Cole rushed out of the car and sat Anna upright and examined her forehead which was turning green and yellow. “Are you alright?”
“Yeah.” She blinked her eyes together tightly and then released. “What just happened?”
Cole looked around to find the source of the gunshot, and saw two large figures slowly and cautiously approaching them.
“Are ya two alright?” The voice was raspy and broken and had a hint of an Irish accent.
Cole stood up. “Are you the one who shot this thing?”
“Aye, I am.” The voice responded, inching closer still.
“Are you friendly?” he asked.
“Aye.” The man finished approaching and pulled down his heavy wool hood. His face was covered in a rusty and knotted beard, and his eyes were stagnant black holes in his face. His skin was grey and cracked and heavily scarred as if it had been quilted together. He wore a heavy wool coat over his yellowed dress shirt with black and tan suspenders, and dark grey baggy slacks with worn work boots. Next to him was a creature that had looked as if it had at one time been a dog. Its fur was thin and revealed a patchy grey skin beneath and its eyes resembled it’s masters- black and static. Despite its rough appearance, the dog's tail wagged feverishly in the presence of its two new friends.
“Thank you for shooting that…uh---” Anna looked down at the pink and hairless form that resembled an adult fetus, “---that thing.” She held out a hand and Cole lifted her up off of the ground. She dusted off her clothes and stuck out her hand. “You saved us. My name is Anna, and this guy is Cole.”
The dog’s tail began to wag even faster and the man’s beard pulled upward into a smile. He grabbed her hand and shook it enthusiastically. “The name’s Clovis. And this handsome sonofabitch is me best friend Oz.”
Chapter 11
Clovis warned Anna and Cole that there were many creatures similar to the one that had attacked her looming throughout the city, and invited them both back to the place where he lived with his dog Oz. His home was a priest’s former residence behind an old brick church and next to a cemetery.
“If ya don’t mind me askin’, what were ya doing snooping around the old A-IX building?” Clovis asked as he lit a fire in the fireplace and placed a pot of water over the flames.
“I’m trying to figure out what happened to my missing memories,” Anna said, sinking down into the worn plaid sofa.
“And you reckon they scampered off to the old A-IX buildin’, eh?”
“It’s kind of a long story.” She sighed.
“Look around, lady. We ain’t got nothing but time,” Clovis said, staring intensely at the pot over a fire in the fireplace.
“Well… where to even begin? I woke up in Wooster… with no memory of how I got there. The last thing that I remember is going with my husband Rick to the hospital for a CAT scan for my migraines. Everything was normal---”
Clovis turned around and looked at her. “Your last memory was at a hospital, you say?”
“Yes.”
“What made you decide to find the old A-IX building?”
“My doctor. I remembered who my doctor was and found out where he lived. He had a pay stub from A-IX with my name on it for half a million dollars. So, I figured I would come here to see what I could find.”
“Excuse me…” Cole’s voice was muffled beneath Oz. “Your dog is crushing me.”
Clovis bellowed out a deep laugh. “Oz, get over here!” He tapped the side of his thigh, opened a cabinet door and took down a box of dog biscuits. “Oz ain’t used to guests, and you be sittin’ in his seat.” He dropped a few biscuits on the floor and watched in glee as Oz gobbled them up.
“So… what do you know about A-IX?” Anna asked after Oz finished eating his biscuits.
Clovis didn’t react to her question right away. Instead, he took the pot of boiling water off of the fireplace and poured it into a metal pitcher with a black plastic handle. He walked over to the kitchen countertop and picked up three coffee cups and a yellow ceramic jar labeled ‘coffee’. He scooped three heaping spoonsful into the metal jar, stirred it, and then covered it with a lid. “You seem like a nice young miss. And you, fella- you seem like you are a pretty decent young man. So, this is what I’m going to suggest to both of you: go back to where ever it is you came from.”
“Excuse me?” Anna leaned forward in her seat uncomfortably.
“You two have no idea the horrors that exist here. No bloody clue, yeah? See...if you did, you wouldn’t have come. I was a God-fearin’ man once, I have a general sense of what we used to call ‘the right thing to do.’ It’s been awhile since I flexed that muscle. My gut be tellin’ me to do the right thing and send you two innocents back. Ain’t no need to tell you how things really are. Don’t serve any purpose.”
“Yes… yes it does.” Anna inched to the edge of the couch. “I need to know what happened to me.”
“Nah, ya don’t.”
“You don’t get to decide that.”
Clovis laughed as he poured the coffee. “Yeah, I do.” He walked over and handed her a cup. “And if by some chance, ya do find out what happened to ya… you’ll look back on this moment and thank me.”
“This is so gross," Cole said after taking a sip of his coffee.
Anna took a sip and said, “This isn’t the best coffee, but it’s close enough.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment,” Clovis said setting his coffee mug on the countertop.
“Clovis- I’ll do anything. Just… just tell me what you know about A-IX. I don’t have anything to give you…. But I will do whatever you want. Please… please tell me what you know.”
Clovis took a long swig of his coffee, and placed the mug back down on the counter. He walked over to the cabinet and took out a stout brown bottle. He poured a little of its contents into his coffee mug, and circled around to Anna and Cole and poured a little into each of their mugs. “I have a hard time saying no to a pretty lady.” He sighed. “I’ll give ya one last shot- you don’t wanna take my advice and just not know?”
“I want to know.” Anna was firm.
Clovis threw back the remaining coffee in his mug and told Anna and Cole the story of his involvement with A-IX.
In 2006 he had been wounded in Iraq and spent almost the remainder of the war at 101st General Hospital recovering from his wounds. By the time that he made it home, he had left his entire right arm and most of his right leg in Bayreuth. It wasn’t long until he found himself alone; his girlfriend had moved on, and both of his parents were dead. There were few jobs for a veteran without a full set of limbs.
Without any place to turn to, he found it was quite beneficial for him to go into a bar in his uniform. Many of the patrons pitied him and offered to buy him a drink, and in exchange he would tell them made up stories about encounters he had with the enemy.
After two months, he was kicked out of his apartment, and a few weeks after that people at bars stopped pitying him and started to become disgusted by him. He would sit at the corner of Valley and Market Street begging for money in his ripped and stained uniform, and use the money to buy a bottle to curl up with at night.
He had dozed off for a moment one night, leaning up against a lamp post, when he was awoken by the sound of change hitting the bottom of his coffee can.
“Thank you for your service, son.” An older man in a sharp black suit looked down at him and smiled.
Clovis nodded.
“Iraq?” He asked.
“Aye.”
“How deep are you in that bottle tonight, son?” He nudged the bottle with his shoe.
“‘Bout halfway. I’m still coherent enough to reckon yer a nosy sonofabitch...if that’s why yer askin’”
“What if I told you I have a way to get you off the sauce and get your life back?”
“Listen, feller, if you’re about to tell me about Jesus, I swear to God I’ll punch you in the face.”
The man chuckled. “Nope, I’m not here
to sell you Jesus. Jesus can’t help you the way that I can help you.”
“That so?” Clovis was skeptical.
“Indeed.”
“Sorry, but I have no interest getting off the sauce.”
The man reached inside his jacket pocket and pulled out a thin silver tin. “Cigarette?”
“Yeah.” Clovis eagerly pluck one from the container.
The man reached down and lit it for him. “What if I told you I could get you off the sauce and fix that arm and leg for you. Would you be interested, then?”
“Fuck off, will ya?” Clovis took a long drag off of the cigarette.
“You clearly have nothing left to lose here. I don’t know what happened to your family… but it’s clear that your country, the one you gave a leg and an arm to, has abandoned you and left you here to die. And I’m here to change that.”
“I said fuck off," Clovis repeated.
“I don’t know why… look,” the man reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a business card, “my name is Bruce and I work for a company called A-IX. We specialize in cases like yours. When you change your mind… and you will… you can contact me here.” He threw the card on the sidewalk and began to walk away.
Clovis picked up the card and examined it.
Bruce’s shoes tapped lightly against the damp sidewalk as he walked away and stopped abruptly when he heard Clovis say, “Wait.”
The man took Clovis to an old two story colonial in the middle of Highland Square. They arrived in the old building and the two men stood in the small foyer wringing out their damp clothes. To the left was an open living room with shiny oak floors and yellowed floral wallpaper. A boy sat at a piano bench and slowly and carefully made his way through In the Hall of the Mountain King while a woman sat on the sofa behind him and listened.
“Another soldier?” the woman called to Bruce over the piano music.
“Regretfully.”
“Senseless, that war.” The woman inhaled off of her long cigarette, and exhaled in frustration. “Daniel. If you need to take it slower by all means, slow the tempo. You’ll get speed with time.”
“What did she mean by another soldier?” Clovis asked.
“Let’s just say business began to boom as soon as you boys started coming home.” Bruce wiped his shoes on the rug one last time and began to walk up the double staircase. “Up this way, you’ll be working with Dr. Davenport from here on out.”
“So, I won’t see you after tonight?”
Bruce smiled sadly and knocked on the first closed bedroom door. “That would be nice, but doubtful.” He opened the door when a voice on the inside instructed him to do so. “Good luck, big guy.”
“Please, Mr. Smythe, come sit down.” Dr. Davenport pointed to a chair on the other side of the large mahogany desk that he was sitting behind.
“How did you know my last name? I never mentioned it to Bruce.” Clovis sat down.
“I feel you are going to be question a number of things in which I am about to tell you. Where I learned of your last name shouldn’t be one that you concern yourself with too much.” He lit a cigarette. “Would you---”
“Yes please.” Clovis leaned forward and pulled a cigarette from Dr. Davenport’s pack and waited for him to light it for him.
“I’m sure Bruce had already told you that my name is Dr. Davenport… but for the sake of our budding relationship, I’d prefer it if you called me Eugene. Or Gene. It doesn’t really matter which.”
“He says you can help me. How?”
“Indeed, I can help you, young fellow.” He inhaled deeply from his cigarette and set it in the thick marble ashtray on his desk. “I am one of the many founding members of a company called A-IX. We specialize in Artificial Intelligence. Do you know what Artificial Intelligence is, young man?”
Clovis shook his head. “Sorry.”
“Ah, no need for apologies! It’s unfortunate that most people do not know… but here at A-IX we are confident that in 100 years it will be as common as radios and telephones! Artificial Intelligence, put simply, is the power of a machine to imitate human behavior.”
“How does that help me?”
“For you to grasp the concept of our mission... and how you, Clovis, fit into our mission… I feel that I need to start at the beginning.” Eugene leaned over and pulled out a piece of paper from the bottom drawer of his desk. He plunked it down on the desk enthusiastically and slid it over to Clovis. “It’s a contract. Do you recognize the name of the man who has contracted my company?”
Clovis scanned the document and read the name under the signature in the bottom right corner. “It’s the president of the United States.”
“That’s right… we were contracted by the president himself! And you know why he came into contact with me, Clovis?” He shook his head.
“Because I, along with my staff, have been able to bottle human consciousness. That means I can take your consciousness and place it in a machine,” he said slowly and carefully as he slid back into his chair, folded his hand behind his head and waited to gobble up Clovis’ amazement.
“So?”
Eugene dropped his hands on his desk. “So? Soo? Do you have any idea what that means?”
“Not really.”
“Ah. Ok. I see. Well…” He tapped on the desk with the tips of his fingers. “If I asked you to list off the things that make you human… what would you say?”
“Uhm… you mean like the things that make me different from animals?”
“Sure.”
“I walk on two legs… I don’t have hair all over my body…”
“These are very true things.” Eugene attempted to hide his impatience. “What about the things that are not physical?”
“I can talk to people and have them understand me. I can think about things, and remember things. And those things can make me sad or angry.”
“Excellent! The things that makes Clovis, well… Clovis, are his memories, and the way he feels about things. All of the things that you have experienced led you right here to that very seat. You are so very unique… don’t let those higher ups in the Army convince you otherwise. Just think, Clovis…. If there was someone out there that was just like you, had the same experiences that you have had… they would be sitting right here too! But there isn’t anyone else. And you know why? Because you are unique.”
“I guess.” Clovis shrugged.
“You will spend the next 40 years… maybe even 50 if you’re lucky… collecting memories. Maybe you’ll find a pretty girl and take her out on a few dates. Maybe you’ll get married and have some kids. Maybe you’ll run for public office, maybe you won’t. Maybe you’ll meet the Pope! There are so many things that are just waiting for you out there to discover. Things for you to feel. Things that you will learn. Things that will shape you into the best form of yourself that you can mold in 60 years. And then guess what happens?”
“What?”
“You die.”
Clovis leaned forward and put out his cigarette in the ashtray.
“It’s the great tragedy of being alive: just when you begin to figure out how it all works… and how it all comes together… you’re a goner.”
“But then we go to heaven,” Clovis added as he began to understand the direction of the conversation.
“Yes, yes, yes… there is heaven.” Eugene smiled. “Well… there might be.”
“No sir, there most certainly is a heaven. That is one thing of which I am certain.”
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