Human Sister Read online

  “Sara, please listen to me carefully. There’s an ongoing investigation into the whereabouts and activities of androids. The law is that you must cooperate with this investigation. There are ways, painful ways, to make you talk. And you will talk. Everyone does. It’s just a question of how much you’ll put yourself through before you beg to talk. Please don’t make me leave this room without your statement. If you do, your unimaginable pain will be a torture not only to yourself but also to me and to Elio and your grandparents. Please, don’t do that to yourself. Don’t do that to us. Talk to me. Please.”

  I began pulling my hands away from his. He quickly turned his hands over and caught mine. “Ask for me when you want to talk. Just say my name, Randy Smith, and I’ll come back quickly and take away the pain.”

  I pulled my hands back and didn’t look up or answer. After a few seconds, he sighed, then slowly got up and left the room.

  I brought to my mind’s eye the grape leaf I used for self-hypnosis, seeing the intricate venation of its underside, and above it, a sky, calm and blue and streaked with cirrus, like wisps of hair from Grandma’s comb. But I didn’t proceed to the hypnotic countdown; I didn’t need to, not yet. I just wanted to be sure the leaf was there, and after seeing it, I returned to a meditative calm.

  The door opened. Casey walked briskly to the chair in which Smith had sat. I focused on his legs in their dark gray trousers. Suddenly, the chair swung around, its back cracking hard against one of my kneecaps. I tried not to wince. Casey sat, straddling the straight-backed chair.

  “Didn’t that hurt?” he asked. “You on something?”

  Interesting how different are the many sensations of pain, I thought. They’re all my friends, trying in their way to help me.

  “Doc, get in here!”

  A man wearing black shoes, black socks, charcoal trousers, and a long white coat entered the room and stood beside me.

  “Take a sample,” Casey ordered. “We need to know if she’s on something.”

  The doctor pricked my finger and drew a spot of blood. As he was leaving he said, “I’ll let you know in five, ten minutes, max.”

  “Okay, let’s start at the beginning,” Casey said to me. “What’s your name?”

  “Sara Jensen,” I answered, without looking up at him.

  I was surprised and upset at how my answering this question, a question Grandpa had told me I could answer, seemed to pull me out of the quiet place I’d been in.

  “So, you can talk. Good. We’re moving right along. You went to Calgary before Christmas with Elio, right?”

  Breathe slowly, deeply, I thought. Feel yourself moving away from him.

  “Okay. We know you can hear. We know you can talk. Now, we’re going to hear you answer my questions without all this fucking around. You went to Calgary with Elio. Right?”

  He rapped his thick, hairy fingers on the back of his chair, then reached into his suit coat pocket and pulled out a packet of photographs. “Looky what we got here. It’s you and your love sitting together on a flight to Calgary. Oh, and here. You and him at Calgary Zoo with your father and your lovely, sweet mother. Now, look at this one—it’s my absolute favorite. Warms my heart. The two of you hugging at Calgary International just before he boards a plane to Amsterdam to go see his mother. And he’s crying. How sweet.”

  They’ve decided to play good-guy, bad-guy with me, I thought. Ridiculous!

  He shuffled through the pictures—there were about thirty—then continued, “You get the picture. We’ve done our homework. Now, back to my question. You went to Calgary a couple of weeks ago with this sweet guy, Elio, right? I understand he likes men, too.”

  Following a spike of fear—or was it hatred?—I forced myself to breathe deeply, slowly. Don’t let him rile you, I silently instructed.

  “So, you want to be a smart-ass, do you?” With the suddenness of an explosion, he hurled himself up off his chair. “Do you?” he shouted in my ear.

  I gave a little start but said nothing.

  “Look here, this is no game of hide-and-seek for some spoiled little rich kid. Our country, our species, is in great danger from androids and from those who coddle them. And because of the magnitude of that danger, I really can be your worst nightmare. I’ve made people tougher, a lot tougher, than you or your grandfather or your hotheaded boyfriend whimper and beg and shit themselves.”

  He slammed his palm against the back of his chair. “Doc!” he shouted, and he stormed from the room.

  This man did frighten me. I felt a strong urge to get up, try the door, and, if it opened, run away. But if I do, I thought, these people likely will break into our house and possibly find Michael, or they’ll grab Elio or Grandpa or Grandma and interrogate them—and find Michael. No. I have to stay and fight. I’m the only one of us who has been trained to fight this kind of fight.

  A few minutes later, the walls of the room shuddered as the door quickly opened.

  “We’ve decided you’re not on anything except a notion to be a stubborn smart-ass,” Casey said, entering. “But we’ve got a cure for that, don’t we, Doc?”

  Casey carried a white pail and a jar containing about a half-liter of liquid. The doctor followed him, pulling along what looked like a portable toilet. “Now, you’ve got a choice,” Casey said. “Either you can take your clothes off by yourself so the doctor can examine you for smuggled devices, or he’ll do it for you. Which is it going to be?”

  My first impulse was to recoil from the idea of undressing in front of these men. But I sensed that more difficult challenges lay ahead and any weakness I exhibited here would taint everything to come.

  I unbuttoned my shirt and handed it to the doctor, who passed it on to Casey. Casey stuck two of his thick fingers into the front pocket, pinched along the collar and the seams, dropped the shirt on the floor and, using a side kick, sent it scooting into a corner of the room. “Hurry up,” Casey said. “Off with the rest. The teleband, too. We don’t have all day.”

  After I finished undressing, the doctor said, “All right, Ms. Jensen. Mr. Casey has determined that you may have illegally smuggled microdevices into the United States. What I’ll ask you to do is lie down here”—he patted the top of the white-paper-covered exam table—“on your left side, and I’ll administer a suppository. It’s just a little thing. Won’t hurt a bit.”

  Next, the doctor asked me to sit up on the edge of the table and drink the milky liquid from the jar Casey had brought in. The liquid was both a laxative and an emetic, the doctor said, useful for flushing out anything I was hiding in my digestive tract. As I drank, he secured the portable toilet to the floor using suction cups attached to the toilet’s base. Then he positioned the white pail in front of the toilet, picked up my clothes and shoes, and left.

  Casey gave me a pleased smirk and pointed first to the toilet—“Shit here”—then to the pail—“Puke there. Got it?”

  I nodded. My insides had already begun rumbling.

  “Good. We’ll be back in about twenty minutes. Have fun.”

  “How are you feeling?” the doctor asked when he returned.

  I felt ill and weakened by my digestive ordeal, but I didn’t respond to the doctor’s question. After a few seconds he said, “Drink this. It’ll make you feel much better.” He handed me a glass containing a cloudy liquid. Though I still felt nauseated, I drank the liquid, which tasted like salty lemonade, and almost instantly my insides settled down.

  “Feeling better?”

  “Thank you,” I said, handing the glass back to him.

  He looked surprised that I’d spoken. “You’re welcome.” After a moment he added, “I’m sorry to have made you feel so sick, but that’s an unfortunate part of my job. Some people really do try to bring in nasty stuff, you know. Do you feel good enough to stand? There’s a shower in there where you can clean up.” He pointed toward the door in the back wall of the room.

  He told me the stream of water in the shower was set to last only two minutes
, so I washed quickly. There was no soap. I presumed that the shower water—chemicals evidently had been added to it, as it stung a bit—would be tested for microdevices that might have been clinging to my skin. When the water stopped, the doctor opened the shower door, asked me to step out, and handed me a towel. Casey had entered the room. He sat on a chair, looking bored. The pail and portable toilet were gone.

  “Lie down on your back on the table,” the doctor instructed, resuming a more professional tone of voice. “We’ll take a scan of your body. Please place your arms and hands on the table beside you.”

  Using a wand-like device, he began the scan at my feet and slowly worked up. I was careful not to show any emotion as, with a faint hiss, the beige wand of the scanner passed over my nose. I was concerned that irregularities in my cribriform plate and the neural structures emanating from it might be detected.

  “What’s up with the finger?” Casey asked.

  The doctor looked at the computer monitor. “It was broken, probably within the last thirty-six hours. Nothing unusual that I can see.”

  “If you knew the characters we’re dealing with here, you’d know they easily might have broken her finger on purpose just to create a ruse for the cast. Remove it. We’ll take it over to the lab. The ring, too.”

  The doctor took off the cast, then the ring, and they left.

  “Tell me about the transmitter behind your right knee,” Casey ordered as he entered again, the doctor in his wake.

  I didn’t answer. Casey turned to the doctor. “She failed to declare it, so remove it. No anesthetic.”

  “Please lie on your stomach, Ms. Jensen,” the doctor said.

  I felt his fingers press against the back of my knee and find a tiny lump; then came the sharp pain of a small knife cut. But I’d been prepared by Grandpa for much worse.

  After a few seconds, the doctor said, “It looks like a standard transmitter used by private security companies. I’d say it was implanted when she was a small child. Many wealthy families implant them in—”

  “I know. I know,” Casey said. “Mike!”

  “Yes, sir,” a voice from the computer monitor answered.

  “Bring in the inquisitor. We’ve also got an implanted device for you to look at.”

  “Right away,” the voice responded.

  “Turn her over on her back and strap her down,” Casey ordered.

  As the doctor secured the straps he said, “I wish you’d speak with Mr. Casey. He just wants to know what you did on your vacation. If you don’t talk, I’m going to have to hook you up to a terrible device. I’ve seen it reduce the toughest gang members and terrorists to blubbering mush. It wasn’t meant for nice cultured girls like you.”

  “It was meant to encourage people to talk in accordance with the law,” Casey said. “This is a matter of national security, young lady, and the Supreme Court has made it very clear that national security outweighs individual constitutional rights every day of the week. So, if you’re thinking some lawyer hired by your grandfather is going to ride in here on a white horse and rescue you, you can forget it.”

  No, I thought, but a grape leaf will come to carry me safely away.

  Just then, a young man entered the room, wheeling in an apparatus that appeared to be almost identical to the algetor Grandpa had been training me on for years. Casey instructed the doctor to hook me up to what he repeatedly called the “inquisitor.”

  The helmet went on. The world went dark. I looked for the grape leaf. It was there for me, floating in a cirrus-frosted sky. I felt sticky straps being placed all over me. I concentrated on my breathing. Silently, calmly, I counted down from five and into a deep hypnosis where I felt safe and at peace.

  As if from a great distance, I heard Casey becoming increasingly frustrated as he tried one gruesome illusion after another, each time calling for increased inquisitor intensity. I knew in a dissociated way that the level of induced pain was much greater than had been the highest level of pain induced by Grandpa’s algetor, and I felt, also in a dissociated way, that my heart was beating faster and harder than normal. I reached deeper for calm.

  “All right, Doc, what the fuck’s going on? Are you holding back on me?”

  “No. Absolutely not. I think she put herself into some kind of trance.”

  “It’s probably something that damn professor taught her. I’ll bet he’d never get to level 3 without begging for mercy. As old as he is, though, his heart probably would stop before we could really get going. At least it would appear to be a natural death. Turn the damn thing off. Let’s go make a call and see what we should do.”

  I heard them leave the room. Sensing something was wrong, I withdrew from the hypnotic state and found I was trembling all over. Never before had I had such a reaction to the algetor. Though there was a deep ache in my chest, my mind seemed clear, and I set about relaxing one set of muscles after another, starting with my fingers. After several failed attempts, the fingers calmed down, and I moved my attention to my right forearm. But before it relaxed, the fingers in my left hand began twitching again. I went back to them. The fingers in my right hand then began trembling, and I was back to square one. Despite these setbacks, by the time Casey and the doctor returned, my arms, shoulders, and legs had settled down.

  The doctor spoke first. “Record. I have been ordered to inject 10 milligrams of LN27Q3 into a sixteen-year-old woman subsequent to an intense A59B6 session and immediately prior to another such session. Though LN27Q3 has been used before, it has never been adequately tested for safety. It is my medical opinion that when used in conjunction with A59B6, LN27Q3 is both unsafe and cruel. I will not proceed with this procedure unless ordered to do so by Agent 137H622. End record.”

  Casey immediately responded: “Record. I am ordering the doctor whose voice was just recorded to inject 10 milligrams of LN… what’s the number?”

  “LN27Q3.”

  “LN27Q3 into Sara Jensen prior to an A59B6 session. The doctor’s objections and protests have been noted. End record.” Then he said, “Satisfied?”

  “No,” the doctor answered.

  “Just do your job.”

  This little act is merely intended to scare me, I thought. But is the drug really dangerous? Grandpa didn’t prepare me for drugs.

  I felt a needle enter my left arm. Aware of danger and shocked that I’d let myself pay such close attention to these men, I looked for the grape leaf. It was there. Five, four—my breathing was steady, inviting me on—three—I heard a strange background roar begin—two—I felt what seemed like a thick rod tear out of my left arm.

  It’s just the needle, I thought. Concentrate on—

  “She’s ready,” the doctor’s voice thundered, sounding like Zeus calling down from Mount Olympus.

  I was yanked out of my countdown like a naked little worm pulled from its hole. I tried to find the leaf again, to start over, but the sky was no longer blue—it was red. And my breath seemed no longer to be mine; it screamed through my nose like wind through barren trees. The whole Earth seemed to shudder with each beat of my heart, and though I hadn’t seen it depart, I sensed that the leaf was gone, torn to shreds along its veins and blown away in the wind.

  “Okay, let’s begin again,” came booming from Casey like plangent thunder. “Now, I’ll tear the words from your brain, one by one.”

  No you won’t, I assured myself. The sensations are just illusions. I won’t be hurt. I won’t talk.

  Unable to hypnotize myself, I quickly decided to try the alternative Grandpa had taught me. “Go to the painful sensations,” he’d said. “Absorb them. Be absorbed by them. Become them. Then you can control them as yourself.”

  Casey’s command, “Global level 5,” reverberated in my skull.

  Then I felt pain everywhere: an agonizing blast in my ears, knives piercing every organ, an unrelenting fire inside my head, a ferocious wind searing my face. I tried to grab at something, anything, inside myself to shelter me from the pain’s loudnes
s, its strength and bite and fury.

  Just when I felt every aspect of my being slipping away, the blast, the knives, the fire and wind vanished, leaving me nauseated and more exhausted than I could have ever imagined.

  “Sara, can you hear me?” Casey said, his words concussive hoofbeats of sound.

  Unfortunately, I thought—though I might have said it. My uncertainty as to whether or not I’d spoken startled me into clearer consciousness. I was determined not to speak a single word to that man.

  “Those mechanical things your parents call ‘Sentirens’ certainly can’t be worth that, now can they? Look, here’s the deal: You tell me you saw them on your trip, just say yes, and I’ll unhook you from this machine and leave. Then you and Smith can hold hands, and you can talk with him instead of me. Now, say yes.”

  I let his roar wash through me.

  “Global 10,” Casey bellowed.

  “Ten?” the doctor asked.

  “Yes, ten. Sara, say yes. Just say yes, and you’ll be freed from this.”

  The reignited pain was much stronger than before. Its screaming, blazing fury engulfed me. And more frightening than earlier came the feeling that my grip on everything, even on my resolve to protect Michael, was slipping away. Something in me I could no longer control seemed to agree with Casey that too much was being asked of me by Grandpa, and it, this wild self-preserving thing, nearly screamed Yes! But at that very moment, I was lifted, floating, then spiraling dizzyingly in flames, getting lighter, smaller, sputtering, disappearing like a drop of water on a hot skillet. Then, for a brief moment, I felt a glowing, almost joyous sense of relief at the rushing in of a hollow darkness.

  “Seventy-five over 40. She’s coming around. Thank God,” the doctor thundered.

  My mind felt unmoored: Where am I? What happened?

  “Eighty over 42. I swear I’m finished. I quit. You can take my license if you want. I’ll go bankrupt. I’ll go to jail. Anything—but I’ll never work with you people again. Never.”