Dying Memories

by Dave Zeltserman

  “You know me, huh?” Bill said. He held out his bug detector as if it were a Taser. “Then you better fucking move over. And I’m only asking once.”

  Schlow complied. Momentarily stuck as he tried moving his heavy body across the console separating the two front seats, he freed himself, and after a few painful grunts was able to maneuver himself onto the passenger seat. After handing over his car keys, Schlow suggested to Bill that he stay calm and not do anything rash.

  “Shut up.” Bill pulled the Range Rover out of its spot, and then out of the parking lot and onto Vasser Street, heading in the direction of Boston. He noticed Schlow peering curiously at the bug detector that he was partially hiding with his hand, as if Schlow were trying to decide whether it was in fact a Taser.

  “Is that really a Taser?” Schlow asked with an uneasy smile.

  “I said shut up.” Bill felt the muscles in his jaw hardening, his teeth grinding. He gave Schlow a quick look before facing front again. “How do you know me?” he demanded. “From the news, or did the good folks at ViGen send out a memo?”

  “The news, of course. I don’t know what you mean by ViGen. What are they supposed to be—”

  “ViGen Corporation,” Bill said, shutting his passenger up. “You work for them, so don’t bother with this bullshit.”

  The Range Rover slowed as they approached traffic. Schlow continued to eye the bug detector Bill held. “I don’t believe that’s a Taser,” Schlow said. “What’s to stop me from getting out of my car right now?”

  “You could try it, but I’ll run you down in the street no matter where you try going,” Bill said matter-of-factly. “Right now I’m talking to you nicely, but I have no problem beating the truth out of you if I have to.”

  Schlow tensed up for a moment, then exhaled loudly, his breath coming out in the same sort of rush as if he’d been punched in the gut. He sat back in his seat, his color also the same sort of queasy white as if he’d been punched. “Okay, you’re right. I do research for ViGen Corporation. How is that any concern of yours?”

  “How? You’re kidding, right? Ever since I got involved with reporting on the Gail Hawes shooting and looked into Trey Megeet killing one of your fellow ViGen researchers, Tim Zhang, they’ve bugged my car, attempted to kidnap me, as well as tried to inject me with God knows what, and now they’re framing me for a home invasion and murder. How’s that?”

  “What do you mean they tried kidnapping you?” Schlow asked, his voice catching in his throat.

  Bill laughed sourly. He could feel his grimace tightening on his face. “A van pulled up when I left my apartment a few days ago and one of your thugs threw me into the back of it. Waiting for me inside was a freakish looking dude with a very pink face. You know who I’m talking about, right? He tried injecting me with something using a very big hypodermic needle, but was interrupted when the van was broadsided by another vehicle.”

  Schlow’s heavy lids lowered as he watched Bill. His color paled even more, giving his flesh an almost rubbery look. “And why do you think ViGen is doing all these things to you?” he asked.

  “Because I know they’re performing illegal human trials,” Bill said. “And I know that they’re not working on a super flu vaccine. That that is only a front. ViGen’s really a military operation, aren’t they? And what they’re working on is some sort of fast-acting brainwashing drug, right?”

  Schlow rubbed a large white hand resembling a lump of lard across both cheeks and mouth leaving small pinkish spots behind on his skin. “Mr. Conway, I really only know about you through the news, but this does explain quite a bit. Please pull over at the first opportunity and I will tell you what I can. You must believe me that it is of utmost importance that you understand what’s really happening.”

  “If this is some sort of trick, trust me, I can outrun you.”

  “It isn’t a trick.” Schlow showed a sickly smile. “And nothing I tell you will be able to help you with the police. I will later be denying all of it, and they will not believe you. Even if you’re recording this I will say that I was only trying to humor a madman, but that would only be if your recording made its way to the police, which we both know it wouldn’t. Certain people we’re both aware of would make sure of that. But it is critical that I explain to you what is happening.”

  Bill slowed for a moment, then pushed hard on the gas making the Range Rover jump forward as it sped up. He first pulled onto the Mass Pike, then kept the speed just under eighty miles an hour until he got off in South Boston where he turned down one deserted street after the next until finally arriving at an empty parking lot. The lot was for a warehouse that had been shut down years earlier. During the drive, Schlow tried once again to implore Bill to pull over, but the look Bill gave him stopped him cold. There was nobody in sight where he stopped the car, probably nobody within a mile from where they were.

  Bill shut off the engine and turned to Schlow. “Go ahead,” he said. “Tell me what you know.”

  Schlow looked flustered. He tried giving Bill a patronizing smile but it failed to stick. “You’re right about some of it,” Schlow said, “but only some. ViGen’s mission has been to build a vaccine that can intelligently recognize mutations of a flu virus and vigorously attack it. An unfortunate and unforeseen side effect cropped up that has created a completely different application, and along with it, a new set of partners who are, quite frankly, very scary to work with. I’m sure these are the people you’ve had the misfortune to encounter.” Schlow stopped for a moment to squeeze his eyes with his thumb and index finger. When he took his hands away both his eyes showed red. “Do you know what nanotechnology is?” he asked.

  “Yeah, I’ve been reading about it,” Bill said.

  “So you know it’s building very tiny structures. Sub-molecular structures, actually. You probably also know that it’s my field of expertise.” Another heavy breath, then, “Specifically I’ve been building what can be thought of as nanometer-sized robots, which are called nanorobots. These function to analyze cells so that they may be recognized as flu viruses. These nanorobots are injected into the bloodstream where they roam through the body searching for flu viruses and killing them on detection. While we built in what we thought would be a method to retrieve them from the body, we miscalculated, as well as miscalculating on how these initial nanorobots would perform.”

  “You admit ViGen is engaged in illegal human trials?”

  “Yes, of course.” Schlow smiled guiltily. “I wish that wasn’t the case, but we have done so. Not my idea, by the way.”

  “And Trey Megeet was one of your early guinea pigs?”

  Schlow nodded.

  “Why did they want him to kill Tim Zhang?”

  “They didn’t.” Schlow let out another heavy breath. “That was a result of a quite unexpected side effect. The nanorobots we built reacted within the body in ways we couldn’t possibly have anticipated. They attacked the cerebrum, creating results that are really quite spectacular in their own right. You see, Mr. Conway, what we accidentally discovered with these early versions of our nanorobots was a way to create a very unique form of psychosis, one in which our test subject experiences an alternative and parallel consciousness. Think of it almost as splitting the person in two, with one path triggering scenarios that create homicidal tendencies. With Trey Megeet, the path that was split out formed a delusion of Dr. Zhang driving the car that killed his wife, and that was as real to him as if it had happened. How and why this side effect occurs we still don’t fully understand.”

  Bill shook his head slowly. “I don’t believe you. It doesn’t fit with what’s been happening.”

  Schlow smiled sadly. He reached out to gently touch Bill’s arm, but the look Bill gave him caused him to pull his hand back. “It’s important that you believe me,” he said. “Somehow a very dark branch of national intelligence was brought into the picture, and they’ve been working with us on ways to weaponize this early discovery. For whatever reason they seemed
to put quite a bit of value in being able to create this random but homicidal psychosis in their test subjects.”

  “This is bullshit,” Bill said.

  “No it isn’t. I suspect they injected you with this psychosis-inducing drug when you were brought into the van, and whatever schism with reality that occurred has you believing that a car crash saved you.”

  “That’s not a delusion. It happened.”

  Schlow’s smile turned condescending. “And you just happened to walk away from it unscathed? What were these highly trained intelligence operatives doing as you escaped? Sitting on their hands and watching you?”

  “One of them tried shooting at me,” Bill said, distracted.

  “Where did all this happen?”

  Bill shook his head as if he were trying to shake away the idea of what Schlow was saying. He heard himself murmuring to Schlow that it happened in Medford.

  “In a congested area, correct? How come there were no witnesses to the car crash, if it indeed happened?”

  “They were able to clean it up.”

  “Please,” Schlow said. “The spooks I’ve been seeing in and out of ViGen are clearly good at what they do, but they’re not that good. Nobody is. I’m afraid, Mr. Conway, that you’re a victim to this drug, and that you’re living an alternative reality outside of your current consciousness. This other reality is one where a homicidal rage has been unleashed. I’ve seen the progress that they’ve made with this drug and I doubt that you would have any awareness of this other side of you. It’s imperative that you turn yourself in to the police before you kill others without ever knowing that you’re doing it.”

  Bill felt a hotness burning his cheeks as he stared at the MIT professor. The patient way Schlow was now smiling at him was maddening; as if Bill were tied up in a straightjacket. “You’re lying to me,” he said in a half-whisper. “I have emails from someone who knows about ViGen and has been confirming everything that has happened.”

  “That’s all part of the psychosis you’re suffering. You mentioned something earlier about a fast-acting brainwashing drug. No, that’s not what this is about. While the homicidal aspect to the psychosis is predictable, the rest is completely random. They knew that you would kill, but not who. They had no idea that you would end up severely beating your ex-girlfriend and murdering her fiancée. But you see, who you killed didn’t matter, since it put you out of the picture.”

  Bill stared hard at Schlow. “I guess this explains why I have such a strong urge to kill you right now,” he said. Schlow blanched at that. Bill’s eyes narrowed as he kept staring at the MIT professor. “Get out of the car.”

  “Please, you need to listen to me. There were witnesses to what you did. According to the news your ex-girlfriend, and also your current one…” Schlow stopped, his thick eyelids lowering as he nodded to himself. “You believe that they were brainwashed,” he said. “They weren’t, Mr. Conway. We’re not developing that type of technology. That’s not what this is about. You’re a danger, Mr. Conway, both to yourself and to others. You will kill again without ever being conscious of it. Please, let me help you.”

  Bill smiled slightly, his jaw muscles taut. “You almost had me there,” he said.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Your story, the way you told it, how sincere you’re trying to be,” Bill said, his voice soft but with a violent harshness cutting into it. A pulse started to beat along his left eye. “But where you screwed up, or really where ViGen screwed up, was with Gail Hawes. Her killing Kent Forster wasn’t some random event caused by a psychosis-inducing drug. Whatever you guys injected her with, it was so she would do what she did. That was where you guys screwed up. The drug wasn’t meant for her. It was meant for Janet Larson. A neighbor who looks like her. She was the one with an eleven year-old daughter named Jenny who was murdered, and she was the one that ViGen wanted to brainwash to kill Forster. If it wasn’t for that screw up, maybe you might’ve convinced me I was going crazy, or at least planted a seed of doubt in my mind.”

  Schlow appeared flustered for a moment. He held his large white hands out to Bill so that his palms were showing in an imploring gesture. “Don’t you see that that’s all part of the psychosis,” he said. “Your memory can’t be trusted, reality has been skewed and jumbled up within your brain, events have been changed and resequenced. That’s all part of the psychosis.”

  “Get out of the car,” Bill ordered.

  “Please listen to me,” Schlow tried to explain. “I’m just a scientist, a cog in the machine. I have no real stake in what’s going on at ViGen other than being given the opportunity to put theory to practice. There’s no reason for me to be lying to you—”

  “Get…out...now.”

  Schlow’s mouth closed and he reached back for the passenger side door handle, then nearly fell backwards onto the pavement after opening the door. He caught himself and was able to safely maneuver his large pear-shaped body from the car. Standing outside, Schlow gave Bill one last imploring look.

  “Please, let me help you,” he said.

  “Sure. You can start by emptying your pockets,” Bill told him.

  Schlow’s shoulders slumped. Resigned, he took a wallet and cell phone from his pocket and handed them to Bill, as well as some loose change. When he was done he had his pants pockets pulled inside out to show they were empty.

  “Satisfied?” Schlow asked.

  “Hand me your jacket.”

  Schlow took a step away. “It’s cold out,” he complained. “I’ll catch my death of pneumonia.”

  “Hand it over or you’ll catch your death when I run you down and take it off your corpse.”

  Schlow eyes shifted left and right, as if he were trying to decide whether to make a run for it. Then accepting the futility of his situation, he reluctantly handed over his jacket. He stared glumly as Bill searched through the pockets and took out a security card. Bill tossed the jacket back to the MIT professor.

  “What’s the access code?”

  “Four-one-nine,” Schlow said without hesitation.

  “You’ve got at least a three mile walk to civilization. I could drive to ViGen and still be back before you’re able to leave the area. If I have to ask you again I’ll do it after breaking both your legs.”

  Bill caught a calculating look in Schlow’s eyes as he tried to determine whether he’d be able to walk to help before Bill could return from ViGen. Bill interrupted his calculations by leaving the Range Rover and approaching him. The MIT professor stumbled backwards as Bill came closer, almost falling over before catching his balance.

  “I could make this easier,” Bill said. “Why don’t I just tie you up until I check whether the code you gave me works?”

  “You don’t have to do that,” Schlow said, his expression growing grimmer, the calculating look gone leaving his eyes dull. “Seven-two-four-eight.”

  Bill got back into the Range Rover and drove away, leaving Schlow where he stood. He knew it would take Schlow at least a half hour to walk to a phone or thumb a ride from a passing vehicle, and he also knew a half hour wouldn’t be nearly enough time to drive to ViGen and use Schlow’s security card to get inside, but it would give him more that enough time to drive to where he needed to go and ditch the Range Rover. Bill gave the security card a wistful look before shoving it absently into his pants pocket.

  An uneasiness wormed its way into Bill’s gut as he thought about what Schlow had told him. He had to agree with Schlow that it didn’t make much sense for the MIT professor to be lying to him, but then again not much made any sense since he had fallen into this mess. He tried to picture himself killing Karen’s fiancée and then beating her to near death. There was still a lot of anger there, but he couldn’t imagine himself doing something like that even if it was a psychotic version of himself. He had to believe that Schlow was only messing with his head. At least he had to hope that was the case.

  As he drove he gave Schlow’s cell phone a cursory look to see whi
ch phone numbers had been preprogrammed into its speed dialing, then took the money out of Schlow’s wallet, counting a hundred and twenty dollars, and after memorizing Schlow’s home address from his driver’s license, tossed the wallet out the window.

  Chapter 51

  Bill lay on a pile of dirty rags. He had his eyes closed, pretending to be asleep as he listened for the approach of an oncoming van. Earlier that night he had rubbed dirt and axle grease over his face, hands, and through his hair, as well as over the beat-up clothing he wore. He wanted to give himself the appearance of someone who’d been living on the streets for a while.

  A rush of heavy footsteps caught Bill’s attention. He started to look up. Something hard struck him in the jaw and snapped his head back. Stunned, he struggled to get onto his feet and was kicked again, this time under his left eye, the force of the blow knocking him back to the ground. A familiar raspy voice drifted down to him. “Fuck you, mothafucka, fuck you.”

  Bill tried again to stand. His jacket was yanked over his head and something hard cracked him on the top of his skull and he fell back to the dirt ground. He didn’t exactly lose consciousness, but with his eyes clenched shut he saw stars exploding amongst a bright flash of colors. His jacket was pulled off of him. Hands were on him next, pawing and searching and grabbing at him. The stench of the person was overpowering. Like onions and rotten garbage. That raspy voice laughing and cursing at him. Everything becoming so dizzy… and that smell…