The Prisoner - Carlos J. Cortes [95]
For a while they shared a silence, punctuated only by the faint beeps from the machines.
“I’m sorry about your other friend, er—Sebastian.”
“Bastien. Bastien Compton.”
“I’m sorry.”
Her eyes filmed over. “Why did it happen?”
“What you did was a crazy stunt—much more dangerous than any of you could have guessed. Sinking into torpor only to be roused a few minutes later subjected your body to a huge systemic shock.”
“You mean we all could have died?”
Floyd didn’t answer at once. When he did, his voice seemed to come from somewhere farther away. “Yes. In a way, it’s a small miracle Raul and you pulled through intact.”
She straightened, aghast at the implication. Floyd shook his head, as if he could follow her train of thought. “Don’t be harsh on Tyler and the others who planned the operation. They probably didn’t know.”
“How could they not?”
“I spoke with Tyler earlier; that’s when he told me about Bastien. He couldn’t understand what had happened to your friend either. The truth is, little has leaked from Hypnos, or any of the companies offering commercial hibernation, about the drawbacks of the technology.”
“Couldn’t you have warned them?”
“How could I? All I knew was that a group of people would bring an inmate over to Nyx through the sewers. I had no idea of the details.”
She leaned back and shook her head. Had I known all the risks, would I still have done it? It came as no surprise that the answer was yes, but their ignorance had come at a harrowing cost.
Floyd turned again toward the shape on the bed. “Who is he?”
His question traced a line in the sand; she could cross it or maintain her silence. But she’d crossed the line when she reached for his hand in the van. “His name is Eliot Russo.”
Floyd stood, his brow creased. He wandered randomly around the room, his restless fingers touching a tube or a container as if looking for something to do. At the top of the bed, he paused to look at the taut skin over Russo’s skull. “I remember. … A lawyer, a political activist, ostensibly killed in a car accident, five, six years ago?”
“Eight.”
Floyd sucked air and smacked his lips. “Shit.”
“You can say that.”
“So it really is him and us.”
“I don’t follow.” Laurel did, but she wanted to hear his voice.
“You do. I presume this operation is about exposing what’s happened to him.”
She waited.
“To do that, he must recover and keep his mental faculties, at least a little. If he dies or turns up insane, we’ll never make it. Whoever did this to him will make sure.” Floyd paced back to the settee and slumped at her side without much elegance. “How many more like him are there?”
She looked up to find his eyes searching her face. “I don’t know. I once heard Shep—Tyler speak of many.”
After removing his moccasins, Floyd coiled his long body into the settee and curled up his legs, hiking his feet onto the seat so that their toes touched. “Hopeless.” His voice grew darker.
“There’s always hope.”
“Hope is the denial of reality.”
Laurel bunched her toes over his. “Where have you pilfered that quote from?”
“No idea. How can the government tolerate such bestiality?”
“In this case, because they know nothing about it,” Laurel said.
“Impossible.”
“Is it? Governments have grown pyramidal—too large, complex, and fragmented. Those at the top don’t know what happens at lower levels. Providing the waters remain calm and the bottom line tallies, they have no reason to dig into the bowels of any one department.”
“So is this a DHS operation?” Floyd asked.
“In cahoots with other intelligence agencies.”
“And Hypnos? It doesn’t make any sense.”
“Why?”
“Something like this couldn’t be kept secret forever. Eventually someone would blow the whistle.”
“That’s what we’re hoping to do.” Under the soles of her feet, he splayed his toes like a cat.
“So you’re crusaders championing the ideal of omnipotent justice.” There was a hard tinge to his voice,