Shuttered Sky

Today Dillon was faced with a dead horse on a veterinary gurney.

Flies buzzed in a hazy cloud about its body and in and out of its nostrils. By the stench that filled the cylindrical expanse of the cooling tower, Dillon could tell the beast had been dead for quite some time.

Zero Team had been replaced by a single “zeroid,” as Dillon called him. A few minutes earlier, the zeroid had assiduously wheeled Dillon from his cell, through the connecting corridors, and out to the now familiar spot in the center of the cooling tower. The only difference was that Bussard attended his transit now to make sure that Dillon did not speak to this man. Once positioned in the center of the cooling tower floor, the zeroid exited to his ready room, to wait in an infor­mational void, never knowing what went on in his absence. Then Dillon would be alone with Bussard—an unpleasant circumstance, even if he hadn’t been locked down in an exoskeleton of tempered titanium. Sometimes Bussard would take the time to brief him on the nature of the “therapy session.” Other times he wouldn’t bother, since it was Dillon’s presence, and not his comprehension, that mattered. Then from his custom-built remote control, Bussard would open the door to the guest waiting area, and the circus would begin.

Usually it was dignitaries and statesmen of any and every nation­ality. Some walked in under their own power, others were so weak from the ravages of disease they needed to be wheeled in. Bussard would then show off Dillon like a trophy to those conscious enough to care. They would be allowed the honor of basking in Dillon’s pe­culiar incandescence for up to an hour. Then, regardless of how they came in, they would walk out under their own power, their vitality restored. They would then go for blood tests and MRIs elsewhere in the plant, tests administered by military physicians who, like everyone else, were insulated from the purpose of their task, never seeing those test results, or knowing their significance.

“Funny that people come to a nuclear plant to get cured,” Dillon had once commented during a well- attended session. Bussard didn’t find it funny, however, and when the guests were gone, he had hit the red button on the side of his remote, sending a surge of raw elec­tricity through him. Now Dillon didn’t say anything during the ses­sions. He saved his comments for those times he was left alone with Bussard.

“What do you get from these people?” Dillon once asked him, for it was obvious that this kind of operation was not an altruistic en­deavor—but Bussard merely invoked the “it’s a matter for military intelligence” clause, and left it at that. But Dillon really didn’t have to ask—he knew; he could read the pattern in the parade of visitors. Thanks to Dillon, life was now a bankable commodity. Every second spent in his presence was a quantum of health doled out with due diligence to those whose health best served the interest of American security. What diplomat or world leader would not mortgage their nation for a shot at eternal life?

And now there was the dead horse; a lump of flesh and bone not ten feet away from Dillon’s exoskeletal chair. Not even Bussard could stand the stench, covering his mouth and nose with a handkerchief drenched in cologne. But the stench quickly faded, and a cold wind swooped down the wide throat of the cooling tower to clear its residue. It only took but five minutes, and the horse whinnied in terror. Bussard quickly called in a team of wranglers as the animal flipped itself off the gurney, sending it clattering against the concrete wall.

“Subdue it,” Bussard instructed, “and bring it to the loading dock.” No doubt there was a horse trailer waiting. The men set themselves to the task. By the unremarkable look on their faces, it was obvious that these men did not know the horse had been dead just minutes before; they were only given orders to remove a horse. And the zeroid never knew there was a horse at all.

Once the animal was removed, Dillon spoke.

“Why? Why this, of all things?”

He half expected Bussard to ignore him, but today Bussard deigned to give him a response, perhaps more out of embarrassment than any­thing else. “It belonged to the daughter of the senior senator from Texas. We were asked to give it treatment, as a special favor.”

“I didn’t know you took requests.”

Bussard considered the punishing red button on his remote control, but didn’t depress it. Instead, he hit the button that unlocked the ready room, where the zeroid waited to wheel Dillon back to his plush little cell. His dinner would be waiting for him there, cold as always. But at least now he knew the face of the one who delivered it. She was young—only a few years older than he. Twenty-three, perhaps. But then Dillon didn’t know if she was even on that detail anymore. After all—the entire zero team had been replaced; Bussard could have re­placed her, too.

That Dillon was responsible for Gerritson’s death weighed on him heavily. With all the death he had seen and had caused over the past two years, he thought he would have become desensitized to it. The fact that he hadn’t was some comfort. He had not been robbed of his compassion, nor would he let this imprisonment numb his spirit now. He would pick the lock of this fortress. He had to believe that he would. And once he was free—even being out there in a world he had set on auto-destruct was better than being Bussard’s instrument.

As they traversed the access way toward the containment dome, Bussard sneezed, and the zeroid dutifully offered him a “God bless you, sir.”

Dillon grinned behind his mask. This guard at least had not begun deaf as the first Zero Team had. Bussard had specifically brought in deaf guards, because it was already well known how Dillon’s words could be the key to a man’s soul. The right word whispered in the right ear would fix the most damaged mind. And the wrong word could take that same mind and shatter it in a psychotic detonation. All Dillon had to do was divine the right thing to say by studying the patterns of a person’s behavior. Damage and repair, destruction and creation; all facets of Dillon’s formidable gift. But it wasn’t Dillon’s willful acts Bussard was interested in. All Bussard cared about were the effects that Dillon could not control; the incandescence of his presence, which renewed life, and had once reversed the flow of a mighty flood.

And so Bussard assigned deaf men, his thinking too narrow to realize that they would not remain deaf for long in Dillon’s presence. The fact that they had kept their audition a secret from Bussard was a victory Dillon wished he could share with them.

“There will not be a repeat of last week,” Bussard had told him, and vowed to personally walk Dillon’s little Via Dolorosa each day, to make sure Dillon didn’t find the key to the new man’s soul and win him over. This man was chosen for his absolute lack of physical ail­ments, so that he would have no evidence for guessing Dillon’s iden­tity. Dillon suspected Bussard would have caddied him himself, if his ego had allowed it.

Bussard got a few strides ahead of them and glanced back to look at him. For a moment, Dillon got a rare glimpse of Bussard’s face. The shape of his care lines, the knit of his brow, some discolored skin on his neck. Enough for Dillon to divine something from his history, but not much.

“There was a fire when you were very young!” Dillon said. Bussard stopped in his tracks.

“What did you say?”

“A fire, and something awful about a younger child. A baby sister, I think.” Dillon gloated. “One of these days, I’ll read you down to the bone, Bussard. You can count on it.”

Bussard didn’t spare the rod this time, and zapped Dillon so sud­denly the zeroid got a brief jolt of the shock as well before he could pull away. Dillon’s jaw locked with the jolt, biting a gash in his tongue. By the time the painful current subsided, there was blood filling the inside of his mouth. He held his mouth closed, the pain sharp and severe. He then swallowed the blood, and pressed his tongue to the roof of his mouth, bearing the pain as it diminished, and the gash zipped itself closed, perfectly healed.

I’m a sadist’s dream, thought Dillon. Torture with no down time.

His eyesight cleared, revealing a figure standing halfway to his cell. Dillon recognized him right away. He was a hard man to miss. Elon Tessic sauntered forward in his signature white suit and black T-shirt.

“Hello, General,” Tessic said, with the hint of an Israeli accent.

Bussard stopped in mid-stride.

“Sir?” questioned the zeroid, decidedly confused as to why a ci­vilian was strolling around the most secure installation since Alcatraz—and a foreigner, no less. Bussard summarily dismissed the zeroid, and Dillon heard the clip of his shoes exiting the way they had come.

Tessic casually strode forward. “I want you to know, Dillon, that shock treatment was not in my original design of the chair. This was a modification added by the general.”

Bussard pushed Dillon anxiously toward his cell. “What’s your business here, Tessic?” Dillon knew he should have hated Tessic—after all, Tessictech had conceived and built Dillon’s beyond state-of-the-art prison. But Tessic was a fly in Bussard’s ointment, and for that reason alone Dillon couldn’t help but appreciate the man.