Tag: suspense

Inhuman (3)

~ Meg ~ 33 Comments

To read from the beginning, visit Part One and Part Two.

(3)

Cold. Amanda woke up shivering, which was just about the only movement she could make. Her arms and legs were strapped to the bars of a hospital bed and another strap across her chest made sitting up impossible. She was alone. The room was windowless, dimly lit and empty save for a lone metal chair and the bed in which she lay. How long had she been out? Where was she? And where was Brian?

“Hello? Is anybody there?” she called out. After a few moments, the door opened and a man walked in. She expected a doctor —that was the hospital bed, she supposed— but the man wore a well-tailored dark suit.

“Hello, Amanda,” he said with a smile. “Sorry about the restraints but we didn’t want you wandering aimlessly until we had a chance to talk.”

“Where’s Brian? Where is my husband?” she demanded, struggling against the straps holding her down.

His smile faded. “That is the central thing we need to discuss.” He took a step closer. “I’m going to take you someplace where you’ll be a little more comfortable. I need you to trust me, ok?”

Amanda nodded wordlessly. She wanted answers. No, she needed them. She would at least cooperate until she had them.

“My name is Nathan Bishop,” he told her as he removed the restraints from her feet. “Get up slowly. You might be a little woozy from the anaesthetic.” After releasing her hands and the strap across her chest, he stepped back to wait by the door. “Your shoes are by the side of the bed. Take your time.”

Amanda swung her legs over the side and gingerly stepped into her shoes. After she was sure she could stand upright, she took a tentative step toward the door. Nathan took her arm firmly —either for support or control, Amanda couldn’t tell which— and led her from the room. They followed a long hallway, interrupted occasionally by other solid doors with no indication of what lay beyond, until they reached an intersection and turned left. Shortly after, the tributary terminated at a pair of double doors. Nathan, till holding Amanda’s arm, stepped close to a small panel beside the door and waited while his retina was scanned. The doors slid open with a soft whoosh.

The room beyond was half conference room, half lounge, with a large oblong table and chairs at one end, and a seating area with three sofas forming a U-shape clustered around a low table on the other. It was to this second area, Nathan led her. A woman and another man rose as they approached. “Amanda, this is Lydia Castle and Alexander King.” They each offered a hand to shake. “Please have a seat,” Nathan said.

“Amanda. Where to begin?” Lydia said with a warm smile. “I’m sure…”

“Where is my husband?” Amanda interrupted. “What have you done with him?”

Lydia held up her hands in a gesture of surrender. “We have a long story to tell you. Please bear with us. You see, Brian… well he’s not who you think he is…” she paused, shifting uncomfortably in her seat. “In fact, he’s not even ‘what’ you think he is.”

Amanda felt the blood drain from her face and she gripped the sofa cushions for support. “What do you mean?” she rasped.

The man called Alexander spoke. “Amanda, Brian is… well, he’s a highly advanced… em… highly advanced artificial intelligence.”

The room spun. Nathan reached out to steady her. Amanda looked from one to the other to the other, trying to absorb what she’d just heard. “No. It can’t be…” she began. “He’s human. He’s as human as I am.”

Lydia shook her head sadly. “No, I’m afraid he’s not. Brian —or as he is officially called: SAIW-02— is property of the United States Government.” She hurried on as Amanda gaped at her. “Amanda, just let us explain…”

Alexander sighed heavily. “Amanda, throughout history, it’s been the military that has been the biggest driver of scientific innovation. Until recently, it’s been about developing the most efficient ways to kill. Bigger bombs, better targeting, stealthier planes. We already have the means to destroy this planet many times over. Now…” he lifted his hands and let them drop. “The focus has begun to shift.”

Lydia continued. “It’s about preserving lives instead of taking them. Keeping our military personnel as safe as possible. I’ll give you an example you’ll be familiar with: drone technology. We can send a remotely controlled drone to take out a target when in the past we’d send pilots in planes and risk them being shot down. If a drone gets taken out, no lives are lost.”

“The truth is, Amanda, our technological advances are far ahead of anything the public has dreamt up. The world isn’t ready for civilian applications of this kind of science,” Alexander said. “The SAIW program is the next step in innovation.”

“What does that stand for? SAIW?” Amanda asked.

“Strategic Artificial Intelligence Weapon,” Nathan answered.

“Amanda, your ‘Brian’ is an android super soldier,” Lydia said.

To be continued…

Small Cuts (15) Oliver

~ Meg ~ 14 Comments

To find links to all parts of this story, please visit the Small Cuts Page. Back to Oliver:

Elaine’s hesitation spoke volumes. Still, I had to know. “Lainey, say something.”

She nodded, took a deep breath and… at the very same moment both our phones started to ring. “Don’t answer it,” I said, as she pulled hers from her purse. “If it’s important they’ll leave a message.”

She frowned at the screen and I knew what she thinking. She wanted to answer it, if only to delay a few minutes more. And a delay could only mean one thing: my feelings weren’t returned. The phone stopped ringing and she tucked it back into her bag. I waited. She stared at the ground.

Rubbing my hands over my face, I said, “Just tell me, Elaine. I need you to say it. And we’ll move on. We can pretend I never said a thing…”

The phones which had gone silent both began ringing again. This time Elaine answered. With a muttered curse, I pulled mine out of my pocket and looked at it. It was a number I didn’t recognize, but it was local. Whoever it was had left a voice mail the first time. “Hello,” I said, my frustration bordering on anger.

The caller confirmed my name, told me his, said he was with the Philadelphia Police Department. “Police?” I repeated, my nerves jangling the way they do when you’ve been caught at something. “Is there a problem?”

“Sir, I’m afraid there’s been an accident.”

I was about to ask what kind of accident, when Elaine made a noise —something between a gasp and a shriek. When I glanced over, she looked like she was about to collapse. I reached out a hand to steady her, but she was shaking so badly, I pulled her close. The officer had continued speaking, and I had only caught words and phrases as I tried to comfort Elaine. “…very serious condition …unconscious … lost a lot of blood …Jefferson Hospital ER…”

Accident. Serious. Unconscious. Blood. Hospital. Hospital…

“Sir? Sir?”

I shook my head to clear it. “Yes, I’m sorry. What? Who?”

“Your wife, sir. Genevieve _____.” He paused. “Can you drive? Or can you call a friend to bring you down to the hospital?”

Genevieve. I felt like the temperature dropped by about forty degrees. I said, “I’m in the city. I’ll get a cab. Jefferson, you said?” He said yes. I said, “I’ll be right there.” I disconnected and held a weeping Elaine by her shoulders. “Elaine. I have to go. Gen’s been in a serious accident.” She gave a little cry and covered her mouth. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

“James.” She choked through her tears. “James.”

“What about James? Elaine, I need you to pull yourself together.” That sounded harsh, but I didn’t have time to waste. I tried to be gentle, when I added, “Come on, now, honey, I have to go.“

“He’s been in a crash… here in the city. He’s here in the city. Oliver.” She kept repeating herself over and over. “In the city. In the city.” I gave her a little shake to get her attention.

“Was that him on the phone?” Had he he followed her? Or maybe me after I drove past the house? And he knew. He knew what was going on. My mind whirled. We could deal with it. Make an excuse. Elaine and I getting together alone wasn’t all that unusual. But if he’d seen me at the house… I didn’t have time for this. I repeated my question, “Was that James you were talking to?” She shook her head no. “Ok, who was it then?”

“The police.”

An icy finger of dread crept up my spine. “Ok. What did they say? Where is he? Where is James? Was he hurt? Did he have to go the hospital?” I asked.

“He… he… he,” she sobbed. “He’s gone.They couldn’t save him.”

In that moment, I could not define how I felt. My best friend was dead. My wife severely injured. On the same day. At the same time. What were the chances? And I despised myself for the sickening thought that suddenly now Elaine was free. Who thinks something like that at a time like this? Was I a monster? Go to Genevieve. Right. I could self flagellate later. I had to figure out what the hell to do right now. I couldn’t leave Elaine like this, but I had to go to Gen. “Come with me. Gen is at Jefferson.” I put an arm around her shoulder and began moving toward the main entrance. She stiffened and I thought she was going to resist. “Please, Elaine. Just stay with me.”

“Where are we going?” she asked. “Jefferson?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s where they took James, too.”

Small Cuts (12) Genevieve

~ Meg ~ 23 Comments

To find links to all parts of this story, please visit the Small Cuts Page. This is what’s happening with Genevieve:

Upon discovering that I was alone in the house, I had a moment of panic, if Oliver was gone and I had lost time, just how much time had I lost? Was it only the two hours I had originally thought or was it perhaps an entire day? Was it still Sunday, or was it a weekday and Oliver had left for work? I ran to the family room, turned on the television, and flipped the channel to CNN where I was sure the date and time would be displayed across the bottom of the screen.

Breaking News, another mass shooting had happened last night —this time at a Senior Prom in a suburb of St. Paul, Minnesota. Students and teachers dead. A teenage gunman with an assault weapon took his own life when the police arrived. I took note of the date —still Sunday— and turned the TV off. I couldn’t watch. This was exactly the kind of thing that reaffirmed my decision about having children. This world was becoming a living nightmare.

I returned to the kitchen and brewed another pot of coffee, waited while the French roast dripped into the carafe. Time, time. How did I lose nearly two hours? My skin tingled —was this how it felt when your atoms flew apart? No, no, stop… I was just cold. The air conditioning had kicked on at its preprogrammed time. But the time… Think. I must have fallen asleep on my feet. The sleepless night had caught up with me. It was the only rational explanation. The other option was too dreadful to conceive: that maybe I really was in some horrible dream.

I had tried to talk to Oliver about the idea recently. He had argued that people were happy, or at least had a measure of happiness, and such a thing wouldn’t be possible if we were all in some sort of nightmare realm. That it could only be a place of abject misery and fear for everyone existing there. I disagreed. I thought of it in more personal terms. After all, what could be worse for a miserable person than to be in the company of people who were happy? Especially if those people had seemingly worse circumstances than you did and still managed to find some joy in life. No, it had to be that these happy people were some sort of incarnations inhabiting my personal hell, placed there by an external malevolent force so that I would feel guilt by comparison.

“What does that make me?” Oliver had argued. “Some sort of evil figment of your imagination?”

I didn’t know how to answer that. The other dominant thought I’d been having was that I was slipping out of existence. If Oliver was a figment of my imagination, then my reality was even more fractured than I thought. I could not lose this anchor for my existence. Oliver’s wife. I was Oliver’s wife. Genevieve, Genevieve, Genevieve. Get ahold of yourself.

Shaking my head to clear it, I laughed nervously and told him to forget it. “I’m just philosophizing again.”

“Your philosophizing always leads you down a very dark path, Gen. I don’t like it,” he said gently. “Sometimes, you scare me.”

Sometimes I scare myself, I thought.

The coffee maker beeped and I poured a cup. Oliver, Oliver, where did you go this morning? Were things between us so bad that you didn’t feel the need to tell me? What if something happens to you? How would I know?

The phone. I could check the phone. We had that app that lets you find all the devices on your account. I set my coffee mug down, sloshing the contents, and ran back to the bedroom where I had left my phone. I swiped it open and found the app. Four blinking blue dots appeared: two phones, two iPads. Three of those dots were here at home, but the fourth was in Center City, off Rittenhouse Square, the parking garage of The Park Hotel. Why? Why? Was Ollie meeting someone for brunch? Did I forget some appointment he had with a client? Or was it with a friend? What friend? We rarely did anything with anybody besides James and Elaine. Was it James? My friend James. James who was going to resurrect me. I should call James. See what he and Elaine were doing. Elaine. Elaine. Elaine. No. No, no, no, no…. it couldn’t be…

I tore off my pajamas and grabbed a shirt and jeans from my closet. Then stuffing my phone in my purse, I ran for the garage. Keys, keys. Back into the house for keys. Hit the garage door opener. Breathe. Breathe. Ignition. Reverse.

GPS. I needed the fastest way to The Park Hotel. I searched the address at the end of the driveway and started the turn by turn directions. “In 50 yards, turn left.”

Turn left. Leaving the development. Out to the boulevard, on to the highway…“merge onto 676 East, The Vine street Expressway…”

Horns, horns, shrieking tires, the crunch of metal on metal. The thump and whoosh of the airbags exploding. Shattering of glass. Screaming, someone was screaming. Then silence.

Header image: Polka Dots ~ Francesca Woodman