Overreach - 4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Drake M. Weiler had felt sick all day. He didn’t know why - it was just one of those things. He took some anti-nausea pills that morning, after breakfast, and they had seemed to work for a while. But as he got in his driver and made his way to work, the feeling of bile and uneasiness followed him. He tried to shake it off as he entered the official looking Government building - tried to make himself look presentable - but the feeling wouldn’t let go. It was annoying.

“Hello, Dr. Weiler,” a brunette woman said, her large smile upturned to him as he entered the building. The sunlight from the glass door shone through, casting long strands of golden light onto the smooth floor of the entryway. His black shoes, shined thoroughly, clacked crisply on the floor as he made his way to the front desk. His black overcoat - government issued - billowed with grandiosity around him. As he approached the desk, he took off his sunglasses. What met the woman was a man with a square, handsome face and piercing green eyes. The buzz-cut, however, came standard when working with the Government. He greeted her nearly everyday, and she didn’t know more about him now than when he came in the first time.

“Hello, Abigail,” he said, smiling. He was a private man. Didn’t like attention, and certainly didn’t like anyone enquiring who he was or where he lived. Though, she supposed, she could always access the Government database, she decided to let him go on with his little charade, out of a sense of decency. She honestly didn’t really care much anyway - he wasn’t her type.

Drake unclipped his ID card from the lapel of this overcoat and set it in a little glass machine on the counter. After it scanned, she checked the holographic computer - called a telenode - and confirmed - as always - it was him. He snatched his card back and graciously put it back on his lapel, smiling as he glided past her and into the rest of the building.

The Government building was built sometime in the last 70 years, and it’s age showed the farther back you got. Drake worked in the basement - a sprawling, clinical facility that was renovated around ten years ago. Only level 5 and up were allowed down there; luckily for him, he was the director. Doctorate in computational logistics will get you places, that’s for sure.

The nausea only got worse as he made his way to the basement, and when he sat down on his desk and turned his telenode on, he was practically sweating.

“Uhg,” he replied to H44-X12, his assistant, when the younger man enquired about his state of health. “I don’t know, H. It started this morning. You have anything for nausea?”

The brown-haired man paused to think. “Not that I know of. I mean, I could always go to sickbay --”

Drake waved that recommendation away, his head in his hands. He swallowed. “No -- no. It’s fine. Really. Just a rough morning; hell, I can get through it.” He stood up suddenly, any indication that something was wrong with him erased. H was used to it, and rolled with the punches. “What have you got for me today?”

H watched as Drake took off his overcoat and put on his white lab coat. Once Drake was done fussing with it, he spoke. “Slow day, it seems.” H walked over to a large black slab in the middle of the large space they were in. Everyone’s desks - including Drake’s - were situated around it. Had someone come in not knowing what it was, they would assume it was a large heavy block of smooth obsidian. It was not, however.

A red holographic keyboard popped up where H was, and he type furiously into it. On top of the smooth black piece, which was about the size of a two kitchen tables, were softly glowing red lines that pulsed and shifted geometrically. It was really kind of hard to explain. Anytime H would type something specific into the keyboard, and red line would switch, and connect to another. He did this a few times.

H furrowed his brow and typed even faster while Drake looked on, intrigued. H sighed. “This is getting out of hand,” he said, stepping away from the slab. He shook his head. “The Directors need to get on board with this overhaul - they keep stalling. Parliament, I’m sure, is funneling them money to let the system degrade, but this is wrong. God!” He rubbed his forehead. “Another anomaly - just now. The whole thing is falling apart.”

Drake put on his glasses and stepped to the keyboard. It a few quick strokes, a few lines shifted again and he moved forward closer to the slab. It was feeding back information he had just requested, and he was now reading it. The symbols only made sense to a handful of people; luckily he was one.

H shook his head. “Yeah, but what to they care? This is the real world - they couldn’t give a crap about this,” he gestured to the slab. He looked back at Drake, who had turned pale. “Dr. Weiler?”

“There’s been a disappearance.”

“What?”

Drake turned to H. “There’s been a disappearance. Call Davidson. Now!”

*           *           *

Lucas wasn’t sure if the machine that his dad was working on in the garage was fully functional or not. He had experimented with some frogs and grasshoppers earlier that month, but a full human? He wasn’t sure if he could do it. He gazed again at the machine, and then put his mouth next to the small black box in front of him. The red lines switched and moved almost haphazardly.

“Once you jumped off that bridge, there’s nothing. I isolated your location and brought you into the void. I thought I was helping!”

A frustrated, and frankly pissed voice emanated from the box. “That was not your place, dude! Fuck! I want this to be fucking over already! Just kill me!”

A pang of hurt went through Lucas, who managed to look at the logs and ascertain that this kid was going to die. He was trying to help, goddamnit! He knew his father didn’t do much of that at work anyway; why is he getting scolded for trying to be a good person? He responded in an icy tone, “Maybe I just will.” They both knew he was lying.

The other boy sighed, beginning to resign. “So, what exactly can you do? I’m still confused; you’re not making any sense. You tell me you’re from Heuw, but you’re describing things that don’t exist. You’re fucking nuts.”

“No, you’re nuts. Just… I’ll explain afterwards, ok? Can you trust me? I’m legit just trying to help here, ok?”

“Like I have much choice,” the other boy bitterly responded. Lucas sighed.

“Don’t be so bitter, man. I dunno what’s up with you. Just calm down.”

“Calm down?!” An incredulous Elliot replied. “You stuck me in a tunnel of light, talk to me from some far off place, and then just tell me to calm down?” He chucked, but there was no mirth. “Yeah, sure.”

Lucas closed his eyes, besieged by the sudden realization that he might have made the wrong decision. Then, suddenly, his portable telenode rang. Fishing it out of his pocket, he saw that it was his dad. “Shit!”

“What now?”

“Fuck, fuck! My dad’s coming home. I-I think he knows about you. Jesus Christ, I gotta get you out of there!”

Elliot was suddenly struck by how frantic the other boy’s voice had gotten. Despite his situation, he heard himself enquire about the well-being of the boy. “Dude, you seem freaked out. What’s the issue?”

“You don’t understand. Just… you’ll be out in a few minutes, ok? And whatever happens…” he began ominously, “I’m sorry.”

There was a slight click - Elliot couldn’t tell if he was hearing things or not - and the boy’s voice disappeared. He looked around himself. All white. At least he still had a body.

Lucas quickly ran to the garage and turned the machine on. It looked, generally, like a large metal cage. While it whirred to life, and ran back and retrieved the black box from his room. He then ran back to the garage and nearly threw the box down on a nearby table. Going to his dad’s workshop, he got two black cables, to which he attached both to the box and to applicable ports in the machine. Pushing a holo-button on the box, which shuddered a response, a keyboard appeared. Lucas entered the same odd symbols into the smaller keyboard, cursing the whole time. He had to finish this before his dad got home - otherwise, there would be trouble a-brewin’.

Drake Weiler told his driver to get him home as fast as he could. He was brimming with a rage he didn’t expect - although he knew something like this would happen sooner or later. He almost couldn’t believe he’d been this stupid - or careless. He’d told H to go back in, and to come back tomorrow while he dealt with this; the Directors didn’t need to have another needless victim, afterall. After his driver started to slow down at an empty intersection, Drake was so upset that he turned the automatic feature off and started to drive himself - the first time in about 2 years. He managed about 90 the whole way home. The whole time, he thought, How could I be so careless? And, then, sardonically, At least my son has my smarts.

Drake was about a minute away when Lucas entered the last commands into the box. The moment he pressed enter, the machine sparked to life. The cage, made up of a black material that had a fancy name that he couldn’t remember, vibrated quickly. 6 black, square nodes formed a circle at both the top of the bottom, and then they started to spit out a odd type of substance. It crackled as if it were made of electricity, but behaved as if it were a type of solid substance. Lucas cringed - he had watched this done with smaller animals, but with a human it was almost too disturbing to look at. Finally, the substance grew so bright that Lucas couldn’t bare to look at it even if he had wanted to. When he couldn’t see the bright light behind his closed eyelids, Lucas slowly opened his eyes and saw a naked, goop-covered, crying boy sitting in the middle of the cage. He jumped up and approached the cage hesitantly.

Elliot, his eyes tear stained, looked up. When he saw Lucas, his face moved through a variety of emotions. Before he could react, Lucas spoke.

“Listen, my dad is here,” he said, hurriedly. He grabbed the towel he was holding, and went around to open the door at the side of the cage. Elliot just stood there, dumbstruck. Lucas held out the towel. “Dude, dry off. I’ll get you some clothes in a sec. We have to get up to my room.” When Elliot didn’t move, Lucas became sharp, “Here!”

Elliot instinctively grabbed the towel and put it around his waist. Lucas grabbed his arm and roughly drug him out of the cage and into the rest of the house. Elliot realized that this house was much, much nicer and more spacious than anything he had ever seen. Bewildered, he noticed also that Lucas didn’t bat an eye to any of it.

Lucas continued to drag Elliot, and they managed to get upstairs and into his room. The minute they stepped into his it, they both heard the front door open roughly and bang on the wall behind it. Elliot noticed that Lucas paled.

Lucas led Elliot to his closet and shoved him in. Looking supremely apologetic, he said, “I know this isn’t much of a welcome, but stay put. I’ll deal with my dad. For god’s sake, no matter what happens, don’t move!” With that, the door was slammed shut.

Elliot was totally out of his element. He didn’t know if he should trust this strange boy, or just leave. He decided to continue to dry off as much as he could in the smaller space, and then sit quietly and listen. At first he didn’t hear anything, but then he heard voices. Shouting. They faded in and out (presumably the boy’s father went to the garage to find out what he had done), and finally they started to get closer. Elliot gulped. The father sounded more pissed than anyone he had ever heard.

He heard the door of the bedroom open, and suddenly the enraged voice was crystal clear.

“You stupid boy!” The gruff man irately raged. “You idiot! Do you know what you’ve done? We’re fucked! Fucked! The Directors are going to be all over our ass now - me and your mother both!” He took a paused and breathed quite heavily. Elliot could see in his mind’s eye Lucas cowering in front of his father - hell, he would be.

Smack.

Elliot recoiled himself, unable to process the fact that someone had been hit. He felt nauseous when he heard the father speak again. “You ungrateful brat! I’ve given you everything, and this is how you repay me?!” There was a softer, fleshier thump, which Elliot resignedly assigned as a punch. “This is the only way you’ll know how much pain you’ve caused!” Another thump. Elliot nearly cried out when he heard Lucas’ strangled sob.

After a while, the thumping stopped and he heard the older man mumble, “Now I gotta figure out how far this kid has gotten. God,” he spit. “You’ve really caused a clusterfuck this time, Lucas.” That was the last Elliot heard of the man, but he wasn’t at all consoled by the sobbing he heard after the old man had left.

He decided to stay in the closet, as Lucas had instructed, until the sobbing stopped, and an eerie, pregnant silence ensued.