City 55

by William Pinecroft

  “What do you mean it’s gone? You mean Fred’s gone?” exclaimed Charlie.

  “No man. Well yes. And the house is gone. Not there. A hole,” replied Dan. “I almost rode straight past where his house had been. Nothing seemed out of place. It was nothing like anything I have ever seen. The buildings in the neighborhood were untouched. Not a mark on them. But Fred’s place was just gone. Thank god I realized it. I never stopped. I just kept riding past without hesitation, down the street. Everywhere I looked, I thought I saw some form of surveillance. There must have been people all over the place, waiting for someone like me to pull up.”

  “You think?”

  “Don’t you? They obviously know what’s going on. And if they do, I’m sure they know there are more out there than just Fred and his gang. They must know about us. Maybe not us specifically but the fact there are more people involved. It took me forever to get back here. I imagined every camera was recording me, focused in on who I was. I took a ton of different detours before I was finally convinced no one was following me.”

  “I’m glad you made it back,” Charlie said as he patted Dan on the shoulder.

  “Me too. At one point, I was looking over my shoulder for a Guardian Element team just because some chic smiled at me.” Dan finally sat down on Charlie’s couch and sunk into the cushions, letting out a long sigh.

  Charlie sat down next to Dan, struggling to accept the idea that Fred, the toughest, most knowledgeable person in their crew, was now… Gone. Who knew where he was?

  They must have raided Timber’s place as well. Charlie and Dan sped off together toward Timber’s offices. As they approached, they hugged the shadows from two blocks out. Neither one of them was trained in counter surveillance but fear has a tendency to make you careful. As they approached the doorway, the familiar bodyguard was standing nearby. Not another soul roamed the streets.

  “You stay here, man,” said Dan.

  Charlie objected.

  “Please, Charlie.” Dan walked up to the bouncer and talked for a brief minute. Charlie hung back a couple yards, just around the corner. Charlie watched as Dan bantered back and forth. Dan waved Charlie over, and then they both followed Raoul up the stairs to where Timber was.

  They entered the hotel room to find Timber as she always was, directing her crew regarding one problem or another, without a visible care in the world.

  “Timber, Fred’s been arrested. Well, we think he has. Everything is gone,” Charlie blurted.

  During Charlie’s pleas, Timber continued to administer commands to the others in the room, taking notes where needed, and reallocating her resources as she saw fit. She finally turned and focused her attention on Dan and Charlie.

  “Listen, Charlie. It was only a matter of time. We are challenging the government and The Proxy here. It governs the world based on knowledge and surveillance. How did you think this was going to end?”

  “You don’t seem worried,” said Charlie.

  “Some of us cover our tracks a little better than others,” replied Timber.

  “How so?”

  Timber looked at Charlie. “What business of yours is that?”

  “I would say quite a bit at this point. Wouldn’t you?”

  Timber walked over to the screens that were displaying the information they were analyzing. “Here,” she said as she pointed to the screens.

  Charlie leaned in and brought up the holographic image of what she was pointing at.

  “Better? Okay. These—”

  “Are all the routing locations that you are bouncing the signal off of to confuse the government,” Charlie interrupted.

  “Yes.”

  “They all go through Los Angeles, at some point.”

  “Yes.”

  “Don’t you think that would kind of screw Fred if they caught on?”

  “Charlie. I don’t know Fred.” She made a sweeping gesture encompassing the room. “I do know these people. My first priority is them. I’m sorry this happened to your friend, but it wasn’t my fault. I covered my tracks. Fred should have covered his. Right? My enterprise has flourished based on my instincts and how I conduct business. I normally don’t go into business with other people, unless the payoffs are so lucrative I can’t pass up the opportunity. Listen, you guys are accomplices. I will protect you as long as you don’t pose a threat to what I have built over the course of a decade. It’s all about acceptable risk.”

  “What about the guilt?”

  “What about the guilt when the government takes everyone you see in this room, without a trace? Who knows? I may not even be around after they’re through to feel that guilt. Charlie, we’re shutting this down. It’s worked, and we now have access to a lot of intelligence we never had before. This will be invaluable in the future. I can’t risk continuing. It is unfortunate they got your friends. Let’s not make it even more unfortunate,” said Timber as she walked Dan and Charlie to the door.

  Charlie didn’t even put up an argument. As far as he was concerned, Fred’s fate was on Charlie. Charlie had made the decision to continue despite the pressure his crew had been mounting against The Proxy. He had scarcely reduced their operations and now five people had been taken from everything they knew and loved. All those people looking at him to take the right action, and he had the arrogance to think he could make those decisions. He should have declined on the spot or told everyone to go home and forget what he had led them all to believe. They were no better off than day one at the campsite. In fact, they were worse off. Now, they had sent innocent people to who knows where. Who knew what those sadistic bastards would be doing to Fred and his friends right now? Poor Fred. Poor Manny.

  Charlie and Dan went back to Charlie’s apartment to drink the day’s events away. The night started with a few beers but soon deteriorated into an all-out pity party. Dan was dancing on the kitchen bar while Charlie drunk dialed Pam. Neither knew what they were going to do next. For all they knew, Fred and his friends… their friends, had given up all of them to The Guardian Element. However, they had nowhere to go, and the alcohol seemed to put them at ease with that realization.

  “Who fucking cares!” yelled Dan before he fell backwards off the end of the countertop. Charlie was on the phone with Pam at that moment. She immediately hung up and was on her way over.

  ****

  Pam arrived twenty minutes later to the hurricane that apparently originated within Charlie’s apartment, along with the storm gods themselves passed out on the living room floor. Dan still had his pants down, his arms and legs spread wide open like a snow angel, face up, dead to the world. Charlie was asleep in the same chair he had called Pam from twenty minutes earlier. Pam looked around, the idea of cleaning up the apartment flitting across her mind for a brief moment. Instead, she got up and walked over to the refrigerator. Pam decided she would help these two idiots into bed after she had a chance to relax. Pam still wasn’t aware of what happened to Fred. There was the possibility she would have been a little more sympathetic with that information. That, or she would have been face down comatose as well.

  ****

  Fred felt the hood stroke his face as it was lifted from his head. He opened his eyes, judging the sounds and movement around him in an effort to anticipate the shock that waited. Everything was silent. Nothing stirred except for the hood. It was still black. The room was a void. He remained on his knees, struggling to focus on something, anything within the darkness. He couldn’t.

  “Open your mouth.”

  Fred looked up. The sound came from above. He swallowed.

  “Open your mouth.”

  Fred strained to see something. He tried to make out a form in that room.

  “Open or we’ll open it for you.”

  A hand tightened down around the back of Fred’s neck. Soon Fred was overcome with shooting pains up the back of his head as the grip intensified. He finally opened. An ice-cold sensation hit his tongue. It took him a moment to realize metal tongs or pliers had a hold of
him. He tried to resist, only to be met with the clamping of the vice like grip and the stretching of his tongue. Fred tried to make a sound. He might have. The pain dulled his senses. He didn’t even know if he was screaming or not.

  Something bitter was placed in his mouth. The grasp remained. The icy feeling of the instrument was now permeating into the back of his throat. The bitterness remained; ever so slight, drying up what was left of his saliva. It was like nothing he had experienced before. Even if he had, the rest of the pain would have dulled the sensation.

  Fred remained like this for the next few minutes. To him, it felt like an eternity, kneeling in the void, powerless to the force over him. He must concentrate. He had to focus deep down within himself. This was being done for a reason. He had to fight it. How do you fight what you can’t see, what you don’t know, what you can’t fathom?

  Fred was released and the hold withdrawn. He remained on his knees, in the darkness. His head and shoulders slowly recovered from the pain as the blood resumed its flow. Fred’s tongue was still there. He couldn’t feel it, but he never felt anything that might make him presume it was now lying beside him. His hands were still bound behind his back. He couldn’t move. The rope was tied to the ground behind him. It was pointless. Fred was lost now, alone in the darkness, the black void circled around him as a tornado might play on the plains. It swirled faster and faster until he became caught in the eye of this storm, the lone prey, powerless to resist.

  Focus Fred. Focus.

  He started to fall within the darkness. He couldn’t control his body. The weightlessness prevailed. He tried to look around, he tried to focus on something, but it was black. It was nothing. Fred thought of Peter, and the teachings he had bestowed upon him. He recalled his sessions, reflecting upon one simple aspect from his life that he could concentrate on, while reminding him of a better place. He remembered their meditation in Death Valley. He focused on coming home to his door, the touch of it.

  He could see. He was falling again. All around him, lights danced. Lights refracted across the space he was in. It no longer appeared before him as a room. He appeared to be under water, but the water didn’t touch him. All around him, the water flowed. Above, the sides, everywhere. He looked down at the water that was hitting him but it wasn’t. He rested upon a clear piece of glass. He was in a glass box, with water flowing freely all around him. The lights continued to dance. He was falling through the void, lost to this world, lost to reality.

  Focus. Focus.

  The doorknob is gold. It is cold. Close your eyes. I turn the knob. It turns freely, as I push against it. The door swings open.

  Falling. Close your eyes. The door swings open.

  An eternity elapsed. Fred focused on his door. He focused on coming home, the warmth that ensued, the calm that enveloped him. He fought the void.

  ****

  Dr. Buscher had been explicit with her directions to her team. The isolation of City 55 and 17 was enough for her to enact drastic measures to contain and squash whatever rebellion they perceived. It was not enough to just capture and extinguish that group of hippies down in City 17. These sun children would not be able to pull this off without help from within the company. It was not feasible for them to know the protocols required to access all they were changing. An even scarier realization for her was that uncertainty now surrounded the once infallible Proxy. No matter, as long as she was able to make sure the people who did this never saw the light of day again.

  She had deployed separate envoys from the main office in City 21 to assume control of internal investigations conducted at the major city centers. Everyone was a suspect; she couldn’t afford to allow them the opportunity to escape, and then mount a similar assault on them or her again. These envoys set up surveillance systems within the main offices of the two cities. They were under the guise of an assessment team sent by management to ensure the fundamentals of the company were being followed and employed at each of the operating stations.

  The employees were under the impression they were being evaluated, and these teams were the ticket to keeping their jobs or even a possible raise in the future. Needless to say, every courtesy was extended. The teams were able to work without interruption, authorized to access everything within the company. Security clearances were verified before arrival, so operations began the same day. Everything was dissected and overhauled. Symbolic meetings were also scheduled with the authorities at the companies to propagate the aura surrounding these new entities.

  Catalogued suspicions were filed for later action. Every suspect was interviewed to get a sense of their commitment to The Corporation. The contractors, as they were soon dubbed by the company, were always extremely polite, leaving everyone with a sense of utter safety. Of course, these people had done nothing wrong, and so there was no reason for them to suspect anything different. The contractors also had full access to the networks within The Corporation. Electronic traffic was actively monitored from that point forward. Patterns of activity were pulled from the past three months. Sources of requests were verified and crosschecked against computer addresses within the company. There was no area that remained untouched by these teams, as they tore through the guts of the company buildings.

  ****

  Fred opened his eyes. Across from him, sat a man. Fred tried to focus. He wasn’t falling anymore. The darkness was gone, the dancing lights burned out. He felt he had been lost for days.

  “Mr. Canseco,” said the man.

  Fred blinked, trying to focus on the man’s appearance. He appeared to be featureless, a shadow of a being in a man’s form.

  “Mr. Canseco,” the man repeated.

  “Water.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Water,” Fred repeated.

  A glass of water appeared before Fred. He drank the glass. He again struggled to focus. The man’s features began to materialize.

  “You’re one ugly mother fucker,” Fred finally said.

  “Mr. Canseco, please, I need to ask you some questions or we will send you back into the room.”

  “Which room? The twinkling room? Be my guest. Loved it.”

  The man smiled before continuing, “All you need to do is answer our questions, and then you’ll be free to go. If you don’t, back to the room.”

  “Water.”

  “Questions first.”

  “If you’re trying to build trust, you’re doing a crap job,” Fred said.

  “Who were your compatriots?” the man asked.

  “Water.”

  “Who were your compatriots? Answer now.”

  “Water… Water now.”

  The man looked up behind Fred. Fred was seized, the back of his neck crushed. He watched as another man with a pair of pliers approached. A small square of paper was placed on his tongue once again. It was bitter. It was either that or the reduction in blood flow to his brain was causing him to imagine things. He was released and the bag shoved over the top of his head. Fred was dragged across the ground and placed on his knees. He felt his hands being tied behind his back and shackled to the floor. The bag was removed, and all he saw was darkness. The tornado formed around him.

  Focus. The doorknob is cold.

  He could see again, the lights dancing about him, the water frustrated it couldn’t drown him within his glass box.

  Focus.

  ****

  “Hello Mr. Fieldstone,” said the man in a three-piece suit. He paused for a moment, looking down at the file in front of him. “It says here that you are the Data Analyst Manager for The Company here in City 55. Is that correct?” he asked with a large, seemingly genuine smile.

  “Yes, that’s right,” replied Sam. Sam wondered where Sheila was. He couldn’t deal with that right now. He needed to concentrate.

  “Who are you in charge of?”

  Sam responded, explaining to the gentleman that he was in charge of the eighty-seven data analysts across the ten floors that housed the main data analyst section o
f the company. Twenty years ago, it would have taken 5,000 employees to do what these eighty-seven do now. Cutting edge technology coupled with unceasing updates, whittled manpower down on a daily basis. Half the time, the analysts were trying to keep up with the changes.

  “I see.” The man scrolled through a few different folders of data that hung in suspension before him. “What data do you deal with directly?”

  “I’m normally not responsible for specific analysis but rather act as oversight for the work that is going on across the ten floors.”

  “So you never handle these…” he paused before continuing mid-sentence, “experiments yourself?”

  “Well, sometimes. It depends on the subject matter. To be honest, I do participate to ensure I am able to maintain proficiency in the current processes we are utilizing. If I’m not aware of the correct methods, how can I expect to manage the eighty-seven people below me?” Sam said trying to laugh as he did so.

  The man paused without expression, before giving a slight chuckle. “Too true. Too true.”

  The banter went back and forth for another thirty torturous minutes.

  Sam could feel the man moving around the main subject as carefully as a boxer dances around the ring, testing and prodding his opponent. It was as if Ali was playing with Sam and that one-two knockout punch was around the corner. It never came. The man kept asking general questions about the analysis they performed and what function it had for The Corporation. He focused on the work that Sam did to benefit the company and how his loyal service was a true testament to the human spirit. Sam knew this guy was full of shit. The others may have been suckered by the honey these pin striped sharks poured on for them. They lacked one thing Sam had; the knowledge that he had fucked over The Corporation and to him, it seemed now that it was only a matter of time before they ripped Charlie’s operation apart.

  The man finished with his questioning and got up from the desk. He walked to the door, and then turned back to Sam. “Which office is Ms. Sheila Carpenter in?” He smiled looking at Sam. “I want to make sure our records are correct.”

  Sam responded and provided directions for the man. He offered to accompany him down to Sheila’s office, but the man declined and proceeded on his own. He wanted to call Sheila. He wanted to call her and give her a warning. He couldn’t though. Who knew whether or not his phones were tapped? From the way that interview unfolded, he was sure they were on to him, and everything in that office was now a live show for someone somewhere to enjoy. In fact, they might be watching him pace throughout the room right now. He sat down, trying to act casual. He pulled up his computer and tried to type. He sat and tried to remain calm. He couldn’t think of anything except what was happening in Sheila’s office right now.