by Beth Goobie
The Mind Cleanser, Nellie thought suddenly, then stiffened as the psychiatrist gave a loud cough. Damn, damn, damn. She had to remember she couldn’t think in here.
“As I was saying,” Westcott continued, his tone noticeably irritated. “You’ll be learning about the rest of the stars, and their alignments and meaning for your life, before you graduate. It’s part of the upper level program.”
Relief flooded Nellie and she sagged against the Relaxer. So they were actually planning to let her return to Advanced when this was all over. Hopefully that would be soon. “Okay,” she said meekly. “Is that when I’ll learn about the Goddess’s other children?”
“The Goddess had no other children,” Westcott said firmly. “She had only the two sons.”
“But Nell said—,” Nellie began to protest.
“Yes, I know what Nell said,” interrupted the psychiatrist, and Nellie realized he’d probably watched the entire scene take place on the monitoring screen. Or observed a recording of it later. “Your twin is wrong about the five children,” Westcott continued smoothly. “There is a constellation, a very minor constellation the Outbackers have named the Five Children. In fact, they’ve built up an entire mythology about the Goddess giving birth to five mysterious children, but that’s all it is — mythology. Y’see, Nellie,” said the psychiatrist, his voice soothing and warm, “the Outbackers are an inferior race. And that’s not something they like to admit, even though they know it’s true. It’s entirely understandable — who likes to admit they’re inferior? So they’ve created a myth in which the Goddess mated with human men from the Outbacks. Can you believe it — the Goddess mating with mere mortals, and from the Outbacks, no less? All that just to make themselves believe they’re our equals.”
Nellie took a deep breath. Her shock was dissipating and things were starting to sort themselves out inside her head, but she had to be sure. “I thought,” she said slowly, “that Outbackers are the same race as us.”
“Tsk tsk,” the psychiatrist said quickly. “Bite your tongue. They might look the same, but there are serious flaws in their genetic make-up. After all, they don’t follow the same careful breeding program the Interior does. I mean, Nellie—,” Westcott chuckled softly in Nellie’s ear. “Have you ever seen an Outbacker admitted to the Black Core program?”
With a nod, Nellie closed her eyes and settled back into the Relaxer. For once Westcott was making sense. All along she’d had a gut feeling Nell was right about the stars, and wrong at the same time. As it turned out, the chart wasn’t exactly scientifically correct, but it was right in a way Nell could never be.
“Tell me something, Nellie,” said Westcott, his tone changing slightly. “How do you like living in K Block?”
“Not too good,” Nellie answered absently, her thoughts still focused on her twin.
“Your new room?” asked Westcott.
“Yucky,” said Nellie.
“The food?” asked Westcott.
“It’s the same food,” said Nellie, “but it doesn’t taste as good somehow.”
“And how about—” Westcott paused, as if thinking, “yourself?”
“Myself?” repeated Nellie, unsure of his meaning.
!“Yes, Nellie,” said Westcott. “Tell me how you feel about yourself.”
“I’m a cadet,” Nellie replied matter-of-factly. “An Advanced cadet. I work for Detta and the Emp —”
“Yes yes,” said Westcott. “I didn’t ask what you were, I asked how you felt about yourself.”
“How do I feel about myself?” Unease flickered through Nellie. Never in her four years of weekly sessions with this man had he asked such a ridiculous question. “I don’t ... feel anything about myself,” she mumbled finally.
“Nothing at all?” asked Westcott.
“No,” faltered Nellie.
“Do you like yourself?” Westcott asked.
“I’m a functional cadet,” Nellie said quickly.
“Ah,” said Westcott, “but do you like yourself, Nellie?”
Nellie sat silent. The question was incomprehensible, as if it had been spoken in a foreign language. She had no answer for it.
“Well, let me ask you this then, Nellie,” said the psychiatrist. “Do you hate yourself?”
Panic blew itself wide open in Nellie’s gut. “What kind of question is that?” she shouted, jerking upright. Suddenly she had to get out of this place, away from its endless crazy questions. Grabbing at her head, she clawed at the Relaxer helmet, trying to get it off. “I’m a functional cadet,” she screamed. “One of the best. Advanced was stupid to put me in K Block, I should be running mazes and going out for Street Games and—”
“Juba!” Westcott yelled. “Zombie Program, quick!”
Immediately the sound of ocean waves vanished, and a heavy throb permeated Nellie’s brain. As it did, her panic dissolved and her body went slack, slumping into the Relaxer. Then the Relaxer also seemed to disappear, and Nellie felt as if she was surrounded by a great darkness, a tiny speck floating in the middle of nowhere. From somewhere came the thought, Where am I? and all she could think in response was, Who am I?
“That’s good,” said a soothing voice in her ear. “Just let it all go and float. You are no one, you are nothing, you are nowhere. Repeat after me: I am no one.”
“I am no one,” said Nellie.
“I am nothing,” said the voice.
“I am nothing,” said Nellie.
“I am nowhere,” said the voice.
“I am nowhere,” said Nellie.
“I hate myself,” said the voice soothingly.
“I hate myself,” Nellie repeated dreamily.
“I hate myself,” murmured the voice.
“I hate myself,” murmured Nellie.
“I hate myself,” whispered the voice.
“I hate myself,” whispered Nellie.
“Okay, Dr. Juba,” said the voice. “You can bring her back now.”
Slowly the darkness cleared from Nellie’s brain and the ocean waves returned, washing gently through her thoughts. What’s going on? she wondered dreamily. Where am I? Oh yeah, in the Relaxer, wearing the helmet. Westcott’s talking about ... the stars, and how Nell’s right and wrong at the same time.
“Remember, Nellie,” the psychiatrist said in her ear. “You are a functional cadet. The Empire depends on cadets like you to keep the Outbacks in line. And the Goddess needs your unswerving loyalty to spread the truth to the Outbacks and the rest of the world.”
“Yes, sir.” Nellie’s eager hand bumped against the Relaxer helmet as she tried to salute. Why had she ever doubted Westcott? Doctor Westcott, actually. He wasn’t that bad, if you overlooked the mole on his chin and his habit of breathing heavily into a microphone. A bit of a drip actually, but ...
“Excellent,” came the psychiatrist’s hearty voice. “Lovely, splendid, marvelous. Now how about you find that sailboat and bring it back over the horizon?”
Focusing on the ocean in her mind, Nellie gathered the sailboat’s many pieces and reconstructed it. Then she climbed inside the boat and lay back, enjoying its quiet rocking motion. All things considered, it wasn’t bad in here.
“Marvelous,” purred the psychiatrist. “I’m going to leave you there for a bit, Nellie, and then you can have some more of those dengleberry-flavored candies you like so much.”
“Okay,” Nellie murmured carelessly. It was nice out here in the sun, with the sailboat rocking and creaking. So nice it was almost real, she could almost feel the sun on her arms and the wet salt spray against her cheek. Almost real, her mind chanted softly. Almost real.
Gently she drifted off to sleep.
Sixteen
WHEN NELLIE RETURNED to the room she shared with her twin, she found it empty. For a moment she stood staring blankly at Nell’s bed, then whirled to face the closing door. “Hey,” she called, but her drone escort didn’t respond, and the door slid quietly into place.
Uneasily Nellie sat down on he
r bed. For some reason her heart was beating oddly, skipping slightly before each beat, as if unsure of itself. But why would she be feeling unsure? So what if Nell wasn’t here. Her absence was no big deal. After all, if she was dead the experiment would be over, and the drone would have taken Nellie back to Advanced. No, Nell wasn’t dead, she was just ... somewhere, having ... something done to her. Some part of this experiment, probably a session with a deadbeat psychiatrist like Westcott. That was it. Nell was over in Station Seven, putting all her worries and concerns into a sailboat and getting her brain picked.
With a sigh of relief, Nellie rolled onto her back and focused on an action movie that was starting on the monitoring screen. The opening shot showed a woman in Detta uniform hanging from a helicopter, firing a laser beam at a crowd of men on the ground. Blood was flying, flesh was frying, as they said in Advanced. Plumping up her pillow, Nellie settled in for two hours of action-packed gore.
The first wave of pain came fifteen minutes into the plot, a searing flash that seemed to leap straight out of her nose. With a yelp Nellie jerked upright, her hands flying to her face, but there was no blood, no wound she could feel. Obviously no one had shot her, and in this room, where would they shoot from? Swiftly she scanned the walls, but saw no crack or niche. Was it possible the sensation she’d just experienced was connected to the movie, and that she was somehow being made to feel what was going on in the film? But none of the characters had been shot in the face, at least not in the last thirty seconds.
A second flash of pain hit her, again centered in her nose. Bent double, Nellie clutched at it with both hands, trying to ward off further pain, but another flash hit her, then another. The pain flooded her brain, engulfing it in a white heat and blurring her vision. Stumbling across the room, Nellie shoved her face against the mirror over the sink and peered into her nostrils, but could see no blood. What in the Goddess’s name was causing this?
As yet another wave of pain hit, Nellie sank to the floor and curled into a ball, riding it out. Nothing she’d ever felt had been like this — the burning sensation was immense, a surge of pain and heat that began in her nose, then shot through her entire body. The closest thing to it was the sensation caused by a full system of electrodes, but that was surface, attached to the skin. This pain was internal, fed directly into the nervous system. Drenched in sweat, Nellie rode out another searing wave. Her throat ached from screaming, and her hands were sore from jerking against their straps. If only she could get them free and knock the clamp off her left nostril ...
Slowly Nellie sat up and stared at her arms. There were no straps on them. Where, then, had that thought come from? Another flash of pain came at her and she waited it out, clutching her nose and gagging. Then, as it receded, she felt something lift off the ridge of her left nostril. Abruptly there was a gripping sensation on her left ear.
“No,” she heard a voice whimper. “Please, no.” Another wave of pain hit, as excruciating as the previous ones. With a moan, Nellie collapsed to the floor and flattened both hands over her left ear. Wave after wave of pain rode over her and she began tearing at her ear, trying to pull it off her head. Anything would be better than this pain, even living without an ear, even if it meant they would release her as a no-longer functional cadet.
Without warning there was no pain. The grip on Nellie’s ear let go, and for a moment she felt herself floating in absolute relief. Then something invisible began to push at her left knee, and suddenly she understood what was going on. She was experiencing a mind link with Nell, who was being tortured with the Black Box.
Inside Nellie’s head, a filing cabinet surfaced and opened. A file tumbled out, and in a flash she remembered a time just after she’d entered Black Core. It was early morning and she’d been taken to a part of the Detta complex she’d never seen before, probably K Block, but at the time she was told only that she was about to be put through another training session, a workout to toughen her up, and that she could earn points by being strong. Then the Black Box had been brought out. It was small, nothing impressive, just a black box with several long wires running out of it that were attached to clamps. Several Detta officers had tortured her with it for what had seemed hours, attaching the clamp to different parts of her body, even the part to which they were attaching the clamp on Nell right now. And when they’d finished, they’d told her — she remembered their words so clearly — “If you ever give us trouble, ever disobey a command or defy a superior, this is what will happen to you. Only next time it’ll be worse, ten times worse. We went easy on you today.”
A new wave of pain followed, and Nellie dissolved into livid fire. Compared to her nose and ear, this was a thousand times worse for there were no boundaries to it, the pain seemed to penetrate the very core of her being. Then it receded and a second wave hit, white-hot and greater than the first. But as it shot through her, the invisible barrier that sat on Nellie’s brain buckled, and through her agony she saw rising above her what appeared to be a vertical row of girls, each strapped to a chair, her face contorted with pain. Between each girl, connecting their hearts, glimmered a line of brilliant light. The vision remained, hovering above Nellie as the second wave of pain receded. Then, as the third wave exploded between her legs, the line of radiant light descended from the closest girl and entered Nellie’s chest. Briefly it flickered in her heart, gathering strength, then spread up into her brain and down through her body.
The line of light didn’t halt the pain, nor did it abate it. But for the briefest of seconds, Nellie felt the strength of others fighting the same terror, bewilderment and pain. And though she knew instinctively that this vision was part of her mind link with Nell, and these girls were her twin’s doubles rather than her own, still, they were with her. For the first time since she’d entered Detta’s underground complex, she wasn’t entirely alone.
The third wave of pain receded, the vision disappeared and the clamp was removed. Still huddled on the floor, Nellie realized that her twin’s session with the Black Box had just ended in the same manner her own long-ago experience had terminated with three shocks to the genitals. Only three, she thought dizzily as her pain dissipated, but enough to change your whole life.
Rolling onto her back, she stared up at the security alarm and wept. After a while her tears slowed and groans stopped leaving her mouth. A while after that, she crawled across the floor and onto her bed, where she lay drooling into her pillow, waiting for her twin’s return.
Within fifteen minutes the door slid open and a drone entered, carrying Nell’s limp body. Depositing it on the other bed, it crossed to Nellie and handed her a small white envelope. “Give her this as needed,” the drone said and left the room. The door slid closed behind it.
Curled on her bed, Nellie watched her motionless twin. Heartbeats came and went, pulse guns fired on the monitoring screen, the security alarm beeped faintly overhead. “Nell?” she whispered after a few minutes, but received no response, not even a slight shift or moan. Sending her mind at the girl opposite, she tried to scan Nell’s energy field and was met by such a barrage of jagged vibes that she jerked back. Suddenly she had to be up and on her feet, moving around the room, doing something. Muttering and pacing, Nellie tried to keep ahead of the panic that came at her from all sides, pulling her this way and that like a puppet on strings. What did K Block expect her to do now? Why were there no instructions? And why had they done this to Nell? Sure, she’d disobeyed a direct order, and punishment came quickly to anyone who stepped out of line, but would the Goddess require that?
Nellie’s pacing slowed and she stood, head down, as the truth sank through her like a stone. Yes, the Goddess would require it. Maybe in the Outbacks things were different, perhaps there Ivana permitted weakness and frivolity in Her devotees. But here in the Black Core program, She demanded kiss-ass obedience, and Nell was just going to have to pick up a gun and kill for the Empire like everyone else.
But why, came the thought, unbidden, to Nellie’s min
d, is the Goddess different there than here? Briefly she stood, letting herself fill with the question and its complete lack of answer. Then, hugging herself tightly, she approached her twin’s bed. “Nell,” she whispered, holding out the envelope the drone had given her. “I’ve got something for you.”
Face buried in her arm, Nell didn’t look up. “What is it?” she croaked faintly.
Tearing open the envelope, Nellie removed a small capsule. “A pill,” she said, pulling aside her twin’s arm and trying to jab the capsule between her lips. “It’ll make you feel better.”
“Like in the maze?” Nell croaked, pushing it away.
“I dunno,” Nellie said helplessly. “Here, I’ll get you some water.” Rushing to the sink, she filled a plastic tumbler with water, then returned to the bed and held it to Nell’s lips. Slowly Nell drank, then swallowed the capsule.
“They said,” she rasped painfully, her eyes not meeting Nellie’s, “to tell you it was the Black Box.”
Instantly Nellie was on her feet, pacing the room. The Black Box, the Black Box. Memories of the pain she’d just experienced through the mind link tore through her again, white-hot and searing. Had the sensations been real? Or were they another trick, something Detta was doing with her skull implants?
Exhausted, Nellie leaned against a wall and closed her eyes. “Tell me about it,” she said hoarsely, listening to the kick-ass thud of her heart. “Tell me what happened.”
“You don’t want to know,” mumbled Nell, rolling over to face the wall.
“I do,” said Nellie, crossing the room to sit on her twin’s bed. “Tell me about it, please.”
A surge of quick high vibrations entered her brain and she heard Nell say faintly, I’m too tired to do this now. I can’t.
Just talk out loud, Nellie thought back at her. So what if they hear us? I’m supposed to pretend to be your friend, right?
Slowly Nell turned to face her. “It’s like its name,” she said, her eyes darting nervously toward the monitoring screen. “A small black box with wires coming out of it. They used it on me once in the Outbacks, but this was different. Here, the wires have clamps on the end. They put the clamps on you and then they zap you.”
