Nightmare (35 page)

"Then why not share your breakthroughs with the world?"
I asked.

"Our work is generations ahead of its time," he said. "It's been
decided that the population at large is not ready to know what
we've done. Can you imagine the reaction? The human soul is
real. It exists, and we have proof!"

"A discovery of that magnitude," Pierre chimed in from over
Simms's shoulder, "carries with it significant religious, social,
scientific, and even medical ramifications. You have no right to
keep it a secret."

"We have every right," Dr. Simms retorted. "We have no interest in converting anyone to any particular dogma or ideology. The
research and development on this work cost billions, and only by
keeping the process private are we able to ever dream of earning
that back. The nature of our work would likely be interfered with
if it became public knowledge, and we are simply moving ahead
to the future we believe this technology can offer."

"By ripping people's souls out?"

His expression was unchanged. "Save the theatrics. We haven't
harmed anyone. As you can see from the Body Chamber-that's
what we call this room-every person that's undergone the procedure is still alive and well. We have merely altered their state
of being, taken the intangible parts of their essence out of their
physical shells."

"Incredible," Pierre remarked, though his voice was filled with
revulsion. "And the symbol on the back of their necks?"

"The glyph," said Simms. "It's the lynchpin of the binding
technology. It came to us ... from an outside source."

I couldn't believe this guy's casual disregard for what he and
his friends were responsible for. "What about the people you're
doing this to? I have a friend who signed up for it, but I know of
plenty others who didn't. That's kidnapping, muchacho."

Simms's expression was dead, unmoved, unconcerned. "Without experimentation, science is nothing but theory. Trial and
error. There is no other way to perfect it. Animal testing yielded
no results; they have no souls to manipulate. It had to be humans.
We believe the end justifies our choices."

"Why go to all this trouble to keep their bodies alive?" asked
Pierre. "Why not just let them die?"

"We tried it that way at the beginning," said Simms. "The
glyph couldn't maintain control over the souls without their
bodies remaining alive here, on the mortal plane. We can't brand
the glyph directly on a soul, since it has no material substance.
The soul is like a boat; it wants to float free. We use the physical
body as an anchor, with the glyph acting as the tether that keeps
the soul attached to it."

"So what's the point?" asked Pierre. "What ends are you trying to justify?"

"The eternal plague faced by mankind is an inability to find
one unbeatable advantage over its enemies. Peace can never exist
in such a world. And of course governments are willing to pay
extravagantly to be the power holding that advantage."

"Weapons," Pierre said. "Of course. A person for whom there
are no walls, and for whom solid objects are not a hindrance ... It's
the ultimate in stealth warfare. No enemy would be untouchable, and the soldier would be absolutely impervious to harm. Assuming you can control and manipulate the process."

"But you'd need some kind of control over these ghost soldiers ofyours," I said, catching on. "And I'm betting none of the
people here consented to play War Games for you, so how can you
expect them to follow your orders unless you have some way of
coercing them?"

"You'd need far more than that," said Simms. "Apparitions
can only interact with our plane of existence in very limited ways,
most of which are unuseful for our purposes. When the technology is perfected, we intend to give our `souldiers'-and I'm spelling
that s-o-u-l-full ability to interact with the mortal world."

"And then what?" I asked. "You going to sell this technology
to the highest bidder?"

Simms looked at me and Derek, not confirming or
denying.

I was irked and about to press him further, but Derek jumped
in.

"Jordin Cole," he said with a restrained anger. "Where is
she?"

"Who?" There wasn't the slightest hint of curiosity in Simms's
voice.

"Please," said Derek in disgust. "She's probably the most
famous person you have here."

"The physical shell of every person to undergo the procedure
is stored here, in the Body Chamber. Her soul has been extracted
and is now ... elsewhere."

I looked back at the tablet, remembering how the tech at the
door had recognized my name.

"So undo it," Derek demanded, his tone cold and threatening. "Put her soul back in her body."

Though his expression remained unchanged, I got the strong
impression that Simms was relishing the next statement he made.
"I'm afraid ... our efforts thus far have only been focused on the
extraction technique. We have not yet taken the step of reversing
the process."

This gave me an idea. A mad, crazy notion. But I couldn't
help wondering ...

I decided to keep the thought to myself.

I never saw Derek move; I just blinked and Simms's head
jerked back. He sagged into Pierre's arms, and I was surprised to
see Derek's arm outstretched, fist first, in Simms's direction.

"Help me," Pierre whispered, and as he and Derek put Simms
onto the gurney I had formerly occupied, I began searching on
the tablet, quickly finding the information we needed.

"Feel better?" I asked Derek, still amazed that he'd done
that.

"Not really," he whispered back, rubbing his knuckles.

"Never seen a minister hit somebody before," I remarked.
"Aren't you supposed to turn the other cheek?"

Derek was still fuming. "I'll seek forgiveness later," he said.

"Booth 930," 1 said.

I held up the computer. Derek nodded and was out of the
cubicle before Pierre or I had even moved.

Staying low and communicating only with gestures, we wound
our way through the veritable city of cubicles in the Body Chamber. The most activity seemed to be happening in the middle of the giant room, so we altered course to move silently in that
direction, avoiding all the workers we saw along the way.

I got a much better look at the walls, and they were just as
Derek and Pierre had described them. The curved outer wall was
separated from us by an equally curved pane of glass that left only
an inch or two of space in between. And in that space, fire burned
all the way around the room. The glass seemed to be covered in
etchings of the alchemical binding symbol, as well.

About twenty-five feet from the core of the room, we found
Booth 930 and ducked inside.

"Jordin!" Derek whispered, rushing to the gurney on which
her body lay, hooked up to an IV and various monitors.

"She's not here," I whispered quietly. "This isn't her, Derek.
This body is just an empty container."

For all intents and purposes, Jordin was no longer alive. But
Derek took Jordin's hand nonetheless and kissed it gently. His
tears stained her wrist, and my heart pounded in grief for both
of them.

This was, in some small way, my fault. I had indulged Jordin's
obsession when I should have deterred her. I watched Derek in
silence. I've never been a terribly emotional person, so I stood
perfectly still with no outward signs of how much his pain was
gutting me.

I took several calming breaths and turned my attention out
over the nearest partition wall. Just a few dozen feet away, surrounded by a bustle of lab coat-decked scientists, was the machine
they must have used to extract the soul.

It wasn't what I'd expected. I didn't know what it should look
like exactly, but not like what I was looking at now.

It was about five feet high on one end, only three or so on the other. Between the two ends was a big clear tube that reminded
me of a hyperbaric chamber, only its cross-section wasn't a perfect
circle. It was flattened, oval in shape. Everything that wasn't part
of the clear tube was stainless steel. It didn't look like something
used for a surgical procedure. It was more like a high-tech torture
device out of a futuristic sci-fi movie.

On the taller end was an enormous control station with half
a dozen screens and several keyboards and touch pads. It was all
very clean and organized, fitting perfectly into the space available,
obviously custom made. I imagined that this was probably the
only such machine in the world, though it would only be a matter of time before DHI started producing more of them. Unlike
nearly every other part of this crazed facility, I saw no glyphs, as
Simms had called them, anywhere on the enormous device.

We heard a deep rumble from somewhere in the chamber,
so deep it hurt my ears. I wondered if it was an earthquake, or
if this was part of the extractor in operation, but there was no
one currently inside the thing. Even Derek was pulled out of his
personal torment by the sound. He stepped over to see what we
were looking at.

As we watched, a new victim was wheeled up to the extractor
on a gurney-a young man. Derek was poised as if he wanted to
rescue the guy, but I put a hand on him and whispered that we
needed to see how this machine worked, and that giving away our
position for the sake of one person wouldn't help the hundreds
of other victims. Including Jordin.

So we remained silent as the clear tube split in the middle and
slid open. The unconscious young man was disconnected from
his IV, hefted from his stretcher, and laid inside, the tube immediately sealing around him. I noted that despite all of the complex monitors and keypads, the entire process appeared to be more or
less automated. A technician standing at the controls checked
over various settings but then hit a single yellow button.

The machine buzzed to life, sounding like something within
it was spinning hard and fast. I cringed when I saw a spiky needle
extend from under the young man's head straight into the back
of his neck-piercing the center of the symbol that was branded
there. I couldn't tell how deep it penetrated.

Every muscle in his body clenched tight, like an electrical current was searing through him. I saw the scientists nearby shield
their eyes, and then as the roar of the machine grew deafening,
a series of dangerously bright flashes seemed to fill the tube. It
was as if the entire thing had become a fluorescent light bulb,
only the illumination it created was brighter than lightning. It
flashed several times in a row, and then there was a cracking
sound like localized thunder.

The machine suddenly wound down, and I could see the
young man in the tube had gone totally limp. Two technicians
quickly appeared and pulled his lifeless body out of the extractor and put it back on a gurney. They worked quickly, hooking
him up to his IV again, along with several other medical devices,
ensuring that his body remained technically alive, even though
it was being kept that way only by machinery.

"Dear God, save us," Derek whispered. "How can this be
real?"

There were no words. We had just witnessed the most profound violation of nature anyone had ever conceived. I felt
sick.

"Look," Derek whispered, pointing toward the far end of
the room.

There we could see the huge gridlike structure Pierre had
mentioned in greater detail. It almost looked like a cage, with
crisscrossing metal bars, but whatever was inside the thing was
obscured by some kind of deep, black darkness.

A man stood outside of the cage-a man I recognized from
a photo I'd seen on the Internet.

"That's Howell Durham," I whispered.

Pierre answered first. "Really? What's he doing?"

It was a fair question. Durham seemed to be pacing back and
forth next to the large cage, and inexplicably, he was talking and
gesturing wildly. He didn't look like the perfectly presented, wellbuilt silver fox that I had seen in the corporate press materials.
His hair was a mess, his eyes were big and wild, and his cheeks
were flushed. I think he was angry, and we could almost hear
him shouting from so far away.

Durham looked up, and so did we, as the room's bright white
lights turned red and an alarm began to blare through the Body
Chamber like a battle Klaxon.

"I think that's for us" came Pierre's terse whisper. "Simms
must have woken up!"

Before either of us could respond, the entire building began
to shake, and the low rumbling sound we'd heard before returned,
growing in strength and volume. It was the worst sound I'd ever
heard, nearly making my heart leap into my throat.

Then as the room pitched and swayed, the giant cage at the
far end of the room exploded open. A horrific creature came tearing out of it, huge-more than ten feet in height-and absolutely
monstrous.

Scientists and technicians abandoned their posts and fled
for their lives screaming, running from the room en masse. The creature growled and roared, blew hot steam out of its snoutlike
nose, and then grabbed Howell Durham around the waist. Before
any of us had time to react, it squeezed Durham like a grape, and
the old man popped.