“Captain Tyrel,” Porter says, after a time, “the note please. If I could have it.”
“You asking or telling, Doc?”
“Please, Captain,” Porter says, showing signs of stress for the first time. “Time is getting short and I wish to finish up with this first session before the drug wears off and Tanya begins to convulse with spasms.”
Reaching into the chest pocket on his black military work-shirt, Tyrel pulls out a sheet of folded white paper. He hands it to the doctor. The doctor unfolds it, reads it. Reads it again. He then turns the paper around, revealing what’s written on it.
Gus’s
It’s scribbled in my handwriting.
“We discovered this in Tony Smart’s back pocket not too long ago,” Porter says. “It’s tangible proof that Mr. Smart has not only implicated himself in going against the contractual rules of the Everest Primary Membership Program, but it is also proof that he is conspiring with the Resistance. Turns out, Michael Smart wasn’t the only traitor in the family.”
If my stomach could drop anymore it would be lying on the floor. He’s about to ask me if Tony is a member of the Resistance, and when I say no, he’s going to torture me again. Maybe I will have a chance to get out of Primary Termination because of Kate, but I can bet that as God as my judge, Tony is not going to get out of it. Maybe my own parents aren’t going to get out of it either. What’s the point of going on with my life—with the Everest Primary Membership Program—if I can’t do it with my loved ones?
“Now, Tanya,” the doctor says. “I want you to tell me the truth. Is Tony Smart a part of the Everest Resistance?”
There, he asked it. Exactly the question I thought he would pose. I gaze over the doctor’s shoulder at Tyrel. He’s staring at me with his little round eyes, the smirk on his face like that of a hungry vulture. He knows I’m caught between a rock and very hard place. Say yes and Tony is terminated forever. Say no and I face unbelievable torture that will last until I give in and say yes anyway. Funny thing is, in order to give them the answer they want, I have to lie.
The room goes quiet, and everyone goes still. The only movement is what’s coming from the Everest commercial playing on the television. Porter holds the sheet of paper up with both hands so I can’t possibly miss it.
“Is Anthony Smart a part of the Resistance?” he asks again. “Is he the enemy of Everest like his brother before him?”
I don’t answer. I can’t answer. I cannot possibly lie to save myself from the pain.
“Tell me what I want to hear, Tanya,” Porter says, his tone turning angry, his face flushed with blood. “Tell me or I will not only drill that filling back out, I will drill every one of your teeth, one by precious one. Do you understand me?”
“Now, that would be something to see,” Tyrel comments, the masochist’s grin turning into an ear to ear smile.
I don’t blink. How can I? The doctor picks the drill up off the tray.
“You leave me with no choice, Tanya,” he says.
Maybe it’s impossible for me to move my body, but it goes rigid anyway. The tears are pouring out of my eyes, heart is pounding inside my throat, and my brain is screaming with adrenaline. I am caught in a nightmare that is impossible to escape. Impossible to wake from.
Then the ceiling collapses.
Shots fired.
Not loud shots, but sound-suppressed shots. Shots that don’t pierce eardrums, but that still pack a solid punch.
Porter’s face disappears in a haze of blood, bone, and brain matter. Tyrel takes one to the shoulder and drops like a stone. He goes for his pistol, returns the fire. The straps that hold me down are quickly cut and I am thrust over someone’s shoulder like a fireman rescuing an unconscious woman from a burning building.
“Grab her stuff!” a man orders.
I’m seeing everything from upside down now. The door opens. An Everest policeman steps inside. He’s got an automatic rifle gripped in his hands. But he never gets a chance to use it. He is shot as soon as he steps foot into the room.
“Go!” a man yells, “Go! Go!”
“Please don’t talk, Tanya,” he says to me.
I wonder if he knows it’s impossible for me to talk right now. More rapid-fire gunshots from outside in the corridor. Then two separate loud explosions, like detonated grenades.
“Clear!” a woman barks.
I’m carried into the hall, most of which has been blown away by the explosives. The walls are shattered, and I can see inside some of the windowless rooms. Several bodies litter the floor. Two of them are wearing black uniforms. My eyes try to focus on their faces, but they’re both lying on their stomachs. I can’t help but believe one of them has to be Matt Tyrel. Or maybe I’m just hoping Matt Tyrel is dead.
“Ready for window extraction,” the same woman informs.
I find myself being strapped to the man who’s holding me. Then, he’s carrying me out a window and we’re scaling the side of the building, down to the ground. Gunshots are exchanged as he carries me to a dark green van that matches their uniforms. I’m loaded into the back while two uniformed men get in up front. The van bucks forward and speeds away from the building, all the while, bullets ricochet off the side panels.
“Jesus, you’re naked,” comes a voice.
Now that I’m no longer hooked up to the intravenous, I’m able to slowly turn my head to see who’s doing the talking. But then, I don’t need eyes to know who it is. All I need are my ears.
Tony Smart.
One of the dark green uniformed soldiers, the lady, hands me my clothes.
“You might have to help me, Tony,” I say, after a few beats. “I’m still not fully functional.”
“They injected you with that shit, too,” he says, like a question. “It takes a few minutes to wear off.”
I start getting dressed. It seems to take forever, but eventually I’m fully clothed in my brown dress and sandals.
“Who the hell are these people?” I ask.
“The enemy,” Tony says. He’s sitting against the cargo bay side panel, his face pale but no worse for wear. “Everest dot com’s enemy, anyway.”
“The Drake Search Engine, am I right?”
“They must have gotten word of our abduction,” he says. “Either through their intelligence agents, or hell, maybe Gus Truman called them, warned them on our behalf.”
“Is the Drake Corporation good?”
“What’s that mean, Tan?” Tony asks.
“Meaning are they friendly?”
“Hey,” he says, “they are the enemy of our enemy, so what’s that make them?”
“Our friends.”
He smiles. I go to him. He takes me in his arms and hugs me as tightly as he can without breaking my ribs.
“Tony,” I say, “did they torture you?”
“Let’s put it this way,” he says while showing me his teeth. “I got myself some free dentistry.”
I nod.
“The annoying cavity I had in my molar is now filled,” I say. Then, shaking my head. “Imagine torturing while at the same time, providing a valuable service. Maybe they should call it, consumer-centric, stress free torture. What the hell is the matter with these people?”
“What’s the matter is what’s always the matter when someone or something attains supreme power. You get paranoid. Caesar feels as though Brutus and his sharp dagger are waiting right around the next corner for him.”
“Everest is Caesar.”
“Yes, it is, and the Everest Primary Membership Program is Caesar’s twenty-first century form of slavery.” He shakes his head, as though very disappointed with himself. “I owe you an apology, Tan. I had no real idea the extent Everest is willing to go to enslave their customers. I guess I should have realized it when Mike disappeared. But I just didn’t want to believe it. Or maybe I refused to believe it. I just always assumed he’d be back one day, and all would be well, all would be like it was.”
The van bucks and bumps as
it speeds along.
“I saw what happened to him,” I say, after a time.
His face seems to go even paler. “The worst part about that . . . his termination . . . was never being able to speak about it. Never being able to acknowledge his life, Tan.”
I take hold of his hand, hold it tight.
“Tony,” I say, “is he alive?”
“I have no way of knowing.”
Then, feeling the pit in my stomach.
“They have my parents,” I say, swallowing something dry and bitter. “Were you able to see what happened to them?”
He shakes his head.
“No,” he whispers. “I never saw them. Not once. Nor did Porter or Tyrel mention them when they decided to work on my teeth.”
I sense there’s something else he’s not telling me.
“What is it, Tony?” I beg. “What is it you’re not telling me?”
He turns to me, looks me in the eye.
“Listen, Tan,” he says, “Everest plays for keeps. Even if they’d just slapped us on the wrist for going to Gus’s, they’re still going to find a way to make sure we know who is in control. Somebody is going to have to pay. For me it was my brother.”
“Oh Jesus,” I say, “for me it’s my parents.”
“Because what’s worse than you being terminated?”
“My loved one’s being terminated.”
“You’re learning,” he says. “You’re learning how Everest operates. We’re both learning, the hardest way possible.”
A few beats pass while the van motors on.
“And Drake?” I say. “They are a part of the Resistance?”
“Not directly,” he says. “I haven’t really paid much attention to the organization until now, to tell the truth. In fact, I’d always had a suspicion that the Resistance didn’t really exist. That their existence was the stuff of fantasy. Just like Primary Termination was fantasy.” He shakes his head again. “You know, Mike wasn’t really gone so much as relocated in a nice cushy place where he was working out his problems with Everest.”
“Okay, but what about the Drake Corporation?”
“My guess is the Drake Search Engine helps fund the Resistance. It’s sort of a strange alliance when you think about it, because how can the Resistance trust the Drake Corp. any more than they trust the Everest Corp.? Both sides are about to engage in a war for ultimate domination.”
“Maybe Drake funds the Resistance because it’s the expedient thing to do,” I offer. “Your enemy’s enemy is your friend.”
“There’s that old dictum again, Tan.”
“And why are we only now talking about this?”
“Number one, because Everest tried to kill us today, and they took your parents away. And two, because there’s nowhere safe to talk. I don’t even trust talking outdoors anymore. Everest has the Jacquie satellite that’s about to go into orbit any day.”
“What makes this van a safe place to talk?”
He cocks his head over his shoulder.
“I’m guessing this would be just about the safest place in all of New York State to talk about Drake, our terminated families, and the Resistance. I’m guessing these soldiers are constantly sweeping for Jacquie.”
I find myself opening and closing my hands. Finally, all movement and feeling have returned. But that doesn’t mean I feel real good about anything. In my head, I see the faces of my mother and my father. I also see Mike, and what I remember as his perpetual shiny, happy smile. That’s when it hits me.
“We have to get them back, Tony,” I say.
He gives me a look like I’m out of my mind, and I probably am.
“That’s like asking God to turn off the sun,” he says. “Even if we were somehow lucky enough to find out where the Everest Corp. keeps the terminated, we’d never stand a chance going up against the Everest goliath, Tan. Not without getting ourselves killed in the process.”
His words don’t discourage me. Instead, they make my blood begin to boil.
“So, that’s it then,” I say. “We just give up? Live in the shadows for the rest of our days? Hope Drake wins the war whenever it comes, and pray that by some miracle, my parents and your brother will somehow be liberated?”
He turns to me quick, eyes me over his shoulder.
“You’re forgetting one important thing,” he says. “Liberating them suggests they might actually be alive.”
My blood, getting hotter.
“I believe they’re alive, Tony,” I say. “I can feel it in here.” Making a fist, I punch my own chest. “I can sense these things.”
“Glad you can,” he says, “because I sure as shit don’t.”
I let that one sit for a while, until the smell is too rotten to be ignored.
“What happened to the Tony Smart who used to be the fighter?” I say. “What happened to the strong as hell man who never backed down from a fight, even if he knew he was going to get his ass kicked in the process?”
“I got smart,” he says, poking at his head with extended index finger. “No pun.”
“I think you got something else.”
“Yeah, and what’s that, Tan?”
“I think you got married to Everest. I think you became so dependent on the system for your life and work and your very existence, that you couldn’t see beyond yourself. Even with Mike being terminated, you just refused to believe anything was wrong.”
He exhales a breath.
“This was your idea, Tanya,” he says. “Gus’s, the whole bit. I tried to warn you.”
“No one put a gun to your head, Tony,” I say. “And you know what? I’m glad we did it. I’m glad we showed Everest that we’re free people no matter how much they want to enslave us, no matter how much they want to intimidate us. At the very least, it’s woken you up to the truth.”
He laughs, bitterly.
“It’s easy to say we’re free when we’re alive and well,” he says. “But not so easy for Mike or your folks.”
The van continues to speed along a road. A road I have no clue about.
“I’m going to get them back,” I say after a long heavy beat. “If it costs me my life, I’m going to get them all back; and then, I’m going to join the Resistance and I’m going to fight Everest until it’s dead and gone.”
“And we can all go back to shopping in the malls,” Tony says. “You can go back to New York City and be a big editor at a big, newly resurrected publishing house. I can go back to praying that one of those newly resurrected publishing houses buys one of my books. Because if they don’t, I’m shit out of luck. I’ll have no means of income and no books being published anymore through the Everest Cradle Direct Publishing program.”
The van makes a hard right turn, and it’s all we can do to remain sitting upright. Then, it slows, and finally comes to a stop. I make out the sound of something mechanical, like a garage door being raised. The van moves forward again, and I sense we’ve just driven into a garage of some kind. The mechanical noise resumes, and I’m guessing it means the garage door is closing.
“You’re forgetting one very important thing, Tony,” I say.
“What’s that, Tan?”
“You’ve been terminated, too. From the moment we escaped that Everest re-education hell-on-earth, we were terminated. And that means you’re already without your Primary credits, and your books are already deleted from the system. You are now Tony Smart, unpublished author.”
His wide, unblinking eyes look through me to a future that truly frightens him.
“Jesus,” he says. “That really, really hurts.”
“But it’s reality.”
Exhaling what’s left inside his lungs, “You are absolutely right. We’re terminated. We are all terminated, Tanya.”
“Believe it, Tony,” I say. “And use it to make you mad. Make you strong again. Make you do the right thing.”
“What’s the right thing, Tan?”
“We’re going to get our loved ones back. And
then we fight for everyone to be free.”
The van’s cargo bay doors open wide. The soldiers gesture for us with their hands to get out. Standing outside the van, we find ourselves inside a massive warehouse. The walls are concrete and cement block. The floor-to-ceiling industrial windows have been blacked out with black paint and the harsh, overhead lighting illuminates the wide-open spaces like it’s Monday Night Football.
To my left, a series of folding tables are occupied by more dark green uniformed soldiers. All of them are staring into laptops. Mounted to the wall above them, are three mammoth LCD hologram televisions that seem to be broadcasting a real-time map of the world and what I’m guessing are the movements and locations of Everest police. Or should I say, Everest soldiers. Everest is represented by the same black symbol of the Everest summit-shaped logo that appears on the boxes delivered to the billions of Everest customers and Primary members on a daily basis. What’s disturbing is this: just a quick glance at the electronic map tells me Everest has spread like a cancer throughout the globe.
Directly ahead of me are more opens spaces, more tables occupied by soldiers. Beyond them are military vehicles including a few Jeeps and even a tank or two. The woman who helped free me from my re-education captivity removes her helmet, allows her mid-length brown hair to fall to her shoulders. She holds out her gloved hand for me.
“I’m Mary Dawson,” she says. “Drake Upstate Commander.”
Primary Termination Page 15