Chapter 8: Hotel_California.
5/20/2036
“Y’know, I didn’t come from much. Pa, he was a drinker, and Mama… well, Mama
had been in heaven since I could remember. ‘Least that’s what Pa told me. He
wasn’t around much. Usually out workin’, drinkin’ or eye’n up some Girl half
his age. Hell, anything to not be around me. I think he blamed me for what
happened to Mama. ‘How could someone die from having a baby?’, I thought. I was
wanna those kids who felt more at home in them streets than at home. Pa
couldn’t stop me since he was away almost all the time. He worked, I skipped
school. He drank, I passed lil’ baggies around town. He eye’d up girls, whilst
I got beat up by whatever junkie wasn’t pleased with my delivery. We was both
wanderers shamblin’ ‘cross the streets ‘o San Antonio. ‘Till he di’nt wander no
more.”
“Pa had ate a .38 when I got home, one day. Clutched in his hand was a
gas bill twice our rent. The world had just kinda… broken ‘im, I guess. Saddest
thing was, I didn’t feel sad. Shocked. I felt nothin’. And my own Pa’s brains
where all over the wall. God had just decided that the world didn’t need
Michael Kieran no more. That night, I hit someone over the head wit’ a tire
iron to shut him up. After that, some distant relative ‘o mine brought me to
some Catholic orphanage kickin’ and screamin’. I should thank him since that’s
where I met Lee McNamara. The head of the Californian rebels and my predecessor
as Chairman. He was a good man. Those idiots in Washington DC deserved every
brick, bullet and bomb Lee threw at ‘em. I truly wish that he could be here to
see our work pay off.”
“I heard about something whilst I was fighting the Americans. Called it
‘The Delusion’. A belief that is untrue, but everyone believes it is. Bills,
taxes, rules that exist for the sake of rules. They are all The Delusion. It
was because of delusion, that my father took his own life. It’s because of
delusion, that those maniacs in the white house sat back and watched their
country burn! It is our DELUSION, that will lead us from the righteous path,
and into the valley of darkness! And once delusion has hammered its sharp nails
into your mind, it hurts to remove them! So, I say to you, people of the UISC! I
say to you, those under the rule of Tyrants and villains! FREE YOURSELVES FROM
DELUSIONS!! FREE OTHERS FROM DELUSIONS, WHETHER THEY LIKE IT OR NOT!! ONLY
THEN… only then will you truly live.
-
Brie Kieran, Chairwoman of the UISC
I heard a knocking on my
door.
Instinctively, my hand fell
to my pocket to find my gun wasn’t there. I had been cooped up in my apartment
for almost four months examining evidence that could blow IO out of the water
for good, so there was nothing scarier than hearing a knock from an unexpected
visitor.
I slowly walked from my study towards the
door, holding my gun behind my back. Every creek of the floorboards made me
more nervous. Was it an IO officer? GodsEyes wanting my info to become the sole
police corp in the UISC? Some hitman sent by Uncle Toriyama himself? A Themis
officer who had found out about “the incident” and had come to deliver the news
about my firing?
Luckily, it wasn’t any of
them. It was Sarah, armed with a strawberry milkshake.
“Hey man. Micah wanted me
to check on you.” She said.
Oh no. He’d found out.
“Oh, uhm… Why?” I replied.
“What d’ya mean why? He
wants to know why you just started not showing up to work after we went to
Howard street. Four months ago. And he says he still doesn’t have any of that
evidence on the Felix DeBlanc case you promised him.”
Nevermind, this was way
worse.
“It takes time to mail
things physically these days. Like, there’s only one delivery guy in the
distr-”
“Akira.” She said. “I’m not
stupid.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know, but
the evidence…” I started.
“No one delivers evidence
on a potential murder case through the damn Mail!”
I realised the game was up.
There was no use digging a deeper hole for myself, so I showed Sarah what I’d
been doing since February.
…
We walked into the study
(it was more like a very large closet), where Sarah seemed
taken back by how much I’d looked into it. In all fairness, it looked like a
smaller version of that one scene from It’s always sunny, where Charlie is
trying to figure out who Pepe Silvia is.
“Well, umm… you’ve been
busy.” Said Sarah.
“Yeah, well I figured if I
gave all the stuff to Micah it would draw unwanted attention to Themis.” I
said.
“What d’ya mean ‘Unwanted
attention’?” She replied.
“I’m not really sure. We
know spies from IO and GodsEyes have infiltrated Themis before, but…”
Sarah had a sad look on her
face. That look someone does when they know someone has kind of lost it.
“Why are you doing that?” I
asked.
“Doing what.” She said.
“Your looking at me like
I’ve completely lost it. Everything I’m doing here is for the greater good!”
“What greater good Akira?!
Some kid got accused of murder and taken away by IO, so he’s probably just in
some re-education camp in LA.”
“HE’S NOT!!!” I snapped.
“THIS… this guy is part of something way bigger than some false murder case.
I’m talkin’… stuff that could save hundreds of lives! Stuff that could tear
down IO, GodsEyes, all of them! Maybe even those asshats running this country!”
Sarah sighed. “Fine.” She
said. “Let me see this… Conspiracy.”
…
“Now, the first thing we
should talk about is this.” I held up a small machine that weighed a tonne.
“This is what IO refer to as a Piper. A machine that produces Ultrasonic noises
that humans can’t hear.”
“So… IO are making Ultrasound
machines?” asked Sarah.
“Not just Ultrasound
machines.” I said. “This thing here is programmed to produce Ultrasonic commands
that only animals that operate on an ultrasonic frequency, like bats, could
hear.”
“So, IO are making an army
of… Bats?”
“If you keep interrupting,
we’ll be here all day!” I snapped.
“Fine! Fine.” She replied.
“Anyway, I got this thing
analysed by a friend, let's call him Bob, and it’s got around 15 pre-programmed commands in it, which are…” I pointed to the list on my wall. “Activate, walk,
smile, laugh, listen, speak, relay, cry, drink, eat, draw, terminate, mass
terminate, self-terminate and deactivate. There’s also something different
about these messages.” I went over to my laptop and opened the sound files my
‘Bob’ had sent me.
“Bob managed to convert the
Ultrasound into normal sound, and he found that before the command is read by
the machine, it administers an Activation agent.”
“What’s that?” Sarah asked.
“This.” I said. I clicked play
on the Audio file and let the whole thing play. Right before a woman’s voice
softly said “Activate”, you could hear a mildly distorted voice sing…
“On a dark desert highway,
cool wind in my hair…”
I played the second
recording.
“Warm smell of colitas,
rising up through the air…”
“Walk”
“Hold on…” Said Sarah. “Aren’t
those lines from a song?”
“It is. It’s the opening
line from Hotel California. All these audio clips start with Don Henley singing
a line from the song. I think that this is some kind of activation word that
triggers whoever hears it to do the action.”
“But why Hotel California?”
Said Sarah.
“Ah! I’m glad you asked.” I
said. I pulled up a map on my computer that focused on an almost empty desert
expanse. Save for an old military training camp that had been turned into a re-education
camp.
“This place here…” I
pointed to the camp “… is officially known as Fort Irwin, but a few government
documents refer to it as Hotel California. After the civil war, the UISC
occupied it as a place to keep US sympathisers and torture them for
information. Now its just a re-education camp like any other. My guess is that
IO sent Felix to Fort Irwin and began the psychological conditioning.”
“But… how could you brainwash
someone into following commands that they wouldn’t be able to hear? You said
yourself that the ultrasound machine plays voice messages, but what good would
they be if Felix couldn’t hear them?” Said Sarah.
“That’s where the Receiver
comes in.” I said.
I picked up a small, almost
flat machine that just about fit on the average person’s head. It only had a
few wires and some coils on its top side. The words ‘RAT V’ were written on its
left side. I’d figured out the V meant the roman numeral for five. On its
underside where hundreds of tiny needles.
“This is a machine that
converts ultrasonic noises into regular sound via vibrations.” I said. “I’m
thinking that it would be placed on the Temporal lobe, so… underneath the
brain.”
“Damn.” Said Sarah. “So
that’s how Felix would hear the signals. But what are those needles for.”
“I took a sample to a
chemist, and apparently its loaded with Aspirin. I pondered over this for a
while, but I think it’s some kind of pain inducing method to get Felix to
follow IO’s orders. He steps out of line, they inject aspirin right into his
brain, which could cause migraines, seizures or just lots of pain.”
“What kind of psycho would
put that in someone’s head?” Said Sarah in disgust.
“Burgundy and the IO board
of directors.” I replied.
“Ok, so you know where
Felix went, what IO have been using to control him, and the project is called
RAT, for some reason. Now, can we just get this stuff sent to Micah and
Themis?”
“Not just yet.” I said. “I
also know where Felix has been for the last 4 months. And, where he is right now.
With this information, we might be able to stop him before IO makes him kill
more people.”
“Hold the phone.” Said
Sarah. “Kill’s MORE people?”
“Yeah, IO have made do a
lot of their dirty laundry these past few months.” I said.
I went back to my computer
and clicked on a file labelled “Assassinations.” In it where a series of security camera
images and video clippings of warehouses and houses, filled with gang members
from 40th street, the Crips and Uncle Toriyama boys all lying dead
on the ground. Some had been shot, others stabbed, some had been burned to a
crisp. All of the images had Felix standing over the bodies, wearing a
bulletproof vest, black jeans, sunglasses and a white T-shirt that had been
smeared with blood, and his well-kept haircut was completely gone, replaced
with military style buzz cut.
He also had a few
military-grade augmentations all across his body. A reinforced spine implant, hidden
knives in his palms and the large scar where IO put the receiver where the only
ones I could make out, but the way he killed those gangsters suggested IO had
put a lot more stuff in him. I’d seen the images and videos for so long that
the violence didn’t have an effect on me. But Sarah was horrified. It was
insane to believe that a meek guy like Felix could cause so much death and destruction.
“So… Felix is now…” I
started.
“Hold on… How did you get
this footage?” Said Sarah. “How do you have all this info that wasn’t in
Locke’s basement? And how the hell are you using Google maps?!”
“Well, firstly I’m using a
VPN.” I said, frustratedly. “And ‘Bob’ gave me the footage and converted the
Ultrasound messages. Are you caught up?”
“Yes.” She huffed.
“Alright.” I said. “As I
was saying, Felix is now operating inside a small gang of only 5 people,
including himself. Nothing really special about them, aside from them planning
a heist that IO fully know about, thanks to Felix.”
I pulled up another few
photo’s, all of them mugshots of the gang. There was a tall man in his late
50’s with short grey hair and a black leather jacket, a Latino woman with tired
looking eyes, long black hair and a grey tank top, a scrawny-looking guy with
short and curly brown hair and a white hoodie, and a 30-something man with dark
brown hair and a bomber jacket. Sarah seemed to recognise the last one.
The gang consists of Elod
Unger, Hungarian guy who resisted the Soviets in the 80’s and 90’s, Carmina
Giraldo, a veteran from the Argentinian army, Lilian Wood, some autistic kid
who was kicked out of the University of Philadelphia for vandalism, and Rhys
Smi-”
“Who?” Said Sarah.
“Rhys Smith. He’s just some
Uber driver.” I said.
“That’s weird.” She said
“He… he was a friend of mine. And he, uhh… he died 5 ye- “
A second knock on my door
cut Sarah off.
We both froze. We knew
exactly who it was.
“You got a gun.” I asked.
“Why would I bring a gun?!”
Whispered Sarah.
“Nevermind. Grab that
hockey stick. Its better than nothing.”
I creeped up to the door,
gun behind my back like last time. Sarah stood next to the door, ready to hit whoever
can through the door. I could just make out the persons features through the
opaque glass.
White shirt.
Sunglasses.
Shaved head.
Then I made the stupidest
mistake of my life. I opened the door.
“Hello Officer.” Said Felix.
I heard a loud gunshot, and then felt a massive pain in my stomach, the worst pain I had never felt before.
Felix had shot me.
I fell to the floor in agony and then I realised, when I was blacking out…
I should’ve just given Micah
and Themis the evidence.
