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Nellie grinned uncertainly and began to shake the throb out of her left leg. She didn’t usually erupt like that. Lt. Neem must have pitched the beeping too high or used too much shock. He was probably putting her through some kind of upgrading, maybe even toughening her for a special assignment. Either that or she was an absolute loser weakling.
Fucking wimp
, Nellie berated herself silently.
You’re a suck, Kinnan, a suck.
She took a long slow breath. It was always difficult when the voltage was increased. Until she adjusted, it was more like fighting the light than riding it.

“Over here,” called Lt. Neem. “We’ll work your right arm for a while.”

Giving her leg a last shake, Nellie headed toward the lieutenant. Things felt okay again, the burn in her calf muscle substantially decreased, and anyway, she would be working her right arm now. Arms were easier than legs — they moved quicker and took less effort. Less shock. Lt. Neem knew her limits, when to push and when to lay off. Coming up beside him, Nellie gave him a grin, surer now the pain had subsided.

“Okay?” asked Lt. Neem, smiling back.

“Okay,” said Nellie, and held out her right arm for the electrodes.

“NOW, NELLIE,”
said Westcott, his voice coming through the speaker in her right ear. “I want you to take all the thoughts and problems you brought with you from Advanced and put them into the sailboat and send it over the horizon.”

“Okay,” said Nellie dreamily, pressing her finger against the loose screw in the Relaxer’s arm. Heaving a final rock at the brightly painted sailboat in her mind, she watched it keel onto its side. She was still trying to figure out how to handle this session. When she’d walked through the door, a filing cabinet had suddenly opened in her head and a memory of the previous session had popped out — Westcott’s gasp as she’d remembered the shorn-headed girl from her dreams. Funny how she’d forgotten about that until now. Why would she have filed it?

Anyway, she hadn’t made up her mind whether Westcott could read her thoughts with the Relaxer helmet or not, but if he could, it would be best to continue her usual mental routine so he wouldn’t get suspicious.

“Is the sailboat gone?” purred the amiable voice in her ear.

“Gone,” Nellie affirmed sweetly. “Gone, gone, gone.”

Westcott heaved a barely audible sigh. “I want you to relax, Nellie. Just let yourself slide deep underwater where you will float like a fish, quiet and dreamy. Remember you can breathe underwater, so you’re completely safe. Are you floating?”

“Yes,” said Nellie, imagining herself as a silver-nosed shark, a breed so vicious it was known to have sunk its teeth into small boats. “Floating like a fish.”

“Good,” said Westcott. “Wonderful. Splendid.
Marvelous.
Now let me ask you some silly questions just to keep my paycheck coming in. What’s the color of your bedspread?”

“Blue,” murmured Nellie. She loved this kind of question. She really knew how to drive Westcott crazy with it. “It’s a
middle-of-the-afternoon, three o’clock sky blue with yellow and purple wickawoo birds all over it. Well, maybe not exactly yellow. More like gold with a few bits of orange, and—”

“Hmm,” said Westcott, cutting her off. “And your roommate’s bedspread?”

“Vomit green,” said Nellie as dreamily as she could manage. “With bits of puke orange and lots of other gag colors.”

“Ah ha,” commented the psychiatrist knowingly. “And what about the barrier curtain of the Mind Cleanser in your dorm?”

“Burgundy,” said Nellie.

“
Just
burgundy?” asked the psychiatrist after a pause.

“Burgundy, all-the-time-burgundy,” said Nellie. “Burgundy when you go in and burgundy when you come out, and burgundy even when you just think about it sitting there in the dark, the color of dead blood waiting to get you.”

“Mm-hmm,” said the psychiatrist, interest edging his voice. “Tell me, Nellie, what did you have for breakfast?”

“Think Quick cereal,” said Nellie, keeping her voice neutral as she tried frantically to remember what she’d just said about the Mind Cleanser’s barrier curtain. Sometimes she lost track of Westcott’s game and really started to float, and then such weird things came out of her mouth. The Mind Cleanser’s curtain the color of dead blood?
Focus,
she scolded silently, pressing the tip of her finger hard against the loose screw.

“Okay,” said the psychiatrist. “What’s your favorite shape — square, circle or triangle?”

“Rhomboid,” said Nellie. “Or hexagon. Or just a very weird scribbled shape that’s very non-geometric.”

There was a pause. “Nellie,” said the psychiatrist. “I want you to go deeper. Float deeper, deeper. Relax and let your thoughts come without
thinking
them. Are you floating deeper?”

“Uh-huh,” said Nellie, slowing her speech and trying to slur it. “Deeeeper.”

“That’s better,” said Westcott. “Now, who is your favorite instructor in Advanced?”

“Col. Jolsen,” said Nellie.

“Do you ever wish he was your father?” asked Westcott.

“No,” said Nellie without thinking. “Parents are irrelevant.”

“Do you remember your mother?” asked Westcott.

A slight twitch convulsed Nellie’s throat and she frowned. Tricky territory. Mothers were more complicated than fathers. What was Westcott after here? After a pause she said, “Not much.”

“Not much?” prompted the psychiatrist.

“Sometimes I almost think I see her when I’m dreaming, but never quite.” It was an honest answer, Nellie thought. She didn’t have to fudge it.

“Do you remember anything she told you?” Westcott’s tone was casual, but Nellie could hear its careful creeping note.

“Like what?” she asked.

“Oh,” said the psychiatrist, “that you were, for instance, a special child. Or a chosen one.”

Deep inside Nellie’s brain, something shifted. “No,” she said, bewildered. “No, I don’t remember anything like that.”

“Have you ever thought of yourself as a child of the Gods?” asked Westcott.

“Of the Gods?” Nellie was stunned outright. Was Westcott out of his absolute friggin’ mind? “Never,” she said flatly.

“Tell me then, Nellie,” said the psychiatrist after another slight pause. “What do you think of the Goddess?”

An image of the floor-to-ceiling statue that stood in the Advanced chapel, hands raised beseechingly to the heavens, leapt to Nellie’s mind. “She is the Great Holy Mother of us all,” she said fervently. “An angel that stands between us and the Gods as intervener.”

“What would you say if someone told you the Goddess was a lie?” asked the psychiatrist slowly. “A sham? Superstition?”

Nellie’s fists clenched. How could Westcott suggest such a thing? Briefly she considered scanning his vibes for irregularities, any intention of blasphemy or sacrilege, then realized he was probably just checking
her
faith for signs of weakness. “I would decimate her with a kick to the right temple,” she said harshly. No one insulted the Goddess.
No one.

“Her?” asked the psychiatrist quickly. “Why did you say ‘her’?”

Nellie was swept with sudden panic. Had she said “her”? Well, what was wrong with that?

“I dunno,” she stammered. “It’s just a word, isn’t it?”

“I said ‘someone’ and you said ‘her’,” said the psychiatrist.

“Oh,” said Nellie, her thoughts racing. She worked so hard to figure out Westcott’s game and cover her ass, but everyone had their weaknesses. Only weakness in Advanced meant the Black Box, or worse — K Block. She had to stay focused, she had to—

“Why did you say ‘her’?” repeated the psychiatrist.

“I don’t know,” Nellie mumbled, jamming her fingertip hard against the tip of the screw.
Get a grip, moron,
she thought.
FOCUS.

“You don’t remember a ... woman telling you the Goddess is all lies and superstition?” asked Westcott.

Again there came the shifting, deep within Nellie’s brain, as if something wanted out. “No,” she mumbled, trying to shove it back down. “No one ever said anything like that to me.”

“Good,” said Westcott heartily. “Wonderful, I’m glad to hear it. That’s
marvelous
news, Nellie. Because you and I both know the Goddess is real, don’t we? We know She is all truth, all light, and all love.”

“Yes,” whispered Nellie, licking the sweat from her upper lip.

“The Great Mother of us all, as you said,” finished the psychiatrist, a smile loud in his voice. “One last question. Have you had any dreams of cutting off your hair yet?”

Why was he back harping on this again? Nellie scowled, then tried to cover it with a dreamy smile. As a matter of fact she had
seen the shorn-headed girl several times since last week’s session, but these images had come to her when she was awake — flashes of the girl’s face, there and gone in her head. Yesterday it had happened twice while she was sitting in Bio-weapons. “No,” Nellie said in her dreamiest tone. “No no no no no.”

“Ah,” said the psychiatrist slowly. “Well, we’ll leave it there for today. Now I want you to float up slowly from the depths of the ocean — slowly, slowly — but first leave everything we talked about today in a small box at the bottom.”

Fat chance
, thought Nellie.

“Are you doing what I said?” asked Westcott, a trifle sharply.

“Oh yes,” Nellie said meekly.

“All your memories of this session are at the bottom of the ocean?” Westcott said.

“What memories?” Meaning it as a joke, Nellie cringed slightly at the psychiatrist’s annoyed intake of breath. “Gone, all gone,” she added, sighing dreamily for emphasis.

Westcott gave her another slight pause. “Bring the sailboat in over the horizon and take out all your Advanced thoughts,” he said a little testily.

“Okay,” said Nellie quietly. “I did it. It’s done.”

“Dr. Juba?” said the psychiatrist. Suddenly the helmet and blinders were being lifted from Nellie’s head and she was blinking in a swarm of light. Her eyes focused on Westcott, watching her from his desk as he played with the mole on his chin. “Okay?” he asked, smiling benignly.

A horde of invisible creepy-crawlies crept up Nellie’s spine. “Yeah, okay,” she said.

“Then we’ll see you next week,” said the psychiatrist.

That evening when she went to use the Mind Cleanser, the burgundy barrier curtain had been removed and a sky blue version installed in its place.

Seven

T
HAT NIGHT
N
ELLIE
dreamed of the shorn-headed girl again. As usual she was with the green-eyed boy, but this time they were outside, walking along what seemed to be a back alley at night. The boy was hovering behind the girl, one hand close to what looked to be a weapon hidden at his hip, and his eyes darted continually about the alley, returning frequently to the back of the girl’s head. Suddenly the girl gave a soft gasp and turned to face the boy. With surprise, Nellie realized she could hear the murmur of the girl’s voice, though not her actual words. As she watched, straining to make out what they were saying, the girl ran a few steps, reached out, and seemed to grope at something in the air. Then she stepped forward and to Nellie’s utter amazement began to change shape, erupting into a figure of light with wings, then shifting rapidly through every apparition imaginable — gargoyle, bird-headed human, even a sky-blue spiral of energy. Finally the girl left form behind completely, and became simply the endless shifting of multicolored light and a wild keening that seemed to reach into the very cells of Nellie’s dreaming body.

Abruptly the dream cut off and Nellie woke to discover a shadowy figure leaned over her, holding a small device to her
forehead. The device emitted a heavy force field that seemed to be pulling at her brain. Immediately Nellie rammed an arm upward, knocking the device from her face. Then she launched herself at the shadowy figure, but it evaded her neatly, leaving her entangled in her bedding.

“Relaaax. Cool your panties,” drawled a voice. Nellie could hear the smirk in it. “I was just doing an exercise for Dr. Westcott.”

“What the fuck kind of exercise was that?” Enraged, Nellie glared at her roommate’s silhouette.

“You’ll have to ask him.” Picking up the device, Tana slipped around the closet at the end of the barricade. The squeak of bedsprings followed as she climbed into bed. “
If
you remember, that is,” she sniggered.

“Of course I’ll remember,” snapped Nellie, soft fear oozing across her brain. “I remember everything that happens to me.”

“You
think
you do,” sneered her roommate and then she was silent, leaving Nellie with the faint beeping of the security alarm and a frenzy of unanswered questions.

NELLIE LET OUT
a whoop as the bell rang, and tossed her gun into the air. It was the end of Weapons class and they’d just completed a fifteen-minute free-for-all with fun guns — plastic pistols loaded with bullets that splattered a washable red dye onto their targets but caused no physical damage. Of the fourteen members in the class, she was the cleanest — only four direct hits. Not bad when she compared herself to Phillip who was drenched, but he got kind of giggly in fun events and lost his competitive edge.

“You are the eye that never sleeps,” he quipped, saluting her with his fun gun. “But remember.” He jabbed a wide splotch across her left arm. “This one’s mine.”

“Oh yeah?” Nellie demanded, jabbing him back. “I could claim half the hits on your back and butt. You’re dead ten times over.”

Phillip grinned, about to reply, when the door to the gym office opened and Col. Jolsen stepped out. “Cadet Kinnan!” he called, beckoning.

“Go take a shower,” Nellie said to Phillip, handing him her fun gun. “Clean off all that death.” Taking off across the gym, she skidded to a stop outside the office door. “Cadet Kinnan reporting, sir,” she said, giving the colonel a quick salute.

“C’mon in.” Col. Jolsen held the door open and Nellie slipped past him, ignoring the uneasy quiver that ran up her spine whenever she had to give someone her back. “Through here,” the colonel said, crossing to a second door at the back of the office. Leading her down a short hallway, he turned into a small room that contained athletic equipment.