This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to any actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2015 by Peter Sargent
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
Unhaunting The Hours
When I was a boy, I had no father and I lost my mother to a drug called Spectrum. She tried to kick it but never could. When I got into the same shit myself I managed to quit, but the cure was worse than the poison. I had to heal myself of the cure, and the consequences dogged me still. The people who pulled me out of Spectrum addiction were after me. I hadn’t seen them in a long time, but I knew they were out there.
Mom used to haul me to this Salvation Army church. A preacher called Major Tuck ran the place. Major Tuck said you go through seven or eight stages when you’re trying to quit, but the truth is more muddled to me. There’s one clear stage at the beginning, when you’re so hopped up you don’t know jack about your condition. Call that “denial” if you like. And there’s one clear stage at the end, when after that long slog you finally get your life in order. But in the middle, you oscillate between one extreme and another. Some days, Mom was hopeful. She told me once, “I just made a few bad choices when I was young. I got myself into this, so I can get myself out.” Other days, she ranted about powers beyond her control – the police, the EPA, whatever – wrecking her struggle to get free. Near the end, she’d resigned herself to believing that she was just born the way she was. “Some people just have bad genes, George. Maybe Preacher was right, God’s chosen some, before they were born, as the match sticks on which the world burns.” She died fifteen years ago and Major Tuck cremated her.
As for me, joy never came easy, but I had it now – whether you want to believe it or not. I stood in the back alley, trash bag hanging from one hand, shivering in the rain. The real world, seen through unobstructed eyes, was a nasty brute. But the touch of sleet and mud filled me with a euphoria I couldn’t quite explain. I’d just come down the back steps and entered the terrace, near the dumpsters. A lamp flickered and gave up. I was left in the dark, save for the windows.
Then a sudden fear washed over me – were they coming? Not the Salvation Army, but something worse that I’d gotten myself into since then. They called themselves the Abderans, and they weren’t nice to people like me. I looked down the street at the patchwork of glowing windows, which climbed four stories up brick walls and stopped at the little ones beneath the eaves. I tried to calm myself, but there was a tiny man who lived in my brain, who in my imagination looked like Major Tuck and spent his time dishing up new ways to make me believe that I wasn’t getting better and that I never would.
Then I saw a face full of blood.
I stumbled, my fingers gripping the rusty edge of the trash bin. The pictures weren’t real, but they didn’t stop charging through my brain. That’s the way it was. That’s the price you pay. So I stared at the puddles gathering by my feet and drew deep breaths. In time, the episode passed. I was happy again. I dropped the trash into the bin, and a soggy orange cat jumped out. He perched on the rim and glared at me for a moment before darting off, with a growl that told me he’d be back and I’d better be ready. I smiled. I was soaked and chilled now, but dammit all, freedom still feels good. No matter how small the pleasure, no matter how often the panic attacks. Visions of my fears, like the one I’d just experienced, were still better than the real thing. And the Major could go to hell.
Facing the apartments, a tall berm cut the horizon. I could hear the water roaring on the other side. I crossed the street and climbed the steps up the wall’s slanted side. On top there was a path which people could walk, although no one did, and there was a railing. I leaned against the railing and stared down into river’s water. It looked black without the moon. Half a mile down, there was a dam and several smoke stacks blocking out the stars. The river’s constant hum was always there, but people in this neighborhood learned to ignore it. From time to time I went to meet it, because it gave me a certain solace.
From the corner of my eye I saw flashing in the street below. It was a red and blue cop light, without the siren, and it was approaching. I wanted to run. That was an instinct I’d never felt before. Yes, the Abderans were likely after me. But what did I think? That they had a connection with the police? But there I was, pressing my hand against my side to keep my legs from moving. For Christ’s sake, what was wrong with me?
I backed away from the railing, and I felt someone’s chest shoving me from behind. I turned and saw the cop’s face, beneath the drizzle falling over the brim of his cap.
I said, “Charlie?”
Charlie Healing had been in my Abdera colony. I’d forgotten he was cop. He wasn’t a nice guy.
“How are you, Osiris?”
My name is George. He was calling me by my colony name. I sure as hell wasn’t going to call him by his. I kept my mouth shut.
He said, “I haven’t seen you for a long time.”
I’d made up a story, in case I ran into anyone from the colony. It involved a dying aunt who wanted to know about the rumors of Abdera, about preserving her mind in graphene wire after her death. I figured they’d buy the notion that I’d left their cult so I could bring someone new in. I’d rehearsed it, but now all I could do was resist the itch of the 9 millimeter I’d taped to the inside of my jacket. I had to tell myself – not now, not here. Then the Major whispered – now or never.
I said, “Can I help you?”
“You know about that murdered woman? We found her body about a mile downstream from here; it was pressed up against a storm grate. Parts of her were severed; a clean job. Her lungs were filled with formaldehyde.”
Charlie pointed his chin at me. It was an open secret that my neighborhood, the Berm, was one of the few left with formaldehyde in the walls. It was a component of paint and varnishes that were now illegal.
“So.” He said. “She came from around here.”
“I can’t help you.”
“Sometimes, people repress memories.” Here came the Abdera bullshit. “We can see if you’ve got some memories that you’ve forgotten.”
The vision came back: a face full of blood. The mouth opened, but it wasn’t able to scream. I pushed it down.
Charlie said, “We can do it back at the colony, with people you trust. We could just see.”
“There’s nothing to see, Charlie.”
He began to turn back to the steps and his cruiser. “I’m just giving you options.”
I left him there. I returned to my apartment and flipped on the TV just to hear the noise. I went to the bathroom, closing the door enough to reduce the voices to mumbles. I stripped my wet clothes and stood at the mirror. I ran my fingers through the damp hair behind my ear, pulling it away and revealing a metal ring imbedded in my skin. There were scratches on it from the many times I’d inserted a cable that had connected me to the Abdera Cipher. Running my finger along the skin of my spine, I felt the imbedded IV nub. To get the full effect from an Abdera connection, you’ve got to take in a neuromuscular blocker that paralyzes your muscles. I figured it was a good idea to put the IV where it’s hard to get at. But it had been months since I’d last used the jack or the IV. I’d considered removing them, but I’d have to go under for that. And while I was under, the docs, might discover what happened to
me in Abdera. Even I didn’t remember that anymore, and I wasn’t thrilled about being the last to know. Besides, I didn’t have the cash.
But I still had that residue of joy. I could no longer see all my ribs, and the bluish bags around my eyes were disappearing. Soon, I hoped, the visions would go with them. Someday, this would all be ten years ago.
I opened the cabinet and pulled a baby blue cardboard box off the shelf. I held it over my palm and caught a few plastic packets filled with gel. Spectrum drops. I popped these as a kid, up until the day I first plugged in with Abdera. Abdera cured me, because its high was so much better than the Spectrum. And it was all natural, they used to tell me. I shuddered. The day I left the colony, I picked up the Spectrum habit again, right where I’d left off. I needed it to make the shakes and nightmares stop. But I’d had it kicked for weeks now. That’s the joy. That’s the euphoria I’m trying explain. Freedom, do you see? And I did it by myself this time.
People I tell say they get it (and George, stop talking about it), but it’s hard to find people who haven’t done it and who can take it seriously. In all my years on drugs and in wire cults, I’d been to places I can’t describe. But there I was in the rain, beneath a dead light and holding the garbage, and it was the happiest moment of my life. If you can’t understand what that means to me, then you might as well leave me alone and pretend we never met.
So what was I doing with the Spectrum in my palm now? Was it Healing?
I said to myself, “George, if you can’t win this simple battle, you’re going nowhere.”
So I tossed the last drops in the toilet and flushed them.
I showered and when I got out, I stopped. Something was missing. I fumbled through the back of my brain and then I realized there was no Mrs. Brown. She lived above me and liked to move the furniture around her apartment. Last week I’d found her sputtering on the ground outside. I called the ambulance, and the medic said the strangest thing. “You’re out of your wooly mind, but you’re lucky.” Would he have me leave her there? I know I’m supposed to be a tough city boy, but I have to admit that it does get me down when a medic calls me stupid because I’d risk my own life waiting in an alley. Folks in the Berm aren’t worth it. I know.
The ER fixed her up and I told them to take her to the shelter. You have to understand, the ER’s stacked full and there’s no one around here to take care of her. I can’t do it. I’d have to go to the shelter later and check on her.
I opened an ice cream carton and went to the TV. Since I was off Spectrum and Abdera together, I’d developed an all-consuming appetite. That was fine. I needed the weight back. The late news was on. The police had found a body in a dairy freezer, in the back room of a grocery store nearby. It was in pieces. It was bad enough that bodies were turning up in the Berm, but it was worse that Healing must have known about this second murder before he came to me. He was looking for me to slip up. I knew that Abderans had this reputation of tormenting defectors – but this? Healing must’ve sunk deeper than I’d thought, or – to be realistic – he had something else going on.
That thought was for tomorrow. I flipped the channels and slept on the couch.
* * * *
Three hours later, it was time for class. I stood on a concrete train platform, a couple stories above street level. Dull glass office fronts faced the tracks on either side, up to the place where the rails met the sky at a point. The sky was still full of stars, but there was a milky rim just widening at the horizon. The train rattled in, tin colored and covered in graffiti. Three AM. I was the only one in my car, but through the door at the end I could see into the next one. It also carried a single passenger, a man with a red beard and a green cap. He was dressed in combat pants and a ratty black T-shirt and he wore a green military cap. He hung from a ceiling handle, limp as though sleeping. Then he lifted his head and turned to me. He didn’t take his eyes from me.
I got off a stop early and hoofed it to State U. The lecture building was an imposing granite square between the usual office blocks. I walked between the two copper lampposts standing guard out front and went up to the fifth floor, where they’d scheduled the third shift lectures. I was poor; that’ why I did third shift. Taking classes during the day was a premium service, and even second shift classes were beyond my means. But so what? This hour was quiet. I couldn’t imagine what it was like during the day, when all the lecture rooms on every floor were jammed full. I’d bet you couldn’t even take a piss without queuing up.
I entered a giant lecture hall with a few other scattered students. The screen up front snapped to life and I tucked in for a recorded lecture on genetic property law. A few minutes into it, my mind began to wander – back to Healing, back to Abdera, and back to the visions that were haunting me. Then I jumped back into the present and, without thinking, hit the replay switch. The recording stopped. The other students turned and glared at me. I asked the lecture computer to restate the previous section, knowing that it would charge me extra for the time.
The recording backed up and said, “No country has fully closed the citizenship loophole, since black market clones have no proof of birth or country of origin. Most clones maintain the status of illegal aliens in whatever country they live, and many fall into slavery. Denmark is the most progressive country in this regard, although even there most clones lack the financial resources to pursue their legal options…”
The lecture continued. Then there was a blank spot. I can’t explain it. I remember waking up, although I don’t remember nodding off. I guess you never do. The lights were on and a countdown had replaced the professor’s image. A soft voice was telling me that I need to leave within the allotted time or else the university would charge me overage minutes.
I hurried out and then I bent over in the hall, huffing. What had happened?
His face was full of blood, a wire wrapped around his neck. His eyes bulged as he choked, and his mouth opened without a noise. In a mirror, there was another face. Someone was in the doorway, half into the dark.
I pressed my hands against my ears. I waited like that until my heart and breathing slowed.
“This is a sign that you’re getting free.” I told myself. “It is only what the Abderans put into your brain. It’s withdrawal.”
I glanced at my watch. I was late for work.
* * * *
I sat on a catwalk above the theater rafters. The university was an odd patchwork. At one end were the shiny new gyms for the day-timers. At the other were hallways cluttered with pipes, rambling off into nowhere. The theater sat in that other end. It was stuffy where I sat, and the back of the spotlight was making me sweat. A drop slipped off my face and onto the spotlight can, and made a tiny sizzling sound as it boiled away. Someone called to me from below.
“Excuse me? Hello up there.”
There was a girl down there dressed in a puffy gown. I don’t remember what the play was. It might’ve been “As You Like It” or “The Merchant of Venice” – some Shakespearian comedy about confused identities. But I knew the girl: Molly. I had to admit that I’d been watching her this semester. What could I say? She was plain, someone I had a realistic chance of getting to know. The real attraction was her poise on stage, and the times when she instructed her half-witted class mates, and I had to stifle a laugh.
God wonders how the twits in the theater department got here, even to a recycle bin like State U. They wandered about the stage like poor lost little sheep, and in that getup I could image Molly carrying a Bo-Peep crook so she could put them back on their marks. She nudged them into competence with the most extraordinary patience – as though she were a nurse, perhaps, at a mental institution, spooning soup into quivering mouths that would only spit it out again. At first, I thought she might be having a little fun with them, but then, to my horror and delight, it dawned on me that she wanted to fix them up.
She pointed her face at me, using one hand to protect her eyes from the glare.
She said, “I know
it’s hot, but could you close the windows? It’s just so noisy outside.”
“Yes.” I said, but what I meant was “Hell yes.” Whatever Molly Bo-Peep wanted.
The environment controls were broken. So while autumn rushed by outside, the theater was sultry. I shuffled down the catwalk until I reached an open slit near the ceiling. We were in the basement, so these openings were level with the ground. I heard kids in the alley; they were hopped up on Spectrum. They shouted, in that way the drops make you think the fate of the world hangs on all that you’ve got to say.
I grabbed the window handle, but my hand froze there. Anger sparked a pain behind my eyes. The skin and muscle there burned – smoldered, really – like chunks of coal stuffed under my temples. I remember how they’d been there all along, ever since Healing insinuated I had repressed memories of murdering someone. Now Major Tuck, the guy with his fingers on the thermostat in my brain, turned up the heat.
And that was it, wasn’t it? Now I knew. I hadn’t been afraid of Healing when he drove up, and that sensation hadn’t been the urge to get away. It was anger about all those lost years I’d spent wandering the illusory halls of Abdera’s electronic dungeon. I think it was something more like the urge to rip some part of his body off him, and the sudden thought that maybe I’d really do it. Why not? The Major begged the question. You couldn’t follow through then. What about these kids who are yammering and drugging up?
I crawled through the window and staggered as a gust of wind embraced me. The kids stopped and stared at me as if I’d just appeared in a puff of smoke. And who knows, maybe that’s just what they saw. In the moment when they were struck by a slack-jawed wonder at me mere presence, I composed a big brother speech. It was something about how I knew these kids saw this as nothing more than a back alley of a third rate commuter school – and did I smell fresh urine? – but they should have a little more respect. After all, were just as poor as they. All in the same boat, right?
But the guy with his hand on the lever said forget it. I grabbed one of the kids and bunched his shirt in my fists and slammed him against the wall. He struggled and his friends grabbed me, and then my hatred slipped into panic – oh shit, what were these kids about to do to me? In my mind, I saw myself snapping his nose off in my teeth. In the real world, his friends tossed me to the ground. They swung their boots at my chest and I coughed up phlegm that stung in my throat.