Anna looked down to find him still laying on the tarp, but he was also standing behind her. He had a full head of curly dark blonde hair and a crisp clean white t-shirt. “Wait… Everyone else was… are you…” She knelt down to check Cole’s pulse.
“No, I’m not dead quite yet.” He smiled.
“What… how are you---“
“Think about it, Anna… why are all of these people telling you to stay?”
“I… don’t know.”
“The people who created you wanted you to stay here and rebuild the planet. The last thing that they wanted was for you to leave. It would only make sense that they would create an emergency file for the threat that you may leave. And who else would be more persuasive than your dead friends and family?”
“So… when I found out that Greener Pastures is ahead and I could leave this place… it triggered those files to activate in my brain? Then why are you here?”
“Because A-IX didn’t anticipate you making any new relationships. I represent the new memories that you have made after your awakening.”
“And you think that I should leave?”
“I have no opinion, I’m just here to tell you that it’s your decision. You don’t have be beholden to the A-IX parameters anymore; you are stronger than the files they implanted in your brain.”
Anna continued to drag Cole on the tarp a few inches at a time, and eventually began to gain ground on the Greener Pastures building. Hope began to well in her chest as her pace quickened the front door was visible from where she stood.
“Anna- stop.” It was the loudest Cole had spoken in days, and there was a distinct panic in his voice.
Anna dropped the yellow cord and knelt next to him. “What wrong?” As she examined his ashen grey face- she knew the answer to her question.
“I think this is it.”
“But… we’re so close… you have to hang on just a bit longer.”
“I want to be able to say goodbye to you.”
“Absolutely not… this isn’t goodbye.”
“Please… I wanted to… thank you. I was so lonely before… and you---“
“I don’t want to do this Cole, not when the door is right there.”
He placed his hand on her hand. “You brought a little light into my darkness. I love you, Anna. And I didn’t want to---“ His eyes became glassy and froze on her as his hands dropped to his sides.
“No. No, no, no, no… this isn’t happening.” She stood up and picked up the yellow cord and pulled Cole the rest of the way without looking behind her.
The wind began to pick up and a line of threatening clouds descended upon the horizon. Anna dropped the cord as she cautiously approached the large blank steel door. There was a myriad of unmarked buttons to the left of the door like that of an elevator, and one lone button marked ‘press for attendant’. Anna pressed that button.
“STATE YOUR NAME PLEASE," a booming voice over a speaker said.
“I’m… I’m Anna Kemp.”
There was a long pause, and then “YOU ARE NOT ON THE LIST. GOODBYE.”
Anna pressed the button again. “Please, you have to help me, my friend is very sick.”
“JOIN THE CLUB.”
She pressed the button again. “I am desperate… please, could you just make an exception for me?”
“NO.”
She pressed the button again. “I have special skills…. My… my parents were very wealthy.”
“YOU’RE LYING.”
She pressed the button again. “Please… I’m willing to do anything… just help us.”
“I DON’T NEED ANYTHING.”
She pressed the button again. “What’s your name?”
The speaker did not respond, but instead the steel double doors opened and a man in an orange biohazard suit walked out. “You have got to stop pressing that button. It’s really annoying.”
Anna smiled. “Thank you for opening the door. I’m Anna, and he’s Cole.” She stuck out her hand.
“McCready.” The man hesitantly shook her hand. “Your friend looks pretty dead back there.” He looked passed her.
“I wondered if you could help him.”
McCready paused, and then shook his head. “I’m sure you people are nice, but I can’t let anyone up there who isn’t on the list.”
“Do you get a lot of people who come here who are on the list?”
“No, not really. Personally, I have yet to let a single person up. This place is a wasteland of crazies.”
“Maybe you could just let us up? There’s a first time for anything.”
“I mean… I could probably run it by my boss if you felt you had something to offer to our community. You are the first normal person I have ever seen come up to this door.”
“Something to offer? Like what?”
“Well, we have a very small supply of sex workers in our community.”
Anna blurted out a laugh. “I used to be an elementary school teacher. I’m no sex worker.”
McCready nodded his head. “Yeah, you seem like a nice lady, so I understand. That’s the problem when you build a community with a bunch of rich snobs… all the women are too good to ever take their clothes off.” He rubbed his chin. “So… you say you taught elementary school? Did you ever teach any college courses… or do you have any high-level degrees?”
“Not really…”
“Man… I would really love to help you… but you have to give me something that I can take back to my boss. Until then… I’m going to have to turn you away.” He began to walk back through the steel double doors.
“I’m an Android," Anna blurted before he could close the doors in her face.
“Excuse me?” He turned around and dropped his hands to his sides.
“I’m an A-IX project. I’m pretty sure you have heard of them.”
McCready walked back outside. “Prove it.” He folded his arms across his chest.
Anna smiled wryly as she picked at the duct tape at the fold of her arm and began to unwind it. When she was done, she held her forearm in her opposite hand and showed McCready her bloodless stump. “Is this proof enough for you?”
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph…” He drew his hands up to his mouth. “Yeah… ok… you win… boss will definitely be interested in this.”
“I don’t go anywhere until you agree to help my friend.” Anna pointed behind her. “Do we have a deal?”
Chapter 19
McCready didn’t answer Anna’s question right away. Instead, he stared down at Cole as he weighed his options. On the one hand, he may get a bonus if he brought an A-IX android to his boss. Jameson, the evening shift worker, once got three months paid leave for bringing the boss some guy named Senator Higgins who was suspected to be dead. Everyone had treated Jameson like some big hero after that. No one even noticed McCready. On the other hand, the boss was also very bureaucratic, and he may not appreciate McCready operating outside of his very specific job parameters. The boss hung a poster on his office wall that he would often reference- ‘Saint Lucia can only operate efficiently if each and every citizen operates inside their designated roles’.
“Can you wait here and let me go ask my boss if it’s ok?”
Anna shook her head. “No. Cole can’t wait. You need to make your decision now.”
McCready groaned as he began to rock back and forth on his heels. ‘What could be the worst that could happen if I brought them up and the boss didn’t approve?’ he thought. ‘I’d lose this job. And I don’t even like this job. I hate dealing with that one-eyed lunatic on a daily basis.’ McCready let out a long and liberated groan and said “Fine, you have a deal. Sit tight as I grab the first aid kit.”
“Uhm… I think he needs more than a first aid kit; he needs a doctor.”
McCready smiled and shook his head. “Just step back and watch me work.” McCready admired how confident he sounded when in reality he had no idea what he was doing. He had only watched training videos on how to operate the tools found with
in Saint Lucia’s famous first aid kit. Before opening the kit, he placed two fingers on Cole’s neck and nodded. “No pulse detected. Ok.”
“What?” Anna’s stomach sank.
McCready ignored her. “If no pulse detected, proceed to step two," he recalled. He unfastened the latches on the kit and pulled out what Anna recognized as a defibrillator. “Turn on…” The machine made a high-pitched zapping noise as he rubbed the two paddles together. After the zapping noise dulled, he hung the two paddles over Cole’s chest and said “here goes nothing…” as he cautiously pressed them down on his chest. Cole’s body jerked, and both Anna and McCready stood over it with their breaths held waiting for movement.
“Did you do it right?” Anna asked, her hands pulled up to her mouth and her voice trembling.
“I don’t know… maybe?”
“Shouldn’t you call for someone who knows what they’re doing?”
“I sat through that first aid class three damn times,” he snapped, “I know what I’m doing. Your boyfriend here is just super dead.”
“Ok… just… please help him.”
“Working on it," he said in an annoyed flat tone. “Maybe… if I turn it up all the way.” He turned the dial on the defibrillator to 10, listened to it hum, and then pressed the paddles back down on Cole. He still remained motionless. McCready charged the paddles again, pressed them down, and with a jolt Cole began to cough.
“Oh my God… you did it!” Anna ran over and kneeled next to Cole.
“Uh- Anna was it?” McCready asked as he pulled a long needle out of the first aid kit.
“Yeah.”
“I would suggest that you look away for this next part.”
“Why?”
McCready used a pair of scissors to cut front the bottoms of Cole’s shirt to expose his chest. He used the tips of his fingers to count his ribs starting at his collar bone and working down. “One, two, three…”
“Wait… what are you going to do---“
“Four!” Inhaling deeply, and thrusting his body forward, McCready stuck a long needle deep into Cole’s chest. Cole let out a wounded scream that she had never heard another human make before. It was such a terrible noise that she instinctively plugged her ears and closed her eyes tightly. Even through her nervous hums she used to drown out the screaming, she could still hear it. And what after seemed to be an eternity, everything became quiet and she cautiously took her fingers out of her ears.
“Told you that you’d probably would want to look away.” McCready looked up at her as he placed his tools back into the first aid kit.
“What the hell did you do to him?” Anna gasped, as she sat next to Cole and propped his head onto her knees. She placed her hands on his forehead to find that it was warm and dry. She noticed that his breathing was measured, and his pulse was steady.
“I saved his life, that’s what I did.” McCready tried to play cool. “I’ve never got to use one of those before… I’ve only seen demos and videos. It feels great! I just saved that guy! I brought him back from the dead! Jameson is going to be pissed.” He giggled.
Anna ignored his gleeful giggles. “Cole, hey bud- are you ok?”
“Holy donkey balls, that hurt.” He looked up at Anna.
“Jesus- what’s wrong with your eyes?” Anna looked up at McCready. “What’s wrong with his eyes?”
McCready laughed. “It’s the standard Saint Lucia look.”
“What are my eyes doing?”
“The pupils are… neon yellow.”
“Really? That’s awesome.” Cole rolled to his side and attempted to sit up. “What happened? Who’s that guy?”
“Why are his pupils a different color?”
“It’s a powerful drug that was manufactured in Saint Lucia. One of the side effects is those signature yellow pupils. Personally, I think it looks badass.”
“How are you feeling? Are you feeling better? Your color has definitely improved.”
Cole nodded, and then turned and vomited blood next to him. “Actually, I feel much better. I don’t think I have felt this good in a while.” He leaned forward and propped himself up on his arms and then pushed himself upright. He wobbled a bit, but quickly regained his balance. “Damn… I don’t remember ever feeling this good!”
“But you just threw up blood.” Anna was suspicious and looked to McCready for comfort.
“That’s normal. I injected some pretty gnarly stuff into his system that changes the chemical makeup of his blood… or whatever. He’ll be fine for now, but once we get to Saint Lucia he’ll have to have a transfusion.”
“Saint Lucia… where is that?” Cole asked as he followed McCready back through the steel double doors.
“I’ll explain while I change out of this. You two can sit over there while I get ready for us to head up.” He pointed to a pair of what looked like dentist chairs.
Anna sat back in one of the chairs and noticed a tray of sterile tools on a metal tray. “What are these for?”
“Nothing you two will have to worry about," McCready laughed. “Before we bring anyone up, we have to do a health screening to ensure each new arrival isn’t bringing any nasty Earth viruses that are still lingering around this disgusting planet. But since you aren’t a human, and I just shot your friend there up with a buttload of Saint Lucian serum, you guys don’t have to go through that. Consider yourselves lucky, it’s quite unpleasant.”
“So, where are we going? You called it Saint Lucia?” Cole asked as he took a disinfectant wipe from a pouch on the steel tray and used it to clean his blood-stained hands.
McCready stepped out of his biohazard suit to reveal a sharp navy blue uniform underneath. It had shiny gold buttons that went from his waist right up his middle to the bottom of his chin. The collar and sleeves were stitched with a vibrant red thread and his gold nameplate on his left breast simply read ‘McCready’. “I’ve never had to explain Saint Lucia to anyone. I don’t really know where to begin.”
“How about why it’s called Saint Lucia. Isn’t that a country in the Caribbean?”
McCready eagerly nodded. “Yes, yes, it is. Er, or was… I guess. The founder of Greener Pastures- Richard Hammond- named the planet 133-9N after his favorite place to vacation- Saint Lucia. The name fits the planet much more than 133-9N. But you’ll see… once we get there.”
“Is it true that Greener Pastures only let in the wealthy and elite while everyone else was left here to die?” Anna cringed at how pointed her question had come off.
McCready sighed. “I would let that question bother me… but I know you are basing that assumption off of what you saw and not the facts. And the fact is that Hammond let all sorts of people up- hell… do I look like I am a member of the elite?” He laughed to himself. “However, you have no idea the money and the time and the vision that it took to even build Saint Lucia. If you spent every dime you ever made to build an ark to save people from a shortened lifespan of pain and disease… you’d want to be a little selective of who you set aboard. You wouldn’t want criminals living in the paradise that you poured every ounce of yourself into creating.”
“True…”
“Criminals or the unemployed or atheists or… god forbid… libertarians.”
“Wait… that doesn’t seem---“
“I agree!” Cole interrupted her. “Now is not the time," he leaned over and whispered.
“So, are you two ready to blow this pop stand?” McCready rubbed his hands together eagerly.
Anna paused. “Can we have a minute to talk?”
McCready nodded knowingly. “I know that it is difficult to leave a place that you called home for so long… even though it is disgusting… take all the time you need to think it over. But I promise you… we are heading to a better place.” And he walked through a door towards the back of the room.
“What is there to talk about? We are going to a place… with people.” Cole leaned forward in his chair.
“Didn’t it strike you as strange
that he said no atheists or democrats? How would you even screen for something like that?”
“Yeah… ok… It’s weird," Cole admitted. “But what are our options? Stay here?”
“I know you want me to be more adventurous and to venture away from my comfort zone… but I worry we are jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire.”
“And if I stay here, I’ll die. He said that whatever he injected me with changed my blood or something and I’ll need a transfusion once we get there.”
Anna exhaled deeply. “Shit, you’re right.”
“Whatever happens next, we will just have to make the best of it. We made it this far, right?”
She nodded.
“If I’m being honest… there is one thing that I’m concerned about.”
“What’s that?”
Cole looked behind him to make sure that McCready was still gone. “I don’t understand why you told him you were an android. I’m worried about how people will treat you.”
“I didn’t have a choice… you were dead and I was desperate and he was walking away and I just blurted it out.”
“Ok… Ok, ok, ok.” Cole inhaled as he sorted out his thoughts on their current situation. “This isn’t ideal… but we are here and we are both alive… sort of.”
“I’m glad you’re ok.” Anna smiled. “You had me really scared.”
“I’m sorry.” He looked down at the floor in embarrassment. “Things will get better now, though, right?”
“I hope so.”
McCready walked back into the room. “Have you made your decision to get off this rock? Because I’m ready to get this over with. I’m either going to be commended or fired, and the suspense is killing me.”
“Yeah… we decided to come with you.”
He clapped his hands together. “Good decision. Now follow me.” He led them to a pair of elevator doors that only had one button. McCready pressed the button and the doors opened immediately, and the lights from inside emitted a soft blue light onto the marble floor.
The three of them walked inside and watched as the doors slid shut before them. Anna turned her attention to the glass pane behind her. As the elevator ascended, a profound sadness filled her as the ground became further and further away. She thought about all the things that used to occupy that long stretch of Earth- roller coasters, hot dog stands, movie theaters, bowling alleys, cemeteries, playgrounds, parks, zoos, and libraries. They were all soon to be forgotten, as if they never existed at all. She thought about her little house on Middlefield Street. The Christmas tree still stood in the window with Rick’s ugly ornaments hung on the branches. The wreath on the side door would still jingle if there was anyone left to open it. All of the dishes that Anna and Rick had purchased from their many trips to Ikea were still carefully placed in the cabinet next to the stove. The purple coffee cup that she stole from her trip to the cabin in Hocking Hills was still in the sink. There were a couple of self-help books from the Akron Public Library sitting on her end stand next to her bed that would never be returned. And in the basement, next to the washing machine and box of tangled crafting supplies were Anna’s remains, forever to be untouched and unnoticed.
Rubber City Ruins Page 20