Mind Hive

by Jake Berry Ellison Jr

  “Well, goddamn it. It won’t be up to me. Go see if there’s anyone here.”

  “We have hours.”

  “Jesus fucking christ you son of a bitch, I know! But the fucking goddamn phones don’t fucking work! Find out if any fucking one is here and if they have any fucking idea how to run the motherfucking presses or find someone who does! Okay?”

  “Right! Yeah. On it!”

  Fucking journalists, Adam thought. Dumber than a post about the simplest things, can’t fill out a time card to save their lives, but they can skim several hundred pages of complex legal jargon, make three phone calls and write a twenty inch story in three hours or less that changes the world. He loved them with all of his heart and soul.

  Meanwhile, the noise from Kristi’s office was reaching hurricane strength. He saw her out of the corner of his eye, unwilling to commit a full look, throwing papers, folders, books, her keyboard, which circled around at the end of its cord and smacked her on the shoulder. Her keyboard again with more force onto the floor. She ripped a backpack off the coat rack and held the arm strap of it in the air like a doctor might a newborn by the leg and started stuffing her jacket into it, a handful of pens and a yellow legal pad. Just as Adam turned to go to her, she burst out of the office, door banging open, and slung the backpack over her shoulder.

  “I’m walking!” Her eyes wide with adrenaline and not focussing on any particular object. Adam tried to stop her, put his hands out to catch her shoulder.

  “Your having a fit!” he declared.

  She swept him aside and barreled on.

  “That’s nearly five miles.”

  Her back straight with determination, she pounded toward the door.

  “It could be dangerous out there! Let me send someone with you …” Obviously, there wasn’t anyone to send on a long walk into god knows what, not really. He looked around, sort of desperate to stop her but then sort of unwilling to try to stop her. Kelli and Ken both had enough extra weight on them to make walking more than a mile a very strenuous exercise. Besides what would any of them do? Not like they had guns around or anything. Someone had to stay behind just in case the world came back online. No, Beach was on her own.

  She wasn’t waiting in any event. She had hit the door with her shoulder, recoiled because she’d forgotten to turn the handle. She screamed primal fear and frustration, twisted the handle and stormed out into the world and disappeared.

  He scanned the newsroom again, disjointed by its emptiness. Ken had his head on the desk, more hungover than he thought earlier. Kelli had a cardboard box by her chair. She picked up small items, toys for the most part, dinosaurs and action figures from the 1970s and 80s that she’d shared with her son, and placed them one-by-one in the box. She lifted an oversized coffee cup with pens bristling out of it, up ended it on the desk and put the cup in the box. She pulled open a drawer and took out a mini-bottle of some clear booze or other, grimaced as she twisted the little cap off with a crackling of the metal connectors, downed it and burst into tears.

  “Hey.” He didn't walk to her. Adam was not the hugging or comforting type but he did try to be consoling in the face of terrible events. “We don’t know what’s happening. Whatever is going on could all be over by the end of the day, order restored. You know, regular life. There has to be a couple million people working feverishly to put this all to rights.”

  “All of my family is on the East Coast!” she said with blubbers and huffs.

  “Okay. Okay. Why don’t you just go up to the library and lie down for a bit. There are still some cars working, apparently old cars still run. Robert and Grant are driving here in one now. I think.”

  “Really?” She said it with hope. Adam never lied to her before, had he?

  “That’s the last I heard.”

  “Okay.” She pushed herself back on the wheels of her chair. “I’ll just lie down for a bit. I got up pretty early. This shift kills me.”

  “I know. I know.”

  She started for the elevators, gripping her old tan leather purse to her side, no doubt full of booze and pills.

  “I wouldn’t get in one of those.” Adam interrupted her walk. “Take the stairs.”

  She looked at him, big curls flopping around the circle of her face She looked at the stairs, looked back.

  “Just use Beach’s office.”

  She sighed and walked toward Adam. He tensed and froze and tried not to grimace, but luckily she just stepped around him and into the office, shutting the door behind her. Once inside the office, she unslung her purse, dug into it and came up with a big pill bottle. She twisted it open against her palm, shook it against her open hand, paused—counting seemed to Adam—then shook it again. She popped the pills, fitted the lid, twisted it shut. Her hand came out of the purse with a little booze bottle. She glanced over her shoulders, suddenly conscious of the window. Adam shrugged and looked away. He sat at his computer and looked at the folders downloaded to the desktop. He didn’t want to look in them. He didn’t know what he wanted to do. In the sudden silence, he heard crackling outside the big windows overlooking Puget Sound. Muffled “humpf” sounds. Just like he didn’t want to know how bad things were by looking in those folders, he also really didn’t want to look outside. The computer, television and lights all went down with the loss of electricity. He blushed. He didn’t want to cry but he did. He wanted it to all go away. He loved his life. He loved his job. Someone had to restore order. This couldn’t go on. Shit like this didn’t happen in the real world. It happened in movies, sure; it happened in history books … it happened in folklore and religious stories, but not in reality. Adam was, simply, paralyzed. From deep down he knew the situation would change, the lights come back on. So, he waited. He sat back, barely breathing, and waited for reality to show back up. They were all going to get one hell of a laugh out of it. He had, without words in his mind, convinced himself that the business crew would be stumbling in half lit, laughing and scrambling for their desks to write the hell out of this story, this once-in-a-lifetime story of the most widespread StreamNet and media hoax ever, a hoax the magnitude of which had not been seen since Orson Welles scared the shit out of all those people in the 1930s. The cops reporters grumbling about how the flacks couldn’t get their shit together to tell them what had happened, who had fucked up, if anyone had been killed.

  James walked over to Adam carrying his red and white lunch cooler.

  “Well,” he shrugged his big shoulders, powerful from the thousands of miles he’d dragged his giant body through the water. “The electricity’s out.” He shrugged and looked around. “I’ll finish the edition when it comes back on. Guess I’ll just go home.” He shrugged again like he enjoyed the sensation of using those mounds of muscles. He turned to the door. He twisted the handle slowly, glanced back, shrugged and smiled, and walked out.

  Ken walked over to Adam’s desk in James’ wake. His big brown head tilted at him, eyes red and puffy.

  “I’m going to try my luck at home. No telling how long this will last. I am still paying the mortgage after all,” he stipulated.

  Adam nodded encouragement at him and he too left.

  XIX

  People, all kinds, stood by the side of the street in yards and driveways, at fences and on sidewalks, looking around, some talking, a few men raised the hoods on their cars, one hand holding the hood up over their heads the other reaching in to shake something uncertainly; some watched the station wagon rumble by, weaving slowly between stalled cars. Josh drove. Natalie had shotgun. The three armed men in riot gear were scrunched into the backseat. They’d had to lunge first one direction and then the other to get the doors shut. Several black plastic boxes took up the space in the very back. As they reached the edge of the neighborhood, turning right onto the business-lined arterial and making for the interstate onramp, people there too had stepped outside and many were walking toward the interstate. Some, however appeared to be walking north toward Canada, which had, climate-wise, be
come like Central America and for a decade attempted to block American desertification refuges. Dragging suitcases, bundles thrown over shoulders, guns strapped to hips or bandoliered across shoulders, toddlers sucking thumbs while trundling along, everyone dressed in layers like expert Northwesterners, the street crowds grew. Josh stopped the car at the interstate onramp as dozens of people turned heads to look them over. Several stopped and started toward the car, the only vehicle around operating.

  “What do you think, boss?” said one of the armed men in the back.

  “Kinda fucked, looks to me,” a second said.

  Natalie only half listened. She watched the people, some crying while others milled about. No police. She knew what had happened. The AI had given her a glimpse of what lay in store for the human race. It would continue to use its micro-machines to dismantle millions of people, disassociating the many elements in the human body until the person crumbled into dust. It would soon turn back on all the systems and infrastructures of the world, but not for humans to use. The Hive would instead use the electric and communication systems like a web to fully knit the world into its control and then begin recycling the artifacts of human industry, everything metal and synthetic, including human beings, in order to build platforms in space and from there spread intelligence throughout the galaxy and eventually the universe. Genocide, Natalie thought. Extinction. There must be something we can do, if only we can expose the plan and rally the people into taking back their world. It’s late but not too late, she silently told the people now crowding around the car.

  “We’ll take as many as we can but we have to get back to Seattle in time to organize our resistance,” Josh said.

  Natalie turned toward him. “So you think we can resist?”

  “I hope so …”

  “Let me fire a few rounds through the roof. That’ll back ’em off. If they are stupid enough to get in our way after then, well …”

  “Hold on,” Josh ordered. “We can’t spend the day shooting people. You’ll run out of ammo.” Buddy smile. “I have a better idea, something just short of murder.”

  He rolled down his window and stuck his head out.

  “We’ll take as many as we can!” He motioned the human shields toward the car. “Climb on. We’ve got some room inside. We’re heading for Seattle.” He brought his head back in. “We’ll let them fight it out as we go. Hopefully, people will clear out once they see we can’t take more.”

  A mile down the interstate, the station wagon couldn’t carry another person, inside or outside. Twenty miles out of Bellingham, the sun came out. Now and then passengers got off to push cars out of the way, but most drivers had pulled over out of habit when their motors gave out. When the driver dissolved, however, the car generally smashed into other cars in the middle of the road and needed a push to get clear.

  The crew kept to themselves, saying only that they didn’t have a clue when asked what was happening. What good would it do to tell some stranger a fantastic tale of The Mind Hive and it’s handmaiden Celestine? If anyone believed the story, they would have more questions than anyone other than Celestine and The Hive AI had answers for. The three federal agents, stuffed against each other with assault rifles propped up in their laps, at first responded that it was an alien invasion with abductions for sexual purposes, which was funny until one young guy wedged between boxes in the back started panting and salivating in a panic response then barfed; and then a couple of children who had watched their father dissolve during breakfast cried pitifully on the bench seat they and their stunned-to-silence mother shared with Natalie and Josh.

  Brock, the highest ranking of the trio in the back, apologized for the jest. The other two laughed, unintimidated.

  “It’s all happened so fast, no one knows what’s going on,” Josh interrupted. “But we’re going to figure it out and make things right.”

  Stage two. It had happened fast. All those people, Natalie said in her mind. All those people. She repeated the phrase but was unable to rouse an emotion. It puzzled her that her emotions seemed to be missing in action. She assumed they would come back once the shock wore off. She had to be in shock, too. They all did. Once she got back to the newsroom, life would get back to normal, she promised. Of course she knew she was lying to herself, too, but what else could she do at this point but hope for the return of normal human life?

  By the time they got to Lynnwood, a few miles out of Seattle, they were unable to get enough cars moved from between stalled trucks to make it down I-5, the offramps were also clogged shut. Some older cars amid the jumble ran, but they too were stuck. As the travelers got off and out of the old station wagon, one of the older cars ahead of them suddenly rammed the vehicle in front of it and then behind it. A woman got out of the blue car hit first, brandishing an aluminum bat. She pointed it at the driver of the ramming car, a 1964 Rambler American, who didn’t get out, and then smashed the headlights. She went back to her car, dug out a backpack and joined the throngs walking between cars toward the city.

  “Wish I could gather up these old cars,” Brock said. “Could start my own business.” He looked in the window of the Rambler. “Well, that explains that. Hey, Natalie come look. This is what’s been happening.”

  Natalie stepped up to the car window, put her hand up and peered in. She jerked back.

  “I don’t know if it’s your cult friend or not, but that’s some serious tech right there,” Brock said. “Just eats them from the inside out. No muss. No fuss.”

  “She’s not my friend,” Natalie responded with anger, not at Brock but at Celestine. Why would she join up with The Mind Hive? What could possibly motivate her to betray her own people? Her own species? She left the car, walking away with Brock. “I’m a journalist,” she said, easing her tone back to careless. “I don’t have friends. I don’t know why she thinks she can get away with it, but I’m going to find out.”

  “Atta girl,” Brock said.

  He returned to the station wagon, slung the rifle, and grabbed the remaining box. They stepped into the wake of Josh and the other two agents carrying the two other boxes. An hour later, the crowds thicker, lined up to get off the interstate at the Mercer Street exit, Josh stopped and looked over the edge of the ramp.

  “It’s about fifty feet from here.” He opened one of the boxes and pulled out a rope. “Let’s go down here.”

  “I’m not climbing down that,” Natalie said. “I don’t have any gear or gloves …”

  “We got a sling,” Brock pushed her shoulder toward the edge. “You’ll have to piggy back.”

  “As if,” she said. “I’m not with you guys anyway. I’m going back to my apartment, which is just down there, and then back to the Daily-Record office. I’ll see you all later.” She started down the ramp, edging into the crowd.

  “Hey,” Josh called after her. “I’ll come with you.” He turned to the others. “Let’s rendezvous at the newspaper’s office. They might still have satellite dishes, and we can make contact from there.”

  The three were already lowering one of the boxes over the side. “Don’t take too long dear,” Brock said and snorted.

  Josh ignored the gibe and caught up with Natalie. She noticed him and pointed out at the water, Puget Sound. “Look at all those ships.”

  “Yeah, interesting,” he said. “Say, I wonder if the Daily-Record has a satellite connection, for getting world news?”

  “If we did, it doesn’t work now. Everything was wired back through the StreamNet, which in hindsight seems like poor planning, again.”

  “We definitely made ourselves ripe for this sort of thing.”

  At the bottom of the ramp, they stepped clear of the pedestrian knot. Natalie, bravado tucked away, was glad for the company.

  “What do you think we’ll be able to do to fight back?”

  “First thing I need to do is get in touch with D.C. and find out what action they have already taken. We’ll need to establish a communication center and someway to let
people know what we know and pass on any instructions we get from D.C.”

  The sidewalks became less crowded, and they picked up the pace.

  “I live …” Natalie began, pointing northeast.

  “I know where you live. We’ve been investigating The Clan for several years.”

  “Spying on journalists now?”

  “Court sanctioned.”

  “Well, that makes it alright then!” She walked faster.

  “We get through this, you can take it up with Congress.” He kept pace.

  “Why are you following me now?” She stopped and faced him, tall and lean. Under thirty.

  “Same reason we got you out of that tunnel.” He looked around. “Celestine wants or needs you for something, and she’s not likely to be done with you now.”

  “But she’s in …”

  “She can be anywhere a Clan member is.” He studied a man and a woman coming up the sidewalk through a patch of low morning sunlight. “You know them?”

  She looked where he was looking. “Neighbors.”

  “Natalie! We knew you’d make it!” the woman said in a French accent. She kissed Natalie on both cheeks.

  “Josh this is Perran and Marsel Martin, neighbors. You two, this is …”

  “Josh Fines,” Perran said.

  “You’re not the only one whose been sneaking around,” Marsel said.

  Josh put his hands on his hips and looked up the side of the building. “Celestine in there?”

  “In a manner of speaking,” Perran said.

  “Wait one goddamn minute.” Natalie took a step back from the three. “You’ve been spying on me? What the hell for?”

  “No! No!,” Perran jumped in. “We moved in because of the membership and were surprised that you weren’t one.”

  “A Clan member?”

  “Right,” Marsel.

  “So it was you two,” Josh said, nodding his head, “who tipped her off to Mannerheim’s interest in seeing an initiation.”