Powerlines

by Kurt Newton

  "Why? you might ask. My first response would be Why not? If for nothing else than to explore the boundaries of our imagination. Though heinous, the knowledge gained from the Nazi and the Japanese human experimentation programs during World War II advanced the state of medical treatment exponentially, and have since saved millions of lives — more perhaps than were sacrificed in the name of science. Of course we live in a civilized world, so my second response would be more...practical. In a word: control. Control of the human mind. Outside of these walls, Ethan, the world's problems are exploding. Its continuously fracturing nature will one day lead us to our demise, unless we take action. The mind is the key. The human brain is broken, but with a little effort and a lot of resolve, it can be fixed."

  Ethan stared at the rabbits in the cage before him. They stared back.

  "But intervention with humans is still a long way off," said Pike. "In the meantime, we have our friends here." Pike lifted the clipboard attached to the cage. "Subject 41 and 42 are both male. Adult male rabbits generally cannot be in the same cage together. Their instinct for territorial and sexual dominance would have them fighting with each other until one or both is badly injured. As you can see, they are no more threatened by each other than two children playing in the same sandbox."

  Ethan reached a hand up to the plexiglass, then halted.

  "Go ahead," said Pike.

  When Ethan touched the surface of the cage, a low frequency vibration danced upon his fingertips. The rabbits didn't flinch. They were not afraid.

  "Before you our future lies."

  Ethan pulled his hand away. The vibration seemed to continue on into his fingertips. He rubbed them with his other hand to make it go away.

  "But what I need from you right now, Ethan, is to clean these cages. As you can see, each cage is equipped with an adjoining compartment. Open the slide door; wait for the subject to enter the compartment. Then close the slide door. Only then will you open the cage. Remove the soiled bedding, replace with clean bedding, and close the cage. Open the slide door to the compartment; wait for the subject to reenter the cage. Then close the slide door. Repeat this procedure for each cage. Is that understood?"

  "Yes."

  "There are rubber gloves, garbage bags, fresh bedding, all the items you need to perform the job, in that cabinet." Pike pointed to a storage cabinet standing to the right of the entrance. "The refuse container alongside the cabinet is where you will put the soiled bedding. When you finish cleaning all the cages, push the button you see there." A small rectangular fixture, like a doorbell, was recessed in the wall between the cabinet and the entrance. "I will come for you then. Any questions?"

  Ethan stared at the storage cabinet against the wall. His eyes shifted to the large plastic garbage bin, then to the button. The cabinet, the garbage bin, and the button were white. His eyes shifted to the black eye above the entrance door — which was exactly like the one above his bedroom door. Ethan nodded.

  "Good. Now get to work."

  Ethan watched Pike leave the room. For a moment he felt stranded on an island of white, not knowing which way to turn.

  There are rubber gloves, garbage bags, fresh bedding, all the items you need to perform the job, in that cabinet.

  Pike's voice echoed in his head, prompting him to move in the direction of the cabinet. As he moved, the mist on the floor appeared to part before him, revealing something underneath. But the mist reformed too quickly. Either that or his brain just wasn't working at a pace fast enough for him to identify what it was.

  36

  Lindsey met Jared at the commuter parking lot in Dayville. Jared looked forlornly at his shiny BMW sitting among the gas-guzzlers and the cars that look like they wouldn't make it to the lot let alone to someone's workplace, as they drove away.

  "You sure it's safe there?" he said.

  "Safer than where we're going."

  "About that. I was thinking."

  "Uh-oh."

  Jared pulled a map out of his pocket and unfolded it. "Since we can't get to Backbone Ridge from the State Park, the closest we can get is here." Jared pointed to a dotted lined that branched off one of the secondary roads in North Woodstock. "Rural Road #2. Must be a dirt road. But it's a heck of a lot closer than Jacob's Brook. We can maybe cut our walking distance in half."

  "In this weather that's a lot," said Lindsey. "You really are both brain and brawn. I like that in a co-conspirator."

  They stopped at the Target department store in the new Killingly Commons to buy a couple plastic rain parkas. Lindsey also bought a flashlight just in case there were places up along the Ridge that needed looking into. Jared picked up a bag of Combos and a package of sour gummy worms. Each purchased a liter bottle of water.

  Rural Road #2 actually began in a small town called Kenyonville and cut its way through the thick woods beneath North Woodstock. The road was nothing more than dirt and ruts, public access to private homes built out in the wilds of Connecticut. On these kinds of roads, partial washout was common, as were the jut of boulders too big to remove. Sometimes roots bulged up from underneath like speed bumps. If you didn't belong on these roads you had no business there. And the woods that bracketed them were just as intimidating: thick, silent, at times swampy, at times just plain dark. The woods still owned itself in places like this. It took a brave soul to intrude upon this space and call it home.

  Lindsey gripped the wheel of her Rover and kept on the lookout for obstacles. But the rain and the dirt and trees all blended into a grey, green and brown patchwork, making it difficult at times to differentiate what was what. After she scraped her undercarriage for a second time she said to Jared, without looking at him, "Cut our walking distance in half, huh. That's if we get there."

  Jared hung on but kept his mouth shut, helping when he could by suggesting tack lines that straddled the ruts and kept the Rover on the road and the scraping to a minimum.

  It was a bit hairy and took more time than Lindsey had anticipated, but at last they reached the point where the power lines crossed over the road. Lucky for Lindsey there was a freshly cleared building lot not too far away where the mud was shored up with a truckload of stone. With a lurch, she pulled in and parked.

  Jared let go of the roof strap. "That was an adventure."

  Lindsey looked out at the rain. She turned to Jared. "Thanks for doing this. Not every guy would spend their day hiking in the rain."

  Just as the words left her mouth, the rain increased in intensity on the Rover's rooftop. Jared widened his eyes and pinned his ears back. "I haven't left the car yet," he said.

  Lindsey opened the rain parka and slipped it over her head. Jared did the same. The smell of vinyl filled the car. Jared had already stuffed the backpack with food, water and the flashlight. They looked like a couple of fishermen. All that were missing were the rods. When the rain let up Lindsey at last opened her door and stepped out.

  The smell of the woods immediately assaulted her. The rain accentuated the scents of pine and wintergreen and the richness of leafy matter. It was a smell unlike any other. A wild smell. It was nature unrefined.

  They backtracked down the road. Lindsey stopped when she heard a subtle hum over the patter of the rain. She lifted her head. It was as if a gigantic mower had rolled through the woods, cutting a swath for the twin row of utility poles to march through. The thick cables dipped like clotheslines between stanchions. Aside from the rain and the buzz of the wires, there was a quiet about them Lindsey couldn't help but acknowledge. A feeling of permanence, like the woods itself.

  Here, the utility right of way was guarded by just a couple of twelve-by-twelve posts connected by a length of chain link. A metal sign hung from the chain. The sign read:

  P O S T E D

  Private Property

  Hunting, Fishing, Trapping Or

  Trespassing For Any Purpose

  Is Strictly Forbidden

  Violators Will Be Prosecuted

  Lindsey and Jared looked at each
other, shrugged their shoulders, then stepped over the chain. They followed the ruts carved into the ground beneath the power lines toward Backbone Ridge.

  Ethan rolled the garbage bin into place. The rollers made the process of cleaning the subject cages much easier. In the storage cabinet there was a plastic scoop, a large bag of compacted pine shavings, a box of surgical gloves, several spray bottles, and a roll of paper towels. To Ethan's surprise, the subjects entered their compartments without hesitation, behaving as if there was something on the other side of the sliding door that awaited them, although there was nothing he could see. Food and water receptacles were attached to the walls of each cage and appeared supplied by a time-release feeding system of tubes and chutes. Perhaps it was the compartment's relative cleanliness that attracted them. Or the compartment represented a brief but tantalizing opportunity for escape. Maybe the subjects were just well trained, thought Ethan.

  One by one, he worked his way down the row of cages, when he reached the back of the room he gazed at the curtain. He saw shadows and shapes beyond. He wanted to look but Pike's voice echoed in his head.

  When you finish cleaning all the cages, push the button...

  He needed to clean the cages first, he thought. What mattered was that he cleaned the cages. Though his curiosity drew his attention to the curtain several times, he continued to do as he was instructed.

  Perhaps he would get a chance to see what was behind the curtain at another time. Maybe Pike would introduce him to more of the forces that kept the universe from collapsing.

  Ethan didn't understand how cleaning animal cages helped toward that end.

  He moved to the next cage. This one held a large white rat. He opened the sliding door. The rat turned and ambled into the compartment. He slid the door shut. He watched the rat for a moment before opening the cage. The rat sniffed and circled, rose up on its hind legs to sniff beyond what it could reach. It sniffed some more, then finally settled.

  It reminded Ethan of an experience from long ago, a feeling of containment, of fear. He couldn't recall if it was a memory or just another one of those dreams he had. In fact, he couldn't recall anything concrete before today. Waking up, eating, entering the Recreation Room, cleaning the cages, Pike — these were the things he knew as real. Beyond these things, like what lay beyond the curtain at the back of the room, was nothing but shadow and illusion.

  Perhaps it was all illusion, all dream, thought Ethan. And if it was, did it matter?

  He opened the cage and continued cleaning. He hummed a simple melody. A melody that was nothing more than a nonsense tune to him now, but if he had been able to remember, he would know it as the ring tone that played on his cell phone every time Lindsey called.

  Pike sat at his computer terminal. He watched Ethan on a live feed from the camera in the Recreation Room. He typed the following:

  Subject demonstrates the ability to perform simple tasks with ease. Subject, however, still shows signs of residual behaviors (i.e. humming a song that should no longer have memory connectivity). Subject displays a normal curiosity about what is behind the Recreation Room partition, but is able to maintain focus on assigned tasks. Subject also continues to recognize that he is being watched.

  As Pike typed these words, Ethan looked up from the cages at the video camera, as if able to hear Pike's thoughts. Pike finished by saying:

  Subject appears ready for passive/aggressive training.

  Pike logged the report. He needed to prepare Pit #1 for Ethan's training. He turned off the live feed. When he did, he saw the white cat, Schrödinger, sitting on the floor behind him, reflected in the monitor. When he turned to where the cat should be, it wasn't there. But when he looked again at the monitor, Schrödinger was once again present.

  Pike smiled. He watched the cat lick its paws. Its tail swished back and forth in a playful manner. The cat then walked out of view.

  The scientist in Pike wanted to log a new entry in his report on Schrödinger, document this latest occurrence. But the person in Pike was afraid. Afraid that his mind could at last be suffering the cumulative effects of his experiments. Afraid that the validity of those experiments would be called into question if knowledge of his "deficiency," however minor it might be, were introduced into the equation.

  Pike tried to ignore the implications as he left his bedroom and walked toward Pit #1, where he would set the stage for Ethan's next test.

  37

  "Lindsey, do you really believe Ethan is alive?" Jared kept pace as Lindsey trudged through the saw-grass.

  "That's a stupid question to ask now that we're almost here," said Lindsey.

  The rain had let up to nothing more than a fine mist, which would have been a relief but the warmer air had returned, prompting Lindsey and Jared to remove their plastic parkas and stuff them into the book bag. The rain and sweat had turned Lindsey's hair into a nest of frizzies, while Jared's wave looked more like a tsunami. Backbone Ridge was dead ahead, the powerlines climbing up and over its naked back like a battalion of giant stickmen.

  "Lindsey, hold up for a minute." Jared stopped. Lindsey stopped too. She clearly didn't want to have this conversation. "Lindsey, I don't mind doing this basically because I don't mind being with you. In fact, I like being with you. Even the grumpy, determined Lindsey, like the way you are now. I just don't want you to be freaking out if we don't find anything. You know as well as I the odds of Ethan still being alive is pretty remote. In fact, I'd have to say damn near impossible. But... Aw, screw it... I care about you. I don't want to see you hurt. That day in the truck when you saw the search party returning empty handed...I wanted to hold you so bad."

  "Jared." Lindsey had been patient, listening to what he had to say.

  "What?"

  Lindsey walked up to him and kissed him on the mouth. It wasn't a passionate kiss, or a friendly peck. It was something in between.

  "What was that for?" Jared said. Lindsey had broken contact but had yet to back away. Her eyes were locked on his. She was so close Jared could smell the scent of her hair.

  "Ethan and I loved each other. I can still see his face, his smile. I hear his voice sometimes in my head. Today might be just symbolic but it's something I have to do. And if at the end of the day I don't find him, I can at least say I tried. Then I can move on with my life. Do you get it?"

  Jared nodded.

  She turned and continued hiking. He followed.

  He had wanted to kiss her back but had held off. The time wasn't right. But he had her unspoken promise now wrapped around his heart, and the taste of her chapstick still on his lips. If he didn't know it before, he realized now that he would do anything for her. Whether she had planned it that way or not, it didn't matter. What mattered was helping Lindsey follow through with the promise she had made to Ethan.

  One of the good things about the dampness was that it kept the bugs out of the air. It also kept the burrs and thorns from clinging to their clothing as they walked. It also lent the landscape a richness and depth that appeared almost primeval. Grassy hummocks resembled the bodies of flightless birds bent over, their beaks in the mud. The sawed-off stumps of long ago felled trees were overgrown with mosses and plant life, creating ecosystems of their very own, while the ever-present ground creepers stretched into the branches of small shrubs, raindrops hanging like jewelry from the awnings of their leaves. The moisture painted spider webs a ghostly silver. In the air the mist hung and was greeted now and then by cauldron-like steam pockets rising from the ground. And above it all the powerline stanchions lorded, standing tall and silent but for the gentle hum of their wires.

  "You are doing very well, Ethan. So well, I have a surprise for you." Pike led Ethan down a long, narrow hallway to a door.

  "A surprise?" said Ethan.

  "Yes, every good deed should have its reward, don't you think?"

  Ethan nodded.

  Ethan noticed stairs at the end of the hallway. Stairs leading to nowhere, dead-ending against a steel c
eiling. This hallway seemed distant, cold, unlike the other hallway from where he first emerged.

  "Now, I want you to go inside and make yourself at home."

  "Home."

  Pike entered a series of numbers into the keypad. 2-5-8-7-9. The selections traced the number 1. The door unlocked.

  Pike gestured, as if to say "After you."

  Ethan looked at Pike. The man's eyes were unwavering. Ethan sensed a coldness from those eyes, like the hallway. Pike reached into his lab coat pocket, his hand curling around something contained there. Ethan stared at the pocket, then back to Pike's eyes, and finally to the door where he reached for the knob. At last, he entered the room, and the door closed behind him.

  The room was grey: grey floor, grey walls, grey ceiling. The floor was littered with leaves and sticks and pine boughs. Ethan remembered a room very much like this, but the memory of that room felt distant as if from another life, or perhaps a dream. Against one wall there appeared to be a carpet, grey like the room. The carpet began to move. It unfurled in slow motion, rising up off the floor. It then began to growl.

  "Wolf?"

  The animal wasn't behaving like Ethan had remembered. Its teeth were bared, its head down, its haunches raised. Ethan felt a flood of panic — not over how to protect himself, but over the fact that he stood there passively, waiting for the animal to attack. A part of him was screaming, Look for a weapon! Defend yourself, dammit! But the voice wasn't getting through to whatever mechanism triggered his body to move. Meanwhile, Wolf had no trouble adapting to the current situation, stalking him like it would any prey in the wild. Wolf had moved to within ten feet when Ethan felt the paralysis lift. The screaming voice suddenly multiplied in volume, sending a surge of adrenalin through his body. A three-foot long stick lay on the floor nearby. Ethan slowly crouched down and wrapped his hands around it. When he did, Wolf lunged.