Dr. Oshensker said. “The diagnostic data is correct. Blood flow is
continuing as expected.”
Eric stood. “Doctor, something isn’t right. Please
check again.”
“Feldman, run a high level diagnostic,” Dr.
Oshensker said to a technician on the other side of the room.
Feldman typed quickly, then looked up. “Everything
looks good, doctor.” He turned his attention back to the computer. “Wait.
That’s not right.”
Dr. Elliot hurried to the workstation. “What’s not
right?”
Feldman looked up, his face concerned. “See this?
It’s being fed from an external database. It’s not live telemetry.”
Dr. Elliot grabbed him by the shoulder. “What?
How?”
“I don’t know,” Feldman stammered. “I don’t
understand. Let me clear the connections and reset the diagnostics.”
Everyone turned their eyes to the monitor.
Everyone but Eric. Eric stared at the nurse, Kara, who smiled coldly.
There was a gasp from the crowd.
“My God,” a woman shouted, “his blood pressure is
off the charts. He’s awake! He feels everything. You’ve got to stop!”
“We can’t stop the Weave,” Dr. Elliot said. “If we
stop now, the program will crash. It will kill him.”
Eric stood and pointed. “It was the nurse,” he
said. “She’s the one.”
Everyone stared, first at him, then at her.
Her eyes were wide. “He deserves it,” she snarled.
An armed guard appeared beside her and firmly
grabbed her arm.
“He deserves it,” Kara said as the guard hauled
her away.
Both of Frist’s eyelids were twitching, and his
left hand started to tremble.
Smith stood. “Dr. Oshensker. Sedate him. Now.”
Oshensker grabbed a syringe, his hands shaking. He
managed to fill it and plunge it into the IV drip.
Frist’s eyelids slowed their twitching, his hand
tremor slowing to a stop, his blood pressure falling back to normal. The
countdown timer continued its descent.
“Eric,” Smith said, “interrogate that woman.
Nathan, continue the procedure.”
* * *
John woke, his body on fire,
burning from the inside. He wanted to scream. A glow filtered through his
eyelids and he knew that beyond that glow was life. Someone who could help.
He tried to twist, to move. There was something
hard and round in his mouth. A tube or a hose, going down his throat. He wanted
to gag but even that was denied him.
And, through it all, the pain!
People were talking, indecipherable. If only he
could block out the pain, even for a moment, maybe he could make sense of it,
understand what was happening, why he was forced to suffer.
He heard a voice. Something about…weave?
The word held no meaning. Just when he thought it
could not get worse, he found that what came before was just a prelude. In that
moment of agony, he felt a million pinpoints of sharp, prickly needles
burrowing through him.
He tried to scream, to make them stop, and then he
heard a voice, an old man’s voice, powerful and confident. The pain lessened
and he realized, as the torment finally ended, the voice had called for
sedation.
* * *
Eric strode through the room,
people jumping out of his way.
The nurse, Kara, stared at him, blue eyes shining.
He stopped to compose himself, then nodded at the guards. They hustled people
out of the room and shut the door, leaving them alone.
He glared at her. “You know who I am?”
She nodded. “You’re Wise. You’re the new base CO.”
“I’m only going to ask once. Once, you
understand?”
She nodded again, her eyes losing some of their
fire.
“Why?”
She swallowed hard. “I don’t regret it. Can you
imagine the pain he felt? The torture?”
Eric waited, silent.
She turned away from him, biting her lower lip. “My
cousin. Her fiancé’s son was on a class trip. He died in the blast.”
Eric said nothing.
She continued, “I knew when they brought Frist in.
A military man, shaggy hair and stubble on his face. They kept him unconscious
until the Implant. I had access to his records, so I dug.