“What the—” I started, before falling flat on my face and passing out.
* * *
I woke up back in my cell again. I’d been dumped unceremoniously on the cold floor and left to nearly drown in my own drool. I sat up and wiped the corner of my mouth. I was having trouble focusing and my head was pounding. Whatever he’d injected me with, it was damn powerful.
I stared down at the bracelet. It was smooth and silver, with no discernable cracks or hinges. I don’t know how they got it on or off, but it annoyed me.
I heard steps coming down the corridor. Laying down and pretending to be unconscious was probably useless; I was sure they had several security cameras focused on me at any given moment. So, I just sat there, waiting for the guards to arrive.
To my surprise, it was my father who appeared in front of the cell.
“I feel like we got off on the wrong foot earlier,” he said to me.
“You kidnapped and then drugged me. I’m not sure how we could have gotten off on the right foot,” I replied.
He shook his head. “These are just precautions, Eddie,” he said. “To protect you from yourself.”
“Oh, the last bastion of the fascists. ‘It’s for your own good.’ Jesus, what Kool-Aid do they have you drinking and how can I make sure to avoid it?”
My father sighed and rubbed his temples. “You don’t understand. That’s okay, though. I can make you understand.”
“That sounds ominous,” I said. “Did you practice saying that in front of a mirror?”
“You’re incapable of taking anything seriously, aren’t you?” my father asked.
“Most of the time. I’m taking this real seriously, though, I promise.”
“You have a strange way of showing that,” he said.
“Well, that’s because I don’t really take you seriously,” I said with a grin.
He sighed again. “We’ll just have to try this again later, I suppose,” he said, pressing a button on a wrist band he wore around his left wrist.
“Wait, hang on a—” I started before the bracelet around my wrist injected me again, knocking me out once more.
* * *
I woke up. Again. In my cell. Again.
“This is becoming needlessly repetitive,” I said.
“Stop acting like a petulant child, then,” a voice said.
I looked around, but couldn’t find the source of the voice. That’s when I noticed there wasn’t really an “around” to look at. I was in an empty, formless void.
“Oh, hell,” I muttered, or maybe I didn’t since I didn’t have a body here. I didn’t really even have a here here, to be totally honest, but if you start going down that path, your brain will just eat its own tail like an ouroboros and you’ll find you’ve got completely insane.
Logical Me appeared, and once he was there, it’s like he’d always been there. There was never a time he had not existed in that very spot, because Time™ was a meaningless concept.
“You’re thinking yourself in loops again,” Logical Me stated primly. Everything this version of me did was done primly. It could hardly be otherwise.
“All I want is to be knocked unconscious once and not have to deal with you two assholes,” I snapped at the logical version of me.
“And the good people of Hell want ice water, but they won’t be receiving that anytime soon,” Logical Me retorted. He always had a good retort ready to go. It wasn’t really fair.
“Look, I’ve had a rough few months, so maybe we could just skip to the end where you tell me what you came here to tell me and I can wake up and get on with my life?” I said.
Logical Me tsked. “No sense of propriety. Fine, I suppose I can ‘skip to the end,’ as you put it.” He fixed me – or the space where I thought of my body as occupying – with a stare and said, “You are screwed, Edward Hazzard.”
“Well, don’t beat around the fuckin’ bush,” I grumbled.
“I’m sorry, but it’s true. No matter what happens next, your life as you now live it is over.”
“I know, I know,” I said, irritated. “Look, I get that you’re a part of me, okay? I know you’re my analytical side, given form by sleep deprivation or traumatic brain injury or whatever. You don’t gotta spell out every shitty thing that’s going to happen to me.”
“Actually, that is the entire reason I exist,” Logical Me replied.
“Just…just go away,” I said. “I’d prefer to be alone right now.”
Logical Me started to fade from vision, or whatever simulated vision I was currently experiencing. “Very well. But know I am waiting, just a thought away.” With that, he was gone.
And replaced by Feral Me.
Feral Me was Logical Me’s polar opposite. Where everything about Logical Me was proper and organized, Feral Me looked like he’d spent a month living in a cave, during which time he had chosen not to shave or shower or even change clothes. His hair was long and unkempt, matted and greasy. His beard was patchy and stuck out at odd angles. And his clothes…I was fairly sure if he took his clothes off, they would still stand in the exact same position as if he were still wearing them. Thank God there wasn’t a sense of smell here.
“Yer fucked, boy-o,” he growled at me.
“Dammit, you, too?” I snapped.
* * *
When I woke up, the guards came back and dragged me down to the room to see my father again. He wasn’t sitting down this time; rather, he was standing, staring at the wall, his hands clasped behind his back.
“Eddie, do you know what the Armageddon Seed Project is?” he asked without preamble.
“No, but it sounds ridiculous. Is it designed to torture horticulturists?”
“You’re being petulant,” my father said calmly. That infuriated me, mostly because (1) he still hadn’t turned around and (2) he wasn’t wrong. “The project is about bringing about a new form of warfare, and we’ve been testing it right here, in Arcadia.”
“Wait, I thought you were testing your super soldier thingie here in Arcadia with Cornwallis and Albertson,” I said.
“Oh, you found out about Albertson?” he asked. He finally turned, and I could see something glinting in his eyes. “I’m particularly proud of that soldier.” He started walking a circuit around the room. “But yes, we were doing both the super soldier project, as you call it, and Armageddon Seed here in Arcadia. We’ve actually been doing all of our secret projects here for years. Decades, really.”
“That sounds like complete bullshit,” I said. “How could a whole town not figure out what you were doing?”
“Because everything in this town was engineered to fit our needs,” my father said. “Every person who lives here has been fed a history that is completely fabricated. Every day, you wake up and wander the streets like little automatons, helping us collect data on our projects.”
I laughed. “So you’re telling me the federal government of the United States, which couldn’t figure out how to have astronauts poop in space in a way that wasn’t amazingly inconvenient or gross, has somehow managed to keep an entire city cut off from the rest of the country and completely, totally isolated, just so they can do some military testing?” I laughed again. “That’s some crazy foil-hat conspiracy bullshit right there, sir.”
“Oh?” said my father. “Then what’s today’s date?”
“It’s Wednesday, March 12th,” I said.
“What year?”
“Oh, it’s…um…” Shit. What year was it?
“You don’t know because we didn’t think it really mattered if you knew what year it was,” my father said.
“That’s insane. I’ve just suffered from too many concussions, that’s all,” I said, rising to my feet.
“We didn’t give you the year, and we didn’t tell you where you are in the country. You’re also programmed to feel sick at the notion of leaving. Didn’t you notice that when your friends suggested it?”
“How did you – never mind, this is all just ridiculous head games
you’re playing. I don’t know why you think this is fun, but I’ve had enough.”
“Everything about your life here is my doing. The economic collapse from a couple of decades ago? My doing. The decay of Old Town and the rise of Downtown? Me. I created a whole city with its own history, disconnected from the rest of the country, so I could try out my new toys. That’s how powerful I am, Eddie. That’s what you’re up against. Don’t you get it?” He came up close, leaned in toward me, his eyes afire with some inner supernova of crazy energy. “Arcadia is mine. You are mine. Nothing you do is of any significance.”
“Geez, I didn’t realize someone who was over six feet tall could have a Napoleon Complex, Dad.” I stepped back from him, put a bit of distance between us. “Don’t you worry about what might happen if someone finds out? Or if your conditioning breaks down? Vera didn’t seem to have any trouble leaving town for a couple of years. And Xavier…well, he just went crazy, I think.”
“Oh, there are always going to be anomalies,” he replied airily, waving a hand dismissively. “But in the grand scheme of things, they are minor blips on the radar. Hardly worth concerning ourselves about. Not with the Armageddon Seed already sown.”
“Ugh, that metaphor is pretty rough, Pops. Think you could maybe dial it down a bit?”
My father laughed. “Eddie, you don’t understand. The soldiers of the future have been created, here, in Arcadia. They already exist. Nothing can stop them. The proof of concept is here, and once I show the powers that be how effective they are, we can seed them anywhere. Imagine, if you will, an army of unstoppable super soldiers marching across the land of any one of our enemies. Imagine Russia, or Iran, or North Korea falling to our overwhelming might! No one will be able to stop us!”
“Whoa, easy there, killer, you’re starting to end sentences in exclamation marks,” I cautioned.
My father had turned away from me again while he was monologuing, but he whirled back around to face me. “You don’t understand. Of course, you don’t. How could you? You’ve been stuck here for too long. There are only two solutions, my son.”
“Are either of those letting me go and forgetting we had this little reunion?” I asked hopefully. “I’ll be happy to send you a Father’s Day card in June if you like.”
“No, either we wipe your memory and start over, or you stay here for the rest of your life.”
“Hey, I’m kinda fond of at least a couple of my memories. Could we not do that one?”
“You’re welcome to remain here,” my father said. “It’s not what I’d prefer, but we would be close once again. I’m sure we could have more…chats.”
“That just sounds great, really,” I said, backing away from him, “but I was kinda hoping there was a third option, maybe one that didn’t involve turning my brain to mush or keeping me prisoner? Maybe just let me go with a warning and a slap on the wrist?”
My father shook his head and chuckled. “No, Eddie, I’m afraid that won’t be possible. And, honestly, the more I think about it, the more I realize we can’t lose you as a test subject for this project.” The door behind him opened, and my guard contingent returned. “You’ll have to get reconditioned now, I’m afraid, before we send you back out.”
III.
They marched me back down to my cell, which had changed a little since the last time I’d been there. There was a bed now – a cot, really – and a tray with a small meal that looked like it’d come from some soldier’s MRE kit.
“Eat that. Someone will be down here to take you to get reconditioned in an hour,” the lead guard said. Before I could respond, the door was closed and my contingent of guards was gone.
I slumped down onto the bed and poked at the food on the tray. None of it looked particularly appetizing. Or cooked, for that matter. “Hard pass,” I mumbled, tossing the tray onto the floor and curling up on the cot. This was it. Soon, they’d come get me again and drag me off to get my brain “reconditioned,” wiping out everything I knew about their experiments and about the city of Arcadia. I wasn’t quite sure what my father meant when he said he didn’t want to lose me as a subject, but the idea made me shudder regardless. What insane science experiment had he put inside me? What hidden horrors lurked in my DNA?
I had to say, I was still rather astounded by some of my dad’s revelations. Arcadia was an experiment itself? Everyone in town was part of the experiment? The town’s history, the horrible debilitation of Old Town, the decaying refuse that the residents of that benighted borough had become…it sickened me to think my father had done all that on purpose. It was inhumane.
“I have to get out of here,” I muttered. Could the cot be used somehow, or the food tray?
I got down on the floor and picked up the food tray. It was made of a flimsy recycled paper, almost like cardboard but not nearly as resilient. That would be no good.
The cot was sturdier, but the metal pipe construction was too tough for me to take it apart in any capacity. The fabric was loose, though, and I was able to tear a small hunk of it away.
I sat there on the floor of my cell with a piece of cot fabric in my hand, unsure of what to do with it or myself. I noticed one corner of the cot’s pipe was bent sharply, so that it came to a slight point. I looked between that point and the tip of my finger. “Well, since I don’t have a pen…” I said, then jammed my fingertip down on the metal point and ripped a ragged hole in my finger.
It hurt like hell, but I had the ability to write out a short message to myself. I heard booted footsteps coming down the corridor again, so I scribbled my message as quickly as possible and stuffed it into my pants pocket.
None too soon as well: the guards appeared, guns held at the ready once more. I was handcuffed and led out of the cell once again, only this time we went down the stairs after the door instead of up. They led me into a room where a chair, a small table covered in medical instruments, and a bizarre-looking headset dominated the middle of the room.
Against the back wall stood a bank of computer servers and a monitor and keyboard setup where one young woman was busy inputting data. She turned when we came in. “Is this the specimen?” she asked, a big grin on her face. My lead guard nodded and led me to the chair, where I was strapped down and secured. A technician came into the room and connected the headset to my head, making sure all the leads and diodes were attached to the proper spots.
Once everything was ready, the woman by the computers tapped a couple of buttons and the headset over my head started to glow. “Any last requests?” she asked, the big grin still on her face.
“Yeah, don’t do this?” I said plaintively.
She cackled and turned a dial by the servers.
Electricity exploded through my brain. There was a blinding-white flash, a searing-hot pain behind my eyes, and then darkness.
IV.
I’m in my office, a bottle near at hand and a killer headache forming. I try to look at the bottle, but my vision is swimming. I take a long pull straight from the bottle; it’s whiskey, and it goes down…well, not smooth, exactly, but with a minimum of coughing and dying. Everything seems to come back into focus again with that bit of the hair o’ the dog, and I sit up a little straighter in my chair.
My secretary comes into the office, Miss Williams. She keeps her blonde hair cut so short, her head reminds me of a tennis ball. She’s short and fiery and keeps the whole office running.
“Any calls, Clarissa?” I ask.
“Not yet this morning,” she replies, handing me a fresh cup of coffee and taking the bottle of whiskey out of my hands, “but it’s still early.”
I take a thankful slug of coffee, feel the warmth ooze down my throat. “Well, things are bound to pick up.” Miss Williams has been my secretary for years. I don’t know where the agency would be without her.
I stand and stretch, pat my pockets and find my pipe. “I’m going out for a smoke,” I tell her.
“I’ll keep my ear open for the phone,” she says cheerfully from her de
sk in the anteroom. I shrug on my jacket and head out of the office and up the stairs to the roof.
Up on the roof, I light my pipe and puff away at it for a few minutes in silent contemplation. The wind has picked up a bit, bringing clouds in from the east. It’ll probably rain tonight. I look out over the city and think, Arcadia’s a bit of a pit, but it’s my pit. I stuff my hands into my pants pockets, notice a piece of something in one of them. I pull it out, but don’t recognize it. Fabric of some sort? It’s obviously been torn off of something by someone who didn’t have scissors or a sense of decency. There’s blood splattered across it, but I can also see someone’s written something on it, also in blood. It’s just three simple words:
Find Vera Stewart.
Eddie will return in The Armageddon Seed.
Acknowledgements
This novel was mostly written during November 2019, or NaNoWriMo. I got about 37,000 words knocked out before the end of the month and finished off the other 11,000 or so in the week that followed.
This was, in many ways, one of the easiest novels to write. It started quick on the heels of finishing book 5, An Ill Wind Blows, and the words seemed to just flow out of me when I sat down to write.
But books are not solitary creations. Or, well, not just solitary creations. They require, as do children, a village to raise. Here’s my village:
My wife, Michelle Branco, who keeps encouraging me to write the books and refuses to read them because she does not want to break my spirit if she happened to not like them (but how could that even be possible, you ask? I don’t know and I’m too afraid to ask).
My mom, Cheryl Simmons, and her mother, my Grandma Betty, always ask about the books and check in on me while I’m writing them. I appreciate their support.
My dad, Ron Cottrell, and his mother, my Grandma (or “Regular Grandma,” as we called her sometimes), are also ardent supporters. Grandma is probably my number one fan, though she tells me she’s glad I don’t curse as much as Eddie does (please don’t anyone tell her otherwise).
My editor, Danica Sorber, continues to help me make sure I didn’t put in too many commas or repeat words too many times like I have a tendency to do when I leave off in the middle of a sentence and come back to continue writing it later.
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