40
Present Day
Aura didn’t know how long she had been here, flat on her back, strapped to the gurney. She could not tell time in the dark. Whenever they returned, she assumed it was a new day. But she didn’t know for sure. Without the aid of a clock, or the setting and rising of the sun, she had no way to measure the passing of time, which left her feeling lost and disoriented and desperate.
Exactly what they wanted.
All she knew was that she had been here for what seemed an eternity. And she had no way of knowing how much longer it would be. Or when it would end. Or if it would end.
They could keep doing this forever.
And she knew she wouldn’t last forever.
When Dr. Coutant said Aura was going downstairs, she assumed she would join the other girls in the underground cellblock beneath the stables. But once again, Coutant failed to do the obvious, instead singling her out for special treatment. They hadn’t put her in a cell—and they hadn’t mentioned her mother.
Or her sister.
The first day, she’d been determined not to let them succeed. Not to give them anything.
Now she knew she would do anything to get out of this room. Anything to make it all stop.
The first day they just hurt her. Unceasing pain rocketed through her body, over and over again. The cattle prod seemed like an Indian burn compared to the damage they could do with a battery charger. Injections made her skin so sensitive the merest touch hurt. Ice blocks felt like a scimitar slicing her spine.
She couldn’t fight. She couldn’t resist. All she could do was survive. And that was harder than anything she’d ever done in her entire life.
Coutant wanted to break her. She knew that. Why else let her live? Why let them get so far with the escape plan? Coutant could have stopped it earlier. But instead, she let them get their hopes up—then snuffed them out, just as the girls began to taste the possibility of freedom. She wanted them to accept the futility of attempting to escape. And the foolhardiness of following Aura.
The second day they chained her to the wall, stripped off most of her clothes, and left her hanging in tatters. They brought out their high-tech toys. They strapped something over her head and worked her over for hours. Sent her into contortions and spasms that left her broken and dirty. She felt herself falling apart, piece by piece.
Were they doing this to the other girls? Or just her?
She didn’t know. She hoped it was just her. At times she felt desperate for company, desperate to see the face of someone who didn’t want to hurt her. But not desperate enough to wish this on anyone else.
At some point yesterday, Coutant grabbed her head with both hands. “Where were you planning to go after you escaped?”
She moved her crackled and bloody lips. “Away from here.”
“But what was your destination?”
“I didn’t have one.”
“You must’ve had some idea where you were going. Ohm, perhaps?”
“I just wanted out of here.”
“What were you going to do?”
“Get help. Bring the authorities back to get Beverly and the others out of your torture chamber.”
Coutant’s smile frightened her. “You thought the authorities would believe you? A known Shine? The girl who leveled Seattle?” She threw her head down hard. “No one will ever trust you.” Pause. “At least, not so long as you have your Shine.”
“You mean your food additives aren’t working?”
“They don’t have to. Dr. Hope has something better. She’s perfected a new technique. It can eradicate your Shine at the source.”
“Hope’s going to rewrite my DNA?”
“Hope’s going to rewrite your brain.”
She felt her body tense, which she would not have thought possible. After so much struggle, they were going to steal what made her unique. What made her her. “Are you that desperate to be rid of me?”
Coutant spat out a bitter laugh. “If only. It would be so much simpler if we could just get rid of you. But your lucky break is the fact that this gigantic research project to which we are all in service has been hastened. The timetable has been accelerated. We need more data and we need it fast.”
“And you’re going to get it by dissecting my brain.”
“Basically. But there’s a hitch. The procedure has to be voluntary. If you resist, it won’t take.”
It must be mental, she guessed. Something that made you forget you have a Shine, or forget how to use it, or made you feel pain if you tried. Like any hypnotic suggestion that can’t be forced on you against your will.
“Will you agree to submit to the procedure?’
“What’s involved?”
“Electroshock therapy. Brain surgery.”
“You want to lobotomize me?”
“Not you. Your Shine.”
Just moving her head caused pain. But she did it anyway.
She shook her head no.
“You have to answer orally. We’re making a record.”
“No,” she said faintly.
“I didn’t catch that. What did you say?”
“Flick off, you bitch.”
Coutant sighed. “Then I guess we’ll have to try something else.”
***
The fourth day they took Aura to another room, one with a lower ceiling. A hook on the ceiling connected to a noose they looped under her arms. Then they turned a crank and ratcheted her upward. If she extended her toes, she could just barely touch the floor, though that gave her precious little support. The tension was on her already aching shoulders. Her arms felt as if they were being ripped out of their sockets.
They had Beverly in something like this, she recalled.
They brought in a hose and wetted down the floor. Let it run till a pool of three or four inches of water collected beneath her. Let her watch while they did it, knowing full well what was coming.
They electrocuted her. With a thick cord of exposed wire.
The electricity ran through her and into the water. The feedback was instantaneous.
She felt as if she were being fried from the inside out.
Smoke rose from her mouth. Her ears bled.
The pain was indescribable. Unholy. Like nothing anyone had ever had to endure in the history of humanity. And it went on and on for what must’ve been hours.
Or so she thought. When she was finally so spent she couldn’t even scream any more, Coutant showed her a watch.
It had been four minutes.
“I saw this done to a rat once,” Coutant said. “He didn’t like it either. We’re going to do this all day long, till you relent. Honestly, Aura, how much worse can brain surgery be? If we keep this up much longer, your brain will be a desiccated raisin.”
“Please,” she whispered, embarrassed at herself for begging, but unable to stop herself, “please don’t do that. Let this end.”
“Will you submit to Dr. Hope’s procedure?”
She raised her head slowly. She wanted to look into this cruel woman’s eyes. She wanted her to see what she’d done.
Coutant turned away. “Well? Will you?”
She didn’t answer.
“So we continue. Joseph. Wet her down this time. All over.”
With her entire body wet, she felt like a chicken on a rotisserie. Her flesh sizzled.
When it finally ended, she didn’t have the strength to move. They unchained her and she fell face first onto the wet floor. Her chin banged and she thought maybe she broke a tooth. She turned her head to the side so she wouldn’t drown in three inches of water.
She didn’t have long to think about it. Because she almost immediately passed out.
And when she woke up again, she was in this room.
Strapped to a gurney. Aching from head to toe. She had an IV in her arm. They were pumping something into her bloodstream.
What was going on? What were they doing now?
When they finally wheeled the machine in, it was almost anti-climactic. What could a little more electricity do to her? But this time they didn’t wire her body.
This time they wired her mind.
They slid her head between the two electrodes. They shaved back her hair to make sure they got a good connection. She begged them to stop, but they tightened the restraints and did it anyway.
“I thought the therapy had to be voluntary,” she whimpered.
“There’s nothing therapeutic about this, Aura,” Coutant replied. “This is just going to mess with your brain and hurt like hell.”
Then they placed the two electrodes against her temples and turned the machine on. Her eyes rolled back into her head. Her entire body rocked back and forth.
She screamed.
***
Even after they stopped, Aura’s brain wouldn’t function properly. She felt as if the simplest idea in the world was too difficult for her to grasp. Nurses fed her. Nurses helped her go to the bathroom.
A day passed before anything remotely resembling normal brain function returned. Cloudy and confused at first. But eventually one thought emerged, clear and strong, in what remained of her brain.
The next time Coutant asked a question, she was going to say yes. To anything.
She chastised herself for her weakness. She wanted to be a leader, and instead she was a loser. But she couldn’t stand it any longer. Not one second longer. Not another time. Whatever had once empowered her to resist was all gone now.
The door opened. Light flooded the cell. She shielded her eyes.
“Getting in some good me-time?” Coutant asked.
She wondered what she must look like. She hadn’t washed in days. She’d sweated and drooled and bled all over herself. Her face was cut and bruised. She must appear utterly wrecked. Which was of course exactly what Dr. Coutant wanted.
“Still the gloomy Gus? I’d hoped you’d have time for some serious introspection. A chance to rethink the path you’ve chosen.”
Just say yes, she told herself. Get it over with.
She licked her lips and tried to speak. “Did you kill my mother?”
“No. She’s still alive. For the moment.”
“And—my sister?”
“Also still alive. Though…not what you might expect.”
“Where are the other Shines? Are you torturing them, too?”
“No. They’re all going about their usual daily sessions, licking their wounds. Tank wanted to take your punishment for you. She’s either incredibly loyal or in love with you. Either way, it demonstrates how dangerous you really are.”
“I didn’t make anyone do anything they didn’t want to do.”
“You didn’t make anyone do anything they didn’t think they wanted to do. Which is an entirely different thing. The fact remains, none of them would have tried to escape if you hadn’t been here. You’re the ray of hope that stirs up unrest and makes people do stupid futile things in pursuit of ephemeral illusions. I don’t need to punish them. I just need to root out the bad seed.”
She would have swallowed, but her throat was too dry.
“Before we get into the nastiness, let me give you one more chance to save yourself. I’m bending over backwards for you, Aura. I hope you can see that. Normally, first sign of trouble, we either isolate the miscreant in an underground cell or ship them to Mordock. But you’re special. Everyone thinks so. You have enormous potential. It would be such a shame to snuff out that flame. Though that is what so many people want. People breathing down my neck every hour of every day.”
“No one’s forcing you to do anything. You can make decisions for yourself.”
“Oh, would that were true.” Coutant took her by the back of the neck and lifted her face into the light. “Let me ask you one last time. Will you voluntarily submit to Dr. Hope’s procedure?”
She didn’t know what happened to her. She had rehearsed this resignation in her mind. She knew she couldn’t resist any longer. She told herself to say yes. Begged herself.
But the words wouldn’t come out.
“Last chance, Aura.”
Just say it. Just give in.
But from somewhere, somewhere she couldn’t even identify, another voice spoke with crystal clarity.
Sometimes one person’s needs outweigh those of civilization itself.
“No. I won’t submit.”
She didn’t know what would happen, what to expect. But she could never have foreseen Coutant’s response.
Coutant fell to her knees and grabbed her hand. “Please, Aura. Please. Do it for me.”
What?
“I’m begging you, Aura. I only want what’s best for you.”
She couldn’t believe it. Her torturer was pleading with her.
Tears streamed from Coutant’s eyes. “It’s your only chance, Aura. It’s all you have left.”
Joseph tapped Coutant’s shoulder. “I’ll…have to report this,” he said quietly.
Coutant pushed back to her feet, stumbling a bit as she did, wiping the wetness from her face. “I only wanted what was best for you.” She pressed her hand against her mouth and rushed rapidly out of the room.
Joseph unstrapped her, then hoisted her up. Her legs were so wobbly they wouldn’t even support her. “What—What are you going to do to me now?”
“Nothing,” Joseph replied.
She blinked. Had she heard correctly? Was this some new means of psychic torture? “What do you mean?”
“It’s almost breakfast time. You have a full slate of therapy sessions today. No time off for bad behavior.”
What the flick? “I—I don’t understand.”
“You would be much better off if you stopped trying to understand everything and just did what you were told.” Joseph opened a door and she realized she was in a small room behind Judy’s office. In other words, only a few feet from 4A.
She stumbled into the hallway, dazed and confused, Joseph prodding her intermittently to keep her walking a straight line.
The sunlight hit her eyes so hard it hurt.
The only thing she understood was how ignorant she was. She understood nothing.
But somehow, she had managed to resist. And survive.