“Forget the apartment. Head toward the industrial sector!”
“What about your friend?”
“Change of plan!”
11
Strike
Zoe Ott—The Green Room
I remembered falling, and my head hurt like it had hit the floor, but when I opened my eyes I was sitting down in a folding chair. The white light was gone, and it had gotten very quiet.
Looking around, I saw I was back in the green concrete room, a single fluorescent light flickering above my head. The table was in front of me, and down at the far end were three figures, the first two kind of hanging limp in the dark and the last one standing with a light shining down on her from the ceiling.
The green room wasn’t real. Whatever happened back in the real world, it zapped me into a vision.
That’s what the guy said right before it happened…. Another consciousness rushed into my head all at once, filling my brain with her thoughts. She pounced like she’d been struggling to reach someone for a long time and finally got the chance.
Whoever she was, she was in pain and she was desperate. When her mind flooded mine, I had the feeling she couldn’t see me and didn’t know who or where I was. It didn’t matter that it was me; it didn’t matter who I was. I was someone—anyone—who might be able to help her.
She wasn’t just calling out for help; she was trying to dominate me. She was using the same abilities I used on others all the time. When she tried to take control, I reflexively threw a wall up between us. The next thing I knew, I was sitting in the chair.
The chair legs scraped across the floor as I pushed it back and stood up. When I looked around, I saw the metal door that led out of the room was hanging open. A woman was standing in the doorway, but she was pushed up against the empty space like there was an invisible wall. She had really hollow cheekbones and sunken eyes. Her hair was ratty, and her forehead was pressed to the invisible wall like it was too heavy for her to hold up straight. I could see two big flaps of skin draping down over either side of her neck, and the whole back of her skull and top of her spine were exposed. A square hole had been sawed in the bone, and a bunch of long needles stuck up out of the hole like she was a human pincushion.
I made myself step closer. There were three star tattoos near one of her eyes.
“Who are you?” I asked.
She was saying something, over and over. I couldn’t hear her, but I could make it out when I watched her lips.
When I looked close, I could see very faint, very thin threads of light trailing from my head and stretching out between us. I followed them to the ends of the needles.
“I know you,” I said.
She was the one that showed up in my bathroom, back before I met Nico. She told me that I’d end her pain. She was like me. The ones who took me, they did this. They connected us together. They wired us up so they could watch this happen.
“Why are they doing this?” I asked out loud, but she looked as though she couldn’t hear me.
“Your place is with us,” a voice said from behind me. I turned around and saw what I thought at first was a little boy, but it turned out to be a very small Asian woman with a short haircut. She was standing off to the side where the dead woman with the split heart usually stood, and was dressed in a smart little navy skirt and suit coat with a white blouse. Her shoes and clothes all looked very expensive, and if the diamonds in her jewelry were real, then they must have cost a fortune. Her tiny nails were manicured and painted, and her makeup was carefully applied so that she almost looked pretty, but her lips and eyes were a little fishlike and her head was too big for her body.
“You were in the picture,” I said. She was in one of the photos Nico had left with me, the one my neighbor was interested in. She looked around the room, her eyes settling on the figures against the far wall.
“I’m not really here,” she said. “Neither of us is; this is a construct of your mind. You are alone, and you are in great danger. Do you understand?”
I nodded.
“The people who have taken you set up this facility in order to learn how our minds work. No one here will survive what is to come except for you, but only if you do what I say. Do you understand?”
There was something about her stare. I found myself nodding again.
“Yes.”
“Your life doesn’t have to be as pathetic as it is,” she said offhandedly. “People with less have achieved more.”
She gestured for me to follow as she moved toward the three figures. I moved around the other side of the table to join her.
The first two figures were Nico and the woman, the dead one with the broken heart that he had with him in the storage room. They both looked limp, like they were hanging from hooks. Her eyes were closed, but his were just a little bit open, orange light flickering behind them as they watched me.
“Why are they in the dark?” I asked.
“You failed them.”
“No—”
“You failed them.”
My face burned as I looked at Nico peering down at me. It wasn’t true. Maybe I failed the woman, but not him.
My eyes blurred and I felt tears run down my cheeks. The little woman didn’t seem to notice or care; she just turned to the last one, the one that was still lit. It was that ugly, muscular woman, the mean-looking one with the short hair. The light over her got a little brighter.
“I didn’t fail him,” I said, but the woman ignored me.
“It’s time to call her,” she said.
“Why her?”
“Some are more open than others, and like it or not, there is a connection between you. Reach out to her now.”
I was going to ask how I was supposed to do that when I didn’t know where she was and I didn’t even know where I was, but the woman just kept staring into my eyes, and after a couple seconds an image started to form in my head.
“Focus.”
The image took shape and I saw the mean- looking woman on a motorcycle, snow spitting past her as the collar of her leather coat ruffled in the wind. I thought I saw someone riding in back of her—a man—but it wasn’t clear.
“Focus.”
I tried to focus on her, but the woman with the needles kept pushing at the invisible barrier across the
