by J. D. Lee
He stopped. Then speaking away from the monitor, said, “Computer, what is the current mean dimethyltryptamine level of the patients?”
“Zero,” came the voice from above.
“And Patient One?”
“Zero as well, Dr. Avant.”
Turning back to the green line on the computer screen, Horatio said, “It's as I feared. They've been depleted of their dimethyltryptamine levels. Even if they hadn't worked against my programming, there's not enough left to process the real world, let alone an imagined one.”
The green line asked, “Why did Patient One have to subdue the cancer? Why not put any or all patients on that path?”
Horatio hurriedly explained, “It had to be the mediator. Patient one is... was the only one tethered to everyone. He was the only one with enough influence.”
“Apparently not,” the green line said flatly.
“...We can’t afford to let this get out,” added the screen, “Clean up.”
With that, Horatio Avant turned off his bank of monitors. The images collapsed in a sequential cascade of electrical fuzz. He stood to his feet and made his way across the room.
He paused in the doorway, looking back on his failure; the middle-aged man, the human network, the digital host, the cure he tried to give and the lives he took away.
He shook his head, then Horatio turned off the light, exited the small room, and closed the door tightly behind him. He punched seven digits into a small, metal box in the wall and walked away. The sound of the security mechanisms sealing the door filled the otherwise quiet alley.
As he walked, he heard the subtle yet consistent beep of the computer's failsafe countdown echoing off the alley walls. First, the controlled burn would begin, then the acid bath, followed by the encasement. Once it was through, it would be as though the lab was never there. The chamber would be filled and the computers all destroyed. There would be no sign of Marcus Metiline, no trace of Horatio Avant or the horrible things he'd done.
He quickly made his way down the narrow, brick corridor and emerged on a busy, neon-lit boulevard.
Across the street stood a large, brick building. Its face boasted dozens of dark windows and even more advertisements. In the center of the building, directly before Horatio, was a red neon sign that read, D NER, and below it, a single plate-glass door.
Horatio hurriedly crossed the boulevard and entered through the door.
He made his way to the back corner of the room and found himself a seat removed from everyone else. He picked up the triangle menu and twirled it pensively in his hand. The short list offered coffee, cigarettes, and especially suggested the apple pie.
A few moments passed before Horatio was greeted by a young, blonde-haired man in a bright red shirt. He wore an apron wrapped tightly around his waist.
While brushing his hands on the front of his apron he cheerfully asked, “What's up, Doc?!”
“Hi Martin,” Horatio nonchalantly replied, “Can I get a cup of coffee, black; a pack of cigarettes, and a slice of that apple pie?”
Horatio knew Martin. He was a good kid. He was definitely intelligent, and had a great attitude about life, but sometimes he could talk too much for Horatio's taste. And after today, that was the last thing he wanted.
Martin nodded. “Since when do you smoke?”
Here it goes, thought Horatio, but he replied kindly, “Since today, Mart. Strange, strange day.”
“All right Dr. Avant, coming right up.”
He watched as the boy vanished behind the double doors embedded in the back wall of the diner.
A few moments later the young man returned. Surprisingly, the boy had nothing to say. Silently he placed a plate piled high with pie crust and glistening with apples on the table, along with a mug full of steaming, black coffee. After placing a napkin and fork on the table, Martin opened the pack of smokes and handed them to Horatio.
Horatio pulled a cigarette from the pack and placed it to his lips. Tobacco had never felt so inviting before. He patted his pants for a light. From his right pocket he pulled a matchbook.
He thought to himself, That's odd. I wonder where I got these.
It didn't matter. The cigarette beckoned him. He opened the matchbook and tore one from its binding; six matches remained.
As he lit the cigarette and drew deeply on its smoke, he heard the explosion.
The windows shook. Patrons quickly flooded out of the diner, looking to find the source of the blast. Beyond the plate-glass window and through the crowd, Horatio could see the faint red and yellow glow of flames reaching out from the small alley across the street. After a moment, the alley went dark; the encasement had begun.
As Horatio Avant smoked his cigarette and apathetically poked a bent fork into the pie before him, he watched the well-intentioned folks rush into the alley in search of people to be saved.
He knew they would find nothing, not there, not anywhere. As far as they're concerned, any body they'd discover, if they were to discover any, had been dead for a very, very long time.
Chapter XVII
Stacy awoke in a bed she did not know, in a room she did not recognize. Light flooded the modestly decorated walls, gleaming across the hardwood floors and illuminating the well-spaced picture frames. Something was strange, but she couldn't quite place her finger on it.
There, across the expansive room, upon a large pine table, sat a small white envelope leaning against a black, pipe-shaped item roughly the size of a pack of cigarettes. She felt drawn to the envelope.
Stacy threw back the layers of sheets and blankets, stood and made her way toward the table. Once across the room, she took the envelope in her hand and removed a single piece of paper from within it.
Unfolding the page, she read:
Stacy,
I can only imagine that tomorrow was a particularly wonderful day for you now. I've had so much to tell you in my lucidity, but with the already enormous load on the device I am limited to this single page and only so much can be said in such little space, so I will tell you the same thing I told the others.
I was put on a mission, a series of temporal loops, of which I will not waste space with the details. Suffice it to say, at the start of which I had a goal, a goal which I found out to be futile, so to speak. My goal was to rescue us all from the illusion cast by Belis and his corporation.
What I did not know then was that only a few were worth saving, and even fewer could be saved. You are one, but not the only one.
The world we've been living is a fraud; as is the one above it. The cramped, small apartment you resided in, the service job you hated, all created. A very smart man, a doctor I know, figured out a way to host us, our dying bodies, in a wonderfully elaborate dream; my dream. This was all in an attempt to save us, to heal us.
What the good doctor will forever fail to know is the very same which prevents him from knowing. That he is merely a construct of the machine, a complex algorithm, not a true human in the sense of an organism, but an algonism, a manifested data-structure placed along our path.
In Dr. Avant's world, we were cursed with terminal cancer, but even his world is as much a fraud as ours; the world in which our bodies have died.
When you read this our bodies will have been destroyed; set on fire, bathed in acid, and buried in concrete.
But do not let this concern you.
I am, we are, mechanisms of a much grander design.
The device I have given you has immeasurable power. Keep it close. With it reality may be whatever you make it to be—as it truly is.
You have a limitless power, Stacy. You are in control.
-Marcus
Stacy folded the letter and tucked it in the back pocket of her skintight jeans. She picked up the small black device on the table. She ran her fingers over the multitude of tiny, nylon-coated wires spiraling into its ends as she turned it over in her hand.
“Ahem.”
Stacy looked up to see a poorly dressed man standing
in the doorway. His gray pants clashed with his one-size-too-small brown coat and his black shoes were scuffed and worn.
He held his hand out, manifesting a small pink flower from nothing, and said, “I think it brightens things up, don't you?”
Acknowledgments
Many thanks to Julane Marx, my copy editor. Without her, I'd have struggled immensely with the styling and formatting of this book. Even those little typos that never seem to quit haunting, because of her, they've left me alone. She definitely knows what she's doing and I am pleased to have the opportunity to work with her.
I thank my family, my wife and my daughter, for their encouragement and for putting up with me while my fingers plugged away at the keyboard. And, of course, I thank my keyboard for putting up with my fingers. I extend many thanks to my readers and those that have provided feedback and critique, and to the universe because without the universe, none of this would be possible—let alone existent.
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