killed any of the test subjects.”
There’s a pneumatic hiss, and then the glass door glides shut.
Recessed lights in the ceiling glow a chilled blue.
I crane my neck.
The walls on either side of me are covered with elaborate apertures.
A fine, supercooled mist sprays out of the ceiling, coating me head to toe.
My body tenses, the frigid droplets beading on my skin and freezing solid.
As I shiver, the walls of the chamber begin to hum.
A white vapor trickles out of the apertures with a sustained hiss that grows louder and louder.
It gushes.
Then jets.
Opposing streams crash into each other over the gurney, filling the chamber with a dense fog that blots out the overhead light. Where it touches my skin, the frozen droplets explode in bursts of agony.
The fans reverse.
Within five seconds, the gas is sucked out of the chamber, which now holds a peculiar smell, like the air on a summer afternoon moments before a thunderstorm—dry lightning and ozone.
The reaction of the gas and the supercooled liquid on my skin has created a sizzling foam that burns like an acid bath.
I’m grunting, thrashing against the restraints and wondering how much longer this could possibly be allowed to go on. My threshold for pain is high, and this is straddling the line of make-it-stop or kill me.
My thoughts fire at the speed of light.
Is there even a drug capable of this? Creating hallucinations and pain at this level of horrifying clarity?
This is too intense, too real.
What if this is actually happening?
Is this some CIA shit? Am I in a black clinic in the throes of human experimentation? Have I been kidnapped by these people?
Glorious, warm water shoots out of the ceiling with the force of a fire hose, pummeling the excruciating foam away.
When the water shuts off, heated air roars out of the apertures, blasting my skin like a hot desert wind.
The pain vanishes.
I’m wide-awake.
The door behind me opens and the gurney rolls back out.
Leighton looks down at me. “Wasn’t so bad, right?” He pushes me through the OR into an adjoining patient room and unlocks the restraints around my ankles and wrists.
With a gloved hand, he pulls me up on the gurney, my head swimming, the room spinning for a moment before the world finally rights itself.
He observes me.
“Better?”
I nod.
There’s a bed and a dresser with a change of clothes folded neatly on top. The walls are padded. There are no sharp edges. As I slide to the edge of the stretcher, Leighton takes hold of my arm above the elbow and helps me to stand.
My legs are rubber, worthless.
He leads me over to the bed.
“I’ll leave you to get dressed and come back when your lab work is in. It won’t take long. Are you all right for me to step out for a minute?”
I finally find my voice: “I don’t understand what’s happening. I don’t know where I—”
“The disorientation will pass. I’ll be closely monitoring. We’ll get you through this.”
He wheels the gurney to the door but stops in the threshold, glancing back at me through his face shield. “It’s really good to see you again, brother. Feels like Mission Control when
Apollo Thirteen
returned. We’re all real proud of you.”
The door closes after him.
Three deadbolts fire into their housings like a trio of gunshots.
I rise from the bed and walk over to the dresser, unstable on my feet.
I’m so weak it takes me several minutes to get the clothes on—good slacks, a linen shirt, no belt.
From just above the door, a surveillance camera watches me.
I return to the bed, sit alone in this sterile, silent room, trying to conjure my last concrete memory. The mere attempt feels like drowning ten feet from shore. There are pieces of memory lying on the beach, and I can see them, I can almost touch them, but my lungs are filling up with water. I can’t keep my head above the surface. The more I strain to assemble the pieces, the more energy I expend, the more I flail, the more I panic.
All
There’s a pneumatic hiss, and then the glass door glides shut.
Recessed lights in the ceiling glow a chilled blue.
I crane my neck.
The walls on either side of me are covered with elaborate apertures.
A fine, supercooled mist sprays out of the ceiling, coating me head to toe.
My body tenses, the frigid droplets beading on my skin and freezing solid.
As I shiver, the walls of the chamber begin to hum.
A white vapor trickles out of the apertures with a sustained hiss that grows louder and louder.
It gushes.
Then jets.
Opposing streams crash into each other over the gurney, filling the chamber with a dense fog that blots out the overhead light. Where it touches my skin, the frozen droplets explode in bursts of agony.
The fans reverse.
Within five seconds, the gas is sucked out of the chamber, which now holds a peculiar smell, like the air on a summer afternoon moments before a thunderstorm—dry lightning and ozone.
The reaction of the gas and the supercooled liquid on my skin has created a sizzling foam that burns like an acid bath.
I’m grunting, thrashing against the restraints and wondering how much longer this could possibly be allowed to go on. My threshold for pain is high, and this is straddling the line of make-it-stop or kill me.
My thoughts fire at the speed of light.
Is there even a drug capable of this? Creating hallucinations and pain at this level of horrifying clarity?
This is too intense, too real.
What if this is actually happening?
Is this some CIA shit? Am I in a black clinic in the throes of human experimentation? Have I been kidnapped by these people?
Glorious, warm water shoots out of the ceiling with the force of a fire hose, pummeling the excruciating foam away.
When the water shuts off, heated air roars out of the apertures, blasting my skin like a hot desert wind.
The pain vanishes.
I’m wide-awake.
The door behind me opens and the gurney rolls back out.
Leighton looks down at me. “Wasn’t so bad, right?” He pushes me through the OR into an adjoining patient room and unlocks the restraints around my ankles and wrists.
With a gloved hand, he pulls me up on the gurney, my head swimming, the room spinning for a moment before the world finally rights itself.
He observes me.
“Better?”
I nod.
There’s a bed and a dresser with a change of clothes folded neatly on top. The walls are padded. There are no sharp edges. As I slide to the edge of the stretcher, Leighton takes hold of my arm above the elbow and helps me to stand.
My legs are rubber, worthless.
He leads me over to the bed.
“I’ll leave you to get dressed and come back when your lab work is in. It won’t take long. Are you all right for me to step out for a minute?”
I finally find my voice: “I don’t understand what’s happening. I don’t know where I—”
“The disorientation will pass. I’ll be closely monitoring. We’ll get you through this.”
He wheels the gurney to the door but stops in the threshold, glancing back at me through his face shield. “It’s really good to see you again, brother. Feels like Mission Control when
Apollo Thirteen
returned. We’re all real proud of you.”
The door closes after him.
Three deadbolts fire into their housings like a trio of gunshots.
I rise from the bed and walk over to the dresser, unstable on my feet.
I’m so weak it takes me several minutes to get the clothes on—good slacks, a linen shirt, no belt.
From just above the door, a surveillance camera watches me.
I return to the bed, sit alone in this sterile, silent room, trying to conjure my last concrete memory. The mere attempt feels like drowning ten feet from shore. There are pieces of memory lying on the beach, and I can see them, I can almost touch them, but my lungs are filling up with water. I can’t keep my head above the surface. The more I strain to assemble the pieces, the more energy I expend, the more I flail, the more I panic.
All
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