by Tobias Wade
I shook my head. Fuck it. Let my truth be known. “We – I – was able to control people, from this very building, living just a few miles from here. The things that we could do, Seth… it was like discovering fire all over again. We – I – was able to convince a man’s brain to go to war with itself and not even know it. I convinced his neighbor to eat herself to death - quite literally – simply to see if I could. It took years, but I did it.” I pinched out the nub of a cigarette and let it drop to the ground without looking. I rested my hand on Seth’s shoulders and stared intently at him as he gawked blankly back at me. “With the slightest of efforts, I convinced an eleven-year-old girl to become a homicidal sociopath, one of the most prolific this world has ever seen. ” I was whispering. My breaths were shallow.
I blinked, and pulled myself back. This was it. This was why I was escaping.
This is why I have to tell the truth about Moirai. That it’s filled with people, just like me, who will sweep forgotten people asunder at the Altar of Progress.
That’s why I’m writing this confession.
I took several deep breaths. Then I walked confidently across to a table twenty-six feet away and plucked up the report that I came here for: the Fourth Quarterly Analysis for 2017.
It has everything a candid world needs to know.
I swept past an ignorant Seth Lang on the way back to the elevator. “You’ve seen enough of what goes on here, Mr. Lang,” I said curtly. “It’s time to go further.”
*
The “L” button lit up underneath my thumb as the door closed. My heart was still racing. I closed my eyes and breathed slowly.
I was an addict. The power of this place had seduced me, and I had convinced myself that it wasn’t true. I was able to believe my own lie for so long.
Cancer has a way of clearing all of the bullshit from your mind real quick.
Shaking, I lit another cigarette.
“Isn’t it illegal to smoke in an elevator?” Seth asked warily.
I felt my nerves calm as that first drag coursed through my body. “Don’t be ridiculous, Seth. We’re in an enclosed, underground place. It’s against the rules to smoke anywhere in the whole goddamn building.”
The door made its happy ding, and the room in front of us opened up.
We entered an even odder place than the floor above. The walls were blood red. Busy people inside were clothed in hooded red or black robes. Some had black collars. An enormous star chart covered thirty feet of wall, and a dozen people were starting at it and taking notes.
“Welcome to the War Room,” I offered.
Seth nodded and stepped forth. “Yes…. ‘Horrific Mind Control’, right?”
I winced. “We don’t like that phrase, Mr. Lang. The people here-”
“The Congregation of God’s Chamber?”
“Yes,” I continued patiently. “They are more…. devout employees of Moirai. This is where we work on larger-scale mind projects.”
“I’ve heard of that,” Seth responded, rubbing his little hands. “Everything executed around the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard is controlled by Moirai, right?”
“Was controlled, Mr. Lang. Which is, ah, why the midpoint of our Pipeline at Pine Grove was such a Keystone-”
The idiot actually cut me off. “What do you mean was controlled, Mr. W?”
“Um,” I said, searching for words. Once again, that same thought emerged: today, Seth Lang learns anything he wants. “Well, some of our key agents were based in a shitty Portsmouth apartment. The entire cell was, ah, eliminated.”
He wheeled and stared at me in shock. “An entire Moirai cell was taken out?” he asked incredulously. “Was it another agency? The North Koreans?”
“Nope,” I responded, feeling awkward for the first time. “Apparently, our guys pissed off one of the neighbors. Get this: the guy went ape-shit, bought no fewer than ten thousand cigarettes, soaked them in formaldehyde from God-knows-where, then snaked the fumes upstairs and took them all out in their sleep.”
“No shit,” Seth whispered. “What happened to the guy?”
“It’s a work in progress,” I responded dismissively. “We’ve run into bigger roadblocks before.” I turned to stare wide-eyed at the star chart. “We’ve accomplished bigger things before. Ferryman’s Lake, which is in the Portsmouth Jurisdiction, was where we were first able to delude dozens of people into believing the same hallucination all at once. At the nearby York Test Site, we convinced hundreds that their lives were in danger from goddamn barnacles. And it was all in their heads. When Portsmouth is fully operational once more, the potential is….”
I broke off. Here I was again, pulled in by the power of this place. I was drunk on the control over others, blissfully ignoring the control it had over me.
I reached out and grabbed a copy of the Great Cipher that was resting on a nearby table. I stuffed it into my briefcase alongside the Quarterly Analysis.
“What will make that happen?” Seth’s question broke my mental fog.
“What?”
“What will make Portsmouth operational again? Are we close to that?”
I looked at him and smiled. “Yes, Mr. Lang. We like to turn every obstacle into an opportunity. We will reach our Quota. One step at a time.”
“Well I’m happy to provide that next step for Moirai,” he said, nodding importantly.
I nodded back, unsure if I was amused or depressed at his choice of words. “Of course, Mr. Lang. The homeless man of Sable Lane is exactly what we needed. Your contribution cannot be underestimated. Now let’s take things to the next level.”
***
The light on the “P” button went out, and the elevator doors opened.
I always hated this room. I’d once heard the phrase “a famine of decency,” and I could think of nothing else as we entered.
The walls were pitch black. The only light came from the occasionally-flickering fluorescent bulbs that hung over intermittent operating tables. A doctor stood nearby, scribbling furiously on a pad of paper. Two different surgeries were being carried out by teams of medical professionals that just looked...off. One surgeon had greasy hair flopped in front of his line of vision. He was performing brain surgery on an unfortunate patient who was missing the top of his skull. The patient’s eyes were wide open. While he never blinked, the eyes darted from side to side as though in constant fear of his surroundings. His mouth hung open and his tongue lolled out, painting a frightening caricature of human fear.
Seth Lang recoiled in horror. I stayed put despite my repulsion; this, after all, wasn’t my first rodeo. “Don’t run away, Mr. Lang. This is the price that Moirai pays for Intrusive Mind Control.”
He took a few timid steps forward, looking fearfully at the seven-foot behemoth in nurse’s scrubs holding forceps.
“Some of our most amazing advancements are put in place in this very room. You see, we’ve worked so hard to control thoughts ourselves. But it is another step altogether to have other people control thoughts without wanting to. Only a select few humans on earth at any moment have this natural proclivity, and isn’t it such a shame that they go through life without realizing its full potential? We give them that gift. We were able to use the first one at Ferryman’s Lake, Seth, and oh – the effect it had! You’d swoon to see it in action! And Target C – that’s classified even to me, but the buzz around it! She’s almost ready! But the piece de resistance, Mr. Lang, has been the target that we have brought into our fold. She had no idea of her potential. We had to break her – nearly kill her – before we could provide the Operation. But now, Mr. Lang, she’s one of us! Her potential is realized!”
And I failed, yet again, to contain my eagerness.
This is why things will be better when I’m dead.
Furious at myself, I marched to a nearby operating table, reached across a syringe of vibrant green liquid, grabbed a stack of x-rays and medical reports, and shoved them angrily into my b
riefcase.
The nearby doctor that had been scribbling on a pad of paper looked sharply up.
Oh, God.
He drifted silkily over to me. I did NOT like this guy. He was thin, calm, and patient in a soft sort of way that just creeped me the fuck out. His cornflower blue eyes simply did not understand the bounds of acceptable social convention.
He shoved his pencil into his pocket, right next to his reading glasses, as he glided over to me.
“Erm, hi, Doctor,” I sputtered awkwardly.
“Yes,” he responded flatly.
“I’m showing our guest, Mr. Lang, the lay of the land.”
The doctor flitted his eyes to Seth and rested them back on me. “Yes,” repeated.
I nodded. “Okay. I should – go – unless there’s any… questions you have for me.”
He paused, staring. For the quickest of moments, his eyes shot back and forth from my briefcase back to me. The corners of his mouth seemed to be battling with themselves as he fought not to smile, the muscles twitching furiously. He finally broke into a slight grin. “No,” he said simply.
He stared at me as I walked away.
He had seen me steal the medical reports. That fact was not likely to play well with Moirai. Not at all.
“Come on,” I snapped at Seth on the way out. “There’s something you need to see.”
***
“It can be…. seductive to get into someone’s mind,” I huffed restlessly as I lit another cigarette in the elevator, the “E” button glowing. “But you cannot venture there without first understanding where you’re going.”
We stepped into a room with pale walls. “Welcome to Total Mind Control.” I stared down at the briefcase contemplatively, then at the cigarette between my fingers, wondering just how much time I had. “Welcome to wishing for death.”
This room contained only a transparent cage with a dazed man inside. He had a blank half-smile on his face, and was sitting on a folding chair near the door. Four blue-and-white clad Moirai employees were sitting on our side.
I approached them while Seth lagged. “Don’t worry, Mr. Lang, he can’t get to you.”
I heard him slowly follow. “Seth, meet our good friend Captain Kyle. He volunteered for a very important mission.” I turned around to look at Lang, who was staring at Cap like he was a zoo animal.
To be fair, Cap did look like a crazy person. His sporadic nonsensical comments were broken only by the occasional flipping of a coin. He would look at the outcome of the flip, chuckle to himself, then keep right on talking.
I sighed. “Cap was one of our best field men. When Half Sphere 2017 landed, we tried bringing the two halves together. We got as close as holding them five feet apart.”
“What happened then?” Seth asked, peeling his gaze away from the cell.
I ran my fingers through my hair. “Are you familiar with magnetic field lines, Seth? Imagine the same bend in the trajectory of spacetime. I don’t understand, but somehow it happened when the two pieces got close to one another. But how would it touch that third dimension? How it would affect consciousness? We needed a volunteer; Cap was the best man.” I took a deep drag and breathed it out slowly, letting guilt and regret hang in the air above me as they intermingled with the blue smoke. “He took one step between them and hit the floor. His mind has been gone ever since.”
We both looked to where Cap sat smiling blankly.
“He’s been able to talk a little. He thinks he’s on the moon.” I shook my head sadly.
Suddenly, Cap stood up, dropped his pants, and defecated on the floor. He sat down next to it, picked up a piece, and shoved it in his mouth.
He was staring right at me as he chewed, pieces squirting disgustingly between the gaps in his teeth.
Seth recoiled in horror. “Make him stop!”
I shook my head slowly. “There’s nothing we can do for him,” I explained sadly. “Any attempts at interference make him violent. This,” I said, looking back one last time at my former colleague, “is the cost of forward progress.”
We walked slowly back toward the elevator. “I worked with him for eleven years,” I noted. “Good man.”
Seth stopped suddenly. “I hear that you first worked with Benjamin Grace himself. That he was your mentor. Is that true?”
I threw my cigarette on the floor. “There are precious few things that I demand of you, Seth Lang. One of those is that you never mention Benjamin Grace again.” I was curt, but tried my best not to show anger. He nodded, and followed me into the elevator.
As the doors closed, he timidly asked one more question while I lit up another cigarette (my twenty-sixth of the day, if you can believe that).
"So you knew, the whole time, where the second half would land?" Lang asked incredulously. "What if others got there first, after seeing an inexplicable meteor crash in the desert? How did you protect the site – potentially for years?"
I smiled at him, smoke from my cigarette swirling around our heads as the elevator doors closed us in. "That," I said dismissively, "is another story altogether."
***
The seventh and final button on the elevator panel read “W.” This was it.
The ride down felt uneventful. Calm, even. I gripped the briefcase tightly.
The doors parted, and we walked through. I pushed open a heavy onyx door and led us into a room with three people.
The first was a blonde woman with dark brown eyes and freckles, decked in a light blue shirt and white pants. She looked wholesome and plain-looking, almost like the girl next door. I smiled at that. She stood ready for us - tall, reedy and a little tomboyish.
Next to her was a tall, slight man with piercing black eyes. He stood straight at attention, like he was ready for shit to go down at a moment’s notice.
The third was a shorter, rounder man, dressed all in black. He looked like a priest, but his collar was black instead of white.
Seth again rubbed his hands eagerly. “Is this it? Is this the Quota sacrifice? Do you have the homeless man of Sable Lane ready?” He looked around in growing confusion when he did not see a bound prisoner waiting.
I sighed. “Seth, the drifter of Sable Lane was number twenty-four. We reaped him two weeks ago.” I pulled out a gold-plated 1913 Elgin pocket watch. “Nice taste, though.”
His eyes grew wide in horrific understanding. He wheeled his fat frame around and staggered to the open door.
I closed my eyes and dropped the watch back into my pocket. “Olivia,” I said softly.
The heavy onyx door slammed violently shut, seemingly of its own accord. Seth yanked the unyielding doorknob, then hammered the frame with his fists when it would not cooperate.
Suddenly, Seth was yanked back toward us like a fish on a line. He landed on his feet, spun in place, and stood facing us. His face was etched in mortal terror. With a final lurch, he shot forward and landed on his knees in the middle of the four of us. There he remained, arms splayed outward, breath heaving, snot and tears pouring freely from his face.
“This is the cost of forward progress, Seth,” I explained. “You’re number twenty-five.”
He gasped. “Why? Why me? I’ve served Moirai--”
The tall man cut in angrily. “You royally fucked Moirai, Lang!”
Here Seth recognized him for the first time. “Hammond! Help! They’re trying to-”
“Don’t blame us for what you did, Lang. You got spotted. You’re the reason Moirai had to shut down Pine Grove. You’re the reason I had to let my son rot in a fucking jail cell!” He screamed these last words, breath heaving. I held up a placating hand.
“Calm yourself in the Chamber, Jake. All due judgments will be served here.” I cringed at this thought before turning to Seth. “We all need to contribute, Seth,” I said simply. “Those least likely to be missed are the best to fill the Quota. I tracked down that junkie from Sable Lane. No one will miss him. Jake had to give up his own so
n to cover for Moirai – which is a huge sacrifice, even if it’s just jail time. Hell, Jake’s been busy ever since he left Pine Grove. He picked up a local stoner, and no one batted an eye.”
Jake grumbled something that sounded like “goddamn jelly doughnut...” but I couldn’t be sure.
“And Olivia was bold enough to bring back a contribution from a bar.” The woman instantly flushed at this, but did not lower her head.
I’d trained her well.
I took a deep breath, pinched out my cigarette, and put it in my pocket. I would not litter here. Not in the Chamber.
Seth shook but did not budge. “I’ll be missed,” he sobbed. “I’m an important person.”
“An important person who announced he was moving four states away, Lang,” Jake chided with a tone of finality.
Realization flooded him, and Seth Lang began to sob.
“Our god has been hurt, but not broken. Nor will he ever be as long as the Congregation remains whole. As was foretold in the First Landing, as came true in the Second Landing, our god bestows power to those willing to give worthy sacrifice,” the man in black crooned. He uncorked a bottle of dark liquid and poured it into Seth’s non-resisting mouth.
Seth wept silently.
The four of us moved to face the opposite wall, where the circular pizza-shaped insignia of the Moriai lay engraved.
“What once caused our god to rise will again bring him from the ashes, be they literal or physical! The Congregation will be the rock upon which our god rises!” The man in black raised his voice with each word. He then turned to Olivia and nodded.
Thirteen candles sprang to life on each side of the insignia. There was a deep groan, like the earth itself was cracking open, and the wall began to part.
“I give myself and my family to the Prophet and God until the day of my death and beyond!” shouted the man in black.
The rest of us, save Seth, repeated the chant dutifully. Instead, Seth Lang – that man who was so used to getting his way – blubbered and begged us to spare him.
“You still fail to understand, Mr. Lang, that there is no leaving our god. Once his fire is within you, your mind will burn with his pull. My sacrifice is the mind control of the ones who try to leave. They give the most to me, and they will burn the hottest in the end.” Here he closed his eyes, and drew deeper into focus. “Twenty-five. Take him!”