Voice (standard:science fiction, 722 words)
Author: Vincent Collevera	Added: May 09 2007	Views/Reads: 3305/0	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
Mary or Wendy? Who is she and why is the government toying with her? This is what Dr. Vanessa Reynolds intends to find out. Will she help the subject of her research or will she study the anomoly and leave her in the hands of evil government scientists

She sat in her chair.  It was a blue chair.  Her dress was green.  She
didn't like the dress.  It reminded her of medical scrubs.  She turned 
her head.  There was a teddy bear on the shelf in the otherwise sterile 
white room in which she sat.  The teddy bear was brown and fuzzy with 
two black plastic eyes that gazed dispassionately at her from the 
shelf.  She stood and walked to the bear.  On the way there she passed 
by a large mirror that ran the length of the room from ceiling to about 
three feet from the floor.  There was a door on the adjoining wall made 
of steel with a small glass window reinforced by wires. She picked up 
the bear.  The bear turned his head of his own volition and smiled at 
her.  "Hello, Wendy.  How are you feeling today?"  She tilted her head 
curiously.  "I feel fine."  She said.  "Good."  Said the bear.  "Have 
you been thinking hard about why you are in this room?"  She 
contemplated this for a moment.  "I guess I did something wrong.  
That's why the men come at night and strap me to the bed and poke me 
with a needle.  I don't like the men, Mr. Bear.  One of them touches me 
funny and grins when they strap me down."  The bear frowned.  "Do you 
know this man's name, Wendy?" The fact that she was talking to a 
stuffed animal registered not at all as being strange to her.  The fact 
that it responded seemed perfectly acceptable in her perception of 
reality.  These were some of the reasons she was in the white room.  
These were some of the reasons several psychiatrists, physicists, and 
technicians watched her from the other side of the two-way mirror. "No, 
he never wears his name-tag when he comes inside.  Mr. Bear, is there 
something wrong with me?"  She asks.  "No, Wendy.  You are just ill 
right now.  The doctors here are trying to make you better.  Now, can 
you tell me your last name and the year you were born?"  She thinks 
about this.  She concentrates to make the answers come.  They do not.  
"I'm sorry, Mr. Bear.  I can't remember.  Should I know those things?"  
She asks, knowing somehow that she should. "No, Wendy.  There is no 
reason you should know.  Your last name is Marshall.  You were born in 
the year 1990.  You are twenty years old.  Do you know what year it is 
now?"  Her answer was immediate.  "2010. How long am I going to be here 
before they let me go home?"  She asked.  The bear frowned again.  
"Home?"  It said.  "You are home, Wendy.  This is where you live.  This 
is where you have always lived." 

The bear continued to reprogram her with memory implants and
reinforcements.  The voice coming from the bear's very real speaker 
actually belonging to Dr. David Hayter.  As he spoke into the 
microphone before him, the others in the room continued to observe the 
subject, Mary McKraine.  One of them turned to the others and murmured 
quietly to them.  "Is it really such a good idea to confuse her like 
this?  Will she still be effective with such a warped perspective?"  
The others looked at the newcomer to the program.   "Dr. Reynolds, you 
have been with us for about a week now, correct?" "Yes."  The female 
doctor replied.  "In that time, all of her tests have been flawless, 
have they not?  Her retention of programming, her physical performance, 
her reflexive knowledge of human anatomy.  Need I go on?"  Samantha 
Reynolds shook her head.  "Thank you.  If you want to ask questions, at 
least ask intelligent ones.  For instance, why does she always refer to 
going home?  The only programming she is having trouble with is that 
one.  Figure that out for us."  He turned away, as did the rest of the 
group.  Something interesting happened then. 

"You know what Mr. Bear?"  Wendy said to the stuffed animal in her
hands.  "You speak lies!  You speak fucking lies!  I will hear no more 
of your bull-shit!  BE SILENT!"  She then proceeded to obliterate the 
bear.  A minute sound from the other side of the mirror snapped her 
head over in attentiveness.  She stalked to the glass and ran her hands 
over it gently. 

------To Be Continued 


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