Mobius (2 page)

I opened my eyes. I was slumped in a comfortable chair in a large room. A dozen unkempt and sickly-looking people sat around me. They wore identical green outfits. I suspected they too were patients of the sanitarium. Some sat unconscious, while others spoke in low, weary voices.

Four white orbs hovered at the ceiling. I watched as one descended upon a male patient and scanned him against his will. He tried to resist, but another descended and placed him in a gravity restraint.

This place is a nightmare
, I thought.

Then I saw her. She was beautiful. She returned my gaze, smiled, and then approached. She had blonde hair, a spare frame, and large blue eyes. I didn’t know what to say.

“Hi... I mean... hello.”

“I’m glad you’re awake, Theron.” Her voice was soft and soothing.

I paused awkwardly. “Who are you?”

“I’m Mage. I kept you company while you slept and stimulated your mind with conversation, though it was I who did all the talking.”

“Thank you,” I said. “Are you an orderly?”

She laughed. “I’m like you, Theron.”

“You’re a patient?” I said in surprise.

“I am.”

“You’re too pretty to be—” I winced.

“To be what? Crazy?” Mage smiled, and then touched my face in a caring gesture. “Are you feeling better?”

Her touch comforted me. “I am now. How long have I been asleep?”

“Many days.”

Before I could ask more questions, a young man with darting eyes and a thin face approached. “She’s been fawning over your catatonic body the entire time.”

“Ridiculous, Sensimion,” said Mage. “I merely kept Theron comfortable since the orderlies neglected him. They’re only concerned with changing his soiled clothes and forcing food down his throat with a tube.”

Sensimion pointed to other individuals slumped around the room. “There are many needy invalids in this shit-hole. Why was Theron the only one deserving of your special treatment?”

Mage raised her nose. “Enough of your jealousy, Sensimion.”

I grabbed Mage’s hand in an attempt to capture her full attention. I looked around the room neurotically. “I’ve been molested in horrible ways!”

Sensimion laughed. “He’s talking about the sphincter beast.”

“Must you call it that? It’s such a disgusting name.”

“A disgusting name for a disgusting beast,” replied Sensimion.

Mage brushed my hair from my forehead. “Theron, don’t worry about the rehabilitation vesicle. It’s merely a device to help us become well.”

Sensimion leaned forward secretively. “This is what the doctor and orderlies tell us, but I believe its true purpose to be something much more malevolent.”

Mage shook her head. “Don’t listen to Sensimion. He’s a paranoid mess.”

“I don’t understand,” I said. “Why can’t I remember my life before this place?”

“It’s the nature of the process,” said Mage. “We’re all here to be treated for mental illness, and by erasing our memories when we arrive, we start fresh. There are no past experiences left to corrupt our sanity. The rehabilitation vesicle is then used to reshape our minds, removing any predisposition for deviant thought. After a treatment, the mind is overwhelmed and the patient goes into a catatonic state.”

“Am I now cured?” I asked. “Will I be allowed to leave soon?”

“Not a chance,” said Sensimion. “Like all of us, you’ll continue your treatments in the sphincter beast, unless you can find a way past the main portal of this madhouse and escape.” Sensimion indicated a large archway at the other side of the room. “As you can see, the archway generates a force field. It can discriminate the DNA of a person and allow only authorized people to pass through.”

“And what lies beyond the threshold of the archway?”

“The doctor has told us the sanitarium’s hidden within the vacant sublevels of a MegaCity, away from any people who may find such a facility compromising to their communities.”

I felt a chill when Sensimion mentioned the doctor. “There’s something unnatural about the doctor. I don’t know what it is, but an unsettling aura surrounds him. His presence is oppressive on the mind. Do you sense this also?”

Sensimion tapped at his temple. “He’s an overbearing man forcing his strange medicine on us. As far as sensing some kind of oppressive aura from his person, I don’t. Nonetheless, your conviction seems genuine. I’ll pay more attention the next time he carries his ugly fucking head into my presence.”

“I’ve had no such feelings,” said Mage. “It’s probably just your weakened mind playing tricks on you, Theron.”

“Maybe,” I said. I heard a loud computer tone. “What’s that?”

“That’s the signal for us to return to our sleeping quarters,” said Sensimion.

Mage kissed me on the cheek. “I’ll see you tomorrow. Sleep well.”

I’ll never sleep well in this place,
I thought
.

Weeks passed. I became sluggish from a routine of eating and sleeping. My only pleasure came from conversations with Sensimion and Mage in the congregation room. At night, I pushed my thoughts inward, desperately searching for any surviving memories of my life before the sanitarium. It’s a scary thing not knowing who you are, or where you’re from. What did I do to belong here? Was I a criminal? A lunatic? Who was Theron Mobius?

One late night in bed, I felt a neuron ignite and a memory was found.

I was awake all night, overwhelmed by the memories that began crowding my mind. I sat on the floor, huddled in a corner, facing the wall. Slowly, I rocked, back and forth while repeating, “One atop another, they pile upon each other...” I laughed hysterically as my mind spun and my senses flared. The void was filling. I felt elation from the genesis unfolding in my mind.

I heard Mage’s voice: “What’s the matter, Theron? I heard you screaming.”

“Ha! You’re mistaken. I was laughing.”

“At what? Why do you sit in the corner? What are you looking at?”

“The lies and the lives... and the lives and the lies.”

“What lies?”

“The lives! I cradle them all. Some are big and some are small. Do you wish to see them?”

“Yes,” said Mage. “Show me what you have.”

“I have them all—one, two, three, four... six... twelve... twenty-four.”

“You’re scaring me, Theron. Turn around. What are you cradling?”

“The blood of them all.” I turned, allowing Mage to see the truth that I held. My left forearm was covered in a layer of blood.

“What have you done, Theron?”

“Forgive me, it’s not the blood. It’s what lies beneath.” With my right hand, I rubbed away as much blood as possible, revealing a series of symbols I had gouged into my arm with a shard of the broken orb. “Don’t you see? It all makes sense now.”

“Let me help you, Theron.” Mage tore off a piece of her shirt and knelt beside me, trying to tend to the series of bleeding symbols.

“No!” I cried. I began pointing from one symbol to the next, explaining each in turn. “This one’s the horrors of war, and this one’s the gift of life. Here love was found... and there it was lost. In this one... beautiful faces... but here death erases. I’m a healer in this one... but a monster in that one. So many experiences, so many places. I’m every man, from every land.”

Stuttering sounds heaved up from my stomach. I no longer knew if I was laughing or crying. A brightness filled my vision and I frantically looked to Mage, trying to hang on to her image.

I woke up on my cot. Mage was gone. She had wrapped my arm in a strip of her shirt. I turned an ear to the door. Silence. Stillness.

It must be night,
I thought.
The door’s closed. The light’s low. Sleep. Go back to sleep before the memories return.

I closed my eyes and lay in the dark. Instead of finding sleep, I found that oppressive sensation I’d felt before. When I opened my eyes, I saw the doctor standing above me with a perverse grin on his face.

“How did you get in here!” I cried. “I didn’t hear the magnetic lock release or the door open. What do you want?”

“I want to make sure you’re feeling well,” replied the doctor. “You’re a special patient, Theron, and I’m confident you’ll soon be cured.”

“Actually—” I held my tongue. It would’ve been a mistake to tell him about the memories. If I concerned the doctor, I might extend my stay in the sanitarium forever, enduring the inner mysteries of the sphincter beast over and over again. “Actually... I feel fine. Now, I’d like to go to sleep.”

I rolled on my side and stared at the wall, hoping for the doctor to leave. When there was no indication of his departure, I prepared to voice my anger for the interruption to my sleep, but when I turned, the doctor was gone.

The following day, I was eager to tell Mage of my strange visit in the middle of the night. I went to her quarters and then to the congregation room, but she was nowhere to be found.

I confronted Sensimion. “Where’s Mage?”

“During the night, I heard her being taken to the sphincter beast for treatment. They’re usually finished by morning, but it seems they’re taking longer than usual.”

Half the day had passed when Mage was finally brought to the congregation room by an orderly. He dropped her body into a chair and then left the room.

I held her hand. “Mage? Are you all right? Can you hear me?”

She was unresponsive, staring blankly through half-mast eyelids.

I gasped in horror. One of the sphincter beast’s robotic insects clung to the side of her head. I tried to pull it off, but its barbed metal legs were embedded under her skin. It buzzed and clicked while moving in an up and down motion.

“What the fuck is it doing to you! I’m here, my friend. Wake up.” I continued trying to wake her, but her conscious mind was beyond my reach.

Sensimion approached. “Like Mage told you, this catatonic state is a normal reaction to the treatment. Don’t worry about her.”

“Don’t worry? What about this robotic bug?”

“It’s a therapeutic process to help heal her mind. She’ll snap out of it soon enough.”

I was no less concerned for her. I adjusted her body so she sat with a more dignified posture. I fixed her hair, brushing it back with a gentle hand.

“What are you doing?” asked Sensimion.

“I’m doing what she did for me when I was in this condition.”

“Do as you like,” huffed Sensimion. “However, when it’s I who sit in a helpless stupor, with twisted limbs and tangled hair, I’d prefer not to be stroked and squeezed like a sick puppy.”

“I’ll try to keep my hands off you, Sensimion.”

“As you should!” Sensimion walked to the main portal, where he tampered with the archway by jamming a fork into a seam of its frame.

I continued sitting with Mage, until I decided she wasn’t comfortable. I gently lifted her from the chair and carried her back to her sleeping quarters. I carefully placed her on the cot. She truly was beautiful.

“I’ll keep you company, Mage. I’ll keep you safe.”

I placed my face next to her lips and felt her warm breath on my cheek. I rested my head on her chest and listened to her heartbeat. I sat patiently with her, and eventually I slipped into deep thought, staring forth, as if entranced.