Darwin's Paradox (24 page)

Thrusting her hesitation aside, Julie shook him by the shoulders. Victor jerked up and removed the vee-set. He stared at her, fear punctuating his eyes, and blushed fiercely. At that moment she knew that she had been the subject matter and felt herself colour as well. She recognized utter devastation on his face at her undisguised revulsion. She didn’t care. He was disgusting. She commanded her surging anger aside and attended to the matter at hand. In a sharper voice than she’d have liked, she said, “He escaped. We have to do something.”

“He’s—“ Victor said, the rest of his words strangled in a convulsive swallow.

“I fell asleep,” she said in a clipped voice. “When I woke up he was gone. Can you find out where he is on...that?” She pointed to the vee-set he’d just taken off and to her annoyance she blushed more.

His wide eyes flicked from her face to the vee-set and he blinked several times. His hands darted to and from his mouth as he stuttered a response, “Oh, of course. You mean now?” he ended in a shrill voice.

“Yes, now,” she snapped angrily. “Maybe we can catch up to him.” She knew that was a long shot. “At least we need to know what he’s up to and whether he’s sent a Pol contingent here—”

“Forget it,” Zane said behind her. “That’s a waste of time.” Julie turned to see him getting out of bed in his T-shirt and boxer shorts. “The bastard’s sent them,” Zane said, pulling on his clothes. “Count on it. He isn’t going to just let you go, Julie. You’re the key to it all, to all of this.” He waved his hand in a wide sweep. “We’ve got to get you back to the lab—”

“No more research,” Julie said shortly.

Zane frowned. “You don’t understand. Your communication with Proteus is the critical part we need to determine our course of action.”

“I thought we’d already determined that. We were going to reinstate SAM and the A.I.-core tomorrow, then go from there.”

“Why ask SAM when you can ask Proteus?”

“Because I’d sooner trust SAM, that’s why,” she shot back.

“You’re suggesting that Proteus is devious?” He stared at her and shook his head in amazement. She thought of Gaia’s possible plan with Proteus. If she’d thought of it, sure enough Gaia would have too. “Even my theories of viral sentience don’t go that far,” Zane said and raised his hands out toward her. “Listen, I have a device at the lab that can not only monitor sleep during REM but invoke communication between the sleeper and the agent monitoring them.” He flashed her a grin in response to her suspicious look. “It’s all okay and very safe,” he reassured. “Honest. I’ve used it a lot with patients. Besides, you’re pretty ripe for a bit of sleep. It’d be easy to hook you up, put you under and then let you have a conversation with Proteus.”

She’d felt her muscles tense at his mention of sleep. “What’s that going to accomplish besides getting us caught?” she said in a voice that sounded defensive to her. She knew she was stalling.

“It’ll give us the answer we need,” he reasoned. “Dream time is when you and Proteus communicate most lucidly. We need to tap into it. Plus, you need an outside interpreter. Someone to lend you a hand while you’re in the midst of it because I gather it’s a pretty emotional experience.” So, he’d guessed the source of her apprehension. “As for the Head Pol, he’d never dream we went back there. We’d be safe with Victor’s distraction, and we can travel the lower levels so much more easily now without having to lug him around with us.”

She chewed thoughtfully on her lower lip for several heartbeats then finally nodded with a sigh. Zane had thought of everything. “Okay. Let’s do it.”

“What should I do?” came Victor’s meek voice from behind Julie.

She turned to him and inhaled deeply. “I think you should monitor the Head Pol. Once we get to Zane’s lab, set yourself up and find out what he’s up to.”

He nodded, looking relieved that he’d been included.

As
Julie reclined on the bed, Zane held out a device that fit on her head and looked ominously like Victor’s custom vee-set. “Okay, you need to put this on,” he said in a shrill tone that Julie hadn’t heard in him before. She thought his smile looked strained, too, pushed on to keep her from getting nervous. It made her more nervous.

She took the vee-set in her hands, trying not to let them visibly tremble. “You mean right now?”

Zane nodded and his smile relaxed a little. “It’ll be okay.” He glanced back and forth between her and Victor, who shadowed his every move, having already checked on Frank and establishing that the Head Pol was sleeping. “I just need to put in a few connections between your vee-set and my vee-set and the rest of the dreamtime analyzer.” He flexed his fingers. “Just relax, Julie. The low humming sound you’ll hear will help you to fall asleep. It’s been designed to do just that for nervous patients. Then, when you go into REM sleep, a signal will tell me to join you. We should be able to communicate to one another.” He smiled briefly. “I can’t tell you in what form that will take, because it’s different for everyone. I might just be a distant voice to you, or you might even see me vaguely. Same for me. Depends on the kind of dream you’re having, your relationship with your analyst and so on. Either way, we should be in constant contact throughout.” He turned to Victor. “If anything goes wrong—but it won’t—just turn off the machine. We should all come back off line. Okay, everyone?”

Julie swallowed and commanded her muscles to relax. “Okay. I’m ready.” She drew in several deep breaths, pulled the vee-set over her head then laid her head back on the pillow. It was more comfortable than she’d imagined. The low hum was barely audible, but it was soothing. She found her eyes easy to close and couldn’t hold onto her thoughts. As if sifting her mind for vignettes, her thoughts flickered through a dozen images as she drifted off to sleep.

***

She drags her feet slowly through the dark sultry hall, feet sliding in the muck. The overwhelming stench of rotting meat burns her throat raw. The hall writhes with tortured flesh and slime oozes down the walls, the viscous liquid congealing with the paste at her feet. Her stomach curdles with fear as a moaning sigh wisps past her like the caress of a dead man.

“I’m here, Julie,” Zane whispers reassuringly at her side and Julie jumps, nerves frayed. She spins and catches his pale face looking at her. A faint smile pushes up. She isn’t alone this time. Zane gives her a shaky but supportive smile then lets his eyes roam the slithering bubbling hall. “This is some chaos you’ve conjured up.”

“I suppose,” she breathes. She isn’t so sure she’s conjured it up. It’s too real and terrifying. And each time she comes here it gets worse.

“I wonder where we are?” he says in a tight voice as he picks his way through the hummocky, slippery surface.

“This used to be SAM’s house,” she says. “In my mind, that is.”

“I’d say somewhere in your hippocampus,” he says. “You’ve got some imagination, coming up with this place.” Then he curls up his nose. “Why does it stink?”

“Just around that corner is Proteus.”

“Okay,” Zane says. He squares his shoulders and his clammy hand steals around hers as they step forward, feet sliding on the slippery muck. She’s grateful for his hand and his company.

As they round the corner, Zane flinches and his hand tightens on hers.

The shriveled figure before them rises like a shape-shifter into a towering giant. Taller than Julie has ever seen it. Arms fly out in a wild beating motion.

Her breaths chop and Julie can’t help cowering. She feels Zane tremble beside her, pulling her back. A hot, cloying gale batters their faces as the figure bellows in a reverberating chorus of angry voices,
[Your lack of trust in us—in yourself—is appalling, Julie Crane. First you refuse to join, risking our demise, now you defile the sanctity of our relationship by bringing this vile and corrupt intruder among us.]

Abruptly, Zane gasps. He breaks hold and claws at his throat. His face flushes, eyes bulging, and he collapses on his knees, his breaths wheezing. “Julie help—”

Stop it! He means you no harm. He’s a scientist. He wants to help me in my talks with you—

[He is an abomination! He must leave NOW!]

With a startled squeak Zane arches painfully as his body is lifted in the air then hurled unnaturally backward. Julie draws in a sharp breath as she watches him disappear around the corner.
I should wake up now,
she thinks frantically
. This is crazy!

Heart thundering in her ears, Julie breaks from Proteus’s invisible hold and dashes after Zane. As she rounds the corner, she spots his thrashing body flying into the dark maze. “Zane!” She runs, slips and falls, biting her lip. Slime splashes her face. She scrambles up, gulping in sobbing breaths and tasting blood. The halls slither around her like arms whipping out, then closing in. Her feet pound the squelching surface toward an ever-darker place. She’s lost Zane.
Wake up! Wake up! The dream’s never gone this far before

[You cannot escape us, Julie Crane...]
the voices shudder through her like a million violin strings stretched across her taut body. The sour smell of congealed blood cloys through her nostrils as she plunges into the blinding darkness, a profound feeling of hopelessness shuddering through her.

The ground beneath her gives way and she falls with a shriek into pitch black.

***

Heart slamming against his chest, Victor rushed to Zane’s thrashing figure. Shortly after Julie had fallen asleep, the machine had signaled that she was in REM sleep. With a nervous nod to Victor, Zane had put the vee-set on and sat back in the chair beside her. Soon his eyes had glazed over as he obviously connected with Julie’s mind. Victor had glanced from Julie’s prone figure on the bed to Zane’s reclined figure on the reclining chair next to her as both their eyes fluttered in synchrony with a lively dream.

Then Zane jolted violently back with a gasp. He slid off the chair, free of the vee-set that had connected him to Julie, and collapsed on the floor.

Victor dashed to Zane’s twitching figure and felt for a pulse. It was strong but irregular, and Zane was pale with shock. Eyes rolled back, he curled on the floor in a fetal position, moaning and writhing.

“Zane, what happened?” Victor said, shaking him. “Zane!”

The young scientist shivered and resumed his moaning.

A sidelong glance at Julie revealed that she was still asleep and in the grips of a nightmare. Her face pinched into an anguished look, then suddenly morphed into one of utter terror. She made a soft, plaintive sound that clenched his heart. He seized the vee-set on her and pulled it off. A golden cloud of hair spilled behind her with his motion but she didn’t come out of her dream. Victor stared at her stricken face, gripped in a trance of horror. He nudged her shoulder hard enough to wake anyone in normal sleep. She still didn’t open her eyes. Like Zane, her face had gone deathly pale and cold. Victor’s stomach twisted in fear. What had happened? How had the experiment gone so wrong and how had he now lost both of them, one of his best scientists and the woman he secretly loved?

“Julie, please wake up,” he said, his squeaky voice desperate as he shook her again. “Julie!” Her expression had faded into vacancy and she grew eerily still. She looked dead. When he grasped her clammy hand for a pulse he could barely feel it, irregular and faint.

Dropping her limp hand, Victor straightened and his gaze darted the room, searching madly for an answer. He thought of ditching secrecy and calling for help, then he had another, more terrifying thought. With a glance at Zane, who’d also gone still, Victor seized in a sharp breath and replaced Julie’s vee-set, then grabbed Zane’s set and, sitting down, pulled it over his head—

Abruptly, he is wavering and buffeted in a sickening, howling maelstrom. A febrile sickly-sweet stench of rotting flesh overcomes him and he almost vomits. His feet are planted at the junction of a maze of tunnels—no, more like the confluence of a multitude of twisting rivers flowing in all directions, diseased organic veins through which a fetid wind blows like a sick behemoth’s breath, blowing then sucking: dark voices moaning a dirge. Did he imagine Julie’s name in that lonely lament? He’d pictured a living network of neurons, data streaming at the speed of light in Julie’s enhanced brain, but this is not a healthy system. Is this raging storm in her brain Darwin? What has gone wrong?

The gale bites his face like a pelting hot rain and he wonders why he hasn’t been knocked flat. He looks down at his feet and finds he’s stuck in some kind of living muck. The hall shimmers as if it, too, is alive. Trails of slime slither down like snot and congeal with the swirling muck below. He gags but recovers again. How can he see? He can’t tell where the light is coming from—the hall itself appears to emit a light of its own.

Where is Julie? The throaty voices echo ahead of him, where the raging gale seems to come from. In the other direction there is nothing but darkness, and silence. Had he imagined just now that he’d heard a whimper from there? He pulls himself out of the goo and heads with difficulty toward the darkness, each step squelching into and out of the clinging muck. Was that soft sound he heard Julie or some creature, waiting to attack him like Zane had been?

His whole body trembles with fear, but he pushes himself on until he can barely see, stumbling along the lumpy wet surface. His steps gurgle and squish and seem to emit a new stench each time he releases his foot from the tenacious goo. The hall tilts down then suddenly gives way to nothing and with a yelp of surprise he is falling.