EXILE

Without any fuss, Abraham Stein was stood down from the dock and escorted by a single guard out of the courtroom. The Judge’s last words and the hollow clap of the gavel effectively sealed his fate, one that Abe had known would be his the day that he accepted the invitation to join the Freedom Movement, all those years ago. Of course, he had known all along that sooner or later the documents given up to the raid would come back to him like a named bullet that he had signed himself. But, in keeping with the unwritten policy of the Movement, he would never mention it, not even to other cell members. Those who needed to know, already knew.

The cell meeting had been a preliminary strategy meeting, to discuss Movement policies, aims and future actions. Abe had acted as secretary, taking notes that would later be circulated on the internet bulletin boards, anonymous and untraceable, yet accessible to the public. A perfect tool for spreading the word, the truth about the Global Union, uncovering the lies and facile platitudes that had been used to construct the Union’s colossal house of cards. Abe’s only surprise was that he hadn’t been picked up any earlier. But the sense of surprise was only fleeting. Every moment of liberty when he was not at work as a kitchen architect had been given to his mental machinations on behalf of the Movement.

But that was a life that now lay in the past. Stein knew that remand served two purposes. To break the prisoner for a guilty plea, or admission, and for the CSA to build an effective case on the off-chance that the guilty plea did not come. Either way, he was sunk, but he had thrown out the mental life-buoys long ago. As he was escorted out of the court, he knew instinctively what Paul would be doing - after the session, he would start calling friends and family with the news, before trying to work out what was happening. Of course, according to CSA rules Paul would be entitled to attend all interrogation interviews, but what was unofficial knowledge were the other sessions, those less-than-public-friendly sessions held in the presence of a physician. But Abe had been prepared for those sessions, and in a grim fashion he sort of looked forward to them. The Movement hypnotist, a clinical psychologist known only as “Donkey” had put Abe, and others, through a rigorous program of sub-conscious programming to not resist psychological interrogation, but to actively provide subtly incorrect information. The conditioning included instruction in self-hypnosis, so as to lessen the impact of physical torture.

Entering the hall that ran behind the courtrooms, the guard led Stein to an elevator that stood alone, apart by some metres from the main core of lifts in the building’s centre. The lift doors were of a heavier grade of steel than was normal, and surrounding them was an array of security devices, including a set of controls to stall the elevator and isolate its air-supply. Entering it, Stein saw that its interior was spotless, with no graffiti, and with no loose objects or panels. The elevator was the only direct communication between the outside world and the remand cells on the top floor of the building. As the doors shut behind them, Stein saw how tense the guard was. Short of leaping to certain death through windows that did not exist, the only way that any prisoner could escape would be through this lift, and that could only happen by overpowering the guards - fat chance. There was no graffiti because the passengers of the lift who were most likely to try and leave some scrawled monument to their folly were those who were manacled and restrained so much that they would have difficulty picking their nose.

Riding the slow lift upwards, Stein smiled slightly as he thought of how, centuries ago, prisoners were often held below ground. Still, he remembered, a dungeon was originally a don jon, a tower with a prisoner held at the top. Paris had the Bastille. London, it’s Tower. Both prisons, both elevated. This was but the latest tower to gain public notoriety and infamy. The lift stopped, and the guard entered a short sequence into the internal control panel, authorising the opening of the doors. The pad was covered and silent, so that even if he had had the expertise, Stein would be unable to identify the code sequence. The doors slid open to reveal a grey, concrete labyrinthine hell, populated by the innocent and the guilty alike. There were no guards permanently stationed on this floor. Each cell had only one prisoner, bound by six concrete sides and a door of composite concrete, steel and high-density kevlar matting for internal reinforcement. Guards were used only to escort prisoners to and from their cells, and Stein soon found out why. Directly in front of the elevator was a small console that displayed the occupants of the cellblock. The guard took Stein over to it, and scanned the files for a cell that was available. Finding one, she logged in Stein’s name and case number, and her own serial number as the escorting officer.

The guard then guided Stein down a corridor that was as oppressive as it was disorienting in its lack of variation, with only the perspective of the wall’s corners to offer any spatial reference at all. The corridor was silent, but for the dull sounds of their footsteps. No doors had any windows, and the walls were totally sound-proofed. The only material indication of the cells’ occupants were the green and red lights above each door. Presently, they stopped outside a door with a green light above it. The guard pushed one button on a panel that contained twenty-four buttons - if the wrong button was pushed, the door would be switched to the central locking, operated from the building security office on the fifth floor. The entire remand floor would be locked and isolated from the rest of the building, with the elevator operation controls also switched over to the fifth floor.

As the guard lifted her finger from the button, the door slid into its recessed slot in the wall, which impressed Stein with its half-metre thickness. They entered the cell, and the guard unlocked Stein’s cuffs. This was the only real opportunity for any desperate prisoner to overcome their guard, but the isolationist security measures would ultimately prove any such effort to be not only futile, but lethal to the prisoner.

Uncuffed, Stein rubbed his wrists and looked around his cell. He barely noticed the hush of the door closing after the guard, as she sealed Stein into his cell. The cell measured three metres by two metres, with a single bunk hung as a flap from one wall. In the wall opposite the bed was a meal slot, which at regular times each day would deliver a meal-tray, which when emptied by the prisoner would be returned via an accompanying slot. Failure to return the tray empty would solicit immediate attention by a CSA physician. Next to the meal slot was a water spigot and drain, to serve as a wash basin and drinking water. The toilet was mounted in a concrete extension of the wall, the solid block having a basin and trap built into it, a move away from the old steel toilets that had been popular for a couple of hundred years.

Stein looked around himself at his new, temporary home, and lay down on his bed. The lighting was artificial, and constantly maintained at a low level that was neither day nor night. Alone, stuck in a cell of permanent twilight with no sight or hearing of the outside world, with no clock to tell time by, Stein turned himself over to his life in solitary confinement. With only his own body’s internal rhythms to tell time by, he was soon asleep, waiting for the first of the official and unofficial interviews that were to come his way.

The waiting was the hardest part of the deal. With no way to tell the passage of time, Stein felt his body’s clock becoming increasingly erratic. With an unvarying level of light, it was neither day nor night. Used to regular light and dark cycles, his body became confused. The meals were delivered on an erratic basis, so that the prisoners would be unable to use any regular period to measure time. It was all a part of a well-calculated regime that was purposefully designed to disorientate the inmates, all of whom were on remand, and to weaken them physically and mentally so that the interviews would be that much more productive. Stein came to the same rapid conclusion that countless other remand inmates had arrived at. The CSA remand conditions were more damaging to a person’s resistance than was total sensory deprivation. Here, there was sight, sound, smell and touch, but in proportions and of types that produced an overall disharmonious mix, a sensory cacophony of solitude and silent time.

The first meal confirmed what Stein had been told about the prison food. Undisguised bean protein, it arrived as warm piles of pale, creamy-white lumps of glistening curd. No flavour, smell or texture had been added, as it was considered to be an unnecessary expense for people who had supposedly abused the trust that the public had placed in them to behave appropriately. The meals arrived in wax-coated papier-mache’ trays that were of no danger, no risk and nearly no cost. In Abe’s cell, the hours passed, the days passed. How many, Abe could not tell, but to the rest of the world, Abe was but a number, a case that was being developed and built just the same as dozens of others had been in the same offices, similar offices throughout the building.

When the door opened to Abe’s cell, it was barely over a week since he had been removed from the world, but Abe had no way of knowing how long it had been. All that he knew was that it was a few days, at least five, maybe more. Hell, he didn’t even know how long he slept for at a time, whether for one hour or for seven.

He was asleep at the time, whatever that was. He slept lightly, a condition that was brought on by the constant light level. The light in the hallway was the bright, stark white of incandescent bulbs - although the low hiss of the door sliding open did not wake Stein, the sudden flood of light over his face did. Blinking hard, screwing up his face in the glare, he could make out very little except for the dark silhouettes of two guards coming into his cell. He managed to prop himself up on one elbow while he raised his other hand to shield his squinting eyes, only to have his raised arm have a handcuff clamped around it. The guard then grabbed him by his other arm, and pulled him up onto his feet. Bent and stiff from his broken sleep on a hard mattress, more asleep than awake, he had his arms both pulled behind him, and the other wrist was then manacled to the first. Secure, the guard then prodded him in the small of the back, prompting him to take a couple of hesitant, cold steps forward past the other guard into the hallway. The guards followed, and kept his room open while the marched Stein down towards the elevator.

The trip was remarkably short - Stein’s estimate was one, maybe two floors down. Like most of the public, he had little idea of what was on each floor of the CSA building. But he was learning in a hurry. The lift doors opened to reveal a featureless, grey roomscape, a short corridor with two doors opening off from it. A single sign pointed the way to his immediate destiny - Inmate Interview Rooms.

Of course, the public would not know of these rooms, the decoration was too bland, too functional. Entering the first room, Stein’s fears were confirmed. The room was totally functional, and its function was simple - to extract information from stubborn minds. Well, he thought, they don’t come much more stubborn, or more prepared, as he was. The guard led him to the room’s only piece of furniture, a hard, contoured couch that closely resembled a dentist’s chair with arm, leg and head restraints, and confirmed the reports that had reached the Freedom Movement, becoming the basis for the rigorous countermeasures that Stein and others had taken.

Stein’s cuffs were removed, and he was made to lie down on the couch. Before his head was secured he managed to have a lightning glance around the rest of the room. Totally empty, he saw that one wall contained a large panel that was obviously not of the same material as the rest of the walls. As the guards left the room, it was clear that the panel was a one-way glass between Stein, alone in the cell, and whoever it was who would be asking the questions, recording the answers, and tweaking the controls that would only serve to increase his discomfort.

Stein could not move his legs, arms or head. The head-clamp had side blinkers on it, so that he was unable to look to either side. All that he could do was to gaze ahead of him at a small part of the ceiling, a little bit in from the top of the wall. As he relaxed, he soon realised that the spot upon which he could focus was not, like the rest of the room, plain grey. Across it was a slight, stippled design that gave the illusion of gentle, undulating wave-like motion. Almost too late, he realised that it was there to induce a mild hypnotic state. Blinking, he broke the trance, and instead chose to keep his eyes shut and to rely on his hearing.

As he blocked out the visual stimulus, Stein soon became aware of an imperceptibly quiet electronic oscillation, similar in pitch and sound to what sufferers of tinnitus endured. As he listened for any noise above the staticky whine, Stein was certain that this was a unit designed specifically to use neuronic techniques to extract information. The technology had been developed decades ago, but was supposedly either destroyed or disabled in the early days of the Global Union as a show of good faith, a populist vote-buying exercise. At no time was it supposed to have been actually used for its intended purpose, as it was considered to be too barbaric, too cruel to use even on criminals. Apparently, though, somewhere along the way the committee had had a change of heart, and had forgotten to tell anyone. And no-one would know, either. Stein knew the CSA well, having long ago adopted the old saying “know your enemy”, and was certain that the neuronic system would only be used on those inmates who would never be able to tell the rest of the world what had been used on them. As if anyone could actually do anything about it themselves. The Freedom Movement was the only chance that the Earth’s people had of overthrowing the oppressive, centralist regime. Loose cannons, as individual, non-aligned rebels were called, always came to swift, uniformly messy ends without ever accomplishing much of anything.

Lying there, strapped, immobilised and controlled, Stein mentally ran through what he knew of the neuronic system, a checklist that he had studied and memorised in his opposition training. Using ultrasonic oscillations, the system would produce soundwaves of wavelengths and shapes that would continually change form and intensity from a network of speakers that surrounded the subject’s head. With parallel feedback microphones, the central software would vary the wave characteristics from each of the three hundred microspeakers until the sonic net perfectly matched the resonant harmonics of the subject’s cranium and neural connections. Stein could already feel that happening - all over his head odd, vague tinglings one by one smoothed out to create spots that felt as if they were numb, yet highly stimulated in a flowing, pulsating rhythm. Piece by piece, the isolated pleasure areas began to join up until the whole of his head felt as if it was floating, no longer real. Helpless to resist, Stein felt his head seemingly disappear.

Knowing what was happening, Stein did not actively resist. Rather, he followed his training, opting to combat the system by welcoming it, by using it to help himself float into a state of self-induced hypnosis. Entering into a mild trance, Stein short-cut traditional meditation techniques, as he just did not have the luxury of time. Lying in a self-induced trance, he slowly felt his consciousness separate from his physical self, entering a spatial dimension that was not of the material world. As his conscious self left his body, he became increasingly aware of his surroundings, yet remained independent of his own being. All around him were many colours, too many for him to count, most of them totally alien to him. He maintained only the briefest, psychic tether to his physical self, that being a slight, yet distinct line to his heart, which itself had slowed to an almost impossibly slow, regular pulse. From his position in nowhere-space, he could monitor his body’s condition through his heart, without exposing his soul to the horrors being inflicted upon it.

By projecting his conscious self out of his physical body, Stein was planning, as that was the purpose of the training, to remain sane and insensitive to any stress that his body might feel during the course of the interview. The neuronic system was potentially lethal in the wrong hands, and many subjects had learned, to their cost, that the comfortable, floating feeling that the sequence induced belied the true nature of the system, one that had, on occasion, led to the host subject’s brains dissolving into a runny, grey goo. Stein’s survival now depended upon how well he judged what was happening to his body, to his head, in the material dimensions that he had left behind. If he returned too soon, he ran the risk of warping his brain and his mind into senseless, insane void, perhaps death. The only means that Stein had to avoid an early spasm was to reverse the channel back into himself. Having successfully shortened traditional meditation techniques to transcend his mortal self, he had projected his mind out of his body. Now, to survive his ordeal, he would have to maintain his consciousness’ position independent of his body, and to project part of himself through his own heartbeat into his central nervous system. Only when the external, sonic onslaught was over would he be able to cease being his own monitoring system, and return to the material world. As he felt for his heartbeat, he merged with its slow, rhythmic pulse and swiftly found the `pacemaker’ nerves that provided a direct link with his brain stem. Swiftly sending metaphysical feelers up the nerves of his own body, Stein locked into a harmonic rhythm that was wholly alien to his own body’s internal balance, as disrupted as it was after several days of temporal disorientation. Judging from the low intensity of it, the questioning was only just beginning. Not wanting to establish too strong a connection with his physical brain, Stein withdrew back to his heart.

In the adjoining room Graham Steadman stood behind the seat that was occupied by Klaus Holstein, one the CSA resident physicians. In his early sixties and with short-cropped, severely balding steel-grey hair, Klaus had never formally practiced medicine. Instead, having gained his medical degrees the younger Klaus had been spotted by the United Nations department of internal security, and had been recruited to carry out a clandestine research program to develop new interrogation techniques. One of his early triumphs had been to cobble together the first development notes for what was to become known as the neuron harmonic synchronous stimulation system, and created a nightmare machine that had originally been created as a form of physical therapy, a true massage for brain tissue. In the hands of Holstein, what had been intended to cure epilepsy instead created it. On good days.

Holstein was the CSA’s resident expert in the operation of the system, which he had continued to develop, and like a latter-day Mengele, practised and refined his machine and its application on a steady stream of subjects that were inexhaustibly supplied by the CSA. Now, seated in his personalised seat in the control room, he studied the VDU in front of him that displayed the baseline information on Stein’s “interview”. A couple of side panels were crammed with other gauges and smaller display units that gave a more detailed view on individual points of the sonic net that was ensnaring Stein’s head. A couple of minutes after Stein had separated his mind from his body, the last in a row of green checklights blinked on.

“We have established uniform harmonic unity, Steadman.”

“Good. How soon before the first question?”

“Give me a minute, tops,” Holstein replied. “I need to maintain and confirm the lock, and hope that he likes the sensation.” Totally cold and focussed on his work, his tone was that of a technician dissecting an earthworm.

“All yours, Agent.”

Steadman took a step forward and bent to bring his mouth closer to a flexi-neck microphone that was mounted on the panel. “Abraham Stein, this is arresting Agent Steadman. I have brought you here to answer a few questions relevant to your case. Doctor Holstein is present as a medical authority, and the recording of this interview will be made available to both our lawyer and yours.” He was relatively truthful. Certainly, the system could produce intense pain in the subject, but it would also neutralise and incapacitate the ability of the brain to respond. All suffering would be silent, eliminating any recorded evidence of coercion.

Perfect, really. Perhaps, too perfect.

Stein was silent, motionless.

“My first question, Stein, is simple.” Steadman smiled briefly. “Are you, or have you ever been, a member of the outlawed Freedom Movement?”

Stein remained silent. Steadman waited, before repeating the question. Again, no reply. Early days yet, Steadman thought. “I would suggest, Stein that you at least reply to my questions. Otherwise, it could get uncomfortable for you.”

Still, silence. Not even a blink. Steadman smiled. In truth, a recording would be made available - for Roth, a sightly edited version. He turned to Holstein, and nodded. Holstein smiled in reply, and began to gradual increase in intensity. The original system design had been meant to stop at the point that Stein was at now, with the harmonic characteristics of his cranium and brain tissue in phase with the ultrasonic stimulus surrounding it. Here, the physical therapy on brain tissue was supposedly beneficial. Holstein had taken the basic system to new heights of barbarity. His new, improved system would then either target specific areas of the brain, or provide a uniform field, and would then either increase in intensity to the point where neural connections would be strained to breaking point, or the phase would be reversed to essentially neutralise the ability of the neurons to operate.

If an excess of power was used, then a total breakdown of the neural network would result, with an accompanying decay of cellular structures. If a uniform field was being applied, the subject would die from the lack of any coherent brain mass. If only localised areas were being stimulated, then an intracranial lobotomy would result. People who had survived this often had either no motor control, lack of one or more senses or emotions, with a rather mushie part of their brain somewhere.

Reversal of the phase always produced a vegetative prisoner, and was used more as a means of control than interrogation. Even if no physical damage was wrought upon the subject, the direct physical stimulation often produced a permanent state of excitement in some areas of the subject’s brain, resulting in a range of effects that included recurring dreams, hallucinations, psychotic outbursts and epilepsy. The survivors who found themselves with such a condition typically ended up on a lunar work crew, before bringing about their own demise - unpredictable behaviour and precarious life-support systems don’t usually mix terribly well.

As Holstein increased the intensity of the sonic net, the web of neurons and dendrites in Stein’s brain began to hum, vibrating with the same frequency as the silent sound. Had Stein been conscious, he would have felt a growing pressure within his head, with no direct pressure being applied. The area of his brain that registered signals of pain from the nerves throughout his body was Holstein’s typical target, and by over-stimulating it Stein would have felt intense pain from all over his body. Intense, white-hot pain that was so searing as to be seen, rather than felt. All this, when in reality there was no pain, no physical injury at all, only his brain’s interpretation. From afar, Stein felt what was going on, but more from an outsider’s view, in a way similar to a voyeur gaining pleasure by watching himself from another room.

“I will ask you again - are you, or have you ever been, a member of the Freedom movement?” Same question, same answer. Steadman tried a new approach. “Our forensic experts have confirmed a ninety-eight percent likelihood that your handwriting is identical to that of whoever wrote the seditious, treasonous documents that were recovered during a raid on a Freedom Movement meeting. As you may be aware, we only need a ninety percent match to convict. Did you write the documents concerned?”

Still no reply.

“I can’t feel what you are feeling, Stein, so I’ll back off slightly.”

He signalled to Holstein, who reluctantly lowered the sonic intensity. “Perhaps with the relief, you may feel like talking.” No response. “Did you write the documents concerned? I would suggest that you co-operate, as it will reflect well on you during your trial.” Again, no response. To Holstein, “What are his limits?”

“Quite high, I suspect. But there is something that concerns me.”

“What? Has he mushed already?”

“Not physically, that I can tell.”

“Well, what of it?”

“He’s flat-lining. Mentally, that is.”

“What?” Steadman was incredulous. “How can anyone have no brain activity at all?”

“I’m not certain, but there isn’t even any static. You would normally have even at least base-line levels of activity, even when asleep. This guy here wiped out all apparent brain activity, at least electrical, when we started to build the net. I didn’t think that it would be significant at the time.”

“You were wrong. Hell, that would be why he’s not answering - he’s not at home.’ Steadman stood up and turned to face the back wall, scratching his head. “Could it be self-induced? I mean, if we were to try him with his brains fried, it wouldn’t do our case much good.”

Holstein thought in silence for a minute. “It could be TM.”

“Eh? Meditation?”

“Yes, or at least something like that. A self-induced trance.”

“Nice. But how would he come out of it?”

“I’m not sure. It might be a mental self-destruct mechanism.”

“Not likely - the self-preservation instinct would counter it immediately. Whatever he’s doing, he must be able to reverse it, somehow.” He thought for a second, and then turned back to Holstein. “Fry him, Klaus, or at least as near to it as possible. Just for the hell of it. This scum at least knew of the plot to shoot the committee - if it wasn’t going to be him personally, he’ll know who did. He’s not going to help to save himself, so bugger him. It seems that he can’t even feel it anyway, so who cares? Fry him, Klaus.”

Holstein turned back to his controls, and started to increase the power curve of the sonic net. As Steadman watched, the displays in front of Klaus gradually moved from the broad green fields into the red, until they stopped climbing. “No more power, Graham. All systems have peaked.”

“Good. Hold it there for as long as possible. What’s happening in his head?”

“Uh, not a lot.”

“No?”

“No.” Holstein checked the cranial monitor. “No mush, as you so eloquently put it. But then, that could be expected.”

“Really? Enlighten me.”

“Nothing simpler. Most, er, mushing, occurs when there is some consciousness active in the brain. In response to the sonic net, the active mind struggles, as thought, to cope with the sensory overload. The increased activity of the brain itself adds to the sonic net, compounding the effect. It is actually the combination of the net and the conscious mind that tears the brain apart from inside.”

“Okay. So you mean to tell me that all that he’s getting is a major massage?”

“Yup.”

“Turn it off, then. He’s good as hung, anyway.” Holstein immediately wound down the power, and dismantled the sonic net.

Outside, Stein kept in touch through his heart beat. The steady, humming rhythm in his head subsided, and disappeared. Sending a thought tendril up to his mind, he found that the harmonics in his head had gone, leaving the dissonant jangle of his nervous impulses. Quicker than thought, he withdrew from his ethereal haven back to his own being.

Throughout all, was the unwavering beat of his heart.