The next morning, Isaac and Alessa woke early, the morning sunlight coaxing them from their cramped little sanctuary.
Isaac pressed upward on the mangled lid of the dumpster, carefully checking the surrounding lot for any sign of intruders. The coast clear, he reached his hands through the gap and unfastened the lock.
Throwing the dumpster open, Isaac stood tall and stretched his limbs, relieved to breathe the air of a fresh new day. He hadn’t realized how stuffy it’d become in that noxious garbage bin. Springing over the side of the dumpster, Isaac steeled his footing and offered a hand to Alessa as she swung her legs gracefully to the ground, slipping her pack over her shoulders.
They scanned the tree line for any signs of yesterday’s visitors, but all was clear.
“Should we check to see if there are any supplies left in the mini mart?” Alessa asked.
“Good idea,” Isaac agreed, following a few paces behind.
As his footsteps crunched once again on the broken glass, Isaac thought of something – maybe the creatures had left tracks?
The blacktop was devoid of snow, but the grassy areas leading towards the surrounding forest still had a dusting of white, and Isaac knew that whatever was following them had come from the woods.
“Less, I’ll catch up with you in a minute. I want to check something out.”
“Okay, love, I’ll be right here if you need me,” she replied, stepping through the remains of a large window.
Isaac continued past the convenience store heading for the edge of the pavement.
What he found there stopped him in his tracks.
“Alessa,” he called.
She poked her head out, “What is it, babe?”
“Come here.”
She stuffed something in her open bag and jogged over, pulling up at his side. Isaac just pointed at the imprints he’d found in the remnants of snow, unable to form any other explanation.
Alessa gasped. “Isaac. Are those –” she looked up at Isaac, her eyes searching, “– are those human footprints?”
10. WAITING
The now-familiar scrabble of 14’s note and makeshift pencil thrusting through the wall caught Nikhil’s ear. She’s up!
He rolled quickly off the cot and scooped up the note, eagerly moving into the thin stream of light by the door to read her message.
“Hear them again?”
Oh, did he; last night’s racket of snarling howls was the entire reason Nikhil had been lying half-dazed on his cot for the past several hours. The inhuman cries had woken him from a deep slumber, and the unsettled feeling they’d left in his gut had made it near impossible to get back to sleep.
Without any supplies to send a note, Nikhil had banged fruitlessly on 14’s wall and even tried shouting to her, but to no avail. He’d been left to ponder those inexplicable growls on his own. And even after hours of thinking, he still couldn’t imagine what was going on out there. Or who – or what – those horrifying sounds were coming from.
He dipped the pen in the black grease smeared across his door hinges. “Yup – couldn’t sleep after.”
Nikhil pushed the note back through and waited for her reply. It came quickly. “Poor baby. Quiet jail cell spoiled you?”
Nikhil laughed out loud. Up until a few days ago, he couldn’t have imagined a reason that he would ever have the occasion here to feel the familiar warmth of that hearty rumble in his chest. But 14’s notes shooting through the wall had changed all that. He had actually – incredulously – laughed from joy.
It felt good.
Nikhil thought back to his days at Eastern State University, to the plentiful laughs he’d shared with his teammates on the water polo squad. His memories were hazy, but they’d grown more clear over the past several days with the help of 14’s prompts. She seemed to remember the school distinctly, and her musings about different places and events on campus had begun to jog his memory.
“Hah! Guess so,” he scratched out on the strip of paper. “Couldn’t sleep at ESU, either – housemates.”
“Lived with the polo team?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“Polo frat.”
There was a longer pause between her next response. Nikhil knew she was thinking about her next question, trying to piece something together. She did this sometimes. He wasn’t quite sure what she was looking for yet, but he figured he didn’t have anything to lose by giving her the information she sought.
“When did you get to ESU?”
“August – pre-season training. You?”
“Sept. Usual move-in. Were other students there in Aug?”
“Just some other athletes.” Those were some good times. No class, no homework, just workouts with the guys during the day and parties with a different girls’ sports team every night.
“I think you were on a jock drama,” she replied.
That made sense – there’d certainly been plenty of drama those weeks before school had started, and then once the competitive season had gotten underway, the action had only intensified. Nikhil guessed that watching from the outside would probably have made for some solid entertainment.
Though he was still having trouble wrapping his mind around the fact he’d been living on a television show. 14 had explained everything to him, but it was easy to forget that much of his life had been false, that all of his memories from ESU had been “stitched” – as 14 had called it – into his brain. That life had felt so real to Nikhil at the time. It still felt real.
But then again, so did all his other memories – of being a knight, and a soldier, and a medical intern, and an 18 year old kid venturing across a wasted country to find sanctuary at a government quarantine zone. He knew now that most of these experiences had been constructed; he just had to keep reminding himself which story was reality. But sometimes – most of the time – he felt in danger of forgetting.
14 was helping him with that, though.
He wanted to know more about 14, but he’d had difficulty getting her to reveal almost anything about herself. He decided it was worth a shot to ask about her show again – maybe she’d open up more about her role this time so he could finally remember who she was.
“You? Sorority drama?”
“Kind of – ghost love story mainly (side character). Were you here before ESU?”
He considered. His time in Paragon’s prison was a blur. He’d certainly been here before, but prior to this stint in solitary, all of his many stays here sort of jumbled together.
“Yup – a few times, I think. You?”
She ignored his question. “Always in solitary?”
Nikhil sighed. She obviously wasn’t ready to talk yet. He gave up on his questioning for now.
He thought back. At least some of his other visits in between stitches had been in the normal cells, where there were other prisoners around and they were let out for meals and recreation. He’d even had a friend here, once, if memory served.
It was always so difficult for Nikhil to remember the order of events with so many different lifetimes bleeding together in his brain, but he was fairly certain that he’d been on at least a couple dramas before they’d moved him into solitary. And somewhere in between he’d made contact with the prisoner in the cell across from him, a younger guy about Nikhil’s age whose name eluded him at the moment.
He replied, “I remember a friend – forgot his name – blue-eyed guy across the hall. So, no, not always solitary.”
14’s response was immediate. “What did he look like?”
Nikhil couldn’t imagine why she cared, but he indulged her odd questions as usual. “Tallish, built. Brown hair.” He wasn’t sure what else would distinguish him, so he shoved the note back to her and waited for her reply.
Again, there was a delay before the response came. She seemed to be considering something. Finally, the note returned.
A fresh scrap of paper held one word: “Joe?”
Joe… Nikhil
considered. That just might have been his name.
“You know him?” he responded.
There was a pause before the note came back. “He worked with the rebellion.”
Nikhil gripped the paper in his hands at this subtle revelation. Had 14 been a rebel?
He’d heard through prison gossip that there was some kind of resistance movement, though he’d never really understood who was involved or why. Of course, the vile practice of stitching prisoners was something worth fighting against, but Nikhil suspected there was more to it than just that, other sinister goings on of which he hadn’t yet caught wind. Maybe 14 would be able to fill in the gaps for him eventually.
But more importantly, he realized, she’d finally shared something of herself outside of her time at ESU. Maybe she was beginning to trust him.
There was more – he kept reading.
“What happened to him?” she’d asked.
Nikhil tried to remember. He’d seen his friend – this Joe – daily for a while, but sometimes they would take him away for a bit. He’d always come back confused, out of it. And then one day he just didn’t come back.
The past was fuzzy for Nikhil, but he thought he’d remembered seeing Joe one final time, the day they’d moved Nikhil to solitary. It’d been after he’d finished another drama, when the muddled chaos in his head had really begun in earnest. The experience stuck out in his mind because they’d brought him for the first time to this other part of the prison, an endless labyrinth of halls lined with solid steel doors.
He remembered his shoes scraping against the floor, the guard’s hands on his wrists driving him forward. This was before Nikhil had grown resigned to his fate as Paragon’s puppet, and he recalled that he’d been carefully making note of the descending numbers above the cells as they traversed the hallways, trying to remember a series of digits that would lead him out if he ever got the chance.
And then they’d turned the corner, and Nikhil had caught sight of another prisoner being shoved into a cell. The prisoner had been resisting violently, snarling almost, and a flash of blue had sparked some whisper of recognition in Nikhil. At the time he couldn’t place it, but now he thought he did. He thought it might have been Joe.
“Haven’t seen him in years. #116 last I think.” The number marked above the door where he’d witnessed the scuffle had been seared into Nikhil’s memory.
He still couldn’t imagine why 14 was interested in this. It was clear she knew something she wasn’t telling him. Maybe Joe had been her boyfriend or something before they both ended up here. Who knew? He was certain she wouldn’t tell him if he asked.
Sure enough, her response was cryptic as ever.
“They’re going to come for me, Nikhil. And when they do, we’ll get you out, too.”
11. PHILOSOPHY
Time was passing quickly for Phoenix. Or at least, she thought it was.
It seemed like only moments since the Developer had left her side, but then again, her body felt stronger and her myriad bruises had developed an olive tinge around their edges. And while her body felt heavy with lethargy, the cloud in her mind was showing the beginnings of an inclination to clear. Maybe one day soon she would finally remember her real name. For now, though, Phoenix it was.
The door hissed and slid open with a whirr, and Phoenix closed her eyes – it was easier to pretend she was asleep through the probes and prods of these routine medical examinations than to expend the strength responding to the nurse’s questions.
But she was curious enough to peek through her bandages when an unfamiliar male voice cleared his throat and called gently out to her.
“Ph-Phoenix… are you awake?”
Phoenix slowly peeled her eyelids back, feigning a drowsiness that was only slightly more pronounced than the fatigue her broken body actually felt.
What she found was a middle aged gentleman with side-parted hair and a soft boyish face beaming down at her encouragingly. He eagerly sidled up next to her bed in the same white plastic chair the Developer had sat in and lightly laid his hand on top of hers.
“I s-see you’re feeling better after a couple days’ rest.” Everything about her visitor was unthreatening, from his soft-spoken voice to warm demeanor – even his slight stutter. Phoenix simply gazed at him and waited for him to continue.
“Oh! I’m being rude, sorry. Let me introduce myself. My name is Benoni – Ben for short. They also call me the Economist.”
Phoenix smiled weakly in reply. He obviously already knew who she was, so what else could she say?
“I’m so glad your spirits are up, Phoenix. I wanted to stop by today to try to explain to you what Paragon is meant to be, what we’re trying to achieve here. Hopefully I can give you something uplifting to think about during your recovery.”
Phoenix nodded ever so slightly, urging him on. Perhaps today was the day she would get some answers.
“I’m not sure how much you remember given your recent injuries, so please excuse me if I’m repeating things you already know.” He paused a beat and looked off into the distance. “So where to begin?”
Moving his eyes back to Phoenix, he took a deep breath. “Let’s start with our ultimate goal. The Engineers and I are working to bring about a peaceful, truly egalitarian society – the first the world has ever known.”
He smiled to himself. “A noble goal, but as you can imagine, more d-difficult than it sounds. No civilization that came before us has been able to achieve it – there’s always been too much competition, too much power-mongering, too much disregard for others unlike ourselves.”
He sighed. Shaking his head, he explained, “The human animal is not an easy one to appease. We are, by nature, selfish – even cruel. To be truly happy, we must rise above nature. We must seek to overcome our baser animal instincts in pursuit of something greater. And that’s what we’re seeking with Paragon – a better place for all of us.”
Once again that faraway look came into his eyes and he gripped her hand a little tighter. “Just imagine it – no hunger, no poverty, no war.” He gazed intensely into her eyes. “Ever. Never again. We’ve learned from the m-mistakes of those who came before us, and we are building upon the foundation they laid to create something more.”
So far Phoenix couldn’t find any arguments with what this Economist, Ben, had said. He certainly seemed to genuinely believe what he was saying – even in her befuddled state, that much was clear. The question was how this ideal society he was envisioning would ever come to be.
“Of course, P-Paragon is a work in progress. Time was short. Do you remember the war, before the outbreak? Countries were bombing each other left and right, the global economy had broken down, food was scarce.”
He shook his head. “It was a rough, rough world. It was almost like we – as an entire species – had regressed. We had all this technology, all this education, we knew we should have been cooperating with each other for survival, but instead we gave in to the primal urge to fight. It was needless, how much death and destruction we subjected ourselves to.”
Phoenix closed her eyes and beseeched her brain to remember. But she only got flashes in return – headlines on the evening news blaring, “Terror in the Skies: Nuke Dropped – 3 Million Dead,” the sharp pang of hunger in her gut, sirens wailing and people rushing about her in a panic. No, she couldn’t remember what had happened to her specifically, but she didn’t doubt that what he recalled was true.
“And then the outbreak h-happened, and we took refuge here in Paragon, and we finally had an opportunity – to leave the past behind and start fresh. We knew we didn’t have all the answers, though, so that’s where the Ruling Class came in.”
Ruling Class… something about that felt familiar to Phoenix. Who was this Ruling Class?
The Economist sighed deeply. “Perhaps that was our first m-mistake. But at the time, we thought delegation was the right idea. There were so many decisions that needed to be made – who would live where, how would resource
s be distributed, who was responsible for doing the things that would keep the settlement functioning, how would we regulate the population to keep it sustainable, how would we make sure people were happy and fulfilled and safe…
“We just thought if we got the right people – the smartest, most experienced, most educated people – in the same room at the same time, they’d hash it out and we’d have our answers. Then we could disband this upper echelon, return them triumphantly to the rest of the people, and move on with getting this society up and running.
“Unfortunately, things proved a bit more c-complicated than that. We’d thought that by limiting the group to a team of very accomplished, logical, and analytical-minded men, that we’d minimize the philosophical and emotional digressions and be able to quickly focus on the solutions that maximized utility across the board. But consensus proved nearly impossible.
“So we pushed them to work faster, and they faltered. They were hungry and uncomfortable a-and lonely – not ideal conditions for elevated thinking. So we did what we could to alleviate their discomforts, to make it as easy as possible for them to progress.”
Ben looked away for a moment before meeting her eyes again. And when Phoenix looked back at his eyes, she saw shame reflected deep within them.
“We went too far, Phoenix, and it’s something I’ll never forgive myself for allowing to happen. We created a committee of fat bureaucrats, spoiled like ill-disciplined children and too bloated by the importance of their task to feel the urgency of what they needed to accomplish.
“And now here we are years later, and we still haven’t figured much of anything out. But I still have hope, Phoenix – I still believe in my heart that we will find the answers.”
Again he gripped her hand, desperation and hopefulness picking at his voice.
“Even if it takes us decades to get it right, future generations will look back on the beginnings of Paragon as only a blip. One tiny b-blemish on thousands of years of prosperity and peace.”
He sat back in his chair and breathed deeply, the solemnity of his grand scheme settling over the room.
Shudder (Stitch Trilogy, Book 2) Page 7