“All right, all right,” I said.
“You know me,” he said. “How many kids do I have?”
“Five,” I said.
“What are their names?” he said.
“Mick, Todd, Karen, Lisa, Phoebe,” I said.
“Am I a monster?” he said. “Do I remember birthdays around here? When a certain individual got athlete’s foot on his groin on a Sunday, did a certain other individual drive over to Rexall and pick up a prescription, paying for it with his own personal money?”
That was a nice thing he’d done, but it seemed kind of unprofessional to bring it up now.
“Jeff,” Abnesti said. “What do you want me to say here? Do you want me to say that your Fridays are at risk? I can easily say that.”
Which was cheap. My Fridays meant a lot to me, and he knew that. Fridays I got to Skype Mom.
“How long do we give you?” Abnesti said.
“Five minutes,” I said.
“How about we make it ten?” Abnesti said.
Mom always looked heartsick when our time was up. It had almost killed her when they arrested me. The trial had almost killed her. She’d spent her savings to get me out of real jail and in here. When I was a kid, she had long brown hair, past her waist. During the trial she cut it. Then it went gray. Now it was just a white poof about the size of a cap.
“Drip on?” Abnesti said.
“Acknowledge,” I said.
“OK to pep up your language centers?” he said.
“Fine,” I said.
“Heather, hello?” he said.
“Good morning!” Heather said.
“Drip on?” he said.
“Acknowledge,” Heather said.
Abnesti used his remote.
The Darkenfloxx™ started flowing. Soon Heather was softly crying. Then was up and pacing. Then jaggedly crying. A little hysterical, even.
“I don’t like this,” she said, in a quaking voice.
Then she threw up in the trash can.
“Speak, Jeff,” Abnesti said to me. “Speak a lot, speak in detail. Let’s make something useful of this, shall we?”
Everything in my drip felt Grade A. Suddenly I was waxing poetic. I was waxing poetic re what Heather was doing, and waxing poetic re my feelings about what Heather was doing. Basically, what I was feeling was: Every human is born of man and woman. Every human, at birth, is, or at least has the potential to be, beloved of his/her mother/father. Thus every human is worthy of love. As I watched Heather suffer, a great tenderness suffused my body, a tenderness hard to distinguish from a sort of vast existential nausea; to wit, why are such beautiful beloved vessels made slaves to so much pain? Heather presented as a bundle of pain receptors. Heather’s mind was fluid and could be ruined (by pain, by sadness). Why? Why was she made this way? Why so fragile?
Poor child, I was thinking, poor girl. Who loved you? Who loves you?
“Hang in there, Jeff,” Abnesti said. “Verlaine! What do you think? Any vestige of romantic love in Jeff’s Verbal Commentary?”
“I’d say no,” Verlaine said over the P.A. “That’s all just pretty much basic human feeling right there.”
“Excellent,” Abnesti said. “Time remaining?”
“Two minutes,” Verlaine said.
I found what happened next very hard to watch. Under the influence of the Verbaluce™, the VeriTalk™, and the ChatEase™, I also found it impossible not to narrate.
In each Workroom was a couch, a desk, and a chair, all, by design, impossible to disassemble. Heather now began disassembling her impossible-to-disassemble chair. Her face was a mask of rage. She drove her head into the wall. Like a wrathful prodigy, Heather, beloved of someone, managed, in her great sadness-fueled rage, to disassemble the chair while continuing to drive her head into the wall.
“Jesus,” Verlaine said.
“Verlaine, buck up,” Abnesti said. “Jeff, stop crying. Contrary to what you might think, there’s not much data in crying. Use your words. Don’t make this in vain.”
I used my words. I spoke volumes, was precise. I described and redescribed what I was feeling as I watched Heather do what she now began doing, intently, almost beautifully, to her face/head with one of the chair legs.
In his defense, Abnesti was not in such great shape himself: breathing hard, cheeks candy-red, as he tapped the screen of his iMac nonstop with a pen, something he did when stressed.
“Time,” he finally said, and cut the Darkenfloxx™ off with his remote. “Fuck. Get in there, Verlaine. Hustle it.”
Verlaine hustled into Small Workroom 2.
“Talk to me, Sammy,” Abnesti said.
Verlaine felt for Heather’s pulse, then raised his hands, palms up, so that he looked like Jesus, except shocked instead of beatific, and also he had his glasses up on top of his head.
“Are you kidding me?” Abnesti said.
“What now?” Verlaine said. “What do I—”
“Are you fricking kidding me?” Abnesti said.
Abnesti burst out of his chair, shoved me out of the way, and flew through the door into Small Workroom 2.
VIII
I returned to my Domain.
At three, Verlaine came on the P.A.
“Jeff,” he said. “Please return to the Spiderhead.”
I returned to the Spiderhead.
“We’re sorry you had to see that, Jeff,” Abnesti said.
“That was unexpected,” Verlaine said.
“Unexpected plus unfortunate,” Abnesti said. “And sorry I shoved you.”
“Is she dead?” I said.
“Well, she’s not the best,” Verlaine said.
“Look, Jeff, these things happen,” Abnesti said. “This is science. In science we explore the unknown. It was unknown what five minutes on Darkenfloxx™ would do to Heather. Now we know. The other thing we know, per Verlaine’s assessment of your commentary, is that you really, for sure, do not harbor any residual romantic feelings for Heather. That’s a big deal, Jeff. A beacon of hope at a sad time for all. Even as Heather was, so to speak, going down to the sea in her ship, you remained totally unwavering in terms of continuing to not romantically love her. My guess is ProtComm’s going to be like, ‘Wow, Utica’s really leading the pack in terms of providing some mind-blowing new data on ED289/290.’”
It was quiet in the Spiderhead.
“Verlaine, go out,” Abnesti said. “Go do your bit. Make things ready.”
Verlaine went out.
“Do you think I liked that?” Abnesti said.
“You didn’t seem to,” I said.
“Well, I didn’t,” Abnesti said. “I hated it. I’m a person. I have feelings. Still, personal sadness aside, that was good. You did terrific overall. We all did terrific. Heather especially did terrific. I honor her. Let’s just—let’s see this thing through, shall we? Let’s complete it. Complete the next portion of our Confirmation Trial.”
Into Small Workroom 4 came Rachel.
IX
“Are we going to Darkenfloxx™ Rachel now?” I said.
“Think, Jeff,” Abnesti said. “How can we know that you love neither Rachel nor Heather if we only have data regarding your reaction to what just now happened to Heather? Use your noggin. You are not a scientist, but Lord knows you work around scientists all day. Drip on?”
I did not say “Acknowledge.”
“What’s the problem, Jeff?” Abnesti said.
“I don’t want to kill Rachel,” I said.
“Well, who does?” Abnesti said. “Do I? Do you, Verlaine?”
“No,” Verlaine said over the P.A.
“Jeff, maybe you’re overthinking this,” Abnesti said. “Is it possible the Darkenfloxx™ will kill Rachel? Sure. We have the Heather precedent. On the other hand, Rachel may be stronger. She seems a little larger.”
“She’s actually a little smaller,” Verlaine said.
“Well, maybe she’s tougher,” Abnesti said.
“We’re going to weight-adjust her
dosage,” Verlaine said. “So.”
“Thanks, Verlaine,” Abnesti said. “Thanks for clearing that up.”
“Maybe show him the file,” Verlaine said.
Abnesti handed me Rachel’s file.
Verlaine came back in.
“Read it and weep,” he said.
Per Rachel’s file, she had stolen jewelry from her mother, a car from her father, cash from her sister, statues from their church. She’d gone to jail for drugs. After four times in jail for drugs, she’d gone to rehab for drugs, then to rehab for prostitution, then to what they call rehab-refresh, for people who’ve been in rehab so many times they are basically immune. But she must have been immune to the rehab-refresh, too, because after that came her biggie: a triple murder—her dealer, the dealer’s sister, the dealer’s sister’s boyfriend.
Reading that made me feel a little funny that we’d fucked and I’d loved her.
But I still didn’t want to kill her.
“Jeff,” Abnesti said. “I know you’ve done a lot of work on this with Mrs. Lacey. On killing and so forth. But this is not you. This is us.”
“It’s not even us,” Verlaine said. “It’s science.”
“The mandates of science,” Abnesti said. “Plus the dictates.”
“Sometimes science sucks,” Verlaine said.
“On the one hand, Jeff,” Abnesti said, “a few minutes of unpleasantness for Heather—”
“Rachel,” Verlaine said.
“A few minutes of unpleasantness for Rachel,” Abnesti said, “years of relief for literally tens of thousands of underloving or overloving folks.”
“Do the math, Jeff,” Verlaine said.
“Being good in small ways is easy,” Abnesti said. “Doing the huge good things, that’s harder.”
“Drip on?” Verlaine said. “Jeff?”
I did not say “Acknowledge.”
“Fuck it, enough,” Abnesti said. “Verlaine, what’s the name of that one? The one where I give him an order and he obeys it?”
“Docilryde™,” Verlaine said.
“Is there Docilryde™ in his MobiPak™?” Abnesti said.
“There’s Docilryde™ in every MobiPak™,” Verlaine said.
“Does he need to say ‘Acknowledge’?” Abnesti said.
“Docilryde™’s a Class C, so—” Verlaine said.
“See, that, to me, makes zero sense,” Abnesti said. “What good’s an obedience drug if we need his permission to use it?”
“We just need a waiver,” Verlaine said.
“How long does that shit take?” Abnesti said.
“We fax Albany, they fax us back,” Verlaine said.
“Come on, come on, make haste,” Abnesti said, and they went out, leaving me alone in the Spiderhead.
X
It was sad. It gave me a sad, defeated feeling to think that soon they’d be back and would Docilryde™ me, and I’d say “Acknowledge,” smiling agreeably the way a person smiles on Docilryde™, and then the Darkenfloxx™ would flow, into Rachel, and I would begin describing, in that rapid, robotic way one describes on Verbaluce™/VeriTalk™/ChatEase™, the things Rachel would, at that time, begin doing to herself.
It was like all I had to do to be a killer again was sit there and wait.
Which was a hard pill to swallow, after my work with Mrs. Lacey.
“Violence finished, anger no more,” she’d make me say, over and over. Then she’d have me do a Detailed Remembering re my fateful night.
I was nineteen. Mike Appel was seventeen. We were both wasto. All night he’d been giving me grief. He was smaller, younger, less popular. Then we were out front of Frizzy’s, rolling around on the ground. He was quick. He was mean. I was losing. I couldn’t believe it. I was bigger, older, yet losing? Around us, watching, was basically everybody we knew. Then he had me on my back. Someone laughed. Someone said, “Shit, poor Jeff.” Nearby was a brick. I grabbed it, glanced Mike in the head with it. Then was on top of him.
Mike gave. That is, there on his back, scalp bleeding, he gave, by shooting me a certain look, like, Dude, come on, we’re not all that serious about this, are we?
We were.
I was.
I don’t even know why I did it.
It was like, with the drinking and the being a kid and the nearly losing, I’d been put on a drip called, like, TemperBerst or something.
InstaRaje.
LifeRooner.
“Hey, guys, hello!” Rachel said. “What are we up to today?”
There was her fragile head, her undamaged face, one arm lifting a hand to scratch a cheek, legs bouncing with nerves, peasant skirt bouncing, too, clogged feet crossed under the hem.
Soon all that would be just a lump on the floor.
I had to think.
Why were they going to Darkenfloxx™ Rachel? So they could hear me describe it. If I wasn’t here to describe it, they wouldn’t do it. How could I make it so I wouldn’t be here? I could leave. How could I leave? There was only one door out of the Spiderhead, which was autolocked, and on the other side was either Barry or Hans, with that electric wand called the DisciStick™. Could I wait until Abnesti came in, wonk him, try to race past Barry or Hans, make a break for the Main Door?
Any weapons in the Spiderhead? No, just Abnesti’s birthday mug, a pair of running shoes, a roll of breath mints, his remote.
His remote?
What a dope. That was supposed to be on his belt at all times. Otherwise one of us might help ourselves to whatever we found, via Inventory Directory, in our MobiPaks™: some Bonviv™, maybe, some BlissTyme™, some SpeedErUp™.
Some Darkenfloxx™.
Jesus. That was one way to leave.
Scary, though.
Just then, in Small Workroom 4, Rachel, I guess thinking the Spiderhead empty, got up and did this happy little shuffle, like she was some cheerful farmer chick who’d just stepped outside to find the hick she was in love with coming up the road with a calf under his arm or whatever.
Why was she dancing? No reason.
Just alive, I guess.
Time was short.
The remote was well labelled.
Good old Verlaine.
I used it, dropped it down the heat vent, in case I changed my mind, then stood there like, I can’t believe I just did that.
My MobiPak™ whirred.
The Darkenfloxx™ flowed.
Then came the horror: worse than I’d ever imagined. Soon my arm was about a mile down the heat vent. Then I was staggering around the Spiderhead, looking for something, anything. In the end, here’s how bad it got: I used a corner of the desk.
What’s death like?
You’re briefly unlimited.
I sailed right out through the roof.
And hovered above it, looking down. Here was Rogan, checking his neck in the mirror. Here was Keith, squat-thrusting in his underwear. Here was Ned Riley, here was B. Troper, here was Gail Orley, Stefan DeWitt, killers all, all bad, I guess, although, in that instant, I saw it differently. At birth, they’d been charged by God with the responsibility of growing into total fuck-ups. Had they chosen this? Was it their fault, as they tumbled out of the womb? Had they aspired, covered in placental blood, to grow into harmers, dark forces, life-enders? In that first holy instant of breath/awareness (tiny hands clutching and unclutching), had it been their fondest hope to render (via gun, knife, or brick) some innocent family bereft? No; and yet their crooked destinies had lain dormant within them, seeds awaiting water and light to bring forth the most violent, life-poisoning flowers, said water/light actually being the requisite combination of neurological tendency and environmental activation that would transform them (transform us!) into earth’s offal, murderers, and foul us with the ultimate, unwashable transgression.
Wow, I thought, was there some Verbaluce™ in that drip or what?
But no.
This was all me now.
I got snagged, found myself stuck on a facility gutter, an
d squatted there like an airy gargoyle. I was there but was also everywhere. I could see it all: a clump of leaves in the gutter beneath my see-through foot; Mom, poor Mom, at home in Rochester, scrubbing the shower, trying to cheer herself via thin hopeful humming; a deer near the dumpster, suddenly alert to my spectral presence; Mike Appel’s mom, also in Rochester, a bony, distraught checkmark occupying a slender strip of Mike’s bed; Rachel below in Small Workroom 4, drawn to the one-way mirror by the sounds of my death; Abnesti and Verlaine rushing into the Spiderhead; Verlaine kneeling to begin CPR.
Night was falling. Birds were singing. Birds were, it occurred to me to say, enacting a frantic celebration of day’s end. They were manifesting as the earth’s bright-colored nerve endings, the sun’s descent urging them into activity, filling them individually with life-nectar, the life-nectar then being passed into the world, out of each beak, in the form of that bird’s distinctive song, which was, in turn, an accident of beak shape, throat shape, breast configuration, brain chemistry: some birds blessed in voice, others cursed; some squawking, others rapturous.
From somewhere, something kind asked, Would you like to go back? It’s completely up to you. Your body appears salvageable.
No, I thought, no, thanks, I’ve had enough.
My only regret was Mom. I hoped someday, in some better place, I’d get a chance to explain it to her, and maybe she’d be proud of me, one last time, after all these years.
From across the woods, as if by common accord, birds left their trees and darted upward. I joined them, flew among them, they did not recognize me as something apart from them, and I was happy, so happy, because for the first time in years, and forevermore, I had not killed, and never would.
KELLY LUCE
Amorometer
Kelly Luce has a degree in cognitive science. She lived and worked in Japan and received fellowships from MacDowell Colony, Ucross Foundation, Kerouac Project, and others. Her work has appeared in the Chicago Tribune, Salon, O, and the Southern Review, among others. She recently received her MFA in writing and works as a contributing editor for Electric Literature. She has a novel upcoming from Farrar, Straus & Giroux. She lives in Santa Cruz, California.
Invaders: 22 Tales From the Outer Limits of Literature Page 30
