Chapter Three

Prisoner

After being removed from his ship, the bound Prince Jason was packed in a crate and trans ported to parts unknown. Despite the fact that his abductors had taken the precaution of drugging him, he was still lucid enough to know exactly what was going on. It was immediately clear to him that escape was impossible and struggling pointless. He chose, instead, to concentrate on staying calm and hope an opportunity to escape would present itself.

After arriving at what he assumed was his final destination, the trapped Alterran listened as his kidnappers negotiated with whoever had hired them. During the course of what was rapidly turning into an argument the crate was pried open and Jason was unceremoniously dumped out onto the floor. Not wanting his captors to realize he was fully conscious, he let himself go limp as he was roughly pulled to a sitting position. Apparently there had been some question as to his identity—and if he were still alive. With these facts established, negotiations resumed in earnest.

Seemingly forgotten, the prince quietly awaited the outcome. He was surprised by his own calmness until he remembered the drug he had been given was actually nothing more than an elaborate tranquilizer. Then he wondered almost abstractly if he were in any actual danger.

Jason was snapped back to reality when he was roughly pushed down onto the floor. He fought back more out of annoyance than anger, letting out a muffled cry of pain as a needle was stabbed into his arm. To his added surprise, just as he was slipping into unconsciousness he heard a voice that was vaguely familiar.

Whether it were minutes, hours, or days later Jason could not say for certain, but the next thing he knew he was waking up in a kind of reclining chair in what he assumed was an operating theater. He tried to move only to discover he was completely strapped down. As his mind cleared he realized the lighting was all wrong for an operating room. It was brightly illuminated around the perimeter rather than where he was. A figure suddenly loomed over him and he looked fuzzily up at him. "Wh…what's…happening?" he asked groggily. "Where am I? What is this place?"

The man smiled benignly and then injected the horrified prince with yet another drug, rendering him beyond comprehending anything further. Reaching up, the man pulled down an elaborate helmet connected to numerous cables and fitted it over the unconscious Alterran's head. "He's ready, Dr. Legrand," he announced once he had finished.

Dr. Legrand stood at the main control console, glancing over the instruments before giving the word to proceed. The system was activated and the prince whimpered, stirring weakly in his drugged stupor as the machine began extracting and recording the contents of his mind.

After a few minutes Jason moaned again, as did the computer, as it protested against the strain it was being subjected to. The information flooding into it came faster and faster until its programming could no longer handle the strain. Smoke started pouring from one of the control boards then one system after another started to overload. Before the technicians could shut down the system, the experiment ended itself with a loud pop and an explosion of sparks.

The same instant Jason screamed in pain, the energy backlash causing his body to go completely rigid. Panic ensued. Someone had the sense to pull the helmet's connections from the computer and the Alterran's body convulsed before going completely limp.

Unaware of how lucky he was to still be alive, Prince Jason returned to his senses inside a padded cell. He sat up slowly, wondering just what had happened to him; but try as he might he could recall nothing after being drugged. He felt extremely weak and his head was pounding but at least he was still in one piece. There was a tray of food near the door and he crawled over to it, inwardly grateful his captors were not going to let him starve. He did not even have to scan his food to detect the drug in his water. The odor was unmistakable to the Healer's nose. "Metabolic destabilizers," he said in distaste, shakily holding the cup up to the light. "Somebody's research is a few hundred years out of date." Needless to say, he did not drink the water. He did, how ever, complete everything else on the tray.

Feeling a little better, Jason looked around the empty room, a heavy sigh escaping his lips. The only other object in the cell with him was a thick blanket that lay in a crumpled heap in the far corner. He crawled over to it and wrapped himself in its thick, soft folds before leaning back against the wall in the corner. He needed to think, but his exhausted and abused body had other plans. Within minutes he was sound asleep.

Dr. Legrand sat in his office reading the preliminary report on the damage done to the computer. While it did not seem too extensive, he knew it would throw the entire project off schedule for nearly a week, if not longer. Sighing heavily, he turned his attention to the more difficult problem involving the scanner's programming. It was now painfully obvious the information in the prince's mind was more detailed than he had been led to believe. A more controlled method of extraction would have to be employed if he did not want to blow all the systems again. Fortunately just such a method existed. His very own Lazarus Project.

Still in the experimental stages, the Lazarus Project had proven extremely successful in tests. It had also proven extremely dangerous. Before the process could be utilized, probes had to be surgically implanted into the subject's brain. They consisted of an outer sheath, an inner stimulus core and a microcircuit controller located in the cap that protruded just above the scalp. The cap was so small as to be virtually undetectable, yet was the very heart of the system.

The computer would activate a probe in the area of the brain to be recorded, setting the pace at which the information was extracted. In theory, this was how the probes were supposed to work. In practice, however, they had been no end of trouble. Many times the probes would continue to stimulate the brain long after the computer was disconnected, causing waking dreams, hallucinations, or even delusions. They also had a tendency to block off areas of the brain at random, making concentration difficult if not impossible at times.

Dr. Legrand had become convinced the problems were merely a design flaw, but each subsequent design created its own set of problems. The final blow came when it was revealed the probes could not be removed without causing severe brain damage to the subject, the filaments that were at the ends of the sheath fusing themselves to the brain after initial stimulation. Eventually Legrand's financial backers, unable to persuade him to abandon the project for a safer method, withdrew funding, forcing him to seek financial support elsewhere.

A smile of irony came to Legrand's face as he reflected on this. It had been Prince Jason him self who had recommend the suspension of the Lazarus Project, his contention being that it was more of a threat to a patient's health than a help. The loss of funding the prince had caused had forced Legrand to move to his present, secluded location in a renovated warehouse.

A hidden camera in Jason's cell transmitted the image of the sleeping Alterran to a monitor in the Director's office and for several minutes Legrand sat watching the seeming peaceful figure before remembering he had to contact his newest backers to advise them of the delay. Activating the communication system, he was rewarded with a roar of static. Several adjustments only seemed to make matters worse and he cursed the antiquated equipment. When this job was done, he promised himself, he would replace the ancient piece of junk with something manufactured within the current century.

The Director's musings were interrupted by an unintelligible squawk he assumed was an acknowledgment to his signal. He informed his benefactors of the current status of the operation. Not to his great surprise, they were not pleased.

"There is an alternative," he suggested, "but there is a risk involved with it."

The distorted, crackling reply had an edge to it that made his skin crawl. How he hated the metallic quality the antiquated language translator gave incoming transmissions.

"What kind of risk? Will the Alterran's life be endangered?"

"Not initially," Legrand replied evasively. "The implants stimulate the brain so extraction can be made more efficiently. The excessive stimulation interrupts normal sleep patterns and could induce a mental psychosis." Pausing, he added, "It's also possible, given that he's a silicon-based lifeform, that his bio-electrical field will be badly disrupted."

"The Alterran's mental health is unimportant," the box squawked. "Use whatever methods are necessary to complete the work." With that, the message ended.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: This story was written in 1996, a full 7 years prior to the release of the audio drama "Project: Lazarus." The only similarity between the two is the name, which I must admit was disconcerting when I first saw it. - MP