Ian sat on a white folding chair in a square cell of floor-to-ceiling frosted glass. His ankle was set in a splint. A vent in the ceiling brought in air. There was nothing else. Faint shadows beyond the walls hinted at comings and goings. Sound was muffled as if obscured by white noise. Anything could be on the other side. Anything at all.
The opaque panel in front of him turned clear.
Ian blinked. “Dig?”
His bearded friend sat in an identical chair. He faced Ian in an adjacent and identical cell. The glass walls around them remained frosted. Nothing else was visible. It was like meeting in a cloud.
Digby was in jeans and a red T-shirt with yellow letters: “Rock Out With Your Cock Out.” He still had a corduroy coat, although this one was a dark gray. His beard was messy and uneven, just like his hair. His hands were behind him as if tied. He looked terrified.
“Ian! You have to help me.”
“Dig, what happened? Where are we?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know. There are people.” He glanced to his left. The corners of his eyes quivered.
A fuzzy shadow as large as a man moved just beyond the glass. “We’re gonna get you out of this, okay?” Ian looked around. “Just . . .” He didn’t know what to say. He was out of ideas.
Digby took a deep breath. He didn’t move his eyes. “I am going to ask you some questions.”
“Oh, no . . .” Ian’s stomach sank. “No, no, no.” It was Betty Six all over again.
“You have to tell the truth. Promise me, man.”
Ian nodded.
“Promise!”
“I promise.”
“Where is the Minus Faction?”
“I don’t know. I swear.”
There was a pause.
“Where is the man who messaged you? The Prophet?”
“I don’t know.”
“What does he look like?”
“I don’t know! I never spoke to him again. Everything came through the little girl.”
“Where is she?”
“I don’t know. We got separated. She said some friends were coming. I—I don’t know who.”
“You have to listen to me. This is very important. They want to make sure you are listening. Are you listening?”
“Yes!” He was emphatic. His head and foot throbbed.
“They need to know how to signal the girl. Think. How could you get a message to her if you really had to?”
They were after Wink.
“I don’t know. I swear.”
Dig looked terrified. His lips shook. “Ian, please . . . I don’t wanna die.”
The frosted panel to Digby’s left turned clear.
Deadbolt. The man in black stood like a shadow in stark contrast to the white surroundings. The panel slid open with a hiss and the killer stepped in to Digby’s cell.
“No . . .” Ian shook his head. He stood, despite the shrieking pain in his leg. He screamed at the glass. “Nononono, he didn’t do anything. Leave him the fuck alone. You wanna hurt me? Kill me? Then do it! I’m right fucking here.”
The dark man stretched his arms. He flexed. He made fists.
“Ian?” Digby was blubbering. “Oh my God, what’s happening? What’s going on?”
Deadbolt put his hands on the sides of Digby’s bearded face. It muffled the man’s cries.
“Ian, help me! Please! Tell them! Tell them!”
“Stop!” Ian pounded on the glass. “Just stop!”
Dig started to scream. Over and over.
Ian yelled over the noise. “He doesn’t know anything! Fuck! Christ!” He shut his eyes.
Digby screamed and screamed and it melted into laughter.
Ian opened his eyes.
Deadbolt stepped back through the door. Digby Fears looked at Ian. The bearded man sighed and stood up. His hands weren’t tied. He’d simply been holding them behind his back. He straightened his corduroy coat.
“You look confused, dude.”
Every wall turned from opaque to clear. They were in a lab. Everything was white. There was a small collection of animals in glass cages: a black and white cat, some rats, two rabbits, and a bear cowering in the next cell. Ian did a double take. Part of its head was shaved. There were sutures across its scalp. It was awful.
A large round machine, like a concave table, filled the center of the long room. A spider-armed surgical robot hung from the ceiling overhead. Thin-paneled TVs mounted along the right and left walls all displayed the same screen saver: a swirling, greenish-yellow orb composed of tiny, shifting squares. It was exactly how Professor Korsakoff had described the artifact.
Ian swallowed hard. His throat was dry, scratchy. “Who are you?”
“Exactly who I said I was. Thomas Digby Fears.” He walked into the lab, then stopped. “Well, technically it’s Dr. Fears.”
The counter along the right wall held small equipment: two microscopes, a centrifuge, and the like. Ian saw a pink pastry box. Glass-paneled walls at the back revealed a hallway. There were no windows. The hall was the only way out.
Ian shook his head. “It was you. On the screen. In the garage.”
Digby plopped into a small office chair and spun in a circle. “We gave you the consulting gig at Aerometric so we could keep an eye on you. And cut you loose when the time came.”
Ian didn’t know what to think. It didn’t make any sense. He was nobody.
“No one ever notices the fat guy. Have you noticed that? We’re invisible. The comic relief. Props for inviting me to the concert, though. That was really nice. You’re a nice guy, Ian. Isn’t that what the women tell you?”
“Dig . . .” Ian was intent.
“Human trial.” Dr. Fears answered the unspoken question. “Like with drugs.”
“Trial? For what?”
Digby smiled deviously. He scratched his beard, then brought his hands together and rested them on his belly. “I think you know.”
Ian shook his head.
“It attaches to the nervous system. We went in through your nose. It’s close to the brain and also leaves no visible scarring.”
Ian thought the pain in his nose had been from Deadbolt’s punch. He touched it.
Digby motioned to the screen savers. The flat panel in the center switched to old footage from the lab. “In our animal tests, it was completely passive except under conditions of extreme duress. And then some amazing things happened. Let me tell you, no scientific career is complete until you’ve spent three days trying to contain an angry rat that can teleport through solid matter.”
On the screen, people were yelling and screaming and running around. Ian saw a white rat disappear and reappear across the room.
Digby turned to Deadbolt. “Remember that guy? The one it ate its way out of? Remember his face?” Digby mocked with gestures.
Deadbolt didn’t acknowledge.
Digby turned back to Ian. “Whatever. Point is, we needed a suitable candidate.”
Ian was numb. What had they done to him?
Dr. Fears saw it on Ian’s face. “Don’t worry. It’s not sentient. Well . . . not as far as we know. You’re still you. Just . . . better.”
Ian stepped closer to the glass. “Why me?”
Digby leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. “Did you know that my organization owns more dating sites than just about anyone? It seems silly, but they are emerging as THE best source of psychological data, better even than social media.
“If a university asks people about their weird sexual practices or what makes them angry, they’ll hedge, give answers they think they’re supposed to rather than the truth. But tempt them with the chance of catching a mate, and they’ll pour out their souls. They’ll tell a total stranger secrets they wouldn’t tell their best friend. Isn’t that crazy?”
Ian thought about all the profiles he created in the month since the breakup with Emli. He thought about all the questionnaires he’d answered: likes, dislikes, fears, fantasies, career ambitions, religious and political beliefs, the names of his childhood pets, everything. They had it all, cobbled together from five or six different sources. It had never occurred to him that someone might be collecting it.
“You, sir”—Digby pointed—“were the perfect candidate.”
Ian was confused.
Dr. Fears looked up and thought of how to explain it. “Okay, let’s see. Your parents divorced. Your dad died. ‘Serving his country.’ Your mom, on the other hand, worked for a bank for years, which was bought by another bank, and then another even larger bank. And then she was fired. She lost the house and you guys had to move to an apartment. You had to take student loans and are now in debt up to your eyeballs. Then she got the dreaded C-word—”
“I know what happened.”
“Few friends. Spend most of your time alone. Your internet surfing tends to the . . . let’s call it deviant. I dig the hentai, man. You’re working like a slave to pay off the debt you incurred getting a degree that failed to deliver anything like the career it promised.” He put his fingertips together and switched to a fake German accent. “Tell me, how does zat make you veel?”
Ian’s fists clenched. “Better than selling my soul.”
“Oh, ouch!” Digby clutched his chest in mock pain. He spun in the chair. “Ow! Oh! But wait . . . That’s right, I haven’t sold anything, dude. Who do you think we work for? The rich?” He made a jerk-off motion between his round legs. “We don’t work for the rich. They work for us.
“Right now, the artifact—we call it the Oric, after the Bronze Age god it was discovered inside. The Oric has gotten as far as your autonomic nervous system. When my friend here”—he motioned to Deadbolt—“triggered one serious fight or flight response back in the mall parking lot, you experienced a surge of adrenaline. Adrenaline makes your body work faster. The Oric interpreted that literally. It sped you up. For a brief second, you were moving over 250 kilometers an hour. Can you believe that? And we don’t even think that was the limit.”
Ian looked at his hands. He turned them over. They looked the same. He felt the same.
“Our original plan was to run the experiment for several months, to give you orders that put you in increasingly risky situations, to keep pushing you, to explore the full range of the artifact’s capabilities ahead of Stage Two implantation. Trust me. It would. Have. Been. Awesome. We had this girl lined up. Soooo freakin’ hot! You were gonna run into her, save her life or some shit. You guys were gonna run around for awhile, have some chases, some escapes, maybe sleep together. A total adventure.
“But all that got interrupted. By that meddling kid.” Digby jokingly shook his fist in the air. “So, here’s the deal. We need to know how to find your little friend. If you don’t tell us, we’re going to put you in this machine here.” He pointed to the large, round device in the center of the room. “Which will slowly and uniformly liquefy your body. It’s really quite painful. Not that I’ve done it, of course. I’m basing that solely on the screams. Total torture porn.”
Ian heard it on the TV. The melting, gurgling shrieks. It sounded awful. He didn’t look.
“The pre-implantation matrix will then spontaneously reform. A little glowy, swirly ball.” Digby cupped his hand and petted the empty air above it. “Awww, so cute.”
Ian looked at the machine. It was about the height of a table. There was a control panel on one side and a large indentation in the top with bars to hold the “subject” down. There were slats in the center for collecting the liquefied remains. The spider arms were capped in clamps.
“But we don’t have to go down that road. You have a choice. A better road. Better for you. Better for me. Better for her.”
“What are you gonna do to her?”
“Well, we’re not gonna kill her, if that’s what you’re worried about. A girl like that, she’s too valuable. We have a facility.” He looked at Deadbolt. “Kind of like a school, I guess.”
The dark man still didn’t reply.
“You expect me to believe that?”
“Well, it’s the truth, good sir. Verily, I give thee my word.” Digby saw Ian’s hesitation. “She abandoned you, dude. It probably seems weird, but if you think about it . . . I’m kind of your only friend right now.”
“You had me electrocuted.”
“For science! Besides, it was just a tickle. My man here wasn’t gonna kill you. He was looking out for you. Do you know how many times we kept the cops off your trail? You are really bad at keeping a low profile.”
“You had me arrested. I’m in the fucking Terrorist Screening Data—”
“You had to go through it, man. We all do. Like a caterpillar to a chrysalis. A year from now you’ll look back and laugh. Trust me.”
“What are you talking about?”
“It’s a test! We don’t let just anyone in the secret club. I mean, look at this place. I have a fucking evil lair. How fucking crazy is that? I get danishes brought to me every morning.” He lifted one from the pink box and took a huge bite, then spoke with his mouth full. “Want one? Want to fuck Emli again? I can get her here. I can get her here by tomorrow. At the latest.” He swallowed. “Hell, you can fuck her right here on this machine. And then we could turn it on . . .”
“That’s sick.”
“I know, right? I’ve seen your browser history, dude.” He smiled. “You and me, we’re the same.”
Ian wanted to say it wasn’t true. But he couldn’t. His answers to all those questionnaires must have made it so obvious. How could they not have picked him?
“Upstairs in the garage I have a Ferrari, a Lamborghini, and two Maybachs. Take your pick and it’s yours. Any one of those cars will get you laid. Tonight. And your student loans?” Dig snapped. “Gone.”
Ian’s leg hurt. He sat down.
Was it true? Had he been angry at the world? At all the people who were prettier and richer and happier? Had he wrapped himself in a blanket of sarcasm to cover it all up? He’d clung like a fool to the first woman to show any serious interest. That was clear enough. Emli was on the rebound when they met, and she had devoured it all: Ian’s safety, his rapt attention, the security of knowing he would never leave. Or cheat. But eventually she didn’t need him anymore, and she traded up.
“You wanted a way out, man. You wanted to do something different, something exciting, something that really mattered. Well here it is. I’m literally handing it to you. All you have to do is take it.”
Intrigue. Security. Superiority. Dig was right. It was everything he ever wanted, everything every guy he knew wanted.
“Just help us find the girl.”
Wink. She’d ditched him. He thought they were friends. Apparently not. Had no one loved her, or had she simply rejected it? What does a calculating machine know about friendship?
Did she even have friends?
Did he?
An idea flickered in the dark of Ian’s mind. It’s a test. Dr. Fears had used the same words as the professor.
We do poorly, it seems, with temptation.
They were showing Ian exactly what he wanted to see. That he wasn’t a nobody. That he was in fact the bearer of a powerful artifact. That he could escape life as a cog in a faceless machine. That there was a cadre of secret elites ready to accept him into their ranks. They even got fat, bearded Digby, with his sharp T-shirts and clever mirth, to put a happy face on it all.
Intrigue. Security. Superiority.
The truth washed over Ian like a douse of cold water.
All of this had been a show. A ploy. They had dangled the Oric on a string to tempt their enemies out of hiding. They didn’t care about him. He was just as much a nobody now as ever. That was the real reason they had picked him. They were after the Minus Faction. That’s why Deadbolt was there. And when they didn’t need Ian anymore, they’d trade up. Just like Emli.
And he almost fell for it.
Dr. Fears saw the look on Ian’s face, grim and silent. “Well . . . shit.” He walked slowly to the round machine in the center of the room. He looked down at it. “You know what my degree is in?”
Ian shook his head. He was in shock. His whole body tingled at the realization that he’d just brushed past an entirely different destiny. “Lies?”
“Cognitive science. Neural networks. Learning systems. Did you know that back in the day, there’s a reason they made phone numbers seven digits long?”
“Sure.” Ian’s voice was soft. He was numb. Who had he almost become? “That’s all the room we have. Everyone knows that.”
“Yes, but hardly anyone knows what it means. It means our brains are constrained in ways we can’t feel. When we use our body the wrong way, we feel pain. But the brain doesn’t have nerves for its nerves. Your genes won’t ever give up control like that. They don’t want you to know when you’re being stupid. They don’t want you to know the real reason you do anything. That’s why it’s so easy to see other’s mistakes but never our own.
“Enlightened beings make themselves aware of these limitations. They work to overcome them. Those who don’t are just cattle, blindly following the dictates of biology—food, sex, aggression. The fact that people go about all that in more complex ways than an ungulate doesn’t make them any less herd animals.”
“What are you saying? The rest of us are less than human?”
“No. I’m saying some of us are more. I’m saying that using the human body merely to its natural capacity is the defining characteristic of Homo sapiens, as if being the ‘wisest’ of the apes was something to be proud of. I’m saying that some of us have left the genus Homo behind.” He motioned to Deadbolt. “And all of this,” he raised his hands to the lab, “is just the beginning. You have no idea what’s out there, Ian. Things you can’t even imagine. While the rest of the world fights over oil and money and votes, the dying legacy of the industrial era, we’ve bottled the future. We’re manufacturing it. Right now. And it’s going to be epic. Homeric, even. Full of gods and monsters.”
Dr. Fears was giving him one last chance. Ian wondered how far it went. He noticed a small red LED countdown in the hallway at the back, 30 days and counting. It ticked relentlessly.
Digby saw it. “Ah yes . . . The master plan. I could show you, dude. I like you. I always did. I wanted you to be a part of it. And you still can be. Whatever you want. Just get me the little girl.”
“Agent Scanlon had a family. Officer Mendez probably did too.”
“Oh, come off it! You don’t care about people any more than I do.” Digby stepped closer to Ian’s cell. He pointed to his own face. “Look me in the eye and tell me most of them aren’t cattle, with their shitty music and reality TV.”
Ian didn’t answer.
“You can’t, because you know I’m right. Shit . . . Half of what comes out of your mouth makes fun of—”
“That doesn’t mean they deserve to die.”
“Deserve?” Digby laughed. His beard shook. “Dude, I’m not out to kill anyone. Seriously. I just don’t beat myself up about it if that’s how things end up for them.”
“You’re insane.”
“No, Stalin was insane. Manson was insane. My friend here is insane.” He motioned to Deadbolt. The dark man didn’t flinch. “Why do you think the world is the way it is, huh? Because a handful of people vote? Because the rich cheat on their taxes? No.” He was emphatic. “The world is the way it is because these people you care about so much let it be this way.
“The fact is, most people are disposable and they know it. And they know their neighbor is too. Only one in a thousand has anything notable to offer and only one in a million is worth saving. Everyone else is cattle.”
Ian opened his mouth but Digby interrupted.
“Your little genius friend knows the score. She used you. To get what she wanted. And when that didn’t happen, she left you. To die.”
Ian didn’t want to believe it. But there wasn’t another explanation.
Digby raised his hands and dropped them. “It’s not like I’m standing here with evil in my heart, dude. I’ve just accepted the world for how it is. I would actually like it if someone stopped us. Really. That’s not even a joke. It would mean there are still some Homo sapiens capable of evolving, of sacrificing for something other than themselves. There’s been so many chances. No one ever steps up, man. I’ve seen it. Over and over. No one even lifts a finger.”
“I’ll stop you, Dig.” He wanted to. He didn’t know how.
“No, you won’t, Ian.” Dr. Fears was exasperated. Impatient. Tired of explaining. He turned away. “You can’t even talk to a girl without getting sweaty palms.”
He nodded to Deadbolt. The dark man stepped forward and the glass door of Ian’s cell slid open with a hiss. Ian tried to defend himself, but the killer put him on the ground. Then he put a foot on Ian’s chest and rested his black blade against Ian’s throat. Ian pushed it away and Deadbolt stomped on his face with a heavy boot. Ian clutched his nose. It burned. His eyes ran. He sneezed.
And disappeared.
Digby Fears stared at an empty cell, mouth agape. “The sneeze . . .”
Teleportation. Just like the fucking rat. The matrix was building, getting stronger, working its way deeper into Ian’s body. They needed to get it out of him.
“GO! He couldn’t have gone far.”