The Protocol: A Prescription to Die (22 page)

Chapter 68

Eat played his next card.

“Mother,” he commanded.

“Ready.”

“Load video. Aequalis 32.”

“Ready.”

“Play.”

He realized that Frank was the one with the level head. He turned his head to Frank and said, “Watch this. Watch what your bosses are doing. Watch what your friend here does for them.”

The video began playing on the screen.

The screen flickered then opened to an innocuous, empty black alley. Within moments, a white van pulled up. The camera zoomed to the name on the building’s door: Gordon, Leake, and Bluthe. The camera then zoomed onto the image of the man getting out of the van. It was mono-toothed Carl, and he was still in his Aequalis scrubs. The Aequalis logo and name badge were crystalline in the video display. Carl pressed a button, waited, and then kicked the door like a kid having a tantrum. A light flashed as the door opened.

“What took you so fuckin’ long? I have a schedule!” yelled Carl.

“Go fuck yourself, Titmueller,” replied the man who opened the door.

Carl held the door against the brick wall, and pushed a concrete block against it to hold it open.

The man who opened the door pushed out a cart that resembled a heavy-duty wagon. It was filled with garbage bags.

“Here. Take your garbage,” said the man from inside the building as he handed control of the cart over to Carl.

Carl took the handle, rolled the cart to the back of the van, and began throwing the bags into the cargo area. Carl grunted and cursed with each throw.

“Bastards are heavy,” he said.

Everything was going fine until Carl became a bit overzealous and hefted a bag too hard. The bag burst and its contents bounced and rolled onto the alley pavement.

“Fuckin’ son of a bitch,” yelled Carl with his characteristic lisp. He kicked at one of the larger items on the ground.

The camera panned out then zoomed onto what was now lying on the pavement. Two human heads, three arms, and five feet with socks. The three men watched as Carl dug a fresh garbage bag from the passenger seat of the van, then proceed to fill it with the liberated body parts.

“Mother. Freeze video,” commanded Eat.

The video froze on the image of Carl picking up a body-less head by the hair as he prepared to toss it into the waiting garbage bag.

“Frank. I told you that Mother is very good at facial recognition. She is. That head you see on the video?” said Eat as he motioned with his chin. “That was Paula Amundson. She was seventy-two. Six kids. Fifteen grandchildren. Five great-grandchildren. Her only sin was having a severe stroke, and costing Aequalis some money. She had become a medical burden to the system. She had been a teacher for more than forty years. Aequalis and this new health care law decided that her condition as too expensive to treat, and deemed her as unworthy of care or treatment. Carl here,” he said as he motioned to Frank’s partner. “His job was to cut up the bodies he’d murdered for Aequalis, wrap them in bags, and put them in garbage bins around the city.”

“Mother. Upload, distribute, and encode,” Eat growled. He didn’t have to think twice. If he was shot now, he wanted this video out to the public. They would pay for what they were doing. He was enraged, and could only think of what they had tried to do to his mother.

All of the emotion that he’d pushed down into his stomach since he was told what Aequalis had done to his father was pouring out of him like a volcano. He was acting on auto pilot.

“Frank. Aequalis killed my father back in February. Three days ago, Barbara Nordstrom tried to kill my mother by injecting her with
succinyl choline
.” Eat continued. “They use that to execute criminals. Did you know that? There are hundreds more. I have all of the data. And I have lots more video.”

Carl’s face was red with anger. His mouth was partially open and he whistled as he breathed. Sweat beaded on his forehead, and the stains on his underarms reached down to his belt loops. He played with his knife.

Chapter 69

Eat played his next card.

“Mother,” he commanded.

“Ready.”

“Load video. Aequalis 74. Then hold.”

“Ready.”

“It’s called being Protocoled, Frank. Protocol U, as in euthanize. Incorrectly spell, I know. But what can I say? Something we do to sick pets. I’m sure it’s something Nordstrom thought up. I was able to get to her protocol schedule. See who was next. Plant my cameras. You saw me,” said Eat. “You saw me planting the camera at GLB’s facility.”

“That’s a lie, Frank. He’s making all of this up. If you knew when, why didn’t you stop all of them? Hmmmm. Smart boy?”

“We tried. I hacked into databases and entered orders to move patients to other rooms before you arrived. I flattened your tires. I tried everything I could.”

Eat looked at Carl.

“You little fucker! That cost me a grand that night. Nordstrom wouldn’t listen to me.”

Eat turned his attention back to Frank, but prepared for another blow from Carl.

None came.

“I couldn’t stop them all,” Eat said quietly. “Mother. Resume video.”

The video started, and a dark room came into focus. A man lay in a hospital bed. Tubes from IVs and wires from monitors disappeared under the covers. The mike picked up the sound of soft snoring, and beeps from the monitors.

Beep…beep. Beep…beep. Beep…beep

A wedge of light cut across the floor, and then disappeared.

The shadow of a man filled the video, prompting the camera to automatically adjust and pan out.

Carl.

He was carrying his bag of death.

He sat down on the chair next to the window, and opened his bag. He pulled out a clipboard, and turned to the page he was looking for.

Beep…beep. Beep…beep. Beep…beep

“Here we go,” he said. “7690.”

Carl got up, and walked to the bed. He picked up the man’s arm, and flipped his bracelet around to read it.

“You’re the one. 7690. Your lucky day.”

Beep…beep. Beep…beep. Beep…beep

The man’s eyes flickered open. He raised his hand, and rubbed his face.

“Who are you?” asked the man.

Beep…beep. Beep…beep. Beep…beep

“Your fairy godmother,” laughed Carl who had already inserted the needle into the bag of saline flowing into the man’s arm.

“Nighty nite,” he said as he pushed the plunger.

Beepbeep. Beepbeep. Beepbeep

After he withdrew the needle, Carl took the man’s arm, and twisted it so the wristband was in the proper position.

The man hissed in pain.

Beepbeep. . . . .Beepbeep. . . . .Beepbeep

“Did that hurt? I’m so sorry,” said Carl sarcastically.

Carl pressed a button on his phone, and a light flashed on and off. Carl reviewed what was displayed on the screen and nodded his approval.

“Looks good,” he said then pressed another button as the phone’s screen went dark.

Carl returned to his duffle bag, packed his equipment, zipped it closed, and walked out of view of the camera.

Another wedge of light spread across the floor then disappeared.

Beepbeep.

Beepbeep.

Beeeeeep.

Beeeeeep.

Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

“Mother, freeze video, and zoom.”

The video stopped, and the image of the man’s face filled the television.

His eyes remained open.

Staring.

“Timothy Watson. Thirty-six. Married. Three kids. Lymphoma,” said Eat as he looked at Frank. “Aequalis has become the judge and the jury,” he turned to Carl. “And that piece of shit is its executioner.”

“Mother, upload, and distribute.”

“You’re all going down. I hope you burn in hell.”

Chapter 70

Frank walked over to the couch. His hand tucked inside of his jacket.

Eat closed his eyes, certain that the game was over.

“Kill him Frank. Kill him. Don’t you see what he’s going to do? He’s going to bring us all down.”

Frank looked over to his partner, and glared at him.

Carl shut up.

Eat was not sure where to turn next.

Information was one thing. Guns were another. Eat couldn’t hurt them physically with bits and bytes, and he certainly didn’t have the strength for any physical attempts at heroism. He could upload all of the data he wanted, but it wouldn’t inflict one single bruise. A bullet, on the other hand, had a more visible outcome.

The tension in the living room was thick. Carl broke the silence again.

“We can’t let him get away with this. He made those videos up. I get bodies ready for cremation, Frank. That’s all. Honest,” he said as he pulled out his gun that he had hiding in his coat pocket. “I’m doing this if you’re not going to, Frank. They want him dead.”

Chapter 71

Eat closed his eyes.

This wasn’t turning out the way he was expecting. He thought he’d counted all of the trump cards, but evidently they had one left, and it was higher than anything he had.

He felt the cold muzzle of Carl’s gun against his temple and swallowed. He didn’t know if he should lurch forward or backward, and certainly didn’t know if he’d have time to do either. The clock was ticking, and his heart was beating in syncopation.

Eat lurched towards his knees as rapidly, and as hard as he could. He landed on the floor with a thump. He opened his eyes. As he focused on the carpet fibers in front of his eyes, he heard the distinctive pop of silencer-equipped gun.

Thhhhip.

Then another.

Thhhhip.

Chapter 72

If he had been thinking about it, he should have realized that in his situation, hearing and comprehending the pop of the gun was a good thing. Even
his
brain didn’t work faster than a speeding bullet.

He was alive.

He hoped there wasn’t a piece of lead suspended in the air waiting to strike him by surprise when he turned around like in some science fiction movie.

He looked up.

Slowly.

Cautiously.

Frank was standing by the bookcase admiring the collection again. He was holding his gun, and unscrewing a small tube from the barrel.

Eat looked up onto the couch.

What was left of Carl’s face, stared back at him. The other parts had become part of his couch. Blood oozed out of a hole where his left eye used to be, and into another cavernous opening in his mouth.

It was more like a missing jaw.

“You’ll probably need a new couch,” said Frank. “I tried to be as accurate as possible.”

Frank’s phone rang.

He pulled it out of his coat pocket, looked at the incoming number, sat down on the fireplace hearth, and pressed the button to accept the call. Eat stayed on the floor with one eye on Frank, and the other on the dead guy on his couch. Frank didn’t say a word at first, to Eat he appeared to be just intently listening with an occasional affirmative nod or negative shake. He put the phone down, and turned his attention to Eat.

“They want you to stop.”

Eat looked at him. His eyebrows furrowed. “Stop? I’m not the one killing people. I’m the one who found out what they are doing.”

“They mean stop the video uploads.”

Eat laughed.

He felt like he was on an elementary school playground playing a game of he-said she-said.

“No. I have thirty more videos to upload before I’m done.”

Frank put the phone back to his ear.

“He’s saying no,” he nodded then asked Eat. “What do you want?”

Frank held the phone so Eat could talk.

“You want to know what I want? I want that bitch’s head, Barbara Nordstrom, on a spike for all to see. You will unfreeze all of my accounts, and all of my mother’s accounts. You will see to it that Butch Rheumy’s record is cleared with a letter from the President himself. Most of all, I want Aequalis shut down. Dead. Maybe then I’ll think about it.”

Eat was seething.

He started to move his head away from the phone, but stopped. He had more to say.

“One more thing. If you ever contact me again, or anyone I know, then every video will be released before you can finish wiping your ass.”

Eat was done. He moved his head away from Frank’s phone then twisted his body.

“Do you mind untying me?”

“Yes. He is,” said Frank. “Yes. I understand.” Frank pressed the button to end the call. “You’ve made an impression.”

Frank came over to Eat, and cut the ropes binding his arms.

“We’ll take care of this too,” he said as he pointed to Carl’s body and the stained couch. “Just give me a couple of hours. Can you do something about that?”

“About what?”

“That. My record in the sex database.”

Eat cocked his head.

Exhaled.

Events that were once steamrolling over him seemed to be calming.

His heart rate returned to a sense of normality.

“Mother. Delay upload on Frank Ignacious Allen.”

“Thank you,” said Frank.

Frank headed towards the door then stopped.

“Do you mind leaving the alarm off? We’ll come and take care of the mess. Clean things up. And it would be best that you weren’t here,” he said as he pointed to Carl and the bloodied couch.

“You’re kidding, right?”

Frank shrugged.

“Whatever.”

“I want him gone. A new couch too. Not a Salvation Army donation. Got it?”

“You’ll be hearing from us,” he said as he walked out the door.

“I won’t hold my breath,” said Eat as Frank left.

Eat pulled the rest of the ropes off and rubbed his shoulder. Frank was right; it was time for him to leave for a while, and Andy was sure not to believe a word of what he had to tell her. But he needed to get dressed before he did anything.

“What the…?” he said as he stepped into a slurry of Carl’s blood. He looked towards the door where Frank had left and yelled.

“I want a new rug, too!”