LEGACY CHILD

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Time no longer had meaning. It chased itself round and round, going nowhere. It could not be measured or contained. It was a construct. A word made up from nothing. Not even a thing. Nothing. Just like everything else. Everything was nothing.

            No. Not true. There was something. The ceiling. Yes. The ceiling was there. Constant and unchanging. White and glowing thanks to frosted lights beneath the tiles. Oh, and the face. Someone had drawn a face on one of the tiles—crudely made, little more than black scratches on the white surface. The smile was sick, twisted, and if looked at long enough, could make anyone crazy.

            Porter was reasonably sure he wasn't crazy. However, he had lost his mind. Profoundly and completely. It was gone. Or at least portions were. He suspected if his brain was scanned and imaged, its map would show huge shadow regions detailing empty space where the missing sections had once been.

            While Porter contemplated his craziness, he soiled himself. Twice. He'd also been fed six times. That, he found annoying. It mocked his theory that time meant nothing since someone thought it important to break up its nothingness into feeding periods. He was also fairly confident his head had been shaved, though he could neither confirm nor deny. His hands were fastened to the bedframe by leather straps with intimidating metal buckles so he couldn't check for himself.

            There were five things he could claim with certainty. One, he hated the face. Two, time meant nothing. No, that wasn't right. He wasn't sure about that yet. Fine, four things. So back to two it was then. Two, he couldn't leave because he was strapped to the bed. Three, the white tiles never changed. But most important was the fourth thing. Four, he was missing something. Something had been taken from him and he'd better hurry and remember what it was before he soiled himself again and had to sit in it until the next clean-up.

            Sometimes, he heard voices and recognized words. Strange, and annoying, because they interrupted his contemplation of the ceiling. Plus, it made him wonder: If he recognized words, then he hadn't lost his mind. And if he hadn't lost his mind, maybe he knew things. Knew people. Things and people. For example, he knew he was the Director of Population Logistics. But every time he tried to surface enough to understand what that meant, he would be pulled under and the abyss of darkness swallowed him.

            Until...

            A voice. This one was different. It wasn't a voice talking over him, or about him. No, this voice was talking directly to him. Then, a face. The voice had a face. A real face, and it looked down at him. His body stiffened with realization. Effiny—Speaker for the Clan. See, he knew people. Important people. If Effiny was there, things must be very grave indeed.

            "Porter," Effiny said in a voice sounding of a hundred tinkling waterfalls. "Can you hear me?"

            "Yes," was his less than stunning reply from cracked, dry lips.

            "Taltos sent me to determine the reason for your confinement."

            "Confinement." His voice wavered over the word. Confinement. What did that mean, exactly?

            "Yes," she breathed, lips close to his ear. She smelled of mint. "Your assistant, Nazneen, said you came into work and you passed out. According to her report, you were frothing at the mouth. Danais had you confined before we could intervene."

            Could people froth? At the mouth? Amazing. He wondered if it had anything to do with the thing he couldn't, or didn't want to, remember.

            "Passed out?" he parroted.

            "Yes Porter," she said with obvious patience, her voice still rich and smooth even if it did sound frayed at the edges. "Your medical work-up indicates there is nothing physically wrong with you. Unfortunately, we can find no trigger to explain your current mental condition. There is no reason why you should be here, despite Danais's strong arguments to the contrary. Progeny do not simply go insane. However, based on Nazneen's word and the scene found at your dwelling—"