The Whisperer in Dissonance

by Welke, Ian

  “Can you meet me at your work, dear? Your boss says your job’s still here if you can come in. I’m worried that you need help. Are you eating? Come in, make sure that everything’s okay here, and I’ll take you out to eat.”

  “I’ll be there.” I end the call.

  Not knowing what to do, I text Michael. I pace. Thoughts race through my head. None of them are helpful. I check the phone and pace more before checking it again. There’s no response.

  I can’t wait for him.

  I walk through the house, not sure if I’m leaving or waiting for dark to find Michael’s safe house. The clock on the microwave says eleven forty-five. I walk back to the den where I’d set down my phone. Still no message. Eleven fifty. I calculate how long it would take to get to work.

  I’d need to find a car to get there at all. Still no message from Michael.

  I text again.

  Annie: Please, I need to know what I should do.

  ~

  I try texting Michael again before leaving, but still get no response. I don’t like the idea of going to the office, but I can’t imagine sitting around until nightfall. What if I’m the one that’s imagining things? I’d be leaving my mother at the office afraid for her only child.

  It’s got to be a trap. But what if I can get my mom out of there? Maybe we can do something to help her.

  I’ve filled my duffle bag with stuff I might need if things go badly and I’m on foot for a while. A big raincoat seems unnecessary given the streak of sunny, windy days, and I’d be happy to get soaked by a good rain. I pack it anyway. I raid the medicine cabinet. My loot includes a bottle of peroxide, Band-Aids, and aspirin. In the kitchen, I add to the assortment of canned goods I found in the previous home. There’s a tool kit in the laundry room. I take a large flat screw driver and a hammer before adding a roll of duct tape. These last few additions make me feel like a serial killer.

  At least I’m not packing it full of knives.

  I look through the window next to the front door. The street is empty. A lone car passes by, then no one. When I look again, there’s a pedestrian on the other side of the street walking toward the main thoroughfare. Three people on my side of the street pass by in the same direction. These are followed by ten more. Soon both sides of the street are covered in pedestrians. They’re slower moving than the herd I’d seen in the mall. They walk without speaking or even turning their heads to the side to look around. They move strangely, though less herky-jerky than the people in the mall.

  I open the door. None of the people react to me. I walk to the sidewalk, joining a procession of at least a hundred people. There are men and women. There are elderly and children. I walk halfway down the block before I see someone break from the herd and go into one of the houses.

  Are they returning the people to their homes? I guess I picked the right time to get out of that house.

  There’s a smell I can’t place. It’s hard to separate the smell from the smoke choking the air. Brush fires burn somewhere nearby, but the Santa Anas seem to have died down at last. I try breathing through my mouth to avoid the stench. Maybe the fires have burned something toxic, a chemical plant or a sewage treatment center.

  At the end of the block, we come to a larger street, and it becomes clear that the migration is massive as the stream meets a river of people. Buses packed to the windows pass us by. There are still few cars on the road. The other pedestrians still take no notice of me, or if they do they don’t react.

  An elderly woman with a walker doesn’t look like much of a threat. The two Hispanic men in their twenties could probably outrun me, if the programming they’re under commands them to attack me and can keep them coordinated at a run. If the crowd can maintain this prolonged march, there’s no telling what they can be made to do. Occasionally, they look a little off. They sway in unison, but they all regain their balance with the next step. Even the children march automaton-like forward without running, skipping, or stopping to pout or complain.

  The crowd marches at a uniform speed. A tall man ahead of me, who must be at least six-and-a-half feet, walks the same pace as people much shorter than him.

  Out of curiosity, I turn to the young Latina to my side and say, “So, where are we going?”

  The woman continues to stare ahead, not reacting to the question.

  I try again. “Don’t want to say? Or maybe can’t say?”

  We walk ahead farther. The woman still doesn’t answer. Then her head rolls to the side, like she’d turned it to face me but hasn’t the strength in her neck to support the weight of her own head. Her face contorts like she’s in pain or confused, like she’s trying to speak but has forgotten how. Eventually a sound emerges, a hiss like an angry cat. Her mouth opens, thick drool pools and pours off her lip and down her chin. She makes no effort to wipe it off. It continues to drip as she marches ahead.

  I look around to make sure the rest of the crowd doesn’t respond to the hiss, but they all continue to march forward, eyes staring straight ahead. The Latina’s head rolls back the other way and she goes back to ignoring me.

  I keep my eyes front as well. Something spreads across the man in the business suit’s slacks. A dark, wet stain grows and pours down his legs. I know where that smell is coming from now. The sewage smell is coming from the crowd.

  Holding my nose and trying not to gag, I keep pace with the people marching alongside me. At the first major intersection, the parking lots to the strip malls on each corner are full of cars. I watch one of the drones break away and get into one of the cars. He drives off.

  I walk up to the closest car. It’s unlocked with the keys in the ignition.

  Time to pull away from the smelly herd.

  ~

  I’ve driven for thirty minutes before I’m confident I’m not being followed or likely to be pulled over for being in a car on otherwise empty streets. I keep to surface streets for the drive to the office. Even if things are returning to normal, it’s going to take time to clear the freeways. The surface streets are still pretty empty, just the occasional car to pass. Apart from long waits at crosswalks as crowds of people on foot cross, I make good time.

  The entrance to the office parking garage is clogged with abandoned vehicles. The symbol is spray painted red against the grey of the concrete on the wall leading into the garage.

  I get out of the car and crouch down, using the abandoned cars as cover as I make my way into the parking garage. The echoes of car horns and alarms, dying with the slow sapping of their batteries, reverberates off the concrete walls. I creep along behind another row of cars.

  If I can just see that my mom is all right…

  The overhead lighting flashes. A growing buzzing sound fills the garage, overcoming the sound of the car horns. It echoes and grows against the concrete floor and ceiling. Overlapping waves of sound bounce through the lot.

  “Dear? I’m here.” Mom’s voice adds another layer to the droning echo.

  “Annie, it’s Pete.” His voice wavers and is tinny.

  There are four of them, tall and dark and wearing gas masks. They are all at least eight feet tall. They wear black, rubbery, one-piece uniforms that remind me of pictures of chemical warfare gear. One of them carries a white box, swinging on a cable. My mom’s voice comes from that box. Pete’s voice comes out of another box carried by the creature on the opposite end.

  One of the things speaks, but I can’t tell which. “You must come with us. We will take you to your mother,” it buzzes.

  “How do I know you’re telling the truth?” I yell from behind a red convertible.

  “You can trust us,” the box with my mother’s voice says. “You can always trust your mother, dear.”

  I turn to run. A mob of people marches down the ramp behind me. I count ten of them, four women and six men, all in their late teens or early twenties. Some of them have sticks. One carries a bottle of wine by the neck. Apart from holding the weapons, they don’t look hostile. They stare ahead i
nto nothing as blankly as the herd I’d walked with earlier.

  “Do not run,” a buzzing voice says from behind me. “They can be made to attack.”

  I jump, startled. The lanky creature behind me seems to float out from the shadows. The crowd is blocking my escape route. I step out and put my hands up. “All right. I’ll come with you.”

  “It’s the right decision, dear,” my mother’s voice says.

  “It’s the smart move,” Pete’s voice box says.

  “You must be upgraded,” the giants say in unison.

  The door between the garage and office opens and Claire and Chad walk through. Claire moves marionette-like, her arms and legs uncoordinated. She stumbles and picks up momentum diagonally before stopping in front of me.

  “Come with me. You will make good stock.” The last word doesn’t come out quite right. Claire spits drool as she says the word. I can’t tell if Claire is still trying to resist, or if I just want to believe there’s still something of Claire inside her body, fighting it.

  A smile crosses Chad’s face. I wonder if he’s even being controlled. Maybe this is what he wanted all along.

  I walk toward them. “Where do we go? How do we get there? Do you have a van or something?”

  “Stop! Her telephone!” The buzzing voices of the giants yell in unison.

  I raise my phone and hit the defense app. The creatures reel. The voices from the boxes dangling from the cables say something I can’t hear over the screeching. Lights strobe, and my phone emits feedback that causes the mob to drop their weapons. I bolt up the driveway, but the mob recovers before I get away.

  One of the men hisses at me. His breath is fetid and reeking as a chemical fire. He reaches out and grabs my arm, wrenching it at the shoulder. An unseen attacker pulls my hair, yanking me back to face the creatures hovering toward me. My hair comes out at the root as I struggle. I free my arm, but there are too many of them. They have both my legs and my other arm.

  The creatures hover closer. In the dark I can’t see below their cloaks, but they don’t seem to have feet. One raises a gloved hand and points at me. “We’ve built defenses against that algorithm.”

  With my free hand, I reach in my pocket, and grasp one of the ink bottles I took from Robin’s home. The creature comes closer. “You can join us, or this mob can be made to tear you apart.”

  I fling the glass bottle at the symbol on the concrete wall. The bottle shatters and the black ink drips down, covering a small section of the center of the symbol.

  For a moment the grip on my arms loosen, but the crowd continue to circle me, awaiting orders.

  “What did you hope to accomplish? A small smudge on our emblem?”

  I hit the attack button on my phone again. The screech blasts through the garage. This time the creatures are unaffected, ready and resilient, but the crowd lets go of me and falls to the floor.

  I race to the exit before the creatures can follow.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Children’s feet tap along the walk above my new apartment. Another set of footfalls follows. This one is a toddler running at speed. People speak in hundreds of different languages. Lids hit pots and pans. A garbage disposal whirs and grinds. A gaggle of children stomp down the stairs and race by my window. The sounds of living are all around me now.

  Waiting for the children to pass by, cats meow and prowl along the edge of my window. Cats have proven useful to the cause. The enemy and the converted are confused by cats. Felines have been known to stop the converted humans in their tracks, making them powerless to move or report back to their controllers. There are many theories as to what the cats do to immobilize the converted, but so far we only know that it works.

  I feed two cats. A giant orange tabby and a black female with a white belly. They’re sleeping.

  Resting up for the night when they’ll go out and claw up the enemy.

  The orange one has found a patch of sunlight on my carpet, whereas the black and white one is on the backpack I need for my mission.

  It glares at me and growls as I pick it up and put it back down on a pillow near the window. The bottom of its paws are purple. It must have gotten into my paint. Purple paw marks across the carpet in the hallway confirm this. The cat has already climbed back onto my backpack by the time I return. I risk touching the bottom of its paw to confirm that the paint is dry. It shoots me a look as if to say “Are you kidding me?” I withdraw my hand before I need my med kit.

  After the encounter at the parking garage, I was able to get in touch with Michael and his people and get to the safe house. When I told them that damaging the symbol worked in conjunction with his smart phone attack app, it confirmed a theory they had. I’ve spent the last six months developing new art projects trying to enhance the visual stimuli of our counterattack, while Michael focuses on the computer code.

  I remove the cat again, and pack my bag for the day’s action. Stencils made from matte paper I’ve created for the task, an array of sharpies, and spray paint make up the art supplies I’ll need. Water bottles fit into straps on either side of the pack. I’m not planning to be gone long, but it’s always better to prepare for a longer trip in case I can’t get past security or have to double back to avoid being followed. I put my counter measures in the other part of the pack. Spare phones are loaded with a version of the algorithm designed to create a field that traps our enemies in recursive loops. In emergencies, I can leave one of these propped against a building and it can cover the street behind me. They’re not infallible though. The enemy have captured a few, and a battle of updates is ongoing. Michael’s people update the defense algorithm, the enemy counter with their latest protection against it.

  The last thing I pack is an emergency item, a one-shot EMP gun. It’s a half-foot piece of PVC tubing with a powerful magnetic charge in the backend. There’s no telling what it might do. The enemy’s equipment might be too well shielded. It might not. It could also end up frying some of our side’s devices, so it’s strictly a weapon of last resort.

  With my bag packed, I leave my apartment and wave to a family having their lunch on the walkway above me. I follow the stairs down. I cross the street, and walk for six blocks before I’ve entered enemy territory.

  I’m careful. Making my way downtown, I take a circuitous route to make sure my path can’t be traced back to where we live.

  Downtown, I walk amongst the herd. The men in their business suits all wear ear pieces now. Spiny attachments bore into their temples and the base of their necks. Clockwork pieces whirl and click whenever they are stopped or pressed to make a decision, like a spinning cursor showing that a program is processing. I wear a mock one on the side of my head. The herd doesn’t pay much attention to me, but if there’s a spy for the mechacops, the fake piece might fool them. On a typical day, one in a hundred people might notice me. If they do they usually call me a bum. Sometimes they give me change. It’s a rare day that they call the mechacops.

  The businessmen have the same herd mentality as the people I saw in the mall. They’re always headed somewhere only a member of the herd can know. Hundreds of them move through Pershing Square. Twenty veer off into an office building. The twenty are all wearing the same dark suit.

  There are no businesswomen amongst the herd. The only women I’ve seen outside of their houses have been in the malls.

  I guess they’ve got most of us where they’ve always wanted us, barefoot and pregnant.

  I don’t spend much time reflecting on the state of things. Instead, I find what I’m looking for, a corner wall facing a street with good foot traffic. It’s got a smooth wall that should work well for my purposes. I work fast in plain view of the converted. I tape up my stencil symbol, spray the wall with paint, and remove the stencil in less than five minutes. Less than the mechacops response time downtown.

  The symbol I’ve left behind is meant to act as a countermeasure to the symbol the controllers use to load the virus into human minds. I find it hard not
to think of it as magic, but I’ve heard one of Michael’s people describe it scientifically. Something about a mesh in the way the brain works. To me it sounded like psychobabble. I’m happier thinking of it as magic. So far, it’s been a mixed bag of luck on the success of my artwork. At best, it helps make people more susceptible to the deconversion algorithms Michael and his team are developing. At the very least I’m confident that it shows the virus resistant survivors that they are not alone.

  I paint it on five more walls before I call it a day.

  I forage the dumpsters behind a strip mall of fast food joints. Michael’s people have subsistence gardens growing on the roofs and between the buildings we squat, but it’s never enough and we never know when we’ll have to move again. I’ve been surprised at what I’ve found discarded in dumpsters. In addition to fresh food, I’ve found art supplies, useful pieces of aluminum, and even wire and electronics for Michael’s team to use in his creations.

  I’m deep into a garbage can when I hear a gunshot. I climb out of the dumpster, jump down and peer around the corner of an office building to see a freeman running across the parking lot. He pushes his way through confused members of the herd. I don’t recognize him as one of Michael’s people which is for the best. The mechacops are close behind. The air is thick with airborne automated robots propelled by what looks like a desk fan. On top of the fan, the bot’s gear includes a camera, speaker, and mini-machine gun. There’s a clash of shots like hundreds of amplified camera shutters clicking, and the fight is over. The man is dead. So are four members of the herd, but there’s no screaming. The rubbish collection bots will scrape up the remains.

  I turn and make my way back down the alley. The air is thick with mechacops and larger drones, and I’m on my toes for the whole circuitous journey back to the apartments. I start by turning in the opposite direction, heading deeper into downtown Los Angeles. I pass what was once the Central Library. It had been one of my favorite buildings in the state before the takeover. Now it’s been gutted. The books have been removed. It’s rumored that this is where captured freemen are taken. The rumors say that the building houses experiments with new versions of the conditioning.