“How long can you keep her alive in that condition?”
“Indefinitely. She’s a stubborn case, that one. She’s insisting on the full Repair, no matter how long it takes. When her Repairs are complete, we shall name her Pinto, and love her as a family should love a new member.”
Next to the door was a small framed black and white photograph of a young woman that would have looked right at home in the center of a roadside memorial wreath.
“Is this her?” I asked, pointing at the photograph.
“That is how her family chose for the world to remember her, yes.”
“Was this taken from a memorial?”
“Of course. That’s always the second step in the Repair process.”
I stared at him for a moment. “What’s the first step?”
“I’d think that would be obvious—taking the soul from the shell before the body dies completely.”
I looked back in at Pinto. She shuddered once more, and so did I.
“I don’t…I don’t understand how this is possible,” I said. “How do you get their bodies? Rob the graves after they’re buried? What if they’re cremated?”
Daddy Bliss rolled toward me. “The bodies left at the accident scenes are of no use to us—besides, the survivors have to have something grieve over and bury, don’t they? We’re not quite that heartless. No, the soul is the key. The soul, as it turns out, is a curious thing. In the initial stages of Repair, the soul’s identity is still tied very closely to the individual’s self-image—how they think of themselves, physically.
“At some point in everyone’s life, they lock onto an image of themselves—how they looked at 27, or 32, or 45—as being, for lack of a better way to put it, the best they will ever appear, and it is this image that ties itself to the soul’s memory. Depending on how quickly the soul is retrieved, much of that physical identity remains easily accessible, so it’s not difficult to convince the soul to bring forth that physical identity once again.” He smiled. “You’d be surprised how easy it is for a just-taken soul to summon flesh from the ether.
“The difficulty lies in how long it takes to have the soul delivered to us. In most cases, the Highway People deliver them here in a few seconds, but sometimes, when the Road has been particularly demanding on certain nights, it may take as long as two minutes before they are brought to us. When that happens, the soul has already begun its process of ‘letting go’ of the physical identity, and so what flesh is summoned from the ether is, well…incomplete. When that happens, we are forced to improvise with whatever materials are on hand.”
I pointed toward the picture hanging outside Pinto’s room. “Why the photos?”
“Consider them a way of checking the quality of our workmanship. Luckily, those friends and family left behind inevitably choose a memorial photograph that was taken of their loved during this ‘ideal’ image time. When the soul has forgotten too much of the physical identity, we take the photograph and use it as our blueprint.”
“But how can you be sure that…that you’re Repairing them correctly?”
“Not to oversimplify, dear boy, but Road Mama and I decided long ago to use only three basic body types as our Repair base: endomorph—the larger and fleshier body; mesomorph—the more muscular type, and ectomorph—the slender or lean body type. These three types rarely show up in pure forms, but rather in numerous but finite combinations. Once we have what flesh the soul remembers, and the photograph, it’s not difficult to discern which body type—or combination of body types—is required for the Repair process. Would you mind showing me your watch?”
The sudden change of subject caught me off-guard, but I did as he asked.
“Ah, how time does slip away,” he said, looking at the hour. “Not that I’m not thoroughly enjoying our talk, Driver, but we’re on a bit of tight schedule this evening. Come along.”
He moved on down the hall.
I almost looked in at Pinto again, then knew I couldn’t; another glance at her condition, and I might start laughing, and if I started laughing, I knew I’d never stop.
So I followed him.
I did not look through any more observation windows or at any of the memorial photographs hanging beside the doors.
We turned right at the end of the hall and moved toward a door with frosted glass window with the words Control Center #1 stenciled onto the glass. A security camera mounted over the door tracked our every move.
When he reached the door, Daddy Bliss once again looked up and smiled at the camera; once again, the door automatically unlocked and swung open.
We entered a medium-sized room that was taken up by expensive computer equipment. There must have been a dozen high-end machines working away in there, all of them with 25- and 40-inch LCD monitors, and all arranged on a series of wall-mounted shelves so that the sole person working the room could roll her office chair from unit to unit without banging her legs against anything.
And it appeared that Ciera—the strawberry blonde girl who’d been collecting the roadside memorials—was very busy, indeed.
Daddy Bliss gave her a quiet, loving look. “How are things going, my dear?”
“Just fine, Daddy. You’re just in time for Lexington.”
“Oh, excellent.” He rolled forward. “You should see this, Driver.”
“Is it going to be like back there with Pinto?”
Ciera stopped what she was doing and sighed. “Oh, Daddy! I wanted to show him Pinto.”
“My apologies, dear, but it couldn’t be helped. We were in the area and it seemed a pity to waste the opportunity.” He moved closer to her. “All right—how angry are you?”
“I’m not angry,” she said, pouting. “Just…disappointed.”
“Well, this will not do, will not do at all. I can’t have my favorite girl feeling this way, so here is what I propose: if the Road decrees as I think it will, then you, my dear, will be given the honor of starting the festivities.”
Ciera’s eyes grew wide, and then she squealed in joy and threw her arms around Daddy Bliss’s neck. “Oh, Daddy, I love you so much!”
“As I do you, dear Ciera. As I do you.”
This was the first time I got a clear look at what had been done to her arms, how the elbows had been replaced with hood hinges, her veins and remaining cartilage woven around and through the metal. No wonder they hadn’t looked right earlier, even though she’d been wearing a sweater; they were each roughly six inches longer than a normal human arm was supposed to be.
She saw me staring at her, then—giving Daddy Bliss a quick and affectionate kiss on the cheek—stood up, stretching out her arms, then crossing her legs and tilting her head to the side in an imitation of the Crucifixion of Jesus. “Be honest—do these make me look fat?”
Both she and Daddy Bliss exploded with laughter.
I was still busy replaying Daddy Bliss’s promise about her “…starting the festivities”, so it took a moment for me to realize that, once they stopped laughing, both of them were staring at me.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I drifted off for a moment.”
“You’re cute,” said Ciera. “I kinda hope you get stuck here.”
“Now, now,” said Daddy Bliss. “No flirting—at least, not right now. I, too, think the pair of you would make a handsome couple, but that’s neither here nor there.” He looked up at one of the wall clocks; there were several of them, covering different time zones. “I believe that Lexington beckons us, does it not?”
Ciera blew me a little kiss, ran her tongue quickly over her upper lip, then sat back down in her chair and rolled over to one of the computers with a 40-inch monitor. “About one minute.”
“I still get goosebumps” said Daddy Bliss. “Imagine that. After all this time, and I still tingle when this happens.” He looked at me. “You need to see this, Driver.”
“I’d rather not.”
“But I insist, really I do.”
Not wanting to find out what happens to s
omeone who refused his insistence, I moved over, the three of us clustering around the monitor.
“Can you split the screen?” asked Daddy Bliss. “I don’t know that Driver will be able to follow otherwise.” He looked at me. “No offense intended.”
I said nothing. It seemed the smart thing to do.
Ciera typed in a single command, hit the return key, and the image on the screen split in two; on the left side, a schematic of a section of highway (presumably somewhere in Lexington, Kentucky); on the right was a live feed from a camera mounted atop what I assumed was a light somewhere along the same highway shown on the schematic.
“Okay,” said Ciera, turning a smaller desk-top monitor toward us. Its screen showed a middle-aged man sitting in his living room, running two HO-scale cars around a large track that was an exact replica of the schematic. Beneath this image was a series of changing numbers and the words Bloomington, Indiana.
The man onscreen stopped for a moment, looked at the clock, then carefully placed two more cars onto the track at different locations; after that, he picked up a second control handset and squeezed the triggers on both. The cars on the track began moving, and at the same time four blinking lights appeared on the schematic, each one following the same path as its counterpart on this man’s track.
“You might want to step back a little bit,” said Ciera. “The idea is to take all this in at a glance. It’ll be easier for you to see everything if you move back a foot or two.”
I did as she said, and watched as Bloomington, Indiana increased the speed of the HO-scale cars.
As he increased the speed, the blinking lights on the highway schematic began moving faster.
As the blinking lights on the schematic moved faster, two cars became visible in the distance from the live-feed camera.
Daddy Bliss wasn’t looking at the screen any longer; he was watching me. “I do believe that our Driver has figured something out.”
“Oh, God…” was all I could get out.
When it happened, it happened quickly.
Two cars approached the camera, a Ford Explorer and a Chevy Corvette. They were one lane apart, both going at roughly the same speed. As they drove closer to the camera, two cars traveling in the opposite direction on the other side of the concrete divider zoomed into view; a Pontiac Bonneville and a Saturn Ion Sedan. The Pontiac and Saturn were going well over the speed limit. The Pontiac veered into the lane directly behind the Saturn and flashed its brights. The Saturn increased its speed, as did the Pontiac. I wondered what the hell the Pontiac driver was thinking, what he (or she, I couldn’t tell) thought was going to be accomplished by this. Maybe the Saturn had done something to piss him off, and the Pontiac driver was just acting on impulsive anger. Or maybe the Pontiac was trying to get in the Exit lane and the Saturn driver was just fucking with him.
A few moments later, it didn’t much matter.
The Saturn suddenly hit its brakes (or had its brakes hit for it). The Pontiac slammed into the back of the Saturn, crumpling its own front end and upending the Saturn, which flipped over the divider just as the Explorer came up from the other side. The Saturn landed on the hood of the Explorer, crumpling it and forcing the Explorer to slant-skid right and side-swipe the Corvette, causing the driver to lose control and spin out, the rear of the car smashing into the divider and sending the thing spinning even harder, coming to a screeching halt a second before the Explorer slammed into its side and the Saturn came off its hood to smash squarely onto the Corvette’s roof.
It couldn’t have taken six seconds.
The man on the smaller monitor dropped his handsets and walked over to his HO tracks, examining the four smashed, piled-up cars.
The schematic showed a single blinking light now, this one bigger than the others, and flashing a bright red.
The live feed showed only a mass of smoking, twisted, smashed, bloody metal and glass. The Saturn had run halfway up the divider after rear ending the Pontiac, and looked like a sick beast trying to climb over a rock.
After a moment, one of the Saturn’s doors opened and a woman who was nothing but blood from head to heel fell out onto the highway. A moment later, several bulky shadows dislodged themselves from the night and swam toward the wreckage.
I couldn’t watch any more. I turned away, closing my eyes.
A few moments later, I felt a hand on my shoulder.
“It’s okay now,” said Ciera. “It’s over.”
I opened my eyes and saw Daddy Bliss moving toward me.
“So,” he said, “you’ve some idea now?”
I could barely find my voice, but somehow managed to do so. “One question.”
“Of course.”
I pointed toward the screens. “Is this…do you…”
“Take your time, Driver. Take a deep breath. There you are. Now, once more?”
“These accidents…they’re not accidents at all, are they?”
Daddy Bliss sighed. “I think the answer to that should be obvious, dear boy. But that’s not your real question, is it?”
I looked right into his unblinking eyes. “Is it just certain accidents like this one, or is it all of them?”
“Ah, direct and to the point this time. Splendid. Allow me to return the candor, Driver.” He moved closer to me. “It is all of them. It has always been all of them. All of them.”
“…oh, God…”
“So you believe?”
“…yes…”
“You’ve no idea how much that pleases me. It will make the rest of this so much easier.”
I looked at the destruction on the monitor once more. “Says you….”
11
Daddy Bliss decided to skip the tour of the Repair Unit itself. “You’ve already seen the ‘before’ and ‘after’ of the process. The ‘during’ portion would be a bit of overkill at this point, I think.”
We were back in the holding room, having re-traced our route through the halls and elevators. I’d almost looked in on Pinto again but closed my eyes at the last moment and just kept moving.
Someone had prepared a lovely meal for me; broiled pork chops in garlic-and- butter sauce, steamed vegetables, homemade rolls, a nice side salad with parmesan cheese and no dressing, and a generous slice of pecan pie topped with an even more generous portion of real whipped cream for dessert. A large, frosty mug of A&W Root Beer sat on a coaster, the ice cracking and rising to the top, thin beads of condensation running slow rivulets down the sides.
When we’d first entered the room, all I could do was stare at everything. If it were possible to have all of my favorite foods in one place at one time, prepared exactly the way I preferred them, then this meal was it.
“How did you know?” I asked him as I picked up the mug and sipped at the root beer.
“How did we know what?”
I stared at him. “Please don’t be cute with me, sir.”
He grinned. “Apologies. You want to know how we knew what to prepare, and how to prepare it?”
I looked at the food. “Or you could just tell me that you already know all there is to know about me and be done with it.”
“We already know all there is to know about you. We’ve known since the moment you took that map from Road Mama’s apartment. I’m sensing more questions coming, am I correct?”
“You have to admit, this is an awful lot to take in.”
“Agreed.” He glanced at the clock on the wall—a clock that had not been here earlier. “We have some time—not much, but enough. Ask your questions but, please, do eat your food as you do so. Nova prepared the meal herself, and she is by far the best cook in town.”
I picked up the knife and fork and began carving up the first pork chop. I paused with the first piece halfway to my mouth and said, “Some people might look at this—all their favorite foods prepared just how they like them—and think, ‘This is a last meal.’”
His only response was to stare at me.
“I did nothing to deserve thi
s.” I popped the piece into my mouth and chewed. It was perfection.
“On the contrary,” said Daddy Bliss. “The moment you took that map, you put yourself in this position—wait, that’s not entirely correct. The moment you asked Mr. Dobbs to take a close look at everything on Road Mama’s bedside table, you were already on your way here, you just didn’t know it—ooh, that sounds so ominous, doesn’t it? I would apologize, but I so rarely have the opportunity to indulge my flair for the dramatic.”
“You were watching, even then?”
“The Highway People were watching, dear boy. They are always watching.”
I stopped carving up the pork chop and stared at an empty space in the middle of the table. It wasn’t quite as effective as staring at my feet, but it got results. “The bowl and the prescription bottles.”
“Yes…?”
I looked at him. “I was right. They were left there on purpose, weren’t they? You—or the Highway People—wanted someone to figure it out.”
“‘Needed’ would be the more applicable term but, yes, it was the will of the Road that those items be left in plain sight. Had you kept quiet when Mr. Dobbs came back into the room, had you said nothing at all, then there might have been some doubt as to whether or not you had known. But fortunately for us, you did not keep quiet.” He smiled. “But even if you had, you still took the map off the wall. Either way, you’d marked yourself.”
“So the coroner, the mayor, the chief of police…all of them knew that Miss Driscoll—that Road Mama—had committed suicide?”
“Of course. And they also know that there are certain protocols that must be followed if and when something like this occurs.”
I thought of Barb, and how she’d told me three times to be careful.
“What is it?” asked Daddy Bliss. “You have the look of someone who’s just realized his lover has betrayed him.”
“Barb, my lawyer. She’s in on this, isn’t she?”
“This may come as surprise to you, dear boy, but no, she isn’t. She knows only as much as those in authority told her. But she’s a sharp one, your Barbara. She suspects there’s more going on than what she’s been told, but she also knows enough to not speak of it too loudly, if at all. You needn’t worry, Driver. Your friend did not betray you.”
Cages & Those Who Hold the Keys Page 22