Ocean in the Sea Page 8

  Lewis searched his memory. He’d been in the Majutay building on his way to meet with Valon. Vaguely he recalled Nora as he got off the elevator on his way to the Skykomish room. He was anxious – nervous about meeting… KAYA. Oh God! Horror coursed through him. It was night. It was long after 7:30. Had to be. He’d stood her up.

  “Shit!”

  She’d think he was some kind of asshole. Climbing to his feet, Lewis leaned against the wall and stared down at his pants. They were dirty, torn, ripped around the hem, and covered with stains of soot and oil. His shoes looked like an ancient pair of army boots. Grabbing his coat, he realized he was wearing some kind of thick canvas jacket with a padded silk liner. A zipper held the liner in place. There was a tag inside, but he couldn’t read it. He should get under the streetlight and examine himself.

  But… then someone might see him. Crap. Avoid the authorities Nora had said, but why? Right now he needed their help. But no… she must have told them something. The police could be looking for him. They might even have orders to shoot him on sight. He’d have to find a place of safety first – figure out what was going on.

  Reluctantly, Lewis turned to his left and started down the alley in the opposite direction of the light. In the near-pitch darkness, he could only make out the outlines of the walls above him. He brushed a hand over his rain-soaked hair as he reached the intersection. The alley opened up on a dark street. He could make out the poles of street lamps - all off for some reason. The houses themselves were dark as well, and the windows were shuttered and barred. This did not look like anyplace he’d been, but Seattle had a lot of older neighborhoods. Maybe this was the Beacon Hill area, or somewhere in Freemont. The huge wall might be a junkyard, or maybe industrial storage. There were places like that near the docks.

  Far off in the distance, he heard a low rhythmic rumbling. His heart pounded as it grew louder, and he felt the instinct to hide. Running across the street, he made his way between two of the houses and climbed a rickety wooden fence. Dropping into a backyard, he crouched and stared between the slats out into the street. Suddenly, the streetlights clicked on, temporarily blinding him.

  As his eyes adjusted, he looked back out, surprised by the car parked on the curb. It’s bulbous front end and huge fenders looked a little like the old Chevrolet Bel Air his uncle had once owned, but these fenders were larger and connected by a spoiler. The vehicle was huge by modern standards, bigger than most sports utility vehicles. Bigger even than a SUV or a Suburban. And the street itself was wide enough to accommodate it. The coloring was a drab avocado green, a style of paint that reminded Lewis of a 1960s refrigerator. Somehow the car managed to appear ugly and sporty at the same time. Maybe it was some kind of mutant gull-wing custom job thrown together by an enthusiast, but that didn’t explain the width of the street.

  The sound of the rhythmic vibrations grew stronger. He stayed crouched, waiting. Then, just short of his angle of view, the sound stopped and a beam of light blazed down from beyond the side of the house, flooding the street with a glaring argent rain-filled glow. Water droplets sparkled falling through the beam. The light moved from left to right, searching, and Lewis heard the buzzing of heavy-duty electrical motors. When it stepped forward and he saw it clearly, he bit his lower lip, the hair on his neck standing on end.

  Atop two huge metal legs stood what looked like the cab of a combine or tractor. Heavily armored in sheets of smooth black steel, the words, “U.S. Army. SeaPac Urban Militia,” blared in stenciled white paint. Mounted on either side of the cab, two huge Gatling cannons gleamed in the rain, and behind the front windows a pilot moved the floodlight with one arm while flipping switches on the dash with the other. As Lewis watched, the pilot keyed his headset mic. His voice boomed out of the vehicles speakers.

  “Attention violator. Come out now and surrender to custody. Curfew law is in effect and React forces are on the way. If you continue to avoid or resist apprehension, we are authorized to use lethal force under martial code 3279-A.”

  Did they mean him? Lewis swallowed and backed slowly away from the gate. Seattle didn’t have a curfew. Something must have happened. A terrorist attack? That didn’t explain a walking tank. Though the Army had such vehicles, they’d never deploy them in a city full of civilians. Maybe SeaPac Urban Militia was some kind of covet military organization and he’d somehow ended up in their testing environment.

  Or maybe someone had a sick sense of humor.

  If this whole thing was a big prank instrumented by Valon Kang, then it was the most expensive con-job he could imagine. It would have started in Baltimore. It would have to include Sanford and Wright Publications, and the SUPTAG people. Still, Lewis wasn’t going to let go of a potential explanation. It was more comfortable than the idea he’d been… what? Thinking of the stack of monkey brains, he tasted bile in his mouth. His stomach rumbled.

  Turning around, he crept through the blackness of the backyard. Enough light came through from the street to catch shadows. He stepped around a rake and past a small fiberglass swimming pool. A low concrete building ran along the back of the yard. Its sides slopped inward in a beveled rectangular shape, and a ramp led down to a large heavy door. Lewis crept down it into the shadowy recess.

  The door was locked, of course, and solid steel from the feel of it. The keyhole was under a flap beneath the handle. He doubted anyone would be inside, but he knocked anyway, pounding a dull whump using the meat of his fist rather than rapping.

  Almost immediately a click sounded and a set of eyes appeared through a slit in the center of the door.

  “Get out of here, you idiot,” said a man’s voice. “We don’t want any trouble. You’re gonna get us arrested.”

  “Please,” begged Lewis, “help me.”

  A woman’s muffled voice spoke from behind the door. “Who is it, Henry?”

  “Some idiot curfew breaker,” he said to the woman. His eyes reappeared in the slit. “Go on. Beat your feet. Get! Before the drones come.”

  “I’ve got nowhere to go,” whispered Lewis. “I can’t leave. They’ll catch me.”

  The woman spoke. “In the name of Jesus, Henry, let him in. If the drones haven’t come yet, they might not know where he is.”

  “The rovers knew,” Henry argued. “The satellites must’ve picked him up. They’ll be tracking him on infrared.”

  “No they won’t. It’s raining.”

  “God dammit, woman.”

  “Don’t you take the Lord’s name in vain, Henry.”

  “Aw… hmph… shoot.”

  The door clicked open and the muzzle of a shotgun appeared in Lewis’s face. The man behind it wore blue jean suspenders and work boots. His clean shaven face showed the wrinkles of age and worry. Lewis put him in his fifties.

  “Get in here, fool.” As Lewis stepped inside. Henry backed up, keeping the rifle trained on him. “Marcia, shut the door.” A pudgy older lady stepped from around Henry. Lewis moved out of her way, pushing himself against the wall to let her past. The door closed with a soft well-oiled click. Pinching her lips, she quietly slid a recessed metal bar across the door frame. “They might come lookin,” she told Henry. “They can’t find him with us. We gotta hide him.”

  Henry poked Lewis with the shotgun. “What’s your name, mister?”

  “Lewis Herman.”

  “And where you from, Lewis Herman?”

  “Baltimore.”

  “Baltimore!?” Henry made a rude sound with his lips. “Bunch of commies out there. Damned socialists.” He gestured with a thrust of the muzzle. “Why you in Seattle?”

  “Work. I came for a job. Majutay Radionics. I’m a writer.”

  “Never heard of ‘em, and you don’t look like no writer to me. Turn around so Marcia can frisk you. And don’t you try nothin, Lewis Herman. I may be old, but I ain’t blind, and I’m a damn good shot.”

  Lewis turned around and put his hands against the wall. Marcia did a thorough job. She found a notebook in the inner pock
et of his jacket, the flyer, the piece of bread, a stubby pencil, and a wallet. She handed the wallet to Henry who flipped it open and squinted. “Says here your name is Michael Garibaldi,” said Henry, “and you sure look like this picture, Mister Lewis Herman. Why’d you lie to me?”

  “I didn’t. My name is Lewis Herman. I don’t know where I got that wallet, or these clothes, or how I got here.”

  Henry and Marcia looked at each other. Their faces paled. Marcia shook her head. “Sorry, Henry. You were right. We shouldn’t have opened the door. We’ve gotta get rid of him.”

  “Too late, too late.” Henry grumbled through his teeth. “He’s here. We let him in. You know they won’t believe us. They’ll have to be sure, and I ain’t letting the grandkids go through that.” He shook his head and curled his lips back. “Dear Lord, we’ve messed with the bull. Now we’re gonna get the horns.”

  “I don’t understand,” said Lewis. “Who are they?”

  Henry’s snarled at him. “Course you don’t understand. You’re a CRAPPER, Lewis. The NSA experiments on you poor bastards all the time. Try’n to FIX you. But it fails more often than not, and then they’ve gotta come clean up the mess. You must’ve reverted to some part of your original self and forgot their programming.”

  Lewis blinked, trying to put all of it together. “Let me get this straight. You think the NSA has programmed me?”

  “Hell, I don’t know!” Henry waved toward the cement hallway leading deeper into the building. “We can’t stand here by the door jawing. We’ve gotta get you to the tunnels.”

  Still confused, Lewis followed Henry, noting that Marcia stayed close behind them. The passageway was narrow and cramped. The ceiling was lit intermittently with tiny fluorescent bulbs that glowed a nearly violet blue. Through winding corridors, Henry lead Lewis to a room filled with shelves of blankets, first aid kits, and water bottles. In the center of the floor lay a heavy tool chest. Henry reached around back and grunted to push down the lever lowering the chest’s wheels. Rolling it back along two rusty steel tracks, he revealed a hatch that would have been at home on a submarine. Spinning the ring on top, Henry nodded to the ladder. “Climb down. Stay out of sight. I’ll let you out in the morning. If I ain’t here in twenty four hours, you’re on your own.”

  Lewis looked at the hole. “What’s down there?”

  “An empty cistern. There’s four hatches just like this one. They’re marked – A, B, C, and D. The way out is through C. Don’t open the others or you’ll get a face full of runoff.”

  Marcia handed Lewis a flashlight and a wool blanket. “This’ll keep you warm. Mind the batteries in the flashlight. Won’t last for more than a few hours.”

  “Thanks,” muttered Lewis. “I guess…” He threw the blanket over his shoulder and stuffed the light in his pocket. “Oh, can I have my wallet?” he asked Henry. “If I have to go out, I might need it.”

  “Lord, yes!” Henry looked shocked. “We don’t want them finding anything to do with you. Give him the notebook too Martha, and that nasty looking crumb, and anything else you got off him.”

  Lewis retrieved his belongings and began to descend. As his head reached the lip, he paused. “Thank you,” he said. “Both of you. You’re decent people, even if you helped me to protect yourselves. I have one more favor to ask, if you don’t mind.”

  “I ain’t giving you a gun,” said Henry.

  “It’s not that, I just want to know, um… what’s a CRAPPER?”

  “C.R.A.P. – it’s an acronym. Stands for Combat Related Acute Psychosis. Some like to call it C.R.A.M.D. fer Combat Related Accute Mental Disorder. Don’t matter, we all know what it is. From looking at you, I can see you’re a soldier. You must have escaped from the CRAP treatment facility across the street. It’s happened before. God damn place has shot my property values straight to Hell.”

  “HENRY!”

  "Yeah, yeah. I hear you, woman."

  Lewis shook his head. “I’m not a soldier.”

  “You don’t know what you are.” Henry gazed at him distastefully. “Whatever they put in your head, it ain’t you. Now you gotta figure it out.”

  Lewis stared at the rim of the hatch. There was nothing to figure out. He knew who he was. He remembered his life. It couldn’t have been implanted. This was a ruse, and these were actors in a drama. The whole thing reeked of bullshit. “Valon is paying you,” he concluded. “This is a set. What am I supposed to do? Act scared? Play along?”

  Henry frowned and increased his grip on the shotgun. “Yeah. Play along. That’s what you gotta do. Now get your ass down there afore they come bangin on the damn door.”

  With a heavy sigh, Lewis started climbing. Fine, he’d play the game. And when this was over, he’d hire the best lawyer he could. He remembered one of Brenda’s rants about ‘wealthy assholes’ in this country thinking they could get away with anything they wanted. He’d never considered that might apply to him, and now here he was. Some rich 1 percenter’s evening entertainment.

  “Good luck to you,” said Henry.

  “We’ll pray for you,” added Marcia.

  The hatch closed, and Lewis was left in the dark with only the flashlight. As he climbed to the bottom he came to a singular conclusion. When this was over, he was never coming back to Seattle.

  The Formatting of Lewis Herman

  Henry was as good as his word. The ladder descended at least a hundred feet before the tube opened up on a large cylindrical cistern with four hatches. It smelled of wet concrete and stale water. The floor was damp, but a catwalk ran around one side with enough space to lie down. Lewis spread out the blanket and turned the flashlight off to conserve power. He decided to keep it in his right pocket at all times. Tugging the collar of his jacket closed, he crossed his arms across his chest for warmth. Henry had said twenty four hours. Lewis felt his wrist. He didn’t have a watch. There was no way to know. He’d have to guess.

  How did one guess the passage of time underground? He recalled a study about that subject. In the absence of day/night cycles, sleep patterns altered to some weird interval instead of twenty four hours. He wouldn’t be down here that long.

  Kaya… God what a mess. It wasn’t his fault, of course, but how was he supposed to explain… whatever this was? He needed to understand his current situation.

  Deciding to approach logically, he addressed the primary two questions first: what had happened to him, and where was he. The latter might answer the first, so he put his mind to work on that.

  This could be a massive joke – a prank played by Valon. That was his best bet.

  This could be real, and something really strange up was going on. Very unlikely.

  Another possibility was that Henry was right, and the NSA had brainwashed him, erased his memories, and implanted everything that was Lewis Herman. But if this neighborhood was a legitimate sample of reality, then why couldn’t he remember any of it? And why would the NSA implant a bunch of weird crap into his brain if they were trying to make him normal? It made no sense, but then none of it did.

  He could be suffering a psychotic breakdown, and all of this could be illusion created by his damaged brain. He could be lying on the floor right now. Henry and Marcia might be the guys at work. They might have taken him to a hospital or a mental institution. He might be in a rubber room. His arms were even in the right position for a straitjacket. He moved them just to see if he could. No impediment, although that could be illusion too. There would be no way to know or trust the truth.

  The truth… Paranoia. Schizophrenia. Nora Trent’s voice in his head. Valon Kang was responsible for this. Lewis didn’t know how, but he sensed it. He struggled to get past the haze of his last memories. Kaya had called, he remembered that clearly. He’d asked her out. Then he’d gone downstairs to see Valon. Nora had met him. That’s where his memory ended, dragging off into a muddle as if he’d been… drugged? Raising his hand he rubbed his sternum and narrowed his eyes. Something had hurt him. Something painful, b
ut when and what?

  A thought popped into his head – the Organic Processing Core in B2G filled with monkey brains performing calculations. It brought to mind the last little tidbit of info he’d learned right before Doctor Aoka had called him on the phone. Valon chaired the board of Majutay Radionics, but he was also one of the lead investors in SUPTAG. What if Stage 3 were more advanced than Lewis had been led to believe? What if Valon needed a human subject? The hair on his neck stood on end and a feeling of déjà vu swept over him. He’d this thought before. He couldn’t remember when, but… what if he was sitting in the basement of the Majutay building with his head plugged into the scanner and the OPC feeding him everything he could see and feel?

  He sat up in the dark. This could be a simulated universe based on the SUPTAG computer models, but it wasn’t some alternate reality, it was here, at the Majutay building, and now it was in his head. The OPC was running it, and the scanner was feeding it to him. They’d created some alternate version of the world, or maybe even just the US. Or maybe just Seattle. Everything beyond the city might be blank unformatted emptiness.

  How could he prove it?

  Lying back down, Lewis wracked his brains trying to come up with an idea. If the theory was correct, they’d be watching him – observing the simulation to see how he responded. They’d be able to hear him.

  “Doctor Graves.” His voice echoed in the empty cistern. “Valon, Thomas, anyone that can hear me, I’ve figured it out. You’ve got me in the scanner. Fine. Very funny! Good one. You got me! But unless you want me to go insane, you’ve got to give me some breadcrumbs. Talk to me.”

  Minutes passed without reply.

  “PLEASE!” he shouted. “Give me a sign. Something small. A light. A push on the leg. A fruit basket. Anything!”

  He waited until he grew bored.

  “Okay, I’m going to assume you can’t… interfere with this.” He sighed. “I don’t know why you’re doing this to me. Did I volunteer? Did you convince me? Or did you kidnap me, knock me out, and strap me to the chair? No, I know you can’t answer, but I’m going to proceed with the assumption that all of this is taking place in the OPC. It’s fake, all of it, and if you’ve studied me as I expect you have, then you’ll know I’m not afraid to die. Death and me, we’re buddies, so if you want me to stay alive for some reason, then you’d better do something about it, or when I leave here in the morning, I’m running up to the first soldier I find and force him to shoot me. I’m not sure what that will do to your experiment, but I’m guessing it will end. Do you hear me?”