Chapter Six

“Excuse me.”

A voice cut through the early evening street noise, commanding attention on the Manhattan sidewalk. Marc looked for the source and his eyes landed on a broad-shouldered man in a suit, wearing dark sunglasses and a tidy haircut. He was standing up ahead in front of the awning entrance to Marc’s apartment building.

“Mr. Tefteller?” he said.

Marc gripped his bag of carryout Chinese food. He cautiously approached the man. “Yes?”

“My name is Ted. I’m with National Security. I’d like to ask you a few questions.”

Marc felt an immediate tightness in his chest. He had ignored phone calls and texts but knew that eventually someone would come looking for him. He had expected it to be somebody from Dynamica, not the federal government.

Marc was not going to invite this man into his apartment. If there was something he wanted to say, it would take place on the open sidewalk with people and vehicle traffic around them.

“Okay. What do you want to know?”

“Can we go somewhere and speak in private?”

“No.”

Ted frowned and stepped closer. “I want to talk to you about your sudden departure from Dynamica.”

“I resigned.”

“It’s not that simple. You have ten years of proprietary information. If shared with outside parties, it could jeopardize the welfare of the American public. You could create unnecessary disruption at a time we need full cooperation.”

“That’s not my intention, I assure you. I just wanted out.”

“You know and have worked with a Dr. Rance Higgins.”

It was posed as a statement, not a question, but Marc answered anyway. “Yes. That is correct.” He immediately knew where this was going.

“You are fully aware that removal of the chip will be a violation of the law.”

“Perhaps.”

“There’s no perhaps, Mr. Tefteller,” said Ted in a plain, even voice. “You were in confidential meetings. You knew that the chip would become mandatory to being a U.S. citizen.”

“It was a possibility.”

“It was more than a possibility. You had insider information and used it for personal gain. You deceived a company scientist.”

“I am within my legal rights,” Marc said, and his tone turned forceful. “I chose to have the chip technology removed.”

“You acted on information that had not yet gone public.”

“I didn’t touch my company stock until after—”

“I’m talking about the chip,” Ted said. “Very soon, the law will require that you have it reinstalled.”

“That law isn’t on the books. It still needs to get passed. Why are you bothering with me?”

“Are you part of the resistance movement?”

“I don’t know what that is.”

“Are you familiar with the recent threats to bomb chip clinics?”

“What? No.”

“Who is paying you?”

“No one.”

“Have you been talking with Senator Sheridan?”

“This is not a political thing. It’s personal.”

“You worked on the public relations for some unfortunate flaws in early editions of the chip.”

“Yes. Not everything went smoothly. There were some problems, some malfunctions and side effects.”

“And you kept it out of the news cycle.”

“I supported issues management. That was my job.”

“You have certain nonpublic information that would be destructive in the wrong hands. You have trade secrets others will want to exploit. You are not authorized to represent this technology outside of the company. Is that understood?”

“I represent me, that’s it.”

“You cannot disclose anything about the company’s methods, its history, its litigation, its future plans or the government partnership. You are not authorized to talk with the media. You cannot write a book.”

“Great,” Marc said. “Fine. Listen, my dinner’s getting cold….”

“Your dinner is the least of your worries.”

Marc studied the man and could only see random shapes of reflection in his dark sunglasses. “That sounds like a threat. Listen, what I did was within my legal rights. I chose to resign from my job as an employee and cancel my company’s services as a customer.”

“Those services are not optional. You will need to renew your participation.”

“Yeah, well, I respectfully decline.”

“That’s not how it works.”

Marc’s impatience bubbled over. “Are you here to arrest me or something?”

Ted paused to give his response extra weight. “No. Not yet. But I can and will obtain that authorization.”

Finished with the conversation, Marc moved past him to enter his building. “Leave me alone.”

* * *

Brandyn Handley lifted his head, nervously glanced around the dark, cramped jazz club, then stared down at his drink again.

“I can’t believe I’m in this place,” he said. “It smells. The drinks have no consistency. And the music…they’re making it up as they go along. I can’t tap my toe to this.”

“It’s improvised. It comes from the heart. Every individual expresses themselves differently,” Marc said.

“Yeah, well, I was never much into jazz. Give me verse, chorus, verse, chorus any day.”

Tucked deep inside The Big Be Bop, the two men sat at a table in a poorly lit corner behind a pillar, barely visible to the rest of the crowd.

“Listen, this is the best place for a private conversation,” Marc said. “We go to one of your places, it will be crawling with company people.”

“Nobody from Dynamica hangs out here, you can be sure of that.”

“I don’t want to endanger you.”

“I don’t want to endanger me, either,” responded Brandyn. “You’re a big topic of conversation at work.”

“So what’s with this ‘Ted’ character? Why does he care about me?”

“Well, first of all, nobody leaves Dynamica. It’s pretty much unheard of. The pay, the benefits, the job security…. There’s a buzz you’ve been recruited.”

“By who? Into what?”

Brandyn stroked his beard. “I don’t know. It’s a lot of speculation. They think you’re up to something. You gotta admit, what you did, it was very abrupt. Somebody at your level can’t just walk, with everything you know.”

Marc sighed and took another swallow from his gin and tonic. “It’s not fair. I’ve earned this. I’ve been a good soldier.”

“But now you’ve gone AWOL.”

“I supported that company for years…stuck up for them every time, even when I wasn’t comfortable…but this latest news, this is more than I can accept.”

“It’s the wave of the future,” Brandyn said. “You can’t get stuck in the past. You’re like this old jazz club. The biggest city in the country, and there are maybe eleven people in here.”

“So my values are different. And they’re going to make that a crime? I was threatened with arrest.”

“Yeah, well, they’re working very fast on the regulation plan. People without the chip will go on a list….”

“Jesus.”

“Dynamica has nothing to do with it. We’re just the manufacturer. But the government, they know it has to be a fast rollout to be effective. They’ll come see you again. They’ll probably assert more pressure.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know,” Brandyn said. He nervously adjusted his glasses. “I just know it’s going to get more serious. Since you worked at Dynamica, you know everything, warts and all. They don’t want you running around rogue.”

“Rogue? That is such paranoia.”

“Maybe, but they’re serious. I took a chance meeting with you. If someone saw me with you and reported it back…. I’ve got a wife and kids. I can’t go on some blacklist.”

“Listen, I appreciate you meeting with me. You helped give me some background. It’s good to know what I’m up against.”

“This is probably the last time we can get together,” Brandyn said. “At least for a while. I don’t know how this is going to play out. But it could get more dangerous. I don’t mean to desert you, but….”

Brandyn studied the club once more. On the small stage, a jazz trio prepared for a new set. Most of the room’s focus was on them.

Brandyn reached down and retrieved a plain manila envelope he had tucked out of view, next to his chair. He handed it to Marc. There was something small and square-shaped inside, creating a lump.

“What is this?” Marc asked.

“Go ahead, take it out.”

Marc reached into the envelope and pulled out a thin, black electronic device with a small screen. It resembled the device owned by chip consumers to select and trigger chipfeeds.

“Why do I need this?” Marc said. “I don’t have the chip anymore.”

“I know what it looks like, but it’s actually a little different. You might need that. It’s for your protection.”

“Protection?”

“First, we have to have an agreement. If you get caught with it, you can’t tell where you got it. They would come after me. They would come after my wife and kids. If they catch you with it, you’ll have to tell them you took it from the company when you quit. That’s the trade-off. Otherwise we both go down.”

“But what is it?”

“It’s a jammer.”

Marc continued to study it. It looked no different than the common handheld devices that others used to operate their stimulation feeds.

“It can hack into someone else’s signal,” said Brandyn. He motioned for Marc to lean in. He lowered his voice. “It’s a prototype for law officials, but it works, I assure you. There are only eight in existence. As head of operations, I have security clearances. I took one. I changed some paperwork so there are only seven on record and this one doesn’t go missing. But you need to treat it with great caution – only if you really, truly need it.”

“This type of thing is exactly what I was afraid of. This technology…being used this way.”

“Used appropriately, it’s a good thing,” Brandyn said. “We arm our police with guns today. This will be a lot cleaner. It’s for confronting aggressive criminals – you send them a signal to stop them in their tracks. Just don’t screw around with it. It’s not fully tested. It’s for emergency use only.”

“Got it.” Marc tapped the screen lightly and it came to life, displaying a simple menu.

“Here’s how it works,” Brandyn said, crowding closer. He poked at the menu as Marc held the device. “You input the chip serial number of the chip you want to engage with. If you don’t have the chip number, it calls up here, on the screen, the active chips in closest proximity.”

A short list of nine-digit entries appeared with location data for each one.

“So, there, the top one, that’s me. The one below it – says the receiver is four feet away, you can call up a profile – it’s gotta be that guy.”

Brandyn gestured to a large, balding man at a nearby table, cradling a beer and waiting for the jazz trio to start. He had a small bulge in the back of his neck, a telltale sign of a chip consumer.

“If I wanted to, right now, I could send him signals from Dynamica’s library. I can go right to the Dynamica listings, search, find what I want and send it to his brainwaves.”

“Oh my God,” said Marc quietly.

“Right now, it just works with the current offerings, the stimulations that are already digitized for transmission. But we’re working with the government on a collection of special triggers, only for licensed users, that would stun, paralyze, shock, neutralize – basically subdue anyone that would require it. So, in the hands of the police, no bullets. No mess.”

Marc marveled over the powerful instrument in his hands with a mixture of awe and repugnance. “No mess physically. But they’re messing with the brain. That could be a lot worse.”

“It’s a big breakthrough. You can pacify a killer,” Brandyn said.

“Or you can pacify a resistance,” said Marc.

* * *

Marc awoke to a sudden bang! coming from the other side of his apartment. Wearing pajama bottoms and no top, he pulled himself out of bed and hurried across the bedroom in his bare feet. He was fully alert in a matter of seconds, heart pounding and sweat rising.

After a short silence, he heard a bigger, louder crash and immediately sourced it.

Someone was breaking into his apartment. Marc stepped into his living room and could see his front door opened an inch, halted by the chain. The wood at the frame was splintered around the lock.

A glistening pair of bolt cutters entered the crack, jaws wide, ready to snap the chain in one big bite.

Marc’s mind raced. He knew this had to be connected with ‘Ted’ from National Security. His first instinct was to call the police, but he doubted they would help him. They wouldn’t interfere with a federal arrest.

Then he remembered the jamming device Brandyn had given him. He was going to need it much sooner than expected.

The only problem was that Marc had stuck the device in the top drawer of a small bureau at the front of the room, close to the apartment’s entrance. Any hopes to lunge for it were immediately dashed when the razor-sharp bolt cutters sliced through the security chain, and the front door flew open to reveal several hulking strangers, accompanied by Ted.

Marc had no choice but to flee back into his bedroom.

He raced inside, slammed the door and locked it. The lock was simple and weak, and Marc knew they would quickly break past it. He had just one escape route – outside.

One wall of his bedroom had a stretch of curtains covering sliding doors leading to a balcony. He rarely ventured out on the balcony – while the view of Central Park was spectacular, the height made him dizzy.

There was no time to be dizzy now.

Marc reached through a slit in the curtains, unlatched the sliding doors and split them apart. He stepped onto the balcony and closed the doors behind him. A cool breeze struck his face and bare chest. He felt it ripple his pajama bottoms.

He looked over the balcony rail. The street was sixty-seven stories below. The tops of a few cars slid by in either direction, like small, silent toys. He tried not to focus on the distance to the ground. Instead, he focused on the balcony directly below him. That wasn’t so far. One story was doable.

The loud thuds against his bedroom door ended Marc’s moment of hesitation. He needed to act fast and not allow his brain to process the insanity of what he was about to do.

Marc gripped the top rail tightly and lifted one leg, then the other, over the side. The rest of his body followed. He slotted his bare feet between the iron bars, planting them firmly on the outer edge. He froze in a standing position, hanging on the exterior of the balcony. He was going to have to lower himself, blind to the scene below, while maintaining a vise-like grip on the balcony’s bars. Loud voices coming from inside his bedroom prompted him to finish the climb quickly.

Marc lowered himself to a crouch, sliding his hands down closer to his feet. Then he removed his footing from the balcony’s edge and let his legs drop for a moment while clutching the bars for dear life. His body experienced gravity’s pull and the weight strained his arms. He kicked his legs, feeling only open air beneath his bare feet. He twisted his body back and forth to create a swinging movement.

Marc heard the sliding doors open above him.

His swinging gained momentum. He timed his drop and prayed for accuracy. He freed his hands at the precise moment his legs, swooping like a pendulum, reached inside the balcony below.

Marc hit the floor of the balcony and tumbled into some deck chairs. He jumped up, gasping. He immediately tugged at the sliding doors to pull them apart.

Locked.

Shit!

Marc hammered on the glass. He knew these people, his neighbors below, the Taylors. This was their bedroom, and he desperately needed one of them to wake up.

His banging was successful. Rather quickly, both appeared at the glass, pushing the curtains out of their way. Their faces immediately shifted from confusion to alarm.

“Marc—?” said Lori Taylor in a nightgown.

“What the hell are you doing out there?” asked her husband, Tim, eyes half-open with sleep, voice muffled in the glass.

“My – my apartment’s on fire!” Marc exclaimed. It was a stupid lie but the real reason would take about fifteen minutes, and he needed to expedite their active support. “Please, open up!”

“Fire?”

Marc could hear footsteps directly above, scuffling across his balcony. He nodded vigorously at his neighbors.

The Taylors opened their sliding doors. Marc dashed inside their bedroom.

“I don’t smell smoke,” Lori said. “Wouldn’t there be alarms? This building’s equipped—”

“Thank you, I have to leave,” Marc said. He ran out of the bedroom as they shouted questions at him. He scrambled across their living room and reached the front door.

“Have you called the fire department?” Tim asked, following him.

“Not yet,” Marc said as he entered the outer hallway.

“Are you sure you’re not dreaming?” Lori called after him.

“Talk later!” Marc said. He broke into a dash to reach the elevators on the far end of the floor.

Marc poked the down button repeatedly. “Come on, come on.” He was breathing heavily, dripping with sweat.

Finally, the elevator arrived with a ding. Marc let out a sigh of relief.

The doors split open, revealing Ted standing inside.

He pointed a gun at Marc.

“You’re under arrest. You’re coming back upstairs.”

Marc froze, hands raised. “Okay, okay. I got it. What – what’s this all about?”

“I think you know.”

Marc, still shirtless and in pajama bottoms, returned with Ted to his apartment. Three individuals stood in his living room, waiting for him. Two looked like well-dressed thugs – extra support to ensure compliance. They said nothing, simply stared at him with grim expressions and prominent muscles. The third person had a much softer, rounder appearance and an almost-sympathetic face. Marc recognized him.

“Dr. Higgins,” Marc said.

“Hello, Marc.”

Ted shut the door behind them. “You should know you cannot run away from this. It’s going to happen, and you might as well accept it.”

“What’s going to happen?” asked Marc.

“You broke your contract agreement,” Ted said. “That’s very serious.”

“What contract agreement?”

“You signed an allegiance to Dynamica Incorporated. You broke the agreement. You disengaged from your technology. You acted on nonpublic information.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Let me see this contract.”

“We’re beyond that,” Ted said. Then he stepped toward Dr. Higgins. He pointed to a small black briefcase placed on Marc’s living room table.

“Let’s begin the procedure.”

Dr. Higgins snapped open the briefcase. He lifted the lid to reveal a variety of neatly arranged medical tools, sharp instruments for very precise surgery. First, he removed a clear plastic sleeve with a dark, oval-shaped object inside, the size of a quarter.

“We have brought you a new chip,” said Higgins, extracting it from the sleeve. “Marc, you deceived me. I don’t appreciate that. I handled your request in my professional capacity without realizing your true motive. So now we will return things to the way they should be.”

The two thug characters took hold of Marc, each grabbing an arm. Marc struggled but could not free himself from their tight grip.

Higgins reached again into the black briefcase. He extracted a syringe.

“We can’t have you squirming during the application. This will help you sleep. When you wake up, you will be compliant. And this time, the chip will be placed in such a way that its removal will, I guarantee it, kill you. There’s no going back.”

Marc swallowed hard. Higgins stepped toward him with the syringe. Ted watched intently from nearby, arms folded.

“Wait,” Marc said.

Higgins prepared to make the injection. One of the thugs had forcibly extended Marc’s bare arm for the doctor.

“There’s no waiting,” Ted said. “Get on with it.”

“Dr. Higgins, I’m asking you to show some compassion,” Marc said. “I know I’ll receive the chip. I’m not arguing with that. But the first few hours will be traumatic. Can you – can you tell me my chip’s serial number?”

“What for?” said Ted.

“I want to be synced for service. So I can download anti-anxiety feelings to help me recover.”

“This is wasting time,” Ted said.

“Hear me out. I just want to program the new chip into my controller. I’ll need the benefits.”

“You can do it later.”

“I’ll be a total mess. Think of what I’m going through. I want to get it ready now.”

Higgins shrugged. He looked over at Ted. “I don’t see why we can’t allow that.”

Ted let out an exhale of exasperation. “All right, where’s your handheld?”

“It’s in the top drawer of that bureau…right behind you.”

Ted turned around. He saw the bureau and pulled open the drawer. He reached inside and took out the chip-controlling device. “This?”

“Yes,” Marc said. “Thank you.”

Ted walked over to Marc and handed it to him. “Make it quick.”

“Yes. Thank you.”

The two thugs loosened their grip on Marc. He turned on the device. Ted continued to keep a watch on him, gun held tight.

“Okay,” Marc said to Dr. Higgins. “What’s my personal code?”

Higgins told him, enunciating each digit clearly.

Marc pretended to input it. In actuality he was calling up a list of active chips in the immediate vicinity. A listing of ten appeared. The first four, he knew, were the people in the room.

“Oops, wait, say that again, I screwed up,” Marc said, working the device, buying himself extra seconds. He kept the monitor facing him in a way that the others couldn’t see.

Dr. Higgins recited the code a second time.

Marc quickly ordered a Dynamica stimulation signal for the first chip on his list. He ordered Instant Sleep.

“What’s taking so long?” Ted said impatiently.

“Sorry, I think I transposed a couple of numbers.”

“That’s it. You’re done,” Ted said. “You’re delaying this. Stick him with the injection!”

The thug to Marc’s right dropped to the floor. He hit the carpet hard, then curled up, eyes closed, in a limp sleeping state.

“What the hell!” Ted exclaimed.

Marc sent the same signal to the second thug, and he dropped like a rock.

“Stick him, now!” Ted shouted, confused, waving toward Marc.

Higgins came at Marc with the syringe. Marc swatted it away, buying himself precious seconds. He quickly poked a signal for Higgins – missing Instant Sleep and sending him another one on the bestseller list – Hearty Laughter.

Higgins giggled. Then he broke into uncontrollable laughter. He could barely stand, doubled over with guffaws.

“What the hell is going on here?” Ted demanded.

This only made Higgins laugh harder.

Ted charged Marc and tackled him before he could send a signal to divert Ted’s brain.

Marc tumbled to the carpet, and the handheld device skipped out of his grasp.

Ted punched him hard in the ribs. Marc coughed in pain, scrambling to retrieve the controller.

Higgins howled with laughter as the two men engaged in a violent tangle on the floor.

Marc regained a hold on the controller. Ted threw more punches and tried to take it away. The monitor displayed a list of Dynamica’s bestsellers and Marc poked one at random, as fast as possible, to fill Ted’s head.

Ted landed a fist to Marc’s jaw, and then his movements turned sluggish. His brainwaves were captured by one of Dynamica’s ‘Hot New Releases’: Bird Flight.

Ted staggered to his feet. He rapidly lost awareness of his true surroundings as his imagination took over his consciousness.

He became consumed with the illusion he was a bird, soaring through open skies.

His eyes drooped half shut. His mouth dropped open in astonishment.

“I’m flying,” he said.

Higgins roared with laughter, collapsing on the couch. As he fell onto the cushions, he accidentally stabbed himself with the syringe still in his grip. He grimaced from the sudden stab of pain and his laughter stopped. His eyes traced the source of the pain. He saw the syringe sticking out of his thigh. Then he exploded into more uproarious laughter.

Ted began to walk across the room, arms spread, eyes closed. “I’m flying,” he said. Marc watched silently, not about to contradict him.

As Higgins’s outburst slowed to a few lethargic chuckles and snickers, Ted became a ballet dancer, moving in dramatic circles, lost in a fantasy flight and no longer grounded in any reality.

“I am the sky,” Ted said.

Ted circled the living room a few more times. Then he soared into the bedroom.

Marc turned to see Higgins lose consciousness under the strength of the tranquilizer. He muttered one last “heh heh” and went limp. The two thugs remained in a deep sleep on the floor, cuddled with one another.

“I’m a bird!” shouted Ted from the bedroom. Marc heard him crash into something, probably a lamp.

Marc hurried into the bedroom to see what was happening.

The sliding balcony doors remained open, and Ted was drawn to the New York City skyline. Ted moved past the bed and stepped outdoors, arms stretched out.

“Wait!” Marc said. “No!” He immediately feared what would happen next. He worked the handheld device and prepared to shift Ted’s signal feed to something else, anything else, but his fingers weren’t fast enough.

Ted climbed the balcony railing. He declared he was soaring above the earth. Then he made an awkward leap into the open air.

Ted did not fly. Ted fell fast and hard.

Before Ted had even landed on the pavement below, Marc started grabbing his clothes. He pulled on a shirt, jeans and loafers. Gripping the controller, he ran out of his apartment, leaving the three sleeping occupants behind.

Outside the building’s front entrance, a small crowd had gathered. People screamed and gasped at the bloody mess on the curb. It barely looked human. Teeth were scattered like pebbles. Police sirens filled the air.

Marc picked a direction and ran off into the night.