"Agent Jones?"

I am in my cube, finishing up a few things.  I look up and a man in
jeans and a white jacket is standing in the door.  I have seen him
around once or twice, usually in the full Man in White getup.  
 
"Yo.  That's me."  I take a deep breath and let it out.  Nerves.  

"I'm Agent White.  I'll be working with you tonight."  

I look at him.  "Agent White?  You have got to be kidding."  

He smiles slightly.  "Actually, no.  Are you ready, Jones?"  

I look back at the computer screen and finish the message off in a
flurry of keys.  "Yup.  Let's do it."

Like him, I am dressed down for the night, wearing just black jeans
and a black sweatshirt.  I grab my duffle bag and head out.  We don't
speak until we are in the van.  I settle on the passenger side and
close my eyes.  "So, Agent Smith breifed you on what I am trying to
do?"

"Yeah."  I can feel the acceleration as the car moves through traffic.
Agent White is an aggressive driver.  "You have been working with a
group of deviants, who, for various reasons we will not go in to now,
are still at large."  He sounds rather annoyed at that fact.  I begin
to wonder how hard he and Smith had clashed over this. Not my problem.
"You will be attempting to work an experimental procedure in an effort
to maintain their mental stability.  I am to monitor you and stop the
procedure at the first sign of trouble."

I do not open my eyes but I nod.  "Yes.  The procedure I will be
working is similiar to the one that is done on synthetic amalgams."

"Except they are blank slates when that is done on them." 

"Yes."  I agree quietly.  

Agent White is silent for a while. The van has excellent acoustics.  I
can hear him breathing as he accelerates and I am pushed back into my
seat.  Finally he breaks the silence.  "You realize how dangerous this
will be not only to you, but to them."  

"I am prepared.  I can do it."  

He falls silent and finally the car stops and he turns the engine
off.  "We're here." 

I open my eyes and look at him. "Agent White.  I have spent the better
part of a month getting to know the deviants in question.  They
already share a bond that is closer than many amalgams I have seen.  I
will be simply reinforcing this.  When I come out, I imagine you have
orders to do an extensive work up on me.  I won't fight you on that.
I've accepted that as part of the cost.  Now, shall we get to work?"

He looks at me for a long moment and then he chuckles softly.  

"What?" 

"It is just refreshing to work with someone who doesn't have the
twisted mind of those damned Progenitors we pulled a week ago."  

"Oh."  

He releases his seatbelt and it snaps back into the wall.  "Let's go."

We climb into the back.  I have never worked in a mobile facility like
this.  It is the standard design but a bit cramped.  On one side there
is the biofeedback couch.  I sit on it and start stripping down to a
sports bra and shorts.  On the other side is the monitoring station.
White touches a button and raises the van's temperature several
degrees so I won't get too cold.  He then starts untangling the bundle
of sensor wires that emerge from under the couch.  One by one he hands
them to me.  I lick them and stick them to my chest and head.  I turn
and let him stick them on my back.  It is a familiar procedure, one I
could do in my sleep, even if it has been a while since I've worked
with a full unit like this.

He sits in his chair and looks at me.  All the wires are in place, the
IV is in, settled in the back of my hand.  When I was a child and
doing this for the first few times, I imagined myself to be like the
picture on the front of Terminal Man - man and machine, linked.  Since
then, I have met true cyborgs and I know what a pale imitation this
is.  Agent White says "My orders are to pull you out if your delta
waves exceed standard tolerances, or if you do not come out by
yourself in six hours."  I nod to him.  "Are you ready?"  

"Yes."  

"Then lay back and let me begin the callibration."  

I lay slowly back on the couch, careful to let the wires settle as
they should and close my eyes.  The familiar routine comes back.
Breath slowly.  In.  Out.  In. Out.  Become aware of the body.  Focus
on each distraction and let it go.  Focus inward so I can let the mind
soar outward.  I hear his voice - distant and muffled - telling me I
may begin.  

I concentrate, amplifying the small perterbations in the
electromagnetic field that each mind generates.  The closest, the
strongest, I discard.  That would be White. I reach further.  Near
here, I should find the cabal.  Riley and Johnson were on
surveillence. They had reported that all four were there.  I find
Niccolo first and then seconds later the other three of them snap into
my mind.  Yes....I think, searching for the connection between them...
all I have to do is find it...strengthen it....

****

The world grows dark.  I can feel the four of them out there,
somewhere, but they are lost to me.  I am being thrown about in a
tempest, flying through the nothingness like Dorothy.  Things come at
me, attack me.  Nooooo!!!!!

****

Pain. Pain is what I feel first.  Dozens of little fireballs on my
chest, my arms, my back.  Dozens of those little creatures tearing at
my flesh, ripping holes from my body.  I thrash and try and shake them
free when one grabs me by the shoulders and forces me back down. I
struggle against it.  Screaming.  

A name.  I hear a name being shouted at me.  Not my name.  Jones.  Who
is this Jones?  I struggle and fight until there is another bite and
the world fades away.  

****  

"Agent Jones?  Ali?"  A voice is speaking to me. Insistent.  "Jones?"

I mumble something.  I realize I've been sedated.  I am conscious
enough to wonder why.  

The voice continues, "I am going to neutralize the tricycline slowly.
I want you to concentrate on my voice as I bring you out." 

Tricycline.  That's serious stuff.  I nod, or at least I think I do.
I hear the voice slowly count, "One....two....three..."  The van
begins to fade in around me and I find myself looking at the padded
ceiling.  "Four...five...six..." I try and flex my arms and find them
restrained.  "Seven....eight...nine...." I become aware of the smell
of blood, mingled with alcohol.  Who is hurt?  "Ten....eleven....
twelve..." I begin to remember.  The van. Agent White.  The
procedure...to work with the deviants.  Something went badly awry.
"Thirteen....fourteen...fifteen...Okay, are you with me Agent Jones?"

I look over at the source of the voice and see Agent White.  His white
teeshirt is splattered with blood and he is sporting an impressive
black eye.  Scattered on the floor are a couple of rolls of surgical
tape and the wrappings of discarded 4x4s and disinfectant swabs.
There are also half a dozen of the biofeedback leads, apparently torn
from their sockets.  I sigh and drop my head back.  "Yeah.  What
happened?"

"You freaked.  I had to sedate you before you tore this place to
shreds."  

"Oh."  

"I'm gonna let you up now."  

I nod and watch him as he unbuckles my wrists and ankles.  I'm
impressed.  He is very professional.  I start to bring my hands up but
he stops me.  "Wait...lemme get the IV out."  I nod and close my eyes,
trying to relax and figure out what happened, as he pulls the needle
free from my elbow and bandages it.  "Okay." he says.  

I bring my hands together to rub the wrists.  I find that my left hand
has a pressure bandage on it.  I look at it wryly.  "I tore out the
first IV?"

He nods.  "Yeah."  

He sits back at his station as I sit up slowly.  "Ow." 

"Have you ever been on tricycline before?" 

"No." 

"You are probably going to ache for a few days.  Sorry I had to use
that.  I wasn't prepared for you to go so deep or to come out of it so
hard." 

"What happened?" 

"Well..." he scrolls his monitor back to show the time sequence of
biostats.  "Here's the callibration.  All went smoothly.  You are good
at this."  

I smile wryly.  "Curie." I say.  

"Ah...that explains it.  Anyway, here is where you start your run.
For the first...fourteen minutes, twenty-three seconds...all is fine.
Then here..." He scrolls forward.  On the monitor I see my heartbeat,
respirations, blood pressure and brain waves all spike and then
plunge.  "you exceeded standard variences by nearly 5 standard
deviations.  At this point I tried to rouse you using standard methods
but I could not get you out of it."  He looks at me, perhaps waiting
for an answer, but I have none. He goes on.  "I am familiar with this
state and it is generally safer, with this equipment, to let the
person come out of it on their own.  I decided to let you stay in.
Had I known you were going to do this, I would have brought more
sensative instruments."  His voice is vaguely accusing but I ignore
that.  "Anyway, you stay under for three hours, forty seven minutes
and then..."  Half the lines flatlined, the others were wildly
erratic, "You sat up and tore off half the leads and your IV.  You
didn't seem to hear me as I tried to get you to settle down.  You kept
yelling something about some kid.  After you landed a few solid blows
on me, I went for the tricycline."

I nod slowly.  "I don't know what happened." I say.  "I had made
contact with the deviants - things were going according to plan and
then I lost them and I was buffetting in a storm, being tossed this
way and that by the winds.  It felt like I was being attacked by
hundreds of little creatures biting at me.  That was probably when I
was tearing the leads off.  Then the world when dark again and then
you were here, guiding me out of the tricycline."

White nods.  "Well, I guess you will have to wait and see what effect
you had on your deviants.  I am taking you to the clinic. I want you
under observation for the next twelve to twenty-four hours."  

"Okay."

He shakes his head and stands, as he heads back to the front of the
van to drive it off.  "You are some piece of work, Jones."  

I smile slightly and lay back on the couch, my muscles screaming with
each move, and I try and figure out what I am going to tell Smith.