King of the Dark Mountain (10 page)

In the morning they would probably try to get him to agree to the chair treatment again. How much time in this dungeon could he take before he just gave in and let them wipe his brain or whatever it was that it did? Maybe it wasn’t evil, like the guy had said. Maybe he was just being paranoid. But he knew that wasn’t the case. This whole set up was wrong, it smacked of science mucking about in areas where science never could do anything but harm. He would just have to fight them as long as he could. It was like being a soldier. You fought for the cause until you couldn’t fight anymore.

He finally drifted into a sleep that was punctuated with nightmarish images. He thought about throwing his jacket over the pit, just so he’d know if anything crawled out of it. But it was too cold to use it for that. He told himself it was stupid to worry about a hole in the floor and focused on a memorized prayer. It helped him to stay calm. He prayed for Ellie to be safe and for himself to stay strong. At last he fell into a deep and dreamless sleep.

Chapter Nine

Ted and Ellie enjoyed some sautéed fish and more vegetables, there was even some chardonnay. “We’re celebrating, after all,” Ted explained. Afterwards, they went back to the auditorium and now the technicians were gone. “Let me see if I can fire up this gizmo,” Ted said pushing some buttons beneath the podium style desk. Finally he found what he was looking for. On the screen in front of them suddenly appeared images of their journey. “It is geared to see what you see, does it look accurate?”

Ellie looked at it closely, “Oh my God, that’s incredible. “There in all its glory was the magnificent cedar. She gave Ted an astounded look. “How can they do that?”

“It’s about interpreting brain signals in the visual cortex. They have it worked out so they know what signal denotes a given color, with that information they can recreate the images inside the mind.” Ted fiddled some more with the buttons on the desk and suddenly there was a clear image of himself, but the background was missing. “It encrypts according to emotional tone. When you were looking at me, the signals increased in intensity so the picture mirrors that. Since you weren’t focused at that moment on the background, it’s not reproduced.”

“So it’s driven by emotion?”

“We have done experiments when we tried to get images that had no particular meaning to the subject, but it didn’t produce very much. You begin to understand why we were anxious to have you become a part of the team, given our long standing positive relationship.”

“It still seems Irena would have been a better subject.”

He shook his head, “For one thing, sexual energy produces bizarre visual results, possibly because most people have such conflicted emotions regarding the matter. For another thing, Irena’s use of anti-depressants would make it difficult to obtain anything useful. She went into a state of near clinical depression after a miscarriage over a decade ago. We both wanted children, but it wasn’t working out. Irena took it particularly hard, so she decided to get some professional help. At first, the medication seemed to help her recover, but now, with what I’ve learned from my research here, I wonder if it was worth it.”

Ellie looked grim. “Those mood altering prescription drugs are becoming ubiquitous. I almost went on them myself.”

“I know, and there’s evidence that they deplete natural reserves of positive emotional energy. Once those are gone, the person can be thrown into states of shades of paranoia. I saw it with Irena; she began to imagine all kinds of things.”

“Given the unusual nature of your work, that was probably easy to fall into.”

Ted nodded, “It requires very strong grounding in the ordinary world to do this kind of work. The fellows they recruit to work here are just the type. They have no imagination whatsoever, so we can proceed without worrying about someone going off the deep end when confronted with the ‘other-worldly.’”

“How do they respond to it?”

“Just keep typing notes into their computers. They’re good at note taking, which makes them excellent as well.”

“When they go home after six months, you don’t think they’ll have wild stories to tell their families?”

“Maybe, but they’re drilled on security requirements. Also only a small number get access to this part of the facility. The cafeteria on this side is as far as it goes for most of them. There’s a laboratory underground where we store all the information in a massive computer. It’s in case we were to have some unforeseen damage, such as occurred we think with that other facility. We think they have more than one setup like this one, though we’re not for sure. It could be we do as well. I hate to admit it, but I’m not altogether certain about all that we do have set up.”

“They don’t keep you fully informed when you began this whole … cosmic ride?”

“They pretend that they do, but I have reason to believe that they’re holding back on me.” He shrugged, “It doesn’t matter; we’re all stumbling around in the dark trying to figure this thing out as we go.”

“I just hope they don’t find a military application for all this. I can’t believe you got funded, without having to imply that there could be.”

“The lines aren’t so clearly defined anymore.” To her look of alarm, he added, “We will have to outsmart them if it comes to that.” He fiddled again with the buttons on the desk and zoomed in on the letters on the cedar tree. “Those jewels seem to be arranged in some type of alphabet, wouldn’t you say? The device is set to enhance anything that looks like writing,” He stepped back and exclaimed, “How beautiful it is.”

“I know. I’ve never seen anything quite like it, have you?”

“It seems oddly familiar, and yet I can’t recall ever seeing anything like it,” he replied.

“Can we have it looked at by linguistic experts, someone with that type of knowledge?”

“I’m afraid I’m as good as it gets around here,”

“Sorry, I never think of you as a linguist, more of uhm … a magician,” she laughed. “So what language is it, do you think?”

“I would need to study it more to have any idea about that. I’m going to have them get me a three dimensional image of the tree. You see how some of the markings wrap around. “

“Now that you mention it, there seem to be two bands interwoven and spiraling around the main body.”

“Yes once we get a look at it from all sides, we should be able to get the whole thing imaged from that.”

“Big as that thing is, seems like you’d need me to see it from multiple angles.”

“You may be right. Going back can present problems, however. Our research has shown that we have to allow a certain space in time for the process to work at an optimal level. If we go back there too soon, your own mind will start to project its own images over what’s there. It could even do that, if we wait awhile.”

“So the first view is the truest one?”

He nodded, “Yes, and I’m pretty sure we won’t even need to look at it from more angles. These tech people are great at extracting data from these images. They aren’t like normal two dimensional photographs; if you look closely you’ll be able to detect some three dimensional qualities to them.”

Ellie looked more closely at the tree. She thought in one shot she could perceive the shadow of a branch through what should have been a larger solid branch in front. “I see what you mean. How strange,” she laughed. “Considering how they pulled the whole thing out of my head, I guess it’s not that strange.”

“Yes, but a few hundred years ago, an ordinary photograph would seem very strange.”

“Can we have a look at yours?”

“It only allows one person in the pair to get scanned for visual imprints. You can understand why. It would end up with overlapping images, like a double exposure if we allowed both parties to imprint. It overlaps enough as it is.”

“Oh that’s too bad, could we go back and let you be the imprinter next time?”

“It would be hard to get back to the same location. It’s just all too subjective to count on returns. We might be able to get close to it, and if that proves necessary, I’m willing to try it. But for now there’s something we have to talk about. It can’t wait any longer, I’m afraid.” His grey eyes darkened, “Let’s go sit down over here.” He led her to a small sofa tucked into the corner away from the tech stations and the crystal cylinder.

*

In the middle of what might have been night, he had no idea what time it was or even what day, Hez was rousted off the cot and shoved back into the corridor. This happened quickly and wordlessly. The same two men, who had thrown him into the cell, now were forcing him to walk down the hallway back towards the elevator. The device brought them quickly back to the same floor where he had been questioned earlier. At least he thought it was the same floor, it had the strange high ceiling and narrow dimensions of that floor at any rate.

He soon found himself back in the rose colored room. The man who had questioned him before was sitting at the table, with the same long suffering air about him. It gave Hez the feeling that he had only been away for moments instead of much longer. This in turn fed his general sense of dislocation from any normal sense of time, since falling through the rabbit hole of the tanning bed looking device. He thought of the lovely Sara, who likewise seemed a figure from some distant part of his life, rather than someone he must have met within the past twenty four hours. He took a deep breath and waited for the man to speak.

“Please sit down, Mr. McCane.”

Hez did as he was asked. “I want to know where Ellie is,” he said quietly.

“We want to know how you entered this facility.”

“I was escorted off the hiking trail by a couple of your men.”

“That’s not possible. This facility has not been accessible on foot for a very long time. There was another McCane, who I just learned left months ago. We have no record of a second, so once again how did you manage to enter our facility?”

“There’s no reason for you to have a record about me. I came here to find my sister, and I got here on foot. That’s the truth.”

“What’s your sister’s last name is it different from yours?”

“No, it’s the same.”

“Then she’s not here. We have no American women, and certainly none named McCane.”

“This makes no sense. Why would you import a completely foreign workforce?”

“Have you lost all contact with reality from a few hours of isolation?” the man asked.

“How long was I down there?”

“Six hours, did you notice any peculiar features about the holding cell?”

“You mean the hole in the floor?”

“It’s not very deep; it doesn’t contain anything but empty space. Yet I have the power to put you back in that room and that pit would contain whatever it is that you fear most. It doesn’t even matter that I’m telling you this now. Your mind would not be able to retain the knowledge that it is merely an illusion.  To you, it would be real. “

“Why are you threatening me? I told you how I got here and what I came for. Is it because you have done something to Ellie?”

“This isn’t getting us anywhere. You seem to be under some type of illusion that we have kidnapped your sister. You don’t seem like the type of person we would have brought into this facility. I offered you the opportunity to receive the master programming, but I don’t think it would do you any good. For your type, there is no point in trying to replace the old programming, because you would simply corrupt whatever new information we put into you.”

“You’re right about that,” Hez said.

The man stood up. “Erickson,” he piped. The man named Erickson immediately appeared. “You can take him up,” he said.

At least it’s not back down to get a face full of rat like Winston in 1984, Hez thought. Up had to be better than that, even if it was a shot to the head. “So that’s it, I just get sent off to the firing squad or something? No trial, no due process just a mealy mouthed weasel in a beige jumpsuit yelling to another weasel?” he demanded. The man’s lips tightened but he said nothing. Erickson escorted him out of the rose room down the vaulted corridor back to the elevator.

Erickson was about to punch the button, when someone yelled, “Hold on a minute.” A tall man got inside. “Is this H. McCane?” He asked Erikson, who nodded. “I have permission to transport him to the secondary facility.”

“Do you have the release form?” The man showed a small iPad to him. Erickson nodded. He punched some numbers into a device on the elevator. “Go ahead,” he said to Hez and pushed him towards the door. Hez stumbled after the tall man, with a crazy kind of hope. The guy did not seem as imbued with the corporate mindset, for one thing. Blue jeans showed under his beige outer garment over sneakers. He had thick glasses and walked with a limp, although he walked so quickly Hez had a little trouble keeping up. They continued descending past the rose room area towards another corridor that was smaller than the one Hez was familiar with. They walked in silence for a long time, continuing to descend. 

After about ten minutes they came into a space that was wider and which contained an elevator. Before they got on, the man turned to him and said, “My name is Richard Ewing,” He had a high pitched somewhat nasal voice. 

Hez looked at him closely, “My sister has books by a Richard Ewing, would that be you?”

The man nodded, “I was recruited for this project because they considered my books, what’s the phrase they love to use, ‘prescient.’ I never dreamed they had come so far in realizing some of the most mind blowing possibilities of what I had considered” … he giggled, “wildly fantastical.”

Hez nodded, “So you’re a consultant to these people?”

“In a manner of speaking. When I heard there was another American about, I wanted to trade notes. At first they wouldn’t let me near you; they thought you were a spy. Then it came across the channels that you were slotted to get upped, so I ran over here. I was afraid I might be too late.”

“What does ‘upped,’ mean exactly?”

“I’ve never witnessed it, though I’ve requested permission to observe one. It’s when they transport those they consider unsuitable to the project somewhere.”

“You don’t know where?”

Ewing frowned. “No,” he lowered his voice, “there are rumors that it just means they have their atoms scattered into space.”