Warriors of Poseidon 05 - Atlantis Redeemed

through his brain, and he tried to hold on to the faces, to the memories, of his family and his friends. Of . . . the woman. The woman—he saw her face.
    Her lovely dark eyes and her creamy skin. Her dark silky hair that he longed to wrap around his fingers again, as he once had—Tiernan. He found her name in the fragments of his mind and offered a prayer to Poseidon—no, not Poseidon.
    Why would he pray to Poseidon? Poseidon’s curse—something about Poseidon’s curse—The lightning struck again. And again, and again, and again.
    Each time it stopped, the face came back. The face talked to him. Told him it was his friend.
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    Each time he denied it.
    Finally the face grew enraged. Screamed in Brennan’s face. Told the lightning to go to its highest level.
    Someone, another voice, said things. Red zone. Danger. Other words that should have had meaning, but the only meaning left was the lightning. The woman. What woman? Had the lightning killed the woman?
    The face came back. It was oddly purple and its eyes were bulging. “Remember this. I am your friend, and you will do what I tell you. Can you remember that?”
    Brennan could remember nothing, not even the woman. The woman? But a long-dormant memory from a very long time ago came to him and he nodded. “Yes,” he said, but his voice was rusted and ruined and he didn’t know if the face heard the words. “I can remember.”
    The face smiled. And then the lightning came again and shattered the entire world until it faded to black.
    Brennan opened his eyes, to find that he was lying in a chair. He remembered the chair. The lightning came to the chair. His mind was a muddle of confused impressions and conflicting impulses, torn between the imperative of his oath to Poseidon and the longing to believe the face. No, not the face. Litton. Dr. Litton. Brennan’s friend.
    He turned his head and saw Litton, sitting in a chair near a bank of computers, talking to another man. The second man was familiar. Dangerous. Smith. No, Smitty. Smitty. The one to beware.
    Too late for that. Sanity slowly, painfully returned, even though his mind remained a fractured nightmare. He knew who he was, and where he was.
    He knew he had to play along.
    Litton turned and saw that he was awake. He and Smitty got up and crossed the room to stare down at Brennan, who realized he was still restrained in the chair.
    “Do you know who you are?” Litton asked.
    “Brennan,” he croaked. “Water.”
    Litton nodded and one of his flunkies brought water with a straw and allowed Brennan a few sips before taking it away.
    “Do you know who I am?” Litton’s gaze sharpened, and he held his breath.
    Brennan stared at him for a few long moments, wanting to make it believable. “Litton,” he Atlantis Redeemed – Warriors of Poseidon 05
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    finally rasped out. “Dr. Litton. My friend.”
    Litton’s face transformed and he actually clapped his hands. “I knew it. I knew he would succumb, Smitty!” He clapped Smitty on the back and only Brennan saw the murderous glint that flashed for a second in the mercenary’s eyes.
    “Really? I don’t exactly trust it,” Smitty said, staring down at Brennan. “Seems a bit too convenient.”
    Litton snorted. “Convenient? You fool, you know nothing about science. No human has ever needed this much before. He took as much as the strongest shifters we’ve had in here.
    Whatever mutant anomaly he happens to have in his brain, we’ve overcome it. He’s ours.”
    The man reached out and actually caressed the side of Brennan’s face, and it took everything in two thousand years of discipline to keep him from biting a chunk out of Litton’s hand.
    “Aren’t you, Mr. Brennan? My friend?” Litton said, again in that crooning voice that made the bile rise in Brennan’s gut.
    The effects of the machine had caused him to be so nauseous that he wanted to vomit. He smiled instead. “Yes. My friend,” he said, his voice a little stronger. “Sleep now?”
    “Yes. You should sleep now. We have your quarters all prepared for you.” Litton nodded at Smitty, who ordered a guard to unfasten Brennan’s restraints.
    They helped him up, but Brennan noticed Smitty and another guard stayed well back, out of his reach, even though they were again pointing their guns at him. They had to help him walk at first, but he managed to stumble his way back across the corridor.
    When they