Purgatech: Aaron's Terrible Realization

Chapter 18

"Shhh.....!" I said, close to panic. I pointed violently over to the credenza, the hiding place for the little black recorder Omri had shown me. "Someone is going to hear you!"

Jada just smiled and shook her head. "No they won't, silly boy. We can talk about anything we want. We can talk about what an asshole Turner is and how we are going to ruin the little plan that he has with Slade."

I couldn't believe it. It was like she wanted us to get caught.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" Jada said.

"Because, they can here us, Jada. Do you really think they will let us leave here safely if they know that we know something?"

"They can't hear us, Aaron."

"What do you mean? How could they not?"

"Because, we aren't speaking with our voices."

"What in the hell are you talking about?" I asked. And then I had to sit down as a wave of shock washed over me. My mouth was closed, it had been for the entire conversation.

"You see?" Jada said. Except she didn't really say it. I hadn't noticed before but she was only looking at me intently. Everything I was 'hearing' was only in my head. She was communicating her thoughts to me.

"Is this real?" I asked. I did it with my thoughts though, without even really trying. Jada's smile widened as she nodded her head. She reached forward and wrapped me in a big hug. I could feel our mutual relief at having some upper hand over our employers-turned-captors. I pulled back to look her in the eyes once more.

"How are we doing this?" I asked.

"Her," said Jada with a shrug of her shoulders. "I don't really understand it but she's helping us both to communicate. She wants us to help her do things that she can't on her own. So she's helping us do things that we can't on our own."

"What exactly does she want us to do?"

"Bring down Purgatech," said Jada. Her smile had disappeared and her eyes flickered red momentarily. When she continued to 'speak', I heard faint traces of that second, guttural voice layered behind her normal one. "We are going to bring an end to the atrocities so far and yet to be committed by this evil institution."

"Bring it down? What does this have to do with us? We need to just get the hell out of here." I wanted no part in any hero business. "I don't have a personal problem with these people."

"This concerns all living people." Jada said. Only I wasn't really sure that it was Jada I was 'talking' to anymore. "And those yet to be born."

"I don't..."

"Understand? Of course you don't, I haven't explained." Jada/Mary reached out to me with one hand. "Here, let me show you." I looked at her open palm, reluctantly.

"Is it going to be like last time?"

She smiled reassuringly. Realizing I had no other choice, I reached out and took her hand.

Once again the room faded around me. I was in total darkness.

I saw...

Turner. He was hunched over a computer in a dim room, crowded with electronics and other computers. It reminded me somewhat of Sparks' lair, except that all of this equipment seemed to be much older. Also, many of the computers were at least halfway taken apart. A back missing from a monitor here, the keys gone from a keyboard there.

Standing around Turner in a tight little bunch were a several other men. They looked young, as did Turner. Pimpled faces and thick glasses over white colored shirts suggested fresh college diplomas and a lack of dating experience.

The screen in front of Turner was the sort that has green markings on it. Like the one from the Matrix. It was the same sort of computer my dad used to have when he worked for the bank. There were a few questions typed on the screen.

"Try again," said a voice from a man I couldn't see.

"Got it," said Turner. He typed another question. Something ambivalent about how someone's day was going. His fingers clacked on the keys with alarming speed. The whole group held its breath for a few moments. Then let it out, one collected whoosh of dejected air from all of them.

"Nothing," Turner said. The man I hadn't been able to see stuck his head out from behind the desk at which Turner sat. He was near the floor, on level with the CPU of the computer.

"Maybe it moved out?" he suggested. Another man that was in the group raised a video camera that he'd apparently been holding the entire time. It had a long wire attached to it that led back to the computer.

"Nope," he said, looking through the viewfinder, "I still have it. Just haven't gotten the wiring right yet." The man behind the computer disappeared again. There was a spark from the back of the CPU. I realized that he must have been adjusting the inner workings of the machine.

"Try it again," he said. Turner did so. They all waited with the same sense of eager anticipation.

Turner's question glowed idly on the left side of the screen, under all of the other unanswered questions.

Then, slowly, one letter at a time, a word appeared on the right side of the screen.

"H... E... L... L... O..."

The group of men exploded with excitement. There was so much joyous chatter that I couldn't make out much of what was going on. All of the men were slapping Turner on the back and cheering. Suddenly, they hoisted up his chair and began to parade him around the room. Someone popped a bottle of champagne. The scene faded.

I saw...

Turner again. He was standing on a raised platform in front of a large audience. It appeared to be some sort of auditorium. There was a screen behind Turner that would have been at home in a movie theater. He was using a laser pointer to highlight certain parts of a graph as he spouted off some scientific prattle that went far over my head. Scanning the crowd, I noticed that the front row was made up of faces I recognized from the scene moments before in the cramped computer room. They were smiling and giving Turner the thumbs up, encouraging him to go on.

Turner clicked a button and switched to a picture of an orb. It was a grainy photo, blurry and distorted but not unlike the orbs that I'd seen with my app.

"And so," Turner said to the audience. "Through the camera processes that I've described, my team and I have been able to actually record visual evidence of life after death. What you see here is a photograph of an orb. This is a manifestation of a soul, one that is lingering, outside of our reality, though close to it. Close enough to be viewed, if only one knows how to look."

The crowd began to shift in their seats. Some of them covered their faces with programs while others chuckled openly. Turner turned slightly red, his lips pressed together to form a tight line. He quickly tapped this remote and brought up a new slide.

The screen appeared to be a still, captured from the same, green lettered screen that I'd seen Turner typing on. There were lines of text on both the left and the right side.

"Here is an example of an actual conversation that my team and I had with a spirit that resides in our research facility. You'll notice the simplistic way that it..."

But he had lost the crowd. They were laughing aloud and jeering as Turner attempted to continue his presentation. Flustered, he pulled a stack of cards from his jacket pocket and began to flip through them, as if unable to remember what was next. The crowd was standing up, shuffling their way to the end of their aisles and toward the exits. Turner’s colleagues were yelling from the front seats, begging the audience members to keep open minds.

Turner looked up from his cards and became very still. The red color drained from his face and his cards fluttered to the ground. I saw tears well up in his eyes. In that moment, I couldn't help but feel bad for the man, ostracized by what I assumed to be the larger tech community as he tried to explain the development of what I now understood to be an early version of the text editor and orb camera app that had been on my phone. The scene faded.

I saw...

The group of men, Turner at the center, walking through lonely streets under the dim glow of yellow street lights.

They walked slowly, shuffling really, heads down.

"That didn't go as we'd hoped," said Turner. His attempt at a cheerful voice only made the group seem more sullen.

"Of all of those people..." wondered one of the others. "How could not one of them believe us? How could they doubt our evidence?"

"People are blind to the unknown," said another. "It's safer for them to go on not believing in the impossible because it has been impossible to them for so long. They would have to change everything they understand if they chose to believe us."

"We won't give them the chance to remain so willfully ignorant," said Turner. "The moment we are back at the lab, we will begin with a renewed vigor. If they want more concrete evidence, we will find it for them."

"Yes, but how..." The man never got to finish his thought. Before he could, three strangers dressed all in black with their faces covered emerged from an alleyway. All three pointed pistols at various members of the group.

"Please." Turner said, voice quivering. He tried not to look down the barrel that was inches from his face. "Please don't..."

"Shut up," said one of the men. "Money."

The group began to reach into their pockets, moving slowly as if they might accidentally touch invisible trip wires that had materialized all around.

"Hurry up!" shouted another masked man. The developer next to Turner whimpered in fear. Another behind him hitched a giant sob.

When Turner's crew had emptied their pockets and turned over cash, wallets, watches, and anything else of value, the masked men made them kneel down and put their hands behind their heads.

The three men began to walk away and Turner let out a huge sigh. One of the muggers looked over his shoulder and sneered. "What did you just say?" he asked.

Without waiting for a reply, he took a few quick steps back and smashed Turner across the face with the butt of his pistol. Turner crumpled up in a heap, blood pooling on the concrete. The other men cowered as the masked man laughed. The scene faded.

I saw...

Turner's group of colleagues gathered around a table. They were back in their cramped computer lab and all huddled together under the room’s single, overhead light. One of them stepped back and gasped with relief. I saw Turner, lying on the table. He was shifting a bit, face still covered in blood.

"Thank god," said one of the men.

"Turner, we'd thought we might have lost you," said another.

Turner struggled to sit up and his friends helped him. They gave him a bottle of water and he sipped it slowly, blinking and looking around the room. His eyes were coming back into focus.

"John's sister is on the way. She is a nurse, she'll get you cleaned up."

"Thank you," said Turner. "Thank you all." He looked around at the men, gratitude clear on his wounded face.

"It was nothing."

"We wish we could have stopped it."

"The presentation, the muggers, what a night you had."

"We had, gentlemen," said Turner. "We were in it together and I cannot thank you enough. You all have stayed with me. Kept me company and aided me in all ways through this journey. That is why you will be safe."

"Safe?"

"What do you mean, Turner?"

"Safe from what?"

"In time, my friends," Turned said. He smiled and slowly lowered himself back to a laying position on the table. He closed his eyes, smiling wider still. "In time, we shall rule. Together, we shall rule."

The scene faded.