The Book of Eadie, Volume One of the Seventeen Trilogy

by Mark D. Diehl

  “Great, great. Looks like this case is gonna have to be wrapped up in the Zone, and they tell us that’s your area now. Never worked with Zeta before … I’ve always wondered about you guys.”

  Daiss laughed. Once. “We’re just a unit assigned to clean up the Zone. ‘Zeta’ for ‘Zone,’ that’s all there is to it. Doing the Lord’s work, like we all do.” The blue eyes staring out of the image glowed with unnatural intensity.

  “That’s it? Why so many resources toward the Zone?”

  “It started with all the suburban Fiend raids recently. Decided it’d be better to deal with the perpetrators inside the Zone than trying to catch them crossing into other areas.” The image of Daiss raised one shoulder in a slight shrug. “When they raid inside the Zone, no one ever gives a fuck. But a few suburbanites get killed in their homes, and next thing you know we’re a high priority task force.”

  “So,” Hawkins said. “You got any idea how many Fiends were involved in those suburban raids?”

  The image stared for a moment, the blue eyes laser-focused on some point that seemed to be at the center of Hawkins’ brain. “I’m sorry, Agent Hawkins. I’m not authorized to discuss specifics with anyone outside Task Force Zeta.”

  Hawkins stared back, his mind taking in both the artificial image of Daiss and the real world outside the truck. A gust of wind blew watery sleet against the truck’s transparent front, obscuring the view of the train station a few paces away. At least he would see the kid before the kid saw him. While the entire body of the truck seemed transparent from inside, the exterior of the vehicle was visible only as a matte, distorted reflection of whatever was around it. Not merely hard to see, the disturbing optical mishmash displayed by Federal machinery confused the human eye to such a degree that it involuntarily looked away before the brain could process what it saw.

  He cleared his throat. “Don’t know if you’ve had any interference yet, but that was Clayton Ricker’s son who got his throat cut. You’ve seen the video from the restaurant?”

  “Yep. We’ll get right on it, tell you what we find. In the Zone we’re looking for the girl and the bum, right?”

  “That’s it. I’m waiting to—oh, that little fucker! I told the Williams kid to meet me at the train stop. The train’s gone, the crowd has cleared, and he’s not here. And … shit. He’s shut off his EI. I better go. That punk’s gonna pay, I swear to God.”

  Vacuum

  Sato sat still in meditation, the gray mist swirling around him.

  “I have now found your memories,” he said out loud, his voice sounding empty and hollow in the vast nothingness. “I see you selling your drugs, fighting your vulgar and degrading merchant battles. Your abilities to hide and to move quietly are impressive, but even these, your greatest talents, are completely without honor.

  “I think perhaps you will remember these words when you take your turn here. I am speaking to you this way so that you will comprehend the importance of my mission and cease your useless interference.

  “I understand now. All becomes clear through meditation. The dishonor I brought on myself serving the daimyo endures, even now. I was chosen for my disobedience and given this chance to make it right. I will serve the source of life itself, in the battle that will end war, and the shame of serving under a woman general will suitably punish me for my pride and transgressions.

  “You cannot stop me. You cannot rid yourself of me—at least not until the mission is complete.”

  Sato pushed his way through the mist, waking the body. He sat up, glancing around the dreary little room. A dull light filtered in through the window, barely enough to see by. He stood. The seriously damaged body registered its pain in Sato’s mind only momentarily, the way a quick glance at a document might register a few characters before it was instantly forgotten. He made his way out the door.

  6

  RECONDITIONING INSTRUCTION LETTER

  SEEKER OF UNDERSTANDING

  Dear Eric Basali #117B882QQ

  Welcome to Amelix Retreat. You have been admitted for involuntary reconditioning following a suicide attempt, in accordance with your consent in section 14, paragraph 8 of your Corporate Regulations Technician employment contract.

  Your new designation here at Amelix Retreat will be: Seeker of Understanding (“Seeker”), Grade 1. You will remain a Seeker until you pass into the ranks of the Accepted.

  Pursuant to section 14, paragraph 19 of your Corporate Regulations Technician employment contract, your efficiency implant has been reset for pathway amplification and access has been restricted to allow Amelix Retreat’s internal signals only. Upon graduation from the reconditioning process it will be readjusted to connect once again with the outside world.

  You will note that your moods are now more intense than you have previously experienced, and that they have a tendency to compound themselves. Good feelings will make you feel increasingly better, while bad feelings will build on themselves and can rapidly degenerate into acute depression. This is a perfectly normal effect of the pathway amplification process, and in your time here at Amelix Retreat you, like all Seekers, will come to understand and embrace its purpose. Eventually, you will learn to modulate your emotional and physical reactions by implementing the wisdom of your superiors.

  Although Seekers do have the right to transfer to another facility, most choose to remain at Amelix Retreat. No other corporation understands your situation as well as Amelix Integrations does, and of course, no other corporation has so much already invested in you. Be advised that only Amelix Retreat is fully covered by your Amelix Loving Care Plan—treatment at all other institutions will require additional payment. Because certain aspects of reconditioning care do involve file review by a licensed Medical Doctor, the out-of-pocket cost of your care at another institution will be substantial and could lead to severe financial hardship, which may complicate the recovery process.

  Reconditioning does take time. Rest assured that Amelix Integrations believes you are worth the investment. Your readiness for advancement within the program will be assessed based on your demonstrated desire to improve as well as on your level of cooperation with the program directives and with your fellow Seekers. The involuntary program typically lasts between ten and fifty weeks. The degree of your dedication to the reconditioning process will determine the rate of your progress.

  Because reconditioning is a personal matter which is often brought about by unpleasant happenings in the workplace, privacy is stringently protected at all times during your stay. Most of your time will be spent in your quarters, with virtual group meetings, nondenominational religious services and communal meals all taking place by holographic projection. You will find an identity-protective face cover next to your bed, which must be worn for all holographic meetings and excursions from your quarters. You are permitted to uncover your face when you are not interacting with other Seekers.

  Once you have joined the ranks of the Accepted, your shame will have been erased. You will again be free to leave your face uncovered and walk with your head held high.

  Use of proper names among Seekers is prohibited. For now, you must address others by the numbers on their face covers only. Violation of these rules will result in seclusion from all Seekers exposed to your face or name until all such Seekers have graduated from the program.

  Please enter your thoughts and feedback immediately as directed on the form below.

  Sincerely,

  Your Amelix Corporate Family

  Amelix Retreat

  A SUBSIDIARY OF AMELIX INTEGRATIONS

  Reconditioning Feedback Form

  Seeker of Understanding

  INVOLUNTARY, GRADE ONE

  Subject: Eric Basali, #117B882QQ

  Division: Corporate Regulations

  1. Please describe your relationship with Amelix Integrations, including your feelings about the company and your interactions with it. Honesty is imperative.

  This is my third attempt to fill out this stupid
form. The last two were deemed unacceptable due to “lack of frankness and detail.” You want to know what I think of your company? Fine.

  YOU SHOULD HAVE LET ME DIE! You forced me to stay alive so you could protect your investment, because after all, you paid for my education and therefore you own me. You’ve always controlled every aspect of my life: my home and food, my exercise and social habits, and even my family, leaving almost no decision up to me. You blurred the line where my company ended and I, myself, began, so I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that you wouldn’t let me escape.

  Evidently, control of my corporeal being isn’t enough for you. You locked me up here so you can manipulate my psyche, because now you want my soul.

  2. Please share some details of your experience here at Amelix Retreat today.

  I don’t understand why you denied my request for real paper on which to answer these questions. I know paper is expensive, but when you’re already spending so much to recondition me, I hardly think the cost is significant. Paper is real. It’s a product you can pick it up and hold. I set the machine to let me write with a stylus on a handheld screen, but it isn’t the same. The only explanation I received was that paper is unconventional and we are here to learn the value of what’s conventional.

  All right. I’ll tell you about my first day as your captive. When I first opened my eyes, I discovered I was naked. I thought I might be in a fancy hotel; the carpet and furnishings here are really first-rate, I must admit. I remembered my suicide attempt and briefly wondered if this might be the afterlife. Then I noticed that the curtains opened up on a brick wall, and the air had a heavy feeling that told me I was somewhere underground—maybe this was Hell. As consciousness settled in, I started to feel terribly sick—from your pathway amplification, of course.

  A little while after that, an Accepted came in and put the hood on me. I asked for clothes to wear but he said I would be spending all my time in the room and I would have no need of them. He told me his name was Andrew. I asked how pathway amplification was supposed to make me a better worker when all it seemed to do was nauseate me and make me paranoid. His explanation: “Your mind will associate those unpleasant feelings with improper thoughts, and it will begin to turn away from such thoughts because of the pain they cause. Once you have been properly trained and returned as a fully Accepted member of the Amelix family, the synthesizers will provide stabilizing compounds in your daily rations to help you stay on track.”

  Next he “escorted” me to religious services and group therapy, which means he stood behind me without speaking and manipulated the computer to show my required meeting at the appropriate time: holograms with images assembled into collections of hooded prisoners just like me, all of us virtually dressed in Amelix uniforms.

  The group hologram looked like some lounge or living room. I remember that its walls and carpet were done in soft loam shades and the couches and chairs were all covered in synth leather with tones of copper and rust. The only thing that looked out of place was a giant steel door with heavy bolts and locks in the middle of one wall, which everyone seemed to make a point of ignoring.

  There are eleven other prisoners in my group, plus me. They all try and speak like Accepted do, but they haven’t yet perfected that rolling Accepted voice that enunciates every word when they talk about the company. The numbers we’re supposed to use instead of names are too long, so they all had number/letter nicknames. They decided mine would be “2Q.” Each of their holograms hugged mine.

  I don’t remember all their nicknames. It was too creepy, with them telling me how my suicide attempt meant I didn’t feel worthy of my place within the company family and I must learn to accept Amelix’s love for me, or how I gave up on myself but Amelix never did. I was so repulsed I couldn’t pay attention to their nicknames.

  I don’t understand why these people are in group when they’re already spouting your rhetoric as if they’d written it themselves. They took turns reciting to each other the same stupid mantras we’ve all heard our whole lives: “Amelix provides for all what none could provide alone.” Then they confessed about their “selfish” former selves, who let down the company in various ways, some of them exceedingly trivial. They sniffled and wiped their eyes, saying how guilty they felt. “Turning your back on Amelix is turning your back on everyone who loves you,” one guy said. Somehow he managed to add a convincing sob at the end. Apparently, this is what you want me to become; Amelix employees are only allowed to die from the neck up.

  I’m not sure how you evaluate people for moving through the program. In case my feedback is used for others, I should mention one who was genuinely kind and who tried to be helpful. I wouldn’t want her to be stuck here longer than she has to be. Her nickname, “D-L,” was the only one I remembered, not just because she was kind but also because it was easy to imagine as a real name: “Dee-Elle.” I don’t know her number but she was the only one with a ponytail sticking out from under her hood. She said she could tell I was smart and sensitive and in great pain, and she was going to do whatever she could to help me.

  We have a “combat simulation” tomorrow, against Andro-Heathcliffe. I think it’s funny that our company’s sworn enemy wants to pit its reconditioning class against us.

  3. Please describe the important relationships in your life.

  You know about my family already, more than I do, actually, since they’ve all spent more time at work than at home. My family has never been close and I don’t have any friends. You’ve made it clear that I won’t be allowed to eat or sleep until I give you detailed answers to every question here, but I don’t know what else I can tell you.

  4. Please share any additional thoughts or comments.

  The rest of number 4 should read: “Or we’ll keep making you fill out this form until you starve or go crazy from sleep deprivation.”

  I wanted a quiet death, not a tortured, grisly one. That’s why I didn’t just quit or let myself be fired. Simple nonexistence trumps the horrific violence, exposure, and starvation of “life” among the Departed, but you have denied me that option. I didn’t realize that a failed attempt would land me here, even if it is buried in a contract somewhere, but now I understand why.

  I felt I had no choice but to kill myself. This proves that I can’t imagine a life outside the organization. People coming here to ask for voluntary reconditioning prove the same thing. No matter which program we go through, we all arrive convinced you are the key to our survival, which makes us close to complete surrender.

  Obviously, I haven’t turned out as you intended. But what choices have I ever had? I grew up in company housing, went to company school, then company college. I am more than your malfunctioning employee—I am your product! Now I’m locked up here, waiting for you to break me down and reconfigure my pieces.

  Go ahead. Do your worst. What do I have left to fear?

  Inside Agent Hawkins’s brain

  “Agent Daiss! It’s Hawkins. The train station’s cameras showed the kid switching trains. He’s headed back to the Zone. Any thoughts on where he might be going?”

  “Yeah, I have a pretty good idea,” Daiss replied. “There’s some snake-oil, roots-and-tree-bark, mumbo-jumbo doctor in the building where the kid took the call from his mother. Get this: It’s a real, honest-to-God black man—got to be the last Negro in a hundred miles. He’s got an apartment there—seems like just the sort these people would go to with a cut like young Ricker gave that waitress. I’m on my way now.”

  Dok’s place

  Eadie’s face throbbed. She lightly touched the area around the scab, making the stitches sting. The cut and the bruises had different aches that overlapped and intensified each other in a way that made her sick to her stomach. Dok was leaning over the table, picking at teeth in a ten-year-old boy’s mouth. The boy lay completely motionless and made no sound.

  “Okay,” Dok told the boy’s mother. “I’ve flaked off the decay. Now, in an ideal situation I’d be able to fill in th
ese spots with porcelain or amalgam.” He shook his head. “But I don’t have anything like that. I’m going to use this industrial glue. It’s waterproof once it dries, and it’s tough as hell. If it does come off you can bring him back but I think this’ll take care of the problem for now. It’s at least as important to change his oral hygiene habits as it is to fix the teeth, though.”

  Eadie’s gaze was drawn to the Prophet, who had been staring at her since she woke up. He nodded. A female patient sitting next to him was now looking at Eadie, too.

  “It’s a good thing we were able to put Tim under hypnosis,” Dok told the mother. “He would probably find this next part pretty unpleasant, otherwise. And while he’s still suggestible, we can help him erase his bad habits and write in good ones, just as if they were written on a chalk board.” He held up a matching set of pincher-shaped pieces of plastic. “I’ve got to put these between his cheeks and gums, and then tie the ends together to hold the cheeks away while the glue dries. The whole mouth gets dry this way, but I’ll give him a few drops of water at the back of his throat every few minutes until we bring him out of hypnosis. It takes about twenty minutes for the glue to set.”

  He gently placed the instrument into the boy’s mouth and wrapped the end with string. “Tim?” Dok said. The boy remained utterly still, with pieces of plastic standing out from his mouth at odd angles. His lips and gums were already dry and wrinkled. “Tim, you still feel completely comfortable,” Dok said. “And, starting today, you will love to take care of your teeth. Brushing your teeth will be your favorite part of the day.” Dok winked at the mother.

  Eadie turned her head. The Prophet was now standing next to her. He nodded again but remained silent, less than arm’s length away. She nodded in reply, enveloped in the sodje vapors that had trailed him. “Hi,” she said.

  “Yes. Thank you, General,” the Prophet said.