“It’s come to our attention that there’s some inequity in your physical relationship with your wife. A small matter of only one of you regularly reaching full satisfaction.” The officer looked at the man to see if he understood now why they were there.
The man closed his eyes, sighed, and nodded.
“Do you think that’s fair, Mr. Johnson?”
“I…um…”
“Are you a racist, Mr. Johnson?”
“Me? I’m married to a black woman! How could you accuse me of racism?”
“I’m just observing the signs of inequality that I see and asking a question. Marrying a black woman does not serve as automatic proof that you’re not a racist. Men have historically treated their wives as the inferior people they believed them to be. Perhaps you’re doing the same.
“I can’t believe you’re accusing me of racism,” the man cried out, looking around to see if there was anyone else on the block to witness this outrage.
“Are you resisting a lawful equity intervention, Mr. Johnson?” The officer looked down the street and spotted a patrol drone. He pressed a few buttons on his communicator and the drone immediately changed its course.
“I’m just trying to make sense of this. I’m not resisting anything. I still don’t know what our races have to do with our sex life, or why that’s any of the government’s business.”
“Okay, I’m going to ask you to lie face down on the ground,” the nearest officer said, while drawing his weapon and backing up toward his partner.
The drone arrived and hovered ten feet above the three of them, positioned so that its camera and frequency weapon was pointed at the man who was obeying the order but shaking his head as he did so.
Charlie got up, picked up his shovel and went into his garage. He was relieved they hadn’t asked him what he had been doing in his yard, and he felt sorry his neighbor.
***
After Michelle made it home, she had found the house empty, as usual, so she didn’t have to explain to her parents why she was dressed the way she was. She figured they probably wouldn’t have noticed even if they had seen her. And if they did notice, they wouldn’t have cared. She suspected they were swingers, but she couldn’t say why. Maybe her mother just liked dressing provocatively no matter where they went. Sometimes they told her they were going to dinner or to a show. Most times, they just said they were going out. No matter how late they were gone, they were usually back in the morning, unless they went away for longer than a day, as her mother was telling her they planned to do now.
“We’d take you with us, but you have school, of course.”
“Of course,” Michelle said. But there was only a week of school left until summer break. They had obviously planned their trip to Paris before school let out precisely so they wouldn’t have to take her. Not that she’d want to go with them anyway.
“Do you have enough money in your account to last you a week?”
“Probably.”
“Just let us know if you need more. In fact, I’m going to give you 500 credits right now just to make sure.”
Barbara tapped on her communicator for a moment, concentrating on the screen.
“There. If you spend all that, which you shouldn’t unless you buy clothes this weekend, let us know. You do need more clothes, you know. I do not want you wearing my clothes while we’re away. And if you have friends over, please do not allow them into your father’s and my room.”
“Of course not.”
Michelle wanted to say, “He’s not my father,” but there was no point. She’d lost that battle long ago. Just then, Stan entered the dining room.
“What’s this about our room?”
“Just making sure Michelle knows the rules while we’re gone.”
“Nobody goes in our room. Is that clear?” he asked, looking at Michelle with his eyebrows raised.
No, it’s all sort of muddled and confusing. I’ll need time to piece it together. “Yes, Stan. It’s clear,” she said.
“Good. You have our numbers, so just call us if you need anything. We’re only a phone call away, even though we’ll be in France.”
God, can they be any stupider? Of course she had their phone numbers, and she knew that phones worked across great distances. Did they think she was five?
“I know,” she said. “I’ll call if I need anything or if I run out of money, and I won’t go in your room, or let anyone else go in there.”
“Good girl,” Stan said.
“Okay, I guess we’re off then. I love you, sweetheart,” her mother said, bending down to give Michelle an air-kiss by each check, apparently feeling European already. Stan winked at her.
Michelle poured cereal into her bowl, relieved that she could finally eat in peace.
Twenty-three
Deron was tempted to look around and see what he could discover about this place while he was alone in the room, but figuring there would be cameras, he just stood patiently and waited.
A minute later the door opened and a man dressed in business casual slacks and a polo shirt came in. He was younger than Dr. Fielding and looked like he spent more time outdoors than in.
“Deron! Hi. My name is Gerald. It’s nice to meet you,” he said, extending a tanned and muscled arm toward Deron. He shook Deron’s hand with a strong grip. “Have a seat.” He gestured to a chair facing the desk which he went around and sat behind.
“I understand you got off to a rough start here, but I won’t hold it against you.” He smiled like a happy actor for a toothpaste commercial. “You and I have a clean slate, and I’ll treat you just like I would anyone else. Do you have any questions before I explain how our session here works?”
Deron shook his head.
“Okay then. Let’s get right to it. There’s no time like the present! That strange looking metal tube you see over there is an isolation chamber. Your first assignment is going to be a tough one. You ready? You just need to lie down and float in warm water. How does that sound?”
“That sounds pretty easy, Gerald. Is that it?”
“That’s it for your part. For our part, we’ll be a little more busy, but you don’t need to worry about that.”
“I’d like to know what you’ll be doing while I’m hard at work floating.”
“Right, right. Of course. You’re no dummy. Of course there’s more to it than you just floating. On our end, we’ll be monitoring your vitals and your brainwaves, and we’ll be playing some entrainment music, watching realtime images of your brain, and make adjustments here and there as needed to get everything just right.”
“What does entrainment mean?”
“Mostly it means you’ll be listening to music. But on a sub-conscious level, a part of your mind will be listening to signals that you won’t be able to hear or isolate from the sound of the music.”
“You mean you’ll be programming my mind to think the way you want me to think?”
“I wouldn’t say that. I’d we’ll be teaching your mind to process information more effectively and come up with results and decisions that are advantageous to both you and to society as a whole, rather than to just one individual.”
As I thought – brainwashing. Deron knew he needed to stop verbalizing his rebellious thoughts, and try to appear as though he was going along with the program. “Will this help me get along better with others?” he asked.
“That’s just the tip of the iceberg, Deron. You have a lot to look forward to. We can talk more about all of that after you’ve had a few sessions and start to see the benefits. I know you’re going to be very pleased.”
“I can’t wait,” Deron replied, trying as hard as he could to not sound sarcastic.
“Great. Then let’s get started. You can undress over there behind the partition next to the chamber and then hop right in.”
As Deron changed, Gerald tapped virtual keys on the glass surface of his desk and checked various monitoring systems in the inlaid display and confirmed that everyt
hing was ready to go.
Deron climbed the steps and slowly entered the chamber. After he was floating on his back, Gerald confirmed he was in position with the camera feed aimed down at the chamber and tapped one more key.
The lid of the chamber slowly descended. Deron started to feel claustrophobic and forced himself to relax. They hadn’t gone through all this trouble just to kill him, so he told himself he had nothing to worry about; nothing but losing his mind, and his identity.
***
Drake pulled up at an apartment complex and parked his truck. It was his third appointment of the day; a routine call for a new installation of basic cable in two rooms. Arriving at a house or apartment and finding an attractive customer wasn't uncommon, but when the door swung open after he knocked, Drake was momentarily speechless.
The young lady standing in the doorway was wearing a big smile and little else. She was twenty-two years old, with dirty-blonde hair, a dark tan and wearing a very skimpy two-piece string bikini. "Hi!" she said. "Cable guy?" she asked, still smiling.
"Uh... um. Yeah," Drake said, struggling to direct his gaze at her eyes and not be so obvious about looking at the rest of her mostly exposed flesh.
"Come on in. Would you like something to drink? I don't care if you drink while you're on duty," she said with a mischievous grin.
Drake said he'd take whatever she was offering, and after he said it, he realized it could be taken two ways. He was glad he accidently did because if he'd thought of saying something with a double-meaning, he wouldn't have had the nerve to actually say it.
The girl, whose name was Mitzi, also got the double-entendre and said, "Well for now, I'm serving Heineken. Will that cool you down a bit?" It sounded like she was playing her own word game. He told her that would be great and waited just inside the doorway as she rounded a corner to the left. Drake was pleased and hopeful. He could feel the familiar buzz of sexual excitement beginning low in his brain.
This might be his best day yet as a cable guy. In fact, it almost was already just in terms of her being the sexiest customer he'd had yet in his six months on the job. His best previous day in terms of sexual excitement was when a hot, thirty-five year old lawyer was walking around cleaning on her day off and wore a loose tank top with no bra. For forty-five minutes Drake's brain had buzzed with electricity and he could barely keep his mind on the installation.
And now here he was in the apartment of a co-ed who was totally deliberate and open in her sexuality. The lawyer woman had been hot, but apparently unmindful of her exposures. She hadn’t been unfriendly, but neither was she at all flirtatious like Mitzi was being now. She handed him a Heineken in a frosty green bottle.
"Come," she said, as she turned around and began walking down the entry hall to a doorway up ahead on the right.
Drake had a better and longer look at her backside than when she went to get their beers. From her shoulders to her bare feet, Mitzi had a dark, golden-brown tan. She was slim without any extra padding anywhere. She looked like she worked out, but not to the point of body-building. She had great muscle tone everywhere and Drake found himself taking just as much pleasure at watching her hair swish back and forth at her shoulder blades as he did looking at her superbly firm buttocks. That was where Drake's attention returned after each glance at the rest of her. Mitzi was wearing a thong bathing suit bottom and only a small amount of flesh was covered by a thin hot pink triangle of fabric that extended into two thin strips that wrapped around to the front from each side.
She had to know Drake was enjoying the view. With a body like that, barely covered, and the way she was walking, swishing her ass just a little more than seemed natural. Then to confirm his suspicions, she stopped suddenly and said, "What's this?" as she bent down to pick something up from the carpet that Drake couldn't even see. He'd almost bumped into her, and the thought of doing that caused him to get aroused, imagining what it would feel like if he had kept going until his crotch bumped into her ass. Mitzi looked at the piece of black string she had picked up and said "Hmm" and turned into the open doorway of the living room.
"Here it is," she announced, extending her hand, palm up like a game show beauty presenting a prize to a panel of contestants.
Drake cleared his throat and thanked her. He didn't know if he was thanking her for showing him the television, for the beer, or for putting herself on such an exquisite display.
"I bet you know exactly what to do, so I'll leave you to play with your toys. If you need anything, I'll be out back working on my tan. I have just got to get rid of this tanline. See?" She pulled part of her bikini top away from her breast, exposing too much for just a second before moving it partly back in place. "Oops," she giggled. Pulling the fabric to the side more carefully, she asked, "Can you see the difference?"
"Yeah. A little," Drake said.
She let go of that side and then more carefully pulled back the other side of her top to check the tan differential on the other breast. Drake continued to stare. After all, he was invited to and she was obviously putting on a show, so he didn't feel nervous about it.
"Almost there," she said. "Well, the patio is just outside the dining room. You know, where I went to get the beer?"
Drake made eye contact with Mitzi and nodded. He didn't even want to try speaking. His mouth was dry and his head was buzzing and a bulge was growing in his pants which was embarrassing him even though he felt she was totally responsible for it and she should be okay with seeing what she'd done.
"I'm sure you'll be able to find me... if you need anything." With another flash of perfect white teeth, she turned and walked out, swaying even more than before.
Definitely putting on a show, Drake thought. Once she was out of the room, he took a long drink of the beer he was holding. He needed to think and his brain felt devoid of blood. It had all gone south. He was already trying to think of a reason to go speak to her on the patio where she as much as told him she would be lying topless, and practically invited him to come speak to her there.
Just to get on some kind of solid mental ground, he looked over at the TV. It was a UHD crystalline screen mounted on the wall just a few feet from her signal transmitter a few feet to the right. There was already a green light indicating it had connectivity with the local access point, so this would be a cinch.
He knew he'd have to go talk to her when he was done if she hadn't returned by then, but he wanted a reason to go to the patio before then and see how she'd respond to him looking at her topless. Would she cover herself with an arm or a hand-bra? Would she just lay there with no modesty concerns at all like the suburban nudists he always hoped to get a service call for? Or would she be lying on her chest? Drake frowned at that thought, thinking what a shame it would be if she were lying face down and merely turned her head in his direction to talk to him. But then he remembered that she wanted to even out the tan on her chest and that there was no tanline on her back.
Having reassured himself that good things were in store, he quickly accessed the wi-fi network settings on her TV to sync it with the cable feed while still trying to think of an excuse to talk to her. And who knew? Maybe before this appointment was over, he'd end up doing a lot more than just looking. He smiled. Mitzi seemed to actually like him.
Twenty-four
Michelle took her bowl of cereal to the living room and sat on the couch where she was not allowed to eat anything; especially not cereal since it could be spilled. She told the television to turn on, and then she said, “Internet. Search. Deron Young.”
The top search results were for an NAFL quarterback.
“Modify query: Orange County.”
The same quarterback had played in the Orange Bowl.
“Minus football,” she said, frustrated.
Now the first result was for a doctor named Deron Younger with an office in Tustin. She thought for a second.
“New search: Deron Michael Young, plus Orange County.”
“Did you mean: Deron Micha
el Younger?” the voice of the search assistant asked.
“No!”
“No results for Deron Michael Young and Orange County. Would you like to broaden your search?”
“No. TV off.”
The screen went black and the room fell silent. Too silent.
“TV on. Music. KLOS.”
The screen came back on and displayed information about the modern rock song flowing from the speakers.
Michelle leaned back on the couch and sighed, wondering where Deron was. She thought she would have at least found an arrest report. But there was nothing.
***
Floating in the warm water in complete darkness with soothing music made Deron feel like there was nothing at all to be concerned about. And that scared the hell out of him.
Whatever they were doing to his mind, it was happening in such a way that he was completely unaware of it. He tried to focus on his own thoughts to see if they were changing in any way. Was he still thinking like himself?
He concluded that he was because he was worried about the fact that there didn’t seem to be anything to worry about. He wasn’t just enjoying his time in the chamber without fretting, so whatever they were doing to his mind, he still seemed to be himself.
He feared though that the process might take effect later. Or maybe it would build up gradually without him even noticing it. And one day he wouldn’t even remember the Deron that he was today. This had to stop.
He had no idea how long he’d been in the chamber before the music ended and the lid began to rise. When it did, he felt like he was in an alternate reality, and looking out into the room as he sat up was like looking at another world. He felt spaced out, but very relaxed and calm. Gerald was sitting at the desk looking as perky as ever. He looked like he might have only been sitting there for only a minute or so.
“How long was I in there?”
“Just two hours. How did you like it?” Gerald got up and handed Deron a towel.
“It was nice. Very relaxing.” He wasn’t making that up. Under different circumstances, he could enjoy it.
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