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I wasn’t sure if Baum would respond to me in the middle of the night, but he responded almost immediately.
...
I take it you arrived safely. Do you have any messages you would like to pass on?
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I was so relieved, and it was so late at night, I and I was so short on brains, and I wanted so badly to go back to last night, to Stella in that glittering dress and kiss her under the stars, that I did something stupid. I hurriedly typed:
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Please give Stella my love and tell her I am okay. Don’t let her know that I’m in danger.
...
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I will be pleased to pass on any PROPER messages. For example, news about your new companions.
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I felt like a hopeless idiot, which I am when I’m short on brains. I fumbled with the touchscreen keyboard again.
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Please also tell her to say hi to our friend the nurse at Seattle Hospital, who gave me that very interesting link to the deep web. There is someone else here who met him in the psychiatric ward.
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Do you know his name?
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No. But my new friend Brenden Abernathy might know. He seems to know a lot of things.
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While I was waiting for Baum to reply, I heard footsteps coming up the stairs. Dave walked into my room, and I recoiled at the feel of his mind. It had changed. He had changed. He sat on his bunk, but his eyes gleamed in the silvery light of the moon, and his mind crawled all over my skin and made my heart jitter. I could feel my phone buzzing away but I didn’t dare look again. Dave sat there, awake on his bed, until morning, and so did I.
By the time Dave had risen from his bed and exited the room, the morning sun was shining in the window. Paul got up too and followed Dave out of the room. Once they were both gone, I hunched under my blankets and started to pull the phone out from under my pillow.
“Psst. Ian,” Cassie said.
I hastily stowed the phone back inside my pillowcase. “Hmm?” I poked my head out and pretended to be waking up.
“Did you see Dave come in?”
“Yes. He came in late,” I said.
Her face was hard to read without my glasses on, but I could feel her agitation. “That’s how it happens, sometimes.”
******
I WANTED TO CHECK MY phone again when Cassie went to take a shower, but she left the door to the room open and people kept walking by so I didn’t dare. This old farm house was small for the number of people living here. It felt crowded.
Instead I slipped my phone quickly back into my bag, along with a change of clothes, and when Cassie returned, fresh-faced and wet-haired, I asked her about rules regarding the shower.
“It’s first come first served, but no one’s allowed to take more than ten minutes, and only once every third day,” she said. “I mean we smell like a biology lab no matter what we do, right? There are towels in the closet next to the bathroom. We all have a rota of chores and whoever is on laundry duty has to wash clothes and towels in the afternoon so put any laundry in the hamper. You’ll get your daily chores at breakfast, which is in, like, fifteen minutes, so if you want to shower, get moving.”
I took my bag and hurried to the bathroom, which was still steamy from Cassie’s shower. I shut the door, locked it, and turned on the water in the shower. I stuck my head under the water to wet it, and left the water running while I quickly dressed and then pulled out the phone.
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Do Mr. Abernathy’s connections include anyone in the military?
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I don’t know. I do know that he works for an organization which certainly has some very big plans, however I do not yet know the nature of the organization or any details.
...
By the time I was done trying to do all of that with my thumbs, I had someone banging on the door.
I shut off the water, rubbed a towel on my hair to tousle it, shoved the phone back into my bag, and opened the door.
Craig was standing there, with a suspicious look on his face. God, his mind felt like a hive of wasps.
“You took an awful long time in the shower,” he said. “Your hair is short and it’s not like we get very dirty.”
“Blame it on teen hormones,” I said. “There’s not a lot of privacy here, if you know what I mean.” I was awash with embarrassment from even referring to masturbation, but that made me all the more convincing. This changed the look on his face and I smiled to myself as I went quickly downstairs to the kitchen.
People stood gathered around the room, receiving bowls with portions of brains from the fridge. I noticed that none of the red freezer people were present, nor was Dave. There was no conversation. Each person accepted his or her bowl quietly and spooned the contents quickly into their mouths. I took a mouthful and rolled it around in my mouth. Mutton. My family preferred pork, generally. More neuronal density, more complex flavor. Still, there was nothing wrong with good mutton. It could be worse. Much worse.
When I finished, I placed my dish and spoon in the dishwasher and wandered to the living room looking for Cassie. She jerked her chin in a short nod of acknowledgement when I came in, and then tilted her head slightly at Dave, who was deeply immersed in a book about quantum mechanics. Cassie closed her eyes and gave a little shudder, and I nodded.
“Paul, come here,” Dave said, when Paul walked in behind me. Dave held out his heavy text to Paul and pointed to a paragraph, which Paul read with a furrowed brow.
“Don’t you see?” Dave said. “With this, it would be easy to make a CMOS that could handle a massive number of qubits. We’d have the most powerful quantum computer in the world.”
Paul looked blank, and Dave gave him a frustrated look. “Stop looking at me like that. It’s obvious!”
“Not for Paul,” said Craig, appearing in the doorway. “I take it you are enjoying your free sample, Dave?”
“Free sample?” Paul said. “When did you try that?”
“I couldn’t stop thinking about trying it,” said Dave. “I waited for them to come back and Brenden hooked me up with some fresh stuff.”
“And you like it.” Craig stated this fact without surprise.
“Fucking incredible,” said Dave. Everyone in the room was watching him now. “I just figured out how to...”
“Yes, I know,” interrupted Craig. “In fact, we have some people already working on that same principle, down in California. Would you like to join them?”
“Are you serious? Of course! Can I have some more of the...”
Craig cut him off mid-sentence. “Only the first sample is free. First of all, you must know that you absolutely cannot consume more than one dose a week. Second of all, you will be asked to help with the harvest. Do you agree?”
“Only once a week!” Dave ran his hands through his hair.
“Yes,” said Craig firmly. “Come with me, and we’ll talk about it.” He looked at Paul over his shoulder as they started to leave the room. “As for you, Paul, maybe we can find you a job emptying the garbages for Dave and his new colleagues. They may be able to use you for some data entry now and then, as well.”
Paul jumped up. “Wait! Uh. I might try a small sample. Just to see what the fuss is about.”
Craig smiled. “Come with us, then.”
Cassie was watching this all closely.
“Did you see that?” she said. “It keeps happening. Just like that. Maybe I should try some.”
“No,” I said firmly.
“Do you know what it...” she started to say but I shook my head very firmly. One of the red freezer people was sitting and studying a book on solar energy, and I didn’t want to be overheard. I wasn’t sure if it would be suspicious or not for me to know much about the red freezer.
“I’m feeling really confined,” I said to her. “Do you know if we’re allowed to go for a walk?”
“Oh yeah, we can go,” said Cassie. “It’s not like we’re prisoners, after all. It’s more like... a hostel. They have rules, but just for everyone’s safety and stuff.”
“Mmm,” I nodded, as if this seemed normal and unsurprising. “Well, do you want to go on a walk?”
She shrugged. “Sure. Got nothing better to do.”
The house sat isolated in a rural area, with nothing but grassy fields around. Jess was sitting on the porch, smoking a cigarette, when we walked out. And while she didn’t say anything to us as we passed, I knew she was watching us.
I waited a good long while before I spoke to Cassie. We were too far away for Jess to hear our words as we tramped over the rough ground, but I could still feel her eyes on us.
“This red freezer stuff. I think it’s really bad news.”
“I hate how it makes their brains feel,” said Cassie. “It feels... scary. Like a scary movie, when there are all those violins playing.”
I thought it was an accurate description and nodded.
“But you know — I’m beginning to think that they’re right. I mean, they were right about this immortality bug thing. They said I’d never feel pain again and I don’t — I took a knife and tested it like they said and it didn’t hurt at all and it healed right up. It was crazy. So if they’re right about that, then maybe...”
“Even if they are right,” I said, my chest feeling tight. “We can’t do it. It’s not... that doesn’t make it okay.”
“So what is it? What do they do to it?” she asked. And I wanted to tell her, but I didn’t want to scare her. I didn’t know what she would do. Would she panic? Blow my cover? Or worst of all... what if it didn’t bother her? I looked at her as we scuffed through the field. Her face was round and babyish, and it made her look innocent. I was lonely, and she was the beginnings of a friend. What if I told her the truth? What if it ruined everything?
“I can’t say exactly what it is. But I heard some of them talking, and I do know they have to hurt people to get it.”
“Yeah. I kind of gathered that too. Their ‘harvesting’ expeditions seem so cloak and dagger, I figured it had to be something illegal.”
I nodded.
Cassie sighed. “Still. I’m not big on being a maid. I know I could just go, but what would I do? And how am I supposed to get brains and formaldehyde on my own?”
“Has anyone chosen to leave, since you’ve been here?”
Cassie shook her head. “They all seem to go for the red freezer eventually. At least in the three weeks I’ve been here. But I’m going to have to decide soon. And I’ve never been good at making decisions.”
“Don’t let them pull you into crime,” I said.
“So why are you here, if you’re so set against the red freezer?” she asked.
I went with simple honesty. “Because I want to find out if I can do any good here. Because I want to know more about them.”
“Well,” said Cassie. “From what they’ve been saying, I don’t think they’d mind hurting a few people on the way to their big and bright future that they have planned. So keep that in mind before you try to do them any good.”
“I will,” I said gravely. “I will.”