Crucible of Fear

by D. W. Whitlock

  Adrenalin shot into his blood.

  What the hell is it doing? Dante thought as he tried to peer through the shifting gloom.

  Muffled shouts came from outside the door, shaking Dante out of his fugue. He tugged at his leg, pulling frantically at the straps that held it in place. His leg came free with a rip of Velcro and he fell off the table with a thud.

  The door exploded inward as he dragged his numb leg across the floor, crawling away from the nightmarish thing that hitched and jittered on the far side of the room. Personnel flooded past him as someone helped Dante out into the hallway to rest against the wall, lungs hitching as he gasped for breath.

  Loud voices spilled out of the medical suite as people dodged the flailing arms, screaming instructions at one another, trying to shut the thing off. A loud shriek rose up and the nurse with the pony tail ran out, blood trailing from her arm.

  A husky security guard appeared, walkie-talkie bouncing against his hip. He raised a bright red fire axe as he bounded into the room and hacked at the robot, blade rising and falling in a shower of sparks until the thing lay dead and twitching. Fire spewed from the broken chassis as oily smoke boiled out. Alarms trilled and emergency lights flashed along the ceiling.

  The big man threw the axe to the floor with a clang. He pushed his way back into the hall through the milling throng of teal scrubs and shocked faces, mopping his brow with a forearm. Dante gazed up at him with dumbstruck awe. They shared a lopsided grin.

  “Tell me you got that dragonfly too,” Dante said.

  The guard’s eyebrows rose before his eyes went to Dante’s foot, his brow tightening a fraction.

  “This man needs medical attention,” he called out in a loud voice.

  Dante looked down, vision going gray. The pale flesh of his foot ended abruptly in a deep, meaty red. His heart began to kick inside his chest, causing blood to jet in five ragged streams and spill out onto the floor as the dragonfly disappeared down the hallway.

  CHAPTER 39

  Non-Disclosure

  “Daddy,” Abigail said, “the doctor’s here.”

  Dante opened his eyes.

  A gray-haired doctor in scrubs stood at the foot of the bed. He was talking, but the words were muffled, coming from far away. Dante’s left leg was elevated, foot disappearing into a plastic boot suspended from a rack over the bed. Blue light seeped out through small gaps along the outer edge.

  It felt like it was clamped under a truck.

  He gazed around the hospital room and saw Abigail standing to his left, eyes bright. Kelly sat in a chair behind her, face creased with concern. She gave him a strained smile.

  “Thirsty,” Dante said.

  Kelly held a straw to his lips and he drank.

  The doctor cleared his throat. “As I was saying, I’m chief of surgical medicine, Dr. Resnick. The surgery went very well and with our advanced healing therapies you should be up on your feet in a few days. Physical therapy is vital early on in your recovery. With a little work, you should be able to walk without crutches or a cane in a few weeks.”

  “How many toes?” Dante said.

  “Excuse me?” Resnick said.

  “How many toes were you able to save?”

  “None, I’m sorry to say. They were too damaged in the incident.”

  Dante frowned. This was no incident. The memory of the attack charged into his head, the surgical robot’s arms flailing in wild arcs.

  Every arm except one.

  That arm moved with calm indifference, oscillating in short, rapid strokes like it was mincing raw bratwurst. That one was slicing. In his shock he hadn’t seen it, just felt the tug thrumming up through his bones. But as the memory flooded back, he knew the doctor was right.

  His toes were gone.

  Not in one fell swoop, but in multiple passes as the scalpel hummed through flesh and bone in a blur. His stomach lurched as he recalled the thin slices of toe flying off and dropping to the floor, severed too fast for blood to flow.

  “If you need anything, please let us know.” The doctor left as a woman and a man entered, both dressed in business attire, faces stern.

  “Mr. Ellis? My name is Trish Pike and this is Ed Westcott. We represent Caduceus Medical robots.”

  Pike was in her early thirties, dressed in a dark blue suit and crisp white shirt. Her dark hair was pulled back into a severe ponytail from a sharp featured face that jutted like an ax blade. Wescott was in his late fifties, pepper gray crew cut, charcoal suit and tie. From the creases around his eyes and his thin, bloodless lips, Dante guessed he’d been raked over the coals in the very recent past over this little incident.

  “If you guys are here to ask if I have insurance, I’m going to be pissed,” Dante said, speech slurring a bit.

  “We’d like to talk to you if that would be alright,” Pike said.

  “I assume you’re going to cover all this,” Dante said, motioning to his foot.

  “Of course,” Pike said. “We want to express our deepest sympathies for this accident.”

  “This was no accident. Somebody hacked your robot, then it hacked my foot.”

  A small cry came from Abigail’s throat and tears welled in her eyes. “Daddy.”

  “Oh, god, Abigail. I’m sorry. I’ll be okay.”

  Kelly took Abigail’s hand and led her from the room.

  Pike stepped forward, slender briefcase in one hand. “I speak for everyone at CMR when I say that I’m very sorry for the dismemberment of your foot, Mr. Ellis. Really, I am.”

  “Okay,” Dante said, staring at his booted foot. Panic flared in his chest. My toes are really gone. He swallowed, forcing the anxiety away. But it didn’t go far.

  Pike glanced over her shoulder at Westcott. He nodded, face grave. She spoke again. “We’re prepared to cover all medical costs, including any follow up surgeries, physical therapy, prostheses. We’d also like to offer you a settlement that I’m sure you’ll find generous.”

  “As long as I sign whatever’s in that briefcase.”

  “Let her finish, Mr. Ellis,” Westcott said.

  Dante didn’t like the way the older man hissed his name. “Alright, go ahead.”

  “Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.”

  Dante glared at Westcott, anger scalding his insides. The older man returned his gaze, but his mouth twitched.

  “Mr. Ellis?” Pike said.

  “I’m still waiting for her to finish,” Dante said to Westcott.

  Pike looked over her shoulder. “Ed…”

  “First and final offer.”

  Dante snorted. He didn’t know what pissed him off more. The fact that they were trying to buy his silence while he was high on painkillers mere hours after their robot maimed him, or that Westcott thought he could stroll in here and low ball him for what would definitely fetch a hell of a lot more in court. But Dante wanted something much more valuable than money.

  “I was just wondering what the going rate for a pound of human flesh is these days,” Dante said.

  Westcott clenched his jaw before speaking. “One million.”

  “Listen, you’ve got a much bigger problem here than my silence. You’ve got a major security breach on your hands.”

  Wescott and Pike listened as Dante detailed what had happened from texts to video to him sitting here now, five little piggies lighter. “I’m telling you. Your machine was hacked.”

  “Impossible,” Westcott said.

  “How’s that?” Dante said.

  “We believe it was a simple malfunction,”

  “A simple malfunction.”

  Westcott nodded. “Our machines are secure. Our decryption bullet proof.”

  “It sliced my toes into kibble and you call it a simple malfunction?”

  “What is it that you want, Mr. Ellis?” Westcott said, his voice edged like a knife.

  “I want you to find out who did this.”

  Westcott nodded—a clipped motion. “We’ll look into it.” He snapped his
fingers at Pike.

  “Hold on,” Dante said. “Then, tell me who’s responsible so I can report them to the FBI.”

  “Out of the question. It was just a glitch.”

  “The fuck it was!”

  “Five million dollars says it was,” Westcott said.

  That sucked the air out of the room. Pike glanced over her shoulder. Wescott ignored her, pale gray eyes boring into Dante’s as the silence stretched.

  “Look,” Dante said, “this isn’t an isolated incident. I’m being harassed and now I’ve been attacked by one of your robots. If your machines have been compromised then you got a potential health crisis here.”

  “We’re not in the business of tracking down hackers, Mr. Ellis,” Pike said.

  “I appreciate that, but I need evidence to bring to the FBI.” Dante hated the strained pleading in his voice. “Listen to me. There was a drone in the room when it happened. It looked like a dragonfly. I’ve seen it before. That’s how they got in to your machine.”

  The two suits shared a look, Westcott’s eyes narrowing before he spoke. “We’re going to take a hard look at our encryption but I need your discretion on this. It’s business, not personal. You understand.”

  The phrase left a slimy film in Dante’s mind. How many times had he uttered those exact words before letting the axe fall? Dante decided he didn’t like being on the shit end of this particular stick.

  “We’re making a very generous offer here,” Pike said. “Please.”

  She snapped open her briefcase and placed a stack of papers, dense with text, onto the table that spanned the bed. She flipped to the last page and stepped back. Westcott came forward and placed a gold Mont Blanc pen next to the non-disclosure agreement and tapped it with a finger.

  “Sign,” he said.

  Dante sat for a moment, thinking. Five million dollars. This was money he just didn’t have right now. Any extra money the business had was tied up in the new media building’s cost overruns while he waited for the permits to clear. Asking his fellow investors for help was a no go. If he was going find out who was behind these attacks, Dante would have to figure out another way. There’d be no help from Caduceus Medical Robots. He’d ask Molchalin what all those people in their clandestine cubes at the Shadow Trace office could do, legal or otherwise.

  How does a cool five mil sound, Dmitry?

  He glanced up at Pike and Westcott. Boucher would have to be told about this. It didn’t really matter if he signed this thing or not once the FBI got involved.

  He hoped.

  It’s business, not personal, he thought as he picked up the pen. The pressure on Dante’s leg increased as he signed his name. He hooked the pen in the collar of his hospital gown and winked at Westcott.

  It was petty, but fuck that guy.

  A buzzing sound came from the nightstand next to the bed. Dante’s phone glided along with each vibration.

  “Can I get that for you?” Pike said.

  “Would you mind, Ed?” Dante said to Westcott.

  The older man’s face darkened and he left without a word.

  “Sweet guy.”

  Pike sighed as she picked up Dante’s phone and handed it to him. “You have no idea.”

  As Dante looked at the screen, a hard knot settled low in his stomach. It was another text from unknown.

  “Mr. Ellis?” Pike said, her voice faraway, sounding like it came through a rusty drain pipe. “Are you alright?”

  Dante scanned the text, throat tightening as he read.

  If thy foot offends thee, cut it off:

  it is better to enter into life maimed,

  rather than to have two feet and be cast

  into the lake of everlasting fire.

  CHAPTER 40

  Exclusive Content

  Leish grabbed the stripper pole and leapt, the blood red of her stiletto heels seared crimson arcs through the air as she spun. Mel hunched behind the workstation in the corner, eyes locked on the screen. Lights flashed from the rack along the ceiling, causing stars to drift by as a disco ball spun overhead. The cameras mounted all around the stage captured every move, their shiny, silent eyes watching.

  A pale porcelain mask stared up at Briana from where it rested on her jittering knee, its face clean and smooth with just a hint of features. A line of pink ran vertically down the lips as if someone had shushed a lover, according to the sticker inside the mask. Above the eye holes arched a pair of thin eyebrows etched with a rapid flick of the wrist.

  Briana thought over what she’d learned earlier that afternoon, preparing herself to earn the money she needed for her demo. She followed Leish to the “studio,” as she called it, and stood nearby as she pawed through the various costumes that hung from racks along the wall. Mumbling to herself, she lifted various articles and held them up before tossing them on a chair, dismissing them with a shake of her head. A table nearby was piled high with masks of all kinds, from translucent plastic to clowns with kinky fake hair. Briana was drawn to the porcelain mask, its elegant hints at the wearer underneath, feminine yet androgynous at the same time. It was lighter than it looked, made from very thin ceramic with an elastic band to hold it in place. Briana slipped it over her face and glanced over at Leish.

  “Oh, that’s all you, baby girl,” Leish said. “And this.” She held up a pleated skirt with a black and white tartan pattern.

  “Why do you have all these masks?”

  “I wear them sometimes when my face isn’t quite right.”

  Briana gave her a questioning look, but Leish shooed her toward a black velvet curtain hanging from a rack bolted to the ceiling. After sliding the curtain closed, Briana put on the skirt along with a button up shirt tied to expose her belly and stiletto heels taller than she’d ever worn before. Leish had to show her how to sexy walk in the stilettos, placing heel well past toe to knock her hips as she strode forward. After a few attempts, she couldn’t stop laughing, so Leish turned the lights low and put on some music with a slow, grinding beat.

  But it was the mask that made all the difference.

  The thought of being watched while doing something she’d never thought of in her wildest fantasies made her flush and feel as if she was burning with light that could be seen for miles. She leaned against the pole and stared at herself in the mirror, feeling beautiful in a way she’d never felt before. Alluring yet untouchable.

  Powerful.

  And nobody would ever know it was her.

  “That’s it,” Leish said, nodding. “You’ve got it. It’s all about confidence.”

  After the lesson, alone in her room, Briana had touched herself, riding a wave of wild, reckless pleasure, biting down hard on the leg of a stuffed hyena to keep from crying out.

  Leish crept across the stage toward her, bringing Briana back to the moment. Her eyes were alight with an inner flame as she crawled forward on her hands and knees, slender fingers slinking over the edge of the stage into a cloth sack below. Her back arched as she flung her arms into the air, sending a cloud of money to flutter down from above.

  That was Briana’s cue.

  Briana pulled the mask down and stood, wobbling a bit before taking a deep breath. The vodka shots she’d had earlier made her vision swim in time with the music that thundered through the room. The lights brightened, rotating to focus on Leish as the music sank low. Leish smiled at a drone camera that rose up from the edge of the stage, red light blinking on top.

  “Allow me to introduce a new dancer to the stage,” Leish said. “The mysterious and alluring, Silhouette.”

  The lights extinguished and Leish led Briana onstage, the edge outlined by small orange light strips. She stiffened as Leish put her arms around her neck and whispered words of encouragement before disappearing, leaving her alone.

  The music began to thump like an electronic heart as the lights rose once more, revealing Briana, no, Silhouette, her arms stretched above her head, grasping the brass pole. Briana felt stupid and exposed standing th
ere like that, but Leish had insisted that the first pose set the tone. She strode around the stage in time with the beat, trying to keep her ankles from snapping with each step. Grabbing the pole up high, she swung around but she hadn’t leapt hard enough. She was rotating too slow, hand chaffing with a squeak, hip banging against the pole.

  This is stupid, Briana thought, her conviction wavering.

  She came to a stop and stepped wide, back arched with arms down at her sides, hands balled into fists as she stared off into the distance, chin dipped low. Alpha pose, Leish had called it. Briana saw herself in the mirrored walls and stared in disbelief. Whoever was gazing back at her from behind the mask wasn’t Briana anymore. Her body flushed with that feeling again, that hot glow of power and she grabbed the pole and swung around again, this time slicing a smooth arc through the air. Coming to a sudden halt, she grasped the pole high with both hands, arching her back as she gazed upward and lowered to her knees. Her vision pulsed and the ceiling disappeared, colors swirling together in a heady maelstrom of light and shadow.

  She snapped her head down and saw Leish standing next to Mel behind the bank of monitors, playing with the curl of purple hair at his temple. They stared at her, enraptured, Mel’s dark eyes gleaming. There was a flitter of movement and Briana gazed upward to the where the wall met the ceiling.

  A dragonfly drone clung there.

  Hadn’t Leish smashed it with her fist? Briana thought.

  Its green body glinted, orange wings shuddering as air currents shifted over it. Briana understood. This was a new one.

  Her flesh crawled as an icy wave extinguished the heat inside her. Clutching her hands to her chest, she backed up a few steps before leaping off the stage then down the hall to her room. The door slammed behind her and she huddled on the bed, arms wrapped around her legs.

  “Fuck!” she heard Leish’s voice echo down the hall followed by footsteps. A knock sounded at the door. “Baby, you okay? What happened?” A moment passed. “Come on, honey, you don’t get paid unless you do the full half hour.”

  Briana pressed her hands over her ears, heart thumping in her chest.