Psion Gamma (15 page)

“Stripe, please! It’s going to kill me
.
”

Tears poured from his eyes, blinding him of everything but Stripe’s face, which leaned slowly to his.

“I can make it stop, Albert. But only I have the power to do that. There is absolutely nothing anyone can do for you. Do you understand me?”

“Y—y—Yes! I understand! Please make it stop! Please! I’ll do whatever you say!”

“Anything, Albert? Will you tell me where you are from?” Stripe asked softly. “Will you tell me your real name?”

“I—I—” Once more he gave into that visceral scream in order to quiet the voice in his head begging him to not give Stripe what he wanted. “It’s going to eat me! Stripe! Please help me! Please stop it from killing me!” He struggled against his bonds, horrified at what was happening to his leg. But the bonds held him fast, and he could not escape the massive reptile eating him. The pain expanded, filling him, and then it leaked out of his pores like a noxious gas, surrounding him, suffocating him.

“You have to tell me where you are from. It is the only way I can call this alligator off.”

“I—I CAN’T! It’s a crocodile! It’s a CROCODILE! Please stop it!”

This continued for hours or years. Albert-Sammy begged and begged, but his pleas became quieter and quieter. Finally, Stripe put the helmet on him. As the pain became dull and bearable, a sound like thunder filled Albert-Sammy’s ears as the black chamber door burst open.

“Why didn’t it work?” someone shouted.

Albert-Sammy couldn’t see who it was with the helmet forcing him through endless swirls and cascades of color. Exhaustion had consumed his body and mind. Even the slightest breath required effort.

“Did you see how close he was?” Stripe asked, then immediately answered himself. “On the brink. He stands on the very brink, and tomorrow I can push him over it.” There was a healthy measure of both confidence and fright in his voice.

“I will be here tomorrow, watching you perform your task. If you can’t break him . . . then so be it. We’ve wasted enough time on this trash.”

“Don’t worry, sir. I will grind him more than he has ever imagined.”

The black door shut. Stripe commenced tidying up the room. Meanwhile, Albert-Sammy sat reeling and twitching spastically in his chair. Something had snapped inside of him. One memory he had not lost lay deep inside his splintered mind. A word had triggered it.

Grind
.

As shattered and as broken as he was—a shell of what he’d been when he first entered this nightmarish place—the word still brought back emotions of incalculable hate. This powerfully intense fury swept through him, leaving him consumed and exhausted.

Grind
.

He mumbled the word to himself over and over again as Stripe dragged him back to his room and fixed his neck to the wall via the metal ring.

Grind
.

It was coming back. Like a bathtub slowly filling itself, a memory surfaced.

Grind
.

As he sat in the corner of the room, aching in never-ending pain, he heard a familiar voice talking but ignored it as usual. He focused whatever brain capacity was left in him on one single thing.

Grind
.

A puddle formed in the bottom of the tub that was his mind.

Grinding
.

The water kept coming, soon the bath was half full.

Grinder
.

With nothing to stop it, the water reached the brim of the porcelain.

The Grinder
.

It spilled over the sides, onto the floor, bringing with it every last detail of the memory he had almost completely forgotten. He remembered the Grinder. He remembered the abandoned grocery store. He remembered Psion Beta headquarters.

I’m not Albert Choochoo. I’m Sammy.

The memory of the Grinder set him buzzing. He kept thinking back to it, remembering how exhilarated he and his friends had been as they’d hit the trees and knew they’d escaped. Nothing could touch them. They were kings of their own destiny.

I’ve escaped once
, said the small voice in the back of Sammy’s head.
I can escape again
.
Watch and wait. Watch and wait. Watch and wait.

But Stripe needs me here
, replied the other voice.

Stripe hurts me. I hate him. I’ve got to get OUT of here!

No. There’s nothing but Stripe. I am nothing without Stripe
.

Sammy let out a sob and grabbed his stomach, wishing it were time to eat.

“Who are you?”

The sound came from the far end of the room, startling Sammy. He jerked up, crouching like an animal. The room was dark, but not so much that he couldn’t make out the shape of another person peering back at him. It struck Sammy that he had heard this voice before, perhaps more than once. This time, however, the words spoken had registered with him.

“Who is that? Who are you?” Sammy asked back, shocked. For days or weeks now, he’d thought he was alone in this room.

“I’m over here.” Then the unseen person sniffed loudly. “And I asked who you were first.”

Sammy peered into the darkness, but could not see more than a vague shape.
It’s a trap!

“I said, who are you?” the voice repeated.

Sammy shook his head at the sound. “I’m not answering you.”

There was another sniff. “Why not?” The voice was so young—young and pushy.

“Because you’re here to kill me. Did Stripe send you?”

“Who is—?”

“Don’t lie to me!” Sammy bellowed, struggling against his restraints.

“Take it easy! Okay? My name is Sapo. I—I want out of here.”

“What kind of name is Sapo? A fake name?”

“It means Toad.”

“Your name is Toad?”

“No. It’s what everyone calls me. I’m really Rulé. Rulé Prado. Can you help me get out of here?”

The desperation in Toad’s voice touched Sammy, but not enough. “I can’t help you. I don’t know what I’m going to do tomorrow. I might have to talk.”

“Huh?”

“Never mind,” Sammy said testily. “What happened to the girl?”

“What girl?”

“There was a girl the first day I came here. She was like . . . I don’t know . . . young. She wanted something . . .” He tried so hard to remember what it was, but nothing came to mind when he thought about it. In fact, his brain was so muddled that he quickly forgot what he’d been thinking about.

“What girl?” Toad repeated with a sniff.

“Forget it.”

“There’s no girl here now. But I am, and you’ve got to help me get out of here. I don’t think they’re going to let me go. They told me they’ll bring my family, but I’ve been here for almost a week.”

Another sniff.

“Why did they take you from your family?” Sammy asked, his curiosity aroused.

“I don’t know. I was at a camp party. We were having races . . .”

He was still talking, but Sammy heard nothing after “at a party.” He thought of being at a party with the Hernandes family.

His body tensed suddenly, wracked with immeasurable pain as he remembered countless sessions in the black chamber with Stripe.

Fire. Ice. Stretch. Pressure. Sharp. Ache.

Oh, Stripe. Why did you do these things to me? How long have I been here?
A scream in his mind went on and on and on . . .
He needs me! He NEEDS me!

“Hey!” Toad yelled. “HEY!”

The boy’s shouts snapped Sammy out of his reverie of insanity. His skin was damp from sweat.

“What?” he screamed back, infuriated at everything in the world. “What do you want?”

“How are you going to help me?” A small sniff.

“I don’t know. I’m sorry, but I don’t know what to do anymore.” Riding the roller coaster of emotion, Sammy went from the heights of anger to the depths of despair in under three seconds.

Toad kept talking, but Sammy stopped listening again. It all seemed like mumbo jumbo to him, anyway. He was uncertain of the future and fell into an uneasy sleep filled with nightmares and monsters and most of all . . . grinding.

“Good morning, Albert. Did you sleep well?” Stripe asked indifferently. “Was it better than the gutter you came from?”

Toad muttered faintly in the corner of his room. Sammy looked over at him, forgetting to answer.

“Are you ready to play?”

“Yes,” Sammy answered, “I am ready.”

“Today will be different,” Stripe explained as the Aegis moved Sammy with extra care to the black door chamber. “Someone will be with us, observing.”

“Is that good, Stripe?”

“Yes and no. He may kill you if you do not give us the information we have been asking for.”

“I don’t want to die, Stripe,” Sammy said in a weak voice.

“Then you should cooperate, and I will do what I can.” There was an edge in Stripe’s voice that didn’t register with Sammy. He was still trying to sort out what Stripe was saying about dying.

Inside the room, his escorts seemed on edge. With unnecessary roughness, they shoved him so hard he lost his footing, and fell into the table. He hit the edge of the tray of Stripe’s tubes, spilling them.

“Careful!” Stripe yelled.

Sammy hit the ground and rolled. A pain stung his thumb. He’d rolled onto the small knife Stripe used to open the seal on his cream tubes. Without thinking, Sammy grabbed the knife and carefully closed his fingers around it. The Aegis hurried to pick him up and dragged him over to the chair.

“Leave the magnet cuffs on him today. I need his arms behind his back to keep his chest taut.”

“Protocol says we use the chair restraints,” an Aegis said. “They’re safer.”

Stripe’s tone told Sammy he was in no mood to be questioned. “If we don’t get what we need today, the protocol will mean nothing.”

Sammy kept his fist tightly closed around the blade. The Aegis still put the ankle restraints on, and gave Stripe a nod. As they left, Stripe got his tools ready.

“What’s wrong, Stripe?” Sammy asked in a weak voice. “Are you mad at me?”

Then the door reopened. In walked a tall man of Asian descent with short hair, half a nose, and two long scars running down the left side of his face. The red sclera surrounding his brown eyes were fixed on Stripe.

At the sight of the red-melting-to-black tunic and pants, a dragon’s rage flared inside Sammy so hot and wild that it made his lungs burn when he breathed.