Outside Fear

Outside of Fear SamaraMalcolm©2005

AUGUST 31st 1999

Brooklyn Courts Apartments

Apt.# 325

Brooklyn, NY

It was 8:00 at night. Two hours till Jace Leonhardt would meet with fellow Echo member Kal Cain. His nerves were on edge due to a current assignment and he wished to get this new ordeal over with as soon as possible.

Jace sat on the edge of his bed with a No.2 pencil and methodically filled pertinent information into the tiny confines of each puzzle box of The USA Today Crossword. #9 across would have you to believe that a sandwich alternative was Beth. #26 Across informed the reader that Israel was a member of Dr. Spock’s target audience. #17 Across announced a new soup for dieters: SandersDr.

When he finished filling in the details of the assignment, he studied the puzzle as if looking at it for the first time. At first glance it was simply an unfinished crossword. One would need to know to look for a pattern to notice the true oddity of the answers. Satisfied, he tossed the paper and pencil onto the top of his hamper and shuffled into the bathroom to take a leak. From the bedroom the sound of running water signified that he had been taught to wash his hands after using the restroom. An overview of his pad would reveal that he had not been taught to clean up after himself.

Jace relocated his sore frame to the kitchen were he opened a cold brew and heated up an aging slice of pie in the microwave. While the smell of pepperoni filled the closed in space he called home, Jace booted up his laptop. He still had work to do on his current assignment before his briefing with Kal.

Corner of Livingston and Brooklyn Bridge Blvd.

Brooklyn Terrace Apartments

Apt. # 2110

Brooklyn, NY

Earlier...


Kal Cain’s phone began to sing the Mexican Hat Dance, which inspired his hips to move in sway to the rhythm.

"Hel-looo Nurse." he answered on the second verse.

"Hey man," came Jace’s voice, distorted as if under water. "I’ve got a crucial tip if you’re up to the challenge."

"Hit me."

"A certain facility is reportedly practicing unethical medical treatment and procedures. There’s two leads of complaints for ya, as well as a detailed schematic of the facility."

"Your place?" Kal asked, grabbing a pen and jotting down a note on the back of his past due electric bill’s envelope.

"Ten o’clock."

Both men closed their cell phones and Kal turned his eyes on a green digital read out.

Two in the afternoon.

Eight hours to follow up a lead on his current assignment. He memorized the scrawled letters of his handwriting:

Unethical experiments

2 leads

Facility schematics

Kali grabbed his coat, wallet and laptop and walked out the door. He was quick enough to jam his left foot the door and its frame just before it slammed shut. He reached his hand inside and snagged his keys off the wall hook that hung next to the front door.

"Won’t get very far without these."

Kal shut the door and left his apartment clad in the blue and orange of the Knicks.

Brooklyn Courts Apartments

Apt.# 325

Brooklyn, NY

10:00p.m.

"Ay Ice. C’mon in."

"Wussup Man."

They exchanged a handshake and Kal entered Jace’s modest cave. He removed his blue and orange starter jacket and looked for a place to hang it.

"Ay, you can put it in my room if you want."

Kal surveyed ground zero and decided that would be a good idea. He picked his way carefully around the paper plates and empty beer bottles that littered what he supposed was the living room carpet.

"You want a beer man?"

"Naw, I’m cool." Kal placed his pride and joy on the box spring and retraced his route, choosing his steps carefully. "So wussup?" He messed with his cap, adjusting and readjusting it.

"Aw, same old shit. ’Nother day. We got a coupla doctors, South American we think, playing God down in Union. Possible black market contract. Chief wants us to put a stop to whatever they’re running before they start hawking somebody’s kidney’s out on the street."

"How’d we hear about it?"

"Little old Italian lady’s son went into this clinic for a free examination. Two months later, he’s dead. She claims they were experimenting on him, payin’ him to participate. Whether she’s senile or not, who knows. But here’s the kicker. Whatever killed him, it was bad. They sent men in respirator suits to collect him after his mother called 9-1-1. The ambulance arrived shortly after these men left with her dead son. Nobody wants to do anything for her. Nobody wants to help her."

"So why do we?"

"She and her son ran a deli on the lower East Side. Chief likes to eat there sometimes. Him and this lady always talk. It’s always personal when its somebody you know."

"I dunno. This ain’t sounding too credible...just ‘coz chief eats the lady’s food doesn’t mean she’s not a barrel of nuts."

"Agreed. But she’s only one of two. A UPS delivery guy has made three sizeable deliveries within the last week to the facility and reported questionable behavior."

"Questionable, like how? Scratching their nuts and jumpin’ up and down like monkeys?"

"No man. Patients that look like death itself has touched them, held by bed restraints while doctor’s injected them with a greenish substance. Screaming at the top of their lungs."

"I’ll take that beer now."

"What’s more, he’s seen men in respirator suits cruising about the corridor’s." Jace tossed a 12 ounce can of Coor’s to Kal’s outstretched hand.

"In Union?" The can fizzed in protest when Kal popped the tab.

"Union." Both men took their beer down long and hard. Silence let fester the words that been spoken.


Both Coor’s had been trashed, Jace’s on the counter, Kal’s in the overflowing trash can. Jace brought the men down to business.

"Item one. Memory Stick. Wear it around your neck and guard it with your life."

Kal took the media device and gave it the once over before putting the loop around his neck.

"The way you talk there better damn well be a playboy special on here."

"Item two. A copy of the USA Today." Jace offered it to Kal who merely shrugged his shoulders.

"I don’t read the paper."

"Well now ya’ do. At least you do the crossword puzzle."

"I definitely don’t do crosswords."

"Today’s a brand new day for ya’ man. Trust me. You will find the crossword puzzle very interesting. Enlightening even."

"Ok." Kal took the paper and folded it once, made it small enough to fit in his back pocket.

"The media stick has the facility’s schematics. The crossword has the location and personnel. The rest is up to you."

"ESOG probability?"

"High. I’ll be available on the wire when ya need me."

Kal was silent, thinking.

"Who alls in town?"

Jace rubbed the scruff on his face and thought.

"Not many man. Shit is popping lately. I’ll see who I can round up tho."

"Aiight man. Appreciate that. I’ll get back at ya."

The men shook hands and Kal left Brooklyn Courts.

A Succession of knocks bombarded Jace’s door shortly after Kal left.

He rose from his position at his laptop and grabbed his gun.

"Who is it?" he yelled as he checked his clip.

"Ice, man."

Jace peered through the peep hole and indeed saw Kal hounding his door.

"Anyone with you?"

"Naw man. I left my jacket. Fucking open up."

Jace relaxed his grip and unlatched the locks to give Kal access.

When Kal walked in he noticed the death grip on Jace’s gun.

"Jesus man, is this neighborhood really that bad?" He went to the bedroom and retrieved his starter jacket.

"Shit’s been heavy man. I can’t afford to not be careful."

"I heard that. Aiight man. I’ll holla at ya."


Beginning Viewpoint of Kal Cain


September 1st 1999

Rosario’s Deli Café

17 W 39th St

New York NY

The little Italian lady’s name was Cornelia. She was a frail thing but a heavy hitter. She filled me in on her son’s death.

"Aye, bless that Calvert." she said when I identified myself and the reason for my visit.

"So’s Vicente, bless his heart, Vicente, he was my oldest boy. Vicente, he wents down to the center an he came back excited because they were to pay for all his medical expenses.

"Vicente, I says. Be careful my boy. Those medical men are not to be trusted because nothing is free. He no wanted to listen to his mamma. Now he in his grave."

Cornelia broke down in sobs and I did my best to comfort her. I imagined people must have thought we were quite a sight in passing.

A grown white boy with a goatee, dressed in a New York Knick’s cap, starter jacket, jeans and a fresh white pair of Nike throwbacks comforting an elderly Italian mamacita. She wore a one piece dress, her hair neat in a bun except for a few gray wisp of hairs blowing in the breeze.

Once Cornelia’s tears dried I gathered the remaining information she had to offer. Vicente had engaged in one of those programs that test out new medicine on you and pay you for allowing them to do so. Of course you have to have the necessary symptoms.

At thirty three years of age, overweight Vicente had been diagnosed with early signs of cardiac dysfunction. His doctors expected him to go out and demand that his job provide him with adequate medical coverage. When he tried this approach he was told that if he didn’t like the benefits that were offered to him he could find one where they treated him more like a king.

Due to his inability to pay the high medical costs, doctors were unable to treat his condition. As an excuse they told him he was in the early stages and it really wasn’t that bad. If he would just diet and exercise, he would be just fine.

So he sought out another opinion. On lunch break he was reading the classifieds and saw the ad that quickened his demise.

WANTED:

If you suffer from cardiac dysfunction, palpitations, shortness of breath, or any other symptoms of heart disease, we want you. We are looking for participants in a new study of medicine that is currently awaiting FDA approval. Each participant will be compensated monetarily for their participation. For more information contact 1-212-844-8000 ext. 214.

Vicente called the number, went in for a diagnostic examine and was welcomed aboard as a the next lucky Joe on a path to health and recovery.

Two months later he laid bloated and dying on his mama’s hard wood floor, seizing and vomiting, and bleeding. She called 9-1-1 and men came in respirator suits and took him away. They would tell her nothing.

Five minutes after those men left, NY paramedics entered the scene to find no body. Cordelia went into hysterics after witnessing her son’s horrible death, the men that took him away, and now, no one knew who the men were or where her son’s body was taken. What was worse, the paramedics had a hard time believing her story. They took her, instead, to the hospital where she was given medicine that calmed her nerves. A chief of police came to ask her a coupla questions about the blood on her kitchen floor and gave her a sad look as she retold her story.

It came down to the fact that there was no body. No evidence of a crime. Now, he didn’t doubt that something had frightened the shit out of her, but he was sure her son had just taken a vacation and would show up soon. If he didn’t within forty eight hours, she was more than welcome to come down to the station and fill out a missing person’s form.

She left the hospital with a prescription of Valium and an appointment with the rotating psychiatric doctor.

She had no one who would help her so she suffered in silence before she saw on the news about a scam being run in Essex County. Health practitioners were luring the public with compensation for participating in questionable medical experiments. When they showed a raid of the center, the officers were outfitted with respirator masks. The same ones she says she saw on the men who took Vicente’s body.

I left Rosario’s with Cornelia’s pain fresh on my shoulders. The woman had been through a lot and didn’t deserve this crap. She was intelligent and bright and everyone labeled her as a crazy person because it wasn’t cool to believe in conspiracies these days. I hunched my shoulders over and burrowed deep within the safety of my Knick’s jacket. The damn cold front had come through. First day of September and Mother Nature was already fuckin’ wit us.

Brooklyn College

2900 Bedford Avenue

Brooklyn, NY

Next up was a meeting with the UPS guy. Lamont Singleton. He was in between deliveries so it would have to be quick. We met up on the steps of Brooklyn College outside the library.

"The name’s Squeak." He was an odd guy. Head shaven, dressed in his browns. He had a habit of bobbing his neck back and forth, like a duck. Every time he paused he did this thing with his teeth, like a squeak.

Squeak told me about the boogeymen in their high-tech suits that he saw roaming the halls. He told me about his deliveries, and how he had opened one of them to find vials and vials of empty syringes.

"Looks like they’re getting ready for mass production in there."

"Mass production of what?" I asked stifling my boredom. The info was good but I’ve never been a research man. My expertise is in the field.

"Whatever it is, its killing them folks." When he leaned in close to whisper I could smell the tictac on his breath. I knew it was a tictac and not gum or a peppermint because he kept shaking the tiny box of tictac’s like a nervous habit.

"I seen them, the patients. I seen them dying. One lady was having a seizure as if the devil himself had stuck his shlong in her back and was fucking her to death." He punctuated the statement with another of his squeaks. The tictac showed itself briefly, white on white, against his teeth.

"Well how do you know she was dying? She could have epilepsy or something."

"Naw. This is a private research facility. They rent space in this building. No hospital’s check up on them, no board of directors monitor their activities. Patients come in and go out. Sign Non-disclosure agreements and all that bull shit. Hell, I wouldn’t be too surprised if most of those patients never make it out. Shit. Bet you’ll never catch my black ass in there."

"But you made three sizeable deliveries there last week."

"And them were my last ones too. Believe that. I requested a different route. You see me now, up here at this fancy college and shit. At least all I’m delivering here is books and shit."

"Aiight. Well I appreciate your time man."

"Yea no problem. You find out what’s going down over there bra. It’s nasty. Some dirty nasty shit." He squeaked.

"Aiight man."

We shook hands and I left him to his deliveries.

Brooklyn Terrace Apartments

Apt. # 2110

Brooklyn, NY

I live on the corner of Livingston and Brooklyn Bridge Boulevard. I had made it from my car to the stairs when my cell phone rang.

"Wut’s tha deal?"

"Its Jace man. You got anything?"

"I’m working on it. Gimme an hour."

"I’ve got a list you can assemble from if need be."

"Bet that."

I gained access to my humble pad and went to take a leak.

When I returned I sat down on my trusty old couch and marinated for a bit. Everything I’d learned flashed before my eyes like a scrolling marquee. It was enough, I decided. Enough to launch the investigation, enough to turn a trick into a cash machine.

I’m more the guy to choose the assignment where the congressman is funding prostitution in his own backyard. I loved nailing the balls of a certain Senator, who will remain nameless, to the wall with a staple gun. He resigned two weeks later and confessed to charges of prostitution and child endangerment. He is now serving a ten year sentence and will never be elected again. That’s my M.O. If you do something I find wrong, I will hand you your balls while you writhe in pain.

The nail in my coffin was Cornelia. Her story got to me. I find human experimentation wrong, but the way she lost her son was worse. Those bastard’s had the cohones to take her son’s body from her, just to hide their nasty truth. She wasn’t allowed the opportunity to bury her flesh and blood.

What’s worse is she knows what happened but can do nothing about it. No body believes her. That is how these doctor’s of experimentation continue to flourish. A truth cannot be exposed if no one believes it to be true. They hide in plain sight. They’re comfortable in the public light. I planned to turn their lights out. See how comfortable they were in the dark. Just me and them.

September 2nd 1999

I engaged in observation tactics. I went to the health center and tried my damndest to be seen. The nurse on duty regrettably informed me time and time again that the center was not accepting new patients at this time.

I raised hell and demanded she tell me why. The lady must’ve been a negotiator in a previous life because somehow she talked me down and got me to leave. Luckily, a patient by the name of Sue Adams followed me outside to where I stood kicking the soda machine.

"That never works ya know."

I spun around at the beautiful melody of her voice.

"Yea? Well it helps me feel better."

"Machine took ya dolla’ huh?" The wind ruffled her hair as she spoke, cascading strands into her blue eyes.

"Piece of shit!" I slammed my fist into the side of the Pepsi machine, rattling all of its contents. I heard a shake and a rumble and a diet Pepsi can fell to the bottom.

"Well looks like it works after all." Sue laughed and retrieved the shaken pop.

"Yea well the universe is a barrel of laughs ‘coz I don’t drink diet."

"I do. Do you mind?" She was a very pretty girl. With my luck, she was sixteen, although her figure suggested early twenties.

"Knock yourself out kid." I turned from temptation and willed myself to walk away.

"I bet ya want to know why Beth ain’t accepting new patients huh."

Her clear words stopped me in my tracks. My Nike’s spun me around slowly and I bore my eyes into hers. I took one hesitant step in her direction.

"Why?"

Sue squinted her eyes in the sunlight and her nose twitched. A light delicate sneeze escaped her dignified stature.

"Bless you."

"Thank you. Tell ya what, let’s go sit in the shade and maybe I can convince ya to share this pepsi with me."

"I don’t do diet," I re-emphasized, "but I’ll hang for a bit."

We sat underneath the shade tree, inspecting the blades of grass, watching people as they passed, everything but what we both feared. For ten minutes neither of us spoke. I suppose the suspense got the best of her first because out of the blue she began to talk and never shut up.

"They won’t take you or anyone else. The whole center’s in an uproar. I heard a doctor sayin’ not to accept another god damned person until they got the situation under control."

"What situation?"

"I don’t know, but a lot of us are scared. There’s been a lot go missin’ recently. We think the doctors know something, but all they tell us is that they transferred to another facility. Its bullshit tho. It is. My friend Bobby, he died. I saw his obituary in the paper. It said heart failure took him. The doctors told me he just transferred to another facility. Why would they lie about such a thing huh? And I asked them about it, and you know what they told me? That he was alive and well when he transferred and he ain’t there responsibility no more. They can’t worry about what happens to a person who’s not under their care anymore. I don’t buy it."

"Me either." I couldn’t help but be captivated by this woman, by the way she talked, the way she moved. Sitting on the ground she stood tall, taller than me. She was trim with shoulder length blonde hair and lagoon green eyes. Expressive eyes, supple lips, and a pixie nose. I think I fell in love that day. I’ll never know for sure.

"And they’ve put a hold on our medicines. We can’t get nothing. It don’t bother me near as bad because I was just here for the hell of it. People are dying out here though. People with real condition’s who can’t afford to go somewhere else. People who put their trust in this center. Why would they do this to these people?"

Again she looked at me for some kind of an answer, a reprieve from her delimma. I could only shake my head.

"I don’t know. You have any idea what kind of situation it is they’ve lost control over?"

"Nah, not really. There’s been some men in Haz-mat suits wandering around, like on that movie Outbreak. We don’t have any monkey’s here, I don’t think. Not unless you count the doctors."

We laughed, laughed together. She felt good to be around. She was sweet, a simple sweetness. I haven’t seen her since that day, yet I still think about our encounter. I wonder; if she’s still alive, if she ever went back to that clinic, if she ever thinks about me.

Ending Viewpoint of Kal Cain



SEPTEMBER 3RD 1999

Beth Israel Karpas Health Center

10 Union Square East

3rd Floor

Manhattan, NY

bright light pierced through the skin, activating the corneas. Consciousness drifted back into the listless soul and the senses were brought back online. I opened his eyes.

"Wh-.."

"MarHaba." A cruel sneer greeted me, the awoken abductee.

"Wh-..Wh-.." I struggled to expel the thought, my efforts failing miserably.

"Get me some water!" The sneer barked.

A glass of water was handed to him, and he allowed me to drink from it.

"Where am I?" Finally me scratchy throat turned my internal question into a half heard whisper.

"You are in my care."

"...What day is it?"

"September 3rd."

"What?! It can’t be!" I felt confusion, but no fear.

"But it is."

"Then tell me, why I am still alive?" A quiet storm brewed incessantly within my core. I battled disharmonious shadows of memory, in effort to determine my last processed thought.

"Because," Ezekiel gestured grandly. "I wish it to be so."

"There’s a surprise."

Ezekiel clasped his hands together, index fingers pointed upward, creating a steeple. He brought this hypocrisy to his lips, in thought, before he next spoke.

"You’ve come in very handy over the past few weeks. Ironic isn’t it when the scientist becomes the test subject."

"What are you talking about?"

"I speak of using you as a test subject. Using your own technology against you, as well as our own."

"Figures. You always were a merciless cold hearted bastard." A flash of hatred flashed before me, temporarily blinded my vision, as lightening accentuates a stormy night. My view became hazy, unsure, as that of a mirage. Only my mirage held no enticing lagoon, no paln tree where my camel could find shade and drink.

"One has to be to remain alive in this system of things."

"I don’t believe that." Anger of emotion brought out the truest tongue of my English upbringing.

"And look at the position your disbelief has placed you; at my mercy."

"You have no mercy." My eyes averted to the statacco wooden floor.

"I do believe you hold a grudge against me. We’ve both grown since Jericho. We’re not in Israel anymore."

"Somehow I doubt if I click my heels three times I will magically be returned home."

"Yes, its not likely."

"What experiments are you running?" My outlets to the world traveled the confines of the home-made lab. I was not alone in my captivity. Two separate beds ran parrallel to mine. One male and one female occupied their space. They remained unaware, in an unconscious state.

"It does not befit a lab rat to know what cancer it is infected with. Don’t worry yourself over what you cannot know."

The tone of his voice, even, uncaring, caused my adrenaline to rise without care. I fought my restraints to the point of tiring out.

"What have you done to me?!"

"All I will tell you is this. You are destined to end up like your friend Ewan." The mention of Ewan shut my trap tight.

Ezekiel’s face softened under a pretense of concern, held for but a moment and quivered to a mold of mockery.

"Did I make you sad, Joel? Do you miss him? Christ, one might think you were lovers the way you cared for him so. Don’t worry." A sneer. "You will be joining him shortly."

"I’m not afraid of you...I am not afraid." This menial chant firmed my determination.

"Perhaps, no. But, you should be. If not for yourself, then for those who look for you."

The bastard drew up a vial and perforated the meat of my shoulder with the traitorous point of the needle. The amber liquid seeped into the vein, mingling with nature’s solution. The unauthorized entrance of my system took my cognizance and led me down a twisting path of tortured dreams.

September 4th 1999

I awoke again to the bright light, this time not quite so harsh. At first I was unaware of the cause of disturbance that had awoken me. I let my eyes adjust before I ventured a look around.

Ah, the source of annoyance. A young woman lay moaning on a bed no larger than a twin cot. She looked in miserable condition.

I startled to see a doctor or nurse of some sort, back turned, preparing a syringe by her bedside. The lady had long raven hair, silken in texture. Despite my amnesia, I wanted to reach out and touch it, stroke it. Long hair brought a feeling of memory to just below the surface of my awareness. Something nagged at me, something about the hair. Before I could grasp it, it floated away down the river of insanity and buried the feeling beneath its millions grains of sand.

Once again I was lost and a little afraid, though not terrified. I had been here before, I was sure. There was comfort in my fear, a familiarity. I ignored the curiosity of what had happened to observe the current proceedings.

The lady, Suzanne somebody is what the nurse called her, continued to moan in a miserable fashion. Her cream complexion was pale and blanch, her fingers bone white. Beneath the blanket that covered her she appeared frail and mal nourished. Perhaps it was the angle of my bed that skewered the image my throbbing head received.

"Hold still dear, this will only take a minute." With a swift adeptiveness the nice lady nurse doctor punctured the Suzanne lady’s arm and expunged the contents of the syringe into her thirsty veins.

The moaning stopped. It escalated to a full scale wail, a nerve wracking shriek. It definitely brought the staff’s attention. Three personnel rushed into the room and began the process of shutting her the hell up. It was a sight to see, as it is, one I’d be perfectly happy to forget.

Only when she was quiet did they notice me, sitting upright and alert; attentive to every detail. I suppose if I had been smart about it, I would have laid there with my eyes closed and pretended to be as out of it as they expected me to be. It would have saved me a couple of months trouble escaping.

"What the hell? How long has he been awake?!" A slender man with a latin accent rushed to my side. He appeared to have no fear of me, for he immediately went about checking my vitals. He examined my pupils, shoved a damn tongue suppressor down my throat, squeezed my arms and legs for atrophy and hollered for an EKG machine and blood pressure cart.

"Who are you?" My curiosity proceeds me wherever I am.

"My name is Dr. Averale and you are under my care. Now Lie down and lie still. Shanice, what the hell happened?"

"I don’t know Doctor. He was out cold when Patient Z23 began to convulse."

"Well don’t fucking stand there. Get Zeke on the phone Now!"

The connection was made like a plug entering a socket. I felt the jolt of recognition shoot through me as if I was Benjamin Franklin and just this side of stupid, out in the lightening storm and holding on for dear life to a kite string with a key firmly secured at its end.

I didn’t know who or what a Zeke was, but I knew that in my previous life I had. There was a deep connection, one so powerful that it lived in my bones. I employed the smarts I had been born with and kept my mouth shut. I knew I had amnesia, but I didn’t know if they knew I had amnesia. I decided it would be best to wait and see how the situation developed.

Dr.A turned to me and again told me to lie down. I obliged and his shoulders noticeably relaxed. Perhaps he did hold a small amount of fear towards me.

"How do you feel?" The second bout of attention was turned on me.

"Just dandy." Was my reply. If this caretaker of the ill would not be forth coming with details, then neither would I.

"Where’s the damn cart?!" The outburst was directed to the staff who had curiously departed his presence. It was easy to imagine that he was an awkward man to work for.

To me he said, "Today is September 4th 1999. It’s a little after three in the afternoon. As soon as we conduct a few tests, we’ll get you a bite to eat."

A bite to eat...A BITE to eat? I was so damn hungry I could eat a calvary of horses and their men. I nodded a little and said nothing.

When the equipment arrived the good doctor and the good nurse went about tending to my stats and recording their notes in their little notebooks. Blood pressure was good, heart rate was normal, coloring was fine. According to them I was in tip-top shape. So then, what the hell was I doing in some hospital room laying next to the screaming lady?

The arm and leg restraints on the side rails of the bed bothered me a little too.

After the Doc was satisfied with his tests he left, promising to return with that damn ‘bite to eat’. I laid my head on the pillow, flat as could be expected of a hospital, and breathed in and out slowly. I had to figure out what the hell was happening to me.

I assumed the Doc knew of my amnesiatory condition. He had spelled out the date and time to me without my asking him to. To be honest it pissed me off that he had not used my name. If I had come to them in this condition, at least then I would know what they were calling me; unless of course I was Z24 or something equally robotic.

It was a shorter man that entered the room next. The skin was of the same color as the previous doctor, but the features were more exotic. Pakistani perhaps?

He stood in the doorway, hands in his pockets, and stared for what felt a very long time. He was obviously a man comfortable with silences. I was not. I held my ground though and ignored him. I had begun to count the flecks in the ceiling’s tile when he spoke in a rich foreign accent.

"You have no recollection of where you are or where you are going." He did not ask me if this were so, merely stated it as fact. I could say nothing in rebuttal.

"You came to me to seek help in accessing your memory. Recovery from amnesia is possible, through a painstaking process. You have signed contractual documents to enlist my help, therefore I regret to inform you that you will not be allowed to leave until we have success. It is for your own protection."

"And in whom’s name did I sign them, Test Subject Z24?" I could not help my sarcasm. It flowed in tides from my tongue naturally.

"Joel Fox is the name you provided us with, taken off of a New York State Driver’s License. The picture however looks nothing like you so I doubt that is your true identity. I do know that you are in a world of trouble son. You came to us for help. This is the third time we have had this conversation. Your condition seems to take on terms of its own. You retain information only for so long before you lose it again, most troubling so when you sleep. Upon awakening, generally you remember nothing."

"So you could tell me different stories each time and I would have no inkling that you were a lieing bugger?" Aready I felt more confidence, and with that came another feeling, that of being lied to. Joel Fox huh? It kinda had a nice ring to it, the Fox part anyhow. I didn’t care much for ‘Joel’. I’d rather have been a Mike or a Kurt, something strong.

"Essentially."

"So, now what?" I hated to ask, hated to depend on his lies for some sort of sanity.

"We wait. Each day we are getting closer and closer to regaining your memory." On cue with his closing words, three beefy security guards entered the room, arms crossed across their chests, imposing muscles exposed.

The Doctor withdrew his hands, finally, from his pockets to reveal a syringe in the left, a vial in the right.

"You expect me to give ya trouble huh?" I squirmed beneath my hospital napkin of a gown.

"How do you say...You have been unappreciative in the past."

Three huge men approached me, grabbed at me, so I did the logical thing. I screamed, I thrashed about, I kicked and they bled. Unfortunately they hit back, and I bled. The result became the arm and ankle restraints that had so worried me earlier. I had no doubts in my mind that I had not signed up for this hogshit.

"You see, Fox, You make us restrain you. It does not have to be this way." The evil doctor approached with no caution to my bedside, a cruel sneer forming his face. A sneer I had seen before. I recognized the man, though I could not associate a name to the ugly face. "It will all be over soon."

The face of death was the last thing I remembered before darkness stole me away to the land of empty dreams.

September 5th 1999

"I don’t understand these results. He shows no signs of the disease. In the others it was immediately evident. It is as if he were never infected!"

"Shh! Keep your tone low. I understand the concern, I do. I have pondered the meaning all night."

"Well what then? This makes no fucking sense!"

A loud crash sent a shudder through the room as it rocked for a moment.

"Control your emotions Louis. Perhaps this is a breakthrough of immense proportions. He is resilent to the drug’s effects. He is the fucking walking antidote."

A long silence ensued as I lay with my back turned to the arguing men. My wits were about me now. I had vague impressions of memory to choose from.

The screaming lady, a patient herself.

Curly soft hair that clung to a pair of well-toned shoulders.

The South American Doctor A.

The gas station attendant doctor.

Joel Fox.

Zeke.

‘You came to us for help...You came to me to seek help in accessing your memory... Recovery from amnesia is possible...signed contractual documents...I regret to inform you that you will not be allowed to leave until we have success...your own protection.’

I no longer entertained the idea that this could all be written off as paid for sick leave or a vacation from my job, whatever job that might be. I was not a visitor, willing or otherwise. Neither was the Suzanne lady. I could remember now. Nothing from my past, but current stimuli had stuck with me. I was beginning to put pieces of the puzzle together.

The men resumed discussion.

"We have to be careful if that’s true. There are many who would kill for him."

"You think I have forgotten our orders? He is already dead. If this will not kill him, we will dispose of him once we have what we need. For now, you must gain his trust."

"Why me?"

"There is too much at stake. There is the possibility that he could remember..."

"And you think he will not remember my face?"

Dr. A had spoken last, I was sure. I tried, tried my hardest to remember his face. Nothing. The first impression of his mug I could conjure was of him telling me what day it was. Backwards then, I remembered him checking my pupils, then first rushing into the room to assist the nurse with...Susanne. That was the moment he was born into my world. Nothing before. Fucking nothing!

As for the man who described my condition to me, I felt his presence. His words echoed throughout my soul with the chilled resonant vibe of metal striking metal. I had nothing to call him, no way to identify my past involvements with him. I simply knew that I knew him. And now I knew what he wanted.

Me, in a body bag. I felt exhausted, as if I had been running though the woods at a hectic pace; hunted as wounded prey by cruel masters who knew there was no escape. Ludacris, since I had not left the hospital bed in Lord knows how long.

"I assure you he will remember nothing of your encounter."

My strength was spent and soon my awareness bean to flicker like lights during a bad storm. As is usually the case, they died out. I slept a dreamless slumber.

Two Hours Later...

I awoke in a state of extreme terror. I screamed and continued on in this way until I felt my back arch high to an unnatural state. I continued to convulse in terrible seizures for what seemed hours, though only a couple of minutes.

A wedge of wood was shoved in my mouth, too late. I tasted the foul sting of copper and iron. My body was forced into a level state by a force greater than gravity. Massive security guards held me at bay while the medical staff fastened me to the rail with the restraints.

My body screamed against these imposements and I could feel my spine arching again from the bed. A mask of some kind was placed over my mouth and nose, including the wedge of wood, and I felt damn near suffocated by a sudden rush of gases.

I heard, rather than saw, the entrance of Dr. A and his counterpart; Felt the syringe inject unknown compounds into my system. That’s when the real pain began.

Its undescribable, a feeling you know to be unbearable in a living state. A pain acute only to the tortures of hell. Yet I survived its bite. I hope that was not the entrance test to heaven. Many friends of mine would fail miserably.

A white hot burn just underneath the top layers of skin distributed itself evenly throughout my body. A fire burned beneath the epidermis of my skin, causing me to pray for death. Instantaneous combustion failed to consume me however. The dial was turned down a couple of notches from boil to simmer, as I simmered in agony for over an hour.

Imagined or real, I could smell the burning of hair and tissue. During brief periods of lucidity, I attempted to recollect what I had done to bring hell deep from the lower realms of this world and into this room to absorb my soul. Of course, I have no memories of my former life. I am left to assume that I was a very bad man. Regardless of the fact, I felt a very strong conviction that I did not want to die; could not die. It did not matter what I had done or who I had been. I felt pure and reborn and determined to live.

These doctors of mine, however, seemed determined to steal my soul. Offering me a burnt sacrifice had failed so they resorted to the next best thing. Laboratory testing.

Over the course of several days I was wheeled down clean white halls to various laboratory rooms where I was exposed to different toxins and viruses.

Now’s as good a time as any to tell you a little about myself. Growing up, I was rarely sick. Never had the flu, only endured a mild case of the chicken pox and the common cold could never quite catch me. Over all I have a rather healthy immune system. It’s bloody hard for me to catch ill. It seemed this barrier against disease my body created was battling with all its might against the diseases these doctors tried time and again to infect me with.



Chapter

Dr. Sanders entered the room as I, Dr. Louis Averale, was tallying up the results of our latest test. I looked up briefly to note he had changed clothes since the subject had regurgitated all over his lab coat.

"What have we?"he asked in an Americanized accent.

"It’s rather amazing. Nothing affects him, not to a drastic nature. His body will not remain infected long enough to administer the antidote, therefore we can not determine if the antidote will work."

"I have upgraded the severity of the virus." He handed over to me a vial of a greenish hue. "Order Fox brought in. I want to test this immediately."

As a scientist, I was intrigued in the final result. As a doctor educated in the ethics of humanity, I was disturbed by our research findings. The virus had killed several test subjects so far, being 190% lethal. In truth, every subject we had infected was dead, or dying. Except for J.W.Fox. Dr. Sanders was impartial to whether he lived or died.

"He is the prime subject." he told me the morning after his capture. It was then that we decided to divert our agenda from his immediate demise, to one that would serve a purpose and perhaps produce an insurmountable benefit to all of mankind.

I relayed the instructions to the orderlies, made up of ex convicts, and fox was soon wheeled into Laboratory A8. His pathetic frame lay on the stretcher, tubes and nodes stuck over him like a pygmy thanksgiving turkey.

"Open your eyes." Dr. Sanders commanded, thumping Fox Adam’s apple with his index finger. "Playing dead will not save you here."

Fox’s eyes opened, watery and bloodshot, and he looked up at the good doctor with malicious fury.

"Today will be a great day in science, if you live to see it."

"Ironic." Fox spoke the single word in a raspy exhalation.

"What’s that?" I queried.

Fox turned his hollow stare upon me and licked his dry lips.

"It ‘tis ironic that I am now the lab rat."

"Administer the virus." Dr. Sanders commanded and I complied. We both watched on the computer screen as the infrared scanner showed the invasion take over Fox’s bloodstream.

The first affect was severe vomiting. Fox disgorged all over himself, the hospital issue paper gown, the tubes that ran intravenously. His legs next thrashed, causing the spare blanket to fall to the floor. His back arched in seizure and it was the same process all over again.

We took steps to stabilize his system and then administered the antidote. His skin remained flush and an alarm began to sound announcing dangerous levels in temperature.

"103 and rising!"