Elizabeth Hand - 12 Monkeys

“Where is he?”

Behind him Billings shook his head. “He’s — he’s gone, Doctor.”

“He was in full restraints?” Fletcher’s voice rose dangerously. Kathryn braced herself for what was coming. “And the door was locked?”

Billings nodded. “Yes, sir. Did it myself.”

“And he was fully sedated?”

Kathryn met his accusing gaze and replied, “He was fully sedated!”

Fletcher pounded the door’s padded interior. “Are you trying to tell me,” he exploded, “that a fully sedated, fully restrained patient somehow slipped out a vent, replaced the grille behind him, and that he’s wriggling through the ventilation system right now ?”

All eyes fixed on what Fletcher was pointing at: a vent set a good eight feet from the floor and covered with a heavy stainless steel grille. It was all of five inches square.

“Is that what you’re trying to tell me?” Fletcher repeated, glaring at Billings. The orderly shrugged uneasily, his gaze still on the vent.

“Uh, yeah, Dr. Fletcher,” he said as more security personnel came running down the hall to join them. “I guess that’s exactly what I’m telling you.”

The glass that makes up the observation window is thick and whorled with dust and grease, the smeared impressions left by a thousand other children pressing their faces against its cool surface. Outside a 747 climbs cleanly into the air, the ground shimmering in the heat of its engines.

“ Flight 784 to San Francisco is now boarding at Gate Thirty-Eight. Flight 784 …”

Behind him are voices, the first hesitant cries of a gathering crowd. He whirls, trying to shrug off his father’s hand, and sees a blond ponytailed man go barreling past. The little crowd scatters as travelers dive for cover, and for an instant he glimpses a woman standing there, her hands drawn to her mouth as she shouts.

“ Noooooooo !”

He frowns. There is something familiar about her — the pale blue eyes, the determined yet graceful set of her mouth, the angle at which her head is cocked. The image of another woman comes to him. A woman with dark hair and pitying eyes, a doctor — what was her name? A doctor—

Yet the woman in the airport is very blond and heavily made up: her full mouth a gleaming slash of red, her pale skin shadowed by mascara. Her blue eyes are wide, her mouth is open but oddly unmoving as she bleats in an unearthly voice—

The Freedom for Animals Association now boarding on Second Avenue. Secret Headquarters, Gate Sixteen. Army of the Twelve Monkeys …”

“Cole, you moron! Wake up!”

His eyes blinked open as the digitized monotone of a PA system continued to drone on in that same bloodless tone—

“… of the Twelve Monkeys. They’re the ones who are going to do it .”

“Cole!”

Cole sat slumped in a chair. He tried to straighten but could not, he was too weak; he could only blink again, focusing on the source of the sound: a tape recorder set on a table. Behind it was a row of scowling faces. The camp scientists, or were they doctors? He closed his eyes for a moment, fighting a wave of pain and nausea.

“… I can’t do anything more. I have to go now. Have a merry Christmas. ”

He opened his eyes. The voice died abruptly as the tape ran off the reel, flapping noisily in the too-still room.

“Well?” It was the earnest astrophysicist with the elegant gray hair and one gold earring.

Cole swallowed, his mouth dry and chalky. “Uh, what?” he croaked.

“He’s drugged out of his mind!” one of the other scientists snapped. “He’s completely zoned out.”

The astrophysicist ignored him. “Cole,” he asked, pointing at the tape recorder, “did you or did you not record that message?”

Cole blinked painfully, trying to get a better look at the tape recorder. “Un, that message… me?”

“It’s a reconstruction of a deteriorated recording,” one of the other scientists explained with forced composure. “A weak signal on our number. We have to piece them together one word at a time, like jigsaw puzzles.”

“We just finished rebuilding this,” the astrophysicist broke in. “Did you or did you not make this call?”

Anger finally fought its way through Cole’s haze. “I couldn’t call! You sent me to the wrong year! It was 1990!”

“1990!”

The scientists turned to one another, whispering frantically. Then, “You’re certain of that?” one asked. Before Cole could answer, the microbiologist broke in, his black spectacles glinting in the dim light.

“What did you do with your time, Cole?” he asked in an ominous voice. “Did you waste it on drugs? Women?”

Cole said thickly, “They forced me to take drugs.”

“Forced you!” The microbiologist looked at the others in disbelief. “Why would someone force you to take drugs?”

“I got into trouble,” Cole spoke slowly, trying to piece it all together for himself as well as his anxious audience. “I got arrested. But I still got you a specimen, a spider. But I didn’t have anyplace to put it, so I ate it. It was the wrong year anyway, so I guess it doesn’t matter.

His voice trailed off. The scientists stared at him incredulously, then turned and once more began whispering among themselves. Cole struggled to keep his eyes open. The effort of speaking had left him exhausted. His head ached, and his jaw — had he been struck? He couldn’t remember, didn’t want to remember.

His head lolled forward. His vision clouded so that the face in front of him — the microbiologist — blurred, suddenly took on the sharper contours and glittering eyes of the man in the conference room. The man with the pencil: Dr. Fletcher. Cole sucked his breath in, forced himself to stare until the outlines of the man’s face softened and he could see him again — not Dr. Fletcher but the microbiologist, a pencil twitching between his fingers. With a small cry Cole slumped forward, and the room went black.

He had no idea how long he slept, if indeed he slept at all. Once upon a time, Cole had believed there was a gap between wakefulness and sleep, between life and dream-life, between what he recalled as real and what he knew to be fragments of that other, twilight world.

But now all that had changed. Like the microbiologist’s face, his perceptions melted and were then reformed by whatever weird visual or auditory cues his mind picked up on. Brainwashed prisoners felt like this, and drug addicts, and schizophrenics…

Which was he?

“Cole!”

He woke with a start. Around him all was dark, save for where a slide was being projected on a torn screen.

“What about it, Cole?” the voice boomed. “Did you see this when you went back?”

Cole squinted. The slide showed stenciled graffiti in dull red paint, a circle enclosing twelve dancing monkeys.

“Uh, n—no, sir,” Cole stammered. “I—”

Click. Another slide appeared. Protesters, young skinheads and angry women waving placards and sheets spray-painted with slogans.

Behind placards showing grimacing capuchin monkeys and blinded cats, policemen in riot gear confronted the crowd.

“What about these people?” the astrophysicist’s voice was low. “Did you see any of these people?”

Click . A close-up of the same slide, zooming in on the much-enlarged, blurry face of a man holding a torn photo of a vivisected monkey. The man’s face was as contorted as the animal’s, his rage mirroring the monkey’s anguish. Cole gaped at the slide in disbelief. Despite his long hair and glasses, the man resembled a slightly older Jeffrey Goines.