Chapter 13
“Stop moving your head, or I’ll tase you again,” Braxton snarled.
He readjusted one of the sensors snaking off D-14’s freshly shaven head. He wanted to record this moment with the hologram interface, for future study and analysis, but D-14 wouldn’t stop moving.
He refused to speak, as always, but he writhed with jaw-cracking tension. His scraped wrists and ankles oozed blood against the restraints. And the slightest error in sensor placement rendered the interface useless.
The fresh sweat on D-14’s scalp kept the adhesive on the sensor from sticking. Braxton reached for a plastic bottle of talc and shook it over the man’s head, coughing. This bullshit was ruining the buzz he’d gotten from having the meds delivered. Ten doses of Finurol-19 and ten doses of Tributan Theta.
Today, the magic happened.
D-14 obviously sensed what was coming.
Would have been simpler if he’d just drugged D-14 to begin with, but he wanted a baseline of D-14’s vitals and brain function before the drug was administered.
Braxton smacked D-14 across the jaw. D-14 knew he was defeated, but he kept jittering anyway, just to be difficult. “Talk,” he growled. “Or else. I want to be entertained. Especially after weeks of your insolent bullshit.”
D-14’s feet drummed ineffectually against the table. The nylon webbing straps strained, the heavy metal chain links rattled.
“First, the new, improved Finurol.” Braxton prepared the needle, aspirating the fluid. “Remember the fun we had in the old days playing Simon Says? That was just Finurol 6. This stuff is far more powerful. You should thank me for saving your life and nursing you back to health. And today, I’ll make sure that you do.” Braxton leaned down, breathing into D-14’s face. “You’re going to open up so wide,” he growled. “Sweet surrender.”
He still couldn’t get D-14 to look him in the eye. But Finurol would fix that.
He stuck the needle into D-14’s throat. Those walls were coming down.
The drug took effect almost immediately. In seconds, the tension in the bound man’s muscles relaxed and the heavy metal cot stopped its rattling dance.
Braxton pulled up a chair, sat down, and switched on the recorder.
“Tell me the name you used when Mark Olund captured you,” he demanded.
D-14 opened his mouth and stopped, lips slightly parted.
His eyes on Braxton’s face were faintly puzzled. “I don’t know.” His deep voice was thick and gravelly from disuse.
Braxton felt a twinge of alarm. Maybe he’d started the questioning too quickly. “How many of the Midland rebels are you in contact with?”
D-14 shook his head slowly. “I don’t remember any rebels.”
Did Braxton sense a glint of triumph in D-14’s dark eyes? He looked closer.
Yes. That self-satisfied prick was pleased with himself.
What the hell? The part of his brain capable of opposing Braxton’s command had been disabled. Finurol was infallible. He’d never seen anyone resist its effect. The side effects were brutal, but the short-term outcomes were unbeatable. Braxton had done a good amount of the experimentation on the drug himself.
He prepared another full dose, administered it. Sat there letting ten silent minutes pass. Seconds ticked by with syrupy slowness.
He switched the recorder on again and asked, “What is the name you’ve been using?”
Again, that complacent smile. “I don’t remember,” D-14 said again.
“Then what is the name your brother D-13 is using?” His voice got louder.
D-14 shook his head dreamily. “I have no fucking idea. Swear to God.”
Agitated, Braxton got the sensors and the interface hologram machine synched, and peered into the 3-D holographic image of D-14’s brain projected in the air over the device. It took a while to calm down enough to read the patterns and spot the anomaly.
When it came into focus, he was astonished and confused.
A part of D-14’s cerebral cortex appeared to be damaged. Some indistinct lesion that had not been there the previous times he’d done this scan. It looked like the result of illness or trauma, but there had been none. At least none he’d witnessed.
D-14 must have done this to himself deliberately. He wasn’t refusing to give the information, because on Finurol, he couldn’t refuse. So he’d made sure that he genuinely had no access to it. He’d damaged his own brain. Out of spite.
Braxton leaned back from the holographic interface and looked at the peculiar smile on D-14’s face. “You sack of shit,” he said. “I’m going to kill you.”
D-14’s eyebrows quirked up. “Go for it,” he rasped. “Do it now.”
“Fuck you. I’m in no rush,” Braxton said. “In fact, I’ll make it last until you’re begging me to end it. And I’ll film the high points. When I find the people you care about, I’ll make them watch.”
D-14’s smile did not waver. He’d won this round and he knew it.
Oh, fuck this whole place. He wanted out of this snowbound hellhole. He had to get D-14 to his own lab in the Nevada desert. Transporting him was risky, but he needed his state-of-the-art work environment, not this improvised bullshit. And now that the drugs had been delivered, he could do it without delay.
Though he’d miss the cage that Mark Olund had designed. Mark himself would be unable to escape that thing. Too bad it wasn’t transportable.
If D-14 gave him any more trouble, Braxton would just melt his brain down with Trib-Theta and work with whatever lingered on life support. Fuck him too.
Getting ready was a hell of a job. He had to maneuver D-14 on his cot into the big elevator that opened into the front room. Move one of the heavy transport pods up. Rig a ramp for the vehicle for loading, process relevant data, clear all signs of his own presence away. Infuriating that he couldn’t use D-14 for the grunt work.
It took hours. When he finally dragged D-14’s cot out of the elevator, he topped him up with another 15 mcg of Finurol. D-14 just lay there, gazing up at the picture window that opened out onto the big deck. Snowflakes fluttered down.
Braxton studied the man, wondering if he trusted the Finurol enough to forgo the stun code, unfasten the restraints, and command D-14 to get into the pod. Stringy and lean as he was, D-14 was hard to move, with his reinforced bones and dense muscle tissue. Nearly impossible to lift. He was almost tempted to risk it.
But Braxton had always been the one back in the day who’d insisted on control coding, for security. He’d never gotten sloppy. Now was not the time to start.
He could still do some heavy lifting.
Braxton ripped sensors off D-14’s shaven head and seized the man’s bearded jaw. He jerked his face around and glared straight into D-14’s eyes.
“Listen, shitstain,” he said. “Do exactly as I say, or I will dissolve your useless brain with Trib-Theta right now and flush you down the toilet. Straighten your body. Arms at your sides. Legs together. Stiff as a board. Do it. Now.”
D-14 blinked slowly a few times and complied.
Hey. Maybe the extra dose had helped.
Braxton leaned down, still staring into the other man’s eyes. “Calliope. Banner. Ibex,” he said loudly.
D-14 went rigid. All good.
He quickly unfastened the restraints on D-14’s ankles and wrists, monitoring the other man’s racing heartbeat. No big deal and no more than a predictable response to the stun code. His breathing was constricted, since eighty percent of the muscles used to breathe had been locked. Not all of them, or he’d die. Braxton had left just enough rib flexibility to stay alive. But not comfortable.
Braxton’s Boys didn’t need comfort.
D-14 was now completely unbuckled, motionless except for the tremor of tension from his locked muscles.
Braxton huffed and heaved to get the heavy transport pod positioned next to the cot. He’d tip D-14 into it, let him fall however he fell, and to hell with the sensors. As long as the oxygen mask was over his face, he’d be fine.
He stopped and took a brief moment to rest his sore fingers. His latest serum needed tweaking. It wasn’t working at all anymore. But he’d fix that, once he was back in his lab. He’d see results within probably hours of synthesizing—
Pain exploded in his face. He reeled back with a startled shout.
D-14 had punched him! Shock immobilized him for a split second.
“Calliope! Banner! Ibex!” he howled. “Calliope! Banner! Ibex! Calliope! Banner! Ibex!”
D-14 sat up. Just like that.
Braxton scrambled backwards, groping for the gun in his boot holster.
“Calliope! Banner! Ibex!” he screamed again.
D-14 made no sign that he heard.
That was the key. It wasn’t just memories that D-14 had mysteriously compromised. He’d deafened himself. He’d beaten the stun code and the Finurol, in one day. That sneaky son of a bitch.
Braxton shot at D-14 as the man slid off the cot and moved toward him. The bullet punched a hole in the white wall opposite. Another bullet ricocheted off something metal. Another disintegrated a lamp.
He shot again and the picture window shattered into a huge, explosive rain of glass. Icy wind and snow swirled into the room.
D-14 didn’t flinch. His nose bled and his eyes burned, but he came on.
Braxton shot again and hit D-14 in the shoulder. He staggered, but still lurched forward. He squeezed off another shot. The last one.
A hit to the arm. D-14 hesitated as blood trickled down, dripping off his fingers.
Braxton’s ammo magazine was empty. The pale gray carpet was splotched with red that the flying snow was beginning to cover, driven inside by the fierce wind.
Braxton dove for the syringe he had left on the sideboard and backed up as D-14 drove him toward the open, shattered picture window.
He wanted to shove that needle full of Trib-Theta into that asshole. Hard. See D-14’s shocked eyes in that sweet moment when he knew he’d been fucked, but before the darkness descended forever.
Then he’d hook up what was left of the brute to life support. Cut his losses.
He brandished the needle and backed onto the deck, which protruded out over the valley and had a forty-foot drop to the stony ground below.
D-14 kept shuffling after him into the snow over the chunks of glass, leaving bloody footprints on the white snow.
The wind howled. D-14 was barefoot, feet sliced up, naked to the waist, deaf, cognitively impaired, wounded by bullets. He would lose. He was staggering, at the end of his strength, hunched and shaking. Going into shock.
Braxton positioned the syringe in his hands, gauging the distance, the necessary force. He lunged at the wounded man with a shout.
The world spun. His legs were swept from under him. The syringe flew up high, turning and turning against the white sky and floating snow.
With a hoarse cry, D-14 drove Braxton toward the edge of the deck.
Crack. Their combined momentum broke the wooden handrail.
They sailed out into the empty white void together.