Between Two Minds: Awakening

by D C Wright-Hammer

  “Oh, I wouldn’t worry about that number. It’s the percentage of resistance that your mind is experiencing as it expands into your new brain. A normal range is between forty and sixty-five percent. Yours is a little elevated at fifty-six percent, but again, it’s in the normal range.”

  I partly remembered discussing those numbers in preparation for the migration. Even after all of the projections they run, there was still a possibility that the host’s brain would reject your mind, causing many issues from simply slowing down the process to dementia and even death.

  Dr. Little pressed the same buttons as before, and the projection faded away. Another button push, and I could feel the medical disk dislodge itself from my head, which was much less noticeable than when it attached. It glided up, flattened out, and disappeared into the ceiling.

  “You will begin post-migration psychotherapy with the counselors in a day or so. I am going to give you something to help you rest.”

  She pushed one last button, and the fast-acting sedative hit as fast as usual. My eyes began to close as Dr. Little pulled the door behind her to leave.

  It reeks like death in here.

  Chapter 7:

  Some Things You Can’t Unsee

  “It reeks like death in here.”

  The putrid stench assailed us immediately upon entering the forsaken steel mill. While I had become accustomed to it over the years, it never failed to grab my attention and make entering the building feel like a mistake. We trekked through a long, narrow hallway barely lit by LEDs lining the floor, compliments of the site setup crew. Cobwebs littered the ceiling and walls, and the chill from outside had followed us, making our breaths visible. As we walked, the intricate tags of the local street gangs came to life in vibrant blues and greens. They’d apparently used bioluminescent paint that reacted to the faintest hint of heat and moisture in the air, two things the Padre and I produced in ample quantities. Part of me wanted to smack the shit out of anyone who defaced property. But another part of me had always thought of the really talented ones as street artists whose obvious gifts were wasted on vandalism. Too bad there weren’t enough good jobs or companies savvy enough to hire them, or we might have figured out a solution to the gang problem in the area.

  After walking for a couple minutes, we approached a dark opening. The Padre pulled out his netphone and shined it all around to orient us. We were near a solid cement stairwell. There was a nasty wreckage of steel and plastic to the right of the stairs. Collapsed and sunken into the foundation, the elevator car must have fallen from the top level. Scorch marks and scattered debris gave away that there had been an explosion, and the ample amount of melted steel confessed that the resulting fire was extremely hot. The skeletal remains of a human hand could be seen just in front of the rubble, and I couldn’t help but imagine what they had experienced right before it all ended for them.

  It was probably a squatter who thought that an elevator that high up was the safest place to stay. Loading up all their belongings, they may have been taking stock of that day’s haul when the ground beneath them failed. Or maybe they were sleeping when the cables gave way, and their gut dropping and the sound of grinding metal woke them up right before impact.

  Boom!

  Shaking the thought from my head, I stepped onto the first stair and peered up as the Padre aimed a light from his phone up the stairwell. I caught a glimpse of the hike ahead, and while the building appeared massive on the outside, it seemed like Mount Everest at the bottom of the steps. The Padre tapped off his phone and moved the large briefcase into his right hand to hold the railing with his left.

  “Know why they designed the mill like this, Charlie?”

  “To keep the employees in shape?” I couldn’t help but jest.

  “The plans for these buildings were created by some of the most advanced architects in the country. They wanted it to be the most efficient mill campus in the country, using the best designs in the world.”

  “This doesn’t seem efficient at all.”

  Winded from the ascent, the Padre took a deep breath. “Well, workers in these buildings were unionized thugs. That meant they could work together against the company’s—and their own—interests. One of the slimiest things those malcontents would do was stop operations at the plants. Like spoiled brats, they’d hurt the whole company and their brethren until their demands were met. They would hold the whole company hostage until their stupid demands were heard. Luckily, the steel mill owners here had the forethought to design a building that made it difficult for workers to get to the mill operations area. Should a shutdown or sit-in be organized, it was much easier to cut off reinforcements and supplies from getting to the lazy troublemakers on the inside. If it were me, I would have let ’em sit in and then starved them to death.”

  As much as the Padre liked his stories, something didn’t add up about that one.

  “If this place was designed so well to protect itself from workers, why’d it fail all those years ago?”

  Catching his breath again, he said, “Well, other companies outsourced to China and eastern Europe. At that time, they didn’t have to pay taxes on those factories and the labor was dirt cheap. For years, they were making record profits, and it looked like they would finally break workers here into taking much less. But the damn standard of living was so high here, it didn’t work. They closed up shop and moved all their operations overseas.”

  If the smell of death was bad when we came in, it was steadily getting much worse the higher we climbed. Then a trail of coagulated blood led us up the next several sets of stairs.

  “Didn’t China fall to a workers’ uprising a few years ago?”

  “Impressive, Charlie. Most people have no idea what’s going on in their own neighborhood, much less the world. Yes, those bastards threw their country into anarchy. To this day, half the country starves while the other half starts wars with the surrounding countries. And they have the nerve to talk about corruption.”

  “Before I was discharged, there was some talk that we might send troops in. As much as I wanted to help, we still had our hands full in the Middle East.”

  “No troops. We should just bomb them all back to the Stone Age.”

  The Padre was never shy about his political leanings.

  As we approached the last set of steps, we had to carefully avoid the obviously human entrails that punctuated the trail of blood, and upon getting to the last few stairs, I could finally see the rotting corpse that had produced all of the mess. He must have dragged himself up the stairs as a last-ditch effort to survive, though that clearly hadn’t worked. To that end, time had not been kind to the poor sap; the bloat of death had set in long ago. The Padre was so gassed that we had to stop in the thick of the stink. To stop from gagging, I turned away to look at the main production area of the mill.

  It was magnificent! The moon shown through the windows and holes in the roof, illuminating nearly a dozen enormous rusted buckets hanging from the high ceilings. Farther down, the casting area had a series of giant funnels that were used to gather the steel for processing. Below was a conveyor system that must have moved hundreds of thousands of steel beams, rods, and sheets through the plant. The moonlight also revealed the thick layer of glaze that had caked up on the remaining windows. It was as amazing as it was depressing to think that this place used to produce the finest metals for the world over.

  “Our exchange will happen over there.” The Padre pointed to a lantern about two hundred feet from our present location, then led the way toward it.

  The clicks of our four heels mimicked the gait of a horse strolling through the gigantic building, and as the smell of rotting flesh faded, it was replaced by the stink of mildew like a basement after flooding.

  A sudden explosion of movement in the darkness scared the hell out of me. “Shit! Shit! Shit!” Trying desperately to focus, I ripped the 9mm from my
waistband and pointed it into the distance, ready to unload. When my eyes finally adjusted, embarrassment quickly set in. It was ghastly pigeons that had fluttered off a ledge and nearly given me a heart attack. To make matters worse, the Padre was completely unfazed. I tried to shake it off while I put my 9mm back into my pants, but it seemed like the night was destined to be strange.

  As we neared the lantern, a table became visible underneath it.

  The Padre grunted as he lifted the large case and plopped it next to the light. “Look alert. They’ll be here soon.”

  We both pulled out our weapons and performed the standard diagnostics, which killed the deafening silence of the place and was somewhat calming. I put mine in the front of my waistband so the buyers would see it upon arrival, and the Padre made his disappear back into his coat. After another twenty minutes, the stairwell came alive with new sounds. My fists tightened as the noise grew in intensity. Our buyers had arrived. As usual, the Padre stood placidly motionless.

  For security reasons, the conversation to complete the transaction was random. To begin, a proper greeting would transpire with our guests, followed by them asking to purchase a random luxury item. More than formalities, the buyers were given several keywords that had to be included in their responses. Too much deviation or error in these keywords would be—well, it wouldn’t be good. After a successful greeting and inquiry, the buyers would place a briefcase next to ours, near the light. That was when we would take turns confirming we all brought what we’d agreed to.

  I couldn’t remember just how many of these jobs I had worked, but they all went basically as planned except for one. A couple of Korean buyers had brought less money than agreed. They’d kept looking around and had been asking weird questions, so naturally, I thought they were the feds, though the Padre later confirmed they were actually just high. The Padre had also known they were trying to short us the second he opened their case. He’d slammed it shut and reached to grab our product. One of the buyers had grabbed the Padre’s arm, shouting something in Korean. By the time they’d looked up at me, they were gazing down the barrel of my 9mm. I’d hesitated for just a moment, and one of them knocked the gun from my hand. It had discharged into the wall while the other drop-kicked the Padre in the chest, staggering him. I had been able to clock the one closest to me in the jaw, but he’d recovered quickly and swept my legs out from under me. They’d both run off, one of them shooting at us so we would stay down for cover. After gathering ourselves, we had been able to focus enough to fire several shots in their direction, but we hadn’t been able to stop them. Fortunately, about 20% of the payment had fallen from their briefcase on the way out, and they’d never laid a hand on the product. While it could have been worse, that job had taught me that our line of work was dangerous and nothing was guaranteed, no matter how routine it felt.

  The sounds from the stairs were at their loudest when two silhouettes appeared on the landing of the stairs. They paused in the stink just like the Padre and me, and after thirty seconds, walked toward the light. Basically asking to be noticed, their white suits quickly became apparent in the shadowy mill. The one on the right had the payment in his left hand, and he moved it to the right as they made their way to the table. Both men were of average height and build. Both had scruffy half beards and messily combed-back hair. They would have looked pretty damn classy if they were going to a nightclub, but it just seemed odd for a job. Still, their expressionless faces brought me little comfort.

  “Good evening, gentlemen,” said the man on the left.

  It was difficult for me to understand his thick Russian accent, but the Padre didn’t seem to have a problem.

  The Padre nodded. “Good evening to you, sirs.”

  “We are in the market for a late-model American car. Do you happen to know where we can find a black 2006 Dodge Charger with a five-point-seven-liter Hemi V8? We are willing to pay top dollar for it if it has been properly restored and has low mileage on the current engine.”

  Taking a deep breath, the Padre offered a consolation as he always did.

  “Please forgive me, but I only have a red 2010 Chevy Camaro with a six-point-two-liter GM LS3 V8. The mileage is twenty thousand. Luckily, it will blow the Charger you want out of the water. Would you like to take it for a test drive?”

  “Yes, I would. Is the car available here and now to test drive?”

  “It is. Do you have a valid ID and something of value for us to keep as a show of good faith?”

  “Most certainly.”

  Laying their briefcase flat on the table next to ours, each buyer extended his right thumb to the front of the case. After several clicks, a loud beep echoed through the mill and the case popped open slightly. They lifted the top and looked over the contents briefly, then turned it around to us. The refreshing smell of money filled the air.

  The Padre did a quick visual scan of the currency, and in my peripheral, I could see crisp one-hundred-dollar bills wrapped to delineate stacks of what had to be at least ten thousand. From the top stacks alone, there had to be ten, but I wasn’t sure if there was another set underneath. It also wasn’t my business to know. In all the jobs that I had been on, I never knew the product or the dollar amount being exchanged. All I knew was that the job paid better than any other I could get, and that was enough for me.

  The Padre slowly reached into his front right pants pocket and pulled out his netphone. He tapped it a couple of times and then held it over the cash. With three beeps, the phone lit up a very bright green. The Padre confirmed the information on the screen, tapped it twice, and gently dropped his phone back into his pocket. Closing the cash case, he moved it to the side.

  “Much appreciated for having sufficient collateral. Allow me to provide you the keys to the vehicle so that you can test drive it. I promise you will be pleased.”

  The Padre placed his thumb on the front of our case. A beep followed, but instead of a click, there was a burst of air like the discharge from a compressor, something I had never really noticed in the past. Then, as customary, the Padre turned the case around. On the earlier jobs, my curiosity had led me to try to catch a glimpse of the product before it was turned, but the Padre had it down to such precise movements that the visual escaped me every time.

  Once around, the case provided a bright-white light that illuminated our buyers. Pulling our case closer to them, their wide eyes looked over the product intently. As their eyes raced back and forth like they were reading news clippings, grins slowly stretched across their faces, and for whatever reason, it gave me a cold feeling on the inside. Then my train of thought was interrupted by something odd. The briefcase made a popping noise, released more air, and the light faded with a squeal.

  “What the hell!”

  Even through the Russian accent, I could feel his anger. Without thinking, my hand moved to my waistband.

  The buyers’ eyes followed.

  The Padre looked stunned for a brief moment, then snapped back into character and extended his hand to my chest while still facing the buyers. “My sincerest apologies, sirs. Please let me take a look at the vehicle to ensure it is functioning correctly.”

  The buyers forcefully spun the case back at us, and the Padre went to work frantically. The top of the briefcase was slightly closed, hiding the product while the Padre felt around and pressed several buttons in sort of a combination pattern. He appeared to be turning a dial and flipping several switches as well. Our buyers began to roll their eyes as he worked for about a minute, and for the first time since I had known him, the Padre looked somewhat nervous.

  “And I will just finish installing this spark plug…and there we have it!”

  The burst of an intense light stung as it hit me, and I squinted hard. My eyes adjusted quickly, and just as the Padre was turning the case back around, I caught my first glimpse of the product.

  The product? The product!

&n
bsp; Trying not to draw attention to myself, I blinked hard a couple times because I couldn’t believe what I had just seen. When I’d first taken the gig with the Padre, I’d assumed we were drug dealers, high-end drug dealers to high-end buyers. But I couldn’t have been more wrong, and that explained everything: why we did deals in such secrecy, why I was paid so well, why we had such a specialized briefcase. My shock was still fresh when the exchange resumed.

  “I assure you that the vehicle was not damaged in any way during the previous incident. Feel free to test drive it again to be sure.”

  The Padre’s composed demeanor returned as the buyers’ eyes widened again when they resumed inspecting the product. A sinking feeling grew inside me as I began to realize the type of people we were doing business with. They were men who would go to great lengths to buy our product.

  “We will confirm the quality of the vehicle with our mechanics. Given the temporary malfunction, if the vehicle is not as good as advertised, be assured that we will expect a full refund as well a fee for our troubles.”

  Surprisingly, the slight annoyance in the buyer’s voice made his broken English easier to understand.

  “You can expect nothing less from us, sirs. It has been a pleasure doing business with you. Please feel free to drive the vehicle off the lot.”

  The buyers closed the briefcase, lifted it from the table, and stormed off.

  My eyes followed the case as I was still reeling from what I had seen inside.

  “You okay?” The Padre had more than curiosity in his voice.

  I knew if I acted strange, things could get bad really quick. “Yeah, we just never had a case break down like that. It had me worried for a second there, but I was impressed that you were able to fix it so quickly and save the deal.”

  “Sometimes I feel like I have to do everything to keep things running. That’s why it has been nice having someone like you to rely on. It’s the reason for the promotion we talked about.”