Daemon

in stabs. Then all was silent.
    A familiar face hove into view over him. The big guy. ‘Mr Taylor.’
    ‘Give a brother a break, man. Just tell me what’s goin’ on. Warmonk sold me for medical experiments, didn’t they?’
    The big man shook his head. ‘Just wait.’
    ‘Goddamnit, I don’t want to wait! Tell me what the fuck is going on!’ He struggled again, primarily to emphasize his seriousness, not from any belief that he had a chance in hell of breaking free.
    The big guy was checking something around Mosely’s head. ‘You’re about to find out. That too tight?’
    ‘Yes!’
    ‘Then it’s perfect.’ He looked right in Mosely’s eyes. ‘You were right about one thing, my friend. There is a white guy. At least he used to be white. He’s probably sort of grayish by now.’ He laughed heartily and lowered a combination goggles/headset onto Mosely’s face – blinding him.
    ‘What the … You motherfucker!’
    The big man’s booming laugh receded.
    Mosely tried, batlike, to divine the shape of the room and his position in it from the echoes of that laugh. But the headphones made it impossible. Everything was muffled now, and he was blinded by the goggles, which were as opaque as a blindfold.
    The strange, muted jackhammer noises recommenced. Suddenly two large television screens appeared before his eyes. Combined, they filled his field of vision and gave the effect of twenty-foot-wide theater screens viewed from ten feet away. They were crystal clear. The left one showed an image of the human brain – all done in the colors of the rainbow. It was a Bob Marley brain, with hues advancing and receding across the temporal lobes to some unheard Rasta beat.
    The right screen flickered for a moment and, true to the big guy’s word, a white guy appeared in medium close-up onscreen. The jackhammer noises continued throughout, and the brain color map changed.
    Mosely remembered this white guy’s face from somewhere.
    The man nodded and spoke – his voice came in over the headphones. ‘You recognize me. That’s good.’
    Mosely shouted, ‘Who are you?’
    The colors chased each other over Bob Marley’s brain and settled in reddish hues toward the front.
    The white dude was unrattled. ‘Before you start asking more complex questions, let me show you who I
was
…’
    Suddenly his image was replaced by actual television news footage of reporters talking, headlines, and rotating graphics.
    ‘Matthew Sobol built a deadly trap for federal officers serving a search warrant on his Southern California estate …’
    The video images chased each other over the screen. It was all coming back to Mosely. They had watched the news in amazement in the prison rec room more than half a year ago. They were sort of disappointed when it turned out to be a hoax.
    The video clips continued as they finally settled on the photograph of Matthew Sobol – a close-up image with his name right beside it. The reporter was talking …
    ‘The Daemon hoax was apparently intended to frame Matthew Sobol – who last week died of brain cancer.’
    The photograph was suddenly replaced by the live image of Matthew Sobol in perfect digital clarity.
    The white guy.
    ‘News of my death has not been exaggerated.’
    ‘Holy shit …’
    The brain color map shifted, bluish waves lapping and rising all around.
    ‘Now you truly understand. The Daemon was not a hoax.’
    ‘Why am I here?’
    ‘Yes. Please keep your questions simple. I’m not much of a conversationalist anymore. But I anticipated your question.’ There was an almost imperceptible jump in Sobol’s image. Then he continued. ‘Why are you here? You’re here so I can determine whether your motivations are compatible with mine.’ Sobol gestured as if he were physically present. ‘The equipment around you is a powerful functional magnetic resonanceimaging scanner. It is scanning the neural activity of your brain in real time. Neurons work like logic gates on a computer chip, firing electrical signals in specific sequences to accomplish certain tasks or to conceive certain generalized concepts.’ Sobol paused. ‘It is a controversial fact that technology has discovered a way to see not only truth or falsehood in a person, but their very thought processes in action. Even before they can act upon those thoughts. Dissembling or deliberate deceit is orchestrated by the frontal lobes …’
    The frontal lobes were highlighted on the left-hand screen – over the image of