Reflections in the Mind's Eye

by Stuart Young

  Forcing herself into character she reached out to remove Stone’s clothes. He pushed her hands away gently. ‘No, I do this bit myself.’

  She watched as he took off his suit and threw it in the corner. When he’d finished he stood before her proudly. She examined him critically. His muscles were starting to sag a little, middle-age spread was attacking his belly, and there was a touch of grey amongst the thick black hair that covered his body. She tried not to look at his erection.

  He kissed her then threw her gently onto the bed. She bounced slightly on the mattress and for a second she worried that the unexpected movement might have shaken loose her contraceptive cap. Of course it hadn’t, she’d tested it for worse impacts than that. Even now she could feel the cap releasing the lubricants that would fool Stone into thinking he was getting her all moist.

  Stone lay on the bed and reached into the drawer of the bedside cabinet. He pulled out a couple of green pills and a pair of VR helmets.

  He offered her a pill. ‘Here, take one. The trip mixes with the VR images, it’s like our minds meld together. It makes sex fantastic.’

  Great. That was just what she needed. Still, the inhibitors she’d taken earlier worked on most known narcotics as well as alcohol. Poisons too. She swallowed one of the tablets. Stone took the other.

  They put on the helmets and Stone climbed on top of her.

  She looked up at him. ‘Shouldn’t we use some kind of protection?’

  ‘Don’t worry, I just had my medical. I’m clean. And I trust you. I’m very careful about who I sleep with.’

  No, he wasn’t. If he was he wouldn’t have taken Georgia Harker on one of his special dates. Georgia’s dad was Frank Harker, one of the biggest villains in the city. When his little girl didn’t come home Harker did some asking around. Not operating under the same restrictions as the police he soon found someone willing to point to Stone.

  That’s when he called Mist.

  She tried to look as though she was enjoying it as Stone eased himself inside her. Then he was pumping away, too engrossed in his own lust to notice her reactions. She lay beneath him, fighting back a sudden attack of claustrophobia. His bulk was suffocating her.

  She bit her lip to stop herself from crying. Why couldn’t Harker have just wanted a normal hit? She could have killed Stone a dozen times over before it got to this stage. But no, he wanted Stone to suffer for what he had done. That’s why the lubricants in Mist’s contraceptive cap carried a lethal sexually transmitted disease. She was protected, she’d been taking the vaccine since she’d accepted the assignment. But Stone, he wouldn’t stand a chance. This wasn’t just any STD, it was a genetically engineered strain that would deliver six months of pain, tissue damage and organ degeneration in the space of two minutes. But the virus didn’t kick in straight away. The cells didn’t start to mutate until stimulated by an electric signal delivered by the radio transmitter hidden beneath one of Mist’s fingernails. Harker wanted to be sure Stone had time to find out why he was dying.

  Stone grunted in time with his thrusts. His aftershave mingled with his sweat and the stink of booze; a nauseating brew that made her stomach heave.

  She could’ve refused the assignment. And even though she’d taken the job she didn’t have to do it the way Harker wanted. Just kill Stone the old-fashioned way and say circumstances had dictated it. Harker would never know any different.

  Christ, why was this bothering her so much? This wasn’t the first time she’d whored herself to get to a target. It didn’t mean anything.

  VR images flickered in front of her eyes. The effect was pretty freaky. It would be worse if she was hallucinating. Figures flashed back and forth; distorted visions of men she had been with. She guessed the helmets scanned the electrical activity in both their brains to get a sketchy idea of their fantasies and fed the information back into the pre-programmed scenario.

  The VR environment altered her perception of her own body-image. The breasts of her cyber-self became rounder, her lips fuller. Although she didn’t speak she heard herself calling out in a high-pitched yelp. ‘Yes! Yes! Yes!’ Stone’s fantasies projected onto her.

  The helmet probably couldn’t read thoughts accurately enough for it to blow her cover. Still, best be ready for a worst case scenario. Faking a groan she shifted her left hand to clasp Stone’s neck; ready to crush his windpipe. She curled the fingers of her other hand so she was ready to trigger the transmitter in her nail.

  Men hurting women always reminded her of her parents. That’s why she didn’t like Stone touching her, why her nerves were jangling.

  She remembered Dad beating Mum and then crying through the night, begging her forgiveness, swearing he’d never do it again. But he always did.

  She had wanted to love her dad the way the other kids loved theirs. But he had made that impossible.

  Don’t think about it! Go back to that cold hard place where nothing hurts and the killing is easy.

  The VR images were getting stronger now. They overlapped each other crazily, one image bleeding into another. In the background were shadowy figures; memories not properly scanned by the VR helmet. Quicksilver flickers of consciousness that were too elusive to be properly recorded. She stared at them, unsure which of the images were hers and which belonged to Stone. She focused, increasing the resolution of her mind’s eye. One of the figures was her dad.

  She watched in horror as he turned towards her. Horns sprouted from his brow. His penis transformed into a huge serpent. He moved towards her, licking his lips.

  Shit! The inhibitors hadn’t neutralised the hallucinogenics. She was tripping. And it was a bad trip. The worst.

  Okay, ride it out. Experts in psychological torture had tried and failed to twist her mind inside out. She could handle whatever a cheap street drug could throw at her.

  Dad advanced on her, the tongue of his penis-serpent flickering rapidly. Oh God, Dad had never touched her. Not that way. Black eyes, yes. Cut lip, yes. Broken jaw, yes. But never, ever, like that.

  No, Dad had never raped her. He had only ever done that to Mum.

  Mist hated him for that. Had wished him dead, would have carried out the job herself if an alcohol soaked liver hadn’t beaten her to it.

  Stone seized her hair. She winced; the extensions tugged at her own hair, threatening to tear it from her scalp.

  Dad stopped stalking towards her. She could see now that his features weren’t quite right. Dad never wore a beard. It looked familiar though. Then she remembered – this was Stone’s dad. She had seen his picture in the files. Stone Snr. was superimposed over her dad, the two of them blurring together.

  Stone’s groans turned to growls. He thrust his hips harder, more aggressively. She gasped in pain but he ignored her.

  A subliminal flicker – the hybrid Dad stood over Stone, sodomising him. Then Dad was gone and Stone’s VR image began to cry. The tears flew from his hate-filled face as fiery sparks but they turned to acid as they dripped down onto her face and neck. She gritted her teeth as her cyber-flesh burned.

  The VR helmet had linked her memories of her dad to Stone’s memories of his father. There was just enough common ground for the VR programme to meld them together. A confused mishmash of hatred, betrayal and sexual aggression.

  Stone shrivelled inside her. At first she thought he had come but then she realised his erection had merely wilted. He pulled out, his limp penis glistening from the lubricants.

  Stone yanked off his VR helmet and hurled it across the room. She removed her own helmet as he leapt off the bed. ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘Don’t pretend you don’t know,’ he snarled. ‘You saw it!’

  ‘I – ’ She wasn’t sure what to say. She felt a strange kinship for him then; united in past horrors.

  Stone clamped his fists against the sides of his head. ‘Oh God! Oh Jesus fucking Christ!’

  She could finish him now; tell him why she was there, trigger the virus and then get the hell out. Her thu
mb brushed gently against the nail with the transmitter.

  She didn’t press it.

  Stone staggered over to her and she found herself standing, hugging him, feeling the tremors of his sobs running into her body. A bond joined them. She knew him, she understood him. There was no need for this to end the way either of them had planned it.

  Then Stone hit her.

  The punch spun her round to crash face down on the bed. Blood filled her mouth – liquid copper. Caught offguard she hadn’t rolled with the punch properly, her neck muscles could only absorb so much. Consciousness wavered, ebbing and flowing like the tide, unsure whether it could hold on.

  A thousand needles of pain exploded in her scalp as Stone grabbed her hair and dragged her off the bed. Too dizzy to fight back. Activate the virus. Slow him down enough for her to get away.

  She couldn’t. Not knowing what she now knew about his past. This wasn’t his fault.

  A punch to the gut drove the air from her body. A second punch dropped her to her knees. Christ, she’d never gone soft on a target before. Activate the virus, you stupid bitch!

  Stone kicked her. She felt a rip snap. He kicked her again and she fell flat to the floor, the carpet rubbing her face. She lost count of the blows after that. All she knew was that no matter how much her survival instincts screamed at her she couldn’t fight back. She just wanted to hug him and tell him everything was all right.

  Fuck, what had he done to her?

  The pills. They hadn’t just been hallucinogens. There was something else. Something that fucked with her emotions, destroyed her judgement. Probably some synthetic equivalent of oxytocin, the neurotransmitter that flooded the brain during sex, creating feelings of love and bonding.

  Fight it. Fight him.

  Stone stopped kicking her. Tears streamed down his face; his features twisted in a contradictory mask of ecstasy and self-loathing. Christ, he must have taken a dose of oxytocin too. But why do that to himself? She couldn’t bear to look at his face, his pain hurt her more than his beating.

  Grabbing her arms Stone pulled her to her feet. Her legs wobbled, if he let go she would be face down on the carpet again.

  Stone trembled as he held her. ‘Tell me.’ His voice was a strangled whisper. ‘Tell me you love me.’

  She tried to fight it, to keep her jaws clamped tightly shut. She’d die before she said it. But then her lips were moving and she couldn’t do anything to stop them.

  ‘I love you.’

  And she meant it.

  Stone smiled. Or maybe he grimaced. It was hard to tell, he was shaking so much. ‘Good.’

  He gently laid her gently on the bed, her face sinking into the feather-soft pillows. She watched as he went to the bedside cabinet and opened the bottom drawer. He pulled out a tray covered with a selection of dildos. They each had a different covering – razorblades, broken glass, barbed wire. Placing the tray atop the bedside cabinet Stone took two pillows from the top of the bed. One went under her hips, raising her pelvis. The other went over the back of her head smothering her. She tried to shake it off, scared that he was going to suffocate her with it, but she was too weak, the pillow too large. Its corners flopped over each side of her head, obscuring her vision.

  ‘It’s better if you don’t know which one I’m going to use,’ Stone told her. ‘Or on which orifice.’

  She felt the mattress dip as he knelt on the bed. Felt the sweat on his hands as he spread her legs. Then she heard a scraping noise as he picked up one of the dildos.

  Her mind screamed at her, threatening to tear itself apart as her emotions warred with each other: She loved him no matter what he did to her. She would kill him. She just wanted him to be happy. She would choke him to death on one of his own fucking dildos.

  One of Stone’s hands was on her left buttock. She felt his weight shift as he leaned forward, reaching out to her with what he held in his other hand.

  ‘I love you, Daddy,’ said Stone.

  She wasn’t sure if he could hear her under the pillow and with her mouth so weak and sore that she could barely move it but she whispered to him anyway. ‘I love you.’

  She triggered the virus.

  The hand on her buttock tensed, then quivered. ‘W-what’s happening to me?’

  Got you, you bastard! Oh, God what had she done? Burn in hell! No, no, she didn’t mean to do it, please don’t die!

  A thud as he fell off the bed. Stumbling, hesitant footsteps over to the vid-phone, stopping, slumping to the floor before he got halfway there. Agonised groans as his muscles shrivelled. A choking noise and then the pitter-patter of tiny objects falling onto the carpet. Probably his teeth falling out.

  Two minutes is a long time to take to die.

  And it’s an eternity to listen to the suffering of someone you love.

  Mist squeezed her eyes shut and slowly, painfully, covered her ears with her hands. But she couldn’t shut out Stone’s cries of pain.

  Finally death rattled in his throat. Sobbing, she pulled herself painfully to her feet. Staggering over to her purse she pulled out a tiny cube of fabric which unfolded into a jump-suit. Getting dressed was slow, painful; every time the cloth brushed against her wounds was agony. Finally she was clothed. Picking up her shoes she broke off the heels in case she needed to run. Not that she was sure she was physically capable of running right now.

  All through this she avoided looking at Stone’s corpse. It would be too much for her to bear.

  She turned to the window that led to the fire escape. Opening it she was greeted by all the night sounds of the city – faint music, traffic, a police siren wailing into the darkness.

  She paused, her hands resting on the windowsill. Then she turned and limped over to Stone’s body. He was hunched in a foetal curl, one hand slightly extended as though reaching for something. His body was atrophied, his skin withered. Bloodstained teeth lay scattered on the carpet amongst clumps of his hair. Wide, frightened eyes stared up at her unseeingly.

  Part of her wanted to stay with him, to huddle up to his corpse and wail her despair for all to hear. But she knew that once the drug was out of her system her love would die. That’s what she wanted; to never have to feel anything again. To never have to fear being hurt.

  Slowly she forced herself back towards the window. Stone’s cleanup team would be here soon.

  One last lingering look at Stone. His outstretched hand seemed to be imploring her to stay.

  She climbed through the window and out into the night.

  Tears streamed down her cheeks.

  Crashes

  Destroying the Earth was rather a drastic measure but it was the only way humanity stood a chance of surviving.

  Hopely knew this. He believed it passionately. Unfortunately General Franklin wasn’t convinced as evidenced by the pistol he aimed at Hopely. ‘I can’t let you push that button.’

  ‘But it’s the only way to –’

  ‘Put your hands up!’

  Hopely sighed. ‘I’m a disembodied brain in a jar. I don’t have any hands. Now will you please let me save humanity?’

  Franklin stared at Hopely then at the remote control on the table upon which the jar rested. Beads of sweat stood out on Franklin’s brow, briny diamonds. His lip quivered and he blinked rapidly as though using his eyelids to send a message in Morse code. Nothing in his years of military service had prepared him for a situation of this magnitude.

  ‘General, put the gun down.’

  ‘No. If you press that button you’ll kill us all.’

  ‘If I don’t press it we’ll all die anyway.’

  The lights in the laboratory glistened on Franklin’s forehead and the plastic of Hopely’s jar. Franklin could see himself reflected in the shiny container, his image distorting in its cylindrical curve, his nose ballooning, ears and forehead shrinking, his moustache transforming into a dense jungle.

  Hopely sat in silence, awaiting the general’s decision. He watched the pistol in Franklin’s hand
as Franklin wrestled with his emotions. The gun trembled, shaking so violently it began to blur. Hopely wondered briefly if this was due to poor reception in the jar’s visual monitors but he knew the monitors were functioning perfectly.

  The pistol continued to tremble.

  Shake.

  Shudder.

  Hopely prayed it didn’t have a hair trigger.

  Scientists were delighted when they discovered the new planet. Delight turned to disappointment when they realised it wasn’t actually a planet but an immense asteroid, larger than any that had hitherto been discovered. And disappointment turned to fear when they realised it was on a collision course with Earth.

  Humanity was doomed. The asteroid made the one that wiped out the dinosaurs look like a pebble. It would strike with an impact that would shake the heavens and stagger the gods.

  Missiles could not stop it, they would merely be swallowed up by the vast canyons gouged across the asteroid’s surface. Shuttling a team over to plant explosives at its core would not work; the resultant explosion would merely create a hail of smaller fiery rocks to bombard the Earth. Evacuating Earth’s political leaders and cultural elite was not an option – there were not enough space shuttles to take them all and even if an entire fleet of shuttles existed where would they go? The International Space Station was due to be decommissioned and the base on the moon had only just started construction, it was currently so uninhabitable that the government wouldn’t even consider it as a detention centre for enemy combatants.

  It became increasingly obvious that only one man could possibly find a solution to save humanity: world-renowned scientist Gregory “Hope” Hopely.

  A pity he died in a car crash two days after the asteroid was first discovered.

  Franklin’s finger was white upon the pistol’s trigger. His face was equally pale, a marble statue brought to life by its fear and fury. ‘You said you could save the Earth by creating an artificial black hole to swallow the asteroid.’

  ‘That was just to get the funding for my real plan. Do you have any idea how difficult it would be to create and sustain a black hole without the Earth getting trapped within its gravitational pull?’