Touching Eternity (Touch Series 1.5)

by Airicka Phoenix

“Stand back,” Garrison said, shifting to take center. “I’ll program Matilda later to grant you full access. But for now…Matilda, access!”

  A second pause, then a soft, melodious voice poured out from invisible speakers. “Password?”

  “Seven, fifteen, nineteen sixty-one.”

  Isaiah recognized the seemingly random series of numbers and his gaze shifted to the man, curious.

  “Thank you, Mr. Garrison. Please hold still while I initial the identification scanner,” Matilda said in her hypnotizing voice.

  Garrison didn’t move.

  “Thank you, sir. All is clear. Please proceed.”

  A panel slipped open soundlessly in the wall, revealing an elevator. Garrison stepped inside. Isaiah followed. The panel closed. Garrison pushed the top button on a metal plate of four buttons.

  “The password is Amalie’s birthday,” Isaiah said.

  Garrison slanted him a sidelong glance. “Despite contrary belief, I do love my daughter.”

  Nothing more was said. Garrison turned to the front as the lift gave a subtle jolt and rushed downwards.

  Isaiah had no idea why it surprised him to learn Garrison’s password was his daughter’s date of birth, but he just couldn’t shake the oddity in it. Maybe it was because he so rarely showed affection towards Amalie. Not once in ten years had Isaiah seen Garrison treat Amalie like his daughter. It was always with the cold efficiency of a doctor observing a patient. Isaiah never liked it, but had always assumed it was part of her treatment. Now he wasn’t sure what to think.

  The elevator stopped. The door whooshed open. Another corridor yawned far in front of them, this one lined with doors and windows.

  “This is our labs,” Garrison began. “This is where the patient is brought and studied.”

  Curious, Isaiah started down the hall, peering into each room he passed.

  Most of them were void of life, but held reclining dentist chairs. Some had straps hanging off them. Others had odd machines suspended from the ceiling just over the seats. Some held metal basins. Others had wooden chairs with straps around the ankle and wrist areas. On only two occasions were there people actually inside the rooms.

  The first one was a group of doctors surrounding a naked man as big as a house with a gray-white tinge to his skin. Every inch of him was shaved and he resembled a very precisely carved statue. He wasn’t fighting, but he stared at the men surrounding him with a very wary look in his narrowed eyes. The doctors seemed to be talking to him, soothing him almost. One kept gesturing to the chair.

  “Hans,” Garrison said, coming to stand next to Isaiah. “He was arrested for the murder and torture of eighteen women. The US government wanted to use the death penalty. I talked them into letting me study him. He’s on loan.”

  “What are they doing to him?” Isaiah asked, watching as Hans took two dominating strides to the chair and sat, all the pretenses of a king on his throne.

  “We’re trying a new treatment on Hans,” Garrison said. “He seems to be taking everything we give him quite well. I have no doubt I can cure him of his disease in no time.”

  Isaiah glanced at the man beside him. “His disease?”

  Garrison blinked, turned his head. “Yes, of course. You don’t think he wanted to hurt those women do you? He’s clearly sick.”

  Isaiah studied the cool, composed man behind the glass and wondered what he was thinking when he was strapped down and a very large syringe was brought over.

  “What’s that?” he asked.

  “Lysergic acid diethylamide. LSD,” he added when Isaiah only stared in confusion. “Our hope is that we can wipe his mind clean and re-implant only what is necessary, reteach him the rights and wrongs.”

  “You can control people’s minds with that stuff?”

  Garrison laughed at Isaiah’s astonished gasp. “We’re going to try! Come!” He propelled Isaiah forward.

  But he took three steps and came to a stop at the next window.

  The girl couldn’t have been more than ten with hair the color of sunshine and a face still round with childhood. She wasn’t strapped to the narrow slab of metal and there was only one doctor with her, standing by her feet, scribbling in a clipboard. Her eyes were open, staring without blinking at the ceiling. For several unsettling seconds, Isaiah thought she was dead. That he was seeing his first dead body. But then she twisted her neck in the direction of the window and he started at how blue her eyes were. It was like falling into a bucket of ice water.

  “She can’t see you.” Garrison appeared at his side. “The windows are only one sided.”

  But the girl was looking right at him, right through him.

  “What’s wrong with her?”

  “Rayna is a unique case.” Garrison cleared his throat. “Her parents brought her to me. She has an acute case of mythomania. She’s a pathological liar,” he added when Isaiah frowned. “Her parents became quite concerned when they would come home to find the entire living room rearranged or all the cupboards in the house open, the contents spilling free. Being heavily religious, they first assumed their daughter was possessed!” He laughed shortly as if the very idea was ludicrous. “I assured them her case was nothing more than a small child acting out for attention. But then she threw the family cat out of the third story window I suggested they bring her in for examination.”

  “What does she say happened?”

  Garrison chuckled, smacked Isaiah on the shoulder. “She’s a liar, son. You can’t believe what she says. Now come along. There is still much to see.”

  Isaiah lingered a moment longer and watched as a tear slipped from those blue eyes and struck the cold metal.

  ***

  He’d been warned not to disturb her after her treatment. It was the one big rule. He’d been there six months and he never really knew what kind of treatments Amalie was given, only that Garrison would take her into the white room and close the door. Sometimes, there would be others in the room, men with somber faces and white jackets. But usually it was just Garrison. No one would go in or come out for an hour. Sometimes, he would press his ear to the door, but there was always silence. Sometimes, the door would open and Garrison would come out, Amalie an unconscious heap on the cart. Other times, she would be held up by the arms, her head lolling, her legs bands of rubber, tripping over themselves.

  She never came out the way she went in.

  At first, he thought Garrison was hurting her the way some of the father’s back home hurt their daughters. No one ever talked about it, but everyone knew what was happening. Several times, his anger made him want to punch Garrison in the face, grab Amalie and run. But Garrison promised him he wasn’t hurting her. He promised that he was a doctor and doctors helped people. He promised that everything he did was helping Amalie get better, albeit, Isaiah was never told what was wrong with her, only that she was sick.

  But this time was different. This time, Amalie’s normally pale face was caked with blood. The front of her gown was splattered with the stuff. There was blood oozing from her ears, her nose, her mouth and she was pale, so much pallor than she ever was and she was jerking, twitching even though her eyes were closed.

  “She’ll be fine,” Garrison promised as he rolled Amalie away to her room.

  Isaiah didn’t believe him. People didn’t bleed unless they were hurt by someone. He didn’t trust Garrison. People with money were always bad. They looked down on people like him. They lied.

  The door slipped open without a sound. Darkness clung heavy to everything, except the tiny figure on the bed.

  Quietly, he crept into the room, shut the door behind him. He padded to her bedside, peered into her face.

  Someone had changed her, washed away the blood. She was still pale, but she wasn’t twitching.

  Tentatively, he brushed the tips of his fingers over her cheek, wincing when her cold flesh touched his. “Girl?”

  She didn’t stir, not even the flutter of an eyelash.

  “Hey! Girl!” He
poked her shoulder.

  She moaned. Her body jerked. “No, Daddy!”

  The small, scared voice was nearly enough to convince him Garrison was evil. It was nearly enough to make him want to kill the man in his sleep. Then Amalie opened her eyes.

  “What’s wrong with you?” he demanded, keeping his voice a low hiss.

  Even in the dark, there was no mistaking the tears shining bright in her eyes. “Daddy says I’m crazy.”

  He wasn’t a stranger to crazy, not even at eight years old. He’d seen plenty of it rotting away in the back alleys of Vancouver.

  “You don’t look crazy.” And she didn’t. She looked…broken. He’d seen plenty of that, too.

  “Daddy says I am.” She looked down. “Like my mom.”

  “Is he fixing you?”

  A small shoulder jerked. “I don’t think he can.” She raised her eyes to his, tears now trickling down her temples to soak into the pillow. “Do you think I’m crazy?”

  His head rolled to the side while he observed her closely. “No.”

  ***

  “Isaiah!” A hand dropped down on his shoulder, yanking him out of that moment. Garrison smiled once he had Isaiah’s attention. “Still with me?”

  Shaking himself mentally, Isaiah nodded. “Yeah, sorry.”

  With a last pat, Garrison dropped his hand and stepped away. “It’s a little overwhelming at first.”

  Isaiah said nothing as he followed behind, careful not to look in on the girl with the blue eyes again.

  At the end of the hall of windows, they veered right, past more windows, more strange machines and experiments, more compacted hope. The halls were a funhouse of misery. Every turn was another snapshot into the lives of the mentally incapable. Isaiah didn’t ask about the blank faces behind the glass. He didn’t ask for their names or their stories. Images of Rayna and Hans were enough.

  It seemed to go on forever before they finally returned to the elevators. Isaiah said nothing as they climbed in and the second top button was selected.

  “The second floor is where we do the blood work and run the tests. It’s also our main archive with files on everyone who has ever passed through these doors.”

  “Do they ever leave?” Isaiah asked, staring, almost hypnotized by the blinking lights over the door.

  “Some,” Garrison said after a moment. “Some are easily fixed and sent home to live a full normal life. Other times no. It’s not safe to release them.”

  “So they live down here, underground until…when?”

  Garrison turned to him. Isaiah felt the other man’s eyes on him, but he felt too tired to look back. “It’s for their own good, Isaiah. These people are dangerous. It’s my job as a doctor to protect life. As soon as they begin to show signs of progress, I do everything in my power to send them home.” He turned forward again. “And no, they don’t always stay underground. They are allowed escorted free time topside for good behavior.”

  “When’s the last time Amalie was allowed free time?”

  The elevator stopped. The door opened. But neither made any effort to evacuate.

  Despite his brave words, Isaiah didn’t dare glance at the man burning holes into the side of his head. He stared at the enormous room opened on the other side of the door as if waiting for something spectacular to happen.

  “I’m disappointed,” Garrison said, his voice unnaturally even. “I expected you to know better.”

  With his displeasure lingering, Garrison stalked past Isaiah and exited the lift.

  Isaiah didn’t follow. He watched his feet with burning self-loathing and guilt. Garrison was right, he should have known better. No one knew Amalie’s situation better than he did. How could he say such things?

  He hurried after the man just as the door started rolling shut. It bonged and jerked open, startled by his sudden leap into the voluminous space.

  The room was oval, painted the same blinding white as everything else. A vague, distracted part of his brain wondered who maintained and kept the place so clean. It couldn’t have been an easy task. But somehow, it all gleamed beneath the bright, fluorescent lights. A smattering of square tables occupied most of the space. A solid wall of windows took up the outer edges of the room, overlooking…sky?

  It was a vast stretch of white, spotted with vague smears of pale-blue. For a disorientating moment, he wondered just how high they were to be seeing such altitudes, then he remembered they were underground, hidden away from the world by secret passages. It was just another illusion, kind of like the windows in the labs. Only there wasn’t anyone looking in on the other side of these windows.

  Men and women in crisp, white jackets sat around the tables, poring over notes, chatting with others or eating. The heavy scent of burned pasta lingered in the air, overpowering the lingering aroma of grease, fried meat and pine cleaner. Isaiah took it all in with a quick, single once over before quickening his strides to catch up to Garrison’s stiff figure.

  Garrison, if he heard his approach, never glanced back, never slowed his wide treads. He cut through the cafeteria with a single-minded purpose.

  With every commanding stride, Isaiah was struck a little more with a stone mallet of guilt. The other man’s silence was like a serrated blade cutting thousands of small, shallow nicks all over his soul and then rolling him in salt. A very large, panicked part of him wanted to throw himself in front of Garrison and beg for forgiveness. It was only the hundred or so pairs of eyes watching their transition through the room that kept him restrained, kept his blank mask firmly in place.

  Garrison moved ahead, an unyielding presence that suffocated noise like a smothering blanket. His glossy shoes became the only sound shattering the hollow echo of the once active room. Isaiah tried to make his own boot falls mute, but failed.

  Without giving any one person a single glance, Garrison passed through a set of double doors with Isaiah at his heels. The room behind them resumed a steady hum of conversation as if nothing out of the ordinary had just taken place.

  “I’m sorry,” Isaiah said in a single rush of air.

  Garrison remained tight lipped, his gaze trained firmly forward. It was as if Isaiah didn’t exist. That stabbing moment of absolute panic as he realized he’d upset the man he idolized nearly sent Isaiah to his knees in sheer terror. He boiled in his fears as he battled with the urge to throw up as the weight crushed him.

  Eons crept by, a sluggish crawl of torment. Isaiah bit down on his tongue until the sharp taste of copper filled his mouth. He would not succumb to groveling, not in front of so many.

  The corridor curved, a winding white snake cutting through the earth. Isaiah wondered how anyone could stand being so far underground. How they all hadn’t gone stark crazy. There were no windows and the air smelled the same. He could almost feel claustrophobia setting in. He would have clawed his way out if it were possible.

  “I have work that needs doing.” Isaiah nearly jumped out of his skin at the unexpected command of words. “Why don’t you head on home. I will see you at supper.”

  Isaiah swallowed the bile choking him before responding, “But I thought you wanted me to see the—”

  Garrison stopped and turned to him. His features were a solid wall of indifference. “I think you’ve seen enough for today.”

  “But—”

  Garrison had already turned away. He strode several steps, widening the gap between them until it was the Grand Canyon, but his words were shards of ice, slicing through flesh when he spoke again.

  “Jake will take you back to the car.”

  It was as if he was summoned by his name alone. The bear-sized man in black camo gear ambled up behind Isaiah and folded his arms. The scowl on his face warned Isaiah not to give him a hard time.

  Isaiah turned back to Garrison, confusion and hurt threatening to suffocate him. “Sir?”

  But Garrison was already moving soundlessly down the hall.

  Chapter 10

  Garrison

  Garris
on veered away from his office, the excitement in showing Isaiah the spare desk inside draining. It had meant so much to him for Isaiah to see how well he would fit into the world Garrison envisioned. The twin of his desk had been an impulse decision, something he rarely had, but it had looked fitting next to his. He had no doubt that Isaiah would one day take his place and continue on his work. Had Amalie been a male and sane, it would be her Garrison would show around, teach and mold. Luck hadn’t been on his side in that regard.

  But it had hand delivered him Isaiah. The perfect replacement. Stubborn at first, so defiant, so adamant to think Garrison a monster, but it hadn’t lasted very long. Like all molding clay, Isaiah had come together beautifully with a little kneading.