“Let me make it easy for you: at night, before you go to bed, think the code word: “Fenway” and you'll initiate the transfer. Be sure you're ready to go to sleep for the night though, because once you trigger the process you're going to lose all but your basic neural activity. In essence, you'll go to sleep.”
“What if I accidentally think of Fenway? Like, what if the Red Sox are on or something?” asked David.
“I fail to understand why the color of your socks has anything to do with this,” said Juliet. “And why would you accidentally think of Fenway?”
“Well, how do I not think of it now you’ve said it. Go on, think of a white bear. Now don’t think of a white bear. Try to think of anything but a white bear. Impossible, right?”
“What is all this about white bears and red socks? You’re worrying far too much. Just do it when the time is right and your body will take care of the rest,” she said. “Oh, and whatever you do, do not drink alcohol or take any drugs. It is crucial you keep your neural connections in prime condition. The upload is a copy of a delta of all new connections and memories created or changed since the last sync—including any repairs your own brain may have made to your damaged memories. The introduction of foreign substances into your system can not only inhibit your judgement, but potentially lead to your neural system's failure to build a permanent connection—not to mention accidental deletion.”
And so, with minimal training and no sense of duty whatsoever to those directing this mission, David Sparks set out into the world of tomorrow. He had no idea of the layout of the city, he knew no one, and he had not received any direction as to where to go.
“They’ll find you,” the woman insisted. “And if they don’t, take this. It’ll get you into an apartment we set up for you, in case you need it. Address is on the back of the card.”
Although hesitant to leave, he didn’t have any other choice. He surely couldn’t stay at the medical center, that much was clear. The government run healthcare didn’t cover reconstructive cosmetic surgery, and it surely didn’t cover neural development, storage, and transfer. The services he received were reserved for VIPs only, and if he refused to cooperate they had made it clear he would be out on the street and denied any future support—not to mention they’d cancel the restoration of his damaged files and delete the whole damn folder. Maybe even shut him down.
He was found immediately after leaving the building. Either The Cause had tasked a team with surveillance on the building for the past several weeks, waiting for him to show, or they’d been tipped off by someone inside. From what David now knew of Calvin, both were likely.
“Excuse me sir, but can we bother you for a survey?” they asked, crowding uncomfortably close around him.
“Did Calvin send you?” he asked.
The man who spoke grabbed David by the back of his neck and scrutinized him, his eyes penetrated David’s, digging for any twitch or signal of peril. His grip loosened, and the man’s calloused fingers dragged coarsely up David’s neck to the base of his skull, where they tapped casually on David’s new metal plate. “Don’t say his name,” he whispered. “We don’t recognize anyone by the name of Calvin. Preservation is near though.”
“Not very subtle…” David mumbled.
“What was that?”
“Nothing.” David said, straightening his collar. “I’d love to take part in your survey,”
“Come with us then, sir. Our polling center is down the street.”
The rest of the men stepped aside as the first gestured for David to start walking. As he took his first step a firm pressure dug into his spine.
“There’s a 2,000,000-volt energy blaster pushed against your spinal cord.” The man’s breath burned against his ear, each word a thousand degrees hotter than the last. “You try to move, or call in the Progressive Army, we’ll light you up like a menorah.”
David did his best to remain calm and remember his training. Realizing he’d received none, he opted to rely on his knowledge of spy films instead. The spies who lived always proceeded with caution, waiting for the right moment to make their move. Since David’s next move would be quite some time off, this was easy for him to do.
“Take it easy guys. Are you with The Cause? How come you guys didn’t break me out of that prison?”
“Break you out of Society grounds? Not worth it.”
“If you’re really a friend to The Cause—a friend to The Preservationist, then you understand your best interest is to keep moving,” the second man said. With each hesitating step, the pressure on his spine intensified and David moved faster.
“Of course, I understand. But where are we going?” David asked.
“Keep walking,” said the man behind him. “We’ll tell you when to turn. You try anything, and you’ll never realize the thought crossed your mind. We’re taking a risk coming for you, and to be honest, we don’t trust you.”
“I’m going guys. Lead the way and I’m there.”
The two men led David down an alley. Several dozen surveillance cameras and twice as many Society operatives followed their movement through the tracker in his port.
When they reached the end of the alley, the man with the gun said, “You’re going to keep on walking, but first we need to shut down your recording system. Don’t worry, the process won’t hurt you and you’ll stay awake, but you’re also not going to remember anything that happens in the next two hours.”
A sharp pain stabbed his right shoulder as the second man jammed the needle in. Enough with the shots already, he thought. It was his last thought for quite some time.
FIFTEEN
BUY ME SOME PEANUTS AND CRACKER JACK
To hell in a handbasket—that's where David’s life was headed. Of course, he was being melodramatic, as he was prone to do. In High School his classmates voted him the Drama Queen. His Senior year yearbook confirmed this fact: there he was, on page 97, dressed in a gown, holding a skull like some sort of cross-dressing Hamlet. At the time he thought it funny, and Alice had found it embarrassingly endearing.
David hated that yearbook and intended on starting a collection encouraging all his former classmates to sell him back their copies, so he could have a massive book-burning to erase the memory. Alice voiced an inelastic “no” on this scheme.
The entire ride home from the hospital, David slept. Barely awake when Alice came to pick him up, the idea of taking him home scared her. And his lack of consciousness from the time the car started through the turn onto their drive worried her more. Still, the doctors insisted he was ready to go home. Spending time in his everyday life, around his wife, family, and usual surroundings would do more to help him back on his feet than any extended hospital stay. As she pulled into the garage, however, she became concerned with what to do if he didn’t wake up. There was no way she would be able to carry his dead weight, and it was too cold out to leave him in the car. Thankfully, David's eyes crept open as the garage door closed.
“Home again, home again, jiggidy-jog,” Alice chimed.
David forced his right eye open lazily. “Home? What about Calvin?”
“Who's Calvin, dear? One of your doctors? We need to get you inside. Hold on and I'll come help you out of the car.”
David shook his head to scatter the cobwebs. “No—no I'll be fine,” he insisted. “Need a second to clear my head.”
Always strong-minded, David hated to have his abilities questioned. Enough of that went on at work, he always said. Slowly and deliberately, she gathered her purse and keys, shut her car door and strode the steps to the entry, pausing once more before entering, in case her husband did need her after all.
It took him a few minutes, but eventually David climbed out of the car on his own and hobbled back into his house. The kids were playing a board game in the family room; David's mother had come over to watch them and help. Ugh, as if my headache couldn't get any worse, he thought.
He lumbered up to his room, aided by his wife and was soon
back in the same bed that triggered his trip to the hospital in the first place. As he lay himself down on the welcoming mattress, he noticed a dent in the headboard where his melon cracked. The sight of it made him wince; though he couldn't recall the event, he was sure it had hurt like a son of a bitch.
“The doctors said you need as much rest as possible, so please, go to sleep,” Alice said in a comforting, yet disciplinary voice. Under normal circumstances the tone would have given him a little tingle, but these were not normal circumstances.
“What about Aid and Missy? I'd like to say hi to them—let them see I'm okay.”
“Sure –hold on a second and I'll fetch them.” Alice withdrew from the room and he soon heard her call downstairs to their two children. Immediately after her shouts, he heard their footsteps on the stairs. The pictures on the wall rattled as they pounded down the hallway and they were about to jump onto the bed when Alice stuck out her arm to stop them. “Daddy has a headache, kids. Give him a kiss and tell him you love him,” she directed. “Once he's feeling better you guys can all play.”
“I missed you, Daddy,” Missy wailed.
“We both missed you,” Aiden countered. “Are you going to be okay?”
“Absolutely.” Tears welled up in David's eyes. The sight of his entire family there before him was enough for him to thank God he was alive. “Daddy's a little sick and needs some sleep so he can feel better.”
“Do you have a cold?” Missy asked. That little curl of his four-year-old’s auburn bangs hung down past her eyes. As she wiped it away, David saw a hint of tears in her eyes as well.
“No, not a cold honey. I just bumped my head.”
“Oh good, I hate colds!” she replied.
“Me too.”
“Come on guys, time to let Daddy sleep,” Alice said as she ushered the kids out of the room. “You need anything?”
“Actually, I don't know if I'm going to be able to fall asleep right away, and my head is killing me. Can you turn on the TV so I can have something to focus on?”
Alice turned on the TV and flipped through the channels, waiting for David to pick something he liked.
“Stop!” he commanded as she turned on ESPN Classic. “Leave this on. I love watching the Red Sox at home.” His eyes fluttered with sleep. “There's just something I love about the big green wall at Fenway.”
SIXTEEN
FEELING LIKE
A HUNDRED BUCKS
“Mr. Sparks!” a peacefully feminine voice resonated from the shadows. “How nice of you to join us.”
David shook his head to clear the lingering clouds as the room emerged from his fog of sleep. How long he’d been cooped up here was anyone’s guess, but at least the bed was comfy. His breath caught at the sight of thick velvet drapes drawn back against a three-paned picture window, the mahogany four-post bed cradling him in a nest of thick cotton, and the expansive buffet of fruits and bottled mineral waters spread on a polished wood table cut from a single slab of ancient oak. Far from the prison he expected to wake in, this room was a vision of opulence.
“Take your time. Brush away those cobwebs. You’ve been gone quite a while.”
Dressed in a silk ivory gown suitable for a ball, the woman spoke with a kindness matching the smooth contours of her face. The soothing cadence of her voice held purpose yet kept David at ease—confident wherever he was, he was safe. No older than twenty-five, David found her quite beautiful, even with the few partially-hidden scars marring her left cheek and arm. They reminded David of knife wounds, and no matter how much makeup she applied over them, she would never hide them completely.
“I'm Bethany,” she said as she curtsied. “Welcome to my home.”
“This is your home? What is it you do?”
“I'm a woman of many persuasions, David, but above all I tend to the needs of The Cause. My home is a haven for its members, provided everyone who enters does so with caution and reverence.”
“I see. Where are the men who brought me here?” his voice quavered at the memory of how they treated him.
“Them? They've been dispatched. I must apologize for the way they handled the situation. I had requested they simply invite you, but Calvin thought otherwise,” she said. “And Calvin has final say in these matters.”
“May I?' David asked, pointing to the food.
“Oh, but of course. You must be famished! A shot of Fenzolex always brings on the most dreadful appetite—or so I'm told.”
David strolled nonchalantly to the table and its bounty of apples, pears, peaches and berries but once he began to eat, he dug in with voracity. The last time he ate anything even close to resembling food was the scone in Bandleshore and the portion of granola he had shared with Calvin, but that had been weeks ago.
“Eat up, David. You're not going to find fruits like this often. We're fairly limited here in the city for greenhouse space: most of this is smuggled in. Soon it will be back to nutrient paste though you may have grown accustomed to it by now, after such a long hospital stay. I hear it’s an acquired taste—but not one I’ve personally developed.”
David bit off a large chunk of a crimson red apple and turned as a man entered the room, dressed in the same threadbare suits the business men on the train wore. The formidable door, constructed of a dark rich wood, again likely mahogany, clicked quietly behind him. He whispered in Bethany's ear, and she nodded.
“I’m afraid I must be going David, but Calvin will be with you shortly. The news of your return has reached him, and I'm told he's eager to see you again.”
Bethany and the man left the room and David was once again alone. While he waited, he enjoyed a few additional berries, followed by a bottle of water that smelled like seawater, although it was not salty. He walked across the room and gazed through the transparent glass wall across the empty sea and watched the swells of the ocean stretch out into the far horizon. A deafening boom panicked him, as Calvin marched in, slamming the door behind him.
“David! I can't believe you're alive!” Whether the fanatical look in his eyes expressed excitement or irritated disbelief was unclear. “I'm sorry I almost killed you back there on the train. I should have told you what was happening, but I didn’t know if I could trust you. The last thing I needed was for you to somehow give away the game.”
At this point, David realized in a roundabout way, Calvin had attempted to murder him. Or at the very least, he had been fine with idea of letting David perish in the explosion. That this man so flippantly determined David's life—along with the lives of everyone else on the train—as disposable, roiled his stomach. Still, he was in a bind and needed something he could not discover on his own—and his memories were worth leaving this particular past alone.
“Well, now you can see I'm trustworthy. I'm here, aren't I?”
“David, we kidnapped you and brought you here.”
“Sure, but I didn't put up a fight. Didn't your goons tell you that? There was no reason to drug me, or whatever the hell your people did. I planned on finding you on my own.”
“Oh really? And why might that be?” He slipped his hand into his coat pocket and formed a grip around whatever hid inside.
“Because I find you intriguing—you and The Cause, that is,” David braced his expression, consuming every ounce of will not to break his composure in the face of this uncertain threat. “I'm not familiar with this place. After being here for a few weeks, I can honestly say I don't remember anything about Plasticity; I'm almost certain I've never been here before.”
Calvin removed his hand from his pocket and took a seat on the couch. “Sit down, David. Tell me more.”
“First: questions. How long has it been since the explosion?”
“Three weeks, four days, six hours and …” Calvin reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a brass pocket watch, “… seventeen minutes.”
“So then, I’ve been in a hospital for almost the entire last month. I don't remember how I got there, and I have no memory of what
happened for the first few weeks. I didn’t wake up until a few days ago. What I do know, is whatever they did to me, even if it saved my life, it was wrong. A violation.”
Calvin moved in closer, his eyes widening again. David swore drool seeped from the corners of his chapped lips.
“They dug around in my brain, Calvin. They told me they killed me and brought me back to life. I never gave them the right to do something like that, and I definitely didn’t give them permission to invade my privacy. This place,” David waved his hands outward, invoking the city itself. “This place is ... not respectable.”
“Oh, come now, David. You’ve hardly been outside the hospital. How would you know anything about Plasticity?”
“You’re right. I haven't spent any time in the city, but I've seen what people consider normal here and what the government does. If they can do something like this to me, I would hate to see what they do to those who openly disagree with their systems.”
“No, David, you definitely would not want to see that,” Calvin agreed.
“I want to leave here, Calvin. I want to leave Plasticity.”
“Leave? I suppose it’s possible… but remember, there's nowhere else to go. The Grasslands are still inhospitable, and you do not want to live in the cities—they're overrun with horrible creatures. There's always Bandleshore, I suppose ... but you've seen what that place is like as well.”
“Doesn't sound like there are many safe options.”
“Because there aren't, unless ...”
“Unless what?”
“Well, David, there's a reason I had you brought here—and no, it wasn't to kill you.”
“I figured that out.”
“What do you know about The Cause?”
David shook his head. “Not much—primarily what you've told me. I heard some mention of it in the hospital, but when I inquired further, people shook it off as meaningless.”
The Unfortunate Expiration of Mr David S Sparks Page 7
