7.3  ·  Burdens

Excruciating pain. Unbearable, uncontrollable, unrelenting. Searing, violent, fiery pain.

Rembrandt gasped as he sat up.

No more!

“Hey, Cryin’ Man…” Quinn’s voice cut through the panic, and Rembrandt finally came to realise that he was in his own bed back at the warehouse. Quinn was sitting in a chair he’d lugged out of the common room, and was smiling at him from his bedside, a look of unbridled relief on his face.

Rembrandt wiped the cold sweat from his forehead, and adjusted his position in the bed, his feet touching the tiled floor. His body wasn’t in the pain he’d been sure it was in before he’d awoken, but it wasn’t free of it, either. All of his muscles ached like he’d run a marathon, and his sense of balance was off. Every movement was difficult.

“You okay?” Quinn continued. “John’s just a holler away, if you need a doctor.”

“John…?”

Does he mean Sam?

“I guess he got here after…” Quinn hesitated. “How much do you remember about the past four weeks, man? Maggie says you should remember vague pieces from either side of the leap, or more if we can jog your memory. But I don’t know how it works for those guys.”

Leap…? Wait, that rings a bell.

“Well I definitely remember a whole lotta pain…” he said, rubbing his temple. “And some cold-ass British lady.”

Then, as he continued to recall, he found himself recalling actions and words spoken that he didn’t understand. Slicing open Quinn’s jeans to retrieve a Higgins crystal, only to throw it into the New Mexico desert. Eating tofu. Mailing a package. Being chained to a wall. Discussing hacking with Colin.

Mailing a package?

His eyes went wide. “Did I… build a bomb?”

Quinn grimaced. “No, that was Thames.”

‘Thames,’ I know that name. And not just because I once took a leak over the side of the Westminster Bridge when I was on tour with the Tops back in ’76.

“Four weeks, huh? This Thames guy was impersonating me all that time and you never…”

Quinn’s face dropped. “Sorry, Remy. I feel like an idiot. We all do.”

Rembrandt sighed. “He didn’t have to do much to blend in, did he? All I been doing round here is sitting around. I think the night it happened, I was feelin’ a little lost. Kinda useless.”

Quinn moved off the chair, and sat beside him on the bed, wrapping an arm over his shoulder.

“We should have noticed something was up,” he said.

“I shoulda said something.”

A light knock came on the door.

“Come on in, he’s awake!” called Quinn.

The door opened to reveal Sam – or John; Rembrandt wasn’t sure – looking at him nervously. Around his neck hung a stethoscope.

It’s check-up time, huh?

“Hey there,” he said with a warm smile, “you had us worried. How are you doing? Seemed like Zoey was putting you through the wringer there.”

Zoey, that was her name.

He crossed into the room, carrying a bag of medical supplies, and sat on the chair where Quinn had previously been sitting. As he prepared his equipment, Rembrandt recalled through Thames’s actions that John had shown up with a woman named Alia on New Years Eve.

Alia… yeah, she was the woman Zoey kept bringing up.

And he recalled some conversations Thames had had with her, about a dystopian future.

“John, right?” he said, as John wrapped a blood pressure cuff around his left arm.

“That’s me,” he confirmed. “Try to relax while we get your BP, okay?”

Quinn stood. “I’ll leave you to your check-up, Doc.” He gave Remy a final pat on the shoulder. “Everyone’s in the common room. Come see us when you’re up to it.”

As Quinn left, John fiddled with the blood pressure monitor settings. “Guess we haven’t properly met since 1978, have we?” he said, tapping buttons that responded with a terse ‘beep.’

Remy nodded. “Been a longer twenty years for you.”

The cuff pumped up, pressing uncomfortably against his aching bicep. Rembrandt winced.

“Are you in pain?” John asked, as he noticed the reaction.

Rembrandt gave a dismissive shrug. “It’s the kinda pain you get after a full body workout… dialled up to eleven.”

John nodded. “I see. I wasn’t sure of the nature of the pain you were in, but it seems like it might have been some sort of electrical pulse to your muscles, maybe.” As the cuff deflated, John pulled it away.

“Blood pressure’s a little high, but that could be stress from your ordeal. You remember anything about what they used to hurt you? It’s probably not something you want to remember, but it’ll help me determine what tests I might need to run.”

“I think they stuck things on me, attached to wires, I guess?” He shuddered. “Felt like I was back at the ’maggot re-education centre.”

“Where did they put ’em?”

“Arms, legs, chest…” he touched his temples. “Up here.”

John’s eyes widened. “How’s your psyche?”

Rembrandt raised an eyebrow. “As good as it can be for a guy who’s been locked up and tortured on two separate occasions.”

“Well, I’m glad that whatever they did doesn’t seem to have messed things around in your brain too badly. Leaping and high voltage shocks to the brain don’t pair well. You let me know if you have any unusual symptoms, okay? Hallucinations, illogical thinking, loss of identity…”

“If I feel like I’m tripping, come see you. Got it.”

John began to rummage through his bag, and pulled out a small hinged device. He took a hold of Rembrandt’s hand, and clipped it onto his index finger.

“I’ve arranged for Doctor Beeks to come see you, too,” he said, and chuckled. “She was so excited that I called, and I had to break it to her that I wasn’t calling about me.”

He glanced at the reading on the device. “O2’s looking good.”

Rembrandt tilted his head. “Why’s Beeks want to analyse you?”

John put away the gizmo, before smirking up at Remy. “I suspect it’s all the repressed trauma.”

Oh, yeah. That old chestnut.

*          *          *

As Nexus Quinn was being scooped up and carried, he gazed up at the man he’d identified as Sam, whose appearance seemed to shift every other second. One moment, he’d look like what he recalled from the mirrors in that place he met his double, and another moment he looked like another man, with darker skin and wild brown eyes. He wondered if anyone else was seeing what he was, or if he was just hallucinating from his impending death.

Sam was explaining something to Sherri about leaping into a quantum superposition, which Quinn figured would all be fascinating to him, if he could properly process what the guy was saying.

“Then we opened up the separation between our two minds so that we could combine our skills. You’re talking to the both of us at once, and if that’s freaking you out, then join the club.”

“But how are you leaping around at will?” Sherri demanded. “I’ve never heard of anything like this.”

“We’ll let you know once we figure that one out,” he said, as the two of them gingerly placed Quinn on the chair at the desk. “Using the Accelerator with Ziggins seems to have done something to Sam. We’re still working on it.”

He glanced up for a moment, before answering a question it didn’t seem like anybody asked. “Yeah yeah, fine, we admit it: ‘Ziggins’ is a good couple name. Tell Tina she broke Sam on that one. Still working on ours, and open to suggestions.”

Quinn leaned heavily on the arm of the seat, as the Kromagg letters on the computer moved in and out of focus.

My stomach doesn’t hurt. It’s fine. I’m fine.

Sam pointed at a box on the computer monitor. “We’ve already got the access codes lined up. All you have to do is press here and you’ll gain complete access to the hangar security system. From there you’ll see a live feed of the doors. All you need to do is approve us when we show up in…”

He paused for a moment. “We wanna say twelve minutes and forty seconds. Does that seem right? Yeah, that’s the most likely outcome.”

He leaned over Quinn, his eyes green and twinkling. “Are you absolutely sure you’ll be able to do this? We know you want to help, but…”

“Leave it to me,” Quinn said, trying to sound cool. Though, it sounded closer to a whimper. “I’ve hacked… lots of systems. Listen, just get going, okay?”

Sam unlatched a digital watch from his wrist, and tapped on the side buttons a few times. “The hijack might be shut down after a few minutes, so don’t activate it ’til this alarm sounds.”

He placed the watch on the desk, as it ticked down from 00:12:30.

“If there’s one thing I’m… practised at, it’s pressing a button when a timer hits zero.” Quinn chuckled, and winced as the muscle contraction in his stomach sent a wave of pain through his body.

“Quinn, we won’t forget this,” said Sam, patting his shoulder as he headed for the door. “Let’s go.”

Sherri, Tim, and Sam left the room, closing the door behind them. Quinn was left in silence to contemplate his final moments as the timer ticked down slowly.

I’m sorry, Stephanie. I was a dick. I’m sorry, Cory. I hope you grow up well. And Wade, you deserved better.

He felt sweat dripping down his face. “So this is death,” he mumbled into the empty room. “Kinda peaceful.”

“Even with that dead guy on the floor over there?”

Quinn turned his head in surprise. “Huh? Who said that?”

“You heard me? Oh… that ain’t a good sign.”

The voice was coming from his left, but he couldn’t see anybody there.

Just a hallucination. Part and parcel to dying, right? As long as I don’t see the white light ’til after I finish this task.

“Name’s Al. Sam wanted me to hang back and keep you company in this… uh, difficult time. I didn’t get the chance to meet you when you were in the Waiting Room.”

Oh.

“Well… nice to meet you…” he smiled bitterly. “Maybe you can keep me alert enough to make it the next ten minutes.”

“The most I can do is yell at you, but I’ll be sure to do that if I see you nodding off. It’s a promise.”

“You must… hate me, for all this. Don’t worry. I get it.” He took a long, gurgling breath.

“Nobody hates you, kid,” the voice insisted. “Certainly not now. Playing keepaway with the grim reaper so you can make sure my pals have a chance? That’s downright heroic.”

“You don’t have to… humour me.”

“It’s just the way I see it.”

Quinn found himself losing strength to sit up, and his position had, over the past several minutes, become more and more slumped. His arms dangled over the arm of the chair, and he could no longer see the time on the watch.

I’ll have to wait for the alarm. Need to conserve strength until then.

What if I rest my eyes…

“Uh-uh, don’t you dare!”

Quinn groaned as Al’s severe-toned words startled him from the dreamlike haze.

“Mallory! You don’t have permission to close those peepers, you hear me?”

“R-right…” muttered Quinn. “I’m awake…”

He forced his eyes to focus as he looked up at the computer monitor.

“How long now?”

“Real soon. Think you can make it?”

The voice had moved closer now. Quinn rolled his eyes to the source, and saw a man standing there, looking down at him. A grisled man holding a cigar and wearing a strangely shaped tie.

“I don’t know what I… expected, but… wow.”

Al smiled sadly at him. “What a shame the last mug you have to see is mine, huh?”

Quinn coughed, which flared his pain, and he took a moment to let it subside.

Pain means you’re still alive.

“Certainly the… weirdest-lookin’ guardian angel I ever saw,” Quinn joked, giving what he hoped was a smile, but he doubted the corners of his mouth had been able to rise far enough.

“Been called that more than once,” Al mused. “One time a kid called me Abraham Lincoln.”

He sucked on his cigar, looking down at the watch. “Showtime,” he said, right before the timer started to beep.

Quinn reached a quivering arm for the keyboard, and with a mighty effort, he activated the hijack. The screen switched to a camera feed. Immediately, a head bobbed into the camera’s view: the strange man that had been flickering in and out of Quinn’s perception of Sam. He looked into the camera, and waved.

“Damn, that was some impeccable timing,” Al commented.

Quinn took a deep breath, and pulled the keyboard closer, so he could see the keys better. With one weak hand, he tapped a command, and the door on the camera feed slid open. Sam and Tim could be seen hurrying in, and Sherri, as the old eyeless lady, paused as she lifted her head to the camera for just a moment, before heading in.

Bye, Sherri. Sorry.

“You did it, buddy,” said Al, crouching by the chair. “…Quinn?”

Quinn? Oh… so long, kid.

*          *          *

Quinn felt his heart jump, and he realised he was no longer slumped over a chair, but standing up.

Wha…? I must be dead, right?

In front of him was some kind of bar, behind which a man was pulling a beer. He seemed to be ignoring the glares of two men sitting on stools. One of the men was awfully familiar.

“Al?”

Both the man and the bartender looked towards him.