Part 25 (1/2)

Sly tried to spit in her face, but her mouth was too dry. ”Go frag yourself,” she croaked.

The woman shrugged, totally unmoved. She reached up to flip the switch on the black box.

No! Panic ripped through Sly's mind. I can't take that again! She teetered on the edge of the abyss, on the margin of madness.

Falcon? Again, impossibly, she felt the young ganger's presence, and it was that presence that brought her back from the brink.

As if it mattered. The woman's finger touched the switch. Sly braced herself, a useless gesture.

”Huh?” The scrawny shaman gave a guttural grunt, seemed to stare at something that Sly couldn't see. The technician jumped at the sound, her finger falling away from the switch.

And then, shockingly, fire blossomed in the small room, bursting forth from one of the fetishes festooning the shaman's belt. Like a fireball it bloomed, was.h.i.+ng over the technician, igniting her hair and clothing, turning her into a flailing, shrieking human torch. Sly screamed as the flame also licked over her, but somehow the fire did her no harm. She felt no pain, saw no blisters bloom. Neither her clothes, her flesh, nor her hair ignited. Nevertheless, she clenched her eyes tight shut.

The firestorm was over in an instant. Cautiously, Sly opened her eyes once more.

The woman was dead, sullen flames licking over her body. The shaman, though, seemed almost untouched. His clothes were scorched-particularly around the fetish that had detonated-and his exposed skin looked red, but he was not significantly injured. (Spell defense? Sly wondered groggily. Was it that saved me too?) He snarled in anger, closed his eyes, and slumped against the wall. Sly realized he must have gone astral to cope with some magical threat.

He was in trance for only a few seconds. Then his eyes opened wide, his face twisted in an expression of disbelief and horror. He lurched to his feet-clumsily, like a zombie from some low-budget horror trid-and took a stumbling step toward Sly. The runner recoiled from the terrifying rage in the thin man's eyes. His mouth worked as though he were trying to speak, but only garbled moans and rumbles came out. A gobbet of saliva dribbled from the corner of his mouth.

This is part of the torture. The thought struck Sly suddenly. It isn't real, it's just another false scenario being fed into my brain. But regardless, she still struggled and strained against the straps binding her.

The shaman stopped beside her chair, reached out and released the velcro band around Sly's left wrist. She s.n.a.t.c.hed her hand back as soon as it was free, clenched it into a fist, readied to drive it into the man's throat. . . .

With an immense effort, she forced herself to stop. He's setting me free. For whatever reason, he's letting me loose. She felt withdrawn, emotionally overwhelmed and totally confused.

Snarling wordlessly, the man freed her other hand, then bent down to release her ankles. While he did so, Sly undid the straps around her torso and the band around her head.

When he'd freed her feet, the shaman lurched back against the wall. His eyes rolled up in his head, and he slumped to the floor, whether dead or just unconscious, Sly couldn't tell.

For a moment, she just sat there in the chair. Then she reached up and carefully unjacked the torture device from her skull. The moment the plug popped out of her data-jack, she flung the black box against the concrete wall with a yell, flung it with every joule of energy left in her body. Laughed aloud as the plastic enclosure cracked, spraying broken circuit boards and fragments of integrated circuits across the floor.

She sat up, grabbed the chair arms and started to force herself to her feet.

But the world seemed to spin and tumble around her. With a groan, she sank back into the chair.

Sly felt like drek. Pure, unadulterated, pluperfect drek. Every muscle in her body ached; her joints felt loose; even her skin tingled and itched. Worst of all, though, was the feeling that her grasp on reality was shaky. Is this real? she asked herself. Did the shaman really free me? Or am I hallucinating?

Or-horrifying thought-was this only another part of the torture? What if she forced herself to her feet, left the echoing concrete room with its smell of burned meat, and ran outside into the night-only to have that feeling of freedom wrenched away? To open her eyes and find herself back in the chair, strapped in place, immobile. With the woman technician preparing the black box to feed another electronic fantasy-something even more soul-destroying-into her brain.

Sly couldn't stand that. If it turned out that's what was happening, she'd collapse right then. Surrender, give up the will to live.

And, yes, break. Tell them what they wanted to know. And didn't that very fact-the realization that this technique would succeed-make it even more likely that this was a simsense fantasy?

She closed her eyes. This is how I can beat it, she told herself. If I never believe I've got my freedom, having it s.n.a.t.c.hed away won't frag me up. Who feels the loss of something they never had? She slowed her breathing, tried to relax her muscles.

She felt eyes on her-someone was watching her. Is this it? Is this when the tech turns off the simsense torture box? Despite her efforts at relaxation, Sly felt all her muscles tensing again. She opened her eyes.

n.o.body was there. Well, n.o.body conscious, at least. The smoldering body of the tech still lay crumpled in the corner; the shaman still slumped against the wall, definitely unconscious or worse. Apart from them, the room was empty.

But frag it, she still felt the presence of somebody else there. Knew there was someone watching her. And, deep down, she also knew it wasn't someone watching her through a spy-eye. There was someone near her, she could sense it. Someone standing next to her chair, even though she couldn't see anyone.

A spectator-maybe Knife-Edge himself-under cover of an invisibility spell, like the back-up at the hosed Roundhouse meet? But no, she didn't think so. She could sense a person's proximity, but there was more to it than that. She knew this person. That's how it felt, at least- there was definitely a sensation of familiarity.

”Falcon?” The word slipped from her dry lips before she could suppress it.

It couldn't be. .. .

But-and now she was totally convinced-it was.

”Falcon? Are you there?”

How could this be part of the torture? They couldn't know that Falcon was working with her, that he'd come to Cheyenne with her. That he was her comrade, her chummer. Could they?

Panic suddenly washed over her in a wave. Am I losing it? Is this what it's like to go mad? She looked wildly around the room.

And yes, there was Falcon. Standing next to her, his face twisted with fear, with horror. And with concern. She reached out to him, tried to grab his arm.

But her hand went right through his body. For the first time she could see that the young ganger's body was translucent, vaguely transparent. She could see through him, see the wall and the shaman's body behind him.

I am going mad! She closed her eyes again, tears leaking out from under her closed lids. Ask me your questions, Knife-Edge. I'll answer them. Just don't let this continue.

”Sly.”

It was Falcon's voice . . . but not quite. There was something eerie about the sound, something . . . ethereal was the only word that fit. It was distant, too, as though he were speaking from a long way off, not from right next to her.

”Go away,” she mumbled.

”Sly,” Falcon said again, and this time she could hear the tension, the urgency in his voice. ”Come on. You've got to get out of here, chummer.”

She shook her head, closed her eyes. ”You're not real,” she whispered.

”Knife-Edge might be coming back.” The panic in the ganger's voice contrasted with the peace she felt inside-the peace of fatalism, of surrender. ”You've got to move.”

”You're not real,” she repeated.

”Frag it, go! You want to die?”

”Why not?”

”Sly, you slitch!” he yelled, the voice echoing strangely around the concrete room. ”Die on your own fragging time! Now move your fragging hoop!”

”You're a ghost,” she muttered.

”If I am, I'll haunt you till the end of fragging time. Now get your pudlicking hoop out of that chair and move it!”

She shrugged to herself. Why not? It wasn't going to do any good, of course. She'd get outside, and then the tech would turn off the simsense and she'd be back in the chair. But what the frag was the difference anyway? Listening to Falcon was just as bad-his voice reminding her that the only way she'd get any peace would be to tell Knife-Edge what he wanted to know. Reminding her that she'd be killing him too.