Mindwalker (10 page)

“So what did you see, Doc?” His voice is flat and guarded.

I swallow, mouth dry. The muscles in my chest feel uncomfortably tight. “Someone wrote the word
freak
on your locker, and beneath that, there was a note advising you to commit suicide.”

Silence.

“Steven?”

He exhales a soft, shuddering breath. “You know, deep down, I think a part of me didn't believe this machine would actually work.”

“That really happened to you?” I whisper.

“Well, I didn't make it up.”

“I know, but—I don't understand. How could someone get away with that? Were they caught? Did you report it?”

He snorts. “Of course I didn't. The system's not designed to protect people like me. It's designed to protect everyone else
from
people like me.”

“But that's …” I trail off, not knowing what to say.

His heart is beating very hard. Very fast. I can feel it. Absently, I rub my sternum.

He fishes in his jeans pocket, as if searching for something, then withdraws an empty hand and curses. I remember the little white pills from earlier.

“I can give you something to help you relax if you want,” I say. “The machine comes equipped with a sedative. It should still be good.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I think I need something.”

“Keep your hand where it is.” I press a button on the arm of my own chair.

His breath hisses between his teeth as the microneedles penetrate his skin. Then he sighs, the tension flowing out of his muscles. “Oh yeah. That's the good stuff.”

“How do you feel?”

“Comfortably numb.” He lifts his visor, looks over at me, and smiles. His pupils have all but devoured his irises, leaving two thin, delicate blue rings. “I think I'm ready now. I can lie back and think of England.”

“What?”

“You don't know that phrase?” He chuckles. “It was what they told Victorian women before their wedding night. ‘Lie back and think of England.' ”

“Oh,” I reply uneasily.

He's still smiling, but it looks … hazy. Detached. “You'll be gentle, won't you?”

I feel my cheeks flush. Maybe I gave him too much of the drug. I clear my throat. “Let's try another memory. Something ordinary, everyday. You can just think back on what you had for breakfast if you like.” Then I remember that he hasn't eaten since yesterday. “Er, whatever your last meal was, before the restaurant.”

“Is this really therapy?” He sounds amused now, as if this were all an elaborate practical joke and he's only just started to get it.

“Steven.”

“Okay, okay.”

I close my eyes. In the darkness, I see a bowl of cereal—something brightly colored, more sugar than grain—on a table.

The image suddenly vanishes, and another flashes in its place. I'm in a parking lot. A tall, powerfully built young man in an orange jacket looms over me. His hair is buzzed short, military-style.

“Tell me what you did to her.” My voice—
Steven's
voice—is shaking. Not with fear. With anger. “Tell me why she was crying.”

“What's it to you?” the man—Nathan, his name is Nathan—asks with a sneer.

I squeeze the words between clenched teeth: “She's my friend.”

“Oh yeah?” Nathan's smirk widens into a grin, showing the remains of his lunch lodged between his white, perfect front teeth. I can see the glee in the bastard's eyes, like he's enjoying how pissed off I am, and I want to rip that stupid smile off his face. In front of the teachers, he's always cheerful and polite, but it's a mask. This is his real self.

Nathan leans down toward me. “Well, that slutty little Type Two needs someone to keep her in line. She started mouthing off to me. Pretty stupid of her. I mean, does she know who I am? I could have her expelled like
this.
” He snaps his fingers.

The blood bangs in my head. A dull roar, like a waterfall, fills my skull.

“See …” Nathan leans closer. His breath hits me in the face, hot and sour. “I know her secret. Once I threatened to report her, she was so well behaved, she got down on her knees and did
everything
I told her to do.” He laughs.

A bomb goes off behind my eyes. All I can see is red.

When my vision clears, he's on the pavement, squealing, one bloody hand pressed to his bloody face. I feel something rubbery in my mouth and spit it out. The piece of flesh lands on the man's chest, staining his shirt red.

“Fucking psycho!” He lurches to his feet and lunges at me.

My fist smashes into his face, knocking him to the pavement. I jump on top of him and keep hitting him, bashing his head to one side, then the other. More blood spurts out, spattering the pavement. Hands grab me, pulling me away. I struggle as Nathan sobs, curling into a ball. His face is raw and bloody, his lips swollen, and still, I want to keep hitting him. I want to punish him. I want—

This isn't me. This is Steven's memory.

With an effort, I yank myself back to the present. My eyes snap open, and I jerk the visor up. I'm gasping, drenched with sweat, staring at the ceiling of my basement.

“Sorry,” Steven says. His head is turned away from me, toward the wall. “Didn't mean to start thinking about that.”

“It's all right.” I try, unsuccessfully, to keep my voice steady. “Was—was he the one you told me about before?”

“Yeah.” His voice registers no emotion.

I gulp. “He said he knew her secret. What was he talking about?”

There's a pause. “She was a cutter,” he says quietly.

“Self-injury?”

He nods, staring at the wall. “If he'd reported her for that, she would've been reclassified as a Type Three. They would've Conditioned her or put her in a treatment facility against her
will. And word would've leaked out. Word always gets out. Things would have gotten worse for her at school.”

The room spins, and I close my eyes, dizzy. Sweat cools on my forehead. “What happened to her?” I whisper.

“After that, you mean? She never spoke to me again. I think she was scared of me.”

My chest aches. I know I should disapprove of his actions. But all I can think about is how much it must have hurt for him to lose his friend.

Focus.
I'm here to do a job. “Let's proceed.” I slide the visor down. “I want you to clear all those other memories from your mind and go into your first memory from your kidnapping.”

“I don't remember being kidnapped. I just remember waking up in that place.”

“Let's start there.”

I'm sinking again—deeper this time. I feel as though I'm in a lake, floating slowly toward the bottom, the light dimming until cold, heavy blackness presses in all around me. Even my own breathing recedes into silence.

Darkness. Then a flicker. Soft, blurred shapes become images.

I'm in a room with cracked, dirty cement walls. A dull pain throbs behind my eyes, and there's something warm and sticky on my head, plastering my hair to my skin. Blood?

Everything aches. It's cold. So cold. I shiver and try to stand up, but my hands and feet are tied with rough, scratchy rope. There's a rag stuffed in my mouth, and it tastes like dirt and sour sweat.

I have to pee. I wriggle, but the ropes won't loosen.

The door creaks open, and a man in a stained white shirt enters. He's huge, broad-shouldered, with a bald head and tiny dark eyes. His face is rubbery, his nose enormous and squashed-looking, his lips fishy and thick. A scar runs from his temple to his jaw.

He stares at me, and I stare at him. For a moment, he just stands there. Then he smiles. He has only a few teeth, little yellow stumps. Slowly, he approaches, dragging his feet across the cement. He crouches so that his face is level with mine. “Hi, Steven,” he says. His voice is very deep, very quiet.

I whimper through the gag.

“You don't know who I am,” he says. “But I know about you. I know you're sad. You don't have any friends, do you?” He strokes my—
Steven's
—hair.

Oh God.

“That's all over. I'm your friend now. I'm the only friend you need.”

This isn't happening. I'm not—this—

“You'll like it here. We're going to play lots of games. You like games, right?”

Not real. Just neural impulses traveling through a computer.

He stands. “How about some music?”

A strange, ancient-looking, boxy gray machine sits in the corner. It has a clear window with circles inside. He walks over to it now and pushes a button, and the little wheels behind the window start to turn. A woman's voice, singing in French, emanates from the speakers.

Steven doesn't know the song, but I recognize “Les Cloches
du Hameau,” and for an instant, I'm Lain Fisher again. Then she breaks apart and dissolves.

The sound coming from the machine is dim and scratchy. The man whistles along. I don't move. I don't make a sound, don't even breathe.

Still whistling, he walks toward me, until I'm drowned in his shadow.

When I finally take off my helmet, I'm numb, inside and out. There's a sense that I'm surfacing from a long, dark dream. My throat prickles with thirst, and I swallow. A sour taste lingers in the back of my mouth.

I glance at the clock. I've been in Steven's mind for three hours.

Slowly, I sit up. A twinge shoots through my muscles, and I wince, rubbing one stiff shoulder. I feel bruised. Beaten, like I've been thrown off a truck and left to die by the side of the road. It seems as if I should be bleeding everywhere. “I think that's enough for tonight.” My voice sounds oddly flat and distant to my own ears.

Steven pulls off his helmet and sets it aside. His face is drawn and pale. “Yeah.” Sweat gleams on his brow. He moistens his lips with the tip of his tongue and raises glassy, dazed eyes to mine. “You saw all that?”

“Yes.”

Steven closes his eyes and rubs them with the heels of his hands.

“Are you all right?” I ask, because I have to say
something.

“Peachy,” Steven mutters.

A lump swells in my throat. I choke it down. I will not let myself cry. “I'm sorry.”

He shrugs. “Not your fault.”

I want to reach out, to offer comfort somehow. But the space between us feels as wide as the ocean, as the distance between planets. There's nothing to say. What he endured at the hands of Emmett Pike was worse than anything I could have imagined. Words are meaningless in the face of such pain.

“How many sessions did you say this'll take?” he asks.

I struggle to focus my mind. The room seems so cold. Is it just me? “Maybe four, maybe six. Not more than six.” I clutch my bracelet. “For older memories, the mapping stage takes longer.”

He wipes his sweat-damp brow with his sleeve and slides out of the chair.

I stand, too. My knees wobble, and I grip the chair's arm for support. My whole body feels weak, unsteady, though the phantom aches and pains are starting to fade, at least. “Do you need anything?”

He shakes his head.

I think about Steven, huddled in the corner of that dark room. So alone. So scared.

Before I can stop it, a tear slips from the corner of my eye. My hand flies to my cheek. It's been a long time since I've cried after an immersion session. I usually have better control than that. Quickly, I knuckle away the tear, but it's too late. He noticed.

“Lain …” His voice is soft, startled.

My hands are shaking. I cross my arms over my chest, trying to hide it. “Don't worry about me.”

He stares at me, eyes wide. “You didn't just see it. You
felt
it. All of it.”

I look away, not wanting to confirm, unable to deny.

“I didn't know,” he whispers. “Lain, I … I didn't know it was like that. I thought it would just be like watching a recording for you.”

I shake my head. “If only.” I give him a small, wry smile, though it fades quickly. “There's a reason most initiates don't make it through their first year.”

He looks like he might be sick. “I don't want you to go through that. I
can't
…”

“Steven.” I school my features into a neutral mask. “I agreed to this. I knew what I was getting into, and I'm trained to deal with the emotional repercussions. If I can't handle this, then I'll never make it as a Mindwalker. I intend to finish what we've started.”

The silence hovers between us. I can see the pain in his eyes. Pain for me. He's the one who actually endured this nightmare, the one who's had to live with it all these years, yet he's worried about me. It makes me ache, and it's all I can do to keep my expression calm and inscrutable.

At last, he lowers his head and gives a small nod. “I just …” His voice is hoarse, cracked. He rakes a trembling hand through his hair. “If I'd known, I wouldn't have asked. I could never ask someone to go through that for me.”