by Stevie Barry
"And you do not want to," Von Ratched said flatly. "Remind them what I did to the last government I worked for. Crossing me would be the last thing you would ever do."
He hung up, and sighed again. Until now his employers knew better than to interfere with his work, but there were too many new people, and many of them thought he was the Devil incarnate. One would think that would make them smart enough not to annoy him, but he knew just how many idiots held power they shouldn't be allowed to touch. If he had to travel so far south to deal with them, they would regret it for the rest of their very short lives. Normally he considered killing for the sake of it beneath him, but he was always willing to make exceptions. Perhaps an example needed to be made.
Chapter Seven
That night Ratiri dreamed, a dream so sharp and so vivid he was sure he beheld it with his waking eyes.
He was in a garden, a vast, wild place quite unlike all the tidy plots he'd left behind in London. Cool grass soft as velvet oozed between his bare toes, the glow of a full moon silvering tall flowers he couldn't name. By day they would be a riot of color, but now they were muted, limned with a light that almost glittered.
And it was amazingly peaceful, this clear night air, soft as summer. He couldn't remember ever feeling this tranquil, not even during his childhood wandering over Scottish moors. The tension he'd carried since he came to the Institute was gone, and he felt awake in a way he'd never before known.
After a moment he realized he wasn't alone -- dozens of others were joining him on the massive lawn, silent, but their auras told him they were as at peace as he. Some he recognized from the Institute, but most were strangers, moving like curious children in whatever passed for their pajamas. For a moment he wondered if they'd all be drawn into some warped, adult variation of Peter Pan, dragged away from ordinary life by some inhuman force.
They were gravitating toward a massive willow beside a low, gurgling stream. He found Lorna along the way, her aura a rainbow swirl without so much as a hint of grey, and she looked up at him with a smile that lit up her eyes like twin green suns. She didn't say anything, and neither did he; in this place, silence wasn't a bad thing.
When they drew near the tree he saw a woman seated beneath it, on a boulder carpeted in moss. Her skin was as brown as earth after rainfall, her long dark hair like wispy lichen. She wore a long robe of shifting, multifarious green, encompassing every shade from spring leaves to the darkness of fir-needles. Even sitting Ratiri could see she had to be incredibly tall -- a good eight feet, if he was any judge, and her black eyes regarded them all with a sadness that felt as old as the stars.
"My children," she said, and her voice was so beautiful it almost hurt. It sounded, oddly, a little like Lorna's voice, minus the incredibly thick accent. "I call you here to tell you greater change is coming. War is coming, though you may stave it off for some years yet. There are those among you who turn from me, and are already sowing seeds of immense destruction. You must fight it with all you have in you, for I cannot stop it. I cannot change what you are, and there are those who in their arrogance would begin things they cannot control."
Von Ratched, he thought. The man was, after all, arrogance personified, and Ratiri didn't want to imagine anyone else capable of creating as much destruction as he could. But sending people to war…that didn't seem his style at all. He was a shadow-man, conducting his work as secretly as he could. He wasn't likely to reveal himself to the world at large -- but if not him, who? Could there really be someone even worse than him, waiting for their chance?
Any worry the thought might have given him was drained by the odd power of this garden. It was saving itself for when he woke, and then it might hit him with a vengeance. Let it wait -- let the whole damn world wait. He would stay here as long as he could.
The woman vanished quicker than a blink, leaving them alone in this strange, lovely place. He and Lorna wandered down the stream, still silent, listening to its low chuckle. He hadn't stood beside a brook since he was a child, and now he sat, rolled up the legs of his pants, and stuck his feet in it. It was icy, but wonderful. Lorna grinned and joined him, kicking at the water and splashing them both. How had he never noticed how very bright her aura really was? But maybe it was this place that made it so. She looked as at home here as he felt, happy in a way they both definitely wouldn't be capable of in the Institute.
Even the thought that they'd wake to that nightmare of a place couldn't disturb him here. And maybe, when he did wake, things would not seem so awful.
----
Von Ratched had no pleasant dreams, and woke in no good mood. The previous evening's conversation with Andrew Crupps still rankled, and he wondered who he'd have to kill for it .
Repairs to the cafeteria had finally been completed, so for once he went down there to eat. He wanted to observe the inmates in their new surroundings, and see how they reacted to the changes.
The long windows were gone, replaced by walls of solid concrete, with a narrow strip of barred glass high above. It would be some time yet before Donovan could make a dent in it, and he wanted to see how many people would blame her, consciously or not. Thanks to her first evening here, some of the inmates regarded her as a possible catalyst for change, and he wanted to show them that was not a good thing.
The new walls made it echo terribly, and sweated chilly condensation, but to his very great surprise, nobody minded. They sat at the long tables like the prisoners they were, under the harsh light of bare bulbs, but the collective mood was far more positive than he'd ever felt it. What was this? Even his entrance did little to dampen it, and that was scarcely short of mind-boggling. It was like they were only peripherally aware of his presence.
He gathered his breakfast and sat at the staff table. It made many of them rather uncomfortable, but he ignored them, focusing instead on Wrigley, a fair-haired young man with Coke-bottle glasses and rampantly uncontrollable pyrokinesis. He was heavily sedated, and his mind should have been an open book, but to Von Ratched's immense surprise, at first it seemed empty.
Not empty, he realized after a moment. Whatever was going on in his foremost thoughts was somehow…hidden. Not blocked -- a block he could feel, could break. This was something entirely beyond his ken, and it did not make him happy.
He glanced at Donovan, though he knew this couldn't possibly be her doing. She was surveying the room herself, occasionally shoving her hair back over her shoulder when it threatened to trail into her food, and he got the feeling she wasn't deliberately ignoring him -- she simply didn't care that he was staring at her. If this somehow made her more combative, he'd be sorely tempted to break both her legs. She certainly wouldn't be able to kick him then.
For now she looked peaceable enough, though, and so did the rest of the room. Whatever this was, it wasn't a budding rebellion, and that only confounded him further. The echoing voices were pleased, not nervous or fearful, and the entire crowd radiated a suppressed excitement that would spell trouble for the orderlies in the Activities Hall. Perhaps today would be a good day to let a few more outside, to plot Donovan's garden project. That would at least wear them out.
Duncan he would deal with today. The telepathic mess with Donovan had compromised his suitability for experiment 617, but if Von Ratched could even partially block the link, he could go ahead with the experiment without driving Donovan insane in the process.
DaVries was his backup option, but her mindset made her a less than ideal candidate. Duncan was stable and had more or less normal morals, which could definitely not be said of DaVries. The fact that she didn't regard their little arrangement as any kind of chore told him that, even without digging deeper into her mind. Donovan was too valuable as what she was, and in any event she'd be a certifiable nightmare if it succeeded with her.
No, it had to be Duncan. And perhaps an interview with him would shed some light on this morning's mysteries.
----
Lorna was highly alarmed when Ratiri was kept inside, and
he tried to be as calming as he could before Grieggs led him off. He hoped her almost pathological protectiveness wouldn't drive her to follow: he could tell by Grieggs' aura that he was probably in for something nasty, and he really didn't want her dragged into it.
His suspicions were confirmed when the nurse led him to F wing. Von Ratched met them there, and there was a look in his eyes Ratiri didn't like at all: speculative, assessing, but also mildly aggravated. If he'd seen anything of that dream in someone's mind…this could be bad. Very bad.
"This isn't going to hurt yet, Duncan," Von Ratched said, leading him into the bowels of the wing, and Ratiri wondered if that was his attempt at being encouraging. "Not much, at any rate. I need to ask you some questions before we begin."
Of course you do, Ratiri thought, and then mentally kicked himself. Maybe he ought to take a leaf from Lorna's book and start thinking in Hindi.
"I would not, if I were you," Von Ratched said, shooing him into an exam room. "Donovan gets away with it because I have not yet forced her to do otherwise. I would not have the same patience with you."
Okay, maybe not such a brilliant idea. Ratiri sat on the exam table without being told, hoping that would earn him some brownie points. It was too warm in here for his comfort, and there was a faint chemical smell he couldn't identify. It tickled his nose, leaving a bitter, astringent taste at the back of his throat.
Von Ratched faced him, arms crossed, eyes boring into his like icy drill bits. "What did Donovan do to your mind?" he demanded.
Ratiri blinked, wondering where that had come from. "I don't know what you mean," he said, quite honestly.
"There are blanks in your thoughts, Duncan -- places that are hidden from me. I want to know what she did. You can tell me, or I can drag her in here and force it out of her."
"No!" Ratiri winced at his own vehemence. He was a terrible liar, a worse actor, and had no idea how he was going to get around this without giving something away. "She didn't do anything, I'm sure of it. Something must have, but it wasn't her." His palms were sweating now, and he wished he had anything like a decent poker face.
Von Ratched regarded him silently for over a minute. "Defensive of her, aren't you? That could complicate things. If it was not her, what was it?"
"I don't know." And that was very true. He had no idea who or what that lady was, or what she might have done to any of them.
Again, a long measure of silent scrutiny. His pulse sped up, but somehow he managed to remain perfectly still. He couldn't out-stare Von Ratched, but probably no one on Earth could do that.
"As you like," Von Ratched said, taking a blood-pressure cuff from the wall, but Ratiri knew this wasn't the end of it. The bastard would find everything out one way or another, but hopefully not from him.
The cuff went around his arm, and he wondered why Von Ratched bothered taking vitals himself. Anybody remotely conscious would have an elevated pulse and blood pressure, and for no concrete reason. Yes, the man looked rather intimidating, but not enough so to create the reaction he received from probably everyone. Ratiri could see his aura, but nobody else did, and everybody wound up uneasy around him. It was nothing visible, yet entirely tangible. He wondered how Lorna could be as belligerent to the bastard as she was.
Von Ratched noted the numbers, and looked at him. All right, those eyes were possibly the creepiest thing Ratiri had ever seen, but it still didn't explain the man's effect on people. "You are rather fond of your little telepathic friend, aren't you?" he asked. "How interesting. I thought I would be using you against her, not the other way around. I wouldn't get too attached to her, Duncan. Depending on how this turns out, she might not want to be anywhere near you."
He does this on purpose, Ratiri thought, but it brought him no comfort. The man was arrogant and creepy, but so far he'd never exaggerated any of his threats. "What are you planning?" he asked, his voice remarkably steady as Von Ratched handed him a thermometer.
"A very long time ago, one of my employers asked me to create him a werewolf," the doctor said, the last word twisted with distaste. "Not only would such a thing be impossible, it would be a ridiculous waste of effort to attempt.
"After that employer fell, however, I decided to see if I could transfer lupine senses to a human being. I've run through hundreds of animal subjects, but you are the first human who has looked promising enough to complete this experiment."
Ratiri stared at him, spitting out the thermometer. His voice, his stance -- everything pointed to him being completely sincere. He's insane. Absolutely barking.
"I assure you I am not. Before I begin this, I must wall off your mind to a certain degree, or it will drive Donovan insane. And neither of us want that, if for different reasons."
This was just too much. All Ratiri's noble intentions, his wish to remain stoic around this madman, utterly fled -- and so did he, leaping off the table and yanking the door open. Where he was to go didn't matter; away was all that counted.
He hadn't gone five paces before he was halted dead in his tracks, caught in a telekinetic hold that wouldn’t even let him struggle.
"You already have very good reflexes," Von Ratched observed, circling him and eying him critically. "And you are quite healthy. This will not, I think, kill you, although for a time you might wish it would. Regrettably, that can't be helped."
Ratiri might not be able to struggle, but he could still sweat, and he did. Terror unlike anything he'd ever felt surged through him, until he thought his heart might burst. He'd run enough clinical trials himself to know there was very little chance this would end well.
"Sleep, Duncan. I will see what maybe be done about your little telepathic connection, and then we will begin."
----
The peace and contentment Lorna had found in her dream started fading not five minutes after Ratiri was gone.
It should have maintained itself just fine. She was outside, for God's sake, chill breeze stinging her cheeks, which were lightly sun-warmed every time it ebbed. It was a bright spring morning, the sky blue and mostly cloudless, the earth dry and sweet beneath her booted feet. Yet she marked her garden-patches on auto-pilot, lining them with a can of bright orange spray-paint. She even answered questions, but her mind was not on her work.
Ratiri was afraid. She could feel it, even without actively reading his thoughts. Of course he would be nervous if he was around Von Ratched, but this was far beyond mere unease. His fear gave way to a level of terror that seemed to slap her upside the head, so intense it physically hurt.
And then it…severed, far more completely than if he'd been merely unconscious. For one horrible moment she thought he was dead, but no -- a faint trace of their odd connection remained. Whatever Von Ratched was doing was so horrible he'd deliberately blocked that link.
She swore, and dropped her paint can. Ratiri just wasn't built to handle pain. From what little she'd seen, his life had been too comfortable, too normal to have let him know what true pain was until he came here. He hadn't protested when she'd latched onto his mind without permission, and he'd been terribly hurt once already because of her. She'd promised herself she'd repay him somehow, that she'd shield him from things he had no strength to deal with -- and from the feel of it, he was about to endure something beyond horrible.
Fuck that.
She bolted back inside, ignoring the orderlies who tried to stop her. It was a long way to F wing -- hopefully she'd be fast enough to get there before Von Ratched really started. Ratiri was her goddamn responsibility. He needed protection, and she was damn well going to give it. She’d failed Katje already, or at least she would have, if anything awful had happened to her during her first appointment.
A few more foolish orderlies tried to grab her, and went flying like tenpins. Her lungs started burning far too early; it had been too soon since she'd been forced to quit smoking, and she was out of shape. The heavy clothing suited for the cold outdoors made her sweat almost immediately, and she shed the too-large jacket as
she pelted through the hallways.
She'd only got two-thirds of the way before absolute agony tore through her head like a railroad spike to the brain. It was so intense it drove her to her knees, and pain shot through them, too. It had nothing on what was threatening to rip apart her mind, though, and when she staggered to her feet the lights blasted out almost in unison. She had to pause to throw up everything she'd eaten for breakfast, and it was only sheer, stubborn will that even kept her conscious.
And now she could feel Von Ratched in her head, tearing at her senses, but maybe he was too far away, or he was too busy to devote all his attention to her. Either way she somehow kept on, though the combination of her pain and his assault all but blinded her. Her stomach rolled again, and chilly sweat dampened her clothes as her head went dizzyingly light, but the inner heat of her total rage drove her forward. What he might do when she got there didn't matter -- she just had to get there.
Her staggering feet eventually let her fetch up against F wing's door, and she leaned against it a moment, trying to reorient herself. The metal was cool and solid against her cheek; it at least was indisputably real.
It was also indisputably locked, but it wasn't enough to withstand her telekinesis. Throwing so much of it intentionally made her dizzier than ever, and she wove like a drunk through the corridors, eventually resting her hand against the wall for support. Christ, it was too far -- she didn't even know just where they were in this ungodly large place. She wasn't going to make it.
Move your arse, Lorna, she ordered herself. If you give up now, he wins.
But she fell to her knees again, dry-heaving, sparkles swimming before her eyes. As soon as she could move she started crawling, and eventually managed to regain her feet. Ratiri felt closer now, but of course so did Von Ratched, and she thought his mental attack might split her head apart.
Throw it back at him, that tiny coherent part of her commanded, so she did.
