Chapter 10

  “Sexy beast, sexy beast, sexy beast Arrack!” Edgar screams as I place the dead squirrel and a couple of mealworms before him, he bobs his head up and down, then heads straight into devouring the squirrel.

  “Well, I don't think I've ever seen him so pleased.” I say.

  “Me either, it's disgusting to watch him pick that apart though.” Maria says.

  “So what's the plan for tonight?” Dan says.

  “Raven and I have some business with Frankie, I'm not sure how long we'll be.” She gives me a puzzled look. Maria and I already decided we're not talking about all this in front of Dan and I haven't had a chance to discus my idea yet.

  “Sounds good, I'll see you latter guys.”

  Frankie's place is pretty much across the street, so we start to head over.

  “You think Frankie has answers?” She says.

  Letting out a sigh “I have no other ideas where to start. The more I think on things the more a lot doesn't make sense. Do you know what you did for the last three years?”

  “Well, we ran extracts, helped teams.”

  “Yes, mostly on our own right?”

  “Yes. We were on comms nonstop, and Paris was barely around, he's supposed to be our leader.”

  “Yeah. And demoted from General Commander to Sargent? Most all officers would retire if forced with such a demotion, it's flat out humiliating. Also, Jodi. Something wasn't right there, all along. I don't know what exactly, the first time we were, um, together, it was a perfect set of circumstances, she said all the right things, the things I wanted to hear.”

  “Like what?” She says. We stop walking over.

  “Right from the start, she went right for me. It was almost too much. She was, her eyes, yes, her eyes. How did I not see it? Her eyes, dark and smouldering, identical to yours, no, your suits, the girls eyes. I'm talking the exact same darkness of very dark almost black brown. She had blond hair, but if I imagine Jodi with blonde hair, she's the same fricken person, the same height, like a 98% match.”

  “But she went back to the mainland.” She says.

  “The same day Stinger left.” I say. “Lets go see Frankie, don't give away anything that you don't need too.”

  Frankie's place is unique; It's and old style barber shop, hundreds of years old. Cracked mirrors and glass, the decrepit small building refuses to collapse. We spend Christmas there, each year we all gathered, Paris get us a turkey.

  As we approach the building seems empty, uninviting. I see the glow of a single cigar inside. We enter.

  “Have a seat.” Paris says. I didn't even know he smoked. We both sit on rickety stools. He takes a long drag of his cigar. He carries himself different tonight, there is a looming sense of dread in the room. “Evening.”

  “Evening.” Maria says.

  I just nod.

  “So, what do you want?” He asks.

  “We were told we were captives here, we want out of the prison.” She says.

  “Why?” He says.

  “Because we're not prisoners, we did nothing wrong.” She says.

  “No, I mean why? You, your past was horrific, yet you found peace here Maria. And you, you had all you wanted; do the Extracts you wanted and come home to a woman that was passionate about you, despite the limitations of the suit.”

  “What of Stinger? His mind was crumbling.” I say.

  “That's where you're wrong, he had to go because his mind was too strong. He was starting to become conscious of the suits behaviour. Those 3 suits, the odds of only those 3 suits surviving;120-1. Only 3 suits out of 10 were going to survive.” He says.

  “What do you mean only 3 suits were going to survive?”

  “Bare with me, this all has to be done in a particular order.” He takes a deep breath and exhales.

  “Just so there is no doubt, I will not accept anything less then freedom from the suit.” Maria says. Glancing at her I'm both annoyed she was so open with Paris and glad she did so, eliminating any doubt sets the tone for us. We're a team, down to two of us now, but it's all I have.

  “I feel the same, we need to be rid of the suits.” I state firmly.

  “Well, how you feel on the matter will expedite things. What price are you willing to pay?” He says.

  “Whatever it takes, I want to be free, to not have this, skin, influence.” I say.

  “I need to live my life, to be free, to be who I want, forge my own path. I am being lead down a path here and I want to venture off it.” She says.

  It throws me off hearing her talk like this, she's always come off as a bit of a timid survivor. The last week we both seem different, since Stinger left.

  We're all silent, Maria and I sitting beside each other in defiance; Paris across from us. He puts a standard pair of combat shades on, looks at us, then removes them.

  “We can make things smoother, make your life better if you're willing to work with us. Day to day you can have a repetitive comfort, like laying on the floor for 4 days Goliath.”

  “That wasn't living, it felt like I was on drugs.” I say.

  “Ah, it sounds like we need to work on the balance.” He says.

  “What the fuck does that mean? Did you drug him?” Maria says.

  He looks very agitated, “It's not too late, we can make adjustments, you can wake up tomorrow and everything will be like last week.”

  “No. We don't want to go back.” I say.

  “You must understand, the path of truth is dangerous, for all of us, and if you go down that path there is no turning back. We're also putting our lives in your hands, if things leak out they'll just eliminate us all.”

  “I won't live this lie anymore.” Maria says.

  “No more lies.”

  “Very well kid.” Paris says, his voice changing to a familiar, but different tone. Paris, with a glitchy shimmer changes his appearance to Lenny. “Hey Frankie, Phase 2.” He yells out. From a back room Frankie walks out.

  “Why did you change your appearance to look like Lenny?” Maria asks.

  “You got it backwards; I changed my appearance to look like Paris, I am Lenny, I just turned the image generator off.” He says.

  “So where is Paris?” I ask.

  “Last chance to make it all go back as before kid. The truth could break you.” Frankie says.

  “No more bull shit.” Maria says.

  “The truth.” I say.

  “We have to feed you a bit at a time and assess things as we go. So, Paris is dead.” Frankie says.

  “What do you mean he's dead?” I say.

  “He was murdered by Stinger.” Frankie says.

  “What the hell are you talking about?” Maria asks.

  Frankie looks at Lenny who nods. He stands, and goes to the back room. In the darkness another person comes back with him. I squint, it takes me a moment but I recognize her, it's Jodi. Only looking into her eyes they're lighter, a light hazel colour, her hair is buzzed very short only with a toffee light colour. Her teeth are perfectly fine.

  “Hi darling.” She says with an awkward smile, then looks away. She takes a deep breath before speaking “I'm an operative, my assignment was to be your girlfriend from day one.”

  A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  “So none of it was real?” I say.

  “Oh I wouldn't say that, it was a struggle at times keeping my feelings in check, and the things you did with the suit... anyways. I was assigned to you.” She says.

  “But why?”

  “You needed stability, like Maria needed a consistent, steady daily routine. We were afraid of breaking the dynamic, with Stinger away we may be able to reason with you two.”

  “We're open to listening.” I say.

  “Perhaps its best to show you.” Jodi looks on edge “You must agree to locking the suit in order to proceed, at least temporarily.”

  “If it'll mean you're truthful, Ok.” I say.

  “If we must.” Maria says.

  Frankie types on a hand held device, we feel the suit freeze. We can move our head and hands, but the suit locks us in place like a full body cast. Lenny brings over a monitor and puts it on a table in front of us.

  “Locking the suit also makes it so the suit is not aware of what's going on right now. The video we're about to show you was taken in the comm room, the night of the party when you all got very drunk. I'm usually more professional, but this is, difficult for me. Paris was a close friend of mine off and on before this assignment.” She lets out a sigh and starts a recording. It shows her and Paris in the comm room kissing. “I can't watch this again, call me back in when it's done.” Very distraught she walks into the back room.

  The video continues with them making out, now on the floor. Stinger walks in, Paris stands, there is no audio but he pleads with Stinger. The suit on stingers arm grows into a 2 foot long blades, all over his body his suit is spiky, aggressive is the best way to describe it. He stabs Paris in the stomach, the blade of the suit goes a good foot out his back. Jodi freezes as Stinger calmly walks away, the recording ends.

  Lenny goes into the back room and gets Jodi.

  “Does Stinger know? Was it just the suit?” I say.

  “We do not know, that's the problem.” She says. “You know the story of the two brothers and the girl now, correct?”

  Maria and I both nod our heads.

  “Frankie is better suited to explain the suits.” She says.

  “Keep in mind, if any of this gets out, all our lives are over.” Frankie says.

  “We already agreed, and you told us we're past the point of no return.” I say.

  “Lenny and I represent the Collective, think of us as envoys to Pure, um, humans.”

  “Pures?” I ask.

  “It's a term the Collective uses to refer to humans, we, they, differentiate Pure humans, from Collective members and from the Others, three distinct groups. You know the story of the Others, they wanted eternal life living in the stasis pods, taking on Hosts as their real life avatar to live and feel living in the real world then disposing of them when done, jacking into a fresh body, this is all common knowledge. The Hosts are grown in a tank, have you ever wondered what rapidly growing Hosts in the tanks does?”

  “Not really, it just never occurred to me.” I say.

  “Pure humans evolve 5 generations in 100 years, approximately. The rushed genetic manufacturing the Others do in order to create the many Hosts that they require, it has evolved the genetic material, we speculate the equivalent to more then 500 generations. We have agents working in the Others Hive that recover brain samples with certain markers that the Others are growing, give them life. Lenny and I, that's how we came to be, we were two of the first 20 to be brought to life in this way. Do you remember the representative from the Collective that was shot? He was more a part of the Collective then us.”

  “You are part of the Collective but not?”

  “You could say Lenny and I are the rebellious ones. The Collective is one mind, they all have a neural implant, but the implant didn't take for Lenny and I, we don't think as one like they all do. Our purpose is envoys between Others and Pure ones is valuable.”

  “Wait, Envoy with Others?”

  “The Collective keeps relations open with the Others, with much disdain from our end. We basically stay out of each others way; doing so allows us to slowly grow in strength until we get to the point where we can challenge them. World wide the others number in the millions. By our estimates Pure humans that are free; barely a million are out there.”

  “What does this have to do with the suits?” I ask.

  “The material of the suit is made from the same organic polymer as our bones, our organs are real though. But the suits are made with this material, and reinforced, it can shift between a semi solid to solid form. The suits are beings we attempted to rescue, but the growing process didn't take. We value life, in some ways value it more then Pure ones, every scrap of genetic material we see as sacred. We found a way to put them in the semi liquid form, to give them a sort of life in their little sealed jars. They think, reason, they are our greatest minds. The ones that do not wish that existence, we let them end their own life. Your suits are souls, individuals. We presented the suit ideas, the 10 chosen of them for the experiment all knew the risks and wanted to do it. It is, like I said, the odds were 1 in 120 that only the two brothers and the girlfriend survived.”

  “We have another video to show you darling.” She quickly looks away, then back at me, “I'm sorry, I need to not call you that anymore. If it means anything I wasn't just acting, I really...”

  “Jodi, lets move on.” Frankie says.

  “Right. So the video, it's a complication.”

  She starts the video, its starts with the Maria and I jogging the other day, we're side by side, tendrils flow off my suit towards Maria, she has the same tendrils flow off her suit towards me, they lightly intertwine, flow in to each other. I run forward about 10 metres, the tendrils stretch out for behind me to her, hers reach forward.

  Then another clip; from some time ago; Stinger and Maria are in the comm room, the tendrils from their suits intermingle. Jodi walks in, their suits instantly change back to normal. When Jodi leaves the tendrils grow back and intermingle again. I enter the scene; Maria's tendrils drift to me, Stingers tendrils form a knife and they aggressively stab at me. I'm not harmed; but my suit seems to flow from my stomach and pool on the ground at my feet. Throughout all this we talk and act normal, oblivious to what the suits are doing.

  The next scene is from the meetup with Underwood last week, the point of view looks to be from Paris; so Lenny. Everyone is focused on Maria and I speaking, a single tendril drifts on Stingers arm, he looks at the tendril and swats at it like a bug.

  The video ends.

  “Stinger, he saw it?” I say.

  “Yes.” Jodi replies.

  “I've never seen the suits do this; it can't be real.” Maria says, a look of confusion on her face.

  “Yes, what is this? Is this video doctored?” I stammer.

  “No kid, it's real.” Frankie says. “We're still figuring it out, but Stinger won't just fade into the night. Underwood's dog collar, as you call it, will alert us the moment Stinger arrives on the island. We'll give you access to the feed in your combat shades, you'll know when he's potentially around. He'll be drawn here, drawn back.”

  “So Underwood is in on this?” Maria says.

  “No, in fact it's been difficult keeping him in the dark. He's a simple man though; give him a constant stream of intell to make him look good for the King and he's content.” Frankie says.

  I let out a good laugh. They all look at me with a puzzled look.

  “What is it Stanley?” Maria asks.

  “Underwood is so incompetent he doesn't even know his Sargent has been dead for three years.” I say. “Sorry, it's not funny Paris is gone, but...”

  Maria and Jodi laugh as well, Frankie and Lenny have a look of confusion on their face.

  “I swear, the more I'm around Pure ones the less I understand you all.” Lenny says.

  “We use humour at odd times Lenny, to deal with stress, to make sense of the absurd. Goliath and Maria here, they were presented with some very difficult ideas that are not easy for the brain to process, Goliath joking gives his stressed mind a sense of relief from it. From what I see we feel more deeply then you do, then the Collective does. If all the individuals in the Collective had such strong feelings I don't think they could function as one mind.” Jodi says.

  “So, you are human Jodi?” I say.

  “Yes. I am no different then before, only with no wig and dark contacts. We had to create a sense of Gail to...”

  Frankie cuts her off “Fucking hell, you told them her name? Dammit Jodi.”

  “Fuck me, I'm sorry.”

  “Well you should have known better.” Frankie says.

  “Fuck you Frankie! Do you have any idea what it was like the last 3 years? Watching a man I cared about murdered in front of me, watching the videos of this macabre dance these three suits played then seeing them stop as I enter the room, actually... actually developing feelings for him, but then realizing its an assignment and he's not even who he thinks he is. I lied to my government for 3 years for this, I went against my oath to serve because what is going on here is bigger then anyone realizes. I would have lost my mind if it wasn't for that stupid bird keeping me grounded.” Her hands are shaking, she lights a cigarette and takes a long drag.

  Frankie says nothing, he looks confused, unsure.

  “We understand Jodi, we couldn't have gotten this far without you. You have to understand, we put our necks out as well. If the Collective knew the full extent of our part in things they would eliminate us.” Lenny says.

  “Let them move again Frankie, I think they are stable. We need to have the last talk.” She says, the three of them look at each other and nod. Frankie hit's a few buttons and we can move again. I inspect my arms, look at my legs, this all seems so different now, I notice the suit more, it's presence, the fact it's not just me. It seems to notice this as well. A tendril forms off my forearm and gently touches the back of my hand. Pulling my hand back it stops. Looking over at Maria she looks annoyed, angry, her suit seems rigid.

  “Maria, at least for now please try to be, kind. The being joined to you is alive, she means you no harm.” Frankie says.

  “I'll try.” She says.

  “Now, we need to trust each other. There are things Goliath needs to be told and things Maria needs to be told, but you two can not under any circumstance tell each other.” Frankie says.

  “Why not?” Maria asks.

  “It'll, be too much.” Frankie says. “Maria, come with Lenny and I. Jodi needs to speak with Goliath alone and we need to speak with you.”

  Maria and I look at each other before she, Lenny and Frankie leave.

  Jodi looks at me, frustrated. She walks over to me, putting her arms around me she kisses me on the cheek. “You know I still care about you. But things are not as they once were. I have a recording to show you that'll, I don't know what it means, but you can't discuss it with Maria, under any circumstance. What they are telling her now, she will not, can not discuss with you. A lot will be asked of her, she'll be asked to sacrifice much. Your role is to be there for her. You have no reason to... you owe me nothing... but...”

  I brush the hair from her face and kiss her on the lips, like we kissed before, in a loving tender way, before we pull away from each other.

  She sniffles “Dammit, that made it harder. Thank you though.” She laughs awkwardly. “I'll leave you to the recording. Please wait until I leave before starting the next video.” She walks out of the room. I look at the cold, dark monitor. What we had is not something we can go back too. I was angry at first, but she's given a lot for all this.

  I hit the play button.

  Its a camera view from the street, I'm inside, punching a wall. Marie puts her arm on me and we hug, just like before. Our suit's wrap around each other, entangling, clutching each other as one. Suddenly, we step away from each other, ours suits at our heels pulling away from each other like our shadows cast on the ground. Then Maria and I take a step towards each other and kiss, our suits stretch even further away from each other.

  The recording stops.

  That is definitely not how I remember us kissing, but it's how I felt kissing her.

  I take a deep breath and sit there in the dark with all but the soft light of the monitor. My suit seems to move in a waving motion, like the oceans tide going out, away, down my extremities. And I can't discuss this with her. What kind of torment is this?

  The silence is broken with the door flinging open, Maria storms in.

  “I don't know if I can do this.” She says, looking at me, she looks very upset. “I... I need to go for a run, I need to make sense of this.” She heads towards the door, I stand. “No! You stay here, stay away from me!”