Tanner’s query was ignored as the man made a note in the book. “Wife. How could I have missed the wife?” he murmured before he spoke aloud again.
“You’ve been through a terrific strain, Dr. Tanner. To be frank, I’m amazed you survived.”
“Survived what? What happened to me?”
“Something wonderful.” A blond woman with an eager smile chirped. “You’re the first!”
“It does not feel all that wonderful, my dear,” Tanner said, running his tongue along the inside of his mouth. “It feels most horrible. Like I have been dead and resurrected.”
“That’s to be expected. My name is Herman
Welles. I’ll be serving as your physician and your sounding board until you’re fully acclimated to our program here.”
Suddenly Tanner sat bolt upright in the hospital bed, nearly cracking his head on a slight overhang of electric lights mounted above the headboard. “Where is my wife? My children?” he cried in a shrill voice that fright caused to climb into the upper vocal register.
“Later,” Welles responded. “For now, we are only concerned with you and your well-being.”
“Hang my well-being, man!” Tanner thundered, his normal bass voice having returned to echo off the walls of the small room. “I need to see my wife and little Rachel and Jolyon!”
In his haste to get out of the bed, Tanner hadn’t commented on the bank of high-tech medical equipment blinking to his left, or on the style of clothing Welles and the two other attendants in the room were wearing. An IV drip in one of his lean arms tore free in a spray of blood and solution as he made his way out of the hospital bed.
“Dr. Tanner, please!” the nurse said, lunging to grab the leaking IV.
“Are they all right?” he asked her fearfully. His bright blue eyes darted to and fro, examining his surroundings for the first time. The walls of the room were a neutral soothing mint-green color that matched his hospital gown and the linens on the bed.
Turning to the man who seemed to act as the leader of the small knot of people surrounding him,
Tanner asked, ‘ ‘I-I must be in some form of hospital or medical facility, though I admit the design is unfamiliar to me and quite strange. Was there an accident? Tell me, are my wife and children all right?”
“That depends on the definition. I could say yes, and be telling the truth depending on how closely you want to analyze my meaning.”
Tanner grabbed Welles by the lapels of his lab coat and snarled into his face. “Double-talk! Babble! I have heard your kind before, sir, and I know enough to not waste my time on your attempts to stonewall. Enough of your mendacity!”
“Geez, he sure talks funny, doesn’t he?” the blond nurse said.
Tanner spun and pointed a finger at her. “Ignoramus!”
The automatic door to the room slid open as the man in a hospital dressing gown approached, causing him to shrink back in surprise. In 1896, doors weren’t known for opening by themselves. The shock of seeing the doors, combined with the presence of two large men standing in the hallway outside the door, was enough to keep him rooted in place.
“I feel positively light-headed,” Tanner remarked in a casual tone, reaching out and holding on to the frame of the open door for support. Behind him, he smelled the breath of the man who had identified himself as Welles. As he turned to tell the overweight doctor to back off, Tanner felt a stinging sensation in his left buttock.
Tanner spun clumsily to face Welles, who was holding a syringe.
“You’re much too active for a dead man, Dr. Tanner. I think you need some more bed rest.”
“You bastard-” he managed to croak, before falling backward into the arms of the waiting security team.
“What do you think, Nurse?” Welles asked the blonde as they watched the security men gently place Tanner back in the hospital bed, only this time, strapping him down with an assortment of nylon belts.
“I don’t know, Doctor. He seems awfully stubborn.”
“He’d have to be, to survive the trawling process. Still, I wonder if we have indeed obtained our puppet-and if so, how many of his strings must we cut before he allows us control?”