Total Recall

CHAPTER 24 Break

In due course Quaid and Melina were strapped into examination chairs in an industrial-scale version of the Rekall implant clinic. Quaid had watched for a chance to break free, but the goons had been very careful to keep them both shackled throughout. Even if he had been able to get loose himself, Melina would still have been hostage.

Suppose he just accepted the implant. Was there a chance the technicians wouldn’t realize the significance of what they were handling, so that Hauser could be restored with his secret intact? He doubted it; for one thing, the implant equipment sounded an alarm if anything out of the ordinary occurred, and the alien message would set off a six-alarm clamor. Yet what could he do, bound as he was?

Cohaagen watched as a doctor and six assistants prepared the reprogramming procedure. Melina already had an IV drip in the back of her hand. Quaid bucked and struggled as a technician inserted the needle in his hand. It wasn’t the momentary sting of the puncture that bothered him, but the finality of the coming injection of a drug that would pacify him for what was to be the loss of his personality—and worse.

“Relax, Quaid,” Cohaagen said. “You’ll like being Hauser.”

“The guy’s a fucking asshole.” Actually, he had been, up to a point: the point at which he had realized his love for Melina, and received the No’ui message. Then he had done his best to make up for a misdirected life—and in the process destroyed the Mars Liberation Front. So the description stood.

“True,” Cohaagen said. “But he’s got a big house and a Mercedes. And you like Melina, right?” He glanced at the woman, who grimaced, not appreciating even his look. “Well, you’ll get to fuck her every night. She’s gonna be Hauser’s wife. Not only that, we’re reprogramming her to be respectful and compliant and appreciative—the way a woman ought to be.”

Quaid and Melina looked at each other in horror. If he had wanted such a woman, he would have been satisfied with Lori, who had played the part perfectly. But even before his memory cap blew, he had been dissatisfied with her, and longing for Melina. His taste was for a real woman, with independence and courage. Then if she loved him, it meant something. If he went wrong, she would set him straight in a hurry! The idea of making such a woman into a docile puppet appalled him. And she—he knew she had no more desire to be that kind of whore for real than she had to turn traitor to her cause. She had played the part of a whore, but it had been only a part. What would it do to her, inside, to be locked into that part for life? She might as well be lobotomized—which was what this resembled.

A call came through on the videophone. An assistant answered, then said to Cohaagen: “Sir, it’s for you.”

Cohaagen turned impatiently to the screen, where a nervous technician stood in front of a wall of dials and gauges.

“What is it?” Cohaagen snapped.

“Sir,” the technician answered. “The oxygen level is bottoming out in Sector G. What do you want me to do?”

“Don’t do anything,” Cohaagen said.

“They won’t last an hour, sir,” the technician said.

Cohaagen pressed a button on the videophone and it displayed three quick views of Venusville. Everywhere, people were sprawled on the ground or slumped in doorways, their mouths open, gasping for breath. Melina turned her head, unable to look, while Quaid struggled angrily against his shackles. He had to get free! He had to stop this madness!

Cohaagen switched back to the technician. “Then it will all be over soon,” he said. He ended the transmission.

“Don’t be a shithead, Cohaagen!” Quaid shouted. “Give the people air!”

“My friend, in five minutes, you won’t give a fuck about the people.” Cohaagen turned to the doctor. “Fire it up.”

The doctor lowered the helmet over Melina’s head. She tried to move her head out of the way, but could not; she was captive.

Then the doctor got ready to lower Quaid’s helmet, when Richter interrupted him. “Uh, excuse me, Doc—but when he’s Hauser, will he remember any of this?”

“Not a thing,” the doctor assured him.

“Thanks.” Then Richter slugged Quaid in the face with all his might.

Lights flared. He would have a black eye, and maybe a concussion, but the headrest had braced him against the worst of it. He glared at Richter, who just grinned.

“You have a lot of courage, big man,” Quaid remarked ironically.

Cohaagen pulled Richter away. “Sorry, Quaid. This’ll be over soon, and we’ll all be friends again.”

He’d be as well off making friends with a nest of scorpions! But that was the least of it. How could he protect the message of the No’ui from discovery?

The doctor turned on the implant machine. It made a horrible whining noise reminiscent of an old-style dentist’s drill, the kind still used in horror videos. Cohaagen grimaced and led Richter out of the lab. He paused at the door and turned back to Quaid.

“By the way, I’m having a little get-together at the house tonight. Why don’t you and Melina drop by, say around nine-ish?”

Quaid gritted his teeth, refusing to answer.

Cohaagen turned to the doctor. “Doc, you’ll remind him?”

“Mm-hmm,” the doctor replied, nodding absently.

Richter waved good-bye. “See you at the party.”

And he would express surprise at Hauser’s swelling eye. So the man was a hypocrite; that was the least of his faults.

Cohaagen and Richter left the lab. Now the sounds of the equipment became really terrifying, not for their mechanics, which were physically painless, but for their significance. It was as if the living brains were being sawed apart so that portions of brains from a morgue could be grafted on.

Both Quaid and Melina struggled against it. They concentrated to fight the effects of the reprogramming, but their resources were small, facing overwhelming force. Quaid pulled against the metal brackets holding his wrists and forearms and ankles. They didn’t budge.

“Please keep still,” the doctor said.

Now there was pain, both physical and mental, as his skin was abraded by the bonds, and his mind tried to oppose the brainwashing. Both types of pain became more acute. Quaid grimaced, as if that could drive away the hostile program.

“Don’t fight it,” the doctor said. “That’s what makes it hurt.”

Quaid saw Melina struggling vainly. Tears were flowing down her cheeks, and spittle drooled from her mouth. He thrashed in his chair, trying to break free. The whining of the equipment was excruciating, but that was nothing compared with the pain of struggle and loss. He seemed helpless, yet he could not just let it happen. Was this what a woman felt when she was being raped? For surely it was a kind of rape.

“This is a delicate procedure, Mr. Quaid,” the doctor cautioned him. “If you don’t keep still, you’ll end up schizophrenic.”

Would that prevent them from discovering the No’ui message? If so, it might be a way out. But he didn’t trust it. He summoned all his strength to hold his identity intact and break free from the chair.

The shackles did not give at all; Cohaagen had made sure they were sufficient. But the screws holding the chair together started to creak.

“Turn up the sedative,” the doctor told an assistant.

That would do it! Quaid knew that this was his last chance. Yet his strength was at its limit; what more could he do?

No’ui! he thought. I need help!

And from some untapped resource came a flow of strength. The noise, the pain, and his thrashing all reached a crescendo, and it seemed that he could endure no more, but he felt that strength increasing. Maybe it was the strength of madness, that the No’ui implant knew how to tap. It didn’t matter. He tensed his arms even harder, and opened his mouth to cry out.

Then, with a roar both vocal and structural, he ripped the right armrest from the chair! It hung on his forearm like an unwieldy splint. He was breaking free!

Immediately he smashed the IV out of his other hand, stopping the sedative. With one hand partly free he could—

The doctor rushed over to restrain him. Quaid swung the armrest like a clumsy weapon and drove a long, exposed bolt through the doctor’s throat.

The assistants converged. One grabbed Quaid’s forearm. Quaid curled him into a one-harmed hug and snapped his neck.

Now he had a moment to help himself. He lifted the helmet from his head. That took care of the implanting process! He felt an awful headache as it went, as if wires were being ripped from his brain; then it was over.

Another assistant, behind Quaid, grabbed his wrist. Quaid grabbed the man’s hair and pulled him brutally forward over his shoulder. The head landed between his knees. He snapped his knees together, putting pressure on the skull as if it were a walnut in a nutcracker. The man screamed and collapsed.

Quaid reached over and released the bracket over his left wrist. Now both arms were free. He saw Melina still fighting her brainwashing. “Hold on!” he cried.

Three more assistants converged on Quaid, grabbing his arms. Yet another assistant attacked with a long metal pole. Quaid pulled one man in front of him, like a shield. The pole plunged through his eye. That was all for him. The others, appalled, froze for a moment. In that moment, Quaid reached down and unshackled one ankle.

Immediately he kicked the assistant closing in before him in the crotch; he remembered exactly what that felt like, from Lori’s kick. The man fell aside.

Quaid pushed himself up and stood. One leg was still immobilized, but he couldn’t take time to get it loose. Two more assistants were after him, baiting him like a bear, using the pole and a fireaxe. Quaid dodged the swing of the axe, grabbed the pole, then bent quickly to unfasten the last ankle bracket. The fireaxe came swinging down on him, and he spun away just in time.

Now fully free, Quaid impaled the assistant who had wielded the pole with his own weapon. Then he went to pull the helmet off Melina.

The remaining assistant did what he should have done at the outset: he activated the alarm and ran for the door. Quaid leaped after him, caught him, and accelerated him face first into the door. The man’s nose left a bloody streak on the door as he slid down, unconscious. Too bad it wasn’t Richter, who deserved a return tap on the snoot. Not that it could make the man any uglier than he was.

Quaid returned to Melina and started releasing the shackles on her arms and legs. “Are you all right?”

She nodded.

That wasn’t sufficient. She had been under the treatment longer than he. “Are you still you?”

She considered. “I’m not sure, dear,” she said in a perfectly docile manner. “What do you think?”

Quaid was aghast. Then she smiled. “Let’s get the hell out of here,” she snapped.

That irritation was music to his ears! He flipped the last buckle. She stepped out of the chair, grabbed the axe embedded in the remains of Quaid’s chair, and ran for the door.

They charged out of the lab. Alarms were screaming. Two soldiers rounded a corner. Melina swung her axe into one soldier’s sternum. Quaid swung his pole against the side of the other’s head. Two down.

They grabbed the soldiers’ guns, ran to the elevator landing, and pressed the call button. Quaid doubted that it could be as easy as just catching the elevator down, but neither could they afford to ignore it.

Ding! The elevator was going up. It stopped, the doors opened—and there were a dozen soldiers inside.

Quaid blasted away with his gun, hosing them down. Ding! The elevator doors closed on the mess.

The other elevator arrived. Ding! Going down. The doors opened. This one was empty. It seemed that even elevators learned from experience! They hopped in.

Quaid turned to Melina as the elevator descended. “In case we don’t get another chance to talk, I want you to know that I—no matter what I may have been before—”

She stepped into him and kissed him. “I know,” she murmured after a bit.

“But that Hauser disc—”

“You could have had me on a platter if you’d just relaxed,” she said. “Instead, you fought like hell and freed me. So I knew it wasn’t that.”

“I do want you! Love you! But—”

“But not at the price of the betrayal of Mars,” she said.

“Yes. But also—”

The elevator came to a stop at the ground floor. “Later,” she said tersely.

The doors slid open. They emerged into frantic activity. Alarms were blaring. Miners were moving around like swarming ants. Mining vehicles and security vehicles were speeding in all directions. Soldiers were on alert. Apparently the alarm had galvanized the establishment into frenzied but pointless stirring.

They exchanged glances. Could it be this easy?

They stepped out, trying to look busy in the same way as the others. No such luck. They were seen. Soldiers started firing at them.

They ran. Quaid jumped into a moving mole, pulled the driver out of the cab, took his place, and took the wheel. He looked out the window for Melina. Soldiers were firing at him; the bullets were bouncing off the metal hide of the mole.

He couldn’t find her. “Melina!” he cried, alarmed.

“Over here,” she replied.

His head whipped around. There she was in the passenger seat, slamming the door. She hadn’t waited for his call.

Quaid gunned the motor. The mole leaped forward, suddenly become a monster. Soldiers and miners scattered.

Cohaagen stood before the floor-to-ceiling window in his office and stared moodily out at the domes. The horizon was pink, signalling the approach of dawn. Alarms wailed in the background, muffled but insistent.

Richter fidgeted on the other side of the room. What more proof did Cohaagen need? Surely it was clear by now that there was only one way to deal with the traitor that Hauser had become. “Well, sir?” he said finally.

Cohaagen remained in silent thought a moment longer. Hauser was a top agent. There would be hell to pay before he could be gotten under control again. Friendship went only so far. The man had outlived his welcome. Without turning around, he answered flatly: “Kill him.”

“It’s about fucking time,” Richter muttered, turning on his heel and dashing from the room.

If he had thought Cohaagen couldn’t hear him, he was wrong. Cohaagen stiffened at the words. If it hadn’t been for Richter’s messing in, the Quaid programming might have gone smoothly. Certainly, the man would not have developed such a strong attachment to his temporary identity. A man could get to believe in himself if he had to fight for his life. After this ugly job was done, Richter himself would be expendable. It was about fucking time, indeed.

Cohaagen’s pent-up anger at the man exploded. He glared at the fish swimming harmlessly in the bowl on his desk, and swept it to the floor, where it smashed to bits. The fish floundered desperately, unable to breathe. Cohaagen smiled.

But there were more important things to do. Cohaagen had suspected that Hauser knew more about the alien artifact that he had let on. Now he was sure of it. He could afford to wait no longer.

He picked up a phone. “Get the demolitions team,” he said. Then he stared intensely into space. He didn’t like doing this, destroying Hauser and the alien artifact. Both could have been far more useful to him, in other circumstances. But security came first. He had built a kind of empire here, and he couldn’t afford to let either friendship or greed threaten it.