Solipsis: Escape from the Comatorium (12 page)

“
Wait
a second,” Renee says. “Are you high right now?”

Percival
recoils from the question, the wheels in his head turn so clearly
that his thoughts are practically written in his eyes. Rather than
attempt to enter into any complicated lie or a smooth transition into
a different subject, he simply admits, “yes.”

“
Is
that what you guys do up here?”

“
Yes.”

“
I
always thought I was just a dullard or something for not being so
entertained by astronomy. Why haven't you ever included me in this?”

“
Drugs
can effect brain development. We just didn't want you getting
involved in them until you were older.”

“
How
does that even work, it's just virtual drugs.”

“
The
Comatorium has all kinds of drugs, not all of them recreational mind
you. If you drink coffee, your brain gets caffeine in the real
world.”

“
Can
I try it now?” Renee asks. Percival thinks for a moment before
handing her his pipe. Renee holds the device gingerly, having never
inhaled anything of the sort. She takes in a deep breath, filling her
digital lungs far too much. She coughs up the acrid smoke and hands
the pipe back. She sits back, looking eagerly at the stars, hoping
for some magical intervention, a show of lights.

“
I
don't see anything cool,” Renee says.

“
It's
not about hallucinating. It's not some artistic vision in your mind.
It's an alteration of consciousness. Just think abo
ut
consciousness. We go about our lives pursuing goals, succeeding,
failing, finding love, losing it, but without an awareness of why we
are who we are or why we're doing what we're doing. But think about
it.
Everything
we do is for the purpose of altering consciousness. Everything. We
form friendships so that we can feel certain emotions, like love, and
avoid others, like loneliness. It's all about altering the state of
our consciousness. We eat specific foods to enjoy their fleeting
presence on our tongues. We read for the pleasure of thinking another
person’s thoughts. Every waking moment we struggle to direct
the flow of sensation, emotion, and cognition toward states of
consciousness that we value. Isn't it weird or profound to become
aware that all we are is a consciousness bent on controlling how it
feels.”

“
I've
decided what I want to do with my life,” Renee says.

“
Wow,
that was fast, most people don't have life changing experiences in
the first forty seconds.”

“
I
decided this earlier, I just hadn't told you.”

“
So
what do you want to be?” Percival senses something is afoot.

“
Well
you can unground me now,” Renee says.

“
You're
not gonna tell me you want to be an 'entertainment engineer' again
are you?”

“
I
want to be a vivisector like you. I want to help people like you
helped me and Patrick.”

“
That's
a serious thing to train for. You'll have lives in your hands.”

“
It's
what I want to do,” Renee says. Percival eyes Renee
suspiciously. Is she just trying to say what he wants to hear? Is she
manipulating him? Is he just paranoid?

“
Why?”

“
To
help people,” Renee replies.

“
But
what made up your mind, explain to me your thought process.”

“
When
you told Seth that you couldn't help him. It totally crushed him. You
destroyed his hopes. When you walked in and he looked up to you, you
had this immense power in your hands,” Renee says. “I
never realized what kind of power you have. Because if giving him bad
news does that, just think of how happy someone is to get good news
from you. I want that power.”

“
The
power to help people?”

“
Right,”
Renee says. Percival sits back, thinking.

“
I'll
talk to Dr. Graeme right away. He can teach you.”

Renee
operates on a patient. She's inside Solipsis, her patient is merely
an NPC (Non-Person-Character). She digs into the patient's arm,
searching for a bundle of nerves that needs to be isolated and
extracted. Dr. Graeme, stands over her shoulder, watching. He
grimaces as she clumsily hacks into her patient.

“
Okay,”
he says slowly, meaning quite the opposite. He has a wiry frame and
bushy eyebrows.

“
How
was that?” Renee asks.

“
Let's
just be glad you can train for years without touching a live
patient.”

“
That
bad?”

“
Relax,
you'll get the hang of it. I'm going to check on another pupil, while
I'm gone, why not go ahead and try again on the other hand.”

Dr.
Graeme disappears from the virtual OR through a televator. He emerges
in an alternate space. He and Percival watch Renee operating below
them, totally unbeknownst to her.

“
She's
improving,” Percival says hopefully.

“
It's
not the learning curve I'm concerned about.”

“
Then
what?” Percival asks.

Dr.
Graeme points to Renee. Percival sees that Renee has excised a nerve
ending from the virtual patient's arm and is tapping at the nerve
with her instruments. The body convulses and shudders with each
touch. She giggles as she toys with this life-like, grotesque version
of the game Operation. This virtual body, which appears exceedingly
real, complete with a unique face, seeming to be just as real as any
living person, seems like nothing but a toy to her.

Percival
quickly walks away with purpose. He enters the OR, coming up behind
Renee, grabbing her rather forcefully and turning her to face him.

“
I
need you to listen to me,” Percival says seriously. “I'm
about to tell you something. I want this phrase to echo through your
consciousness forever. Repeat after me. I will do no harm.”

Renee
is far too shocked to respond.

“
Say
it, I will do no harm.”

“
I
will do no harm,” she answers meekly.

“
Do
no harm,” Percival reiterates.

“
Do
no harm.”

“
Where
am I?” Renee wakes up, floating in zero gravity. Patrick floats
nearby. “Patrick, wake up,” she shakes him. They come to,
surveying the situation. A flat display on the wall shows their
location at the tail end of a spaceship, the
Somnomancer
.
They are surrounded by a net of lasers, a futuristic prison cell.
“What happened?”

“
I
don't know, they must have wiped our memories,” Patrick says.

“
We
were sent here on a mission, right?” Renee asks.

“
Yeah,
but I can't remember what it was.”

“
Look
at that panel. Somnomancer. Does that ring a bell?” Renee asks.

“
A
little,” Patrick says.

“
If
I'm reading those coordinates right, at that velocity, this thing is
headed for the sun,” Renee says ominously.

“
What
do we do?” Patrick asks.

“
Look
for a button or some way of turning the lasers off,” Renee
says. They look around. Patrick spots a button, but it's a good meter
outside the laser mesh, out of their reach.

“
Okay,
it's a puzzle, how do we reach that?” Patrick asks. “Can
we throw something at it?”

“
We
don't have anything but our clothes,” Renee says.

“
What
if you take off your suit, we twist it together really tight, maybe
we can use it to push the button.”

“
Absolutely
not,” Renee says.

“
Well
all we have to use is our clothes, you got a better idea?”

“
Yeah,
I do,” Renee says. She stick both arms through the laser bars.
She holds her hands together, then uses the lasers to cut her left
arm off at the shoulder. Holding her severed arm with her other hand,
she flips the arm around in zero-g, grabbing it by the shoulder
joint. Renee reaches her two arms through the laser mesh and presses
the button that deactivates the laser field. “Bam.” Renee
says, blowing on the index finger on her severed hand. In
first-person-shooters and games of this sort, pain sensors are turned
way down.

“
I
don't think that was how we were supposed to solve that,”
Patrick says.

“
So?”
Renee goes to the display panel and looks up the specifications of
the ship. “Okay, it's coming back to me now. The Somnomancer is
an anti-matter cargo ship.”

“
It's
been hijacked, and we were sent to figure out why,” Patrick
says, looking over her shoulder.

“
But
we just thought it was being stolen, not that they were going to
crash it into the sun,” Renee says.

“
How
do you know they're gonna crash it into the sun?” Patrick asks.

“
Look
at the velocity and coordinates,” Renee says.

“
And?”

“
Well,
I mean, if you know anything about orbital mechanics...It's kind of
obvious,” Renee says.

“
Come
on Renee, you're not playing right,” Patrick says.

“
Playing
right!?”

“
Yeah,
we're supposed to play along, solve the puzzles, shoot the henchmen,
discover clues, save the day,” Patrick says. “You're
ruining the game.”

“
It's
not my fault they made the mystery so obvious,” Renee replies.
They move forward in zero gravity, to the only door. It leads to a
long dark tunnel, with two guards at the other end holding laser
guns. “Oh no, what do we do now?” Renee asks
sarcastically, pointing to an obvious power switch. Patrick sighs at
her. She flips the switch, the guards in the corridor are cast in
darkness. Renee and Patrick wait on the sides of the door for the
guards to come looking for the problem. The guards enter, floating in
zero-g. Renee and Patrick leap at them from behind. Patrick tries to
yank away the laser gun from one guard. Renee simply uses her severed
arm as a weapon, smashing the guard across the face with her shoulder
bone. His laser gun tumbles away. The guard holds his bleeding face,
droplets of blood float away. Renee pushes against a bulkhead,
sending her toward the floating laser gun. She gets it, spins and
fires a burst into the guard, instantly killing him, but the laser
blasts go straight through him, scorching the wall and destroying a
display panel. Alarm bells ring out. Patrick struggles with the other
guard. Renee aims, but with all the tumbling, and the fact that the
laser could go right through the bad guy and hit Patrick, it makes it
an almost impossible shot.

Renee
stabilizes herself against a bulkhead, taking careful aim and waiting
for the right moment.

“
Don't
shoot,” Patrick says while struggling with the guard. Renee
looks to the button that turned off their laser prison. She smacks
the button. Patrick shoves the guard and he tumbles into the bars,
cutting him into a hundred little pieces. “Alright,”
Patrick says, “let's go get 'em.” He starts to head down
the dark tunnel toward the front of the ship and more bad guys.