Stasis (Book 1.2): Beta

by Osborne, E. W.

  “Look, you can go if you want to, but leave me the hell out of it,” he said backing up. “I’m about to graduate, I have a nice boyfriend, my parents want to send us on vacation. Nope.”

  “Wills…”

  He held up a warning finger as if Neil were an approaching danger. “I’m serious. I’m gonna walk out that door and we aren’t going to talk about this…”

  The walls trembled with a heavy impact. Neil knew the sound well, but Wills was so on edge he jumped and grabbed his chest. Before Neil had the chance to explain, Maggie burst into the room without knocking.

  “Did you watch… oh, hey Wills.” She looked back and forth between them with a devious smile. “So it’s true.”

  “Wha-what is?” Neil stammered.

  “That you’re a thing,” she giggled as she strode in.

  Wills pursed his lips. “You know I’m seeing Jose. Have been, for like, three years.”

  She ran her fingers through her curls, eyes going wide in mock surprise. “Sure, but how can you resist such a delicious hunk of man meat?” She teased the both of them with one gesture, running her index finger along Neil’s bony shoulder.

  He gritted his teeth, his patience with her was running on absolute fumes. “Maggie, so help me…”

  “Hey, what are you watching?” she interrupted, pointing at the frozen video still on the smart wall. She gave Neil a playful slap. “You did watch it! Wasn’t it crazy? I wonder what the guy said to him,” she said with a mixture of awe and humor. “If it was a guy, I couldn’t tell.”

  Bile flooded Neil’s throat at the memory. “It’s not important.”

  “So, what are you guys doing in here?” she asked as she jumped into the spot Rachel usually took.

  “Well,” Neil started. Wills seemed to read Neil’s mind before he was even aware of how he was going to finish the sentence. Suddenly, the weight of it all came crashing down on him. He couldn’t carry such a secret on his own. Through a mixture of fear and excitement, he blurted out the news. “Stasis and these murders are connected.”

  “What the fuck?” Wills groaned. He stomped around the room in a huff. “Why did you… you didn’t have to do that! You could’ve told her after I left.”

  “I’m sorry! I didn’t think. It’s my first goddamn time dealing with something like this, so get off my back,” he shouted back, his voice cracking at the end.

  The smile faded from Maggie’s face when she realized they weren’t joking. “Wait, seriously? How?”

  Hours later, Neil lay awake in bed, eyes glued to the ceiling. The events of the day, of the past month, running through his mind like some twisted playlist. As Wills and Neil lay out everything they’d uncovered, right down to the timing of the murders, Maggie refused to believe it. She tried to convince them they were being paranoid, that they’d made something out of nothing.

  “You’ve wanted this stupid thing to be more than it is from the very start,” she’d said with a touch of fear. “You’re shoving pieces into holes that simply don’t match up.”

  Her resistance had an opposite effect on Neil. The more she fought their proof, the more he became convinced they were right. He would’ve given anything to be wrong, but he couldn’t deny what they’d found.

  Their conversation ended with a shouting match, the slamming of doors, and the silent treatment. He could almost feel her seething in the room next door, wanting to pound her fists on the wall and curse him up down. So he wasn’t surprised when his room door flew open at 4 a.m. What did surprise him was the pair of uniformed men standing in his room.

  “Are you Neil Briggs?”

  With his heels digging into the squeaky mattress, Neil pushed himself into the cold corner. His mouth worked but nothing came out.

  The silent man held up a tablet, seemed to confirm Neil’s identity, and nodded.

  “Okay, would you mind coming with us?”

  With a defiance he didn’t know he possessed, Neil said, “Yes, I do mind.” So what if his voice quivered a little while he resisted?

  “It wasn’t a question,” the second man said. He had the air of a person who had never cracked a smile let alone laughed.

  This isn’t good, Neil thought.

  “Any minute now.”

  “Could I have a little privacy to get dressed?” he asked, pulling his blanket up to his chin. “It’s not like I have any windows to climb out,” he insisted, pointing to the solid walls.

  They considered his request and shrugged. The silent one collected the tablet and phone he’d left out on his desk, his only means of communicating with the outside world. “Two minutes,” the talkative one said before shutting the door.

  Neil scrambled to his feet and spun in a full, panicked circle. “What the fuck? What the…”

  He stared at the wall he shared with Maggie, for the first time thankful she was on the other side. He prayed he could make enough noise to wake her up without pissing off his new friends outside.

  Neil slammed the drawers on his dresser shut, rattling the whole frame against the wall. He bumped into this desk and even wheeled his chair around to whack against it. The silence on the other side was worrying.

  What if she isn’t there? What if she fell asleep with her headphones in? I can’t let them take me without someone knowing!

  Adrenaline fueled panic soured his mouth. He slammed the dresser drawers shut, harder this time. His door opened without warning, making him drop a shirt to the floor.

  “Sorry. It gets stuck sometimes,” he lied meekly.

  “You’re done. Let’s go.”

  Neil took a step back and raised his voice. “Where are we going exactly?”

  “We just need to ask you a few questions.”

  “I’m happy to answer your questions here, officer,” he practically yelled.

  The silent one stormed past his partner and bodily shoved Neil out of the room, slamming the door behind. Neil continued to stall in the hallway, long enough Maggie finally cracked her door open to peer out. The tiny movement was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen in his life. She wasn’t the only one watching behind a sliver of an open door.

  As Neil was escorted into the waiting vehicle outside, it occurred to him their brash entrance could mean one of two things. Either they really didn’t intend him any harm and therefore didn’t care who saw him being taken, or they were so confident they couldn’t be touched it didn’t matter.

  He hoped for the first scenario to play out.

  ***

  Fifteen hours later, Neil was unceremoniously dropped off in front of his dorm unit without any further instruction. The blacked-out car whirred away. As he watched it disappear around a corner, he hoped he’d never had to see it, or the men inside, again.

  He paused for a moment, looking around at the bustling campus. It was a beautiful Spring day. Birds chirped in the trees, puffy clouds floated along a pale blue sky. Students, while stressed, seemed perkier as they strode between buildings. How could a day like this follow such a strange night?

  On shaky, exhausted legs, Neil made his way to his room with only two things on his mind; food and silence. Only one of his wishes was to be fulfilled.

  The moment he shut his door, it flew open again. He didn’t even have a second to turn around before a pair of arms captured him from behind. They stumbled forward with the force of her embrace.

  “Where the fuck have you been?” Maggie gasped, her face pressed against his back.

  Neil squeezed his eyes shut in relief, patting her arm. He’d never been so glad to have her room next to his. “I honestly can’t answer that.”

  She bodily spun him by the shoulders. “When I saw those guys take you, I…” She blinked away tears and shook her head, limp curls falling in her face. “Are you okay? You aren’t hurt?”

  “Just hungry,” he smiled wanly.

  “On it,” she replied, bounding from the room and returning with armfuls of junk food and soda. And her tablet.

  Over the
last day, Neil had been through the wringer. But of all the things that’d happened, Maggie sitting silently beside him waiting for him to speak was the most unnerving.

  “You’re freaking me out,” he said around a mouthful of food.

  “I’m just letting you decompress.”

  “I know,” he replied, glancing at her from the corner of his eye. “That’s the freaky part.”

  Maggie rolled her eyes and pulled up her tablet. “Fine, I won’t be nice then. There’s someone I want you to talk to.”

  Neil groaned. “I’m so tired of talking, Mags, please.”

  “He wants to help us.”

  “Us?”

  “Well obviously you and Wills are onto something. I can’t deny that when the freakin’ men in black show up to your goddamn door in the middle of the night! I’m not that stubborn.”

  He arched an eyebrow at her and said nothing.

  She sucked her teeth and bit back another cutting comment. Her restraint was all Neil needed to know she was serious.

  “Okay, who?”

  Maggie held up a finger and pointed to her tablet. On the screen was a small microphone icon and a timer indicating a connection. “You there, Hypnos?”

  There was a rustle, a pause, and a response. “I’m here. You used the secure channel?” a deep male voice replied in an English accent.

  “Of course. I’m here with Neil,” she said, gesturing for Neil to jump in.

  “Yeah, uh, hi,” he replied loudly before whispering to Maggie. “Who the hell is Hypnos?” She dismissed him with a wave.

  “They didn’t keep him overnight, so that’s a good sign, I suppose,” the Englishman replied. “Right, now. You hurt, mate?”

  Neil frowned. “No. Could I have been?”

  “From what Mouse told me, I’d be surprised, but you can never tell with these guys. Lemme guess. Blindfolded, taken to an undisclosed location, nondescript room, and interrogated for hours?”

  “Pretty much.” Neil figured it could’ve been a good enough guess. That’s what secret government agencies do, right? His doubts about Maggie’s friend faded when he went into further detail. “Who the hell is Mouse?”

  “I am,” Maggie hissed. She rolled her eyes like the question was beyond embarrassing.

  Hypnos didn’t notice their private conversation and carried on. “They didn’t feed you or give you anything to drink. But they did let you sleep, right?”

  Maggie watched him intently as this guy ran through what could’ve been an itinerary of his night. The Englishman didn’t wait for him to reply.

  “And I’m guessing you didn’t go into any dreamscapes, yeah? You don’t remember dreaming at all?”

  “He doesn’t have a seed,” Maggie replied with a touch of pride and judgment.

  “Yes he does.” Hypnos sounded utterly bored to even have to say it.

  Neil licked his lips, unable to meet his friend’s questioning gaze. “No, nothing. I don’t remember any dreamscape,” he replied, color flooding his cheeks.

  Maggie’s jaw dropped. “You have an implant? Are you fucking kidding… after all the shit you’ve given me about it!”

  Neil held up a hand to stop her indignant flow before it started. “Could you please stop acting like I’m the first hypocrite in the world?”

  Before Maggie could respond, Hypnos cut in. “Of course he has one. How else would they have gotten to him?”

  “What do you mean?” Neil asked, still hoping this all was a bad dream.

  “What you don’t realize, is your dreamscapes, all of your dreamscapes, were broadcast last night. There’s no point questioning someone when they can pluck out the answers without you knowing.”

  Neil shook his head, feeling a rising nausea climb up his throat. “That’s not possible…”

  Maggie went from angry to a weird form of supportive fear.

  “Get him something sugary. He needs to keep his blood sugar up for this,” the guy instructed her.

  “You got it,” she replied, handing Neil her tablet as she left. He took it with the same delicacy as if she’d handed him a live grenade.

  “She’s gone?”

  Neil glanced at the open door and replied, “Yeah.”

  “I didn’t want her jumping in, so I best be quick. They can go into your seed and pull out whatever they want. The fact I’m sitting here talking to you means they didn’t find much, but you’re not out of the woods yet. You’re being watched. This conversation is being watched.”

  “How? But… why would they…”

  “That’s not really important right now. What is important is the decision you make next. You found something you shouldn’t have. Mouse showed it to me. You can either decide to drop it right now, walk away, and literally never speak or think about it again. Or, you trust in me, a complete stranger, to walk you through removing that seed from your brain.”

  Maggie returned with another soda in her hand, proudly presenting it like a caught trout. “What’d I miss?” she asked as she reached for her tablet with the other hand.

  With his heart thumping in his chest, Neil clutched the tablet to his chest. “Hypnos? We’re gonna have to call you back,” he said as he held her gaze. He ended the call with a swipe.

  “What’d you do that for?” she gasped. “He’s impossible to get hold of. It took me forever to gain his trust enough that he’d actually let me talk to him and you do that?”

  “He sounds like a paranoid nut case,” Neil said slowly, blinking at her like she was an idiot.

  Maggie slammed her hands on the bed, pinning Neil’s hips. Her nose was less than an inch away from his. “Did you have a bad night last night?” she asked with a sarcastic smile. “You want more of those nights to happen?”

  Neil shook his head, thrown off by her rare focus. “No, but…”

  “That guy is willing to help you. He has no incentive to stick his neck out for you. The only, and I mean only, reason he did, was because you proved yourself.”

  “How did I…”

  “By cracking the goddamn code,” she huffed as she straightened. “After you were taken, I told him everything. I was half expecting them to come after me or Wills next, so someone else needed to know. Just in case.”

  Neil gasped, feeling like the worst person in the world. “Have you talked to Wills? Is he okay?”

  She crossed her arms, knowing full well she’d attained the moral high ground for once. “He’s fine. He’s keeping the hell away from you for the time being, but he wasn’t kidnapped, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  Neil ran his fingers through his greasy hair, tugging at the roots. The sharp pain gave him a little jolt, at least reminding him he was actually awake and not caught in some horrible dreamscape.

  “He said I need to get my seed removed. I’m guessing that isn’t done at my local office,” he stated wryly. “How do you know this guy, anyway?”

  A wicked smile touched one corner of her mouth. “You know those weird ass dreamscapes I’m always getting online?”

  “He writes them. Fucking great,” Neil groaned. He flopped back on the bed and covered his eyes with his forearm. Maggie cursed under her breath as she tried calling Hypnos back.

  I wish I’d never found that site, Neil thought as the Englishman angrily answered.

  New York City, NY

  June 5th

  Kristine waited three days before she let herself give into the fear. Two days of constantly monitoring the news, the underground channels, everything. She’d called Sammy who seemed less inclined than ever to give her information.

  “Things are strange around here right now.”

  “No shit,” Kristine muttered. “I was there.”

  “Yeah, well. I don’t really know what to tell you. You know more than I do.”

  “Tell me rumors. What are people saying? What are you hearing?”

  He sighed. “That’s the weird part. This place usually runs on caffeine and gossip, but no one is talking. It’s like�
�” He trailed off, covering the receiver with his hand and calling out to someone in the distance.

  “They’re afraid,” she finished for him.

  “Scared shitless. And honestly? So am I, so if you don’t mind…”

  Kristine jumped in, desperate to get as much out of him before he shut the door completely. “I need to talk to Dr. Lal. If you see him, can you let him know I’m ready.”

  The sputter on the other end of the phone made her stomach drop. “Yeah, he hasn’t come in for his last two shifts. No one knows where he is.”

  “Jesus,” she whispered.

  “Yeah, I gotta go,” he said giving her no room to slip in another question.

  A cold wind whipped through the budding trees. It was nearly June yet a lingering breath of winter tore through her thin jacket. She shivered, a chill borne of fear and cold. She walked along the winding path through the park, turning left, then right with no real direction. One foot in front of another as she tried to line up all the information she knew for sure.

  The doctor’s disappearance could’ve been a coincidence, but her gut told her it wasn’t. Whatever he’d read on that tablet shut him up, possibly even scared him. She kicked herself for chickening out and not following him up the stairs that day instead of running away.

  If they were going to take him, wouldn’t they have done it there and then? Wouldn’t they take everyone in that hallway?

  She made a mental note to try and track down the other officers she’d seen there that day, even the short mean one. They’d be off their sentry duties and back to their normal jobs. There’s a lead.

  Kristine also decided she’d stop calling Dr. Lal’s phone. If someone was after him or had already made him disappear, she didn’t want to come up on their radar any more than she already had.

  She spotted an outcropping of rocks and made her way over to them. It’d be a good backdrop to record her piece. She held the camera eye level and couldn’t bring herself to start recording. She’d never been so scared to file a piece, but maybe that’s what made it so good. Before she committed to doing something that couldn’t be undone, she called Christopher.