The Reset

by Powell, Daniel

The last thing he registered was the love of his life struggling for a breath of air while the world grew fuzzy and then disappeared altogether

  .

  THIRTY-SIX

  Ben came to first. He blinked the world into focus in the cold gloom of the cell. His head was a sack of crushed glass, a bag packed full of jagged splinters.

  “Alice?” he slurred, groping for the form huddled next to him on the concrete floor. His hands were clumsy, his tongue swollen in his mouth.

  He swiped at his eyes and flexed his fingers. After a few long moments, he adjusted to the dim light and some of the dexterity returned to his fingers. He touched her face, relieved to find warmth there.

  He called her name again and the result, while not perfect, was an improvement.

  He put his cheek to hers. “Alice,” he whispered, finally getting the word right.

  She didn’t stir.

  He willed himself to stand, taking the measure of the cell. Thick iron bars, bordered on three sides by chipped, molding brick. There was a dank hallway and, on the other side, a series of similar cells.

  He took a deep breath. Jesus, how long had they been out?

  After a moment, he noticed the whispering. It was thin and constant—like static on the airwaves when the broadcasts had ceased on the television. The white noise was all around them.

  Ben went to the front of the cell. He pressed his face between the bars, trying to get a glimpse at the nearby cells.

  “Hello?” he called.

  The whispering instantly stopped; the silence was eerie in its totality. He called out again, but the only answer was a low and throaty chuckle coming from the shadows in the cell directly opposite theirs.

  “Where are we?” he said. “What is this place?”

  “Shhh!” the prisoner hissed.

  There was a moldy mattress and a tattered blanket and a hole in the corner where waste trickled down into a sewer of sorts. Ben touched the mattress and found it dry. He pulled it into the shadows, gathered Alice in his arms and placed her on the mattress. He sat next to her, stroking her hair as the whispering started again—this time more fervently.

  He listened, picking the occasional word from the river of despair: hopeless, revenge, death and hunger. Suicide.

  Rape.

  Time crept by; after many hours, she awoke and raised her head.

  “Ben?” she whispered. He saw the confusion in her eyes, and he kissed her and pulled her close. “What…where are we? How long have I been out?”

  “I’m not sure, Alice. Tranquilizers, I think. Nobody’s been down here yet, and there aren’t any windows.”

  He helped her stand and she took a few halting steps as the blood flowed back into her legs and feet.

  “Roan?” she said.

  Ben shrugged. He put a finger to his lips. “Listen?” he whispered, and Alice did. She heard them; there were so many voices it was impossible not to after you first picked them up.

  “Hello?” she said, moving to the front of the cell.

  The jail went dead silent again. There was a hoot. Then another, and another…soon, the din around them was deafening.

  Alice backed away, the fear plain in her eyes.

  “Silence!” a voice boomed. “You ain’t a pack of fucking animals, are you? Act like you’ve been around a lady before!”

  The calls died down and there was a shuffling in the dark. After a moment, a form appeared at the edge of the shadow.

  “Who are you?” the man said. Ben squinted, trying to make him out. Was he…was he sitting down?

  “My name is Ben Stone. My wife’s name is Alice. We’re…we’re looking for someone.”

  There was that throaty chuckle again. “Ain’t we all, Benny boy?” He pushed himself forward into the light, and Ben gasped. This man was sitting because both of his legs had been amputated. He had a tangle of long gray hair and a wild beard and bushy eyebrows. He was emaciated—so much so that Ben thought he could see the knobby ridges of cartilage between the man’s ribs. His skin was covered with scars and pockmarks, and when he showed them his teeth in a sickly smile (a smile that said Take it all in, stranger. I know how bad it must look), they were dark with rot.

  “What happened to you?”

  “Roan happened to me. He happened to all of us. He’s still happening to us—just a little bit more, with every passing day.”

  “What’s your name?” Alice said. Her voice had softened.

  “Browning. I’ve been down here a long fucking time. Judging by the looks on your faces, I guess you already gathered that. Let me ask you a question. Do you…do you know what season it is out there?”

  “It’s winter,” Ben said.

  “Is it all still—still dead?”

  Ben shook his head. “It’s getting better. We actually had a real summer last year. The ecosystem—it’s improving. Still plenty cold and it snows almost constantly when the weather changes, but at least it’s changing again.”

  Browning nodded. “I been down here so long that I’d flat out welcome that snow right about now. We’ve all…well, it’s impossible to keep track of the time down here,” his eyes went blank, and the man looked distant in that moment. “It’s been years, I suspect.”

  The focus returned. “Who are you searching for?”

  “A little girl. Her name is Lucy Lawton. One of Roan’s scouts kidnapped her a few days ago.”

  Browning shook his head. “Damn. You shouldn’t have come. You’re going to die down here. You, uh…you people didn’t understand what happened here in Atlanta?”

  “We did,” Alice said, “but that little girl is our responsibility. We had no choice but to come looking for her.”

  Browning drew a deep breath. He nodded. “I suppose you didn’t,” he replied, “but you gotta know that this is the end of the road for you. I’m sorry to say it, but you’re not getting that girl back. I doubt she’s even alive, truth to tell.”

  “Are you from here?” Ben said. He had to change the subject—still unprepared to hear the man’s speculations on Lucy’s fate.

  Browning shook his head. “Oh, I’m from lots of places. All of us are. Stayed in Boise more than anywhere else. That was after I lost my wife back in Oregon; I’m originally from Portland. Spent some time in Oklahoma and a few years in Virginia. There were survivors there that were doing some good things. Probably never should have left.”

  “Why did Roan put you down here?” Alice said.

  “I stole some food from one of his cantinas. I had people to look out for too, right? But he would have had me down here eventually, even if I hadn’t been caught. If you aren’t,” he gave a weary nod of the head, “well, if you can’t stomach doing Roan’s bidding, he’ll find a place for you in the stockades. That’s all there is to it. I’m just surprised to see a woman down here. He usually has…different plans for the gentler species.”

  Alice nodded. “Yeah, I’d heard that.”

  “There are hundreds in his jails,” Browning said. “All men, near as I can tell. This isn’t the only stockade in the city, you know. But all of these men…they were shut down here by Roan and Ms. Coral. Some did some pretty terrible things, I’ll admit, but mostly they just didn’t follow orders. You piss Roan off, you die. That’s the new world order.”

  Ben had to remind himself to breath. Alice stared at him, saw the pained expression on his face, and she took his hand. “Ben? Ben, honey, it’s okay,” she whispered. “We knew she might still be alive.”

  “Who’s Ms. Coral?” Ben said. He thought for a moment he might faint.

  “Roan’s woman. She’s worse than he is, you ask me.”

  “Jesus, Ben. It’s her,” Alice whispered. “It has to be.”

  Ben nodded. His color was returning.

  “How many are down here?” he said.

  “Fluctuates. Sometimes more than a hundred. Right now—probably about eighty or so. You heard all that carrying on earlier?”

  Ben nodded.

  �
��Folks’re happy there’s fresh meat. Incarceration day always means more for the rest of us. It’s kind of a stay of execution, I guess.”

  There was another series of raucous hollers.

  “Where do you all come from?” Alice called down the hallway. Silence. “Go ahead—talk! We’re from…from Southern Georgia.”

  “Lawrence, Kansas,” a tentative voice finally replied.

  “Genoa City, Wisconsin,” a hoarse voice called out.

  “Doylestown, Pennsylvania.”

  “I lived in Ventura Beach. Back before Southern California went radioactive.”

  “Myrtle Beach. Before that, I lived in New York City.”

  Places rained down on them from every part of the jail, weaving a tapestry of what had once been the world’s most powerful nation.

  When the last had spoken, Ben mustered the courage to ask his question. “What did you mean, Browning? That thing you said earlier about incarceration day?”

  “You haven’t figured it out yet?” he said, nodding at the stumps that remained of what had once been his legs. “It’s Roan’s sick idea of sustainability. He’s feeding us from our own bodies, Ben. Every time a new prisoner is taken into the stocks, we all benefit. Especially…especially when they look as healthy as you two. Hate to say it, bud, but there it is.

  “It’s the new world order.”

  Alice clamped a hand to her mouth. When she looked at her husband, she had tears in her eyes.

  Ben pulled her close and kissed the top of her head.

  “It’s going to be okay,” he whispered. “We’re going to get out of this, Alice. We’ll be okay.”

  He kept talking, kept trying to convince himself of the things he was saying, but he couldn’t bring himself to do so. His mind raced.

  Coraline was alive.

  He and Alice retreated to the mattress. Browning watched them a moment longer, then slid back into the gloom of his cell. The whispering started back up—first in trickles, and then in torrents, the mad ramblings of men that had been reduced to speaking to themselves while they waited for the horrors that awaited them at the butcher’s table.

  “It’s going to be okay,” Ben whispered, not even realizing he was now contributing to the bizarre cacophony that was the soundtrack of the stockades of hell.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  A short time later the dungeon abruptly went silent as a series of opening locks echoed down the hallway.

  People were coming.

  Footfalls on stone drew closer, the echoes bouncing down the corridor. Ben and Alice pushed their backs against the wall, trying to render themselves invisible while simultaneously curious about who might finally be coming. It was the first variation from the monotony they’d had in hours.

  A trio of men arrived at their cell—two armed jailers and a short man in some sort of a uniform; this little man held his hands clasped behind his back. He wore a condescending grin as he peered into their cell.

  “I see you in there!” he purred, the voice surprisingly deep for such a diminutive figure. “It’s all so depressing to see our resident Adam and Eve, just cowering there in the darkness! Come, Adam and Eve. Come into the light and share your strange and wonderful knowledge with us.”

  One of the jailers opened the cell and the little man stepped inside. That shit-eating grin still fixed in place, his eyes darted about the room. “Filthy, filthy things, these cells! Come on, you two. You’re expected upstairs. I must say, you have admirers in high places. You won’t be forced to dine on the swill with the rest of these savages. The cuisine,” he wrinkled his nose, “it’s just not very good. Am I right, Browning?”

  The little prick’s comments were met with silence. Ben helped Alice stand up and then they were out in the hallway. He spared Browning’s cell a quick glance as they left, and saw the man studying him with hooded eyes. Browning gave a little nod, and Ben frowned in response.

  “Quite the industrious farmers, you two,” the man said. “I’m Warden Merrick, by the way. I’ll be your jailer for as long as you’re in custody, and I’ll also be joining you at the head man’s table tonight. I have to admit, I’m thankful to you both for that rare treat.”

  They were herded down a corridor of abject misery. Men, many of them terribly disfigured from the effects of the Reset, watched their progress from their cells. A very few were whole. Most were missing at least one leg.

  One poor fellow pulled himself into the light with just a single arm. His torso was covered with scar tissue and he flashed them a toothless grin as they passed his cell. His eyes were mad—simultaneously deranged and knowing. It was uncanny, and Ben felt the flesh on his forearms pucker.

  They were almost to the door when a forlorn howl sounded from somewhere at the far end of the cellblock. It sounded like the coyotes Ben remembered from his years back on the ranch. Only their calls were beautiful. This one—it was desperate. There was a hard note of melancholy in it.

  As soon as it finished, the men loosed a tremendous response in unison. “WHOO!” they shouted, punctuating it with a slap of the stone floor. It was a guttural cry, and they seemed to draw strength from it. The jailers stopped and Warden Merrick shook his head in disbelief.

  He turned, infuriated.

  “More of that nonsense?” he shouted. “Really, Browning? Really? You too, Cook? You all just lost your chow for the night. I certainly hope that nobody’s hungry down here!”

  Merrick went to the nearest cell. A boy with one leg stood against the wall, watching the warden with scared eyes. “You too, Billy?” he said softly.

  The boy knelt. He settled himself on the concrete floor and locked eyes with the warden. “WHOO!” he shouted, slapping the floor defiantly.

  Cheers of encouragement raced up and down the cellblock. Anger flashed in Merrick’s eyes.

  “It’s coming,” Billy said in a small voice that had a strange calmness to it. “You can’t stop it, Warden. It’s coming, and there’s nothing Roan or anyone else can do to stop it.”

  “Guard!” Merrick shouted. “Take young Billy here to the galley.”

  “No!” somebody shouted. “Let him be!”

  “You bastards!”

  “Let the boy alone!”

  “Insolence will not be tolerated!” Merrick shouted. “You fools—you have no voice down here in the dark! You have nothing! Nothing!”

  A jailer sprung the boy’s cell. “Please,” Billy whimpered. “Please…don’t.”

  The guard took his arm roughly and yanked him up. It was pathetic, watching the kid—what was he, fifteen?—hop down the corridor in the opposite direction on his remaining leg. Prisoners spat at the guard. They shouted—jeers for the bull and words of encouragement for the now sobbing boy.

  “Your solidarity means your death!” Merrick shouted. “Don’t you see that? Mark my words, you pathetic cretins—I’ll execute every last one of you. You’re sick, all of you! You talk of rebellion!” He spat on the ground. “Who will rise against Roan when there’s nobody’s left, huh? When you are all gone?”

  This was met with silence. Ben could hear the warden’s angry breathing.

  “Guard!” he shouted.

  The jailer opened the door to the cellblock and motioned Ben and Alice through with the muzzle of his weapon.

  Merrick lingered in the doorway. This little man was filled with anger. Anger and hatred.

  “Lights!” he shouted, and the cellblock went pitch black.

  The door slammed shut behind them, and still it wasn’t thick enough to swallow the cries of sorrow and despair that chased Ben and Alice up the metal stairs.

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  They moved through the bowels of an enormous building. They climbed two flights of stairs before they stepped into a well-lit corridor tiled in industrial linoleum. Scores of men and women in uniform moved up and down the hallway.

  Ben looked straight at them as they walked, but these people refused to make eye contact.

  Perhaps every third woman lo
oked to be pregnant.

  They were paraded through a warren of guarded hallways until arriving at an expansive lobby. Merrick nodded at a man in a booth and the front doors slid open.

  A black limousine idled at the curb and a driver opened the back door. Merrick forced a smile and swept an arm to the opening. “By all means—our honored guests first.”

  Alice sighed and took Ben’s hand, and they slid onto the leather seat. The cabin was warm. A thickly muscled man with a black buzz-cut and a telephone earpiece sat, one leg nonchalantly crossed over his knee, on the opposite bench. He wore tailored slacks and a crisp white dress shirt.

  Merrick dismissed the guard and slid in next to Alice. He nodded cordially at the big man, who returned the gesture and smiled warmly at Ben and Alice.

  “I’m Wade Marks. I’m the head of security for Mr. Roan. You two—forgive me, but I have to ask—you two didn’t come to Atlanta to hurt Mr. Roan, did you?”

  Ben shook his head.

  “I didn’t think so. Farmers, aren’t you?”

  This time, neither of them moved. It was dangerous, maybe even fatal, to give anything away at this stage of the game.

  Marks refreshed the smile. “Play it your way. Roan can be pretty persuasive. He’ll find a way to convince you to share with him.”

  The man shifted his position, crossing his other leg. The smile vanished and he stared at Ben with curiosity. “You,” he said, frowning. “You present an interesting dilemma. Let me ask you a question. Is that okay, Ben?”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Coraline. Coraline Prentis. Does that name mean anything to you?”

  Hearing her given name was like a blow to the chest. He licked his lips, tried to keep his composure. “We grew up together. We were…we lived on Calvin’s ranch as children.”

  “I appreciate your honesty. It’s commendable,” Marks said. “Please. Raise your shirt.”

  Ben did. After missing so many meals, the ridge of scar tissue looked particularly grotesque against his lank ribcage.

  “Fascinating,” Marks said. “Still ticking, after all these years. Do you think it still works?”