Even after all he had endured, he still had enough self-possession to raise his head and meet her gaze when she entered the hall. Ice-blue eyes, pupils still slightly dilated with tranquilizers delaying the panic response. If he should try to break the thick transparency separating them...it wouldn't shatter, she was almost certain. But he could do further damage to himself.
She slowly raised the lighting to see him better. He blinked and shied back, arm up to block the painful brightness. At half power she stopped; he was pressed against the far wall of his cell. Left in darkness for too long. And how much time in isolation? "Is this too bright for you?"
His arm lowered slightly, and over it he stared at her, wild-eyed. "Would you prefer less light? I know you aren't used to it."
"I'll adjust." A bit hoarse, voice rusty with disuse. But still defiant. "Who are you?"
"I'm your observer."
His eyes went wide at that, jaw worked for a few seconds in silence before he spoke. "What will you observe? More tests? How much experimenting can you do on one subject?"
"There's much we still need to know. But there will be others watching then. I'll observe you the rest of the time."
"Like now." He considered that, folding his arms and no longer meeting her gaze. "Why now? Why not before?" When she said nothing he drew a quick breath. "Of course, they just haven't been so obvious. You've been spying, of course I'd have no privacy. One-way glass, I remember once--and cameras. Infrared in the darkness, those weeks..." He slammed his fist into the smooth wall behind him, suddenly, unpredictably furious. "How long has it been? Was it weeks? I couldn't tell, it was, wasn't it? I couldn't see anything, but it was days...nights..."
"I can't tell you."
"Can't?" Still focused beyond her. "Or won't? How long have I been here? How long ago did you take me?" When she was silent, "Tell me how long it's been!"
But she couldn't answer, and he refused to speak again in the face of her quiet.
When night arrived she lowered the lights again. "There will be a test after you sleep. The walls are soundproofed; you don't need to try to listen beyond them." And she left. The camera watched him through the darkness.
She returned after he was brought back from the test. He lay on the cot facing away from the partition, saying nothing.
At last she asked, "Who's Blair?"
He rolled around to look at her. "I don't know."
"You said the name three times in your sleep last night. This wasn't the first time, either."
Sitting up, he remarked, "With everything you've pumped in me, my dreams don't make much sense."
Neither would his memories, possibly. But in case she researched a little and came back the following day with the answer to her own query. "He was your partner. When you were a police officer. You remember that?"
It was a moment before he answered, and the words sounded as if they were dragged from him. "I remember. He wasn't anybody. You've screwed my mind up good."
There had been more in his file, both from before his abduction and notes taken in the last few years. Enough to know that he either was lying or they had miscalculated the mental strain placed on him. In all their records he had never once said his former partner's name while conscious, but last night was far from the first time it had been heard when he was asleep or drugged.
When she pressed him on this issue he locked his jaw, not allowing any stray word to escape. For three days he was taciturn, refusing to meet her eyes or even face her. She continued to watch him during his waking hours, observing as he ate or lay on the cot, staring at the blank ceiling. He never protested when they arrived to take him to the tests; he had learned that much at least.
He sat up immediately when she entered three mornings later. Smiled at her. Something false in his expression, though she appreciated the change nonetheless. He spoke as well, "Sorry I've been so stubborn; it's been rough, this whole experience."
She nodded understandingly, and he continued, "If you're my only...observer--if you're someone to talk to, then I shouldn't waste it. It's more than I was offered before. Can you talk? Are you allowed to?"
He already must know the answer, but to confirm it she nodded. Warned, "Certain topics are restricted."
"How--I suppose you won't speak about them. Is your name off-limits?"
She didn't answer. He sighed. "Thought as much. So you're 'doctor,' then. My name..." He hesitated. At last decided, "I'm Ellison. Though I bet you already knew that."
She agreed, noting the surname offered, rather than the given. Keeping a clear distance between them. No more than was to be expected, of course. And this trend of familiarity would be best encouraged. "I'm sorry I can't give you more, Ellison. Since I am a doctor I have no objections to that title."
"Medical or scientific?" he asked, nodded understandingly when no answer came. "It was worth a try, at least."
He kept up the casual questions until they arrived to take him to the tests. Never asking more than once, usually expecting nothing, showing some pleasure when there was a response. He found out little more than he already knew, no hint given as to where he was, or for how long he had been there, or what the purpose was for it all. He seemed resigned to his fate, and when the they came he bade her farewell and followed them compliantly.
The current experiment was long and trying; the lights had already been dimmed by the time he was returned to the cell. He collapsed on the cot upon entering and made no motion to move, seeming already asleep, though when she rose to leave for the night he turned toward her. His words were mumbled but intelligible. "Do you have any influence?"
"What do you mean?"
"The tests." Open eyes glittering in the artificial dusk. "Can you tell them to stop, if your subject's too tired? Or are you really just another subject, like me, another labrat, no talking to the masters?"
"I have some influence." She studied him through the darkness. "I can stop them, if you'd be unable to endure them." But that point had not nearly been reached, and they both knew it.
The next day he slept late, or perhaps only pretended to; he sat up fast enough when she entered. Again he spoke, but this time instead of queries he did most of the talking, about the experiments, his guesses of what had happened, some mentions of his life before he had been here. When he asked things of her, it was not for information but opinions, allowing her a chance to talk, to discuss. She did so willingly, far preferring the conversation to his former silence.
The test was short, and when he returned they continued their exchange. For several days it went on, for a week, and then one morning he leaned back against the wall and said, lightly, "So, what is a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?"
Teasingly, and she might have smiled at this turn in their relationship. Might have, if she hadn't understood it too well. Instead she said nothing, looked away.
"I'm serious," he said quietly. "You're young, you're bright--how'd you end up working here?" He stood, almost unconsciously, though at first he made no move to approach the barrier. "I'd think it would be lonely--I know I'm lonely, but I'm the labrat here. You're the doctor, shouldn't that mean you have some sort of life outside of this?"
When she looked up, he had taken a step toward the hall where she sat. "I know you spend all your time here, is it really worth it? No matter how important you think what you're doing is, to sacrifice yourself to it? When you could--"
Too much, too far; she rose from her chair and met his opaque eyes. "Stop," she told him. "This isn't going to work. You can't convince me you're attracted to me. I performed studies when I was younger--I'm not old now, but I'm no teenage girl, either--and I know how males exhibit arousal. And we've studied you; I don't have any physical characteristic that would draw you. As for mentally, emotionally, you've been in isolation, true, but not nearly long enough that you would sleep with the enemy. For anything except a chance at coercion, of gaining influence. All that's surprising is that it took you this long to try it."
For an instant his jaw tightened; his eyes flashing with anger at the accusation, confirmed it. Then he affected righteous indignation. "I wasn't trying--"
"You did." Under her cool gaze he slowly sat again. Frowned at her but said nothing more; the rest of the day passed as silently as their beginning. She waited until darkness, until she left the hall, before she allowed herself to sigh, huddled in her single quarters with her arms wrapped around herself.
The following morning he didn't smile but he did greet her. He sounded honest as he said, "I'm sorry. I can't just do nothing. I think you know that, too." She did, which was why she didn't hate him for it.
That night she slept little, instead set her monitor to the camera in his room. He went through the tests stoically but he paid for it in his sleep, the nightmares twisting through his body as he rested. Listening to his mumbled cries, she performed a brief data search.
The following day she brought the results. Almost a peace offering; equally an investigation of her own, the responses dutifully recorded as she observed them. "I looked up Blair Sandburg for you."
He tensed, then relaxed with effort, replied casually, "What of it?"
"I was curious. I thought you might be." She waited.
At last he shifted positions uncomfortably. "So, find anything interesting?" When she didn't reply, his voice took on a little force, "How's he doing?" Not quite as calmly as he was trying for.
"He's living in Cascade." Did she imagine it, or did he sink a little with relief when she said "living"? "No longer with the police. He works full time with a university--you did know he was a professor there?"
"I knew," he acknowledged. His eyes were as fixedly unrevealing as ever. But he knew everything, she read in them: where Sandburg had worked and where he had lived, what he wrote and what he ate and what time he had gotten up Saturday mornings. Though Ellison wouldn't admit a word of it.
Not because he didn't care. Because he did.
It was his very reticence on the subject that intrigued her. Not disinterest, however he feigned it. Rather the opposite, she came to suspect: he was purposely drawing attention away from that individual. Going to great lengths to see that they thought and knew nothing of Blair Sandburg; protecting him by ignoring him. It was a subtle strategy, one with more guile than she would have attributed to him.
So that he wouldn't realize she understood she didn't push him, acted as if she had discarded any interest in the man Sandburg. And Ellison let the topic lie undisturbed, though she saw questions burning deep in his eyes, a torturous curiosity he didn't dare address.
He had other queries he was not so shy of. Now when she refused to answer he wouldn't necessarily drop a demand; instead he would re-work it, reword it and bring it up again at a later time. Sometimes he would learn little things this way. Usually not.
Once they brought him back from a session late, only a short while before the lights went off. His loose white clothes, pajamas he compared them to sometimes, or a martial arts gi--the cloth hung in tatters. A new outfit would come the next morning, but this one now was ripped, stained with small brown spots. Dried blood, his blood; under the baggy sleeves his arms were bandaged.
Although it would be a simple matter to check, she choose to first ask him, "What happened?"
He took an uncommonly long time to answer, and when he looked at her she almost stepped back, so vicious was his regard. "You know, their damn tests. Your damn tests. I couldn't take this one, I wasn't even aware of how hard I fought it. And then they stuck a needle in me so I couldn't move and they could wrap me up. I don't even remember how I got hurt."
"I'm sorry," she responded with quiet sincerity.
"I bet." He laid back on the cot slowly, wincing as he set down his arms. "Why are you doing this? I don't understand you. Most of them, they're sadists, but I don't see that in you." When she didn't reply, he sat up again. "I'm not trying anything," and indeed his tone held none of that sly flirting quality. "I want to know. I'm trying to understand this, where I am, why... I saw cruelty as a cop, I thought I knew what humans were capable of doing to one another, but here..."
"I'm not sadistic," she denied. "Most of us aren't." At least they didn't begin that way. "If you could know why... You might even agree to it, if we could only tell you."
"Agree to it?" He sounded almost amused, even through the pain. "Agree to torture? For what, the sake of scientific discovery?"
"Is that all you think this is? Is that what you think of me?" She shook her head. "I'm not Dr. Frankenstein. And I don't pull wings off flies, either. This goes beyond you--and it goes beyond me, too, you should know. I've devoted myself to this work for a reason--"
"Curiosity's hardly an excuse for torture--"
"It's not merely curiosity. And it isn't torture!" her protest overrode him. "Studies. We need to know your abilities' secrets. Physical and mental. We don't merely want to know--we need to."
"Why?" And there was earnest desperation in his question.
"For the world. For humanity." When he began to laugh, a harsh, twisted sound, she snapped, "No! Not for knowledge! But for what that knowledge can do. For what it will do--for what it will save." She had his attention undivided. "There are dangers you know nothing of, Ellison. There are threats, not only to the innocent, but to everyone, guilty or innocent, and if you believe any of them worthy of protection you won't fight us or our tests."
He wasn't breaking eye contact. Or maybe he couldn't. She had seen the devotion fiery in others' eyes and wondered if it now shone so fiercely in her own. "I am sorry that you have to endure this--but you do. The good of the many--"
"I've heard that one before," he muttered, but when she looked closer she saw in his expression, not disbelief, but shock. And she knew she had reached him somehow.
He stopped arguing. He still spoke to her sometimes but not to argue and rarely to question. At first she nearly thought she had convinced him. Soon enough however she understood how he was humoring her, that he had decided she was beyond reason. No purpose offering logic to a zealot, and so he didn't try.
He confessed this freely when she accused him of it. "I've seen people willing to do anything for 'the greater good.' Whatever it takes to get what they want, for whatever reasons. I know--I knew quite a few criminals more 'noble' in their pursuits than even you. More devoted, more self-sacrificing. To you, the ends justify the means--"
"Not always," she answered him. She almost wished she could explain it. Of course that was forbidden with good reason, impossible to make him believe. If only he would trust her regardless...but she knew better than that.
Strange, though. After her explanation, though he was initially angry, he didn't seem to hate her. Not with the passion he had before. This wasn't a trick; she observed him too closely for that. He didn't understand what they were doing, the overriding purpose, but in a way he understood her. Enough that he wouldn't question what she was doing, only her devotion to it. And sometimes she could almost believe him when he said he pitied her more than he did himself. He at least was held against his will, fighting his imprisonment. She surrendered to it.
She didn't think he completely realized her own parts in the tests. Especially as her experiments were not the blunt, direct attacks on his self that he had become resigned to. A specific angle of the experiment, to catch him off-guard, the stimulus a part of their ongoing discussions.
"You were a detective, you know."
He glared at her for that. "My memory's fine."
"That wasn't what you indicated before."
Some hesitation. "I didn't know you as well."
"So you remember Cascade." She waited for his agreement. "And they most likely remember you. The city has changed in your absence."
He didn't hide his apprehension. "How?"
"The crime rate has risen. A national phenomenon, of course, but more pronounced in your former city. The general consensus is that the Cascade police department no longer does its job, either from fatigue or out and out corruption."
"That's impossible," he said flatly. "I know at least one captain who would never take a bribe and would never give up. No matter how hopeless or exhausting it was to go on."
She shrugged. "Perhaps, but if so it isn't enough. I know this no longer is your concern--"
"The hell it isn't! You took me away, but I still have a duty--"
"And you think you could affect this?" she inquired curiously.
"Yes! No." Honesty warred with modesty. "I might--I have to try. You've been 'learning' so much about me, finding my secrets like you said. Then you must know--I'm a Sentinel. I guard, I protect, I always have and I always will. Blair would blame it on my genes--" He closed his mouth abruptly.
"That would be Blair Sandburg? So he did talk with you about your abilities," she mused.
"Of course he did," he scoffed. "He was studying me, I'm sure you already knew. Maybe not quite as invasively as you but it came down to the same thing. Testing theories and finding facts as if I'm some exotic new species. The only difference is that he at least wrote down and taught what he learned. I doubt you're being so public."
"One of the negatives of this," she agreed. "But he published?"
"Everything," he assured her. "At least in his notes, which the University had copies. If he's finished his dissertation yet it'll all be in there, I'm sure. Sandburg was nothing if not thorough. I doubt he'd hold back anything--not even confidentiality, since I'm not there to insist on it. Believe me, everything he knows he's published somehow. You've probably studied it all already."
"Most likely." She paused. "So we shouldn't bother with Mr. Sandburg himself, only with his work."
"He doesn't have anything you'd want," Ellison muttered, but she caught the swift flash in his eyes. He was aware of how easily she had seen through his ploy; there was venom in his look, ire. And greater than that, fear.
"I'll advise them so," she remarked, and even with his stoically set features the relief was unmistakable.
What this and other encounters told her, beyond what she noted in the main log, was that he was beginning to trust her. Not greatly, and not too far, but he believed her to be halfway honorable, maybe even a decent person, aside from her position in this affair. If she had thought she had a chance of convincing him of the true danger they were defending, she would have explained it in spite of the rules.
This she dutifully reported. Emotional bond forming between observer and subject. Possible threat to professional detachment.
Her reports were written but they soon called her in to question her directly. Her superior came straight to the point as was his habit, demanded she describe the direction and magnitude of the developing influence.
"He's becoming attached to me to an extent," she carefully explained. "He perceives me as an ally in an environment of enemies. But this has taken time, and while establishing this role I feel I've been adopting it myself. I like the man, Doctor. I'm not infatuated with him, but I enjoy his company, speaking with him. I find myself disturbed by some of the tests you put him through, though I understand the necessity. And I feel hurt if he is angry with me because of them."
"This influence he has on you, whether or not he's aware of it--could it affect your judgment concerning the subject?"
"It might," she admitted frankly.
"Would you recommend us changing your assignment, to a more neutral position or to another subject altogether?"
"I might," she whispered.
"But you're willing to continue as you've been doing." Not even bothering to confirm this with her, and barely a pause to decide. "You will continue. Since this influence is mutual, and so far it has proven productive. This isn't unexpected; we are human, Doctor. It would be unnatural to expect no emotional involvement whatsoever on your part. Your decisions regarding the subject will be checked by more neutral parties. Otherwise, return to your work as usual."
"Yes," she nodded, and obeyed. Not sure how to feel about it but accepting their decision.
They, however, had no reason to regret their choice. The worth of her influence was proved only a few short days later. "He's escaped," the intercom told her.
She lifted the receiver. "When? How? Where is he?" The subcutaneous tracker should answer the last; the others would be a matter of record.
"We initialized a new series two hours ago. Apparently his sedation level was underestimated, or perhaps the stimuli were. He broke through the observation panel, physically incapacitated the two testers, and fled. He is in the lower levels of the complex now." Underground; no escape there, but unlikely he would realize this.
She briefly discussed their options. Obviously letting him stay was out of the question; by the time he fell significant damage could be done. But taking him by force could prove dangerous to both the subject and the hunters. And the standard method of tranquilizers would be ineffective, given his unusual reactions and as the series he had been participating in involved significant chemical therapy already. Another dosage might well prove fatal.
After weighing the possibilities in a few seconds she determined there was only one feasible solution. "Let me go and talk to him."
"Doctor, this course is unadvised--too risky--" began the other.
"Unfortunately it's the only option we have." She hung up. By the time she reached the door two security men stood there, flanking her as she proceeded to the elevator. They said nothing but their assistance would be appreciated.
Using the beacon under his skin she tracked him through the halls. He progressed slowly and was losing speed. By the time they arrived at his location he was leaning heavily against the wall, face paler than ever and bathed in sweat. Yet he still moved, determinedly staggering in one direction, trying to make his unknown destination.
The younger of the two guards shrugged, said low-voiced, "We can handle this, doctor," and started forward, his partner behind him.
What happened next was unclear, so swiftly did he act. The guard reached out, as if to catch him when he surely fell, and then the subject snapped around, eyes wide, and hit him, a sharp fast blow to the temple which the unprepared guard had no time to block. The man dropped like a lead weight; Ellison seemed to fall with him--
Except he rose again, and in his hands was the guard's gun, aimed and cocked at the second security man, rock-steady grip though his body shuddered as if in a seizure.
"Drop it," he ordered, "put down your weapon and get out of here." His words were slurring around the edges and he was supported by the wall behind him, but the gun didn't waver.
"Do it," she whispered, and after a quick nervous glance in her direction the other guard obeyed, backed away slowly. Not willing to leave entirely but enough to placate him.
Having his command followed seemed to confuse him; he frowned at them for several seconds before speaking again. "Where am I? How do I get out of here?"
From several meters away she could see how dilated his pupils were even under the bright light, clouded with the drugs' influences. His tone might sound fierce, but accustomed to his moods she could read the lost bewilderment in his voice, the disorientation. He was fighting it as he always did, but for once he was losing the battle.
No purpose to her knowing these things unless she could use them. "You're in a basement," she told him carefully. "The basement of a hospital."
"Why?" Angry and yet plaintive at the same time, a cry for answers denied his muddled mind.
"You're sick," and she gave him answers, knowing how he wanted them. Knowing too that if he allowed himself to trust anything he heard, it would be from her, the only one he was at all accustomed to. Hoping that she was not testing their tentative bond past its limits, "You're injured, we need to help you. But you need to put down the gun first, you need to put down the gun so we can help you."
She held her breath; and for a moment it seemed he would listen to her, his brow furrowing as he focused on the gun. But he refused to lower it. "Where are you going to take me?"
"Back to your room. That's all," she assured him. "Just come with us. We'll help you."
Slowly he nodded, and she could see the weariness in his eyes, fatigue etched into every line on his face. His arm wilted, the gun falling from limp fingers. The guard surged forward before she could stop him.
Ellison's fist whipped out, connecting with the man's chin and knocking him flat. He barely seemed aware that he had acted, wild-eyed as he stared at her. He made no attempt to regain the gun; most of his concentration was focused on staying upright.
"Where--" he panted, "where's Blair?" Every syllable anguished.
Pain, but also despair, a hopeless longing. That desperation was all that fueled him now. All he sought.
She hesitated for a split second, wondering if she dared, wondering what the consequences would be if she did not. But he was lost, confused, the senses he deeply relied upon playing him false in his twisted unnatural world, and so desperate that she had a chance.
"I'm here," she murmured, deepening her voice, not overly so but enough to disguise the obvious femininity. "Jim, I'm here."
"Blair?" Faintly, his knees buckling as he collapsed against the wall.
"I'm here," she repeated softly, and against the guard's protest she went to him. Put her arms around his shoulders, for the first time touching the man, the subject she had been assigned to all those weeks before. He leaned into her, she wondered if he was even aware of her presence, not crying for all his pain but his body shaking with suppressed sobs. No words, and yet she could feel him calling out, a quiet silent plea, and it broke something inside of her that she could not truly answer it. Offering only the false sympathy she was free to give, but she felt the bond between them increase.
They brought him back to his cell, laid him with indifferent gentleness on the cot. For hours he didn't move, and she sat still and watched his sleep.
Finally his eyes opened and he gasped, "Where am I?"
"Where you've always been." No need for deception now.
"I can't see." If there had been pain in his voice before, now there was horror, stark and unavoidable. "Everything's black."
The lights were dim but present; she could clearly make out his profile, mouth parted as he tried to calm his breathing. "It's most likely an aftereffect of the drugs," she reassured him. "It will pass."
Eventually he drifted back to sleep, and when his lids lifted again they could see as clearly as ever. It wasn't over.
But it was the beginning of the end.
"How can you justify this?" he demanded of her sometime later. "How can you shrug this off now, when there's no reason for it? Nothing you do is helping you, it's only hurting me! What are you learning now?"
"We need to know," though the words sounded hollow even to her. "We need to understand why..."
It had happened slowly. The blindness after the escape attempt had returned other nights, times when no drugs were involved. He would awaken and be able to see nothing, his pupils shrinking and expanding in reaction to light but he never flinching, oblivious to what his eyes picked up.
By morning all would be well, but then he began to go deaf as well, unable to hear and jerked awake by the unnatural silence. One night he woke to find himself deprived of both sight and sound, shouting when he couldn't hear his own voice. Finally she had to lower the partition and approach him. To her surprise he relaxed under her touch, quieted and finally fell back asleep, clasping her hand as if the contact were enough to calm him. In the morning he was recovered and made no mention of what had happened, as if he didn't know it to be any more than a dream.
In the tests too he was affected. They brought it to her attention, the diminished performance. His senses spiking beyond the limits of their scales and his endurance, and then they'd shrink to nothing, he not reacting to the brightest flare or the sharpest prod. They noted as well the increasing number of times he lost himself in a particular sensation; "zoning" as they referred to it. Blair Sandburg's word apparently, which they used with contemptuous disapproval.
She thought it remarkably appropriate for all its common etymology. The blankness of his look when he fell prey to it indeed suggested another zone of consciousness. At times she found she could actually bring him from such a zone; quietly calling his name would tear him free of his involuntary trance. Other times there would be no effective course of action save waiting for him to come out of it on his own.
Either way, the frequency of the incidents increased. And then a new trend appeared in the reports: 'subject responds normally.' 'Stimulus achieves effect at common threshold.' 'Sensory range typical for subject's average type.'
For all intents and purposes, Ellison's superior senses were disappearing.
They brought her to one of the testing sessions. Although she had participated in those of other subjects and had read the reports of his, she had never actually witnessed his own. She followed the older scientist through the halls, making no effort to memorize the twists and corners turned in the sterile passages.
He was strapped to one of the flat angled platforms, arms and legs secured, blindfolded and drugged into silence. As she entered they removed the mask and his weary eyes spotted her. Narrowed, lips pursed as if he might speak--
From behind they grabbed her, dragged her backwards. She didn't fight them, unaware of their plans but confident in her safety. The lights darkened and she was thrust into a small room, a lock clicking shut as the door closed. A man was with her, an assistant she was only vaguely acquainted with.
"Don't speak, Doctor," he whispered menacingly, "or I will kill you. Otherwise there will just be a little pain..." He continued mumbling threats, but he made no move toward her, nor did he seem armed.
She was about to shout when he darted forward, covered her mouth with one hand and held a finger before his own lips, "Shhhh, that's it, don't talk, don't say anything--"
The door behind her vibrated with a sudden impact. "Let her go!" she heard a muffled voice exclaim. "I thought she was one of you, not one of your rats, she hasn't done anything except support you!"
The assistant stepped back, dropping all pretense. The door slid open and beyond it she saw Ellison being secured again to the platform, injected with yet another sedative. He didn't even see her emerge, or the man turn to her, "Sorry for the theatrics, Doctor."
"What was the point?" she demanded of the scientists. "What can you learn from playing make-believe?"
"That's the first time he's displayed any hypersensitivity for the past week," came the explanation. "Heightened hearing and possibly heightened sight--he's not losing them; he's suppressing them. We just needed an emotional stimulus. He has bonded to you, hasn't he?"
"So it seems," she agreed, only partially mollified.
Four days later they tried it again, a different situation but the same basic element, supposedly endangering her life. And again Ellison reacted, his arrested senses emerging to help him deal with the crisis. His control over them was rudimentary at best, nowhere near the fine and delicate discipline he had exhibited initially years before. But at least they were still present.
But however elaborate they made the scenarios, it didn't take him long to realize that no matter what might appear to happen to her, every evening she would be before his cell, whole and unharmed. Their designs became more extreme, yet began failing to evoke any reaction.
Then once the needle pierced her skin and her scream was unfeigned. It was more from shock than serious pain, but that evening before she left he said, low-voiced as if that could prevent them from being overheard, "It was real today, wasn't it?"
"I'm not injured," she demurred.
"But it hurt. How long before they figure out it will take more than that to get a rise out of me?" He paused, not ending the conversation but pondering his own question. "When they decide it's necessary--you aren't going to matter. It doesn't matter how loyal you are, if they think it's for their cause, they'll do whatever they need to do. I don't count, but neither do you."
She didn't protest. What could she say?
"And you'll just let them," he growled. "Roll over on your back and let them rip you apart, if you think it'll further whatever the hell it is you're trying to do."
Another silence before he said, "I won't let them. It won't help them. You understand? Tell them that--they aren't getting anything more from me. I've given them all the data I'm going to. I have no one to protect, no tribe to help, no purpose--I'm not a Sentinel anymore." He stretched out on his cot. "Tell them that, or not, it doesn't matter. Eventually they'll see it for themselves."
The lights faded to nothing, and he watched her depart, his eyes tracking through the blackness. She saw this on the night video records later, how he saw her despite the lack of light. It was the last time he would ever exhibit a heightened sense in their presence.
It took the others a long time to realize the truth of this, however. And even after they had pushed him past any limits he had reached before, even after they had used her as stimulus, as bait, even truly endangered her life with rescue coming almost too late, even after every one of them had tested and prodded and incited and cursed him, they still kept on with their experiments, hoping for one final flare of the abilities they had devoted themselves to studying.
They brought him back half-crazed from such a session, raving about demons and murderers, people of fire and endless expanses of water. For hours he raged against the confines of his cell, beating his fists against the transparent partition and shouting for release, assistance, invoking the name of the partner he called for only when unaware.
She watched him closely, judging whether he could harm himself and decided he was safe, at least physically. When finally he calmed and collapsed unconscious on the cot, she stayed present, monitoring his breathing while it gradually slowed and evened out. A dreamless sleep, or at least a paralyzed one, in which he moved not at all except for the slight rise and fall of his chest.
So much later that she dozed in the interim, she realized his eyes were open, staring at the ceiling. She rose, perhaps to leave, perhaps to speak, but he did so first, "You still don't understand."
She stayed and listened. "All your tests," he breathed, so quietly, his lips hardly moving as he gazed upward. "All your experiments, all your science. All this time you've studied me and you still don't understand what I was. You never got it." He shifted, pushed himself to a seated position and looked at her through the partition. "You knew it was genetic and you thought that's all it was, just in my genes, just a little trick that my DNA pulled on me.
"Oh, you understood that maybe part of it was training. I learned a bit from those Indians in Peru," and his tone was twisted with sarcasm, "picked up a little from those savages, but how could /they/ understand anything, without testing it and measuring it and bending it until they saw when it would break?
"They aren't scientists, you'd never listen to them, and Blair was hardly a scientist, but at least he could write up what he knew in your jargon, he was a little better than the Chopec, wasn't he? Just a bit, enough to get your attention, enough to let you know that there was something you could study here, maybe something you could learn. Only you haven't. You've tried and done everything you were trained to do and taught to do, and you have all these words to describe it and numbers to prove it, and you still know nothing.
"Blair didn't write everything down, have you figured out that yet? He wrote almost nothing, he wrote all he needed to, but he knew so much more, he knows so much more. He knew more after a day with me than you've learned in the last--how long has it been? And after three--" for the first time he stopped, swallowed before he could go on, "after three years he knew me better than any man ever has, more than any man should be able to, and I knew him, and what we knew, you could never write it all down. Not in a thousand years, that's what you'll never understand, how you can't quantify an infinity.
"You have all the science, all those answers, you know exactly what I can do and what I can't do, and how far I could see, and how softly I could hear. But you can't make it work again, you can't make me see again. I'm blind as far as you're concerned, I'm deaf, I'm senseless, and you can't restore that. You're doctors but you can't heal anything; you're scientists and all you can do is destroy, can't put the pieces back the way they belong.
"You never got it, how there was more than science, how much more there was. Physical and spiritual, but you could only grasp what you could touch, and now you've lost that too. I've never seen the panther here, or the wolf. It's too sterile for them, nothing living, everything here is dead. I need life to live, people all need it, and I live for it, I lived to protect it. That was the why you never saw, the answer you never heard. Just like you never understood that there was more to this than me, that a Sentinel is more than one man, that half of everything I was is in another. And you don't know either how glad I am that's true..." He took a breath and released it, a shaking sound like a choked laugh, "At least half my soul is still alive, my better half, my Guide my partner my friend you'll never have and never understand, the only reason I've gone on so long, because he's still there and free and keeping safe the best of our Sentinel's spirit..."
He sank down against the cot, his words trailing off into nothing, folding his arms around himself and closing his eyes before any tears could fall. She left quietly, allowed him solitude in his cell to absorb the loss he had only just realized.
Going to the central monitoring station, she intended to find the record of his words and delete them, but they had already been forwarded to higher levels, their significance not missed by whoever had been observing. In vain she argued that they meant little, that he had been speaking in a drugged haze of pain and fatigue. What he had accused had been taken to heart, and they had already begun the process of analyzing his statements, interpreting what he had said and seeking the knowledge he swore had been denied to them.
He awoke fully the next night. Whispered, to the ceiling or to her, "I gave you too much."
"We would have learned eventually," she murmured, knowing it to be an empty comfort.
"No, you wouldn't have." He rolled over to face the wall, as if he couldn't allow her to see his face.
She hesitated before she spoke, "We're almost finished."
"Are you?" No hope or interest in his muffled tone. "A few final tests and then they dispose of the lab rat."
"No," she denied.
He sat up, hands rubbing his face as if to wipe away the lines marring it. "I was a cop, a long time ago, did you know that? Of course you do," he frowned, confused. "You know everything, of course. I was a cop, I know I was. The smart criminals always destroy the evidence. You're not stupid. And I'm evidence."
"I know," she said quietly. "But I won't let them."
It took much arguing, many long discussions with so many of the other scientists involved, debates with the superiors of the particular project as well as the directors of the over-reaching purpose. Ironically it was his own words that provided her with the most fuel. She tried to avoid the specifics, made little mention of what he had said about partners and friends and the spirit of what he had been.
Instead she pointed out their need to observe him in the real world, and the hope that the return to his original environment might rouse his buried senses. Like an animal, the way she referred to his behavior, like a specimen in a zoo, all instinct, never could she call on his emotions or his reason. No mention could be made of the man himself, that he was as capable as any of them of thought and feeling. To realize his humanity was to acknowledge the wrongness of their acts, and their dedication to the purpose could not falter. Too much depended on it.
Her dedication could not falter.
At last she was able to come to him, stand before his cell and say, "It's decided." When she had his attention, "Our work is over. You will be released back into your society."
His eyes widened at that. "Released?" As if doubting the word. As if he no longer could understand its meaning.
She nodded. "They aren't going to 'dispose' of you; you're too valuable a subject, I've convinced them. They're sending you back to where you belong. Out there, with other people, and maybe you can return to your work. Become a policeman again, and protect a community, a tribe, as your predecessors did."
Suddenly his eyes flashed with a blue fire she had thought long extinguished. "I'll protect them, I'll protect people from them," and he waved his hand wide, indicating the cell and all that lay beyond it. "I'll make them pay, not for what they did to me, but for everyone else who they didn't release, who wasn't 'valuable' enough to bother saving. And I'll see to it that no one is ever hurt or broken or murdered like this again."
She looked away, shook her head, "You won't be able to."
"I will," and there was no undermining the determination in his growl. "I'll report it all, I'll testify, no threats you can make would stop me. This is too big to ever hide, and too evil to let continue." Then oddly his voice softened. "But I'll remember you, too, as proof that it was people doing this, and that there are some here still human. I won't forget what you've done for me..."
"You will," she whispered. "When they're finished, if you remember anything at all it will be the pain and the fear. The nightmares. It's all you'll have left of this place, more than you'll need or want. And there will be nothing to remind you that there was anything more."
She headed toward the exit, and he approached the partition, put his palm flat against it. She turned back, "They'll transfer tomorrow, and eventually they'll return you to where you belong."
"Will you be there, doctor?" Very softly.
"No," and she walked out before any more could be said, before he could decide whether he wanted to wish a farewell to his observer. Before she could say good-bye, as if to a friend, when all she truly did was leave a subject to be assigned to another, or perhaps to go contribute to one of the other experiments, or perhaps to sink herself into pure theoretical research using others' data and findings. Perhaps to continue down the halls until she reached the gates of the facility, drop her ident card and stride through them, listen to the bolts lock permanently behind her.
Almost four months later she caught a glimpse of him docilely lead into one of the glass-roofed courtyards, where he squinted at the sun, tried to lift limp hands in protest. His skin was so pale it almost seemed white, already reddening in the hot rays. They released him and he only stood there, eyes half-closed against the unfamiliar brilliance, basking in the warmth, too weak to run and not aware that he could walk. There was nowhere he knew to go.
She walked by to satisfy her curiosity. No new wounds on him and he seemed unaware of his older scars, just as he ignored the burning of the sun's radiation. His eyes tracked her progress by him but he made no response, neither in position nor expression, not even a hint of recognition.
One of the assistants near him nodded to her, smiling a little at the proof of her patient's progress. "He never even knew your name; it wasn't difficult to erase you entirely," she murmured in a low voice, one that Ellison could have heard long before but not now. "Don't worry about it, he'll never identify you now."
She accepted her colleague's judgment, headed back to her work and didn't wait to see where next they took him.
A few weeks afterwards she was present when they brought him to the van, secured in place the stretcher bearing his comatose body. Several of the medics gathered around assuring the stability of his condition, and she slipped between them. Looked down at his face one final time.
Tanned, from the recent exposures to the sun. The hair had been neatly cut and all visible scars had been removed, but there were marks they couldn't wipe away. Creases drawn by time, age, that couldn't be counteracted. And lines from stress and pain and torture indelibly imprinted into his flesh, the only part of his experience that they couldn't cancel; all he had left of six years and more.
One of the doctors thumbed back his eyelid and examined the pupil, visual check of what brainwave analysis had already ascertained. Even in the little penlight his blank eye was icy blue, the same vivid shade that had been the first thing she noticed when she began observing him.
She touched his shoulder but of course there was no response; it would be many days before he had recovered enough to awaken. Many more still before he began to act anything like the man she had almost known, though he would never be quite like that subject, never could he be exactly what he had been before.
She wondered how much he would heal, how much of his self would eventually come back to him. Out there, if ever he remembered, if ever he could regain it, out there lived a man who had half his soul. If he could find him, if there were any way he could return, perhaps he would not be lost. Perhaps the pieces could be put back as they belonged after all.
Unseen as the others attended to their preparations, she knelt beside him. In his ear she breathed, "Seek Blair, Sentinel, find your partner. Become again what you were."
She straightened as they came back around, finished up the last details and closed the portal. The van thrummed to life, began winding its way up the driveway and into the world, bringing him to a hospital where the real treatment would begin. Her eyes followed it until it turned a corner out of sight. She lifted her hand slightly, lowered it before anyone noticed the wave. Whispered softer than any could hear, "Good luck, Jim."
Then through the gates she walked outside.