Chapter 10:  Shattering the Illusion

(Wednesday, 09 July, 2003.  1130 hours.)

Steve sat before the Water tank staring at it apprehensively for a long time.  Feeling Jesse's presence behind him was the only thing that gave him the strength to approach the instrument of his recent torture.  Chief among the array of emotions that assaulted him was fear, but he was also experiencing grief, anger, frustration, anxiety, confusion, and a deep sense of shame.  Strangely, he also recognized happiness, warmth, and a sense of belonging.  Most troubling of all was the fact that he had no specific memories attached to any of his feelings.

"Steve?"  Jesse did not miss the tremor that went through his friend when he called his name.

Steve looked over his shoulder at Jesse, and then back to the Water tank.  "I know it doesn't look intimidating, but . . . what happened to me in there . . . I don't remember much, but I know it was very bad."  He looked up at Jesse again, and said, "First, I thought I was dying, then I wished I could.  I would have done anything to make it stop."

Jesse saw the fear and shame in his friend's eyes, and he searched for the right words.  To say he understood would be a lie.  To say that everything was going to be all right would not only be trite, but also very uncertain.  Finally, Jesse was able to respond to his best friend's confession.  "I read the notes, the ones made by the people who did this to you.  I'm not surprised, Steve.  They were counting on it."

Steve pressed his lips together into a tight, thin line, and looked back to the tank.  It glowed eerily golden in the light from the single bulb suspended above it.  "Sometimes, I would feel this terrible pain all through me, sometimes it was like being burned, other times, it was like being cut in a thousand places at once."

Jesse wheeled him toward one of the corners, which were reinforced with metal brackets and pointed out some wires that lay on the inside of the tank.  "The electrolyte balance of the water is almost exactly that of the human body.  It was the perfect conductor."

Steve frowned thoughtfully.  "Electricity?  They were shocking me?"

"Yeah.  And because you were immersed in the conductor, it was perfect contact, and there were no burn marks."

"Why?  Why would they do that to me?  Why do that to anyone?"

Jesse smiled sadly.  "That's what you need to figure out for yourself today."

(Wednesday, 09 July, 2003.  1230 hours.)

Steve hunkered down miserably in his chair in a corner of the room.  The things he had learned in the past hour boggled the mind.  He'd been given a tour of the room in which he'd been tortured, and the effort that had gone into whatever it was they had tried to do to him was absolutely incredible.

After he had taken a good long look at the tank, Jesse had asked for the lights to be brought up, and Steve had been able to see all the equipment that had been used to make him suffer.  The room was the size of an airplane hangar.  It had no windows, the walls had been painted black, the ventilation system ran silently.  For some reason, Steve wasn't surprised to see a parabolic microphone.  He remembered looking for one and not being able to find it.  There were speakers everywhere, a data projector hooked up to a computer, and a screen cut precisely to size for the images it projected.  Video cameras were mounted in all four corners of the room, directly above the Water tank, and in the floor on all four sides of it.  High on the wall opposite the tank, there was an observation room with heavily tinted glass.  It was a depressing, intimidating place.

"Is my dad watching?" Steve asked.

"I don't know," Jesse said.  "Somebody is."

"How can you tell?"

"There are people watching you all the time, Steve.  Even in your sleep."  When he saw his friend stiffen in the chair, he tried to soothe him, explaining, "It will all be kept confidential, Steve, but anything you say or do could be the key to getting you through this.  We can't risk missing it, even if it means invading your privacy."

Steve just nodded and scowled at everything around him.

"You ok, buddy?"  Jesse asked.

Steve shook his head.  "Actually, I feel kind of sick."

Jesse was instantly feeling his forehead and checking his pulse, but Steve shook him off.  "Stop it, Jess.  I wasn't being literal."

"Oh, I see.  Then could you explain what you mean?"

Steve nodded and thought a minute.  "Someone went to a hell of a lot of trouble to . . . do something to me, didn't they?"

"Yeah, and a lot of expense," Jesse agreed.  "They've got hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of lab and electronic equipment here, and they just ran off and left it."

"But I don't remember any of it."

"It will come back in time, Steve, you just have to be patient."

Steve gave his young friend a penetrating gaze.  "You don't know that."

Jesse shrugged.  He couldn't deny it.

"Anyway," Steve continued, "have you ever had to memorize something and recite it later, like for school or something?"

"Yeah, when I was a kid," Jesse said, a little confused about where the conversation was headed, "for school plays and stuff, I had to memorize things all the time."

"And do you know what it's like when you haven't actually prepared thoroughly, and you're scared to death you're going to be called on, how you get all queasy and shaky and feel like you're gonna upchuck?"

"Yeah, been there, done that, center stage during a dress rehearsal of Jack and the Beanstalk."

Steve frowned.  "Way too much information, Jess."

"Sorry," Jesse apologized.  "Then sometimes, you are prepared, but you're afraid you're going to go blank."

Steve nodded.  "That's what I meant when I said I feel a little sick.  I've been here, and I know what happened, but I can't put it all together, and I can't make sense out of it, and I'm afraid someone is going to come quiz me on it, and I'll fail."

Jesse gave his friend a comforting squeeze on the shoulder.  "That's why I'm here, pal, to make sure that doesn't happen."

Appreciating the contact, Steve reached up and patted the hand on his shoulder.  "Thanks, Jess, I think I just needed to hear that."

(Wednesday, 09 July, 2003.  1330 hours.)

"Come on, Jess, I'm hungry," Steve complained for the third time.

"I know.  So am I.  Now, finish sorting the pictures."

"Can we have some lunch then?"

"Just finish sorting the pictures, Steve."

Steve had spent the past hour sorting through the images that had been shown to him while he was floating in the water, deciding which ones were real and which had been faked.  Sometimes it was difficult for him because all of the pictures triggered memories, and he couldn't always tell if the memories were real or faked, either.  So, first he had to work out whether what he remembered was real, and then he had to decide whether someone would actually take a picture of it or not.  Eventually, he realized that no one would want to keep photos of the bad things that had happened in his life, so it became easy to put the pictures of himself in the hospital and his friends in pain and his father in prison into the fake pile. 

Some of the other photographs, though, were harder to sort.  The Christmas picture with Carol and Norman in it made him inexplicably sad, yet everyone in the picture looked so happy.  He remembered some very tense times with his sister that Christmas, but hadn't they patched things up before she left?  He remembered singing Christmas carols around the tree that year.  He could only recall having one real Christmas with his sister after she married Bruce.  It must have been this one.  He put the picture in the real pile and grabbed another from the stack.

"Steve?"  Jesse knew the minute his friend looked at the picture that something was wrong.  Steve had immediately begun breathing hard, rocking back and forth in his chair, and whimpering like a frightened animal.  He was holding the photograph so tightly it was tearing, and the raw fear in his eyes was so intense that even the normally keen intellect that usually resided there had been forced out.

One by one, Jesse gently pried Steve's fingers from the picture of Chief Masters.  Then he put the photograph aside and moved to be directly in front of his friend.  Steve still stared at the picture by looking over his shoulder.  "What's wrong, Steve?  Tell me what's wrong."

"Don't you recognize it?  It's the Face," Steve replied in a terrified whisper.

"I'm not sure what you mean," Jesse lied, for he had seen the notes, and he probably knew better than Steve did why the photograph had been so upsetting.  "Explain for me."

"It killed my dad, Jess," Steve sobbed, "and it hurt you, and it hurt Amanda, and Carol and Norman, and everybody, and it brought the Pain!  Please, Jesse, make it go away.  Make it go away and never come back.  I'll do anything.  Anything you want, just make it go away!"

Jesse resisted the urge to reach out and turn the picture face down.  He knew Dr. Lewis would give him hell if he did.  Last night while Steve was sleeping, he had consulted with her, and she had made it clear that until Steve remembered his attempt to assassinate the Chief and the reasons for it, he was to be kept completely powerless.  All of his requests, pleas, and demands were to be ignored unless they were directly instrumental to the goal of helping him remember what had happened.  It was her opinion that 'appeasing Steve in any way could accidentally become the first step in a negotiation process that would enable him to conceal any secondary programming Mateo might have attempted.'  She had only made an exception for Mark that morning because, in her judgment, 'the confirmation that his father was alive and well would help stave off depression and make him more willing to work on recovering his memories.'

"Jesse, please, make it go away!  I'll do anything you want, anything."

"Look at me, Steve."  Steve continued staring over his shoulder at the photograph, so Jesse placed a hand at either side of his friend's face and physically turned his head so that he had to make eye contact.  "Look at me, Steve.  You know that's just a photo, right?"

"But it always brings the Pain, Jess," Steve whined, "and it killed my dad and hurt you and Amanda, and  . . . and  . . . and everyone!  Please, Jess, tell me what I have to do to make it go away.  Please, Jess, I'll do anything.  It's bad and I hate it!  Plea . . . "

"Stop it!" Jesse snapped.  His words had the effect he had hoped for, and they pulled his friend's rambling up short.  "We're going to take things one step at a time here, Steve.  First, you know it's just a photograph, right?"

Steve nodded.

"Say it, Steve.  It's just a photograph."

"It's just a photograph."

"Can a photograph hurt you, Steve?"

"It always brings the Pain, Jess, and it killed . . . "

"One thing at a time, Steve.  Answer my question.  Can a photograph hurt you?"

"No."  The big man whispered the word like a frightened child.

"Ok, now, do you remember what caused the pain?"

"The Face, Jesse, the Face did it.  It killed . . . "

"Stop, Steve.  The Face is just a photograph."  Jesse used the same words again.  Steve was barely coherent as it was, to start mixing in words like photo, picture, and image would only confuse him.  They had identified it as 'just a photograph', so it would remain 'just a photograph.'  "Can just a photograph really hurt you?"

"But it was always there with the Pain, Jess."

"Can just a photograph hurt you?"

"No," Steve said again. 

"Then what really caused the pain?"

Steve bowed his head and closed his eyes.  Jesse wasn't sure at first if his friend was thinking or hiding, so he waited.  Steve was still rocking slightly, and his breathing was still a little rapid, but he hadn't quite gone all to pieces, and Jesse was hoping to keep it that way.  For several minutes, Steve said nothing, and finally, Jesse was forced to speak.

"Steve, we talked about this.  Do you remember what really caused the pain?"

"Electricity in the Water," Steve said in a small, frightened voice, and he never looked up to face his friend.  "Someone wanted to hurt me."

"Did the face do it?"

"No."

"How do you know?"

"Because the Face is just a photograph."  Jesse didn't know if Steve believed the words or not, but simply getting him to say them was important by itself right now.  He was sure once they had worked through everything that had happened to him, Steve would really believe that it was nothing more than a harmless photo.

"Did it kill your dad?" Jesse asked softly.

"No.  Dad's alive.  I saw him today."  Steve still did not look up, but Jesse couldn't miss the small smile that betrayed his friend's pleasure at knowing his father was alive and well.

"Good," Jesse said and he smiled, too.  "Ok, Steve, I want you to think carefully before you answer this next question.  Don't just blurt out the first thing that comes to mind, think it through first, and be sure your answer makes sense.  Who really hurt you?"

Steve squeezed his eyes shut and frowned, obviously deep in concentration.  Jesse could see the expressions changing on his face as he considered and rejected several possibilities.  Finally, dejectedly, he said, "I don't know."

"You have no idea?"

"Well . . . I think it was the Voice."

"Just a voice, Steve?  The sound of a voice hurt you, caused you all that pain?"

Steve looked up at his friend.  "There must have been a person," he said hopefully.  "Right, Jess?  There had to be a person."

"You tell me, Steve."

Steve nodded, Jesse could see that ideas were clicking fast in his friend's mind now.  "There had to be a person, I just don't know who it was; and that person wanted to hurt me."

"Why?"

"How the hell should I know, Jesse?" his friend fairly shouted the question.  Fear had given over to frustration, which would quickly rise to anger if Steve didn't find his answers soon.

"You do know, Steve," Jesse insisted.  "Think about it.  What happened to you while you were here?"

Steve began rocking again, but this time, Jesse had the feeling that it was merely the action of a man who thought best when he was in motion.

"At first, I felt warm and safe, and I saw the nice pictures.  But eventually the bad pictures came, and I always saw the Face with them, and I felt the Pain."  Steve began talking faster and faster, mostly thinking out loud, and Jesse decided to let him go until he ran out of ideas.  "I saw my dad die again and again and again, and I felt the Pain, and the Voice told me the Face caused it.  The Voice told me the Face killed my dad.  I'd see you and Amanda all bloody and beaten, and I'd feel the Pain, and the Voice told me the Face did that too.  The Voice told me the Face wanted to kill you and Amanda and everybody I cared about."

Steve looked up, and Jesse could see the haunted expression in his friend's eyes, but he could also see that Steve was aware that he was remembering things, not reliving them, so he let him continue. 

"I didn't believe the Voice at first, Jess, I really didn't, but after a while, there weren't any more nice pictures.  It was all just bad things and Pain and the Face and the Voice telling me the Face was causing it all.  I couldn't remember any more why I shouldn't believe the Voice.  Then I did believe it, and I told it I would do anything to make the Pain stop and to make the Face go away and stop hurting me and the people I care about."

Steve stopped.  He was sitting very still, now, and somehow, Jesse was sure that he had worked out what had happened next, but he was reluctant to say so because he was unwilling to face the consequences.

"What did the voice tell you to do, Steve?"

"It . . . it told me  . . . I had to . . . "  He swallowed hard and then finished in a rush, "I had to kill the man with the Face and then kill myself."

Knowing how absurd the next question sounded considering that his friend was sitting right there in front of him, Jesse asked,  "Did you do it, Steve?"

"Yes," Steve said, and he looked horror stricken, "I killed the man with the Face.  I shot him three times in the chest and once in the head.  Then I tried to kill myself, but . . . people stopped me." 

Steve covered his eyes with one hand and shuddered.  "Oh, God, Jess, I've murdered someone."  The words escaped on a long sob that shook the big man's whole frame, and then, he sat very still and silent.

After several long minutes, Steve looked around, his eyes shrewdly scanning his surroundings.  "Is this a secure mental hospital?  Is that why I'm restrained?  Are they trying to decide if I am fit to stand trial?"

With a sigh, Jesse ignored the questions.  Difficult as it had been, they had almost reached their goal for the day.  Just a few loose ends, and Steve could rest.  Jesse doubted he would be in the mood for lunch now.

"Steve, you know the man with the face.  You know him by name.  I want you to look at the picture and tell me who he is.  Tell me his name, and tell me how you know him."

Somehow, Steve seemed to sense that he was near the end of his ordeal, and he didn't offer any resistance to the request.  He looked over Jesse's shoulder at the picture, and when his friend moved out of the way, he reached out and picked up the photograph.

"His name is John Masters.  He's my boss."  Looking up at Jesse, his eyes reflecting deep anguish and regret, he said, "I assassinated the Chief of Police."

"All right, doctor," a new Voice, a woman's Voice, said over the speakers, and Steve went mad with fright screaming and clawing at his restraints, "you can tell him the rest of the story now."

Silently cursing Dr. Lewis, Jesse once again had to manually restrain his friend, pinning his hands in his lap and crossing his wrists.  He noticed that Steve had broken several fingernails while tearing at his restraints, and one digit would eventually require medical attention because the nail had split right down to the quick and was bleeding.

In low, even tones, Jesse patiently told and retold the story of Steve's nightmares, the hypnosis he had allowed Mark to perform, the truth they had discovered, and the plan Mark and the Chief had organized for Steve's benefit. 

On the third retelling, Jesse's words began sinking in, and Steve gradually calmed down.  Finally, physically exhausted and emotionally spent, Steve slowly leaned forward, rested his cheek against Jesse's shoulder, and dissolved in tears.