The Anarchists

by Brian Thompson

  “You were selected for a reason native to your particular circumstance; maybe not an addiction, per se. Tell me, Mister Coley, there’s not one thing about the way you live your life today that you would elect to go back and change; that, if you had the opportunity to alter your emotional, psychological connection to it, that you would?”

  He thought of Madison and what a quick emotional slicing might do for him.

  Harper, however, remained unconvinced. “I’m sure that you’ll agree, doctor, that health professionals strike an uneasy balance between healing and playing God. Using a drug to alter connections to old memories? Sounds like science fiction, if you ask me.”

  “Hypnotherapy techniques are really not that different. You disagree?”

  She thought about it for a brief moment. Not really. “Then, why not use the drug in widespread fashion, if the government approved it for use?”

  “The Solution has been approved for our purposes here first,” he asserted. Damario’s eyes brightened. Cornering the market with a drug holding so many benefits would be lucrative. He thought to investigate and invest into the Genesis Institute after the study’s conclusion.

  “I did not sign on to be an experimental lab rat for a drug and a clinical trial.”

  “You did not sign on for anything, Miss Lowe. None of you have. Yet.”

  Quinne raised her hand and quickly lowered it. “Okay, so then how does this work? I mean, we get The Solution, and then what?”

  “First, we’ll conduct a psychiatric evaluation to identify the source of the problem. We’ll explore from all angles why you picked this addiction or event in the first place. This could take anywhere from 20 minutes to hours, depending on your willingness to be transparent. That point in time will become your focal point. Then, we administer The Solution.”

  “What’s it gonna be like?” Teanna asked, with sincerity.

  “Like living in yesterday. But you will retain the knowledge of today. You will touch, taste, smell, hear and see.”

  “Will it hurt?” Quinne’s voice piqued with interest.

  “As much as a thought or a memory can harm you.” The answer held a different weight for each of them. “When you make your decision, your journey will not necessarily end there. Once you are ready, you will return to consciousness.”

  The concept of “readiness” concerned Harper. Shouldn’t it be quicker? “Putting me in a coma for hours isn’t doing something for me,” Harper argued. “And if we are not ‘ready’ in those hours? How do we return?”

  Adharma looked at her directly. “You will be weaned from The Solution and fall into a normal sleep. Think of it as a medical procedure for which you need anesthesia. When you awake, all will be well.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Harper’s hesitation in signing the consent form, which indemnified the Genesis Institute from litigation, gave Damario enough time to erase Madison’s profane messages. In the first one, she angrily rattled off expletives. By the beginning of the second, she broke down into hysterics. For years, their marriage had been the lone flagship of hope in her family. She loved him and pledged to be committed this time, if he granted her a second chance. Damario erased them all. The death of his marriage depressed him, but “beginning again” would change it all.

  After investing his stipend, he called his supervisor. Nothing else crucial had come across his desk – none more than usual. He would swing by the office after treatment.

  Paramount to everything was the research for the international currency deal. Haggling between liberals in Congress – who were led by Senator Ramsey Mateo, the House of Representatives, members of the Federal Reserve and the United Nations threw the deal into a holding pattern. Started by a rookie Italian prime minister, the drive to unite the world’s top ten economic heavyweights under an intangible currency called “the mark” had gained tremendous groundswells of support.

  The World Bank and most members of the International Monetary Fund fell in line, but the eyes of several countries stayed on the US. America held out the longest – due, in part, thanks to Damario’s small contributions to research. He took pride in it. Worldwide, economists slammed G.R. Cooper, Mateo, and “short-sighted” legislative liberals as “digging a deep, water-filled grave” for the national economy. The conversion predictions boasted numerous advantages to the unit: a digital form of currency adopted decades ago. Having the same, biologically-exchanged form of currency as nine other countries frightened Damario. After all, no one could accurately prophesy the effects of such a momentous decision. They could only hypothesize and hope.

  Damario glanced over at Harper, who still discussed matters with Adharma. Since he had a little extra time, he checked his video mail server. There, he found one from an Internet provider address that he did not recognize, with Robbie written in the subject title. After turning down the volume, he pulled it up.

  “Hey. . .” Robinne appeared haggard, as if she had woken up from a three-day-long nightmare. Her bloodshot eyes darted to and fro, and her dreadlocks were knotted atop her head. She appeared a shell of the college-educated, free spirit he remembered. “Don’t know how you found me, but I’m good.” She sniffed. “How you been? Saw from your message that you done well for yourself.”

  The muscles in his cheeks sagged. What happened to you? In the background of her bedroom, he noticed an uncovered hairy leg sticking out from under the bed sheet. The private investigator – the same one who found Madison’s lovers – had a hard time tracking her down. Nothing of record existed in Robinne Glasse’s name; no apartment, bank account, possessions, or utilities.

  Police records showed that she had been arrested five times last year for public drunkenness or being under the influence. The address on the last citation, on New Year’s Eve, by coincidence, is where he found her. The holophone number was registered to a man’s name, so he left her a message as “Cousin Damario,” hoping to get in touch.

  “So, if you wanna get together,” she said, pausing to wipe her nose with her hand. “I stay at this place downtown, off Broad. . .on the corner. Apartment four. Call before you come. Maybe we can do lunch. Bye, cuz.”

  Teanna knew that the types of holographic computers they had been afforded used the same technology as a holophone. After paying some overdue bills with her stipend, she called the prison. According to Tay’s girlfriend, they could receive visits during recreational time. That time included calls. She used a subdued voice when the prison administrator answered.

  “Teiji Kirkwood, please.”

  A few minutes passed before a prison medical staffer showed up. She thought nothing of it, except that Teiji might have gotten sick.

  “Miss Kirkwood, that prisoner is unavailable at this time.”

  “He sick?”

  “He's unavailable at this time,” he repeated. “You’re welcome to call again, later today. Visitation hours are seven days a week, at. . .”

  “You’re not telling me anything!” Teeth gritted, she barely maintained composure.

  “. . .recreational times, which occur after breakfast. . .”

  “I know when visiting hours be at! What’s wrong with my son?”

  “Anything else I can help you with, Miss Kirkwood?”

  “What's-wrong-with-my-son?” She cursed the man and shook the computer.

  “Your call will now disconnect. Goodbye.”

  Frustrated, she connected again and received a busy signal. Hoping she remembered the correct number, she hung up and dialed Kelly, who might be accessible. “Hello?”

  Bedridden and her voice unsteady, Kelly looked up. “Miss Kirkwood?”

  She pressed to the point. “What’s going on with Tay? Stupid man ain’t connecting me.”

  “The same thing happened to me yesterday.” Beads of sweat dotted her forehead. “Channel Zero news reported a riot up there yesterday.”

  “What?”

  “I got food poisoning, Miss Kirkwood. Can you get a ride up there?”

 
“Not now,” she admitted. “I wish I’d known ten minutes ago. I might be able to go later.”

  Kelly’s voice trembled. “Call me, if you do. Bye.” The hologram disappeared. Teanna had no choice but to trust that she could get to him after her treatment. She bowed her head and said a quick prayer, asking for her son’s protection and healing, if he needed it.

  Hardly sentimental, Quinne compiled a playlist for Troy that brought it out every time. She used her tablet to access her home network, and then quietly played it, but not loud enough to distract. The first, a driving rock sample, set an atmosphere that no one outside of her deemed romantic. The words to the chorus said it for her: All I need/everything that’s dear to me/someday you’ll see/the end of you and me. The liner notes said the band’s lead singer dedicated it to his on-again-off-again girlfriend, who promised him that they would die together one day. She rewound the song’s bridge to drown out Teanna’s belligerence.

  The next track, an R&B ballad by a collection of female crooners, mellowed her out more than the previous song. She closed her eyes and remembered her lover – his chocolate skin, the thickness of his shaped eyebrows and his muscular build. In the summer, he walked around in boxer shorts without regard for whoever saw him. She would lay with him, hypnotized by the rotations of the ceiling fan. Soon, the chair had massaged her muscles into complete relaxation and she closed her eyes with a smile on her face.

  Harper snapped back to attention after a few minutes of Adharma’s explanation. Yes, there were minimal risks involved. No, her baby would not be in immediate danger. Yes, they would monitor the child. And yes, they would pull her from the project, if the situation necessitated it.

  “One must have an element of trust in their physician,” he had said. But this operation toed a line between science and experimentation – too much, she believed, for her to be a part of it. She would pray for the others to get what they needed.

  “Thank you for your time.” She closed the holographic release forms. “I won’t be a part of your experiment.”

  The doctor became alarmed and waved to one of the droids. “Nothing will make you reconsider?”

  “I’m afraid not.”

  “But the stipend, your life expenses. . .”

  “I spent years of my life worrying about what I’d do if I didn’t have enough money for this or for that. I’ll get that soon, and you know what? There’s nothing on this planet worth that much worry.” She pointed to the door where she first entered. “I should exit this way?”

  “Y-yes, but you need authorization from Miss Noor to do so. She’ll be along soon.”

  “Doctor,” said Ellis Murtaugh. “Quinne Marybeth Ruiz is ready.”

  “Really?” The lilt in his voice rose. “Connect her to an intravenous drip pack and run the preliminary anesthesia protocols. Do the same for Mister Coley and Miss Kirkwood.”

  “Yes, Doctor.” Stan Witmore trailed Ellis.

  “Do you have a problem, Miss Lowe?” Kareza appeared almost out of nowhere.

  Harper jumped at the sound of Kareza’s voice and the touch of her supervisor’s silky smooth hand against her exposed shoulder. “No problem. I’ve just decided against doing it, that’s all.”

  A sly smirk crossed Kareza’s face. “Oh, you have?”

  “I’m not comfortable with the project. It’s not what I thought it would be.”

  She looked at Harper’s small baby bump. “Can I be honest, Harper?”

  Questions from the woman had always been mandates. “Can I sit down? I’m a little dizzy.”

  “Of course.” Kareza maintained a close distance and held Harper’s hand in hers. “Harper, you and your boyfriend, Micah, were handpicked for the Begin Again initiative.”

  We were? The disorientation continued. “Why?” The scent of Kareza’s lilac and vanilla perfume tickled Harper’s nose.

  Kareza accessed the release forms once again. “When I came to Micah’s funeral, I saw a longing in you, and I thought you and this initiative would be a perfect fit.”

  She wanted to know more, though her decision stood firm.

  “The life you were living wasn’t meant to be yours.”

  Harper bit her lip. “I think I’m going to be sick.”

  “No, you won’t. You’ll be fine.” Kareza squeezed Harper’s fingers. “At one point or another, everyone believes they should have a better life. You have the chance at a better life, but you’re not taking advantage of it. It’s not wrong.”

  Immediately, Harper’s mind keyed in on a choice she’d made years ago.

  “Don’t walk away, Harper.” Adharma handed Kareza the computer with the release forms. “Sign. Get started on the life you could have had; the life you deserve to have.”

  Still uneasy, Harper lazily applied her thumbprint to the appropriate spot, indicating her consent. Kareza had Ellis escort a lethargic Harper to the last chair, where Stan attended to her. Afterwards, Kareza carefully peeled a thin latex layer from her hand.

  After the four had been thoroughly evaluated and anesthetized, Adharma joined Kareza at a curve in the circular shaped room. “It's expensive and troublesome. . .this experiment on four nobodies. I fail to see the logic.”

  “There's much logic in it, my friend.” Kareza patted him on the cheek, which drew immediate worry until she displayed a clean hand free of the drug she had used on Harper. “You simply lack the vision to see it all.”

  “Enlighten me.”

  “It’s almost noon. We must begin.”

  “You drugged the Lowe woman and had her sign legally-binding documents. That alone could shut us down, cost us billions, trillions! Why risk everything for her?”

  “I risked nothing.”

  Frustrated by her clipped answers, Adharma shouted with passion. “I have served you without question. And you would deny me a simple explanation of your ‘grand design’?”

  Kareza carefully formed her response. “Once, I worked in the shadow of an overbearing man. He rarely explained and expected me to fall in line. I swore never to do the same. Ask.”

  “This ‘Begin Again’ initiative is a charade, isn’t it?”

  Once Damario, Quinne, Teanna, and Harper fell into stasis, Kareza positioned herself near their heads. She spread her fingers at Harper’s temples. Crimson threads of electricity jumped from her impeccable fingernails into Harper, whose body vanished with a pop of pink smoke. Seconds later, Kareza aged a number of years. “Indeed.”

  Adharma drew back, speechless at Kareza’s actions, which appeared to dim her physical beauty.

  “In 2035, Harper will retake Applied Physics instead of switching majors and it will make her wealthy.” Kareza slid over to Teanna. “Teanna will stop pining over the father of her son and spare the boy and his sister her dented brand of parenting.”

  Not possible, Adharma thought.

  Now with graying hair and a curving posture, Kareza vaporized Quinne. “Quinne would have become a military sharpshooter and had a decorated career. With her boyfriend alive, she won’t care anymore.”

  Adharma’s awe was rivaled only by this vivid delusion. “What’s happening?”

  “I am a god!” she bellowed, “living a worthless existence on a miserable rock beneath my birthright. I was created to rule.”

  “By whom?” he wondered aloud. “What are you?”

  “Without his interference, I will rule nations.” Kareza finished off Damario and erupted into a coughing fit. “I dispatched them back into the fabric of time. These four played roles, small or large, in my defeat. No longer. But I need five.”

  Adharma patted his chest. Only two of them remained, and he doubted his aging benefactor intended for him to know these things and survive.

  “The Solution dangled the temptation, but I needed their permission.” She slapped Adharma’s back. “My power, teamed with their choices, opens the gateway.”

  “What part do I play in this?”

  Kareza grunted with disdain. “You are not half-Indian,
as you claim, but a Jew by birth.”

  Adharma did not refute the statement. His father’s ancestors migrated from Portugal 700 years ago and settled in what would become New Delhi. His mother, a native born Italian, converted to Judaism before they exchanged vows. The foreboding in his belly would not go away. “So what of it? I do not practice any religion.”

  Kareza stretched her wrinkled hands toward Adharma’s temple. “You always desired power for yourself, Nandor Adharma. Now, you shall have it.”

  With that, he vanished like the others.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  January 20, 2050

  A caravan of stretch Bentley transports halted at the entrance to an upscale eatery with a considerable dining hall. The procession drew the attention of the parking attendants, who found themselves captivated by the apple, white and green-striped flags. The contingent emerging from the opening doors were European men with distinctive taste pallets. It made sense that they would dine there. The management prided itself on the authenticity of its Italian cuisine.

  The last of them to enter was Nandor Adharma: a fine looking, dark-skinned man a few inches above six feet. His woolen black coat hung from his shoulders with distinction, and the starched shirt and blood red necktie were crisp. Adharma exhaled, with a sense of disappointment and high-mindedness, as if the ground praised him by submitting beneath his weight. His arm cocked out into a hook, and a feeble Kareza Noor joined him. In her prime, she would have been mesmerizing, but now, she labored to keep the façade of beauty. A trail of graying hair cascaded down her back and lapped over the back of her fur coat.

  The two brought up the rear behind the potentates preceding them, entering the main avenue of the restaurant to applause. They proceeded through a who’s who receiving line of firm handshakes and political heavyweights. Of course, President Ramsey Mateo did not attend. Due in part to Kareza, he had just taken his oath on the west front of the US capitol building hours ago. She also positioned Adharma to become the Prime Minister of Italy and to receive the credit for rescuing the US economy.