Chapter #27The Possessed by: Seuzz   The day passes as a slow grind. You've still a bout of alcohol poisoning to work off, and you're tortured with anxieties and premonitions about the shadow-mind and what it will reveal about Muniz. After a few hours you are feeling and looking very haggard. Knotts takes pity on you—and on Gallion, who is clearly suffering from cabin fever—and gives you a make-work assignment: "Dump those two CID biffs street-side."
"Under an anvil?"
"Of course."
So you and Gallion go down to pull the detective and the policewoman out of their tubes. Gallion chucks his chin at the far end of the freezer. "Who's in those?"
He's pointing to a dozen of tubes, dusty and undisturbed, but still holding prisoners, and still running. Greystoke is hidden in that stack, but you don't tell Gallion that. "Cold cases," you reply. "You never noticed them?"
"A couple of times. What do we keep them around for?"
"Why are you interested?"
He takes the hint.
After dressing and warming the two CID agents, you load them into a pair of road boxes and onto a van. Then it's down to a lonely spot by the river.
The operation, as usual, goes off without a hitch. Gallion uses an abrasion gun to put a nasty-looking bruise at the temple of the detective constable, then rolls him onto the ground: the mark, which causes only cosmetic damage, is consistent with the kind of wound that can take the blame for memory loss. Twenty minutes later, he drops the same kind of anvil on the woman and rolls her out in another location. CID will probably buzz long and loudly over the two cases, giving them more attention than the murder of Chernov. You and Gallion stow the road boxes at a pickup location for eventual retrieval, and burn the van before returning to Diana via the Underground.
All told, it takes you ninety minutes to complete the job, and you feel much more relaxed when it's done, so that you can accept Patterson's invitation of a ping-pong match without feeling like you're slacking in your duties.
* * * * *
By six o'clock the shadow-mind has successfully done its work. Knotts gives Muniz to Liu to prep and freeze—until his identity can be confirmed or debunked—and Patterson goes with him so he can watch the freezing technique first-hand. That leaves you and Cox and Knotts with the Moustache and the shadow-mind. "Want a closer look inside?" she asks Cox, who is peering into the tube. "The elves are ready to prep you."
If he pales, you can't tell, because he's always pale in his birthday skin. "What happens if it crashes while I'm inside?"
"Dhere are fail-safes in place," says the Moustache. "We start by partitioning your consciousness, and in the second partition we'll insert the shadow mind of Mr. Muniz. In case of mechanical failure dhuring insertion, we can flush it, leaving no traces behind. Reconziliation of the partitions, which is the tricky process, is dhone outside the device."
"I was looking for someone to make a joke, not an explanation," Cox says glumly as the Moustache leads him away.
"You can go home," Knotts tells you. "But be back by eight if you want to sit in on the interrogation."
"That'll make it twenty-four hours since we started. The Moustache told us he thought a shadow-mind install would only take ten to twelve."
"We're running at half speed, so as not to overtax the machine. Are you really so keen to talk to—"
"Don't say it, Knotts, don't say his name."
She shows her teeth. "If this goes the way I feel it's going to go," she says in a very hungry tone, "we'll be able to say his name however many fucking times we goddamn please!"
* * * * *
You should feel jinxed after what Knotts said. But maybe you feel the same sense of impending relief, the same anticipation of success. Or maybe your body just insists on recovering from the previous night. Whatever the reason, you fall asleep early and sleep soundly, and wake at six-thirty feeling more refreshed and rested than you have in days.
* * * * *
"So dhat dhere is no confusion, I should tell you dhat Mr. Cox is still himself," says the Moustache as the session begins the next morning.
Cox gives a half smile and shrugs. "How'd you sleep in that thing," you ask him, and nod at the narrow tube that is the entrance to the shadow-mind.
"Hey, give me enough Valium and I could sleep nestled in Elmore's arms," he says.
"Now, to aid in the process," says the Moustache to Cox, "I must ask you to put on this cape."
"Bib," you correct him as he drapes a sheet around Cox, as though preparing to give him a hair cut.
"What's this for?" Cox asks.
"To hide your hands and body from yourself. I am going to put you to sleep, and when you wake, you will think that you are your colleague. I dhon't want him to be confused about where he finds himself. Now, are you ready? We'll begin."
What follows is like watching a stage hypnotist. The Moustache talks slowly and deeply, coaxing Cox into a sleep while giving him instructions. Cox's head nods and lowers. The Moustache gives a word, counts down, and Cox wakes up again.
The expression on his face is very odd, however, not like you are used to seeing on his face. The muscles twist, as though trying force his features into a new shape. His eyes narrow and peer about, and his brow crinkles. You know what is happening, so maybe that's the reason you think it looks as it does: Muniz's mind is trying to reshape Cox's face into Muniz's.
Knotts leans forward. "Muniz? How do you feel?"
"Okay, I guess," he says, and his voice sounds like something halfway between that of the body and that of the mind. "How did I—? Am I running a tat? My voice sounds—" He looks down, and shifts violently beneath the sheet, trying to throw it off.
"Shh, just be still," Knotts tells him. "It's okay. We had to move you, that's all. What's the last thing you remember?"
"I was in your office. I was debriefing you about the game I ran with Stoddard. You got up and—" His expression shifts. "Did you hit me with a snoozegun?"
"It was just a precaution," she says in a soothing tone. "Can you tell me again? You don't have to give the quotes, just a quick sketch of what happened after you arrived in Swanley."
Cox blinks and takes a deep breath, and gives a puzzled-sounding recital of the same story, with the same beats and coincidences and consequences. Knotts asks him to describe the events leading up to the game. Cox tells about Muniz's day. She asks him some biographical questions. He answers them without hesitation. His countenance and manner throughout the session is, though a little miffed, open and honest. Knotts then turns things back over to the Moustache, who uses the same hypnotic technique to put Cox back under, and to bring him back out again as himself. He claims not to remember anything that he had said as "Muniz."
"And now, Mr. Cox," says the researcher, "I am going to read you a list of words. If you feel mental pain at any time, tell me to stop."
"What kind of mental pain?"
"You'll know it if you vfeel it. It will be almost physical in its impact."
Cox swallows, but nods.
"Good. Ready? Identity. Number. Kind. Relation. Place. Time. Position. State." Cox's brow furrows, and he bows his head. "Action. Affectation."
"Stop!" Cox winces hard, and gasps. His breathing becomes labored, and he puts his head back. "Oh, God." After several deep breaths, he asks, "Is that all?"
"No. May I continue?"
Cox swallows a few more times, then nods.
"Surd. Seven. Snow. Successor."
"Stop!" The pause is longer this time, and Cox shows real pain. His breathing is hard even after the chant has continued.
"Sussex. September. Askew."
"Gyah!" Cox shakes his head from side to side, but the Moustache continues.
"Solid. Slide. Encircled."
Cox's face is a rictus of agony, but on the last word it abruptly relaxes. A faint smile appears at his mouth, and his eyes crinkle up. He almost smirks at Knotts. And his face is back to having one of Muniz's expressions.
"Who am I talking to," Knotts asks very quietly.
"It's me, Knotts. Cox." He laughs. "Oh, but if you gave me a tat of Muniz, I could— Well, for a start I could go back and teach some of them chollos—"
"I've got some questions for you," she says, and her voice goes dry. "Give me as many answers as you've got." She asks him the same biographical questions as before; Cox remembers them, and says he remembers her asking them, and gives her two different answers to each, for himself and for Muniz. "Tell me about yesterday," Knotts says.
He shrugs wearily. "Like you've heard twice already—" and gives the same recital.
Knotts's tone is very neutral when she asks, "Is there anyone else in there with you? Besides Muniz?"
"No," he shrugs again. "I know what you were hoping, but that was Muniz who came back from his meeting with Cupcake."
Knotts leans back to stare at the ceiling. "Fuck."
* * * * *
"Why do we have to let him out?" Patterson asks as he helps you lift Muniz from the tube. "Can't Cox just pull double duty now?"
"Funny. Start draining the cryo-coils while I get the stimulants."
Reviving a popsicle is tedious business, and you don't notice how Patterson has gone silent until he speaks again. "Take a look, please, see what I'm fucking up?"
He's up near Muniz's head, and your eye falls on Muniz's face when you look over. He looks ghastly, as they always do coming out of the freezer. But this is worse. Not until you glance at the monitor do you realize why.
"Oh Christ! He's dead!" You have the following choice: 1. Continue |
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