He was disoriented, nauseous and hot, and couldn't stop the tremors from shaking his muscles involuntarily; the leather straps around his chest, wrists and ankles were the only things keeping him upright in the chair. Perspiration rolled down his face, and his heart pounded mercilessly into his throat. He thought he felt someone slap his face, but he wasn't sure; his mind could no longer pinpoint reality.

"Dr. Wells.......look at me. Right here."

The dark brown eyes slowly focused on the man with the beard, although he looked more like a blurred Picasso painting than a man.

"Good, Dr. Wells. Now, I have some questions I want you to answer."

The man's voice didn't sound like a voice. As a matter of fact, Rudy was certain that he was seeing sounds, and not hearing them. Come to think of it, he was hearing colors. No, that couldn't be right. He stared at the man's moving mouth, not really understanding what was being said to him. He felt something strike his face again. Or did he? Was that in this dimension, or another one?

"Dr. Wells! Stay with me, you haven't answered my questions yet."

He couldn't concentrate on the blurry mass before him. It was spinning into a black dervish that called to mind his picture of hell. Was he dying and going to hell at this very moment? He wasn't sure. Panic rushed him like a bolt of lightening striking a tree, and he couldn't catch his breath. With each gasp for air, his chest tightened like a drum being stretched to its limit. Rudy felt himself falling through the black abyss that had become his only sight, and he screamed for the person closest in his mind.

"Oscar! Help me!"

The man shuddered as he watched Wells fall into the worst trip he'd ever seen. If he killed Wells without extracting the information that Jai Shan-Wang required, there wasn't a hole deep enough in which he could crawl. But on the other hand, if he kept the good doctor high on acid for an extended period of time, the likelihood that he would eventually begin talking about anything in his recent memory was excellent - if he didn't die of a heart attack first. Jonathan Giles had always been a gambling man, he put his money on the good doctor turning into a magpie if kept strung-out long enough. He looked at his watch; Wells was two hours and fifteen minutes into this trip. Giles could shoot him up again in three hours and forty-five minutes. He smiled to himself, and pat Rudy on the head.

"Hope you enjoy traveling, doc....."