Like Mind (20 page)

He gripped the front of my suit with his left hand and pulled back with his right to punch me in the face. I closed my eyes, powerless to stop the inevitable pummeling. I waited for the fist to fall, but it didn’t. I opened my eyes to see an odd look in the eyes of Agent Mustache, he looked almost confused.

Looking down at my body, held captive by his grip, I noticed something odd. He held me with his left hand and my left hand gripped the front of his shirt. His right hand was pulled back to punch me and mine was also cocked to strike. I didn’t recall moving my limbs, but here I was in a Mexican standoff, except with only two people and fists instead of guns.

Agent M pulled back his fist farther, mine moved in response. He gripped me tighter and simultaneously I did the same to him. He glared at me; I felt my face contort into a similar stare. He relaxed his grip and I relaxed mine. He started to look away to his right and I copied him. I didn’t want to, but my body followed his moves exactly. A part of my brain shrieked out that he was about to sucker-punch me. It was an obvious ploy I knew it was going to happen, but that part of my brain couldn’t override the part that was moving my eyes down and away from him.

As soon as my gaze left him the spell lifted and I had control over my limbs again. I let go of his shirt and ducked. His punch barely missed my temple. I kept my eyes off of him and on the ground instead. From there I drove my shoulder up into his gut as hard as I could. The air whooshed out of him with a satisfying grunt. He staggered back.

I risked a look at his feet in time to get a knee to the face. My eyes immediately started watering and my nose bled freely. It was probably a good thing. I closed my eyes and listened for where he was. The clang of his foot on the metal stairwell gave me his location. I lashed out with a kick that landed somewhere on his ribcage. He grunted again. I punched at the sound. The wet smack told me I’d hit his face, the pain in my hand told me it was bone. I followed with the opposite hand, another smack, but no grunt. Just a gurgling sound. I swung again but missed.

Slowly I opened my eyes and wiped the tears away. I looked at Agent Mustache on the ground at my feet. One of his eyes was starting to swell. I guessed that’s where I hit him first. But his neck was indented and purple. I saw him clawing at his throat and silently gasping for air that wouldn’t come. He arched his back and then, finally, went limp.

I threw up in my mouth a little.

I don’t know how long I stood there staring at the mustached corpse on the ground. I was lost until the klaxon sounded. The evacuation had begun. I moved over by the door and looked for a way to prop it open. With nothing else available, I dragged Agent Mustache by the arm and just barely put his digits through the doorway to keep it from latching without making it look open.

“Handy,” I muttered to myself.

While I waited for Anka and Grosskopf to join me I shed the HazMat suit. It had helped me in a desperate time, but I wasn’t very grateful in the way I tore it off. I sincerely hoped to never have to use one again. It might protect from external toxic chemicals, but the internal smell of sweat, body odor and farts made anthrax seem appealing.

Anka stepped through the door a few moments later. She looked at the agent on the ground and then up at me to see my bleeding nose.

“Did you have another seizure?”

I stared at her for a moment, “No! I did not have another seizure. I had to fight that giant man over there and he punched me in the face.”

“Okay, I was just checking.”

I couldn’t stop muttering under my breath as Grosskopf joined us in the stairwell, something about how Anka didn’t think I could fight and she wanted to put diapers on me like a little baby so she could feed me a bottle at nap time. Or something like that. I’m pretty sure Anka didn’t hear most of it, which is a good thing.

She led us down the stairs toward the lab level. I hadn’t seen it on my way up from the main level where the secret entrance led me. We descended under Gas Works Park in the eerie red light of the emergency system and to the sound of the wailing klaxon. I felt a little like Captain Picard and I’d just called a red alert. Engage.

When we got to the bottom of the stairs, Anka pushed open the door. We started to go through when I paused.

“Don’t we need to prop this open?”

“Oh yeah,” Anka laughed at herself in embarrassment.

“Here,” I took off my shoe and wedged it into the doorway.

“Thanks. That would have been bad. We would have been trapped down here.” She laughed again.

“No worries. I’m happy to help.”

I followed them with my one-shoe, one-sock strut. They found the neuroscience lab and walked in. I paused for a moment to reflect on how we’d just infiltrated a top-secret facility with my super powers. Maybe they’d make a comic book out of me.

I was startled when Anka shook me. I had no idea how long I’d been standing there, but she looked worried.

“You coming?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m coming.”

We went into the lab together.

Treatment

It was odd seeing Grosskopf in his element again. Even though it had only been a few days since I last glimpsed him in a lab toying with the brains of innocents, his mouth-breathing manatee face appeared almost wise in the confines of a laboratory. All of the cowering, questioning and nearly dying from gunshot wounds didn’t really help him to project a powerful presence. I’d nearly forgotten that we actually needed him for this mission. He’d sort of faded into a tag-along puppy dog in my mind. Now my life depended on his ability.

That sucked.

Just inside the door of the lab I stopped again. The huge fMRI machine dominated the center of the lab. It stood there behind, what I’m guessing, was leaded glass. The cost of having a shielded fMRI machine behind a wall of glass was a bit staggering to me, but I guess it shouldn’t surprise me since I was in an under-ground super-secret spy base with henchmen and secret entrances. You couldn’t make up this kind of stuff.

Along the walls not filled with a giant magnetron were rows and rows of computers with monitors and gizmos attached to them. Remember, I build computers for a living. I know what most pieces of technology are. This room had stuff I’ve never seen or even heard of. Sure, I was able to identify the centrifuges and I’m pretty sure I pegged the autoclave, but after that it was all buttons and blinky-lights.

“We need to get you into a gown,” Anka took my hand and gently led me to a door next to the fMRI machine.

“Uh…” was about all I could manage to say.

Anka looked worried. She took my arm and glanced over her shoulder at the doctor. I shuffled along beside her happily. Once we got into the anteroom, Anka pointed me toward some flimsy gowns.

“You need to take off your clothes and put on a gown. There’s no metal allowed in the fMRI.”

I just stared at her lips moving. I heard the words, but they didn’t really register until I repeated what she said, verbatim, in her voice. It was tough for me to fight through the fog in my mind. I realized that something was wrong, but I didn’t have the mental powers to figure out what it was.

“Doctor!” Anka called out.

I repeated her cry for help.

“What?” came from the other room, “I’m busy.”

Somehow I even managed to replicate the far-off sound of Grosskopf’s voice as I mimicked his words.

“Something’s wrong. You need to get in here.” Anka’s voice cracked as she said the last part. Mine did too.

In a moment Grosskopf was in the room with us.

“Why isn’t he changed yet? We don’t have much time.”

I understood what he was saying when I finished the words. For some reason I wasn’t moving, but I couldn’t figure out why.

“He’s just repeating everything I say.” Anka held my hand to her chest.

I did what she said.

“Damn. We’re almost too late.”

What? Too late for what? My brain struggled to process the words once I’d said them. They wouldn’t stay. They just kept flittering away as soon as my lips were done moving.

“Too late for what?” Anka read my mind.

“He’s degenerating. He’s losing the power to do anything on his own. If I don’t get started soon he won’t even be able to breathe on his own. He’ll have to watch someone else do it.”

I repeated back the whole explanation. For an agonizing moment it was clear to me, then the fog crept in again.

“Get him changed and into the machine. I need to get the injection ready so his neurotransmitters get back to proper levels.”

I willed my limbs to move as soon as I understood what I needed to do. I strained mentally to lift a house, but my body remained slack. I was probably only still standing because Anka and Grosskopf were. The doctor hurried out of the room and I moved to follow him. Anka pulled on my captive hand, but I kept walking as long as I saw Grosskopf. When the door fell shut, I stopped moving. I wanted to move my head to look at her, I wanted to speak comfort to her, but I only stood there.

Anka came around and stood in front of me. Her tears became mine. But I saw light and purpose behind her fear. Deliberately she reached down and took off one of her shoes. I exactly mirrored her and removed mine. She took of the other shoe. I made the same motion, but had no second shoe to remove. A part of my brain saw where this was going and wanted it to be in a different context altogether. It’s a real turn off when you’re a mindless puppet about to die.

She undid her skirt and let it fall to the floor. I mimicked her and my pants stayed firmly in place. The difference between female and male clothing nearly thwarted her plan. I saw her frustration, but then she reached down and grabbed the bottom of her sweater. I gripped my shirt and we both lifted. I guess she took hers off. I just lifted mine up until it covered my face and then I stopped.

I felt her hands tugging and lifting my shirt from my face. I wanted to help. I tried to help. No memory of how to take off a shirt remained in my mind. I was frozen. Until the moment she pulled the shirt from my arms and, stretching on her tiptoes, off of me. Again, I wished that her nearly naked body pressed against mine could have been in any other context except for this one.

She bent down to work on my pants and I bent down too, nearly knocking her over. I could tell she was getting frustrated, but she kept going. She put one hand over her eyes and the world went away when I mirrored. I felt the pulling and tugging at my waist like it was happening to a stranger. I was wrapped in a cocoon and protected.

Anka pulled my hand away and I found her facing me with a gown held in one of her hands. She’d placed a gown in my hand without me knowing. I matched her, move for move, as she slid her arms through the sleeves of the gown. She turned sideways, so did I, and I could see her hands working the tie at the back of the gown. Just before it closed I saw that she was wearing thong underwear. A slight tingle down south was the only hint that my body could do anything independently. I tied my gown and then matched her pace as we walked back out into the fMRI room. She walked us until we were both standing next to the bed that fed into the gun barrel of the machine.

Again she covered her eyes and took my sight. I felt myself move and change orientation. Time was nothing to me when my sight was gone. I was in a world of fog and fading memories. The part of my brain still able to form coherent thought faded further and further. I feared what would happen when it disappeared completely, but then I stopped caring. A faint burning sensation started in the middle of my chest. Something seemed slightly wrong about it, but I didn’t have the will to do anything about it.

Anka pulled away my hand and I saw her breathing deeply. My lungs filled with air. I saw her breathe and did the same. If she stepped away I stopped breathing.

“Doc! He’s not breathing on his own anymore.”

I called out an echo of her words.

“I’m almost ready, just keep him going.”

The sense of dread in Anka’s voice felt far different from the clinical detachment I felt when repeating Grosskopf’s words.

She looked at me and breathed. I stayed with her, breath for breath, until the whirring of the fMRI machine signified a change. The doctor came out, and told Anka to block my view. I reiterated the instruction. She looked around for a moment, I tried to look too, but the table restricted my movements. She covered her eyes and then I felt a pressure on my waist. When my hand was pulled back, Anka was sitting astride me with her hands next to my face. She looked and me and breathed. I followed.

I felt the doctor messing with my arm, but Anka was my world. That fading mote of consciousness liked it, told me that this was a good, good thing. I think my lips twitched in an attempt to smile.

“Ok, I’ve done it. Move off of him now so I can start the machine and adjust the feedback loop.”

I told her too.

She leaned down to kiss me and turned her head to the left. I mirrored her. She turned, instinctively, to the right. I followed. Finally she just looked at me, took a deep breath and closed her eyes. I breathed deeply and the world went away, but I felt something warm and soft on my face. Then there was nothing. The sound of the fMRI machine dominated the world, became my world. Darkness and whirring noise. Nothing else.