by CJ West
I was just about to start working on a window when I clearly heard a grandfather clock chime inside the house. The window directly over my head was wide open. It was one of those old windows, double the size of the ones they put in new houses, and it sat low on the wall. All I needed was a short boost to get inside. I found a garbage barrel someone had been using to collect leaves. I tipped it over, popped the screen, and in seconds I was inside the largest dining room I’d ever seen. The table could seat fifteen or twenty. That one room was bigger than my entire apartment.
I stepped into the shadow of a large cabinet filled with dishes and stood motionless against the wall to get in tune with the sounds of the house. Nothing moved. I was glad not to hear the padding of another guard dog, but it was strange not to hear anything moving in a place so big. Across from me was a huge portrait of Wendell with a woman as wide as my mother. It was made to look like a painting, but it was definitely a photograph.
I spotted two motion sensors and moved slowly to the staircase without setting them off. I turned a corner and heard the click of a sensor activating. It had me, but the alarm didn’t sound. Lucky it was off. In front of me, a matching staircase led up to the second and third floors. I placed my sneakers quickly and quietly so I could get out of the huge open space before someone wandered in. From the second floor landing, I moved down a long hall of closed doors, pausing at each to listen for activity on the other side.
If I had called out at that point, everything might have been fine. I was unarmed. Yes, I came in uninvited, but someone left the window wide open. I should have said something to let Wendell know I was there, but I stalked the entire second floor without a sound and continued up to the third. At the far end of the hall, I heard shuffling behind the door. I’d opened a few and found mostly empty rooms, but this one had been waiting for me since I scaled the wall.
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
I closed the door behind me and the four computer screens at the far end of the room went blank. There was a metallic thunk at my back, like a dozen deadbolts ramming home at once. I grabbed the door handle, but it wouldn’t budge. Trapped, I spun around. The front half of the room was completely empty. The wooden floorboards and bare walls led to the U-shaped desk where Wendell sat facing the windows with his back to me. My arrival hadn’t surprised him at all.
“What did you give my dogs?”
“They’ll be ok.”
Wendell turned around. “How do you know? Did you ask them if they were allergic to narcotics? Did you weigh them to get the proper dose?”
What was his problem? I hadn’t hurt the dogs and I really needed to see him. Why couldn’t he understand that my message was more important than his dogs taking a nap?
“What if an assassin climbs the fence? Can my dogs protect me now?”
The dogs would be out for hours, but was he serious? Was he really scared of assassins?
“What gives you the right to climb through my window and come traipsing through my house? Do you know how expensive that carpeting in the dining room is?”
“No, sir.”
“Well? What gives you the right?”
“I needed to see you.” I felt like an eight year old being scolded for tracking dirt into the house.
“Maybe I didn’t want to see you. Did that cross your mind?”
“I have something important to show you.”
“Important?” he scoffed.
“I had to come. I needed to see you and you’re seeing me. I did what I had to do.”
“And who’s choice is that? That I’m seeing you, I mean.”
“Mine,” I barked. I was angry and I was tired of being manipulated. He was going to listen to me and there was nothing he could do about it. I took two quick steps forward. I would have marched to the desk and grabbed him by the neck, but a floor board six feet away popped open and a glass partition shot up to the ceiling. In a blink, the room was divided into two. My side was considerably smaller than Wendell’s.
“Would you like to rethink that Mr. O’Connor?”
Why was he nitpicking? Couldn’t he see how important my message was? I wouldn’t have broken in otherwise.
“In a polite society when we need to see someone, we ask permission.”
“What does that have to do with anything? I found something important and I need to show it to you.”
“Ah. Exactly my point. You need. You need. You need. That’s why you’re here, Michael. You only think about what you need. You’re willing to sacrifice what someone else has or wants to satisfy whatever whim has your attention. In a civil society we don’t take from others without asking. That applies to dogs, and houses, and even time.”
I lost my cool. His flat tones were so irritating, I couldn’t take it anymore. I ran to the glass and started pounding.
He was completely unfazed by my rage. So was the glass. Wendell frowned as if I were failing another test on his black box. He casually clicked a button and six ceiling vents started pouring blue smoke. With nothing to stand on, there was no way to prevent the smoke from blanketing me. Wendell’s side of the room remained clear. He snickered through the haze as I tried to wave away the smoke.
“What I’m about to give you is as harmless as what you gave my dogs.”
“I’m not a dog.”
“Clearly not. But those dogs provide a valuable service. They earn a living by protecting me. Just how have you earned your living these twenty-five years, Mr. O’Connor? You’re a career criminal who has never done anything worthy of the food you eat or the air you breathe. Some might say the dogs are more valuable than you. What do you say to them?”
At first I couldn’t believe he really wanted an answer. Was he insane? Of course I was more valuable than those dogs. I went back to the glass so I could see his face. He looked right back, waiting for me to explain myself.
“I’m a human being, for God’s sake.”
“You’re smarter than the dogs. I’ll give you that. But what service have you ever provided, Michael? Tell me. It’s an easy question. What have you done to help support your fellow man? Why should we keep feeding you?”
The question had never been put to me that way. I needed to eat. I deserved to eat. That’s all there was. Was he serious? Why wouldn’t he feed me? I was human. It was my right to live and be healthy. He couldn’t take that away from me.
Locked inside the glass or even on the street I was completely under Wendell’s control. I started to think how unfair that was when a realization hit me heavily in the chest. Wendell created the black box and assembled the counselors to teach me something, however misguided that effort was. He made something that hadn’t existed before. Even with me here in his house, he was at work, or at least interrupted by his work.
I had never done anything useful to anyone else. I was good at what I did, but that served only me. That was Wendell’s point. To rejoin society I had to earn my keep. Wendell wanted me to follow rules I’d abandoned long ago, but I needed more time than Wendell was willing to give if I wanted to learn how to follow those rules.
I couldn’t answer his question. There was no defense of my last ten years, but what I did have, I pulled from my pocket and held up to the glass.
“What’s that?”
“It shows how your competition has been cheating you.”
Wendell pressed a few buttons. Heavy duty fans blew air up between the floorboards and the smoke slowly disappeared through the ceiling vents. A compartment opened in the wall near the divider. I walked over and placed the camera inside. When I removed my hand, the compartment shut and its twin opened on the other side of the glass. Wendell collected the camera and went back to his desk. When I tried to explain how to view the images frame by frame he waved me off.
“Nice work,” he said when he was done watching.
“Thank you.”
“That’s not what I meant. Did your friend watch the videos?”
“What’s—” Wendell wouldn’t let me continu
e.
“He learned the lesson? Didn’t he?”
“Yes.”
“So what is the problem?”
“This is wrong. They can’t plant ideas in someone’s brain. Didn’t you see the guy with the knife?”
“Excellent work I’d say.” He saw how flustered I was and kept on. “The stakes in our business are incredibly high. We are the last line of defense for decent people. The lesson is what counts. Your friend Stephan was doing fine until you got in the way.”
He knew I had been to Stephan’s.
“Oh yes,” Wendell said. “Nathan Farnsworth, my friend who runs that program, he was quite upset with you yesterday. Had to start all over with Stephan to make sure he got it right. I’m sure when you see Stephan, he’s not going to be particularly happy with you either.”
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
Wendell knew about the subliminal messages and he didn’t care. When I heard him applaud the technical work, I wished I had been smart enough to check my own videos for hidden messages. Those children on the playground were probably a cover for Wendell to pump something more ominous into my head. I’d never know because Wendell kept the camera.
I was trapped on the wrong side of the glass. Wendell looked at me like a troubled goldfish that kept leaping from the safety of its bowl. Was he really trying to protect me? He needed me to stay out of trouble until his ratings improved, but that was for his benefit more than mine.
Did Wendell know who had tried to kill me that morning? If he wasn’t such a patsy I would have suspected he was involved. Being worth more dead than alive made me question everyone. Even worse, I was causing trouble for a man who could push a button, fill the room with carbon dioxide, and watch me slowly suffocate, or pump in some neurotoxin and watch me drop. I was glad it was Wendell holding the button.
“Aren’t you upset that he’s cheating you?” I asked.
“Subliminal messages aren’t cheating.”
“It’s more than that and you know it. What are you? Some kind of hero? Is that why you take the impossible cases?”
“What are you talking about? Criminals come in and go to the next program in line.”
“Haven’t you looked at the relearners your friend Nathan is getting?”
“That’s not allowed,” he said, then waggled the camera at me. “This is the most I’ve seen of what they do over there.”
“Haven’t you looked around?” I told him about the people I talked to in both apartment complexes. In Wendell’s program, most of the relearners had offended over and over. That made it look like he was failing, but in reality, they had offended over and over before they arrived. The people who lived with Stephan were mostly first timers with trivial offenses.
Wendell ran his fingers through his hair as I’d seen him do in court.
“Think about me,” I said. “Who is set up to fail more than me? I still don’t understand the new laws. I’ve never had a job. I didn’t finish school. Is it a coincidence that you got me? All this trouble you’ve got now, it isn’t by accident.”
Wendell perked up and asked how many people I had talked to.
“Thirty at home. Twenty at Stephan’s. All you have to do is walk around. They look different. They act different. You’re teaching hardened criminals. He’s running a country club.”
He thought a long time and said, “Telling me this doesn’t change anything. What do you want? Why are you helping me?”
I hadn’t wanted anything when I came in. I was trying to do the right thing. Maybe the lessons were getting through, but his question awakened a thought. “How about this,” I said. “I help you prove that you’re getting screwed by Nathan Farnsworth and you keep Blake off my back.”
Wendell looked disappointed. He must have thought I was looking for a way out of math class or something. He couldn’t have known the truth. At least I hoped he wouldn’t let Blake victimize his relearners.
“Blake knew I was having trouble with the program. He came and took me to see the cat baggers.”
Wendell tried to interrupt, but I just kept talking.
“He told me about the cats, the drugs, the weird surgery. I haven’t been able to sleep since. When I heard bones crashing into the ground and the horrible pained screams coming from the rear windows, Blake had me where he wanted me.”
Wendell assured me that such a place didn’t exist.
“I was there. I saw it. And I saw something else, something mushroom-like that should have stayed in Blake’s pants.”
Wendell bolted upright. He leaned over his desk, measuring me as if I were making up a story to escape my work, but he seemed to know I was telling the truth. I felt like he could read my mind when he wanted to. It was usually disturbing, but in this case I was glad to have him on my side.
He went to the monitor and I saw my silhouette appear in something like an X-ray. Then he pressed a button and the glass wall retracted into the floor. I waited for an invitation to move closer, but it didn’t come.
Sirens sounded at the front gate and Wendell flew into a panic.
What could he be doing here that was illegal?
He pointed at me and said, “Downstairs. To the dining room. Now!”
I left the way I had come. Soon after, I heard him running downstairs for the front door. When it opened a group of heavy feet tramped in. Four men came my way. The man in the lead held a notebook sized screen. He followed it until he was looking directly at me where I stood against the wall by the cabinet.
Things might have been easier to explain if I had just taken a seat at the table, but I didn’t know the police were interested in me.
I heard a conversation in the hallway.
“You know you need to register any relearner coming onto your property. How many assassination attempts have you survived?”
“I forgot to send notification. I’m sorry,” Wendell said.
“That’s crap and you know it. Your dogs are passed out against the back wall. We found three empty hot dog packages thrown into your neighbor’s yard.”
“I’m sure the dogs are fine.”
“The law is the law, Mr. Cummings.”
Wendell came into the room, bowed his head, and the cops cuffed me.
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
How was I to know it was illegal for me to go to Wendell’s house? Yes, I’d broken in. And yes, when I was led out in cuffs I understood why Wendell was so upset about the dogs and that I climbed through the dining room window. But would he have let me in if I had walked up to the front gate and buzzed? I don’t think so.
It would have been easier standing outside the gate wondering what to do next than riding in the back of the police car to drive-through court. I’d been tried and convicted there twice in less time than they could have scheduled a pre-trial hearing in the old days. The cops always had the evidence they needed by the time they drove me there. Every case was rock solid. The efficiency was startling. I thought about that for a long time. Sure, they could track me everywhere I went, but the real difference was the lack of theatrics for the jury. Even more than that, the judges only cared whether you were guilty or not. There wasn’t a lot of wrangling about admissibility of evidence. When they were trying to put me away for stealing the DA’s Mercedes, the lawyers were constantly wrangling over technicalities. The word admissibility hadn’t been uttered in the next two trials. The facts were the facts and the judge knew whether I was guilty or not. They didn’t spend a lot of time convincing him. The judge knew I was guilty of robbing the DA, too, but back then it took nine months to do anything about it.
We arrived in the building and were stationed in the hallway outside the courtroom for about ten minutes before Wendell escorted me in. I wasn’t surprised by the speed of my trials anymore.
The prosecutor presented the case in less than ten minutes. He showed the judge where I had been that day. How I’d climbed the wall and entered through Wendell’s dining room window. They even showed pictures of the dogs sleeping
off the drugs. There was no time to establish what I’d given them, but they guessed exactly where I’d gotten the pills. The guys at the basketball game were going to have a nasty surprise in the next day or so. I hoped they wouldn’t connect it to me.
I just didn’t understand the new world I was living in. I was stumbling around in the dark and stepping on everyone around me. Joel, Stephan, the drug dealer, and especially Wendell. If I didn’t figure out how to stay out of trouble and how get through the program soon, I wouldn’t last.
The judge asked for our defense. Wendell stood up and said that I had come to him with some important information. Or at least I believed it was important enough to rush inside without permission. The judge asked for this information and Wendell approached the bench and whispered it to him.
The judge chuckled in my direction, and I knew even before Wendell sat back down I was going to be found guilty again. I raised my hand and asked permission to speak. The judge allowed my request, but glared at me skeptically. Wendell could barely contain himself in the seat next to me, but I stood up anyway.
“Someone tried to kill me this morning, Your Honor.”
He motioned me to proceed.
“I assumed it was related to the information I collected the day before. I didn’t think it appropriate to bring to the police. Not knowing who else to ask for help, I went to Mr. Cummings’ home.”
“How exactly were you assaulted, Mr. O’Connor?”
“I was walking in front of the donut shop about two blocks from my apartment. A car stopped, a large black sedan, and someone from the passenger seat fired a shotgun at me.”
The prosecutor started clicking away at his computer. I started to speak, but the judge held up his hand to silence me. We waited for the prosecutor to project a short video on the screen. The camera was inside the shop, but it caught me in blurry form, walking down the sidewalk, then ducking for cover behind the blue car.
