The Psychonaut Genesis by Wayne Wightman

Author:Wayne Wightman [Wightman, Wayne]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-06-08T22:00:00+00:00

As Scarn and Neva took obscure passages to the designated storage closet on Level 28, Scarn felt his quiet rage begin a slow seethe. As the minutes passed, with the single-mindedness of a small-brained reptile, he felt more and more driven by the need to get to in Stattor’s face and either make him admit the existence of the horror he had allowed or let him see his very own pieces hit the floor before he got his brain fried.

When they met and closed themselves in, Tuttle said, “You look surprisingly lifelike.”

“It was a stretch.”

“So,” Tuttle said, “if I give you this welder, might it result in your looking not so lifelike?”

“Living on this station could do that.”

Scarn told them what he had seen—the madness, the possession. “I want to get his attention. If I kill him, he won’t be able to hear me.”

Tuttle strapped the power module on the small of Scarn’s back. The welder itself was a series of amplification units along the line that Tuttle now attached to Scarn’s side and then fastened along the length of his arm as far as the bottom of his wrist. Scarn’s sleeve, when pulled down, would conceal all of it but the emission tip.

To activate it, all he had to do was turn off the safety, point it where he wanted, and with his other hand touch the burn button. At three meters, it would put 5500° on a spot the size of a fly speck; if one moved the focus, it would slice like a flat blade.

“They could kill you in an instant,” Neva said. “You know that. There are probably as many bodyguards as guests. You’re not faster than all of them.”

“She’s right, Scarn. The odds. . . .”

“I’m already supposed to be dead. When he’s gone, you need to take people into the quarantined areas to see what he let happen. Then they’ll know the only thing to do is to move the station.”

He straightened his clothes around the welder.

“Looks good,” Tuttle said, but he wasn’t enthusiastic. “Scarn, maybe we could get people to see what’s in those places without your doing this.”

“Time’s run out. There are psychonauts dying in there. The most they do is throw them some Somazine once in a while.”

“Jeez. If they weren’t crazy to begin with, they will be after a few weeks of that stuff.”

“Speaking of which,” Scarn said.

Tuttle understood. “Right.” From one of his pockets he pulled out a yellow amppack with an intravenous attachment. “Seven milliliters of aqueous Synadrine with just a touch of Equinex to keep you in touch with the essentials of objective reality. You sure about this?”

Neva looked troubled. “I didn’t know anyone could still get that. Isn’t it dangerous? Doesn’t it cause organ damage?”

“Only in amateurs.”

He pulled up a pantleg, located a vein on the inside of his calf, slapped the spot with his hand to deaden the sting, and then inserted the needle from the amppack through the skin.

“It’ll make his synapses operate a little faster,” Tuttle said.

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