Three short stories, all for you
Writing on the novel front has been very slow. I’ve written two pretty execrable short stories – one comedy and one a fantasy – for my genre short story course, after producing what I thought was a pretty fine and very twisted thriller. All three short stories are reproduced below. Comments welcome, kinderfolk.
The novel goes slow. I’ve been putzing around with my characters. I think I know what I want them to do, and how I want them to interact and evolve, but I’m not putting in enough time to get the scenes written. And with my summer travel plans taking me away to
I never heard back from Edmund White. Oh well. I guess at the end of the day my masculine beauty just wasn’t quite enough. Or maybe he didn’t like my last email.
I’m glad the genre course is over. Even though I’m in
THE THRILLER: The WatcherI hate taking James to the playground, even though the paediatrician, Dr Harrow, says it’s good for him to play outside with other children. But I cannot relax, even on a day like today, when the air smells fresh like new spring sap, and the bright sunshine makes everything sparkle. The children scream constantly. The other mothers here at the playground are so oblivious to it, as they chat to one another over their soy lattes and green teas from Starbucks. These yummy mummies, with their rich husbands and their SUVs, do not talk to me, not even Jane Perkins, who was my best friend on the university gymnastics team. Except once she stopped by my special bench to ask if I knew that I was chewing my hair.
So here, at the playground, I watch James all the time. Sometimes I take my eyes off him for a just a second and then I cannot see him and in those few moments I just know that all kinds of bad things have happened to him. Like he has fallen off the jungle gym and broken his arm. Or one of the other children has picked up a stick and poked one of his lovely dark green eyes out, leaving viscous liquid dripping into the dirt. And so I jump from my bench and shout “James! James! JAMES!” And then I see him playing on the teeter-totter with a bigger, rough-looking child, and I run over to him and grab his arm and say “Stay where I can see you! And get off this thing! It’s dangerous!”
We live at 49 Hollyrood Road, a little one story bungalow, with a high ivy-clad walled garden at the back. Sometimes, if the weather is fine, I let James play out there, with his plastic trucks and spaceman toys. No one can get into the garden and so it is quite safe and I can sit in the kitchen and do my Su Doku puzzles, drinking tea and getting up every so often to make sure that James is OK and just to watch him. With his red jacket and his fine blonde halo of hair he looks just like a strange delicate tropical flower, or perhaps a Christmas tree ornament from Finland or Denmark. He is the most beautiful child, and when I watch him playing I find my breath stilled, caught in a tug of war between fear and joy. Since my husband left, about three years ago the day after James’s’ first birthday, James has been my entire reason for living.
James is having his little afternoon nap now. The dryer is gently droning in the background, and everything is quiet. The afternoon sun is streaming through the window. The chrome toaster gleams on the counter. But I am not peaceful. I am worried. This morning I woke at 5am from a bad dream about a house full of rotting bodies hidden behind secret doors. I tiptoed to James’s room and peaked in. He was fast asleep in his blue Spiderman bed quilt. I was couldn’t shake a sense of unease though, and so even though I went back to bed, I couldn’t sleep. In the morning, when it was light, I went outside to fetch the paper. I found a man’s boot print in the damp patch of lawn in front of our house. And two fresh cigarette butts. “It was probably someone just stopped for a smoke on the way home, Madam,” said the policeman down the phone. “Please don’t hesitate to contact us again, if an actual crime has been committed”.
My stomach churns with anxiety; in the last three months I have been bothered by a nagging unease. Our garden backs onto another set of walled gardens, and thence onto the taller houses and council flats of Ippington Road, a busy road with a transient renting population. I can’t explain it, but I have a nagging sense that something malevolent is waiting for us behind the dark windows of the flats opposite. I feel like we are being watched. Sometimes when I’m in the kitchen looking out into our garden, if I look up quickly to those dark windows I swear I can see a shadow move or a curtain twitch.
A few days after I speak to the policeman, I wake with a start in the night, adrenaline coursing through my body. I’ve not had another nightmare, but I think perhaps I’ve heard James cry out, even though the house is now silent. Shivering, I get out of bed and pull my red cardigan over my nightdress. I walk out into the living room and turn on the lights, and goosebumps rise on my flesh from cold and fear when I see that the French doors to the garden have been forced open. And then I notice the muddy footprints on the carpet, and a keening moan rises out of my throat. I take two faltering steps towards James’s room down the hall, when a big man in a black balaclava steps around a corner and punches me hard in the stomach. I crumple to the floor.
For I don’t know how long my awareness is only nausea and pain and suffocation, but when my senses return I can feel the man’s muddy boot on the side of my face, grinding slowly but gently. Then he lifts his boot up and makes as if he’s going to stamp on my head, but he halts inches from my face and then he puts his boot back down on my cheek again, and resumes the slow grinding. He does this three or four times. He is teasing me. And I faint into darkness.
And when I come to, lying on my side, I can see the man in the black balaclava sitting in front of me, with James in his lap. James’s mouth is covered in silver tape and his eyes are wide and tears are streaming down his face. He is breathing fast and his body is quaking as the man’s gloved hand strokes his blond hair softly, almost seductively. I notice that James has wet his pants. I think I moan or something because the man notices I am awake and he sets James down on the floor and comes over to me, and bends down and puts his wool-covered face close to mine and says “Hello Susan. We are going to have some fun tonight.” And then he smiles. And I shudder when I see that he has perfect white teeth, a beautiful, expensive, vicious smile. And then he grabs one of my breasts through my nightdress and twists and squeezes so hard that I gasp and pass out.
When I wake again the man and James are gone. And there is something lying in front of my nose, and at first I can’t focus on it and so I pull my head back to get a better view. And then I start to retch, because it is a severed finger. And then I scream because I realize that it’s a child’s finger and that I can’t remember whether or not I saw James’s hands when he was sitting in the man’s lap.
And so I stagger up and see that the back garden is empty and so I run to the front door and pull it open, but there is nothing outside in the dark night. James is not in his room either and so I tear all around the house, sobbing hysterically, and finally I run into my bedroom where a miracle happens because James is lying on my bed, still tied up, gagged, eyes nearly rolling into his head. And I start to moan when I see that his hands are bound up in thick white cotton bandages.
He starts to shake as soon as he sees me and I pull the tape off his mouth but he is so terrified he can’t even cry. I start to frantically unravel the cotton bandages. The left hand seems ok. In a frenzy, I use my teeth and my fingers to tear the bandages off his right hand and soon I start to shudder because the inner bandages are soaked in blood. I’m crying so hard I can hardly see, but I keep going and then I can’t quite believe it because, despite the blood, his right hand also seems perfectly ok. I count all James’s fingers, twice, kiss them over and over again, getting blood on my lips, and hold him, and kiss his head, and rock him back and forth. And we cry together and I hold him to me for what seems like a long time.
And then I hear a deep chuckle from behind me and I realize this whole time we have been watched and the man in the balaclava steps from my cupboard door and rushes towards us on the bed. He grabs my hair and drags me onto the floor and slaps my face and then kneels on my chest and puts a gloved hand around my throat and squeezes. And he bends really close to my face and says “Hello again, Susan. That was very touching, your performance.” For some insane reason I notice that his breath smells of cinnamon. “So far, I’ve really enjoyed tonight” he whispers, “But there’s better stuff to come! Oh yes! I have such a good plan for us.” And then he punches me hard in the face, and I lose consciousness again.
The next time I wake, as soon as I open my eyes, I know I have to do something, somehow. But I am gagged, and my hands are bound behind my back and my legs too. I can’t really move around very well, but I push myself into a sitting position on the floor and I can see James tied up on the bed. And I think of the man’s gloved hand stroking James’s blond head, and somehow I realize that whatever the balaclava man wants to do to James, he needs me to watch. I realize that he’s not that interested in either of us individually, but that instead he wants to watch me as I watch him do terrible things to James. All of this dark knowledge comes upon me in an instantaneous flash. And this gives me a tiny grin of hope, because I know the man can easily do whatever he wants to do to James, and watch me at the same time. And this may give me a brief chance.
And then the man comes into the bedroom again, with an iron, and he plugs the iron into the wall socket. And sits down on the corner of my bed, and strokes James’s cheek with one gloved finger, and asks “Have you ever burned your finger on an iron, Susan? A tender finger like this little one?” And he bends down and puts one of James’s tiny fingers into his mouth and makes as if to chomp it off, but he doesn’t. He just sucks on the finger for a second and leaves James’s hand to fall limply on the bed and then smiles at me with those beautiful white teeth and says “Oh, I wouldn’t do that to James” and then he sighs and looks at me. “Or maybe I would”. And then, quickly he bends over James’s hand and bites off his little finger, and, in a spray of blood, spits it at me.
And my little boy is bucking and rocking and moaning on the bed, and I am sick with terror and grief and rage. I practically faint again, but am saved by a cold awareness blooming inside me that we don’t have much time left. So, without really thinking, I scuttle crab-like along the floor and over to where the iron sits on the floor, heating up. And I grab the handle of the iron with my hands that are tied behind my back and push my back against the wall. And he is on me in a second, pulling me to my feet by my dress, and yelling at me and slapping my face. I can hardly see anything except for James’s blood on his lips.
The iron cord comes out of the wall socket, but I won’t let go of the iron. I don’t care that he’s hitting me. When he holds me back at arms length to see what he has done to my face I spit blood and saliva into his eyes, and for a moment he can’t see and he lets go of my nightdress to wipe his eyes. And in that instant I am triumphant because I have my brief chance. And my body knows with perfect certainty what it has to do, just like in the my old gymnast days on the uneven bars. And I am rocked with a mighty bloody surge of fury and hatred and desperation and triumph as I step back and I swing the iron quickly in an arc over my head, driving its sharp point down hard into his forehead. He falls to his knees and I can see a trickle of blood through the eyehole of the balaclava. I have a tearing pain in my left shoulder but I am still holding the iron and so I push it forward into his balaclava-covered face and blast hot steam into his eyes. He roars with pain and grabs my legs and I nearly fall over, but instead I swing my bound arms up like a golfer, and bring the hot edge of the iron down sharply on his temple. I hear a crack, like an earthenware pot breaking, and then he slumps to the floor.
Eventually, I phone the police, telling them that they better come, now that an actual crime has been committed. After they take the body away, they want to know everything that happened that evening, how I vanquished the man with the perfect teeth, and why he has such terrible burn marks over his face and arms and neck and hands. They want to know how I overcame him. I know in my soul that I won because there was a brief period when he just wanted to watch me, but I wanted to kill him more than anything in the world, and my desire had more power than his. So I said to the police, “I beat him because I was a better watcher than him. A good mother spends many years watching for opportunities to keep her children from danger. And I am a good mother.”
THE COMEDY: Trina of Bognor
In front of Trina, scattered all around the bathroom sink, were bottles, brushes, cotton pads, trays of make-up, tubes of lipstick and lip gloss and lip liner, potions, waxing strips, tweezers, lotions, two empty Smirnoff Ice bottles and other essential beauty products. Tonight, she would really make an impression. She chose the sky blue mascara to match her eyeshadow and a tube of lipstick called Cerise lipstick. She wished her parents had named her Cerise. She was seriously thinking of having her makeup tattooed on her face, lipliner and eyeshadow at least. “Think how much time it would save when we’re preparing to go out!” she said to her best friend Vicky. As Trina stepped back from the bathroom mirror to examine herself more fully, she slipped on her bra lying on the tile floor, and in an unsuccessful effort to stay upright, pulled the towel rail out of the wall. “Fuck!” she shouted. She tossed the towel rail aside and heaved herself upright.
Now, what to wear? She eyed the overflowing laundry basket speculatively. The stuff on the bottom would be rank, she reasoned, but maybe there were a few things on top that would not be too bad. She fished out her denim skirt – acid-washed and fantastic – purchased from Fashion Warehouse three years earlier and rinsed out a coca-cola stain in the sink. Skirt: done. Panties: on or off? Off is generally better, she thought, but she decided to wear panties tonight, because how else would she smuggle her drugs into the club? Hmmm. What else? Her pink Miss Kitty t-shirt did not pass the smell-it-at-an-arm’s-length test and she tossed it on top of the towel rail. Rooting around further, she found her lime green rayon halter top with gold chains across the deep V-cut cleavage and holding it all together in the open back. The chains were excellent quality in that they didn’t leave a stain on her skin unless she’d been lying on them an exceptionally long time. She also liked the fact that it was rayon, reasoning that bacteria couldn’t possible live in what was, essentially, plastic. She wiggled into the halter top and, pressing her stomach in with the palm of her hand and turning sideways, examined herself again in the mirror. “Girl, Cerise, you are hot!” she announced.
As the doors swung open to admit Vicky and Trina to Tommy Archers, the hottest club in Bognor on a Saturday night, a blast of fetid air that was equal parts cigarette smoke, rancid sweat, and vapourized alcohol hit them in the face. They didn’t even notice. The music was pumping and the lights were twirling. “Bastard doorman!” said Vicky. “Making us wait outside when it’s starting to snow. We’re here every weekend. We should have privileges. VIP passes or something.”
“Yeah” said Trina. She couldn’t say much else because she was too cold. But she couldn’t complain either, since Vicky had warned her not to wear her open-toed white sandals, with the matching genuine rhinestone-studded anklet bracelet. She’d had no choice though; she couldn’t find her other best pair of shoes. As it was, she thought perhaps she’d left them in that guy’s car last weekend. Now, what was his name again? And had she walked into her house without shoes? She couldn’t remember.Vicky elbowed Trina in the side, causing one of her white breasts to erupt from her lime green rayon halter top like a beluga whale coming up for air.
“Careful” snapped Trina. “I don’t want that happening so early in the evening.”“He’s here!” hissed Vicky, “In the corner, by the VIP area, drinking the peach Barcardi Breezer.” Chris Mullins with his deep blue eyes but Spanish-looking dark hair made Trina feel all watery, and she asked Vicky for fortification and Vicky set off for the bar, shouldering people out of the way like Jonah Lomu barreling down the rugby field. When she returned, with two double rum and cokes, Trina downed one, in 5.3 seconds, spilling only a little down her cleavage, and snatched the other one out of Vicky’s hand.
“Thanks. Now piss off. I am going to have him tonight!” Trina looked over at Chris and licked her lips. His eyes locked onto hers, and she smiled, but instead of smiling back he turned to his friend and said something. The friend threw a quick look at Trina, visibly shuddered, and then pulled Chris out of view, into the crowd.
“He must be gay.” said Trina. Vicky nodded supportively, even though she couldn’t hear exactly what Trina was saying over the pumping music. The DJ had just put on the Sugarbabes singing Push the Button for a second time, and Vicky grinned at Trina. This was their song, and they were in their special spot, on the small podium, replete with its own pole, at the edge of the dancefloor near the DJ booth. A couple tried to join them on the podium, but Trina was quick to bump the guy off as he tried to pull his girlfriend up. “This is our spot,” said Trina, glaring. “There’s not enough room for you.”
“Yeah!” said Vicky.
“Whatever” said the boy, and looking at his girlfriend said “Let’s leave these heifers”, as they maneuvered off into the crowd. “That girl swallows E faster than a seal swallows fish.”
“What’s a heifer?” asked Vicky.
Trina just shrugged her shoulders, and said “I think it’s someone who inherits a lot of money.” Then she began rummaging in her underwear. “Time for an E or three?” she asked. Vicky stiffened to attention like a dog just about to be fed its dinner.The E’s were strong – every so often Trina would blow her dealer, just to make sure he kept giving her good ones – and the girls were feeling fine as they strutted and pranced on their little stage. Trina’s eyes stung a little. She’s forgotten that her blue mascara was not waterproof and it was now dripping into her eyes with her sweat. Her long curly hair was plastered to her neck and shoulders and the waistband of her denim skirt had darkened. Sweat was pooling in the creases of her body, particularly around her belly. Her feet felt slippery in her sandals. Still, Trina danced some more. She was as cooked as the Christmas goose.
“Hey, Vicks” said Trina, “I want to do it like the real pole dancers do. I want to hang by my legs from the pole, and maybe smoke a cigarette while I’m hanging upside down.” Vicky was oblivious. Trina stubbed her cigarette out, and put her drink down on the edge of the podium. Then she grabbed the pole and swung herself upside down for a brief moment, just long enough for rayon lime green halter top with the gold chains across the open back and the deep V cut cleavage to come tumbling down over her head. It was much harder than Trina had expected, and her arms began to tremble immediately, so she swung her legs down again, clipping Vicky hard on the ear with the edge of her sandal, before awkwardly finding her feet. But could see nothing; her halter top was tangled over her head, the gold chains caught firmly in her hair. She screamed to for Vicky for help, and then stepping sideways, fell off the podium on top of Chris Mullins. The last thing she remembered was Chris Mullins saying “God, I’m being attacked by a kraken!”“How do you feel?” asked Vicks, after Trina had thrown up for the third time. They were lying on Trina’s bed eating cold Kentucky Fried Chicken. “It really was nice of Chris Mullins to drive us home, considering.”
“Oh God, Vicks, he called me a kraken.” They had looked it up the previous night when they’d got home. “Am I really like a giant sea monster?” She sobbed into her terry cloth bathrobe, spattered with miscellaneous food and make-up stains.
“Yeah, but look on the bright side, Trintron. At least he’s definitely gay. And he said his boyfriend would fix your hair, if only you would promise to never to wear acid wash denim or lime green rayon ever again.”
“Well, that is something I suppose. Do you think he has any straight brothers?”
THE FANTASY: Orson Hatch
Orson Hatch sat in the brown chair, the coarse backing of the worn fabric prickling his arms. Dr Carson sat opposite him and regarded him coolly with her blue eyes. “So, Orson, you were brought here when you attacked…” she looked down at her notes “… a Mr Penfold, right outside the Bringham Elementary School. The children were apparently quite frightened when you started to punch his head against the pavement.”
Orson shrugged and looked out the window where the rain spattered against the windowpane.
“You said at your hearing that Mr Penfold was evil,” continued Dr Carson. “What did you mean by that?”
He’d been here in the Ambleside Psychiatric Facility for six days. This was his first consultation with the psychiatrist. “Cold fucking bitch!” he’d thought, as soon as he saw her. Carson consulted her notes.
Orson sighed. “He was wearing a suit, but he was watching the little girls…”Dr Carson shifted in her seat but didn’t take her cool eyes off Orson. Outside a truck horn sounded, followed shortly afterwards by the rattling sound of a metal gate being drawn back and men shouting. She signaled irritably for Orson to continue.
“And, you know…” said Orson. The air was stuffy and stale, smelling faintly of disinfectant and sadness, of institutional laundry soap and lost hope. It was too hot. “What’s the story?” he asked. “How long will you keep me here?”
“As long as it takes to figure out whether you’re mentally ill or not, and what to do with you.”
Orson blanched. He had no job, and no fixed address. It was not his first offence. The court judge, a kindly black woman, had been lenient in sending him here, he knew.“You don’t understand,” said Orson. “Go back to your sad little life with your two cats and your detective novels and your frozen dinners and your black vibrator.”
Dr Carson’s cold blue eyes snapped to attention, like an electric shock upon him.
“How did you know I have two cats and that I read detective novels, Orson? Or that my vibrator was black?”
Orson woke with his tongue feeling thick and sour, as though someone had replaced it with a rancid chicken breast. He was in an empty white room with diffused light and was strapped into what seemed to be a dentist’s chair, with thick yellow nylon bands around his wrists and ankles. The wall in front of him was covered by a giant mirror, and there was a green metal door set into the middle of the wall on Orson’s right.The metal door hissed open and two men in their early forties entered the room. One was bald and the other had sandy brown hair, thinning at the temples. They both wore white lab coats. The bald one said “Hello Orson. I am required by federal law to tell you that you have been detained by the ONS and that I am Dr Smith and this is Dr Jones.”
“Office of National Security?” said Orson.
“So you know about the Office of National Security then?”
“I’ve heard of it” said Orson. “Why am I here?”
“A more interesting question” said Dr Smith looking quickly at Dr Jones before returning his eyes to Orson’s face, “is how you’ve heard of the ONS when we are a secret organization.”“This is illegal. Let me out of here!” shouted Orson.
“No, I assure you, it’s not illegal.” said Smith. “And anyway it wouldn’t make any difference if it were.” Smith’s voice dropped and slowed, forcing Orson to pay close attention. “Dr Carson, one of our civilian plants, flagged your case to us. You may have powers of great interest to the government. You will be well treated here. If you cooperate.”
“And if I don’t?”
Smith nodded at Jones, who closed his eyes. All of a sudden Orson felt worse than he’d ever felt before, as if there were a hot knife burning and cutting the flesh behind his eyes, as if insects were crawling under his skin and his blood were starting to freeze. He yelled and bucked in his restraints and then passed out.
Orson drifted in and out of awareness for what seemed like a long time, before eventually waking on a soft bed in a little furnished room. He lay on the bed trying to muster his thoughts and energies, but he felt drained and foggy, as though he’d just come out of a 4 day meth binge. He struggled to attention though when the door to his room hissed open, admitting a woman. She was slightly fat, but pretty, with a scattering of freckles across her nose. “Hello Orson. I’m Clara Parker, ONS’s top ranking telepath. I’ve been asked to assess you.”Orson tried to sit up but his head felt funny and lifted his hand to his head and felt a structure like a metal mesh around the back of his head. “Oh, that’s The Inhibitor,” said Clara. “It’s why you feel so foggy. I will turn it off, but don’t try anything Orson” she warned. “I mean you no harm, but if you try anything I will tweak your neocortex so hard that you feel like you are having electroshock therapy without sedation, and you will lose control of your bowels. And I really, really, really don’t like having to do that to anyone.”
Orson nodded. Clara fished a blue remote control out of her pocket, pointed it at Orson and pressed the button. All of a sudden, the fog that had been clouding Orson’s mind lifted, and he felt more vitally awake then he’d ever felt before.
“Welcome back,” said Clara. She smiled. Orson knew that this woman was telling the truth when she said she meant him no harm. “May I scan you, please?” she asked.
“Where are the others?” asked Orson.
“Oh, they won’t come in here with you uninhibited since you kicked Jones out of your mind three days ago and fried one of his frontal lobes. He’s been having seizures every couple of hours since then. He was a Level 3, so that’s an impressive achievement on your part, even if it was unintentional. The ONS hierarchy is very upset. And worried.”“Hmmm” said Orson, looking around the room. There was a bed, a closet, a toilet and shower nook, and the chair that Clara sat in. Against the wall was a TV screen, and on the bedside table an iPod in a Bose speaker. There was no window, and the only door was the metal door, now shut, that Clara had come through. He was comfortable, but he was imprisoned.
“For the record,” said Clara, “And I told the ONS management this, it was not your fault. Jones had no business rampaging unannounced through the mind of anyone, let alone a raw telepath, without warning. It was arrogant, and cruel. And ultimately very foolish. Now, may I please come in?”
Orson nodded. Clara closed her eyes and Orson felt a soft wave caress the inside of his skull. His awareness telescoped inwards and he felt various images, memories, thoughts and sensations being shuffled in his mind, like a magician fanning an arc of playing cards from one hand to the other. Every so often a card would shine brighter, for example, a his memories of the incident with Mr Penfold outside the school, or an incident from his early childhood when Orson realized that his foster parents intuitively realized that he knew their minds and they became afraid of him. But this all raced through his mind so quickly, thousands of experiences and memories and thoughts, so that it was like one flickering great parade of his life. Eventually he became aware that his conciousness was returning to normal and he opened his eyes, wondering how long he’d been in the trance. Clara sat in front of him with her eyes closed, not moving, but her voice spoke inside his head and said “I’m finished now Orson. A little over 2 hours by the way.” She opened her eyes, and smiled at him, friendly as before, but with something new in her face, showing, thought Orson. Some kind of new appreciation and a slight wariness.
“The ONS estimates that the incidence of usable telepathy out there in the general population is about 1 in every 5 million. You are definitely one of the few. You’ll notice I didn’t say ‘lucky few’. It’s really more of a curse than a blessing, especially these days”
“What do you mean?” asked Orson.
“I’m sorry. I’ve said more than I should. I have to leave you now and that means that I have to enable The Inhibitor again. If you need me, or anything else, just press that blue button on the wall by your bedside table and speak. I will come straight away.” He held his hand out to her and she got up and walked over to him. “Goodbye for now, Orson. Try to rest,” she said. She took his hand and immediately inside his head he heard her voice, urgent and fierce, “Exercise your mind by fighting against The Inhibitor. You are stronger than you know.” Then she left.
Orson spent the next 3 days struggling with the fog imposed on him by The Inhibitor. He found that he could somehow partition his awareness, to keep a kernel of sharpness inside the fog that he cultivated and grew. On the fourth day Clara came to his room with Dr Smith and four other people. He knew before that something was up because he could feel the power of The Inhibitor being turned up but he was able to safeguard his awareness and core mind-strength. With that he watched the people as they came into his room. Clara looked nervous, Dr Smith looked determined and fierce and the other four people looked frightened. He was taken to the same room as before and strapped down into the chair. He watched from within. Clara’s mind was masked and she did not speak to him. Once he was strapped into the chair again, the four new people, two men and two women, sat in a row of chairs against the wall and closed their eyes. Orson felt a light web of something settle on his mind. Dr Smith pointed a remote at Orson and turned down the power of The Inhibitor a little. “Orson! You should be able to understand and react to me now,” he said. “Will you use your considerable powers to assist the ONA and the government, or will you not? That is the choice facing you today, right now in this chair.”“What does cooperation entail?” asked Orson.
Smith explained that it entailed a program of directed spying in the interests of national security, and work to develop telepathy as an offensive and defensive strategic weapon. “It also involves working with other co-opted telepaths and the management of ONS to identify and eliminate the threat of rogue and noncooperative telepaths out there in the population.
Orson didn’t need his telepathy to tell him that this was all wrong, wrong, wrong. He felt the menace, like a spider crawling around the ventricles and chambers of his heart. He looked at Clara’s blank face and detected signs of stress and unhappiness behind it. And he remembered her urgent warning. “Why is Clara masking? And who are these other people?” he asked.
Smith said irritably “Next to Clara and Dr Jones, who is still nonoperative, thanks to you, they are our most senior telepaths. They are here to restrain you. Clara’s here as an observer and to help if things get out of hand again. If, for example, you try to fry someone else. But Clara’s been relieved of any direct responsibility for your case.”
Orson decided to try something. He let a shoot from the kernel of power within him grow towards the surface, and teased a tiny whole in the fog and then again in the web placed on his mind by the four ONS telepaths. Orson watched them as he did this; one of them stirred in her seat, and her mouth twitched, but otherwise there was no reaction. They sat placid, and closed-eyed. He then sent a shielded enquiry to Clara, who started from her chair before Orson heard her voice shouting in his head. “Orson, free yourself and destroy them all! They want to enslave us! Use your power!”
Smith’s eyes widened with alarm and he pointed the remote at Orson, but Orson felt a mighty surge of energy within him and he tore through The Inhibitor’s fog. It couldn’t hold him any more. The chain of telepaths was more difficult; he didn’t want to hurt them. Already they’d gone rigid on their chairs as he was trying to gently disentangle himself from their web. Meanwhile, Smith had leapt over to Clara and slapped a hypodermic syringe in her neck. She crumpled onto the floor. Then Smith advanced on Orson, strapped in his dentist’s chair, with another hypodermic syringe in his hand. Orson entered Smith’s mind and made his hand shake until he dropped the syringe. Suddenly, Orson knew instinctively the full scope of his power. As he quickly disabled Smith’s limited telepathic abilities, he was interested to see how much of Smith’s hatred and fear of telepaths was due to jealousy. Orson then took control of Smith’s motor functions and made him untie the yellow nylon restraints that bound Orson to the chair. He scanned Clara. She was unconscious, but fundamentally ok, though he felt sick to feel how worried she was; her cooperation with the ONS had been motivated by threats to her family. The ONS had abducted her sister. Orson resolved to disable the ONS completely, and also the mentality that led to its establishment. He would make it his life’s work.
Clara and Orson sat outside in a sunny restaurant courtyard, drinking a peppery Californian zinfandel with a few pieces of a margherita pizza left between them. “So Orson,” she said “since the outreach website went up six weeks ago, we’ve had 383 hits, and 7 proactive enquiries, one of whom seems to be a true telepath. Trudy flew to Miami yesterday to meet her.” Trudy Fischer had been one of the four coopted telepaths that tried to restrain Orson. “An old Cuban lady, very isolated for most of her life. Afraid of the voices in her head. When Trudy explained what the voices were, Mrs Mendoza asked if Trudy could fix her.”Orson shook his head and smiled. He then told her that he and the other telepaths that he and Clara had assigned to defense had identified three more government officials who knew of the ONS’s work on telepathy. They had caused the officials to destroy any relevant files, and had then selectively wiped their memories. “We are still learning how to be more effective, of course. Our operational range remains short. But we’re working on harnessing each other’s abilities to cooperatively project our active range. We may be ready to scan the CIA or one of the other security agencies within two or three months. And most importantly, we’ve detected no initiatives against us.”
Orson took a swig of zinfandel, and leaned back in his chair and stretched, face up to the sun. In his mind, he felt Clara’s fingers gently stroke his cheek. “Now Orson, do you really love me?” he heard her voice in his mind. “Let me in, so I can really see!” He heard her laughing. All was well in the world.
posted by Peter at 11:34 AM
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