November 10, 2009

Hesitating for only a moment, he stepped into the elevator, turning around as he did so. He tapped the button for the lobby level and waited silently as the doors closed and the elevator descended. Standing there alone, the brief ride seemed to take unusually long. He found that he was holding his breath when the arrival chime sounded—sharply loud in the otherwise empty elevator card—and the doors opened. Scolding himself silently, amused at his own foolishness, Kincaid stepped into the hallway.

The corridor was, as he expected, empty. Continuing toward the security station, he received a surprised look, and then a smile, from the guard on duty. She was an older woman, compactly muscled. Something about her bearing suggested to Kincaid that her usual demeanor was grandmotherly in nature, but also that of a kindly matriarch that you would not want to get on the wrong side of.

“Good night to you, Dr. Kincaid,” she greeted him. Her voice carried a pleasant lilt of a British accent. He did not recognize her, although he had to admit that he did not know everyone who worked the night shift for the hired security agency. He suspected that there was considerable turnover as well in that profession, although the institute contract must pay fairly well (despite Adamson’s best efforts, he was certain), as most of the security staff had been there for as long as he could remember, some of them working there before he joined the institute.

He was surprised that she knew his name. Something about her smile and where her eyes landed that made Kincaid look down toward his chest. It was then that he discovered that was still wearing his lab coat and its requisite name badge. He gave the guard a quick, sheepish smile. Her own grew warmer and he was certain that she chuckled softly. For some reason, he did not find himself offended at all, simply mildly embarrassed.

“Have a good evening yourself, Hilda,” he said, relying on her badge for the information.

She seemed genuinely pleased by the attention. “Thank you, Dr. Kincaid.” She smiled at him again.

Kincaid stood there awkwardly for a moment, feeling as though he should say something else, but idle conversation had never been one of his strengths. Finally, a few moments later, he turned and headed for the main doors. Although he did not turn around, and the reflection of her in the tall glass was too distant to tell, he was certain that she still chuckled gently at him.

#

Kincaid found his car without incident. He was pleased that, with the interruptions to his usual routine, he had not managed to lock himself out of his car or arrived to discover a flat tire. If the day managed to keep itself back under control, he mused, he just might treat himself to a glass of that special Scotch when he got home. He got into his car, started it, and headed out onto the street. Easing onto the freeway, he once again recognized one advantage of working late: the pleasant lack of traffic congestion. He was actually able to achieve a velocity that matched (or slightly exceeded) the legal speed limit. It was not that there were no other cars on the road, but they were not squeezed in, bumper nearly against bumper, as they typically were during typical commuting hours.

After traveling a few miles at a satisfying clip along the freeway, Kincaid heard a soft chime. It startled him for a moment, thinking it was his cell phone, left in his coat pocket, now in the back set out of reach. The pitch of the sound seemed wrong though, even accounting for it being muffled by a layer of synthetic fabric. His eyes quickly surveyed the dashboard, stopping at a small amber symbol. It blinked twice and then glowed steadily. He relaxed when he saw that it was low fuel warning light. It was an annoying development, but it was hardly something that rated as a major crisis. Kincaid looked up at the overhead signs, looking for the next exit that might have a gas station. This stretch of freeway ran through the main part of town, so any off-ramp was likely to lead to one. As he changed lanes, moving to the right, he noticed that his own personal tank was also running close to empty. He had skipped dinner without realizing it; his stomach was now reminding him of the fact.

His luck held out and he found a station with reasonable prices at the end of the off-ramp on the right side. As the gasoline gurgled into the nearly-empty tank, Kincaid surveyed his surroundings. It looked like an unremarkable suburban neighborhood, although bearing that slightly dingy patina that areas near service stations seemed to acquire, no matter how well-kept.

The pump signaled the completion of its task and Kincaid decided to address the issue of his own hunger. Peering along the street, he tried to sort through the bright glows of the numerous signs. A little more than block away, he recognized the large, but fairly tasteful sign for the Seaside Inn. Good food, as he recalled, as well as a comfortable and well-stocked bar. They had very good Scotch there, he reminded himself, keeping him from having to deplete his own personal supply. Replacing the cap on the gas tank, Kincaid climbed back into his car, reset the trip odometer to zero, and pulled out onto the street.

It took him several minutes to locate a parking space, and he was nearly ready to give up and try somewhere else when a large red pickup truck pulled away, leaving a nice, large spot available to him. Kincaid took that as a positive sign and parked the car, locking it and setting its alarm before heading into the restaurant. The crowded condition of the parking warned him that it was likely to be busy inside. Nearly ten o'clock at night was not a late hour for a bar. From what he had heard, things would just be getting started. Finding entertainment was not his priority. He simply wanted a good drink and a warm meal.

He paused inside the doorway, giving his eyes a few moments to adjust to the change in lighting. He studied the bar, finding it crowded with people. It would also be noisy, he knew. He could tune out such noise, if he had to; it was the close proximity of those in the area around the bar that bother him more.

A young woman approached him, holding a small stack of menus. She was slightly older than his daughter, he guessed.

"Are you here for dinner, sir?"

Kincaid swallowed. Even after all this time, he felt an uncomfortable knot in his throat at being called "sir" by any young woman. It was a sign of respect, he knew, and what else was she supposed to call him, "mister"?

"Yes, please," he answered with a polite, not sure whether his voice carried above the din from inside.

The young lady was practiced, or had superb hearing, he decided. A frown formed on her lightly tanned features as she checked the seating chart.

"I'm sorry, sir," she said. "It looks like the wait will be about thirty minutes. We have a couple of large groups tonight," she added by way of explanation and apology. Her expression brightened as a couple walked past her on their way out of the restaurant. She gave them a quick, parting smile before turning back to Kincaid. "You could always wait at the bar."

Kincaid was about to refuse when spied the two seats that the couple had vacated. They were off to one side, so slightly more private than much of the other seating. The young woman turned, looking in the direction of Kincaid's eyes. She began walking to the now-vacant seats. Kincaid followed, seating himself at the small table. The woman smiled at Kincaid as she cleared away the empty glasses and discarded napkins. She handed him a menu, giving him a gracious wink. "Just in case you need it," she told him. Flashing a final quick smile, she turned and returned to the front station, depositing the glassware on an empty spot on the bar as she passed by it.

It took Kincaid a moment to realize that he was staring at the hostess as she walked away. He looked away quickly, feeling his cheeks warm, hoping that no one had noticed. Dirty old man, he chided himself silently and began to study the menu intently. He knew that he was hungry, but not specifically for what.

He sensed the presence of someone standing nearby and looked up to find one of the bar waitresses standing there. She smiled at him, showing nearly perfect teeth. Her red hair seemed to cut about shoulder-length, but it was difficult for him to tell for certain as she had it pulled back with one of those multi-toothed clips. Her face was nicely rounded but, in Kincaid's opinion, her eye makeup was too dark and she wore too much of it. The effect, he thought, was nearly that of a baby raccoon or an animated bandit. She smiled at him with a genuine warmth that surprised him.

"I didn't want to interrupt you," she said with soft laugh. "You seemed so absorbed in our selection of fine cuisine." She somehow managed not to make the statement sound incredibly trite. He gave her considerable credit for that.

"I was," he agreed with a faint smile, realizing belatedly that it was wider than he had intended. "But I don't know what I want yet," he admitted.

"How about starting with something to drink, then?" she suggested.

Kincaid flipped through the menu to the back, giving a soft sigh of relief at finding that the special blend of Scotch he wanted was still available. He pointed it out to the young woman. "A double, please. Neat." He felt mildly guilty for ordering a double, but if he was going to splurge anyway . . . and he was planning to eat along with it.

"Good choice," she said, nodding as she jotted it down. He suspected that was her stock response, and probably did not know a quality blended Scotch from a glass of cheap rotgut, but he found himself warmed by the praise anyway.

"Any appetizers?"

Kincaid glanced down at his menu. "Not yet, thank you."

"Okay," she said cheerily. "I'll be right back with this." She turned and headed for the bar. Kincaid watched her for a moment as she passed the order along to the bartender. The bartender seemed to nod appreciatively at Kincaid's request. With a contented smile, Kincaid returned to his study of the menu.

November 9, 2009

At some level, though, she suspected that her friend was right. Her love life—or rather, lack of one—did not really bother her on a regular basis, but events such as the upcoming fraternity party did give her a certain wistful feeling. It would be nice to attend attached to someone; it would help thwart nearly all of the drunken passes that she usually had to endure.

"Like that one there," Diana piped up, thankfully pointing with just a straw and not an entire outstretched arm.

Cynthia looked up to see young man about her own age. He was dressed in jeans that looked fairly new and buttoned-down shirt left open to reveal a dark t-shirt with some kind of logo inside. From the colors she could see, it did not appear to be for one the hard rock or metal bands. Good techno, she could handle; the rest sounded too much like people screaming to the accompaniment of poorly-played electric instruments for her taste.

She continued to watch him as he moved through adjacent courtyard. The backpack slung over one shoulder looked worn, but relatively new. He looked as though he had received a recent haircut and, if he had not shaved recently, it did not show from where she sat. Cynthia's eyes followed him as he approached a pair of two other students. He put his arm around one affectionately and pulled close for a kiss. As they parted a moment later, Cynthia recognized the other student. She did not know his name, but she knew that he lived in the dormitory building next to her own.

Grimacing slightly, she looked away to catch Diana smirking behind another onion ring. Cynthia's eyes automatically narrowed.

"Don't even . . ." she warned her friend tightly.

Diana, unable to contain herself any longer, burst into giggles. "I didn't know, Cyn," she protested, trying to catch a breath. "Honest!"

Continuing to stare hard at her friend, she finally relented when her abrupt sense of outrage struck even her as silly. She laughed and went to eating her salad, but not before catching one final giggle out of Diana.

#

My favorite movie? Nicholas listened to the request with a high degree of incredulity. That was all they could tell him? At least he knew now that they were trying to communicate with him. Something in the way it was phrased gave him the impression that he was not being held captive, at least not in any usual sense. The suggestion he had been given to fill his time between visits, though, struck him as completely ridiculous.

So, for some period of time, Nicholas essentially sulked, determined to rebel against the voice's directions. It was his only means to exercise any control over his current situation, so he employed it. He did wonder whether there might be some kind of punishment in kind for ignoring the instructions, but what else could they do to him? He already had nothing.

He waited for a long while—or what seemed like one. As there had been for many days before, there was only silence. Still, Nicholas fumed, but found himself thinking obliquely about the voice’s suggestion. If he were to do it, what movie would he choose? Which movie had he seen last? And with who? Did it really have to be a recent movie? Or could it be one of his favorite ones? Did he have a favorite one?

These questions occupied Nicholas for a time. It became a minor source of amusement to him and then a challenge. Could he actually remember every line and every scene from the last movie had seen? Did seeing it on cable or downloaded video count? He decided not. Although his audible visitor had not specified it, Nicholas was certain that he meant the last movie he had seen in a theater. This led him back to the question of what it had been and when? Who had he been with there? He was certain that he did not see movies alone.

Trying to remember the details turned into a frustrating exercise, but he did realize something potentially important from it. He could not clearly remember anything that had happened to him more recently than a few months ago. Even then, his recall was spotty until he went even further back. He could retrieve entire scenes from his childhood: the ugly clown that had scared him at a birthday party, the pain of hitting his head on the sidewalk when he had slipped off his skateboard, seeing his mother cry when . . . when . . . why had she been crying? Something in the vantage point of the memory told him that it had not happened recently, but nor had it been long ago in his childhood.

He knew that he was twenty-three years old. He knew his name, Nicholas Aaron Jorgenson, named after his grandfather on one side and an uncle on the other—his mother’s?—side. He was attending college at . . . at . . . had attended college. No, he reminded himself, that was the community college where he had fulfilled his general education requirements while still trying to work to find a scholarship or, failing that, attempting to save enough money to pay his year at a university. It had been called Mount . . . Mount . . . something. St. Helens? No, that was the volcano mountain in . . . Washington.

His thoughts were wandering all over the place, he realized. The harder he tried to focus them, the more they seemed determined to shoot off in different, although somewhat related, directions. He remembered something from one of his English or Literature classes about “stream of consciousness”. He had found the concept boring then; he found it more than just a little irritating now.

Movies. He told himself. The last movie you saw. If he could not remember it immediately, he considered, maybe he could prompt its recall with some clues of his own. It was probably some kind of action-adventure flick. Even when there was a serious girlfriend involved, he almost never allowed himself to get dragged to anything else. It might have been some horror/slasher thing, but only if one or more of his friends managed to talk him into it. It was not that he was easily grossed out or frightened. In fact, he generally found them to be either boring or silly, if not both.

Wait, he wondered. Was there a girl involved? He searched his memories for someone who might have been one, but the recent past remained an impenetrable fog to him.

Okay, he finally asked himself, what the last movie you remember seeing? This forced him to try to sort what he could remember into chronological sequence. He found that much of it remained jumbled and he had to often rely on his limited knowledge of their approximate release dates to put them into proper order. Eventually, he stopped, once again stymied by his fragmented memory. There was no way, he told himself, that the last movie he had seen in a theater was Mission: Impossible III. On video, maybe, but even then he could not be certain.

His frustration began to build again, growing until he reached the point of thinking that the suggestion that the voice had given him was really stupid. He then stopped trying, falling once again into his own sullen silence.

After only a few moments, he began wonder which was worse: thinking about things that he could not remember, or not thinking at all. More than anything, though, he wished that the voice would return.

#

Kincaid pushed the keyboard away and rubbed at his eyes. He had been working on his progress report and knew that he had started repeating himself. That was a sure sign that he had lost focus and it was time to do something else. He glanced at the time displayed on his screen and then stretched, feeling joints creak and cramped muscles complain. It was well past seven o’clock and, although he had arrived late that morning, he knew that he was done for the day. He had passed the point of still being productive and, whether Adamson liked it or not, his report could wait until later the next day.

He logged off, yawning as he waited for the screen to turn blank. It seemed to happen far too slowly, which told him just how tired he was. Suppressing another yawn, he rose and headed for the door. The hallway seemed quiet, which was not actually that surprising. Except on special occasions, most of the staff left the institute grounds around six o’clock in the evening.

Kincaid could not blame them, not really. The amenities of the institute were few after regular working hours. The cafeteria closed at two o’clock, except for the coffee counter. Unless one wanted to leave the institute buildings and return again that evening (and few did, even if they intended to), there was little to subsist on throughout the night except for stale coffee and what dubious nutrition might be coaxed from the various vending machines scattered through the institute’s buildings.

Turning off the main overhead lights in his office, Kincaid closed the door and headed for the short bank of elevators. Although he had done it many times during his time there, it always seemed a little bit eerie to walk the halls of the institute after everyone else had gone. The echo of his footsteps sounded strangely amplified, the ambient noises surprisingly muted, and sudden noises—like that of the elevator doors opening—seemed unusually loud and, even, menacing.

November 8. 2009

His mind returned once more to the examination of his state of being. He had finally decided that he was definitely not dead. It was far too boring and it was unlikely that people who try speaking to him if he was. The voice, and what it had said, sounded nothing like a séance, but a deliberate attempt to communicate with as a living being. He wondered if he were in a coma, but somehow doubt that his mind would function so clearly in that state. It did not feel like he was hallucinating. Since he saw nothing, there was nothing to hallucinate about. He would have welcomed a bizarre display of dancing lights, melting clocks, or even a white rabbit running by carrying a pocket watch. Instead, all he faced was complete and utter darkness. And he had begun to wonder just how long he could stand it before he did go mad.

He was certain that the intermittent voice had not been a hallucination—was it still a hallucination if it was only sound?—although it had been days since he had last heard it. Had it been days? he wondered. Still lacking of any frame of reference for measuring time, he had no idea. It might not have truly been days, but it had to have been at least several minutes, or not hours. He realized that he could count off seconds in his head, but wondered what length of time they truly measured. What was the speed of thought?

Nicholas stopped, suddenly and truly frightened for the first time since his ordeal had begun. His thoughts were shooting off in random directions, much as they did when he was completely fatigued or the one time he had sampled a small amount of a psychoactive drug that a friend-of-a-friend had brought to a party. He could not remember the name of the substance, but he had been very glad that he had not tried more than the minute amount that he had. While the semi-hallucinogenic visions had not particularly frightened him—they had been fairly benign—the loss of control over his own consciousness had. Getting buzzed on beer or wine coolers was one thing; sending your brain off on unfamiliar drugs was another.

He suddenly heard that strange buzzing noise again. Whoever controlled it had apparently learned how to control its volume. It no longer threatened to blast through his mind. Now, it built softly, just at the edge of awareness, and then increased in strength until it was a clear, steady sensation. There is stayed for several moments. Nicholas waited for it to fade and for the voice to appear, but it never did. The sound did finally die away, but no voice ever followed it to address him as it had in the past. Nicholas felt disappointed and, he was surprised to notice, lonely. He did not realize how much he had clung to the existence of that voice, as infrequent as it was, as an anchor for his own sanity.

Again, he remembered the tales of solitary isolation used as a form of torture. But why? He was no one special—certainly no one that terrorists or kidnappers would be interested in. His father was . . . his father was . . . what? Who? The image of a face floated indistinctly at the edges of his memory. It refused to resolve into more detail, but he was certain that it must have belonged to his father. The visage certainly seemed familiar, but the feelings that surfaced along with it seemed increasingly complex. Nicholas did not understand why. He found that he could not focus on any single memory involving his father before it evaded him, vanishing out of his reach.

He wanted to lash at whoever was responsible for whatever had been done to him—was being done to him. A peculiar rage began to build from somewhere deep within his thoughts. It surfaced, becoming a mental scream of anguish and fury. Having no outlet, it seemed to echo endlessly within Nicholas’ mind.

#

“Dr. Kincaid?” Patel called out. Although her tone was quiet and respectful, the undertone of urgency in it made Kincaid give her his immediate attention. She was one of the newer members of his staff. A short, compact Indian woman, her reserved demeanor hid a fierce intelligence. He had hired her almost instantly without an interview after reading her two most recent papers on memory storage and sensory triggers in the brain.

“What is it, Sheetal?” he asked, his eyes turning toward the display at her workstation.

“There are severe spikes in the Beta waves again, Doctor,” she reported.

Kincaid saw immediately that what she reported was true. Under normal hospital conditions, significant changes in the readouts would have caused audible alarms to sound. Here, through, there were only alerts set for basic physical and environmental readings. Beyond those, none of them were yet sure what a “normal” range was in situations like this.

His lips formed a grim line. “Sedation,” he said. His tone, while quiet, clearly conveyed his disappointment.

One of the other technicians moved to respond, but he countermanded himself before she could complete the action.

“No, wait,” he told Patel. “Gary,” he instructed the young researcher to his right. “Activate the vocoder again.”

The tall young man obeyed, handing Kincaid his headset. Kincaid slipped it on with a practiced motion and nodded to Gary to activate the system.

“Nicholas,” Kincaid said in a calm and even tone. “Nicholas, can you hear me?” He paused, glancing toward Patel, who nodded her affirmation: the Beta wave spikes were easing. Breathing a slow sigh of relief, he hesitated, not at all certain what he said say at this point. Simple instructions were best, he decided, and spoke into the microphone of the headset. “I need to remain calm,” he said. “We having trouble communicating with you, but we are working on it.” He tried to think of something he could suggest that would help Nicholas pass the time, but feared triggering some new kind of mental trauma.

“I want you to think of the last film you saw, Nicholas,” Kincaid went on. “I want to you try to remember every scene, every line of dialogue from the beginning.” He took a quick breath, glancing up at his staff standing around him. “I’ll be asking you about it when we talk again.” He waited a moment, almost asking automatically whether the boy understood, but then remembered that he could not respond.

Kincaid nodded quickly to Gary, who turned off the vocoder. His sigh was audible this time. “We can’t keep him sedated all the time,” he said by way of explanation. He leaned back, turning to one of the female team members. She was a young woman fresh from her Ph.D., with sandy blonde hair that she usually wore pulled back into a single ponytail. “Anything yet from Cambridge?” Kincaid asked.

The young blonde woman grimaced slightly, shaking her head slightly. “Nothing yet, sir,” she replied. “They’re not returning my calls.”

Kincaid scratched at the back of his head, noting absently that he seemed overdue for a haircut. On Adamson’s authority—which, in his opinion, was occasionally worth something—he had contacted the researcher who had constructed the original speech synthesis device for Dr. Steven Hawking. This project required that kind of expertise. It was both annoying and frustrating that their inquiries had not been answered. Damn Brits are probably on holiday or something, Kincaid concluded with only minor amusement.

He glanced once more at the displays and then at the chamber beyond. There really was nothing more he could do now. “I’ll be back shortly,” he told his team. “Let me know if you see any changes.”

There were murmurs of “Yes, Doctor” and “Yes, sir” as Kincaid left the room. In the hallway outside he paused for a moment, thinking. He had a bad feeling—a very bad feeling—that if they did not establish two-way communication soon, this project would very rapidly spiral downward into failure. It was not a possibility that we wanted to accept. This project needed to succeed—would succeed, he told himself. He just wished that he could believe it was true.

#

Cynthia and Diana finally made it inside the Bar and now stood in the line to actually place their orders at the grill. Cynthia tried to ignore Diana as she attempted to engage Bryan (according to the name on his badge) in what her friend considered to be witty conversation. She was also aware that Bryan seemed to be trying to get her attention, but Cynthia made a point of keeping her eyes almost anywhere but behind the grill. Fortunately, a pale boy with rough-cut hair that hung almost to his shoulders, and piercings in the corner of his lower lip and one eyebrow, asked to take her order. He, at least, was easy to ignore, and the feeling seemed to be mutual.

The two girls waited together at the cashier, with Diana fidgeting impatiently most of the time. Cynthia paid for Diana’s lunch because, as was often the case, her friend had left her money back in her dorm room. Cynthia added this to her mental tab, with every expectation that the tab would most likely never be paid. Still, having it had it uses on occasion, usually when Cynthia didn’t feel like doing her own laundry.

Cynthia had settled on a grilled chicken salad and a bottle of flavored water. Diana had selected some kind of beef patty, hamburger-like thing dripping with a yellowish-orange-colored sauce, along with onion rings and a diet soda. Cynthia opined silently that her friend had more to worry about with her arteries than whether she gained an ounce or two from drinking non-diet beverages.

Their orders came up ready almost as soon as Cynthia had finished paying for them. They ended up at a small table outside because, as usual, all of the inside seats were taken and, as usual, no one seemed about to vacate any. Cynthia had often wondered if some students came and claimed seats as soon as the Bar opened at ten o’clock and then never left until it closed at nine. It reminded her of one vacation she had taken with her family, seeing people at their hotel claiming the choicest seats near the pool right before breakfast, but then being rarely seen there throughout the day.

It took her a moment to realize that Diana was talking to her. It sounded like it was about her friend’s third attempt to get her attention. She nodded thoughtfully, as if she had been listening intently throughout, but Diana was evidently not fooled by the charade.

“You’re just out of it lately, Cyn,” Diana remarked with a sigh that would have seemed profound, had her mouth not been full of meat, cheese, and sauce. “What’s going on with you?”

Cynthia picked at her salad without taking a bite. She really did not know what was bothering her recently. Classes were tough, but she thought she was doing okay. Things with her father seemed little different than normal. He was, he had told her, deeply entrenched in some new project at work, but she knew that he would soon come up for air and realize that he had neglected keeping in touch with her. As occasionally frustrating as she find that, she did have to admit that he had always been there when she had really needed him—and even sometimes when she did not.

“You know what you need?” Diana went on in the absence of a response from Cynthia. She held up an onion ring for emphasis. “You need to stop looking for Mr. Right and make some time for Mr. Right Now.”

Cynthia stared at Diana without smiling. “You stole that from a movie.”

Diana shrugged, and then grinned. “Yeah, probably.” She bit into the onion ring and chewed for a moment. “I don’t remember which one, though.”

Trying not to roll her eyes, a single, faint laugh managed to escape from Cynthia. This, she realized, was why she had remained friends with Diana for so long. She often took herself far too seriously and she needed the balance that Diana offered. But, as her aunt had often told her, everything in moderation. Which is why she could only handle Diana in short doses any more, without feeling a growing need to hide somewhere from her friend’s perpetual perkiness.

November 7, 2009

What he was not at all clear on was the purpose behind his new orders. Certainly, he could understand the desire for a lighter, more portable version of the exoskeleton. However, most of the efforts to reduce its weight would also decrease its effectiveness in offering protection as armor. He was going to need to talk to someone as well about the interface specifications. Who that someone was, it was not clear.

His orders for this project had been signed by Director Adamson herself. That was not, in itself, all that unusual, but he had no idea who his other points of contact were, and the project requirements documents did not say. The specifications he had received were similar to the ones he had originally developed, and later refined, for his original design. They also had, though, an additional level of complexity to them that he did not yet understand. What were they planning to plug into this? he had wondered. An IBM mainframe? He planned to read the requirements later in more detail, after he had completed this initial inspection of his early prototype.

As his eyes surveyed the prone, semi-humanoid shape of the prototype exoskeleton, his thoughts began to wander along the possible uses for the modified version. The models he had created were designed to respond to gross muscle movements, intended primarily to engage the drive systems of the joints. They were never designed for fine motor control, although he had considered it was a possible refinement for some future design. That had not been part of the military’s original requirements for the project, so it had been out on hold and then dropped entirely when the project was cancelled. Gerhardt did not see why, though, that this new design could not be modified to support that as well. It seemed that, on his initial reading, that the new interfaces might support it.

His imagination leapt swiftly ahead to applications of the enhanced, lighter-weight exoskeleton allowing paraplegics and disabled children to walk again and participate in activities formerly denied them simply because their brains and muscles refused to communicate properly. Decades of research had already been done in the fields of prosthetics and bionics, trying to interface artificial limbs with the human brain. The results had been mixed, with no clear indications on why some cases worked and some did not. Most experts fell back on the theory that every individual’s brain was wired slightly differently, meaning that an almost entirely custom implementation might be required every time. That these solutions would be both time-consuming and cost-prohibitive did not bother Gerhardt in the least. His goal was to make it possible, not make it affordable—yet.

His thoughts were disturbed by the shrill chime of his phone. He had programmed several custom ringtones into it, so he knew immediately that it was not a close friend or a member of his family. For that, he felt a minor annoyance at the interruption. Pulling the phone from its clip on his belt, he glanced at the display, but recognized neither the name nor number of the caller.

“Gerhardt.”

“Dr. Gerhardt?” an unfamiliar voice queried. There was an odd flatness to the voice, which meant that the caller was some distance away, the call passing through several global networks, or it was under high-security scramble.

That would also explain the lack of visuals, Gerhardt decided. He still held nearly all of his high security clearances. While it was rare that someone with the need to exercise those protocols would contact him using them, it was not unusual enough to cause him immediate alarm.

“Sometimes,” Gerhardt replied without a hint of humor.

When he left the military behind him, he had chosen to eschew titles of any kind except under very specific and special circumstances. Both his wife and one of his daughters had tried more than once to argue that he had earned the advanced degree and deserved to be called by the honorific. (Actually, his wife had only broached the subject once. She had learned long ago how to deal with him when his mind was made up. It was his daughter that still occasionally attempted to convince him.) To him, “Doctors” were life-saving professionals with stethoscopes, needles, and scalpels. The closest thing he came to handling something that resembled scalpel was a screwdriver—or a carving knife at Thanksgiving dinner.

There was lengthy pause, as if whoever it was at the other end did not know how to deal with his unexpected response.

“Dr. Gerhardt.” This time it was a statement, not a question.

“Yes.”

Another pause. Gerhardt tried to suppress just a hint of a smile. He had no doubt that whoever was at the other end of the connection was not amused by this little game, but he felt little sympathy for them. They had obviously reached the right person, so he wished that would stop stalling and get to the point so he could get back to work. If their intention had been to pique his curiosity, they had missed their opportunity now by annoying him.

“Dr. Gerhardt,” the voice returned. This time it continued with, “We would like to meet with you to discuss an . . . opportunity.”

We? Gerhardt considered. So it was an organization of some kind. Either this individual was not the leader of the group or it was run by a committee. In either case, it was important information. Opportunity. Just the way it was phrased, and the pause that preceded it, made Gerhardt think for a moment that he had somehow been cast in cut-rate espionage movie.

While it was not at all beyond the realm of possibility that one of his acquaintances might be inspired to pull a practical joke on him in this fashion, he knew that none of them would use a secure and scrambled line to do so. Whoever wanted to talk to—and to see—him was very concerned with being detected. That troubled Gerhardt.

“What kind of . . . opportunity?” While he mimicked the same hesitation in his response, but tried to keep any hint of suspicion out of his tone. He tried to sound casually interested, but was not sure whether the nuances carried over the flattening effect of the scrambled signal.

“I represent an organization that is very interested in continuing your research, Dr. Gerhardt,” the voice replied.

I? Why the switch? “I see.”

“Surely this would be of more interest to you than astronautic environmental systems.” It was presented as a statement, not a question. This, in Gerhardt’s mind, smacked of a certain arrogance. It did tell him, however, that the cover story that the institute provided to those who absolutely had a need to know about his research was being accepted as the covert truth.

“It’s a nice change,” Gerhardt remarked. “One can only do the same thing for so long.” For himself, he found that claim to be patently untrue. He had yet to tire of his area of research, and there enough new discoveries announced on a regular basis to keep it fresh and interesting.

“Perhaps so,” the voice agreed. Was that a faint French accent he was hearing? It was difficult to know for sure with the effects of scrambler. “Still, we think you might find hearing our offer to be worth your time.”

Gerhardt doubted that greatly, but did not say so. He then realized something that he had not recognized when he had first looked at the phone’s display. The call had come in directly to his office number. It was his general practice to forward his calls to his cell phone when he was down in one of the labs or otherwise wandering around the building. The display had indicated that the call had been forwarded, but he had been distracted enough by the interruption not to register it as important at the time.

All calls made to him at the institute—all calls—went through at the automated receptionist (who had long ago been nicknamed Tessie, after her acronym: Telephonic Security Interface). Her soothing and helpful contralto voice would answer, delaying the caller long enough to allow the location of the call to be traced and logged, before connecting them with the desired individual, if that person wished to receive calls. (It was not a sexist thing at all. Numerous studies had shown that people respond better to a female voice responding to their calls.) This one had been processed as an internal call; Tessie had not asked him if he wanted to accept the call. That both intrigued and alarmed him. He knew that no security system was perfect, but he had never heard of this kind of breach before in the institute, and the technology behind Tessie was some of the NSA’s best.

“Dr. Gerhardt?”

“Yes, I’m here,” he replied, suddenly aware of how long he had remained silent.

“We should arrange to meet.” Again, it was a statement.

“Where?”

“The Seaside Inn. Twelve-thirty. The reservations will be in your name.”

Gerhardt nodded silently to himself. He knew the location, although he had not been there often. It was a reasonably popular place, had reasonably decent food, and far enough from the institute that the likelihood of him being seen there would be greatly reduced.

“I’ll be there,” Gerhardt confirmed. The line went silent. “You’re welcome,” he muttered in response. He was certain now that he would keep that appointment. The question now was who he should tell about it, if anyone.

#

Nicholas awoke again. This time he was certain that he had slept, for he remembered dreaming. The images were fragmented and incoherent, like scenes from different movies projected into his mind with the aid of a strobe light. He recalled attending parties like that before; they had primarily given him a headache.

The images faded quickly from his consciousness, but they left him feeling vaguely disconcerted. He felt as though he should understand what the images meant, but they had appeared too quickly and then vanished before he could even grasp what they represented. He remembered sounds being associated with the visions, but they had provided only a strange cacophony, equally incomprehensible. There were now gone as well, leaving him once more in darkness and silence.

November 6, 2009

Kincaid made a few final adjustments and quickly checked the displays. Everything appeared to be pretty much as he expected.

"If you'll watch that monitor there," he said, gesturing toward one almost directly in front of Adamson. "We'll begin sending the simulated auditory input."

For a moment, nothing happened. The graph on the screen showed almost no movement. The line then began to move slightly at first and then produced a series of tightly-spaced jagged lines. Kincaid entered something at his keyboard and the shape of the graph changed, spiking slightly higher before settling down into a more regular pattern.

Adamson stared at the display, her expression unreadable. For a moment, she said nothing, and then asked without turning, "What am I seeing exactly, Dr. Kincaid?"

Kincaid heard the sharp undertone of annoyance in her voice. He supposed that he should have briefed her better before beginning the presentation, but it had become evident that the Director had already been growing impatient from the unexpected delays. Moving right into the demonstration had seemed the wiser choice.

"We believe we are reaching him," Kincaid explained. "There's no way we can know yet whether he can understand what we're saying to him, but it's clear that he is receiving and processing sounds."

"I see." The sharp chill in her tone as she spoke those two words conveyed her disappointment far more than any longer explanation might have.

Kincaid could understand, from a certain standpoint. The results so far had not been very dramatic—certainly nothing you might want to share with a roomful of executives or potential benefactors—but, scientifically, it bordered on the astounding.

Rather than speak, and risk further damage, Kincaid chose to say nothing. He waited for Adamson to make the next move.

The Director's eyes flicked away from the display, her gaze passing quickly over the other active ones. Everything they showed was apparently even less interesting to her. Kincaid often forgot that she had once also been a researcher as well, albeit a mediocre one, based on reports he had heard. He had only ever bothered to look up one of her published papers. It had been on some topic involving nutrition and the management of . . . something. He could not remember the exact subject right then. He did remember that the research and conclusions had been competent, but not particularly earth-shaking or inspiring.

"Tomorrow morning in my office," she instructed him in an imperious tone that would have bordered on humorous had they not been so much barely veiled menace behind it. "I want a full—and I mean full­­—report."

Kincaid saw Cockburn jot something on his tablet. Adamson turned, waited expectantly at the door for someone to open it for her, and then exited the room with Cockburn close on her heels.

The massed tension from those inside followed Adamson out of the room. Kincaid closed the door quickly behind her, before someone could say or do something that might catch the Director's ears.

"That could have gone better," Paul Godstetter, one of the more senior technicians, sighed.

Kincaid nodded. "It also could have gone a lot worse."

There were murmurs of agreement from the others in the room on both points. Kincaid let out a long, slow breath.

"Okay everyone," he finally announced quietly. "Let's get back to our real work."

Behind him, the two technicians who had arrived solely for the demonstration exited; the others resumed their planned activities.

#

Colonel Louis Gerhardt (retired), Ph.D., stared down the metal structure resting on the table in front of him. The orders had come through a few days ago to recreate the exoskeleton, but using lighter weight materials. The original design had been his, jointly created with a team of other engineers. The one lying on the workbench was one of the later prototype models, but acquiring that had taken several kilometers of red tape and the cashing in of several favors. Fortunately, he still had access to all of its design specifications, as well as to those for all the previous and later models.

Although ostensibly the property of the United States military under its agreement with the institute, he had been certain that he would need them again some day and had seen fit to "accidentally" create an extra archive that "somehow" ended up with this personal belongings. Completely against regulations, and the terms of agreement, Gerhardt had nonetheless decided that future expediency trumped bureaucratic necessity. He never took the discs out of the building; he just never bothered to let anyone know that he had them in his possession. "An unfortunate oversight in the project paperwork," was his prepared response, should he ever need it.

As he circled the raised table, he made notes on his tablet. He knew colleagues his age that still used pencil and paper, at least those few who had still not moved on to at least notebook computers. Even before his days in the Army, he had been intrigued by technology, had welcomed its introduction into his life. He remained eager to try out the latest "toy" on the market, just to get a feel for the experience, if nothing else. He knew that he probably made scant use of many of his gadgets' features, but did not particularly mind. For him, it was the joy of trying something new.

Pressing his glasses back up the bridge of his nose, he rubbed thoughtfully at the fringe of beard that encircled his chin. He still kept his hair cut short. The band of beard his only cosmetic concession to civilian life, although its coloring contained far more salt than pepper these days.

It was his niece who suggested that it now made him look more like a neatly trimmed Santa Claus and less like a Klingon warlord—whatever that was. (He had needed to look up the reference afterward.) His children had almost unanimously declared it a change for the better, for it reflected his improved demeanor as well.

While in the service, Gerhardt had been a model officer, respected by his peers and superiors, and loved by those he commanded—or so he liked to believe. The commendations and medals supported his first presumption, that he still received the occasional message from those formally under his command suggested strongly of the second. But those were all measured against a soldier’s values. These days, it was different. It was his family’s love and respect that he worked to earn and maintain. He had a son who had also chosen to follow the military path—although for different reasons than he had—and Gerhardt was immensely proud of him. Many things were different these days, though, so he feared for his son’s welfare much less than he would have fared for his own in his father’s place.

It was those changes that had placed Gerhardt where he was now. When the New Conventions of Warfare had been ratified by the United Nations, demand for the research he had been conducting for the United States military dropped almost to zero. Deciding that their remaining limited funding was better used elsewhere, the Joint Chiefs cancelled his project. His notes were archived and his equipment was moved into storage, dismantled, or redeployed on other projects. As a consolation prize (or so it had seemed to him), he was promoted to full Colonel and assigned to oversee the retrofitting of Fort Irwin to meet the conditions set down in the New Conventions.

Shortly after completing that task, he announced his retirement. Fortunately for both himself and his family, a few months later, before the boredom of retirement could truly settle in, he received an offer from the institute to lead a team that would be, in effect, continuing his research. Although he and his wife, Natalie, had discussed the offer for several days before agreeing that he should accept it, it had taken him less than five minutes to do so.

Now, he studied the joints on the exoskeleton, where they served essentially as elbows, allowing separate movement of the upper and lower arm supports. He glanced down at the equivalent knee joints, taking several notes. Both would probably have to be almost completely re-worked, he thought. In their current form, they were simply too powerful for the lightweight materials they planned to use on the new design. In their current state, they would likely make the material of both arm structures buckle. Although, he began to wonder, is they reinforced the lengths of material so that they remained rigid, they might be able to use the powered joints as they were now.

The original exoskeletons were intended to with a twofold purpose: to augment the strength of the soldier wearing it (although Gerhardt had always considered it more of being caged within it than donning a suit of armor), and to provide that soldier with a modicum of protection from mines, mortar, and other explosive artillery designed to remove a man from his meat. Only a small number of the exoskeletons had been deployed before being abandoned as part of the adoption of the New Conventions. Gerhardt had always felt that they fit right in under the new rules, but he had only voiced that opinion aloud once. It was shortly after then that he decided to retire. Still, the last he had heard, the exoskeletons still out in the field seemed to be performing well up to their expectations.

November 5, 2009

#

Cynthia caught up with Diana again outside the entrance to the Bar. A long line paralleled the side of the small building and Cynthia reminded herself once again why she preferred to have lunch later in the afternoon, when her class schedule allowed it. Diana waved her to the line, her hand fluttering like a spastic butterfly. Trying not to roll her eyes—or meet the eyes of anyone behind Diana in the line—she went over and stood beside her friend. Diana gave her a darting smile and then turned her attention back to the doorway through which the line disappeared. Beside Cynthia, Diana stretched up onto her toes and tried to peer inside. Cynthia fully suspected that Diana was not trying to see how long the line was, but trying to catch a glimpse of her muscular grill cook.

After several attempts, Diana settled back onto her feet with a frustrated sigh. Her disappointed expression did not survive long, though. She turned to Cynthia, most of her earlier ebullience returning.

"You are going to the party at Phi Beta this weekend, right?" Diana's eyes were wide with the expectation of a positive reply from her.

Cynthia frowned, thinking. "I don't know . . ." she hesitated. She had heard vague rumors about it, but really had not planned on attending. It was not that she did not enjoy a good party, but the ones hosted by the fraternities tended to live up (down?) to their stereotypes. "I have a ton of reading and two papers to get started . . ." All of which was true, although she knew that she was just as likely to procrastinate on starting them whether she went to the fraternity party or not.

Diana gave her a look of mildly exaggerated distaste, but said nothing. The line started to move again and the subject was immediately forgotten. That was fine with Cynthia, because she was afraid that Diana might actually talk her into going.

#

It was nearly eleven o'clock before Kincaid arrived at the institute.

After he had cleared the security gate, he experienced one small stroke of luck on what had begun as a truly miserable day: someone apparently leaving early for a lunch appointment had left a vacant parking space available in the close vicinity of where he usually parked his car. The unexpected and pleasant discovery brightened his outlook considerably. As he walked the short distance from his car to the main lobby, he noted that the sun was shining and that the weather was still comfortable; the sharper chill of autumn had not yet set in. The trees and shrubbery seemed to know the season, though, for the color of their leaves had already begun to change.

He passed through the checkpoint in the lobby, getting a courteous nod from the guard on duty.

"Slept late, eh, Dr. Kincaid?" The middle-aged man chuckled warmly at his own joke.

Kincaid put on what he hoped was a properly sheepish expression, more for show than sincerity, and nodded. He waved his ID card over the access panel in front of the elevator and waited. The delay was far shorter than he was used to, as there was not the usual crush of early-morning human traffic trying to reach their laboratories and cubicles for their project managers started making the rounds.

A sharp chime sounded and the pair of doors to his left slid open. The car was empty—another unusual occurrence—and Kincaid stepped inside. He swiped his card again, paused a moment until the status light glowed green, and then pressed the button for his floor. The doors slid closed with the faint sound of metal grinding on metal.

As the elevator ascended, Kincaid took the few moments of solitude to gather his thoughts. They had been so concerned with the minutiae of the minor disaster at home that he had given little consideration to what awaited him here. It was probably just as well, he decided. Taking one's mind off the things that troubled you most, even for a few hours, can often lead to insights that might have been missed otherwise. It had been true enough times in his past that he gave some credence to the sentiment.

The doors opened and Kincaid immediately sensed the heightened tension. His first fear was that something that had gone terribly wrong with their project, but it lacked quite the right sense of overall urgency for that. This anxiety seemed to come from another source. For a moment, Kincaid had a vision of a herd of gazelles grazing on an African veldt, bolting suddenly at the first sign of an approaching predator. It became a mildly amusing image as the gazelles sported matching white lab coats.

As he opened his locker, the vision faded, but he once reminded once more of lab coats. He had forgotten to grab a new one from the storage room on his way in. He took his badge, snapped it onto his shirt pocket, and headed for smaller supply room on this floor. His improved luck for the day continued as he found not one, but two, spare coats; one was even his size. With a smile, he slipped it on and stepped back into the corridor.

He was in the process of replacing his badge when he felt the pressure of an intense pair of eyes on him. Looking up, he found Adamson staring at him, studying him almost exactly that same predatory look he imagined that a cheetah might have possessed while watching the gazelles in his earlier vision.

"I'm glad you could join us this morning, Dr. Kincaid." She somehow made his title and last name each sound like separate sentences.

Standing barely visible behind her, scribbling on his ubiquitous tablet, was her administrative assistant, Alan Cockburn. Kincaid had always thought, but have never said aloud, that Cockburn exemplified the definition of "weaselly". If the rumors of his sexual orientation were true, then his surname also seemed apt. It was not that Kincaid bore any prejudice against individuals with that preference, but he neither liked nor trusted Cockburn. He never felt comfortable turning his back on the man, feeling as though at any moment he would feel the thin blade of a knife in it. Metaphorically, it had probably been true on several occasions, not that Kincaid particularly cared.

Kincaid gave Adamson his best, neutrally sincere smile. The Director continued to stare at him for another moment before breaking eye contact. Kincaid noted that she did not blink; she simply found him no longer of interest and looked away.

"I was about to take a first-hand look at your progress on this project," Adamson said, clearly indicating that he had delayed her carefully worked-out schedule. She paused, staring at the secure door as if it would open itself under the force of her gaze.

"I was due to provide you with a complete report tonight," Kincaid stated mildly.

He did not like people interfering with his projects while they were in progress; he particularly did not like administrative busybodies like Adamson to do so. He had been in the field, and at this specific institute, long enough to know that such visits were inevitable, but she had picked a particularly bad day for it.

"I know that," Adamson declared with a tone carried arctic frost. She exchanged a quick glance with Cockburn, who gave her a sharp nod of acknowledgment. Now fixing Kincaid with a stare, she said, "Shall we go inside?"

Having no defensible objections, other than his own considerable annoyance, Kincaid swiped his card at the door and, after hearing the lock click, opened it for Adamson to enter. She walked past him with an arrogant stride that, had it been anyone else, would have sorely tempted Kincaid to trip her. Not that he would have really done that it all, but he found the vindictive thought alone somewhat satisfying.

Kincaid and the other team members crowded in behind Adamson and Cockburn, and a crammed fit it was. There were two additional people squeezed into a room designed to hold three less than that comfortably. Adamson found herself a spot and seemed to anchor herself to it, forcing everyone else to flow around her. Fortunately for Kincaid, she had positioned herself slightly to the right of the workstation that Kincaid needed. She had a better view of the chamber beyond than anyone else, but this did not bother Kincaid—he had spent more than enough time staring into the essentially unchanging interior of the chamber. What he truly needed to see was within this room.

He entered his password and unlocked the console. Almost any other member of his staff could do the same—or even have conducted this entire demonstration—but he was not going to place any member of his staff on the proverbial hot seat in front of Adamson. Although this project was clearly the effort of many individuals, Kincaid knew from past experience that the Director would not accept anything not presented to her by a member of the management staff. That attitude had its advantages and disadvantages, Kincaid had learned. Rarely did entire project teams feel the wrath of the Director, but more than one project manager had failed to be seen at institute the next day after a failed demonstration.

Kincaid tried to mentally shrug off his own growing tension. He knew that while in his opinion they had made excellent—and perhaps even astounding—progress on this project, this exhibition was unlikely to create a similar impression with the Director. He was going to have to be very careful how he spun this . . .

He could sense Adamson growing restless beside him. Without looking, he was certain that Cockburn would have checked the time display on his tablet at least ten times in the past two minutes. They could just wait, Kincaid told himself. He was not going to rush through this without proper preparation and possibly bring an untimely end to their project. His team was counting on him to succeed, and perhaps he felt that pressure more than that of pleasing Adamson.

November 4, 2009

As abruptly as it had begun, the barrage of sound ceased. This time, Nicholas welcomed it, glad of the silent respite. The sensation had not quite been pain, but overwhelming enough that his mind felt overloaded by the prolonged blast of what had seemed like noise. The mental relief that the silence brought him almost felt palpable. He remained wary, though, certain that the sound blast might return at any time.

The silence had just begun to concern him when the voice returned.

"My apologies, Nicholas," it offered. "That apparently did not work as expected." There was a brief pause. "We are re-calibrating and will try again in a few moments."

The voice went silent again and Nicholas realized what had been bothering him about it. The transition from speaking to silence was distinct. The voice, although oddly modulated, was also consistently clear. There seemed to be none of the usual background noise or electronic static that one would expect from almost any form of verbal communication. It was just another in the growing list of strange things that Nicholas had begun to compile about his new environment.

Okay, Nicholas," the voice returned. "We are going to attempt this procedure again. We hope to more successful this time."

There was that "we" again, Nicholas noted. Clearly whoever was involved in what was being done to him was not acting alone.

He then noticed a faint buzzing noise, just on the edge of awareness. As he tried to focus on it, it gradually grew, very slowly gaining in intensity. He prepared himself for a renewed assault, but the level of the signal stabilized below what it had been before. Nicholas guessed it to be at about half of the intensity of the original blast. It seemed entirely tolerable at its current level. He could not imagine its purpose, but was certain that, if he did not come to ignore it, it would become a maddening distraction in time.

The sound continued for a time. Nicholas then began to detect small variations in the signal. They were subtle at first, but grew more pronounced the longer he listened to them. It still seemed to be meaningless sound and he attempted to discern a pattern from the variations, trying to determine whether they were intended to be words or something else entirely. This on for some time, long enough that he had actually started to become bored with the exercise, when the fluctuations ceased. It returned to being a single, flat tone before ending abruptly.

This time, Nicholas felt himself react differently to the return of the pervasive silence. At first, he imagined it to be like being in a darkened theater after the lights went down, but before the movie started. No, he decided, it was more than that. In a theater, there would be the sounds of the air conditioner (always turned on too high) and the noises of people sitting nearby. This was different than that. Then he had it. It was that seemingly unnatural silence that followed in those first few moments after a neighborhood-wide power outage. Every sound would suddenly vanish from the environment: no hum from the kitchen appliances, no barely-audible buzz from electronic devices—nothing. Just silence.

In those instances, though, ambient sounds did eventually return, even if only from a distance. Nicholas could imagine it now: the sounds of automobiles out on the street, dogs barking, children crying—all of the usual sounds of life continuing to take place in the absence of light and electricity. Here though, wherever he now was, the silence continued to be absolute unless the voice spoke to him—or offered up strange, monotonous sounds. Nicholas waited, adrift in a sea of silence, for the voice to return.

#

Cynthia Kincaid removed her phone from her backpack and checked it. It indicated that she had received three voice messages during class, but none of them had been from her father. That really was not surprising, for he often did not return her calls during the day. He had explained to her more than once that he did want to interrupt her during class. Each time, she had laughingly told him that it was okay. She suspected that the truth was that he secretly abhorred the notion of having his voice stored in a digital message.

Someone bumped against her, nearly knocking the phone from her hand. She glared at the perpetrator, but was only able to score a glancing blow off of his retreating back. None of those who called required urgent attention, so she shoved the phone back into her pack and continued on.

"Hey, Cyn!" came a familiar shout from nearby.

She stopped, turning on the ball of one foot, looking in the direction that she believed the voice came from. Waving wildly to her with one hands stretched up high was Diana Parrier. Cynthia thought Diana looked foolish standing there like that, but Diana either did not notice or care. In truth, Cynthia thought it was probably a mixture of both. She waved back quickly, making just enough of a gesture that she hoped that Diana would see it and stop, but not enough to draw attention to herself. Changing direction, but not increasing her pace, she headed toward where her friend waited.

Diana smiled brightly, almost bouncing in place. "Hey, Cyn," she repeated. "Want to grab something at the Bar?"

Cynthia grimaced slightly. The main draw of the Bar-D Grill was just that, its enormous menu of grilled meals, with a cooking grill to match. Cynthia also knew, though, that the Bar's main attraction for Diana was one particular student who worked there behind the monster grill. His name was Beau or Braun or Brian, or something like that. All Cynthia could remember for sure was that he played some sport for the college that was not football or basketball. Still, he was large and athletic-looking, but not at all Cynthia's type. As a matter of fact, Cynthia had realized long ago that nearly any male student that Diana had expressed an interest in was not her type. In almost all cases, she could far too easily imagine them in the future: sitting on the sofa, drinking beer with their buddies, and cheering at the television screen. That did not match her personal vision of a bright and sunny future.

She could sense that Diana was getting antsy for a response. She was getting hungry, she realized, but would have just as happy with a salad from one of the healthier, and less crowded, eateries on campus. Finally, before Diana started doing more than shift from foot to foot with impatience, Cynthia gave a non-committal shrug and said, "Sure."

Diana, as expected, took this as enthusiastic approval and headed off, almost at a trot. Cynthia followed at a slower pace, moving just quickly enough to keep her friend in sight.

#

Kincaid awoke to daylight. It took him several moments to recognize how unusual that was. Even if it had been a Saturday—and came more sharply awake when he realized that it was not. He found himself slightly surprised that he had not been awakened by a phone call from one of his staff members checking on him in concern. They were probably just as tired as he was, Kincaid suspected, and had probably guessed that he had decided to try to catch up on at least a few hours of sleep lost over the past few days.

On paper, the institute had flexible work hours, depending on the needs of specific projects. Official policy to contrary, it was well known that Adamson preferred to have her staff there and working no later than nine o'clock (although it was apparent that she appreciated those who arrived by eight o'clock even more). Kincaid glanced at his clock, unused to having to read its display in the morning light: 9:32. He rolled onto his back again and sighed. While he was somewhat surprised at the time, he was not entirely surprised that he had slept that long. I'm not in college any more, he reminded himself silently. It was both a mild scolding and a melancholy reminder.

He had given up academic research four years ago to accept this position at the institute. In addition to offering considerably more money in compensation, it also provided him with the ability to conduct his research with a much more reliable stream of funding. The opportunities to publish and present were no less limited. In fact, there might even be more chances for him to reach an even broader audience with the possibility of turning his research into practical applications.

Kincaid rose to a sitting position, feeling stiff. His muscles felt tight in several places that he did not expect. It was then that he realized that he was still dressed from the day before. That explained much of the rest, he decided. Standing, he started to undress.

The shower seemed to invigorate him somewhat, the steam and hot water washing away most of the remaining fatigue. Watching the water and soap swirl down the drain, he was suddenly reminded of something involving water . . . of something he needed to do . . .

Even as he toweled off and then shaved, it continued to nag at him, but would not reveal itself. He tried to dismiss it in a bit of mental reverse self-psychology, telling himself as he dressed that whatever it was really did not matter, but that tactic failed him—the elusive mental nagging persisted. He headed downstairs toward the kitchen to make coffee and find out what he might have available for breakfast.

As he made his way down the stairs, the aroma of something that he could only describe as spiced sewage wafted to him. He stopped, slumping, as he realized with an audible groan just what had been niggling at him all morning. Finally forcing himself onward, he told himself that he could not just leave it until later. Later might be several days away and the damage even more severe than it already was.

Daylight did not improve the appearance of the situation; it was simply more brightly lit. Kincaid judged that to completely repair the damage would require, at minimum, the services of a plumber and a carpenter . . . and several hours of having to try to work from the house as they performed their various, highly-priced services. To make matters worse, if Kincaid’s memory was correct, his daughter’s college tuition for the next academic quarter was due next week.

It never rains, but it pours . . . Staring at the stained and warped hardwood planks, he thought how apt that adage truly was. He headed back toward the kitchen. Coffee first, he told himself, and then the plumber.

November 3, 2009

Printed in black ink on dark paper, it was difficult to read in the dimly-lit parking lot. The headline was clear enough, though: STOP DOING GOD'S WORK. There then followed several short paragraphs of text, several of which by their formatting Kincaid presumed to be Biblical quotations. He glanced it over quickly before tossing it aside, landing on top of his jacket before sliding to the floor. Such leaflets were nothing new. Although most of the work that the institute did was highly secretive, very little of it should have inflamed the easily-ignitable opinions of the various religious groups. Still, Kincaid knew, rumors abounded and that was often more than enough to prompt reactions borne out of ignorance. Dismissing it from his thoughts, Kincaid shifted the car into gear and headed home.

#

Arriving home, Kincaid fumbled at the door with his keys. Once again, he reminded himself what a good idea it would be to install a timer on the porch light for nights like these. He eventually found the right key, after trying several, one of which got momentarily stuck in the lock. He pushed the door open and darkness greeted him, as well as a wafting, somewhat unpleasant odor. How long had it been again since he had last been home? He groped for, and found, the light switch. It lit up the foyer and some of the space beyond, but mostly leaving the other visible rooms in dark shadow. Still, everything looked fine here.

The odor continued to linger, but he could not determine any particular direction from it came. His first thought was for his fish, but he stopped, pausing to listen in the quiet of the house. After a moment, he heard the faint, but distinctive, hum of the filter system. It sounded as it always did, telling him that it did not seem to be clogged or otherwise not functioning as it should He continued on toward the kitchen, judging that it was the most likely source of the smell.

He reached out and turned the light on there. It appeared much as he remembered leaving it—unfortunately. Dishes and cooking utensils that had already had been sitting unwashed for two days when he had left now had been given three—or was it four? five?—additional days to grow further encrusted. Kincaid wished again that he had renewed his cleaning service. The last two services he had used had experienced such a high turnover rate that he found himself having to re-educate a new cleaning lady almost every other month. He had cancelled the service when he had travelled to France for two months, reasoning that there was no sense cleaning a house no one was living in. He had never renewed it—much to his current regret.

Walking toward the counter, he studied the mess, but the smell here was different. It was the mixed aroma of stale food and other waste, but was not particularly unpleasant. In a few more days, though, he knew it would be. He was equally pleased to discover that no ants had managed to locate the dried-on feast. Vowing to make cleaning the kitchen a priority when he arose in the morning, he headed down the hallway toward the room that functioned as his home office and library. The smell was slightly stronger there, but did not seem to be emanating from the room itself.

He could see the outlines of the room’s furnishings in the reflected light from the fifty-gallon aquarium. The silvery-blue light always gave the room a ghostly appearance. Everything there also seemed to be in order. Kincaid entered the room and stood before the immense aquarium. He was relieved that none of them appeared to have died from his days-long neglect. Many times, the employees at the shop had reassured him that most fresh-water tropical fish were far hardier than most people believed, as long as their water was kept clean, aerated, and at a constant temperature. They could easily go up to a week without being fed, he had been told, but it was best not to do it too often. Kincaid did not think it had been a week—at least he was been pretty certain it had not been. He opened the container of food and, after lifting open the top door, sprinkled more than he knew that he probably should have across the surface of the water. He did it, he figured, more to assuage his own guilt at neglecting them than because they were verge of starvation.

Several of the fish swarmed toward the surface of the water, hoping to capture the choicest morsels for themselves. Others swam upward, but then paused, seeming to know that there was far more food than those above could eat before it began to drift down to where they waited patiently, without having to fight the crowd. From what Kincaid could see, they all appeared to be in good condition and with healthy appetites. He rubbed the last of the food from his fingers and closed the lid. All was well here.

Moving back into the hallway, he considered returning to the front of the house to gather the mail, but decided to check one other location first. As he made his way down the hall, he became certain that the odor he had detected before, but had apparently grown quickly accustomed to, had returned and was indeed much stronger at this end of the house. He made his way to what he considered the guest bathroom, but stopped well short of it. Even he before he turned on the hallway light, he knew approximately what he would find.

The wooden planks of the floor were covered with a dark beige coating. Several sections of the floor had already begun to warp and the thin film of dried sludge that covered them told him that it had been like this before several days. He exhaled through his nose, trying not to take another breath again even as he examined the damage. From what he could tell, a pipe had burst, or at least backed up severely, depositing many gallons of unprocessed water across the bathroom floor and out into the hallway.

Kincaid’s head sagged with weariness and he back away, trying to gain enough distance from the unsanitary mess so that he could take a breath without the urge to gag. Once he had reached what he thought was a safe distance, he took a quick, experimental breath. The odor was still there, but at least it was tolerable. It had gone this long without being dealt with, he decided. It could certainly wait until morning. Checking his shoes to make certain that he was not tracking the malodorous sludge along with him, he headed back into the main part of the house.

He returned to the foyer and climbed the stairs to his bedroom, the mail forgotten. All he wanted now was sleep. Reaching the bedroom, he touched the switch that would turn on only a single bedside lamp. In its faint pale amber glow, he worked off his shoes with his feet and then lay down across the bed.

I really should get undressed, he thought as he closed his eyes. Before the next coherent thought could form, he was asleep.

#

The next time that Nicholas awoke, or became aware (as he was not entirely convinced that he was always really going to sleep), there was an extended period of silence before the voice spoke to him. He wondered why they woke him if they were not quite ready yet to start his interrogation. That is what he had begun to think of it as, for he had so far failed to arrive at a better explanation—or at least one that made any reasonable kind of sense. Part of him was almost ready to just consider it part of a game, mostly because the idea amused him and also kept some of the darker possibilities from returning to his mind.

“Nicholas,” the voice finally addressed him.

He realized that it sounded slightly different. It was still mostly flat and lacking real inflection, but there was a more distinctive timbre to it. Nicholas concluded that it was definitely male, probably coming from someone about the age of his father or slightly older. It was definitely not his father’s voice, Nicholas decided.

“Nicholas,” the voice repeated. “We’re going to try something,” it said. “It will—should—be similar to the last time, but should also be different.” There was a brief pause before it continued. “It should be a single tone instead of a series of them.” Another pause. “Please respond in the same manner as you did last time if you can hear it.”

Okay, Nicholas thought. Ready when you are. He waited for what seemed like several minutes, but nothing happened. No sounds came, not a single long one, or even a series of alternating ones like before. It’s not working, he thought, surprised at the depth of the disappointment he felt.

Suddenly, a tidal wave of sound crashed through his mental universe. It crested, but then did not diminish. If he had been capable of doing so, he would have covered his ears with his hands in an attempt to block out the barrage of noise. It was a steady flood of aural sensation, almost completely without variance in pitch or frequency. He had no idea how long it continued, but at several points in time he feared that he would either lose consciousness or go mad from the onslaught.

November 2, 2009

There was long pause during which the silence returned. Before long, though, the voice came again.

"Nicholas," it addressed him. "I'm going to send you a series of sounds. I'd like you to respond to them in the same way, if you can."

Since he had no way of responding, Nicholas simply waited. A few moments later, he heard another faint buzzing noise, but at a different pitch than any of the earlier ones. He did his best to think his response and the sound went away abruptly. Another one, again at a different pitch, followed a few second later. Nicholas repeated his response and was rewarded a few moments later with another tone. The sequence continued for a long while, reminding Nicholas of the hearing tests they had conducted when he was in elementary school.

There were longer than expected delays between some of the sounds. Nicholas suspected that he was either unable to hear them or whoever was producing them was having problems. Some of the tones did not seem like sounds at all. Instead, they felt different, like an itch from within . . . his bones?

Finally, the noises ceased entirely. There was a long pause before the voice returned. When it did, it told him, "You did very well, Nicholas." He supposed that he should have pleased, but he felt more annoyed, still not having any idea what was going on or why.

"I can see we have a few adjustments to make," the voice went on.

We? Was it speaking of just the two of them? Or just how many people were involved in . . . whatever it was that was being done to him?

"We'll talk again soon," the voice said and then silence enveloped him.

#

Dr. Walter Kincaid stepped back from the keyboard and rubbed his eyes, trying to remember when he had gotten more than a couple of hours of sleep. What little rest he had managed had taken place on a empty gurney in one of the vacant examination rooms. He knew that he needed a good, solid night of it—or two—but they had been so close to a breakthrough yesterday that he had worked throughout the night in the hope of being ready for another attempt today. While the results had been more than promising, they were not quite as good as he had hoped for. Still, considering there were charting a course through pretty much unknown territory, any move forward was progress in the right direction.

Glancing one more time at the display on his right, he saw the frozen image of the brain activity graph. There was no doubt that they had registered both significant Beta and Gamma wave activity. That alone was extremely promising. That there was response to the simulated stimuli, while hardly breakthrough material, also showed that this project might yet succeed.

Kincaid took a deep breath, silently scolding himself for already planning ahead for recognition for an experiment that had barely begun—and had every chance of failing at any moment. While they were building on known research, and successful case studies, as far as Kincaid knew, they were the first to attempt it in quite this way.

He reached for his coffee cup and sipped it contents. It had long since grown cold. He swallowed it down, grimacing. If there was anything worse than room temperature coffee, he did not know what it was. At this point, with what the little rest he had gotten since this all began, the small amount of caffeine that it contained was not likely to have much effect. He tossed the cup into the waste container, considering with the amusement of the fatigued that he should probably have disposed of it along with the other toxic waste and biohazards.

Reaching to rub his eyes again, he realized that they had started to burn. He had left his contact lenses in for too long without cleaning and they were starting to complain. "Okay," he said aloud. "Let's call it a night."

There were faint rumblings of agreement from the others in the laboratory control room. Kincaid was not even certain that it was night, having lost so many hours to continual wakefulness. For all he knew, it was only two o'clock in the afternoon and their early departure would be greatly disapproved of by the Chief. Well, Kincaid decided, the Chief's ass hadn't been in this lab for nearly three weeks without a significant break beyond meals and the occasional shower, usually taken down in the facility's own fitness center.

He checked the time display on one of the computer screens: it was past nine-thirty at night. Even the Chief has long since left, gone to attend whatever the appropriate—and potentially financially lucrative—social function was for the evening. The Chief was also not above a certain amount of self-politicking either, Kincaid knew. It was well-known that the Chief was using her position here as merely the next stepping stone in her plans for career advancement.

Looking down at himself, Kincaid also decided that his laboratory coat should probably be burned rather than any attempt made to wash or recycle it. He doubted that either the stains or odor could be removed from it now. Some of the stains on it looked unfamiliar and he had no memory of what might have caused them. Some quickly-eaten, long-forgotten meal of days past, no doubt, he decided.

He wait until the others had left and then checked to make certain that all of the workstations had either been turned off or set for security access. Turning off all but a single overhead light, he left the room. He nodded to the guard standing just outside, receiving a quick nod and ready smile in return.

“G’night, Dr. Kincaid,” the man said.

“’night, Jerry,” Kincaid replied, giving the guard a weary smile. Jerry had, Kincaid knew, had passed thirty some years ago and moonlighted on this job to fund his daughter’s dream of being an Olympic gymnast. Despite the man’s age, Kincaid felt little doubt that it would take a team of specially armed commandos to get past Jerry into the lab. Having him there also gave Kincaid a vaguely smug sense of satisfaction. In these days of budget cuts, and extremely limited resources, only the most vital and potentially important projects got around-the-clock security. Kincaid’s project was one of the very few that received this special treatment. Kincaid wondered how long that would last once the novelty of the project wore off.

He continued down the corridor and went through both sets of isolation doors. The two guards on duty looked up from their magazines and watched him as he passed through. They said nothing to him and their expressions never changed. Once he was out of their sight, he was certain that they would return to their muscle-building and gun magazines, and whatever passed for conversation between them.

Entering locker room, he detached the badge from his pocket and tossed it on the shelf. Before removing his lab coat, he quickly went through all the pockets. He was surprised to find a half-eaten chocolate bar, its wrapper folded over one end, in one of them. It was not a kind of chocolate that he particularly liked, and he had memory at all of purchasing it from the vending machine. It joined his badge on the small ledge in the locker. Stripping off the lab coat, he tossed it into the bin to be washed. Someone else could make the determination whether it was salvageable, he decided sourly. He made a mental note to request a new one in the morning when he returned . . . before he got all the way to the lab and had to go back through all of the security checkpoints.

He grabbed his jacket, wondering whether he would actually need it outside the building. Autumn weather in Northern California was a variable and highly unpredictable thing. In many ways, Kincaid had mused more than once, it reflected the professional environment here: bright, brisk, and prone to sudden changes. For a moment, he considered just crashing in one of the more comfortable consultation offices, but he really did want to get home. It had been two many days since his back had rested in a real bed, with a real mattress . . . and his fish probably needed fed as well.

Arriving at the parking lot, he stopped, trying to remember where he had left his car. He was not yet among those elite who rated an assigned space, but his regular arrival time usually placed his car in about the same area each day. There were less than two dozen cars remaining in the lot. Access to the lab was available to nearly all of its employees twenty-four hours a day, so it was not unusual to find the lot partially filled at odd hours, particularly if there was some interesting or important project going on. Kincaid was certain that his would fall into that category, were it not under such tight secrecy and security.

He wondered if it was a Friday, and whether most of the staff had long since gone home and then out to whatever weekend activities awaited him. He quickly checked his mental calendar and determined that, no, it was a Thursday—and not leading up to a three-day weekend that he could recall. It was simply late and he was tired and wanted to find his car.

He pressed one of the buttons on his key remote and twin parking lights and headlights flashed from a silver sedan about thirty yards away. It might have been closer, but the distances always seemed greater to him when the parking lot was mostly empty.

Reaching the car, he pressed another key. Something inside the door clicked and it popped open. Tossing his jacket onto the passenger seat, he climbed inside. He touched the key to the ignition switch and the vehicle started. It was then that he noticed that a dark rectangle obscured part of his vision. He realized with a tired sigh that someone had placed a flyer under the wiper blade on his windshield. Exhaling wearily through his nose, he opened the window and reached for the sheet of paper. He had to stretch his arm a bit, and was about ready to open the door to climb out to get it, when he managed to grab a corner of it and slide it along the windshield and through the open window.

November 1, 2009

- 1 -

Nicholas Jorgensen awoke to darkness. He then realized that it was more than darkness. Not only could he see nothing, but he can hear nothing. None of the usual ambient sounds seemed to penetrate wherever he was. He tried to move, but found that he could not move his limbs. He felt no pressure from restraints, but neither did he feel any of the telltale signs of motion, not even the faint, barely perceptible brush of air across the fine hairs on his arms.

He paused, wondering if perhaps it was simply a dream. He had been in dark, quiet places before. Eventually, he knew, his senses would adapt and he would be able to discern faint sources of illumination or the muffled echo of distant sounds. And so he waited, although not with any particular patience, for his eyes to reveal sources of light and his ears to register whatever sounds they could.

After a period of time he could not measure, although he was certain that it was not as long as it seemed, nothing had changed. The darkness around him remained as pervasive as it had when he had first awakened—and just as silent. He had been in similar situations before—hiding in dark closets, that kind of thing—but even in those instances, in the absence of other sights and sounds, he remembered hearing the sounds of his body. Absent here was the rhythmic throb of his pulse in his ears and the sounds of his own breathing.

He took a quick, experimental breath. It seemed to work, as he did not feel his body kick into spasms of hyperventilation that would have followed otherwise. Yet, there was no sensation of his lungs filling with air and then deflating as they expelled his breath. He tried again, with the same result.

Nicholas began to doubt that this was all a dream, although he had no other explanation for it. While he had heard of sensory deprivation chambers, he had never experienced one. He certainly did not remember making arrangements with any of the campus psychology labs to participate in any of their experiments involving one. But if it was a dream instead, he also had no memory of falling asleep. Before he had awakened here—wherever here was—he had been . . . he had been . . . where?

He tried to recall what he had been doing . . . when? The night before? The morning of . . . ? Any lucid recollection eluded him. He had been to wild and raucous parties before, and drank far more than he should have, but had never before experienced an aftereffect like this—and that list included some award-winning hangovers. He had heard of people dying from alcohol poisoning, but surely it would feel different than this.

It occurred to him then that not only could he not remember what he had been doing before waking up here, but he found that there were many other things that he could not bring to mind. His name: his knew his name. His school: he knew his . . . purple and gold were the colors, but the actual name refused to come. His father . . . his father . . . he could see his father’s face, lined and careworn, the sharp eyes demanding of him that he . . . that he . . . do what?

A sudden chill passed through his mind that had no physical component. Was he dead? Was this what death was really like? An eternity during which you went mad from the complete lack of any sensations? Or was this just to show you that it was time to move on, that when your body was dead and unfeeling, there was no reason to remain?

Nicholas felt a wave of rising panic. He did not want to be dead, particularly if death was going to be like this. He was certain now that he should feel his breathing quicken and the steady beat of his pulse begin to race. None of that, however, took place. Everything around him remained as dark and silent as before. More than anything else at that moment, he wanted to scream.

#

The next time that Nicholas awoke, there seemed to be more clarity to his world. Rather, the quality of his thoughts seemed to be more distinct than they had the last time. Still, though, he could see and hear nothing, although odd sensations like sound faintly buzzed at the edges of his awareness. He took some comfort in this, as it was possible evidence that he was not, in fact, truly dead.

The unusual noises—if that was, in fact, what they were—seemed to emanate from a place other than from the proximity of his ears. It was as if he wore some kind of strange, protective helmet that seemed to make them echo from somewhere near the top of his head. That was not a completely accurate description either, he realized, but it would have to do for now. He tried to speak, to let whoever it was know that he could hear them, but he could feel nothing of his tongue or upper palate. The intake of breath as a prelude to exhaling to produce sound was missing as well.

He was alive. He was certain of it. New fears began to percolate through his mind. Was he in a coma? Was this was it like to be trapped within one’s own mind, unable to feel and communicate? That did not seem right, he decided. Certainly even then he should be able to at least hear the sounds of his own body, or noises from outside, even if he could not make sense of them.

The odd buzzing sound was more persistent now, occasionally taking on a faintly mechanical tone. Several times, it seemed as though it was trying to resolve itself into recognizable words, but understanding failed him. He was certain that he would understand them if he could hear them more clearly, but they seemed both distant and garbled by something like static, but different.

The noises suddenly faded and did not return. Nicholas had not realized just how silent his world had become until there had been sound in it once more, as incomprehensible as it might have been. He waited, listening, trying to hear something—anything—that might hint at the return of the sounds.

He felt suddenly very alone. Before, he had been too intent on studying his situation to realize his solitude, and convinced that he was not truly alone, simply somehow deprived of contact with his senses, or they with the outside world. For the first time, the lack of any sensations made him feel as though he was floating, adrift without any link to gravity or other force of nature that kept him bound to this world.

At first, he found the sensation interesting and almost liberating. Then he realized that there remained no sensation at all, that it was a construct of his own mind. For a moment, he thought he might fall, plunging down to . . . where? There was no here to plummet down from. It was then that the urge to scream returned. And once again he could find no voice.

#

“Nicholas.”

He became aware of his name being called. Awakening to the sound, he felt groggy, as if he had been awakened from the midst of a deep, dream-filled sleep.

“Nicholas?” his name repeated; he was certain that it was a question this time. “Can you hear me?”

He wanted to nod, still unable to find his voice. The muscles in his neck refused to obey, which was not surprising since he could not feel his neck—or his head for that matter.

It then occurred to him that the voice did not sound entirely human. It still had that distinct electronic quality that he remembered from . . . before? Before when? He clearly remembered now waking before, at least once. It might have been twice. Or even more than twice, but beyond the second time he could not discern any specific memories that told him during which period of being aware they might have occurred.

“Nicholas.”

There it was again: the voice calling his name.

“I know this might sound odd,” the voice continued this time. “But if you can hear me, I need you to think very hard about the fact that you can hear me.” There was definite modulation in the voice now, although it was more of a rise in pitch than a genuine inflection.

Think very hard, the voice had said. What did they think? That he possessed some kind of secret telepathic powers? Is that why they were holding him captive like this? He considered ignoring the instructions out of frustration, but then grew worried that they might stop talking to him and leave him alone again. He remembered hearing about that kind of torture being used, keeping someone so completely in solitary confinement that they craved the company of anyone, even their enemy captors.

What harm could he do anyway? he asked himself. It was not as though he harbored any great military or corporate secrets. If they wanted those, they should talk to his father . . . That thought stopped him. Was that what they wanted? Were they using him to get to his father?

A sour sense of resentment ran through his thoughts. He doubted that his father would do more than raise an eyebrow at any suffering his son might endure on his behalf. It would be the subject of scientific observation; little more.

“Nicholas,” the voice came again. “Please try to let me know whether you can hear me.”

Sure, he decided. Why not? Feeling more than mildly foolish, but with the knowledge that no one could actually read his thoughts, he concentrated as hard as he could, thinking, I can hear you. And then, for good measure, he added, I CAN HEAR YOU! At that point, Nicholas stopped and waited.

Some period of time passed. One of the things that he realized about this strange state of sensory deprivation was that he had no means by which to measure time, short of counting the second out of himself in his mind. Even then, he had no way of knowing how closely his own count matched the real passage of the seconds. He did not even have the aid of his own breathing or pulse to serve as an organic metronome for the effort.

He was about to repeat the mental shout, having little else to do, when the voice returned.

“Very good, Nicholas,” it said. “Very good.”