Of Death What Dreams

13

The insertion of the hair-fine electrodes took three hours—three uncomfortable hours of probing in sensitive flesh with sharp-pointed metal, alternated with tingling shocks that made obscure muscles jump and quiver. At the end of it, Bailey touched the coin-sized plastic disk nestled against the base of his skull and winced.

“That’s the easy part,” Goldblatt said cheerfully. “Now we start the hard work. You know, it’s funny,” he rambled on as he strapped his victim in position. “They invented this device to take the will power out of physical training. What they forgot was it still takes will power to climb in under the straps, knowing what’s coming.”

“If you scare me to death, you don’t collect,” Bailey said. “Those cards are no good without my prints.”

Goldblatt grinned. “Ready?” he asked. “Here we go.”

Bailey felt his right thigh twitch. He yelled as a full-fledged cramp locked to the rectus femoris—the name popped into his mind—like a red-hot clamp. The limb strained against the straps, quivering.

“… four seconds, five seconds, six seconds,” Goldblatt counted off. Abruptly the pressure was gone. The pain receded.

“Hey,” Bailey started—and yelled as his left leg jerked against the restraint. Six more endless seconds passed. Bailey lay gasping as a lever moved, flexing his knee to a new position.

“Cry all you want to,” Goldblatt said cheerfully. “This baby works over three hundred separate muscles, max contraction, three positions. How you like it, hah? Ready to get some sense now and settle for a toner like I said to begin with?”

Bailey gritted his teeth against the rubber bite protector and endured another spasm.

“Whatever you say, my friend,” Goldblatt sighed. “Here we go again…”