Altered America (26 page)

             
MM:  Oh, yes, I could still make money, but I already had plenty.  But I was getting older, and I had family to consider.  Paul, Samantha, and my grandchildren all keep my life very busy. Other than appearances at rallies for my foundation, I don't have a lot of time to myself.  Acting was a necessary sacrifice, and I don’t mind.  If people want to see me, they can always buy some DVD’s.

             
TIME: Your public appearances have taken a sharp decline recently.  Is that also due to family commitments?

             
MM: No, it’s mostly my age.  Time is finally catching up with me, and my health isn’t what it used to be. I have accepted that I won’t be around much longer.

             
TIME: That doesn't sound like you.

             
MM: (Short laugh) That's what happens when you get old. You become somewhat fatalistic—accepting of the inevitable. But I’m not ready to lie down just yet.  I have a few more years in me.

             
TIME: So you think you have one more campaign left in you?  For your daughter?

             
MM: That's if Samantha decides to run in 2016. As I said, that's still quite a ways off.

             
TIME: President Samantha DiMaggio-Beckett.

             
MM: (Laughs) I still say that we should focus on this president first. I mean Hillary is up for re-election.

             
TIME: President Clinton in doing fine in the polls against Congressman Paul, though there are persistent rumors that she may drop Vice President Gephardt in favor of a more stimulating candidate.  Do you think she would fare better with your daughter as a running mate?

             
MM: (Laughs) The all American girls ticket.  That would be something.

             
TIME: Any last words for our readers, Miss Monroe?

             
MM: Thank you for everything.  I love you all.

             
Interview conducted by: Barack Obama.

             
Following that interview, Hillary Clinton narrowly lost the 2012 presidential race to Republican challenger Ron Paul.  Subsequently, Clinton’s dark-horse running mate, Senator Samantha DiMaggio-Beckett, was elected President of the United States in 2016.  Marilyn Monroe died on January 27, 2017 at the age of 90.

The Lights on Broadway

by Charles Wilcox

             
Thomas Spinnaker left his office and walked down the street toward the subway station.  Spinnaker worked for the Bell Telephone Company in New York.  He was a very smart man, but accepted the lowly position to finance his graduate school studies at New York University.  It was not a difficult job.  Primarily, Spinnaker worked the long distance switchboard during the evening shift in the downtown Manhattan office.  Sometimes, since he knew the manager, he would take over management of the Lower Manhattan office for a few days while the manager was away on business. As this was not regular, the work didn't interfere with his graduate studies and still provided a regular stream of income.

             
While he enjoyed this work, especially the days he got to manage the office, Thomas' main drive and focus was in his studies.  He had always been a very bright child, growing up in Alexandria, Virginia.  His father worked as a clerk in one of the federal agencies there; Thomas could never recall which one.  Thomas was always a bright student and eager to learn, and was accepted into Georgetown at the young age of sixteen.  After graduating, Thomas had moved to New York to continue his studies.  He'd only been in the city a few months.

             
Thomas walked east down Spring Street from the Bell office on Eighth.  The sun had long set, but the street was still bustling.  At Broadway, he stopped as a stream of carriages and men on horseback passed the intersection.  Thomas, always curious about the latest new technologies, looked up at the electric lighting running up and down Broadway.  He marveled at how the lights lit up the wide avenue as if it were noon.  "The energy required to run such a massive electric system must be enormous," he mused to himself idly as he waited to cross the intersection.  "I wonder how all of this is powered."

             
As Thomas stood at the intersection, he glanced over his shoulder and spotted a peculiar man fiddling with a mysterious device.  It was rectangular in design, with a smooth screen and a needle gauge, all clearly visible from Thomas' vantage point.  The strange man was waving it toward passersby at the intersection—all the surrounding crowd waiting to cross measured barely a movement from the device's needle.  However, when the man pointed the device toward Thomas, the needle flicked over to the right half of the scale and the man's eyes gleamed in immediate interest.

             
Shoving the device into his pocket, the man held out a hand to Thomas.  "Well, hullo there."

             
"Hello," Thomas replied and tipped his hat, wary of the hand.

             
"Where are you off to, lad?" the man asked innocently.

             
"Oh, I'm headed home," Thomas replied.  "Catching the subway over on Elm."

             
A traffic cop stopped the carriages on Broadway and motioned for the Spring Street traffic to go.  It was mostly the pedestrians crossing this late at night.  Thomas began to cross.  The man kept up his stride.

             
"So, you're a local, then?" the stranger asked.

             
"For the moment.  Yourself?" Thomas replied as they crossed.

             
"Oh, I'm only in the city for a few weeks on business," the man said.  "Staying at the Astor." He smiled.

             
Thomas' eyes widened.  The hotel had just been finished, and the place was already booked for months.  His father had tried to get a room at the Astor for an upcoming visit but couldn't get in, even with his federal connections.  This man, or at least the business he worked for, must have very deep pockets.

             
"What company do you work for?" Thomas asked as they finished crossing the street.

             
"I am an electrical engineer, currently consulting with the city's electric company."

             
Thomas' heart skipped a beat at hearing the news.  Perhaps it was fate that he had met this man; perhaps it could give him an inroad toward a better job.  He was an engineering student, and work with the electric company would be much more satisfying—and probably better paying—than his current small position at the Bell office.

             
"It was nice running into you, sir.  Say, would you like to meet again?  I might like to inquire on a position at your company," Thomas stammered.

             
The man chuckled, and nodded.  "Of course, my boy.  Where do you live?  I shall send you a telegram in a couple days."

             
Thomas gave the man his address at Amsterdam and 137th Street.  The man thanked him, tipped his hat, and departed north on Broadway.

             
Thomas continued walking to the subway and soon arrived at the Spring Street station.  Descending the stairs into the tunnel, he sat on a bench at the platform to wait.  He glanced over at a copy of that day’s Times sitting on the bench next to him.  A small article on the page attracted his attention.  “Wright Bros. Flying Machine Makes Second Trial.”  He grabbed the sheet and thoroughly read the article, pouring over the technical details, just as he had months earlier when the subway and the city’s electric street lighting was being installed.   It was yet another fascinating sign of progress and innovation.

             
The train arrived at the station and Thomas got on.  As he sat down, the train lurched and the wheels screeched against the rails as it started north.

             
Thomas sat quietly on the train as it trundled along the track.  There were few people in the subway car with him, but he paid them no mind.  He was thinking about the meeting he had just had with the businessman for the electric company, feeling fortunate to have stumbled across such a prodigious opportunity.  However, the more he thought about it, the more things felt off.  The man had approached him, not the other way around, and what was that odd device he'd been waving around?  Why had it's needle started to move when aimed in Thomas' direction?

             
There was something else about the man that Thomas was just now recalling—his eyes! One had held a reddish hue to the iris, though Thomas had assumed it was a glass eye at the time and thought nothing else of it.  Yet, now he could swear that the red eye had moved just like a real eye.  He shivered, remembering the man's gaze—like a predator on the hunt.

             
Thomas shook off the preposterous ponderings and told himself it was all his imagination.  The man may be odd, but many successful men were.  There was no telling when such a lucrative business opportunity would arise again, so he decided it best to meet with the businessman when the offer came.

             
At the Astor Place station, a passenger got on the car and took a seat directly across from Thomas.  Thomas took a fleeting glance at the fellow, wearing a dark pinstriped suit and a black fedora, similar to the businessman he'd met earlier at the intersection.  It was nothing unusual—the suits were common enough, if a bit expensive.

             
The train moved on down the track beneath Fourth Avenue.  As they passed each station, Thomas's curiosity got the best of him.  He took more side glances at the man across from him, careful not to stare.  After the train passed Grand Central Depot, Thomas finally saw what was off about the passenger.  The man across from him had the same red eye as the businessman.

             
Thomas tensed up.  It surely could not be a coincidence.  But that would mean someone—or something—was following him.  His brain ran wild with speculation as he glanced around subway car.  The other passengers had gotten off at the depot, leaving him alone with the red eye!

             
Suddenly, the lights in the car went out.  Thomas' heart beat faster as he tried to look through the darkness.  Then came the screech of braking wheels, as the train slowed to arrive at the next station, and  Thomas' face was frozen, staring straight ahead.  He could not see the red-eyed man anymore, not in the utter darkness of the car.

             
The train came to a stop, and the dim lights of the 42nd Street station gave a faint glow on the inside of the car.  Thomas looked ahead and his heart stopped.  The red circle of the stranger's iris shone bright in the dim light right in front of his face, the tall figure looming over him.  He glimpsed barely another moment of the eye before he felt a sharp blow to the head.  He felt groggy, and unable to move, though vaguely conscious on the floor of the subway car.  He felt the man's strong hands grab him under the arms and drag him off the train and onto the empty platform.

             
Thomas struggled to keep his vision as he was lifted over the man's broad shoulder and carried with ease.  Lumbering down the platform, the stranger stopped at an old, rusty door covered in grime.  Shifting Thomas on his body slightly, the stranger opened the door, revealing a passageway leading down a flight of stairs.  The passage was even more dimly lit than the subway platform—wires with electric lights strung sparsely along them ran down the walls of the curving passage.  The stranger walked slowly with caution in the gloom, and after a few minutes the passage emptied into a large, brightly lit chamber.

             
Thomas was laid out and strapped to a cold metal table, and he slipped into unconsciousness.  When he awoke untold hours later, he was still in this position.  The room was brighter, he noted, and he tried to shield his eyes from the lights above him, but found he could not move his arms.  He struggled for a moment before noticing that wires were protruding from the sides of his torso and from various positions on his head.

             
Thomas started to panic.  His struggling with the thick leather straps quickly became more violent as his adrenaline kicked in.  His efforts looked like convulsions when he squirmed, as the straps around his torso and wrists kept his arms flat by his side.  All he accomplished was to chafe red grooves along the straps.  He soon grew tired and his attempted flailing subsided.  He had worn himself out in mere minutes.

             
Thomas let out a brief breath of despair.  He turned his head, partly to get a view of his surroundings and partly to look away from the bright lamps above him.  Craning his head to look around, his eyes grew wide.  There were dozens of tables similar to his.  Almost all of them had bodies lying on them, with cables connecting to posts that ran from floor to ceiling.  One side of each post was lined with dials, switches, and blinking lights.  There was a small grey door a foot square on each post about four feet above the floor.

             
Thomas strained his neck to look behind him and sure enough, the cables coming from his body connected to a post at the head of his table like all the others.  While he was inspecting the set-up, he heard a clang from the far side of the room.  Darting his eyes toward the noise, he saw the businessman from the intersection walking toward him, flanked by the stranger from the train.

             
"Ah, wonderful, you're awake," the businessman said.

             
"You! What are you doing to me? Why am I here!" Thomas yelled and glared at the men.  He tried to kick out at them, but his legs were held tightly to the table.

             
"A feisty one, aren't you?" The businessman's eyes brightened and he smiled.  "Lots of vigor and a strong will to live, just as was predicted.  You'll do quite nicely for us."

             
Thomas was unsure how to respond.  He still had no answers about what was going on, and the idea that he was being used for some purpose against his will was infuriating.  He clenched his teeth and strained at the straps some more.  "Whatever you're doing," he uttered between wriggling and audible breaths, "you won't get away with it."

             
The businessman shook his head and made a tutting sound.  "Now you're just being difficult.  I didn't want to have to do this, since it will waste your potential, but it seems necessary."

             
Grabbing a needle from the chest pocket of his sout, the businessman stabbed Thomas in the arm. As the fluid from the syringe was pushed into Thomas' vein, the young man began to feel numb, and his struggling subsided.

             
"This opiate should calm you down for a while.  Your electrical output will unfortunately be reduced, but you have such a high base potential that you should still be generating more than most of the other patients, regardless.  Congratulations Thomas." The man briefly clapped.

             
To Thomas the noise of the clapping became quieter until it mixed with the droning hum of the room's machinery.

             
"Welcome to the electric company.”

* * *

              When Thomas woke up, he felt as though he had spent the previous night drinking absinthe.  The humming and clacking of the machinery around him intensified as it echoed in his ears.  He moved to clutch his throbbing head, wishing to dull the pain, but as he did, he was reminded of the bindings as his arm pulled on the straps holding it.  Relaxing his muscles, he let his arm rest on the table.  Everything about him—his thoughts, his movements—felt slower.  As his perceptions returned, he surmised his ill condition was due to whatever the businessman had shot him up with.