He stared up at the screen, legs starting to cramp from squatting. The surreal face there melted away into colors, and then back again, the entire effect a great swirling conglomeration of living, breathing tinctures. "Atmosphere," Frank said, not really knowing how to determine the significance of the word other than to simply utter it.
"It defines all understanding of the human race."
The human voice came from behind, and Frank startled at its intrusion. He rose up, the face on the screen still swirling from non-existent to barely solid, then spun around and immediately felt his stomach knot with loathe.
Bobby Lindsay.
Frank opened his mouth to speak, but could only stammer.
Bobby Lindsay stepped forward, and for the first time since his arrest he wore no sunglasses and had a thin growth of stubble on his skull. "I could ask why you're here, but that much is obvious."
"Lindsay, what is all of this?" Although Frank's fear and anger tore him to shreds, his curiosity held him together. "What defines the human race?"
"Understanding of the human race. Don't misconstrue the truth, Ballaro." Lindsay paced a silent circle about Frank until he reached the glowing screen. He stood in front of it, the landscape of intermingling colors and shapes providing an evil tapestry behind the boy. He pointed to the screen. The strange head-like entity appeared for a moment, then swirled away into an amorphous shape. "The Giver. His understanding of the human race. That object before you is an Atmosphere, but then again, everything here is."
"You're not making any sense, Bobby. You never did."
"Think about it, Ballaro. You must know a great deal about this place, about the Giver, to realize how significant the Atmosphere really is. The Giver came here through the Atmosphere, almost redefined it. It hid beneath it for a long time, utilizing its scope to scan us and our language. Haven't you turned on your radio and heard the pulse? That pulse, it is all hearing, all knowing of our ways of life. And it exists solely through the radio. And the radio, well, it's everywhere."
Frank thought about what Lindsay was saying, and even though he appeared mad, it made sense. If this Giver as he called it had initially scanned radio waves at its location beneath the hole it caused upon its entry into the atmosphere in an effort to learn of the human culture, it most assuredly would have picked up a great deal of programming on the sudden, unexpected event. Almost constant programming in fact, and not just from public radio channels but also from within shortwave communications from scientists who had eagerly moved to investigate the sudden phenomenon.
Frank placed a hand on his gun. The music in the walls grew louder.
"Don't move Ballaro, this is my domain." Bobby stepped forward, inches from Frank. He leaned down and grabbed the Atmosphere from the floor. "I am your Harbinger, and you are my Supplier."
Frank watched in terror as the object that had once been in his pocket started changing shape. Bobby rubbed it feverishly, black eyes staring maniacally at Frank, the blackness upon it changing into a spectrum of liquefied colors like those upon the screen. The screen grew brighter, the face now gone, giving way to thicker, more vibrant hues. The object melted from Bobby's grip, dripped to the floor like spilled syrup and seeped onto Frank's legs, quickly ascending them to his crotch. He stood there, frozen, afraid to touch the slithering mess. A warmth spread into his penis and testicles, a sexual-like warmth that he hadn't felt in many years, ever since Diane last pleasured him many years ago.
But of course it had no stimulating effect on him.
Frank was impotent.
The voice of the Giver emanated, its electronic timbre echoing amidst the muffled beating of the music. "Subject is unsuitable for harvesting. Recognize failure."
The mucky thing that had once been the object slid from Frank's crotch and flowed like a great blob of liquid mercury back into the hands of Bobby Lindsay. Frank watched in horror as the smile on Bobby's face, at first wide and proud, suddenly disappeared and gave way to a scowl of fear and pain. The object, still in its liquid form, started to spread, over his hands and wrists, like wash of driveway sealant. Bobby panicked, crazily shaking his hands up and down in effort to loosen the growing lump. No good. It swallowed his forearms, to the elbows. He rolled to the floor, started screaming in pain, as if he was on fire, trying to douse the flames.
The colors on the screen swirled fantastically, the voice speaking out. "Subject is suitable for harvesting."
Frank turned to run, had taken a few weakened steps when an exit suddenly appeared in the sleek jet wall. He quickened his pace towards it, stumbling, wanting to find Hector.
He heard another scream.
The scream of a girl.
Then he saw Harold Gross, first his bandaged head appearing through the ghostly doorway, and then the upper half of his body, now clad in hospital garb. He seemed to be struggling with something. He looked towards Frank and smiled a wide, incredulous grin that clearly stated, What the fuck are you doing here?
Then he pulled her in, one hand on her hair, the other wrapped around her neck, clearly choking her.
Frank's heart dropped, and in all his life nothing had ever daunted him as this did: his daughter Jaimie, his whole life, his very blood and soul, in this place, in the arms of a killer. In this moment of dread, fleeting images passed where he questioned some terrible conjectures; new, daunting mysteries like: how in God's name did Harold Gross escape the hospital? How did Jaimie end up in his grasp? What did Jaimie know about this place? Why was she here?
As serious as those questions were, they needed to take a back seat to the immediacy of the situation at hand, and how he planned to save her. He prayed inside— not to God, but to his three personalities and how they motivated him to traverse through this entire mystery unscathed, how they led him into and through each and every situation without so much a strained effort on his part. Everything had had a way of unfolding itself to his own benefit since the very beginning, and he prayed that it wouldn't stop now.
He kept his eyes glued to his daughter, her eyes tightened into tear-laden slits. He saw her mouth tremble in great fear but could not hear her cries through Bobby Lindsay's tortured screams and the pounding music emanating from the walls. "Don't worry baby!" he yelled, trying to assure her and himself that everything would be okay.
Harold Gross stopped his forward momentum, seemingly stunned at the sight behind Frank, a multitude of bloodied bandages dangling crazily from his face. Still holding Jaimie tight, he yelled, "What the fuck is this?" , then tramped forward, dragging the struggling girl with him. "I bring you a gift, and you let him supply? I want to supply."
With no warning he threw Jaimie to the ground and ran towards Bobby Lindsay, who was now nearly shrouded in a gelatinous veil of black slime. He yelled something incoherent at the Giver, its colors swirling frenziedly, then began to tear at the liquid Atmosphere ensconcing the screaming Bobby, whose arms reached out beneath the surface of black slime like tree branches lifting up from the surface of a tar pit. The Atmosphere responded, quickly sucking Harold into the fray. A loud slurping noise discharged, as if it were drinking him, and then a new set of screams followed.
Harold Gross finally got his wish. To supply.
Frank ran to Jaimie and held her in his arms, absorbing her sobs. Over her shoulder, he watched in horror as two siphon-like hoses formed from the body of the Atmosphere and encased the two men's abdomens, each lengthy tube whipping wildly about like eels out of water.
When the muffled screams beneath the exterior of the Atmosphere finally stopped, it automatically snapped out of its gelatinous form back into the familiar object Frank had come to know: small, black, shiny, six perfect spines emerging from its rounded surface. It tottered on the floor's surface like a dropped lid, then came to a stop, two tattered bodies twitching on the floor next to it.
Beneath the screen the small aperture appeared again, and from within the appendage slithered out and attached itself to one of the spines emerging from the At
mosphere. A whining noise ensued, and when it stopped, the voice of the Giver echoed in the dark, blue-lit chamber.
"The unit has been evacuated. Take the unit, seek out new Suppliers."
"Fuck you," Frank said, then quickly ushered Jaimie from the room.
Outside the black walls of Atmosphere, another war of sorts manifested, a dozen or so men with guns opposing a few hundred wilding street people with torches and minds gone askew. Bullets flew, some hitting their mark, others soaring astray into the night. From the opposing direction, an arsenal of weapons struck their targets: flames, rocks, pipes, anything hard andwithin a hand's reach. In the end, when all had been said and done, many lay dead, even more injured, the side with the numbers prevailing.
Lester, amongst the numbers, was also amongst the injured, a bullet leaving a charred path through his lungs. He lay gasping for air in the battlefield, looking peculiarly at a lone train car that had been upended. As its vision disappeared behind a wash of film across his sights, his life passed before his eyes. At that very moment his illness escaped his mind, and in return it left memories of the Lester that had once been loved, and had loved in return, a gentle caring man who had had a family, a job, and a sense of wisdom for life and all it had to offer.
He also remembered a time a long ago when he first entered this world with all hope to become a normal human being.
And with his last breath, he would leave it the very same way.
Frank and Jaimie fought corridor after corridor, each lengthy path identical to the next, its glossy black walls illuminated with a soft touch of blue. Instead of relying on their sights, they followed their ears, listening to the music, utilizing their hands to determine the growth of vibrations in the walls. Finally a storm of dancing lights came into view at the end of one tunnel, and they raced out, finding themselves on a platform twenty-five feet above pure chaos.
At first the scene looked much like it did when Frank and Hector had first entered the club: dancers writhing about, heads bobbing crazily, arms and legs tangled in spasmodic furor. Sheets of blue laser light bulleted out from various locations in the walls, each one pinpointing a specific dancer in the fray. Frank remembered the light that had washed over his body in the room of the Giver, and realized now that the dancers were also being scanned.
Subject suitable for harvesting...
Dear God, Frank thought. It's a mass harvesting of testosterone for fuel.
Then he saw beyond those still dancing, who themselves appeared oblivious to the carnage sharing the room with them. Bald sunglassed men, hundreds of them—the Giver's servants—mingled amidst the crowd. Some held the vile black objects in their hands, blindly seeking partakers, others had already found their subjects and watched with rapturous content as the teens surrendered their testosterone—and their lives. Screams erupted, some of pleasure, some of pain, many howls cutting through the incessant beat of the music. Blood coated the dance floor and continued to pool from those just beginning to supply, the dancers slipping and sliding through the sloppy surface, giant fingerpainting-like streaks forming beneath their feet, some losing their footing and splashing down into the gummy mess, all unaware of the impending menace.
And then the objects: hundreds of them it seemed, many in original solid form within the hands of the bald men, others taking on new terrifying conformations in the possession of the teens. Some ate through their stomachs, others encased entire bodies in a black shrouds. They moved, bubbled, gurgled, dripped, all seemingly possessing lives of their own, feeding on their victims.
From within the outer walls of the great den of iniquity, a multitude of writhing cable-like appendages emerged, each one poking about the massacre in effort to track those post-harvest objects reverting to original form, like post-holocaust animals seeking scraps of food. Once an object had been duly located, the appendages attached themselves to its choice of six spines on top, collecting the prize.
Pressing Jaimie's face into his chest, Frank stared dumbfoundedly into the anarchy, trying to absorb it as a whole entity rather than itemizing each daunting ingredient: bodies strewn everywhere, torsos shredded, blood, bile, and gristle forever seeping, pools flowing into one another, a great sea of pestilence formed in their marriage, steam rising, coppery odors, feces and urine commingling within, pure hell rising into a coagulation of rot and corruption, gurgling moans escaping throats gone dead, last breaths discharged from lungs now crushed, snake-like extremities prowling the cracks, slurping, sucking, swallowing.
Frank slowly crept along the catwalk, Jaimie inching along with him, each holding their sights from the pit below. Frank could feel the dampness of his daughter's tears through his jacket, tears caused not just from fear, but from the burning union of stenches rising up from below. In this moment when life seemed so distant, where the gates of hell had granted them full access to the devils fiery domain, Frank could listen to nothing but his heart. None of his personalities, the strong truth-seeking detective, the timid common-man, nor the irrationally impulsive tough-guy could ever prepare for such a hellish adventure. The man that now existed was pure Frank Ballaro, nothing more, nothing less, and it would be his heart alone that would assure safety for his daughter.
They edged around nearly a quarter of the room's circumference, the whole time screams of savage pain and howls of triumph rising up to torment their ears. Soon a stairwell leading down came into view. A few feet from the bottom of the stairs, just beyond a pair of disemboweled bodies, hung the curtain that Frank and Hector had originally entered through.
Suddenly a great horror struck Frank.
Hector.
Frank led Jaimie to the top of the steps. "We have to go down now," he said, as gently as he could, trying desperately to not let her hear the tremble in his voice.
Jaimie started to freak. She pulled her face away from his chest, her cheeks red, wet, and swollen. "Please," she cried, her head fearfully shaking back and forth. "I can't, I can't!"
She tried to pull away from her father, but he held on for dear life, dragging her down the steps. She stumbled along, screaming, her tantrum an uncontrollable storm. They reached bottom. Here the stench of blood and shit was ten times the worse, and Frank had to hold back his gorge. It was here that he also heard, even through the raging din of music and hellish wails of pain and pleasure, the voice of the Giver. But not just one voice. Many voices, a chorus of hundreds it seemed, all the same evil monotone.
Subject sufficient for harvesting...
The unit is full...
Seek out new suppliers...
Over and over and over, the voices continued, as if in stuck in some wicked, inescapable overload.
Frank eyed the curtain, still hanging and remarkably unblemished. He thought quickly of seeking out Hector in the fray, but chose to rescue his daughter instead, praying the whole time that his ex-captain had had the sense to flee this God-forsaken place.
He took a step towards the curtain, Jaimie hanging on his shoulder.
All of a sudden something unforeseen happened. The curtain tore away and from beyond an army poured in, led by a great black man with a bandana tied to his skull. He raised his arms and yelled in triumph, the throngs of homeless rushing around him into the fray like a swarm of ants past their stoic queen. Some carried pipes, others torches or baseball bats, and all others anything that would function as a weapon. They entered in a hypnotic frenzy of sorts, attacking anything in their way: bald men, unprepared for attack and primarily defenseless; injured teens, taken out of their misery; and then, the appendages, slithering back behind the safety of the alien walls. More blood flew, bodies fell in a congested Armageddon of sorts, piling atop one another, most of whom alive and slipping in the blood of the dead.
The Giver's voice boomed out, a new phrase, now, over and over.
Subject insufficient for harvesting. Recognize failure.
Finally the mob thinned at the entrance, and the only thing separating Frank and his freedom was the giant lead
er of the troops.
He struggled forward on weary legs, guided solely by instinct and his desire to save Jaimie's life.
The giant looked down on them, steadfast and cocky. Insane.
Frank remembered his gun, and would use it if he had to. Jaimie shuddered uncontrollably.
He put his hand on his weapon.
The black man leaned down, spoke softly in Frank's ear, breath hot and rancid. "Who is your God?"
Behind them, an explosion. A wall went up in flames at the far end of the dance floor.
Frank peered up at the great man, the ripeness of his body evident despite the harsh odors filling the room. Behind, a cluster of screams erupted from the pit. "There is no god."
The giant smiled and laughed, displaying his gold tooth, running a gentle finger through Jaimie's hair. "For if there was a God, he would save you, my child." Then, he stepped aside, granting them access to the exit. "Remember old man the one who spared your child's life," he exclaimed in self-proclamation.
"Come Jame," Frank whispered, looking up as thankfully as he could given the trying circumstances. He ushered Jaimie forward, staggering past the giant through the corridor and finally outside beyond the walls of Atmosphere. They ran through the fence and into the dark warehouse, taking each step with heed. When they finally stepped foot on the loading dock they found a battlefield in the trainyard, bodies strewn everywhere, the FBI surveillance vehicle on its side. In the distance, lights and sirens approached. Behind, another explosion.
Then, a shout. "Frank..."
Frank turned to see Hector approaching from the left, a wash of blood across his trench coat. "All hell broke loose and I had to get out. I'm sorry." He shot Jaimie a peculiar glance, the weary look on his face clearly conveying that his mind would accept just about anything at this time.
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