Nightrise

police. Make sure nobody gets in their way."
    "Whatever you say, sir."
    Cornfield was still scowling as he showed them to the door. At the last moment, Jamie turned around and took one last look at the man who might become president. He had picked up the little box and was holding it with a sort of wonderment, as if he too could somehow look through the wooden surface and uncover the secrets locked inside. Then the door closed. Jamie didn't think he would see him again.

    ***
    Pain.
    Scott Tyler didn't know how long he had been here. Nor did he know where "here" was or how he had gotten there.

    He was lying on a bed. To begin with, there had been handcuffs around his wrists and shackles On his ankles, but now they had no further need of them. He was too weak to move. If he had been able to examine himself, he would have seen he was still in the same clothes that he had been wearing at the theatre, although the shirt had been ripped open and the pants were crumpled and torn. Not that he remembered the theatre anymore or anything that happened on the night he was seized. A very large part of his memory had been taken away from him. The drugs dripping into his right arm had done that. The doses had been carefully monitored, the injections exactly timed. They didn't want to kill him or to drive him mad. Their aim was more complicated than that. They wanted to tear him away from the life he had been living and leave him floating helplessly until he was ready to be made theirs.
    He hadn't eaten for three days and they had barely brought him enough water to keep him alive. Nor had he slept. Every time his eyes closed, they would bombard the room with a barrage of sound, drumbeats, music, machine-gun fire. The lights were kept on all the time. Right now it could have been the middle of the day or the night. It made no difference. Scott was barely conscious. And he was ready for the next stage.
    The door opened. Scott didn't even try to look up to see who had come in. He was afraid to do anything without being told. There was a rustle of fabric as someone sat down. He smelled a scent, some sort of flower. Trembling, he turned his head and saw that a woman had come in and sat down in the chair next to him. She was looking at him as if unsure what to make of him. Or maybe she was deciding what to do next.
    She lifted a hand. Scott saw that she wore several rings. For a moment, two of her fingers rested on his arm. "What have they done to you?" She spoke for the first time. Her voice was soft and almost musical.
    'You poor boy," she went on. "I'd have come sooner if only I'd known but, you see, it is so difficult for me. I want to be your friend. But I have to know that you trust me. You have to be on my side."
    Her fingers moved to his forehead, moving a lock of hair out of his eyes.
    "Jamie left you," she went on. "Do you remember — at the theatre? That's when they came for you, and your brother just abandoned you. All your life you looked after him — but he didn't care. The first chance he got, he was away, leaving you to all this. Right now, he's laughing at you. Because he's all right. He's having a fine old time. And you're stretched out on your back, connected up to all these nasty tubes, and you could die here and nobody would think twice.
    "But that's the mistake you've made since you were little, Scott. Do you remember Ed and Leanne in Carson City? You thought they'd look after you but they let you down. And then there were Don and Marcie, who were even worse. But that's the thing about life, isn't it? It's always the good people who get pushed around. The little people. Do you want to be a little person, Scott, or do you want to be with me?
    Because, you see, in the world that's going to come, I'm going to be in charge and you're going to have to start asking yourself — which end of the whip do you want to be on?

    "I'll leave you to think about it, my dear. There are some people I work for…well, not exactly people.
    They'll be with us very soon and they'll be so glad to know that you've joined us, that you've decided to become their servant. Jamie, unfortunately, is not sensible enough to make that choice. But maybe one day you'll be able to get back at him. Maybe one day we'll let you take that little swine and put a knife through his heart.
    "But right now, I must go. You think about what I've said and maybe tomorrow we'll have another little chat."
    The door opened a second time. Somebody else had come