EXOSKELETON - A Novel

by Shane Stadler

  "You are wrong," Landau said. "You should try doing something you cannot explain ... Why not separate during a treatment, and go through the glass to the control room. Note a few details about the people in there. When you return to your body, recite them aloud, and see what kind of a response you get."

  Will tried to absorb what Landau was saying.

  "What is all of this, Landau? And why are you so concerned about how I develop this ... ability?"

  "Because there's something else at stake here. This goes beyond just you."

  "I don't understand. I don't understand why I'm here. Sometimes I even wonder if I'm really here. Maybe I'll wake up from a coma or something, and find out this was all a dream."

  "If that were true, your existence would be much less significant," Landau said.

  "What do you mean?"

  "You'll understand later—if you survive ... Now, I must leave you."

  Will closed his eyes and was quickly asleep.

  *

  During the morning maintenance routine, Will found his anxiety had decreased considerably. He decided to spend a good portion of the day exploring his new ability, and lose track of time—which seemed to have no meaning when he was separated.

  The Exo positioned Will vertically in the center of the room, and a robotic arm descended from the ceiling. He immediately recognized the device on the end of the arm: it was a jaw-jack. Directly behind it was a complicated, denture-shaped mouthpiece, riddled with wires, white tubes, and metallic parts.

  A voice instructed Will to open his mouth. When he hesitated, a horrible shock jolted his body until he complied. The jack went in and pressed just behind his front upper and lower teeth, forcing his mouth into a strained-open position. The oversized mouthpiece was then inserted, and the jaw-jack contracted and withdrew. Will's teeth settled easily into the custom fitted crevices of the device—a perfect fit.

  A moment later, the mouthpiece vibrated slightly, then expanded to force his jaw into the full-open position once again. Will quickly forgot about the discomfort of his jaw when he felt two needles prick his gums. One was cheek-side and the other tongue-side, near the back molars on the lower right of his mouth. The two needles slowly penetrated into the root areas, and began to probe about. Will knew immediately what they were searching for; they were locating the special nerve bundle Colby had discovered. But he wondered why they were inserting two needles.

  Will's thoughts were disrupted when one of the probes struck gold—the pain was awful, but the needle backed off almost immediately. It seemed to be waiting for its companion to find the mark.

  It took the other probing needle a minute to hit its target, and then it backed off as well. Will was confused as he felt them both jockeying for position through very fine adjustments. He wondered if they planned to use them both at the same time—jabbing and prying from opposite sides of the bundle. He got his answer just a few seconds later: they did use them simultaneously, but the action wasn't mechanical; it was electrical. They were electrodes.

  When the first blast of current surged through the nerve bundle, the pain went beyond anything he'd ever experienced. He didn't even have time to scream, before everything went black.

  *

  "Wow ... I better cut down the current a bit ... Could've killed him," the tech said to the medic. "I'll reduce it by half."

  "That was too close—his heart skipped a few beats," the medic replied as he examined the heart monitor on the control display. "And who knows what it did to his brain—the PL went off scale."

  "Duly noted," the tech replied, and entered the new parameters.

  *

  Will woke up confused: he didn't immediately recall what had happened, but it all came back to him when the electrical current again surged through his nerves. He screamed feverishly. This time he was able to exit before it got any worse.

  He separated and began exploring, turning to see his suffering body. Due to the violent, shock-induced spasms, his head bolts were bleeding, and blood ran into the outer corners of his eyes and down the side of his face. He felt extreme anger, but didn't know what to do.

  Will suddenly realized something; maybe now it was possible to kill himself. Maybe he could attack his own body, like he'd done with Hatley—only more violently. He quickly decided against this—he was now better equipped to survive the year than he had ever been ... Still, the freedom to choose gave him a degree of comfort; the option of death was there if he needed it.

  Will's thoughts were interrupted by a horrible screeching sound. He looked around but saw no sign of its source. It sounded alive, but not human. Even though he felt no physical response, the emotion of fear overtook him. The sound grew louder and more shrill as a white, cloudlike substance passed through the wall just below him.

  Will remained perfectly still. When it was all the way through, the thing became silent and circled the room below him a few times. As it maneuvered, Will thought he saw human-like features—arms and hands—but he couldn't be sure. After a few passes, it stopped directly across the Exo from him. It moved a little to the left, then a little to the right, as if it were trying to figure out if something was there—at Will's "location" in the corner of the ceiling.

  Then it stopped completely, transforming into a ghastly, ghost-like head and face, and screamed like a banshee—louder and more awful than anything Will had ever heard in his life. The face seemed to fix on him and then morphed into the most frightening, wicked thing he had ever seen. It was skeletal, evil, enraged, and it yelped its shrill screech through a wide, irregularly-fanged mouth. Long arms with giant claws grew out of the torso, and the lower part formed into a long, wispy tail.

  Will was horrified as the thing tried to approach him, slowly, at first. Will adjusted his position to keep the Exo between him and the monster. It stopped, and then reversed its direction to match Wills movement. Will shifted slowly in the opposite direction. The thing stopped for an instant, seemed to coil itself up like a snake, and then exploded after him, wailing a deafening sound like that of twisting metal.

  Will evaded in a panic, screaming in utter terror and desperation. He circled the room multiple times, barely evading the beast as it charged him again, and again in relentless pursuit. In a final act of desperation, Will fled back to his body, where he continued to scream.

  *

  Jonathan heard a knock, and watched as one of the large doors at the library entrance creaked open. He saw Denise push through and close the massive door behind her. The giant clock on the wall above the entrance chimed; it was eight AM. Denise set her book bag on a chair and took off her coat.

  "Good morning," Jonathan said.

  "You look tired," Denise said.

  "We were up until 3:30 last night," Jonathan replied and rubbed his face with both hands. Sleep had become an annoyance to him; he had little time for it. "I think we've made some progress."

  Julia turned from her position at the large window on the far side of the room, and walked out of the morning sun to join them.

  Jonathan started the discussion in front of a large, portable whiteboard filled with notes written in blue marker. "A project called Red Wraith was first funded by U.S. Army Intelligence in 1947," he explained. "The details are scarce, but it seems that the project was based on a series of studies conducted by the Nazis in various concentration camps from 1941 to 1945. At least four events, or incidents, as they are referred to in the American documents, were cited as the basis for the Nazi project, which they had called Red Falcon. Hitler himself had allocated significant resources to fund it."

  "I saw a seal stamped on some of the Nazi files that looked like a falcon carrying a strange, swastika-like symbol," Denise said. "Maybe that is the emblem for the Red Falcon project."

  Jonathan continued, "We also have documents dating back to the early 1950's, from Army Intelligence to the Department of Defense, and later ones to DARPA and the CIA, that propose scaled-up research based on Red Falcon and the Nazi incidents.
Other, more historical, events are also mentioned: paranormal activity in Russian gulags, strange happenings during the Spanish Inquisition, and unexplained events during the torture of witches in America. According to the records acquired by American forces during the second gulf war, minor incidents had also been observed at Iraqi torture facilities."

  "So our government compiled all this information, and assembled a massive program over time," Julia added. "However, until recently, there were only a handful of small test programs scattered around the world."

  "That's right," Jonathan continued, "some small-scale research was carried out by our government in secret military facilities in Guam, Mexico, and black CIA sites in Eastern Europe. Subjects for the scaled-up version of the research included military human resources—prisoners of war—and also citizens of foreign lands. With the help of the host countries' corrupt governments, it would only take money."

  "The other option was getting people to volunteer through the penal system," Julia said.

  "That's where the CP facilities come into play," Jonathan said.

  "I still don't understand what it is that they're researching," Denise said.

  "Neither do we," Jonathan said. "We only know it involves torture." He handed the blue marker to Denise. "Now, fill us in on the other Nazi incidents the proposals refer to so ambiguously. I filled Julia in on the first."

  "The second incident was quite similar," Denise continued. "In that case, the Nazis systematically tortured five Russian spies. The men were kept in five separate rooms, and each strapped securely to a chair. The doctors would start by amputating half a foot, and cauterizing the wound. No anesthetics. The day after a treatment, an SS officer would come into the prisoner's room to ask some questions. After the interrogation, the doctors would remove either another few inches of an arm or leg, or start working on a new limb. The process continued until the men died. Some survived significantly longer than others."

  Denise drew a rough schematic of the cell layout on the board; five boxes in a row. She then drew in some details: doors, windows and hallways, and the positions of the prisoners' chairs.

  "One night, when there were just two of the five men left," Denise explained as she crossed off the three rooms in the center of the row of five, "an SS officer and two doctors entered the room of one of the prisoners, Vladimir Golmakovsky." She drew a circle around the room on the far right, and wrote VG next to it. "They interrogated him, and then proceeded to remove two inches of what was left of the man's upper arm, only the man didn't scream—in fact, he didn't react at all. His eyes rolled back in his head, but he did not slump over as if he'd passed out. One of the doctors left the room to call another to observe what was happening. When the two men were on their way back to the cell, they heard a high pitched, wailing sound, and men screaming. When they got into the room, the prisoner was still strapped to his chair, but the SS officer and the other doctor were burned beyond recognition. And what was also peculiar: the other prisoner, four rooms away, was found dead with a broken neck," Denise said, as she drew a circle around the man's room on the opposite end of the row. "Golmakovsky was dead by morning as well; he presumably died of cardiac arrest. Otherwise, none of it—not one death—was explained."

  "It gives me the chills," Julia said and shuddered.

  Denise continued, "The third incident I found has to do with the interrogation of a British spy. The woman was caught behind German lines, and was questioned for more than thirty days. They interrogated her in the mornings, and tortured her by night. They amputated fingers and toes, and told her they were sending them to her family in England. After about day twenty, the interrogators, including one doctor, began to report telekinetic activity during the torture sessions. They said the woman would occasionally become silent and unresponsive, and things would topple over by themselves—cabinets, tables, and on occasion, the interrogators ... After day thirty, they had become very frightened of the woman, so they shot her."

  "My god," Jonathan shook his head.

  "I'm still searching for the fourth incident."

  "Now, Julia, the CIA files," Jonathan said, and gestured for her to continue the conversation.

  "First off," Julia spoke more towards Denise, "these files corroborate the information from Jonathan's DARPA files: Red Falcon is the Nazi precursor to the American Red Wraith project. The Red Falcon files were discovered by the OSS—the agency that would evolve into the CIA—before the end of World War II. Later, the CIA and other government agencies gave the project the highest security classification—same as that of the Manhattan Project. In 1960, DARPA, then known as ARPA, the Advanced Research Projects Agency, invested over fifty percent of its annual budget on a project called Peripheral Biosensors, and continued to fund it under various names until the present day. There are numerous private subcontractors, and my next task is to assemble a list."

  Jonathan stood up and poured more coffee for everyone as he spoke.

  "I suppose we should get back to reading: I have a stack of DARPA files to examine, Julia will continue with the CIA files, and Denise, you should find that last Nazi incident ... "

  "Actually there are four more," a man's voice echoed in from the direction of the entrance.

  Julia reacted with a muffled gasp of surprise, and Denise whipped her head around to look at the man.

  Jonathan stood silent for a few seconds before he could finally speak. "Who the hell are you?"

  The man smiled. "A friend," he replied, and walked towards them.

  *

  The two men looked down from the control room window and out onto the treatment floor.

  "Did you feel that? Do we get earthquakes in Detroit?" the technician asked, confused.

  "It's probably just one of the heavy machines on the next floor," the medic speculated. "But that screeching..?"

  "Yeah, strange," the tech said. "After lunch we'll have to write it up."

  *

  Richard approached the three startled people, and tried to calm them with a smile. "I'm the one who sent you these files—I wrote the note and signed it "A Friend.'"

  Jonathan nodded in recognition, then asked, "How did you find us?"

  "You're not a hard man to find, Jonathan," Richard replied. "And I saw Ms. Walker going into the building—recognized her from our files." He turned to the face he didn't recognize. "But I'm afraid I don't know who you are."

  "I'm Julia McDougal. Jonathan's wife. And what do you mean by "from our files'?"

  "My name is Richard Greene. I work with DARPA on the Red Wraith Project," he explained. "We've been monitoring your activities ever since you began snooping around the Thompson case ... Forgive me, but there isn't much time—and we have a lot to talk about."

  As Jonathan approached, the man took a step towards him and stuck out his hand. Jonathan hesitated, but shook it anyway.

  "What do you mean "there's not much time,' Mr. Greene?"

  "I'll get to that, and please call me Richard," he replied. "There's a lot I need to explain ... First, I am the head bioengineer of the project. I was initially responsible for the development and implementation of the Exoskeleton—but now I'm very much part of the management, and report only to the project head, Heinrich Bergman."

  Jonathan was astonished. If anyone had enough information to take down the program, it was this man. "Why did you give us these files?'

  "Because the project needs to be stopped," Richard replied. "It's gone too far and horrible things have happened. Many people have died."

  "Why didn't you just report it to the authorities?" Jonathan asked.

  "To what authorities? The FBI?" Richard scoffed. "I have no idea who is in on this, Jonathan. The only safe way to stop the program is to leak the information to the public. But it needs to be done carefully ... Your name came up in our discussions of the Thompson case, and with your reputation and clout, I thought you might be able to help me."

  "The people you work with—did they kill those women at the crime
lab?" Denise asked, solemnly.

  "Yes," Richard replied, and bowed his head slightly. "And many others, and more to come, if we don't move."

  "More to come?" Jonathan asked.

  "I believe Thompson is to be terminated within the next few days."

  "What? Why?"

  "Because his case is a risk to the project, once again," Richard answered. "Cynthia Worthington has come out of her coma."

  *

  Will was frightened enough that he had trembled uncontrollably for the full lunch period. He was now too afraid to separate—he couldn't risk running into that thing again ... What the hell was it?

  The session restarted after lunch, and he knew he'd have to endure the pain the entire afternoon.

  *

  Richard explained that the girl had emerged from her coma but had not yet spoken, and that Bergman wanted to preempt any assault on the program if she were to reveal Thompson's innocence.

  "What could they be hiding that they'd kill to keep it secret?" Denise asked.

  "The program implements various kinds of torture" Richard replied without hesitation.

  "Dammit, I knew it!" Jonathan shouted.

  "But it's more than that," Richard explained, sitting down at a table. The others followed suit. "It's a carefully controlled torture that's carried out by a high-tech, bio-interface system called the Exoskeleton. The patients are taken to their absolute limits, physically and psychologically. They skirt the edge of death."

  "And you're an expert in this ... technology?" Julia asked with a look of contempt.

  Richard saw similar expressions on the faces of the other two.

  "Please, let me tell you a little about myself. Just out of grad school, about fifteen years ago, I started working for a bioengineering company called SynCorp, a subcontractor of DARPA. They were developing a system to help severe accident victims—to aid in the process of rehabilitation. It would hold them together structurally, perform controlled movement, administer drugs, and monitor vital medical readings ... I only learned that the research had a dual purpose after I accepted a position with DARPA ... I started with a low security clearance—I only worked on functionality and performance, not application or implementation. I had no idea what they were doing with it until I was promoted to higher clearance levels."