Thom sensed a tiredness in his voice. Perhaps it reflected the strain of watching Twiste — his hope for activating the V.A.A.D. — die. Certainly he had lost control of his temper, beating to death the servant who had accidentally killed the one person this creature seemed to need.
During that moment, Gant had seen something else, perhaps the consciousness of Briggs, trapped inside this creature from another plane, but possibly still down there. Smothered, controlled, but not dead.
He thought about Twiste’s theory. Perhaps this was a creature comprised entirely of the energy of thought. If so, it might not have the physical means to do anything.
Still, it was inside Briggs’s body; the form was not a hallucination, it was solid and real. If the body of Briggs touched a table as it strolled by, that table moved in reaction. No ghost. No image. A real body.
The entity — the creature made of pure thought — must be using the shell of Briggs like a person wears clothes.
No, Gant considered. Like the invisible man wore clothes. No clothes, nothing to see.
"I said, they abandoned you," Dr. Briggs repeated, sounding annoyed that Gant had not reacted to his first statement.
"They have, have they?"
"Yes," Briggs told him. "After your team passed through the vault door, General Borman sealed it shut, even welding a steel plate in place so that unlocking the door is not enough to open it."
"Well, then, it seems we are both stuck down here."
Briggs sat on a tabletop with his legs dangling in an attempt to appear casual. Instead he looked awkward and uncomfortable
Jolly responded to some telepathic message and hurried toward Gant, grabbing a chair along the way. He placed it close to the major, then helped Thom take a seat.
Gant moaned as his knee bent. The pain was still sharp, still undeniable.
"We should look at that wound," Briggs said. "Ruthie, redress the major’s injury, please."
She hurried over, knelt next to his chair, and unraveled the makeshift bandage. Blood had matted and dried making the bandage feel as if it were one with Gant’s leg. When Ruth yanked the last strand off, it felt as if she had ripped off a patch of skin.
Gant held back a scream. Barely.
The bleeding had stopped, but the wound was still substantial. Gant considered all the wonderful things happening in there: infection, bone chips floating around, and cartilage torn to shreds. Even if he survived this mission — which seemed a long shot — he would suffer a long road to recovery.
Ruth stepped away and walked to a corner of the room, where the skeletal woman searched through a big bag that, no doubt, once belonged to another team of soldiers sent into this parlor of horrors.
"You know, Major, it is obvious that you have a great sense of duty and obligation. I admire that. So many of your predecessors had that, too."
Gant rubbed a hand over the top of his wounded knee. The skin was tender and raw.
"My predecessors?"
"Oh, yes," Briggs was happy to tell him. "The many missions before yours. So many soldiers and scientists. Each one led by a man like you — confident, willing to do what it took to complete the mission, full of a sense of duty. Take Jolly, here," and Briggs motioned toward his giant-sized deformed slave. "He led a team down here, what, about eight years ago. He was quite determined, very resilient, and strong, as you know. Gave me quite a lot of trouble. But as you can see, I managed to overcome all the obstacles of his stubborn personality and now he is my most faithful servant. At the time when he came in here, he had your same self-assuredness in the rightness of his cause."
Ruth returned with a bottle of peroxide and a fresh, honest-to-goodness bandage wrap.
Gant half smiled, pointed to his knee, and said, "I thought you might heal this with the wave of your hand."
The creature inside Briggs’s body refused to be drawn.
Ruth poured solution on the wound. Bubbles fizzled and hissed on the damaged tissue. Gant bit his lip to the point of drawing blood, yet he still could not stifle a cry of pain.
"Eventually I’ll move out into the world to reshape it in a new image. I could use someone like you in this new world. Someone who has loyalty. Could you take the same righteousness you show to people like Borman and show it to me?"
Gant played along. He liked having his wound cleaned and dressed, despite the pain.
"I thought your plan was to show off your new power by forcing me to shoot myself in my head?"
The entity conceded, "I was thinking of doing that, yes. Then again, when I take the world and make it mine, a whole universe of possibilities will open. Think of your wildest dreams, Major. Your greatest fantasies; maybe your darkest ones, too. I can give that all to you. Or, of course, I can make you suffer terribly."
Ruth wrapped the wound perfectly. Gant wondered if the being inside of Briggs had robbed some doctor of his memories so that she could do it right.
Gant nodded his head in acceptance of the statements. As the last bandage was wrapped and as Ruth fastened a metal clasp to hold it all in place, Gant asked the obvious question.
"Why are you bargaining with me?"
The question surprised, or embarrassed, the entity.
"I am not bargaining with you."
"Yes, yes you are," Gant corrected as Ruth stood and walked away, her mission accomplished. Gant nodded a "thank you" to the broken shell of a woman who had just performed a field dressing as well as any medic he knew. She did not appear to hear.
"You are bargaining with me as if you want me to do something for you, like turn on the V.A.A.D. Problem is, I do not know how it works."
Briggs sneered; a look of contempt. The look of a man who had had his amateurish bluff called in a poker game. The man's body got up and walked away.
"You take all these … these … people," Gant waved his hand in general reference to the entity and all its minions, "and use them like puppets. You even make people on the surface go nuts now and then, by getting into their minds. Yet here I am two feet from you and you can't make me say, ‘boo.’ Why is that?"
The entity just looked at Gant. It appeared speechless.
"And Twiste, too. You could not drag the info on this V.A.A.D. thing out of his head, not like the way you seem to drag stuff out of other people. It seems you went into Roberts's head and pulled out how to shoot a pistol accurately, and he is a couple hundred feet above us through rock and stone and steel. Brandon was standing right here, and you could not make him do anything."
The entity, with anger burning just below the surface, said sternly, "I can make you do things, Major. Soon enough I WILL have you shoot your brains out. Or maybe I’ll have you cut off your testicles and eat them. Or throw yourself at my feet and beg for mercy. You will respect me, Major. Even if it’s with your dying breath."
It went back into the room at the rear of the lab, shutting the door behind.
Gant, however, was not finished. He voiced his thoughts out loud, with Ruthie and Jolly his only audience — a disinterested one at that.
"You cannot control my mind, and you could not control Twiste's, either." Gant tried to pace, testing the new bandage. He found he could put a little more weight on the knee, almost walk — more of a shuffle.
"What was it with Twiste? What made him different? What makes me different? You can project illusions to trick our eyes for a while, but you cannot use us like puppets. Yet over the years you took professional soldiers who were trained to be mentally disciplined, to stay focused, and you turned them into," he paused, looked at the grotesque Jolly, and then finished, "you turned them into playthings."
Focused. Disciplined.