STASIS: Part 3: Restart

by E. W. Osborne

  Alex’s response was simple but his mind raced with the implication. “It was a choice.” That one sentence alluded to an entire host of new and problematic issues. He knew the most recent attacks were because of the Seed, but this confirmed it was becoming more sophisticated. The woman assessed the likelihood of killing those closest and opted to go for an easier target. Before, the murders appeared to be almost random, a strict first-come-first-served basis.

  This is crazy.

  ***

  I know.

  Alex pushed his thoughts and curiosity to the side and focused on the one problem in front of him. The Gardener.

  I’m going to ignore the one question I want answered, namely how you were able to discover my pet project. Instead, I want to know what you want with it.

  ***

  I want to use it to help people get out of this mess.

  Are you a competitor? How could that possibly help anything?

  ***

  Empathy. As long as we view each other as enemy combatants, this will continue to grow stronger. If we can open people’s minds, allow them to experience the world through another, with another…

  Alex always suspected people when they told him exactly what he wanted to hear. But he soon realized he didn’t have much choice left. It was either take a chance and try to save as many people as he could, like he’d first set out to do, or hide and watch the world burn. If the people coordinating these attacks were getting better, it was important they were stopped before it was too late.

  Besides, he was still in a position of power. Obviously, The Gardener needed him or he wouldn’t have reached out.

  And if I say yes?

  ***

  Then I will help you shut down the Seeds once and for all.

  He scratched the back of his head and stared at the muted displays of fearful reporters and politicians. The sensation of meeting a contemporary, especially under these circumstances, was mixed at best. But if there was even half a chance of stopping this terror, and seeing his project come to life, he had to take it.

  Old Alex would’ve cowered inside his house, turned away from the spotlight, run scared. New Alex wasn’t going to allow himself to slip into those old habits.

  I have to meet you. This can’t be done online.

  ***

  That’s not at all possible.

  ***

  Then we’re done talking.

  ***

  I will send someone. I trust them.

  ***

  I don’t even trust you…

  ***

  You’re going to have to learn to if you want to live long enough to see next year.

  Alex read the line several times, trying to work out of if it was meant to sound as threatening as it came out. Before he could reply, the messenger dinged again.

  Final offer. :)

  He clenched his teeth tightly and replied.

  Fine. I’m assuming sending you my address is redundant at this point…

  Chapter Sixteen

  Undisclosed location, Upstate NY

  The more empty rooms he found, the angrier he became. It was like Jamie was avoiding him. Christopher tried to understand the pressure his brother was under, but with all his talk about family and trust… it was clear there wasn’t enough trust for him to reveal what was really happening.

  It’d been a day since the attacks, though it felt like a lifetime. It killed him that he wasn’t there with Kristine, again. He hadn’t been there to protect her, again. No matter what, the family he was building with her was more important than the one who had held him at arm’s length for so long.

  He stalked through the halls of Jamie’s house, the building practically a fortress on the top of a hill. The protections were subtle, invisible, but it was no less a fortress. Cameras, automatic defense systems, and probably a host of other advanced tech hung in the shadows. He glared at the family photos hung on the walls. He couldn’t imagine Jamie choosing to put those up. It was probably some style choice by a designer he’d hired.

  Christopher, with his hands stuffed in his pockets, came to a stop in front of the vast wall of windows in the living room. The forest had been carved away to expose the rolling mountains beyond. The scene was a living painting, designed for a man who was rarely home. It made his blood boil.

  Jamie had all this while he and Kristine sweated away in a tiny unit in the middle of the city, scraping to make ends meet. And even then, they were comfortable and well-off compared to most. If he’d been able to provide a house like this to her, they wouldn’t have to worry as much. The outside world barely touched this place.

  He couldn’t wrap his head around the terror that gripped the planet. Those in the tightly packed units were hit the hardest. The violence spread faster in the densest populations, like a lightning-fast virus. It tore through unit blocks, wiping out entire families in a flash. Kristine had been noticeably cagey about any fatalities in their own building, most likely to keep him from worrying.

  Once the main wave of violence had died down and the lockdown inside Steele Industries had lifted, Christopher wanted to leave. Jamie convinced him to stay, claiming it was still too dangerous. Out of fear and cowardice, he believed him, telling himself it was the smartest decision. Now, he felt like a coward. But he was done hiding and accepting whatever line of bullshit his brother fed him.

  Using his cuff, he called a car to come pick him up. Looking for a distraction, he turned on Jamie’s entertainment system, the sound booming in from all sides. Real life had bumped all other programming. It was all anyone could talk about.

  “These scenes are coming to you live from Whispering Pines Cemetery where Senator Blithe is being laid to rest. The late Senator, along with tens of thousands of others, lost his life in the violence.”

  Christopher grunted and changed the feed.

  “I agree. I want to know who has done this and what we’re going to do to stop it. This marks the most devastating terrorist attack in American, if not world, history.”

  The console on the kitchen wall beeped, indicating the car was only a few minutes away. He changed the feed once more.

  An angry young man with impeccably styled hair gestured with one finger as he spoke. “I find it interesting and reprehensible that no one has pointed out that these attacks have mysteriously missed the entirety of Russia and China.”

  “Oh, please. The bodies aren’t even cold and you’re already beating the drums for war?” A middle-aged woman chastised. Her chunky orange necklace clanked together as she rocked back in her chair.

  The man leaned forward, imposing himself into her space. “And what else are we supposed to do when thousands upon thousands of Americans are killed? Clearly, this mass attack was organized by someone. Shouldn’t we be trying to stop them?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. How about we try mourning them before we start flinging missiles around. Could we try that for once?”

  “While you’re mourning, I’d rather try to prevent the next attack.”

  The man’s comments vibrated through Christopher’s bones. Pieces he’d actively tried to ignore were falling into place. Maybe Kristine had been right about the Seeds. Maybe, through ignorance or malice, Steele Industries was responsible for everything.

  Christopher flicked off the entertainment center and stood in front of the wide window again. As he looked out over the vista, he decided it was time to leave and never come back. But not until Jamie answered a few things first.

  Christopher’s chest constricted as the car rolled to a stop at the gate. It was the first time he’d entered the facility since the attacks. In the horrors that’d followed, he’d forgotten what happened with the guards. With a numb, cottony feeling, he remembered how confidently Jamie had strode from the car. He’d assessed the situation like a solider, like someone who was accustomed to violence and death. At the time, Christopher had been too terrified to do anything but obey his brother’s commands. He feared for his own safety, no one el
se’s.

  But as a pair of new guards approached the car, he remembered how casually his brother had killed the injured man.

  The new guard bent to look through the open window. Christopher tried to give him a friendly smile but it came out as more of a grimace. He handed him his identification card, blank on each side, the information encoded within. With a curt nod, the card was returned and the car allowed to roll through the gate to the building beyond.

  It was as if nothing had happened there, but he was sure if he looked hard enough, he’d be able to pick out the blood stains on the pavement.

  But once inside, his confidence in those blood stains still being there vanished. All minor signs of conflict had been utterly erased. Bodies, blood, it was all gone. Even the expressions of those employees he passed in the halls were devoid of fear. Shattered windows and dented doors were the only signals that something had gone on. It was unnerving.

  Christopher found Jamie in his office, hunched over his desk, both hands resting on the table top. He paused in the doorway, taken by a weird sense of deja vu. There were few photos of his father from their family home, but one he had a special fondness for looked remarkably like the scene before him. The similarities between Jamie and their father had never been more obvious.

  His brother looked up, possibly feeling his eyes. A smile stretched across his freshly shaven face. He looked tired yet rested, somehow. “Good morning. I thought I’d let you sleep this morning. I was burning the midnight oil and—”

  Christopher shut the door behind him. He’d rehearsed the speech on the trip over, but hadn’t accounted for being so nervous. Or for Jamie to be so oblivious to the tension between them.

  “What is it, brother? You look like something is weighing on your mind.”

  “Something on my…” he sputtered. “You’re kidding me, right?” Jamie’s expression furrowed slightly in confusion and every measured and deliberate question Christopher had planned flew right out of the window. “What happened to you? Were you always like this and I just didn’t see it? Or has this place ruined you, too?”

  Jamie straightened. “You have to help me out here, Gopher. What are you talking about?”

  “Don’t fucking call me Gopher!”

  “Okay, okay. But where is this all coming from?”

  “What happened yesterday? I know this place was involved in some way, but for the life of me, I can’t figure out how. But something tells me you know.”

  His brother’s hollow laugh was less convincing than the placating smile on this face. “Of course we were involved. We lost hundreds of people here.”

  Christopher stopped pacing the room, dead in his tracks. “You know exactly what I mean.”

  “I honestly don’t. Listen, if you’re not feeling well, I can send a car back to the—”

  Christopher grabbed the back of one of the chairs positioned on his side of the desk and flung it backward. What he wanted to do was send it through the windows behind his brother, but the last shred of self-restraint held him back. “It’s like you’re fucking with me! You bring me to this place, to this temple built in our father’s name and—”

  His brother held up a warning finger. “You called me, remember. You were the one who wanted a job here.”

  “And boy oh boy, have I been put to work. It’s like you deliberately dragged me through the slime and sludge of this place, like you were putting me through some test.” The words tumbled from his mouth before running through his mind. They tasted true and judging by the look on Jamie’s face, he guessed they were. “That’s it, isn’t it? You were hazing me or something.”

  “Why would I do that?” he asked, his face unreadable.

  “I don’t know. Because you’re an egomaniacal freak. Because you have some strange loyalty to our father’s memory, his idea that this should always be a family business.”

  Christopher couldn’t read the smirk on his brother’s face, but he took it to mean he was getting close to the truth. “You never showed any interest.”

  “No, but I didn’t try to blow the place up either.”

  “So you’re better than Penelope then, is that it? Hardly an achievement.” Jamie looked away, needlessly rearranging things on his desk with an idle hand.

  “But you don’t deny it. You were testing me. Why? For what?”

  Jamie shrugged one shoulder, the movement wetting his light blue dress shirt with sweat. Christopher noted for the first time that more spots were blooming across the fabric. It gave him a twisted sense of pleasure to know he was getting under his brother’s skin. It made him want to dig harder and deeper.

  “You called me, out of the blue. We barely exchange messages on holidays and birthdays. My first line of defense is doubt. I had to know if I could trust you.”

  “So you drip-fed me nasty little secrets until I cracked?” This too, felt true. Learning that they were able to see into private Dreamscapes, that there were ways of remotely controlling someone with the implant. He’d painted them as defects in the software and Christopher had actively rejected the idea it could be anything more than that.

  “Nasty secrets? Come on now, that’s not fair. Besides, it is the sort of information that’s better digested in small pieces,” he explained, as if that made it all better.

  Christopher took a step back, the first drop of genuine fear touching his brain. “So you admit it?”

  “I admit to wanting to help my brother, yes.” Jamie took his first steps from around the desk. He held his hands loosely at his waist, gesturing tightly as if addressing a board meeting. “This company has changed since Dad started it. We have a lot going on, as you can see, and there are always enemies trying to tear us down. I had to make sure you ready.”

  “Ready? Ready for what?”

  “For the truth.”

  He had the blank, peaceful gaze of a traveling preacher. He knew he was saying everything Christopher wanted to hear, lulling him with words, his actions were telling another story. Christopher finally understood Jamie was never going to speak straight. He could stand here all day, sparring with words, and never learn a thing. The whole thing left a bitter taste in his mouth. They weren’t close, but he never thought Jamie would treat him like this.

  “I’m done playing whatever the fuck game you have going on here. It’s like you can’t even acknowledge this company, your company, might have played a part in all those people dying.”

  Jamie cocked his head and gave him a pitying look, as if he felt sorry that his brother was so delusional. “Chris, man, I don’t know what I can—”

  Christopher took two big steps back. “You can take this company, and all your secrets, and fucking shove it. I appreciate you offering to help, but I’m done.” He turned to the door and flung a few last darts over his shoulder. “And if anything else happens that I think you might be connected to, I’m telling Kristine and she can decide what to do with you.”

  “I really wish you hadn’t said that,” Jamie replied. His tone sent a shiver down Christopher’s spine, but he fought to hide it. He stormed from the office and marched on his heels, moving as quickly as he could to get away. He wanted to put as much distance between this place and his brother as he could.

  I should be with Kristine. I should be keeping her safe, protecting her. I need to get home.

  Not thirty seconds later, he rounded a corner and nearly bumped straight into the chest of one of two large security guards. Christopher took a step back and shifted to the side, expecting them to give him space to pass.

  He peered up into the dark eyes of a man he vaguely recognized from around the building. “If you’d excuse me, I’d—”

  “Mr. Steele, can you come with me?” the guard on the right asked, not really waiting for an answer. His firm mitt of a hand closed around the inside of Christopher’s elbow, pulling him backward.

  “I’m on my way home and—” he muttered, stumbling to stay on his feet.

  The two guards didn’t care for any
of his protests. There was no point fighting, even though every muscle fiber in his body twitched with desire to. He expected they’d deposit him straight back in his brother’s office, so he was surprised when they strode right past the closed door. Down the hall, up two floors, through another series of corridors. He’d lost all sense of where he was in the building by the time they shut the door to a small, windowless room, locking him inside.

  Christopher took a seat in the only chair in the room, facing the two armed guards on either side of the door. He wanted to look unbothered by the whole thing, but couldn’t stop his leg from jittering on the spot.

  “This is really unnecessary. I wasn’t actually going to tell her anything.” He spoke to them and to whomever he assumed was listening. It wasn’t a coincidence these goons had chased him down after he threatened to essentially go to the media with what he knew. He looked to the ceiling, wondering where the hidden cameras were. “Jamie, you know I’d be ruining my life as well if I did. I just wanted to scare you. Piss you off. I’d never really do anything.”

  Before long, the door opened and in entered his brother, followed closely by a nurse in a white lab coat. She carried a tray of instruments he would’ve recognized anywhere. She never met his eye.

  He stiffened in the chair, pressing the palms of his hands down on the armrests. “What are you doing?”

  His brother sighed and shook his head dramatically. “Brother. I wish I could’ve let you walk out that door, I truly do. But I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little glad we’ve found ourselves in this position.” He crouched at Christopher’s feet, far enough out of reach. “Once this is done, I can stop dancing around the truth.”