I went with him, without a choice in the matter, as he left the infirmary, but stopped a few feet down, and turned to face a white wall.
“Medusa?” he asked the wall.
The white faded to black and she appeared.
“Yes, Dr. Jamison?”
“I need to talk to the Madam Secretary.”
“I am checking.”
Medusa tilted her head every which way, pushing buttons. When her head became still, she said, “The Madam Secretary is in Quadrant Delta.”
“She’s in Delta? What’s she doing there?”
“I am not authorized to give you that information.”
“What’s Delta?” I asked Victor.
“I don’t know.”
“Then why are you so fearful of her being there?”
“Because no one knows what’s in Delta, except for Pallas. It’s off limits to employees. It’s been a great mystery as to what or who is in there.” He shook his head. “I can’t believe she’s in there!”
“What is your query, Dr. Jamison?”
He sighed and turned back to Medusa. “I need permission to take the anomaly back to my room.”
I gasped. “You want me to go to your room?”
He turned back to me. “It’s more comfortable. Trust me. I wouldn’t do anything to harm you.” He smiled. “Besides, you could kill me with one blow.”
“Your request is being processed,” said Medusa.
We waited while Medusa pushed what looked like to me, random buttons.
After a few seconds, she stopped and said, “Your request is granted.”
“Really?” asked Vincent, as if he was surprised.
I was surprised too. I thought they wanted me to rot in that cold cell.
“I have a message from the Madam Secretary,” continued Medusa.
“Oh, yeah, what is it?”
Medusa disappeared and the Red Woman appeared on the screen. I couldn’t tell where she was talking from. The background all around her was black.
She smiled at Victor, wearing that same red dress. “Dr. Jamison?”
“Yes, Madam Secretary?”
She looked over at me. “I see you’ve made a new friend.”
He didn’t respond.
“I am allowing you to take the anomaly to your quarters. Of course, Medusa will be monitoring you both and there will be guards posted outside your door.”
“That’s acceptable.”
“Of course, Victor,” she said seductively, “the Corporation expects you to fulfill your duties. You’re not entertaining a guest.”
“I understand.”
“I don’t think you do. You are to engage the subject using Pallas’ Principle Number 17.”
Victor furrowed his brow. “Is that necessary?”
“Or she spends a lonely night in her cell.”
“I understand,” he repeated.
“Remember, Medusa will be monitoring you.”
He nodded and the Red Woman faded away. The screen went to black, and then the white wall came back.
“What’s Principle Number 17?” I almost shouted at him.
He hesitated, blushing, and then recited, “Honey is sweet to any tongue.”
I furrowed my brow. “What does that mean?”
“It means that I’m supposed to…seduce…you into revealing the truth.”
“What am I supposed to reveal?”
“Who you are and what your plans are in Sanctuary?”
I shook my head. “I told everyone. I don’t know anything.”
Some guards started to approach and Victor squeezed my hand. “C’mon, let’s go.”
We walked a further ways down with more guards and doctors walking about, staring at us. The Corporation seemed to be full of them. He stopped before a white door that opened and separated down the middle. We stepped into a metallic box with a panel of buttons on the left side of the split doors.
“We’re in an elevator?” I asked.
He pushed a button on the panel and smiled at me. “Did you think we walked everywhere?”
“No, I’m just…surprised, that’s all.”
We were silent as the elevator moved up, then sideways to the left, then to the right, and finally down. I held onto Victor, scared of all the sudden jolts.
“We’re almost there,” he said softly.
The doors opened and we stepped out into a white hallway of several doors. One of the doors had six guards posted at it. I assumed that to be Victor’s room. We walked slowly towards his door and the guards eyed us like we were the strangest phenomenon they had ever seen. But I guessed I shouldn’t be surprised. They had probably never witnessed such an event. Of course, I knew very little, next to nothing about the Corporation and its employees, so they may have seen this before, but were still shocked by the spectacle.
Victor touched his palm to a black screen next to the door. A blue light scanned his palm and then with a clicking sound, the door swung open. He immediately turned and closed it, blocking the view from the guards.
“I won’t be able to lock it,” he informed me.
We stood in his living room. It was very clean, white, and sparse in objects. I saw a black screen on the wall and waited for Medusa to appear, but she didn’t. There were three black vertical rectangles along another wall.
“Are those windows?” I asked, noting how similar they seemed in their shape, vaguely recollecting clear glass windows looking out onto a complex, but beautiful environment.
He nodded. “They look out on Sanctuary, and if I’m correct my access to them have been denied.”
“You have to have permission to look out your own window?”
“It’s because of you. They don’t want you looking out at Sanctuary.”
“So, if I was captured, where was I?”
“Outside the dome that protects Sanctuary.”
“What’s beyond the dome?”
“The Resistance and Stargazer strongholds are scattered about.”
“Are the Resistance and Stargazers friends?”
“The Stargazers tried to enlist the Resistance as their allies against the Corporation, but the rebels were against any pacts with the aliens. They blame them for Sanctuary.”
I didn’t like Sanctuary either, even though my knowledge was only of a few areas, but I wanted to know what Victor would say.
“What fault do they find?”
“They consider Pallas a dictator and Sanctuary, along with the Corporation, as a corrupt and murderous regime.”
I agreed, but said nothing. Victor hesitated, still holding my hand, but then walked ahead, and I had to follow. He showed me the kitchen, very white and clean, as well as the living room. When he took me to his bedroom, he clenched my hand.
“Dr. Keller is a specialist with poisons.”
I got scared, not knowing why he brought her and that subject up.
“At birth, she was given the ability to secrete such lethal weapons, to be used in medicinal practices. I was also given a talent. My…saliva…has hypnotic properties.”
“What?”
He turned to me. “If you are to stay here with me, I have to try to gain information from you. I can either”—he made a half smile—“spit on you and use it to put you under a trance, or we can…kiss.”
“Kiss?”
“Do you know what kissing is?”
I did and for a split second I remembered the shadow and his face close to mine. Our lips were touching and it felt like the world was gone and only we mattered. I doubted it would be the same for me and Victor.
“I do,” I answered nervously.
He clenched my hand as he moved closer to me, his face inches from mine. I looked down, nervous, knowing this was something I couldn’t do, despite practically parading around naked in front of him while I’d showered.
“Please,” he begged me. “Or else they’ll take you away.”
“I don’t want to be hypnotized.”
He took his free hand and lifted up my chin so that we were eye level. “I don’t think it will work. On humans, yes, but…”
“But I believe there are human qualities in me.”
“And this time, I hope you’re wrong.”
“Why?”
“I don’t want to hypnotize you. I want you to be…you.”
“But if I’m in a trance, you’ll succeed, and get information from me.”
“I don’t know if that’s true.” He smiled. “You’re the anomaly, after all.”
“I’m afraid.”
“It’s just one kiss, and then it’ll be over.”
I thought of the shadow and how his kiss had been spectacular. I also thought of Loren and what it would be like to kiss him. I felt my cheeks blush. For John, I quickly cooled, hating him with all my being.
I tilted my head up and closed my eyes, waiting. Suddenly, his hand was free of mine and we were no longer bonded. I opened my eyes, looking down, trying to ascertain the reason for his decision, but soon my head was in his hands, looking into his dark brown eyes, as he held me, firm, but unbound.
Slowly, I watched as his lips descended upon mine, his eyes closing automatically. I closed mine and parted my lips. Very softly he moved his lips against mine, testing, feeling, as if unsure of how he wanted to proceed. I was sure his saliva was fully on my lips, but he kept going, kissing me. He took one hand and held my neck as his other hand held the back of my head. At first, I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know the technique of kissing, even though I sensed myself doing it before. However, as his lips melted with mine, I responded by moving methodically, and even caught his lower lip between mine and gently pulled.
He groaned and let me go, his eyelids veiled. He was breathing in and out, trying to catch his breath.
After a few seconds, he said, “You’ve done this before.”
“I don’t remember,” I lied.
He smiled and ran the tip of his forefinger against my lips, outlining them. “You’re the sweetest thing I’ve ever tasted.”
If I had any feelings for him, I would’ve been overwhelmed by his declaration, but I was also concerned by it. How many had he kissed to elicit information? I remembered what Dr. Eyre had said—that she didn’t agree with his specialist methods. Just how far has he gone to serve the Corporation?
Despite my concern, I smiled, but gently backed away and turned around so he couldn’t see my pained expression.
“How long will it take for me to become hypnotized?”
He went and stood before me, scanning my face, trying to read me. I hoped he couldn’t.
“Again, you’re the anomaly,” he finally said. “For humans, it’s mere seconds. We can try and see if you’d like?”
I nodded. It was better to just get it over with. I was doomed anyway.
“Who are you?”
I thought and thought and thought, but there was nothing.
“I don’t know.”
“What’s your agenda on planet Earth?”
“I don’t know.”
“Hmm…let’s try something simpler.” He smiled. “Have you kissed another before?”
“No,” I said automatically.
My mind quickly registered that if I had answered positively, his hypnosis would’ve worked, and soon, the vision of the shadow man who I loved would come out as desired intelligence. I was not under Victor’s spell, yet I didn’t know how long that would last. Maybe, if I was human as I thought, but with Stargazer attributes, his hypnotic saliva would just take longer to work. I thought about asking to leave, to go back to my cell, but one, I didn’t want to go back there, and two, I didn’t want to arouse suspicion.
He smiled, as if relieved. I stood there like stone, unable to think of what to say or how to act. He opened his mouth to speak, but was interrupted by a buzzing sound. His bedroom mirror turned into a black screen and Medusa appeared.
“Dr. Jamison, we have been monitoring your progress.”
“As in ‘we,’ I assume you mean the Madam Secretary?”
“And others. It has been decided that since EHAE-01-23-3013-A is not a typical prisoner, she is to be reprimanded to your custody during the night. At 0800 hours you are to bring her back to her cell on Sublevel 001.”
“And what are we supposed to do during the night?”
“You are to monitor the prisoner while she sleeps.”
“What will that do?” I asked Medusa.
“Dr. Loren Valier posits that the anomaly may unintentionally in his words ‘let slip’ vital information through relaxed sleep. He felt that the prison cell was inhibiting her ability to dream because of the regulatory cold temperature.”
“What does temperature have to do with it?” asked Victor. “I thought Stargazers were inclined towards colder climates.”
“Dr. Valier says that the anomaly, as her status suggests, is not quite human, not quite Stargazer. She enjoys coffee, but Dr. Valier requests that she not be allowed to consume that or any other warm beverages as it would delay the onset of sleep, thereby delaying REM development and the dream landscape.”
I approached Medusa. “Loren said all that?”
“Yes.”
“But I thought he was my friend.”
“I am unaware of your friends, anomaly.”
I turned away from her and stared at Victor. He seemed just as uneasy about all of this as me, but I was also angry—angry at Loren for betraying me, just like John had done. Even though Victor had participated in my torture only hours ago, he was right now, the most trustworthy. John and Loren had fooled me. I wouldn’t allow that to happen again. I was tempted to expose Loren, and that rebel cube technology of his, but I decided to keep quiet—keep my options open. Though, if I ever saw John again, I wouldn’t be so quiet. He had experimented on Henrietta’s child, stuck a Separator in my ear when I’d first arrived, and done who knows what else to me. I was desperate to see him, to interrogate him, but I had to play the Corporation’s little game right now.
I slowly walked to the bed, laid down, and got under the covers. I kicked off my shoes from underneath and pushed them with my feet on the floor. I hated to admit it, but the bed was extremely soft and plush. It smelled nice too, like honey, but then I realized Victor smelled like that. I remembered Pallas’ Principle Number 17: Honey is sweet to any tongue. For all I knew, that principle was written explicitly for Dr. Victor Jamison—the specialist with hypnotic saliva.
“Are you sure about this?” he asked me.
Medusa disappeared and the mirror was back. I saw my reflection in it. I looked tired. Maybe I really was.
“Yes,” I said as I rolled over on my side. “I’m tired anyway.”
I was afraid that Loren was right—that I would let something “slip” while I was asleep, but I actually desired that to happen. The Corporation wanted to know more about me and so did I. Maybe my dreams would elicit some information. If I ever dreamed before this, I wasn’t aware of it. I knew what dreams were, but I couldn’t recall any pleasant or disturbing ones from my past—if I even had a past. I was starting to feel like I was born and grown in a lab, and then just dropped on the ground; and the Corporation, instead of my own kind, whoever that was, had either set me out to be captured or tried in vain to rescue me or worse—forgot about me. I was forgotten, all alone, scared, and blank inside, except for a few dim memories of a man and places that I was starting to wonder if they even existed.
Victor went to a panel on the wall and touched a button, shutting off only a fraction of the ceiling light. It was enough for me to see him take off his shirt, revealing a tight white tank top over his muscular chest. He removed the belt from his pants and then his shoes.
“What are you doing?”
He placed his clothes on the seat of a chair. “Don’t worry. I’m just getting more comfortable.” He went to a slender leather sofa next to the wall and relaxed, stretching out his legs. “If you need anything, just let me know.”
His voice was soft, gentle, and almost hypnotic. Perhaps it wasn’t just his saliva, but his tone of speech that was inducing.
I felt sorry for him. “Why don’t you lie down? It’s your bed.”
He smiled at me. “No, I don’t think that would be a good idea.”
“Why?”
“I’m supposed to monitor you. I wouldn’t be able to do that if I was lying next to you.”
“You would be distracted?”
“Yes, very.”
“How did you feel when you saw me naked?”
I couldn’t see, but I just knew he was blushing. “How did I feel or how did I want to act?”
“Both.”
“I felt…overwhelmed…desirous…maybe a little delirious.” He smiled. “Now, my actions…well, I guess I wanted to act as any man would around a beautiful woman who was naked.”
I remembered Loren in bed with Haiku Noon, now recuperating from being assaulted by her own father. I felt sorry for her, even though I didn’t know her. I wondered if Loren did that a lot—sleeping with well-known girls—or sleeping with any girl. He seemed a bit looser than John, but as I now knew, they were both deceitful and only served the interests of the Corporation. I knew Victor did too, but I found myself willing to concede to him. Perhaps his hypnotism worked on me after all. I was still strong though. I felt I could resist, but I was weak, despite my innate strength. I didn’t know who I was and that made me inferior to the rest.
“Have you ever…acted…with another woman before?”
“I was married once.”
That was a shock. I sat up in bed. “Where is she? What happened?”
He hesitated and I was afraid he was going to stay silent, but then he began to speak. “When every employee in the Corporation turns twenty-five, if they haven’t secured a partner by then, then one is chosen.”
“Why?”
“It’s population requirements. We don’t want the Stargazers or the Resistance to outnumber us.”
“And at twenty-five, you got married?”
He nodded. “Yes, her name was Miranda.” He smiled. “She was well-suited to me. The Corporation picks mates that way to ensure a long lasting relationship.”
“Did you love her?”
“Not at first, but after a while, I did.”
“Why aren’t you with her now?”
“She died while giving birth. The child died too.”
I gasped and tears came to my eyes. “But with all the machines, the advancement, they couldn’t save them?”
He shook his head. “No, they couldn’t be saved.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s not your fault.”
“They’re not going to make you remarry?”
“I’ve been presented with suitable partners, but I’ve refused them all.”
“It’s because you’re still in love with her, right?”
He nodded. “We were only together a short time, but yes, I still love her. I can’t move on to another woman, well, I can’t quickly fall in love again…maybe later…if things are different.”
I didn’t understand what he was trying to say, but I let it go. I knew they were monitoring us. I didn’t want him to stay anything to get himself in trouble.
I sat back against the pillows and headboard. “You know, you’re very different from how I first met you.”
“When I was torturing you?”
He didn’t smile. The question wasn’t meant as a jest. But he was telling the truth. Dr. Keller had administered the poison, but only on his orders. Although, I was sure, if he wasn’t there, she would’ve done it anyway.
“Yes, when you were torturing me.”
He sighed. “I wish I could go back in time and prevent that from happening to you. How do you feel about me? Do you hate me?”
“I want to hate you. I should hate you, but I don’t. I’ve already forgiven you.”
“Forgiven? That’s not a Stargazer reaction, but sometimes, it doesn’t seem to be a human reaction either.”
“I have only been around just a few of you, but from what I can tell, most are deceptive, like John and Loren. I thought they were my friends, but they were always in the service of the Corporation.”
“We all serve the Corporation.”
He recited the official doctrine, but there was no fervor in his voice. He said it lazily. It seemed not too long ago that John and Loren were like that as well—not absolute devotees—but after their actions, especially Loren’s and his theory of my dreams revealing the truth, I had to conjecture that their heart and soul were bound to Pallas and his status as a deity.
“Are you going to stay awake all night?” I asked, changing the subject.
“Yes.”
“How can you do that?”
“I can manage. It seems that before you arrived, I’ve been asleep for far too long.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means that you have awakened something in me.”
“What?”
“It’s like I have a purpose now or a desire to be better than who I am.”
I smiled. “Not a torturer?”
He smiled back. “Not a torturer—more of a…what’s the opposite of torturer?”
“Oh, well, how about…rescuer?”
He snapped his fingers. “That’s it! I want to be a rescuer!”
“Who do you want to rescue?”
“Who do you think?”
“I can’t be rescued. If you try, you’ll be deemed a traitor. I’m sure with Medusa monitoring, and the Red Woman listening, you’re guilty as charged.”
He laughed. “The Red Woman—that’s what you call her?”
I laughed too. “I didn’t know her name when I first woke up, so I named her that.”
“Well, it fits.”
“Aren’t you scared of her and of Pallas?”
“We’re all scared of Pallas. The Red Woman didn’t get particularly frightening until you showed up. I think she fears you.”
“Why?”
“Think about it—you’re basically the enemy—yes, you are an anomaly, but look at the freedom you’ve been given. You don’t know this, but any Stargazer captured alive is treated very, very harshly. Pallas is the only one, the only one who can be allowing you to have such liberties. Look at us—talking—here—in my room. We’re not bonded. You could overpower me, get up and flee—knockout the guards and escape. You probably wouldn’t make it far, but you’d do a lot of damage along the way.”
“Why am I being treated so differently?”
“I don’t know, but the whole Corporation is aware of you, and your lack of ill treatment. Everyone’s whispering—whispering as to what the answer could be.”
“Wouldn’t Pallas want to silence these whisperers?”
“There are too many of them. He wouldn’t have any citizens left to run Sanctuary.”
“So he’s weak without you?”
“Yes, I would say he is.”
“You know, you’re probably labeled a traitor right now,” I said, staring at the bedroom mirror, knowing Medusa wasn’t in sight, but in hearing range, as well as anyone else listening in.
“I was labeled a traitor when I stopped Dr. Kessler from injecting all five syringes into you. I was directed to administer every one. I thought another doctor would take my place, continue the experiment, but it was halted.”
“Why did you stop?”
“You were in pain.”
“But I remember you smiling at me.”
“That was poor judgment on my part, sorry, but I just wanted to make you feel better. It had been a long time since I had to console someone and I didn’t quite get the expression right.”
I chuckled. “That’s an understatement.”
“You haven’t changed your mind? I’m still forgiven, right?”
“Yes,” I said without hesitation. “You’re forgiven.”
“Good, now go to sleep.”
“What if I dream and you hear something that makes you hate me?”
“I could never hate you, despite official doctrine to do so.”
I realized that Victor and I were both pawns in Pallas’s game. I just didn’t know what it was. Why would the president allow so much when I was the enemy? Never mind my agenda. What was his agenda? And how much did he trust the Red Woman? Were they bound? If one of them fell, would the other follow?