by Brad Murray
Cautiously he crept to the door, apprehensive of what the guard might want. Suddenly, a heavy metallic thud echoed inside Zulu’s cell and reverberated outward, down the cement corridor that connected the pod’s cells.
Zulu took a step back.
His cell door slowly slid open and soon he found himself standing face-to-face with the young guard; no steel barrier between them any longer. For a few long seconds, the two men stood locked in an uneasy stare. Zulu’s muscles tensed. But then he noticed the package. The guard held it in front of him at the waist. It was a large black cardboard box, lined on its edges in gold leaf.
Zulu looked down at the box and then back up to the guard inquisitively. The guard said nothing. He sneered and extended the package. Zulu cautiously raised his hands and gingerly grasped the box.
And with that, as suddenly as the guard had appeared, he turned sharply and vanished down the walkway. As his footsteps faded, the cell door slid shut, and the heavy metallic lock clunked back into place. Zulu was once again alone in his cell, only now with a mysterious black box to keep him company. It was surprisingly heavy, or at least heavier than Zulu expected from the way the guard seemed to effortlessly hold it in front of his waist. He placed it on his bed.
It was most assuredly from Brumeux - no doubt about it. The elegance of the box unmistakably revealed its sender. But what could it be? What was the old man up to this time? Zulu rubbed his palms together in anticipation and lifted the lid.
Inside, folded crisply and professionally was a light blue button-down dress shirt, a pair of shiny black dress shoes, and a pair of khaki dress pants. Sitting neatly on top of the clothing was a note. Printed in the same elegant black font as the note from the day before, Zulu picked it up and carefully studied each word.
“For you – a promise kept. Put these on immediately, you’ll want to look presentable. – B.B.”
“Immediately,” he whispered aloud. Brumeux was going to keep his promise, thought Zulu. And it was going to happen today. He ran his hands over the shirt. Its surface felt so soft, so…clean. The thought of putting on new clothes was invigorating. He hadn’t worn anything but a prison jump suit since arriving at the Outpost.
His pulse quickened as he tore off the jump suit and carelessly discarded the pants in one corner and the shirt in another. It was actually happening – Brumeux keeping his word. He buttoned up the shirt; the feeling of his fingertips sliding the buttons through their holes was so foreign. The pants slid on effortlessly. Somehow the clothes fit him perfectly, as if Zulu had visited his own personal tailor and had the garments customized himself. The shoes had been buffed to a high gloss and, when Zulu stood in them for the first time, he felt like a new man. He was a man whose body no longer felt feeble and drained. As if reborn, he was a man whose mind was no longer muddied by despair and depression. He was a new man, in new clothes. Yet, as the voices appeared down the hallway, he felt as if his freshly invigorated heart might give out at any moment.
He ran his fingers through his hair and straightened his belt. He tugged and pulled at his pants and shirt to remove any wrinkles. How would he look? He paced the length of the cell floor and turned back towards the door.
Should he stand? No, that would be awkward.
He should sit.
He sat on the bed but the combination of it wrinkling his shirt and the general sensation of ants in his pants compelled him to stand. Finally, as the voices were nearing his door, he found himself standing in the corner of his cell; frozen. He felt his throat dry out as the door’s locking mechanism clunked.
***
Jimmy followed Brumeux down the dank corridor, mesmerized by the speed at which the old man moved. Brumeux’s gait was as effortless as a man thirty years his junior. He glided across the concrete, heels first. And though he carried a cane, Jimmy wondered whether he really needed it at all, or if it was just for show. La’Roi, Stern, and the spellbinding Jenny followed closely behind.
They passed through a security door, a door which appeared to know Brumeux was coming - it opened on cue as if to avoid his wrath from impeding his progress. Dank and grey with an eerie touch of chilliness, the underground cement walkway seemed a dismal place to be, thought Jimmy. His apprehension grew with each step, an irrational fear that he was being taken to his final resting place – some remote underground tomb from which he would never be heard from again. Still, he couldn’t help but to try and put on a brave face, if for nothing other than to make a strong impression on Jenny.
Jimmy eased his pace a stride to allow Jenny to pull even. He could feel her looking at him as they walked. Not that he minded. He found it comforting, in fact, rather encouraging.
“You work here?” Jimmy asked softly.
“I guess you could call it that,” whispered Jenny.
He could feel the lock of her eyes on the side of his face as they pressed forward, and he could smell the light scent of her perfume. She strode through the dim corridor without looking forward, as if she knew these pathways like the back of her hand. He could sense her restlessness, her agitation. Within her was a flood of questions she was dying to ask, and Brumeux’s presence was the dam holding them back.
“What are you doing here?” she whispered, glancing ahead at Brumeux to make sure he hadn’t heard. “What are all of us doing down here?”
“I was hoping maybe you could tell me,” huffed Jimmy. “One minute I’m minding my own business driving down the interstate, the next I’m being whisked off in a helicopter to some shady corporate lair, where I’m told that I’m some kind of savior for all of mankind, and that…”
“You are the savior,” Jenny interrupted.
Jimmy stopped dead in his tracks as Brumeux and the others in front of him continued forward. Jenny stopped with him.
“What?” she asked. “What’s wrong?”
“I’m not whatever – whoever you think I am.”
Jenny grinned, pinning his eyes with her own. “Oh but you are. You just haven’t realized it yet. And the fact that you don’t even understand your own importance,” she said, taking a step closer to within inches of him, “makes you all the more likeable.”
Her proximity made him dizzy. The defensive walls he had put in place seemed to crack in their foundations at Jenny Jordan’s command.
“James!” bellowed Brumeux from forty feet ahead. “Miss Jordan! Please keep pace! There will be time for talk later.”
La’Roi stood just in front of Brumeux, arms crossed, shaking his head – smiling. Stern had started back in their direction as if to retrieve the pair, resolutely pounding his heavy soldier boots into the concrete floor.
Jimmy turned back to Jenny, his face flush. “Guess we better go. Your boss beckons.”
Jenny smiled, and resumed the march forward towards the men. Jimmy followed suit and caught her just as they passed Stern. He remained behind them for the remainder of their walk - a not so subtle reminder that he was there to spur them on.
Brumeux, seemingly pleased with the fact Jimmy was no longer standing still, turned and continued on in his obsessive march down the mysterious, cavernous hall. He moved even faster now, the old man’s cane barely touching the ground before taking off again. Wherever they were heading, Jimmy sensed they were getting close. A palpable energy emanated from Brumeux. He was anxious.
The group rounded a corner and approached a heavy steel door that whooshed open, welcoming them in. The aura shifted the moment they crossed the threshold of the steel door. Heavy damp air was supplanted by crisp, fresh coolness. The dull concrete floor transitioned to pristine, gleaming black marble. A great circular room greeted its new visitors with breathtaking beauty. Jimmy’s eyes were pulled upward to the rotunda’s domed ceiling. Gorgeous shimmering gold paint decorated the dome, a stark contrast to the dingy grey of the floors and halls that led into the room. The golden dome seemed to produce its own light, illuminating the room magnificently from above and creating a sense of awe and of sanctity.
/> The room was a hub of sorts. Hallways ran off in all directions – five of them in all. And above each corridor entrance was a rectangular white sign, signifying a pod number. Jimmy noticed pods 1, 2 and 3 were black, completely devoid of any light whatsoever. But in pods 4 and 5 muted light from low-watt bulbs provided at least a faint guide to mark the path forward.
“What is this place?” murmured Jimmy to no one in particular. A chill climbed from the hard floor, through his feet, up his legs, and shuddered inside his chest. Despite its beauty, Jimmy felt a darkness – a sense of dreadfulness that hung heavy in the air.
“Our prison,” whispered Jenny dispassionately. “These pods house enemies of the Order.”
“Why am I here?” Jimmy asked. “Are you putting me and La’Roi in prison?”
Jenny smiled. It was a smile that said she thought it preposterous that Brumeux would put him behind cell walls. Brumeux had come to a halt at the opposite side of the rotunda from the entrance. He stared quietly upward, hands on hips. Jimmy followed his gaze. Just below the bottom of the golden dome and mounted squarely above the entrance to pod 3, was a large, ornately framed black-and-white portrait of a man in a suit. The words “Beati Pacifi” were inscribed on a golden plaque affixed to the wall below the portrait.
“The words,” said Jimmy to Jenny. “What do they mean?”
“Blessed are the peacekeepers,” whispered Jenny. “Our motto.”
“Who’s the guy in the picture?” asked La’Roi.
“My grandfather,” said Brumeux, eyes transfixed on the portrait. “And founder of the Order. It was he who first discovered the Superstes…forgive me….Superstes is the term we use for those who possess your natural immunity. It was my grandfather’s vision of Transhumanism – the theory that mankind could overcome its limitations. It is that vision that became our foundation. Our reason for existence.”
Brumeux straightened his posture and cleared his throat. His expression became stern, serious.
“James, I want to introduce you to someone. He’s just down this corridor. Follow me.”
He glided under the “pod 5” sign, entering the dimly lit corridor. As Jimmy passed under the sign, he heard a voice echoing in the distance; an odd resonating chant that bounced to and fro down the length of the hallway. As they approached its source - a bright white-lit cell on their right, Jimmy made out the wild eyes of a messy-haired madman, his face pressed against the Plexiglas-covered aperture in the prisoner’s door. He was singing, chanting incoherently into the corridor. Brumeux tapped the plexiglass with his cane twice. As he passed, the vocalist’s jaw dropped.
“You’ll have to forgive Prisoner Uniform,” declared Brumeux, not slowing his pace a bit. “He’s quite mad. And quite dangerous.”
The group passed four other cells on their course before reaching the end of the hallway. But they were as quiet as a midnight graveyard and none of the four made an appearance. Brumeux came to a stop at the end of the hallway, marked by a menacing block of concrete. They stood outside of the last cell and Brumeux cleared his throat, readying himself for a speech.
Jimmy heard Jenny whisper “Zulu” to herself, as if confounded by their destination.
“James,” started Brumeux. “Before I introduce you, I want you to know that everything that has happened has been in the world’s best interest. In your best interest.”
Brumeux seemed nervous – a side of himself he hadn’t shown before. And for Jimmy it was unsettling.
“You’re not going to understand at first,” continued Brumeux. “But in time you will. Eventually, I think you will come to appreciate my reasoning.”
Jimmy nodded nervously, stealing a quick glance at La’Roi and then Jenny. Brumeux exhaled deeply. He motioned to Stern and stepped away from the cell door, his hands kneaded together. A heavy lock clunked and the cell’s door slid slowly open. White light from the cell cascaded into the hallway. Jimmy and the others shielded their eyes from the cell’s relative brightness; they had grown accustomed to the dingy light of the corridor.
“Please,” said Brumeux soothingly, and motioning for Jimmy to enter the cell, “step in.”
Jimmy started into the cell but stopped in mid-stride. His eyes had been apprehended by one of the charcoal drawings on the cell wall.
Unconsciously, he stepped forward. He was transfixed by the drawings. All of the drawings. It was as if someone had transcribed Polaroid pictures from his childhood into black and white charcoal renderings, and had affixed them to the wall. There he was at age eight, his arm around Cooper. And there was his mother, holding a young Abby behind the ears, her tongue wagging.
He took another step into the cell, unable to breathe. To his left, a man in khaki pants and a neatly pressed shirt stood in the corner of the cell, eyeing Jimmy uneasily. Jimmy’s forehead furled as he examined the well-dressed man, his mouth agape with realization and possibility.
“Dad?” Jimmy exhaled.
In the hallway, Jenny fell back against the fortitude offered by the concrete wall and cupped her mouth with both hands. She gasped. And tears welled up in her eyes.
21
Today - May 29, 2011
Ten minutes later the group sat silently – awkwardly – in a shimmering conference room located just off the main corridor leading into the prison bay. The electronic buzz from an overhead projector howled in the hush of the room. Andy and Jimmy Porter stole occasional glances at as they sat across from each other at the conference table.
For Jimmy, he was trying to sort through his feelings, straining to hack his way through the jungle of emotion that had seemingly crippled his ability to put together a single coherent thought since the moment he had entered that cell.
For Andy, twelve years of relative isolation had taken its toll. For well over four thousand days he had been left alone with his thoughts, and because of it, his ability to interact with other humans had been debilitated; atrophied like a pair of paralyzed legs.
He had imagined the reunion would be so different. In his mind’s eye he had envisioned Jimmy entering the cell and jumping into his arms, tears streaming in happiness. In that vision, Jimmy was eight years old, looking just as he’d last seen him twelve years earlier. But imagination and the reality that ensue are seldom one and the same. As Andy tried to reconcile the vision of his eight year old son with the man who sat in front of him, he found his throat had been padlocked; the words simply would not come. A heavy melancholy had settled upon him. Seeing the man that his boy had become hammered it all home. The tangible reminder of how much life he had missed was sitting just a few feet away.
“Now then,” chirped Brumeux. His voice sliced through the heavy air like a swooping fighter jet. “Let’s get down to business, shall we? I’d like to begin with a history of the Alicante.”
Brumeux pressed a button on a hand-held remote control and the projector lit up the room, shining a bright white image of the word “Alicante” in menacing font on a large screen. Jimmy tapped the table impatiently and sighed. He stole another glance at his father, who gazed impassively at his hands in his lap. His gaunt face and bony, wrinkled hands…he had aged so much that he was almost unrecognizable. But it was more than that - more than just his father’s physical appearance that had changed. It was the downtrodden, beaten look in his eye. The man he remembered – the man who had filled his dreams all these years – was anything but beaten. The man in his memories had been so exuberant and so full of life that it was difficult to rationalize that this feeble, decrepit being who sat across from him now were one and the same.
Brumeux droned on professorially about the Alicante’s history and their founding in the coastal Spanish city after the war. Jimmy squirmed in his chair impatiently, Brumeux’s lecture going in one ear and out the other. His father remained detached, with his head down towards his lap, unable to meet Jimmy’s eye. Brumeux’s disregard of the elephant in the room was maddening, and every second that went by without it being addressed was all the more
infuriating.
At the time, Jimmy had been too traumatized in the cell to even utter a word. He had been in such a stupor that he had dazedly followed Brumeux and the group down the hall to the conference room like a sleepwalker. Now that a few minutes had passed and the cloud of bewilderment had begun to evaporate, Jimmy’s hunger for answers took over.
“Who gives a shit about any of this!” shouted Jimmy, pounding his fist on the table. Jenny and La’Roi, who sat on both sides of him, jumped. Andy didn’t move a muscle. Brumeux stopped his lecture in mid-sentence, yet he did not seem the least bit surprised by the outburst. He cocked his head to one side, as if measuring Jimmy up with his good eye, and exhaled audibly, leaning heavily on his cane.
“I can assure you, James, “said Brumeux softly, “that understanding the Alicante is of the utmost importance.”
He paused and rubbed his mustache. “But I suppose there are more pressing topics – those of a more personal nature to you – that we should discuss first.”
“Why do you have him locked up? Has he been down here this entire time? Did you torture him? What’s wrong with him?” The cascade of questions flowed off Jimmy’s tongue one after another; building upon themselves like an avalanche.
Other than Jenny, who shifted uncomfortably in her seat, the room was still. All eyes were on Brumeaux, awaiting his response. He raised his head towards the ceiling, as if seeking guidance from the heavens, trepidation radiated in his body language. He cautiously edged a step closer to Jimmy, cane first, and his face filled with a forced smile. At that moment, the old man reminded Jimmy of one of the sleazy lawyers who worked at his mother’s firm. The toothy grin, the fake demeanor; it wasn’t the real Brumeux. Jimmy sensed he’d met the real Brumeux a couple of times – once on the interstate this morning when Brumeux learned of the motorcyclist’s death, and this afternoon in his office when he briefly erupted at Jimmy in anger. But the Benoit Brumeux who stood in front of him now, whose teeth sparkled in the projector’s light, was performing. He was an actor about to give a great performance, with a winning persona that he had turned on with the flip of a switch. Jimmy was at the end of his rope. He was in no mood for charades.