Atlantis Redeemed (34 page)

Litton rounded on him, his eyes bulging. “You do what I say, do you hear me? We don’t have to listen to Devon anymore, that pretender. Jones is in charge now, and he called me not twenty minutes ago and told me to go ahead. You answer to me, you overpriced bodyguard, so do what I tell you or get out.”

Smitty stood calmly through Litton’s tirade, even when the scientist started yelling at him. When Litton finally stopped, Smitty simply nodded. “You’re the boss.”

“Yes, I am. Don’t forget it,” Litton said smugly.

Brennan couldn’t believe that the scientist, supposedly a genius, could be so completely unaware of reality. Smitty was no tame thug. The man could reach out and snap Litton’s neck in an instant. Clearly, Smitty had a reason for being here beyond payment.

Or else the payment was really, really good.

Brennan had money, too. He could work with that kind of motivation if he got another chance to speak to Smitty alone.

He glanced at Tiernan, trying to communicate with his body language and facial expression that she would be safe. She was staring at him with such hopeless defeat that the pain of it knocked him back a step.

“Tiernan, it will be all right. I’ll be back soon, and remember what I told you last night. Have faith in them. Have faith in me.” He stared into her eyes, memorizing every detail.

“Brennan, if they take you away . . .” She stopped and glanced at Litton and Smitty. “You know what will happen. I’ll—I’ll do my best to remind you. To help you remember, okay? Don’t worry.” She offered him a shaky smile of reassurance, and again he was knocked off balance.

She wasn’t afraid for herself. She was afraid for him.

“This is very touching, but I’m afraid it’s time to go,” Smitty said. He nodded to the guards over by the control monitors. “Turn it off.”

They did something, and suddenly the constant buzz of electricity shut down. It was so abrupt that Brennan almost missed his chance. He froze for a moment, but then blasted an emergency call through the mental pathway so loudly that Alexios would surely hear it—unless he’d gone back to Atlantis.

Come now. They have Tiernan and they’re going to try to manipulate our brains. Come now.
He tried to give a visual of their location, but by then Smitty was advancing into the cage, holding out a small metal device.

“Let’s not try anything, shall we?” Smitty said. “You’ll notice that my chums have their guns trained on your lady friend, and they’re all trigger-happy. It’s so hard to get good help these days.”

Brennan tensed, every fiber of his being wanting to pounce, to kill, to rip Smitty’s arms off and use them to beat Litton to death, but Tiernan made a small noise and he turned to see that four of them were all lined up around her cage, pointing their guns at her head and chest.

There was no way they could miss at that range.

He nodded. “Yes, I will go willingly.” He put his hands on top of his head and clasped them together in the universal posture of a prisoner, but then he pinned Smitty with a look that held every bit of his intent. “I will hold you responsible if any of them hurt so much as a single hair on her head.”

Smitty slitted his eyes nearly shut and grunted noncommittally. It was the best he was going to get, so Brennan walked slowly out of the cell. Litton scurried out of the way, careful to stay several paces away from Brennan. So. The man had at least some wisdom.

Before he left the room, he stopped and looked back at Tiernan. “Trust me,” he said.

“I do,” she replied, tears streaming down her face. “With my life.”

Brennan nodded, vowing to Poseidon himself that he would honor that trust. Then he followed Litton out of the room.

They led him only a short way down the corridor to another room, this one enormous, all white walls and gleaming metal, with the astringent smell of chemicals permeating the air. Litton rushed over to a huge chair that dominated the room, all but dancing around it like a pagan preparing for a human sacrifice.

Brennan knew who the sacrifice was going to be. He knew an instant of pure, icy terror, and adrenaline shot through his veins, kicking his fight-or-flight instincts to a frenzied peak. Smitty narrowed his eyes and raised his gun, but Brennan had no fear of the weapon. He had no fear for himself. Every ounce of that terror was for Tiernan, left alone in that cell.

If he died, she would be alone, and she would suffer for it. Therefore, he must live, no matter what they did to him.

He must survive it.

They strapped him into the chair, and he didn’t struggle. Didn’t fight. He sat passively, restraining the rage and the need to kill them all. But he couldn’t completely hide the berserker inside him. Anyone who bothered to look in his eyes saw it and involuntarily stepped back from the intensity of the hatred staring out at them.

Everyone but Smitty. He just nodded, recognizing a fellow predator, and continued strapping Brennan down to the chair.

Litton approached to put the metal helmet on him, and an instant sense of claustrophobia clawed at Brennan, in a way that the hours in a cell had not. He strained at the leather bonds holding him to the chair, suddenly mindless, knowing only that he had to escape, had to find a way, couldn’t let them get to his brain.

One of the guards made the mistake of coming just that fraction of an inch too close, and Brennan reared back and smashed his head into the man’s face. He shouted in triumph at the crunching noise and the guard’s scream, then whipped his head around to where Smitty stood on the other side of the chair.

“Can’t say I blame you, mate, but can’t have that,” Smitty said. Then he lifted his hand and touched the metal box to Brennan and a powerful, painful jolt of electricity seared through his body, arching him off the chair and locking his clenched jaw in place so hard his skull ached from it.

When the buzzing and the pain stopped, Brennan found himself wavering at the edge of consciousness, unable to move or fight. Unable to protect Tiernan, his mind thundered at him.
Failed, failed, failed.

Then Litton laughed and came closer and closer, holding up that godsdamned helmet. “It will be all better soon, Mr. Brennan,” he crooned, as if talking to a child. “All better—for me.”

With that, he slammed the helmet down on Brennan’s head and began attaching electrodes. Brennan tried to struggle again, but his muscles didn’t want to obey his brain’s commands, and after a few seconds, Smitty reminded him of why he must not struggle.

“They’ve still got those guns pointed at your woman. Do you really want to give us a reason?” Smitty’s dead eyes held something for an instant—maybe a flash of empathy—but then it vanished. “You know I’ll give the order.”

Brennan fell back against the chair, and he didn’t move again until they turned on the machine and the electricity shooting into his skull from the helmet sliced his brain into pieces.

He couldn’t help it. He started to scream.

 

 

 

 

The first lightning bolt seared through his mind and Brennan’s consciousness shattered, pulled in so many different directions he couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t find a balance. A kaleidoscope of visions fractured through his mind: Atlantis, Tiernan, Alexios, Tiernan, Conlan and Riley, the baby, Tiernan.

Always back to Tiernan. He knew he had to hold on to her image, to her memory. Must keep her fresh in his mind, no matter what.

“Turn it up,” somebody said, a gleefully evil voice, and he knew the voice, knew the man. It was Litton. Dr. Litton. He was fiercely glad to have found the name, but then the lightning struck again and it vanished.

Someone was shouting or screaming, somewhere close, but it wasn’t until he tried to swallow that Brennan realized it was him. He was screaming. He was in so much pain that it would surely split his skull in two at any moment.

A face appeared in his field of vision and the pain ceased, blessed relief, and then the face spoke, and it was a strange voice, a voice he instinctively hated.

“I’m your friend, Mr. Brennan. I’m here to help you,” said the voice, but the face was wrong, the face was Litton, and Brennan lunged at him, forgetting the restraints.

“Not enough,” the face said, sly and pretending a regret that it did not feel. That Litton did not feel, Brennan reminded himself; he couldn’t lose touch with reality. It was not just a disembodied face talking to him, but that monster Litton, and they still had Tiernan, and he must endure.

Must endure.

The lightning spiked again, screaming through his brain, and he tried to hold on to the faces, to the memories, of his family and his friends. Of . . . the woman. The woman—he saw her face. Her lovely dark eyes and her creamy skin. Her dark silky hair that he longed to wrap around his fingers again, as he once had—Tiernan. He found her name in the fragments of his mind and offered a prayer to Poseidon—no, not Poseidon.

Why would he pray to Poseidon? Poseidon’s curse—something about Poseidon’s curse—

The lightning struck again. And again, and again, and again.

Each time it stopped, the face came back. The face talked to him. Told him it was his friend.

Each time he denied it.

Finally the face grew enraged. Screamed in Brennan’s face. Told the lightning to go to its highest level.

Someone, another voice, said things. Red zone. Danger. Other words that should have had meaning, but the only meaning left was the lightning. The woman. What woman? Had the lightning killed the woman?

The face came back. It was oddly purple and its eyes were bulging. “Remember this. I am your friend, and you will do what I tell you. Can you remember that?”

Brennan could remember nothing, not even the woman. The woman? But a long-dormant memory from a very long time ago came to him and he nodded. “Yes,” he said, but his voice was rusted and ruined and he didn’t know if the face heard the words. “I can remember.”

The face smiled. And then the lightning came again and shattered the entire world until it faded to black.

Brennan opened his eyes, to find that he was lying in a chair. He remembered the chair. The lightning came to the chair. His mind was a muddle of confused impressions and conflicting impulses, torn between the imperative of his oath to Poseidon and the longing to believe the face. No, not the face. Litton. Dr. Litton. Brennan’s friend.

He turned his head and saw Litton, sitting in a chair near a bank of computers, talking to another man. The second man was familiar. Dangerous. Smith. No, Smitty. Smitty. The one to beware.

Too late for that. Sanity slowly, painfully returned, even though his mind remained a fractured nightmare. He knew who he was, and where he was.

He knew he had to play along.

Litton turned and saw that he was awake. He and Smitty got up and crossed the room to stare down at Brennan, who realized he was still restrained in the chair.

“Do you know who you are?” Litton asked.

“Brennan,” he croaked. “Water.”

Litton nodded and one of his flunkies brought water with a straw and allowed Brennan a few sips before taking it away.

“Do you know who I am?” Litton’s gaze sharpened, and he held his breath.

Brennan stared at him for a few long moments, wanting to make it believable. “Litton,” he finally rasped out. “Dr. Litton. My friend.”

Litton’s face transformed and he actually clapped his hands. “I knew it. I knew he would succumb, Smitty!” He clapped Smitty on the back and only Brennan saw the murderous glint that flashed for a second in the mercenary’s eyes.

“Really? I don’t exactly trust it,” Smitty said, staring down at Brennan. “Seems a bit too convenient.”

Litton snorted. “Convenient? You fool, you know nothing about science. No human has ever needed this much before. He took as much as the strongest shifters we’ve had in here. Whatever mutant anomaly he happens to have in his brain, we’ve overcome it. He’s ours.”

The man reached out and actually caressed the side of Brennan’s face, and it took everything in two thousand years of discipline to keep him from biting a chunk out of Litton’s hand.

“Aren’t you, Mr. Brennan? My friend?” Litton said, again in that crooning voice that made the bile rise in Brennan’s gut.

The effects of the machine had caused him to be so nauseous that he wanted to vomit. He smiled instead. “Yes. My friend,” he said, his voice a little stronger. “Sleep now?”

“Yes. You should sleep now. We have your quarters all prepared for you.” Litton nodded at Smitty, who ordered a guard to unfasten Brennan’s restraints.

They helped him up, but Brennan noticed Smitty and another guard stayed well back, out of his reach, even though they were again pointing their guns at him. They had to help him walk at first, but he managed to stumble his way back across the corridor.

When they entered the same room where he’d stayed all night, he realized they were putting him back in the cell. “Cell?” he said, balking at the doorway. “Not a room? Need a bed.”