Altered America (27 page)

             
Thomas sighed and stared up at the ceiling.  His muscles still ached despite the sedative.  It was those machines he was hooked up to.  They were sucking the life out of him.

             
He lay on the table for what felt like days—the lights brightly illuminating the room and the constant buzzing of the power extractors made him lose sense of the passage of time.  He tried to sleep regularly, but with no clocks anywhere and his watch confiscated it was impossible to tell how long each period of sleep was.  Large guards regularly made rounds around the facility, giving every person a bit of water and hard, crusty bread for sustenance.

             
After a while, Thomas began counting the days by every third food delivery.  He tried to regulate his sleep patterns this way, but there was still no way of knowing without a clock or any window to the outside world... and the metal table was still terribly uncomfortable.  One morning—or at least, the first feeding after he woke up—the guard bringing Thomas food was joined by the businessman.  The fellow was still in the same suit as before, but this time a white lab coat was draped over it.

             
The businessman tapped the dials behind Thomas’s head before turning and grinning down at him.  "Looks like you’re coming along swimmingly, young man."  Turning to the guard, he asked, "How long has he been giving us these readings?"

             
"Ever since we brought him here, boss," the guard said with a deeply accented voice denoting Italian heritage.

             
"Curious, very curious." The businessman stroked his chin and eyed Thomas with great interest.  Thomas recognized the look from experience—it was the excitement of new scientific discovery.

             
"What's so curious?" Thomas asked, hoping to pry some information out of the man.

             
The businessman looked at Thomas, hesitating for a moment, but he quickly relented. “Why, young man, I’ve never seen a generator like you.  Your energy extraction readings are nearly triple what we’ve seen from the other folks here.  You, my boy, are special.”

             
Thomas cocked his head as much as he could while strapped to the table.  "What do you mean
generators?
  You mean our bodies are generating electricity?"

             
The businessman steepled his fingers and looked down at Thomas.  "Yes, exactly."  He relaxed as he settled into his explanation, sounding almost professorial. "You see, every person has the capability to generate a sort of psychomagnetic field.  I have set up a system that harnesses this field and converts that energy into electricity."

             
Thomas nodded slowly, processing the explanation—yet he needed more.  "But what generates the field?  And why am I a special case."

             
"Ah." The businessman’s eyes focused ahead on some space only he could see, lost in his words. "The field is generated by a person’s willpower, their life force, their..." He paused, struggling to find the right word.  "Their...
soul
, if you will.  The readings you’re giving off from your willpower are remarkable, the highest I’ve ever seen from any of the people in the facility; almost triple the average.” He pointed at Thomas.  “You, Mister Spinnaker, will be a great boon to society, because with you we can begin the expansion of the facility, to light up all of New York City, not just Manhattan.  And with enough study on you, perhaps we will find others with as much power capability.  If we do, I could power other cities!  Think of it, cities across the globe electrified by a mere handful of human souls."

             
Thomas raised an eyebrow. 
Souls?  Life forces?
  He had heard enough, though the businessman continued talking for a few more minutes, ranting about the glorious future ahead.  Then, he took a clipboard from the big guard and started jotting down some figures.  He went to the rest of the tables in the room and noted their readings before leaving.

             
The room returned to its eerie quiet.  The only noise was the low hum of the machines which Thomas now realized were likely some kind of turbines.  What the businessman said did not make much logical sense, though.  This wasn't any sort of electrical science Thomas had ever studied.

             
Thomas had no desire to be a part of this glorious electrical future that the businessman spoke of.  There had to be a means of escape!

             
Thomas waited for two weeks—it took him that long to regain his strength, but despite the strain of the life sucking machines, he was recovering.

             
The guards regularly brought in at least two meals a day—Thomas guessed—and while it was generally bread or some mushy gruel, it was very filling.  They even brought in small amounts of beer and sweetbreads on occasion.  Thomas ate them slowly, but he saw the other people on the tables wolfing down the food whenever it was brought in.

             
At last, Thomas began to test his theory on how he could break out.  He would struggle a little bit against the straps, so as not to strain his body, and would concentrate his thoughts hard on his eventual freedom and desire to break out.  Up by his head, he heard the dials respond to his force of will, and the whirring noise coming from the pylon increased in pitch as the turbine spun faster.  The more effort he placed in his desire to live, the greater the intensity of the psychomagnetic field around him.

             
After another few days of resting and building up his strength, Thomas finally went through with the breakout. He had learned the guards' routines through careful observation—even though he still had little concept of time in the power station—and he had timed his action to nearly halfway between feeding times.  He concentrated hard and felt the psychomagnetic field building. He focused on fond memories, of his earlier life with his father in Washington.  He thought about the unfulfilled aspirations he still had as a scientist.  And as he concentrated on the memories, he could hear the pylon's whine get louder and louder.  Soon the whining was joined by the grinding of brass on iron, and the needle flipped all the way over to the high end of the output dial.

             
The grinding grew sharper as the inner workings of the pylon strained to keep up with Thomas' field, and soon sparks were emitting from the pylon.  Thomas opened his eyes for the first time and saw the sparks flying over his face, so he took a deep breath and concentrated harder.  The screech of the machinery was starting to hurt his ears, and he held his breath, trying to concentrate everything ounce of willpower he had into breaking free.

             
A few seconds passed.  And then, it happened.  The pylon rattled with a loud hollow clunk, then exploded.

             
Thomas' vision went completely white, even with his eyes closed.  The whining of the pylon was replaced by an even louder ringing in his ears.  He blinked a few times trying to get at least some of his vision back, but he blacked out.

             
Thomas came to and found himself lying on his side on the cold stone floor of the power station.  It was not nearly as cold as the metal table had been.  Staring into the gloom, he spotted the table a few yards away, twisted and bent, and he looked behind him to see a smoking hole in the ceiling where the pylon had previously connected to it.  Several of the light bulbs near the table were shattered, their remnants swinging on the cords hanging from the ceiling.

             
Thomas looked himself over and while his clothes and much of his body were blackened with soot, the bruises and cuts from being thrown were only minor.  He made his way over to the warped table lying on its side and used one of the twisted metal bars from the underside to steady himself.  He stood up gingerly, and a sharp pain hit him in the left leg.  As reached down to rub at his calf, and when he drew his hand away it held a trace of blood.

             
Thomas looked around for the doorway, but moving his head too fast made everything blurry and left him woozy.  He slowed his head movements and his vision cleared, enabling him to locate the open doorway.  He limped over to the opening and began down the passage.  The hallway was dimly lit compared to the power station room and he had to squint to see much of anything.

             
As Thomas limped down the passage, he kept hearing quiet thumps and rumbling like distant thunder.  One thump about ten minutes down the passage was much louder than the others.  Half a second later, the hallway shook violently and the lights flickered.  Thomas had to lean against the wall to avoid falling over.

             
He rounded a bend in the passage and saw a large room ahead of him.  It looked like another subway station.  He walked toward it, keeping a hand on the wall to maintain his balance.  As he reached the entrance to the subway platform, another loud noise hit, this time a much clearer boom.  The lights went completely out and Thomas collapsed onto the floor.

             
Crawling around the darkened platform, Thomas' eyes slowly began to adjust to the darkness.  He looked up and saw a faint glow coming from what had to be the station entrance.  He had caught a brief glimpse of the stairs before the explosion, and he stood up and walked slowly toward them.  After a minute, he could just make out the stairs in the near pitch black station—then he heard an alarm coming from down the passageway.  They had to know that he escaped by now, so he quickened his pace as much as the throbbing pain in his leg would allow, walking toward the stairway.

             
Thomas made his way up the stairs, his heart pounding with fear.  As he went up each step, he winced, fighting through the intermittent pain in his leg.  He finally reached the top of the platform—all that was left was the climb out of the station and onto the street to freedom.  Light shone down from the entrance, and Thomas looked up at the entrance but could not make anything out beyond it.  The light coming into the subway was too bright for him to discern any buildings or shapes.

             
He paused to catch his breath at the bottom of the last flight of steps, and heard a yelling echo from below.  He looked down at the passage he had come from, knowing it must be the guards coming after him.  Time was of the essence!

             
Thomas turned back and put one foot on the bottom step.  The pain in his right leg shot through him again, and he swallowed hard, trying to numb it by force of will.  If he could just make it out of the station, he would be free.  They had kidnapped him at 42nd Street, so he had to be near there, and there were always plenty of people around.  He could get to Longacre Square and get lost in the crowds milling around there.

             
As Thomas pressed on up the stairs, the light coming from outside the station suddenly dimmed.  The bright yellow-white that had been streaming through became a much more subtle and natural orange color.  Long shadows emerged on the walls of the station, turning the entrance darker.  Thomas stopped again, now eight steps up the forty stairs to the city above.  Looking up again, he started to make out the city through the subway entrance, seeing the facades of the buildings around the station.  The normally grey granite was tinged orange like the walls of the station.  Slowly, he realized what was happening.  It was dawn.  Those weren't artificial street lights, but the natural light of the sun.  When he had overloaded the power station, it must have cascaded through the system and caused a blackout.

             
Thomas stood on the steps.  The astonishment that he had caused a blackout raced through his mind.  He shooed the thought away and concentrated on his procession up the steps.  He could do all the worrying he wanted after he was free and safe back in his apartment.

             
The pain remained by it was diminished.  His leg throbbed every time he put weight on it, but he forced himself to push onward.  The echo of footsteps and voices from the passageway was getting louder.  He couldn't let up!  He had to get away, press onward.

             
At the twenty-eighth step, Thomas faltered.  His left knee hit the flagstone step and another harsh shot of pain went through him.  He closed his eyes and took in a short, quick breath through his clenched teeth.  Dragging himself back up, darkness overtook him, and his face went white.

             
The orange light of the morning sun had been replaced with the shadow of a man—a tall man, wearing a fedora.  Thomas could not make out his face, but there was a solid circle of red light where the shadow’s eye was supposed to be.

             
"Well, well, Mister Spinnaker.  Good show," the businessman clapped slowly.  He gingerly walked down the steps toward Thomas, his footsteps echoing sharply on the flagstone stairs in a slow menacing descent.  "You’ve managed to shut down power in half of Manhattan."  He smirked.  “And I bet you thought you'd get away with it."

             
The knee pain had subsided, but the lingering pain in Thomas' leg still haunted him.  He could feel his heartbeat racing in both his head and his leg now, as he looked up at the businessman in defiance.