Sole Survivor

restroom. I hate to waste the time. I want to get to Big Bear as quick as we can. But I don't want to wet my pants, either. No hurry. Just somewhere in the next few miles, okay?”
        “All right.”
        She conducted him, once more, on her version of a remote viewing of Project 99 outside Manassas.
        Onward, please, through the connecting door and into the final space, where stands the elaborate containment vessel in which 89-58 now lives and, barring any unforeseen and calamitous developments, in which he will spend the rest of his unnatural life. This is a tank that somewhat resembles the iron lungs which, in more primitive decades, were used to sustain victims of poliomyelitis. Nestled like a pecan in its shell, 89-58 is entirely enclosed, pressed between the mattress-soft halves of a lubricated body mould that restricts all movement, including even the movement of each finger, limiting him to facial expressions and twitches-which no one can see, anyway. He is supplied with bottled air directly through a nose clip from tanks outside of the containment vessel. Likewise, he is pierced by redundant intravenous-drip lines, one in each arm and one in his left thigh, through which he receives life-sustaining nourishment, a balance of fluids, and a variety of drugs as his handlers see fit to administer them. He is permanently catheterised for the efficient elimination of waste. If any of these IV drips or other lifelines works loose or otherwise fails, an insistent alarm immediately alerts the handlers, and in spite of the existence of redundant systems, repairs are undertaken without delay.
        The researchers and their assistants conduct conversations as necessary with 89-58 through a speakerphone. The clamshell body mould in which he lies inside the steel tank is equipped with audio feed to both of his ears and a microphone over his mouth. The staff is able to reduce 89-58's words to a background whisper whenever they wish, but he does not enjoy an equivalent privilege to tune them out. A clever video feed allows images to be transmitted by glass fibre to a pair of lenses fitted to 89-58's sockets; consequently, he can be shown photographs-and if necessary the geographical coordinates-of buildings and places in which he is required to conduct remote viewings. Sometimes he is shown photographs of individuals against whom it is desired that he take one form of action or another.
        During a remote viewing, 89-58 describes in vivid detail what he sees in whatever far place they have sent him, and he dutifully answers questions that his handlers put to him. By monitoring his heart rate, blood pressure, respiratory rate, brainwaves, eyelid movements, and changes in the electrical conductivity of his skin, they are able to detect a lie with better than ninety-nine-percent accuracy. Furthermore, they test him from time to time by remoting him to places on which extensive, reliable intelligence has already been gathered; his answers are subsequently compared to the material currently in file.
        He has been known to be a bad boy. He is not trusted.
        When 89-58 is instructed to enter the mind of a specific person and either eliminate that individual or use him to eliminate another-which is most often a foreign national-the assignment is referred to as a “wet mission.” This term is used partly because blood is spilled but largely because 89-58 is plunged not into the comparative dryness of faraway rooms but into the murky depths of a human mind. As he conducts a wet mission, 89-58 describes it to Dr. Blom or Dr. Ramlock, at least one of whom is always present during the event. After numerous such missions, Blom and Ramlock and their associates are adept at identifying deception even before the polygraph signals trouble.
        For his handlers, video displays of electrical activity in 89-58's brain clearly define the activity in which he is engaged at every moment. When he is only remote viewing, the patterns are radically different from those that arise when he is engaged in wet work. If he is assigned only to observe some distant place and, while viewing, disobediently occupies the mind of someone in that remote location, either as an act of rebellion or sheerly for sport, this is known at once to his handlers.
        If SSW-89-58 refuses an instruction, exceeds the parameters of an assignment, or exhibits any other signs of rebellion, he can be punished in numerous ways.