Prisoner of the Mind

by Kal Spriggs

  “You’re helping me?” Shaden asked. He raised his hands to the heater and soaked in the warmth.

  Angel gave him a long look, “Your nose is broken, you’ll need to straighten it.”

  Shaden’s hands went to his nose and he winced as pain flooded his face. His hands dropped, “How bad is it?”

  She reached over with one motion, took his nose and twisted. Shaden didn’t have time to pull back. Pain whited everything out for a moment and then settled back into a dull throb. “Was that necessary?” Shaden asked as he finally caught his breath.

  “It bugged me,” Angel said. “Don’t be such a wimp.” She put the truck into gear and pulled away.

  “What’s going on?” Shaden asked.

  She didn’t look over at him, her eyes stayed glued to the road as they drove. “You need to get into the city. It will be harder for them to find you there. Plenty of places to hide.”

  “Why are you helping me?” Shaden asked.

  He saw her clench her jaw in sudden anger and she shot him a dark look out of the corner of her eyes. “I’ve got a lot more at risk than you can imagine off hand. Don’t ask me any more questions, okay?”

  Shaden nodded. He felt too tired to argue.

  “I don’t know what that pig told you when you fought. He likes to gloat though, so probably plenty. Halving used you and another as an experiment. You’re a test subject. You hit a mental barrier and the decision came down for him to focus on the other one.”

  “The blonde woman?” Shaden asked.

  “Yes, they’ve named her Kandergain,” Angel scowled slightly, “like they’ve named you Shaden.”

  “Named me? But that’s always been my—”

  “Don’t interrupt.” Angel said. “Everything you know, everything you think you know, is wrong. Don’t trust your own judgment or instincts, not where Amalgamated Worlds or ESPSec is involved.”

  “What should I trust then?” Shaden asked.

  She didn’t answer immediately. They drove in silence for what seemed like an eternity before she pulled the truck to a stop. Angel shut it off and closed her eyes for a moment, as if she needed to gather her thoughts. When she opened them, she turned and gazed at his face for a long moment. “Trust your own stubborn will to live. Trust the people who help you. Trust in the idea that there is some hope in the world.”

  Shaden met her eyes, somewhat stunned by the intensity of her gaze.

  She looked away, and wiped at her eyes, as if she needed to brush away tears. Shaden had a moment of clarity: she must have lost someone close to her, which was why she helped him. Something about him must remind her of the person she lost.

  “A hundred meters farther on is a train station. There are cameras there, you can’t avoid them. Buy a ticket, take the train into the city and then lose yourself in the streets. Lay low for a few weeks there. Do you have money?” Angel asked.

  “Uh, maybe,” Shaden patted down the pockets of the coat, then dug through Janecek’s black backpack. He found a roll of cash at the bottom of the bag, along with a second pistol, this one a snub-nosed revolver, and a stack of ID cards.

  She snorted as he held them up, “Don’t use the ID’s. They won’t ask for travel papers unless you try to buy tickets to leave the city. Avoid the checkpoints on the highways and you should be good. Good luck.”

  Shaden nodded. “Thank you.”

  “I’m not doing this for you,” Angel said.

  “I understand. Thanks anyway,” Shaden said. He opened the door and jumped out into the howling wind. “Good luck.”

  He slammed the door closed and jogged up the road towards the lights of the station. Behind him he heard the truck growl to life again. By the time he reached the station, the truck had disappeared again into the storm.

  The train station wasn’t much. A small building, little more than a shack with some benches and a couple ticket machines. As Angel had said, he noticed cameras on the outside and inside. He kept his head down and moved quickly to the ticket machine. One ticket cost him fifteen dollars. He glanced at the scheduled time and then at a clock above the door.

  It wasn’t quite one in the morning.

  He felt a shock as he realized less than an hour had passed since he followed Janecek out into the storm. It seemed impossible that so much had changed in such a short time. Fifty eight minutes ago he retained his loyalty to Amalgamated Worlds. Fifty eight minutes ago he believed that ESPSec was justified in its actions and that he’d be tracking down dangerous rogue psychics who hurt innocent people.

  While he waited for the train Shaden wondered what he could believe in now.

  ***

  “Any sign of Hyena?” Tommy asked as he came up to the guard shack. The howling wind buffeted him and he stepped into the shelter of the guard post with a feeling of relief. He hated the cold, especially the damp cold.

  “No, Staff Sergeant,” Specialist Carter answered. “Should we report it?”

  Tommy shook his head, “No, we aren’t here to keep tabs on the contractors. We keep people out and we provide support.” In truth, they were tasked to prevent escapees, but since the survivor had left with Hyena, Tommy had every excuse not to bring that up.

  Not that he expected the boy to have escaped. The one run-in between Staff Sergeant Shade’s squad and the Hyena had left three of them in the infirmary for a month.

  Though, he thought, I hope the kid gave him a fight, maybe even hurt him.

  He gave Specialist Carter a nod, “Alright, I’m continuing my route, let me know if you see anything.”

  The hill guard post, the facility’s back door, was always the most miserable spot. In the summer it caught sunlight all day and turned into a sweatbox; in the winter, it caught all the wind and the tiny space heater couldn’t hope to keep up. The two shacks down at the waterfront were cold, too, but not as exposed. Stupid to have guys like us guarding this place, he thought for what felt like the millionth time.

  Even so, Specialist Carter gave him a smile and nod and turned his attention back to the blowing snow. Good kid, Tommy thought, too bad he’s got such a smart mouth and he ended up here. According to the specialist’s file, he’d mouthed off to an officer with no sense of humor, which was also why Carter didn’t have a sergeant’s chevron anymore.

  Tommy headed out into the wind and snow. Since his squad had guard duty for the night shift, that made him Sergeant of the Guard. Which was why he got to check the perimeter in a white-out blizzard. When the ESPSec personnel stood those positions, Tommy never saw them leave their posts, most of them entirely reliant upon the sensors along the perimeter. His squad and Staff Sergeant Shade’s squad both did foot patrols along the perimeter and through the facility grounds.

  He finished his path down the hill and paused to check on the two guard positions along the waterfront. These, he hated from a tactical perspective. The exposure alone made him uneasy, but the lighting also left them silhouetted, which was why he had ordered his squad to keep the lights off.

  His circle complete, he opened the door to the headquarters building and let the wind shove him inside. He grinned as the door slammed behind him and the ESPSec Captain bolted upright, wiping the sleep out of his eyes as he pawed for his pistol.

  “Sir,” Tommy saluted sharply, “perimeter is secure, sir!”

  Captain Schultz glared at him, but he didn’t say anything. In truth, Tommy figured the officer didn’t have the balls to pick a real fight with him. If I was born with half a brain, he thought, I might make a good officer too.

  Tommy stepped over to his desk and took a seat, then pulled out his pistols and performed quick functions checks on both of them. The cold weather meant he had to use special lube on their actions. The two M17 pistols fired caseless ammunition, normally Tommy liked that, but under cold weather conditions like this, they had a tendency to jam, especially with ice or snow. The special lubricant helped, but he still meticulously cleaned the actions of both pistols. He would do the same to his M12 carbi
ne as well, though it performed better in these kinds of conditions.

  He heard Staff Sergeant Shade come up behind him, her booted feet quiet as she tried to get the drop on him. He smiled, “You’re up early.”

  He heard her sigh, “Good ears.” She came around the desk and gave a wave at the storm, “Can’t sleep with all the wind.”

  “By the way, some day,” she grunted as she took a seat across from him, “you need to tell me how you do that.”

  “I can’t do that,” Tommy said easily as he worked the action of the pistol. “Because it’s a secret.” He said the last in a childish tone and his counterpart from second squad gave a snort.

  “You know,” she said, “sometime you need to tell me how you got this shit detail.” She pitched her voice low, not that it was necessary Their nominal superior, Captain Schultz, had already begun to snore.

  “No,” Tommy gave her a level look, “I don’t.” He wasn’t looking for sympathy and in his opinion it was none of her business. Besides, it wasn’t as if she could provide information in trade. He had already heard about her before his transfer here.

  She was sort of infamous, after all. It wasn’t every day you got to meet a Staff Sergeant who had broken her Battalion Commander’s wrist, collarbone, and jaw and walked away with no—official—punishment. She does look good, he thought to himself, so I can understand the temptation, but really, what kind of idiot would try to rape someone with her kind of training?

  From what Tommy had heard, Lieutenant Colonel Nokorov had ended up transferred to a staff job and the female Staff Sergeant had worked out some kind of deal with the man’s patrons where she wouldn’t press official charges or talk about it if she didn’t face charges in return. Even then, rumor had it that it took electronic recordings of the assault along with a phone conversation where Nokorov’s superiors had threatened her directly to get that kind of deal.

  Wish I had something like that, he thought absently. Then again, it hadn’t stopped her from being assigned here.

  “Anything interesting happening?” She asked as she watched him clean his weapons.

  “Well,” Tommy said, “Hyena took the male survivor out earlier.”

  “Shit,” she said. “I almost figured the two of them were home free.”

  “Even after what the girl did to your guys?” Tommy asked.

  She shrugged, “Could have been worse. She was trying to get to Hyena, so I empathize. I wish I could have sandbagged a bit, really, and let her have him.” She cocked her head, “What time did he go out?”

  “Midnight,” Tommy said with a glance at the wall clock. It was almost two in the morning.

  “That’s… long for him,” Staff Sergeant Shade said. “He didn’t slip back in unnoticed?”

  “Not past my guys,” Tommy shook his head. Psychic or not, his guys would report the man’s return. Unless he starts messing with their heads, in which case, all bets are off, Tommy thought. His people weren’t here to be test subjects… and if one of ESPSec’s tame psychics forgot that, well, he would remind them. Permanently.

  “Interesting,” she said. “Well, I think I’ll just cross my fingers and hope that something permanent happened to the Hyena.” She shot a glance at their sleeping nominal superior, “and maybe even an added hope that the boy survived the doing, eh?”

  Tommy shrugged as he holstered his pistols. “I can’t say I’d cry any crocodile tears over Hyena, but if the boy got out…” He frowned, “Think of the shit storm.”

  “Yeah,” she frowned, “there is that.” He could see her consider it. “You know, I think I’m going to go get some rest, things might just get interesting around here.”

  Tommy started to strip down his rifle.

  ***

  The train into New York City only took forty minutes. The conductor who took Shaden’s ticket gave him a surly glance, as if angered he had to go through the effort of taking it. Shaden stared out the window at the storm-shrouded city until the train dropped below ground, and then he just watched the stained concrete walls fly past.

  When the train stopped, and the doors opened, Shaden pulled himself slowly to his feet, shouldered the black backpack and stepped off. Out on the platform, he saw the handful of passengers move up a set of stairs.

  Shaden looked around, unsure of what to do. The unexpected aid from Angel had carried him this far, but now he didn’t know what to do.

  Shaden took a couple of deep breaths to steady himself. The pain from his ribs in response made him bend over in pain. After a moment of shallow breaths, he managed to straighten and follow the last straggler up the stairs.

  At the top, a surge of movement and sound enveloped him. He stumbled, disoriented at the volume of the noise and the crowded chamber. Hundreds of people swarmed through the space, more people than he could remember seeing at once. The crowd seemed to be a living thing that sought to envelop him and drag him along. Lights flashed from food shops and newspaper stands. The glare of the lights pained his eyes. Someone bumped into him and he gasped in pain as his ribs shifted.

  A moment later, a surge of smells registered. The stink of body odor and the smell of damp clothing mixed with an aroma of different foods into a miasma that made Shaden’s head spin. The sounds, sights, and scents should have brought a surge of memories and past experiences that he could have filed away without a second thought. Instead, he staggered, drunk on new experiences as his mind sought to categorize and catalog each new thing.

  He staggered against a wall, completely overcome. Shaden slumped in a daze for a long while as the crowd continued past, oblivious to his plight. Shaden could have rested there for days. His mind would have busily devoured every new thing, bemused by the experiences.

  His body, however, had its own agenda. His bladder told him that he needed relief. His stomach growled and with that reminder came all the aches and pains from his fight earlier. Shaden glanced at a clock, and saw he had spent nearly thirty minutes in this one place. Just as in the smaller station, this one had cameras everywhere and soon enough, someone would notice Janecek had not returned.

  Shaden had to leave.

  He pushed himself off the wall and merged into the flow of the crowd. He saw a sign for a restroom and drifted that way. Every bump every collision made him gasp in pain. He stumbled into the restroom and finally had room to breathe. Shaden stumbled over to a urinal and leaned against the wall, taking shuddering, painful breaths.

  When his business was done, he stumbled back over to a sink. The graffiti covered mirror gave him a poor reflection, the little he could make out showed his nose and face were swollen. The pain from those was enough that he didn’t dare touch them.

  The blood, though, made him stand out. He got the sink to work and then splashed cold water on his face. Hesitantly he wiped the blood off his face and forehead. He already had bruises from where Janecek had hit him and his face throbbed from the broken nose. Shaden hoped it would make it harder for them to recognize him.

  After a few more precious seconds of relative silence, Shaden limped back out into the crowded corridors of the station. His determination to move could not strangle his desire to bathe in the new sensations of the city, which even washed out the aches of his body. He wrinkled his nose at a spicy smell that emanated from a Chinese food stand. Why did it seem so new? Surely I’ve had Chinese before… right?

  He could not remember, which struck him as odd. The scents and smells seemed too unique to forget. His feet carried him past, and then he halted as another scent registered. This one made his mouth water. He felt a sudden surge of hunger.

  He stared in at the pie stand, and watched with hungry eyes as the proprietor pulled a big, greasy New York pizza out of the oven. He couldn’t remember ever having one, but his mouth remembered, and his stomach growled. He stepped up to the counter, and for a long moment he just stared at the pizza.

  “Shit or get off the pot,” the fat man behind the counter growled.

  “Excuse me?”
Shaden said.

  “Order, or get out of the way,” the owner said with a grimace.

  “One whole pizza,” Shaden said. He glanced over his shoulder and noticed a couple of teenagers only a few feet behind him. They wore ragged clothing, branded in garish colors that clashed. They stared at him with cold eyes, and Shaden had to force himself to look away from them.

  “What kind?”

  Shaden froze, his mind suddenly overwhelmed, there were multiple kinds? He pointed at the one the man had just pulled out.

  The fat man shook his head, “Fucking foreigners. One large pepperoni, fifteen dollars.” Shaden watched as the man slid the pizza into a box then shoved it across the counter.

  He fumbled in his pocket and pulled out the roll of bills. He peeled a twenty out, then tucked the rest away. The man snatched the money out of his hand and threw the change on top of a stack of flimsy napkins. “Next!”

  Shaden stepped away, the box warm in his hands. He didn’t know what to do next. The delicious aroma tugged at him. He saw a set of chairs and some kind of waiting area down the hall, and made his way towards it. Along the way he spent his change on some canned soft drinks.

  The first warm bite of pizza sent a tidal wave of signals into his brain. A surge of flavor and warmth exploded in his mouth. It took him several minutes to take the next bite. He finished the huge slice in four or five bites, and then dug into the rest of the pizza.

  He’d devoured it all and drank down both cokes before he even thought to save some for later. He might not know if he ever before had Chinese food, but he knew one thing at least: Shaden loved pizza.

  The feeling of contentment passed as soon as he noticed the camera set in the ceiling of the lounge. Shaden felt the pizza congeal in his stomach. As he rose to his feet, he noticed the same pair of teens from the pizza place stood nearby. As he dropped the empty box in the trash can, he could feel their eyes on his back.