Chapter Fifteen - The Candyman Can

Chapter Fifteen -- The Candyman Can

The sound of a door and of footsteps approaching brought Aiko out of her drug-induced doze. She opened her eyes, thinking it was the nurse again. But instead a face she would never have expected came into focus above her.

"Aiko!"

"Sakaki?" Suddenly the idea of her having been rescued solidified into reality -- Miyatsu must have notified Sakaki, and his contacts had found her! She was in hospital, with a standard re-hydration drip in her arm, and any moment now her family would arrive, with little Benji holding a basket of fruit! "Oh, Sakaki! I'm so glad to see you!"

Sakaki beamed down at her. "Poor little Aiko! How are you feeling?"

"I can hardly move, Sakaki. And I feel sick. Which hospital am I in?"

"Hospital?" Sakaki looked confused for a moment, then his expression cleared and he glanced around the clinical-looking room with amusement. "Oh, I see! This room looks very like a hospital, doesn't it? No, you're at one of my facilities. You may have to stay here for a while, but once your system's clear of the sedative, you'll be able to move again and the nausea will stop as well. Until then, we've got you monitored for any adverse reactions."

"Oh, Sakaki, when those men kidnapped me, I was so scared! And I had Benji with me, as well. I thought they were going to kill my baby!"

Sakaki stroked her hand, his face concerned. "Oh, dear. They didn't hurt him, did they? I told them not to harm the youngsters."

Aiko froze. A chill draught seemed to steal its way into the room. "What -- what do you mean, told?"

"I know you're fond of your little pets. So I specifically instructed my men not to hurt them if it could be avoided."

Aiko's happy fiction of having been rescued shattered like glass. She stared at Sakaki in horror. "You -- Sakaki, you -- had me abducted?" she whispered.

"Now, Aiko, it was for your own good. No, hear me out! Remember when we had our last conversation, and you said I should take control of my life? You made a lot of sense! I'd been letting things go on as they always had, taking drugs to forget the fact that the only woman I've ever loved is with a monster. And then I had an epiphany, Aiko! I realized that, if drugs could control my moods so much, then Miyatsu, with his psychic power, was obviously controlling your mind in a similar way! You don't love him, Aiko, you just think you do. Because he's got you on his psychic hook. I'm going off the drugs as of today, and you're going to be free of Miyatsu the same way! I've rescued you, Aiko, and we'll get clean of our addictions together. Then we can be with each other as we should have been all along!"

Aiko struggled to sit up, but it was useless: her muscles refused to work. Scraps of her recent conversation with Sakaki hovered queasily in her mind:

'There was one woman. I lost my heart to her in a big way... She'd never leave her partner... It's as if she's bewitched by him... '

And herself saying:

'These drugs will drive you mad... Work out what you want to do with your life, and just go for it!'

It suddenly all made a certain horrible sense: Sakaki had been talking about her as the love of his life, and she'd unknowingly encouraged him to think he could have her!

"Sakaki, no!" Aiko said desperately. "This isn't what I meant! I truly love Miyatsu; he hasn't done anything to make me love him, I just do!"

Sakaki gave her a tolerant smile. "Aiko, I know you think you love him. But that's because you're in thrall to his psychic power, don't you see? Just like I feel happier and more relaxed when I'm taking the drugs. But those feelings are false, we need to face reality. I took my last tablet this morning. No more after this, I promise. Oh, Aiko, we're going to be so good together!"

The chill wind of fear was blowing down Aiko's spine at his words; Sakaki was unbalanced by his drug psychosis, he was about to go cold turkey without medical supervision, and he had her completely in his power! This was far worse than anything she could have imagined.

The only thing she could do was to appeal to the tiny bit of rational Sakaki that she was sure had to still be there.

"Sakaki, we've been friends, good friends, for so long! Please, if you love me as you say you do, don't do this! Bewitched or not, I love Miyatsu with every fibre of my being. You're hurting me and him by keeping us apart! Miyatsu loves you as a brother; how can you hurt him by doing this? Let me go, I'm begging you."

Something flickered in Sakaki's eyes at her words, but it was frightening rather than encouraging. He was still holding her hand. Now his fingers tightened painfully around hers, and she gasped.

"Aiko, I would strongly advise you against reminding me that I have any relationship whatsoever with that creature. My patience there is limited. You're going nowhere until you're over him!"

Anger surged within her, and she welcomed it, as it pushed the fear from her for a moment. "Sakaki, you're fooling yourself! Stop this and wake up to what you're doing! Perhaps you didn't know it, but Miyatsu can find my psychic signature anywhere on the planet. All he has to do is levitate high enough and he'll find me! You can't hope to hide me from him!"

Sakaki smiled coldly. "Oh, I know all about his abilities, Aiko! Don't forget, I was the one who trained him. But trust me, he'll never find you here!" His voice, which had been angry, calmed abruptly. "But there, you're upset, still under his influence. You'll realize how wrong you are after a few weeks."

Something about the way he said this alerted her. "What do you mean? Do you think my feelings for Miyatsu have a time limit?"

"I mean that I went to a lot of trouble to make Miyatsu believe you're dead. He'll contract Pershan Syndrome again. But this time, his master won't make a reappearance. He'll weaken, and before long he'll die. And once Miyatsu is gone, you'll be free of his mind control. Free to love me."

Aiko's eyes had widened. The anger had faded at his words, and panic was threatening to overwhelm her. "Sakaki, what did you do?" she whispered.

Sakaki hesitated. "I didn't want to show you this, Aiko, but perhaps it's best if you see it. It might make you realize that it's hopeless to try to change things now."

He raised the back of her bed until Aiko was no longer lying flat on her back, giving her a view of the wall behind Sakaki.

"Can you see that picture?" he asked.

Aiko glanced at a large framed picture of a landscape painting on the wall. "Yes."

"Good. Watch carefully."

Sakaki reached into his pocket and took out a small remote control unit. The landscape painting glowed briefly then faded away, and Aiko saw that it was in reality the screen of a wall-mounted television.

Pictures appeared: two squares, one showing a fat, bald-headed man, his face screened by pixels. In the other square -

Aiko gave a low moan and tried desperately, unsuccessfully, to sit up. For there was Miyatsu's tense face, his eyes blazing and his ears flat against his skull in battle readiness, anguish obvious in every long lean line of his body.

The image froze as Sakaki pressed another button. "I used my new holographic generator to create this little scenario," he said, touching one finger to the fat man. "Miyatsu is, of course, the genuine article." His voice as he said this was cold. "You'll see yourself in a moment, as well, Aiko. Don't be disturbed by what happens to you, it's all imaginary. But I needed to make it believable so that my audience wouldn't guess it was being duped." He smiled tightly. "That's why you'll see your mouth taped shut. There's no way I would have been able to fool Miyatsu if it wasn't your voice he heard."

He pointed the remote control at the screen, and the recording again began to run. Aiko listened in growing horror. She lost her self-control and let the tears fall when she heard Hanako cry, "Mummy!" and was sobbing helplessly as both Miyatsu and Yutaka begged for her life.

"Watch this next part, Aiko." Sakaki seemed unperturbed by her misery. "This is the important bit, where I make Miyatsu believe you're dead... "

The tears running down her cheeks, Aiko watched the face of her mate, the utter desolation in his eyes as he watched what he thought was her murder. It was too much. The nausea that had been threatening ever since she woke up overcame her shaky control, and Aiko vomited, unable to turn her head, unable to breathe--

Through the violent reaction, she was aware of the nurse suddenly at the bed, wrenching her head to one side so she wouldn't choke on her own vomit. The world blurred out of focus and Aiko's fear peaked. Then, with a familiar tilting sensation and a sound of tearing velcro, Aiko left herself...

*

Aiko floated above her now-quiescent body. The monitor had resumed its calm beeping, and the line running across the screen was again dipping and peaking normally as her heart continued to pump.

"She's fainted," the nurse informed Sakaki, checking her vital signs. "The sedative is rather too powerful, sir. I'd really prefer it if we lowered the dosage."

Sakaki looked shocked, but he pulled himself together and glanced down at the vomit splattering his clothes with a grimace. "She's ill," he murmured, as if to himself.

Then, realizing the nurse was waiting for him to answer, he shook his head and said, "No. She's still fixated on that animal I rescued her from. I know Aiko; if we lower the dose, she'll find some way to get out. I don't want her to reach the surface. This is very important. Aiko's smart, if she manages to get outside, she may be able to contact Miyatsu mind-to-mind. I still don't know how far his telepathy extends. Keep her on the same dose, watch her carefully, and keep that door locked."

The nurse nodded agreement. "Yes, sir."

"Good. Can you manage to clean her up by yourself?"

"Certainly I can, sir."

"Then I'll go and get changed. I'll pop back down whenever I can manage." Sakaki paused, and Aiko saw his face as he gazed down at her body. His eyes were full of love and concern.

"She'll get over him," he murmured. It seemed almost as if he were trying to convince himself of it. "Once he's gone, she'll forget all about that animal -- "

There was a sound like an onrushing train, the world tilted again, and Aiko was once more back within the confines of her body. The aches, exhaustion and nausea again filled her consciousness, and there was the sour taste of vomit in her mouth. Nevertheless, she opened her eyes to gaze fiercely right into Sakaki's startled ones.

"I'll never forget Miyatsu," she hissed. "And I'll never forgive you, Sakaki."

*

Aiko lay quietly, reviewing what had happened.

Nurse Rin had efficiently cleaned her and the floor of vomit, then changed her bedding. She was now presumably back at the desk Aiko had caught a glimpse of when the nurse had lifted and manipulated Aiko's unresponsive body into a fresh nightdress. Aiko had tried to engage her sympathy while all this was going on; if only she could enlist the young nurse as an ally, she could perhaps get away! But after several attempts at conversation had been met with cold silence on the nurse's part, Aiko realized that escape from Sakaki was not going to be easy.

But Sakaki was right about one thing: Aiko was smart. She was also determined and willing to do whatever it took to escape. Because now her mate's life was in danger.

Deliberately, she made herself remember the look of utter despair on Miyatsu's face. She was well aware that Sakaki was right: believing her dead would precipitate her mate straight into Pershan Syndrome. He'd stop eating and sleeping. The resulting exhaustion and depression would mean his death. She had a narrow window of time to get out of here; but how to do it?

Sakaki had said to the nurse, back when he thought she was unconscious, 'I don't want her to reach the surface.' Did that mean they were underground? It made sense; she remembered Miyatsu telling the children that psychic signatures could be seen clearly on the ground from height, even through buildings, although stone or concrete walls tended to blur the signal a little. But if she were deep underground, would that block the signal even from Miyatsu's awesome telepathy? It seemed likely.

Now she needed to find out where she was and, what was by far the harder part, somehow let Miyatsu know or get out herself.

She'd already tried to lift her hands, trying for some movement. If she could roll her arm enough to block the tube feeding sedative into her vein, or even manage to dislodge the needle, she'd be able to fake lethargy until she was strong enough to tackle the nurse.

Unfortunately, the sedative was working too well. Apart from some movement in her head and neck, the rest of her body was heavy and unresponsive. Her arms refused to move, lying like lumps of meat at her sides. She tried moving her legs, twitching her toes, anything, with the same lack of success.

Even moving her head from side to side required an enormous effort of willpower, and left her feeling sick and exhausted afterwards. And every minute that clicked over on the clock on the wall was another minute closer to Miyatsu's death!

Breathe, she ordered herself sternly. Slowly. In. Out. Don't let the Nurse from Hell come to check why the monitor's beeping has sped up.

Instead, she focused on her latest out-of-body experience. She accepted that her latent psychic tendency had probably been stimulated into action by years of contact with Miyatsu. After all, reading his emotions by now had become second nature to her, as he rarely bothered to shield anymore. No longer did she have trouble separating his feelings from hers as she used to. Maybe, like anything, it just took regular practice.

But the out-of-body thing, that was something else. She thought back. So far, it had happened four times in her life and all of them had occurred when she found herself truly scared:

This evening, witnessing the grief of her family over her "death".

This morning, when she thought Benjiro was going to be killed.

Twelve years ago, when Sakaki found out she was leaving and attacked her (and wasn't that a pointer to today that she had managed to rationalize away?).

And the first time it had ever happened, when she feared Miyatsu had died after his fight with Sisyro.

That first one had been far and away the most powerful of them all: she'd managed to make it from Japan to mainland China in the blink of an eye.

What's more, she was sure that Miyatsu had felt her presence then. He had opened his eyes, and although he couldn't see her, he'd given the distinct impression that he'd heard her somehow. She'd never spoken to him about it, as he had little memory of the fight at all after he'd recovered, but now and then, Aiko had thought about it, and wondered.

So fear was the trigger. Well, she had lots to fear at the moment. Deliberately, she focused on Miyatsu, the anguish on his face.

He's going to die if I don't get away from here, she thought.

Absolutely nothing happened.

Frustrated, Aiko wondered what else she'd done to force the experience. Fear was the trigger. But there must be something else. Years of analyzing and research came into play as she considered all the angles and looked at all the data available. Today the out-of-body had happened twice. So what was different about today?

Apart from being abducted, she thought sarcastically to herself, it's been pretty much an ordinary day.

It seemed that the fear had to be real and immediate. Maybe it was hormonal, needing an adrenaline rush or something similar to kick her psychic ability into overdrive--

Nurse Rin interrupted her train of thought by bringing over a bowl of mush. She elevated the back of the bed again so that Aiko was in something like a sitting position, then began to spoon-feed her as she would a baby. It was as embarrassing as hell, and the mush tasted foul, something like strained baby food with exotic overtones of mashed pumpkin and unidentifiable stringy bits. Aiko was hungry enough to eat it all.

Then there was another drink of water, after which Nurse Rin moved back Aiko's blanket and she discovered one more indignity that she'd somehow managed to overlook. She'd been catheterized. Nurse Rin checked the connection, then changed the full plastic bag hanging under the bed for a fresh one and disappeared again, all without saying a single word to Aiko.

Aiko swallowed against a fresh round of nausea brought on by the movement of the bed when it had been lowered. She tried to move her head a little, felt the world slip out of focus and tilt, and closed her eyes tightly, fighting the queasy feeling...

Then snapped them open again as something occurred to her. That tilt! Whenever she'd gone out-of-body, she'd felt a tilting sensation, just before the ripping velcro sound! Today she'd gone out-of-body twice, each time with sedative running through her system and under the stimulus of fear. And today, unlike the first two times, she'd stayed out-of-body longer. She'd read case studies done with psychics to see how certain drugs affected their abilities; opium was a potent one, as were certain hallucinogenic fungus varieties. And it was the sedative that was enhancing her psychic ability now, she was sure of it!

Deliberately, Aiko turned her head to the side, as quickly as she could. The world slid out of focus and tilted. There was a sound like ripping velcro...