Darkness - Book One of the Dark Series of Novels

Chapter Fourteen

Troy strapped Jonny into a metal chair using nylon rope. Jonny couldn't move. Troy took a large plastic cup filled with Darkness and fed it to him. "In about a minute you're going to convulse; you're going to want to vomit; you're going to feel like you are burning from the inside which, in a way, you are."

Jonny felt his stomach bubbling and started to panic. Troy put his hand over Jonny's mouth. Troy continued, "Remember to stay in your room. When you get there, stay in your room. Your host has been given the very same advice. Stay. In. Your. Room. Wait until I arrive – my body isn't far, and I will be able to arrive within forty-eight hours. But stay in your room."

The convulsions started. Jonny shook and the chair tilted before Troy put his leg up to steady it, his single hand still holding Jonny's mouth closed. "Stay in your room," Troy continued as the world faded for Jonny. "Stay. In. Your. Room." Jonny felt his lungs stop, his heart stop, all sensation arrest in a lucid moment of clarity before the immense weightlessness took hold.

***

Jonny briefly remembered having arms and legs, toes, fingers, eyes, vision, smell, ears before being aware that he now had none. He had only awareness and could do nothing with it. He had read about locked-in syndrome in medical history books and reminded himself that he could continue to exist as many others did in this state. As his memory on the subject came into focus, he was aware first of not being alone, and next his senses emerged as if being revealed by a slowly parting curtain.

With the curtain parted, Jonny heard music. He saw a computer screen and in a flash two hands – not his – rose into view. They turned over and back and then the body attached to those hands stood and went to the bed.

He was slowly gaining weight. The sensation was strange – as if he was putting down roots. After a few minutes of momentum, he heard a voice in his head which was not his own. He could not understand it. Jonny pushed on sending roots deeper into whatever fertile ground he had found; the deeper he went, the more weight he felt, the louder and more clear the other voice became. At once integrating and traveling towards the rising voice, Jonny found a voice rumbling inside of him getting louder and clearer – his own voice. The roots he put down started to curl, started to pull the ground closer and he came closer by degrees until he breached the membrane and was himself inside where both his voice and the other voice became crystal clear.

Jonny, I presume? The voice asked.

Yes.

My name is Reggie. ASA told me to expect you. It also told me to take a few sleeping pills and go to sleep. It would be easier to integrate if we were not also trying to coordinate movement. That's the only real advice I got. Otherwise, I'm rather excited to have you here.

Thanks, Jonny said. I was told we should wait in this room until Troy arrives.

Who is Troy?

An android – he's going to be our guide. How much did ASA tell you?

Other than promising fame and money, and that I would play host to you, not a whole lot. But ASA wasn't being sneaky – it said that allowing us to discuss specifics would actually help integration.

Oh, Jonny responded. Well, then I can tell you my future is no picnic. There was a rampaging Asian Flu that killed five billion people. The outbreak starts about five years from today – if today is when ASA and Troy told me it would be.

And we are going to stop that?

We can't stop it. What you and I are going to do is drop the death toll to one billion, with Troy's help. And then you and I on our own – or maybe with ASA's help – are going to publish a series of academic works that will help reshape society, hopefully for the better.