Up Against It - M. J. Locke [133]
The Voice wanted her to protect the feral.
The Voice gave her more. Before her mind’s eye, a great banquet of anguish spread—far worse than anything humankind had ever known. This moment was passing swiftly. If she made the right choice, and made it soon, she could nudge events in the right direction. If she did nothing, things would almost certainly go the other way. Many would suffer and die who might otherwise live.
This was why the Voice had come to her.
She thought, even as she saw/felt/heard all this, that it had to be an illusion. A psychosis. Megalomania. Or worse, some manipulative power had hacked her consciousness. Even the feral itself might be tinkering with her neurotransmitters to get her to do what it wanted.
Psychosis was the only rational explanation. But the enfolding vastness of the Voice was still, somehow, all too real. In some way, more real even than she.
Jane came to herself curled on the tile floor of Sarah’s law office.
Sarah was talking. “Jane, can you hear me?” Jane couldn’t quite make out her face. “I hear you.” She gasped the words. “Help me up.”
With Sarah’s assistance she wobbled shakily over to the couch and sat. Her vision slowly cleared. The cushions propped her up. How had she gotten back into Sarah’s office? She looked up at her friend: Sarah had her hand on Jane’s shoulder and was gazing worriedly at her.
“What happened?”
Jane passed a hand over her eyes with a trembling hand. “I haven’t been eating or sleeping well. Did I … did I say anything?”
Sarah shook her head. Jane read the worry in her eyes. “You were moaning. Nothing intelligible.”
Thank God for small favors. “Would you mind getting me a drink of water?”
“Sure. Wait right here.”
She stepped out. Jane hunched over her knees.
How many crazy people had there been, over the years, who were sure they had a special line to God? It was time to quit screwing around. She pulled the antipsychotics out of her pocket, shook out a pill into a trembling hand. It was a big pill; she would need that drink of water to get it down.
She stared at the pill.
Her reluctance, she had to admit, was in large part a visceral dislike of being dependent on medication. But she wanted to think that there was more to it than simply that.
I don’t believe in the supernatural, she thought. But she could not shake this deep conviction that somehow she had landed in, or been maneuvered into, this position where the fate of many depended on her. Perhaps even more than simply the people of Phocaea.
It was then she realized that she had already decided to play the hand the Voice had dealt her. An awareness filled her of the forces in play. A strategic map laid itself out before her. She knew which pieces would need to be moved, and when. Not in so many words, but she sensed the underlying pattern.
Beneath it all—despite the fact that the Voice could not be anything more than schizophrenia or, more frighteningly, biochemical manipulation by her enemies—something deep in her trusted it. She had always relied on her instincts, and the Voice felt the same way her hunches always had, only bigger. She had to trust that.
She did not need to know what the Voice was to believe that the knowledge it gave her was truth. She might be going mad. In fact, it was much more likely than the alternative. But if so, it seemed a useful madness. Whatever was happening was enabling her to tap into her own intuitions, in a much more direct and powerful way than she had ever known before.
And I’m a free agent, now, she thought again. I’m no longer resource allocation chief—no longer bound by my obligations to the cluster. I can do what I want.
She wanted to see where this bout of inspired madness would take her. She put the pill back into the vial and tucked it away.
Sarah came in with the water. Jane took it with thanks. She drained the cup and wiped her mouth with a quick, decisive nod.
“I’m famished,” she said.
Sarah looked relieved. “It’ll do you