Tortured Echoes

by Cody Sisco

  Tosh ran his palms over his face. He hadn’t slept much the last two nights. It was like a chess game, mentally grueling, a patient man’s game, but with no clear terms of victory, without the turn taking, and with the pieces behaving unpredictably.

  Tosh was pretty sure it would all come crashing down any moment. No matter. He knew how he would escape. This was his old stomping ground after all.

  It wasn’t time to give up yet. The same strategies he’d learned in Mexico applied here, he told himself. It’s all about projecting force and avoiding threats.

  The biggest threats: someone escaping and convincing authorities to investigate the clinic, the Lifers losing their nerve and walking away, one of the Eastmores—Victor or Circe—marshaling resources to retake the clinic by force. The prospect of a violent hostage revolt was minimal. Few of them had a fighting spirit. Those who did were being dosed with mind-clouding drugs, one of the few exceptions to the Lifers’ coda. They’d accepted his reasoning for it; sometimes people have to overdose on the hegemony to see the need to escape it. Wonda had loved that. “We’re showing them the broken system they live in. Afterward, they’ll beg us to take them in.”

  It gave Tosh chills to hear her speak impossibilities with such certainty, but he had to admit, she had the tenacity and ruthlessness to get results. She was fascinating, frustrating, and full of surprises—a firecracker in a cherubic package.

  Later, word came down from the King: Time to release the beast.

  Laws help us all, Tosh thought, Wonda is going to get what she wants. Here’s hoping it doesn’t kill her.

  41

  I’m guilty of the same sin as Jefferson: believing my words would help. I found my voice and damned us all.

  —Victor Eastmore’s Apology

  18 June 1991

  New Venice, The Louisiana Territories

  The practice of solitary confinement expanded. Alia remained separated. Mía was put under guard and not allowed to talk to fellow hostages after she lost control and slapped Wonda. The daily negotiations were dragging on, but Victor sensed something different about Tosh, who watched Wonda more carefully than usually. A sly trickster sheen of green glistened on his face, betraying his otherwise stoic expression. Victor could tell he was planning something.

  “Can you imagine,” Circe said, “the legal liability for BioScan if we begin denying treatments based on your advice? It would open the door to countless lawsuits.”

  Wonda replied, “We’re only asking for seats on your policy board.”

  “Would you commit to making all decisions based on the latest medical science?”

  “Of course. We’re open to deliberation as long as we control a majority of the seats.”

  Karine shouted, “Circe! You can’t trust them.”

  “I agree,” Circe said. “I was testing their position.”

  Victor looked at Circe and Karine. They were a tight pair. Victor wasn’t like them, not really. Could he ever become part of the BioScan family in New Venice? Could he coexist with their kind of callous, calculating, and self-centered mindset?

  Circe stared at Wonda. “Here’s where any rational person is going to part ways with you. If a technology saves lives, if it improves the quality of someone’s life, the basis of that technology—be it genetic, pharmaceutical, or whatever—is irrelevant. What matters is what works. I respect religious beliefs. I have to. I lead a company that operates in over fifty different countries. But I’m not going to make policy decisions on any basis except science. No deal.”

  “We’re not asking you to change your beliefs. We’re asking you to respect ours, to respect human nature, to avoid contaminating our bodies and those of our children.”

  Karine spoke up. “What do you know about respect? The people you’ve imprisoned here will remember how you’ve treated them. I’ll remember. You won’t be able to hide the bodies for long.”

  Wonda marched over to Karine and bent over. Their faces were almost touching. “You act like everything you do here is for some higher purpose. Medicine. Science. Helping people. How much do you profit from that? How much? How much of your revenue comes from unnecessary treatments? From enhancements? You can’t have it both ways. You can’t enjoy the privileges of being a medical institution and make the profits of a human body shop.”

  Victor tried to ease the tension, saying in a smooth voice, “They’re just asking for transparency.”

  Karine looked past Wonda and threw him a withering look. “I forget sometimes how naive you can be. You think they’ll stop there? If we open our books, they’ll never stop needling us, criticizing our investment decisions, trying to redline our activities. They’ll make it impossible to run our business.”

  Wonda straightened and backed off a few steps. “We’re drawing lines in the sand, not trying to run your business. We simply want to preserve our humanity.”

  “Perhaps we should take Samuel Miller and go,” Tosh said.

  Wonda spun around and gaped at him. “How can you say that?”

  “They’re not budging. Maybe we need to count our victories while we’re winning.”

  “That doesn’t sound like you,” she said. “What happened?”

  Tosh reached up and rubbed his neck. He’s trying and failing to look casual about what he’s proposing, Victor realized. What’s his angle?

  “I’m just saying that if you want to transform BioScan, it’s going to take more than a discussion here in private. Demonstrations like the one outside are what’s really going to make a difference. We should take Samuel Miller and go.”

  “There’s wisdom in his words,” Circe said.

  Victor felt he could see the wheels turning in Circe’s mind. As soon as the Lifers left, she’d make a big announcement about how the BioScan staff had been held captive and Samuel Miller had been freed. The Lifers would get all the blame. Whatever damage he caused would be their responsibility.

  “What if he kills someone?” Victor asked. “He’s clever, in case you’ve forgotten. I wouldn’t trust him with a tincture vial, let alone a MeshBit. BioScan will be blamed.”

  Wonda’s face flushed. Then she looked at Circe with contempt. “You don’t understand the world we live in. People will flock to our cause. You think you’re tricking me? You’re tricking yourself.”

  “Fine, it sounds like we’re all agreed,” Karine said. “Take the rope to hang yourselves and be gone.”

  “No!” Victor banged his fist on the table. “If Samuel Miller goes on another rampage, people will want a more restrictive Classification System.”

  “Our responsibility right now is to our patients. We can’t help them while we’re under siege,” Circe said. “Think of Florence. She doesn’t have long.”

  Wonda seemed uncertain for the first time Victor could remember. She walked onto the deck and looked out at the demonstrators. Enforcers had surrounded the construction site over night. No one could get in or out. Law enforcement on BioScan’s doorstep, unaware of the hostage situation right next to them. How long could it last?

  Victor realized a sad irony—he wanted negotiations to go on longer, if only to keep Samuel Miller from walking free. He had to do something to convince everyone it was the wrong course of action. But he’d tried everything already.

  Two Lifers rushed into the room and looked around. One of them said to Wonda, “We have a problem.”

  The other, Donya, Tosh’s second, said, “Some of the protesters broke through the enforcers lines, but they were injured. There’s lots of blood downstairs.” She still wore the bandage from the wound she’d received during the blockage of Triton’s Deep.

  “Downstairs?!” Wonda said, alarmed.

  “Lifers let them in the admin building. They were injured. We can treat injuries, right? And they’re our compatriots.”

  “Did the enforcers see them?” Tosh asked.

  “I don’t know,” Donya said.

  “Come on,” Tosh said, gesturing to Wonda. “We need to see what
we’re dealing with. You stay here and watch them,” he said to Donya.

  Tosh’s robe fluttered as he sped out of the room.

  When they were gone, the three of them, Victor, Karine, and Circe, looked at each other and laughed. It was funny. It was horrifying. How do you reason with someone who believes in feelings and intuitions, not facts? How had we ever built civilizations when so much of our mental machinery was vulnerable to emotional hacking?

  “Quiet!” Donya shouted. She gave him a hostile look, and then her gaze flicked to Karine and Circe.

  Victor looked down at his shaking hands. He crossed his arms and repeated the owl mantra quietly. His body was primed to fight. Outside, gray clouds sucked color out of the day. The greens of the grasses and plants were muted; flowers seemed dim.

  This was Victor’s chance. He slipped under the table.

  “Get up from there,” Donya ordered.

  “The Avatar deserves a moment.”

  “Victor, what are you doing?” Circe asked.

  “No talking!” Donya shouted.

  Victor pictured the look on Auntie’s face. Perhaps she was sharing a knowing glance with Karine. “Why do we suffer these fools?” he was sure she wanted to say, and “Poor Victor, the trouble he has to go to stay sane.”

  He had one chance to redirect the situation. They might all be comfortable with Samuel Miller in the Lifers hands, but Victor couldn’t be. He’d seen how easily their beliefs twisted and contorted. How long before they became believers in ghosts and primals? Wonda had been willing to let someone die by neglect. Victor had no reason to believe she couldn’t kill for her faith too.

  We’re not so different after all, he thought.

  “I said get up,” Donya shouted. He could see her feet from under the table.

  “Leave him be,” Circe said. “This has been taxing on all of us.”

  “Don’t speak unless I demand it.”

  “And if we don’t obey your silly rules?” Karine countered.

  Victor took out the MeshBit and sent a message to Ozie asking him to send a Dirac stunstick, a power supply modification kit, and a quantum trigger.

  The reply came back almost instantly: for you?!?!

  No, Victor replied, send them to the drug hut, Samuel’s. Can you take care of the guards?

  Will do. It’s about time. Drone incoming ETA fifteen minutes.

  “Don’t let her muzzle you, Auntie,” Victor said. “You’re better than that.”

  “Thank you, Victor, but I’m all right—you just focus on yourself.”

  “Last warning,” Donya said.

  He heard the sound of a stunstick powering up.

  “Karine, remember Amarillo?” Victor asked. “We need some of that right now!”

  He lunged from under the table into Donya’s legs. She toppled on top of him. The stunstick wasn’t in her hands.

  “Grab her!” Circe shouted.

  Victor pawed at Donya, but she was kicking and twisting. A knee smashed into his cheek, and he rolled away. Karine dropped to her knees and put Donya in a headlock. Victor spotted the stunstick near the wall and elbow-crawled to it, just as Donya slipped out of the headlock. Victor turned and fired. Both Donya and Karine were hit by a shimmering wave, and they slumped down. Victor rose and walked to the door.

  “Wait,” Circe said. “Where are you going?”

  “I’m stopping this.”

  She approached him with her hands reaching out. “You need to rethink—”

  “Stop,” he said, raising the stunstick at her face. “You’re not coming with me.”

  She pleaded, “Victor—”

  “Don’t,” he said, shutting the door. “Don’t come after me.”

  He heard her call through the door: “What are you going to do?”

  42

  People turn away from me in public. I am a shadow of what we’ve all been through. A fossil of death. That day in Carmichael, I became a ghost of the fallen.

  —Interview with Mía Barrias in Five Years After Carmichael (1976)

  18 June 1991

  New Venice, The Louisiana Territories

  Victor entered Samuel’s drug hut. A sleeping gas haze was visible but had mostly cleared out. A Lifer lay slumped over the couch, a MeshBit in his hand. Victor hoped he hadn’t had time to contact anyone. Another was sprawled in the doorway to the deck. Victor stepped gingerly over him and found Ozie’s drone beneath a hole in the transplastic guardwrap. Strapped to the drone was a standard stunstick, a modified energy pack, a set of pliers, and a tiny gray box, the quantum trigger. Victor pried off the front cap of the stunstick and removed a discharge impeder, which looked like a semitranslucent glass cylinder. He swapped out the energy pack, inserted the quantum trigger, and reattached the cap.

  So that was what it looked like. A lethal stunstick. Indistinguishable from a normal one except in its effects.

  When Victor stepped into Samuel’s room, he was sitting in a chair, waiting, expressionless except for a tiny twitch at the corner of his mouth. He said, “Welcome to the sick ward. In the event of smoke, hold your breath and pray. Nobody said BioScan was humane.”

  “The Lifers can’t stop talking about you. They want to take you with them.”

  Samuel’s voice changed. “I have a different way out of here,” he said. Victor’s ears burned when he used that tone.

  Samuel recrossed his legs. A shadow covered his face. It was as if the light didn’t reach him, as if there were another body behind his body and his actual self had slipped backward somehow, nestled in shadows.

  Victor shivered. Double vision, lateral thinking—an episode was coming on. Every time he was around Samuel, the fantastical part of his imagination ran wild, nightmares took a stroll in the daylight, and his logical mind threw up its arms in surrender.

  “Samuel, do you regret what you did in Carmichael?” Victor asked.

  “I don’t know.” Samuel’s eyes glinted with mirth. He smiled, and his goofball incisors crowded out his other teeth. “Did it happen on this world or the other?”

  Victor massaged his forehead. His other hand gripped the stunstick. The situation was unraveling. He had to hurry.

  “I remember now how they fought over me,” Samuel said. “Jefferson wanted me to recant. She wanted to know about my ‘visions.’”

  Victor looked up. Samuel was tracing a finger around one of the primal drawings, a hazy red halo around a blue figure that was shorter than the others.

  A sly look crossed Samuel’s face. “The nice thing about a background in physics is that you don’t have to believe in magical nonsense. She, on the other hand, listened to every word I said about the ghosts. I’m not sure she understood.”

  “Who did?”

  “The one in charge.”

  “Circe?”

  “She wishes she could see them.” Samuel backed up to the wall, arranged his arms in a way that mirrored his primal drawing. “You know that we’re the ghosts. You feel it. That’s why you return to blankspace again and again. That’s why we need to cross over.”

  Victor felt his ears burning. Did Samuel really know any of what Circe was thinking? Then again, what, if anything, did Samuel really know that wasn’t a delusion?

  Samuel watched him. “You feel it, don’t you? You hear them?”

  Victor imagined the Carmichael dead calling out for justice while he spoke calmly to their killer. The world wasn’t right, true, but Samuel couldn’t be the key to understanding it. He couldn’t.

  “How’s it going out there?” Samuel asked. “Minds are meant to intermingle. What’s the function for the exponential spread of a contagion through a population? Unit of time to the power of the rate of transmission?”

  “I’m not here to talk about an infection.”

  “Aren’t you? You’re the vortex, you know. Patient naught, patient zed, patient zero. I wouldn’t be here without you. My conscience is clean now, even if I did kill those people. I didn’t understand until I heard your voice.
Not your kid voice, not your voice at school. Your adult voice, like now but older maybe. I heard it in Carmichael. ‘Cross over,’ you said. I believed you.”

  “That’s impossible.”

  “Is it?” Samuel’s long face seemed to shine. Victor saw that he was crying. “You’re going to help me,” he said. “Now.”

  “We might be able to cure you someday.”

  “No. Help me. Do it.”

  Blankness was near, a wave in Victor’s brain, cascading outward. His head felt cottony, insubstantial. Blankness was coming for him fast.

  Victor raised the stunstick, one hand gripping the quantum trigger. He could fire or not.

  Samuel rushed forward, the stunstick pressed between them.

  “It’s time,” Samuel said, exultant.

  Victor tried to tear himself away before they both felt the blast.

  43

  “Cross over,” a whispering voice said out of the foggy white blankness surrounding Victor. “You need to see the shape of the world. Understand the echoes of your future. I’ve said it plainly so many times, I don’t know how else to express it, but I’ll try. Cross over. There are infinite worlds, so many possible paths.”

  It wasn’t clear who was speaking. Victor could barely make out the words. He tried walking, but he couldn’t feel his legs or any other part of himself.

  Home, he thought, a command to get him out of this place. He tried to unblank, to get back to a feeling of gravity, of groundedness, of being unmistakably him, in his body, in a real place. Unblank, he prayed.

  The white ether surrounding him swirled, cleared. He was no longer in a drug hut in New Venice. Walls made of stone blocks surrounded him. There were two figures huddled on the floor, embracing, intertwined with rubble fallen from the ceiling. Their features and shapes were partially obscured by thick brown robes, blankets, and fractured stone.

  Unblank.

  The scene vanished. Victor was in a tunnel now, again without a body, only a consciousness and a view of the things around him. Wires and pipes ran along a brightly lit tunnel. Thrumming filled the air. High-voltage signs hung on the walls. “Warning: Radiation. Do Not Enter” marked a nearby door with the message repeated in German, Breton, Occitan, Romansh, and a few other languages.