Ascent (11 page)

Chapter Fourteen

Matt

“Matt, tell us about the accident.”

Lisa sits across from me in her white lab coat, her back straight as a board, with one leg crossed over the other. The eighth floor room is small and windowless. This is where they drag you when you’ve done something wrong. God knows I’ve done everything wrong. I might as well just live in this room.

Her look is intense. Like she’s trying to see straight through me. She wants the truth.

And I have no problem giving it to her.

“I drove home from a party with a car full of friends.”

“Were you drinking?” She’s so anxious she barely lets me finish my sentence.

“Yes.”

She knows this; everyone knows this. I don’t know why she has to ask.

“A lot?”

“Enough.”

She nods her head. “Drinking and driving, we can’t have that on your record, can we?” She takes notes. “And people were hurt?” She pulls out a sheet of paper with my background information. “Two people were killed and one person seriously injured. Is that correct?”

I nod my head.

“Is there anything else we should know about? Prior drug use? Other accidents?” She looks down at a sheet of paper. “You’re an athlete, no? Athletes are known for taking things they shouldn’t. Is there anything else we should know about?”

I shake my head. Like there could be anything any worse than vehicular homicide. “That’s the only thing I can think of.”

Lisa lets out a deep sigh. “You know, it’s too bad, because you are like the perfect apprentice for the Party. You have the looks, the background, the smarts, and the charisma. But you also have
this
.” She holds up a newspaper clipping about the accident. “We have to erase this. We’ll send you back to the night. You’ll have to re-do everything and then when you come back it will be like nothing happened.”

Like nothing happened.

It’s just what I wanted to hear.

“Sure.”

“You’re willing to do this?” She raises an eyebrow at me. “You’re willing to go back and go through this all again?”

“I’m willing to do anything to be a Party member.” I feel the acid fill my mouth when I say it. It’s a good thing they don’t hook you up to a lie detector. There’s no way I would ever pass.

“That’s great, Matt. That’s the attitude we need. We’ll draw up a plan for you. All you need to do is stick to it. Don’t go outside what we ask. If you do, you might never come back.”

I nod my head. “I’ll only do what you ask. You don’t have to worry about me.”

“Good,” she says like she can’t believe it’s so easy.

She puts a consent form in front of me. I look over the details. But it doesn’t matter if I don’t follow their rules. I won’t be coming back. We’ll be on different planes of existence. It’s not like she’ll be able to come searching for me.

Chapter Fifteen

Farrah-Kate

Lisa sits across from me in a white lab coat. I’m freezing: all I have on is shorts and a t-shirt pulled over my swimsuit. I didn’t expect to meet with Lisa today. I was ready to go out to the pool, not sit in a freezing room across from a woman who likes to pretend like she’s some kind of doctor.

“Tell us, Farrah, what do you remember about your mother?”

I remember her hiding in her room after auditions, I remember her crying for no reason, I remember her changing her clothes ten times a day and never being happy with what she was wearing…

“She was a great actress.”

Lisa nods her head and examines me across the table. I want to sink in a hole. I hate being questioned about my mother. I came here to help her, not expose all her weaknesses.

It looks like Lisa is doing the opposite. She reaches down and places a briefcase on the table. She opens the case and brings out a pile of magazines. Old celebrity magazines from back in a time when the Internet wasn’t flooded with photos of celebrities and magazine photos were worth serious money.

Back in a time when there were secrets.

It seems like a million years ago.

Lisa spreads the magazines across the table. Pictures of Mom at clubs, pictures with men, passed out in the front seat of a car…

She was an alcoholic, she had drug problems, and she was unreliable. The media liked to give her all sorts of labels – but to me she was my mother.

The worst of the photos are to my right.

The fact that the paparazzi posted photos of my mother’s body after jumping from the roof of the South Beverly Hotel was a big story. Celebrity news didn’t make a habit of posting photos of dead celebrities. It was in bad taste. But it was the shock era and everyone was trying to make an extra buck. The photos that were taken before the police could come and clean up the mess sold for $2.5 million. Those photos still haunt me today. I can’t get them out of my mind. I would do anything to erase that memory. IYD is the place that can finally make my wish come true.

“We need to do something about this.” Lisa shoves the magazines with my mother’s crumpled body in my direction. I look at a painting on the wall that’s behind her head. It’s a painting with a million colors. The colors blend together so that you can’t tell where one color ends and the other begins … kind of like the movement of time from the past to the present.

I turn my eyes towards Lisa. “What would you like me to do?”

“We’ll send you back. We know you can’t be there long enough to change everything. But,” she shoves a magazine at me and I know it’s Mom’s twisted body without having to take a look, “you can change this. You’ll have to if you are serious about becoming a Party member. Suicide is a sign of weakness. And it’s hereditary. Mental illness runs in families. You passed the Party’s psych test, but you can’t have this in your past. It will make you a target of the opposition.”

My eyes glance down to the magazine. It’s the sidewalk in front of the South Beverly. A crowd of people stand gathered in a circle. Tragedy always attracts an audience.

Her head is twisted to the right. The photographer of this particular photo is standing right alongside her. These were the photos that got the highest bid. Her eyes were open. Looking at the photo, it’s like she’s staring right at me.

“Farrah?”

It comes from a million miles away. I look back at Lisa.

“Do you think if we send you back you can change your past?”

I look at the photo one more time. I’d do anything to make it go away.

“Yes.”

I have to.

“Good, because Dr. Thompson has his doubts. You were very young when this happened. We’re worried you won’t be able to handle it. Marvin Winn believes in you though, so don’t let him down. He thinks you can give your mom another chance.”

I look down at the photos. Mom is staring right at me. Everything and nothing took her to that place on the sidewalk. I’d do anything to bring her back.

Chapter Sixteen

Rick

The thing with people like Lisa is she has no idea what she’s talking about.

No idea.

I mean, she’s wearing her official Party uniform like it automatically makes her a know-it-all, like all you have to do is dress the part and it happens. And that lab coat! It’s nice, but Dr. Thompson is the only doctor on the Party’s staff.

I’m not sure what Lisa thinks she is. She thinks she can get it out of me. The real reason I’m here. Like I’d share something like that. She keeps asking me her carefully planned questions.

But I know better.

“Now, Rick. There was an unfortunate incident where you stole your father’s password and got into government computers. Do you remember that?”

I sit across from her, staring at the red lipstick that’s smeared across her teeth. Her face is greasy. But she’s smug. Like she knows something I don’t.

“Yeah, I know about that.” I cross my arms in front of my chest. I wonder if she can read my mind. But I doubt it. She’s too … ordinary. She’s not one of us. She’s outside the intellectual elite.

“You have to change it. You’ll have to go back and re-do the break in. Hacking into government computers is frowned on by the Party.” She pauses and her grin becomes all teeth. They[re white teeth with splashes of red. “Well, it’s frowned on because it’s a crime. We’re interested in your computer skills. Still, you need to change that night. We can’t have Party members with criminal records.”

“Fine.”

Her brow wrinkles. It’s brief, but it’s there, like she didn’t think it’d be this easy. And what she doesn’t realize is that it’s not.

“I have a list.”

She pushes it across the table at me. It’s short. It’s nothing really. Go back to the night I stole Dad’s password and hacked the government’s computers and don’t do it. And it’s fine. Because I don’t need them anymore. I have the ePrivacy for searching now. It’s a privilege that they’re sending me back. I found what I was looking for through the government’s own computers. I need to become a member of the Party. That’s all I care about now. I need to get out to the facility to see what they’re hiding from us. I know it’s there. I just need someone to take me to the location.

And she’s not smart enough to know the computers in the business center aren’t as secure as she thinks. They’re not secure at all if you know what you’re doing. She doesn’t know about the ePrivacy device. She’s lucky that I’m the only trainee that’s looking for the truth.

“So, you think it’s something you can do?”

“Of course, no problem, it’ll be a piece of cake, as long as you let me go first. I only care about going first. I have to be the first. I want my place in history.”

“Well, good.” Her smile has no happiness behind it. “That was easy. It won’t be much longer. It’s almost time.”

I nod my head. I am 100% about the Party.

***

Maria is at the desk again. I suspect she works seven days a week. Maybe she’s got kids at home she’s trying to support or maybe she’s trying to gain favor with the Party.

For the underclass joining the Party is their only hope.

She greets me as I come in. “Hello, Rick. It’s nice to see you today.”

We’re on a first name basis now. Good. I give her a broad smile. She’s filing her nails. I’m sure Maria has the nicest nails at the hotel.

“Just came in to check the news online.”

“Great, they’re all open. You’re one of the only trainees interested in getting online.”

“Thanks.”

I take the same computer as before and when I’m sure I’m only being monitored by the camera above the room I sweep my thumbnail across the back of the computer and place on the device. The screen splits in two and I go to ESPN on the Party’s monitored site.

Then I’m looking at Area 31. I focus in on the location. It’s so stupid the government would allow satellites to be trained on this spot. Now there’s a tent. A huge white tent surrounded by tanks. It looks like it’s the size of the Las Vegas Strip and all the hotels could fit inside. I move the view around, vying for a peek at whatever it’s hiding.

Movement catches my eyes. A truck drives up to the security gates, followed by two more. They’re military, but not US military: they have a single star on the door. These are Party vehicles. They park outside the gate and a man with an assault rifles checks inside each vehicle. I cross my fingers that he’ll lift the back of the tarp up to check the freight. He walks to the second truck and checks the ID. The driver and the security guard talk. I wish the satellites had sound. I try to read their lips, but I can’t make out anything they say.

The two trucks move forward and the guard approaches the last truck. I watch him check the ID and move around to the back. This truck is larger than the rest. The bed of the vehicle looks to be twice the size of the others.

The guard lifts the tarp. My breath catches in my throat. I can see the edge of what looks to be a cage.

Something reaches out and grabs his arm. It happens so fast. The security guard is pulled against the cage. I watch him try to get control of his gun. Whatever has him, the arm doesn’t look human.

The arm from the cage pulls harder and the man’s mouth opens in a big circle. It looks like his arm will be ripped off. Three security members who were standing at the gates come running to the back of the vehicle. One starts pulling the tarp…

“Hey, what are you doing back here?”

I look up. It’s Casey. She’s walking my direction. I shut down the browser with the satellite feed and I’m back on ESPN. I scrape my thumbnail across the back of the computer to retrieve the device.

“Hi.” I smile. I know I’m sweating, but we’re in Nevada and it’s hot here in the summer, even if the air conditioning is blowing directly in my face.