The night is black like never before. |
From the roof of the Agency the entire
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sprawling city looks like a dark maelstrom that constantly changes form,
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like a maw of tar into which everything flows sluggishly like lava,
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like a black hole that sucks everything in, even the light of the stars.
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White tosses his cigarette butt. |
Shortly afterward the embers vanish somewhere
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several stories below him. |
Burned up. |
Annihilated, just like the numerous test
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subjects of the last few weeks.
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It is time to enter the lab. |
Already up for days, not having slept,
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not having eaten, only nourished by coffee and nicotine.
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The elevator takes him below, deep down below the surface, into the heart of
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the building, where the mind-machine is waiting. |
Tired, White leaves the
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compartment. |
The Agency staff quickly avert their eyes, others flinch when they
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see him. |
And how should they react in any other way? |
He hasn’t looked at
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himself in a mirror for a long time. |
And he doesn’t want to see what is looking
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back at him. |
The only thing of importance now is that his heart keeps beating
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until he has found the access to the Dreamweb, that damned Dreamweb — and until
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he has destroyed everything that lies beyond.
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The lab security personnel are carrying away another stretcher. |
The white sheet
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is quickly turning red where there had been a head before. |
How many had it
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already been this night?
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White enters the frequency room. |
A man that he has never seen before is sitting
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on the mechanical chair. |
Naked, shaved head, sensor beads on his skin.
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He is still breathing. |
For how much longer? |
This time it has to work.
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But if not… the next test subjects are being prepped already in the air lock.
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They would be able to continue like this for weeks. |
But at some point someone
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would be asking questions.
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«Attempt number two-hundred-eight», White hears the voice of the mechanic say.
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The cameras are recording. |
The contraption is humming along. |
The machine
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automatically inserts the tubes into the arteries of the man. |
The needles are
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piercing his skin, entering deep into his flesh. |
His eyes contort.
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Within the blink of an eye the icy cold blue liquid floods his body like an
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arctic shock. |
Cold vapor is billowing out of his mouth. |
His pupils are changing.
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This horrific gaze!
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White will never get used to it.
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The mechanic is regulating the flux with the synchronizer. |
White thought that
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all of this should have been much easier. |
That night, when Black escaped,
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the Agency guys had caught the frequency with the detector. |
They had analyzed
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the sequence for days, but it was useless.
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What good was a frequency that opens a door to the Dreamweb, if you didn’t know
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how to synchronize with it? |