Donner stepped off the stage and walked around the hall, pointing to the big screens fixed to the walls.
“Are you ready ladies and gentlemen?” he yelled, cupping his hands to his mouth. “Are you ready for justice?”
There was a loud roar of approval.
“Then let’s do this,” Donner said. He turned to the white coats standing beside the chair.
“Start the Jack Murray program,” he said. “Simulation One. On my mark.”
He raised a hand in the air.
“3-2-1…”
Chapter 11
Kim Franklin is outside the Grenham Institute.
As Franklin prepares to go live on News America, a chaotic scene unfolds at her back. A large crowd of people can be seen outside the old building. They jostle back and forth, their angry voices fighting to be heard above a general groan of discontent.
Violent scuffles are breaking out.
A small group of police officers stand with their backs to the front door. These officers are the only thing in between the angry mob and the building.
KIM FRANKLIN: (touching her earpiece) We’re coming to you live outside the Grenham Institute in San Francisco. Today was supposed to be a day of healing – the next step in the evolution of the American justice system. Instead it’s turned into a technological disaster. As you can see behind me, the audience has been evacuated from the main hall, escorted outside and asked to stay away until further notice. Understandably, people aren’t happy. It would appear that…
Franklin stops. There’s a loud roar at her back as the front door of the Institute opens up. A nervous-looking Michael Donner, flanked by two cops, steps outside the building and is greeted by a barrage of angry jeers.
KIM FRANKLIN: Okay, Michael Donner has appeared at the door and it looks like he’s going to speak to the crowd. Let’s get over there and listen in.
Donner waits for the crowd to silence. It takes a few minutes. He’s holding a microphone in one hand as he addresses the audience.
MICHAEL DONNER: Thank you for your patience ladies and gentlemen. It was suggested earlier that we were rushing into the RELIVE program. That we were using technology to divert attention away from the ongoing debate about gun control, mental health issues and other factors that may have contributed to the epidemic of violence in this country. Quite simply, that’s not true. We did not rush into this. Trial simulations, hundreds upon hundreds, went swimmingly. The evidence was conclusive and it demonstrated that the RELIVE program was working fine. Before we launched, the public was consulted and the overwhelming majority of people were happy with the idea. They understand the true purpose of RELIVE. It was radical yes, but it was designed to put criminals off, working both as a deterrent and as a suitable punishment.
MAN IN CROWD: For Christ’s sake! Stop beating around the bush Donner. You’re talking like a politician! Tell us something we don’t know, like what went wrong in there today?
MICHAEL DONNER: (Nods) It’s become apparent that there’s a sudden and unexpected flaw in the RELIVE technology. For now at least, the human characters that feature in the Jack Murray simulation, well – they don’t work.
REPORTER: But Kutter’s still in there? In the simulation?
MICHAEL DONNER: That’s correct.
REPORTER: So let me get this straight Mr Donner. Right now, Vince Kutter is running around inside a virtual reality prison that doesn’t work?
Donner clears his throat.
MICHAEL DONNER: Yes.
WOMAN IN CROWD: So why don’t you just get him out? I thought you were supposed to be some kind of genius Donner. Pull the plug and fix it.
Donner glares at the woman.
MICHAEL DONNER: It’s not as easy as that ma’am. The ARP – the Angel Recovery Program is also experiencing temporary setbacks. We have however, introduced an emergency recovery measure – one that’s designed to entice Kutter back to reality and…
WOMAN IN CROWD: Yeah we caught a glimpse of that before you kicked us out Donner! That fuzzy thing? That’s the best you can do to tempt the kid back? It looks like something out of a horror movie for God’s sake. No wonder he ran a mile.
MAN IN CROWD: Shut it down Donner! My tax dollars paid for that technological screw up you got in there. What a waste of public money.
The crowd grows restless.
Donner raises his hands, appealing for calm.
MICHAEL DONNER: I can’t just shut it down. It’s too risky to pull the plug without taking the proper precautions. To do so might result in Kutter’s mind shutting down entirely along with the simulation, leaving him in a vegetative state. We might as well have given him the death penalty. He’d be brain dead and off the hook. Is that what you want?
REPORTER 2: Can you explain the ARP system to me again Mr Donner?
MICHAEL DONNER: The ARP is designed to bring Kutter back to the real world each time a simulation ends. The angel figure appears after Kutter gets shot. It’s surrounded by beautiful light and it reaches a hand towards him. It smiles and feels loving. Naturally, Kutter reaches back and approaches the light. That connection between them is a signal – it’s Kutter’s path back to the real world. It’s like coming out of a hypnotic state in some ways. I have to be straight with you here – this is extremely dangerous. What we’re doing to a human mind in here has never been done before. We can’t bully him towards the exit door like you people want us to.
WOMAN IN CROWD: Any other problems you want to report? I heard that lots of things are going wrong in there today.
MICHAEL DONNER: Lots is an exaggeration. But there are one or two other glitches. For example, minute aspects of Kutter’s personality have leaked into the simulation. These traits have been getting mixed up with Jack’s, no doubt causing some confusion. Kutter is a convicted shoplifter. In today’s simulation we observed that Jack almost stole some money. That’s something we know the real Jack Murray wouldn’t have done. There was also a random doorbell ringing at the family home. Little things like that have popped up, but it’s nothing we can’t fix.
REPORTER 3: So what happens now?
MICHAEL DONNER: We’re doing everything we can to bring Kutter back. That’s why we brought in Jack’s girlfriend, Donna, to help out. Kutter – as Jack – went to the school to look for her at one point. We asked Donna to step in and try to convince Jack, I mean Kutter, to walk towards the emergency recovery door.
REPORTER 3: What about the shooter? I’ve heard reports filtering outside that the simulated version of the school shooter wasn’t frozen like the other characters. Is that true?
MICHAEL DONNER: The shooter runs on a separate program. It’s partially working at this time and by that I mean that it moves, but not very well.
REPORTER 1: Sounds like a lot of problems Mr Donner. The biggest one being that you can’t seem to get Vince Kutter out of the high-tech prison you designed for him. You’ve lost the prisoner, haven’t you?
MICHAEL DONNER: (Shakes his head) We’ll get him back. After that we’ll lock Kutter up in a holding cell and fix the glitches in the system. This isn’t over – in fact it’s just the beginning. RELIVE is undergoing a few teething problems but I stress this ladies and gentlemen, you have nothing to worry about. Kutter will be out of that simulation in no time.
Chapter 12
Seventeen-year-old Donna Keller is standing in front of a crowd of reporters outside the Grenham Institute. The young woman’s parents stand at either side of their daughter, each with a protective hand on her shoulder as she fields a barrage of questions from the press.
Donna fidgets nervously with her blonde hair. There’s a strained look in her eyes as she tries to focus on the questions.
REPORTER: Donna, can you tell us what happened in there?
DONNA: (nods) Friends and families were allowed to stay in the main hall after everyone else had left. We kept watching on the big screen as he – Kutter – tried to make sense of what was happening. It wasn’t long before he went to the school
to find me – the simulated version of me. He walked into Room 11 where I used to meet Jack in the morning and that’s when Mr Donner called me into the tech room. He asked if I’d be willing to help. I said yes. So I put the headphones on, sat behind the microphone and spoke to Kutter. They told me to improvise but to make it seem like that version of Donna was trapped inside her body. Like she was the victim of an alien attack or something. I don’t know. The main thing however, was to try to persuade Kutter to walk towards the exit – that thing he was calling the Snowman.
REPORTER: You improvised?
DONNA: Not all of it. Some of the questions he asked were hard but the tech team helped me out by writing some answers on a piece of paper and sliding it in front of me. They were quick thinkers, thank God. Like at one point, he asked how he could hear my voice and nobody else’s. I didn’t know what to say. Someone wrote something down on a notepad – they told me to tell him we have a connection or something like that. At that point, I imagined I was speaking to Jack. My Jack. That made it a little easier.
REPORTER: But it didn’t work?
DONNA: No. He’s still in the Jack simulation.
REPORTER: Do you think they’ll get Kutter out? Obviously it’s a PR disaster for RELIVE if their first prisoner goes missing in action or ends up brain dead in the chair.
Donna’s expression is grim.
DONNA: They have to get him out. I don’t want that monster to die, not until he’s paid the price. I know that Jack’s mom and dad would say the same thing if they were here. Maybe Jack would have forgiven Kutter. Jack would probably have hated RELIVE too – that’s the kind of person he was. He was a good person, better than all of us.
Chapter 13
Kim Franklin interviews a small group of protesters outside the Institute. A minority presence, the voices of these dissenters have so far been drowned out by the pro-RELIVE crowd.
Sally Miller, a gray-haired woman of about sixty years old, acts as the spokeswoman for the protesters. She’s talking to Franklin with a small crowd of supporters gathered at her back. Most of the people are holding signs up for the cameras. The vast majority read:
TECHNOLOGY GONE TOO FAR!
WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?
KIM FRANKLIN: Why are you here today Sally?
SALLY MILLER: We’re here to encourage people to look beyond the hype. We want to ask some important questions – who does RELIVE serve? Who’s really being punished today? We don’t doubt that Vince Kutter is a savage criminal who did terrible things, but does that justify this kind of response in a so-called civilized society? It’s not going to bring the victims back. Is this really the direction we want to take? To implement technological torture into our justice system? Surely going forward it’s more important for us to consider other preventative measures, rather than turning the aftermath of every violent crime into a high-tech medieval torture show.
KIM FRANKLIN: To be clear, you’re not suggesting that Kutter goes unpunished for these crimes are you?
SALLY MILLER: Of course not. But this form of punishment – allowing it to exist, to flourish – will result in catastrophic consequences in the future. Mark my words. The importance of technological advancement now outweighs the importance of human life.
Sally points to the Institute.
SALLY MILLER: Does anyone truly believe that Michael Donner gives a damn about justice? I believe he’s much more interested in the celebrity status that he’s gained since this circus began. And the income generated from RELIVE will be huge. Yes if the program acts as a deterrent, RELIVE might address the problem of mass incarceration in America. But is solving a problem with another problem the right way to go? We’re taking violent criminals and finding ways to make use of them. This is just another way for someone to get rich through punishment. Kutter doesn’t even get a trial for God’s sake.
KIM FRANKLIN: Aren’t you being a little cynical Sally? You don’t believe Michael Donner is trying to do a good thing?
SALLY MILLER: Donner’s chasing two things – money and glory. He’s well aware of the government funding he’ll get to build RELIVE facilities up and down the country. We’re talking billions of dollars to reward a man who did nothing more than design a fancy torture chamber. And one that doesn’t even work properly by the looks of it. This is a man who wants to take us back to the days of gruesome public executions – of the Judas Cradle, impalement, crucifixion and all the rest of it.
KIM FRANKLIN: Donner is facing a lot of heat over these glitches in the system. That must make you happy, right?
SALLY MILLER: No. Right now I’m concerned Kim. Donner is under a lot of stress – there’s no doubt about that. There are literally billions of dollars slipping out of his grasp as we speak. He needs to get Kutter out of that Jack Murray simulation to save his skin. And here lies a new problem. Nobody is in there watching on the big screen anymore. Nobody is watching at home on the live stream either because it’s been taken offline.
KIM FRANKLIN: So what’s the problem?
SALLY MILLER: Donner can do whatever he wants – whatever it takes to get Kutter out of that program.
The question is – how far will he go?
Part III
Chapter 14
March 25th
Jack opened his eyes and blinked slowly.
He was leaning back in the car seat, his chin pointing up in the air. His first thought upon awakening was one that ran through most people’s mind when they woke up in a strange place, far from their own bed and the comfort of familiar surroundings.
Where am I?
But there was something else too.
Who am I?
Nothing came drifting through the fog, at least nothing coherent. There was no identity attached to his thoughts. No name. Everything was a blank.
Jack groaned and slowly lifted his head forward off the seat. There was a loud tearing noise as he moved, like his body was glued to the fabric and now he had to scrape it off by force. A sharp pain jolted his limbs; it stung like crazy but it didn’t feel like anything too catastrophic. These were mostly superficial injuries – it was a lucky getaway.
The steering wheel slowly came into focus.
You’re waking up behind the wheel of a car.
But I don’t have a car. Do I?
You crashed somebody else’s car then.
Jack straightened up in the seat. He stared vacantly through the windshield at the twisting road that lay ahead. It was only when he caught sight of the nearby scenery however – the lush green hills and fields – that at last he remembered where he was.
Alexandra Falls.
“Jack Murray,” he whispered. “That’s me.”
It was coming back.
Waxworld. The Snowman and the robot shooter. He’d been driving out of Alexandra Falls at breakneck speed, heading for Portland in search of answers to the biggest and weirdest puzzle of all time. He recalled the feeling of his foot pushing the pedal all the way to the floor. And he’d almost made it – the Snowman and the shooter were far behind him and he’d been so happy because he was getting out of there.
But then the car crashed into something – something that wasn’t even there.
Jack put a hand to his head and pressed down upon the site of a faint throbbing sensation. The pressure didn’t help. The rest of his body felt like it was vibrating, which in turn caused a churning motion to swirl around in Jack’s guts.
He got out of the car. Considering how fast he’d been going before the impact it was a miracle Jack could even walk at all. Well, he deserved a bit of luck. The pain was minimal. He wasn’t even limping. Jack walked towards the hood of the car, glancing over the vehicle’s exterior with an unqualified but curious eye. This wasn’t right. If there was any damage on the Civic’s surface, he wasn’t seeing it.
The car should have been a write off.
Jack looked around. What the hell did he run into?
There was nothing in front of the car but empty road. He ste
pped forward, put his hands up tentatively and felt a thick barrier in front of him – a wall of sorts. The wall was solid and yet invisible. It was made of an unusual material that Jack didn’t recognize by touch. Not brick, not metal. A warm sensation blew in his face as he got closer, like he was leaning towards a fan heater.
He followed the wall to the edge of the road, his hands pressed against the surface. It looked like he was taking measurements. He hopped over the fence and landed in the field, his limbs cracking in protest. It wasn’t long before Jack realized that the wall stretched far beyond the road itself. He had to assume that the hidden barrier – whatever it was – probably went on for miles, stretching across the vast expanse of hills and fields. Blocking the way in and out of Alexandra Falls.
Jack walked back to the road. He checked the field on the other side just to be sure. It was blocked off too.
“I don’t believe this,” Jack said, walking back to the car. He gazed up at the empty space – at a wall that wasn’t even there.
It was his cage door.
He looked towards the sky.
“What do you want me to do?” he said, his hands stretched out at the sides. Frustration swelled up inside Jack like a fever. After everything that had happened, he was no further forward than he’d been that morning when he stepped out of his house. Theories had come and gone – none had been proven or completely dismissed.
One thing was for sure. This whole thing sucked big time.
Jack dropped onto his knees and then fell flat on his back in the middle of the road. His arms and legs moved like he was trying to make a snow angel minus the snow. His mind wandered. He was alone in this town with no way out. What was the point of trying to figure things out anymore? Nothing made sense. Let them come and take him if they wanted. Whoever they were. Maybe there was no them.
The Dystopiaville Omnibus: A Dystopian Sci-Fi Horror Collection Page 23