~~~~
Chapter 31
The New Place
How it happened was a terrifying mystery to me at the time. Why it happened frightened me even more. But it happened, and we were gone.
The last thing I remembered before this was falling asleep comfortably on my bed of palm leaves in the hut. And now, who knows how many hours later, I was being restrained with belts to a moving bed, most likely a gurney, being pulled or pushed through a hallway of gray cinderblocks with many old and flickering lights on the ceiling. I heard the deep tone of a man’s badly muffled voice all throughout the hallway. The gurney stopped and all went dark. Everything, including my mind.
I woke again. This time there was nothing before me but a single dim light off to the left of the room. Everything else was pure deep black. I still could not move. The sound was blacker than the light, as silence ripped my senses apart. I heard a chair faintly creak.
“Hello?” I nervously inquired.
The creaking of the chair happened again, this time slightly louder. Then came the voice.
“Awake,” he said.
I still could not see a person. “Is this a nightmare? Is it? Because if it is, these belts won’t hold me down. I will break them like the Incredible Hulk rips his shirt off when angry. You don’t want to see me angry.”
“Aren’t we all angry?”
I saw the image of a wide man, not obese but quite stocky with a pronounced belly, stand up from beside the table on which the lamp rested. My vision was coming together with each second. Even so, the rest of the room remained a cauldron of darkness.
“Who are you?” I said, my voice the opposite of sure.
“You are a person who can talk to another person in person,” he said. “You are the new generation. And I am the new generation. Ours is a new generation.”
“Oh, shut up!” I barked. “Just get me out of these straps and talk to me like a human! You haven’t talked to a human in a long time, after all.”
He walked toward me. I could tell a light shown behind me in a manner that only illuminated me, not any other part of the room. If this were an alien abduction like it appeared to be, I could expect an anal probe.
“My name is Ash Ford,” he calmly stated.
“Ashford?” I returned.
“No, not Ashford. Ash, Ford. Two words. Two names.”
“Why not Ashford?”
The man became perplexed, wondering why plucky sarcasm replaced the certain fear he’d anticipated. “It’s Ashley Isaac Ford,” he said more loudly.
“You sound like a super villain.”
“It’s only a name.”
“No, the way you talk sounds all super villainy. What are you trying to pull off, Ash Ford? Because it’s not working.”
He shook his head and put his hand over my mouth. It smelled like clams.
“Listen to me. You are restrained because I don’t want you to squirm if your Ire turns on. I will remove my hand, upon which time you will tell me three things. Your name, the last time you felt the Ire, and why you are not scared by your current circumstance.”
His hand was removed from my mouth.
“Well, I’m not scared because you’re not scary. Also, I have nothing left to lose anymore, including a meaningful life. The entire Yakuza could be here with knives to my throat and I wouldn’t be scared. Hell, at this point I would welcome it.”
“That was the third question,” he said, more agitated.
“I don’t care about any fucking order you try to place my forced answers. And I haven’t felt the Ire in about a week or so.”
“Please, sir. Your name.”
“Bill Clinton,” I said.
“Are you being truthful?”
“No. My name is Punky Brewster.”
Ash slammed his hands down on either side of my head onto the gurney. “Name!”
“Fine, fine. It’s Wallace. Wallace Auker. That’s my real name, Ashford.” I loved agitating him, largely due to the fact that he was now scaring me when I wanted nothing more than to be void of any fear, especially by such a clichéd act from a man who honestly portrayed the intimidation factor of a cupcake.
“I have never heard that name before,” he said.
“Of course you haven’t. It’s unusual. My parents were unusual.”
“I mean in our records.”
“Of course you haven’t heard it in your records. Have you been asleep for twenty years, Ash Ford? Records went bye-bye long ago when the Ire hit. Not even the CA could keep good records. I’m known to nobody.”
“Then you—”
“No,” I interrupted. “You get the questions now.”
“Very well.”
“Why am I here? What’s the purpose for you taking me from the island in Louisiana? And where the hell is this?”
“You are currently in a testing facility beneath the hallowed grounds of Burbont, Missouri.”
“Third question answered first, I see. Okay then, what the hell is so hallowed about Burbont, Missouri?”
“Centralized Authority research,” Ash said. “We have been under the city here for thirteen years fashioning data to better suit humanity.”
“You speak as though you use a needle and thread when making this data. Careful, Ashford. It may not fit me and I’d have to go to a tailor to let it out.”
“You joke so much, Mr. Auker. And contrary to what you thought, I am not a villain.”
“Then stop talking like a villain.”
“I am a representative of the Centralized Authority attempting to understand your actions over the past two weeks.”
“Two weeks?”
Two weeks? I was in Oklahoma two weeks ago.
“Have you been following us, Ashford?”
“Ah, I see you’ve finally acknowledged the other in your party. Del Gregory, was it?”
“What did you do to Gene?” I was quickly becoming livid.
“Eugene del Gregory is here, and he is safe. I’m surprised it has taken you this long to mention your companion.”
“I’m sorry, but being abducted and forced to answer questions in a dimly-lit room and being told it was done through benevolence makes my brain exchange priorities. And fuck you, by the way, Ashford. Fuck you and your whatever this is thing. Torture.”
“I will leave, Mr. Auker. I will return later when you are less agitated. Maybe then we can discuss the fact that we are currently discussing anything face-to-face. Yes, it’s a new day, and you seem to have forgotten that in your wrath.”
“And you seem to have forgotten that I said fuck you, which usually means get the fuck out of my sight. Now go!”
He left. He gloriously left. I hated that man. And he smelled bad.
This facility, this wondrous subterranean palace created by the Centralized Authority, was merely a crypt. I felt it. I felt like I would die down here. And while it was true that I was not afraid of death anymore, I realized now that I was kind of lying to myself. At the very least, I didn’t want to die down here in this basement-esque toilet of a location.
I was beginning to form a picture of where I wanted to die. On a plain without trees, lots of green grass, maybe some flowers, in the middle of the day, and naked. That’s how I wanted to die. Peaceful yes, unbound yes, and all around beautiful. And so I decided that would be my aim. After all I’d been through, my biggest goal in life was to die in a field with grass and sunshine. Lame of course, but it would have to do. I didn’t want to be there.
This would require some patience. As it stood, I was strapped to a table like a science experiment under the guise of peaceful research. I’d heard of alien abductions with less violent imagery contained within. So time would be required, no matter what the result. First off, I would sleep.
~~~~
Chapter 32
Gene Lives!
It was a day later. The window I was just now noticing in the far corner of the room told me it was daylight outside. I was not hungry. I did not thirst
. I was not tired. All of these necessities were already taken care of.
The straps had been removed from me in the night, but by whom I could not know. They had injected me with something to make me sleep for hours. I slept hard, so hard in fact that I pissed myself through the night, making the morning rather smelly and uncomfortable.
Suddenly, the lights came on above me in the room. The ceiling was only about five inches from the top of my head, lower than a normal basement. But it was a very large room, much like the bottom quarter of a large ballroom or something, even with intricate parquet wooden flooring. A woman, taller than me so she had to duck a little, walked toward me. She wore a clean white lab coat and her head was completely void of any hair. She was stunning and unusual.
“Mr. Auker, is it?” she said, her German accent informing me of what was happening.
I still didn’t feel threatened. I knew I would begin to speak in sarcastic tones with her like I did with Ash Ford.
“Good morning, ma’am.” I guess not.
“Ease your worries, sir. I will not be cryptic and foreboding like Mr. Ford was yesterday. My name is Carmen Dirkschneider. I am the lead research administrator here in this facility in Missouri. I am employed under the Centralized Authority in Bern.”
“Are you actually from Bern, Carmen?”
“Munich, as it were. You notice the accent.”
“I did.” Obviously.
“I will continue with what Mr. Ford started yesterday. The man is not fully functional in his mind, I should relay.”
“I got that, Carmen. I really did.”
“We have known of your journey since you were in the Fort Sill Development last month. Roughly three weeks ago. We received information that you and another, Eugene del Gregory, have been able to converse without the symptoms of SPMS, and all without the intervention of any form of Flegtide.”
“That’s not entirely true, Carmen.”
“Oh? How so?”
“Gene took Flegtide many days before we reached Oklahoma. It made him a touch insane, but he did take it.”
“And you?”
“What about me?”
“Mr. Auker, did you inject or ingest Flegtide in any manner?”
“I will say this with all the might I have in my body and all the truth the angels can bestow up on me now, Frau Dirkschneider. I have never once put the drug Flegtide in my body. Never once.”
“And yet, you spoke to him. Are you one of the few immune to the symptoms of SPMS?”
“Please, call it the Ire. SPMS just sounds gross.”
“Fine. Do you not get Ired, Mr. Auker?”
“Oh, I do. I’ve killed six people in my life starting from day-one.”
“Yes, then the call was justified.”
“Call? What call?”
“We anonymously received information of you and del Gregory, saying you could talk without Ire. We have heard of this more often recently, but it has almost always been related to Flegtide. We observed you regardless. It is with great fortune that we did observe you, Mr. Auker. We have taken three pints of blood from you.”
“Without my fucking permission?”
“It is standard protocol, and we apologize. Your blood, if researched properly, can be a key to saving many lives.”
“From the things I’ve heard, Carmen, the Ire is dying down a whole lot anyway.”
“Semi-truths bolstered by too much hope, I’m afraid. Bern released the statement days ago without enough research and evidence, against my wishes, mind you. There have been countless cases of interpersonal contact recorded, but it is uncertain how much of that has been attributed to Flegtide use. Yours, however, is a circumstance that is highly unique and beneficial.”
These bastards took my blood without asking me, and in a very nervous, shady manner to boot. I wanted to rip their faces off. But I quickly realized what I had thought to myself twenty years earlier—if I could help humanity, even just a little, it was worth not committing suicide. This was my ticket to such help.
“As you see it,” I said to the German lady. “If you need more, please feel free to take it.”
“I am sure we have enough, Mr. Auker.”
“How are you able to talk to me?”
“Flegtide. A new component added last week adds to the duration.”
“If you’re talking to me just fine on Flegtide, isn’t that enough?”
“For the moment, yes, Mr. Auker. But I am more than dreading the side effects. The worst of which is sudden death from a massive brain hemorrhage, which has been documented numerous times over the last week. The least of which would be a migraine so painfully terrific that it causes hallucinations and repeated loss of consciousness.”
“Wow.”
“Believe me when I say this. Flegtide, although efficient temporarily, is not the answer we’re needing. The Ire is still present in all people, so an overall cure remains the precipice of our research. Now, your companion, Eugene.”
“Oh, where is the man?”
“Home.”
This confused me to an astonishing degree. “Okay, first of all, we have no homes anymore. Second, the man is not well. Lastly, why him and not me?”
“I shall respond sequentially to you, Mr. Auker. Mr. del Gregory informed us he was from a development in Minnesota. We contacted that development and he was allowed back in his original cabin through some coercion. We know he is not well based on his admission to uncontrollable cannibalism recently. He was issued some inhibitors to sway his negative thoughts. We call them zombie drugs because they give the patient severe lethargy. And he is gone because we noticed nothing special about him, while you remain here because we had a strong inclination that something was about with your genetic makeup. And we were right.”
“Does that mean I’m your property?” I asked.
“By no means. In fact, all we needed was some of your blood and hair, and we have those, so you will be heading off toward your development today.”
I didn’t expect that. After the meeting with such an unnecessarily bad man the day earlier, I would have thought myself forever captive. I was wrong.
“Thank you, Carmen. But will they have me back?”
“We are the Centralized Authority, Mr. Auker. Authority. Meaning we have the final say in matters. They have no choice. We had to coerce the development to allow Mr. del Gregory back because we disclosed his hazardous status. It is under control, I assure you.”
“Aren’t the developments all in freefall from Flegtide? Like total riots?”
“No, Mr. Auker. Most developments globally experienced some upheaval upon Flegtide’s release, but it was far from the devastation the CA made it out to be. Fear, as it seems, works well to ensure a device gets used correctly. Your development is just fine.”
This was all I wanted and needed to hear. The nightmare, at last, was ending. Of course, that was what the rational side of my brain would say. The illogical, fantastical, ironic side told me this was all too easy, to beware of the too-good-to-be-true demon readying itself for a massacre on my soul. Naturally, I listened to that side.
While I didn’t trust Carmen at her word based on my own destructive brand of mistrust, I needed to trust her. She was completely truthful and nice, and all I could see at the time was lies and manipulation. But can I be blamed? After seeing the worst of the human race for twenty years, I was jaded enough to let myself think this way, and it was terrible.
I ate some not wonderful food that night followed by, of all things, beer. I loved it, no matter how watery or weak it was. I had no idea where the CA got this ‘Climber’s Queue Brown Ale’ but I didn’t care. I drank the entire set and got far drunker than I probably should have. After my worrisome adventure into hell, I deserved it.
I thought of Gene that night. I should have been thinking of Minnesota, my cabin, getting my life back, and enjoying myself. Instead, Gene infiltrated my daydreams and even my real sleep dreams. He couldn’t be shaken from my mind. I hate
d caring about him as I did. He didn’t have any right to rent an apartment in my head. But he did it anyway.
~~~~
Chapter 33
Home Sweet Somewhere
It was a fairly simple ride back to Minnesota. Two security guard-looking gentlemen, clad in uniforms with badges written in German, were in the front seat of the long van, one driving and the other talking. I remained in the far backseat by myself.
“My name’s Clark,” said the talker. “Kentucky Number-7 Development. I signed on to the CA about four years ago.”
He was so young. Odd, because most of the children alive when the Ire hit didn’t survive the onslaught of terror that followed. “What was your age in 2030, Clark?”
“Me? I was eight years old. I was sick that day. Mom went to the store.”
I did not expect nor want to hear the entire story. But it was too late.
“I never saw her again. I was hearing awful tales on the news of people killing each other everywhere. I went to the basement of our house in Paducah and stayed there. Carefully entered the cabin program. Didn’t feel the Ire for the first time until about ten years later. Guy got too close to my cabin. I think his necklace was broken. I killed him. That was all. I’m what some call a One-Offer. I killed one person and no more. Rare, really. So, Carmen tells us you’ve killed six people?”
“That’s true.”
“Reginald here has killed over fifty.”
Reginald was the polar opposite of the boy in the passenger seat. The driver was large, bald, bearded, portly yet muscular, and not much for talking. It was instantaneous how much he reminded me of Gene.
“Is this true?” I asked Reginald.
“It is,” he said in a deep voice also very reminiscent of my friend. “Rampages, I call them. Started in Colorado when the Ire started. I killed a family or two from the beginning because I thought I had to.”
“We all think we have to when the Ire hits,” I added.
“This was different, Auker. I sought them out. I hungered for it. I needed to kill, even when nobody was even close. I have a condition that can’t be all that explained.”
The Populace Page 19
