Broken Mirror

by Cody Sisco

  Victor heard engines outside. Davinth grabbed him and pulled him down the hall to the window by the front door. Three massive insect-like vehicles, similar to the ones Victor had outmaneuvered in the desert, had pulled up beside the van. Bandit got out of the van, spoke briefly to one of the vehicle drivers, and then approached the Puros’ front door, stopping several meters away with his arms raised, palms open.

  Elena and Xavi dragged several bags down the hall. Shapes made of metal and plastic peeked out of the bags. Weapons.

  “More guys showed up,” Davinth said. “This one outside looks like he wants to talk.”

  Elena put her hand on Victor’s shoulder. “It’s going to be okay.”

  Davinth jerked his head at Victor. “Let’s give them what they want and be done with it.”

  “We’re not going to do that,” Elena said. “Right, Xavi?” Her eyes grew wider when he didn’t answer.

  “He’s not a Puro,” Davinth complained. “They outnumber us. Look at those tanks. Bet they’ve got better gear than us too. I say kick him out and cut our losses.”

  Elena took a step toward Xavi and lowered her voice. “We can call the police.”

  “And tell them what?” Davinth whined. “They’ll be no help. They’ll probably arrest us first.”

  Light thumps sounded at the door, too light for knocking. Xavi pushed past them and opened the door to look outside. He held a stunstick at his side. Victor followed with the others. Small stones littered the front steps.

  Bandit stood on the walkway, smiling, but his eyes were hidden behind his creepy goggles. Keeping his arms raised, he pointed one finger at Victor. “All we want is him. Give him up, and we go away.”

  Elena ran back to the weapons. “Come get your gear,” Elena called.

  Victor turned, but before he could take a step, he was hurtling backward, through the open door, spinning from the force of Xavi’s shove, and skidding across the grass. He landed on his butt as the door slammed shut. He could hear Elena shouting behind it.

  He scrambled to his hands and knees. His bag lay a meter away in the grass. Hurting from scratches and soon-to-be bruises, Victor wished he could tear Xavi to shreds. But there was no time.

  Bandit came at him.

  Victor jumped to his feet and started to run, but there was nowhere to go. The yard’s hedges penned him, and Bandit blocked his way.

  Victor feinted left and broke right, trying to make it to the street. The man ignored Victor’s gambit, approached in three quick steps, and swung his arm directly at Victor’s chest, hurtling him to the ground. Victor was dragged to his feet and flung over Bandit’s shoulder.

  Victor struggled, but Bandit managed to rush him into the van. Victor’s head grazed the ceiling as he was flung inside and pinned there by Bandit’s strong, wiry arms.

  The woman, Lucky, sat next to Victor. “Got you,” she said. “Victor, up close, you’re such a doll.” A hood descended over his face. She pressed something cool onto his bare wrist. The blackness of the hood grew darker, and his head lolled back. Unconsciousness overtook him.

  Chapter 37

  Sometimes I wake up and wonder if this life is real or a dream. There’s nothing that I don’t question now. Even gravity seems mutable. I fear at any moment my ties to this Earth will snap and I’ll go hurtling into space.

  —Victor Eastmore’s Apology

  Victor woke up, seated on something hard. His head felt swollen, pounding as if about to burst. He opened his eyes and saw blackness.

  When he tried to move, he discovered he was tied to a chair, restrained by something affixed to his chest, arms, and legs.

  He called for help.

  There was no reply.

  Shapes shifted in the dark. He imagined coal-dusted ghosts clawing at his eyes. He held his breath. The shapes fell apart, and the darkness became placid. He breathed in, and the shapes returned, artifacts of his starved vision or synesthetic echoes of his hearing. Either way, he had no way of knowing, and they were an irrelevant distraction.

  Victor twisted. His wrists, pinned behind his back, chafed against the restraint that bound them together. His ankles, thighs, waist, and chest were all tied to his seat.

  Where was he?

  A little voice in his head answered: you’re in SeCa, imprisoned in a Class One facility.

  His pulse spiked. Victor threw himself to one side, feeling a moment of weightlessness before the chair legs thumped back to the ground.

  “My head hurts.” Victor’s voice crackled electric-blue in the dark.

  He was in a small room judging by the echo. He smelled cheap plastic carpet, a subtle residue of paint, and the telltale odor of synthleather. Victor flexed against his bonds, and the synthleather scent grew stronger.

  This wasn’t the treatment standard for Class Ones. A doctor would have to look after him soon and set things right.

  Or maybe not. Maybe no one cared about people with MRS once they were committed. Maybe he was doomed to whatever semicivilized tortures could be devised. He’d heard Class Ones could be shipped offshore, free from constitutional protections. Maybe they’d let the syndrome’s effects eat away at his mind until only a husk remained.

  A just punishment. Alik had been a husk for a long time, and he was only one example among many. For years, Victor had been a burden, a problem to be solved. Then, recently, a steady decline, his deteriorating behavior becoming more antisocial and aggressive. He’d horrified his family with his accusations of murder. He’d left Granfa Jeff’s body out in the open air. He’d hurt the woman in the brothel by going blank. He might have killed the Corps who stopped him on the road from Las Vegas.

  Shocks, the tally was bleak, wasn’t it? There didn’t seem a limit to how awful he could be.

  Months ago he could have pictured himself living a seminormal life. Now he had to doubt that he was still sane. Egged on by Ozie’s revelations, he’d come to believe in conspiracy. What if a manic fantasy had taken hold instead?

  Granfa Jeff’s murder, Victor’s flight from SeCa, his pursuers, a mystery man named Tosh, Ozie’s fantasy world—maybe it was all a delusion. Maybe his mind had finally fractured, and the darkness would never lift.

  But if the last week of his life had never happened, where had his memories come from? Over the past few days, he’d met Pearl, Ozie, Tosh, the Corps and Puros, and Lucky and Bandit. They were real, weren’t they?

  Victor wasn’t doing as well as he’d hoped if he was questioning whether the last week of his life had happened. At least he was aware of his potential insanity—the truly insane never questioned themselves, did they?

  He couldn’t have dreamed up a Puro safe house if he’d never been to one. He’d never seen Las Vegas or Amarillo, or taken in a view of Lake Tahoe and the Sierras. He held memories of those places in his mind as clear as day. These were the facts, they were his link to sanity, and darkness couldn’t erase them.

  Victor blinked his eyes, willing his vision to find light, and found a small yellow sliver of it beyond his right shoulder. A door, an exit, maybe? Proof that he wasn’t imprisoned in his own imagination?

  He inhaled. A Class One facility wouldn’t smell so plain. It would reek of an institution: piss and bleach, and worse. Maybe this was a room somewhere on a ranch for Class Twos, where he would have nothing but time to read, study, and engage in productive work. Perhaps he could tutor the other residents. He had certainly gone further in his education than most Class Twos would have. There might be animals—horses to ride and care for, maybe goats and sheep. It could be fun.

  He would be blessed with free time but not freedom.

  Accept it, a part of him whispered. No more struggling. No more fear. The speaker, his doubt personified, was a glittering obsidian shape winking and sparkling in front of his sightless eyes, tempting him to give up and let his destiny unfold around him.

  “No,” Victor said.

  A tiny flame burned in his chest. He wouldn’t calmly accept his predicament. He woul
dn’t indulge delusions. He would never stop searching, never stop demanding the truth.

  His body tensed against the restraints, testing the bonds. He flexed and relaxed his legs, earning a few millimeters of wiggle room. He flexed harder and heard a ripping sound. The straps must have been fastened with scratch loops. Not terribly secure. His feet jerked hard. A tearing sound. The straps ripped apart, and his feet and lower legs were freed.

  “Hello? Is anybody there? I’m awake now.”

  No response.

  Victor wriggled forward, moving his shoulders like a swimmer, back and forth, jerking upward, lifting the rear legs of the chair a few millimeters off the ground each time. The chest strap climbed his torso until it pulled painfully at his underarms. He leaned forward, lifting his shoulders and arms as high as possible behind him and pressing as hard as he could. The chest strap slipped free and slackened, falling to his waist.

  Victor tugged his wrists, trying to raise them higher, but his back muscles cramped. He bent forward and pressed his forehead into his knees. He breathed, trying to direct oxygen to the spasming line of tissue, willing the muscles to relax. He would try again in a minute. Pressure on his bladder became toxic, but he ignored it.

  Victor raised his arms again, took a gasping breath, and pulled them higher, leaning forward, straining and stretching muscles that screamed for him to stop. A high-pitched whine escaped his mouth. Then his hands jerked forward. His face smacked into his knees. It hurt, but he didn’t care. His nose throbbed. His hands rested on the seat behind him, free from the chair but still bound together.

  He twisted, feeling with his fingers around the left side of the chair behind him, where the strap circled his thighs. His middle fingertip found an edge of the strap and traced the seam where hooks and loops joined. He broke the bonds of one corner with his fingernail, running it back and forth until the edge of the strap pulled away. Twisting further, a back muscle strained. He ignored it, trying to make contact with more of his fingers.

  It was too far. His breath rasped loudly in the lightless room.

  He could almost pinch the edge of the strap with his fingers. Working his legs up and down, shifting the strap one millimeter at a time, he managed to grasp the free end. Finally, with a grunt, he peeled off the strap and released his legs.

  Victor stood up quickly. Too quickly. The blood rushed out of his head. Losing his balance, he fell to one side, landing on the meaty part of his shoulder. He managed to keep his head from banging against the floor. Wriggling toward a wall, he hoisted himself to sitting.

  One restraint remained binding his wrists. He slithered in the darkness. His shoulder bumped against the chair leg. He pushed it against the wall and used it to pry one end of the wrist strap away from the other. He repeated the motion, once, twice, three times, and the seal was broken, the strap flung to the side. He was unbound. Free.

  Victor checked his pockets for his belongings, but they were empty. He crept in the darkness toward the strip of light under the door. People were talking outside. Holding his breath, he strained to listen. He could only pick out a few words: something about patience and money.

  His hand hunted for the doorknob, and when he found it, he pulled himself up. A low hum filled his ears, and all his muscles clenched. A lightning storm of pain shot through him. He leapt back, electrocuted.

  He howled, filling the small room with his cry. The pressure on his bladder seemed slightly relieved, and he felt a wet spot at his crotch. The doorknob had shocked the piss out of him. He slammed his elbow against the door.

  A man’s voice, Bandit’s, said, “I wouldn’t touch that again. I just doubled the power setting.”

  Bandit sounded amused and hostile. Had he been there the whole time? Listening to Victor struggle, refusing to answer his calls? Watching him, perhaps? There could be an infrared camera somewhere.

  Victor resisted the urge to pound on the door and throw himself against it. Instead he asked Bandit, “Why did you bring me here?”

  He put his ear against the door, avoiding the knob, and listened for any movement. Silence.

  “Where am I?” he asked.

  There was no answer.

  “Did the Classification Commission hire you? You can’t extradite me without a trial, you know. Your jurisdiction ends at the SeCa border.”

  Bandit chuckled softly. He sounded relaxed. “I couldn’t care less about jurisdiction. Don’t worry, we’re taking you back to SeCa as soon as we get paid.”

  Paid by whom?

  Victor’s forehead rested against the door. He said, “I’ll pay you to let me go. Please, if you give me my things I can make the transfer.” As he spoke, his breath rebounded in his face, a sour stench smelling of acid and heat, metabolic byproducts of the sedative they’d given him.

  “We’ve already got a buyer.”

  Victor slumped back against the door. A buyer? They must be ransoming him. Although, he had trouble believing anyone—even his family—would care enough to pay.

  “What did you sedate me with?” he asked. “It feels like I was hit by a truck.”

  Victor waited for a response. None came.

  “Hello? I really I need my medicine. I have a condition—I’m sure you know.”

  His hands searched the wall and found a touch panel. Light rained down from the ceiling.

  Victor looked around. The box-like room was unfurnished. Thin beige carpeting covered the floor. There were no windows, only the single closed door. Plain and calming, the room looked like the one Dr. Tammet had designed to help him during blankouts. But Victor wasn’t deceived. He had to get out.

  The door looked solid, but there was no mechanism for locking the knob and no deadbolt. Those were promising signs. This was just another test to see if he could keep his cool and solve the puzzle.

  Victor checked his pockets again. Still empty. He didn’t have much to work with. The chair sat overturned in the middle of the room and the restraints lay nearby like shed snake skins.

  Or insulators! The synthleather straps would let him grip the knob without getting zapped.

  But Bandit was on the other side, and he was strong, probably steroid enhanced. Not the type that Victor could overpower. He would have to wait for a better opportunity.

  Victor gathered up the straps. Minutes ticked by. Then shouting came from somewhere beyond the door.

  “Hello?” Victor asked.

  No answer, but he could hear strained voices.

  It was now or never.

  He stood and wrapped the restraints around both his hands. He tested making contact with the doorknob. A slight buzz tingled in his forearms, but it was nothing like the sharp zap he had received before.

  He gripped the knob with both hands, but they slipped off. He pressed harder to create friction. His fabric-wrapped hands rotated uselessly. He tried again, felt the knob begin to turn, then accelerate on its own.

  The door opened inward, and Victor stepped back.

  An unfamiliar man dressed in black with glinting metal weapons strapped to each of his limbs stepped into the room. Definitely a Corp. He pointed a stunstick at Victor’s heart.

  Victor closed his eyes, cowering and bracing himself for a Dirac pulse that, at such close range, could leave him paralyzed for life. It didn’t come.

  He opened his eyes and caught a glimpse through the open door of a crowd of people dressed in battle gear.

  Standing in the doorway, behind the man with the stunstick, as proud and authoritative as a military commander, with crossed arms and a wispy corona of hair, was his BioScan supervisor Karine.

  “There you are, Victor,” she said. “Don’t worry. I brought some Personil. You’ll be feeling fine soon enough.”

  Chapter 38

  I was living someone else’s life. In his body, in his mind, viewing the world through a roiling inferno of rage and pain. I witnessed his every thought and movement.

  He was running through some sort of medical facility. Visible through the win
dows was a lake. Low rolling hills stretched into the distance. It wasn’t Oak Knoll. When I looked in the mirror, I saw the unknown man’s bloody nakedness.

  —Victor Eastmore’s dreambook

  Republic of Texas

  9 March 1991

  Victor staggered forward, covering the damp spot on his crotch with his hands. He followed Karine and her band of Corps into a large room packed with cubicle dividers, desks, and chairs. A thin layer of dust covered everything.

  The sun was setting outside. Victor looked out a set of dirt-streaked windows at lightposts, asphalt, and tracks leading into Amarillo’s train station. Low-lying neighborhoods, commercial strips, and farmlands stretched to the horizon, broken by the lighted line of the highway.

  Someone cursed nearby. Victor turned. Lucky and Bandit were on the ground being tied up by the Corps and fuming. One of the Corps taped their mouths shut.

  Karine whispered in another Corp’s ear, then pulled Victor gently by the arm to a pair of office chairs. They sat facing each other.

  Victor nodded to the people guarding Lucky and Bandit. “Who are they?”

  “Corps, our security partners.” She sounded genuine and even-keeled, yet queasiness churned his stomach. Until he sorted out who were his friends and who his enemies, he would suspect everyone. And none of it made sense yet. If Karine was working with the Corps, who were Lucky and Bandit working for?

  Karine leaned forward, clasped her manicured hands in front of her mouth, grass green nails glinting, and watched him closely. After a moment, she said, “We’re taking you home.”

  “What if I don’t want to go?”

  Karine looked at him, surprised. “You may not be thinking clearly. We found herbs among your possessions.”

  “Do you have the data egg too?”

  She shook her head.

  Victor lowered his head. He’d lost both the data egg and the Handy 1000. Not to mention his dreambook. Now Karine would drag him back to SeCa, where he’d spend the rest of his life in confinement.