Absence of Mind

by H. C. H. Ritz

  “Oh?” says the man. His hair spikes out over his ears, despite the copious hair gel. “So tell us, what do you think is going on?”

  “You’re manipulating the nanobots to do things that they aren’t supposed to do—go places in the brain they aren’t supposed to go.” She sounds like she’s reading off a grocery list composed of foods she doesn’t much like. “Which, yes, goes well beyond what a Navi is FDA-approved to do and violates about half a dozen—”

  “And what makes you believe all of this?”

  “Don’t play stupid,” Mila says sharply. “I’m smart. I looked at the code I was working on and observed some bits and pieces of the code assigned to my coworkers, and I put it together.”

  The spiky-haired man turns to the cameraman. “Is that possible?”

  The cameraman shakes his head. “Only if she’s a freaking genius.”

  “I happen to be a freaking genius,” Mila says dryly.

  Spike makes a face. “So, what do you think we’re doing with the nanobots?”

  “I don’t know, and I don’t care. I only pointed it out to my supervisor because it amused me that I solved the puzzle. Otherwise, I have no interest in having this conversation.”

  “You don’t care? What if we were—oh, I don’t know—trying to manipulate people’s behavior on a large scale. Mind control. Taking away their free will. That wouldn’t bother you?”

  Mila closes her eyes briefly. “Let me try saying this again more plainly. No, I don’t care. I have no use for people. And people, just so you know, have no use for free will. People are mindless idiots. Somebody’s got to tell them what to do. Might as well be you.”

  Spike breaks out into derisive laughter. “You know, you’re a real piece of work. You really don’t care, do you?”

  “You’ve got it, and I only had to say it three times. Very good. May I go now?”

  I turn to Mila, who stares at the screen, unmoving, and I wait without breathing for an explanation, but nothing comes. She closes the video window, and then she looks at me. There’s a challenge in that look, not an apology.

  My mouth twists into a rictus, and words freeze in my throat.

  And then a message pops up on her screen. An email notification. One line:

  Do we have a deal, Ms. Bremer? Do we get Phoebe?

  Mila looks at the notification, too, and she says nothing.

  Nothing.

  At first, I can’t speak at all, and then I’m surprised at how measuredly I ask, “What the hell is all this?”

  But the calm disappears in an instant, and suddenly I’m standing over her, screaming, “What the hell is all of this? Explain it! Now!”

  Mila’s face twitches. “You weren’t—this isn’t—this isn’t a good—”

  “You were going to give me to them? To whoever is behind this?”

  “No,” she says. “No, I wasn’t. I was just—“

  “You’re talking to them? Negotiating?”

  “Listen, it’s not—I didn’t—look—“ She turns to the laptop and hammers out a message.

  No, no deal. Screw you. You don’t get Phoebe.

  She hits “send” and then turns to me. “See? No deal. I’m not doing it.”

  “That doesn’t fix it,” I say incredulously. “That doesn’t make it all go away. You knew. You knew all along. You kept all this from me.”

  “No… I…” She gives up and stares into the distance.

  Tears are in my eyes, and my chest is tight. I’m losing my mind.

  Another message pops up.

  I’m sorry to hear that, Ms. Bremer. I really am. Time for Plan B.

  My mind refuses to process the words. “What is all this?”

  Mila just shakes her head. “That was probably a mistake,” she murmurs.

  I turn away. “I can’t take this, Mila. I can’t deal with this. Get away from me. Just get away.”

  She gets up, closes the laptop. When she looks at me again, I remember her cold, harsh face and her voice snidely saying, You’ve got it, and I only had to say it three times.

  I scream again, “Get out!” and my throat is raw and my fists are clenched and I am full of terror for what I’ll do if she doesn’t—

  She grabs her canvas backpack and disappears up the stairs.

  I turn away. Jamie’s eyes are open, but he has no expression.

  Tears are spilling down my cheeks, and I wipe them away with hands that are shaking violently. My throat stings.

  I pace aimlessly.

  She was spying on me. She was keeping information from me. She knew all along.

  She knew. All. Along.

  And she didn’t care. Right from the beginning.

  Her mother had been kidnapped by these… these corporate thugs, and Mila sent her… here.

  To my family.

  She led them to my family.

  She was negotiating with them, talking to them, and keeping all of it from me. Lying to me.

  I’m crying as I pace, but I don’t have the luxury of grieving this… horrible mistake. My family is in far more danger than I realized.

  “Plan B”—that can’t be good, whatever it is.

  I pull the thumb drive out of my bra. Is this worthless? Does it make any sense that she would have pulled down incriminating information when she was part of this?

  God. She worked on the code that destroyed my little brother.

  I double over, my stomach clenching so that I think I might get sick. But I don’t.

  I have no idea what might be on this drive and I have no way of finding out, because I don’t even have a computer.

  I force myself upright and I wipe my face and I go upstairs.

  I look around, but she isn’t there. The front door hangs open. I look down the road both ways. Nothing.

  I don’t know how to do this without her.

  But I have to now.

  Resolute and terrified at the same time, I walk through the field and behind the garden to my parents’ house, seeing nothing around me as I go. I’m haunted by Mila’s cold, sarcastic tone on those recordings. I can’t reconcile that woman to the one I was lying next to last night, thanking my lucky stars I was privileged to touch.

  I go upstairs, avoiding my mother, and change into my regular street clothes. I pack up my few things and go downstairs, where I’m unexpectedly confronted by both parents. Dad is home from work.

  I open my mouth to explain, and I burst into tears instead. Mom walks me to one of the living room sofas and sits down with me while I sob. To my surprise, she puts her arms around me and rocks me as if I were child again.

  It takes me a few false starts while she patiently holds me. Finally, I sob out, “Mom… we’re not safe. None of us is safe. They might come anytime. These… awful corporate guys are behind everything and they were going to kill Mrs. Bremer and that’s why Mila sent her here and… they might come here and try to hurt all of you.”

  My mother sits me up and takes my hands in hers. She bows her head and prays—I can tell by the way she closes her eyes and the expression on her face. I’ve seen it so many times. It calms me immediately, as it always has.

  She lets out a deep breath, opens her eyes, and steadily says, “Phebe, we’re pacifists, you know that. God giveth and God taketh away. If it’s our time—“

  “No, Mom!” I wail. “You have to run away. Hide. Something. Please!”

  My father paces, his expression stormy. He says nothing.

  “Mom, please don’t let them hurt you. I couldn’t live with myself.” I’m hysterical again already, but I can’t help it. “Please…”

  My tears are contagious, and her face crumples. “Oh, Phebe. Why did you ever have to leave? Why couldn’t you stay here with us?”

  “Mom, I can’t. I can’t live here. I can’t.” The words come out of me with tremendous weight. I’ve never said these things to her. We’ve never had this conversation.

  She struggles to compose herself, looking away. But I can tell from the
look on her face that some part of her understands, no matter how much she tells herself that it’s wrong of me. “I wish…”

  I throw my arms around her and squeeze as if, with the force of my hug, I could press happiness into her. “I wish I could be here,” I say miserably. “I wish I never had to leave.”

  And I leave it unsaid that if God was just, if He was fair, He would have made me so I could stand to be here, so that I didn’t have to break my parents’ hearts every single day. But He didn’t. And I can’t do anything about it.

  At last, I tear myself away from my mother. “I have to go,” I say brokenly. “Mila said there was evidence on this drive she gave me, and I have to go try to get it to a computer so I can tell the world. So that I can clear my name. And hopefully, I’ll draw their attention when I go. Draw them away from you. Just be safe. Please, please be safe.”

  I gather my things, and my father presses a money card into my hand. Since Mila took the other cards with her, I accept it gratefully.

  As I’m opening the door to leave, I nearly jump out of my skin, because a man stands there in front of the door. I quickly register that his stance is uncertain, that he’s nervous about being here.

  He says, “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to surprise you. Mila sent me over… asked me to help keep an eye on things.”

  From behind me, Mom says, “Jerry Armstead? I thought you went home after you brought Mrs. Bremer here.” She steps up to the door and I give her room.

  “Oh, well…” He looks embarrassed. “See, Mila’s not real good about asking for help when she needs it, but I knew something serious was going on when she sent me here incognito with her mama. So I kind of stuck around town, just in case. I just wouldn‘t feel right, walking away. I had some vacation days saved up anyhow.”

  My heart leaps in my chest even as I wipe away the last of my tears. “Jerry, thank you for being here. Do you have a car here?”

  “Yes, I sure do. I rented one. It’s right out front. Right out there.”

  “And you have a Navi?”

  “I sure do have a Navi. Yes, I sure do.”

  I speak quickly, my words tumbling over each other. “As soon as I’m away from here, I need you to call the police. Tell them that Mila Bremer and Phoebe Bernhart are here. That’s all you need to say. Then, take my parents and Mrs. Bremer and Jamie in your car and get them away from here as fast as you can. And then I’ll contact you as soon as I can. Hopefully, this will all be over in a few hours.” Then I add, belatedly, “Please?”

  He almost laughs, but then he sobers. “I will. Of course. That’s why I’m here.”

  He looks at my parents, and I think everyone is aware of their hesitation. Their discomfort.

  Then my mother raises her hands. “Thank you, Jesus,” she says.

  From behind us, my father says, “’Behold, I am going to send an angel before you to guard you along the way.’”

  Jerry laughs, but he looks pleased and relieved. “Well, I don’t know about an angel,” he says. “A servant of God, at my best, I hope. I sure aim to be, anyway.”

  Then something he said a minute ago strikes me. “You saw Mila? Just now?”

  “No, she sent me a message. She said she had to leave, but you all might need help, so that’s why I came.”

  I take a breath. “Do you trust Mila?” I ask him.

  “Of course I do. She may be odd, but she’s good people. Why do you ask?”

  I shake my head. “No reason.” I don’t know what to say. I don’t want to tell him that he’s wrong about her.

  I end up having Jerry take me to our stolen car, which is still there, before he calls the cops and takes the others away. When I see the car, it occurs to me to wonder how Mila is traveling. Then I realize that I never told her where I’d parked our car.

  I can’t make up my mind whether I’m worried about her or not. My anger and hurt war with my fear.

  Rubbing my face wearily, I focus on my task. I need to get to a computer that’s on the net, look at what Mila put on the drive, try to make heads or tails of it, and then, assuming I can figure it all out, I’ll try to do what Mila said—release the data on Wikileaks. It feels like a long shot, but it’s all I’ve got.

  I decide to go to the John McIntire public library in Zanesville, because libraries usually have computers. I drive in a daze, my stomach sick with anxiety, not even able to take in my surroundings. I try not to accidentally run any red lights or kill any pedestrians on the way.

  This town is small, maybe twenty thousand people. I get to the library, a couple of blocks from the river, within a few minutes.

  As dusk begins to fall, I park, step out of the car, walk about ten steps toward the small building—and then tires squeal nearby.

  One of the US marshals’ SUVs is a few yards away.

  It doesn’t even properly stop before the doors swing open and the barrels of guns flash. and strange men bark commands to get down¬—but I’m already running, not toward the library anymore, because I’d be cornered in there, but past it, toward the woods on the other side of the parking lot.

  Sirens approach, and then gunfire cracks. My heart lurches, and I’m panting hysterically and running as fast and as erratically as I can without stumbling.

  Why the hell are they shooting at me? I’m supposed to be a cyberterrorist, not a serial killer.

  And then I realize I probably ought to be dead by now if they’re at all competent with guns, because a lot of shots have been fired and I’m confident that I have zero ability to dodge bullets.

  I slow down enough to turn and see that there’s a black SUV caddy-corner to the brown one and that five men in that SUV are shooting the marshals dead.

  I run. And run.

  The horse-drawn buggy stops in front of the lone Greyhound bus station in Zanesville. Mila gets out from where she was hidden on the floorboard. “Thank you,” she says to the driver, and the buggy pulls away with the clip-clopping of horse’s hooves.

  She changed into her ordinary street clothes from her backpack while she was in the buggy. Her eyes are still red from crying. She has a thousand-yard stare, her shoulders slumped.

  A single Greyhound bus waits at the bus stop, its engine running. Mila steps up into it. There are only three other passengers. She opens her laptop to show the driver her ticket, and when he nods, she takes a seat by the window. As the bus sets off with a jerk and a roar, she opens her laptop in her lap.

  Sirens approach from behind them. She looks out of the window, but she can’t see anything from this angle.

  The bus picks up speed as it starts onto the Y bridge over the river that runs through the center of Zanesville.

  Then there are sounds like firecrackers, and the front of the bus drops with an alarming lurch and swerve.

  Startled shouts come from the other passengers as they hit the backs of the seats in front of them.

  A hard impact accompanied by a forceful crunching sound jolts the bus from one side, throwing everyone and everything into the neighboring seats. The jolt knocks the laptop out of Mila’s lap.

  Seconds later, another impact slams the bus much more violently than the first one, this time on the left front corner.

  The bus rolls onto its side with a tremendous crash and the shattering of windows.

  Everything flies into the air—people and luggage, Mila’s laptop—roughly colliding with the walls, seats, and roof of the bus.

  Mila’s right arm slams against the hard edge of an overhead compartment.

  The bus slams, jerks, and skids before it comes to a rest on its side.

  Mila lies across the sides of two seats, motionless like all the other passengers.

  Then she rouses and tries to pick herself up. She cries out as she puts weight on her right arm. Instead, she uses her left arm.

  More gunfire erupts from outside, and sirens close in as the other passengers begin to stir and groan.

  Fast-fading sunlight comes in from the windows directl
y above them, but they reveal only darkening sky.

  Mila finds her backpack between two seats and slings it onto her back, crying out again as she puts her right arm through the loop. She climbs over seats toward the shattered front windows.

  Along the way, she stops as she sees her laptop between seats, open, the hinge broken, the screen shattered and dark. She gives it a forlorn look and then moves on, leaving it behind.

  Before she gets to the windows, she can see that the headlights illuminate no road ahead of them. Too far below them is a river.

  She looks back, but there’s no back window in this bus. Her only other option is overhead.

  As others begin to get up or call for help, she scrambles one-handed up the horizontal seats to one of the broken windows and looks out.

  Immediately, rough hands grab her by the shoulders and torso, and two men in black outfits pull her out.

  She screams as they grab her by the arms and pull her down off the bus amid the shouts of angry men and sirens and gunfire.

  While three more men hang out of windows to exchange fire with the half-a-dozen police cars and the tan SUV that have all come to a stop some yards away, Mila’s captors shove her into the back of a black SUV. They pull two of their own, now dead, back in from the windows, and the SUV squeals away past the bus.

  I make it to the woods to the west of the library. I don’t look back. With any luck, they’ve all killed each other by now, although I doubt it. It looked like those guys in black were slaughtering the marshals.

  I dodge and weave among the trees while I angle to the north. I know that the river is close. I have some vague idea of either finding a boat or simply jumping into the water and letting the current take me away. The light is fading into twilight, and I hope that will help me. Thank God I’m not wearing white.

  I’m also suddenly grateful for my Navi forcing me to run on every one of my days off for the past however many months.

  Within a hundred yards or so, I emerge into what looks like an abandoned train yard, with dozens of rusting train cars. I climb into a boxcar, which I figure ought to give me enough cover that I can look back.