Compile:Quest

Chapter 21: Barbiturates and a Dark Room

Lambent Laboratories, Cell 3,

Africa Dome

Jasper spun around. He stared at Onyx with wide eyes. The man was pressed up against the glass of the observation room, his palms white, his navy-blue eyes large and intent.

"Did you—" Jasper took a steadying breath before continuing. "What just happened?"

Studying the readouts from the EEG, Jasper had watched as Peppermint's mind slipped into a delta phase of brain activity mere minutes after entering theta.

Not impossible. But highly improbable.

Onyx emerged from the observation room and strode across the tiles toward Jasper. Beside Jasper, Peppermint moaned. Her back curved up from the flattened chair as he looked down at her, her ribs nearly touching the ceiling of the MRI machine.

"Remove her," Onyx snapped.

Jasper moved to the side of the MRI, pressing the button to allow her chair to slide out. He pressed her back into the chair. Her body twisted, bunching and squirming as she tried to escape his grasp. Her eyes flew open, but they stared sightlessly, a grimace distorting her face. Foam flecked her lips as they drew into a snarl. She moaned, sounding as if she was trying to speak through her clenched jaw.

"Four minutes, thirty seconds," Onyx said as Jasper's side.

Then the man walked away, swallowed a few seconds later by the darkness of the observation room. Jasper stared after him, shocked. He wanted to call out after Onyx, but his attention shifted back to Peppermint as another set of contractions racked her. Her chair rattled as her body lifted and thumped down again.

"What on earth would trigger a seizure?" Jasper whispered.

He fought her as gently as he could, trying to suppress her without bruising her flesh. Peppermint's staring, turquoise eyes drew his gaze. Her pupils contracted and dilated, focusing on something in a different realm of perception.

"This must be the first time she's consciously entered a delta stage of consciousness," Jasper said, trying to piece together the frantic thoughts flitting through his mind. "Maybe that's what triggered the seizure."

"Four minutes, fifteen seconds," Onyx said.

Jasper flinched. He hadn't heard the man return. Onyx's arm hung at his side, a syringe loosely clutched between his fingers. Peppermint arched, only her head and feet touching the chair. Jasper tried restraining her, but her muscles were controlled by erratic neurons, capable of three times their usual strength without the limitations of conscious thought.

"Nnnnnn..."

She was trying to communicate, perhaps under duress of the seizure, perhaps because of the lucidity of what she was experiencing.

"Are we recording this?" Onyx asked in a sedate voice.

"I believe so, yes."

"Good."

"Onyx, we have to—"

The girl gripped Jasper's sleeve. Her short nails bit through his lab coat. He succeeded in shaking her off, but then she clutched his wrist instead. Her strength was unbelievable; the tendons in his wrist creaked from the pressure of her grip.

"Three minutes," Onyx said, his voice devoid of any emotion.

"Lllllllll..."

Peppermint's jaw muscles protruded as her teeth clenched together. Her body twisted away from him. Then her shoulder slammed back into the chair, jarring his hands free.