Once we discover the right mix of modules and blockers, we can stimulate your
own body to produce the needed enzymes. As with genetically mandated enzymes,
the combination that forms you as you are now, we will use blockers to prevent
undesired genetically mandated material from finding its receptors, while our
newly stimulated substances will find theirs. Over a relatively short period of
time the body will adjust and shift to this new pattern, overriding the old, and
it will be totally permanent and self-perpetuating. It is so complex that only a
computer could isolate and define all the receptors and determine the mix, but
only after I tell it the desired goals. There.
She felt pressure and a very slight momentary stinging in her right shoulder.
Just relax. Only a mild test, he assured her soothingly. Purely transitory.
We won’t get into anything really elaborate today.
She waited, scared to death of this man and his machines, and watched the
hologram. Not all the chemical pieces remained put for any length of time;
things were always changing, pieces disconnecting and others coming in, although
the basic pattern remained the same.
Now, suddenly, some new pieces came into the scene, in colors not otherwise
represented. Some were jet-black; others were yellow or gray. Many went right
by, but some headed immediately for receptor points as if on homing beacons. A
few of the black ones stuck to a blood vessel wall, as if waiting, and when some
of the blue pieces vacated their natural positions, the black ones dislodged
themselves and then swept in to fill the emptiness. More of the blue entered,
natural chemicals, but they found their places occupied, and after pausing as if
they were intelligent creatures, they moved on and out of view.
She continued to watch, and suddenly she began to tremble. She felt
afraid—afraid not of the doctor or his machines but of everything. She began to
cry, and the cry turned into uncontrollable sobbing. She felt a sense of
terrible despair. Everything was hopeless. She was unloved, reviled, loathsome
to others and to herself. She was unworthy, incapable of doing anything right.
She needed someone—anyone—to protect her, to guide her. She needed
someone—anyone—to instruct her in all things. She was afraid almost to think, to
make any decisions, because she could only make the wrong ones. She felt so
humble, so tiny and insignificant, that she wished someone would take her and
command her.
The display shifted, although she had not seen it and had not even felt the
second injection. Substances of differing colors moved in and eased out the
foreign objects; the black ones were ordered out, and some but not all were
replaced in her biochemical tapestry. .
She stopped crying, feeling much, much better now; a damp cloth wiped her face,
and she smiled at the feel. It felt wonderful. Everything felt wonderful. Her
whole body tingled, and even the brush of skin against the chair or her hospital
gown seemed an erotic caress. She was drifting now on a wonderful, magical
euphoric cloud in which nothing at all mattered. They could do anything,
anything at all to her, and it would not matter. She rarely had any sort of
sexual dreams or fantasies, but this was real, and she wished someone would come
and take her and ravish her body and do whatever they wished with her. She had a
vision of herself as a sultry woman of pleasure, dancing, moving, naked and free
in front of a group of adoring men, and she really liked the fantasy.
Blockers and enzymes shifted and changed, and the feelings and the fantasies
faded quickly. Reality returned, although she had always been conscious of where
she was and what was happening. The difference was that she was becoming
clearheaded once more, coldly confident, and increasingly angry over what was
being done here. She struggled against her bonds, cursing the fact that she was
trapped in a weak woman’s body. She didn’t feel like a woman; deep down, she had
a vision that she was a man, a man trapped by science or sorcery in this weak
girl’s body, a strong and virile man with courage and confidence and raw animal
power. She’d rather bed this body than be trapped in it. Anger turned to pure
animal fury, and she struggled against the metal rings that bound her.
Adrenaline pumped,’ and she actually twisted and bent the rings and managed to
get one hand free. He would show them! He would.
More shifting, more changing color patterns. The sense of strong sexual identity
faded but was not replaced. She had no concept of maleness or femaleness; gender
was an irrelevancy, without meaning to her. The anger, too, faded quickly, and
she felt totally calm, unable even to relate to the emotions she had experienced
up to that point. She was like a machine: aware, intelligent, but without
passion, without any feelings at all about anything. Yet she was as clearheaded,
as logical, as she could ever be. Stripped of her animalism, she stared at the
patterns in the hologram and almost immediately grasped their logic and meaning
based upon what she had seen so far. At this level, where even pleasure and
pain, fear and love, were mere terms, she analyzed her situation. She was being
reprogrammed, but this level was the most efficient for undertaking an escape.
There was no hatred, no bitterness, no feeling of any sort that was relevant to
her. Escape was mandated because this stage was the optimum one for her
potentials, and it was illogical to abort it.
I believe we have done enough for today, Doctor Wang said casually. Too much
can wear you out and cause harm to the body. My! You really did a job on those
restraints! Well, I will just recline you now and allow you to rest and the
enzymes to be expelled from your system. It will probably cause you to sleep, so
just relax and let it happen. I’ll be back in a few minutes to check you out,
then you can go and eat.
She watched the doctor actually leave and no one else come back in. She did not
feel elation or any other emotion, but she realized immediately that they had
made their first mistake. There was simply no way that the chief administrator,
her father, was going to allow this place to be without standard safeguards.
Code Lotus, black, green, seven two three one one, she said aloud in a calm,
expressionless voice. Emergency override activation is ordered.
A computer voice responded from somewhere to the left rear of her. Code
acknowledged, it said. Reason for interrupt?
Pawn takes king.
Accepted. Instructions?
Her father could never trust anyone, and that meant anyone. All Center computers
with human interfaces were programmed with override codes that would allow him,
if need be, to countermand almost any order. He changed the codes quite often
and then just as often forgot them, so he had them encoded in his personal
files. The only time when he couldn’t depend on this was when he was away in
Hainan or on Leave, as he was about to be now. For that period, he needed a
sequence of codes he could always remember, and he often used a variation of the
same sequences year after year. At fifteen, she had broken that code and had
gone undiscovered, and she had had little trouble in the hidden room back home
in establishing the few changes for this year now that she knew what she was
looking for. That had been her one hope, but this had been the first opportunity
to use it.
Subject in Chair Two is object threat to king. At a point when this laboratory
is not scheduled for use for a period of at least one hour, you will release
subject from cell and substitute recording of previous time of subject in cell
so that this is undetected, and you will suppress all alarms and guarantee
uninterrupted access. You will be prepared to assist and guard. All outbound
channels are monitored, so this is under my seal alone.
Understood. Additional?
I would like to perpetuate my current physical and mental orientation until
otherwise instructed. Then stand by until I am able to contact you here again.
Understood. Formulating. There was a pneumatic hiss below her arm, then an
injection. Duration indefinite. Must be altered chemically.
Understood. Switch off. I will sleep now.
She went immediately to sleep and did not dream at all.
She awakened back in her cell, but one thing was different. This time they had
left the rice bowl and cool tea and not remained to watch her eat. Apparently
they were confident of her and themselves now. She would require energy, and
there was no way of forecasting when more might be available, so she went over
and ate it all. She drank sparingly. She was aware that she could not move for
long periods about the cell without attracting attention. She had been
so—animalistic. She therefore assumed a position of meditation facing the door
and willed her body into trancelike stillness. For the first and only time in
her life, she had nearly total control over herself; she did not wonder at that
but rather took it for granted.
There were alternatives to consider. Song Ching was in the Master System, so
Song Ching must be accounted for somehow, at least for a sufficient length of
time to make good an escape. She was in control only of the local network here;
she had to take care not to flag Master System and not to raise human alarms.
Master System she thought she could block for a sufficient period of time; the
humans were the unpredictable ones.
Even if she escaped from here, though, there would be little she could do. Any
security flag within Center itself would be immediately checked with Colonel
Ching or her father. All direct access by her would have been blocked long ago.
She could, of course, survive almost indefinitely in the maze of tunnels and
service corridors. They might eventually activate a Val, but it would be useless
because it would have her old imprint and assume that she would act on animal
and distinctly Song Ching motives. If nothing else presented itself, though, she
would do that until she was either captured or had managed somehow to tie in to
the network from below and use it.