Arcadian's Asylum (23 page)

He would soon find out.

They were across the first empty strip of land within minutes, Ryan and Krysty allowing Tod to dictate pace and action as he knew the land. They moved through another sector at an equally fast pace, neither of them realizing at that moment that they passed the building where Jak was talking to Mildred and Doc. It wouldn’t have mattered. There was no time to waste. Once they passed another barren area they were into the sector where J.B. was billeted. As they went, Tod told them in a hushed whisper that this sector ringed the whole of the ville. The people here were the most malleable, and so the least likely to cause disruption or run. There were some exceptions, he added, without clarifying.

Here, it was quieter still, and easier than anywhere else to hear the sec patrols. Avoiding them was relatively simple. Progress was swift, and they were soon into the undergrowth that surrounded the ville, moving from the sparse woodland into thickets that were mangrovelike in their density. It was familiar territory to Ryan and Krysty.

“Arcadian has cultivated this with plant life that he has that bastard Andower work on in his labs. There were rumors of man-plant mutie hybrids they were working on there, to patrol here with greater stealth. Nothing came of it that we’ve seen, but it wouldn’t surprise me if the coldheart gets it right one day,” Tod whispered with a shudder. “Wait here,” he added, gesturing them to stay.

Ryan and Krysty obeyed, but not without a glance of caution passing between them. Tod disappeared into the undergrowth, and they heard a soft cawing in imitation of a nightjar. It was answered from a direction to
the east of his position. Minutes passed in which they waited silently, straining for telltale sounds. There was only the softest of rustlings that broke the quiet of night, and that when it was almost on top of them. Ryan had the panga to hand, figuring a blade for better use in the silence, when he relaxed as Tod appeared through the leaves, followed by two men in ragged clothing. They looked as gaunt and worn as the men the companions had encountered a few days before.

“This is them, then,” one of the men rasped without ceremony. “Good men you chilled the other day, you know that?”

Ryan nodded. “Them or us. No time to ask questions. No apology, but not something we did willingly,” he answered in a steel-edged tone.

“Mebbe too quick,” the man returned. He was tall and wasted-thin, his shirt hanging from him. The other had stronger musculature, and was perhaps not so strung-out from hiding so long. He stepped in, coming between the gaunt-eyed rebel and Ryan.

“Us or them, them or us, what’s the difference?” he snapped. “We didn’t know them any more than they knew us. Makes them more impressive and useful, in my mind. So let’s cut the shit and talk about what we need.”

His tone bespoke of leadership, and the gaunt-eyed man reluctantly deferred. In tones that were kept low, with one ear kept permanently on alert for movement in the otherwise still and silent mangroves, they spoke rapidly. Ryan and Krysty quickly learned that the rebel force was small—and was having trouble keeping itself together as a unit. Constantly on the move to
avoid being tracked down by the sec patrols, and unable to forage much from the mangrove because much of the foliage was poisonous from genetic modification and natural mutation, they had to snatch food from the ring sector, and take water where they could find it.

“We’re not fighters by nature or experience,” the rebel leader explained, “that’s not the way the baron likes us to live under his munificence. So we have to pick it up as we go, and pray the sec—who do get that kind of training—can’t pick us off before we’ve learned. We need help from experienced fighters, both to train us and to unite the rebels on the inside.”

“You know how much time that could take?” Ryan asked him. “And you know how much time we’ll have?”

“You’re not going anywhere,” the rebel replied.

“Mebbe not,” Ryan countered, “but there’s more attention focused on us than mebbe anyone else. Keeping clear of that and doing what you ask—it won’t be long before someone catches on. Arcadian may be a lot of things, but stupe he isn’t.”

“Yeah, but he’s an arrogant fucker. He doesn’t think we’ve got the balls or the skills to do anything. Well, he’s right about the last one, but you can give us those. Fuck, we got the first. ’Sides which, you think you’d really take this shit for long before wanting to hit back?”

Ryan considered what the rebel said. “Mebbe you’re right. Guess we wouldn’t want to be around here too long. And mebbe working with you gives us a better chance, just like it does you.”

“Exactly,” the rebel agreed. “We might as well work together. It more than doubles what we could do alone.”

Ryan nodded. “You’ve got a deal. Now let’s plan our next moves.”

They spoke hurriedly as time was running short before it was necessary to return. A training session was set for two nights from then, with the time in between spent making contact between the other companions. The rebels would also use their communication lines to spread word of what was to occur. Perhaps, if those not ready to run with the rebels could see what was coming, they might be persuaded to become more active.

By this time, the horizon began to grow lighter as sunrise approached, and with hurried farewells and affirmations of intent, the rebel duo returned to hiding while Tod led Ryan and Krysty back the route they had come.

It would be a hard day, getting by in Alex’s sector with no sleep, but the adrenaline of knowing that action was near might just keep them together.

“SIMPLE P AVLOVIAN experimentation. Crude, nasty, potentially dangerous. A splendid way to spend your day,” Doc grumbled under his breath as he and Mildred stood in the center of the warehouse block that had been hollowed out and painted a brilliant white. At least, it had once been brilliant white. The walls and floor were now smeared with dirt and grime, with stains that could have been dried blood ineffectively wiped and blotted into the stone floor and walls.

Perhaps not as ineffective as it seemed. Mildred looked at the others huddled in the early-morning chill, and could see that some of them were eyeing the stains with barely disguised foreboding. These marks held meaning for them. Was it part of the experiment?

Come to that, what was the experiment in which they were unwilling participants? Roused from their beds before dawn—glad that Jak had departed—Doc and Mildred had been shepherded through the streets, where others had been corralled to join them. Their collectors kept up a nonstop stream of constant and nonsensical chatter. The point of it at first escaped Mildred. It was Doc, with the lateral thinking of the borderline mad, who tumbled to its purpose.

“The noise stops us thinking of anything other than what it may mean, or will they please shut the fuck up and give us peace,” he had murmured to her. “Also gives us no chance or space in which to ask questions. Simple but effective, is it not?”

And so they had been herded into the building. It seemed from the outside like any other on this sector building. The inside was different. The space and white made it seem larger on the inside than out, which was immediately disorienting. The group of twelve was split into six pairs who were placed in different sections of the floor space. It seemed to make little sense to Mildred until she looked down, and could see that there were lines on the floor—faint, and in a different shade of white made even more indistinct by time—that formed irregular boxes.

Then it had started. The chill: colder than outside, she was sure, and maybe from an old air conditioner unit? It came in bursts. As did the sudden, blaring noise from speakers that she could see up in the shadowed ceiling. Then the commands, barking at random: one pair ordered to move, then another. A bell interspersed between some of the commands. And some of the pairs
that moved were hit with high-pressure hoses, the likes of which Mildred hadn’t seen for some time. It was a testament to the levels of tech Arcadian fostered, if not his charity. The water sluiced the floor, forming runnels around the feet of those who hadn’t been targets, leaving those who had been knocked from their feet, bruised and chattering as the cold bit through their damp clothes. The fear and confusion as to who would be next spread across the floor like the water.

Then Doc had spoken, and Mildred fell in with him, the fug of confusion and disorientation falling from her.

“The bell,” she murmured. “Simple. And no imagination. Straight from…not even the book, just some vague summary someone once heard of and then passed on half-remembered,” she continued with a heavy humor that she was far from feeling.

“Why this is necessary escapes me,” Doc returned, “but when in Rome it may be more politic to play along and get out quick.”

They stood in the oppressive and tense silence that followed each burst, waiting for instruction. As yet they hadn’t been ordered to move. In truth, they had been the only pair who hadn’t. Was it because they were here to observe, even though they had no assurance of that? Or was it that they were being tested more than the others for their ability to stand up to the stresses of waiting and wondering?

The pauses between the bursts of action were irregular, and in this nerve-shredding elongated silence, Doc looked around. In the far corner, he could see the woman he had spoken to the previous day. She was wet and miserable and seemed ill at ease. No real surprise. He
kept looking at her, willing her to turn to see him before the next burst of instruction.

Force of will or act of chance he neither knew nor cared, but she did turn and saw him standing in the distance. Their eyes locked across the divide, and he raised one hand slightly, making the gesture of ringing a bell, hoping she would be able to understand. Or that her vision wasn’t poor at distance. She seemed—with his own eyes it was hard to tell—to nod shortly.

It was gesture that was unnecessary in light of what happened next. A burst of white noise, followed by barked orders for three pairs, one of which was Doc and Mildred. Theirs was the only one preceded by a bell. They obeyed and moved. The other two pairs vacillated. One man tried to move, restrained by the hand of his companion, but that still wasn’t enough to save them from the high-pressure water jets. The other pair moved in confusion, and were likewise knocked back. Doc cast a look over his shoulder, and could see his unnamed friend watch them carefully, whispering to her companion.

The experiment—to call it thus was almost a euphemism for the torture, or so it seemed to Doc—continued for some time after that. Gradually, all the pairs seemed to get the point, and it was only when they had all completed the maneuvers successfully that the experiment ceased. The doors opened and beckoned by their shepherds, waiting outside, the pairs gratefully exited. Bedraggled and exhausted, but glad of the respite.

Outside, the pairs once again came together in a group as they were herded back toward their respective
quarters. The purpose in treating them as animals was obvious: the disorientation of the experiment added to this pack treatment to test their self-esteem. Nasty, Doc thought, but understandable from the point of the view of the sector leaders. Also a big mistake, as they couldn’t have realized that this would give Doc and Mildred the chance they needed to make contact.

“I see why you would wish to play to different rules,” Doc murmured, edging close to the woman in the midst of the pack.

She looked around carefully before answering. “Indeed. Your grasp of the rule changes this morning was good, and gratefully received.”

“My pleasure,” Doc said softly. “Perhaps a discussion on drawing up a new game could proceed?”

“Later. We know where you are. Wait for us tonight.”

“Very good,” Doc agreed before putting distance between them, murmuring a few words to others in the group that were of no consequence but would put any observer off the scent, before relaying the message to Mildred.

“Another sleepless night,” she said wryly. “Time was that I’d say it’d tell on me. Those were the days.”

“Weren’t they just,” Doc replied.

They passed the rest of the day in expectation of what was to come. It was hard not to let their impatience show, but as it was impossible in that sector to determine the shepherds from the sheep, it was imperative to go about their business with no sign of anticipation. For Mildred, a series of psychological tests with colors and shapes was rendered more dull than she could have imagined. The only thing keeping her attention focused
was to wonder if any of the other eight people undertaking the experiment with her were likely to be on their side come the night.

Doc, on the other hand, was happy to let his mind wander as he had to take part in a bizarre experiment involving the dissection of a chilled frog, followed by an identical dissection on one that was living. Until he heard the piercing and weirdly human scream of the agonized amphibian, he had no idea that frogs could vocalize in such a manner. Beyond sadism, he couldn’t see how the experiment could prove anything. Testing the reactions of those involved was surely rendered false by the fact that those present wouldn’t wish to show signs of weakness under such a situation and would so maintain a front, no matter how artificial. The double-think of this sector could, if he considered it too much, drive him to despair and a permanent craziness.

But no: to focus on the night, and the creation of an escape route, was more than enough to distract him.