EIGHT

"I like a man in chains."

 

Thug One, the blond man with the nearly invisible eyebrows, put the lunch tray down just inside the door, then slid it within chain reach.

Davy was ravenous for lunch. He'd not had breakfast and the involuntary purging of his stomach worsened matters. He ate slowly, though. His throat was still raw from the bile and he didn't want to risk repeating this morning's experience—with or without outside help.

After finishing every crumb, he used the bathroom. On the way back the chains started retracting through the wall again.

Oh, great.

When he'd been pulled up to the wall again, they came back, the blond Thug One who'd brought breakfast, the brunette who'd killed Brian, and the hook-nosed man with the reddish brown hair—Thug Two.

What now?

They ignored him. The woman held a small plastic meter of some kind, with a stub antennae. She was watching a digital readout closely as she walked across the room. When she was in the middle of the room, about three feet out from the foot of Davy's bed, she crouched and began moving it from side to side. At several points she made marks on the floor with a felt-tipped pen, then, after about ten minutes of this, she waved at the other two.

"There. As marked."

Thug One held a roll of two-inch-wide gaffers tape in fluorescent green. He put long strips of it on the floor, forming a square four feet across.

While they were doing this, the woman was working farther out, again, looking closely at the meter and making marks on the floor. When the men had finished the square, she said, "Yellow tape here."

When the men were done, they had a yellow square with truncated corners eight feet outside the green square. They didn't bother completing this larger square near Davy or the bed, but when they were finished, the woman ran her meter around its perimeter both inside and out, then checked the green square again.

"Right. We're good to go." She handed Thug One the meter and jerked her thumb to the door.

Both of the men went to the door. Thug One turned right before he went through the door and looked at Davy, then, for the first time since entering the room. "Be a good dog," he said, his mouth twisted oddly.

When the door was shut again. The woman backed up, outside the line of yellow tape. Almost immediately, the chains went slack again and Davy sat down on the edge of the bed, just inside the larger square.

"You'll not be staying there," she said.

"Great. I'd love to get out of this room."

She shook her head. "Not my meaning."

"Who are you, anyway?"

She didn't answer him.

"Well, I might as well call you something. Murderer is accurate, but it just... well it lacks something. I believe I'll call you Miss Minchin."

The woman looked intrigued, despite herself. "And this refers to?"

"Miss Minchin's Seminary for Select Young Ladies." Davy wasn't sure he wanted to get into the plot of A Little Princess with this woman, especially detailing what a cast iron bitch Miss Minchin was. "She liked little boxes, too, and people to stay in them."

"I don't have time for sweet talk. Get in the green square."

Davy stayed where he was.

She lifted a hand toward the mirror and snapped her fingers.

Davy doubled over, coughing violently. He was nauseated, on the edge of throwing up, his forehead covered with clammy sweat. He pushed off the bed and, bent over, still coughing, shuffled toward the green square. Almost immediately the coughing and the nausea lessened. When he stepped over the green tape, the urge to cough and the nausea ceased completely.

She went on talking. "Outside the green box, you'll feel it. Just outside the yellow box, you get a repeat of this morning's ride. You do remember this morning, don't you?" She looked over at the empty mop bucket and mop, leaning in the far corner.

Davy wanted to wipe the sweat from his forehead but he forced himself to stand there, unmoving, watching "Miss Minchin" with eyes cold and distant.

She continued. "You go outside the yellow box and the convulsions will probably kill you."

Box is the right word.

"Do you intend for me to live here? In this four-foot square? Are you going to bring the portable toilet back?"

She shook her head. "Your body will let you know when you need to be in the square."

"If you turn this on while I'm taking a shower, I could crack my skull and die. I'm pretty sure you guys don't want me dead."

"There are a lot worse things than dying, darling. You'll get a warning, sort of like being in the yellow square. If you're not in this big square," she indicated the outer yellow boundary, "within two seconds, it'll be like this morning and worse. You won't be, ummmm, 'symptom free' until you're all the way inside the green square."

"Miss Minchin was the right name."

"I really must look that up. We're going to leave the zone on for a few more minutes. You figure out when you can leave it."

She turned. As she walked away she swung her hips. Davy watched her ass sway from side to side. In the doorway she paused, blew a kiss, and let the door swing shut behind her.

Nice legs.

I'd like to break them.

He stuck his hand over the edge of the green tape. Nothing happened. He sat down and stuck his feet over the edge. Again, nothing happened. Did they already turn it off?

He scooted up to the line. As his torso edged over the tape, he coughed lightly and felt a mild wave of nausea. He scooted back again. The coughing and nausea ceased. He lay down on his back and started inching out of the square, feet first. He didn't feel anything until his upper chest crossed the line.

No surprise there. That's where the scar was, where they'd put the device, whatever it was. He stood back up inside the square.

He experimented, leaning out into the larger square. His stomach heaved and his coughing was rough but he could walk two thirds of the way to the yellow line before he had to stagger back in defeat. He thought he could probably push it even further in an emergency, but they were watching and there was no reason to let them know his limitations. He believed them about the far edge. The memory of flopping on the floor like a freshly caught fish was still strong in his mind.

He was testing the border again when the sensations cut off abruptly—the coughing and nausea dropped away—and he staggered. He felt like someone who'd been shoving at a stuck door, when all of a sudden the door is opened from the other side.

He wanted to wash the sweat from his face and rinse his mouth but it took a definite act of will to step over the yellow line on the way to the bathroom.

Two seconds, he told himself. Two seconds is lots of time.

 

They started testing him an hour later. He was lying down, reading The Count of Monte Cristo, when he felt a tingling in his throat followed almost immediately by a wave of nausea, then the inevitable cough. Then it stopped and he wondered if it was a fluke.

Then he doubled over, coughing and throwing up, getting vomit on his sheets and covers. He scrambled for the end of the bed and the safety of the green square.

Shit! Shit! Shit!

The scrambled voice over the speaker said, "Two seconds—we meant it."

He felt like crying when the wave of nausea quit but he couldn't stand the thought of giving them the pleasure. He stood slowly. He'd gotten vomit on the pants of his scrubs. He ripped the side seams open, pulled them off, used the unsoiled section to wipe his mouth, then bundled them up and threw them into the bathroom.

He tried the border but felt the telltale tickle in his throat. He stepped out far enough to snag the railing at the end of the bed, coughing heavily, and then dragged it toward him, backing into the safety zone. He stripped the soiled sheets and threw them into the bathroom as well. The still-clean blanket he wrapped around his waist, sarong-style.

Then he dragged the bed farther, until the head was in the green square, and lay down, his chest centered over the green square.

He tried to read, but couldn't concentrate. For a while, then, he counted slowly to twenty and turned pages as if he was—a defiant form of meditation. Then he made a show of yawning largely and, putting the book down, he rolled over on his side facing away from the mirror, and pretended to sleep.

This is not going at all well.

 

He was awakened by movement, disorienting, as he hadn't been aware he'd fallen asleep. He sat up in time to see Thug One backing away, again. Looking around, he found that they'd moved his bed back out of the square.

Why? Oh. They can't train me if I'm not out of the square when they turn it on. He hopped back out of bed, swinging his chains clear automatically, and started to drag the bed back.

The blonde shook his head and started back toward him. "You've got to leave the bed against the wall."

Dammit!

Davy jumped, not toward the man, but toward the mirror, to the full extent of the chains. Almost immediately the chains began reeling through the wall, slowly pulling Davy back as his unseen jailers realized he was closer to the door than the blonde was.

Thug One looked frightened and his hand went up to the scab on his cheek, left over from when Davy had snatched the mask from his face. He started back toward the door.

Davy jumped, before the chains were pulled up too short, past Thug One, across the man's path to the door, and braced himself.

The chains moved so fast you could hear their passage through the air. They caught Thug One at the shin, knee, hip, and stomach.

The pull on Davy's wrists and ankles pulled him forward two meters but it threw Thug One across the room and into the wall with a dust-raising crash. The man hung there for a beat, like a cartoon character, and then he crumpled to the floor. Where he'd hit the wall the Sheetrock and paint were caved in.

The slow reeling of the chains continued and Davy shuffled back, keeping up with them. He felt ashamed of himself. Show some control! Don't show them what you can do until you can use it to get free.

When he was all the way up against the wall the door opened and they came for Thug One. They used a backboard and a cervical collar and they carried him out like he was made of glass.

Davy expected the chains to loosen again, but they didn't. They were too short for him to reach the bed, too short, even, for him to lie down. He could sit with his arms hanging in the wrist cuffs, level with his shoulders. He couldn't reach the bed, or the book, or his Styrofoam drinking cup.

He coughed twice and a wave of nausea passed over him. Oh, Jesus! He pulled on the chains but they were unyielding. He was just outside the yellow line.

It was the worst yet and it went on and on and on until he finally passed out.

He woke up slumped in a pool of vomit and feces, still dangling from the chains.

Miss Minchin was standing there with the mop and the mop bucket. She was watching him closely, her head tilted to one side. "Was that fun?" she asked.

Davy didn't say anything. His throat was raw from bile and, even though the device wasn't activated, he was nauseated.

She persisted. "Was your little chain trick worth the result?"

Davy looked at her steadily, doing his best to ignore the fluids and the smells.

She stopped smiling. "Don't mess with us. You'll regret it every time."

Davy spit to the side, trying to get the taste from his mouth. "Do you know what aspiration pneumonia is?"

She shrugged. "We've got airway suction, antibiotics, oxygen—hell, we've even got a crash cart to restart your heart. You won't get out of it that easy." She threw the mop down before him. "Now clean up your mess."

 

He took a shower, first, then, a towel wrapped about his midriff, cleaned the floor. When he'd flushed the water and cleaned the mop and bucket, he took another shower.

He coughed twice, under the shower head, and the wave of nausea began. He didn't bother trying to run or walk. He jumped and found himself standing in the square, naked and dripping, automatically bracing to avoid being pulled off balance by the recoiling chains.

Should've at least grabbed the towel.

He had pushed the bed aside, to clean the floor, and it was at the limits of the yellow square, too much for him to try. Even the thought of reaching for it was enough to make him gag. He did his best to squeegee the beads of water off his body with his hands, then sat, his knees pulled to his chest to conserve heat while he dried. He counted slowly to a hundred, then tried the border. The device was off again.

He went back into the bathroom. There were deep gouges in the door frame and the shower curtain had ripped edges where the chains had slashed through it. He dried off and walked back out into the room.

They'd brought him some clean sheets for the bed, but they hadn't brought him any new scrubs. He'd rinsed the worst of the bodily excretions out of the soiled scrubs earlier during his first shower. Now he held them up before the large mirror.

The computerized voice was silent.

Like that, is it?

He washed the scrubs in the tub, in water as hot as he could stand, using the shower gel from the dispenser on the wall as detergent. When he'd wrung them out he hung them and the towel across the rod.

Petty punishments are as nasty as the big ones when they go on and on. He had been regretting hurting Thug One, but the regret was fading fast.

His stomach muscles hurt from the prolonged vomiting and coughing, as if he'd been doing sit-ups. Might as well do the rest. He spent the next thirty minutes doing mild calisthenics and stretches. He did the exercises naked after rejecting the thought of wearing a damp towel or worse, a blanket toga. If it was good enough for the Greeks...

He couldn't help thinking about the observers behind the glass, or her. Is she watching? He didn't find that thought at all erotic. At least it kept him honest. He didn't cheat on the number of push-ups or deep knee bends.

There were several exercises he rejected when they tugged on his healing scars. On others, it became clear that the flailing of the chains interfered too much. On a few, the weight of chain was a help, like leg lifts.

Near the end of his workout, they turned the device back on and he had to move abruptly, three feet to the right. He pivoted two steps and continued his hamstring stretches inside the square with hardly a missed beat. After some seated quadriceps stretches he tried the border again. There was no telltale nausea.

He considered staying where he was. They won't stand for that. They can't train me if I don't feel it. He went to the bathroom and drank water. It felt good on his raw throat but he couldn't help but think, if you've got to throw up, might as well make it as innocuous as possible.

His stomach rumbled, hungry again. He wondered if they'd feed him or whether they were still in punishment mode.

He went back to the bed and picked up the book.

 

There were no device activations during supper. He was ravenous, but his raw throat made eating painful. Still, frequent applications of ice water allowed him to get the entire meal down.

They still hadn't brought him fresh clothes. He left the tray by the door, sliding it across the floor for the last yard his chains would not reach. The scrubs he'd washed were finally dry except for some dampness at the seams. He folded them neatly and set them on the foot of the bed, then went back to reading, reclining on the bed.

Fifteen minutes later they were at it again, but he found he could stroll, still reading, into the square, even though he was coughing. He started to leave, after the usual minute, but found the field was still on. He sat, cross-legged, on the cold floor, and continued reading. At the end of the chapter he checked again but the coughing and nausea still waited outside the tape.

His butt became too cold to keep sitting. He put the book down and began some dynamic stretches, to warm up. His abdominals still hurt from the coughing and vomiting, but not as much as they had earlier. He credited the stretching exercises.

Nicely warm, he checked the border again. Still on. He read some more, standing, checking the border after every page. Another chapter passed and the field was still on.

Oh, come on!

He did some more stretches. The cold was concentrating water to his kidneys and he was beginning to feel it in his bladder. He thought about peeing on the floor but he'd had enough involvement with bodily fluids already today.

The bed had been moved into the corner while he was unconscious and it was well outside the yellow square. Do they want me to wear clothes? Are they telling me that I shouldn't have paraded around without something warm on?

He froze, suddenly. Maybe they turned it on and just left? Went out for supper. After all, why should they watch me when they've got this device?

He had a mental image of Miss Minchin and the redheaded Thug Two in some clinic or hospital visiting the blonde he'd injured, while all the other staff were bowling, a team in a local league, their scrubs and masks their team uniform.

He tested the border again, but it was still active.

Next time I keep the blanket with me.

He wondered what would happen if he jumped past the yellow zone entirely. Would I get the two-second warning if I avoided the middle zone? Would that be like when they first turn it on? He froze in place.

He could do a lot with two seconds.

He remembered Miss Minchin working the meter across the floor. Signal strength. But was it a zone of low or high signal strength? He touched his chest. Does my little friend here "tickle " me when it gets to a higher signal strength or when it loses it altogether?

He no longer felt cold at all.

They knew he could teleport. That's why they'd grabbed him in the first place. So, a border of a stronger radio field was right out—unless they could blanket the entire planet, he would always be able to jump past it.

But he couldn't jump away from this gadget in his chest. That could mean they were broadcasting some low strength, focused field at the green square. As long as the device received this signal at a sufficient field strength, it stayed off. This would imply that the yellow zone was an area of leakage before the field attenuated completely below some detectable limit and the device adjusted its level of punishment accordingly.

So what are they doing when the device is "off? " When I can wander at the limits of my chain?

Perhaps they broadcast a less focused signal, one that covered the entire suite, perhaps the entire building.

Christ, I hope they've got some sort of battery backup! He pictured a heavy spring thunderstorm knocking out power lines and him dying an ugly death in a pool of mixed bodily fluids.

Suddenly he felt the cold again.

He leaned across the green tape.

It was off. Or it's just on more.

He put the scrubs in the middle of the green square along with the blanket from the bed, then took a hot shower. They waited until he was drying himself before he felt the painfully familiar double cough. He walked briskly out, still toweling, and into the square.

While he dressed, he thought about the warning—the brief spate of nausea and the coughing. Was it the device's reaction to no radio field or were they doing a brief dip in broadcast strength of the larger field, then waiting two seconds before turning it off?

If it was an automatic feature, it gave him some latitude—if he could get out of these chains. For someone like Davy, a lot could be accomplished in two seconds.

He wanted to experiment, to test the limits, but he also wanted to do it without an audience. He did not want them to know what he was and wasn't capable of.

He checked the border. It was still on. He was still "in the box." He stepped back to the center of the square.

The copy of The Count of Monte Cristo was still lying on the bed, beyond the yellow border. If his theory was right, it should be in the zone of no signal.

They were working up to a way to control him without chains. Like the NSA, they wanted to use his abilities, but they couldn't do that if they couldn't unchain him. And if he jumped away and the device came on full force, as if he'd forced himself past the yellow line, there was good chance they'd lose him and his abilities altogether.

You go outside the yellow box and the convulsions will probably kill you.

Would they? If he went directly to that zone?

He gritted his teeth and jumped to the side of the bed. The chains sang through the air and he felt the warning cough, but only the warning level. He took the book and jumped back. It took slightly more than a second because he'd paused, by the bed, to feel the effects.

Quickly he checked the line of green tape again. No—they hadn't turned it off (or on, as the case may be). The cough and nausea was still there. He'd been worried the warning cough by the bed was psychosomatic—expected and therefore experienced.

He actually felt like smiling, but hid it, turning away from the mirror and sitting on the folded blanket. He pretended to read for a while, his mind racing. Had they noticed?

The chains started reeling through the wall and he quailed inwardly. Are they punishing me again? He checked the border before the chains dragged him across, but they had turned on the larger radio field and he felt nothing unpleasant. He strolled with the moving chains and positioned himself, back to the wall, as they pulled up short.

The door opened and Miss Minchin came in. Behind her was a masked man in glasses and surgical scrubs pushing a cart with a computer on it. He rolled it to the wall and plugged it in. While it was booting up, he said, "Here's the wand." He handed Miss Minchin a flat plastic box on the end of a telephone cord. It was about the size of a television remote control. The other end of the cord was plugged into the back of the computer.

She examined it closely. "Left side, yeah?"

"Yes. I'll need another moment, to finish booting."

That the man spoke surprised Davy. Until he'd unmasked the blonde and redhead, all the staff had kept quiet in his presence, using the voice scrambler to communicate. Maybe the staff didn't care anymore. Maybe they think they've achieved enough control over me so it no longer matters.

Miss Minchin walked slowly toward Davy, tapping the box against her outer thigh with each step. When she was a meter short of Davy, she stopped and looked back over her shoulder, toward the technician.

He was still watching the screen. "Oh... kay. We're up."

She reached out with the "wand" and Davy flinched.

"Relax, little boy. If Mama wanted to spank, she could've done it from the other room—with a button." She rested the flat side of the box over Davy's left pectoral—where the newly formed scar was. "How's this," she asked.

The masked man said, "Negotiating... connection established. Right. Give me a minute to upload the new parameters."

Miss Minchin smiled, her eyes on Davy. "Take your time. I like a man in chains." She traced her free forefinger across Davy's collarbone.

Davy looked at her and said earnestly, "I'm going to throw up."

Miss Minchin stepped back slightly looking alarmed, then said over her shoulder, "Should he be feeling anything?"

The technician said, "Nothing from the device."

Davy said, "Right. It's not the device that's nauseating me."

Miss Minchin chuckled softly. "You are such a tease."

Davy wondered if he pulled her hair out of its bun if her brains would drop out on the floor. It was a thought.

The man at the computer shook his head. He was watching the computer monitor. "Oh... kay. I've changed the parameters. Let me run a checksum to verify the upload and we'll be done." He clicked a few more keys, shifted the mouse. "And... there. Confirmed." He accepted the paddle back from Miss Minchin and stowed it while the computer shut down, then unplugged the unit from the wall. While he was coiling the power cord he said, "You should tell him."

Miss Minchin shrugged, still watching Davy.

"Tell me what," Davy finally said.

Miss Minchin pointed at the yellow line. "We've shortened the grace period before it activates. It's a lot shorter now. I wouldn't take any chances if I were you. No more experiments, right?"

Davy pictured dropping her into the quarry pool near his home in West Texas. At this time of year the water was a nice chilly fifty-five degrees. The temperature wouldn't kill her since she could get out pretty quickly, but the impact after the sixty foot drop would be severe and she'd be pretty miserable until her clothing dried.

"What's so funny?" she asked.

He blanked his face. He hadn't realized he was smiling.

"No, really. I could use a good laugh."

He shook his head.

She shrugged and vamped across the room, holding the door while the technician pushed the cart out. "Sleep well," she said and let the door swing shut behind her.

He didn't.

Before breakfast, they'd put him "in the box" over twenty times. He lost track sometime after number eighteen.

He tried to sleep in the green zone, curling up with the blanket and pillow on the floor, but they reeled in the chains when he did that, pulling him out. He was afraid they'd leave the chains short and turn off the field, a repeat of his last punishment, so for the rest of the activations he stood near the green line swaying in and out of the field until it went off, then stumbled back to bed.

By the end of the night, he wasn't sure if he was actually waking up during each incident. Not that this earned him more rest—it felt like some continuous nightmare.

They left him alone while he ate breakfast, but they started up again when he was showering, leaving him lathered, dripping, and naked in the middle of the green zone. They kept him there a token thirty seconds before he was able to go back and finish. Once dry, it was on again, off again, right through lunch.

He always jumped to the square. He didn't want to take any chances with the newly shortened grace period. Or, to be specific, his body didn't want to. He tried more than once to stroll nonchalantly back to the square, but it was always too hard, and he'd flinch before he could complete the walk, and then he'd find himself standing in the square, bracing from the recoil of the chains.

Operant conditioning. A reflexive response.

Just what they want.