THE DREAM MALL

"It wasn't real, it couldn't have been real."
"It WAS real, Maykin. You were there."
"It was a DREAM," cried Maykin, the rope angry around his wrists, his shoulders stretched back behind the sides of the chair. He had given up fighting. At first the feeling was urgent and boiling; furiously he twisted in the chair, like a fish in the hand, writhing and slippery and desperate. It had proved futile and his endurance slowly rotted away until it passed. He fidgeted in the chair now, the lights hanging over him like massive, enflamed eyes of a beast, superwhite and washing him out.
"It was a dream. I have nothing for you people."
"You have everything for us," screamed the voice. The owners' silhouette paced in front of him, the lights too bright for Maykin see any detail. "It was March 23rd. You remember."
"I told you," he cried. "I told you i remember the day. Of course i remember the day."
"Did you know he was planning to escape the institution? Did he tell you his plans to escape?"
"He never escaped, only in the dream. He was transferred to a facility in the west, somewhere on the coast." Maykin's voice was shredded and quiet. "I fell asleep in the van, they always put us to sleep in the van."
They had beat him before they had strapped him to the chair. He breathed heavily, or the thinnest white borderline of panting. "We did the job that they asked, on the 23rd, and then he was gone."
"What was the job," demanded the voice. Someone near him lit a cigarette. Maykin clenched and tried to rip his backwards wrists from the bounds of the rope. "The rope isnt going anywhere, Maykin. Just tell us the job."
"Tell us what you remember," said a second voice, this one suave and shady. Maykin imagined he had spectacle on.
"The 23rd..." he started, his words quavering, losing their balance. He was holding back tears. This was the hardest part. "The March 23rd job was specific for me and Agent Berrien."
"The 30th Floor of the Burski Building. Is that correct."
"Yes," cried Maykin. "The target was some .... some program director, working for some... I didnt know we'd be killing people, i didnt know ...fuck,"
"WHAT WAS HIS NAME," screamed the first voice. "WHAT WAS THE NAME?"
"Riggs."
"Brandon Riggs?" asked the voice.
"Yes, i didn't know though ..."
"You didnt know what?"
"Berrien killed him, he ... i didn't know we'd be killing him. It was my first job..."
"What did you think, Maykin? You were in prison. You were cell meat. The Sunrise Institution pulled you out of hell and gave you a second chance."
"YOU TESTED ON US," screamed Maykin. "YOU TURNED US INTO FUCKIN FREAKS," a hand came darting out of the whiteness and slapped him across his face. Maykin emmited a sound that was half a scream and half a growl. "Gah..."
"The Sunrise Institution used you people --- you ... criminals --- as the first tier in the pathway to the next step of evolution.You can do things now ... things human beings arent supposed to do."
"FUCK YOU," Maykin screamed, rivulets of blood washing down his stubbled chin. "If my hands werent tied behind this chair i'd kill every one of you with the blast,"
"After Berrien eliminated the target," said the voice, ignoring him."what happened next."
"I dont remember," cried Maykin.
"YOU DO REMEMBER, WE TALKED TO BERRIEN, WE KNOW WHAT YOU DID."
Maykin again tried to pull his hands free. He couldnt create the blast effect unless his hands were in front of him. They had designed him that way. He spit blood onto the floor in front of him.
"We were retrieved by a black van, on the south end of 50th Street. They put bags over our heads. Then they put us to sleep. It was the last time i saw Berrien. I dont know where they took us. I never tried to escape, it was a dream. We NEVER TRIED TO ESCAPE ... the next thing i remember was waking up in the training institution."
"BULLSHIT," the voice snarled, as another hand reached out of the blank white ring of light and connected violently with his mangled face. "Tell us about the mall."
"It can't be real, I wasn't there," Another slap rocketted across his face. Someone gasped.
"Tell us or i'll put a piece of glass in your mouth for the next one."
"The technology doesnt exist, it can't," He cried. A hand grasped his hair and whiplashed his head back.
"The technology?! Doesnt Exist!? We gave you powers, Maykin. You and all the other freaks. You are super human. The technology doesnt exist?" Now a thick punch to the face. Maykin considered himself one the hardest men he'd ever met, but now he was starting to cry. They were going to kill him. Someone coughed.
"If it was real," he said, gasping for air. "then after they retrieved us, they ... must've ... they took us to a place they called Dream Mall Facility," he drooled blood and spat. "They split us up, me and Berrien, in the dream. Everything seemed..."
"Who split you up."
"Men in suits. Other Agents? I don't know."
"Then what?"
"The whole place ... there was ... it was ..." In his mind, Maykin saw flashes of it; the cold blueish tint covering everything, the walls and floors shining and reflective. Patients on stretchers connected to IVs line one side of the cobalt corridor, while masked nurses in white skirts slithered around slowly, like snakes with clipboards. He knew it had to be a dream. "There were rooms," he continued, his voice barely a whisper. "They were all glass. Like shops. Lining the walls." He saw it in his mind, as he stared off into the whiteness of the spotlights. The glass windows were enormous, he remembered, and inside each one there was a test subject. "It was some sort of training facility. But not like the one i went to, the one at Otson. This was ... different."
"Different how?"
Maykin, with vivid clarity, brought to memory one of the men in the rooms. He was standing in the corner, near the wall. He was naked. As Maykin had passed the glass room, the man inside winked and stepped back into the corner of the room. He dissapeared.
"That's a camo subject," said one of the agents escorting him. "Some kind of chemical veneer over the skin, blends in like a fuckin chameleon."
"HOW WAS IT DIFFERENT," screamed the voice, punching him in the ear, ripping him from his memory like a piece of fabric. "TELL US, MAYKIN,"
"The subjects were too advanced. There were dozens of them, it was like a mall; two floors, endless glass rooms with test subjects in them, it wasnt like it was at Oster, just four of us in a classroom learning how to manifest and control the same psionic power .... this was ... enormous. It was too big to be real."
"What did you do then."
"The alarm went off. All of the ... glass rooms, they had... Security doors? They all shut, sealing off the test subjects. I heard ... gunshots from the second floor, and then Berrien came .... jumping ... somehow ... down over the railing. He blasted the ground with hands, i think he was trying to soften his fall. But-"
"He broke his legs."
"Yeah."
"And thats when you attacked the agents. To help Berrien."
"I dont know," whispered Maykin. His eye was beginning to swell shut. "I ... the next thing i remember is waking up at Osten, and thinking about the dream."
"You thought about then? When you woke up?"
"Yes... It was March 24th, the next morning. It couldnt have been a dream. I WOKE UP THE NEXT MORNING, the 24th! You people are wrong."
It was silent for a while. Someone was coughing again distantly; he forgot how big the room was. He breathed heavily. Voices chatted in the white shadow. Someone sighed heavily.
"You and Berrien escaped the Dream Mall facility on March 23rd. You killed 67 agents to get out, using the psionic blast that we, the Sunshine Institution installed into you. You split up after 3 months--"
"3 months..." laughed Maykin. "You're fucking mad." The voice continued over him.
"--after you successfully helped Agent Berrien restore his health." Someone close to him lit a cigarette. The voice paused for a long silence. "Agent Berrien was tracked down after a total of four hundred fifty one days on the run, by a task force team in the suburbs of Boston. Some little sucklick called Malden. It was a week before we found you in that hospital in Miami."
"What hospital,"
"Shut up. We wiped your memory, reset the clock, so to speak. You were convinced nothing had changed, and that Agent Berrien had been transferred after the job. A few days ago you started to act ..."
"Funny," said the second voice. "You started to act funny."
"Funny is an understatement. You acted insane."
"Resurfacing memories," said the second voice.
Maykin chuckled, spitting more blood on the floor. "So," he said. "You're telling me, that i escaped. For over a year? And that the Dream Mall Facility is... real? And that i'm starting to remember erased memories?" He abruptly started laughing, tilting his head back even. "You're fucking mad,"
"Is it so impossible?" said the second voice. "An organization that delivered into your body the ability to manipulate psionic energy, turning it into a weapon... you really doubt the possiblity that the same organization could ... theoretically ... erase your memory?"
"Then what the fuck did i do for that year," said Maykin, staring at where he thoguht the mans face would be. "Tell me."
The first voice laughed.
"That's what we're going to discuss next.
Suddenly the lights went out, and everything was pitch, solid dark. After a moment, an enormously loud roar of applause erupted from the abysmal blackness, as the thick, blood-red curtains dropped swiftly from their hiding places above the stage. Behind them, dim lights glowed to life as the actor playing Maykin easily stripped the the ropes off his hands, stood and stretched. From the theater seats he heard the hundreds of audience members standing and chattering loudly, welcoming the plays intermission while at the same time eager for it to continue. Bob came over to him.
"Jesus, man, i hope i didnt actually hit you on that last one,"
Actor-Maykin smiled. "No, just grazed me a little bit."
"Thank christ! You think they like it?"
"I think they're loving it so far."
The director came over to them and told them they had 5 minutes to get squared away. The intermission was a quick one.