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Friday, October 06, 2006
13:48 
A brief hiatus.
 A scenario? Another one? It must be. It has to be. She feels awake, it feels real, but her memory of how she came to be here is fuzzy and indistinct. She tries at least to hear beyond her immediate surroundings, just as she would try to hear what was happening in another room, searching for the sound of the television, the washing machine, anything from what is real.
There is a table on her left. She is sitting on a chair set parallel to the table edge. It is a rectangular table and has square legs that taper slightly towards the floor. The walls are a grey colour, tinged with blue. The remains of a drink are on the table. Hers. Coffee? Something stronger?
It resolves into a glass, as if a decision has only just been made as to what it was. White wine. She can taste it now on her tongue, is suddenly slightly inebriated. It has been some time since she had a drink and it is hitting her hard.
No. No, she is too suspicious; she would not have allowed herself to get drunk. Too wary of the man sitting just behind her right shoulder. She would not have been so stupid.
But she cannot shake it. Try as she might she remains thick of thought, unable to focus.
And then she feels him connect, the giddy sensation rushing through her body and up into her hindbrain. A fat injection of sodium pentothal in the solar plexus. She's fighting now, trying to clear her head as a drowning man tries to stay on the surface. She attempts to rise. Her legs will not respond, muscles twitching uselessly.
He puts her hand on her back, just below and between her shoulders.
"Shh," he says. Her awareness is sloshing around inside her heard and she struggles against the pressure to give in. Let go. Rest.
"No," she mumbles, mind scrabbling for clear ground. It is like the effort of concentration needed to thread a fine needle when stoned. Her brain wants to go to sleep.
"Ssh," he says again. "It's okay."
There is a sudden, sharp wrongness inside her chest and she loses control of her flesh. Her body collapses against him, leaving her adrift.
She is just aware of him holding her for a few seconds, long enough for her to take a breath, for the organism to start fighting back, to know she is not dead.
"Quickly," he says. His voice echoes somewhere far away. He is not talking to her. There is someone else there.
This realisation makes the shift catch from the tiny pilot light that never goes out. She can almost hear it: a soft whumph like a gas boiler. The iterations start ramping into full speed and her muscles are twitching as they set her on the floor.
"Is she fitting?" She knows that voice. Is he here?
"Shift iterations. Her systems are running trial re-routes to get around the break. We don't have long. Try and slow her down."
The shift is flashing through countless options for reconnecting her control centre. She hears the clink of metal, the creak of leather. Defence programming kicks in despite not yet having the pathways available to take action.
Something floods her system with dense stickiness and the iterations falter. The fire burns hotter to clear it. For a while there is an impasse, the stickiness pouring in as quickly as she can burn it out.
Then leather touches her skin. That single nervous impulse provides a seed for the form and it crystallises around it in a radiating wave like super-cooled, ultra-pure water freezing around a speck of dust falling on its surface.
It takes seconds. Awareness of her coming back on-line causes the man with the collar to fumble and she regains physical control before he has the buckle fastened.
"Hold her," he says. She jerks away from him: is physically restrained and hit with a massive blow of energetic interference that sets her reeling.
Grunting with the effort she fights to get away, wriggling so he is unable to fasten the buckle. He is getting angry and frustrated and she feeds off the emotion: her form reacting by mirroring it, taking it on, fuelling a hostile response that lends strength to her muscles and focus to her thoughts.
As soon as he lost his composure she had won. She knows this, knows he has lost control. Without control they cannot hold her.
A few seconds later she is on her feet, breathing hard, every muscle tense, an unvoiced growl in her throat. It no longer matters who the two men are: she might not even know them. All that matters is that one is angry and the other does not know what to do. Instinct and programming tell her to neutralise both of them and yet she just stands there, not even able to leave.
Some corner of her awareness is aware of an unidentified external observer making a note. Everything turns surreal, unreal, and there is something like a comment that has no voice and no words and that her mind translates as: "Larger critical break. Restraint enabled before self-catalysis."
Then she's sitting at a table, memory of what just happened already fading and turning foggy. A scenario? Another one? It has to be. She feels awake but her memory of how she came to be here is vague, indistinct. There is a man sitting behind her right shoulder and a mug containing dregs of coffee on the table to her left. The walls are bluish-grey: she is not sure, but that is how the colour tastes. Damp chalk with a hint of plasticine.
She is very tired. It has been a hard day. The coffee isn't helping.
And then she feels him connect, the giddy sensation rushing through her body and up into her hindbrain. A fat injection of sodium pentothal directly into the solar plexus. She fights, trying to clear her head as a drowning man fights to keep his head above water. She attempts to rise. Her legs will not respond, muscles twitching uselessly.
He puts her hand on her back, just below and between her shoulder blades.
"Shh," he says. Her awareness is sloshing around inside her head, submerged by the pressure to give in. Let go. Rest.
"No," she mumbles.
"Ssh," he says again. "It's okay."
There is a sudden, sharp wrongness inside her chest, spreading quickly, turning her insides into dead cardboard. She loses control of her flesh and collapses against him, mind set adrift.
For a few moments there is nothing. Absolute, utter nothing. Then she feels her chest expand, the organism fighting back in order to breathe and survive.
"Quickly," says the man. She hears the word but it does not matter. She might not even know what it means.
Hands lower her carefully to the floor. There is more than one pair of hands. Autonomic defences register non-Authority and defence programming is triggered. Damage has already been registered and the ever-burning pilot light ignites the shift with a soft whumph like a gas boiler catching, iterations accelerating rapidly up to full speed.
"Recovery has started. Try and slow her down."
Something floods her system with dense stickiness and the iterations falter. The fire burns hotter to clear it. For a while there is an impasse, the stickiness pouring in as quickly as she can burn it out.
Leather touches her skin. The iterations home in on the nervous signal, leaping forward to the required form. She regains minimal control of her muscles just as he is threading the strap through the buckle.
She jerks forwards reflexively. The collar is still around her neck, although it is not fastened.
"Hold her." She is physically restrained and hit with a massive blow of energetic interference that sets her reeling. Weakly, she fumbles for the collar, trying to take it off at the same time as trying to get away..
"Stop." She loses physical control again. He finishes threading the buckle, pulling the leather snug but not tight.
The binding bites immediately, capping the shift, restricting her form. Internal pressure starts to build.
Then it's over. She is sitting at home. The CD player has run out of discs and all is silent save for the soft sloshing of the sea against the harbour wall below the window.
Why is it that sometimes I have to tell a story of a thousand words to explain three little ones?
Broadband still unavailable at home. Awaiting an update from the fuckers at BT.
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