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Technical Stimulation

This is a book in progress, if you are a publisher you may contact me at demiurge@alexmars.com.

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Chapter One: Waking up is hard to do.

I was sitting at a table alone in a small room with dirty green walls. I was dressed in blue institutional pajamas that were too big for me, wearing handcuffs, and smoking a cigarette. It was probably cold but I didn’t feel it. There was a metal frame bed behind me. From the ceiling a video camera watched me. The scent of chemicals and cleansers suggested a hospital as a probable location.

I’d woken up an hour ago wearing handcuffs, surprised to be alive. Vague memories surfaced of flying through a windshield into a telephone pole, then bouncing back into the front seat of a car. I hurt all over and felt a little weak, but that passed quickly. The only other things in the room were a pack of cigarettes on the table, some matches, and a sealed bottle of water. After testing the door and finding it locked and reinforced, I sat down at the table and waited. After a while I lit a cigarette. I can wait a long time.

A concealed speaker clicked and a voice spoke.

“Hello?”

I looked up at the camera.

“Mr. Johnson, I’m with the XXX Police Department. I suppose you….” The voice was confident and sharp, obviously trying to take charge of the conversation.

“I want a lawyer.”, I said, cutting him off. I was curious how they would justify denying me access to counsel.

“That’s not possible right now, to be honest. We found you at the scene of considerable destruction and there are indications that you were involved somehow. There are a lot of questions that need to be answered here. You’re being held incommunicado as a possible terrorist while we sort this out.”

Terrorism. It figured. Terrorism is going to become the Hooliganism of the 21st century.

I was probably still in xxx, maybe in a county hospital, locked in a psych observation room. Local heat had found me and didn’t know what to do. My fingerprints were on their way to Washington by now. Oh well, too late to worry about that.

“We’d like to ask you some questions; maybe you can help us clear this up”.

“Go ahead.”

“We found you in a car that was rented to Rick Dupre, apparently an FBI agent. You’d passed out from lack of blood and crashed a few hundred yards from…the incident. We can’t find Agent Dupre, do you know where he is?”

I was very hungry.

“He’s dead.”

“Did you kill him?”

“No.”

“What happened?”

“He was shot.”

“By who?”

“That’s kind of a long story.”

“Mr. Johnson, you’re a puzzle to the doctors. By all rights you should be dead. You had a broken arm and leg, crushed ribs, punctured lungs, numerous open wounds….”

I’d probably been here about six hours.

“You’ve made a remarkable recovery, Mr. Johnson. Some might call it miraculous.”

“Look, I’m fucking starving. I need some food, meat, a lot.”

“The doctors anticipated that. Go back to the bed and lie down.”

I stubbed out the butt and did as he said.

The heavy metal door opened up and two cops with shotguns came in followed by an orderly with a tray. The two cops stared at me over the barrel of their guns, reeking of fear. The smell of the food washed over me and I growled. The orderly half dropped the tray on the table and backed away. They left quickly.

I wanted to throw aside the cover and grab fistfuls of food, but I made myself sit down and use a knife and fork. The taste confirmed that I was in a hospital but I really didn’t care. I ate quickly, devouring an overdone steak, some dry pork chops, a hamburger, and some greasy chicken. When I’d finished mopping up the last of the gravy with the last of the bread the speaker clicked.

“Feeling better?”

It was a different voice, a woman this time.

“Yes, thanks.”

Hunger was leashed for the moment.

“I was the doctor who was in the ER when you were brought in. I was sure you were going to die on the table, but the EMT said you looked much better than when they dragged you out of that car. Then I saw one of your wounds begin to close up by itself…the torn flesh crawling back together…”.

She was getting a little breathless.

“Take a breath. Relax. Calm down. I’m locked in here and you are somewhere out there.”

“We almost had to hammer on the needle to get the IV in your arm.”

It still hurt where they put the needle in.

“What are you? We saw your teeth!”, she blurted out.

I lit another cigarette and waited.

“Say something!”

“I wonder if I’m human, sometimes, but I guess I’m not anymore.”

“What are you?”

I smiled at the camera.

“You know, I have no idea. Really. I mean, I know what you’re thinking, and in some sense I guess your right, but it’s just a word. I know what I am but I don’t know why I am. I think about this a lot.”

The speaker hidden in the ceiling was silent for a few minutes.

“Mr. Johnson.” A different mans voice came through the speaker. He was upset.

I nodded at the camera.

“Mr. Johnson, why did you come to xxx. What the hell happened out there? What the hell is going on?”

“What happened to the chick?”

“You won’t hear from her again.”

“Is she cute?”

“Answer my questions.”

“The answer is complicated.”

“Take your time.”

“My name is Brian Desmond. When my fingerprints come back you’ll know that. I was in the Army.”

“You were carrying a Nevada drivers license with the name Jack Johnson.”

“What’s your point?”

“Go on.”

“I’m work for some people…”

“Who?”

“I’m not going to tell you that, man. Want me to keep talking? Let’s call them The Home Office.”

There was a pause.

“Go on.”

“I work for some people; handling problems, looking into things, protecting their interests. I travel a lot. I’m licensed in Nevada as a private investigator.”

Not for much longer.

“I was sent to look for Tony, a friend of a friend, so to speak. Really, I thought he was useless toad that could fuck up a wet dream, but the orders came down. He hadn’t returned any emails in a week.”

“You sound like a gangster. Are you a criminal?”

“The legal distinction is pretty thin. I’d have to say that we fall into the category of organized crime, if you use the term loosely.”

“Why are you telling us this?”

“To a certain extent, it doesn’t matter. Countermeasures have already been taken. I’m fucked, but they’ll drop out of sight assuming by now that I’m dead or in custody. And, frankly, letting you know is more important right now.”

“I see.”

“Anyway, I was sent to the San Francisco to look for Tony. I found out he was dead so I was told to take care of the people responsible.”

“To do what to them?”

“Kill them.”

“You’re an assassin, a hit man?”

“I resolve problems.”

“Go on.”

“I drove up to Oakland and left my car in a garage, then stole a truck and went across the bridge.”

“Excuse me?”

“Did I stutter?”

Silence.

“I snooped around the city for a week or so and found out that brother Tony had run afoul of some religious nuts. I let them notice me looking for them and then let them follow me out of the north, out of the city.”

“What the hell does any of this have to do with what happened last night?”

“I told you it was complicated.”

“I don’t like you.”

“I know. I don’t really care, though.”

“Fuck you.”

I winked up at the lens.

“Language, officer, language. Now that’s on the tape. Look, we’ve got time until the FBI shows up and I feel like talking.”

I might as well warn them.

“As I was saying,” I continued, “I was up north of San Francisco dealing with an assignment, setting an ambush in this condemned house out in the woods. I’d bought an L.A. Times to read while I waited, for a big city ‘Frisco has shit for newspapers. I also had a coffin I’d bought cheap. It was used.”

Continue to chapter 2