Richard Tomey

Pleasure and pain became polarizing points of light in Richard Tomey’s darkness. With nothing else to do, he focused upon them, concentrating his mind on those soft touches, the slaps and the punches; they illuminated his life as much as the voices. And those voices were everywhere.

“Why bother locking the door Tony, he ain’t going nowhere is he?”

“Regulations.”

This voice was familiar to Richard Tomey. It was called ‘Steve’

“Yeah, like we follow regs, right?”

This other voice was ‘Tony’

Tony wiped his mouth, savouring the taste and giving his friend a knowing smile.

“You can have a piece of him tomorrow night.”

“Yeah, I might at that, although,” Steve paused as they sauntered down the bleak white corridor, “number six looks just as tempting.”

“You fucking pervert,” Tony said, leering back at his friend after looking through the spy-hole of number six, one of ten identical secure doors, “even for me, that one’s too young!”

The two orderlies laughed and made for the secure exit. Which vanished. Then the floor melted, became liquid and the sky fell through the ceiling, not blue and inviting but belching orange flame that licked around their bodies. Shapes and daemons from nightmares reached out and consumed them in long time-dilated agony. Time became, for Steve and Tony, infinite and instant.

It was then that Richard thought, and having thought, decided that in this reality he would change his dream, this existence. It was just a matter of perception, he decided. He really didn’t like what Steve and Tony did. It hurt. And, as his point of reference was fluid, his reality depended on his point of view. So he could change things.

Having decided, Richard stepped out, free of the darkness; he had reached into their minds and seen their dreams, their deeds, and he had changed them. The noises that Tony and Steve were now creating in his head were interesting and extreme but, after a while or perhaps an instant, he tired of playing and changed his reality - and theirs - to something else again. Their dreams, their pain, abruptly ceased.

Richard moved on. Another perspective. Sometime, or an age later, another voice, a voice he recognised as Jones was speaking. But Jones wasn’t speaking to Richard Tomey.

“Simms, this is morally wrong.”

Simms lit his cigar with slow insolence; it no longer mattered if Jones felt offended by the smoke.

“Morals,” Simms muttered. “Morals are just an illusion, of no significance in the greater sense of life. The truth is we are nothing more than animals – in the end we all survive however we can. That goes even for you, Jones. Morals and conscience are simply a luxury applicable only to easier times.”

“You have no soul, Simms.”

“I’m glad you appreciate that, Jones.”

“It’s still wrong.”

Simms waved his cigar dismissively. “Your views on that are… inconsequential.”

“Not while I’m director of this facility.”

Simms sucked on his cigar. “My point exactly.”

“He’s too dangerous, you can’t control him.”

Simms shrugged. “Maybe termination is best in any case. ”

Jones laughed. “I hope for your sake he’s not listening to you right now, you don’t really believe it was co-incidence that those two orderlies died of a simultaneous brain haemorrhage do you?”

But Simms wasn’t listening. He was staring in shocked surprise, his eyes rolling up into his head as he started to convulse, his cigar falling from his gaping mouth leaving a trail of ash down his immaculate Savile Row suite. The room became swamped with a sickening stench as his bowels opened.

Jones jumped back from his desk and the horror before him. He knew exactly what was happening.

“Richard! Stop! No! Don’t do this!”

But Simms was already dead.

Dr Jones ran down to where Richard was supposedly safely locked away, his expensive leather shoes creaking with each step, amplifying the eery silence that had cloaked the building. He ignored several identical secure doors, only slowing as he approached the very last door. Richard's door. 

Above the door, a red security light shone down over the concrete as if from an opened vein. Jones pulled on the steel handle. It didn't move. It was still secure and locked. Through the security peephole, he could see that Richard lay for all the world as if asleep on the bed, a peaceful scene if not for the leather straps secured around his chest and legs. 

Jones punched in the security passkey and pulled open the steel door to Richard's room. 

Taking a hard wooden chair left next to the bed, Jones sat down. In the enveloping silence, Jones watched the very still and very dangerous child, breathe. Then he closed his eyes and once again began to speak his thoughts to the fifteen-year-old, deaf and blind, comatose boy.

Richard rarely replied, but, when he did, it was often at length. His thought-words stumbling out as an incoherent stream, and at other times, in rich abstract form. Whatever he said, whatever he meant, was a matter of interpretation.

It was Dr Jones who had achieved communication, such as it was, and had realised the boy’s true abilities. It was then that the Services had become interested, and developed him further, especially when they had found Richard could travel. Could interact in some unknown way far from his physical self. Dr Jones had been the one guiding him, teaching him.

And now Richard was beginning to reach out, test his power. Dr Jones could feel a cold fear seep slowly into his heart. A voice was in his head.

"Jones,’ it said, "let’s play."