Read Part 3 Here
Under the fluorescent lights, Marv Quinton looked considerably worse than Talitha had expected.
His face was thin and pale beneath a patchwork of scars, scabbed lesions, and recent abrasions. A ragged cut below his left eye had dried into a dark streak that disappeared beneath his jaw. Purple shadows surrounded his storm-gray eyes, and his hair hung in uneven clumps against a forehead glistening with perspiration. The clothes draped over his emaciated frame appeared several sizes too large.
Only the interface sockets looked new. Four polished chrome fittings, one in each temple and one at each wrist, reflected the fluorescent light with a brilliance that seemed almost obscene against the condition of the flesh surrounding them.
He caught her examining him.
“Hate to say I told you so, but I did warn you about the face.”
Talitha kept her Glock trained on his chest while taking stock of the room. The studio was little more than a rectangular box containing a stove, a sink, two stools, and an unrolled sleepmat. An alcove to her right housed a toilet without the courtesy of a door. The walls were stained, the ceiling discolored by years of cigarette smoke, and the wooden floorboards showed the abuse of generations of tenants.
Candles occupied nearly every available surface. Half-melted pillars stood on the stove, the sink, and the table, while others had been arranged in a loose pattern across the floor. Hardened wax had spilled down the furniture and pooled between the boards. A battered cybermodem rested beside an aluminum-foil ashtray and an overturned can of Albanian beer.
Someone had made a considerable mess of the place.
Then she noticed the pistol.
A Browning Hi-Power lay beside the stool Quinton had recently vacated, within reach of his right foot.
“Kick the nine-mike-mike over here. Slowly.”
Quinton glanced down, but his expression changed before he moved. His eyes traveled toward the corner behind the stool, focusing on something Talitha couldn’t see.
“Mr. Quinton.”
He flinched at the sound of his name.
“The pistol,” she repeated. “Move it away from you.”
He extended his foot cautiously, as though uncertain how much distance separated him from the weapon. The toe of his shoe touched the Browning. He pushed it across the boards, sending it sliding toward Talitha.
She intercepted it with her boot.
“Now turn around and put your hands against the wall.”
“You’re going to have to give me a moment.”
“You’ve had several.”
“I know. They’ve been memorable.”
He made a deliberate effort to turn, but his left knee buckled before he completed the movement. His shoulder struck the plaster, and he remained leaning against it, drawing air through clenched teeth.
Talitha watched him carefully. The weakness could have been genuine, although she had encountered fugitives who could simulate a seizure convincingly enough to secure a temporary advantage.
“Hands on the wall. Feet apart.”
He complied.
She retrieved the Browning, removed its magazine, cleared the chamber, and secured both weapon and ammunition in separate compartments of her advantage belt. She approached Quinton from behind, maintaining control of his right arm while searching his pockets, waistband, and ankles. Her hand briefly passed over the chrome fitting at his left wrist.
The surrounding skin was inflamed.
Quinton jerked violently.
“Easy,” she warned.
“Don’t touch the socket.”
“Then stop moving.”
“I’ll do my best.”
Talitha produced four narrow metal bracelets from her belt. Two bore green markings, two red. She instructed him to lower himself into a crouch, but his legs failed halfway down and she was obliged to support his weight until his knees reached the floor.
She secured the bracelets around his wrists and ankles, positioning each wrist opposite the corresponding restraint on the other leg. A signal from her control unit activated their magnetic couplings, drawing the green and red bands together with two sharp metallic clinks.
The restraints pulled his body into an awkward seated crouch.
Quinton toppled sideways, overturning the stool.
His reaction startled her.
He screamed.
It was a raw, involuntary sound, utterly unlike the sarcastic remarks he’d been making since she entered. His head snapped backward, and both legs strained against the magnetic restraints as though he were trying to escape something bearing down upon him.
Talitha stepped clear and raised her Glock.
“Quinton! Stop fighting the cuffs!”
He twisted onto one hip, his mouth opening and closing without producing words. The muscles of his neck stood out beneath the skin. His eyes remained fixed on the empty space above him, following something that appeared to be descending toward his face.
Talitha could see the full distance between his head and the ceiling.
He evidently could not.
“There’s nothing above you,” she said, moving closer while keeping the pistol pointed away from his head. “You’re on the floor. You’re restrained. Nobody’s touching you.”
Quinton’s back arched.
The magnetized bands clattered as he struggled against them.
“Can’t—”
He sucked in a ragged breath.
“Can’t get—”
Talitha crouched beyond his reach.
“Look at me.”
He continued staring upward.
She raised her voice.
“Marv! Look at my face!”
His eyes shifted toward her.
For a few seconds, he seemed incapable of focusing. Then recognition returned, followed by a fresh expression of horror as he looked down at the restraints joining his wrists to his ankles.
“Get them off.”
“You’re under arrest.”
“You’re folding me into it.”
Talitha frowned.
“Into what?”
“The room.”
She followed his gaze toward the nearest wall. It was an ordinary stretch of damaged plaster, stained brown near the baseboard.
Quinton shook his head, sweating heavily.
“Please. I can’t straighten up.”
She considered the situation. His body was resisting the restraints in ways that could dislocate a joint, and his breathing had become dangerously irregular. Whatever he was experiencing, the crossed magnacuffs were making it worse.
Talitha took out her controller and deactivated the magnetic attraction long enough to change his position. She kept the bracelets locked around his limbs but reconfigured them to couple his wrists together and his ankles together. The adjustment permitted him to extend his legs and lean against the wall without folding his torso over his knees.
She reactivated the restraints and withdrew to a safe distance.
“Better?”
Quinton’s breathing slowed.
He closed his eyes, feeling along the floorboards with his cuffed hands until his fingertips encountered the base of the wall.
“Better than it was.”
“These things take five hundred pounds of opposing force to separate. You’re wasting your energy fighting them.”
He gave a weak, humorless laugh.
“I wasn’t fighting your cuffs.”
Talitha pulled the fallen stool upright and sat facing him, her Glock resting against her thigh.
“Then you’d better tell me what the hell is happening to you.”
Quinton glanced toward the cybermodem.
“Somebody’s running a fear-conditioning routine through my implants. Got into the local buffer through the head shunts. Disconnecting from the Labyrinth didn’t clear it.”
“Who?”
“If I knew, I’d be considerably less interested in staying alive long enough to find out.”
Talitha studied him.
“What sort of routine?”
“Neural response modulation. Artificial panic, corrupted sensory information, induced pain. It keeps adjusting itself according to whatever frightens me most. I’ve been stuck in a room that keeps getting smaller, except apparently I’m the only one who can see it.”
She glanced at the walls again.
“And the candles?”
“Something to keep track of. The program can change what I think I’m seeing, but it has a harder time keeping several objects consistent when I’m concentrating on them. At least, that’s what I’m hoping.”
The explanation sounded plausible enough to trouble her. She knew that neural-interface failures could cause severe perceptual distortions, but the degree of control Quinton was describing suggested deliberate interference.
He seemed to recognize her skepticism.
“There’s a diagnostic record in the modem. You can look at it without connecting to my implants.”
Talitha didn’t approach the machine.
“You’re an expert hacker. I have no reason to trust anything you put on a computer screen.”
“Fair enough. You can watch me get crushed to death by a wall that isn’t there. Might be more convincing.”
“You’re still talking.”
“That’s becoming something of an achievement.”
She looked at the fresh blood on his shirt, the bruises along his forearms, and the broken skin around the chrome shunts.
The injuries were consistent with someone repeatedly colliding with objects while attempting to escape imaginary barriers. They were also consistent with someone who had been beaten.
“Have you been interrogated?”
Quinton looked at her sharply.
“By whom?”
“That’s what I’m asking.”
He lowered his eyes toward his restrained hands.
“Not in the conventional sense. Somebody appears interested in making me compliant, though I haven’t the faintest idea what I’m supposed to comply with.”
Talitha absorbed that information without lowering her guard. A neural attack capable of forcing a prisoner to obey could explain why a fugitive with Quinton’s reputation had remained in one hiding place for so long.
She examined the room again.
The overturned beer, the scattered candles, the unused interface leads, and the splintered furniture all suggested a man fighting something that had no physical presence.
“Why didn’t you shoot me when I came through the door?”
Quinton lifted his head.
“I thought you might be my mother.”
Talitha’s expression changed.
“Your mother?”
“For a few seconds, yes. Then I thought you were someone I’d killed. Then the program got creative.”
He looked toward the dark opening of the toilet alcove.
“I had the Browning in my hand. Could’ve put a round through the door before you even got inside.”
“Thirty-five people found out you’re capable of that.”
“Thirty-five people came looking for me with weapons and contracts. You weren’t the first one who expected to collect a reward.”
“And they were people, Quinton. Whatever you thought of their employers.”
A muscle tightened in his jaw.
“That’s a generous assessment of some of them.”
“Did they have families?”
He didn’t answer.
Talitha leaned forward.
“Friends? Children? Anybody who expected to see them again?”
“I know where you’re going with this.”
“Good. Saves me the trouble of explaining.”
He stared at the floor.
For several seconds, the room contained only the hum of the fluorescent lighting and the intermittent rattle of the hotel’s ventilation system.
Then Quinton spoke.
“One of them had a photograph in his hand when I shot him. Two children. I remember the picture better than I remember his face.”
Talitha had not expected the admission.
“Did you know who they were?”
“No. Didn’t have time to ask.”
“Did you try to find out afterward?”
His eyes remained on the floorboards.
“No.”
Talitha allowed the silence to settle between them.
“Then don’t tell me those people stopped being human because somebody paid them to find you.”
Quinton shifted against the wall, testing the limits of his new restraints.
“I’ve been thinking about that photograph a great deal tonight.”
“Perhaps you should’ve started sooner.”
He raised his head, and she saw the anger gathering behind his exhaustion.
“You think I don’t know what I’ve done? You think I enjoy remembering every person I put in the ground? Those trackers came after me because some corporation decided my life was an acceptable expense. They knew what the contract involved. They came anyway.”
“So did I.”
“Yes, you did.”
“And you chose not to shoot me.”
Quinton looked at her for a long moment.
“I couldn’t trust what I was seeing. But even when I started recognizing you, I remembered the photograph. I couldn’t take the chance that whoever was standing in my doorway might be another mistake I’d spend the rest of my life remembering.”
Talitha regarded him without speaking.
She had entered the room expecting an ideological fanatic who would justify every death as a necessary contribution to some grand political cause. Instead, she’d found a frightened, injured man who seemed to have lost control of the very technology that had made him so dangerous.
None of that absolved him.
But it complicated the picture.
Talitha returned her attention to the cybermodem.
“Show me what you found.”
Quinton nodded toward the machine.
“Display control on the right. Pull up the last diagnostic session. You shouldn’t need my interface to open the record.”
She approached the table cautiously, keeping the Glock in her right hand while manipulating the controls with her left. The display brightened, revealing a diagnostic summary from an earlier session. Several warnings occupied the upper portion of the screen.
NEURAL RESPONSE MODULATION: ACTIVE.
AUTONOMIC FEAR RESPONSE: ELEVATED.
COMPLIANCE RESPONSE: INSUFFICIENT.
Talitha scrolled through the remaining entries. Most of the technical information meant little to her, although she recognized references to the autonomic nervous system and the hardware responsible for processing sensory input from external interfaces.
“You could have written this yourself.”
“Certainly. I’m very good at that sort of thing.”
“Then why show me?”
“Because I want you to know what to look for when somebody examines my implants. Assuming I live that long.”
She examined the timestamp.
The diagnostic had been recorded before her arrival.
Talitha could not establish whether the information was genuine, but the warning about compliance interested her. It suggested an attempt to influence behavior rather than merely induce hallucinations. Whoever had written the program apparently expected Quinton to do something he was resisting.
“What would happen if somebody connected you to another machine?”
“Depends on the machine. A basic monitor might tell you how close I am to dying. Something with a two-way neural interface could give the program another route into my head.”
“You don’t know for certain?”
“I haven’t been eager to experiment.”
Talitha switched off the display.
“Is it contagious?”
Quinton shook his head, then winced at the resulting pain.
“Not in the biological sense. Someone would need to compromise your interface. Your comm implant is probably safe, provided it doesn’t have direct access to your sensory processors.”
“Probably?”
“Welcome to my evening.”
Talitha returned to the stool and holstered her Glock. Quinton had stopped struggling against the restraints, and his hands now rested together in his lap. His gaze traveled periodically toward the fluorescent fixtures, but he appeared capable of following the conversation without difficulty.
She decided it was time to notify her dispatcher.
Double-tapping her right temple, Talitha activated her communications implant and held her thumb against her ear while speaking into the extended little finger. She transmitted her identification, the location, and confirmation that Marv Quinton was in custody.
Quinton flinched at the faint electronic chirp.
Talitha glanced at him before continuing.
“I need a secured transport wagon at the Forgotten Realm Hotel, Slummer Paradise. Twenty-third floor. One prisoner, conscious and restrained, with possible neural-interface interference and significant physiological distress.”
She listened to the reply.
“Medical assessment required. No invasive neural diagnostics until the equipment has been checked for malicious code.”
The dispatcher acknowledged the request. A transport wagon would be assigned, although the arrival time remained uncertain.
Talitha ended the transmission.
“Pickup’s coming.”
Quinton looked toward the door.
“Did you tell them about the program?”
“I told them enough to keep somebody from plugging a diagnostic cable straight into your skull.”
“That was considerate.”
“Don’t make me regret it.”
Talitha settled back on the stool. The air in the room had become stifling, and the fluorescent lighting added a faint electrical buzz that was beginning to irritate her. She removed a handkerchief from her pocket, folded it into a narrow strip, and tied it around her forehead to keep the sweat out of her eyes.
Across from her, Quinton watched the movement with an expression she couldn’t interpret.
“You don’t believe a word I’ve told you, do you?”
“I believe you’re injured. I believe you’re experiencing some kind of neurological disturbance. The rest requires evidence.”
“And the thirty-five dead slamtrackers?”
“Those don’t require much imagination. Their bodies were recovered.”
Quinton’s expression hardened.
“Fair enough.”
Talitha leaned forward, resting her forearms against her knees.
“What I don’t understand is why you and your people think killing anybody who comes after you makes you defenders of the oppressed. You’ve turned yourselves into the largest terrorist organization on three continents, and you keep talking about freedom as though it’s something you’ve been appointed to distribute.”
Quinton considered her words.
“You’re talking about the Midnight Raiders.”
“That’s what your organization calls itself, isn’t it?”
“That’s what the corporate news services call us. It’s a convenient name to attach to anything they want to blame on the movement. My father belonged to a group that used it, but there are thousands of people fighting these companies now, and they don’t all belong to the same organization.”
“Doesn’t change what you’ve done.”
“No. But you asked me why people fight.”
He shifted his weight against the wall, finding a position that placed less strain on his injured shoulder.
“When the movement began, people marched against the corporate laws. They organized boycotts, occupied government buildings, and petitioned the legislatures to stop selling public assets to private interests. They wanted a say in how the resources of the EA Nations were being distributed.”
“And the corporations responded by trying to crush them. I’ve heard the story.”
“Have you heard what happened to the people who couldn’t afford to protest?”
Talitha said nothing.
“The corporations siphoned billions from public programs meant to provide food, housing, and medical care. When homelessness became too visible, they offered the governments a solution. Round up the people living on the streets, classify them as public dependents, and assign them to experimental rehabilitation programs.”
He lifted his cuffed wrists.
“They implanted software, wetware, storage chips, and communication equipment into people who couldn’t afford to refuse. Some were turned into data couriers. Others carried experimental systems inside their bodies until the equipment failed. They even fitted some of them with toxin reservoirs connected to vital organs so they couldn’t run away without permission.”
Talitha remembered the customer in the hotel’s lobby, the blood spreading beneath his shirt while Trent’s companions kicked him.
She had seen more than enough people selling pieces of themselves to survive another week.
“Those are serious accusations,” she said. “There are regulations governing medical experimentation.”
“There were regulations governing the use of public funds, too. You can see how well those worked.”
“Regulations are supposed to be enforced. If someone broke the law, they should be prosecuted.”
Quinton gave her a weary look.
“Who’s going to prosecute them? The police whose equipment they supply? The judges whose campaigns they finance? The governments that signed the contracts?”
“Then you expose them. You produce evidence. You force the issue into the courts, the press, whatever institutions are still willing to listen.”
“We tried. Some people are still trying.”
“And others decided murder was more efficient.”
He didn’t answer immediately.
Talitha watched his expression change. Whatever reply he was preparing appeared to require more thought than his earlier arguments.
“I’ve never claimed everybody in the movement is innocent,” he said eventually. “There are people who joined because they wanted an excuse to hurt somebody. There are others who started out with decent intentions and became the very things they hated. Some of them should be in prison.”
“Including you?”
He looked down at his restrained wrists.
“Possibly.”
Talitha had expected a more elaborate defense.
That single admission unsettled her.
“Then why keep fighting?”
“Because the people responsible for creating the conditions that started all this are still sitting in their offices, collecting salaries, and deciding which parts of the population are expendable.”
He lifted his head.
“My people are the ones who sleep beneath the transit platforms, who sell their blood to buy groceries, who disappear into laboratories because somebody promises their families a benefits allowance. They aren’t all revolutionaries. Most of them would be perfectly happy to live ordinary lives.”
His eyes moved toward the candles.
“They’re the kindling that keeps the flame alive. Someone has to protect them.”
Talitha rested a hand on her advantage belt.
“You’re very good at making violence sound noble.”
“I’ve had practice.”
“Thirty-five opportunities, by my count.”
Quinton’s face tightened.
The reminder had landed where she intended.
He opened his mouth to respond, but the words never emerged.
His entire body went rigid.
Talitha recognized the change immediately. His eyes widened, his shoulders pressed against the wall, and the muscles of his abdomen contracted so violently that his knees jerked upward.
He began breathing through his mouth.
“Quinton?”
His gaze darted toward the ceiling.
The fluorescent rings continued humming overhead.
“What’s happening?”
He made a strangled sound.
Talitha moved the stool aside and crouched beyond the reach of his legs. His cuffed hands were pressed tightly against his chest, the fingers opening and closing as though he were trying to find something to hold.
“Marv, can you hear me?”
He nodded once.
“Tell me what you’re experiencing.”
His lips moved.
She leaned closer.
“Stone,” he managed. “It’s coming down.”
Talitha looked upward.
There was nothing there.
Quinton’s breathing accelerated. The veins in his neck stood out, and a thin line of saliva escaped the corner of his mouth. His head tilted to one side as if he were attempting to squeeze through an opening too narrow to accommodate his shoulders.
Talitha caught him before his forehead struck the floor.
His skin was hot and slick with perspiration.
“Listen to me. You’re in the hotel room. I’m holding your shoulder. The ceiling hasn’t moved.”
He tried to pull away from her.
“Can’t get out.”
“The doorway is six feet to your left. I came through it. You saw me.”
He shook his head.
Talitha followed his gaze toward the space beyond the stove. She had no idea what he was seeing, but his response was terrifyingly genuine.
His chest contracted again.
He drew in a breath that seemed to stop somewhere above his lungs.
“You’re breathing, Marv. I can hear you.”
He struggled to speak.
“Pressure’s—”
Another contraction interrupted him.
Talitha adjusted her grip, supporting his shoulders while moving him away from the table. She had no way to stop the neurological interference, but she could at least prevent him from injuring himself against the furniture.
“Tell me something you can feel.”
His eyes remained fixed on the invisible obstruction.
“Wall.”
“Something real. Something I’m touching, too.”
A few seconds passed.
“Floor,” he whispered.
“Good. What else?”
He moved his cuffed hands slowly across the boards.
“Your hand.”
“That’s right. I’m holding your shoulder. You’re on the floor, and the room’s exactly where it was when I came in.”
His breathing began to slow.
Talitha remained beside him until the worst of the muscular spasms subsided. She helped him sit against the wall again, then moved the stool within reach so he could brace himself if he began losing his balance.
For several minutes, neither spoke.
Quinton’s face had acquired a grayish cast, and his eyes were reddened by burst blood vessels. The muscles around his mouth continued twitching long after the rest of his body had relaxed.
Talitha considered activating her communicator again.
“You need a hospital.”
He closed his eyes.
“Probably.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I. But if whoever planted that thing has access to the medical networks, taking me to the nearest corporate clinic might be the fastest way to finish the job.”
“You don’t know who planted it.”
“Exactly.”
Talitha regarded him with irritation that was beginning to conceal something closer to concern.
“You’re making it damned difficult to keep you alive.”
He opened his eyes.
“Most of the people in your line of work haven’t been particularly interested in that.”
“Most of the people in my line of work haven’t been asked to keep somebody alive while his own brain tries to kill him.”
“First time for everything.”
She rose and moved back to the stool.
“Tell me about Arinthia Simpson.”
Quinton looked surprised.
“Where’d you hear that name?”
“I’ve heard it in connection with the Labyrinth. Something about the first direct-interface experiments.”
He stared at her for several seconds.
“You’re not entirely ignorant of history, then.”
“Don’t sound so disappointed.”
Quinton shifted into a more comfortable position, taking care not to press his injured shoulder against the wall.
“Arinthia Simpson was a woman on welfare. Four children, no steady income, and barely enough money to keep them fed. She volunteered for a government-sponsored medical program because her family would receive benefits she couldn’t get any other way.”
Talitha listened.
“The program was developing direct neural communication. Before that, downloading large quantities of information into the brain required invasive procedures, datachips implanted inside the skull, and enough surgery to leave people permanently damaged. The researchers wanted a way to connect the nervous system to a computer through the major nerve trunks in the wrists and at the base of the skull.”
He turned his wrists slightly, exposing the chrome sockets.
“Arinthia was fitted with the first working prototype. The equipment established a connection, but the experiment damaged her brain so severely that she never regained consciousness.”
“What happened to her?”
“They took her apart to find out why the interface failed.”
Talitha frowned.
“You mean they performed an autopsy?”
“She was still alive when they started. According to the records the movement recovered, the researchers considered the condition irreversible and decided that preserving the experimental results mattered more than preserving her life.”
Talitha examined his face.
“Those records could have been falsified.”
“They could have been. But there are names, dates, payment records, equipment inventories, and the testimony of technicians who worked on the project. They’re out there if someone wants to look.”
He paused to catch his breath.
“The researchers eventually perfected the interface. They created an entirely new way for human beings to interact with digital information, and they named the network after her. Sort of.”
“Arinthia?”
“Labyrinth. The tribute was hidden in the name and in the slang that grew around it. The first ‘Rinthjock was a woman whose children needed food. That’s the part most people have forgotten.”
Talitha considered the history.
“And you’re telling me this because you think your experience is another version of what happened to her.”
“I’m telling you because somebody took a technology designed to give people access to information and used it to turn my own nervous system into a prison. I suspect Arinthia would recognize the principle.”
He looked toward the cybermodem.
“There’s an entire industry devoted to finding new ways to make human beings obey.”
Talitha leaned forward.
“That brings us back to something you still haven’t explained. Why would anyone spend money developing a sophisticated neurological weapon just to torture you in a hotel room?”
Quinton stared at her.
“I’ve spent years breaking into private networks, stealing internal records, and making people with very expensive secrets extremely uncomfortable. Several corporations have offered a great deal of money to have me removed.”
“Your bounty file says you’ve been responsible for attacks that killed civilians.”
“Some of those incidents were ours. Some weren’t. A few happened while I was locked inside detention facilities. The people who write the reports aren’t always particular about which is which.”
“Convenient.”
“Infuriating, actually.”
Talitha studied him.
“Would you admit it if you had killed civilians?”
He looked genuinely offended by the question, then seemed to reconsider his reaction.
“I’ve killed people who weren’t carrying weapons when I shot them. I told myself they were working with the armed trackers, and sometimes I was right. I can’t swear I was right every time.”
The answer disturbed her more than another furious declaration of innocence would have.
She looked toward the door.
The pickup wagon had still not arrived.
Talitha activated her communicator and requested an update. The dispatcher confirmed that the transport request remained active but could provide no revised arrival time. Medical assistance had been attached to the pickup order, although she was advised that specialized neural equipment might not be available.
She ended the call.
“Apparently we’re going to be here awhile.”
Quinton leaned his head against the wall.
“Wonderful. The accommodations are lovely, but I was hoping to check out.”
Talitha sat again.
She had been inside the room long enough for her shirt to cling to her back, and the oppressive heat showed no signs of diminishing. The ventilation system made occasional noises behind the walls but produced nothing resembling a breeze.
Quinton glanced at her damp handkerchief.
“You’re not enjoying the Paradise?”
“Your hotel needs to be condemned.”
“Get in line.”
She examined the empty beer can and the stained sleepmat.
“Why stay here? There must be a hundred places you could’ve gone where the rooms are larger and the plumbing works.”
“Used to be I could go anywhere I wanted. Then somebody put a price on my head, and every public camera became another set of eyes looking for me. I came here because the building’s surveillance system hasn’t worked properly in years.”
“And yet somebody found you.”
“Yes. That’s the part that bothers me.”
He shifted his cuffed hands toward his chest.
“Somebody got close enough to infect my interface. That’s a great deal more impressive than discovering my room number.”
Talitha considered Adel’s cooperation downstairs. The clerk had sold the information for a finder’s fee, apparently believing Quinton’s capture was a straightforward business transaction.
She wondered whether Adel had been the first person to report him.
“Do you think the program’s meant to kill you?”
Quinton regarded the cybermodem.
“If they wanted me dead, there are easier methods. A seizure routine would probably do it, given enough time. This thing seems designed to keep me frightened until I start doing whatever somebody wants.”
“What would that be?”
“Could be information. Could be a confession. Could be making me agree to something I wouldn’t otherwise consider.”
He examined the swelling around his wrists.
“Or maybe they’re testing it. Maybe they wanted to see how long a human being could endure a simulated environment that keeps crushing him before he either breaks psychologically or destroys his own body trying to escape.”
Talitha remembered the diagnostic warning.
COMPLIANCE RESPONSE: INSUFFICIENT.
She looked at him.
“How long can you hold out?”
“I don’t know.”
“Have you tried shutting down the implants?”
“The emergency suspension doesn’t work. The program’s using the protected buffer that keeps the interface stable during power interruptions. A hard reset might clear it, but I can’t initiate one without specialized equipment, and anything that forces the wrong shutdown sequence could leave me with permanent brain damage.”
“Then whoever installed the code knew exactly how your system works.”
“Better than I do, apparently.”
For the first time since entering the room, Talitha found herself wondering whether the bounty represented an opportunity or an elaborate trap.
She’d assumed Quinton was hiding from the authorities.
It hadn’t occurred to her that someone might be using the authorities to collect him after a private experiment had already begun.
The possibility remained speculative. She had no evidence connecting the neurological assault to the corporation financing the bounty. But she had seen enough irregularities in the tracking business to know that a legal warrant didn’t always guarantee an honest employer.
She glanced at the Browning secured in her belt.
“Suppose you survive this. Suppose somebody manages to remove the program. What happens then?”
Quinton considered the question.
“Presumably you collect your money and I find out how many charges they’ve managed to attach to my name.”
“And afterward?”
“That depends on what they do with me.”
“You have a choice about what happens afterward.”
He looked at her without speaking.
“You chose to become a rebel,” Talitha continued. “You chose to arm yourself. You chose to fight. Whatever happened to your family, whatever those corporations have done, you made decisions that left thirty-five people dead.”
Quinton adjusted his position against the wall, searching for a way to relieve the stiffness developing in his legs.
“You’re talking as though everybody begins life with the same choices.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You said I chose this life.”
“You chose what you did with it.”
Talitha folded her arms.
“I’ve met people who came out of places worse than this and never picked up a weapon. I’ve met people who lost everything and still managed to avoid killing somebody because they were angry about it. You don’t get to dismiss them because their decisions weren’t the same as yours.”
Quinton watched her carefully.
“How many people have you killed, Ms. Manchand?”
“Enough.”
“How many were trying to kill you?”
“Most.”
“And the others?”
Her expression hardened.
Quinton continued before she could answer.
“You said earlier that you’d done enough killing to know there’s nothing noble about it. I believe you. But you’ve made your peace with what you do because somebody gave you a license and a set of rules.”
“I answer for the people I kill.”
“To whom?”
“To the law.”
“Who writes the law?”
“People who are supposed to be accountable for it.”
“And when they’re not?”
Talitha leaned forward.
“Then somebody has to make them accountable. That doesn’t give you the right to execute every person who disagrees with you.”
Quinton looked down at his hands.
“There’s a device the Eurasian Alliance Science Guild developed for foreign security services. A neurological interrogation apparatus shaped like a skullcap. It uses tiny electrodes driven through the skull to deliver controlled electrical impulses into the forebrain.”
Talitha watched him with mounting irritation.
“Are we changing the subject?”
“I’ve seen photographs of the results. The device can damage selected memory centers, leaving a person incapable of remembering large parts of their life. Once enough of the original personality has been destroyed, the interrogators can introduce new behavioral patterns.”
He raised his head.
“Turn somebody into a compliant servant, a political informer, even a killer who doesn’t remember the people he used to love. All without the inconvenience of having to convince him.”
“You’re describing another alleged atrocity committed by the same people you blame for everything.”
“I’m describing a piece of equipment that exists. It was manufactured in corporate factories and sold to governments that wanted more efficient methods of interrogation.”
He glanced toward his temple.
“What somebody has put in my head is doing something similar without the skullcap. The program can make me see people who aren’t here. It can make me feel my bones breaking when there’s nothing touching me. It can reach into memories I haven’t thought about in years and turn them into punishments.”
Talitha remained silent.
“Last night, it showed me my mother being taken away by the police. Then it put me inside the van with her, even though I was never there. I watched her ask me to help her. I could see the blood on her face.”
His voice faltered.
“I don’t know whether the image was invented from my memories or whether somebody found records I never saw. I don’t know what else it might have changed.”
He looked at Talitha.
“How much of yourself can somebody rewrite before there’s nothing left worth calling you?”
She found herself unable to answer immediately.
Quinton’s eyes traveled toward the candle stubs scattered around the room.
“I saw a photograph once of a chair used for interrogations in Chad. Ordinary wooden chair, bolted to the floor. There were no people in the picture, just stains across the seat and backrest and a set of restraints hanging from the arms.”
He swallowed.
“You could tell what had happened there without seeing the victims.”
Talitha listened despite herself.
“People were tortured in that chair because somebody with authority wanted them frightened enough to obey. Didn’t matter whether they were rebels, criminals, political opponents, or innocent people who happened to know something. The chair didn’t care.”
Quinton lowered his eyes toward the magnetic bracelets encircling his wrists.
“Chad, Nova Scotia, Cuba. Doesn’t matter where you put the room if the person inside can’t leave.”
Talitha glanced at her controller.
The cuffs were secure. She’d used the same equipment on dozens of prisoners without giving much thought to its resemblance to the restraints attached to an interrogation chair.
“I didn’t put that program in your head,” she said.
“I know.”
“And I’m not going to torture you.”
“I’d prefer to keep believing that.”
“Then stop treating me like I’m responsible for everything that’s happened to you.”
Quinton regarded her with an expression of exhausted curiosity.
“Tell me something. What’s the difference between a freedom fighter and a terrorist?”
Talitha exhaled.
“I imagine you’re about to tell me.”
“It’s usually determined by who’s writing the history.”
“That’s a lovely sentiment. It also happens to be an excellent excuse for people who want to kill strangers.”
Quinton’s mouth tightened.
“Sometimes the people called terrorists are fighting governments that have made peaceful opposition impossible.”
“And sometimes they’re murdering civilians and pretending it’s a political necessity. If you’re going to argue that labels are unreliable, you don’t get to assume your preferred label makes your actions acceptable.”
He studied her.
“You’ve thought about this.”
“I arrest people for a living. It would be irresponsible not to.”
“Then I have to ask where you draw the line. If the government ordered you to arrest people simply because they couldn’t afford housing, would you do it?”
“No.”
“What if they passed a law authorizing it?”
“I’d want to know what the law said and who’d written it.”
“And if you knew it was wrong?”
Talitha stared at him.
“I would refuse.”
“Even if refusing meant losing your livelihood?”
Her eyes narrowed.
“You’re getting very close to asking questions about my personal life that don’t concern you.”
Quinton studied her expression, then inclined his head.
“Fair enough.”
She looked at the clock on her communicator.
Nearly half an hour had passed since she’d called for transportation.
No wagon.
No medical team.
Outside, a distant siren rose above the constant industrial hum of Slummer Paradise before fading into the night.
Talitha considered her options. She could attempt to move Quinton downstairs herself, but his neurological condition made twenty-three flights of stairs dangerous, and carrying an armed fugitive through a building full of people who disliked slamtrackers seemed an excellent way to get both of them killed.
She decided to wait a little longer.
Quinton was watching her.
“You’re not going to let me go, are you?”
“No.”
“Even after everything I’ve told you?”
“You’re under arrest for murder, among other things. If someone has been torturing you, I’ll report it. I’ll get you medical treatment, and I’ll record whatever evidence can be recovered from your implants.”
She paused.
“But I’m still taking you in.”
Quinton lowered his head.
“I figured as much.”
Talitha settled on the stool again, resisting the temptation to check her communicator for another status update.
She was tired, overheated, and increasingly concerned that her prisoner might die before the authorities arrived. His political arguments had done little to improve her opinion of his methods, although she could no longer dismiss everything he’d said as propaganda.
The men she’d encountered in the lobby had offered their own demonstration of what happened when power went unchecked. They operated outside the law, but their victims had no more effective protection than the people Quinton claimed to defend.
She looked toward the man sitting against the wall.
“There’s something I still don’t understand.”
Quinton raised his head.
“What?”
“You’re intelligent. You understand systems. You know how to manipulate information and find weaknesses in institutions that most people never even notice. You could have made an extraordinary amount of money working legally.”
He smiled faintly.
“Probably.”
“So why choose a life that ends with you hiding in a place like this, shooting people who come after you, and waiting for somebody to drag you off to prison?”
Quinton examined the pale indentations the magnacuffs had left around his wrists.
“You’re asking why I became a rebel.”
“I’m asking why you decided killing people was a legitimate way to change the world.”
He looked toward the candles again.
A faint tremor traveled through his right hand.
The program was still active. He could feel pressure building behind his eyes, followed by the familiar sensation of the room losing its proper dimensions. The wall at Talitha’s back appeared to move several inches closer, and the fluorescent fixtures began receding into a darkness that seemed to stretch impossibly far above them.
He concentrated on her face.
Her expression remained stable, although the space around her continued to distort.
He wanted to tell her that the walls were moving again, but he was tired of hearing himself describe things nobody else could see.
Talitha noticed his discomfort.
“Marv?”
He blinked.
“I’m all right.”
“You look like you’re about to pass out.”
“I’m considering it. Might be the most sensible thing I’ve done all day.”
She didn’t smile.
Quinton shifted his weight against the wall, careful not to provoke another muscular spasm. He could feel the program searching for a fear response, testing the boundaries of the control he’d managed to establish.
It had shown him his father. His mother. The people he’d killed.
Perhaps the most dangerous thing it had done was force him to confront parts of his life he’d spent years refusing to examine.
Talitha leaned forward.
“You don’t have to give me another speech about corporate tyranny. I understand what you believe happened. I want to know what made you decide that violence was the answer.”
Quinton studied her for several seconds.
He thought about his father’s old computer, the police transport, the blood on his mother’s nightgown, and the photograph that had fallen from the dead slamtracker’s hand.
Then he remembered something his mother had told him long before the police came.
Something he’d believed he understood when he was a boy.
He was no longer certain he’d understood it at all.
“I’ll explain it to you,” he said, keeping his voice even despite the pressure gathering inside his skull. “The way my mother explained it to me.”
To Be Continued…(eventually)
©2002 Rhyan Scorpio-Rhys
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