The End Has Come

Agnes accessed her auditory system and edited the ECCO scrambler from his speech — it enabled her to decipher his words without turning off the ECCO box. “Reeves, say something.”

“Did you bring a pen?” he asked immediately. He had lost all interest in the chair and was looking at her hopefully.

Agnes shook her head, faintly irritated. “All information, case history, record sessions, and commentary —” Agnes called up Procedures onto her eyelids, and her voice became a monotone as words were fed into her mouth, “ — is imprinted in tailored neurons within the brain of the interviewer. At no time is an interviewer to use or permit subjects access to instruments of creation —” She stopped as Reeves crawled back to his corner and curled up into a ball, burying his face in his arms.

“ — no writing instruments are required.” Agnes lowered her voice. “You knew that, yet you continue to ask me. You know all our procedures here. Recovery would be much easier if you would simply absorb what I tell you. Our tests show you’re capable of it —”

Reeves raised his head; folding his arms and mimicking Agnes’ stern expression, he stuck out his tongue. Agnes restrained herself from making a comment. It would just encourage him.

She tried a different track. “Reeves, I came to ask you about the transformation.”

Reeves shrugged. “I know.” He turned away from Agnes and started to press his palms into the softcell floor.

Agnes frowned. “Oh?”

Reeves lifted his palms and watched the floor flow back to its original shape. “It’s what you always come to ask me about.” He rubbed his nose with his finger and glared sullenly at the floor. “You don’t care about me at all.”

Agnes bristled. “That’s not true, Reeves. I care about you and the rest of the Sensitives here at the station. That’s why I need you to tell me about the transformation. Can you do that for me?”

“It’s against the rules.” His eyes darted worriedly at the ceiling. “They kill tattlers here.”

“Reeves, there is no social interaction among the inmates. Your life is governed only by the rules we administer. Now tell me about the transformation and how to stop it.”

Reeves shook his head.

“Why not?”

“Because,” he said flatly, “you’re mean to me.”

“How am I mean to you?”

Reeves shrugged. “You don’t love me. You won’t let me call you anything but 'Doctor’ and that’s not a name at all and you call me by my name all the time. You don’t give me any clothes, you won’t let me leave, and you won’t let me touch you.” Reeves raised his voice. “You’re just using me. You don’t care about me at all.” He tucked his head into the shelter of his arms. “I can see it when I look at you.”

Agnes froze. “What do you mean by that?” She felt her heart race as she called up the cell’s oxygen count. It had decreased twenty parts per million. “What do you mean, ‘when you look at me’?” Reeves continued to sulk, and Agnes braced herself. “Reeves, look at me.”

He peeked out from behind his arms.

“What do you see now?”

Reeves slowly uncurled himself and crawled over to her, stopping in front of her chair. Raising himself to his knees, their eyes met —

an old woman radiant silver gray hair spilling around a face despondency worn with age tracery of lines and wrinkles gathering at the corner of her mouth voice a forgotten song buried

 — and Agnes tore herself away, severing the connection. “Oh, no.” Her mind began to race, slipping from her, falling away to fear. “Oh, Reeves.”

Reeves’ mouth was open slightly, showing scarred gums.

“Oh, Reeves. It’s started.”

Frustration tore at Agnes as she ran projections on Reeves’ deterioration. It wouldn’t be long — only a few hours, a day at most. There was no way to stop it, not now. Reeves would make the 35^th patient this month, an escalation of —

From the corner of her eye she saw him reach out to touch her. With a swift burst of anger, she slapped his hand away.

“Don’t touch me!” she hissed. “Don’t you ever touch me.”

Reeves’ eyes widened. “Your face fell apart,” he whispered, as if in wonder. Without another word, he crawled back to his corner, staring at her.

The mechanism of the transformation had long eluded the staff. Hundreds of theories had been proposed: neurological decay, suspension of disbelief in the Sensitives themselves, an undiagnosed virus . . . The only thing the theories had in common was a lack of supporting evidence. Agnes felt that the transformation was somehow activated by the Sensitives themselves, perhaps through the sharing of a thought, a memory, a rhythm . . .