"Ariel!"
"Sorry."
We jump.
You now have one choice.
You ... I... We're being injected again. I don't know what is worse: the sensation of the cold, sharp needle going in, or the sensation of it coming out again. Once it's in I want it out, but once it's out I feel dizzy, and I can't make my nest properly and ... I don't actually care about my nest. I feel something warm and wet creeping down my legs. I just want to sleep. My nest smells sour now but I need to sleep. I can't even be bothered to lick myself clean.
You now have one choice.
You ... I... We can't breathe because of all the smoke. I can't move my head.
You now have one choice.
You ... I... We are flying through the air and then landing with an awkward bump, and then flying again. My friend is flying as well, and another mouse I haven't seen before, and all around us people are laughing; although I can't understand the language, something in my mind can hear the carers saying, "Stop juggling the mice, Wesley." I am very dizzy and I want to go back in my tank.
You now have one choice.
You ... I... We can't understand why this keeps happening. I keep making my nest in exactly the way I like it (the way my mother taught me), and then I find it's gone. The hand takes it away. And then the hand gives me more nesting material and I start building again. Every night I sleep on bare glass, despite all the nests I have made.
You now have one choice.
You ... I... We can't sleep with these lights on all the time.
You now have one choice.
You ... I... We
You now have one choice.
You ... I...
You now have one choice.
You...
You now have one
You now have
You now
You
You
You
You
You
We're now jumping so fast that it feels like a fluid journey, just as Mr. Y described in the book. It takes a lot of concentration, although it is hard to concentrate when you're essentially surfing on a wave of pain, fear, humiliation—and the constant simple desire for a warm, quiet nest. This is a wave of death: a wave of dead black bodies and dead white bodies and gloved hands and bony fingers and the pain of the needle and the pain of the tumors and the blindness and trying to lick off your own blood when it's still pouring out of you, and being left with your legs and back broken in a pile of other broken bodies and still thinking that there'll be food at the end, and that the carers will put you back in your tank just as they always do after something bad happens.
While I surf, Adam tries to locate details.
Most of the labs have calendars on the walls.
And I notice that as we go back the lights become dimmer and the tanks become smaller. There are no more HappiMats. We hear sirens and explosions, and we travel through labs that all smell of metal and gunpowder. But each tiny jump is a new kind of pain. By the time we reach 1908 I have bled thousands of pints of blood and vomited and pissed myself and fallen asleep in my own shit, and each time—every moment—I have just wanted to crawl into my nest, because something I am born with tells me it's good and comfortable in my nest, but all the time I have known that there's something not right about my existence. I either don't have a nest, or someone has taken it away, or I simply know that there shouldn't be glass walls around it.
We slow down as the calendars start showing 1907, 1906, 1905....
And then there she is. She's lifting our friend out of a box full of sawdust.
In the console the black mouse she is holding is blurred.
And we jump. We're in.
Chapter Twenty-seven
You now have one choice.
You ... I... We are taking one of the best mice—one of the black ones—and putting it in a box. Does it need sawdust? No, it's not going far, and the dumb animal probably wouldn't take any notice, anyway. Everyone knows that mice don't feel. They don't have a soul, as my friend Dr. Duncan MacDougall will prove just as soon as his experiment in Mass. General Hospital is conducted. The human soul weighs something: He will prove that. Animals do not have souls to be weighed. The mice squeak when I pinch them but it's just a physical reaction. They have no real minds. And the creature shouldn't get used to luxuries, anyway. There won't be much comfort where it is going. But if the scientists like this one, then I feel sure they will order more. Will sawdust make the mouse look better, perhaps? Like a little black chocolate in a box? I can't decide. I take another look inside. The dumb thing is quivering in the corner as though a cat is after it. But it does appear pathetic there on the bare wood of the box. I'll add some sawdust, and then I will get changed.
This is going to make my fortune. Can it? I'm darned unsure that anything I do will ever go quite right, but with God's will, we all just carry on—the pioneer spirit, just like Mama said. What am I going to wear? I think.... My most fancy formal skirt and that black shawl, although I don't want to look like a widow in mourning. In that case it should probably be the green jacket.
I'll tell him I can supply him with all the mice he needs for his experiments. And then they'll earn their keep at last. The waltzing mice—what a disaster! Why did nobody want the waltzing mice? I thought they'd be exactly the kind of thing that children would adore: little mice that danced around. But then that awful woman pointed out that there was something wrong with them: that they danced because of an ear defect. Well, it didn't take a genius to work out that there was something wrong with mice that danced instead of walked—but it was fun. Why didn't the children love them?
It sure is difficult working with fancy mice. It was worse working with poultry. Was it easier working with the children in the school? I can hardly remember. No, now I come to think of it, that was the worst of all. Being a schoolteacher was the worst of all the dead-end paths in my life. The children did have minds, and that made a difference, somehow.
I look at mouse number 57, twitching in his cage. He'll be the next to go.
I think I am a good mouse breeder.
I want to be rich....
"Adam?"
Who is Adam?
"She can hear us."
"I know. Stupid bitch."
Oh my. Oh my. I'm hearing voices. Well, one voice.
"Let the mice go," says Adam.
"I don't think she can hear you. Let me do it. Open all the boxes, Abbie Lathrop, and let the mice go."
Oh my. I feel a little faint. I'll just sit down for a moment. But...
"Let the mice go. You don't know what you're doing. You have no idea of the pain you're causing by your actions. Let the mice go."