Monster (Gone 7)

At first glance, the Slab was an effort to disguise an austere laboratory as something more humane. There was no strange machinery, just the usual computers, nothing at all that suggested ray guns or lasers or interdimensional portals, or any of the things a Hollywood set designer might have included. The center of the Slab was a simple room, about the size of a suburban living room, with three gurneys, each covered in crisp white sheets. There were the usual small, wheeled, stainless-steel tables holding medical instruments, a cabinet with a multitude of small drawers, and a steel desk.

It was all fairly innocuous.

Except. Except that the walls were formed of sections, like panels, which suggested there might be things behind those panels. And there was a bank vault feel to the air, an undefinable sense of massive strength to walls and ceiling and floor, which itself was stainless steel.

The whole place just felt . . . wrong.

As much a prison cell as a lab.

Nurse Prettyman indicated the nearest table, and Dekka hopped up onto it, feeling the fifteen pounds she’d put on since the FAYZ.

I’ve gotta stay off the Ben and Jerry’s.

The nurse attached EEG lines to Dekka’s head, so that she looked like a disgruntled but colorful porcupine, black dreads sprouting multicolored wires. A blood oxygen monitor clamped Dekka’s right index finger and a blood pressure cuff went around her wrist. Finally the nurse inserted an IV line and hung a small, clear plastic pouch full of what looked like nothing more than distilled water.

“Nine oh three a.m.,” Dr. Malireddi said. Then, to Dekka, “I want at this time to reiterate that your participation is wholly voluntary and that you have been informed of the risks.”

“Yep.”

“All right then, nurse,” the doctor said, and the nurse turned the little plastic toggle on the line and the liquid began to flow into Dekka’s arm.

“Let us know if you feel any discomfort,” Dr. Malireddi said calmly, like a dentist about to start drilling. Peaks was leaning against a far wall, arms crossed over his chest. He was doing his best to seem nonchalant, but Dekka was not buying it. What was happening was a long, long way from nonchalant-land, and Peaks looked tense, unsettled. Worried?

“I feel a little cold,” Dekka said. Then, when Prettyman bustled away to grab a blanket, she amended, “No, I mean the . . . the stuff . . . whatever you call it, going in my arm.”

“That’s normal.”

“Glad something is,” Dekka said under her breath.

It took five minutes for the liquid carrying the powdered rock to enter her system. Prettyman pulled the needle, made a gauze square, and asked Dekka to hold it in place with a finger as she wrapped a pressure bandage around her arm.

The doctor stared at the EEG readout. “Nominal.”

Peaks said, “Nothing?”

“Well, we didn’t expect it to be instantaneous,” Malireddi said a little defensively. “Nurse, let’s put the mobile monitor on her.”

This turned out to be a piece of machinery about the size of a compact hard drive that rested in a belt that Dekka buckled around her waist. Wireless electrodes were pressed into the bare flesh at the back of her neck.

“Don’t shower with those on,” the nurse said in her professional nurse voice. “Call us and we’ll send a tech to remove them and replace them when you’re done.”

“What fun.”

It was a complete anticlimax. Peaks and his silent guards walked her back to her quarters.

“You’ll let us know if anything happens,” Peaks said as they paused at her door.

“Well, me plus the electrodes, plus the cameras you’ve got watching me, plus, I would guess, various other sensors and monitors you’ve got built into my room.”

Peaks’s smile was equal parts rueful and annoyed, but he knew better than to deny it. “Just so you know, we do not surveil the bathroom.”

The day passed with unusual leisure for Dekka. There were no more tests, no more probes, no more anything, just a tense air of expectation.

Dekka binge watched Vikings.

She interrupted this important work to eat lunch in the cafeteria—lasagna, a green salad, and chocolate pudding—which she finished more quickly than usual, since she could feel dozens of sets of eyes on her.

Back in her room she watched more sword fighting, sailing, and Danish sex, then switched to YouTube for a random wander through cat videos, Amy Schumer stand-up, music videos from promising but definitely not famous bands, news bloopers, Russian dash-cam videos, a cop beating up a student, and more cat videos.