Virtual Heaven, Redux

by Taylor Kole

  “My only question, Mr. Johnson, is, can you locate other men half as loyal and dedicated as me?”

  “That’s affirmative.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Tim Vanderhart stopped watching television the previous morning. Appropriate signs he’d been waiting his entire life to receive had manifested. Now, he would fulfill his destiny.

  He sat in a fold-out chair, alone, inside the clubhouse garage, a gray wooden barn that lost all remnants of its red paint decades ago.

  The two stories that looped on every channel sealed his conviction (seeing them six times helped diminish his shock). First, some crackpot from England murdered his family to trap their souls in a machine. Insane. Humanity at its worst.But Alex Cutler—the man responsible for all this suffering—had assisted in another blasphemous suicide. Tim could hardly believe it.

  He loaded his .45 semiautomatic to help calm him.

  Hearing that Glen Daniels, a boy the same age as Tim, had screamed about immortality in a false device scared the bejesus out of him.

  Reverend Carmichael’s internet sermon solidified his belief in the evil. This was Satan’s push to take over the world. A quiet marching of marked souls to wicked chairs.

  Tim had joined the Northern Michigan Christian Defense at birth. The print on their slogan, pamphlets, and mission statements lacked the identification, he prided himself on being part of a militia. A militia of somewhat pure genetics that aimed to protect the rights of noble, Christian people.

  Today, all of Tim’s fantasies animated. At nineteen years old, he knew, despite weighing a hundred and ten pounds, he was the perfect age to soldier, and he trained hard to be the best. The NMCD’s property covered ninety-three acres and was located twenty miles east and a tad south of Traverse City, in the state shaped like a mitten.

  He’d been practicing every conceivable form of warfare since he could carry a rifle down a wooded trail. Hell, before that he unsuccessfully stalked rabbits and chipmunks with a rubber knife he’d gotten one Christmas.

  The difference between him and the dozens of other men who had recently arrived to the clubhouse was that he knew this day had been coming for a long time, and that he’d play a major role in their future.

  Every time he squinted down a rifle sight, shimmied up a rope, cut around the anus of a deer, boiled and drank his urine, or built an improvised explosive device, he employed ultimate reverence. For he knew someday it would all come into play for him. He hadn’t dreamed of such a magnificent scale of importance, but here he was.

  The barn he sat in normally stored a tractor and miscellaneous obstacle-course equipment. The now-useless stuff had been removed the remaining space lined with two rows of eight chairs.

  Twenty minutes ago, those chairs held charter heads from nearby militias and motorcycle clubs, along with their seconds-in-command. Morally sound, hardcore, God-fearing men. Tim felt honored to be the youngest among them.

  His father had been a founding brother of the NMCD. Regrettably, having battled alcohol and prescription pills his entire life, he died of cirrhosis before Tim’s eleventh birthday. Tim knew that had been God’s way of showing him the detriments of polluting your temple, and he intended to heed the warning.

  Alan Cox, head of the NMCD, acted as a second father to Tim. He hoped the speech Alan gave today would unite all of the nearby forces into one. It seemed to have worked

  The summoned heads had pledged allegiance to Alan Cox. Others would follow. In a short time, the many factions would relinquish their names for one much grander: the Lord’s Thorn.

  The Lord’s Thorn would be fully dedicated, life and limb, to the eradication of the Lobby and the downfall of the Broumgard Group.

  Tim wasn’t sure who the man in the gray suit had been short, stocky, a fierce look of intelligence, more hawk than man—but he’d provided the launching pad to the recent events.

  Tim always woke at the slightest provocation and usually grabbed his beside pistol. Even with rotors modified to suppress sound, the noise of a helicopter setting down in a nearby field woke him in time to see the Man in Gray enter Alan’s house.

  Tim had crept along the edge of the window and overheard enough to know the NMCD was stepping into the big leagues. The two men of authority spoke until six thirty.

  When their guest departed, Alan sought Tim out, and shared the unification plan. They’d been in high gear ever since.

  Alan told him things he already knew. The Man in Gray worked for the government and brought a deep commitment to stopping the Lobby. He also shared classified documents to help convince Alan they gathered to wage war for the world’s immortal souls. He promised Alan a stake in that fight by backing him with money, personnel, and weapons.

  The vacant barn offered Tim the privacy to take in all he had heard, but soon he’d rise out of his chair and commence to walking his path.

  The Man in Gray, who called himself Smith, had given Alan a list with names of nearby civilians planning to join the cause. A computer program identified individuals willing to act in the defense of everything sacred.

  Tim was awed by the number of like-minded individuals near him.

  Waves of unknown men and women approached. Tim would organize those who arrived. He’d establish their temporary shelter before the big relocation.

  Their first mission would be to forcefully unseat the famous man responsible for this evil.

  Smacking his hands on his thighs, Tim stood. He had worked to do.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Alex vegetated on the twenty-six-foot Dior couch in the middle of his library. Rebecca Trevino’s visage dominated the monitor. The Friday edition of Inside Today would start soon, and the twelve-by-twelve-foot screen allowed him over twenty thousand inches of viewing pleasure. He enjoyed the Friday episodes the most. They reviewed the previous week’s stories, and what could be forgotten in a matter of days never ceased to amaze.

  Needing to relive every painful memory, he loaded up on enough snacks for the entire night: a roast beef sub, a pack of Double Stuff Oreos, E.L. Fudge cookies, chocolate in a jar, three bananas, and a two liter of Barq’s root beer.

  The credits for Inside Today rolled. Pushing the detritus from last night’s snack session aside, he assembled his new smorgasbord, then leaned back and admired each item’s ergonomical placement.

  A condition for him staying out of jail after Glen’s suicide was to install triggers on the access room entrances. To avoid the temptation, or hours of staring at the door handle, Alex divided his time between the library near the kitchen on the main floor, and one of the guest bedrooms on the second floor, which overlooked the front lawn.He did the latter in case Rosa returned home early.

  They’d talked on the phone, and she’d sent him a lovely, six-page letter of condolence and affection that ended with her saying she loved him unconditionally, and they’d be fine. She just needed some time.

  He never doubted their bond, but appreciated her detailing it nonetheless.

  In the missive, Rosa mentioned staying away the entire weekend. That suited him fine. Her absence allowed him to wallow in self-pity, which was an underrated form of therapy.

  Lights blinked around the screen, showing the second intro commercial. His previously stoic, currently sycophantic attorney’s name, Peter Mueller, ran across the top like a ticker. Per Alex’s instructions, Victor blocked all calls, but the digital assistant displayed the caller’s name, in case an urgent matter presented itself.

  Most calls involved socialites he’d met throughout the years at the Los Angeles Atrium: actors, directors, writers, artists, professional athletes who, at one point, all wanted to have Alex Cutler’s private number. Being naïve, he had also longed for theirs. Their calls came under the guise of concern. In actuality, they just wanted social currency, same as him when he got their number. They’d tell him not to worry. The Alex they knew would be fine.” Others wanted to gossip about Rosa. “It’s so commendable that you’re comfortable w
ith your wife planning fundraisers intent on closing the Lobby.”

  Liberal heart warmers made up America’s most hypocritical class. They screamed at people for being all types of “phobic, yet lived in bubbles of hive-mind social circles. They helped the downtrodden to experience suffering through osmosis, to lick the psychic tears, and discuss the struggles over an expensive brunch. They were Neo-fascists and Alex wished he could go back and build legion anywhere in flyover country.

  Tearing open the Oreos, he considered Rosa’s mission to smear the Lobby.

  He believed she had the right to follow her heart. He wished she wanted to talk to him about it, yet he understood why she hadn’t. The funny thing was, he would support her efforts. She might even lure him to her side. The current drama around the globe made him sick. Having spent days out of the Lobby, he’d recently wondered if the digital escape added any benefit to society.

  Prior to the discovery of death creating life, you couldn’t get him to bad-mouth the Lobby. Since then, he fantasized about supporting Rosa, and strengthen their marriage. What a powerful combination they would make. The great, mystical Alex Cutler, the man many believed had designed the Lobby by himself, joined side by side with his philanthropic wife in a mission to eradicate the very thing that brought them wealth.

  Before he delved too far into his fantasy, Inside Today returned from commercial. Leaning forward to snatch a width of Oreos, he swigged from the opened root beer. By the time he leaned back, he’d abandoned all thoughts of an alternate reality where he’d support the Lobby’s destruction.

  Another flash of light blinked around his screen, followed by Peter’s name, again. He swept crumbs off himself and let it go to voicemail. He wouldn’t say he had a belly, but enough of a bump existed to rest the tray of cookies upon.

  The show started by recapping the previous Friday, when a custodian from London sneaked his entire family into an access room and then injected them with some lethal concoction of antifreeze and motor oil. Alex guessed that day’s events coincided with his first doubts about the Lobby’s value.

  As soon as that spot ended, and he knew highlighting Glen’s death would follow, he lost heart and flipped to the Discovery Channel. That station never looped Glen’s quote verbatim: “If you die while connected to the Lobby, you live there forever. I know that’s what happened to Roy, and it’s why Charles followed.”

  Stuffing two cookies in his mouth, he chewed with slow, crunching bites.

  The memory of Glen’s dying breath haunted him. Even now, thinking about it caused ghost fragrances to invade his olfactory. Death’s viscous finality seemed to expel all the long-preserved gasses and bacteria from the stomach, leaving a stench of corrupted iron, copper, and blood.

  He grabbed the two liter, placed the opening under his nose, squeezed the plastic sides, and inhaled three quick times. He chased that with a drink, gradually warding off his unwanted memories.

  After allowing an adequate amount of time to pass, he switched back to Inside Today at the exact moment it segued.

  The previous Saturday, twelve people managed to connect to different access chairs around the US, Europe, and Australia. They terminated their lives with hopes of finding immortality within a program.

  On Sunday, eight deaths, but only one splashed the screen. It surgically removed another piece of Alex’s heart. Sean Flaska, his long-time friend from Chicago and head of the Madrid Atrium, had created a cyanide pill using fish-tank algae remover and apple seeds, becoming the Lobby’s twenty-seventh verified casualty.

  Apparently, Sean left a suicide note. Alex considered asking Luke to track down a copy, but the notion never passed the daydream phase. He lacked the motivation for action, and somewhat appreciated his house arrest. He couldn’t help but wonder if he’d been mentioned in the note, or if Sean had referenced a Noah’s Ark, or what cool T-shirt he’d selected for his last day among the living.

  Monday brought twenty-two Lobby-related deaths. Alex felt this was compelling evidence the Lobby might not be safe after all. That day also brought the sealing of Atriums. No more cleaning crews or visits by upper management. For the time being, their interiors would be multimillion-dollar dust farms.

  That evening, attorneys from the U.S. Justice Department filed injunctions to seize the servers, possibly for destruction. They were promised a swift hearing.

  Tara’s litigation team numbered in the hundreds. Her face stayed on multiple channels, and she fought every negative insinuation. Recently, they replayed her reading a statement vowing the Atriums would be reopened after the thirty-day moratorium, and that no servers would be lost.

  As far as Alex could tell, hers was a minority opinion.

  Tuesday brought little change. Three deaths, none of which occurred on U.S. soil. Strangely enough, Alex felt national pride at that.

  The bombshell came on humpday. Eight people had killed themselves—six in Europe, one in the U.S., and one Down Under. More importantly, the Western world learned how the other half of the planet had been coping.

  Rebecca ran a human-interest story on Sung Yi, a Tao Buddhist amazing the world with his prescient teachings. For years, he’d foretold of the Lobby’s arrival, the soul stealing part, and he now pleaded for people to align their karma, be good to nature, and at the optimal time, transport their lives to the “Seventh Plane of Existence,” a paradise gifted to humanity by Gaea, the Mother of Creation.

  The world also heard intimations of thousands of “Death Trips” having occurred in Japan and China. Their national spokesmen released statements denying any wrongdoing, and labeling the accusations outlandish, but the evidence was overwhelming.

  A few bloggers claimed the rumors of tens of thousands of Death Trips stood closer to six figures.

  Hearing it anew caused Alex’s gut to drop and his heart to flutter. The thought appalled him. Labeling global death “fake news” brought his best solace, but more and more outlets considered the boast plausible.

  He’d seen a Death Trip firsthand, from inside and out. Death was a gruesome chaperone that battered everyone in its path.

  He gulped more root beer, then forced two Oreos into his mouth.

  No one knew for certain, and no one in the West wanted to believe such things were possible, but the thought of thousands of orchestrated deaths carried volumes of implications.

  Despite its modern-day wanderings, and the mocking of pundits, America remained a nation devoted to the Bible, with Islam rising in every corner. The thought of countless people killing themselves draped despair over a God-fearing nation.

  Two weeks ago, no one could have written a scenario plausible enough to surpass recent national outrage, pensive contemplation, and a fierce emotional divide. People claimed our society was fragile—possibly the reason doomsday prepping piqued American interest—but who expected it to actually break?

  Thursday, America once again abstained from Death Trips, along with Australia, but thirty-four deaths littered Europe. Following these deaths, the EU called for tighter security, and Israel issued a formal threat: stop the death trips, or they will..

  The biggest story came from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, where an air strike leveled their Atrium, ending Lobby access for that part of the world.

  Saudi officials claimed to have no evidence linking any nation to the attack. Yet in coincidence, all security personnel had been evacuated to a safe distance, leaving the one hundred and thirty-five thousand square foot complex free to be reduced to a pile of ash and debris.

  U.S. officials avoided commenting. With U.S. media embracing speculation as a rule, some pundits believed the government’s minimal clamoring was because many of them supported the attack.

  The internet bursted with theories. The most credible was that the Iranian military, with full approval from the Saudi royal family, committed the act. The most absurd was that Alex Cutler, using a remote detonator from his home, caused the servers to self-destruct to avoid them being seized by Islamic nations.

>   Now it was Friday. Protests warred outside every Atrium on the globe. The majority of the public still supported the Lobby, but the margin lessened by the day, by the hour, and by the death.

  Today, eleven Death Trips were reported. All located in the Paris Atrium, where scrutiny, finger-pointing, and investigations were underway.

  Inside Today went to its third commercial around the same time he emptied the tray of Oreos. Alex flung the plastic divider on the table with enough force that it slid off the far side and onto the floor. He’d contact Rebecca Trevino. Before he could, he needed to decide what side he landed on and clarify his reasoning.

  He figured it best to call her and make the appointment, locking himself into action. Afterward, he would call Rosa for her thoughts, contact Tara and get hers, and then come to his own conclusion.

  He muted the television as it blinked again. A number ran across the top of the screen. The identifying text stated the call originated from FBI headquarters.

  Snide remarks from Agent Andrews were the last thing he needed on the cusp of an upswing.

  Alex ignored the call. His new game plan consisted of taking his first shower in three days, going online to watch the Tao Buddhist video about the Seventh Plane of Existence for himself, then contacting Rebecca.

  As he drank from the two liter, another flash crossed the monitor, followed by a flowing text message: “Mr. Cutler, this is Special Agent Andrews, head of the Lobby Oversight Committee appointed to the Los Angeles branch of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. It is imperative that you contact me. If you do not comply within the next twenty minutes, I will have the sheriffs bring you in.”

  Alex might be on house arrest for a third time, suggesting he lacked the fundamental morality to strive in society, but he still longed to avoid the experience of wearing manacles. The thought of steel clanked around flesh was archaic enough to make him shudder.

  Another swig of root beer and then he asked Victor to place the call.

  Before the first ring completed, Andrews answered. “Special Agent Andrews, FBI.”