Authors: Jane
Unknown (19 page)
Glancing up at the podium his words drift in and out again. I can’t focus on what he is saying. This mathematical equation keeps bouncing around my skull. I asked a couple of the other guys about it, the ones that had financial backgrounds. The scientists. They said it was some sort of an algorithm. Funny, had to look that word up. Still don’t quite understand it all. The science guys kept saying that whatever I was talking about, it wouldn’t work. I was making huge leaps in several steps, beyond what was known and what had been proven. I had no clue. I could recite the cure for cancer, a way to stop time, and the ability to turn silk into gold and I still wouldn’t know what the fuck I was talking about. That was most of my reality these days. Something had changed.
I give a little nod to the man next to me. He seems nice enough. I’ll need all the friends I can get there. I’ve been passing out a lot lately. Maybe he can watch my back.
The bus ride. Right.
They had ten buses. That’s ten people on each bus. They wanted us far apart from each other. No sitting next to each other, no talking, nothing. Silence. I was on one of the last buses to board. The others had already left. This guy didn’t want to get on. The men in the black suits came out of the woodwork pretty fast. One minute he was working himself into a frenzy, arms flailing around, shouting about drugs and sickness, immunity and headaches, vomiting and sterilization. The next he was on the ground with a pool of blood expanding around his head. I never heard a gun. I never saw a knife. It was so fast. One minute he was up, the next he was down. Their eyes turned to the bus, all of them, as if pivoting on one head. I snapped my neck so fast I got a crick in it. But I didn’t move. I didn’t look up. Or wince. Next thing I knew we were here. Wherever that is. Phoenix, I think. The drugs.
“We all on the same page here?” the man continues. I’m not sure if we’re reading the same book.
4. X
Gordon is beginning to be a problem. But this is not a surprise. We planned for this. We knew that any agency that would let him go as easy as that must have had issues with him. If he makes it to the island I’ll be shocked. But somebody has to make an example of these derelicts, and when he screws up, it will only help me and my personal agenda.
Scanning the audience they looked pretty good. Sixty-forty women over men. Fifty percent Caucasian, twenty percent African American, twenty percent Hispanic. The rest were considered other. I loved that. OTHER. Didn’t get a lot of Orientals in jail for murder. Either they didn’t do it, or they were too smart to get caught.
Zeke was another one. I made sure he got in, regardless of the tests. He’s another pawn of mine, and will come in handy one day. He knows too much, that's the problem. But as long as I keep him in the fold, he’ll be okay. We evolved together in Bangkok. That was a long time ago. He’s a bit of a Trojan horse, and I will need all the help I can get once we got there. I’m not 100% yet. Not even close. Maybe never will be. But I have to keep going. He helped me with that, he did research, and understood. He’ll never achieve what I have, but we both know that. He is content to go along for the ride. What choice does he have?
“Once we get to the...our location, there will be training. You will be part of the illusion. You will work your jobs just like you did in civilian life. For some of you, this won’t be much of a stretch. We’ve tried to place you in appropriate positions where your skills can be utilized. The rest of this will work out like a combination of the lottery and reality television. I’m sure you’re all familiar with both. Do your job, initiate the new prisoners, and you’ll be eligible for parole. A free trip back to the real world. It can happen just like that,” he says, snapping his fingers.
He is good, I’ll give him that. He’ll whip them into a frenzy, and the chaff will fall to the wayside. He has their attention now, even Zeke.
“There will be some employees there. You will not know who they are. They are here now. They will report back to us. There will be cameras. There will be digital diary entries. You will be watched and held accountable. Once a month, one of you will be eligible for parole. Our board will meet, and if there is a candidate that has been exceptional in their portrayal and execution of the small, beachfront life, then they will be set free.”
A grin creeps across my face. That’s the beauty of it. Nobody will ever come back. We’re embarking on a trip to the New World. I can smell the coconut oil already.
The blonde woman, Marcy. She doesn’t remember me at all. And that’s how it’s supposed to be. I never met Roland, not until this all started. She has potential. Zeke likes her too. Recovering heroin addict, multiple homicides, one of the only female serial killers to ever exist. We’ve talked, and she says there’s a reason for what she did. A holy mission, a calling. I guess you could call it that, it’s what we planned, many years ago. I will keep Marcy close, her and a couple of other citizens. If everything goes according to plan, we’ll be isolated in no time. The program will be cut off. The mutation will continue, and the virus will spread. And then the second batch, stronger than the first. In losing my position and power, I will be off the grid. Which is what I want.
5. GORDON
Look at all those eager eyes. A bunch of fucking lemmings ready to run right off the cliff. This is going to be fun. Between X
and I this show is going to be epic. Our own little garden of Eden at the end of the world. I have no remorse in taking out several of the more erratic candidates. It’ll just make life easier on the island. I don’t need to watch my back 24-7 and with the predators like Zeke gone, us alpha-dogs can roam with free will.
At least they listened to my suggestion about the women. We’ll need them to be in the majority. But I fucked up on the selection. I was in Omaha that weekend and left someone else in charge. It wasn’t supposed to happen until I came back. Probably something X set up. I don’t know what kind of a number that asshole’s mother did on him, but the selection of women he gave us was pathetic. After I caught him leaking information to a journalist friend of his, I took care of him. The two of them had a little car accident out on Route 80. When you hit a deer going 65 mph it isn’t a pretty sight. And to this day nobody even asks what a deer was doing out there. It could’ve been a fucking blue whale and they’d have nodded their heads and muttered about how weird it was. They have no idea.
I was only able to get Marcy in on a technicality. X had taken one look at her and nodded his acceptance. So one more ex-meth head took a face plant on the sidewalk. So what. I’ve already picked the ones that need to go. The stage has been set for those departures. Whatever is the most frightening, unsettling, and ultimately effective way of killing them in front of the other prisoners, that is what we we’re going to do. The 100 that make it have to fear us. They have to fear the suits, and the united, as I call them. But they also have to fear the unknown, such as taking somebody in the middle of the night off of a busload of sleeping prisoners. They need to feel vulnerable. Every one of these idiots will hold on to their sanity by believing they have some control over their future. They have to believe that if they only listen and obey the rules they’ll get off the island. No such luck.
“In time, you could all go home. And one by one, the new prisoners will be taken into the fold. They will be told everything. And then they will be accorded the same opportunities that you have.”
Their eyes stare back at me with hope. It makes me smile. None of us will get off the island. And that is okay with me. There is nothing here for me now and I doubt there will be anything left for me after the fallout.
“Oh, one thing.”
I walk across the stage and down the four steps to the floor below. I pull my handgun out of my shoulder holster and walk up to the grizzled man in the front row with the long hair. Randy. He was busy leaning over to a buxom brunette with a weathered face. Grinning and working his major before we even got there. Laying the ground work. He was also taping this entire episode, and was planning on palming it to the guard outside. That guard would mail it to the New York Times. Except right now, that guard was being escorted to a garbage truck in fractured pieces of his former self. I place the pistol in the center of Randy’s forehead and squeeze the trigger. He barely has time to look up. But he knows what is coming and what he has done. There are screams I’m sure, but I never hear them. I simply slide my hand into his jacket pocket and pull out the tape recorder. I flip the microcassette out and drop the tape recorder to the ground where it cracks into a dozen pieces. Pulling the tape out in three quick motions, it spins out over Randy’s limp body, dropping quickly to the puddle that is forming under his head.
“105.”
6. ASSIGNED
//
begin
Camera 1: stage
status: on
camera 2: east door
status: on
camera 3: back of hall
status: on
camera 4: alley
status: off
scan of prisoners:
1..................................34.......
...............................68...........
.......................................106
low heart rate: 62
median heart rate: 74
high heart rate: 81
decibel level breached - 140
cameras 1-4 tracking sound
employee source: gordon
summation: gunshot
scan of prisoners:
1...........................22..............
..................54........................
.....72.........................105
report filed to administration
employee G12ASHWORTH_gen
RE: termination
prisoner count has been reduced to 106
<
<
suggestions are being routed to levels 1-c,
and positions 1-6.
CC: exodus
END
//
7. ROLAND
They shuttle us out of there pretty fast. I don’t see much as I am playing with my PSPX. Street Fighter2020, totally cool. Mom keeps trying to bury my face in her shirt or something. Two guys are yelling at each other - the tall skinny guy who has been talking the whole time and a much bigger guy who is all red in the face. A crowd of people stand around them. Including those idiots in the jumpsuits. Losers.
Before I know it we’re outside and going back to our room. Looks like snow. A tiny little boring space that I have to share with my mom was what we called home right now. It sucks.
“What happened mom?”
“Nothing, just a fight, couple of idiots. You didn’t see anything?”
“Naw, I was busy beating Cromegatron. Sucker always goes for the fake out. And then I reach in and pull out his heart and show it to him. Cool.”
“Roland, that’s so violent. Maybe you shouldn’t be playing that.”
“Mom, everyone at school is. You said I could take this with me. First I have to leave my friends, and now you want to take my games away? Come on. Please?”
She gives me a heavy sigh, something I’m used to seeing more and more.
“Okay.”
People are running around. Guess we’re moving on soon. Hope it’s warm there. I’m sick of snow. The whole drive down here has been cold. At least we left the ice and sleet behind. But a week in and out of run down hotels isn’t much fun. Guards everywhere, and those stupid buses. Nothing but ass on those things. Piss and farts.
Sometimes she gets like this, overprotective. It weirds me out. It’s like she goes on alert. Her body gets all stiff, her eyes look around. I’ve seen her do things before. Push ups, like hundreds of them. In a row. Sit ups, like hundreds of them. In a row. She’s way stronger than she looks. Whenever she catches me looking at her too long she stops being all weird, her eyes relax and she smiles and comes over and gives me a hug. I like her better that way. But sometimes at night, when I’m scared, when I hear strange laughter outside our hotel, or banging on the walls, I’m glad she has this other side. This other mom. Just in case I need her to protect me.
“Come on Roland, lets go bunker down. Enough of this nonsense. These guys we’re traveling with, they don’t have all their marbles. So keep an eye out. Anybody comes up to you, touches you, or tries to get in your face, you let me know. You come get me. Or just point it out. I’ll take care of it.”
That’s what I’m talking about. It’s like her eyes catch fire and I don’t think she even knows it. I’m scared of her but it’s better than being alone.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
May 13, 2024
1. JACOB
I put down the Merriam-Webster's Medical Dictionary and go to the front of the bookstore. The jingle of the tiny brass bells always gives me a twinge of excitement, even here where every behavior is expected and every question has already been answered.
Poultice. Why that word had been bouncing around in my head I don’t know. I’ve always been partial to holistic medicine, and while researching the best method to poison my wife, I’d actually run across some interesting herbal remedies. When I first moved in here, first took on my role as the bookstore owner, I started a little garden out back. Not sure why exactly. Just took one look at the space and it seemed to call out to me. So I planted seeds. X came by and fiddled around with it now and then. I don’t know exactly what is out there. The colors and textures. What a mess. Thorns and thistles, vivid blooms and strangely shaped fruits. He told me to leave it alone. Just water it every day. He threw out some names - Boneset and Calamus, Crete and Lodage root, Star Anise and Camphor. Said they were important. And then he plotted out a tiny portion for me to play with. I was allowed to plant whatever I wanted there. Simple things like ginger and garlic, basil and oregano, thyme and chive. Sometimes when I plucked up my herbs for cooking it smelled so sweet, like an Italian kitchen. Other times it smelled like something had died, like mold and moss and something rotten. The