Piers Anthony - Total Recall

In due course Quaid and Melina were strapped into examination chairs in an industrial-scale version of the Rekall implant clinic. Quaid had watched for a chance to break free, but the goons had been very careful to keep them both shackled throughout. Even if he had been able to get loose himself, Melina would still have been hostage.

Suppose he just accepted the implant. Was there a chance the technicians wouldn’t realize the significance of what they were handling, so that Hauser could be restored with his secret intact? He doubted it; for one thing, the implant equipment sounded an alarm if anything out of the ordinary occurred, and the alien message would set off a six-alarm clamor. Yet what could he do, bound as he was?

Cohaagen watched as a doctor and six assistants prepared the reprogramming procedure. Melina already had an IV drip in the back of her hand. Quaid bucked and struggled as a technician inserted the needle in his hand. It wasn’t the momentary sting of the puncture that bothered him, but the finality of the coming injection of a drug that would pacify him for what was to be the loss of his personality—and worse.

“Relax, Quaid,” Cohaagen said. “You’ll like being Hauser.”

“The guy’s a fucking asshole.” Actually, he had been, up to a point: the point at which he had realized his love for Melina, and received the No’ui message. Then he had done his best to make up for a misdirected life—and in the process destroyed the Mars Liberation Front. So the description stood.

“True,” Cohaagen said. “But he’s got a big house and a Mercedes. And you like Melina, right?” He glanced at the woman, who grimaced, not appreciating even his look. “Well, you’ll get to fuck her every night. She’s gonna be Hauser’s wife. Not only that, we’re reprogramming her to be respectful and compliant and appreciative—the way a woman ought to be.”

Quaid and Melina looked at each other in horror. If he had wanted such a woman, he would have been satisfied with Lori, who had played the part perfectly. But even before his memory cap blew, he had been dissatisfied with her, and longing for Melina. His taste was for a real woman, with independence and courage. Then if she loved him, it meant something. If he went wrong, she would set him straight in a hurry! The idea of making such a woman into a docile puppet appalled him. And she—he knew she had no more desire to be that kind of whore for real than she had to turn traitor to her cause. She had played the part of a whore, but it had been only a part. What would it do to her, inside, to be locked into that part for life? She might as well be lobotomized—which was what this resembled.

A call came through on the videophone. An assistant answered, then said to Cohaagen: “Sir, it’s for you.”

Cohaagen turned impatiently to the screen, where a nervous technician stood in front of a wall of dials and gauges.

“What is it?” Cohaagen snapped.

“Sir,” the technician answered. “The oxygen level is bottoming out in Sector G. What do you want me to do?”

“Don’t do anything,” Cohaagen said.

“They won’t last an hour, sir,” the technician said.

Cohaagen pressed a button on the videophone and it displayed three quick views of Venusville. Everywhere, people were sprawled on the ground or slumped in doorways, their mouths open, gasping for breath. Melina turned her head, unable to look, while Quaid struggled angrily against his shackles. He had to get free! He had to stop this madness!

Cohaagen switched back to the technician. “Then it will all be over soon,” he said. He ended the transmission.

“Don’t be a shithead, Cohaagen!” Quaid shouted. “Give the people air!”

“My friend, in five minutes, you won’t give a fuck about the people.” Cohaagen turned to the doctor. “Fire it up.”

The doctor lowered the helmet over Melina’s head. She tried to move her head out of the way, but could not; she was captive.

Then the doctor got ready to lower Quaid’s helmet, when Richter interrupted him. “Uh, excuse me, Doc—but when he’s Hauser, will he remember any of this?”

“Not a thing,” the doctor assured him.

“Thanks.” Then Richter slugged Quaid in the face with all his might.

Lights flared. He would have a black eye, and maybe a concussion, but the headrest had braced him against the worst of it. He glared at Richter, who just grinned.

“You have a lot of courage, big man,” Quaid remarked ironically.

Cohaagen pulled Richter away. “Sorry, Quaid. This’ll be over soon, and we’ll all be friends again.”

He’d be as well off making friends with a nest of scorpions! But that was the least of it. How could he protect the message of the No’ui from discovery?

The doctor turned on the implant machine. It made a horrible whining noise reminiscent of an old-style dentist’s drill, the kind still used in horror videos. Cohaagen grimaced and led Richter out of the lab. He paused at the door and turned back to Quaid.

“By the way, I’m having a little get-together at the house tonight. Why don’t you and Melina drop by, say around nine-ish?”

Quaid gritted his teeth, refusing to answer.

Cohaagen turned to the doctor. “Doc, you’ll remind him?”

“Mm-hmm,” the doctor replied, nodding absently.

Richter waved good-bye. “See you at the party.”

And he would express surprise at Hauser’s swelling eye. So the man was a hypocrite; that was the least of his faults.

Cohaagen and Richter left the lab. Now the sounds of the equipment became really terrifying, not for their mechanics, which were physically painless, but for their significance. It was as if the living brains were being sawed apart so that portions of brains from a morgue could be grafted on.

Both Quaid and Melina struggled against it. They concentrated to fight the effects of the reprogramming, but their resources were small, facing overwhelming force. Quaid pulled against the metal brackets holding his wrists and forearms and ankles. They didn’t budge.

“Please keep still,” the doctor said.

Now there was pain, both physical and mental, as his skin was abraded by the bonds, and his mind tried to oppose the brainwashing. Both types of pain became more acute. Quaid grimaced, as if that could drive away the hostile program.

“Don’t fight it,” the doctor said. “That’s what makes it hurt.”

Quaid saw Melina struggling vainly. Tears were flowing down her cheeks, and spittle drooled from her mouth. He thrashed in his chair, trying to break free. The whining of the equipment was excruciating, but that was nothing compared with the pain of struggle and loss. He seemed helpless, yet he could not just let it happen. Was this what a woman felt when she was being raped? For surely it was a kind of rape.

“This is a delicate procedure, Mr. Quaid,” the doctor cautioned him. “If you don’t keep still, you’ll end up schizophrenic.”

Would that prevent them from discovering the No’ui message? If so, it might be a way out. But he didn’t trust it. He summoned all his strength to hold his identity intact and break free from the chair.

The shackles did not give at all; Cohaagen had made sure they were sufficient. But the screws holding the chair together started to creak.

“Turn up the sedative,” the doctor told an assistant.

That would do it! Quaid knew that this was his last chance. Yet his strength was at its limit; what more could he do?

No’ui! he thought. I need help!

And from some untapped resource came a flow of strength. The noise, the pain, and his thrashing all reached a crescendo, and it seemed that he could endure no more, but he felt that strength increasing. Maybe it was the strength of madness, that the No’ui implant knew how to tap. It didn’t matter. He tensed his arms even harder, and opened his mouth to cry out.