Absence of Mind

by H. C. H. Ritz

  I let out a breath as the familiar chill of my financial situation hits me. “Not yet. Honestly, I’m not even looking yet. I have a few more days before I really have to panic, and I want to focus on Jamie as long as I can.”

  “What is your bank account balance?”

  That’s usually considered a rude question, but this is Mila, after all. “Oh, it’s not looking so good. Like I said, I have a few days…”

  “How much money do you need to live per week?”

  I can’t see why she would need to know, but as we get off the elevator, I say, “Well, hold on. Let me do the math.” Actually, I ask my Navi to do the math. Then I report, “About $2,500. Why?”

  Mila looks contemplative, then nods. “I’ll pay you that much, then. Until we’re done here.”

  I stare at her blankly. “I’m sorry? What?” I stop walking, and she stops, too.

  “You’ve proven to be useful to me in carrying out my work,” Mila says dispassionately. “You’ll be more useful if you aren’t working elsewhere.”

  “Okay, but… but… no, Mila, I can’t accept— it’s not— ”

  She looks right at me. “What’s wrong with the idea?”

  I hesitate. Then I decide that spelling things out is probably best with Mila. All her other oddities aside, she strikes me as someone who’s quite capable with the truth.

  “Because I feel awkward about accepting large amounts of money from someone I don’t know well.”

  Mila looks away and blinks, then looks back at me. “You are eager to accept large amounts of money from an employer who presumably won’t know you well before he or she hires you.”

  “It’s different because that’s an employer. You’re not an employer. And it’s different, because for an actual job, I would be supplying at least forty-eight hours a week of skilled labor that’s worth that kind of money, and I don’t know that those factors would apply in this situation. And also, the employer presumably has a large enough budget to pay people, and most private individuals can’t afford to do that, so it feels like it would be unfair for me to impoverish you by that amount of money.” I grind to a halt.

  “Are those all of your objections?”

  “I think so.”

  “One: People become employers by employing others, and I’m offering to employ you, thus making myself an employer. Two: Your work product is valued by your employer. I would value your work product at more than $2,500 a week, so I’m getting a bargain. Three: I have a great deal of money. I make an excellent income and I don’t spend it and it amuses me to let it accumulate in my bank account. I feel like a dragon sitting on her hoard.”

  That last line was probably the most personality I’ve ever seen Mila exhibit.

  “So I will not be impoverished by paying you $2,500 a week for a few weeks. Does that resolve all of your objections?”

  I feel like a mouse stuck in a nice trap with a lot of good cheese. It doesn’t seem right somehow. “But you’re the one helping me. With my brother. I should be paying you, not the other way around.”

  “We’ve both agreed that this work needs to be done, and we’re both doing it. I don’t need to be paid to do it, but you do. I can pay you, and no one else is offering to do so. So it only makes sense for me, the person with the money, to give some of it to you, the one who needs it.”

  No rational objection is coming to mind. “I feel awkward about this arrangement. Accepting your money because I need it.”

  “Can you ignore these awkward feelings long enough to accept the money?”

  “Uh… hell. I guess so.”

  “Then let’s consider the issue resolved. I will transfer the first payment to you tomorrow.”

  She goes into the cafeteria and picks up a tray and starts looking at the food choices.

  I follow, my mind still a confused mess. I’m not sure what happened here or what to think about it.

  A few minutes later, as I’m following her back upstairs with a to-go order of mock turkey, green beans, and rolls, I decide not to fight it. A smile creeps across my face as I realize this is one of the nicest things anyone has ever done for me. It’s also a confirmation that I’ve learned how to be useful to Mila, and, for whatever reason, I love that.

  As we approach Jamie’s room, Mila asks, “Can we rename you?”

  “I’m sorry, what?” I wrinkle my forehead.

  “Rename you.”

  I don’t react, because I have no idea what to say. As we walk in and sit down, I look for any clues in her facial expression. As usual, there aren’t any.

  She opens her laptop without looking at me. “You see, I already have a cat whose name is Phoebe, and it’s awkward having to call you the same thing.”

  I briefly contemplate laughing, but I can’t quite work up the energy. “Are you serious? You want to—you don’t like for me to share your cat’s name?”

  “It’s awkward,” Mila says.

  “Well, I’m sorry it’s awkward, but Phoebe is my name and I like it. More or less. And I don’t want to change it. And, by the way, I was first. I’m older than your cat. I’m pretty sure.”

  Mila frowns but doesn’t look up.

  More irritated responses are coming to mind, but I’m trying to keep them inside. Finally, I manage a chuckle. I can’t believe this woman.

  An alarming thought suddenly occurs to me. “This isn’t part of the deal of you paying me, is it?”

  Mila shakes her head.

  I sigh and start eating my dinner.

  After a few bites of her meal, Mila says, “I’m going to have to call you person-Phoebe.”

  I stare at her some more. “Say again?”

  “Person-Phoebe. To distinguish you from cat-Phoebe.”

  I say nothing for a moment. Then, “Whatever works for you, person-Mila.”

  Mila looks at me uneasily. “Is there a cat-Mila?”

  “Somewhere in the world, probably, yes.”

  Mila eats half her baked potato with her forehead wrinkled. Then she says, “But you don’t need to distinguish me from a cat-Mila if you don’t know a—”

  I groan. “Never mind. It was a joke. Of sorts.” I shake my head.

  Her forehead is still wrinkled. “If you do know a cat-Mila, then it’s okay if—”

  “Joke, Mila! Joke!” I say loudly.

  Jamie perks up, apparently hoping for some more excitement. I shoot him a glare, and he grins.

  I’m surrounded by lunatics.

  Early on Monday afternoon, Mila sits on her sofa with her laptop open, working with her cat beside her, when her doorbell rings. She looks up, her expression concerned, and then returns to her programming. The doorbell rings again, twice… then three times.

  With a sigh, she stands up and looks through the peephole. After a moment of deliberation, she opens the door.

  Three men in dark suits gaze at her. The one on the right, a middle-aged guy with televangelist hair, says, “Ms. Bremer, your employer at ENI, Mr. Brockman, sent us. We need to have a word with you.”

  “Then come in,” she says reluctantly.

  Mila’s cat scurries to the back room. Mila perches on the edge of her sofa with one of the men next to her, while the other two men settle in Mila’s armchairs across from them.

  The men glance at activity in their Navi displays. Their Adam’s apples quiver as they speak subvocally—perhaps to one another, perhaps to third parties.

  “We need you do something for us.” This from the man on the left, a red-faced man with a thick neck.

  “Oh?”

  “You’ve become bit of a problem to us. And so has your little friend, Ms. Phoebe Bernhart.” This from the third man, a squirrely, wiry fellow.

  “Oh, are you the ones with the shitty code?”

  Neck narrows his eyes at Mila, but none of the men speak.

  “So, what about it?” Mila asks, glancing from one of them to the other.

  “We need you to play bit dumb for us,” Televangelist says. “Stop being
quite so effective at figuring out what’s going on, but stick close to Ms. Bernhart. At some point, we may need you to pass some misinformation to her.”

  “Why would I do that?”

  “Why wouldn’t you do that?”

  Mila pauses. “Allow me to repeat myself more slowly, since you seem not to have heard or perhaps not to have understood me. Why would I do that?”

  “My apologies,” Televangelist says smoothly. “I don’t mean to be obtuse. The question is simply this: what would motivate you to do this for us?”

  Mila pauses. “Why do you care about Phoebe? She’s an out-of-work nurse. What threat is she?”

  Televangelist answers. “She’s an out-of-work nurse with a strong interest in solving what’s wrong with her little brother and every intention of revealing what she learns to the world. Don’t you think?”

  “So, why don’t you just scramble her brain? Since scrambling brains seems to be your favorite thing to do?”

  The three men look at each other.

  Mila laughs shortly. “Ah, so you can’t. Your code is broadcast to Navis by some algorithm. You can’t select specific Navis.”

  Neck says, “Get back to the question. What kind of payment do you want in order to cooperate?”

  Mila shrugs. “I can’t think of anything.”

  The men also pause for a moment. Then Squirrel asks, “What do you like? What are you into? Cars? Clothes? Bling? We can give you whatever you want.”

  “I don’t care about any of that.”

  “Then name a price, and we’ll see how close we can come,” Televangelist says.

  “I don’t care about that, either.”

  “Ms. Bremer, are you being deliberately stubborn?” This is from Neck, with a threatening tone in his voice.

  “No.” Her tone is flat.

  Televangelist tries to soothe. “Would you like to not have to work for a long time? Perhaps early retirement… or simply a long vacation?”

  “No. I like my work. And fixing your shitty code.”

  Televangelist grimaces and stands up, paces to the fireplace mantel, and leans on it. “Let’s turn this around, Ms. Bremer. Why are you objecting to our request? Do you care about this woman, this Phoebe Bernhart?”

  Mila’s chin goes up and she glances at him briefly. “Of course not.”

  “Do you care about the project itself? What Ms. Bernhart is up to?”

  “No.”

  “So why not do what we say?” Neck demands.

  “I don’t feel like doing you any favors. I don’t like you. And I don’t like your shitty code.”

  “We’d like to clarify that it’s not our code, and it’s not our project,” Televangelist says, folding his arms. “It’s merely a project that we’re interested in. But it’s important to us that you stop making progress on your side of things.”

  “It’s important to me that I do make progress,” Mila says.

  Neck clenches his jaw. All three men are silent for a moment, probably communicating via Navi.

  “Then let’s turn this a third direction, Ms. Bremer.” Neck’s tone has become cold, and he leans forward again. “What wouldn’t you like to have happen, if you don’t cooperate?”

  Televangelist steps forward, his height imposing. “Let your imagination supply you with possible scenarios. Anything you wouldn’t like much.”

  Mila’s shoulders tense. A long moment passes in perfect stillness. “I don’t know which of my theoretical responses you might be capable of.”

  “Assume that we’re capable of all of them,” Televangelist says.

  “Some of them are illegal, some unethical, some stupid—and some would take a lot of money and effort to implement,” Mila says.

  “None of those things present an obstacle to us,” Televangelist says.

  Mila takes a long breath and lets it out slowly. “You’re going to have to be more explicit. I don’t do guessing games. If you don’t know what I—”

  “Your mother,” Neck says.

  Mila’s mouth stops moving in mid-sentence.

  Neck continues, “The nursing home. You visit almost every day. You pay her bills.”

  Televangelist nods. “It’s no secret that you love her very much.”

  It looks like Mila has to work to get the words out. “I don’t love her.”

  Televangelist raises an eyebrow, sits down on the edge of his chair. “So you wouldn’t mind if something… unfortunate… happened to her?”

  Mila is perfectly still for almost half a minute. No one speaks.

  At last, Mila says, “I don’t negotiate with terrorists.”

  Televangelist raises both eyebrows, and the men look at each other.

  “This is the only card you have to play,” Mila says. “Once you’ve played it, you’re done. So you go ahead and kill my mother. I still won’t have done what you asked, and then there’s no way to force me to accomplish it.”

  Neck shifts forward. “You stupid bitch. You think we’re bluffing.”

  “I know for a fact that you’re bluffing,” Mila says. “What good will killing her do when I’ve already said no? Succumbing to coercion like this is criminally stupid. Once you agree, the other party has control of you for the rest of your life, because they can bring up the same threat again and again. The only way to win is not to play. One of my favorite people said that.”

  The three men freeze for a long moment, and then, as if on cue, they lunge at Mila.

  Mrs. Bremer’s voice comes through the receiver. It’s unnaturally loud, the sound distorted and buzzing. “Mila, everything is fine here. I’m very comfortable here in the new facility. There are lots of cedar trees out in the park where we can walk.”

  Mila’s eyes hurt from the bright, white light around her. She squints as she tries to make out where the light is coming from. Her living room distorts and wavers as if she were viewing it through a curved bit of glass. The colors are too bright, too vivid. Her head hurts, and her upper arms. She tries to rub them, but she can’t lift her hands. Three shadows stand above her, shifting and undulating.

  Her head hurts. It hurts.

  “Mila, do you understand me?”

  “Yes, Mom. I’m glad.”

  Mila is falling now, everything flashing past.

  “Mom, where are you? Aren’t you at the… Pines…”

  “No, these nice men moved me yesterday. Moved me in here to this place with the cedar trees.” Her voice is curiously flat. “You had better do with they say, don’t you think? Those men?”

  “Yes… Okay. Mom?” The light is fading into blackness. The image of Mrs. Bremer in Mila’s mind is getting swallowed up into the darkness. “Don’t get lost, Mom. Mom?”

  Everything is getting lost.

  Her eye hurts.

  Mila Bremer reclines on the sofa in her living room. The three men in suits surround her, Televangelist on the edge of the sofa and the other two standing. Their faces are flushed and tense. One man has a red mark across his throat, beginning to fade.

  Mila straightens up and wipes a trembling hand across her face, smoothes back her blonde hair, looks around.

  Televangelist says, “Is everything clear now?”

  “What happens next?” Mila asks. Her voice is hoarse, her tone distracted. “I don’t… I don’t remember…” She rubs one eye, which is tearing up. She looks at that hand and sees a smear of blood.

  “Do you remember speaking to your mother now?” Televangelist asks.

  “Yes…”

  “How she said she was safe in our facility?”

  Mila nods slowly.

  “Do you understand that we’ll hurt her? Severely? On every day that you do not follow our instructions? That it will not be a one-time thing or a quick death?”

  Mila looks away.

  “No harm will come to her as long as you fail to make any further progress on your project and follow any other instructions we give you. Do you understand?”

  “I understand.”


  Televangelist nods. “That’s a good girl. This will all be over soon, and then she’ll be transferred back to her facility. And as long as you report every day, she’ll be perfectly safe and happy. We have no reason to mistreat her, you understand?”

  Mila nods.

  “This is the number.” Squirrel holds out a card.

  Mila leans forward cautiously to take it.

  “One more thing,” Televangelist says. “We may need you to exert some influence on Ms. Bernhart. So we suggest you get close to her, in case you need to be able to persuade her. Under no circumstances may you quit this project until we say so. Keep close to Ms. Bernhart.”

  Mila looks away. “You couldn’t possibly have chosen a worse person for this,” she says quietly.

  “I’m beginning to agree, given your… warm and approachable personality,” Neck says sarcastically. “But you’re going to have try anyway. See if you can get her… interest.” He leers.

  Mila shrinks into the sofa. Her voice is a whisper. “I don’t like people.”

  “Try harder,” Televangelist says, standing up.

  “I don’t think you work for ENI,” Mila says.

  The three men laugh. “Of course not,” Squirrel says as he opens the front door.

  They leave.

  Mila hurries after them to close and lock the door. Then she leans back against it, her face drawn. A moment later, she slides down the wall. She rubs her eye again and looks at her hand. No blood this time.

  The scene is silent and still for a few moments. Then Mila’s cat slips out from behind the sofa. She trots over, purring audibly. She headbutts Mila’s hand, and the blonde woman strokes her weakly.

  Mila swallows hard and speaks in a hoarse whisper. “They have my mother.”

  Mew. The cat flops down on her side and flicks her tail, demanding more pets.

  Mila’s eyes are full of tears. She blinks a few times, and they’re gone.

  “They’re doing something to me. They have to be doing something to me, but I don’t know what it is. Because I don’t remember everything.

  “Did you… did you hear what happened? What we said?” She looks down at the cat, who doesn’t answer. “No, I don’t think so. I think you were in the bedroom for most of it. I don’t remember when you came in…” She swallows and feels a place under her jaw on one side. “And now I’m trapped. I’m trapped in this thing. My mom…”