Jane Lebak (10/04)
Part Three: A Little White Lie
I'm in a row-boat with Keyop, and it's bobbing on the water. I can't see the shore, and the glare of the sun on the waves hurts my eyes even when I try to shield them with my hand. Keyop is fishing. In my lap there's a penny-whistle. Keyop looks at me and says, "Play for the fish. They come when you play for them."
I pick up the penny-whistle, but I can't get it to feel right in my hands or in my mouth. The boat's motion leaves me sick. Keyop folds his arms. "Princess! You've gotta play it for me!"
Clumsy, my hands won't find their places on the whistle. I can't remember any songs. I squint against the water's glare. Keyop stomps, and the boat lurches. I grab for the side of the boat, but there aren't any hand-holds. He stomps again and again. "Play it! Play it for me!" He stomps so hard that the side of the boat arches up and over, and with a dull dread I watch the top tipping almost upright in the water. I'm trying to scream as Keyop tumbles backward out of the boat and under the water. Without his weight, the boat slams down into the water again, and I am flung to my back. I can't move.
I can't move.
I've been dreaming, but what about? It's hard to think at all. My mouth is dry. I squint against the lights in the ceiling. I think I'm in a Center Neptune holding cell. It looks like MaxSec, but why would I be here?
I was dreaming about Keyop.
Keyop.
I start shaking. I'm sweating, but I'm shaking at the same time. "Easy," Mark says. "Don't fight us. Are you cold?"
The feeling is returning to my body. My back isn't broken. In my mind I can see Keyop plunging under the water. I'm in a cell, but I'm still on the boat. "Keyop--"
Mark puts the blanket over me. "Don't think about anything. You're here, and you're safe."
There's the familiar hum of an infuser, and again I float on the ocean. This time, I'm alone in the boat.
I'm aware and have been for some time. My body is making twitches and jerks of its own accord. I'm not able to stop them. I can hear what is taking place around me, but it's hard to think. The random words I hear make no sense. Mark and the Chief talk about Zark. He's testing my cerebonics. One at a time, every system is activated, analyzed, and reset to neutral. I can't move the rest of them. Until Zark reactivates the circuits, I won't be able to get up. This happened once before, at the first installation. Zark kept us all paralyzed until every one of the systems tested out operational.
"You have to think harder."
"I have, Chief. Don't you think I have?"
"Clearly not, if you haven't come up with something after this long--"
"I thought it was about her trapping Keyop, but now I don't know any longer what to think."
"We can't afford to let her cycle again."
"You can't keep her drugged forever!"
"Drugged or incoherent, she's incapacitated either way. I want answers. Find them."
Mark is sitting by the side of my bed. He sounds like he's breathing hard into his hands. I try to dial up my ears, only they're not working right now.
I feel him take my hand. "I need an answer, Princess. What's happening in your head?"
What's happening in my head?
Somewhere in my head, there's a circuit. The circuit engages whenever I fight a Spectran. It kicks in and prevents me from remembering the kill, the blood, the fluids that spatter across my lips when my yo-yo flies home. It shuts off and I find the field has been cleared of Spectrans while I was gone. It's the best part of working on the team, that moment when I realize the job has been done.
I've never wanted to know what happens. I don't ever want to know what it is I do. Because if I do-- If I see that, then-- I don't know. I just don't want to know what I do.
That's what I've always been so glad that the cerebonics interrupt us this way. There are so many things you don't have to remember. Sometimes the Chief will ask during a debriefing about something that happened. It's weird, but the guys will remember them. They'll pull up the memory somehow--it must be in my head somewhere--but I can't. And that's a good thing.
What's happening in my head, Mark asks, and I don't know, but whatever is happening I think I'm glad for, because I don't want to remember killing anyone. I won't remember killing Keyop.
Mark strokes my hand gently. "Princess, you've got to help us. We need you. The team can't function without all of us. You've got to come back. It's been awful this month. Nobody knows what to do to help you. And we're just hanging on. We can do it with four, but only just barely."
He stays silent for a long time. Everything is fuzzy. After a while, he says, "Chief Anderson wants Zark to scan you. I can't think of any reasons any longer why he shouldn't. I hope you'll forgive me. We just don't know any longer what to do."
I lay there for a long time, my thinking foggy.
Why did Mark say they can do it with four? They should be three now, with Keyop gone.
Why did the Chief say it had been a long time? How long could it have been?
But I got my period. I wasn't supposed to. What if it wasn't a mistake? What if my body was keeping time just the way it ought to?
What if Keyop isn't really dead? Thinking about it, Mark said I trapped Keyop, not that I'd killed Keyop. He would say it that way, though. He wouldn't want to think I'd done it deliberately. He must not have known Keyop was a Spectran.
Wait--maybe Keyop survived? I have to get out of here. I have to find him. But in order to get out, first I must convince them I've gotten better, and I don't even know what they think is wrong.
I kick my cerebonics into gear and force them to filter out Anderson's drugs. My muscles ache, probably an after-effect of the drug, since it hurts worst at the spot where Mark injected me. That was weird, how he rushed in just after I remembered closing the door on Keyop. Was he watching the whole time? Why come in then? Was he trying to interrupt my own train of thought?
Interrupt.
Interrupt the interruption.
No, that makes no sense. No sense whatsoever.
Sometimes I have dreams about Mark, daydreams, where he rescues me. I pretend that I'm trapped and lost, maybe locked in a closet and gagged with a dirty undershirt, hungry and tattered. In the daydream, I'm even afraid to make sounds because the Spectrans who captured me will come and hit me if they hear me whimpering. They told me not to make a sound and if anyone came to help me, they'd kill me. They threw me in a scary place and slammed the door. They're so tall, so angry. I'll do what they want, but I never know what they want from me. In the darkness of the closet, I hear fighting outside, and then someone yanks open the door. It's Mark, and he lifts me out of the dark, unties me, and carries me outside. He tells me not to look at the room around me as he carries me outside because he knows I don't want to see what has happened to the men who held me captive. Mark takes me someplace safe. Sometimes I end the daydream and start the whole thing over again.
Most of the time it's what gets me to sleep at night, my protector-scenario. It never happens in real life. In reality, I've got to protect myself. In the world where I live, no one carries me to safety because I have to run to safety. No one protects the child. I'm the one who has to protect the child. Until recently, I was the one who had to protect Keyop.
Keyop.
I feel my heart thudding in my chest as my pulse races. It really feels like it's banging at the bars of my rib cage like a prisoner trying to escape her cell. My breaths grow shorter and more rapid.
There's a hiss as the infuser kicks on, and abruptly I realize it's injecting me with more drugs. No! That's not what I want! I have to get out of here! I have to find Keyop!
*Think back. Breathe deeply, and think back.*
I don't want to think back. I want to think forward. I have a job to do.
*Try to relax and concentrate on your breathing.*
I know how to mediate already. I know how to go inside and how to go away. *You * go away. Leave me alone.
*When I ask you to open your eyes, you'll be calm and detached like a computer.*
Leave me alone. Leave me alone.
*Now take a deep breath...and open your eyes.*
It's Chief Anderson, and he's good at hypnotizing me. I realize I should be angry, or that I should even care, but I don't. I'm a computer. We're going to have a talk. Maybe he'll explain why he was such an idiot that he programmed us to kill Spectrans and then put me in charge of a Spectran.
"Princess," he said, "do you know where you are?"
"I'm in MaxSec."
"Very good." I'm noticing that Mark is in the room as well. Mitch Radil is here as well. That's weird. How did Anderson find out about Mitch? He's probably going to have Mitch killed. The guy should have covered his tracks better. Chief Anderson continues, "Do you know what day it is?"
"No."
"Can you guess?"
"The beginning of March." I notice that Mark has taken a deep breath. He's upset by that.
"Do you know why you're in MaxSec?"
"I killed Keyop."
Mark really looks rattled now. Under hypnosis you can say things like that without caring. Anderson isn't unsettled. "You trapped him behind the door when the drills triggered the earthquake."
I say nothing.
Anderson says, "You've been very upset about making such a big mistake."
"It wasn't a mistake," I say. "I'm not very upset."
Anderson says, "We know you had Mitch find Keyop's files for you."
I keep looking at him.
Mark says, "Ask her to tell us what happened."
So I told them. I explained about how the photo showed Keyop's eyes reflecting green, and how I'd confirmed that Keyop was Spectran, and how I thought I'd tried to kill him, but naturally I had interrupted during that, so I couldn't explain the specific details. It was all very straightforward.
Chief Anderson said, "Interrupted?"
He looked at me. Mark looked at me. Mitch looked at me. They were all blank. I waited.
There is no interrupt circuitry.
I have no idea what to make of it, but they all tell me there are no cerebonics that keep us from remembering the moment of the kill. No matter how much I insist that I never remember the kills, they insist just as firmly that they haven't done anything to my head to make me not remember. Anderson even asked Zark to investigate if the cerebonics might have that kind of effect involuntarily. Zark says no.
They're lying.
They keep lying. They told me I am not programmed to kill every Spectran I meet. Chief Anderson said himself that it would be insane to put Key0p on the team with Spectran DNA and then force all of us to kill every Spectran we encounter. Mark says he already knew about Keyop's race. Mitch gave me the information because it wasn't as classified as I had thought.
Chief Anderson sends me for a scan. My hands shake uncontrollably, but they haven't drugged me again. He keeps talking about psychogenic amnesia. I don't get it. Am I the interrupt?
Waiting for the scan, Mark sits beside me and tells me that we returned from the colony five weeks ago. In that time, I've awakened and puttered around a bit, then abruptly I've gone crazy and started destroying things. They put me in MaxSec because it was impossible to keep me under control w hen that happened. I'd sleep for a few days, and then awaken and start over. It had happened four times already, and every time I'd awaken not knowing what had come before. This time they drugged me at the point before I lost control in order to stop the cycle, then hypnotized me to get an idea of what I was thinking.
The scan is called Single Photon Emission Computerized Tomography--or SPECT. Kind of ironic, that a killer of Spectrans will find out why she kills Spectrans because of a SPECT scan. After an hour the radioactive dye has had a chance to perfuse my system, so they lay me on a platform and allow the scanner to work.
Week-long interruptions. What's going on in my head?
The scanner is humming over me while I lie still. Zark has turned off the cerebonics to keep me paralyzed, so it's getting a good picture without me having to be unconscious. The glistening machine is half the size of a compact car, and it rides on three smooth silver rails. It hums, then grinds forward a little on its bars, and then hums again. A giant lens like an eye stares at me centimeter by centimeter, looking inside my head.
Do I still have those memories, then? All those times when I don't remember killing anyone--do I remember it somewhere?
Do I really want to know?
I think about this for a while. Do I really want to know what I do in my own job?
The machine edges along the rails another centimeter.
Do you really want to know?
Yes, I think I do.
***
She says she is the Queen, but I don't have to call her that if I don't want to. The Queen says she has been looking out for me, and that when I have to go into battle, she takes over for me so that I don't have to see any of the bad stuff. She knows how much it would upset me and remind me of terrible things, and she doesn't want me to be scared and sad ever again.
The scanner is only halfway over my head now, and I'm learning more about the Queen than I imagined I could. She feels so familiar that I trust her already. She says she came from me the first time to protect me when I was little, and afterward she didn't want to leave because the training was so hard. That's when I got my name and she got hers. She promises that she remembers all my training when there's a battle, and that she remembers all the battles that have gone before so that she can learn from them. She's always known about me, but this is the first time I'm learning about her.
She lets me remember a few things from my childhood. I'm hiding under the bed. There's a rat crawling along the baseboard, but I don't crawl away from it. My legs hurt--they hurt so much. My eyes hurt and my nose is running. I want to be totally quiet. Totally still. He's somewhere and I don't know where. I don't know how long until he comes. He was drinking out of the brown bottles again, and those are always bad. They taste bitter and sometimes he makes me drink them too. I'd be mad if I had to drink as much bitter stuff as he does. So I hide, but now I can't get out. Crawl out and he'll find me. Stay here and he'll find me too. But maybe he won't. Maybe--
My body hurts with a raw ache. The Queen steps in and stops the memory. She will let me have more later, now that I'm able to handle these things. There are tears on my face.
Mark's voice over the intercom. "Not much longer, Princess."
There's a grumble and a whine, and the machine slides another centimeter.
I realize at that moment, it's not the machine moving. It's me. The table is siding along beneath that huge piece of machinery. It only seemed to me as if the machine was the mobile piece.
The tears flow freely.
When I wake up, Keyop is sitting beside me, swinging his legs and looking at the hands folded in his lap. I feel so tired. With a groan, I try sitting up. I can't.
"Mark told me...he said you tried to kill me, but you didn't mean it."
I try to find him with my eyes. Keyop continues, "He said there's another personality inside you--dissociative identity disorder--and that the other one was the one that went into battle and stuff." He looks up. "You're not going to try to kill me for real, are you?"
My tongue feels thick. "How did you get out?"
"Jason came and got me. Five of the colonists and I used breathing masks, and I covered up with my wings until Jason got there. I knew he'd come." Keyop grinned. "He made a few of the Spectrans help bring us out. He told them the Great Spirit would kill them if they abandoned the colonists because they had secret mining techniques that could save Spectra. They did it."
"Good for his accent."
"He's good at the little white lie." Keyop looks puzzled. "Anderson says your scan was totally unreadable, like there were two people thinking, sometimes one, sometimes the other. Are they right?"
The Queen was there, listening. She wouldstep in at any moment and protect me, but Keyop is only Keyop. He won't hurt me, even if he's a Spectran. I reassure her of that, but she thinks he's too dangerous. "I think they are."
"Zark says he can try jolting your brain through the cerebonics. Like electroshock therapy. He thinks it might help you fuse or something."
I reach forward and realize I'm restrained by my wrists and ankles. "Fusion?" Suddenly it occurs to me that Anderson might not want someone crazy on the team. He might try to make the Queen go away. She doesn't like that. She wants to stay and keep me safe. I want her to stay and keep me safe.
"Zark isn't going to do that," I said. The Queen would kill him. I would help her do it.
Keyop sat up. "It sounded like that would hurt."
It would do more than hurt me. It would kill the Queen. It's my turn to protect her.
I try to reach for Keyop's hand, but I can't. Then he climbs up and gives me a hug. "Mitch thought he'd sent you over the edge."
I shook my head. "I think Mitch knew something was wrong." I reach up to Keyop off me, but the restraints hold me back. "Is Mitch--did the Chief punish him?"
"I have no clue. He's still around, though." Keyop laughs. "Can you, you know, introduce me to the other person sometime? I want to get to know her too. I bet she could teach me some new moves!"
I laugh, and it feels good for a moment. Keyop is little and still needs someone to protect him. I think the Queen would like teaching him things.
"You know what," I say. "Before she can do anything," and I smile, raising my wrists, "you'd better unlock these so I can move."
Spectran Keyop laughs. "Sounds good to me!" And the Queen uses my mouth to say, "It sounds good to me too."