THE PRISONERS IN THE PALACE

Part Five:

Brianna was awakened by a touch on her shoulder.  As she lifted her head from the edge of the bed a firm hand clamped over her mouth and she was pulled to her feet.

"Come...now!" Sid hissed in her ear, dragging her across the chamber to the entrance of her own room. When he had her almost all the way across that room, he moved around her, his hand still over her mouth. "I'm going to let go now," he said in a deadly quiet voice, "and if you value his life, you will make no sound."

She nodded, her eyes large and blue above his hand. "You will stay in your chamber and will remain quiet until I tell you you can come out. Do you understand?"

Running her tongue along her lower lip where it had been bruised against her teeth, she asked, "Why? What are you up to now, Sid?"

"You will know soon enough."  Sid loved his little parodies of Maximus' Gladiator dialog. "Maybe. If...," he smiled at her, "if I decide you shall." He looked back at the doorway. "Now stay here!"  He strode across the room and disappeared into Maximus' chamber.

She had to see! There was no way she could not look to see what Sid was going to do. So she slipped silently across the room, peering cautiously through the doorway. Sid was bending over the sleeping Maximus, uncorking a small vial. Oh, God! Surely it wasn't poison!

Sid held the small bottle a moment, staring down at the General, then moved it under Maximus' nose. Maximus didn't stir. His lips, already slightly parted, opened more as his jaw went even more slack.  Sid recorked the bottle, sliding it into the breast pocket of the Armani suit he'd changed into. No longer needing to whisper, he said in his normal tone, "Now it begins. Now it all begins."

He pushed a small, hidden button and one of the flat doors slid open, two men in white entering, rolling a gurney between them. Sid stepped back, giving them room to lift Maximus onto it, then followed through the door, which slid shut behind them.

Brianna ran to the bed, her mouth squared in horror. "Oh, God, Maximus," she moaned. "What is he going to do to you?"  She sank down where he'd been lying, burying her face in his pillow, sucking into her lungs the scent of him.

The two attendants rolled the gurney down a white hallway, bright with glaring fluorescent lights and into an operating room. There were vast sections of Emerald City that neither Terry nor Bud knew existed. He'd had them built before either man had been retrieved.

What Sid had planned was a minor procedure and there was no need for him to gown or scrub, although he had insisted the surgeon himself do so. The doctor turned Maximus' head far to one side, sterilizing a small section just above his right ear. Within moments he had inserted a tiny microchip, sealing the small incision with surgical glue. He turned Maximus' head again and did the same procedure just above his left ear so that the signals the chips would send would cross through his brain. The whole thing took mere moments and then Maximus was being wheeled back to his room. Brianna heard the slight sound of the door beginning to open and ran quickly to her room, watching as Maximus was placed back on his bed.  Sid followed shortly, pulling a chair up beside the bed, looking at the General.

"I expect you'd like to know what just happened to you, Maximus," he began conversationally, "so I'll tell you.  Too bad you can't hear a word I say." He paused. "I know you're there, Brianna. Why don't you come on in?  This involves you as well."

She sighed. Nothing seemed to get past Sid. He turned his head, watching her come. "Here," he said, "you can sit on the floor...as becomes your station in life."

Had she hated Mikol? It was hard to remember. Hard with Sid right there, right in her face. She sank down beside the bed, reaching up and taking Maximus' limp hand between her two.

"Touching, my dear. Most touching." He looked from her to Maximus and then back at her again. "You really care for him?"

She nodded as her answer to him.

"Then you will approve of what I've just done. You see, I had two choices." He cocked his head, enjoying the sound of his own voice. "I need his brain."

Brianna gasped slightly, tightening her grip on Maximus' hand.

"I could," he continued nonchalantly, "just remove the whole thing. Of course, that would spell the end of it for our poor, dear Spaniard." He smiled at her. "I'm sure you would prefer that not be the case. Am I right?"

She nodded again, dumb with the horror of what Sid was saying.

"One presumed. So, my dear Viking, what I've done is have specially developed microchips placed on either side of his head."

Her eyes widened and she turned quickly to look at his sleeping face. Oh, my God!

"These are not just any ol' chippies, either. It cost me well over seventeen million to have them developed." He patted Maximus' leg. "Spared no expense for you!"

"But...," Brianna murmured, barely able to speak, "what do they...do...to him?"

"Ah, what DON'T they do to him might be the better question."  He smiled his dreadful Sid smile at  her again. "They make him...mine."

She shuddered violently and he laughed. "They give me full access to his brain.  What he thinks, what he feels, what he knows, all of it, is now fed into my central computer system.  Eventually I will have all he is...as a program."

"But...why...why would you want that?"

His expression grew deadly serious. "I want it for...me."

"For...you?"

"Yes," he said, "I want to add it to my own programming. I want to take everything he is and merge it with everything I am." He tipped his face toward the ceiling. "And then I will be the one perfect man."

Her mouth dropped open. Sid and...Maximus...as one being? She couldn't begin to conceive of what that would be like. "Surely that's not...possible?"

"I assure you it is," he said. "And I shall do it."

"How...how do I fit in with all this?"

"I need him to care for you."

"Why would you need that?"

"Because in order for my program to be completed, he must have experiences, experiences that it can process, record as data."

"Experiences? What sort of experiences?"

"When he is here, it is important for him to care about your well-being, so that...," his voice trailed off.

"Here? When will he not be here?"

He smiled broadly. "Ah, here's where my little chips earn their keep. There will be times, many times, when he is here and yet not here."

"Good God, Sid, what do you MEAN?"

"I mean, my simple little milkmaid, that to all intents and purposes, as far as reality for our Commander of the Felix Legions, he will be elsewhere...though he is not."

"I don't understand."

"Of course you don't," he smiled, reaching out to pat her head as though she were three.  "He can be sitting at dinner and with a mere push of my little button, for him the scene will change and he will find himself in some other place, facing some other situation. This, you see, will greatly speed up my programming process as all he does and thinks during these situations will be being fed into the computer."

"What then? After you have all you need from him...what then?"

"Much of that will depend on your behavior.  If you are a good girl, I shall then warp you both to a different place. If you've been VERY good, it will be together. If not, perhaps I will send him to the court of Amenophis III in ancient Egypt and you to London just in time for the bubonic plague.  Or the other way around. Depending on my mood. But if you force my hand before that time, if you tell him things you should not and end this way of going about it, then I shall simply remove his brain. You do understand that I mean that?"

Swallowing hard, she nodded. "When...when he is...elsewhere, as you said, where am I?"

"He will see you where he finds himself, but you will not be really there as he is not really there. You, however, will merely be...here. It is the programming in the chips that will make it appear as though you are where he thinks he is.  You will see him as he truly is...merely gone...blank."

Could she do this? Could she let all this happen to him?  She kissed his knuckles again. There was no choice, was  there?  Sid could do it, would do it, would simply take his brain. She closed her eyes tightly. She would not let Sid see her tears begin to well. 

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