The Solution

by TA Williams

  Randal shook his head no, relieved for a short time. Relief was a rather new sensation; near everything opposite of complacency was new for Randal, since recently a whirlwind of emotions coursed and collided through him. His mother and sister were still alive, as far as he knew, hopefully still tucked away in Montana. Was he feeling a Function or Dysfunction, Randal couldn’t be certain, but the experience played him much like he believed a Function would, to the point of briefly assuaging Anger. But the alleviation didn’t last long enough.

  As the anger crept its way back in like a gluttonous caterpillar, Randal had an epiphany, that his internal fluctuations were similar to an Alaskan crabbing boat in a tumultuous Bering Sea that he’d only ever seen on one of his television programs. Rising, falling, and close to crashing.

  Alex let a lull fall over the room for a moment until Randal appeared to gather himself, then said, “You have any idea where the Cash Disease came from, where it originated?”

  “No, I don’t,” Randal said. His stomach growled long and he placed a hand over it.

  “Being we’re ‘baffling and mysterious strangers’ that hold you captive, do you think we concocted this disease in some secret laboratory and placed it on cash ourselves—Georgia and I— our little group of heretics in an abandoned styled hotel somewhere in the City? Do you?”

  “I don’t know,” Randal said.

  Alex said, “Well, we didn’t, man. Something like that would kill my Zen. Now, do you believe the Solution manufactured the disease? The type of stuff conspiracy theorists climax over?”

  Randal looked at Alex with vacant eyes and said nothing, then rubbed his forehead.

  “He’s not ready, Alex.” Georgia stood up and turned her back to Randal. “He’s not ready at all.”

  “He has to be…Well,” Alex stepped closer to him, “Man, if you’d believe that poppycock you’d be wrong. It just wouldn’t be true.”

  “He’s not getting it, Alex.”

  “I think he is, and I won our last bet, Georgia. So shush it. You know what my running theory on all that is, Mr. Markins? It’s that we have no clue who or what is responsible. And who would be responsible? Who would cause such an abomination to humankind? Maybe it was Mother Nature Herself, buddy. A cleansing possibly? Natural population control. We only know that the Solution arose and quarantined. They prevented more mass death. The Cash Disease is a paradox, and the Solution rather mystifying in both presence and principle. So, sadly, the Cash Disease isn’t the biggest of our puzzles to solve, but our current state of affairs is a problem, see? The whole world has changed, in some ways better, yet in others it’s a transmogrification, man—like Frankenstein’s monster. Not good on maintaining the Zen, man.”

  Georgia turned to her side, looking at Alex, and Randal took in her shadowed, thin profile.

  Alex said, “Here’s the real bummer; global savior or not, the Solution typically influences the way we experience life, making it no longer up to the way of things, right? How do they do that? Tracer chips? No, not at all. Tracer chips. A good damn idea if you ask me. So, all your information is in your chip, yeah? Bank accounts. GPS. Damn wi-fi in it. Great. Ok. Clever. I did it once.”

  Alex held up his wrist, showing a scar where a tracer chip used to be implanted. “Wouldn’t you? You did. It’s convenience at its finest.”

  Dysfunction Anger/Frustration suddenly took Randal over. “Then why the hell take it out? What the hell is this?” Randal said. “What the hell do you want from me? I didn’t have a damn thing to do with any Cash Disease.”

  Georgia spun back around to face him, checking him with an alert glance to assure there’d be no violence. She quickly realized there wouldn’t be. Randal wasn’t that type of guy. Randal remained in his chair. He could see the moisture of her eyes gleaming and the corner of her lips angling to smile. Something about her made Randal want to win her attention.

  Alex nodded and shrugged his shoulders, saying, “Excellent inquiries, Mr. Markins. Pretty ultimate. Tracer chips will become obsolete soon. That’s a fact, and that’s because of the All. And the All is what permeated you and what now permeates near everyone in the City—kept you under an influential hex, so to speak.”

  A huge part of Randal certainly missed that hex. There was comfort in it, like a constant way of life. No ups or downs. He wasn’t sure what was ever so bad about this alleged hex, or the Solution. “How did you find me? What happened? And what was that monster that tried to kill me?”

  “For starters,” Alex said, “The thing that tried to kill you…it’s name is Tetrax. I have my ideas where it comes from, and none of them are particularly appealing. We don’t know everything sadly. Georgia, tell him about how we found him.”

  Georgia said, “It’s beyond difficult, but we’ve managed to pirate and monitor the All’s network temporarily and of course block our coordinates during the process. Thank Plum Charlie for that one. ‘Effin genius. Finding you? There was a huge pulse in the system—a surge of energy. Your location…and your mind opened up like a sort of third eye. You glowed and the All, it knew you, and we knew you. You dreamed of a young woman called Elizabeth Anne Reznick, and that’s how we found you.”

  “They can’t find us here?” Randal asked. “And how is any of this possible?”

  Georgia said, “It’s very possible Solution techies will eventually trace our coordinates. Taking the tracer chips out was only the first step of preventing that shit from happening. That’s just a standard GPS. But things are changing fast, and the All has vision almost everywhere in the City. More than vision—it has presence.”

  The statement struck a dissonant chord with Randal. Presence? He thought.

  “You’ve lived its supremacy yourself, man,” Alex said. “It hooked you, became you and you became it and it had the illusion of flowing so naturally that you didn’t know the difference. For instance, did you know there are creatures out there like the one that attacked you? No, you didn’t. You were tucked safely in front of a television, weren’t you? Fattening your big head. That’s fine, to each their own, right? Soon they’ll know all of our dreams, our fantasies. We already know they’re using Elizabeth to further their goal.”

  “I don’t get it. What or who is she?”

  Alex Treaty said, “A part of everything, I think. Though we’re not quite sure what everything is.”

  Georgia slid closer to Randal, staring him in the eyes, and he wanted to believe what she and Alex have been conveying. Alex leaned down and forward, and for a minute Randal perceived him as a judge, Georgia’s the jury. So who’s the executioner? Randal wanted to know.

  Alex said, “You’ll be a ghost of yourself.”

  “Solution Consulates have been dispatched globally, searching for others like Elizabeth,” Georgia said, “But so far she’s the most useful.”

  “I don’t understand.” Weariness hit Randal hard, and he could barely keep his eyelids open. “I feel like crap.”

  Alex said, “You may as well take it easy.”

  “What is happening?” Randal said.

  “We’re trying to figure out what exactly all this is,” Alex returned, “I’m sure we’ll have answers for better or worse. I don’t know what else to tell you at this point. It’s complicated, but you’ll live.”

  Christopher M entered the pale office, and with a phlegmatic expression took Randal to his accommodation then left. Christopher M was detached in general, and Randal could only guess what brought him to being that way. Randal sat down on the cot, either depressed or exhausted and he had no idea how to process the circumstances at this point. He missed Dr. Reverence and her guidance. She gave clear answers—not fuddled mysteries. She knew everything anyone alive needed to know. And she was great to listen to on an empty or full stomach, with hot tea. But, with the Solution and in the City, there wasn’t ever an empty stomach to worry about in the first place.

  The dinner plate was still on the desk, not a crumb of food left on it. Randal wanted more, and before
Christopher M had escorted him back Alex and Georgia promised Randal a big breakfast in the morning. A toad in the hole, possibly, with sausage. Then Randal lay flat on his back and didn’t move. He stared at the grooves in the ceiling. He could hardly think, weighing the current situation and finding no better option to choose from. Whether he remained here or attempted to run back to the Solution, or ventured off on his own, he’d be caught in a brutal marathon. If he chose to return to the Solution and give himself up, he was certain operatives would pick his brain for visual and auditory information, and then what would happen? He’d heard stories. Once he had watched a program about different cultures predicting the end of the world, and Randal predicted the end of his world might come either way he chose to go. Or, maybe, the Solution would embrace him if he came back. They were fair. They saved the world from the Cash Disease, after all.

  Randal’s mind formed a blank as he attempted to figure out a solid course of action. He hoped, rather, awaited the decision to be made for him, that his thought process would be placed down a selected path and wallah, problems solved. Nothing came to him. No revelation. He saw himself as subhuman, a busted and indecisive machine. His body began shutting down in hopes of more sleep (because maybe that’s all he needed), and he distantly wondered if he had been drugged.

  Chapter Six

  Slippery Minds

  “You’ve heard me say that the foundation of depression is certainly happiness,” Dr. Reverence convinced through a monitor, “Yes? Of course you have.”

  Elizabeth was pinioned in the chair. She gave up on freeing her body from the nylon black straps hours ago. Through sweat she eyed the wires and circuitry stuck in her arms and temple and watched the psychotherapist explicate prim and properly, “Yet with happiness depression is a falsified ingredient. In a life void of Solution refinement you would not know jubilance, therefore the remaining emotions are imposters, and there is only one proven source from which your mentality sustains. It’s quite crucial, Elizabeth, that the Solution remains the sustenance from which an unadulterated wellbeing thrives. You know this in your being.”

  Rising from inaudibility, a single eerie tune began playing until it pooled into music—only Elizabeth could soon feel the notes inside her body rather than hear them, as if the music were possessing her body.

  The doctor’s sentences sank in, Elizabeth suddenly visualized a profound, altered state of mind approaching; to the point of where Dr. Reverence’s session might resonate deep, far, and wide. Elizabeth realized psychotronic trance methods could be employed here (she had read about these techniques being used before), due to her perception now turning into an ambrosial haze spreading across her mind, dripping an all new and interesting mentality. Her fatigue dissipated and she was rejuvenated with a new sense of life.

  Only one factor kept Elizabeth from completely submitting to Dr. Reverence at that point: betrayal. Life is a liar, she thought. Betrayal, down to the marrow and genetic makeup—everything was a sham. I despise myself, she thought. Everyone is dead.

  It was as if Dr. Reverence could read Elizabeth, “I assure you, Ms. Elizabeth, you are not being betrayed. You are in receipt of elucidation. You’ve suffered delusions. Allusions were shaped by the ones you confided in and loved, whom have ended up nothing more than mere trickeries decaying your conscience, yes? That crime happens quite often in today’s world. Your mother’s condition? She drained you of your psychological vigor and attempted to mentally suffocate a power of yours which you never knew you even had. Do you agree? What kind of mother is that? Let’s talk about your mother, and the many ways she never loved you.”

  No matter how much she tried, Elizabeth couldn’t recall any fond memories to oppose Dr. Reverence’s conclusion, nor could she conjure any lies. Elizabeth knew there had to be something good about her mother, but no matter how far she reached it seemed there was nothing to grasp. Her thoughts were being invaded and she saw her mother as no more than a stealing, testing, lying bitch, and Elizabeth couldn’t count how many days her mother had manipulated her. Wasting all that time and effort by her deathbed, only so the woman could suffer and die? Elizabeth was suddenly thrilled at her death. It was the best thing she had ever done for Elizabeth. No more time would be wasted. There was a blip of Elizabeth’s love left, but she didn’t care to grab for it. She watched a violet glow within herself fall away, deep into blackness.

  “Yes,” Elizabeth said, “I agree with that.”

  “She wasn’t tuned with the Ultimate Reality. Not like you. You’re unique. I guarantee you there isn’t anyone else like you,” Dr. Reverence said.

  The psychotherapist spoke in facts, Elizabeth believed; there was no refuting. Suddenly the mental ambrosia opened from a drip to a pour, filling Elizabeth to the brim and cleansing the guck that had clogged her head up until this very moment in her life. Only a small part of her wanted to think the psychotherapist might be wrong, and that all these majestic feelings were artificial.

  While Dr. Reverence expanded, Elizabeth felt herself slipping under, farther and farther. A part of her broke from the whole—the core of herself—and she had no clue where it was going.

  Dr. Temple had been standing in the shadows, watching. Mr. Spires sat behind the steel desk, running diagnostics on the holocomputer.

  Dr. Temple left the room.

  Mr. Spires said, “I’m sorry I can’t help you, Elizabeth. I have family to think about.”

  Dr. Temple walked down a long, narrow corridor to the control room, pleased. The All’s expanse increased nearly twenty-five percent already utilizing Elizabeth, enabling it to glimpse beyond the City into the nation. And the All’s view into the City itself became clearer—it became an experience. Standing in central command Dr. Temple opened his mind, witnessing such menial acts as families buying groceries, then a couple copulating. The images came faster: Solution soldiers. City gates. RMS. Elizabeth. Casinos. Oxygen. Marrow. The cosmos.

  A beating heart.

  Knife.

  Stomach. Gore. Teeth.

  A mother walked her son down the street in Marina Del Ray, California.

  Spinning.

  Processing.

  Blackness.

  Straining as innumerable fractals of information pounded into his head, Dr. Temple began to see the images as if his mind were a honeycomb, different tunnels and a plethora of them. He distinguished each of the myriad images simultaneously. If there were 100 to look at, it was like Dr. Temple had one hundred brains to process each sensation, each life—each smell and taste.

  Déjà vu as one in particular piqued his interest—Randal Markins. Disdained, Dr. Temple looked upon Randal, who was still lying down on the tattered cot in the dingy, abandoned Vintage Hotel uptown. Alex Treaty wasn’t as clever as he believed.

  The All sensed Dr. Temple make an inquiry and the images of Randal and Vintage Hotel spread across his mind like a colorful popup picture book, revealing the corridor leading to the dark lobby where Alex, Georgia, and Plum Charlie discussed strategies to compromise the All. Smoothly the images unfolded to a bird’s eye view of Vintage Hotel, and Dr. Temple thought he might be floating over it.

  How Alex had eluded the All’s scrutiny before now, Dr. Temple didn’t need to know anymore; what mattered was that Alex Treaty was oblivious to his nearing slaughter. Without further ado Dr. Temple sent a command via cerebral transmission to the military encampment near the City gates. After a split second’s time, the doctor heard an affirmative from a Black Cat (Black Cats are a human special-forces unit) commander. The strike would commence within minutes, and the commander would bring Dr. Temple Alex’s head. The commander assured Dr. Temple of RMS implementation, then, the transmission ended with a burst of white noise.

  Hearing the thrumming energy of the All, the doctor slipped past the surveillance images of Vintage Hotel and the City itself. For a moment all color washed away and sound morphed. The doctor found himself looking into a cavernous void where he gravitated toward an iridescent ch
asm. He understood the connection with the Ultimate Reality was more potent now, and that he was closer to understanding it, to possibly using it at full capacity. The sensations of the Ultimate Reality—even from a distance—were realer than life, making life itself seem a petty experience in the first place. What was beyond, the incomprehensible, was about to be comprehended. The doctor prepared to fully invert his consciousness, which would allow him to venture beyond the chasm and into the Ultimate Reality, but he was denied, and became aware he was standing back in the control room. He said nothing. He knew more work had to be done. Without determination, one is nothing.

  ***

  The world expanded in a way Randal wished it hadn’t.

  Boom-boom-boom!

  He awoke to the sound of rapid plasma blasts coming from inside the lobby, accompanied with a cacophony of shrill screams. He realized at once, from the reverberations alone, that there were quite a few gunmen. He knew immediately this had to be the Solution. Through paranoia or common sense, Randal expected RMS, and if there were indeed two, Randal hadn’t seen the means by which Alex Treaty and his people could survive. He had only seen RMS on the news, but now Randal got the notion he might be the news in which someone else learns about RMS for the first time.

  Christopher M burst into the room, holding a black automatic energy rifle. “Come on, man! Protect Alex!”

  “Give me a gun.” Randal did not ever think those words would come out of his mouth, but he said it again, this time with more ardor, “Give me a gun!”

  Wide-eyed, Christopher M said, “Here.”

  He un-strapped his sidearm, a plasmagun, and tossed it to Randal, following with a Class 1 electromagnetic charge. After detonation the charge would obstruct most cybernetic operations. Randal was aware such technology existed, but he thought it untouchable. But here he was, he thought, touching the intangible.