So he would go on vacation. Let things settle down. He’d get his lawyers on it, extricate himself from the situation, and get everything back on track. The military contract should still hold up, and he already had some places picked out in Mexico for N-Som production.
Rothchilde yawned. Before he could do anything, he had to take care of Halloran’s headless corpse, decaying in his office. Messy. Rothchilde tried to think of someone he could call to assist him, someone who would ask no questions. But he didn’t place his trust in many people.
His servants would to it, if ordered to. They feared him. Maybe he could have them wrap up the body, haul it someplace secluded, and then Rothchilde could kill them, too. No witnesses. The only problem was replacing them; it was so hard to find good help these days.
Rothchilde rubbed his eyes. Exhaustion seemed to settle on him like a thick blanket. Sleep now wouldn’t be wise. He needed to be alert and focused to deal with everything happening.
There was N-Som back at the mansion. He hadn’t taken any since the day before, so he was ready for another dose.
But he didn’t have to wait until he got back home, did he?
Rothchilde stuck a hand in his pocket and pulled out the capsules Theena had made from Halloran’s brain. He’d killed the captain just a few hours ago, but already the memory of the act was fading.
Maybe what he needed right now was a refresher.
He opened the onboard cooler and took out a Perrier. The pill went down easily, bubbles mixing with a pleasant tang of residual blood, and he settled back in his seat, ready to re-experience his first murder from the victim’s point of view.
Rothchilde closed his eyes, a sweet smile settling on his face. The anticipation was exquisite. Better than the Christmas Eves of youth, waiting for Santa.
The first effects of N-Som were sensory. Sounds became blurry, touch was muted. Opening the eyes yielded a dark, fuzzy world, which dimmed as the drug took hold, eventually spiraling the user into blackness. Then the dreams began.
But Rothchilde felt nothing.
He waited. Normally, he’d have been under by now. Was it taking so long because the sample was fresh? Theena mentioned that she didn’t have all the equipment to make pills at the lab, and so she’d given him a capsule. Did the fresh stuff take a longer time to get into the bloodstream?
Minutes passed. His smile faded. He began to wonder if the little whore had duped him.
A moment later, he realized just how duped he had been.
Albert Rothchilde had forgotten how to breathe.
He thought he was unconsciously holding his breath at first, tense because the N-Som hadn’t kicked in. But when he tried to inhale, he found that he just couldn’t. His lungs refused to obey.
His eyes flapped open and he tensed, the first stirrings of panic building inside him. This was impossible. A person just didn’t forget how to breathe. Breathing was automatic. He opened his mouth and sucked in his stomach, trying to fill his lungs. It didn’t work.
Had Rothchilde known anything about anatomy, he might have noticed that Theena hadn’t harvested the parts of Halloran’s brain normally used for N-Som production. Instead she’d gone deeper down, into the brain stem, and taken sections of the medulla oblongata.
These fibrous neurons housed a very primitive part of the brain; the reflex centers. They controlled a person’s swallowing, sneezing, heartbeat, blood pressure, and breathing.
Just as a regular dose of N-Som overrode a person’s thoughts, this refined dose was overriding Rothchilde’s instinctive knowledge of how to breathe.
Rothchilde began to see red. His lungs screamed at him, begging for air, but his brain was full of reflex neurons that had frozen in death.
His heart stopped next, in mid beat. The pressure in his chest was excruciating. Every nerve cell in his body fired, sending out distress signals to the brain in the form of pain. Rothchilde’s brain responded by ordering the release of adrenaline, which did nothing but heighten his awareness of his terrible situation.
Rothchilde thrashed in his chair. Every muscle in his body burned, starving for oxygen. Black spots mingled with the red in his vision. He tried to scream, but nothing came out.
The pilot, Frederick, couldn’t have done anything even if he’d left the controls. All of Rothchilde’s systems were crashing. The reflex center of Rothchilde’s brain was convinced it was dead, and it was just following orders.
Rothchilde went rigid as he was seized by a spasm of pure agony. He voided his bowels and bladder. His vital organs began to shut down. Rothchilde was helpless, and aware that he was helpless, and the frantic struggle for breath coupled with the body-wracking pain was more than his mind could handle.
The neurons in his head all fired at once, and during that microsecond they burned into him an eternity of torture without escape.
He was no longer rational at this point, or he might have seen the irony. He had, after all, wanted to experience Halloran’s death.
Frederick began emergency landing procedures, but there was no hurry.
The president of American Products was dead long before they touched the ground.
Jack Kilborn
Disturb
“The ambulance is on the way, Theena.”
Theena didn’t respond. She looked terrible. Her face was pale, waxy, and her jowls seemed deflated, hanging limply on her face. But her pulse was strong, and she was awake and aware.
Bill touched her cheek. “Are you thirsty?”
She shook her head.
Eventually, Bill would have to go upstairs. He wanted to be there to greet the authorities. But he still had reservations about leaving Theena alone. He’d started her on a streptokinase drip to prevent blood clots from clogging her heart. It was a risky move, considering her injury, but that was looking surprisingly well.
“Where are we?” Her voice was hoarse, low.
“DruTech, the lower levels. In the gym.”
Her eyes swept the room, coming to rest on Manny. The ax was still buried in his back.
“Manny’s dead.”
“I’m sorry, Theena. I didn’t have any choice.”
Theena’s shoulders began to shake. She was too dehydrated to form tears, but she cried just the same. Bill held her, sharing some of her grief.
He hadn’t wanted to kill Manny, but at the same time he knew it was the right thing to do. Not only did it save Theena, but in a strange sort of way it had saved Manny as well. Bill hoped the man was finally at peace.
“I’m going to check on the cops. Will you be okay for a few minutes?”
Theena didn’t answer. She just stared at the puddle of her own blood, congealing on the floor.
Bill kissed her forehead, then got to his feet and grabbed the N-Som file. The rubber band broke, spilling papers all over the gym floor.
He bent over, the pain flaring in his shoulder, and began to gather them up. Every single sheet was important. This was more than just proof N-Som was dangerous. This was evidence of murders. Many murders.
His hand closed around one of Manny’s CT scans, a three dimensional picture of his brain. It was labeled Day 45. There was so much scar tissue it was surprising he had lived up to that point.
Bill examined the picture closer, reading the handwriting on the margin. His stomach clenched.
This wasn’t Manny’s scan.
He searched through the papers until he found the log. Written in Dr. Nikos’s hand. A day-by-day account of the second clinical test subject. Someone else, besides Manny, who’d been taking N-Som and hadn’t slept in over one thousand hours. Someone else, whose brain was just as fried.
Bill heard movement behind him. He spun around, his head swimming, shocked beyond words. How could this be so? How could he have missed this? He remembered when he first met Theena, her telling him about another test subject.
“Theena…”
She stood over him, her face oddly calm. Her eyes were distant, unrecognizable.
