Reflex (12 page)

Davy looked at her steadily, doing his best to ignore the fluids and the smells.

She stopped smiling. "Don't mess with us. You'll regret it every time."

Davy spit to the side, trying to get the taste from his mouth. "Do you know what aspiration pneumonia is?"

She shrugged. "We've got airway suction, antibiotics, oxygen—hell, we've even got a crash cart to restart your heart. You won't get out of it that easy." She threw the mop down before him. "Now clean up your mess."

He took a shower, first, then, a towel wrapped about his midriff, cleaned the floor. When he'd flushed the water and cleaned the mop and bucket, he took another shower.

He coughed twice, under the shower head, and the wave of nausea began. He didn't bother trying to run or walk. He jumped and found himself standing in the square, naked and dripping, automatically bracing to avoid being pulled off balance by the recoiling chains.

Should've at least grabbed the towel.

He had pushed the bed aside, to clean the floor, and it was at the limits of the yellow square, too much for him to try. Even the thought of reaching for it was enough to make him gag. He did his best to squeegee the beads of water off his body with his hands, then sat, his knees pulled to his chest to conserve heat while he dried. He counted slowly to a hundred, then tried the border. The device was off again.

He went back into the bathroom. There were deep gouges in the door frame and the shower curtain had ripped edges where the chains had slashed through it. He dried off and walked back out into the room.

They'd brought him some clean sheets for the bed, but they hadn't brought him any new scrubs. He'd rinsed the worst of the bodily excretions out of the soiled scrubs earlier during his first shower. Now he held them up before the large mirror.

The computerized voice was silent.

Like that, is it?

He washed the scrubs in the tub, in water as hot as he could stand, using the shower gel from the dispenser on the wall as detergent. When he'd wrung them out he hung them and the towel across the rod.

Petty punishments are as nasty as the big ones when they go on and on.
He had been regretting hurting Thug One, but the regret was fading fast.

His stomach muscles hurt from the prolonged vomiting and coughing, as if he'd been doing sit-ups.
Might as well do the rest.
He spent the next thirty minutes doing mild calisthenics and stretches. He did the exercises naked after rejecting the thought of wearing a damp towel or worse, a blanket toga.
If it was good enough for the Greeks...

He couldn't help thinking about the observers behind the glass, or
her. Is she watching?
He didn't find that thought at all erotic. At least it kept him honest. He didn't cheat on the number of push-ups or deep knee bends.

There were several exercises he rejected when they tugged on his healing scars. On others, it became clear that the flailing of the chains interfered too much. On a few, the weight of chain was a help, like leg lifts.

Near the end of his workout, they turned the device back on and he had to move abruptly, three feet to the right. He pivoted two steps and continued his hamstring stretches inside the square with hardly a missed beat. After some seated quadriceps stretches he tried the border again. There was no telltale nausea.

He considered staying where he was.
They won't stand for that. They can't
train
me if I don't
feel
it.
He went to the bathroom and drank water. It felt good on his raw throat but he couldn't help but think,
if you've got to throw up, might as well make it as innocuous as possible.

His stomach rumbled, hungry again. He wondered if they'd feed him or whether they were still in punishment mode.

He went back to the bed and picked up the book.

There were no device activations during supper. He was ravenous, but his raw throat made eating painful. Still, frequent applications of ice water allowed him to get the entire meal down.

They still hadn't brought him fresh clothes. He left the tray by the door, sliding it across the floor for the last yard his chains would not reach. The scrubs he'd washed were finally dry except for some dampness at the seams. He folded them neatly and set them on the foot of the bed, then went back to reading, reclining on the bed.

Fifteen minutes later they were at it again, but he found he could stroll, still reading, into the square, even though he was coughing. He started to leave, after the usual minute, but found the field was still on. He sat, cross-legged, on the cold floor, and continued reading. At the end of the chapter he checked again but the coughing and nausea still waited outside the tape.

His butt became too cold to keep sitting. He put the book down and began some dynamic stretches, to warm up. His abdominals still hurt from the coughing and vomiting, but not as much as they had earlier. He credited the stretching exercises.

Nicely warm, he checked the border again. Still on. He read some more, standing, checking the border after every page. Another chapter passed and the field was still on.

Oh, come on!

He did some more stretches. The cold was concentrating water to his kidneys and he was beginning to feel it in his bladder. He thought about peeing on the floor but he'd had enough involvement with bodily fluids already today.

The bed had been moved into the corner while he was unconscious and it was well outside the yellow square.
Do they want me to wear clothes? Are they telling me that I shouldn't have paraded around without something warm on?

He froze, suddenly.
Maybe they turned it on and just left? Went out for supper. After all, why should they watch me when they've got this
device?

He had a mental image of Miss Minchin and the redheaded Thug Two in some clinic or hospital visiting the blonde he'd injured, while all the other staff were bowling, a team in a local league, their scrubs and masks their team uniform.

He tested the border again, but it was still active.

Next time I keep the blanket with me.

He wondered what would happen if he jumped past the yellow zone entirely.
Would I get the two-second warning if I avoided the middle zone? Would that be like when they first turn it on?
He froze in place.

He could do a lot with two seconds.

He remembered Miss Minchin working the meter across the floor.
Signal strength. But was it a zone of low or high signal strength?
He touched his chest.
Does my little friend here "tickle " me when it gets to a higher signal strength or when it loses it altogether?

He no longer felt cold at all.

They knew he could teleport. That's why they'd grabbed him in the first place. So, a border of a stronger radio field was right out—unless they could blanket the entire planet, he would always be able to jump past it.

But he couldn't jump away from this gadget in his chest. That could mean they were broadcasting some low strength, focused field at the green square. As long as the device received this signal at a sufficient field strength, it stayed off. This would imply that the yellow zone was an area of leakage before the field attenuated completely below some detectable limit and the device adjusted its level of punishment accordingly.

So what are they doing when the device is "off? " When I can wander at the limits of my chain?

Perhaps they broadcast a less focused signal, one that covered the entire suite, perhaps the entire building.

Christ, I hope they've got some sort of battery backup!
He pictured a heavy spring thunderstorm knocking out power lines and him dying an ugly death in a pool of mixed bodily fluids.

Suddenly he felt the cold again.

He leaned across the green tape.

It was off.
Or it's just
on
more.

He put the scrubs in the middle of the green square along with the blanket from the bed, then took a hot shower. They waited until he was drying himself before he felt the painfully familiar double cough. He walked briskly out, still toweling, and into the square.

While he dressed, he thought about the warning—the brief spate of nausea and the coughing. Was it the device's reaction to no radio field or were they doing a brief dip in broadcast strength of the larger field, then waiting two seconds before turning it off?

If it was an automatic feature, it gave him some latitude—if he could get out of these chains. For someone like Davy, a lot could be accomplished in two seconds.

He wanted to experiment, to test the limits, but he also wanted to do it without an audience. He did not want them to know what he was and wasn't capable of.

He checked the border. It was still on. He was still "in the box." He stepped back to the center of the square.

The copy of
The Count of Monte Cristo
was still lying on the bed, beyond the yellow border. If his theory was right, it should be in the zone of no signal.

They were working up to a way to control him without chains. Like the NSA, they wanted to use his abilities, but they couldn't do that if they couldn't unchain him. And if he jumped away and the device came on full force, as if he'd forced himself past the yellow line, there was good chance they'd lose him and his abilities altogether.

You go outside the yellow box and the convulsions will probably kill you.

Would they? If he went directly to that zone?

He gritted his teeth and jumped to the side of the bed. The chains sang through the air and he felt the warning cough, but
only
the warning level. He took the book and jumped back. It took slightly more than a second because he'd paused, by the bed, to feel the effects.

Quickly he checked the line of green tape again. No—they hadn't turned it off (or on, as the case may be). The cough and nausea was still there. He'd been worried the warning cough by the bed was psychosomatic—expected and therefore experienced.

He actually felt like smiling, but hid it, turning away from the mirror and sitting on the folded blanket. He pretended to read for a while, his mind racing. Had they noticed?

The chains started reeling through the wall and he quailed inwardly. Are they punishing me again? He checked the border before the chains dragged him across, but they had turned on the larger radio field and he felt nothing unpleasant. He strolled with the moving chains and positioned himself, back to the wall, as they pulled up short.

The door opened and Miss Minchin came in. Behind her was a masked man in glasses and surgical scrubs pushing a cart with a computer on it. He rolled it to the wall and plugged it in. While it was booting up, he said, "Here's the wand." He handed Miss Minchin a flat plastic box on the end of a telephone cord. It was about the size of a television remote control. The other end of the cord was plugged into the back of the computer.

She examined it closely. "Left side, yeah?"

"Yes. I'll need another moment, to finish booting."

That the man spoke surprised Davy. Until he'd unmasked the blonde and redhead, all the staff had kept quiet in his presence, using the voice scrambler to communicate. Maybe the staff didn't care anymore.
Maybe they think they've achieved enough control over me so it no longer matters.

Miss Minchin walked slowly toward Davy, tapping the box against her outer thigh with each step. When she was a meter short of Davy, she stopped and looked back over her shoulder, toward the technician.

He was still watching the screen. "Oh... kay. We're up."

She reached out with the "wand" and Davy flinched.

"Relax, little boy. If Mama wanted to spank, she could've done it from the other room—with a
button."
She rested the flat side of the box over Davy's left pectoral—where the newly formed scar was. "How's this," she asked.

The masked man said, "Negotiating... connection established. Right. Give me a minute to upload the new parameters."

Miss Minchin smiled, her eyes on Davy. "Take your time. I like a man in chains." She traced her free forefinger across Davy's collarbone.

Davy looked at her and said earnestly, "I'm going to throw up."

Miss Minchin stepped back slightly looking alarmed, then said over her shoulder, "Should he be feeling anything?"

The technician said, "Nothing from the device."

Davy said, "Right. It's not the
device
that's nauseating me."

Miss Minchin chuckled softly. "You are
such
a tease."

Davy wondered if he pulled her hair out of its bun if her brains would drop out on the floor. It was a thought.

The man at the computer shook his head. He was watching the computer monitor. "Oh... kay. I've changed the parameters. Let me run a checksum to verify the upload and we'll be done." He clicked a few more keys, shifted the mouse. "And... there. Confirmed." He accepted the paddle back from Miss Minchin and stowed it while the computer shut down, then unplugged the unit from the wall. While he was coiling the power cord he said, "You should tell him."

Miss Minchin shrugged, still watching Davy.

"Tell me what," Davy finally said.

Miss Minchin pointed at the yellow line. "We've shortened the grace period before it activates. It's a
lot
shorter now. I wouldn't take any chances if I were you. No more experiments, right?"

Davy pictured dropping her into the quarry pool near his home in West Texas. At this time of year the water was a nice chilly fifty-five degrees. The temperature wouldn't kill her since she could get out pretty quickly, but the impact after the sixty foot drop would be severe and she'd be pretty miserable until her clothing dried.

"What's so funny?" she asked.

He blanked his face. He hadn't realized he was smiling.

"No, really. I could use a good laugh."

He shook his head.

She shrugged and vamped across the room, holding the door while the technician pushed the cart out. "Sleep well," she said and let the door swing shut behind her.

He didn't.