Paradigm (18 page)

Chapter 16

I
t was still dark when
he woke up. Or was it dark again? He had no way of knowing. The trailer wasn’t moving, though, so they must be parked.

Sam turned his head and opened his eyes slowly. He was alone. He sat up carefully and looked around. What he had thought was a bed was actually an old sofa covered in blankets and towels, most of which looked like they hadn’t been cleaned in years. The rest of the trailer wasn’t much better. There was a small sink, crammed with dishes and grey with mold, a few chairs, roughly nailed to the floor, and greasy cupboards bursting with more blankets, pans, ropes and ragged clothes. He could see the flickering light of a campfire through the mud-smeared window above the sink and hear talking and laughing. The window on his side was dark. That was the way he had to go.

He stood up and immediately sat down again. His head was swimming and his legs felt like string. He took a few deep breaths, but it didn’t help much. Outside, a girl started singing a raucous song. Everyone joined in on the chorus. This was probably going to be his best chance.

He stood up again and made his way to the door at the back of the trailer. It swung open easily. He jumped down, closed the door and waited. The singing didn’t stop. They hadn’t seen him. He turned and ran into the dark, but as he did there was the unmistakable sound of the door swinging open again.

“Shit!”

He thought about running back and closing it, but it was too late. He could see a girl walking toward the trailer to check on him.

The subsequent yelling was quickly followed by the sound of running feet behind him. Sam glanced back and realized he had no chance of getting away. Whatever they’d given him had made him weak as a baby and his legs already felt like he’d run a marathon. The best thing he could do was try to slow them down.

He stopped and turned around. There were four Rovers with flashlights bobbing towards him. He took a deep breath, looked at the ground, and concentrated. Even in his weakened state he reckoned he could take out the flashlights, and maybe one or two of the trucks if he was lucky.

The Rovers had stopped running.

“Hey, Sam!” It was Vincent. “What d’you think you’re doing?”

Sam felt the slight prickling in his fingers and toes as the pulse built up through his body, then up to that point just behind his eyes. He looked up and the flashlights went out.

“Whoa! Did you do that, Sam?”

He didn’t answer. He just tried to stay as still as he could in the black dark.

“I said, did you do that?”

Vincent was right in front of him. They dragged him back to the trailer and threw him on the sofa again.

“I’m really disappointed in you, Sam,” said Vincent, getting a rope out of one of the cupboards. “Cherry, turn the light on, so I can see what I’m doing.”

He knelt down and started to tie Sam’s hands. Sam heard the click-click of the light switch and smiled.

“What are you looking so pleased about? Cherry! The lights!”

“They won’t come on, Vinnie. I think the bulb’s blown.”

Vincent looked up at Sam and saw the smile.

“Oh, Jeez…you have got to be kidding.”

He dropped the rope and ran out of the trailer. Sam heard the slam of the truck door and then nothing for a few moments.

“I’m really sorry about this,” said the girl called Cherry. “You seem nice. Most of the ones we grab ain’t nice at all.”

“Then why…” whispered Sam, his whispered words fading to nothing.

“It’s the money. Not barter. Actual cash money. More ‘n we’ve ever seen.”

She crouched in front of him and gazed into his eyes.

“What did you do, Sam? What did you do made them so mad at you?”

“Nothing. I’ve never even been—”

The hood of the old truck clanged shut.

“Shit!”

“What is it?” yelled a voice from the other side of the camp.

The truck door slammed again.

“All of you! Start your engines!”

“Why?”

“Just do it!”

Sam waited, hoping against hope, but one by one the other vehicles started up. Then Vincent was back.

“Grab your stuff, Cherry. He’s blown all the electrics in the truck. We’ll have to hook the trailer to Johnno’s.”

The girl nodded and jumped out of the trailer.

“That’s impressive stuff, Sam. What was it?”

“An electro-magnetic pulse,” said Sam. “I was kind of hoping for a bigger one.”

“I bet you were,” said Vincent. “I can see why the guys at HI thought you should be medicated.”

He reached into his back pocket and produced a phial of clear liquid.

“No,” said Sam, his panic rising. “Please. I won’t try anything else, I swear. Please.”

“Yeah, well, I think we’ve established two things here, Sam. One is that you can’t be trusted, and the second is that you’ve got some crazy ass skills. I’ve had that truck since I was ten.”

“I’m sorry. Really. Just don’t—”

It was no use. Vincent pushed Sam back on the sofa, opened the phial, forced his mouth open and poured the contents down his throat.

“Nighty-night, Sammy.”

Sam coughed. He looked up at Vincent, but the Rover was standing very far away at the end of an incredibly narrow tunnel.

And then…

Whispers. Urgent whispers getting louder. His eyes half opened. He was still in the trailer, but it was full of people. They were far away, which was weird because the trailer was small. And he was shaking…trembling. Every muscle in his body seemed to be juddering.

“He’s waking up!”

Someone pushed his head back and forced his right eye open, before letting go and turning away.

“Nah,” said a distant voice. “There’s nobody home.”

“Shit.”

“Don’t panic,” mumbled another hazy voice. “So long as he’s alive when we do the handover…”

Sam felt himself slipping away, then something sharp cut into his head.

“Fuck! He’s having another seizure!”

Then he was awake…walking down a road.

No, he wasn’t. It was a dream. A nightmare.

A flickering shadow play of all the things he’d spent years trying to forget: his mother’s accident, her face when she realized that this time she wasn’t going to make it, the dank cave where his father had drawn his last painful breath, and the quiet staccato rattle that meant Sam was finally, truly alone. It all danced before his dreaming eyes, out of order and in vivid hues: the first time he had seen someone killed, the last time he’d been embraced, the wretched cabin in the desert, the wolves that had circled as his last twig had burned in the cold forests of Oregon.

Then the stabbing pain again. Then nothing. Nothing was good.

The next thing he felt was cold. The cold of a concrete floor. People were shouting. Men and women yelling. He was shaking. Lying on a concrete floor, shaking uncontrollably while people yelled.

Then he was lifted. Strong arms carrying him away from all the yelling. Good. The yelling was bad. Then something white. Needles and tubes in his arms. A different kind of pain.

Twisting. Cramping.

When would it stop? When would it stop?

Why couldn’t he die?

He opened his eyes. He was in a white room. In an actual bed. He tried to sit up but found that he couldn’t move. There was the sound of a door opening and closing and the click-click-click of heels on linoleum.

“Well, this is an improvement!” The voice was female, old, and chirpy.

She loomed over him, wearing a white coat over a flowery pink blouse, her grey hair pulled back into a tight bun.

“How are we feeling?”

Sam opened his mouth to speak, but before he could say anything, she pulled on his eyelids and shone a light into each of his eyes, then shoved a thermometer into his mouth. He blinked and struggled to sit up again, but it was no good.

“I’m afraid our friends the Rovers were a little over-enthusiastic with your medication, Sam. A bit of an overdose, really. Your motor neurons should start working again in a day or two. Well, your temperature’s normal, that’s a blessing anyhow.”

Sam strained to ask a question, but the muscles in his face wouldn’t cooperate.

“Who…” he whispered, finally.

“Oh, well done! I’m Dr. Robinson and I’ll be your supervising physician. We’ll have you on your feet again in no time. Everyone’s just dying to meet you, but we need to get that nasty phyrozene out of your system first.”

He struggled to form another word, but all that emerged was a rasping cry, forced from his throat by a twisting cramp that felt like an animal trying to claw its way out of his innards.

“Oh dear,” said Dr. Robinson, patting his hand. “It’s so hard, isn’t it? The best thing that you can do now is sleep, so I’ll leave you to it.”

She straightened up, smiled and clip-clopped away and out of the room.

Sam lay there staring at the ceiling. He’d never felt so helpless in his life.

After about half an hour he drifted off to sleep and dreamed of running through the night but never getting anywhere. He was woken by the sound of the door opening and closing again. There was a clanking sound, then something he couldn’t identify. He closed his eyes, concentrated, and managed to slowly turn his head.

It was a young girl. She looked about eleven, with golden hair and rosy cheeks, like a picture in a book. She was mopping the floor, kicking the bucket along as she went.

“Oh! I’m sorry! Did I wake you?” Her voice had a breathless quality to it.

Sam tried to say something, but it still wouldn’t come.

“I’m Bethany,” said the girl. “I clean the rooms. You’ve been lying there for so long, I didn’t think you were going to wake up.”

Sam stared at her.

“Can’t you talk? Oh.” She sounded genuinely disappointed. “Well, I’d better get on. I get in trouble if I take too long.”

She did a final flourish with the mop, picked up the bucket and was gone, leaving Sam to drift off into a restless sleep, punctuated by convulsing cramps that jarred him awake and left him gasping.

As the hours passed, the length of time between the cramps grew longer and their intensity less, until at last he was able to really rest, sinking into a peaceful, dreamless oblivion.

He woke with no idea whether it was night or day. The room was constantly lit and he could see the glint of a small camera in the far corner, but there was no window and nothing to indicate the passage of time. He wondered exactly how long it had been. When he’d first woken up, he’d assumed he’d been out a couple of days, but Bethany’s surprise seemed to indicate that he’d been there much longer.

That meant Nathan would have been able to put a lot of miles between him and his car. Sam felt his anger rise again at the thought of the lousy little ex-Rover stealing the goat. As if the betrayal itself weren’t bad enough, he’d just had to twist the knife!

And then he realized something. His right hand was in a fist! His muscle control was returning! He tried moving his arms. Still not much, but definitely better. He felt elated and then suddenly cautious.

He glanced at the camera. His best bet for now was to pretend he was still paralyzed. The longer they thought he was immobile the more likely it was that he’d be able to get away.

Get away from where? His whole world right now was this single white room. Presumably it was in San Francisco, but he had no idea whether it was underground or twenty stories up.

Sam closed his eyes. He’d spent most of his life on his own, driving around the Wilds, just getting by. He could’ve settled down any time. Plenty of people had offered to share their home with him over the years, particularly when he was younger, but he liked the sense of freedom that the road gave him. So why had he given Nathan a lift?

Something about how pathetic he looked standing at the side of the road.

Never again. Next time he’d just cruise right by.

He didn’t need anyone.

Though right here, now…he really wished he wasn’t quite so completely alone.

Chapter 17

T
wo days later Sam had
most of his mobility back, though he concealed his progress from Dr. Robinson as much as possible. Once a day Bethany would come in and mop and twice a day she’d come in with a bowl of slop and feed him. He wanted to talk to her, to find out where he was and what was going on, but he was wary of the camera.

On the third day he decided to do something about it. It was risky, but if he was quick it might just work without raising too much suspicion.

He guessed that the long periods in which neither Dr. Robinson nor Bethany showed up were probably night, so he waited until everything had been quiet for a few hours, then turned his head slowly to the right and closed his eyes. The other EMPs had been big. Focused, but big. They had been about taking out as much stuff as possible. But this one needed to be small: if it fried anything more than the camera and the light, they’d probably figure out it was him.

He felt the familiar pins-and-needles in his feet and fingers and the sensation of movement through his body and up to that point behind his eyes, building and almost crackling in his skull.

How had he ever believed that this was normal?

The thought was a distraction and the energy behind his eyes dissipated.

“Shit.”

He took a deep breath and started again, concentrating only on the crackling movement through his body, following it in his mind’s eye as it gathered and grew in strength. Then he held his breath and blinked once.

Sam kept his eyes tight shut until the sensation of shimmering electricity had vanished once more. Then he opened them slowly.

It was dark—the light was out. That was a relief, but had he destroyed the camera too? And if he had, was the damage limited to those two things? There was no way of knowing, and he couldn’t risk getting up until he knew.

He didn’t have to wait long.

Just five minutes before the door was yanked open and two men bustled in. One lit the way with a flashlight, while the other carried a ladder and a light bulb. He set up the ladder and stomped up.

“Shh!” said the one with the flashlight.

“What for? That kid’s probably no better ‘n a vegetable.”

“You don’t know that. Phil told me that Dr. Robinson thinks he’s fine.”

The man on the ladder grunted his disbelief, unscrewed the old bulb and replaced it with the new one. Nothing happened.

“Is it switched on?” he asked.

“Of course it is. It’s always switched on. It’s probably the bulb.”

“Yeah. I don’t know why they still have these piece of shit old lights anyway. Let’s look at the camera.”

He dragged the ladder over to the corner of the room.

“Hand me the flashlight.”

Sam watched through half-closed eyes as the man examined the camera.

“It looks fine.”

“Yeah, well it’s not. Watchtower says it’s down. No static, just black.”

“I’ll have to check it out back in the shop. Yet another pre-collapse piece of junk. Why do they expect these things to keep working? They’re the fucking scientists, they should come up with something new that we can actually use.”

Sam heard the sound of a screwdriver rasping on old threads as the man released the camera from its bracket before handing the flashlight back to his coworker, folding the ladder and stalking out, still muttering about old technology. The second man sighed and followed, closing the door with a gentle click.

Sam waited for a while, then threw back the covers, sat up, and swung his legs out and onto the floor. He stood up slowly, his legs shaking. He felt weak, but everything seemed to be working again. He walked towards a doorway on the far side. A short curtain was pulled across the opening and Sam was pretty sure it was a bathroom.

He leaned on the door jamb and yanked the curtain back. He was right. There was a toilet, a sink, and a shower. He longed for a good hot shower, but it would have to wait—no point in tipping his hand too early. He settled for running some water into the sink and splashing his face. It felt good.

Now for the door.

He was pretty sure it wasn’t locked, but he needed to know for sure. He felt his way unsteadily along the wall until he reached the handle, then turned it slowly.

The door clicked and opened. He smiled, but it was at that moment that his legs finally gave out and he crumpled to the floor. He needed to work. He had to get his strength back if he was going to stand any chance of getting out of this snake pit.

He pushed the door closed and reached for the handle to pull himself up, but he felt something else: long indentations stretching down from the handle. He ran his fingertips over them. There were a lot, but there was a pattern…and he knew what it was. He lay his hand flat on the surface. The indentations matched his fingers exactly.

Someone else had been here.

And they’d tried to claw their way out.