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up being annoyed. I had one room and a bathroom. Outside of my room
was a glassed-in porch. I could walk out on the porch and sun myself. They
seemed to have the sun going all day long, every day. I wondered what had
happened to the rainy days I d known back in my youth. Or maybe there
were rainy days but I just wasn t seeing them. I had suspected for a long
time that my room and its glassed-in enclosure were inside some other sort
of a building, a really big building where they controlled the light and the
climate, made it just like they wanted it. Evidently the way they wanted it was
with hazy sunlight all day long. I couldn t see the sun even when I was
outside. Just a white sky and light glaring from it. It could come from klieg
lights, for all I knew. They didn t let me see much.
I had spotted the cameras, however. They were little units, Sonys, I
suspected, and their tiny black matte heads rotated all of the time, keeping
me in sight. There were cameras inside my one room, too, up in the
corners, behind steel netting that I couldn t tear away even if I wanted to,
which I didn t, and cameras even in my bathroom. I hated that. During my
first days here, I d screamed at the walls,  Hey, what s it with you guys, don t
you got any sense of privacy? Can t a guy even take a dump without you
watching? But nobody ever answered me. No one ever talked to me. I d
been here seventy-three days, I made notches on the plastic table to keep
count. But sometimes I forgot, and I wouldn t be surprised if it turned out to
be a lot longer than that. They d allowed me writing materi-als, too, but no
computer. Were they afraid of what I might do with a computer? I didn t
have any idea. They gave me reading material, too. Old stuff. Moll
Flanders. Idylls of the King. The Iliad and Odyssey. Stuff like that. Good
stuff, but not exactly up to date. And they never showed themselves.
Why was that? I couldn t figure it out. I didn t even know what they
looked like. They d grabbed me back then, seventy-three days ago. Stuff
had still been happen-ing back then. I d been home. I d received an urgent
fax. Office of the President.  We need you urgently. I d come. In fact,
they d sent men to bring me to this place. Men who didn t answer any of my
questions. I d tried to find out. What s this all about? They ll tell you more
in-side, that s all they d told me.
And then I d been inside. They d given me a suite of rooms, told me
to get some rest, there d be a meeting soon. I d gone to sleep that first
night, and been awakened by sounds of shooting. I d gone to the door. It
was locked. I could hear men shouting, struggling out in the hall. And then
there d been silence. And the silence had gone on and on.
At first I d thought I was pretty well off. The others had gotten killed, I
suspected. Those blank-faced men who d brought me here. All dead, I was
sure of it. I was the only one remaining. But what for? What did they want
me for?
I d heard noises outside my suite of rooms. Sounded like someone
was building something. What they were doing was cutting down my
mobility. Reducing my three-room suite to a room, a bathroom, and a
glassed-in outside area. Why had they done that? What was it all about?
The hell of it was, I had a feeling about what it was all about. I thought
I knew. But I didn t want to admit it to myself.
The time of the tests had come. That had been a few weeks ago.
They had poked instruments down through the ceiling. Stuff that looked at
me, stuff on the end of wires that recorded me. I d gone a little crazy during
that time. I knew they d gassed me a couple of times. When I came to, I
found cuts and injection marks on my body. Bruises. They d been
experimenting with me. Trying to find out something. Using me as a guinea
pig. But for what? Just because I d started the whole mess? That wasn t
fair. They d no right to do that. It hadn t been my fault.
I invented an imaginary playmate after a while. Some-one to talk to.
They must have thought I was crazy. But I needed someone to talk to. I just
couldn t go on talking in my head all the time.
 So listen, Julie, the way I figure it, it all began back then when Gomez
and I went out to Alquemar. I don t think I ever told you about Alquemar, did
I?
I had, of course. But Julie was always obliging. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]