“I mean you no harm,” the voice said. “I met you earlier at the bridge. My name is Williams. I’d like to talk with you. The person who was standing lookout is no longer a threat.”
“Come on in,” I replied, “although keeping your hands up and empty of weapons is the best way to ensure you keep breathing.”
“I will do as you ask,” Williams said. “I am unarmed.”
He came into the room with his hands up, and I came out of the room, covering him with my pistol.
“I assure you, I am unarmed,” he said. “May I turn on a light?”
“Go ahead,” I said.
He flipped on the overhead light and smiled as he saw me. “Thank you,” he said.
“For what?”
“You just won me a gallon of fuel,” he replied. “My partner—” he nodded toward the door, “—bet me that they’d take you out. I bet on you.”
“What?” I asked, the pistol never moving from his chest. “You knew all these assholes would attack us, and you just let them?”
Williams shrugged. “One of two things was going to happen. Either you would kill them off—as you have—showing that your Mr. Boudreaux is fit to rule, or they would have killed you off, proving he wasn’t.” He shrugged again. “The fact is, if you couldn’t take care of these assholes, you—and he—probably weren’t fit to deal with the other problems this island—and this world—have right now.” He smiled, and it looked a lot like mine—the look of a predator. “Besides,” he continued, “I bet on you—I thought you could do it. If you want to be mad at someone, be mad at Brown. He’s the one who bet against you.”
“You did, huh? Bet on me?”
“I did. When I saw you at the bridge, I had a good idea you were an Agent.”
“Well, that’s great and all, except for one thing—I’m not an Agent.”
Williams waved a hand at the devastation throughout the room. “The evidence would suggest otherwise.” He paused, then added, “Maybe not an Agent, then, but at least you have corporate training.”
“The fact of the matter is, I don’t know who I am. I woke up in a back room in New Orleans right after the war, with no memory of who I am. None.”
“Interesting…” the man said. “Hey, Brown,” he called, “Get in here. Slowly.”
The other man from the bridge came in. If he was armed, he at least had the courtesy to put his weapons away. I holstered my pistol and took off the goggles, which were hurting my head.
“Hi,” Brown said. “I’d say it was good to see you again, but you cost me a gallon of gas.”
“I heard,” I replied, “although I have to say I’m happy to disappoint you.”
“What’s up?” Brown asked his partner.
“Fred here woke up in a New Orleans back room right after the war, with no memory of who he was.”
Brown turned and studied me. “Really?” he asked. “That’s interesting. No memory at all? Not even a childhood memory of a time or a place?”
“None,” I said, shaking my head. “It’s a clean slate.”
“Interesting,” Brown said.
“That’s what your partner said,” I noted, starting to get a little annoyed with their secrecy.
“What’s interesting?” George asked, coming out of the other room, where he’d been barricaded in. He shut the door, probably hoping the kids couldn’t listen in.
“Your friend’s history,” Williams replied. “How long have you known him?”
“A couple of months. Since right after the war.”
“So, nothing before his memory loss?”
George shook his head. “Why?”
“What have you noticed about him?” Brown asked.
“You mean, like being handy with a gun or knife?”
“That’s a start. What about leadership? Does he like to be in charge, or would he want to be someone…a little more outside the normal chain of command?”
George chuckled. “I told him that he should be the one in charge here, and he didn’t want any part of it. Said he wanted to go find out who he was.”
Brown and Williams looked at each other and a wry grin passed between them.
“What’s so funny?” I asked, my annoyance level building quickly. If I didn’t start getting some answers soon, I was going to shoot someone. Probably Brown; he seemed the slower of the two.
“He could no more be the leader of this endeavor than we could. His training—and even if his brain doesn’t remember it, his body does—is in killing people and solving problems. He’s an Agent—just like us—and organizational leadership just isn’t his thing.”
It’s funny, the people you meet in this Fallen World.
* * * * *
Chapter Twenty-Four
We moved into the kitchen so we could sit down. After all I’d been through today—complete with a good amount of blood loss—followed by the revelation I was an Agent, it was either sit down or fall down.
“So if I’m an Agent,” I said, “not that I’m agreeing with you, but if I were one, how is it that I don’t remember any of it?”
“For the same reason we don’t remember our other lives,” Williams said. “Part of the process of creating an Agent is that your former personality—everything about who you were and all your memories—are stripped away, and then the Agent psyche is imprinted over the top of it. While you’re an Agent, you’re an Agent. Then, when your mission is over, the Agent psyche is removed and all of your old memories are given back to you via the imprinter so you can go back to being who you were again.”
“That’s not me, though!” I exclaimed. “I don’t have either my old memories or the memories of an Agent.”
Brown shrugged. “Obviously, the process got interrupted for some reason. Maybe it was the war; maybe there was some other big power hit, although most facilities that do imprinting have a backup power source.”
“Even in the back room of some weird import/export operation?”
“That’s where you were when you woke up?” Williams asked.
“Yeah.”
“Oh, well that makes sense, anyway,” Williams said. “Sometimes, Obsidian would sneak an imprinter into the territory of one of the other companies, and then the Agent would travel to that place as his normal self—not someone who would have any of the characteristics of an Agent—and then they’d do the imprinting there. That way, they can sneak the agent into the target area without being noticed.”
Brown nodded.
“I can see that, I guess,” I said. “But why don’t I have either set of memories, then?”
Williams shrugged. “Like Brown said, something must have interrupted the process. When you woke up, was there something like a tanning bed nearby?”
I nodded.
“That was the imprinter. Your state—somewhere in between person and Agent—is a result of an incomplete imprinting. You need to go back and finish the process.”
“He could be imprinted as an agent anywhere, though,” Brown said.
“True,” Williams agreed with a nod. “But what if he wasn’t becoming an Agent? What if he was coming back from a mission and was getting his civilian psyche back?”
“Oh. He’d have to do it at that imprinter.”
“Exactly.”
“Wait,” I said, not entirely following. “What are you saying? That in order to become ‘me’ again, I would need to go back to the imprinter I woke up in?”
“Yeah,” Williams said. “That’s exactly what I’m saying.”
“Well, shit. That isn’t happening, because when I left there, the building was on fire. I set off a thermal charge as a distraction while I was trying to get away…that building is gone.”
“Well, then there isn’t going to be anyway to get your psyche back,” Williams said. “Not that I know of, anyway.”
“Unless Obsidian keeps a spare copy somewhere in case of something like this,” Brown noted.
Williams shrugged. “That makes sense. Of course, th
at being said, I don’t know if Obsidian would have done it.”
“Who would know?” I asked.
“Mr. Boudreaux would have known, certainly,” Williams replied. He looked at George. “The other one; not this one.”
“In the interim—until he gets back—what do I do?” I asked.
“You could find an imprinter and go the rest of the way to Agent,” Brown said. “You have already been prepped for psyche implant. That way, you’d have your full knowledge of your skills, not just the muscle memory, like you do now.”
“You mean, I’d actually understand what it is I can and can’t do? Like using weapons and—”
“There are a variety of skills,” Williams interrupted. “We don’t talk about them in front of people who aren’t cleared for that information, though, and Mr. Boudreaux’s status is still…to be determined. He doesn’t currently have a need to know.” I must have looked frustrated, for he added, “Suffice it to say, though, the list of skills that we have—” he looked at Brown, who nodded, “are extensive. Anything from destruction…insurrection…to skills in the bedroom.”
“Really? Bedroom skills?”
Brown shrugged. “You never know what you’re going to need to win the hearts and minds of someone. Remember those old spy movies? How did the spy win the hearts of the beautiful enemy agents?”
I nodded. “Okay, I get it. Until I get my own memories back, how do I get my Agent memories?”
“Well, you could have used the one here, like both of us did,” Williams said, “but it broke. We’re both stuck in Agent mode until Mr. Boudreaux gets back.” He shrugged. “I don’t know where the next closest one is. Somewhere up north, I’m sure.”
“Charlotte, North Carolina, would have had one,” Brown said. “That’s where corporate HQ was.”
“Yeah, but they got nuked,” Williams said. “They had to have. I have a hard time believing Obsidian’s HQ is still standing.”
“True,” Brown agreed. “It would have to be further north of that, then.”
“What about Miami?” George asked. “Didn’t Obsidian have an office there?”
“They did,” Williams agreed. “That’s why it got nuked, hard. I heard the whole area, even deep into the swamps, is radioactive. I wouldn’t go there. Your best bet is to find Mr. Boudreaux.”
“I thought everyone here assumed he was dead,” I said.
“We do,” Williams replied. “Still, that’s the best chance you’re going to have. He would know where any of the imprinters were, and if there were one that had your original psyche. Most of them probably don’t.”
I nodded. All of that seemed to make sense in a perverted sort of way.
Sometimes you have to find a dead man to really live in this Fallen World.
* * * * *
Chapter Twenty-Five
“Okay, so that’s what I’m going to do,” I said. “I’ll go find Mr. Boudreaux, the elder.”
“Good luck,” Williams said. “I have to be honest with you, though. The odds on him still being alive are pretty long.”
“The odds that you’ll find him are even longer,” Brown noted. “Or that you’ll live long enough to make it to wherever he is. And then that you’ll make it back.”
“True,” Williams said with a nod. “You’re not even a real Agent. You may have some of the muscle memory, and some of the training may still be in your brain, somewhere, but you don’t have active memory of it.”
“I know two people who do, though,” I replied with a smile. “Would you guys like to come along and help protect little ol’ me? It sounds like that’s the only way you’ll get your old personalities back, too.”
“There’s only one thing wrong with that,” Williams said. I raised an eyebrow. “That assumes we want our old personalities back. I can’t speak for Brown, but I don’t want the old me back—not now anyway. I’ve never met the old me, you understand, but I can tell you for a fact that he doesn’t have my skills. In today’s world, I need the new me to stay alive. It also lets me help others stay alive and maintain this sanctuary. Maybe someday we’ll bring back the old world—complete with all its issues, but all its strengths, too—but that won’t be for a while, and this world needs me to be Williams until that time.”
“While I agree with my partner,” Brown said, “there’s a second factor in play here, too. Mr. Boudreaux, our legitimate boss, told us to stay here and protect the colony, for that’s what this really is now. We’re an island of civilization among the ocean of barbarism and chaos that surrounds us. We were told to ‘stay,’ and to go against that would violate our orders. It would lead to…consequences if we were to do other than as we were told.”
I pondered that a minute. “That’s why you supported that piece of shit, Frank, then, isn’t it?”
Brown nodded, then sighed. “Yes, he was a piece of shit, but he was left in charge, and our orders were to support the legitimate person in charge. While he was alive, that was Frank.”
“And now that he’s dead?” I asked.
He jerked a thumb toward George. “Now that’s him. Williams and I talked about it and came to the conclusion that if you defeated the play on your lives by Frank’s supporters, that made him the legitimate successor to Frank, especially since he was related to Mr. Boudreaux.”
“So I don’t have to worry about coming back and finding you’ve killed him and assumed the leadership of this colony?”
Williams laughed. “Nope; that ain’t us, man. I can take over and lead a foreign country, but not my own—it’s not in my programming. Besides, my mission orders are to support the legitimate leader; I can’t take over. It would lead to the same consequences Brown mentioned earlier.”
I looked over to Brown. “And you have the same programming?”
“My programming is slightly different from Williams—we have different imprint psyches, so we’re different in what we can do and how. Still, though, my mission parameters are to support the legitimate authority, and I will support Mr. Boudreaux up to the point that the original Mr. Boudreaux shows back up—if he does—then my allegiance will switch back to him.”
“As will mine,” Williams added. “In the morning, though, we will make it known that we support the new Mr. Boudreaux, and one or the other of us will tag along with him for the next week or two until he gets established, in order to prevent a reoccurrence of that.” He nodded toward the other room.
“We will also help get you up to speed on what’s what, and who works for you,” Brown added, looking at George. “I’ll start with the cleanup crew—we’ll get someone up here right away to clean up the bodies and mess. The plasterers and the sliding glass door installers will probably have to wait until tomorrow, but it’s warm enough that you and your family should be okay until then.
“Speaking of family,” Brown continued, “we’ll also get someone as a protective detail on each of your children. We are limited in the number of Agents we have, but we have some pretty good ‘normals’ running around as well. They will be able to see to your family’s safety.”
“Can they also teach his daughter to shoot?” I asked.
Brown nodded once. “That can be done, too, if Mr. Boudreaux wishes it.”
“I do,” George replied.
“Then it will be so,” Brown replied. “And, with that, I think we’re finished here for the night. Anything else can wait until the morning. I would like to get the cleaners up here so your children don’t have to see the dead bodies or blood and guts everywhere. They won’t ever have a normal childhood, but they will have the best one possible in the current world.”
The two Agents nodded, got up, and left, leaving us to our thoughts.
“I understand your need to find out who you are,” George said, “but can you stay around for a few days, just to make sure everything goes as advertised? While Brown and Williams seem like good guys, I trust you a lot more than I do them.”
“Better the devil you know?”
“You’re not a devil, nor are they—you’re all products of a corporate mentality gone crazy. If what they say is true, they—and you—are exactly what this world needs to help people pull it back together again.”
“Um, I hate to mention it, but ‘the people pulling it back together again’ now includes you. You’re the one in charge of this mess now.”
George sighed. “Yeah, I know. Even though I have no idea what I’m doing.”
“You can still run away to Bayou La Batre or somewhere else.”
“And give up private bodyguards for my children?” George asked with a smile. “Not in this world. I’ll struggle along somehow.”
“Lean on the Agents,” I suggested. “Even though they may not be programmed to lead, they obviously have training in how to run an organization. I’ll go find Boudreaux and be back soon.”
George gave me a wry smile. “We both know the odds of you returning are small. They’re even smaller that you’ll find Boudreaux and the information you’re looking for.”
“Still, though, I have to try.”
“I understand.”
Although an old world concept, “finding yourself” is just as important in this new Fallen World.
* * * * *
Chapter Twenty-Six
“It’s not too late to change your mind and come along.” I said to the group that had come to the base of the bridge off the island’s east end to see me off. George and his kids, Williams, Brown, Johnson, and Jones looked somewhat awkwardly at me and each other.
“Up there?” Williams finally asked with a smile, jerking his head to the north. “No thanks. I’m fast, but even I can’t outrun a bullet. I might dodge a couple, but eventually, if you throw enough of them my way, one of them’s going to hit me. Do enough damage to me, and even I can be taken down.” He feigned a shudder. “I’ll stay here, thanks.”
I turned toward Brown. “Don’t look at me,” he replied with a smile. “My job is to support this idiot.” He nodded toward Williams. “And even I can’t help you up there,” he added, “if half of what I’ve heard is true. Be careful and trust no one.”
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