Biofire, p.17
Biofire, page 17
She had not known what she was doing the first time, had not even been aware of doing it because she had felt so bad, so depleted so suddenly that she teetered on the edge of unconsciousness. So little was explained to her—Emma simply did as she was told because she had no alternative—that it took a little while for her to understand what was going on. She had killed the rat without lifting a finger, and the endless replications of the test helped her to understand the process and learn how to manipulate it. Sometimes before a test, Dr. Jorgan would tell her, “Feel that muscle. Feel it.”
Emma came to understand that she did, indeed, have a new muscle, and she was learning to flex it. The procedure she kept repeating was not a test. She was exercising that new muscle.
Her thoughts returned repeatedly to that first white rat. She felt a great deal of sympathy for that rat—caged, toyed with, and finally killed to further a project in a lab—because she knew she had become that rat, and it probably was only a matter of time before she fell, twitching and bleeding, to the floor of her cage.
That became her life—eating, sleeping, and being escorted to the lab, usually by Miranda, occasionally by Jorgan, and always followed closely by two armed guards, to that reclining chair where she felt for that muscle and taught herself to use it. Each time she was taken from her room to the lab, Jorgan gave her an injection that made her suddenly alert and able to concentrate, but it always wore off by the time she went back to her room, where, once again, she was sluggish and somewhat disoriented, unable to concentrate on one thing for very long.
That bothered her, at first in a vague way in the back of her muddled mind. But before long, it bothered her enough to force herself to think about it, try to work it out in her head. The only injections she ever received came before each trip to the lab. She assumed the purpose of that injection was to bring her out of her stupor and allow her to think clearly enough to focus on what she was doing. But what was causing the stupor? What was draining her of energy, of her will, making her unable to think clearly enough to read a trashy paperback or watch a mindless sitcom on TV? What was doing it, and how were they administering it?
Jorgan was such a gentleman that it became embarrassing at times. When he touched her—not often, but occasionally he would pat her on the hand or gently touch her shoulder—his voice became breathy, almost reverent. Sometimes she caught him staring at her, either through the rectangular window that separated them during her exercises, or while standing right next to her. He always looked away quickly with a stung expression. But before long, his gaze always returned to her.
His feelings for her were painfully obvious, but they both pretended otherwise. He was happy with Emma’s progress, and on especially good days, he seemed giddy with excitement.
For a while, Emma had a small, pillbox-like device attached to the top of her head where a hair-like wire remained in her brain. The pillbox protected the wire and her brain from harm. She felt like one of the capuchin monkeys she had seen once in a National Geographic special on laboratory animals; they’d had similar devices attached to their poor tampered-with little skulls.
The “muscle” in her brain came to life with the help of external stimulation. After a while, with practice, she was able to kill the rat before her almost instantly. Still later, the rat was caught so off-guard that it did not have time to make a final sound, or even react to what was happening to it. It simply died.
“Tell me how it feels,” Jorgan asked her one day. “What sensations do you experience when it happens?” His intense eyes remained fixed to hers as he waited for a response.
“Well, at first,” she said, “something inside my skull seems to grow warm and…swell. It’s just a sensation, I know, because that would be…well, impossible. But it feels real. The swelling continues until it becomes uncomfortable. Almost painful. Not quite, but almost. And then there’s this abrupt release. A gushing release. Kind of like reaching the crest of an orgasm—” Jorgan’s head turned sharply as he averted his gaze, pale cheeks growing pink. “—but without any pleasure. That’s when it happens. With that rushing release. The rat dies. And then I feel…so tired. Diminished. Like I’ve shrunk.”
Jorgan began to pace in front of her. “That feeling. You need to get a hook into that feeling. Study that feeling. Make it your goal. Your purpose.”
It was not long before she did exactly that. The feeling became part of her. Even when she was not experiencing it, she thought about it, remembered it, until she could conjure it in her mind in a heartbeat. Soon, the pillbox was removed, the small piece of skull that had been cut out was replaced, and her scalp was sewn over it. At first, she was able to “flame,” as Jordan called it, only for short periods of time before she was overcome with exhaustion and her head began to ache. Then she would take a break and rest a bit until the ache was gone and she could try again.
They worked on her control. That was the worst part, the part she hated most. She learned how to withhold that final release, then allow it to come slowly, in stages. She learned to make the rats suffer. It made her sick at first, watching them writhe, hearing them squeal, and finally seeing them die. She learned to hold back just enough so the rat would not hemorrhage, and there would be no external sign of injury. Sometimes she heard those squeals in her sleep.
With each attempt, she was able to flame a little longer before the aching began and she had to stop. It was a deep ache in the center of her brain, slow in coming in the beginning, expanding and growing steadily worse; once it gained momentum, it was blinding and made her eyes tear up. As her ability improved, she could flame for longer periods of time without pain, but when it arrived, it came instantly, detonating inside her skull, pushing at the backs of her eyes, digging down into the roof of her mouth, making her ears ring. Jorgan assured her he would find a way to stop the headaches, but until then, he was always considerate, allowing her to rest as long as she needed.
Emma progressed from rats to guinea pigs, then to rabbits, later graduating to monkeys. By then, she had grown so accustomed to killing animals that it was almost easy to ignore their curious, darting eyes, their childlike facial expressions. Almost.
Jorgan began to get under her skin. Just a little. He was the only other person with whom she had contact besides Miranda, who spoke to her only when necessary, and then in cold, steely tones. Jorgan’s eyes were cloying as they stared, sometimes making her want to scream at him to stop. He eased up a bit with time. His manner became less formal. But she still caught him staring hungrily at her now and then, and it made her feel claustrophobic.
Only one thing made her stay there tolerable. The food. It was like eating out three times a day, only at the best restaurants. Delicious breakfasts of eggs benedict, or sumptuous crepes stuffed with lobster or crab, mouth-watering fruit and pastries as light and fluffy as clouds; lunches of salads made with produce that seemed only minutes from the garden, sandwiches so delectable that it seemed criminal to call them mere sandwiches; and the dinners—the tenderest veal, perfectly seasoned pasta dishes, calamari that melted on her tongue.
At first, she worried about her weight. She knew that if she ate that extravagantly three times a day while being so sedentary, she would be as big as a house by the time she left. Then it occurred to her—she would not be leaving. Landon had already told her that, as far as the world was concerned, she was dead. Corpses did not worry about their waistlines. Corpses also had nowhere to go but into the ground.
One evening during a dinner of filet mignon with tender new potatoes bathed in seasoned butter, juicy asparagus drizzled with cheese sauce, a flaky dinner roll and crisp green salad on the side, topped with a slice of cheesecake covered in cherries, it occurred to her that she was eating her medication three times a day—and enjoying it so much that she had to resist the urge to lick the plates. That was how it was being administered, keeping her in a twilight state.
The deviousness of it made her cringe, but not for long. She had figured it out, even in her weak and foggy state.
All she had to do was stop eating.
Emma picked at her filet mignon as she fought for clarity, fought to think her newfound problem through to a solution.
She went into the lab each morning, broke for lunch, then returned in the afternoon for what seemed an eternity before stopping in time for dinner. With each meal, clarity faded and the brain fog rolled in.
Landon had told her that security guards were watching her on monitors, which meant that cameras were trained on her at all times. When she looked around her small room, she saw none, but she knew they were there. That meant she could not openly dispose of her food. They were watching, and they expected her to clean her plate, as always. It took a few meals, some practice, and a tremendous effort to remain focused on her task before she finally worked out a system.
Emma always ate while sitting up in the adjustable bed with the rectangular table wheeled to her bedside and stretching across her lap. She went to the bathroom before each meal and sat on the toilet. When she reached between her legs with toilet paper as if to wipe herself, she carefully tucked rolled-up pieces of tissue between her buttocks. It remained there as she got into bed and was served her meal. She removed the pieces of toilet paper as she situated herself on the bed and placed them in her lap beneath the table.
She had been terribly clumsy at first. She coughed into her hand; another time, she picked her teeth; still later, she wiped her mouth, then sneezed. Each time, she placed a mouthful of food in her lap as surreptitiously as possible, then wrapped it in the toilet paper. She could not get all the food, of course; she ended up eating some of it. Emma had to eat. But considering how thorough she had been in finishing her meals up to that point, it was a vast improvement. She knew she would not be getting nearly as much of whatever drug was in the food as she had been ingesting, and she hoped to see an improvement in her state of mind.
The first time she tried it, she had succeeded without incident. In the bathroom, she had sat on the toilet and allowed the concealed food to drop into the bowl. It worked beautifully the next time, too, and the next. Each time, she got a little better at it. Then, on her way to the bathroom after dinner one evening, two of the moist, tissue-wrapped lumps dropped to the tile floor between her feet with ugly plopping sounds.
Emma froze. Stood there. Forever. Resisting the temptation to look around the room, as if the cameras might suddenly be visible now, glaring at her with condemnation.
Leaning down carefully, she picked up the globs of tissue and food, carried them into the bathroom, dropped them into the toilet, and flushed. She expected the door to burst open and guards to rush into the room at any moment, demanding to know what she had flushed down the toilet. But no one came. Nothing happened. She wondered if perhaps she was not being watched quite as closely as she had been led to believe.
The grogginess began to recede, but she could not let that show, so she continued to shuffle around slowly and maintained an expressionless face, heavy-lidded eyes. As clarity returned, Emma became more adept at disposing of the food with each meal, but it became harder to do because she was so hungry. Starving. Her stomach growled first, then roared so loudly that she feared it would give her away. She nibbled just a bit from each plate to give the illusion that she was actually eating, and to appease the grinding hunger in her gut, if only a little. But not enough to return her to the hazy state she had been in since arriving.
With clarity came anger. She was able to think lucidly about what Landon had done and continued to do to her. And with her anger came a hatred that eclipsed anything she had felt for Landon in the past, anger that bubbled inside her like lava over what he was doing—using her like a lab rat to develop something that would no doubt be used as a weapon, something that would fatten Landon’s already bulging bank accounts and, as a result, give him even more power than he already possessed. She kept her anger and hatred inside—she had no other choice for the time being—but there, it swelled and festered.
Landon was so arrogant and smug that it probably never occurred to him that, once he had given her this power, she might use it to save herself. Landon did not think that way. He always assumed success in everything he did, never for a moment considering the possibility of failure or catastrophe. Besides, he owned her, and he no doubt assumed that he had so cowed her by now, she would never consider retaliating. In business, Landon trusted no one, but when it came to his possessions, he was supremely confident; they were his subjects and he their king, and like any king, he never entertained doubts about his dominance. Landon knew that Emma would be locked away and under constant surveillance, never far from an armed guard who would follow his orders to the letter.
But with Emma’s newfound clarity, the rules changed. And no one knew but Emma. She planned to use that advantage as best she could. She looked forward to surprising Landon.
In the lab, her control improved. She was able to manipulate the flaming well, but so far with only one animal at a time. Jorgan began to bring in more than one monkey. Just two at first. She killed them both at once. He brought in two more and told her to kill them one at a time as they sat side by side. She tried, but failed. She could control the flaming but was unable to aim it at one monkey without affecting others as well.
Jorgan said they would work on that later, but for the time being, he wanted to concentrate on her strength, on the force of her flaming. He brought in three monkeys at once. Then four. Until finally she found herself facing a wall of cages stacked to the ceiling, a chattering monkey in each cage. Twenty in all. He talked her through it, telling her to hold back, let it build but keep holding back until she could hold it no longer, until she felt she were about to explode, then let it go in a great, fanning wave. She did. All of the monkeys fell silent at once and died without a struggle.
An instant later, the headache rushed in, making Emma slump in the chair, exhausted, emptied, crying silently because it hurt too much to make sounds. Jorgan was elated and congratulated her as if she had just won the lottery. Then he gave her the rest of the day off and let her sleep.
Although her stomach never stopped burning with hunger, Emma regained much of her strength and awareness. As a result, the stimulant she was given each time she was taken to the lab became harder and harder to endure. She had to conceal the fact that with each injection her heart rate increased, she felt hot and her skin seemed to shrink like melting cellophane over her muscles and bones, all the while burning as if on fire. Jorgan was no longer monitoring her vitals every time she entered the lab, otherwise she would not have been able to hide it. And if the explosive reaction had not been reasonably brief each time, it would have been impossible to keep from screaming. Somehow, she managed.
Another problem was weight loss. When she arrived at OdysseyCorp, eating such rich foods three times a day had caused her to gain weight. Once she started to dispose of her food, though, the weight began to come off quickly. She was not weighed regularly, but one day Jorgan mentioned it, said she looked thinner, frowned and had her get on a scale, checked her chart, scribbled a note on it as he muttered to himself about the possibility of flaming affecting her metabolism. He said he wanted to start monitoring her weight each day, but said nothing more about it.
Emma knew if she continued to lose weight, Jorgan would know that something was up and, before long, she would be found out. She had no choice—she would have to put her concealed clear-headedness to use sooner than she had hoped, before she was completely ready. And she knew she would not have much time in which to do it.
Miranda would be arriving soon to take her down to the lab. Emma waited on her bed, eyes closed as if napping, chest rising and falling rhythmically, but wide awake, thinking, planning, and worrying. She still had a long way to go before she could control the flaming the way she would like, but she had no time.
Emma already regretted what she would have to do to Jorgan. He was as pathetic as a teenager with a crush on a movie star, but under the circumstances, he had been terribly kind to her and always seemed to have her best interests in mind.
Don’t kid yourself, she thought. She knew if Jorgan were forced to choose between saving her from her inevitable fate and remaining loyal to Landon, she would not stand a chance.
She would try not to kill him, but she was still a novice, and a desperate one, as well. If getting out meant killing Jorgan, that would be one person fewer to blindly follow Landon’s every order. As sweet as he had been to her, Emma figured that would be a kind of public service.
Waiting for Miranda to arrive, her thoughts were dominated by one question: Would it work? It worked on the monkeys, of course, but they were chirpy little capuchin monkeys and he was a grown man. She had never tried it on a human before, of course, although she was certain that would be the next step in the project. And she knew the person she would be made to kill would be innocent, a victim. Her way—even if she failed—at least provided a modicum of justice.
Emma heard the door of her room open, heard Miranda’s hushed footsteps on the tile floor. Without opening her eyes, she knew Miranda was wearing her white lab coat with her ID badge pinned to the lapel, her face as unsmiling in the small photo on the badge as it no doubt was at that moment in Emma’s room.
“Okay, time to go,” Miranda said in her usual flat, emotionless voice. “We’re going down to one of the conference rooms today, not the lab. Dr. Jorgan wants to see you there. So get up.”
Emma made a show of slowly getting off the bed, with effort, eyes half-closed.
“All right,” Emma said quietly. She had found that she never quite sounded like herself when she spoke to Miranda; the squat young woman put her on edge and made her stiffen, inside and out. “Just let me put on my robe and slippers.”
