Chaingang

8

"THE HOLE"/CELL TEN

MARION, ILLINOIS

In a hard pool of saffron light, locked within the bowels of the “Max,” bound, chained, shackled, tethered, and restrained, the beast sits. Waiting.

Deep inside D Seg, Disciplinary Segregation Solitary Confinement—called “the hole"—America's only level seven inmate sits in heavy chains; silent and unmoving.

Huge. Beyond anything you can imagine. Arms and legs like steel tree trunks. Butt, belly, and upper torso heavy and ugly with great rubbery tires of hard fat over the body muscle. Scarred, dimpled face partially covered with a mouth restraint, a “biter,” the head appears to sit directly on the torso. The gigantic boulder of a neck is not visible. That part of the face that shows is not unlike a mound of wrinkled dough, but for the eyes—which are tiny, hard, black, and unblinking. There is no life in the eyes of the beast. They are unmistakably a killer's eyes. But these eyes see nothing.

He is far away, inside the nightmare of his strange and amazing mind. Deep within his head he is lost, as free and unbound as a wild dog running through the hills. Several levels of the beast-man's complex brain are at work.

His first books were encountered while he was in a foster home. He learned something that gave him an edge, and the book, which happened to be an adult instruction manual and not meant for the eyes of children, discussed in clinical detail certain vulnerabilities of the human body. He seized on this scrap of information as if it were the Rosetta Stone, using it to decode one of the mysteries about death. He saw that books and other printed matter, when applied to actual experimentation, could further enhance one's ability to destroy an enemy. He began reading for self-defense.

Where are books kept? In public libraries. Logically then, that was the next step: to penetrate the libraries and obtain all the relevant information he could lay hands on. Already adept at swiping toys, comics, candy bars—kid stuff—he graduated to library books. He preferred stealing them to checking them out, on principle, and so Daniel began his lifelong affair with the library system.

Reform schools and adult jails did not offer the wealth of literature one could find in Kansas City's public libraries, but there one could attend impromptu classes taught by street professors of B & E, armed robbery, escape and evasion, identity change, disguise, unarmed combat (from street-fighting to sophisticated martial skills), demolition, and a thousand other nasty subjects from con stings to murder modes.

He would use this information to get better data, since he was aware that these were failed exponents of their respective spheres of expertise, but in many cases their experiences could point the way for him. He soaked up information like an immense sponge, always seeking more.

By the time he'd done his second bit in prison, he had probably ingested (sometimes literally!) twenty-five thousand stolen library books. He once computed his total of overdue fines, and it was in seven figures. He'd swiped everything—from elegant, rare, quarto-size volumes of arcane subject matter to massive coffee-table books which he smuggled out under voluminous shirts and overcoats. He left many a little old lady gasping at the sudden downdraft of noxious sewer stench as he clomped loudly through dusty reference rooms in his gigantic 15EEEEE combat boots.

What did he do with the books? Think of a huge, wrinkled desert that stretches across the mindscape of the imagination. This is the monster's brain. For thirty years or so he's used this desert as his private dumping ground for information.

Every wrinkle is deep, like a chasm; a dangerous, deadly repository filed with stolen library books. He reads the books, sometimes eats pages that he particularly likes—one of his weird and inexplicable habits—chewing the corners, sucking the foulness out of them, devouring special passages that somehow imprint themselves on his remarkable memory.

His memory banks are not the same as yours and mine. At the heart of his brain there is something akin to a mental computer, and it is this oddly efficacious organ that retains data for him.

His is no “photographic memory,” which he knows to be a misnomer, but is a freak of nature known as eidetic recall. Perhaps a part of the gift of physical precognition is the essence of this ability: to retrieve those shreds of seemingly forgotten knowledge that become input relevant to specific situational confluences.

At the moment he is reading from the pages of a scientific quarterly he once scanned for pleasure: “Massim Matrilineal Reincorporation and Kula Ring Rituals.” He is reading, mentally, about his favorite subject. Rereading and savoring the bizarre anthropological studies of Massim mortuary practices. Considering, with the greatest pleasure and fascination, the cultural implications of eating the dead.

But his mind does not work the way an ordinary man's does. As he mentally screens the retained word groups, graphs, sometimes entire pages at a time, he brings to the reading greater focus, concentration, and specificity. When most of us read, it is a passive act, but in the beast's labyrinthian brain recesses, his computer searches for stored data. Searching his spectacular knowledge of the clinical disciplines and general sciences, he probes for hidden gold: some piece of information that, when retrieved and applied to the subject matter at hand, will give him—once again—that sharp and lovely edge.

A remembered and reread phrase has triggered a flow of images, and he scans them, letting them flow through his subconscious as he reads the now familiar word blocks: he senses blood pouring from extremities, secondary anatomical targets, superior vena cava, pathology of death fetishes, inferior vena cava, theoretical fluid mechanics and applications of Cartesian and general tensors, right auricle, hydrastatic wave-effect stress in surface flow, right ventricle, molecular symmetry in abiogenetics, pulmonary artery, aliphatic open-chain structures.

And as the subconscious triggers open-chain structures, yet another level of his brain considers the chain—his “flexible killing club"—and the chains that bind. Considers tension, specificity of heavy-metal laws, kinematics of motion, vector algebra, angular momentum theory, quasi-conformal variationals in isometrics, self-mastery practiced as a physical or engineering science, elliptical intuition, aura-manipulation and wish-fulfillment application to the loosening of bindings, essentials of quantitative prediction and advanced muscular control. These assert themselves. Test the bonds. File automatic situation reports.

The beast is aware of these intrusive thought associations only in the most subliminal way as he senses severing of pulmonary artery, raw umbles, mucoprotein absorption, human and animal spoor, application of nonmetric affine geometry to the healing arts, pulmonary veins, geodesist survival vaults, left auricle, fundamentals of vertebrate rhythmic contraction of life-support pumps, sevenfold man in phylogenetic transition, left ventricle, involuntary organ donations, oracles and auricles, dimensional space and karmic mythologizing of physical nonspace, the human aorta, images that flow by as he scans and senses related possibilities.

Good enough, the beast thinks, mentally reading those words, the closest he comes to telling himself a joke, letting his thoughts run free in lost wordplay through the mortal ritualistic eating of the dead on an island that bears the name. A pun—for someone else. For him it is a fantasy trigger, and he thinks of a heart he took, fantasizing, as he has ten thousand times before, about the boundless pleasures he recalls from the consumption of his enemy's life force.

The beast makes an involuntary noise under the facial restraint, coughing loudly into the biter. A harsh and frightening sound like the attempted ignition of a cold engine. The sound of an outboard motor's initial cough as the starter lanyard is pulled. The barking, metallic noise of a recalcitrant lawn mower. It is the sound of “occupant” laughing.

Does the sudden sound jar him or is it something else? Whatever early-warning system protects this strange, anomalous creature suddenly shuts down all his thought processes. He no longer reads, puns, fantasizes, or scans the bloodied, inexplicable darkness of his mind. He is back in the now, physically and mentally in Cell Ten of the hole, in Marion Federal Pen, and inside his head he pours blackness into his mind until it is absolutely empty and black as night.

Slammed down tight in solitary confinement of one sort or another, beyond the fringe of sanity, Daniel Edward Flowers Bunkowski has become master of his own inner wellspring. Calling on deep paranormal reserves, forcing himself through the walls of normalcy, he has learned to control his vital signs: to slow and still his breathing and the beating of his strong heart, and to freeze his mind into a state of perfect calm.

The beast-man has almost stopped breathing. This human who can hold his breath for four minutes, this monster who can bring his own powerful pulse-beat almost to a standstill—he closes his mind to the absolute blackness, imagining a black balloon dropped into an ocean of ink.

Imagine the balloon floating in the dark, inky sea. Now prick a tiny hole in the top of the balloon, and as it sinks, pour into it a stream of white milk. White pouring down into black, sinking, pouring, falling, the thump of his heartbeat now virtually stilled. His mind filling with bright, white milky essence. White as purest snow. Blank paper. And on the blankness of his receptor screen his presentient warning system keys a single word.

It prints a word across the blankness of his thoughts, bright red neon letters on dazzling white:

WATCHER

He feels the surveillance in the way that a hunter's prey will sometimes intuit another presence, perceiving intangible cross hairs of a silent gun. The awareness, the survival instinct, causes the hairs on the back of his massive neck and head to stand straight up. His hard, cold eyes blink open, and he looks in the direction of the observation window above. Where he senses human eyes watching.

Dr. Norman and the team from Walter Reed hover around an immense prone form, as they monitor the deep drugged state of the subject. One more time—after the brief recuperation period and final interview session—Alpha Group II will be employed as the insertion phase is accomplished.

“He's ready.” An anesthesiologist checks vital signs as they make certain the life-support units are functioning perfectly. It is warm in the maximum-security or. The chief surgeon asks for a wipe, and a nurse mops perspiration from the man's brow below his surgical cap.

“What I want to know is how it managed to swim this far inland.” An explosion of laughter. Norman's cheek muscles clench under his mask, but be has been forewarned. All great surgeons have their own style. This one indulges his flair for operating-room comedy. But he is the top man in the ultrahigh-tech field of laser implant work.

No blood from a cranial saw will paint Jackson Pollock—like artwork across the surgical gowns. The subject may not even discover that an incision has been made. Only the tiniest portion of the head is shaved, and care will be exercised that this will not be visible to the subject.

The small patch of bare skull is washed. Anointed with alcohol and other mysterious solutions. Meticulously dried.

The senior cutter examines the results, nods his approval, and holds out his gloved hand for the marking device. Takes it. Makes marks. Drops the object in a tray. The laser is in readiness.

“Let me see that X ray for a second.” He looks through it, makes a show of holding it to the light. “Yes. Just as I thought. This mammal has anthrax!” They all break up again. Dr. Norman grits his teeth.

“Okay.” Without further jocularity he burns his way in through the skull. “Jeezus!” he says. The stench is overpowering. Even through the tiny “window,” the subject's brain stinks.

Driven hard by a powerful wind, a loose bank of vapory clouds scuds swiftly across the sky of his mind. He feels his face in a gust of wind, misty rain, spray driven by the wind, and inside the beast's mind, his eyes open.

A row of corpses stiff as window mannequins, eyeless store-window dummies, their waxy faces liquefied and melting. Blue, Catch, Hardname, and Pluck, eyeless corpse mannequins, faces dripping, sit up and begin a centuries-old ritual, the ballet of pain.

Something alien courses through him.

Melting dummies jerk in the frenzied spasm of the devil dancers, tapping call to nightmare, epileptic seizure of the snake people, deathdance of the voodoo drums.

He has been drugged, he realizes.

The clouds churn and scumble, tossing into a cold, thick, white mist that keeps moving faster and faster, as window mannequins, time-compression film of dizzying sky.

The pull of the drug is strong.

Mortuary ritual and kinship in Bwaidoka, obesity as promiscuity viewed by therapeutic-statist praxeologists, Sudest Island Death Rites, themes that harden into book titles. Data retrieval. Wordstream.

A stream of vapor clouds his thought processes momentarily, as the voice cuts through the icy mist of drugs:

“—am your friend. You will be—” Identification of the voice. It is Dr. Norman, head of the program. Sodium Pentothal? Perhaps the new one he's been experimenting with; the one he calls Alpha Group II. An ice mass splinters, showering its shards through his mind.

“Daniel, it is Dr. Norman."

Daniel. Dr. Norman. Names. The name is filed. Dr. Norman has spared him discomfort.

Dr. Norman is retrieved through the haze of drug-induced confusion. The Physical Precognate: Stimuli and Response Beyond Self. Other titles.

The voice has been identified.

Inside his mind he sees the doctor saying, “I recommend a thyroid function test for Mr. Bunkowski to see if he needs some thyroid replacement medication.” The nurse makes a joke, and the doctor sharply rebukes him. He sees Dr. Norman telling the suits about him. Saying a word he does not know.

“Daniel, it is Dr. Norman. Your friend. I have good news for you, Daniel. Can you hear me?"

A lion coughs, and he hears it through the blocks of ice that are freezing around his brain.

“Good. Very good. Daniel, soon you will be free again. The program is a success. Soon you will be free, as I promised. You will be free to do the things you like, my friend. The things you are so good at."

He retrieves the alien word: Algolagnia. Sees the doctor telling an audience, “Occupant is algolagnic.” He knows now that this means he takes pleasure in inflicting pain.

“You must stay within the boundaries where you are safe. Daniel, you will be free to do the things you like. But for your own safety you must stay within twenty-five miles of the town where you will be set free. So long as you remain within a twenty-five-mile radius of the town, your actions will be protected. No outside harm will come to you. Do you understand?"

Wind blows over a mass grave. It is otherwise still in his mind.

The doctor. Another supervisor. Six correctional officers. Shackles. Cuffs with the security boxes over them. He listens for jailhouse noise. The slam of cell doors.

“You will also—"

Dead bodies wired inside sunken junkers.

“—want to exterminate—"

Bloated inhuman faces under the surface of a shallow stream.

“—particular subjects—"

A cat growling in the blackness of a jungle night.

“—as well as targets of opportunity—"

Haze. Loss of balance.

“—that you encounter."

A prisoner buried under the heart of an icy monolith.

“A dossier has been prepared that will introduce you to—"

A sense of deep perspectives.

“—these targets."

Blurring now as the powerful drugs hose him under.

“Daniel, you will—"

Going to black.

“—of interest. You can study—"

Dissolving on the words of Dr. Norman as he completes the ritual of repetition and reassurance.

The brain implant appears to have been successful, but Dr. Norman wonders how things will go with Daniel. His affection for the beast is deep. He wonders if Daniel has bonded to him as well. Yes. Surely he has.

The dossier has been prepared by him. When Daniel wakens he will be shown the electronic display. General content, purview, presentation, and tone have all been carefully shaped. He knows precisely what it will take to engage that mind, pull him out of repose, enrage and motivate him into the cold kill fury that will allow him to function.

He has studied it himself innumerable times, and can quote content verbatim: “Police removed nine pit bulls from an establishment on Willow River Road, following a series of complaints regarding organized pit bull dogfights. Authorities said animals had been abused ... were being kept for so-called death matches ... Humane/society ... put the dogs to sleep ... Allegations of other animal cruelties ... Sutter family."

Norman could see the photos of the dogs. Then the ads of the animal auction and the pictures they had to go with it. “The Genneret Gun Show and Exotic Animal Auction ... dog ‘bunchers’ ... Virgil Watlow ... left strays that the lab wouldn't take ... Seventeen were found tied to a tree, starved to death."

It built like a hot romance novel heading for a breathless climax, or a symphony building to a timpani-filled crescendo. There was a certain undeniable aesthetic to it. He could imagine the rage that would flood Daniel's mind when it reached the report about “The Mutilator ... John Wayne Vodrey ... private collection of cat tails, paws, and other anatomical mementos.” Dr. Norman shuddered as he imagined the retribution in store for the targets of the dossier.

They wanted a “handle” on “occupant.” They used the word “control” again and again. They were the ultimate control freaks. He recognized it and played to it.

No, he was frank to tell them. There is no control for occupant. There is only understanding. Understanding and manipulation. But Dr. Norman had found the secret control handle.

Most towns have their share of animal abusers, but this one—simply by luck of the draw—had some of the most flagrant and heinous cases one could find. It had been a simple matter to investigate these, magnify them, and prepare an illustrated presentation designed to engage, enrage, manipulate, and motivate the occupant of D Seg's infamous Cell Ten. One more terrible coincidence with an upside.

“Can you hear me all right?” No response. Nothing. “Daniel, it's Dr. Norman. I won't let any harm come to you. You know you can trust me. I'm your friend.” One more time. The briefing period would mark his last hours of incarceration. Then Alpha Group II would work its magic and the subject would be inserted into the observation zone. “Can you hear me?” The lion coughed.

“Good. Just relax. Dr. Norman is your friend. Anything that I do is for your protection. Always remember that, Daniel."

The power of the experimental wonder drug had left its mark on the beast's face.

“You must remain within twenty-five miles of the killing zone. That is for your safety, my friend. As long as you stay there, you will have your freedom. Your old weapons are restored to operational condition and will be turned over to you. I got your weapons for you, Daniel. Your tools. After all, would we ask a master carpenter to build a house for us without his favorite tools? Everything is exactly as it was when you ... were returned to us three years ago.” The beast had been in Marion for two years and ten months.

“Do you understand what I'm telling you, Daniel?” There was a slackness to the features that reminded Dr. Norman of the face of a retarded child. But deep under the drugs, the lion managed another growl. “Your own beloved tools, Daniel! Think of that. Everything will be as you left it, your clothing, your special equipment—just the way you assembled it. We've even upgraded the things that had gone bad over time: you'll have new ammunition.” He glanced at his notes. “The explosives—the munitions—all brand-new."

“They didn't like that part, my dear friend. But I made them give you hand grenades and mines. They said, ‘Let him resupply himself in the field,’ but I reminded them that there were no armories or munitions stockpiles within a twenty-five-mile radius of your operating zone. We couldn't have you wasting valuable time accumulating tools, could we?” The look on the slack features was that of a brain-damaged baby, smiling.

“One last thing before the targets are presented to you. As I've told you, and this is important for you to always remember: Everything I've done has been in your best interests. The drugs are extremely powerful. But even though you cannot respond, you will register and retain this information. Do not be confused by the odd feelings you may experience when you come back to a state of what seems like full consciousness.

“It's likely that the chemicals in your system will have a secondary effect, and there will be a period in which you feel much the same as you ordinarily do, but perhaps your actions will be somewhat erratic or—” he purposely did not use the word “normal"—"unusually low-key. For example, you may find yourself interacting with others in odd ways, or you may notice other behavioristic ... lapses. Do not be alarmed. Because of your great strength, a particularly strong dosage of the drug must be used, but in time you'll be back to your old self. A day or two, at most.” The doctor shrugged. “There will be no further need for such drugs, so you'll soon find yourself completely restored and refreshed. Do you understand?” There was no response. Dr. Norman drew near the huge, bound figure.

“I'll miss you, Daniel. I shall genuinely miss you.” He reached out and touched the rock-hard muscle of a tree-trunk leg. “Will you miss your friend Dr. Norman?"

The slack-jawed look of the autistic child's empty smile was unchanged, but deep inside came a low, rumbling animal sound.