by J L Bryan
“In the news business, we call it muddying the stream-flooding them with so much conflicting information they don’t know what to believe. George Baldwin, the Terror agent at my studio, called it releasing the antibodies. You swarm the unwanted bit of information and surround it, steer it your own way, kill whatever leaked. That’s how you keep the official narrative intact.”
“What interview are you talking about?” Violet asked. “Who is Westerly?”
“I’ll show her.” Lucia ran outside, then quickly returned and gave Violet one of the discs. “We have more copies. I can leave some with you. It’s best to distribute these hand to hand instead of online, if you want to avoid Terror.”
Violet led them down the hall to a bedroom with another, older video screen, assuring them it was not connected to anything but its own hard drive. She closed the door and inserted the disc.
As Violet watched the video, her knees shook and she sank down to sit at the foot of her bed. She was in tears as the interview ended, but she didn’t look away. She stared at the blank screen for a few minutes.
“None of it was real,” she finally whispered. She looked to Ruppert. “None of it was ever real.”
“There’s an organization called PSYCOM,” Ruppert said. “Defense, or intelligence. They wage psychological warfare on the world, and that includes us. They have everything, the media, the schools, the big Dominionist churches you have to attend. The Department of Terror is a front for them. They went rogue, or maybe they were following orders, I don’t know, but Columbus was their project.”
“But why?” Violet asked. “To our own people?”
“To make us afraid,” Lucia said. “So they could remake everything.”
“This makes me more afraid,” Violet said, gesturing at the screen. “I’ve never been this frightened.”
Ruppert looked at the black screen. “Even this works for them, doesn’t it? It shows us how ruthless they are. What if it only intimidates people, and they keep quiet?”
“They will have the truth,” Lucia said. “It never goes away. It stays inside you.”
“I think it’s going to stay inside me a long time,” Violet said. “I’m not sure I’m glad I know this. I thought things were bad enough before.” She stood up. “We need to move fast. You need to get out of this country right away. I’ll see if I can move things up a day or two. Until then, you better get back up to the hideaway. Try not to let anybody see your face, Daniel. Even folks around here can’t always tell the difference between truth and not.”
TWENTY-EIGHT
They spent two nights in the hidden room above the stables, and Ruppert quickly grew accustomed to the sounds of the horses stomping and neighing below, and even the animal smells that reached up into the loft. They made him feel alive and, for the first time since his childhood, like he inhabited a world with some measure of sanity.
Violet, as it turned out, lived in the main house with her sister and her sister’s four children, as well as an assortment of dogs. Violet or one of her nieces delivered meals and jugs of water to them four or five times a day.
Ruppert and Lucia passed the time with the old paperbacks on the room’s only table, most of them missing both front and back covers. In the evenings, they listened to Nando and the other children describe in hushed, awed tones the goats, horses, cows and chickens they’d helped tend around the farm. Nando seemed to be adapting well, except for a tendency to bark orders at younger children.
The travelers also played cards with each other, using decks supplied by Violet. Nobody talked about their past, or how they’d arrived there, and Ruppert began to feel ashamed of how he’d questioned Sully in front of the others.
In fact, they only wanted to discuss one subject: Canada.
“I’m going to learn how to build those igloos,” one of the lone men said. “You can build an igloo, you can live anywhere. Get a couple of dogs, you’re set.”
“You go and sleep with dogs if you want,” said another lone traveler, Tarvis, a hefty black man with a Southern accent. “I’m finding me a French-speaking women, and live up in the mountains.”
“No woman who speaks French would go and live in the mountains with you,” the first man said.
“Fine with me,” Tarvis said. “I’ll move into her place.”
Violet stopped by to tell them she’d advanced the schedule: they’d be leaving a few days earlier than expected. Since she’d kept the original schedule secret anyway, Ruppert didn’t see the point, but he thanked her for it.
“Are you kidding?” Violet said. “You’re the most wanted man in the country. It’s a danger to my family, keeping you here.”
Sully continued to have trouble with his speaking and his memory. Occasionally he would blank out in the middle of a meal, his mouth sagging open, partially chewed meat or bread dribbling from the corner of his lips. Ruppert would hurry to clean him up. Sully twitched his fingers and hands constantly, unable to calm down, checking his watch nine or ten times per minute. It made the others nervous, and they tried to avoid him.
When Ruppert asked Violet how Sully had arrived, she said he’d come through some contacts of hers in the east, but refused to disclose any information more detailed than that. “You know how things are,” she’d said. “It’s best to stay discreet about your friends. It’s part of being a friend, don’t you think? I’ll do the same for you,” she added.
After talking with Ruppert about the Bronto, Violet had one of her workers deliver the truck to a junkyard owner she knew in Billings. He returned with cash, seven thousand dollars of which she gave to Ruppert and Lucia. Ruppert had insisted Violet keep a portion of the money for herself, and she assured him she'd already taken the liberty.
On their third night, Violet and her two oldest nieces arrived just after sunset and ushered everyone out of the stables. They led them into the long, caged trailer of a cattle truck. Violet’s nieces walked to the front of the trailer and pried loose a section of one of the interior cage walls. They lifted it out of the long indentation in the aluminum floor in which the wall was set. Then they reached into the indentation, and Ruppert heard a series of clanging, snapping sounds.
Ruppert and the other adults helped them lift up two panels of the floor, revealing a shallow, hidden cargo bay. The travelers-illegal immigrants, now-would have to lie underneath the floor, side by side, for the entire journey.
“Are you driving us there?” Ruppert asked Violet.
She shook her head. “Best if you don’t see the driver, and he don’t see you.”
The travelers lay down, Ruppert next to Lucia, Nando on the far side of her. Everyone’s luggage and sleeping bags was arrayed at their feet. Violet and her nieces replaced the floor panels, and Ruppert heard the clicking as they replaced the wall. They waited for several long minutes in silence and darkness, and then a low thunder rolled across the floor above them, as if someone were tumbling boulders through the truck. They would be riding underneath a shipment of live cows.
“Are we in Canada yet?” one of the children whispered in the dark.
It was another twenty minutes before the truck finally revved up and began to move. Soon the hidden compartment was hot and sticky with body heat, and it stank of oil and gasoline, and eventually, fresh manure. The road jostled them constantly, jarring Ruppert’s spine.
The long, uncomfortable ride took more than an hour. Ruppert whispered to Sully, making sure he was handling the uncomfortable, frightening situation. Once, the truck idled in place for a painfully long time, and Ruppert wondered if they’d been stopped by the police, but nothing came of it.
Eventually the road got rougher and steeper, and they were sliding into each other, as well as banging elbows and knees against the walls of the compartment. Ruppert took a sharp jab in the ribs from Lucia’s elbow.
Then the truck stopped, reversed direction, pulled forward, reversed direction again, jostling everyone back and forth. Sully groaned. Ruppert was feeling a little ill,
too.
Finally, there was heavy thumping above, and then a clanging sound, and then one of the floor panels above them lifted free. An unfamiliar young man in overalls, probably in his late teens, stood above them.
“Come on,” he said in a low voice. “Everybody grab your stuff and get moving.”
They climbed up from the compartment, Ruppert helping Sully to his feet, Nando impatient to get out into the fresh air. Cows occupied half the cages in the truck. A young woman about the same age as the boy in coveralls stood in an opened cage, luring in a cow with a bucket of grain. This must have been the cow that had been positioned on top of them the entire drive.
They exited through the open doors at the back of the trailer, into a cool, rocky corridor that slanted downward into darkness. Its shape was too regular to be a cave, and it was framed with wooden support beams-maybe an old mine shaft, or just a hastily built smuggling tunnel.
Much of the truck was not visible. The last several feet of the trailer extended through a wide square opening not much bigger than the trailer itself. Ruppert got the impression that the area behind the opening was not the outdoors, but some kind of darkened building, maybe a warehouse. He didn’t ask any questions.
“This is everybody?” The girl who’d been leading the cow away jumped down from the trailer. She wore a pair of tall hiking boots. “We go the rest of the way on foot. I’m going to lead, and Wayne here is going to be the last in line. Stay between us and you’ll be safe.”
The young bearded man-Wayne, Ruppert supposed-opened a backpack leaning against a wall of the rocky corridor. He lifted out a thin plastic ring wide enough to be a necklace, twisted and shook it, and the ring flared a glowing green. He dropped it over the head of the nearest child, who still looked pale and sick from the ride.
“Everyone takes one of these,” he said. “It’s going to be your only light for parts of the trip.” They passed the glowing green rings out to everyone, and then two young guides put on spelunking helmets and flipped on the lights set into them.
“We’re going to be walking for about an hour,” the young woman said. “When we come back up, we’ll be in Canada. There is transportation waiting on the other side, but we can’t be late, so let’s get going.” She turned and walked several yards down the tunnel.
They gathered their things and followed, Sully moving a little slow and having trouble with his balance. Ruppert took his luggage, which consisted of a dirty nylon bag that cinched with a drawstring, and carried it for him.
“Are you ready to walk, Nando?” Lucia asked.
“Yes, ma’am. I’ve done a lot of cave maneuvers before.”
“That makes one of us,” Ruppert said. “Keep an eye on your mom and make sure she stays safe.”
“I will, sir.”
Sully was already falling a few steps behind. Ruppert could see the young man at the end of the line staring at Sully and shaking his head, recognizing he could be a problem.
As promised, the tunnel was lightless, and increasingly cold, the only light provided by the guides' helmets and the glow rings around each person's neck.
He and Lucia kept Nando between them. They’d attempted to hold his hands throughout the walk, but the boy refused, so they settled for keeping a close eye on him. Like everyone else, he appeared as a disembodied, glowing green head floating through the dark.
Ruppert looked around at the floating green heads. “Where’s Sully?”
“I don’t see him,” Lucia said.
“What’s the problem now?” Wayne asked.
“Sully,” Ruppert said. “The guy who was with us.”
“Oh, the retard?” Wayne looked around. “Shit.”
“Sully?” Ruppert called. The word echoed away in both directions along the tunnel.
“Don’t do that,” Wayne said. He slowly pivoted around, panning the light in a circle. Sully was no longer with the group.
The group had stopped moving and gathered around the young woman guiding them. She walked back to ask what was happening.
“We lost the retarded guy,” Wayne said.
“He’s not retarded,” Ruppert said. “He’s been through a behavior clinic.”
“Even worse,” Wayne said. “We don’t have time to turn back.”
“You two go and look for him,” the young woman said. “We’ll wait here.”
Wayne grumbled, but he and Ruppert turned back and walked along the way they’d come. Wayne swung his head back and forth as they walked, in case Sully had managed to lose his glowing necklace.
After they’d backtracked for ten or fifteen minutes, Wayne said, “Look, he’s lost. We can’t risk everybody for him.”
“We can’t leave him,” Ruppert said. “He’d never find his way out. He’s-wait!” Ruppert grabbed Wayne’s arm. “Look back…more to the right…”
The beam found Sully, who had indeed managed to misplace his own light source. He stood back in a slight concave nook, where the tunnel had turned to avoid a bank of solid rock.
Sully was staring at his watch.
“Let’s grab him,” Wayne said.
“Wait,” Ruppert said. “Let me do it. You might panic him.”
Wayne snorted, but he stayed in place as Ruppert approached Sully, trying not to make any sudden moves.
“Sully?” he whispered. “Sully, it’s Daniel.”
Sully continued to stare at his watch. A red light pulsed on its face, about once every second. Sully appeared transfixed by it.
“Sully, look at me,” Ruppert said. “We have to keep going. Everyone’s waiting.”
Sully didn’t move. Ruppert reached out and covered the blinking light with his hand. Sully gasped, looked up at him.
“Daniel…Ruppert?” Sully asked.
“That’s right. Sully, we have to stay with the group-”
Something thin and sharp stabbed into Ruppert’s left side, into the soft tissue just underneath his lowest rib. At first he thought it was a wild animal, maybe a mountain lion, though it felt more like a shark. Then Sully raised a polished stone knife and stabbed him again and again, the blade hacking into the ribs along Ruppert’s left side, as if Sully were trying to break through into his heart, but kept missing and gouging Ruppert’s abdomen instead. He thought he could feel hot blood in his own stomach.
Ruppert stumbled back, trying to get away, but Sully’s left hand gripped Ruppert’s right arm and refused to let go. Sully stabbed him again and again, his face blank, drooling a little from the corner of his mouth.
Behavior modification, Ruppert thought, instantly remembering how Terror had programmed him to murder Hollis Westerly. Which, on reflection, he might have accomplished before leaving Maya Kendrick’s defunct vineyard.
Ruppert tried desperately to remember how Dr. Smith had deprogrammed him. There had been a keyword, a master word that George Baldwin had used to gain instant control over Ruppert’s mind.
“Racca!” he shouted into Sully’s face. “Jesus, Sully, Racca, does that work on you?”
The stabbings slowed, then stopped. Sully released him, and Ruppert slipped to the dirt floor, which felt muddy and warm. His own blood.
“Sully, wake up,” Ruppert said.
Sully blinked and looked down at him, then looked to the pointed stone blade in his right hand, drenched in Ruppert’s blood.
“Oh,” Sully said. “Oh, fuck, Daniel.”
Ruppert could see him clearly in the light from Wayne’s helmet. He turned his head and saw Wayne standing where Ruppert had left him, watching, hands at his side, eyes wide in astonishment.
“I’m so sorry, Daniel, oh God,” Sully muttered, and Ruppert turned back to him. “They made me. I forgot. I forgot or I would have said. They made me do it.”
Ruppert coughed, and it hurt. He shuddered.
Sully raised the blade again, staring at it.
“They made me do it, Daniel.”
“I know.”
Sully tilted the blade to look at the bloodied tip. Th
en, his face blank again, he plunged the knife into his own throat.
“Sully!” Ruppert reached for him as he sank to his knees. Ruppert looked back to Wayne. “Are you going to help at all?”
Ruppert heard a thunderous, rumbling sound, and then Lucia and Nando bolted into view, followed by the other travelers and the young woman who’d been leading the group. All of them ran while looking back over their shoulders, panic on their faces. Ruppert tried to push himself to his feet, but he had no strength in his legs. He’d lost a lot of blood.
Light flooded the tunnel, as if the sun had risen in the underground world, shining down from little buzzing drones overhead. Rows of armed men in faded green uniforms marched after them, wielding machine guns.
“This is the United States Army,” an amplified voice announced. “Border Patrol. Get down flat on your faces. You move, we shoot.”
The travelers dropped to their knees, then lay prostrate on the floor. Lucia gripped Nando’s hand. A team of soldiers approached the alcove where Ruppert and Sully lay, each soaked in their own blood. They lowered their weapons.
“What the hell happened to you?” one of the soldiers asked Ruppert.
“I think I’m dying,” Ruppert said, and then the world turned black.
TWENTY-NINE
When Ruppert finally awoke, he lay on a mattress no thicker than a towel against a hard, flat surface. He had almost no strength, but leather cuffs bound his arms to cool metal rails. Everything in his abdomen ached.
He opened his eyes to see gray cinderblock walls. Clean white bandages bound up his torso. Plastic green curtains hung on either side of his narrow hospital bed. Machines monitored him, included a convex black lens for video surveillance. Fluids fed into his arm from a clear bag suspended overhead.
He lay for a long time, trying to piece together what had happened, wondering if Nando and Lucia were safe. He doubted it, but someone had gone to the trouble of giving Ruppert medical care, and that gave him a little hope. Beyond the curtains, he heard groans and a few snores. There were many others in the room with him.