What he had discovered in himself, though, was a core notion that redefined his thinking processes. He used his isolation metaphorically by isolating his mind, separating his thoughts from each other and from their emotional/egotistical components. He dealt with his thoughts and feelings indifferently, the way people do to relieve anxiety, examining them as he would earthquake data.
He didn’t much like the skull he’d seen beneath the skin. It seemed to him that too much of his time had been spent following the commands of his gonads and his emotions. Too little time had been spent thinking reasonably. It was difficult to be angry with those who’d imprisoned him since he felt he deserved the sentence. Without sustaining anger, he’d managed to get beyond the human barrier of rationalization and see himself for what he was—an animal, acting out animal passions. Once that particular pathway was traversed, it became impossible to go back to blissful ignorance. He’d learned to accept responsibility as a human being. People had learned less in ten years, he figured.
Then there’d been the “episodes,” the bouts with insanity. Each time he’d gone nuts, it had been after a particularly dark journey within himself, when he’d let a slow psychosis creep in that could overcome his reasoning processes.
One time he’d decided that he had been killed during the raid on the Project and was living in a hellish afterlife, that he would batter around in this room for an eternity of loneliness and silence. He went hysterical and starved himself for three days until they’d gassed and force-fed him. He’d awakened feeling much better, after an unknown number of days unconscious. He could conclude only that his jailers would not permit him death by such a passive method as not eating. Was his sole option the active one of using the hangman’s noose?
In another episode of insanity he’d fantasized that he was free and could come and go at will from his cell. He chose to stay because, as he’d loudly told himself over and over, “It was all for the best.” They’d ultimately had to gas him that time, too.
Now he feared it was happening again.
After he’d finished his morning ritual with the rope, he’d retrieved his rice and broth from the slot in the door and sat down to eat. He hadn’t taken three bites before he’d heard an unfamiliar clicking sound from within the door, followed, seconds later, by the door creaking open halfway. It had never done that before.
He’d stared at it for a long time. There was a hallway on the other side of the door, he could see that much. Painted blue, the hallway had a pale yellowish light spilling down its length.
That had been quite an extraordinary amount of data to receive all at once. He’d gone back to eating his breakfast and dwelled on it for a while. Between every bite, no utensils, only hands, he’d look up at the door to see it still open, to see that marvelous blue running to washed-out green under the fuzzy yellow light. The colors seemed alive, organic, breathing, interacting.
He finished the meal and took the tray back to the door slot, the door opening even farther when he touched it. He looked down the hallway, which traveled on for a hundred yards in either direction, the yellow ceiling bulbs spaced twenty feet apart. Doors filled the hallway on both sides and there were numbers on the doors.
As he stood there with the tray in his hands, he realized he was supposed to walk through that open door. It was the worst moment of his incarceration. He didn’t want to go. The fear flashed so strong that he physically recoiled from the door, the tray flying out of his hands and clattering onto the floor.
He wanted to think about that open door, to reason out its existence for several days, but the fact that it hung wide made its immediate use impossible to avoid. He took a deep breath and strode out into the hall.
He felt the fear for only a second, then pride welled within him. He’d done it, walked into the outside world.
There was a door on each end of the hallway. Which to choose? Suddenly the notion of a choice other than suicide excited him. Being right-handed, he decided that his natural inclination was to go to the right. He went that way.
As he passed other doors, he wondered who, if anyone, was on the other side of each. He’d never heard any sounds from outside his room save the mechanical sounds of the foodcart grinding down the hallway.
It was strange to walk so far in a straight line. When he finally reached the door at hall’s end, he once again overcame his inner fears and pulled it open. He stepped through.
He was standing in a room that was about twenty feet square. The room was beige and bare except for a metal chair bolted to the floor on one side and a metal bench bolted to the floor on the other. The door he’d come in was near the chair. There was another door by the bench. He sat in the chair and waited.
In due course it opened, and an attractive woman and two children walked in. The woman’s eyes opened in horror when she saw him and the children stepped back a pace. “Abu?” she said.
It was then he recognized her. “Kh … Khadijah,” he said, his voice hoarse. He hadn’t used it in a long time. “Is that really you?”
He stood and moved toward her. She put up her hands to keep him back. “No physical contact,” she said. “It’s one of the terms of the visit.”
“What are the … other terms?” he asked quietly, reseating himself.
“I can’t give you anything,” she said. “I can’t tell you where you are. I must leave when they say.”
He nodded. “I see.”
“You look … like a wild man,” she said. “Your hair … your beard. Haven’t they cut your hair at all?”
“No,” he answered. “Are these the children?”
She nodded, taking the bench, a boy sitting on one side of her, a girl on the other. “Najan?” he asked the girl, bright-eyed above her veil. “Do you remember me?”
“No, sir,” Najan answered quickly. “But I know you’re my father.”
“And what’s your name?” he asked the boy, about nine by his calculations.
“Abu ibn Abu Talib,” the boy said, standing. “I was named after you.”
“And I’m very proud. You look like a fine young man. And that shirt you’re wearing … does that change colors?”
“Yes, sir,” his son said. “Everybody wears them.”
“Do you get any news here at all?” Khadijah asked.
He shook his head slowly. “Nothing,” he said, then pointed at her. “March 13, 2038.”
“It’s April 24th,” she replied, narrowing her eyes.
“Close,” he said triumphantly.
“You must have a million questions,” she said, leaning forward as if to study him better.
“Not so many. I gave up asking questions. You’re looking wonderful, though. You’ve rounded out.”
“Childbirth had its advantages.” She smiled, and he smiled in return, but his cheek muscles tired immediately.
“Are they going to release me?”
He’d been afraid to ask the question, tears coming to his eyes as he said the words. He choked them back.
“No,” she said. “They’re too afraid of you.”
“Afraid … of me?”
She nodded. “Once Ishmael joined the long and distinguished list of assassinated—”
“Assassinated? No! When … how?”
Her brows rose. “Of course. You wouldn’t know. A few years back. Assassin unknown, never caught.”
She took a breath. “You, then, were the only visible symbol of the movement. Martin took over. He’s a good administrator, but no one knew him. To keep the flame of rebellion alive we made you our cause. We began demanding your release as a political prisoner. You became the glue that held the Islamic State together in the War Zones, a worldwide symbol of an imprisoned people. You got the Nobel Peace Prize last year. Your influence is global.”