The Game - 30. Chapter 30

The pain is gone and I am floating in darkness. I feel hands on my body, lifting me, stripping off my clothes, laying me down again on something that moves under me. Briefly I open my eyes and I am moving, lights flash past over head stabbing into my eyes and awakening screaming pain in my head. I close my eyes and it all goes away.

There are voices, it seems as though there are many people, all around, all whispering, none making sense. I focus my mind a little and I can hear them, there are at least three, at least three who are talking.

“You were given clear instructions Bowen. I don’t care what the circumstances are, you have failed to execute them to our liking.”

“I did exactly what you told me to do. It is hardly my fault that they boy is some kind of mental superman. There is no way that anyone should have been able to break my conditioning, especially not to this extent, not with the drugs I was giving him.”

“We told you that he was a special case.”

“Yes, and that was as specific as you got. ‘Special case’ covers a multitude of possibilities and none of them even comes close. This is not a ‘special case’ this is more than that, much more and I don’t know if I want to be involved in it any more.”

“Involved? My dear Professor, you ARE involved, and there is nothing you can do about that now. From the moment you started playing the game you were involved and from that moment you lost the option to not be involved. You have to play through to the end and this is the beginning of the end. Now do what you have to do. The end game has begun and it is more important than ever that Adam is not free to make any move unless we tell him to. He must not remember who he is or what he is until we have found out what the end move is and when and where we get him to make it.

“If you can’t control him through your treatments then you must keep him here, as he is, until we are ready for him. It is quite simple Professor.... Adam stays on ice, shut down one way or another. If that is the case you share in the benefits of unimaginable power and influence, if not then you lose everything... and I mean... everything. The stakes are high... and the penalties are fatal.”

“I understand.”

“We will watch the procedure. My colleague is qualified to assist you if you so wish and to report on your techniques and the success or failure, of them whether you wish or not.”

“I am very concerned about this. I have never performed this procedure so many times on a single subject. Physically he is failing and mentally he is close to breaking. I am afraid that this will push him over the edge one way or another. Can’t I just keep him sedated?”

“I believe that we have explained this is some detail to you Professor. It is not our fault if you failed to understand. Adam’s mind is like no other you have ever had under your hands. Even now he will be calculating, manipulating... It is not enough to suppress his consciousness you have to completely shut down his mind, at every level. Can you guarantee me that, even if you put him in a coma, his mind will be completely shut down?”

“No.”

“Then proceed.”

“As you wish.”

“Oh, indeed.”

As they are talking someone is working on me, I feel their hands on my body but I barely register what they are doing. I know there is some pain but I am too sunk beneath the blanket to care. I remember that they drugged me after I hit the nurse, something that made me sink quickly and completely. Not even my secret focus could resist and I completely lost all sense of myself, the game, the plan, everything.... I was truly lost.

And now... now I am beginning to rise, to remember. Just like before I am paralysed. I can’t move, can’t make a sound.

Someone touches me.... lifts my arm, turns it over. They have managed to get the tubes in and I can feel the drugs pumping through my body, freezing it, numbing my mind.

“Why was it necessary to be so brutal? Why have you damaged him so much?”

“The drugs are aggressive... that is why they cannot be used for long. They degrade the veins, give them have a tendency to collapse. This is why we cannot consider using the femoral artery as there is too far for the drug to travel before it is metabolised, too much to damage.”

“What is this stuff doing to his heart?”

“It is...it will ultimately destroy his heart. Again, this is why I do not prescribe the drugs for more than a very short course of treatment.”

“Will he stand up to another session?”

“I don’t know. For one more session... probably.. . after that definitely no.”

“Then why the hell did you do it? Why did you let it get this far?”

“Because no one has ever needed more than one course of treatment, no one has needed to be on the drugs this long... no one has ever broken my conditioning. Once I started I had to go on.”

“Do you guarantee he will survive the procedure? He does not look strong. His vitals are unstable.”

“There are no guarantees. I am fairly sure his body will survive.... I am less sure about his mind.”

“His mind doesn’t matter. As long as he can follow instructions and is physically capable to taking action, that’s all I am concerned with.”

“I will do my best.”

“You had better do more than that..... proceed.”

I am surfacing quickly now, my mind coming alert, at least the important part of it, the part I need. I extend the limits of it outside my body. I am aware that the Professor is talking to me but I have no idea what he is saying. I extend my awareness out of the room and sense them coming... they are close, in exactly the right place... exactly.

My awareness is pulled back into my body when they drop the bed flat and I gasp because of the unbearable pain in my head. For a moment it possesses the whole of my awareness, is the limit of my reality. It is a physical entity, existing only to torment me, to fill my world with a pain so intense I stop breathing. And then, with a shudder I am back and my mind is clear, clearer than it has ever been before.

“Can you hear me Daniel? Are you awake?” So he’s back to calling me Daniel, as if he thinks I am going to forget again so easily... I remember now... remember what he did to me in this room, time after time, day after day, and in the interim fed me drugs that burned my arms and my brain so that I truly did not know who I was or where I was or what I was and I didn’t care..... I cared about nothing so long as there was no pain.

I have no intention of answering him this time. I have other things on my mind, and they are so close... but are they close enough? They have to come in before the Professor injects the drug... they have to give him the opportunity not to. They are close but not close enough.... alright, so maybe I will talk to him after all.

“I am not Daniel.”

I open my eyes and see the shock on the Professor’s face. He has the syringe in his hand... phew, that was close.

“I am Adam.”

One of the men steps forwards and looks down at me, his face carefully neutral, his blue eyes cold.

“Hello Adam. Do you remember me?”

Remember him? Oh yes, I remember him... I remember him and I have a score to settle. Without giving him a chance to prepare himself or to wonder if I am capable of it I hit out at him... not with my body which, even if it had not been strapped firmly to the bed was paralysed and helpless... but with my mind which, now awake was anything but. My psychic blow slams into him in the same way that his had slammed into me the moment I had opened my front door, unsuspecting, unprepared, all that long, long time ago. He staggers and sags to the floor.

The other man laughs, a mirthless laugh and comes forward so I can see him. I have never seen him before but I will never forget him... he is big and raw boned, quite young with shaggy blonde hair licking his collar and eyes that could have frozen boiling water.

“Very impressive..... not very wise though... given your position. You are an enigma Adam. I can see why you were chosen as end player. I hope you understand that this is precisely why I can’t let you go free. You are too dangerous. You have to make my move, for my team, or no move at all.”

Fool... he doesn’t understand the game, he never has, none of them ever has... they rely too much on the myth of it... they have not taken the time to understand the heart of it, the truth of it... the game wasn’t about winning at all costs... it was about learning the right way through... winning no matter what it cost.... there is a subtle but significant difference... the microcosmic interpretation as opposed to the macrocosmic, the selfless as opposed to the selfish, the subjective as opposed to the objective

“Then I choose.... no move.”

“It is not for you to make the choice.”

“Do you really think so? What do you think my job is about if not to choose?”

“You are a strong one aren’t you? But it won’t do you any good.”

He nods to the Professor but before he can act the door bursts open and people pour in. It’s lucky the room is so big or there would not be room for all of them.

I hear Annie cry out my name and I sense how much she wants to run to me but someone holds her back... probably Simon.

“Let him go.”

“Why should I?”

“Because it is the rule of the game.”

“Really? And what rule would that be?”

“The rule that says if you take a member of my team and I find him and what you are doing with him then you have to give him back.”

“I am aware of that rule. But there is no rule about holding on to a player who used to be on your team but who is now on mine. Changing sides has been known has it not?”

“There is no way that Adam would have changed sides.”

“Prove it.”

“Adam.... tell him. Please Adam.”

“I don’t know what game you’re playing but it isn’t the same one I am playing. Adam is our team member. We have found him and now you MUST give him back.”

I feel the man smile and the energy blast he sends at the Professor... they must all feel it. “Do it.” Out loud he says. “Make me.”

“Stop.... you can’t.....”

That’s the last thing I am consciously aware of because then the drug hits my system and the pain is intolerable. I hear noises that could be choked screams or just a desperate struggle for breath, and I know that I am shaking uncontrollably and that the slivers of ice slice into my veins as they travel inexorably towards my heart.

When the drug hits my heart my chest explodes in violent agony and the last physical thing I am aware of is my own voice screaming, my body in intolerable spasm lifting off the bed and then.... it all stops as I am catapulted out of my body into a place of darkness, bathed in light from a single source, high up, a source that is opening like the petals of a flower. If I had a body I would rejoice, if I had lips I would smile. This is it... the end