by A. A. Bell
‘So were the Queen’s Guards, but it’ll be a relief to work with volunteers who can’t think of a hundred ways to kill me with my own pencil.’ Zhou glanced around and noticed that they’d travelled high enough to see over the tops of the tallest mangrove trees to a flotilla of sailing boats that stretched north and south as far as the eye could see in the main channel of the bay. ‘I agree the view is manna, though.’
‘And the fishing must be orcan. Did you notice the size of the lures those guys were using?’
‘Orcan’s not a word. And whales are hardly likely around here, are they? They’ll be after barramundi, or maybe shark.’
‘What’s your problem today, Zan? Life too colourful already, or the poetry of allusion just eludes you?’
‘Too busy clinging to my life, among other things.’ Zhou leaned to inspect the luggage rack behind the sidecar. ‘Is my bag still back there?’
Van Danik took off his helmet and rolled his eyes as his gangly passenger grunted and strained at the rear luggage fasteners. ‘You know, if you can’t lighten up with a view like that, Zan, there’s no hope for you. I believe the violence of chaos — subatomic or not — naturally becomes me, as a physicist, but you’re a physician, and the absence of a calm bedside manner is a little unsettling. Now step back before you hurtyourself.’ He shouldered Zhou aside and pointed to the hedge of brown-flowering shrubs that lined both sides of the driveway. ‘Maybe you should stand over there with the other weeds.’
Zhou frowned but his expression softened with one glance at the hedge. ‘Actually, those aren’t weeds. They’re Boronia megastigma, and quite exquisite specimens too.’ He leaned closer, sniffing. ‘Not everyone can smell this particular variety. It’s supposed to be like citrus.’
‘That figures.’ Van Danik shook his head and unclipped the luggage fasteners with ease. ‘You must have missed your calling as a —’
‘Wait!’ Zhou said. A woman’s scream drifted softly on the breeze — muffled, but not entirely, by distance. ‘Did you hear that?’
He looked again for the odd little man, but saw neither him nor any other residents.
Van Danik turned his ear to the approaching rumble of a diesel engine. ‘Sure, I told you we hadn’t lost them.’
‘Not them. I heard a scream.’
‘It’s a nuthouse, Zan. It’s a wonder the walls haven’t been screamed down a hundred years ago.’
‘It wasn’t like that.’ Zhou shivered. A scream from his past echoed inside his head, igniting pain and throbbing across the old scars where his ears had once been. ‘This was terror.’
THREE
Convulsing on her side, Mira stuttered on the floor in pain. Unable to scream again. The jolt of electricity reverberated down her spine, not yet dissipated out through her limbs. Her chest burned and her head throbbed, but she listened to the three voices, focusing as hard as she could manage in an effort to figure out what response she could give to make them leave her alone. Begging hadn’t helped.
‘You said you weren’t going to use it!’ Ben said, sounding angry.
‘No, I didn’t,’ Neville argued. ‘I said it’s not as bad as it sounds, and it’s not.’
‘It only looks that way. Give her a sec to catch her breath,’ Taser woman said. She crouched to stroke Mira’s hair. ‘Being blind, her senses are heightened so it takes a little while for her to figure out that she’s only copped a tingle.’
‘A tingle?’ Ben said, as if shocked himself. ‘Be serious. She’s convulsing!’
‘I am serious, kiddo. What you’re seeing right there is a momentary loss of muscle control. Sure it disorients her. It’s meant to. But all that thrashing about isn’t agony. It’s just spasms; involuntary. Loss of control is scary enough to make her yelp, obviously, and that’s just as good. It’s a warning of how bad it could get if she gives us cause to up the ampage.’
Mira shivered, still unable to unclench her jaw or uncurl her fists.
‘It’s rare to need it more than once per patient,’ Neville added. ‘But if she tries to attack, don’t hesitate. Switch it to max and grip hard. The charge isn’t high enough to cause any permanent damage, so long as you never use two gloves at once.’
‘I can’t do that!’ Ben protested.
‘Sure you can. It’s only a junior stinger, and look for yourself — it’s set to minimum. But even if it wasn’t, a hard sting is still plenty kinder than a traditional Taser. And cheaper than seds.’
‘No, I mean I couldn’t use that and still expect her to trust me.’
‘Trust?’ Neville laughed. ‘Benny, mate, trust is a luxury we can’t afford here.’
‘It can result in your injury as well as theirs,’ agreed the Taser woman. ‘The tantrums here can go nuclear. It’s not their fault or yours. You’ll just have to get used to it.’
‘Yeah, don’t take it personally,’ Neville said.
‘I’m not,’ Ben insisted. ‘It’s just overkill. She wasn’t attacking me. She wasn’t even hurting herself. She was just... terrified, I think, of someone — or something that happened to her — or someone else maybe, somewhere else.’
‘Yeah. That’s always the way it starts.’ Neville chuckled and coughed, his breath reeking of stale rum-scented cigars.
‘The soldiers,’ Mira sobbed, trying to explain. She heard the Taser woman lean closer and cringed.
‘Wait!’ Ben pleaded.
Mira felt a hand brush her arm — Ben’s, she guessed, from the size and roughness of his skin. Did he just block the Taser?
‘I’ll do it,’ he said. ‘If she needs it, I’ll do it. I just want to let her catch her breath first and give her time to say what she has to, okay?’
‘It won’t make no difference,’ Neville argued. ‘Gibberish is gibberish. Don’t expect your fancy bag of tricks for kids to work here. We’re at our wits’ end just getting her meals in an’ out safely.’
‘I had no trouble,’ Ben said. ‘I dare say I should have given her a better chance to explain when I had it. And if I made the mistake, then I’d rather learn it the hard way.’
The Taser woman sighed and backed away a few steps. ‘Suit yourself. You might as well be stupid while there’s still two of us here to pull her off you. Isn’t that right, Mira?’
Mira clamped her mouth shut tighter, refusing to answer. She stayed on her side, curled up and holding her blindfold in place while also covering her ears, wishing they’d all just go away; even Ben, with his gentle but persistent questions.
‘Mira, can you hear me?’ he asked. ‘You mentioned soldiers. Do you want to tell us about them now? Or do you think they might have been hallucinations?’
Turning her face to the floor, she concentrated on other things: the cool texture of the tiles, the soft electronic purr of the overhead surveillance camera, the mixed smells of Neville’s oily leather shoes, two aftershaves and lavender deodorant. She smelled dust under her bed and distracted herself with that too; anything to avoid the three voices and what they wanted her to do.
‘You’ll lose more privileges,’ warned the Taser woman, ‘unless you cooperate.’
What privileges? she thought, but she didn’t dare to ask aloud.
‘She hasn’t got any,’ Neville said as if he’d read her mind. ‘Not since she begged Freddie to sew her eyes shut. Anyone who’d want to butcher herself like that could do anything, so turn up the charge on that stinger, just in case.’
‘Using it at all is too much,’ Ben argued. ‘I need more time with her, Neville. Please?...Steffi?’
Steffi, Mira thought, having trouble associating such a nice-sounding name with her pain.
‘It’s counterproductive, Ben. Look at her...’
Mira shivered, hearing the Velcro straps being readjusted on the Taser glove.
‘She’s reaching the next stage of rebellion.’
‘She’s on the edge, all right,’ Neville agreed. ‘Any word or touch now might set her off.’
‘I’m not, I’m not, I’m not,�
� Mira mumbled, shaking her head. She kept her blindfolded face pressed to the floor.
‘Once she goes nuclear,’ warned Steffi, ‘you’ll only have two options: seds-n-bed or putting her racket in a jacket.’
‘No, no, no!’ Mira muttered repeatedly. ‘Don’t touch me, don’t touch me!’
‘Tough love,’ Neville agreed. ‘But, sadly, crazy is crazy, as old Matron Turtledove used to say.’
‘Would Matron Sanchez say that too?’ Ben asked. ‘I worked with her for a time in the children’s ward years ago on the mainland, and she would have scorched the hide off anyone who used the word “crazy” near the kids. Is it sanctioned here and now for adult clients?’
‘Clients? Pah!’ Neville spluttered. ‘Changing what you call them don’t change what they are and it certainly don’t bring the poor wretches no cure. It’s all downhill from here.’
‘No!’ Mira flailed out with one hand, grabbing the nearest trouser leg, which she hoped would be Ben’s. ‘I have to get out! Please, I have to...’
The leg wrenched away and her hand slipped down to the shoe, where three raised dots on the toe formed the Braille letter ‘L'.
‘Aargh!’ she screamed as Neville kicked at her.
‘Get her off me!’ he yelled.
Mira recoiled into a ball. She heard a brief shuffle, then someone stung her arm again with the Taser glove. She squealed as the sting robbed her of muscle control and she convulsed, her teeth chattering.
‘Stop!’ Ben pleaded. ‘That’s more than a mild sting! She can’t be acting.’
‘Try it yourself!’ challenged the woman. ‘I always do it on my own arm first to make sure the setting’s okay. See? Harmless.’
‘You’re not sweating!’
‘What difference does that make?’
‘Plenty,’ Ben said. ‘And she didn’t need it in the first place. She’s not going anywhere. How can she?’
Mira heard a light chain tinkling as his voice stooped lower; it was familiar, like the chain that held the electronic key around the neck of her first case worker — before he’d learned how dangerous that was. Surely this newcomer must have read her file? He must know the risk?
‘Hide that!’ Neville warned. ‘And never keep it in the same pocket! A noose is a noose, Benny, mate, so don’t make it easy for her. Why do you think I wear woollen cardigans instead of jackets? Wool makes it harder for her to pick pockets. Don’t let her climb up your leg either, like she just tried with me, or you might end up neutered.’
‘Give it up, Nev. Enough’s enough,’ Ben pleaded. ‘She’s been fine with me all morning.’
‘She chooses her time!’ Neville insisted. ‘I’m telling you, Benny, I’d bet my right testicle she already knows the contents of your pockets. She’s always listening.’ He prodded her gently with the long side of his shoe. ‘Aren’t you, lass?’
She clenched her mouth shut, refusing to answer.
‘Aren’t you?’ he repeated, this time using more pressure with his toe.
‘N-n-n-no,’ she cried through chattering teeth. ‘I p-p-p-promised him I’d be good.’
Neville chuckled, causing Mira to cringe again from his breath. ‘Yeah, we can see that, lass. Why don’t you be a honey and tell Benny what’s really going on in your head? You know, how you can walk in the air above the trees and look down on ghost people. That’ll convince him there’s nothing wrong with you.’
‘It was blurry,’ she sobbed, hugging herself and tapping her forehead trying to remember what they really wanted to hear. ‘And they were blue. Not real. I was hallucinating.’
‘And...?’ prompted the woman.
‘And I can’t walk in air. There’s no such thing as ghost people.’ It came back to her like a catchy jingle, but she crossed her fingers and feet to deny the lie from start to finish.
‘Now you’re blind good and proper,’ Neville said. ‘So you have absolutely no way to visualise any hallucinations anymore, am I right? It’s all in your head.’
‘All in my head,’ she repeated. Her hands trembled as she tapped her forehead again, partly to tap out the last effects of the stinger glove and partly from fear of them, to show how hard she wanted to hammer their message home to avoid upsetting them. ‘All in my head. It’s in there now. I remember. There’s no such thing as ghost people. No such thing.’
‘That’s a good girl,’ said Steffi. ‘You have to learn it properly or we might as well take out those stitches.’
‘No!’
‘Now don’t start that again, lass,’ Neville said. ‘Repeat your new mantra: “There’s no such thing as ghost people. It’s all in my head.” Five hundred times, over and over silently. Count them on your fingers.’
Mira nodded.
‘Are you doing it, or do I have to turn up the charge on the stinger?’ Steffi asked.
She moved her lips and wiggled her fingers as if she was totally focused on counting.
‘There you go,’ Neville said. Someone nudged Mira’s shoulder with the soft blunt toe of a shoe and she assumed it was him. ‘She’ll be safe for at least half an hour without sedatives. New directive: we’re supposed to minimise additional doses between meals, except painkillers. A few others were gettin’ addicted.’
‘You mean, feigning aggression to get an extra hit?’ Ben asked.
Steffi grunted agreement. ‘Rarely after a quick tickle with this, but it happens. It might take you a few days to figure out who’s faking. Here, you can keep this one. I’ll sign out another from the storehouse.’
Mira heard the rip of a Velcro fastener.
‘Better clean her up,’ Neville suggested. ‘The matron will throw a fit if you present her like that to the VIPs. And don’t forget to stay in sight of the safety monitors whenever you’re alone with a female patient. Do you need a hand lifting her back into the wheelchair before we go?’
‘No, I can take her from here. Thanks, though.’
‘Any time,’ Neville replied.
Mira tensed, knowing the Taser glove was still in the room with her. But as soon as the door latch clicked, she heard a heavy object thud into her waste basket.
‘We won’t be needing that ever again, will we?’ Ben said.
She shook her head, then froze, instantly realising her mistake. She shouldn’t have heard his question if she’d been as distracted by counting as she was supposed to be. In that heart-pounding moment, she wondered if he’d known and baited her deliberately.
‘Relax, Mira. I’m on edge around them too. What can I do, though? They’re my supervisors. I won’t tell on you if you won’t tell on me. Deal?’
Relief overwhelmed her like a beach wave, but suspicion swept in on the backwash. She pushed herself up onto her elbows to question his motives, but he scooped her up in strong arms that made her feel weightless. Startled, she went rigid, but he held her loosely, and only long enough to lower her gently into her wheelchair.
She reached up to touch his face, still unsettled, but curious and unexpectedly grateful. She felt the urge to thank him for blocking the Taser, and opened her mouth to do so, but her thumb touched a small bristle of hair on his smooth chin — a goatee.
He had a beard — like the soldier who drowned!
‘No pressure, Mira.’ He took her hand from his face, patted it twice and laid it gently in her lap. ‘You don’t have to tell me anything until you’re ready. Just stay calm and don’t start going on about hallucinations, okay? You scared me.’
‘They scared me first.’
‘Well, hallucinations do seem real. It’s unusual for a blind person to have them, though. Not completely unheard of, mind you. Just unusual. I’m going to fetch some things now to clean you up. There’s a few scratches on your face, but keep talking if you want. Tell me about your favourite poems, for instance.’
‘Not poems. Poet treeeeeeees.’
She listened to the sound of his shoes squeaking away from her, a soft, even tread that told her he was tall, strong with a heavy build, and confide
nt — a calm form of confidence that she didn’t wish to aggravate.
‘Actually, I think the plural of poetry is still poetry,’ he said.
‘It would be if we were talking about the same thing.’
‘Which is?’
She sighed, wishing she knew how to avoid that recurring argument. ‘Set me free and maybe one day I’ll come back to show you.’
‘Wish I could trust you on that,’ he conceded. ‘But for now, you’ll have to explain it. I am listening, though, Mira, and not just hearing. Do you understand the difference?’
She nodded, wondering why she felt compelled to answer him even though she hadn’t fully regained control over her voice or jaw. ‘It’s sight and vision that confuse me. This place makes it worse, if you hadn’t noticed.’ She heard him fossicking through a drawer. ‘If you really want to help me, Ben, then help me leave.’
‘You’d regret that in a few days,’ he said light-heartedly. ‘Wait ‘til the renovations are done. You’ll love it here — luxuries like a queen.’ A tap turned, water ran and his shoes squeaked softly towards her again. ‘Now hold still, please, while I wipe your face.’
‘Luxuries in a prison,’ she muttered. ‘I can hardly wait.’
At least he was considerate this time in warning her before touching her face.
‘Actually, it used to be a prison.’ He wiped a scratch on her forehead, then she heard a drawer open nearby. ‘A prison for the criminally insane. Careful, this antiseptic might be cold.’ He daubed it twice onto herscratches and rubbed it in so gently that she didn’t flinch or feel any urge to cringe away from him. ‘All the criminally dangerous inmates have been shifted to the mainland. Rumour has it, a few spies and political prisoners needed to disappear from here then too, but that’s all water under the bridge now. Serenity is a sanctuary for special people like you. I’m surprised nobody’s mentioned it.’
‘My cell has no window.’
‘I don’t want to sound callous, Mira, but you’re blind. What’s to see?’
‘What’s to feel. I have no breeze. And the meals are so bland here. Why don’t you serve pizza?’
