Then they heard the door open and they all heard it and Bobby started to feel a little better and he could feel his friends all start to feel a little better because maybe this was Alfonso coming back and it was all going to be OK but it wasn’t at all. Bobby was in the room with the beds so he couldn’t see the door but Nick could see the door and Nick saw one of the bad men come into the room and there was Alfonso with him but it wasn’t Alfonso, wasn’t Alfonso, because there was nobody there at all, NOTHING IN ALFONSO’S HEAD AT ALL and the boy who looked like Alfonso but wasn’t real was crying he was crying and Nick screamed because it was Alfonso, it had been Alfonso but they had BROKEN him they’d STOLEN THE NEXUS FROM ALFONSO’S HEAD.
And then they were ALL SCREAMING, Nick and Tim and Tyrone and Pedro and Bobby and all of them, and Tim was running at the BAD MAN and trying to PUNCH him and KICK him and BITE him and Tyrone was running at him and Pedro was running at him, and Bobby ran from the room with the beds into the room with the toys and couches and he ran at the Bad Man and they KNOCKED HIM OVER and Bobby was BITING HIS FACE, and then something hit him hard in the head and knocked him back and everything was swimmy and when Bobby looked up there were MORE BAD MEN with sticks and they were hitting all the boys and the boys were trying to BITE them and KICK them and PUNCH them and SCRATCH them and Bobby got up and threw himself at the bad men again but something hit him in the belly and it HURT and the bad men were too strong and hit them too hard and then it was over.
The bad men left. The boys groaned and sobbed. The boy that had been Alfonso but was no one now didn’t say a word. He sat in the corner and covered his face and cried and cried and cried – and there was nobody there, nobody they could feel, nobody who existed at all.
And they all cried now, because they knew that if the bad men would do this to Alfonso, then the bad men would do it to all of the rest of them too.
They came for Rangan after three days. The door to his cell opened abruptly and two orderlies strode in, masks and cuffs in their hands, grim looks on their faces, armed guards behind them.
Rangan pushed himself up from the floor of his cell, his hands up towards them.
“Wait! Wait! What did I do?”
They grabbed his wrists, turned him around, slammed his face into the gray concrete wall of his cell, and pulled the mask down over him.
Cold fear raced through Rangan. What the hell? Was this about Bobby and the kids? Had they detected what he was doing?
“Please…” he pleaded as they strapped him to the gurney. “Please tell me what’s going on. I’ll tell you anything, I swear!”
It wasn’t just the kids. It was worse, he was sure of it. He was useless now. He’d told them everything. They were hauling him away to be executed, thrown away like a piece of fucking garbage.
Tears were rolling down his face now. He hated himself for his weakness. He’d been so angry at his compromise but now he was so terrified that he’d do it all again, tell them everything they wanted to know again and again if they’d just let him live…
The orderlies ignored him, wheeled him flat on his back down the hall. He tried to control himself. Breathe. Breathe, Rangan. Fucking get yourself together.
[activate: serenity level 3]
Just a little. Not so much that they’d decide he was too calm, this time, and escalate to worse. Just a little. Maybe he could fool them.
His head cleared a tiny bit. Maybe it wasn’t death. Could it be more interrogation? More torture? Did they think he knew more?
He didn’t! But could he make something up? Anything up? Any reason for them to keep him alive?
The gurney made another turn and then stopped. He heard doors opening and closing. Someone tapped his inner elbow, searching for a vein, and then a needle slid home. He winced at that.
“Please…” he asked whoever was inserting the IV. “Tell me what’s going on?”
No response.
The hands left him. He couldn’t hear anyone, couldn’t see anything beyond the mask. Something cool was entering his arm through the needle.
Is this it? he wondered. Death by lethal injection?
He could feel himself getting drowsy now, starting to fade out. Was this what it felt like to die?
Then the Voice spoke, booming into his head, echoing there.
“You lied to us, Rangan. You gave us bogus codes. Who’d have thought you had it in you?”
What? Fear rose in him, overwhelmed the low setting of the serenity package.
“No!” Rangan said. “No! I told you the truth.”
Why were they doing this? He’d told them everything, told them way too much, and they were still going to torture him.
“Please! I told you everything!”
The Voice spoke again. “I didn’t think you had it in you, Rangan. Honestly, I’m impressed. But this time we’re going to try something new.”
“No, please!”
Then he felt the minds unveil themselves. Four of them, five, six, all around him.
What?
Then they pushed into him, brutally.
THE BACK DOORS. THE CODES. GIVE US THE PASSCODES.
I’ve given them to you!
They came at him hard, in concert, pushing at his mind for things he’d already given them, hurting him.
So he fought.
They were six and he was one, but he’d been using Nexus longer than any of them, maybe longer than all of them combined.
Rangan activated the defenses he’d built, raked them with the Nexus disruptor he’d copied from his first time in ERD custody, struck out in brute force with his mind against theirs, struck out to stun them, to confuse them, to turn them one against the other.
And in the end they beat him down. Too many of them, too few of him. Too much of the sedative in his veins, in his brain.
He showed them everything, everything he’d already told them, everything they already knew.
Just some sick joke, he thought. Just an excuse to torture me.
But the minds felt frustrated. They felt disappointed. They’d honestly thought he was lying, that he’d given them the wrong codes. They’d expected to find something new.
They pulled it all from his mind again, twice, three times, four times, pushing him every which way, looking for a deeper layer of knowledge, looking for some sign he was still deceiving them. Then they gave up, and one by one the minds disappeared.
He heard a door open and the sound of shoes against a tile floor. Then they were gone. Rangan lay there shivering, feeling helpless and violated, wondering if now they’d pump the lethal solution in through the IV needle, finish him off since he was obviously so useless to them.
Then it dawned on him.
They didn’t have the real codes. The ones he’d given them didn’t work. Which meant that… Which meant that Kade, or maybe Ilya, or someone else, had changed those codes before releasing Nexus OS. Which meant that Rangan wasn’t a traitor. That he couldn’t be even if he tried.
The first laugh bubbled up out of him from nowhere. Then another, and another.
They’d done it. They were beating the motherfucking ERD! Just a bunch of kids, but they’d done it!
He was laughing uncontrollably when the orderlies came for him. He kept laughing when they pulled the needle out of his arm, kept laughing as they wheeled him back to his room, kept laughing as they pulled the hood off his face and pushed the gurney into corner.
Fucking hilarious!