After Image

The ambulance pulled right up to the private jet that was parked on the Cranbrook Airport tarmac, completely bypassing the small airport. When the doors to the ambulance opened to reveal stairs leading up into the bowels of the small plane, Viola realized that she had yet to reach her chance of escape. There was no one but Will and his lackeys within shouting distance. Taking a deep breath she stepped out of the back of the ambulance, glad for the small freedom they had extended her by not handcuffing her. They were right to assume she would come quietly. She wasn’t particularly fond of the alternative; screaming and fighting that she was sure would lead to another prolonged sleep with a sedative.

With her half soaked clothing, she was glad of the relative warmth of the airplane’s interior. She took a seat over the wing, flanked on either side by the looming presence of her guards. Will sat across from her. She looked away from him and out the window at the grey day that was ending.

“How long until we arrive at my prison?” Viola asked.

“Six hours,” Will replied.

Viola closed her eyes and shook her head slightly back in forth. “There is a change of clothes in the bathroom if you like,” Will added. Viola shivered slightly at the reminder of her wet clothes and without a word went towards the back of the plane. She heard the door of the plane being secured and the whir as the engines started up. She found a pair of jeans and a purple sweater in the bathroom along with some undergarments and quickly put them on, not wanting to be in the bathroom for take off. She emerged feeling slightly better, flexing her right hand in the glove. She decided not to sit back across from Will and instead took a seat as far away from him as possible, strapping her seat belt on. She stared out the window again and started humming softly to herself. Will got up from his seat and sat across from Viola again. She ignored his presence and instead continued to stare out the window, watching as the mountains became small blue and white bumps beneath them; a sea of rock and snow.

Viola stopped humming and instead started up a conversation with Will, as his silent staring was starting to annoy her. “So, you must be pretty patriotic to go along with abducting a helpless woman and take her to a secret facility where she is never going to see the light of day again.”

“I think you are far from helpless, Viola,” Will replied. Viola scoffed at the comment. “I took this assignment to make sure that a dangerous new development didn’t cause harm to my country.”

Viola laughed at this. She could see it from his point of view. A strong power manifesting in some unknown entity. Even she had been conceiving of the danger it would pose if it was in the wrong hands. How was Will to know that Viola had a gentle heart and a giving spirit and couldn’t even conceive of causing harm with her new ability? In his situation, she probably would have done the same thing. She was well aware that not everyone out there was worthy of making decisions on their own about every day affairs, let alone what to do with a super power. She wondered if he felt the same now that he knew her. Did he still feel justified in his actions? Did he still think that having control of her was a necessity? Of course he thinks that. He wouldn’t have done this if he didn’t. He is a patriot, which means that he believes that control of Imaging does belong to the government. My rights as an individual mean nothing to him.

“You think our actions are misguided?” Will said in response to her laughter.

Viola shook her head. “No, I understand why you feel my detainment is necessary. I’m sure if I had the same ideals about government as you seem to have I would do the same thing.” She turned finally to look at Will. “Do you think that the CIA, MI:6 and CSIS are going to be honorable in their intention to use me? More honorable than I would have been had I been left on my own?”

“I barely know anything about you, Viola,” Will replied. “I can’t trust the fate of the world to one girl. Decisions need to be discussed by the world leaders, not some woman from a tiny town in the middle of the Rocky Mountains.”

“Would you feel the same way had it been you in my situation?” She was staring him straight in the eyes again waiting for his response, knowing his response already.

“I would be completely willing to do whatever it took for Queen and country. I already am doing everything in my power to help them with the abilities in my possession.”

Viola turned away in mild disgust. “Sorry, I’m not that patriotic,” she replied.

“Don’t you feel you have an obligation to your fellow man?” Will asked.

Viola looked at him, glaring, appalled that he would even question her loyalty to humankind.

“Of course I feel I have an obligation to humankind,” Viola replied vehemently. “That doesn’t mean I owe my allegiance to one country or one alliance. I feel that this power was given to me to help everyone, not just the richest and most powerful. I would gladly give all my powers to helping the entire population of earth. Think what I could do for third world countries? Bring them food, clean water, clothes, shelter, medicine. I want desperately to help every single human being on this planet. Can you say the same for your government? Can you really truly think that they have the best interests of every human in the world in mind?” Will remained silent at Viola’s passionate outburst. His thoughts were a complete mystery to her. The conversation had ended and so Viola turned back to the window and started humming softly once again. Her stomach gave a mighty growl a few minutes later.

“There wouldn’t happen to be food on this flight?” Viola asked.

“I’m afraid not for you,” Will replied.

Viola looked at him dumbfounded. “Really? You want to keep me alive for my Imaging but you can’t even give me food?”

“I’ve been instructed that you are to have clear fluids only,” Will replied.

Viola’s stomach sunk at his words. There was only one reason she could think of to restrict her from eating food and the thought of it made her overwhelmingly terrified. At the end of this flight, wasn’t just a prison for her, but some sort of surgery as well.

Will saw the sudden horror on Viola’s face and for a moment wanted to reach out and comfort her. Conflicted, he stayed still in his seat. He had a duty to fulfill, one he believed in wholeheartedly, but Viola, so full of passion as she was, made him second guess his decisions. She was completely different than he had been expecting. He had thought of her as a tool, something to be used to better his country, and instead he was confronted with a strong woman, with hopes and dreams, ideals and strength. He wasn’t seeing a tool so much anymore; instead he was seeing a person, a person without choice or freedom. She made his resolve waver with her intense and overwhelming personality. How was he supposed to stay objective and uninvolved when she burned so brightly?

Viola’s mind raced in so many different directions for the rest of the flight. She was trying not to panic and on the outside looked calm, but she couldn’t do anything but stare into the starry night sky and think about what they were going to do. Surgery. For what? Are they going to dissect my brain to find out how it works? If they did that I would surely be dead and they couldn’t use my power for anything. They wouldn’t risk that, would they? What could they possibly be planning to do to me? Her mind flitted from one fantastic idea to another, a constant blur of possibilities racing through her mind. As the flight wore on, her inability to pull Images into reality did not deter her from using her power to ghost the Image onto the world around her. Outside of the window an array of terrible things manifested and flitted away into the clouds below or the stars above until she couldn’t stand it anymore and instead began to draw letters and words onto the window. She had too much time to think and nothing constructive to think about. It was about an hour before they landed that she decided that she wished she had been oblivious to the meaning of a “clear fluid only” diet. Maybe then she wouldn’t be so terrified. Doubtful. I probably would just have been terrified by the thought of being trapped for the rest of my life in a government facility as their lab rat. She paused in her writing on the window and shivered despite the warmth of the cabin around her. She felt a sudden weight on her shoulder and turned to see Will looming over her carrying a glass of water. He handed it to her and she took it without a word. The initial sip of water was mildly surprising as she realized that it had been sweetened with some type of fruit. She decided it was a nice change from the plain cold water that she had been receiving prior to this and sipped at it slowly as she stared out the window.

At least the sight of the stars calmed her a little bit. She placed her forehead on the window pane staring at the amazing sight of the milky way, a white streak in the dark sky with pin points of stars sparkling red, blue and white, blinking in and out of existence as their light tried to touch earth through its dense atmosphere. It was a mesmerizing sight. Viola had always loved the night sky. She had memorized all the constellations in the sky for each season and often took Mesa and Alice up to the tops of grassy hills, making Mesa lug his giant telescope wherever they went. They would stare at the night sky, watching for meteorites entering the atmosphere and discussing science and postulating theories.

She finished her sweet water and put the glass down on the table beside her without looking away from the arm of the galaxy that she could see overhead. Slowly her eyes began to droop and her body felt lead like. Just before she drifted off to sleep she thought to herself, I think that water was drugged.

Her awareness came back to her in stages. At first she was aware of her body sitting motionless on a cold surface, sitting up. The moment she became aware that she was awake she had the sudden realization that she was experiencing sleep paralysis again, her brain was wide awake but her body was paralyzed and still sleeping. It did not frighten her that she was in this state, not as it used to when she had first experienced it. She knew that sooner or later her mind would drag her back into her dreams until the REM atonia that was causing her motor neurons to not be stimulated wore off. She waited in a drowsy state like this for a few moments before she realized that although her body was paralyzed she was able to open her eyes. This was a new sensation to her and a sickening dread started to descend upon her as her thoughts formed coherently once again and she remembered what had happened before she had fallen asleep, or rather been induced to sleep against her will. Her eyes shot open and she was blinded by bright lights in a white room. Even with the spike of adrenaline in her system she still couldn’t get her body to respond. Slowly her vision went from blurred and overstimulating to forming shapes, specifically that of people in scrubs surrounding her. The closest one to her was a male, his face covered by a mask in green operative scrubs. He brought out a small flashlight and flicked it in front of her eyes.

“Viola, can you hear me?” he asked.

Her heart began racing the moment he said her name and another of the doctors, the anesthesiologist who had been monitoring her vitals spoke, “Her heart rate has increased rapidly, blood pressure is rising, try and calm her down a bit.”

The first doctor turned back and looked at Viola. “Viola, we need you to calm down a bit okay. You are all right. There is no danger to you at all. We just needed to wake you up for this part of the procedure. Can you try and talk? We need you to be responsive and able to speak for this part of the procedure.”

Viola’s mind was reeling? What procedure were they talking about? Why we she in an operating room? Why couldn’t she remember what had happened to her? Calm down? His words had merely made her heart race even faster.

She forced herself to speak, her mouth forming around the words sluggishly, “What operation? Was I injured?”

The doctor looked at his co-worker again and the anesthesiologist just shrugged. “I wasn’t told not to tell her.”

The doctor took this into consideration and turned back to Viola. “Viola, right now you are in an operating room in a secure facility. We are trying to understand better how you do what you do with your mind. In order for us to properly assess what is going on inside there we have to implant a chip that is connected with our quantum computer, but we don’t want to damage anything in the process. So as we go through this procedure we are going to ask you some simple questions, so you just answer them truthfully.”

Viola tried to process this information as her brain became more and more alert. And then it finally sunk in, they were performing surgery on her brain. They had cut open her head and were probing inside her brain, right now, this very instant. She tried not to panic but her breathing became erratic as she realized she couldn’t move and there was nothing she could do to stop these people from doing whatever they wanted to her. “Why can’t I move?” She finally pleaded, wanting so badly to tremble. Being able to tremble from the fear she was feeling would at least give her some comfort.

“This is a very delicate procedure, Viola, we need you to be perfectly still. We have used a variety of analgesics to accomplish this state you are in, awake yet paralyzed. Don’t worry, when we are done you will be right as rain.”

“I can’t stop you from doing this can I?” She was trying to hold back the tears that threatened at the edges of her eyes and decided that there was no point in trying to be brave. These people had violated her in every way imaginable and now they were crawling around inside the only part that was hers and hers alone, her mind. She felt the tears streaming down her face.

“Sorry, sweetheart, this will all be over soon okay. I am going to start now,” the doctor said as he disappeared from Viola’s vision. She soon heard sickening sounds coming from above her and wished she had the ability to move her muscles so she could throw up.

An OR nurse walked into Viola’s field of vision and her eyes crinkled as she tried to show Viola some warmth with a smile that was hidden behind her mask.

“Okay, I am going to ask you some questions periodically and I just need you to answer them.”

Viola took a deep breath. “All right.” She bit her lip trying not to think about what was going on inside her skull, which instantly made her think about it even more. She had the sudden realization that getting teeth pulled wasn’t that bad anymore. At least people weren’t digging around in her psyche. She would never feel nervous about a dentist appointment again, if she ever got out of this place alive. She tried to hold the image of the stars in her mind once again instead of the image of Will. Stars made her calm. Will made her want to turn into an angry beast and tear the people in this room apart. Breaking his nose was definitely not enough. He deserves so much worse.