The Golden Circuit (The Smith Chronicles) (17 page)

“Oh
, dear,” said the woman. “It appears we have one of ‘those’, Mr. Mitchell.”

“Yes, Miss Quince. It appears to be so. How dull.”

“Indeed.”

“Miss Smith. Tell me now. Do you know why you are here? With us, of course, not philosophically speaking
!” Mr. Mitchell tittered to himself at his joke. Miss Quince wrinkled her face at him in mutual amusement.

Mikita said nothing.

“Hmmm. I see,” said Mitchell. “Do we need to get the guard in, Miss Smith. Do we really? I hate the sight of blood. Particularly on a Sunday.”

Mikita frowned and went and sat in the chair that had been provided for her.

“A good choice, Miss Smith,” said Quince.

“A very good choice, Miss Smith,” said Mitchell.

“Now then, let’s begin with a few questions. What is your favourite colour?” asked Quince.

“What?” said Mikita.
Are they mad?

“Your favourite colour, what is it?”

Mikita said nothing, again.

Both of the Specialists, looked at each other
, again.

“Guard!” they shouted in unison.

“Black!” said Mikita.

Mr. Mitchell exhaled in tedium, as the door flew open. “It’s OK, guard, she is now cooperating, please leave us.”

The guard shut the door.

“That was very good, Miss Smith,” said Quince, entering the information into her electronic tablet. “And it appears to be the correct answer, as well. Good for you! Nevertheless, you should be made aware, for future reference, that black is, scientifically speaking,
not a colour. Now, Miss Smith, your favourite breakfast cereal?”

“Beta-Bytes.”

“Yes! That’s correct. Oh, well done.”

“Your favourite toothpaste?”

“Moon-Shine dental spray.”

“Good!”

“Favourite shampoo?”

“
Celestial-Wash, regular.”

“Excellent!”

“Your favourite sport.”

“Space-Biathlon…
the skiing and laser-blasting one.”

“Correct!”

And so on they went, asking their apparently inconsequential questions to Mikita.

They carried on for a considerable time and gradually Mikita found herself wondering when they would stop. Plus, her inquisitors were making her ever more nervous, with their extreme oddness and passive aggressive natures.

“How many more questions do you intend to ask me?” said Mikita.

“None. By you asking that question we now move on to the next stage. But first, a break. For 10 minutes - yes, Miss Quince?”

“Oh, yes. Thank you Mr. Mitchell. A good idea. I could do with a cup of Mu-tea myself. Mikita? Would you like a cup of tea, too?”

Oh, we’re first name terms now, are we?
“Yes, please. Why not?” she replied, in a ‘what-have-I-got-to-lose’ voice.

“Good. Open the blinds for Mikita, would you Mr. Mitchell?”

“My pleasure, Miss Quince.”

Mikita saw that each side of the curved bay had a large blind pulled down from the ceiling about halfway to the floor. Mr. Mitchell went over to each one, gave it a downward jerk and let go. The blind whirled up to the top of its roller, clattered a bit, then stopped. He did this on the other side, each time revealing, not a window with a view of the TAPCON car park or the side of a nondescript building, but a projection screen.

A slowly pulsing, coloured light shone on each one. It changed to a different colour with each oscillation - like a rainbow doing a slow samba. Now a green, softly turning into a blue. Here an orange becoming a purple, and so forth.

Mitchell gave Mikita an unexpected smile as he left the room, then shut the door behind him.

The lights in the room went out!

Mikita started to feel uneasy.

On the screen, to her right, Mikita thought that she saw an image flash up, very quickly. So quickly she was not sure whether there had been one there at all. Then the same thing happened on her left hand side, yet still she could not make out the image. This happened several times, and each time Mikita was unable to detect what was on the photograph.

The lights flicked back on and in came Quince and Mitchell with their cups of tea.

They’d not brought one for Mikita.

“Do I not get a cup of tea, then?’ said Mikita, somewhat bolshily.

“But you said you didn’t want one, Mikita. Didn’t she Mr. Mitchell?” replied Quince.

“Oh, yes - ‘No, thank you, Miss Quince’ - you said. Very clearly, in a good strong voice,” confirmed Mitchell.

“No. That’s not what I  -”

“You said no, Mikita. Do we need the guard again?”
threatened Quince.

Mikita shook her head.

“Good. Then let’s proceed. Mr. Mitchell if you would, the next question, please.”

“
Mikita, look at this picture.”

The lights went off again. A photo came up on the screen.

It was her mother, Kaori. A black and white photograph of her mother. On a slab. In a morgue. Dead.

“No! Stop it! Why are you doing this to me?” she got up.

“Sit down, Mikita.”

“But why are you -”

“Do we need the guard? ”

She sat down, her lip trembling.

“Who is this woman, Mikita?”

“My mother,” she said, quietly.

“Yes. It is, isn’t it. And this person?”

On the other screen came an image of her father, Ichiro. Aga
in, black and white. The morgue.

“Oh, Herra, no.” Mikita began to cry.

“The person. Mikita! WHO IS IT?” shouted Quince.

“It’s my father.”

“Good. Correct.”

“Both of them are dead now aren’t they, Mikita? Both dead now, yes?”

“Yes.”

“And how do you feel about that, Mikita? Are you sad? Hmmm? Does it make you feel… sad?”

“Yes.”

“Good. And if I told you they were still alive and that they were not dead, how would you feel then, Mikita? Hmmm?”

“What? You mean they’re not dead?” she said, suddenly happy.

“I said, how would you feel if I
told
you they were still alive?”

“Oh, so happy! Yes! So very happy!”

Quince and Mitchell went completely still.

Neither one moved.

They were like two chimerae watching over the entrance to Hades - rictal, monstrous and vile.

Mikita was terrified. “What’s going on? What are you doing to me? Are my parents still alive? Tell me!!”

A single tone began to make its presence felt in the room. Mikita looked around for its source, but she would never find it. The noise got louder - incrementally louder, and louder. Mikita covered her ears with her hands, but it made no difference. Louder and louder the tone went in volume. Mitchell and Quince hadn’t moved a muscle and appeared to be unaffected by the sound. And now, they were smiling. Insane smiles. The smile a Specialist would make following a successful interrogation. As if they were void of any emotion except the terrible enjoyment of her suffering.

The pictures of her parents zoomed in and out on themselves. A close up of her mother’s wounds, her father’s face, eyes open, dead eyes looking at her. The
n the sound seemed to split into several parts – some low and thunderous, the others high and piercing - as if it had been shattered by Satan’s trident into thousands of agonising aural shards. Mikita fell to her knees in pain. She felt like her head was caving in; like she was in a black hole and the gravity was crushing her down; squeezing her soul out through her eyes. And still the noise got louder.

Suddeny,
Mikita felt the force of the Golden Circuit surge within her, rising quickly from inside. She almost doubled-up with the severity of its onset, as she felt the white-hot light move outward along her arms and arrive at her fingertips like a brilliant fire. How it burned. It was excruciating in its intensity!

The faces of Quince and Mitchell were not smiling now. They could feel that something had gone wrong; that the power balance in the room had shifted
, from them, to Mikita.

Mitchell pressed a button on his tablet and the high-pitched noise stopped abruptly as
the guard entered the room.

The strength within Mikita soared. She could feel an absolute potency unlike anything else she'd ever experienced, more so than during any other of her conductings.
Then she was on her feet, pushing the guard-mutant backwards out of the door and into the hallway, crashing him into a trolley full of office equipment. Mikita dashed over to him, ripped off his name pass and started running down the hallway, as alarms began to go off throughout the entire building.

As Mikita stumbled down the corridors,
her thoughts filled with the horrible images she had just seen.
Mother on a slab in the morgue! Father, too!
Then she realised she was adjusting the flow of the energy within her! Relaxing and compressing the
memento mori;
the photos, in and out of focus, she found that this was controlling the potency of the inner mounting flame! In her own small way, she was harnessing the Golden Circuit!

Down the hallways she ran, using the pass to get through the doors, on and on, aimlessly running. She felt the throbbing energy rise and fall, again.
Mother! Father!
On and on, and on she went, blindly searching for a way out; a way of escaping Sempre’s hellish maze of anonymous doors and never-ending hallways.

But, her efforts were futile. S
he didn't know where she was headed, and, soon, Mikita began to feel exhausted. The exertion was simply too much – just as she'd been warned by Gildan.

She felt so tired, so very tired.

She wanted to lie down and sleep.

To go to sleep and forget
about everything.

She sunk to her knees in an all-consuming, nauseous dwam.

Mikita turned around, and saw David Sempre’s face. It looked like it was melting, dissolving in on itself. His mouth was moving, but she heard no sound. Mikita felt her thoughts distancing again, reaching out to her future and onwards to that elusive place where she hoped she would find her true self and the inner peace she so desired. But things were getting dark…  and darker still… she could barely see through the miasma. Then, finally, that black hole came into existence - and swallowed her up.

20:31 - Sunday, July 29, 2187 (TAPCON Buildings, Muhaze, Tapi-36)

When Mikita awoke, she found herself alone in a brightly lit room. Her head ached and her body was raw. She didn’t know how long she'd been asleep
, but it felt like years. Her clothes had been removed and she was now dressed in a green hospital gown. She was also strapped to a bed with electrodes attached to her entire body.

She noticed that the flesh wound from the agent’s bullet had been newly bandaged. It still throbbed
, uncomfortably, but it was nowhere near as bad as yesterday. She lay there wondering what was going to happen to her next. She had a feeling it would not be something pleasant.

Mikita looked around the room. To her right she saw a small, white box that had wires coming out of the back leading directly into the wall behind it. On the box was a
dial with numbers all the way around ranging from 0-500. Within the dial was a black chicken-head knob. At the side was a single red button with the words ‘Apply mA’ underneath it.

Then she realised where she was.

Oh, fire! This is an electro-shock torture room!

Mikita tried to free herself from her shackles
, but it was no use, they were tightly applied and she couldn’t move an inch. She slammed her head up against the plinth below her in frustration.

The door opened and in walked Sempre with Quince and Mitchell…
and Dr.
Tamashito.

Sempre had on a delicious grin. “Ah, so you recognise your old mentor, Mikita? Well, you’ll be pleased to learn that he has come to assist us with the next stage in your commissioning. Isn’t that kind of him?”

Mikita said nothing.
Commissioning? Fire! Sempre wants me to work for TAPCON!

Tamashito looked very nervous. He sat down at the table with the small, white box on it. He was to be in charge of administering the electro-shocks.

“Hello, Dr. Tamashito,” said Mikita.

“Hello, Miss Smith,” replied the Doctor, quietly.

“Well, then. Now that you both have exchanged pleasantries - and if the good Doctor is ready?” asked Sempre.

Tamashito nodded, then raised a shaking hand towards the dial, and waited.

“Then let us continue. Mr. Mitchell?”

“Thank you, Mr. Sempre. Now, Miss Quince. The spray, please.”

“Of course, Mr. Mitchell,” she replied. Quince had a small, plastic spray bottle filled with liquid that she aimed at Mikita. She squeezed the trigger and a fine mist of fluid covered Mikita’s body.

What’s this? Water?

“Ah, Miss Smith,” said Mitchell. “You’re wondering what the H
2
O is for? Well, let’s put it this way - it helps the ‘flow’. It allows the current to get to the heart quicker, you see. Ha, ha! Now, Miss Smith, there is only one last question in our process… Do you agree to work for TAPCON?”

“Never,” she sliced.

“10,” said Mitchell.

Tamashito turned the dial to 10 on the box and
, reluctantly, pressed the red button.

Mikita felt a gruesome, mind-numbing vibration surge throughout her body
, and groaned in agony.

“Good,” said Mitchell, with a smile. “Now, let me ask that question again, Miss Smith: Do you agree to work for TAPCON?”

“No.”

“20,” said Mitchell.

Tamashito turned the dial to 20 and pressed the button, again.

Th
is time, the shock was worse. Almost as if her spinal cord had been attached directly to the mains. Mikita let out a terrible scream of pain.

“Excellent! 30,” said Mitchell. “Oh
, sorry, I haven’t asked the question yet… Miss Smith, do you agree to work for TAPCON?”

“N-no…”

Tamashito pressed the button and hung his head in shame. Mikita screamed again. Louder this time.

She’d never felt pain like this before. Never. Emotional pain was one thing
, but this sort of physical torment was new to her. She wasn’t sure she could take any more.

She tried to reason with herself.

Couldn’t she just go along with Sempre for the time being, say yes to everything and see where it led? What did she have to lose? It was inevitable that Sempre would crush her down further and further if she carried on like this, defying him. And what would that accomplish? Nothing, except more pain and suffering. No, those plans were gone now. She would play along, one more time, pretend to be putting up a fight, then make it look like she'd given up and let him have his way - until her time came to act. Mikita only hoped she would be able to recognise that moment when it came.

“Drain you, Sempre,
” Mikita said.
Oh, that was convincing,
she thought.
If I can just hold on a bit longer.

“Hmmm. Carry on, Mr. Mitchell,” said Sempre.

“Miss Smith, do you agree to work for TAPCON?”

“Nnnn-no…

“40,” said Mitchell.

Tamashito pressed the red button. There was a horrific sound of electricity buckling in on itself followed by an audible rushing of energy as it blazed through Mikita’s nervous system. It ripped through her body taking an almost gleeful pleasure in her pain and was soon followed by the smell of burning flesh. Mikita hadn’t uttered a sound - a pyrrhic victory for this last - though she knew this final shock had cost her dear. It was all too much. She was beaten. Her heart was still working
, but Mikita knew she had only narrowly escaped death.

“Miss Smith, do you agree to work for TAPCON?”

“Nnnnn… Yes…” she whimpered. “P-p-please… S-s-stop.”

Mikita slumped, unconscious.

“Oh, that was quick,” said Quince, disappointedly.

“Well, thank you, everybody. Thank you, that is all,” said Sempre. He knew Mikita would crack eventually.
They always do,
he reminded himself.

Mitchell and Quince gathered up their equipment and left the room.

“And thank you Dr. Tamashito, in particular,” said the TAPCON leader, moving round to stand in front of Tamashito’s desk.

Tamashito was staring at
the ground, sick with himself.

“Your family are looking forward to seeing you again, Doctor?’ said
Sempre, attempting to ingratiate himself. “When is it you go to Reis-91, next week, I think?”

“Yes, Mr. Sempre, next week, sir.”
How I hate this man,
thought Tamashito.

“And you’ve bought the presents for the children and Mrs. Tamashito, too?”

“Yes, sir. Toys, perfume - flowers on the day.”
Hate him, with every fibre of my being.

“Good. That’s good. And the work is going well I trust? Making progress, are we?”

“Yes, sir. Just a little more time and it will be done.”
I must have my revenge!

“How long, Doctor?”

“A month. Maybe two. Soon, sir.”
If I had the courage, I’d do it now!

“Hmmm. Well, I hope for your sake that Air Marshall Sashan lasts that long, Doctor,” said Sempre, as he turned on a built-up heel and exited.

Tamashito looked over at Mikita. She was still unconscious, as far as he could tell. Nevertheless, he tried to make contact.

“I’m sorry, Mikita, truly, so sorry,” he whispered. “If you need me, for anything, my meta-file is always on. Message me. So very sorry.”

He only hoped Mikita could hear him.

B
ut, by this time, Mikita was in another world of agony, though somehow she’d managed to make out some of what Tamashito had said: ‘message me’ - ‘sorry’ - ‘meta-file’…

Two TTF agents entered the room.

“She’s out cold,” said one of them.

“Yep, looks like it,” said the other.

“So, what did she get up to, 40 was it?”

“Yeah, not bad.”

“Yeah, yeah… um, so… is that a lot then, yeah, 40?”

“Enough to fry your tiny brain, Zeus. That’s for sure. Ha, ha, ha!”

“Hey, can it, Fitz, you shizzer! Let’s get this done and get back to the match, eh?”

The agents detached the electrodes from her body and wheeled Mikita’s bed down the corridor and into a large, empty ward.

Mikita had gained some form of awareness of where she was, and through squinted eyes it appeared that she’d been taken to some kind of recovery area.

That was good
, she thought, and, through gritted teeth, she waited.

And waited.

And waited some more.

Eventually, a nurse came and took her pulse. She typed the reading into an electronic tablet then gave her a shot of something in her arm.

She fell asleep faster than you could say: ‘Sempre is the devil’.