The Little Green Book of Chairman Rahma

by Brian Herbert

  “Very much. I don’t want to cause harm with it.” His heart pounded inside his chest.

  “And we appreciate that. You are known to be a loyal subject of the Green States of America, so if something like this had to happen to anyone, we’re pleased that you’re the one involved, and not someone who could cause trouble.”

  “I don’t want to cause trouble.” As before, Joss tried to calm himself by controlling his breathing, and this time he felt his pulse slow in a matter of only a few seconds.

  I’m getting better at this, he thought.

  Dr. Mora placed a hand on the straps that held Joss to the gurney, and said, “I’m going to loosen these, so that you can move around more freely in this chamber. Even with the Dark Energy that you seem to possess, it is not strong enough to break out of here, so don’t even think about trying. The most powerful atomic bomb could be set off right on top of us, and it wouldn’t break through.”

  That sounded impossible to Joss, but the SciOs had amazing technological abilities. He nodded, watched as the doctor released the straps and then helped him off the gurney and onto his feet. Joss wore a torn hospital gown that did not cover him very well.

  “There,” Dr. Mora said. “Isn’t that better? You’ll find that this chamber is connected to two others that have been provided for your use, one of which is a private sitting and entertainment chamber, and the other your own dining area and automated kitchen alcove. You also have access to a private bathroom that has a soaking tub and a shower—both with recycled water, of course.”

  “Thank you. I’d like to start out by getting cleaned up. Do I have to wear gowns like this?”

  “No. We’ll bring fresh clothes for you. Consider this your own suite of rooms. One more thing. Gradually, as soon as we figure out how best to accomplish it, we’d like to conduct a series of controlled experiments with your power … assuming you still have it, that is.”

  “Would you like me to find out right now?”

  “Ah no, not just yet.”

  * * *

  OUT OF AN abundance of caution and patriotism, Joss had accepted the arrangement at first. But as days passed, and the medical personnel came and went, he began to feel as if he had no privacy, not even in the adjoining, completely enclosed bathroom. Though he saw no obvious detection devices in there, he presumed that someone was collecting his urine and stool samples, and even the saliva from brushing his teeth. He suspected they had cameras somewhere in the bathroom as well, to watch his every activity and see just how alien he had become.

  Alien.

  He’d heard the medical staff using that word several times, including Dr. Mora. And, though Joss had not objected, it didn’t seem to correctly describe him—at least not in the extraterrestrial sense. Not even if he had become the hybrid that two of the doctors had mentioned in his presence, because he was a composite of human and plant cellular material from Earth, and of the Splitter power that the SciOs developed on Earth as well—the Dark Energy component. Presumably the SciOs had not gone off-planet for such technology, because the Green States of America had scrapped the space program as “wasteful spending,” but with the SciOs one could never be certain. They might even have their own secret space program, for all Joss knew.

  Alien? Perhaps it is true.…

  Still, the Chairman trusted them, and Joss tried to keep that in mind, despite being treated like a prisoner, reminiscent of the way animals used to be treated when it was legal to confine and use them for medical purposes.

  Joss couldn’t help but notice the changes in his own body, and not just in the light black color of his skin, and the vinelike green scars that traversed the epidermal surfaces, wrapping around his arms, legs, and torso. (One even crossed his forehead and ran down the side of his face to his neck.) Whenever he didn’t pay attention, his pulse seemed to quicken on its own, and he would find himself walking around the bunker very rapidly, eating quickly, talking fast, doing everything at a heightened pace. He had to keep slowing himself down consciously. It was this way when he went to bed as well, as he found his mind racing while he lay there, and his heart pounding inside his chest, until he focused and put himself to sleep by sheer willpower.

  One morning while Joss was shaving with a straight razor, taking great care to move slowly and not cut himself, he suddenly put down the razor and went into the entertainment chamber, where he knew his handlers had installed surveillance cameras, because he could see them high in every corner.

  He placed a videobook on the floor. Then, gradually and cautiously, he raised his left hand and pointed the fingers at the book. It was a particularly dull story anyway, one that was of no interest to him, and he’d set it aside, intending to ask for it to be removed. Perhaps he could take care of that little chore himself. The fingers darkened and glowed. He felt his metabolism rising and heard a gathering roar in his ears, like the mounting power of the Splitter on Janus Machine No. 129.

  Joss heard a man’s voice on the speaker system: “Don’t do that!” But it was too late.

  He took a deep breath to slow his pulse a little, and focused a small degree of animosity on the videobook. To his amazement, thin streaks of black light darted from his fingertips, but did not reach their target. Instead, like threads floating in the air, they hovered right over it. He sensed that they were under his control—or that they could be, if he handled this right.

  Now Joss intensified his feigned animosity toward the book, which raised his pulse again. He saw the black threads thicken and cover the target, melting it into a small heap of yellow gunk. The remaining strands of Dark Energy crackled in the air and vanished.

  Interesting, Joss thought, ignoring the SciOs who gathered around him and protested. Previously, streaks of black light had shot out of his fingers involuntarily and caused damage, like the waves from hand-held Splitter guns, which were small versions of the waves that resulted whenever Kupi Landau fired the powerful Splitter on the Janus Machine. It was a matter of scale, and he seemed to have a minuscule version of the remarkable energy in his body.

  And he could control it. But what degree of dominion did he have over it, and why had it occurred without his volition the first time, in the hospital room?

  Why too, did the power seem to come only from his left hand? (He was right-handed, after all.) Then, as he wondered this, the fingers of his right hand began to darken, as if sending him a message. Moments later they returned to normal coloration.

  “There,” Joss said, looking around and meeting the disapproving gaze of Dr. Mora. “Our first controlled experiment. I’d call it a success, wouldn’t you?”

  “Perhaps,” Mora said, nodding.

  “Let me experiment a little on my own,” Joss said. “My mind is directly linked to the Dark Energy, and I think I can fire it whenever I want to, if I decide to do so.” He moved one hand around in the air slowly, causing black threads of light to appear and linger, before vanishing.

  The SciOs moved back a ways, but everyone in the room seemed to know that there might be no safe distance from Joss, if he ever became upset and turned his rage against them.

  “I’m able to control it by focusing on my emotions,” Joss said, “playing them up and down.”

  “Ah yes, that’s interesting,” Dr. Mora said.

  “Without volition, I do tend to make sudden movements,” Joss said, “so everyone near me should bear that in mind. If I’m not completely focused on what I want to do, if I don’t plan every movement, something really bad could happen.”

  Dr. Mora pursed his lips. “Shall we all sign forms agreeing not to pursue legal action against you?”

  Joss smiled. Then, motioning the SciOs back, he sat on the floor, raised both of his hands in the air, and moved them around to create circles and ovals of black thread, then caused them to dart this way and that. Now the threads thickened in the air, and were visible for considerably longer before fading slowly when he let go, like the contrails of a jet. After practicing for a while, he fo
und that he was able to adjust the thickness of the strands at will, by alternately increasing and diminishing the output of energy.…

  That night Joss awoke from a peculiar dream, one that suggested variations on what he’d already discovered about his own body and the strange power it contained. He rose from his bed and flipped on a light.

  Could those new variations be possible, more than just a dream?

  This time, instead of using his hands, he waved both feet in the air, trying to generate power from his toes, as the dream had suggested he could do. Nothing happened. He felt a surge of anger at his own naiveté, thinking a dream could foreshadow or mirror reality. What utter foolishness!

  He turned toward the bed, when suddenly the fingers of both hands glowed black and stiffened—little Splitter barrels.

  Focusing on his fingers and adjusting his emotions like a control panel—moderating anger with serenity to find balance points—he formed strands of energy around his hands, hovering in the air. Then, with a mental command, he made them coalesce and used them like a black laser to slice a small hole in one thick wall, all the way through to the corridor. Next he tried another experiment, using more mental intensity to create a larger hole.

  It worked both times. The dream had not been at all accurate, but the startling nature of it had caused him to awaken, and to discover something new he could do.

  Finally, leaving the two holes in place, he withdrew, turned off the light, and returned to bed. This time, when he tried to calm himself to go to sleep, he had much more difficulty, before finally succeeding.

  So many thoughts insisted on racing through his mind, so many astounding possibilities.…

  24

  There is an undercurrent of suspicion spanning both continents of the Green States of America, a rumor that the SciOs are only fair-weather allies of this nation and could betray us all. But evidence is lacking.

  —a confidential Greenpol report

  THREE MORE DAYS passed in confinement, and Joss was feeling less and less cooperative. Though he was patriotic and dedicated to the ideals of the revolution, it was beginning to look as if he had exchanged his privileged, interesting career as a greenformer for something far worse. He was living in a velvet-lined cage as a glorified lab rat. Yes, a lab rat. He longed for a return to his old life—to his friends, family, and co-workers. It all seemed far away and long gone, irretrievable.

  Messages had come in from many people, but he only knew the names, not details of what they said or what they wanted. Each day Dr. Mora let him know who they were, but said every one of them would have to wait until the experiments were completed. Joss was suspicious of how the doctor was handling this, suspected he was using those people as leverage, trying to get him to cooperate faster. The previous afternoon there had been three visitors turned away, among them his roommate, Andruw Twitty. A positive note, after all.

  “Tell Andruw not to come around anymore,” Joss had said. “Warn him he could be in danger, based on what I did to him in the hospital room. The power contained in my body could just cut loose and kill him, without my intent. Tell him to have all of my things packed up and sent here, and to avoid me entirely. For his own safety.”

  Joss had watched Mora’s eyes narrow, and the man had responded, “Are you threatening me as well? Anyone who displeases you, in the slightest degree?”

  “I never said Andruw displeases me.”

  “But he does, doesn’t he? We have his reports, so we know how you were not always forthright with him when he asked you questions.”

  “He was supposed to be my roommate, but he had a habit of acting as if I were an eco-criminal being interrogated. It wore on me.”

  “Just as I do?”

  “Are you trying to provoke me, Doctor? Isn’t that a bit dangerous under the circumstances?”

  Mora had shaken his head. “No, just trying to understand you.”

  “Well, don’t believe everything Andruw says. He’s ambitious and self-centered, doesn’t care who he has to run over to advance himself.”

  “Sometimes words mean very little, don’t they?” Mora had said. It had been an interesting comment, perhaps designed to engage Joss in conversation, to let his guard down and draw him in. But instead he had retreated inward, without responding.…

  Today, galvanized by Joss’s impromptu discoveries, Dr. Mora had been conducting additional experiments in the confinement area, getting Joss to target various types of objects that were made of different materials, from a soft pear to bars of steel and titanium. Joss had disintegrated every object and transformed it into runny goo, discovering in the process that he had quite a good aim, which gave the handlers some degree of relief. Using the fingers of one hand or the other (or even both hands at once) to originate the blasts didn’t seem to matter; in any of these ways Joss could perform the trick, but they were going to conduct further tests on intensity.

  Next, Dr. Mora and two assistants brought in a cart that contained a variety of electronic instruments, some of which he said would check the discharge strength every time Joss fired the beams of energy. In a form of target practice, they’d lined up bottles on a ledge, from a rubber bottle to a dark gray one made of an alloy so dense and heavy that it required a particularly large, strong man to carry in the object and put it in place.

  They then asked Joss to aim carefully at the bottles, one at a time, while not damaging the ledge, if he could. This proved to be no problem, and he amused himself a little by bringing forth either hand at a time, or both at once, for his weapon source, and then firing as quickly as he could. With his heightened metabolism, that proved to be quite fast, and he heard gasps of astonishment behind him as black threads of energy coalesced into beams and struck the bottles hard, melting them, one after another.

  It didn’t surprise Joss to learn that it required more power to disintegrate and transform the alloy than the rubber. That seemed like common sense. The level of variation, however, was not very much. When an assistant reported this to Dr. Mora, Joss noticed concern in the doctor’s face, and saw him take the assistant aside to discuss it further with him in private.

  Finally the doctor came forward and said, “I’d like you to repeat what we saw you do on surveillance the other night—cut two holes in the wall.” He looked at the wall that Joss had damaged, and marks where the damage had been repaired.

  “All right.” As before, Joss pointed the fingers of one hand, shooting streaks of black to cut two new holes. As before, the second one was larger than the first.

  One of the assistants reported the power readings, technical jargon that Joss didn’t understand. A young man with round spectacles, he read from a screen on his instrument cart.

  “Only a little more power than for the alloy,” Dr. Mora said.

  “You reinforced the wall on the other side,” Joss said. “I noticed a difference. What did you use?”

  Dr. Mora shrugged. “Who knows what they come up with in SciO laboratories? Even if I knew, I couldn’t tell you. But honestly, I don’t know. One more thing of note. The power readings are the same from either of your hands, and do not increase at all when you use both hands at once.”

  His gaze narrowed as he added, “Look, I’ll be frank with you. I’m wondering if you can generate more power than we have seen here. This may be too confined an area to check, and I don’t want you to do so now, but do you feel like you could do more than you have so far—I mean, melting or cutting larger or denser objects?”

  Joss scowled. He found himself glaring at the instrument cart and all of its intrusive technology. “Even if I know, perhaps I shouldn’t tell you.”

  The doctor smiled stiffly. “You’re joking, aren’t you? Aren’t we trying to figure this out together?’

  “Maybe I’m just tired of it for today. Please, go away and leave me to watch some movies or listen to music, OK?”

  “If you wish, but—”

  “Do you think it’s easy being a lab rat? I’m a human being, re
member, and I’m getting sick of watching you collect data on—” Joss caught himself, as he wondered how human he still was. He had cellular remnants of that, certainly, judging from the shape of his body and his speech patterns, and—he thought—the way his mind worked. But he was especially troubled by that green keloid scarring on his skin that resembled vines, and he was fatigued from trying to control the very disturbing power inside his body, the intrusion of SciO technology.

  “But are you still human? Isn’t that what you were just wondering?”

  “So far, my private thoughts remain my own,” Joss said. “Now go, please. Just go. We’ll talk again tomorrow.”

  With only a few conciliatory words in response, Dr. Mora turned and led his assistants out of the chambers, taking their rolling cart and all of its instruments with him.

  Exasperated, Joss sat on the couch in his private entertainment area, but he had no interest in a movie or music. For several moments he stared at a projection on one wall that showed a view of the sun-drenched Berkeley skyline, and fleecy clouds in a blue sky. He longed to be free, to actually be out there. He didn’t even have a real window, so the images he saw by projection could be entirely false. His handlers were worried about him escaping.

  The more he thought about it, the more he realized that there might never be an end to the probing and testing, the endless questions and demands from unrelenting, ever-curious scientists. He envisioned the ordeal of moving from one stage of analysis to another, with each thing he did leading to more questions, and additional experiments that no one had yet imagined.

  He heard buzzing noises, and looking up he noticed flies darting around the ceiling of the chamber. Lots of flies. Where were they coming from? He noticed a pattern, that they seemed to be coming from the dining chamber—and they were descending, buzzing around him.