Chapter 15

The Overseer found Vaughn alone in a circular room in the depths of his compound. This room was lined in black metal panels, perforated with tiny holes to allow air in and out. A row of high-definition screens on one side that continuously projected views of the outside world as if they were windows. It was the only view of the outside world Vaughn would get down here, as the room was six stories belowground.

The floor was made of thick plastic. It looked black until the lights came up, at which point it was revealed to be scuffed but translucent. It hid secrets in the space beneath. An odd smell filled the room. Pungent, organic, and contrary to the otherwise machine-like feel of the place, while the hum of computer fans competed with the soft whir of a pump moving liquids below them.

The Overseer had never encountered Vaughn anywhere else but this room. As far as he knew, Vaughn never left it. A complexion as pale as bone suggested he hadn’t been outdoors in years.

Vaughn bid the Overseer to come closer. “You should see this,” he whispered. “You might appreciate it.”

The Overseer stepped closer to Vaughn and looked at the screen in front of him. It displayed an operating room where a team of doctors assisted by medical robots were performing surgery on a partially sedated individual.

They’d removed a section of the man’s skull, made careful incisions in the brain, and just finished implanting an oddly shaped device that resembled a folded piece of origami art.

Vaughn leaned toward a thin microphone that stuck up from the control panel. When he spoke, his voice sounded hollow and monotone. “Please step back from the subject.”

Two of the three medical personnel responded immediately. The lead surgeon finished one additional task and then stepped away. With the doctors out of the way, the camera offered a clear view of the cauliflower-like folds of the man’s gray matter. Looking closer, one could see not only the protruding section of the implanted device but also a thin mesh of microscopic wires, which had been spread across the man’s brain in an earlier surgery. The gray matter had begun to grow over it, incorporating it into the neural network.

The Overseer could only assume this was the next step in Vaughn’s mad idea. The merging of human and machine intelligence. He silently thanked whatever deity might have existed that such treatments hadn’t been available when he’d fallen into Vaughn’s clutches.

“Initiate testing,” Vaughn said.

The lead surgeon powered up the new implant. The patient twitched and began to flip his left hand and foot involuntarily.

Vaughn leaned into the microphone again. “Subject fifty-one, can you hear me?”

“I hear your voice,” the man said nervously.

“I want you to recall a pleasant memory. Your first time at the beach.”

The man didn’t reply.

Vaughn waited.

“Are you remembering?”

“Yes,” the man said. “It was warm. The water was clear.”

Vaughn turned his attention to another screen, one filled with the EKG and the other medical readouts. From there he looked to a second screen; this one displayed a vast number of tiny blue dots on a field of black. These illuminated pixels swirled by the thousands in a three-dimensional shape. The Overseer knew that shape from his own tests. It represented TAU’s interface with a human subject. It remained steady and undisturbed even as Vaughn asked another question.

“Recall a time when you were hungry.”

The subject had been denied food for several days. An act designed to instill a negative memory.

“Yesterday,” the subject said. “My stomach felt pain. Empty.”

The Overseer knew the drill. He watched the screen containing the swarm of pink dots. They remained steady. Inert. Another failure.

“The provocation is too weak,” Vaughn demanded. “It needs to be raised. Apply direct stimulus to the pain center of his brain.”

The doctors had been prepared for this eventuality. They had already mapped the man’s brain. They knew where pleasure centers and pain centers lay. At the touch of a switch they could flood the man’s brain with input, making him feel as if he were in ecstasy or agony.

“We should first stimulate pleasure,” one of the surgeons said.

“No,” Vaughn snapped. “Pain is more intense. Initiate the procedure.”

The lead surgeon began to speak to the patient, presumably to warn him that he would feel pain, but also to remind him that it was imaginary.

“Stop,” Vaughn insisted. “Explanation will limit the results. Initiate without description.”

The surgeon pulled back, stepped to one of the machines surrounding the patient, and moved a dial. Almost immediately the man on the table began to writhe. He grunted and shook. But the pink dots remained as they were.

“Increase intensity,” Vaughn demanded.

The surgeon did as he was told, and the man’s protests became exponentially louder. He shouted, he grunted, he screamed. “Please, no more!”

The Overseer folded his arms. He knew there would be no stopping. Vaughn asked for more and the pain level went up once again. On the nearby screen, the cluster of dots began to move. At first the motion seemed random.

“Increase intensity at ten second intervals,” Vaughn commanded. “Do not stop until I instruct you.”

The pain went up. The tiny dots moved faster now, churning in circles and changing direction with each increase in the stimulus. The pattern reminded the Overseer of starlings twisting and turning in the sky by the thousands, separate and individual, but acting as if they were of one mind.

“So this is pain…” the disembodied voice of TAU said at last.

The words came from a set of speakers in the ceiling; they echoed softly around the sterile room.

“Interesting.”

The Overseer knew the voice of TAU. He despised it as much as he hated Vaughn. Maybe more; it was hard to know.

“Increase pain level,” Vaughn insisted.

The intensity was raised. The subject screamed louder. The swirling constellation of pixels on the screen turned faster and faster. Tighter circles, more rapid reversals.

“More,” Vaughn demanded.

“It’s not safe,” one of the doctors replied.

“Do as I tell you,” Vaughn snapped. “Go to the maximum!”

The surgeon turned the dial to full. The patient howled in pain and came up off the table, arching his entire body, every muscle as stiff as hardened steel. He collapsed back to the table and came up again. After a second collapse he went into a seizure.

Suddenly, the pattern broke. The swirl of pixels lost its shape and cohesion. In seconds the glowing dots flew in all different directions like beads from a broken necklace.

They vanished off the edges of the screen and then slowly reappeared, blinking into existence in the center one by one. Before long, they had reconstituted the original calm shape.

In the operating room, the surgeon and his team leapt into action, frantically trying to stop the seizure and stabilize the patient. Vaughn watched for a moment and then shut the feed off.

“Now, now,” the Overseer complained. “You’ve had your fun. You should let us see the end of the show.”

“I’m uninterested,” Vaughn said. “And you are here to listen. Not to speak.”

The Overseer bristled, but held his tongue.

“You have failed twice,” Vaughn announced. “You allowed the escapees to get off the island and your actions on Reunion have raised great suspicion in the American organization NUMA.”

Assuming he was now allowed to talk, the Overseer replied. “There’s nothing left for them to find. That was the whole idea. Your plan, remember? The plan of TAU.”

“The plan was perfect,” Vaughn said. “You were clumsy. But we have a bigger problem. After hacking their database, TAU has learned of NUMA’s interest in a freighter that passed by here the day after the escapees got away in their boat. This freighter went north. To India. The men you dealt with on Reunion are now flying there. To the very place this ship has ended up. They must believe there is something left to discover.”

“The escapees could have reached the freighter,” the Overseer said. “NUMA may be looking for them.”

“It can be nothing else,” Vaughn said. “Take three of the cruel brothers and go there. Eliminate all loose ends. Do not fail me again.”

The Overseer didn’t take well to being threatened. He stepped toward Vaughn, only to have a pair of machines race out of the darkness and cut him off. The machines rolled on powered wheels and sported a pair of hydraulic arms, one carrying a heavily armored shield, the other a serrated weapon with a diamond-shaped tip like a gladius.

The Overseer was blocked by the machines as their interlocking shields created an impenetrable barrier between him and Vaughn. The points of the swords shimmered in the light.

The Overseer wasn’t sure why Vaughn preferred knives to guns. He guessed it had something to do with the randomness of bullets ricocheting or the death of his parents, who had been shot when he was young, or the fact that killing with a knife was so much more visceral than simply pulling a trigger, but the machines were an effective deterrent. The Overseer stepped back. He’d watched these machines cut one of the suspected traitors to ribbons a while back. He had no wish to be their next victim.

“Having your metal beasts stab holes in me will only force you to find another man to do the job,” he pointed out.

To the Overseer’s surprise, Vaughn walked out from behind his protectors and pulled a knife of his own. He stepped close and, with a masterful flick, cut a line into the Overseer’s cheek. A second flick brought the knife up under his chin. Its point just pushing into the skin.

The Overseer was honestly surprised. Someone had taught Vaughn how to handle a knife. Not to clutch it like a gorilla, but to slice clean and quick. “Never step toward me again,” Vaughn said in a low whisper. “Otherwise there won’t be enough left of you to bury.”

The Overseer grunted his acceptance, and Vaughn pulled the knife back.

“I’ll take care of the problem,” he insisted, backing away.

“I know you will,” Vaughn replied quietly. “Otherwise you’ll be the next subject on that operating table.”