A moment later, they were hauled to their feet and taken away without their video equipment, which was quickly confiscated, and soon Jimmy’s room was quiet and without a trace that Katie had ever been there.
Chapter 11
"Our society is run by insane people for insane objectives. I think we're being run by maniacs for maniacal ends and I think I'm liable to be put away as insane for expressing that. That's what's insane about it." ~ John Lennon
Still somewhat groggy, Jimmy fell asleep and early that same afternoon, he was visited by a well-dressed man with a briefcase. Jimmy immediately recognized him as a lawyer. He was tall and thin, with dark hair that was just beginning to gray at the temples and appeared to be somewhere in his forties. Jimmy thought he had a shark smile and was immediately wary of the man. Dr. Dan introduced him, but seemed to do so reluctantly, as if he had no choice.
“Jimmy, this is Mr. Collins,” Dr. Dan said. “He has some papers for you to look at.”
The man simply nodded at Jimmy. “Thank you,” he said to Dr. Dan in a thin, reedy voice. “I’ll come find you when we’re through.”
Dr. Dan stood there for a moment, and Jimmy could see that he obviously didn’t want to leave the room. Finally, Dr. Dan frowned and walked to the door. “Jimmy, the call button is there by your left hand,” he said, pointing to Jimmy’s bed. “I’ll be just down the hall.”
“He’ll be fine,” Collins wheezed. “This won’t take but a few minutes.”
Dr. Dan left the room without acknowledging Collins, and Jimmy felt his senses shift into high alert. Collins set his briefcase down on a steel cabinet and opened it. Through the disinfectant, Jimmy could smell cologne and the unmistakable odor of a man’s sweat. Collins removed a folder and with unsteady hands began to riffle through the papers and laid them out on the foot of Jimmy’s bed. He made three piles, counted them, and then returned his attention to Jimmy.
“You are a lucky man, Mr. Logan. I wonder if you know how truly fortunate you really are?”
“Yeah,” said Jimmy. “I suppose those goons could’ve killed me.”
“Can I call you Jimmy?”
“No.”
Collins smiled and pointed two long fingers at Jimmy, as if the two of them had just shared a secret joke. “Very well, Mr. Logan, I’ve got good news for you. We’ve decided to drop all charges against you and your friends. You and Ken are free to leave here just as soon as you’ve healed up from your bumps and bruises. How does that sound?”
The announcement took Jimmy’s breath away. He had drifted off to sleep imagining a long trial and a lengthy sentence. He suddenly began to reevaluate his opinion of the odorous attorney. “What’s the catch,” Jimmy asked, narrowing his eyes.
“The catch?” Collins asked, looking up at the ceiling and shaking his head as if he were speaking to an idiot. “The catch is that you get to walk out of here a free man after taking part in one of the largest killing sprees this country has ever known. The catch, Mr. Logan, is that President Richter would like this ugly little incident to go away. The American people have enough on their plates. You sign a few waivers and do another interview, and you are free to go on with your life.”
“What do you mean, another interview?” Jimmy asked. “I just did one. I don’t have anything to add to that.”
“You will do another interview, Mr. Logan, or you’ll be charged with capital murder, and you can take your chances in a court of law. The choice is up to you.”
Jimmy stared at Collins for a moment and forced a smile. “So, when do we do this interview?”
“Soon,” Collins wheezed. “Within the hour.”
A short while later, Jimmy was dressed in a loose-fitting running suit, painfully lifted from his bed and transferred into a wheelchair. A large woman with jet-black hair and sky-blue eye shadow appeared in his room and introduced herself as Naomi. Without further ado, she began combing Jimmy’s hair, and he received his first professional haircut in nearly two years. Jimmy tried to make small talk, but Naomi was full of one-word answers. While she remained polite, she was all business. Satisfied with the haircut, she began to lightly apply makeup to Jimmy’s face. The entire operation lasted under half an hour, and without fanfare Naomi wheeled Jimmy out of his room and down the hall.
After a silent elevator ride, Naomi rolled Jimmy into an oak-paneled conference room. The room was a flurry of activity, and hardly anyone seemed to notice him, except for Ken Dahlgren.
He got up from his chair at the conference table and waited for Jimmy to be rolled over to join him. “Jimmy,” he said, smiling. “You look like shit.”
This caught Jimmy off balance, and he began to chuckle. Laughing hurt his bruised ribs, and he clutched his middle, but the chuckles continued. “You look pretty shitty yourself,” Jimmy replied. “I love what they’ve done to your nose.”
Ken continued to smile as his fingertips traced the new ridge at the bridge of his nose. “I like it, too. I think it adds character to my face.”
“I’ll leave you two alone,” Naomi said, nodding her head. “You look like a matched set.”
“Thank you,” said Jimmy, watching the big woman trundle off to a chair on the opposite side of the room.
Ken returned to his seat and offered Jimmy a plate of hospital cookies. “They ain’t bad,” he said. “Can you eat?”
“We’ll see,” Jimmy said, choosing one of the sugar cookies. “Man, it’s been a long time,” he added before taking a small bite. He chewed slowly and found that everything inside his mouth still worked. He also found that he was ravenously hungry.
“What have they told you?” Ken whispered. “Have you heard anything about Patty? Listen, don’t say anything to screw this up, okay? We’ve got to get out of this dump and find the others. All they’ve told me is that they were taken to the Monroe Institute. Did they tell you that?”
Jimmy nodded and reached for a second cookie. “Yeah, have you ever heard of it?”
Ken shook his head. “No, but they tell me that it’s just outside of Minneapolis. We’ll find it.”
“How are we going to get there?”
“We’ll be taking my goddamn Mack,” growled Ken, staring at Jimmy with fire in his eyes. “We’ll have to come back for the Tahoe. I’m going to have to get her into a shop.”
Jimmy nodded, wondering if any body shops were even back in business. He also wondered what had happened to the Mack. He and Ken had been transported to a hospital in Duluth, which was nearly seventy miles from where they had been arrested. There was also the question if Patty was even still alive. The mere possibility caught Jimmy like a sucker punch.
Ken saw the doubt in Jimmy’s eyes and pointed a finger at Jimmy. “Don’t even think it. She’s going to be fine, and we’ll figure out what to do after we round up our people. We’ll walk to Minneapolis if we have to. I’m sure Julie is worried sick about you, and poor Patty has to be going out of her mind by now.”
Jimmy nodded again. He could see fear in Ken’s eyes, and it was something completely foreign to him. Jimmy looked away as Ken brushed away a stray tear. The room was buzzing with activity. This interview would be much different that their earlier one. From the looks of it, they were pulling out all of the bells and whistles here. The chairs of the rectangular oak table had been removed, except for the one that Ken sat in and one directly across from him. Jimmy assumed this was where their host would sit.
A moment later, Jimmy’s jaw dropped when the door opened and a dark-haired, stocky man strode into the room as if he owned it. He looked vaguely familiar to Jimmy, but he couldn’t place the man’s face. The man was well dressed and wore gold jewelry, which Jimmy assumed was the real thing. Fiftyish and average looking, he wore slicked-back hair that had receded well above his forehead. He stood and stared at Jimmy and Ken as if they were cockroaches.
“I can’t believe it,” Ken whispered. “It’s Thrill Melbow.”
Jimmy nodded his head. Ken had been a big fan of the conservative
radio talk-show host, as had many of the men who had worked at Dahlgren Industries. Jimmy had started out as a fan of the show, but over the years the man’s slanted message had worn thin on him. A small throng had gathered around Melbow, and it was clear he was unhappy about something. “He looks like a jerk,” whispered Jimmy.
Ken’s eyes narrowed. “Listen, just follow my lead and don’t say anything liberal, do you understand me? We’ve got to get out of here just as fast as we can. Don’t screw this up, kid.”
Jimmy nodded and sat back in his wheelchair. Ken’s words had struck a nerve inside of him, and he didn’t trust himself to respond. Jimmy was suddenly suspicious of the spectacle that was about to take place and thought about that for a moment. Again, Melbow glared back at Jimmy from across the room with an irritated expression. Jimmy was suddenly certain that Melbow was here to do damage control and that he would spin whatever Ken and he said to fit his purposes. Collins now stood next to the talk show host and held a sheet of paper out for the both of them to read; they seemed to be going over a battle plan.
This angered Jimmy and he could feel adrenaline flowing into his aching muscles. They’ve got no right to spin our story, he thought to himself. There was something wrong here, terribly wrong, and Jimmy wanted nothing to do with it. He watched as Naomi powdered Thrill Melbow’s puffy cheeks as he continued to talk to the vulture, Collins.
“Don’t even think about it,” hissed Ken, leaning over and blocking Jimmy’s view of Thrill and his entourage. “Do not go against the grain, do you hear me? He’ll chew you up and spit you out like a cheap steak. He’s the best, kid. That’s why he’s here. That ought to make you feel good. They thought enough of us to send out the best in the business.”
Jimmy forced a smile and nodded his head. He thought about what was about to happen and about what was really important. Ken was right—they needed to get this over as quickly as possible and get moving to Minneapolis. They were over a hundred miles away from the ones they loved, and God only knew how they were.
Chapter 12
“Doctors will have more lives to answer for in this next world than even we generals.” ~ Napoleon Bonaparte
Patty
Dr. Simon Botch surveyed his classroom and glanced up at the clock with anticipation. Today was a big day, not only for him, but for the entire country. He forced himself not to smile as he waited to break new ground in the name of humanity.
She had been strapped into a wheelchair and dressed in a clean hospital gown for the occasion. Patty Dahlgren was pushed into the triple-tiered classroom of the Monroe Institute by a dark-skinned man dressed entirely in white.
“That will be fine,” Dr. Botch said. “Just park her there, and I’ll let you know when I need you to return.”
The man nodded and quietly walked out the door at the back of the classroom.
Botch was one of only a few remaining transplant surgeons west of the Mississippi and had been selected to train the new crop of fresh faces that sat before him. Times had changed, and medical science needed to put old idealisms behind it and forge ahead. Those who had refused to renounce their Hippocratic Oath had been systematically eliminated by the new regime.
The large classroom was well lit, smelled strongly of disinfectant, and nearly a hundred medical students sat in the tiered sections that had been laid out in a horseshoe design. Botch walked over to the unnamed woman in the chair and placed his hand on her shoulder. “Good morning, class,” he said. “Are we ready to harvest some organs?”
There was a stunned silence in the room, and Botch had been expecting that. He smiled and moved in front of the donor. “This woman is catatonic and is already showing signs of significant atrophy. Part of this class is learning to let go of what we practiced in the past. The organs inside this woman’s body will soon start to fail, which is the medical equivalent of watching fruit rot on the vine. Many lives can and will be saved by adopting this new code of ethics. We are dedicated to saving lives, not preserving natural death. Does anyone have a problem with that?”
Dr. Botch’s question was met with more silence, which he had also been expecting. These students had been indoctrinated with the new teaching materials which relied heavily on following orders and keeping with the herd. Failure to do so had serious, permanent consequences. Botch smiled and nodded his head. “Good. Now, what can you tell me about this woman? Who would like to step forward and give her a brief examination for the class?”
Nearly a hundred hands shot up in the air, and Dr. Botch smiled again. He pointed to the center of the first tier of students to one of his favorite students, Haley Bend. “Haley,” Botch said, “come on down, and I want you to speak up and give the class your medical opinion of our patient. I’ll give you the floor for five minutes.”
Haley Bend smiled; she and Botch were in the middle of a torrid extramarital affair and had actually spent the previous night together. She was young and beautiful, but also a gifted student with steady hands and no misgivings about the new direction medical science was heading. She stepped down to the floor of the classroom and confidently made her way to stand next to Patty Dahlgren. She and Botch exchanged a brief smile before the blonde beauty turned and faced the class. “This,” she said, pointing to her patient, “is a perfect example of what we now know as a useless eater. Am I wrong?” she asked, turning to Botch.
“Indeed not,” Dr. Botch said. “Please continue. You’re doing fine. Just pretend that I’m not here.”
Sonya Chen sat in the upper tier and felt her stomach roll as Haley Bend continued on with her examination. Sonya had been railroaded into the organ harvesting program by her uncle who worked for the Institute, and she had regretted it for weeks. Sonya knew in her heart that there was no way she could follow along with this new trend in medicine. She was hoping to hang on just long enough to save a few lives before being weeded out.
Sonya stared down at the poor woman in the wheelchair and pretended to be interested in what the teacher’s pet was spewing to the class. She despised Haley Bend, who was certainly sleeping with their instructor, another person she hated with a passion.
Sonya had just turned 27 and had graduated at the top of her class from the now defunct University of Minnesota. She wore her black hair cut stylishly and turned heads with her trim physique and Asian good looks. She sat in her chair with her laptop computer open to divert her attention. They were about to kill someone today, and she was being forced to sit and watch it. Sweat trickled down her armpits as she nervously went over her options. She had been prepared to make her stand right there and then, but something told her that now wasn’t the time. She didn’t know why she felt that way; she only knew that she could feel it growing inside of her. She watched as Haley Bend concluded her examination and sauntered back to her seat at the front of the class. She watched as two orderlies unstrapped the woman from her wheelchair, stripped her naked, and callously placed her on the cold steel of the operating table.
“I want you all to get up now and come down here to the first tier. You’re going to want to see this first-hand. What you have to remember is that this woman is our medical hero. She is going to save a lot of lives today. We’re going to begin by harvesting her corneas.”
Sonya stood up and felt her stomach churn in protest. She was about to be sick, and she had to get out of that classroom. She held her hand to her mouth and charged out the back door behind her, unnoticed, as everyone else was already moving in the other direction.
Thankfully, the women’s restroom was just outside the door, and Sonya barely made into the stall before her breakfast exited her stomach. She hung her head over the toilet and retched. Just then, in the middle of her second wave of nausea, Sonya knew what she had to do. She forced her stomach to expel what remained and wiped her hand across her pouting lips. She quickly flushed the toilet and charged back into the empty corridor outside the classroom. She looked to her left and then to her right. There, fifty feet from where she stood was the fire al
arm. Without stopping to think, Sonya sprinted to the little red box mounted to the tiled wall and quickly threw the switch.
Red lights flashed and the alarm rang loud enough to wake the dead. Sonya only hoped that she was in time. She ran back to the door of the classroom and like a shadow quietly blended in with her fellow students as they nervously filed out into the hallway.
Patty Dahlgren, lying helplessly naked on the cold steel of the operating table, breathed a heavy sigh of relief. Although she could not speak or use her limbs, her mind was clear and sharp. She felt as if she had been asleep and that if they’d only give her time, she would regain the use of her body. She was now a prisoner inside that body, and she knew that she had just cheated death by the barest of margins. Patty silently thanked God and continued to pray.
Chapter 13
“Morality, like art, means drawing the line someplace.” ~ Oscar Wilde
Thrill Melbow continued to stare across the room at Jimmy as if he could read his mind. With the cameras in place and the room wired for light and sound, the technicians quickly tested their equipment one last time as Thrill seated himself across from Jimmy and Ken.
“Thirty seconds,” called a voice from behind Jimmy.
The room was hot, and the air had grown stale. The smell of sweat and disinfectant was almost enough to make Jimmy want to vomit. He was nervous and felt exactly as he had before a fight. Thrill Melbow was the sharpest knife in the drawer; Jimmy knew that much about the man. There would be no winning a battle of wits with this man; he would have to wait for an opening and take a shot. Ken might never speak to him again, which was a risk Jimmy was willing to take. He wasn’t going to go on national television and lie to the American people. Not today.
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