The Scrubs by Simon Janus Read Free Book Online Page B

shouted.
    The technician raced over to the burnt out console where O’Keefe and Cady were still sitting.   Sweat beaded the technician’s forehead.   Both men stopped their conversation to watch the man running towards them.   Cady noticed the guards in the gun nests focus their aim on the technician.
    “What is it, Bennett?” O’Keefe asked.
    “Mr.   O’Keefe, sir, you’d better come over to the Rift.   Something’s happening.”
    Cady stood to gain a better look at the Rift, but the Throne obscured his view.  
    “Like what?” O’Keefe demanded.
    “It’s changing,” Bennett replied.
      O’Keefe brushed Bennett aside and marched over to the Rift.   Cady and Bennett fell in behind him.   The governor’s stride was impressive and Cady struggled to keep up.
    O’Keefe shoved the crowd congregated in front of the Rift aside.   Cady squeezed through the gap left by his boss to see the source of everyone’s excitement.   The view through the Rift had changed.   Instead of the fixed view of a field that Cady had witnessed earlier, they could now see Keeler standing at the edge of a pond.   A dead woman, with sewn lips and throat, rose silently from the surface on the backs of dozens of mutilated corpses.   The collective gasp from the technicians killed all previous chatter.  
    Keeler seemed to be in conversation with the dead woman, although she never moved a muscle.   Cady’s mouth turned desert dry.   He turned to O’Keefe.   He found it hard to tell what emotions were playing across his face, but they seemed to be a mix of shock and wonderment.  
    “Are we recording?” O’Keefe demanded.
    “Y…y…yes,” someone stammered.
    What made the images pouring from the Rift all the more disturbing was the lack of sound.   Being robbed of the dialog only added to the sinister and abhorrent nature of what had been created in the North Wing.   Disgusted, Cady wanted to turn away, but couldn’t.   He, like everyone else, was glued to the Rift’s silent movie.   O’Keefe was right.   This breakthrough wouldn’t just mean the end of the video game industry; it would reinvent the entire entertainment industry.  
    “What’s going on?” Cady asked.
    “We’re seeing movement.”
    “You’ve never seen that before?”
    O’Keefe shook his head.   “It’s normally just a fixed view of where the Rift opens.   That’s why we’ve tried to get the inmates to record their adventures.”
    “Why’s it happening now?”
    “Who knows?”   O’Keefe snapped.   “I think our Mr.   Jeter has been holding out on us.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “We’re seeing this because Jeter wants us to see this.”
    O’Keefe turned away from the Rift.   He shoved the technicians aside and clambered up the side of the Throne with an agility that defied his stature.   He put his mouth conspiratorially close to the inmate’s ear.
    “Hey, Jeter, have you been holding out on me?” O’Keefe asked with a playful, teasing tone to his voice.  
    Jeter’s features tightened.   Cady guessed the sociopath was grinning under his muzzle.
    “That’s not playing fair,” O’Keefe said.   “I thought we had an understanding.”
    Jeter chuckled.
    O’Keefe grabbed the feed tube which was shooting the green fluid into Jeter’s nose.   He folded the tube over on itself, cutting the flow off.   Jeter stiffened the second his supply ceased and the Rift flickered as if someone was tampering with a TV aerial.
    “Jeter, you can hold out on them,” O’Keefe snarled, “but you are never to hold out on me.   You got that?”
    “Sir!” Cady shouted.   “Stop that.”
    “Relax, Cady.   Don’t you fret about Jeter and me.   We’re old friends.   We know how the game is played, don’t we, Jeter?”   
    Jeter bridled against his bonds and a low growl left his lips.
    “You seem to be more worried about losing reception than you are about Jeter’s health,” Cady said.
    O’Keefe fixed Cady with