Simon woke on his bed to find a pair of Conditioned stood in one corner of his room, watching him.
He sat up and one of Tanya’s guards sprung to attention.
‘I’m not going anywhere.’ He touched the side of his throbbing head. One of the guards must have knocked him out. ‘No need to have a panic over it.’
The guard stepped closer and pushed down on his shoulder to keep him in place. ‘Tanya says you’re to preserve your energy for the transfer.’
Simon groaned and lay back down. Tanya may have control over his body but he still owned his mind. For now.
An hour later, two doctors, including Tanya’s personal physician, Dr Jameson, entered the room.
Jameson slipped a blood pressure sleeve on to Simon’s upper arm, then stuck a probe into the crook of his arm while he inflated the sleeve. The pressure built until Simon couldn’t bear it any longer. Then the pressure subsided, but the voice inside his head nagging at him to do something stayed put.
‘Your blood pressure is slightly elevated but other than that you’re fine.’ Jameson turned and walked to the door. ‘Bring him.’
The guards pulled Simon to his feet and herded him along behind the doctor.
‘You don’t have to do this,’ said Simon.
‘It won’t hurt,’ said Jameson. ‘It’s a straightforward procedure. You’ve nothing to worry about.’
While the guards pushed him along the corridor, Simon wondered if the doctor knew of Tanya’s plans to use his body as a vessel.
‘She plans on killing me, you know,’ he said.
Jameson turned briefly, then walked on. ‘I know.’
They stopped outside the staging room. Jameson opened the door and waved Simon inside. He looked around and saw nine other Conditioned, all males. They sat on the Elite’s beds while the Elite, in their almost dead-like state, occupied hover-chairs in front of them. The mind-mapping machine sat on a table in the centre of the room. Each of the Elite was connected to the machine via a wire and a small circle that blinked red, attached to one side of their dipped heads.
One bed remained and Tanya’s chair was positioned in front of it. The guards forced Simon to sit on the tenth bed. He locked his gaze on Tanya, hoping to reason with her. She also had a blinking red circle on her lopsided head—a device to facilitate the imprint exchange, he assumed.
A second doctor in the room removed the blinking red circle from the Elite Ten, then placed it in a round carrier on top of the machine. The carrier beeped once, and the doctor extended a small, thin wire from the machine. The wire squirmed when the doctor placed it on the neck of the Conditioned lined up with Elite Ten. The Conditioned winced when the wire pierced his neck. Simon watched it worm its way under the skin and up to the brain.
The doctor copied the procedure with the remaining eight until it was Simon’s turn to be imprinted with Tanya’s consciousness. He felt a sharp sting in his head as the device containing the imprint implanted somewhere in his brain. Instantly, he felt a second presence. Tanya. Her consciousness stirred, as though she’d been in a deep sleep.
Who’s there? her imprint called out.
The real Tanya looked asleep in her chair.
He didn’t answer her. The voice became more demanding. Answer me, damn it.
I’m here, he said, feeling like he had no choice.
This personality would not permit him silence.
Simon. It worked! But I can’t see anything. Where am I? Can I control you? Simon’s arm shot out to the front and he strained against an immovable force. With a lot of effort, he pushed it back to its original position. Good... that felt very good.
Tanya’s consciousness continued to chatter. He had no idea how to shut her off.
I won’t be quietened. I’ve been given a new lease of life.
Simon studied the barely conscious Tanya in corporeal form to his front. She hardly moved. It was her imprint who spoke to him inside his head.
‘I need time to adjust to this. It feels... strange,’ he said aloud.
We don’t have time.
Tanya forced Simon to stand. The sudden movement made his head spin. He glanced at the other Conditioned who’d been forced into similar positions while their Elite counterparts sat immobile in their chairs.
In Simon’s head, Tanya said, Elite, how are you feeling?
Good, they all replied.
Strong.
Never better.
Then Tanya’s voice was no longer in his head; she took control of his voice box. It was his voice, but her words.
‘We are strong, we are few, but with the right weapons, we will be victorious.’
The Elite controlled the Conditioned in the same way.
Weapons? said Simon, his voice reduced to thought.
‘Oh, didn’t I tell you, Simon? We’ve been working on ways to attack the district when our friend Marcus gets us there. We created temporary weapons experts, thanks to our mind-mapping technique.’
Simon hadn’t thought it possible to use the mind-mapping machine for anything other than defensive purposes.
‘Neither did we. That’s why we tricked it into believing we needed those weapons for defence.’
When?
‘After our Nexus treatments, when we felt strong enough to walk.’
Tanya spoke aloud, answering what were supposed to be his private thoughts. His heart sank at the realisation his thoughts would never be his own again.
‘Oh, don’t say that, Simon. You still have independent thought,’ said Tanya. ‘It’s just that now I know everything you think about.’
☼
Simon spent the night in his room with just a bed and Tanya for company. He got little sleep thanks to the constant humming in his head. Tanya Li’s imprint wouldn’t shut off.
He found his voice and ground his fists into the sides of his head. ‘Could you stop?’
The humming ceased. Oh, you’re awake then. Had I known, I would have ordered the others to gather sooner. We don’t want you falling asleep on the job.
Under his own steam, he got up and tried the door, which was locked. ‘Why did you lock me in?’
I didn’t want you running off with me in the middle of the night. I might be able to hear you, but you’re still too strong for me.
Simon considered that. Maybe he had a chance to turn this around.
‘Get the doctor; he’s ready.’
It was Tanya’s voice but Simon said the words. His own voice drifted into the background.
What has she planned?
‘It’s not a plan so much as a necessity. I need you more subdued than you are. I don’t want to fight you and the Indigenes when we storm their district. You’re stronger than me. I plan to use that.’
I thought you said you had weapons.
‘We do,’ said Tanya’s imprint. ‘But first you need a little something.’
The door opened and Dr Jameson burst in, brandishing a needle. He came close to Simon, who shrank back until he hit the wall. Jameson caught his arm and jabbed it with the needle.
Simon’s mind turned fuzzy. Then he felt Tanya push to become the dominant mind. So far he’d restricted her power over him to voice only, but now, as his left arm jerked, Tanya fought to take control of his body. Possessing independent thought would mean nothing if he couldn’t stop her.
Simon’s dizzy spell forced him to sit. But the second he did, his body stood against his will.
‘There’s no time for rest, Simon. I need you familiar with our weapons.’
Tanya directed him forward. He fought against her, which only made her push harder. Half way down the corridor, he relented to her.
‘That’s easier, isn’t it? After a while, it’s useless to fight something that’s meant to happen. I’m supposed to transcend and you’re supposed to help me.’
You could have achieved that without using me as a sacrifice.
‘That wasn’t my intention. The Elite hadn’t planned on including any of you in this. But our bodies are spent; nothing is left. We can’t do this without you.’
Tanya pulled him along.
Simon pushed and found his voice. ‘You’re just an imprint of your real self. How’s that going to work?’
Tanya replied out loud. ‘Jameson says the imprint believes it to be the real thing. Think of me as a copy of myself, in every way. Soon my real body will die and along with it my mind. Jameson reckons that could happen a few hours from now.’
‘That soon?’
‘Our bodies weren’t designed to withstand the extensive testing performed on us. That kind of change takes a millennium of evolution to achieve. Our current forms aren’t hardy enough to withstand it. But preserving consciousness, even if it’s a copy... well, that’s better than death. If Charles Deighton hadn’t succeeded in achieving mind occupation, then we wouldn’t have known it was even possible.’
Simon’s body halted at a closed door near the lab area. He waited to see what Tanya would instruct him to do next. His arm lifted and his hand turned the handle. Then she walked him inside. Still able to control the movement of his head, Simon looked around the room at the nine other Conditioned whom the remaining Elite occupied. They had created a half circle around a table with at least a dozen weapons on it. At the table stood another two Conditioned who checked the weapons and who were not part of the mind-hijacking experience. Dr Jameson stood off to the side, making notes on his DPad.
‘These are our temporary weapons experts,’ said Tanya out loud. The pair not part of the experiment both looked at Simon. ‘Please demonstrate to everyone how to use the guns.’
The pair nodded and they each picked up a gun.
One of them said, ‘The weapon contains a minuscule version of the machine in the environ.’ He opened the side cover and showed the group. Simon saw a small ball of energy sitting in a containment field. ‘The weapons fire bolts of electricity.’
How long does the energy last?
‘About an hour per gun.’
Simon saw a huge problem with their weapon. He strained against the imprint to gain control over his voice box once more. He felt Tanya loosen her control over him.
‘The Indigenes aren’t harmed by electricity,’ he said.
Tanya snatched back control. ‘Actually, they are. It slows down their movements. They will most likely prepare for our arrival by carrying energy absorption devices on them. The devices can negate the effects of an energy blast if they’ve been modified enough.’
Simon was careful not to think about his recent meeting with Stephen and the others.
He felt Tanya tap into his thoughts. ‘But it seems as though that meeting has already happened. They have an envisioner in their group.’
Shit.
‘Don’t worry, Simon. I would have discovered that in the end. You can still mask your thoughts from me, but soon it won’t matter.’
The weapons experts fired a shot against the wall, close to one of the host Conditioned. The host flinched but didn’t move. Simon worried about the impossibility of fighting against this internal occupation.
‘It won’t be easy to move us now,’ Tanya said, ‘but it will be over soon. And to answer your earlier question...’
Tanya gestured for one of the weapons experts to explain.
‘We’ve adapted the gun to fire continually if it meets resistance from an energy absorption device. The onslaught will not only slow them down, but it will make them immobile.’
‘For how long?’ said Simon.
‘Minutes at a time.’
What could they do in a few minutes?
‘Plenty, Simon. We could reach their Nexus, for one.’
That’s what worried him. Tanya didn’t appear to catch that thought.
‘We don’t have much time,’ she said. ‘We’ve designed body armour to protect the Conditioned, so all the hosts need to suit up and get trained on these weapons. We leave as soon as we’re ready.’
‘What about using mind mapping to learn the layout of their district?’ suggested one of the Elite.
Dr Jameson looked up from his DPad and shook his head. ‘Not possible. Your minds are already overloaded as it is.’
It was then that Simon realised he’d lost his working knowledge of electricity. That must have happened when Tanya merged with him.
‘We had to sacrifice something,’ she said. ‘Now let’s get trained on these, get our guest who’s bellowing like a wild calf and find this secret entrance.’