Soul Suites

by Hulden Morse

  “We told you not to take it off!” one of the guards yelled.

  Within moments, two technicians rushed into the small space and started barking orders at the large men holding the subject, working feverishly to detain the writhing woman in order to replace the bandages.

  “Hey! Hey!” Mr. Munich yelled from his room. “What’s happening?”

  The woman was dragged out of her room and pushed against the floor as she continued to scream with all her energy. The technicians were yelling for the guards to bring her to a surgical room so they could clean her up, but the men were having trouble maintaining a grip on the bleeding, struggling woman.

  “Ariana! Hey!” the subject continued to yell.

  Noticing the commotion going on, Jake left his bed to stand by his roommate, asking in a worried voice what was happening.

  Fearful for his friend, Mr. Munich began screeching at the wall, crying for Ariana to come back and asking if she were okay. Jake desperately tried to calm the frightened man, reminding him that the workers in the facility did not tolerate any loud noises.

  “Ariana! Where are you? Ariana! Please! Come back!”

  “Dammit, Mr. Munich, shut up,” Jake said to his roommate, stroking the man’s head in an attempt to relax his quivering body.

  They could hear the woman screaming from the hallway, but then a different noise caught their attention. Someone rapidly unlocked their door and forced it open, rushing toward the two men before they had a chance to react. A guard threw Jake against the ground and knelt on his back, preventing him from moving. Another guard grabbed Mr. Munich by the shoulders and pushed him against the wall, which caused the already petrified man to yell even more, much to the horror of his friend and roommate.

  “No! Leave him alone! He’s just scared!” the old man cried, but his pleas went unheeded by the brutish employees.

  Mr. Munich swung at the guard as he tried to fight the man off of him, but the guard was considerably larger than the subject and had no trouble dragging the twisting, turning body out of the room.

  “Shit! Stop!” Jake continued to yell from the ground. “Leave him alone! He doesn’t mean it! He’s scared! Be gentle!”

  As his friend was dragged into the hallway, he saw two other guards struggling with a woman in grey clothes. Mr. Munich yelled to Ariana, and the woman turned her head toward the source of the voice. That was when the subject saw that the person before him had no eyes. There were two dark holes on her face and drips of blood collecting at the base of the sockets. Unable to control his revulsion, he vomited on the carpeted floor.

  “Oh god!” the guard yelled. “Dammit. What the hell, dude?”

  Mr. Munich threw up again, much to the disgust of the man holding him, who called to the guard still holding Jake to come into the hallway and assist him. With the door to room 38 now closed, the two men lifted up the subject and carried him through the hall, down the stairs, and into a trial room. They removed his soiled shirt and strapped him to a table just as Eddie and Dr. Raymond hurried up to them.

  “The hell is going on?” the doctor said. “Radios have been going off like crazy.”

  “Disturbance in 36 and 38,” the guard said.

  “What? That’s it? Two rooms? What happened?”

  “Girl in 36 took her bandages off. This one was yelling and fighting us and made a mess, so we dragged him down here.”

  Eddie looked at Mr. Munich and then rushed out of the room to check the master schedule for trials. The doctor excused the guards and then walked to the subject’s side, patting him reassuringly on the shoulder.

  “Mr. Munich. What happened?” Dr. Raymond asked warmly, like a mother asking her crying child a question.

  “I threw up. I’m sorry.”

  “Oh, that’s okay, buddy. It happens.”

  “I-I saw the lady, and she had no eyes, and I just . . . I threw up. I’m so sorry.”

  “It’s okay, Mr. Munich. We’ll clean you up. Not a big deal. I’m sorry you saw her.”

  The subject began to cry as he talked to the man in control of his destiny.

  “Doc, please let me die. I don’t wanna live anymore. I’m done. I wanna die.”

  Dr. Raymond closed his eyes and took a deep breath, unsure how to explain the situation to someone in Mr. Munich’s position.

  “You know I can’t do that, buddy. I can’t do that.”

  “Please! I want to die!”

  Eddie came running back into the room and whispered something into the doctor’s ear. They paused briefly while the subject stared at them expectantly, the tension building in the room as the employees remained deep in thought.

  “Doc. Please!” Mr. Munich cried.

  Dr. Raymond stepped away from the Trial Technician and focused on the distraught man.

  “You know what, you have been here for a while,” he said. “One of our longest subjects. I think that says a lot for how healthy you are. You must have taken good care of yourself.”

  “I wanna die. I only wanna die.”

  “Okay, Mr. Munich. Okay. We’ll do just that. But you know, I’m not legally allowed to just kill you. You see, I have to revive you. It’s my job.”

  “Doc! Please!”

  “I know, I know. I want to help. So here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to let you kill yourself. This is your last trial.”

  “What? I-I—”

  “This is the end, Mr. Munich. You will not be revived. But in order for me to follow the rules, you have to kill yourself. You need to do it.”

  The subject stared at the doctor as if he were looking at him for the first time. The tortured man allowed the tears to flow freely as he realized that it was finally over. His time in that Hell was finally going to end.

  “I follow the rules, and you still get what you want. Sound good?”

  “Okay. Okay, Doc.”

  “Good. Now let’s get you hooked up. We sure are going to miss you.”

  Electrodes were placed on Mr. Munich’s body and attached to a large machine just as before. But instead of the doctor having a switch to flip, the subject was given a small box with a single button on it.

  “You see this?” Dr. Raymond explained to the man. “When you push this, it will shock your heart and it will stop. You will be dead.”

  “Forever?” an emotional Mr. Munich asked.

  “Yes. We will not revive you. You’ll stay dead.”

  “Okay.”

  “You know, you’re a very smart man. Most people don’t figure out what we’re doing here. But you did. You’re very smart. Now, this button is all yours. You have the power.”

  The subject looked at the button in his hand, staring at the dark object like it were a puzzle he had to figure out. But in actuality, the man was thinking of Jake and Ariana. He did not want to leave them. He so desperately wanted to die in order to be at peace, but he would sincerely miss his friends. They needed him.

  “Mr. Munich? One more question,” Dr. Raymond said. “Why is that your name? Is Munich your real last name?”

  The man swallowed, looked at the doctor, and said, “I-I once found a card on the ground. It had a pretty picture on it and pretty buildings. It said Munich on it. I decided that I want to go there. That was my dream. To go to Munich.”

  “I didn’t know that,” the doctor said with soft eyes.

  “But I didn’t know how to go there. I asked. But no one took me. I love Munich! I know I will be happy there.”

  “Well, Mr. Munich, this button will take you to eternal bliss. If you want to go to Munich, then that is where this button will take you.”

  Without hesitation, the subject firmly pressed on the box clutched in his hands and delivered 2 amps of power into his body for several seconds, sending his muscles into rapid convulsions that eventually ceased all motion. The man’s body fell
limp beneath the restraints, and Dr. Raymond confirmed with the vitals monitor that Mr. Munich was indeed deceased.

  After several minutes of silence, Eddie walked over to the doctor and asked, “Have these suicide trials given you any results?”

  “Not really. At least not yet. I was curious if they would see flames or something to that effect if they committed suicide.”

  “But nothing?”

  “Nope. Nothing out of the ordinary. Oh well. That’s how research goes. Some things work, some things don’t.”

  Dr. Raymond looked at the clock on the wall and said, “Oops, time to bring Mr. Munich back from his trip.”

  He immediately started chest compressions on the flat-lined subject. The heart was in asystole, an incredibly dangerous place to be, though a code that the doctor dealt with on a daily basis. He performed CPR for a couple minutes and then stopped to look at the monitor, noticing that there was still no measurable pulse. Eddie took over the compressions, while Dr. Raymond grabbed a pre-filled syringe of epinephrine and injected it into the patient, hoping the cardiac stimulant would be enough to restart the heart.

  They finally established a heartbeat that could be shocked into a stable rhythm, and the doctor grabbed the paddles of the defibrillator. Eddie stepped away from Mr. Munich in preparation of the shock.

  “Charge to 200 . . . three, two, one, clear.”

  The heart remained in ventricular fibrillation, providing no blood flow or oxygen to the body. The doctor charged the defibrillator again as Eddie resumed CPR. Dr. Raymond called for an all clear, and the technician quickly stepped away. The body jolted as a shock was delivered, but there was no change in the subject’s condition.

  “Come on, Mr. Munich. Charge it to 300.” The doctor then took over the chest compressions, pushing violently on the man’s body as sweat started to condense on his forehead.

  “Let’s do it,” Eddie said, holding out the paddles for the doctor.

  “Right. Charged. All clear. Three, two, one, clear.”

  The irregular rhythm continued. Eddie desperately pounded on Mr. Munich’s chest, while the doctor injected another round of cardiac stimulants. He looked around for another technician, hoping that someone would walk into the room and assist them. They needed more than two people to do the job. The men were becoming fatigued over the incessant CPR, and someone needed to remain focused on the vital signs.

  Dr. Raymond yelled for assistance, calling out for anyone in the area to rush in to their aid. He charged the defibrillator again, as Eddie sweated away over the subject. Elaine and Ramona came rushing into the room and were immediately sent to work by the doctor. Elaine took over the chest compressions to give her coworker a break, and Ramona stood by the monitor, calling out numbers to the team.

  “We’re charging again. You’ve been in Munich long enough, my friend.”

  Eddie slapped some gel on the paddles and handed them to his boss. The doctor called for everyone to step away from the body, and Elaine ceased her forceful CPR.

  He placed the paddles on Mr. Munich’s chest and called out, “Three, two, one, clear!”

  The irregular beeping of the monitor stopped for a split second and then resumed as a normal, stable heartbeat. The team of four congratulated each other and began to clean off their subject, checking him as the man slowly regained consciousness and began to look around the room weakly.

  “Interviewer. Where is my interviewer?” Dr. Raymond called to no one in particular.

  Ramona volunteered to ask the questions for the suicide trial, wanting to gain more experience with the different scripts they had to follow. The doctor made his way out of the room and glanced back at Mr. Munich to see the confused man, wide-eyed, staring at the Trial Technician like she were the devil.

  Chapter 43

  The two women stared at the files on the screen, neither one able to utter a word after absorbing the information that Jeff had provided them. Hamilton scrolled through the PDFs, while Pinner looked on in amazement, trying to fabricate any acceptable explanation for what she was seeing.

  After going through the last document, Pinner said, “You fuckin’ serious?”

  “Yeah. I know. Can you confirm any of this?”

  “I can confirm that we didn’t know about this shit. I’m telling you, I had no idea this was happening.”

  “I know. I trust you,” Hamilton said. “We need to contact someone. We need to call Bob.”

  “Who the hell is Bob?”

  “He’s the Audit Manager. He came with the IRS. I got his business card.”

  “What are you going to tell him?”

  “Everything.”

  Pinner looked worried, and Hamilton could see the terror in her eyes.

  “Look, I know this is bad. It puts the burden on us to prove our innocence. But we can do it.”

  “I’m the one responsible!” Pinner yelled as she paced the room. “I’m the CFO! It’s my responsibility to search for errors in all the financial crap. And I missed this! How the fuck did I miss it?”

  “Look, we all missed it. Not just you. This was never reported to us by those districts. There’s no way that we could have known.”

  “We did an internal audit!” she continued. “We checked on them! And. Found. Nothing! And what about the meeting? The fuck is that meeting about?”

  Hamilton buried her face in her hands. Pinner was right. It looked really bad. She thought they had done everything to determine if there were any issues within the company, but they had missed some huge clues. How were the districts able to conceal those glaring red flags? And when the government did find out about the financial discrepancies, how would they be able to prove their innocence?

  The assistant called Bob Seeker, an IRS Audit Manager leading the investigation into Reaching Dreams. He was a strangely funny man, with an eternal smile stamped on his face and an attitude that screamed rowdy bartender rather than government Audit Manager. His pleasantness almost made the torching and sinking of a large nonprofit seem a little more fun.

  “Bob Seeker here,” she heard him say.

  “Bob. It’s Paula Hamilton. From RD. I’ve got some information for you.”

  “Really?” he said excitedly. “Lay it on me.”

  “The tourism company, Noitacav, was donating a lot of money to RD, but hiding it from their annual reports.”

  “Okay. But do you have these donations listed on your end?”

  “No. I’m sitting here with Sandra Pinner, and she can confirm that we had no knowledge of this money.”

  “Well, I’ve got to ask it. Then how the hell do you know they’re giving you money if it’s not in any reports?”

  “I have a friend that works at Noitacav. He wishes to remain anonymous, but he gave me financial statements from the company.”

  “So, you’re in possession of stolen documents from a large corporation, and you’re telling the IRS? Damn, you nonprofit goons are honest.”

  Hamilton swallowed the knot in her throat. It was painful.

  “Uh, Bob? If these are factual statements that contain monetary donations to my company, then the public should have access to them.”

  “Well, shit in a sandbox! Right you are, Paula! Send them my way, and I’ll discern whether they seem legit, and if we’re able to proceed with these documents or not. If they are stolen, then I would suggest scrapping them and pretending we never had this phone call.”

  “Oh god. Well, okay, Bob. And, um, I already sent them to you.”

  “Shit! So you did. Alright, let me look at this.”

  She could hear him mumbling to himself as he read through the documents. But pretty soon the mumbling ceased and the phone was quiet. Hamilton was about to ask if Bob was still there when she heard his breathing grow stronger, deeper, and she knew that he was finally realizing how serious the entire investigation w
as.

  He finally spoke. “You don’t have any of this reflected on your end?”

  “No. And we did an internal audit of Chicago and found none of this money.”

  “Jesus.” His tone was much more serious. “I think I remember seeing the internal audit you did, but I’ll grab it again. With these documents, we should be able to legally search Noitacav.”

  “Okay.”

  “And what about this meeting in Florida? Says something about PIC DC. It’s apparently operating under Reaching Dreams. You know anything about that?”

  “No. Not at all. I’ve never seen donations from most of those companies.”

  “Sounds like you were left out of a pretty good party. These are some big companies here. Big names. Powerful. This document states that… god, I don’t know… maybe eighty, a hundred companies donated money to Reaching Dreams. You telling me you didn’t know about this?”

  “No, Bob. Sandra doesn’t know about this either. Something huge is going on, and we’re totally out of the loop. We are not a part of this!”

  “That’s not for me to decide,” the man said coolly. “The courts will deal with that. I’m here to compile as much information as we can. The fact is, Reaching Dreams and maybe some other companies are doing something illegal. I’m going to determine what that is and then do my best to help the judicial system determine who to fry. Damn, that was inappropriate. Determine who to blame. Don’t repeat what I said!”

  “Yeah, yeah. Okay, Bob.”

  “But I appreciate your help. I do. And right now, you can help me by telling me about PIC DC.”

  “I don’t know anything about it. It’s not a part of our company. It seems to be a front.”

  “Well, with the amount of donations it’s received, seems pretty real to me. You don’t know anything about it?”

  “I… I think the name stands for something.”

  “What?”

  “I think it’s an acronym that stands for Pittsburgh, Indianapolis, Cincinnati, Detroit, Chicago.”

  “You mean—”