Soul Suites

by Hulden Morse

  “Yeah. It all comes back to those districts.”

  After hanging up the phone, Bob Seeker let out a big sigh. He suddenly felt overwhelmed. The situation was exploding into something that he did not expect from a widely trusted organization. He could potentially criminalize the actions of over one hundred publicly traded corporations. And behind it all was that single nonprofit: a lamb leading the wolves; a little girl leading the pedophiles; a socially aware organization leading the blood-sucking tycoons. Who would suspect that a mouse ate its family when there were snakes fleeing the scene? To be concealed as the one entrusted to protect was the perfect disguise. Why look like a murderer when you can look like a cop?

  Chapter 44

  The frightened man with the tattered clothes sauntered down the street with sweat on his brow and grease in his hair. He knew from where he had come but not to where he was going, relying on light from the moon to guide him far away from the anguish and despair that lay in his tracks. The future was mysterious, unknown, and it was that uncertainty that gave the frightened man with the tattered clothes hope that his life could hold something other than unfinished dreams and broken relationships.

  As he wandered down the sidewalk, feeling the slick of his forehead and the oil in his hair, the man noticed a street sign that was not completely straight. He stared at the object as though it were a symbol of the downfall of man. He was suddenly petrified that something so imperfect could exist within his world. The anal nature of his deranged mind took over what was once a functioning human, reminding the frightened man with the tattered clothes why he had fled his crumbling life.

  Stifling the painful ramifications of being labeled neurotic and retarded, the man rushed past the sign and feverishly played childish tricks on his mind to flush the image of that slightly tilted post out of his thoughts. He counted the cracks in the sidewalk. He traced a perfect line through the stars. He listened to the cars driving by and analyzed the make or model from the sound. Those distractions helped, until he came across an even worse infraction on perfect order and control. It was as if the entire universe was advancing its dive into total entropy, accelerating the plunge into disorder and chaos that caused a man of structure and numbers to fall into insanity.

  The frightened man with the tattered clothes came across a cemetery. The identical tombstones were laid in a beautiful pattern, forming rows and columns that could be discerned at any angle. It was immaculate, comforting for the man, yet there was a single flaw that destroyed every ounce of pleasure typically associated with works of such deliberate order and form.

  One gravesite remained unfilled. There was a hole in the pattern where a tombstone was missing and the ground remained undisturbed. The cemetery was short one body, a deficiency that rendered the entire Earth disgustingly unlivable, and the man simply could not rid his mind of the sight. He panicked. Perfection was so close that he could feel it welling up within his rickety bones. He could taste the sweetness of gratification, yet could not establish comfort within his own body until that grave was occupied.

  The frightened man in the tattered clothes heard a large truck quickly approaching from somewhere behind his field of vision. Without hesitation and with great conviction, he leapt into the street and was struck by the oncoming vehicle, splattering the ground with his tortured brain. The frightened man with the tattered clothes rolled to a stop with blood on his brow and asphalt in his hair. They found him with a smile on his face and a brightness in his eyes, for the last thing the man saw was the image of a uniform cemetery, perfectly stretching across the ground with every tombstone in its place and every gravesite filled.

  Ceaseless shaking brought Mr. Munich out of his dream and back into reality. He snapped his head back and forth until his eyes settled on the shadowy figure of Jake, standing against the bunk bed so that he was eye-level with his roommate.

  “Hey, man. It’s alright. Wake up. You’re okay.”

  Mr. Munich buried his face into his friend’s shoulder, seeking comfort in a building that had so little to offer. He softly wept into the grey material and remembered the suicidal thoughts that had inspired a dream of subconscious intent. Jake remained still as his roommate expelled burdensome emotions. He had heard the younger subject distressing on the top bunk from a torturous dream and had made the decision to rescue his friend from self-inflicted torment.

  After several patient minutes, Jake began to stroke the black, sweaty arm of his companion and offer him words of comfort.

  “Don’t give up, dude. We’re gonna get out of here. It’ll all be okay.”

  “I killed me,” Mr. Munich said through blurry eyes. “They told me I could. So I pushed the button, and I thought I was dead. Then I came back. They lied!”

  “You-you committed suicide?” Jake said, his brain spinning as it tried to make sense of what he had just heard.

  “They said I could. And I wanted to. So I did. But they brought me back when they said they wouldn’t!”

  The older man pulled Mr. Munich closer to him as he began to sob, holding him tight as he used to hold Abigail.

  Not a day went by when he didn’t think of her. There was a hole in his being, a gaping void that was a direct result of losing the person he cared about most. He had relinquished everything when she left, thrown his entire life into the gutter as a signal to the universe that he had surrendered. So much time had been spent creating something that never existed, and it was a mistake from which he never recovered.

  However, after meeting Mr. Munich for the first time, Jake felt as if he had someone to care for again. For the first time in forty years, he had someone that truly cared about him, wanted him, loved him, and most importantly needed him. Mr. Munich was a person to whom he could devote himself and protect. Jake would give his life to save that man and, in fact, that’s exactly what he intended to do.

  “Don’t you worry, buddy. I’m going to get us out of here.”

  Mr. Munich sniffled and pulled his head out of his roommate’s shirt.

  “You will?” he said.

  “Yeah. I’ve got a plan. We’re going to get out of here. We’ll be safe outside before you know it.”

  “We will?” the younger man said excitedly. “We’re gonna escape? You an’ me both?”

  Jake hesitated for a brief moment.

  “Yeah. You and me both.”

  He hated lying.

  The newcomer laid under the bottom bunk, sprawled across the ground with her shirt pulled over her head. Ariana knew someone else was in the room. She could hear the soft moans and unintelligible words coming from her mouth, yet she could not see the woman and was unable to interact with her.

  The subject was terrified, having just discovered that her eyes were removed by Dr. Raymond, and her only source of comfort was that the technicians would give her a roommate that could assist with daily necessities. Ariana had attempted to speak to this person she had been promised, asking her questions and requesting assistance with something as simple as finding a fork she knocked off the table, yet the woman remained unresponsive, lost in her own world created by mental illness, drug use, years of abuse, or any combination of external and internal factors.

  Meredith and Paul watched the pitiful scene through the small window in the door of room 36. They could barely see a foot and an arm protruding from under the bunk bed, with the new subject sprawled across the ground beneath the structure. Ariana was sitting at the table, staring straight ahead without a purpose in life. She had no way of looking at her featureless surroundings and so sat in total misery like a hollow tube instead of a human being. Occasionally, she would look around as if responding to a noise, but she remained seated at the table. The woman was trapped in a small room, blind, having nothing with which to interact or anyone with whom she could speak.

  “Is this really the roommate assigned to Ariana?” Paul said sympathetically.

 
“Apparently. Those were the orders from Outreach,” Meredith responded, continuing to stare through the window.

  “There had to of been someone else in that shipment.”

  “Only two females survived the first trial. And the other subject wouldn’t stop screaming, so we just gagged her and stuck her in a single room. Not even sure we’ll get any information out of them after the second trial.”

  “I still feel bad, though. Look at her!”

  Meredith chuckled and said, “You think she’s worse off than everyone else in here?”

  “I don’t know. It’s all relative. Some people do well here, others don’t. Pearson may be one of the worst-off ones just ‘cause he wasn’t homeless. He came from a nice life. These others might not even be used to sleeping in a bed with their own bathroom.”

  They stepped away from the window and headed toward the lower floor to check the day’s trial schedule.

  “You know,” Meredith said, “she survived a couple days on her own. She’ll be just fine a few more days. I wouldn’t worry about it.”

  “Oh, I’m not worried about it. I just feel bad we couldn’t get someone she could talk to. Even if they’re a different level.”

  “But Doc wouldn’t allow someone totally functional in there that wasn’t at the same point. Ariana’s a Level 3. Which honestly surprises me, but that’s totally beside the point.”

  “Yeah, yeah. I know what you’re saying.” Paul descended the stairs into an organized mess of guards and technicians preparing for the first trials of the day.

  Meredith followed. “Yeah. She could tell them everything she knows. That’s pointless. She either needs another Level 3, or someone that wouldn’t necessarily be all there so she couldn’t sabotage the other subject’s interviews.”

  “I know. But I just wish she at least had someone that could help her find the bathroom. It’s pathetic watching Ariana fumble around for the doorway.”

  “We’ll ask maintenance if they can put something over her window. Will that make you feel better, Paul? Then you won’t have to look at her.” Meredith smiled teasingly at her coworker.

  “Yes. That would be much better. Thank you.”

  “Plus, it’s not like she has any use for a window.”

  Chapter 45

  Charles had been taken to a place he did not wish to go. He was escorted down a hallway that ominously collapsed around its helpless victim. He was led into a room that spilled tales of gruesome actions performed in the name of science. And he was strapped to a table that stank of death. Charles had been there before, in that very position, fighting against those very restraints, and it made the grim situation ever more terrifying.

  The subject pleaded to the technicians to release him, citing his family as a reason to grant him safety and freedom. When the doctor walked into the room, the CEO again begged to be released, negotiating with the educated man in hopes that a deal could be struck since sympathy would not do the trick. Yet his offer was denied even a second thought. No one came to Charles’s rescue. No altruistic individual sprang into action, making a crazed appearance to defiantly oppose the trial. Instead, technicians—humans capable of camaraderie, humor, and even boredom at their unthinkable tasks—stepped back and allowed the doctor to place the electrodes upon the crying man’s bare chest, calmly asking the subject to relax and allow the people around him to do their jobs in peace.

  Charles had been kicked and shoved into a state of horror: one he feared more than anything. Total submission. He had been reduced to a sniffling, supplicating, desperate man that gave in to the powers of the facility by relinquishing any and all personal strength he had previously held. All self-respect was lost unto that man. What remained was an abused sac of organs. He was a dog chained to a tree while the hurricane raged outside.

  Oh, if his wife could only see him. No longer the once confident businessman she married. Snot ran out his nose and pooled on the table by his cheek. His children would turn away, embarrassed that their father did not possess the ability to hold his head high and tell the doctor to shove the electrodes up his ass. He was not the CEO of a large company. He was a leader of nothing. He was no one. He was a man that had given up.

  Only moments before, he had a plan to escape. The two roommates knew what the doctor was doing, they knew their purpose in that facility, and they had a chisel gifted to them by a disgruntled employee. Yet within minutes of each other, Damian was taken away by two guards and then Charles was led out of the room. They had a chance, the sunshine and endless sky had been waiting for them, just on the other side of those walls. But any flash of hope that had sparked within the men was quickly extinguished by the brutal reality that they were not in control. Their lives were hanging by a thread, and that thread could be snipped at any moment.

  In fact, it was about to end. Charles’s only hope was that he would come back after his death in order to carry out the escape plan.

  With the flip of a switch, Dr. Raymond sent the subject into violent convulsions, stopping his heart and ceasing the flow of oxygen. For all intents and purposes, murdering the man. He watched the vitals on the monitor drop until they were nonexistent. He and his team were burdened with their incredibly difficult mission.

  And while the task was underway with frantic yet deliberate movements, Charles was lost in a world of unfathomable beauty. This was not the typical magnificence of mountainous landscapes or rainbow meadows overflowing with flowers that reached so high they touched the sky. No, this was not the allure of a crystalline ocean that rolled in gentle waves beyond the Earth’s edge or of a dense forest altering its color palette from rich greens to bright oranges and warm reds as though all seasons could be witnessed in one day, like a view known only to a god. This universe had none of the traditional, earthly scenery that would be deemed breathtaking or jaw-dropping. Instead, he glided through fields of light that radiated from nowhere, emitted from a sun beyond space and time. The light that penetrated his body was imbued with yellow, a soothing edge that allowed him to follow the path of every beam extending around him. Occasionally, a wisp of what could have been a cloud (but seemed more like a thin fog) floated past and disappeared into the distant light, as if it wished to gently touch the newcomer in a display of welcome.

  As an invisible hand continued to guide Charles deeper into this unfamiliar universe, he began to notice other figures roaming in the vicinity. They seemed calm, as was he, and each person glanced at the surroundings with great intrigue and unfaltering peace. He gazed around his weightless being, looking at the fellow souls gliding past, when one of those beings turned toward Charles and slowly approached. He looked at her with total recognition. A face he would never forget. She welcomed him with a smile, something he had never witnessed before, and the man suddenly felt as if he were dreaming. It was obviously a very vivid dream from which he would soon awake. The things he was seeing, the perfect peace that had settled over him, could not possibly be real.

  All at once, the brilliant, glowing scenery quickly faded, along with that unforgotten soul, and the subject opened his eyes to find a woman in a surgical mask staring at him with concern.

  “Hey! Hey! Wake up! Wake up!” she yelled.

  Charles blinked repeatedly and looked around him. He was lying in the center of a very familiar room with a group of busy nurses and doctors running around his body. But wait, there were no restraints on him. The patient wiggled his hands and his feet, then tested the freedom of movement further with slow undulations of his arms and legs. He twisted his body to ensure that it was not a trick and that he truly was free to manipulate his own limbs.

  “Status!”

  “Heart rate tachy but coming down. Oxygen good. Blood pressure low.”

  “Sir! Hey, can you hear me? Look at me.”

  The man looked at the woman standing over him, staring into those fierce, blue eyes, and realized that he had no i
dea who that person was.

  “Patient’s alert. Doctor, I believe he’s stable.”

  “Good work, everyone! Well done.”

  Charles tried to sit up but was prevented from moving by a man on his other side. Just then, an individual with white hair and a silver beard stepped into view and introduced himself as Dr. Richard Goldstein.

  “Can you tell me your name?” the doctor asked.

  “Uh, uh, Charles Pearson.”

  “What? The Charles Pearson?” the man said in surprise, catching the attention of the other medical practitioners in the crowded room.

  “Yeah. I guess.”

  “My god. You’ve been missing for, for a while. Incredible.”

  “Where am I?” Charles asked.

  “You’re in Chicago Memorial Hospital. You were brought to us unconscious. Or rather, dead. We’re the code team.”

  “What? I’m-I’m not there anymore?”

  “Where?” Dr. Goldstein asked.

  “In that facility. The experiment.”

  “Uh, no. You’re in a hospital. You were brought in on a life flight. There were cops with you, though. They’ll know what happened.”

  “Shit. Holy shit.”

  Charles could not believe it. He was free. Somehow, by some immaculate stroke of divine intervention or dumb luck, he had been liberated from that prison. He was going home.

  Overcome with emotion, the patient began to cry. A nurse quickly brought over a box of tissues and told the man to relax, stating that they did not want him to stress too much for fear that his weakened heart would not be able to handle it. Charles fought to hold himself together and asked if he could contact his wife.

  “Of course,” the nurse said. “Of course you can. We’ll get a phone over here for you. But first, we need to figure out what’s going on. Apparently there was a crime committed and the police need to ask you some questions while it’s still fresh. Is that alright, sir?”