Authors: Rani Manicka
Dan’s eyes followed the movement. There was something about her large dark eyes over high cheekbones, and the ponytail that ended in a tangle of glossy locks on her shoulders and back that reminded him of a gypsy. A wide-mouthed, barefoot tawny-gold witch. He knew the sexual tension was bad business, but there was nothing he could do about it. It often made him unnecessarily short and angry with her. He let his glance flick back to Mary. ‘There was a movie about this?’
Mary tapped some keys. ‘It’s in your inbox. Go watch it.’
Dan grimaced. ‘Right, as ever we’re going to follow the money. Meers, you vote yes. Let’s see if the money is real to start with. And arrange to call on some of these bleeding hearts that voted yes too.’
‘I’m on it,’ said Kim and began to walk toward her desk.
‘We’re not doing any press releases just yet. Let’s keep it under wraps. Lots of people out there that could do with a hundred bucks.’
Anne, black and secretive, spoke up from her computer terminal. ‘Your plan just got foiled. A British website is running the story.’
‘What?’ He went over to her screen and read the story, aware that all the others were logged into their terminals and were just as quickly devouring the words. ‘Who the hell is this guy?’
‘A crackpot who says reptilians rule this planet,’ replied Mary.
Dan’s mouth dropped open. ‘You’d better be kidding.’
‘Nope.’
‘Relax, that’s the bad news.’ Steve Tanner, a bespectacled loner, chipped in. ‘Here’s the good news. He has a huge following and an excellent Alexa ranking both in Britain and here.’ He tapped at his keyboard. ‘Look, thirty thousand hits just for today. And they are all trying to… er…“do the right thing”. So there won’t be too many trying to cash in on the boy’s predicament.’
‘No,’ Kim disagreed quietly. ‘That’s not the good news, Steve; that’s the bad news. If he is running with the story then Fox and CBS will be at it too and it won’t be “good” people trying to save a dying boy anymore.’
Dan looked worried. ‘Steve, contact this Icke guy. Find out how he came by the story?’
‘On it, Boss.’
‘Somebody give me the figures again.’
Mary spoke up. ‘Since the reptilian guy’s involvement, the numbers are 3500 against, and 2010 for.’
Supreme excellence [in warfare] lies in destroying your enemy's will to resist without fighting.
-
Sun Tzu,
The Art of War
(6
th
Century BC)
Miss Monroe set the girl’s tray on the low table. There was a note hidden in another chocolate bar. But when she raised her eyes to meet the girl’s, a gasp of shock escaped her lips. Immediately remembering the cameras, she modified it into a cough.
There was nothing behind the girl’s eyes, not even the vaguest recognition. Her brain had been damaged so badly that all of her memory and most of her intelligence was gone. To all intents and purposes they had lobotomized her. There would be no more sessions, no more Shekina. All her powers were lost forever. In fact, there wasn’t even a Dakota. Just this drooling sub-human that they would soon terminate, and who was staring stupidly at her.
‘I brought your lunch,’ she stated unnecessarily.
Slowly Dakota moved her eyes away from Miss Munroe and back to the TV screen. Miss Monroe turned away from the intolerable sight and hurried out of the room. Outside the parked motorized cart carrying lunch for all the others was waiting for her, but she ignored it and walked down the long corridor. Fuck the cameras, she thought, and began to run. In her room she closed the door and stood against it, breathing heavily. What they had done to the girl was unpardonable. There would be no exoneration for her if she remained in that godforsaken place. She went to the phone on her desk and dialed his number.
‘We need to meet,’ she said, when the connection was made.
‘I am very close to you. Meet me in the park in an hour’s time. You know which bench is mine.’
The empty line purred in Miss Monroe’s ear. In the bathroom a calm and collected woman looked back. She smoothed her hair and, taking no personal belongings that would create suspicion, left her quarters. If she returned it would only be for the girl. She’d had enough.
Miss Monroe stood at the edge of the green. In the distance she could see him. He was sitting on a park bench with his back to her. But there was no mistaking that shaven head or those hulking shoulders upon which sat the glinting metals of his uniform. She stepped onto the grass square, walked diagonally across it and gained the path that led to the man. Now she could see that he was not alone; there was a little girl no more than five or six sitting on the bench with him. She could have been his daughter, but she was not. There was something unnatural about her. They were both eating ice cream, but her left hand was clenched into a fist in her lap, and there was a glazed expression in her eyes. She paid no attention to her surrounding or to the woman who had stopped right in front of them.
‘Commandant,’ Miss Monroe greeted in a voice she had intended to be firm and strong, but that came out shrill and frightened. You must hold your ground, she cautioned herself firmly. You must look evil in the face and not turn away, if you desire your freedom.
‘Hello, Alice,’ he said, not looking at her, but gravely contemplating the pale yellow appearance of his ice cream.
The ground shifted under her, as he had meant it to. ‘So that
is
my name.’
‘Is he any good, that psychiatrist you found?’
‘You’ve had me followed?’
‘It would be silly to allow your secrets to run around unchaperoned. You’d be surprised to know how many of them work for us.’
Alice began to shake. ‘You are lying. He doesn’t work for you. He’s helped me a lot.
‘Are you now… er…cured?’ he sneered.
‘Not totally.’
‘Is that why are you shaking like a leaf in high wind?’
‘I know now what you did to me.’
‘What did I do to you, Alice?’
‘You tortured me, and raped me when I was,’ she pointed a shaking finger at the girl sitting beside him, ‘her age.’
He looked at her for the first time. His eyes were very light in the brightness of day. They were silver. She realized that she had never seen him in daylight. ‘As a matter of fact, I do remember you. You had a very beautiful body and a voracious, quite insatiable appetite for sweet drops. You would do
anything
for one. Indeed, you were quite the minx. I believe you liked it. Every bit of it. Don’t you remember when you begged for more?’
Alice felt herself begin to fall apart. ‘That’s a damn lie,’ she screeched. ‘I hated it. I hate you. I was a child.’
‘Control yourself, my dear. That’s all in the past now. You have nothing to fear from me. Flesh has a very strict sell-by date as far as I’m concerned. Anyway, you didn’t come here to reminisce. What do you want?’
‘I’ve come to right a wrong.’
‘Well, go on then,’ he prompted.
‘I want my freedom and Dakota’s - she is of no use to you any more.’
‘And if I don’t agree?’
‘I will reveal all to the media. I have recorded everything I know about you and the killings that go on in the Black Hole, and I have given copies to two solicitors. If you have me killed they will flood every newspaper in the country.’
He took a deep breath. ‘Hmm…’ he said, and stood. She wanted to turn around and run as if the Devil himself was at her heels, but if she did, she would be running for the rest of her life. And how long would it be before they caught up with her, anyway? Schooner Klaus towered over her. He said nothing, simply raised his free hand and slapped her hard - not so hard that she fell backwards, but hard enough that she stumbled.
It had a strange effect, that slap from him. She straightened. Her cheek was flaming red, but she felt strangely calm and free of him. She turned and walked away from him. She walked without looking back. When she made it to the edge of the park she seemed to find a new sense of purpose and began to look around her as if searching for something. There was a hot dog vendor at the entrance. She began walking toward him. As she passed him by, he said, ‘Hey, sexy, buy a dog?’
She turned her face toward him and smiled, a brilliant smile. When she reached the road she waited at the curb. There were cars passing. The wind blew and dislodged a few strands of hair. She reached up, pulled the band that held her hair and flung it away. To the man waiting to cross the road on the opposite side, it was a glorious sight. He would remember that moment forever. As he watched her, full of life and beauty, she ran into the road, right into the path of an oncoming bus.
Schooner Klaus heard the screeching tires, the bang, and the shouts. Foolish girl. After all this time, she still didn’t understand that
he
held the keys to everybody’s suicide alters. As for those solicitors, they should have known better. Both would be dealt with. In his experience no more than a threat was needed when men with families misbehaved. He glanced down at the girl. She had finished her ice cream. Both her hands were tightly clenched in her lap, and her big green eyes were intently watching some children playing in the distance.
The American people won’t believe anything until they see it on TV.
- Richard Nixon
‘Wow! 5,442 say die and 35,292 say don’t,’ Carter commented, flashing a salesman’s smirk.
‘You don’t get it, Carter. I’ll die in a few weeks, no matter what the results. But it’s good to have proof of what I’ve always known. That humans are basically good.’
‘Whatever. Don’t break out the champagne just yet, though,’ Carter advised, his voice and face impartial. Obviously it did not matter to him either way. With a smile he moved to the computer screen that kept a record of Black’s brain activity, and began to scroll back. As he read the thoughts that had gone through Black’s head, he chuckled softly and, glancing over in Black’s direction, said, ‘You sure worry a lot about that girl, don’t you?’
Black felt heat rush up his neck to his face. He felt embarrassed and humiliated that his most private thoughts were not only being trampled over by an unfeeling brute, but mocked.
‘What’s going to happen to her?’
‘Don’t know.’
And, Black thought, don’t care.
Carter left after taking some notes and adjusting the equipment in the room. The lights were dimmed right down so that only the light from the computer, game screen and television glowed bright. Black began to concentrate on the computer cursor. To his great surprise the cursor began to move almost immediately. It was even easier than changing the channels on his TV at home. He scrolled upward and began to read his own thoughts. They surprised him.
At every turn there was the voice urging fear, worry, anger. Each thought agitated: negative, self-pitying, ungrateful. And always underlying every thought was that great obsession - himself. As Green had put it, the best for me and the rest for the rest.
Here, thanks to the bad guys, was the parasite exposed in all its glory.
He brought the visual back to its original screen then he practiced deleting one letter from the end of the last sentence. Surprisingly easy. He deleted his thoughts for the last ten minutes. He must not let them know that he knew about the parasite.
Black let his eyes blur on the ceiling, and thinking of Green he willed himself to sleep. He woke up in a blue corridor. The glowing blue figure of Green was standing motionless in it.
‘Where are we?’
‘Just a mind construct. Blue corridors are easy to erect and almost impossible to detect. Let’s walk down it.’
They began to walk. Black turned to look at Green.
‘I know you want to go to the girl,’ said Green. ‘But I have to warn you that you won’t like what you see. De-programming is a euphemism for frying the human brain. She will not recognize you.’
Black looked at him in horror. ‘How bad is she?’
‘Very bad, though she will recover somewhat in time.’
Black felt as if his heart was breaking. ‘I want to see her, anyway. Will she be able to see me?’
‘Yes. As much as they would like to, they cannot separate her from her psychic powers - she is…special.’
‘Will you help me?’
‘Of course. I will guide you there.’
‘Can I go now?’
Wordlessly, he held his hand out.
Black did not take his hand. ‘I need to talk to you; will you come to see me again tomorrow?’
‘Yes.’
‘Thank you. I owe you so much.’
Green smiled sadly. ‘You have four minutes and twenty-three seconds.’
‘What happens after?’
‘Carter will wake you up with some “news”. Hurry. You now have four minutes and thirteen seconds.’
Black took Green’s hand and for a moment the blue corridor swayed and twisted like a snake. Then he was standing in Dakota’s living quarters. She was sitting in front of the TV, but her body was leaning forward unnaturally. Without changing position she turned her neck slowly and looked at him, without curiosity, stupidly. The action reminded him of that of a small animal. Then for no reason her eyeballs rolled in their sockets, making her look weird and vacant. It was obvious that she was heavily drugged. Without any sign that she had registered his presence she turned away and stared at the TV screen. Despite Green’s warning, Black was crushed by her appearance. He went closer.
‘What are you watching?’ he asked.
The Wizard of Oz
was playing.
Her eyelids drooped and her eyes shifted oddly. Then she hunched her shoulders and brought her neck in, almost as a turkey would, until her chin was sitting on her chest. She didn’t know what she was watching.
She seemed so foreign and lost that Black felt a sick despair creep into his soul.
Perhaps he should start with something easier. ‘What’s the time now?’
Dakota did not respond.
‘Are there no clocks in this place?’
She shook her head slowly. She was communicating with him.
‘If we find a news channel it will show the time.’