Resonance

DEDICATION

For Alix, because she likes Mitch,

and for Lars, because.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thanks to Carolyn, who told me about Camp;

to Peter, who told me about digoxin;

to Lars, for Will;

to Alix, who edited and proofread;

and to Ken, for the title and the blurb, suggestions, advice, a listening ear, patience, judicious pushing, and general awesomeness.

Any errors are of course mine alone.

CONTENTS

Dedication

Acknowledgments

Chapter 1. Crash

Chapter 2. Where Am I?

Chapter 3. I Wake Up and Think About Family

Chapter 4. The Cabin

Chapter 5. I Get Up

Chapter 6. Return of the Angel

Chapter 7. TSA

Chapter 8. Simon Fletcher

Chapter 9. The Labs

Chapter 10. Killing Time

Chapter 11. Raft

Chapter 12. Simon Says

Chapter 13. Shep Wakes Up

Chapter 14. We Meet Andrew

Chapter 15. Reinsertion

Chapter 16. Back in the TSA

Chapter 17. The Project

Chapter 18. Linked

Chapter 19. Insertion

Chapter 20. A Day in the Life

Chapter 21. The Murder

Chapter 22. Murder Mystery

Chapter 23. Preventing a Murder

Chapter 24. Vacation Plans Cancelled

Chapter 25. The Softer Side of the Ys

Chapter 26. The Plot Thickens

Chapter 27. Impasse

Chapter 28. Brainwashing

Chapter 29. Sold into Slavery

Chapter 30. Not According to Plan

Chapter 31. In Which We Fail to Escape, Several Times

Chapter 32. Weirdness Happens

Epilogue

About the Author

Chapter 1. Crash

I couldn't have been out for more than a few seconds, because when I came to, the first thing I heard was the roar of the red pickup coming back fast in reverse to the spot where they had run us off the road.

At that moment I didn't know I'd been knocked out. I didn't remember we'd been run off the road. It was like waking up after the first night in a new place, all disoriented. Various parts of me were also in pain.

I was twisted around to the left in the passenger seat because I'd been looking past Shep, out the window on the driver's side, but when I came to, the seat belt was holding me back against the seat and my head was sagging down so I was looking at my legs. They were sprinkled with little bits of sparkly stuff. That didn't seem to make any sense, so I ignored it. Legs, I thought. Sitting. In car. Roaring noise. Truck. I lifted up my head, which now seemed to weigh about the same as a bowling ball, and looked out the driver's-side window, and I could see the truck on the road, a little above us.

There were three guys in the truck, scrunched together so all of them could look out the side window and see what they had done to us two guys in the car. They were grinning and pointing, but the mirth seemed a little forced, probably because they could see the amount of damage that had resulted from running us off the road.

We must be off the road, I reasoned slowly, because they were up there on the road. We weren't moving anymore, which obviously meant we'd stopped. Why had we stopped? Possibly because we'd smashed up our car so it had stopped running.

For it to be smashed up, I thought laboriously, we must have smashed it against something. And if so, that meant that whatever we had smashed into would probably be in front of us. I turned my head carefully—the weight of it made my neck wobbly—and looked out through the windshield. Correction: where the windshield had been. Aha. A revelation made its way into my brain at about snail speed. Windshield—broken—sparkly stuff. There were little cubes of glass all over my lap from the windshield.

Having figured that out, I mentally moved it aside so I could go back to whatever I had been trying to think before. Oh yes—smashed into something. That would be the tree there outside the remains of the windshield.

The tree seemed remarkably close to the car. This didn't make sense, I thought, because the car had a front, a piece that stuck out in front of the windshield, which should be between the tree trunk and me. After a moment I decided it was called the hood and the engine compartment. I looked at the tree some more and gradually realized that the front of the car was really very severely mashed in.

I looked down at my legs again. Yup, there they were. I leaned forward a little, balancing my head carefully. Feet at the bottom, just where they should be. The space they were in seemed kind of small, however, because the tree had mashed in the front of the car.

The mashing, I realized, had been mostly on the left side of the car. We must have hit the tree at an angle rather than head on, so my side was more or less intact, although the space my feet were in was smaller. Most of the damage was on Shep's side. I was mentally planning the speech I would make to Mr. Shepherd in Shep's defense—it had absolutely not been his fault.

Shep, I thought. Right. Shep had been driving. Which meant that he had been in the driver's seat. I looked around for him and then down at a mess of bloody rags on the seat. Under the blood the rags seemed to be gray, the color of Shep's t-shirt. I kept looking at them, feeling vaguely that I was missing something, and then the picture came into focus and holy wow, I realized that Shep's torso was bent forward over his right leg, his head twisted against the dash. The steering wheel was broken and bent down to the right, as if it was trying to look at his face.

Seat belt, I thought. We were buckled up. Where's his seat belt? I knew Shep had been wearing his seat belt, therefore this could not have happened, therefore it must be a hallucination, or a dream. Maybe we hadn't been run off the road. Maybe none of it had happened, maybe I was still asleep in the cabin at the lake and we hadn't even been out to the raft yet—or anyway hadn't even left yet.

I looked up to see whether the truck was still there, as if that would prove whether or not I was awake. It was, and now the door was hanging open and one of the giggling goons was coming down the slope toward the car. I tried to work out whether this was a good thing or a bad thing. If they had run us off the road because they wanted to kill us, then he was probably coming to finish the job, and that would be a bad thing. If they had run us off the road by accident, then he was coming to see if we were all right, and that would be good, because we weren't, and we needed help, and they would help us.

I didn't think it had been an accident. We'd been driving along 471, which is a nice little country road, two lanes but with a good shoulder on each side, well maintained, curves enough to make it fun in a sports car. Shep was going maybe 45, maybe 50, a little fast, but there wasn't any traffic. He was playing, double-clutching to slow down into each curve and then gunning it out of the turn.

We'd passed a side road where the faded red pickup was waiting, and it turned onto 471 behind us. Neither one of us thought anything about it—at least, there was no reason to. I didn't, and I don't think Shep did.

We got to a straight stretch and the pickup suddenly roared up behind us and rammed our back bumper—actually probably the trunk, because the bumper of the pickup was a lot higher than our bumper. We both shouted Hey or something, and Shep wrestled a little with the wheel to hold us straight. I turned to look out the back window, but all I could see was the truck's grill just as they rammed us again.

Why? I shouted, not to Shep, but he answered.

No idea! He was hunched forward holding the wheel hard, and I could see the buckle end of the seat belt under his arm. Right—now I remembered. He apparently hadn't clicked it all the way tight, and when they rammed us it popped out.

Now the pickup was beside us. Shep stood on the brake but they cut across in front of us and forced us off the road. I remember thinking, thank God there's no ditch. At that point I hadn't yet noticed the tree. Then there was the blank part, then I woke up, and now, I figured out slowly, here we were.

Suddenly the goon was looking through the window on the driver's side. He looked at me, then down at Shep. Shit, he said. He turned around and started running up the slope to the pickup.

Get out of here, he shouted, waving wildly. He swung up into the cab, and the truck was already moving when he pulled the door shut.

I opened my mouth to say something to him, but of course I was way too late. I also thought it might be a good idea to write down the truck's license number, but by the time I had finished the thought, the truck was too far away for me to read it.

At that point I realized that I wasn't actually thinking too clearly, and that made me think that I probably still wasn't a hundred percent alert. Being unconscious felt like a really nice option and also pretty much inevitable, so I was almost glad when I felt myself sort of dizzying off.

Just at that moment there was a really loud buzzing noise, and a big old fly zoomed in through the broken windshield and lit on Shep's back, in the blood. That made me a little sick at my stomach and also mad—it seemed disrespectful and also sort of gross. So I reached out to shoo the bastard away.

Correction: started to reach out. I pulled on the right muscles, and there was this scorching pain, and this floppy thing sort of lurched into view around the corner of my shoulder. It scared the hell out of me until I realized it was my arm—which changed scared to total panic.

I'd been twisted around in my seat to look out Shep's window, and I slowly figured out that when we hit the tree I naturally threw up my arm to protect my face. I probably hit it a good crack on the window frame or the dash or something, I don't know. Anyway, the arm was still there, but it was complete with at least one extra joint and it looked very funny. It looked—damaged.

I shut my eyes and started to cry. Not just because of my arm, although it had started to hurt like a son of a bitch, but because I was pretty much helpless. I thought I would be able to unfasten my seat belt with my left hand, but I wasn't sure I could get out of the car. I knew I couldn't get Shep out—it would probably take the Jaws of Life or something, and I didn't even want to think what the engine block had done to his legs. Giving him CPR wouldn't help, and with only one good arm I couldn't do it anyway. And I couldn't go kill those bastards in the pickup because they were gone.

Call 911, I thought to myself. I had a cell phone. Where was it? Oh yes—in my duffel in the trunk. How convenient. But Shep had a cell phone too. Where was his? It had been in a cradle on the dash, sort of under where his head was now. Without thinking I started to reach out with my right arm, a major mistake. First of all, it was excruciatingly painful, and second, when the pain shot through it, I turned my head and looked at it.

I'd looked at it before but had somehow had the sense to close my eyes right away. Now I saw where a jagged piece of bone was poking out through my biceps.

My gut started to churn and I wondered if I was going to hurl. I felt hot and sweaty and cold and clammy at the same time. I was light-headed and there was a ringing in my ears, or more like a buzzing—You're going into shock, I said to myself, and not because of your best friend who's probably dying—dead—no, dying—but because of looking at your own fucking arm.

When I was about fourteen, one afternoon after school I had to go to the dentist for my checkup. I rode my bike over. My teeth are good—I have exactly one filling, and that was the day I got it. Dr. Heinman said it was so minor, he could fill it right then, I wouldn't have to make a separate appointment. I said great.

Then he asked if I wanted Novocain, and I had just seen this old movie where the main character goes to the dentist and has Novocain and then goes to a coffee shop and tries to pick up a girl, only when he drinks, the coffee all dribbles out the side of his mouth. Ten, it's called. Anyway, from the movie I was already prejudiced against Novocain, so I asked Dr. Heinman if I really needed it. I think he saw the question as me being brave and manly, and of course it would save time if I didn't have the injection—he wouldn't have to wait for my gum to get numb.

So he said it wasn't even really a cavity, just a soft spot, he'd barely have to drill at all, it'd be all over before I knew it. So I passed on the Novocain.

The crazy part of the story is, he was right. It was only a small spot, he didn't drill very long, and it didn't hurt that much—it was pretty unpleasant but nothing I couldn't take. Then he started to fill it, pressing the amalgam or whatever it's called in hard so it squeaked, and I got this weird creepy feeling of somebody putting a foreign substance into my body. That was a very unpleasant idea, a really sickening idea in fact, so I tried very hard not to think about it. Pretty soon after that, he was through.

I was nearly home when I got to feeling really peculiar and sick. I was afraid I might fall off my bike, and I couldn't decide whether to get off and push it or stay on to get home faster. My mind seemed to be running slow, because I was turning into our driveway before I'd decided. I dropped the bike on the grass and went right up to my room and lay down on the bed, feeling shaky and clammy and sick at my stomach.

Mom called up was I all right. I couldn't very well say no, a guy has some pride after all, especially at fourteen, but I kind of wanted some attention, so I croaked back, I'm not sure, or Sort of, or something.

Of course she came up, so I told her that the dentist had filled a small cavity and I didn't feel too good and was sort of tired (she told me afterward that my face was gray-green) and wanted to lie down until dinner. The thought of which, when I said it, made me even more sick at my stomach.

Mom wrung a washcloth out in cold water and came and put it on my forehead. There, she said, and went away again. She's really pretty okay as mothers go.

I guess she told Dad when he got home, because he came up and sat on the edge of the bed and looked at me and took my pulse, which is what he always does to us in the face of any distressful situation, physical or not.

I was feeling better but also pretty ashamed about acting like such a baby over having a tooth filled, which is what I said to him.

He shook his head and smiled and turned the washcloth over to the cool side.

It happens to everybody, Mitch, he said. Not at the dentist, necessarily. It has to do with the body's sense of itself. Animals have it too. The realization that the body has been damaged brings on shock—mental and emotional shock, which can lead to the physical condition known as shock. The realization that your body, your physical you, has been interfered with, trespassed on. The two-dollar words are 'violation of physical integrity'—breaking into your wholeness. That's what the dentist did, in a minor way. Your age, the fact that you're in the middle of puberty has just made you temporarily more susceptible. And now you know, in a minor way, what it's like to go into shock, so if it ever happens again, God forbid, you'll recognize it.

What do you do, if you feel it coming on—how do you stop it? I was interested, and also talking about something was distracting me from the icky way I felt.

Call 911, he said dryly. "The trouble is, with real physical shock, you can't think clearly, and often you can't take the proper preliminary steps even if you were able to remember them—like keeping warm and elevating your legs—and the cause might be something like an internal hemorrhage, which you can't do anything about.

"Some people have what you could call a high shock threshold and can hold it off, at least the mental and emotional component. I doubt that there's such a creature as a person with no sense of physical integrity, so it would likely have to be a person who can totally intellectualize what's happened. I've heard of doctors badly hurt in car accidents not only remaining conscious but directing the EMTs who are helping them.

That's pretty unusual, though. He smiled at me. And it's unrealistic for most of us to assume, or hope, that we can stave it off by thinking about something else. So the best thing would be to yell for help. No, correction—the best thing would be not ever to get in the kind of situation that might result in your going into shock. Think you can eat some dinner now?

This whole sequence popped into my mind as I was drifting away. I couldn't call 911 as there didn't seem to be a cell phone handy. I couldn't holler for help to the goons in the truck because they were gone. For a moment I felt a pang of regret that they weren't there, not so I could ask them for help, but so I could think of one really cutting, one really short, snappy, devastating, I mean one really searing comment and shout that.

At this point I noticed that I wasn't unconscious yet and my thought processes hadn't totally turned into goo. I began to toy with the notion that perhaps thinking about something else was a better idea than Dad had led me to believe. Unfortunately this made me think about my arm again, and that did it. I could feel myself sliding away into the dark nothing and couldn't think of any reason not to just let