Reeves fingers twitched nervously. “I d-d-don’t want to exist. I h-h-hurt, Doctor.” Reeves struggled for words. “I h-h-hurt all the time. I can’t understand what you w-want from me. I don’t like being here . . . y-you don’t like being here with me —”
“I am here for your benefit,” Agnes interrupted. “What I want is irrelevant. The danger you, all of you, represent to yourselves and to the societal construct is . . . incalculable.” Her voice gave over to the words, sterile, familiar, even though she had written them long ago. “It is our responsibility to disarm you and allow you to rejoin society. If you are not cured, the loss of life you inflicted during the war could happen again . . .”
Reeves was staring at her.
“Are you listening to m —”
Without meaning to, she met his eyes and —
a symphony joined planet laid waste surface mosaic swirling ash, compressed sculpture bodies, drifting shades of incandescent flame, wreckage of fleets drifting alone in dead cold of space, ruptured husks, metal beasts burning in blackness herds of flickering afterimages static thoughts incomprehensible silhouette skeletons scattered across the barren planet surface in the wake of creation
— and Agnes shut her eyes and severed the connection. Her mind burned, a film of sweat forming on her brow and running into her eyes. Reeves’ thoughts had been more structured, more dangerous this time. She took a deep breath, checked her neural paths and winced at how raw they had become from recording Reeves’ telepathic transmission. If he had infected her, if he . . .
The burning sensation rose in her mind, and she acted quickly.
“Reeves, your eyelids are heavy,” she gasped as a new wave of pain hit her. “ . . .too heavy for you to open them.” Working carefully, quickly, she isolated the sections of Reeves’ memories she had absorbed, and severed them from the rest of her mind, stemming further neural path spread. Her thoughts were tinged with adrenaline, and behind it, she could hear her own voice, cold, calm, dictating treatments: cauterize the thoughts, inject a mental block, sensory deprivation . . . a hundred other useless options that had never worked with any patient . . . she steadied herself. Took a breath.
Reeves was floundering helplessly on the floor, his eyes shut tight.
“Reeves.” She kept her voice level. “You are not to make eye contact with me or any other interviewer from now on.” Reeves stopped flailing as she spoke, and his head turned as he sought the direction of her voice. Agnes doubted the command would last, but she couldn’t allow him to transmit any more thoughts — if he had been able to vocalize the images they both would have died. Only the immaturity of his telepathy had saved her.
“D-D-Doctor, I can’t open my eyes.” His voice trembled, and she swept away a spike of pity. His face was contorted, and his hands slowly moved around him, shaking fingers grasping the floor of the cell.
“Reeves, you can open your eyes now. Do not look at me.”
Reeves blinked. He huddled against the floor, facing away from her. “I didn’t want to hurt you,” he said quietly. “It’s just l can’t talk to you because my words come out funny —” his hands clawed at his throat “ — and I want to tell you because I don’t think you understand.” Reeves paused. “I don’t want to be here anymore. You don’t want me to be here. You’re sorry you ever made us —” Reeves’ hands began to twitch again. He was either nervous or angry.
“Reeves, that’s not tr —”
“YES, IT IS!” Reeves screamed, and his fists thrashed against the floor. “YOU WISH I HAD NEVER BEEN MADE AND YOU HAD FOUND SOME OTHER WAY TO KILL PEOPLE AND YOU TELL ME THINGS THAT AREN’T TRUE TO HURT ME AND I HATE YOU!” Reeves pummeled the foamy floor uselessly with his fists, his screams the only sound in the small confines of the cell. “I HATE YOU I HATE YOU I HATE YOU!”
He began to sob, and his fists unclenched. “W-w-why did you make us if you didn’t want us? W-w-why did you make me?”
Agnes paused, structuring her response.
“You were . . . required, Reeves. Because of you, we won the war. We made a mistake. I made a mistake. Now, we are trying to cure you.”
“I don’t want to come back. I can’t live here.”
“Why not?”
“Everything’s . . . wrong.” Reeves’ mouth opened and closed in confusion as he searched for words. After a moment, he gave up. “It hurts. Your voice hurts when you ask me questions or tell me things. You use words in place of what you see in your head . . .” His voice became ragged, as if forcing an idea out through his lips. “Cure, when you mean a shadow . . . d-d-disarm . . .” The word was like the yowling of a cat, and Agnes felt a spike of fear. “You say m-m-mistake, I see a c-c-cloak over geometries of planets, c-c-covered with husks and molds that once held people . . .” Reeves paused. “Your thoughts hurt, locked inside words your lips spill, wanting to get out . . . l don’t like it here. None of us do —” Reeves stopped in mid-sentence and looked uncomfortable.
“Who’s us, Reeves?”
Reeves fidgeted and Agnes pressed the initiative.
“You are isolated in this cell. You are permitted to speak to no one else but me. “ She leaned forward. “Who is us?”
“I don’t know.”
“Answer me.”
“I don’t know.”
She tightened her fists.
“Reeves, there is an itch in the middle of your back. It is just out of reach and growing more unbearable by the second. If you answer my questions, the itch will fade.” Agnes leaned back in the chair. “Who do you communicate with?”
Reeves strained and groped at his back, fingers without nails pulling at the skin uselessly, trying to scratch but unable to. Agnes was impressed: Reeves writhed on the floor in discomfort for almost a minute before he answered.
“Th-th-them. The others here.” Reeves still looked uncomfortable. After a few seconds, he rolled over and began to rub his back against the floor. “Make it stop.”
“I don’t believe you.”
Reeves’ expression became pained. “It’s t-t-true.”
Agnes frowned. “How, then? How do you communicate?”
If his tear ducts had not been removed, Agnes was certain Reeves would have been crying. “L-l-like we were just now. No words. They say I don’t need words anymore.” His eyelids began to flicker. “Please stop it.”
Agnes did not hear him.
The patients had been communicating telepathically.
“How long?” Agnes asked frantically. “How long, Reeves?”
“N-n-not long . . . short time only,” Reeves started rubbing his back again, but the softcell floor provided no friction. He whimpered. “Th-th-they talk to everyone now. They say we should leave. We don’t belong here.”
“How did you plan to leave, Reeves?”
“Please make it stop.”
“How did you plan to leave?”
Reeves thrashed on the floor, his whimpering changing to moans as he bent his arms behind him, trying to reach the illusory itchy spot.
“I am not going to ask you again.”
Agnes waited — Reeves continued to struggle on the floor, until he suddenly stopped, exhausted. Sighing faintly, he closed his eyes.