was. The girl, she was now the Abby thing.
As in, not Abby.
The thing cracking open its eyes, it had a rabid look. Like it wanted to kill him. Like it wanted to murder everything.
“Look at you,” he grinned. Staring deep into the Abby thing’s eyes, he saw a stranger. A sick, malevolent stranger. “It’s you, but not you at all.”
The thing’s eyes shook with frenzy, but the chapped mouth stayed shut. The bony arms and the bony legs remained inert. The chest moved up and down, breathing fast. The Abby thing’s face, it had a malevolent grimace, the cruel looking mouth silent and unnatural.
It was always both beautiful and horrifying waking the slaves. They looked emaciated, bleary in the eyes, and they always stunk with fecal rot. With the sharp stench of old urine. Naked, they were no longer ashamed. Dignity was a swallowed, forgotten affair. After three days crammed in the box, their minds were broken.
The fractured part of their minds, to Delgado, that was the sweetest part. The silken taste of the nectar. Pride taken in a job well done.
Abby, the real Abby, her immortality serum, or whatever the hell it was Gerhard gave his pets, would keep her from dying, but it wouldn’t save her from sliding down inside herself. The real Abby, she was gone…for now.
“Well,” Delgado said, “do you have a name?”
It was always intriguing to see what new personality would emerge when the core personality was driven into the inner depths of the mind. Sometimes they named themselves.
Sometimes they didn’t.
The Abby thing broke eye contact. The filthy, angry heat coming off her stifled. The air lost its weightiness. Felt much lighter. Like when the doctor from way down below left the lab and all the pain he brought with him went, too. It was like that. Saying nothing, she turned her face away.
“You don’t even have a name, do you? You’re just a fill-in. You could call yourself Fear, or Rage. You could call yourself Helplessness.”
He roughly grabbed her face, jerked it around to face his, laid his eyes on hers. He had his own beast inside, too. Delgado was a man, but deep down, he could tap into something ruthless, something visceral, too.
“I have a name for you, you masochistic bitch,” he snarled. “Your name is now Slave.”
“Slave,” the Abby thing said. It was a guttural voice, a carnal, disgusted puffed out voice. Like disease oozing from her mouth, disease emptying itself fully into that one word.
If he didn’t keep the torment on, the torture, Slave would go away; it would go to sleep forever.
“Get up,” he barked. She started to move. Arms rose up, skeletal hands grabbed the sides of the box, tried to haul the body up. It took a monumental effort. Slave struggled. Determination hardened her will, though, gave her strength where there was none before. She sat up, indifferent to her nudity. If there was anything in those eyes of hers, it was a hard, ragged hatred. Like she’d eat Delgado’s heart at the first chance. He helped her stand. She got to her feet, shook off his hand.
“Touch me again,” Slave said, “and I’ll kill you.”
“Eventually you’ll kill,” Delgado said, “but it won’t be me. Ever. When I’m done with you, I’ll own you. I will control you. And I will decide whom you kill and don’t kill.”
“So you say,” the Abby thing hissed.
“You stink,” Delgado told her. “Be nice and I’ll let you shower.” Behind her, shit was crusted between her butt cheeks, caked-on in brown clods to the upper and inner parts of her thighs.
He walked her to the lab’s “shower,” shoved her inside and hosed her down as she stood palms against the back wall. Bark-like pieces of crap flaked off her thighs and butt, leaving the skin beneath it red but clean. He told her to turn around. She did. With her hair hanging wet and stringy in her face, he could see her odious eyes u
pon at him, the loathing pulsing from them in waves of heat. He hosed down her face, spraying her hard until she spun away, coughing, spitting water out of her nose and mouth.
“Save your rage for someone else, Slave.”
When he was finished, he threw a bar of soap at her and told her to clean herself. She scrubbed herself down. Kept one eye on him.
“Leave nothing untouched,” Delgado instructed.
The Abby thing obeyed.
When she was done, he hosed her down again, then tossed shampoo and conditioner at her. She used it. When she was done, he doused her head, still keeping his distance even though the Abby thing was finally calming down.
Sometimes, the slaves, when they woke up, they could be violent. Unpredictable. One little thing, a twelve year old girl, she came out sweet as pie, but the minute she found an opportunity, she raked her sharp little fingernails down the front of Delgado’s face, leaving him marked for weeks.
He threw her a towel. She dried herself off, then wrapped it around her body. The first signs of reticence.
“Out,” he said, snapping his fingers twice, fast, like she was some kind of mongrel.
She stepped out of the shower, watching him. Not blinking. Just waiting. The thing about this girl, this human being, was she had Holland’s immortality serum within her. So he punched her in the face with all his might, and she dropped like a sack of stones.
2
He hoisted up her unconscious body, carried her to the metal gurney and rolled her into the computer room where his surgical instruments awaited. He’d need to clear a line of hair away so he could peel back the scalp and insert the microchip and corresponding stem.
Minutes later, he gave her the appropriate anesthetic so she wouldn’t wake during the surgery. He then prepared the scalp. When he cut into her head, not much blood came out; he cleaned it away, pulled the section of scalp back, revealing the skull beneath. Using a grinder, he ground a tiny circular section into the skull, allowing the microchip to sit flush with the rest of the skull upon insertion. Then, using the drill, he made a smaller hole in the skull, stopping at the surface of the grey matter. He wiped up the seeping blood, took the microchip and attached stem, inserted it. The stem slipped deep into the brain where it reached the appropriate “connectors.” When the microchip laid on the skull, it sat flush. He then wirelessly linked up the microchip to the computer sitting beside the table. Within minutes, the computer screen rapidly filled with what looked like lines of code. Brain waves.
Mental activity.
Dropping the patch of skin/hair over the exposed spot, he watched her heal, and it was amazing, unlike anything he’d ever seen before. And he’d seen some things!
He then uploaded the programs he had amassed for her, programs to make her wildly lethal, yet perfectly controllable. Who knew what he would need her for? Best Delta be prepared for everything.
The programs, they took hours to upload into her brain.
“I own you,” Delgado said, proud. Even though he had been creating and controlling slaves like this for years, the entire process still left him breathless with delight.
When the programs were done downloading, he slipped a needle inside her arm and depressed the plunger. Moments later, she woke. Not the Abby thing, but Abby.
On the computer, interspersed between fast lines of information coming from her brain, were the words, “Where am I?”
A fraction of a second later, the girl’s mouth said, “Where am I?”
“Abby?”
Lines of the brain’s code populated the computer screen; words formed. Paranoia, fear, the certainty that she was in danger. All a blather of emotion spelled out on the screen.
She said, “Yes?”
“It’s nice to see you, my dear. You are healed.”
“I am?”
“You are. We need only focus on your rehabilitation before we send you back home.”
She couldn’t see the computer screen, otherwise she might go away again. Bury herself deep down inside herself. Let Slave take over.
“Rehabilitation?”
“Yes,” he said.
Something moved within her eyes, perhaps an awareness, or understanding. “I was in a box.”
“It was for your own good, but that’s over now. How do you feel?”
“Hungry.”
She had that faraway look, the kind a child has when they first wake up from a long nap. This was how it always was. And the massive bruising he left on her face from knocking out Slave…gone.
“Well then,” Delgado said, soft, his bedside manner gentle and caring, “we shall feed you. And get you something refreshing to drink.” Smoothing her hair, he looked into her eyes, his expression full of kindness, sympathy. “You’ve been through a terrible ordeal, young lady, but you will be okay now.”
“When can I go home?” she said.
“Soon. We have to check your cognitive functions. Make sure the processes in your brain are matching up with your physical capabilities. If everything is okay, if it all goes as I expect, you should be home in a few weeks.”
“Weeks?” she said, tears boiling in her eyes. She was coming into full awareness now, the host personality.
“It’s okay, Abby. You’re safe now. No one can hurt you anymore.”
Tears sparkled out of her eyes, rolled down the sides of her face, into her hair. He didn’t think she would ever realize what was operating inside her head, what with her healing abilities and all, but even if she did, he had answers for that. He had answers for everything.
A Primal, Visceral Thing
1
The food Delgado put in my mouth, the small crumbles given to me, he might as well have made me eat cups of spiders. My stomach is a pit. A hollow void that’s now nauseas, even touched by something as innocent as bread crumbs. Delgado gives me water, but only by the spoonful.
“You’re dehydrated,” he says.
My memory is sluggish to return. “You shot me,” I say. My eyes won’t stop looking at him, fearing him, loathing him.
“Right in the face,” he says, smiling, like he’s proud of this or something.
The bread in his hand, it just sits there, threatening to bring more grief to my stomach.
“Why did you do that?” I ask.
“You can’t be sane and understand this place. Hell, I barely get it. Our procedures, including the way I handled you, well, they’re somewhat…unorthodox.”
He fills a teaspoon with water, puts it before my mouth. I turn away, just enough to say no. “I want to know where I am.”
“Underground. In a top secret government facility. Dr. Holland couldn’t get the fix on your screwed up brain—”
“Holland?”
“The newer version of the illustrious Dr. Gerhard now calls himself Dr. Enzo Holland. It’s a cool name and all, but I’ll always remember him as—”
This is where I stop listening. Broken images of me being unconscious on a metal table, being hovered over and examined by strangers, they snap and flicker through my awareness. The things I’m remembering, they’re haunting. A foreboding sense of the people in that room lays its sticky fingers all over my brain. I can’t shake it loose. It isn’t Delgado, or even the other bystanders in white lab coats who scare me most, it’s this…oppressive, intrusive non-human thing that has me most afraid. A shiver pulls up my spine. Why can’t I remember more of this memory? Why don’t I know the details?
“He couldn’t help me,” I say, cutting him off from whatever he was saying. “But you did?”
“Damn skippy.”
For some reason, I turn my hands over and look at my palms. I can’t stop thinking of them as charred. In my head, images of large brown lines are burnt into both palms. From bars perhaps? Is that right? My real hands, the ones I’m seeing right now, however, are flawless. A perfect peach flesh.
But they were burned, weren’t they?
“The trauma you suffered,” Delgado says, “you were shot in the hea
d and heart and you died. You came back to life, but—not to twist you up too much—your brain signals were misfiring. They weren’t making the necessary connections for you to sustain cognitive function for long. Your system, if you were to think of your brain as a computer, was trying to reboot, only to crash again and again.”
The memory hits. Perfect awareness. Me being in a cage, grabbing the electrified bars, white hot current turning my body into a million degree furnace that fought to burn itself to the ground from the inside out.
“I fixed my own brain with electricity,” I say. I don’t know how I know this, only that I do. What I felt before grabbing those bars, the confusion, was quickly banished when I let go of them.
I healed myself.
“To some degree, yes,” Delgado conceded.
He feeds me another spoonful of water, which I accept, and then, bread set aside, Delgado dips the spoon into an apple puree that doesn’t bother my stomach as much as the bread.
“I went from feeling…like an animated corpse to feeling…I don’t know, revived, after grabbing those bars.” Memories of my soul struggling to get back into my body hit me in jolts and jitters. Like a nightmare you forgot, except for the more disturbing parts. “Afterwards, before you shot me, it was the first time since coming back that I felt like myself. And still you shot me.”
“Your body rebooted itself. But it would have shut down again,” he says. “Now you are alright. Now you are stabilized, for lack of a better word.”
“I felt stable before,” I challenge, unwilling to relent. He tries to give me more apple sauce and I shove his hand away. “What did you do for me beside stuff me in a cage, and some box? What was that for? Was that your game-winning contribution to my…stability?”
At this point, I’m thinking I might start yelling.
“Trauma stimulates brain activity,” he explains. “Forces connections to be made. It was, more or less, a way to insure that what you did, electrifying yourself, held against your brain’s inclination to crash.”
