Technobabel Read Free

got to find some way to get out of here. Buried in the hot darkness and the smell of decay and disinfectant, I take stock of the situation. I cannot make my muscles work the way they should, but I can still feel my hands and my feet, the sensation of the vinyl body-bag against my skin, the way I rest on top of the bodies supporting me, the motion of the van as it moves. My mind is a jumble of thoughts and images. I was expecting to see someone else. Someone else was to come and find me, not these body-snatchers looking for corpses.
    Why can’t I move? I try to figure out what could have happened to cause this. I can still feel everything. Neither my limbs nor my skin are numb. I dismiss the possibility of injury causing my paralysis. The idea makes me ill, and, if it’s true, there’s not much hope of getting out of here. I push the thoughts aside. No point in dwelling on what I can’t change.
    Drugs? I don’t think so. I don’t feel sedated or drugged. My mind is sharp and awake. It might be a drug I don’t know, but, again, there isn’t much I can do if that’s the case. Best to consider the other possibilities.
    Magic? It’s possible. There are spells to paralyze and control people. I know something about the theory behind them. Magicians have the ability to do such things, but I can’t recall ever having been under a spell. Thinking about magic makes me feel strange. There’s something I don’t remember about it. Something important, but it doesn’t help me with my present problem.
    There’s the possibility of the BTLs Riley talked about. Better Than Life chips—beetles—were things plenty of people plugged into their brains to experience feelings and sensations more pleasurable and intense than anything real life had to offer, supposedly. I dimly recall a feeling like that, feelings deeper and broader than anything I thought a human body and mind could contain. A sense of being so large, so vast, but it slips away from me even as I try to grab hold of it. Was I using chips in the alley? Is my current condition the result of neural damage to my motor centers? I can’t remember.
    The way I’m lying on top of the stack of bodies is giving me a painful pull at the base of my neck. I long to raise my head or to roll over to a more comfortable position. I focus on the pain, let it fill my thoughts. I pour all of my effort into making my body roll over to the side. Just a little contraction of the muscles. Just a slight change in position. That’s it. Should be easy. Nothing to it.
    I start to sweat inside the confinement of the body bag, and I can feel the air getting hot and stale. The sound of my own breathing is loud in the confinement, but I focus on it to remind me I’m still alive and I try to quicken its pace. I need more air, more oxygen to my muscles and my brain to try and speed their recovery. If they can recover, that is .. . No, I can’t let myself think that way. I have to be able to move or there’s no chance at all.
    The meat-wagon takes a corner hard, and I throw all of my strength into rolling with the movement. There! I manage to roll onto my back on top of the other bodies, and I think I can feel someone’s arm under my lower back, as if it were holding me in an embrace. It isn’t much, but I moved.
    I start concentrating on my hands and my feet. They are tingling a bit and, with some effort, I can almost move them. The paralysis gripping my body is starting to fade,
    I can feel it. I concentrate on trying to move, trying to find my voice, to bring my mind back into synch with my body. That’s it. I feel like my mind has lost touch with my body, like I’ve only forgotten how to use it properly. If I could only open my eyes. Of course, all there is to see right now is the inside of a dark body bag. I just need to try a little harder.
    We slow to a stop, and the driver kills the engine. We’ve arrived somewhere. I start to work feverishly to regain some movement, any kind of