by Terry Persun
The sky had remained cloudy and there were few streetlights, so the darkness outside the windows encompassed his entire view. If he stretched his neck, he could see out the front where the van's headlights showed little more than the road. He did notice the air become cold and the smells to sharpen. The people inside the van remained relatively quiet.
Once again, Keith nodded off. The motion of the van and the sound the tires made against the road lulled him to sleep. By the time he awakened, there was light emerging from over a far hill. The view caught his breath. It gave him a start and he woke up completely. “Oh,” he said.
DAY 4
“It's beautiful, isn't it?” Sandra said from behind him.
“More than that,” Keith replied. “It's frightening.” Feelings rose in him that he could not recall ever having. Complete awe was the one that overtook him. He could hardly believe the vista before him. Hills rolled on, changing their appearance as they got farther away. In the distance, the hills turned to blocks of bluish gauze, illusionary, looking as though they were about to fade into the background of sky.
The van's nose pitched down slightly as they traveled into a valley. Scenery sped past, and as he stared out the side window, the landscape blurred into a wash of color. The sun peaked a far hill to the right, throwing shadows across the road. They drove into and out of the shadows, the light inside the van getting dark, then light, then dark again.
Keith had seen all this on the television from time to time, when he watched movies with the others, but had never been exposed to it in reality. There were no words for how this experience made him feel, no words for the sensations, the emotions, all coming at him simultaneously as the van of people bounced and thrummed over the hard surface of the road. He didn't want to blink his eyes for fear of missing something. He wished they had awakened him earlier so that he could have seen this as they approached. He took a deep breath and shivered, not so much from the chill in the air, but from the staggering view.
About a third of the distance down the hill, Roger made a right turn onto a side road. The sun glared through the front window and Keith had to squint and put his hand over his eyes. He turned his head and saw that they were traversing down a narrow roadway, tall grass and bushes rushing past. The van slowed, and it wasn't long before they turned onto a dirt road, which bounced the van around as they progressed. The bushes turned into trees, and soon the sun didn't glare through the window so forcefully. A canopy of green shaded them.
When the van stopped, dozens of people approached from a cleared area near the road. Roger had his window down and the air felt much colder. “Stay back, you guys. He's still a little anxious about being touched. Don't close him in.”
An older man approached Keith's mother's door. “You must be so happy,” he said.
She reached through the window and took the man's face into her hands and kissed him. Keith felt a surge of anger run through him, but didn't connect to where it came from.
“Come on,” William said as he exited the van. “You can stick with me for a while.”
“This one special or something?” a man about Keith's age asked as they passed. The man didn't look happy about it, and Keith sensed an instant dislike from the person. The feeling was mutual.
He followed closely behind William. Sam followed, his arms out to his sides producing an invisible barrier to ward off the people from getting too close to Keith.
Long tables had been set up under canvas canopies to keep the sun or rain out. The tabletops were lined with platters of food. Many of the people, Keith finally noticed, had plates of food in their hands. Eggs and fruit, bread and muffins; he smelled sausage. Where had it come from and how could he get some?
He slowed and turned toward the table, but Sam shoved him forward. “Keep going. We'll get food for you in a moment.”
Up ahead stood a tall square shaped tent. William ducked down and entered in front of Keith. Inside sat a thin-legged table with electronic equipment on it, a desk with a terminal and some other gear, and an older man who had the same broad face and raised cheekbones as his father.
The man got up and reached his hand out. “I'm your uncle Bradley.”
Keith reluctantly took the man's hand. The thick palm roughed Keith's soft hand with a scratchy earthiness he had never experienced before.
Bradley excused William and Sam and told them to get Keith some breakfast, then indicated for Keith to sit in a wooden chair.
“What is this place?” Keith asked.
“A temporary outpost, you might say.”
“Are the Newcity police looking for you?”
Bradley grinned and reached an arm to rest it on the table next to him. “It's complicated.” He tapped a finger. “And somewhat controversial.”
“How so?” Keith's curiosity vanished once Sam brought in a heaping plate of sausage and eggs and bread. “Oh, yes,” Keith said taking the plate and fork. “Thank you so much. You are now my best friend,” Keith said.
Sam laughed. “If that's all it takes…” he said before he left.
Keith shoved food into his mouth like he hadn't eaten for days, although as he recollected, it had actually only been one day. One day. He slowed with the thought, and looked around as he chewed. The tan tent glowed with the backdrop of sunlight coming through. The air felt warm inside. The equipment hummed and the people outside the tent were talking and laughing. The noise would have been unbearable had he been inside Newcity, but out here it all felt rather normal. He could have had less noise, but he was getting used to blocking it out while he was busy concentrating on other things.
He nodded while he thought.
“What is it?” Bradley asked.
“I'm finding that I can concentrate for longer periods of time,” Keith said, automatically answering the question.
“Glad you noticed. The truth is, you can focus now, where inside Newcity everything is scheduled and arranged so that you don't have to. In fact, it's not so much that you can't focus, as that you can't focus whenever you have a strong emotion along with it. That's how the chips work, little logic circuits you might say: one input and one output, two inputs and no output. Well, a nulling signal.”
“That's how they work?”
“You trade a life of security — food, shelter, peace — for a life where your emotions can run wild, where violence happens every day, where you often have to suffer for proper food and shelter. You trade a complicated life for a simple one, some say. I don't tend to agree.” Bradley closed his eyes for a moment. “Essentially, why build robots when you can program humans? Well, not really program, but coerce, convince, call it what you will.”
“So do people volunteer to go inside?” Keith said.
“You did.”
Chapter 9
Keith held up his diminishing plate of food. “An hour ago, I would have done it again.”
“Some have. So now we provide some of the essentials—peace, security, and food—just like you'd have inside. Show you the contrast so that you can make a different decision.”
“Will I?” Keith liked Bradley, felt that he was being honest for the most part. Experience was the element Keith was missing. But maybe he was a little confused, too, concerning his dead father and a certain boy with a bullet hole in his head and an angel. He thought of her again and it dawned on him that the lump might be a single wing. For a moment his mind wandered to what might have happened to the other one. He swallowed a mouthful of food and found that his thoughts had shifted, but he was able to go back to his original stream and pick up where he had left off. Fascinating. It could be that his mind would be the most interesting part of his outside experience Newcity.
“You're smiling,” Bradley said.
Called back from his thoughts, Keith saw Bradley leaning forward in his chair. A moment ago there wasn't anything in view except his thoughts. Could he have been that deep inside his mind that it blocked out sight? He shook his head. “I'm just amused, I guess. How I c
an dive into thought so deeply that I can follow several paths in different directions. It's odd.”
Bradley nodded approval. “Now we're getting somewhere.” He cocked his head. “More breakfast?”
Keith saw that his plate had been cleaned. “You know, I think I would like more.”
“Sammy!”
Sam poked his head in right away.
“Another plate of food?”
“Right away,” Sam said while rushing in to take Keith's plate. He handed the fork back to Keith. “You can hold onto this.”
Keith sat with the fork in his lap and stared back at Bradley.
“How are you feeling?” Bradley said after a few moments.
“That's a good question. I don't really know. I go from complete external awareness where I am almost intimate with the sounds and odors that are right here.” He stomped his foot on the ground. “Then I'm off in my own head wondering about the boy and angel, about Dad. I go back and forth. Both feel more real than my life inside Newcity that's only behind me by a day. It's strange.” He paused only a second before he said, “And when I think back, that person doesn't even feel like me anymore…or I don't feel like I did then. So, to answer the question, I'm not sure how I'm feeling.”
Bradley shook his head. Sam brought another plate of food and a glass of juice. “I thought you might want to wash this down with something.”
Keith looked into Sam's eyes and recognized a softness of gaze coming from a frame of tanned skin and a few wrinkles, a roughness of structure. “You are being so kind,” he said. “Thank you.”
Sam gave Bradley a strange look and then departed.
“You were going to say something, weren't you?” Keith said to his uncle. He began to eat again, but slower this time. After putting a forkful of eggs into his mouth, he pointed to the pile on his plate and said, “These are really good.”
“I was just thinking that this might take longer than usual. I have a lot of questions for you,” Bradley said.
“About?”
“This angel you mentioned? Your father? This is new. I haven't encountered anything like it before.”
“Only the boy with the bullet hole in his head,” Keith said, “like the doctor.”
“Like the doctor? Does he know about your dad and the angel?”
“Only the angel. Dad was in the last house.” He looked up, “You know, where Mom picked me up?
Keith pointed at Bradley with his fork, a slice of sausage stuck on the end. “I've been thinking about that doctor,” he continued, and instantly knew that he had not been thinking about the doctor at all, but that something had just occurred to him. From where? “If others have escaped, why didn't he have guards in the room, or locked the doors? Didn't he sort-of allow people to escape?”
Bradley made a toothy smile that almost looked evil to Keith. The man nodded with his head and shoulders, a great affirmative. “Yes, we have wondered the same thing. I am glad that you noticed. We'd also like to know why there is an apparent pattern to which particular house escapees are brought to. Although you are the first to see what we might call an apparition.”
“That's what Dad said, that he'd rather be called an apparition.”
“I must ask: does your mother know about this?”
“I slept most of the way here,” Keith said in way of an answer.
“Then let's keep this to ourselves for now. I wouldn't want her to become upset in any way. You know, she's carried on with her life, and if she felt for a moment that Dan was still, shall we say available, then it may change things for her.” Bradley tapped his fingers on his knee as though getting impatient.
Keith's heart leaped into his throat. “I don't know if I can do that. I'm used to answering questions when I'm asked and it feels uncomfortable holding things back. Lying is difficult; it takes a lot of concentration.”
“Yet, you were able to lie – even if it was just a little – in order to get out of Newcity.” Bradley set his jaw. “Look, Keith, this is important. I'm not kidding here. Before we can talk about this openly with the rest of these people, especially your mother in this case, I have to know more of the details. I have to figure this out.” He began to stand, then sat back down. “Something is happening inside Newcity that can, and will, affect us all.” He looked away. A breeze rippled the canvas behind him, generating a murmuring sound as it did so. His eyes closed slowly, then opened again before looking back at Keith. “You are the link to that understanding. I'm sure of it. Even more sure now that I've talked with you.”
Keith sensed the feeling, the urgency, the commitment behind Bradley's words, and it scared him. If he was the link to anything, wouldn't that put him in danger, wouldn't that make him vulnerable? “I don't know if I like this. It might be easier to just go back inside.” His stomach wrenched as he said the words. The sensation was so unexpected that he dropped his fork on the ground and clutched at the pain. Emotions rushed through him, several at a time, anger and euphoria, excitement and anguish. He wanted to cry, to run out screaming, but someone else, someone other than the Keith he had been a day ago, held him back. It was unbelievable to him that he could sense the strength inside, that he could notice the difference between the two people named Keith: one in the past and one sitting inside him at that very moment.
“I didn't mean that,” he said. He looked around and set his plate, with the remainder of food, on a stand near where he sat. He bent down, picked up the fork, and laid it on the plate. “What now?” he said.
“Yes, indeed.” Bradley slapped his knees with his palms. He was obviously focused on his next move, but his anxiety showed through his body movements, visible as tiny jolts—the fact that he looked as though he was about to stand up one moment and then would lean back as though trying to get comfortable. “I don't want you to go out there until I can be sure that you'll only discuss your escapades with me and not with the others. This debriefing has already taken longer than usual. There'll be suspicion if it takes much longer.” Bradley couldn't try to hide his tension any longer and stood up. “Please, promise me that we'll talk later, in private.”
“It's your camp,” Keith said. “I think I can do that whenever you want.”
Bradley stepped closer to shake Keith's hand for the second time that morning.
While shaking hands a small voice he now recognized as his own said to Keith, “Find a quiet place.” Keith looked around to where the voice came from.
“What is it?” Bradley said.
“The boy,” Keith said.
Bradley cocked his head and said very slowly, as though not wishing to scare the boy away, “Is he here?”
Keith surveyed the area. “Not him, just his voice.”
“Amazing. After all this time.” Bradley patted Keith on the shoulder. “We will definitely talk about this later.”
“What does it mean that I'm still hearing him?”
“Somehow, you are connected to the Newcity system beyond the chip's influence.” He smiled broadly again, “Just my guess at this moment. We'll learn more about that connection later when we talk again, and I can promise that I'll figure it out. But for now, you've got to meet some of the others. You've got to appear as though your experiences are not unusual. I know you can do that for me, can't you?”
It was no use telling Bradley that holding everything in and lying to the others would be difficult for him. Keith had already expressed that concern. Now Bradley was stressing his hopes as much as his assertions. “Okay,” Keith said, to appease the man's worries.
Bradley appeared to be satisfied with that. “Sammy!”
Again, Sam immediately pushed back the flap and entered the tent. Keith could imagine Sam listening to their entire conversation, and surmised that he must be a loyal member of the group, one who Bradley could trust.
“I think Keith may need some privacy. This has been a lot for one man to go through. Show him to his tent so that he can get settled and have some quiet time.” Bradley squared off
to Keith one last time. “That'll be your home for the next few days or so, at least.”
Keith forced a grin. “Privacy sounds good,” he said. And it was just what the boy had ordered. “But I'm not used to a tent. I've never slept in one and I need a shower.” He rubbed his face, “And a shave.”
“Sammy can help with that, too,” Bradley said. “We'll talk later.”
Keith turned away and followed Sam outside. The sun shot through the trees with arrows of light. The morning had already warmed and the long food table was being cleared by a group of the people. Others appeared to be doing chores here and there, collecting wood on a pile, cleaning the dishes by hand, moving chairs around. Everything was done by hand, no mechanisms of any kind. He didn't see a TV anywhere, nor did he hear music. The whole place was primitive to the point of ridiculous. In a world where practically everything was automated, or could be automated, they used none of it that he could tell.
