THE WHIPPERSNAPPER (2013)
A short story excerpt from the published collection "The Most Important Thing Happening" (2013)
(Author’s Note: The entire collection "The Most Important Thing Happening” is subtitled “A Novel in Stories.” There are eleven stories in all and this one, “The Whippersnapper,” is the fourth.)
Conrad Reed knew better than to pick at the whisker that was beginning to grow back into his neck. Of course, if it were sense he were minding, he would have shaved backward this morning to begin with, removing the irritation altogether. Instead, the throbbing ache just to the left of his Adam’s apple was adding a whole new torture to this typically overlong meeting. But, there it was. Digging it out would simply make the matter worse.
Speaking of things that need to be removed, he now officially loathed Rod Perk, assistant marketing director at XtraX and Conrad’s immediate supervisor. Rod coddled his own turns-of-phrases as if they were new lovers, each a ripened plum. But the words thrust out of Rod’s mouth across the room smacked Conrad in the face, each reeking of lukewarm halitosis. Come five o’clock, this hypocrite, this—this ape would no longer have the power to tell Conrad what to do. Conrad had interned here as a junior in high school, transitioning into an assistant’s job at nineteen. Eight years later, he was both invisible and overtrusted. Tonight, he would finally say good riddance to the only place he had ever worked and move forward to a far more significant future—if all went well.
As dull as Rod Perk’s droning had become, Conrad knew better than to fall asleep. A few years back, he dozed in a braintrust meeting with his arms folded and unintentionally said Eleanore out loud in his sleep. He never lived that down. He, of course, did not really know anyone named Eleanore. Just the one imaginary girl in his dreams. That was a better world anyway. Happy endings and whatnot. He wished terribly that just once he would remain asleep long enough to see Eleanore’s face. One of the many downsides of imaginary love. Conrad did not allow himself the luxury of romance in real life.
He should be teeming with anticipation, but instead, his fingers tittered nervously, aware that today he would be the focal point for the first time, his resignation the only instance he had drawn attention to himself. But, he only needed to sustain a modicum of normalcy for seven more hours. He tapped the hard object in his right pocket with his ring. It made a sound. Bad idea. He instantly removed his hand.
He rolled a bullet of paper he had created by winding his gum wrapper tightly and licking it closed. He was able to make it pass over all five knuckles before drumming it back to the start—over and over. Rod’s diatribe was in its second trimester now, and Conrad could see that he wasn’t the only individual who heard their supervisor as white noise. Conrad’s eyes drifted, and he noticed Selma Ripkin on the other side of the plexiglass conference room wall. She was waving to Conrad—not a hello as much as a warning. She pointed toward Conrad’s cubicle where he could clearly see a terse and well-dressed woman wondering why he was not at his desk.
Conrad stood up so quickly that his notepad fell onto the table, knocking someone’s cold coffee onto a nearby laptop. The ensuing melee covered his exit quite nicely.
—Are you Conrad Reed?
—Conrad I am.
—Is that supposed to be cute? she asked in a tone that seemed to disapprove of cute things.
—Not necessarily.
—Today is your last day with XtraX.
—Is it? Time sure does fly.
—Follow me.
He wasn’t certain if he was supposed to gather his belongings.
He had never ended an occupation before. He had expected some sort of exit interview, counted on it, in fact. But now that it was time, he wasn’t certain of the protocol.
She welcomed him into the executive elevator. As the doors shushed closed, the fancy girl pulled an ID tag from her waist. It was attached to a tiny retractable zipline. Neat. She waved it in front of a sensor and the elevator began to rise. She released the tag.
Zhhhooop. Back to her beltline. Fancy.
She kept her back to him, facing the doors. Conrad considered the nape of her neck attractive. Not quite Imaginary Eleanore attractive, but appealing nonetheless. He attempted to slowly shuffle himself 45 degrees to at least face her cheek, but she made the same subtle pivots as he did, allergic to eye contact.
Conrad had not realized how high they had risen until sudden sunshine poured into their little motion cube. The rear wall of the elevator was see-through, but having never ridden it above concrete slab levels, he hadn’t noticed before. My goodness, they were high. It made him feel queasy. Conrad considered using his inhaler but thought it would make the fancy girl pivot extra and he did not want to give her the satisfaction.
Ding.
The doors shushed again and Fancy remained unmoved.
—Um. Shall we?
—We? Not we. Only you.
—Excuse me?
—Straight down the hall. The last door on the right.
He stared at her, mouth open and skull at an odd angle. Her eyes nudged him away from her. Tentative, he shuffled out the doors. They attempted to close on him.
—Move along.
Yep. She was one of them.
Conrad slipped out as the elevator doors made their resolve. He peered down the long schmancy hallway before him, noting that the ceiling was at least twice as high as it deserved to be. His steps echoed, as did his knock when he finally reached the door. A voice resonated from the other side.
—Enter.
Conrad stepped inside and immediately regretted it. The room was vast and opulent. Higher ceilings than the hallway and a billboard-sized window behind the desk.
A young man—younger than Conrad anyway—smiled large while speaking into the tiniest of headsets attached to his face.
—Substantial. That is a substantial concession on the part of Dr. Rathbone and you would be remiss to disregard the offer. Uh huh. Uh huh. Um huh. Huh.
Conrad didn’t see how there was time for the person on the other end of the phone to be replying between this young man’s uh huhs. And yet he twirled his laser pointer in his hand like he was escorting a parade into the city.
—Uh huh. Um huh. Yeah. Yes, he droned on —Of course. Of course not. You can’t be serious. You shouldn’t be. You won’t. You will. She did. I’m putting you on hold. And you are?
Eight awkward seconds went by before Conrad felt the heat of the laser on his forehead and deduced that the young man was now addressing him.
—I—I’m—My name is —Can you not point that at my face?
—It’s a pointer. It’s made to be pointed.
—At my face?
—I’m pointing it above your face. At your forehead.
—Can you not do that?
—Um huh. And you are Conrad Reed. Third floor.
—Second floor, actually.
—We include the basement.
—There’s a basement?
—Dr. Rathbone will see you now.
—I’m not here to see Mr. Eeley?
—Excuse me while I laugh. No one on the third floor gets to see Mr. Eeley.
—Second floor.
—No one on the first through ninth floors gets to see Mr. Eeley.
—I can’t even knock on his door and thank him for so many years of employment?
—Mr. Eeley’s door has remained closed all day today. Even so, it would not be permissible to knock.
—Permissible?
—Advisable. Dr. Rathbone will see you now.
—Who’s Dr. Rathbone?
—The person who will see you now.
The laser pointer was now aimed at another door, a new realm on the north wall. Or rather, the door itself was the north wall. It opened on its own, Conrad assumed through magic, until he saw the young man put the remote control back in his desk drawer. As Conrad eased in, he discovered the room in evening darkness, though it was midmorning outdoors. All windows were deeply shaded and a single lamp illuminated a portion of the large desk that someone was seated behind. As Conrad moved deeper into the room, the doors closed behind him and he could hear the distinct sounds of an albatross on the beach.
—I find the ambient sounds soothing to the work environment.
—Dr. Rathbone?
—Yes. And you are Conrad Reed, she stated as if it were news.—A shame we have never met, though I assure you I know a great deal about who you are.
—I wasn’t aware of a Dr. Rathbone working for XtraX.
—Well—I don’t exactly work for XtraX as much as I work with XtraX.
—I don’t understand the difference, Conrad said.
—You needn’t. Please sit. I’ve had the chair warmed.
Conrad sat, his glutes confirming her declaration. He was afraid to ask exactly how this had been accomplished.
—Would you care for a milkshake?
—A what? A milkshake?
—Or sandwich? Energy drink? Protein bar? Shark steak? Fried cheese? Some clams? Or a frittata left over from brunch? Perhaps just coffee.
—I’m fine. I just finished breakfast.
—We never really finish breakfast. It’s what makes us human.
Yep. She was one of them. It was the shes of XtraX (not to mention the hes, especially the hes) who had brought Conrad to his decision. The decision not only to resign, but to move forward with the precarious circumstance he had planned for this evening.
—What I mean to say is that we are never full. Never sated. Never finished wanting things, she waxed philosophical though it was all rehearsed. —It is that same characteristic that makes us never finished not wanting things. Am I clear?
—I am fully aware of the XtraX vision statement.
—You don’t even know how to say it. You call it “Extra X” as if referring to an additional X. The a is short and it is all one seamless word.
—I know. I was making a joke. And, no, it’s not supposed to be cute.
—You say you know the vision statement.
—“To rid humanity of the one thing they each must live without.”
—Accurate. I would expect no less from someone who has worked here as long as you have.
—Thank you. Conrad nodded.
—But, I do have to ask, because there is one thing different about you, Conrad Reed. One detail that makes this exit interview necessary.
—I never used the discount. You need an exit interview with me because I never used my employee discount.
—There are waiting lists, Mr. Reed. Individuals who wait three to five years for an XtraXion availability window. You work here for well over a decade at an insignificant salary, the only real perk that you may jump the line at a reduced price and you never—never seize the opportunity?
—Did you consider that I don’t want anything removed?
—We all want something removed, Mr. Reed. You don’t strike me as the sort who has never considered the fact.
—Exactly what is it that you do here, Dr. Rathbone?
—Please. Call me Ariel.
But he would not avert his eyes.
—You’re in public relations, Conrad guessed.
—Well—no flies on you.
XtraX was nothing more than a local upstart back when Conrad was six years old. It had been a heightened time for him as he was overcoming a stutter. His teacher assumed the problem was lack of brain capacity and called him a dullard. She had no genuine idea what was going on inside of the Reed home. Conrad wasn’t old enough to know more than the singular detail that his mother had a mass—that was what all the aunts whispered when he passed doors slightly ajar. The only mass Conrad knew of was the colored clay he played with that smelled like salt and hardened if he left the plastic lid off the can. To this end, whenever he caught his mother asleep with her mouth open, he closed it for her so the mass would remain soft.
His moments with his mother in those months were fleeting. He would come in before school and kiss her on the cheek. She would wipe his forehead so that his hair would part on the side, a style he did not prefer but neglected to comb out. She would look at him with those tired eyes, barely open, and call him her little whippersnapper. He didn’t know what it meant, but assumed it was something old people incorrectly think young people want to be called.
Back then, the organization was known as Extraction Specialists, Ltd. They specialized in a radical overnight weight-loss that required very little of the patient other than a fat chunk of change. No dietary modification, no exercise program, no scars or soreness. Customers would simply show up one day and emerge from the facility twenty- four hours later with their unpleasing excess absent.
News coverage was swift. Conrad’s town was touted as the thinnest in the nation. An influx of insecure nomad chubsters took residence and the local economy catapulted to the stratosphere. After taking heaps of criticism for pandering to only one demographic, Extraction Specialists, Ltd. attempted to diversify. They tripled their staff of medical professionals and applied their secret extrication technology (a secret held by only two individuals at the time, one now surviving) to disease. It seemed logical. Eradicate fat and you should be able to eradicate cancer, right? A plea was made for test subjects.
Conrad’s aunts enlisted his mother.
It was a brutal three weeks away. Silence pervaded the halls of his home. There was no news. Literally nothing. The only details Conrad heard were the rumors his teacher would spill to the class- room, unaware of Conrad’s situation.
But then, on a Sunday morning, two men in white showed up on the Reed doorstop. They were pushing a wheelchair. In that wheelchair was Conrad’s mother.
The mass was gone. She had survived.
—I am, of course, aware of your mother’s history, Dr. Rathbone offered.
—I thought those files were private.
—For anyone who doesn’t work for XtraX Executive, yes.
—With, not for.
—Pardon?
—You said you work with them, not for them.
—You listen well.
—So I’ve been told.
—And your mother is still alive? Thriving?
—Yes.
—All the more inexplicable.
—What?
—That you have a first-person emotional connection with an XtraX success story and yet you have purposely—
—Who said this was intentional? Conrad took a breath. This was clearly not going to be an easy out.—Have I done something wrong? Am I required to utilize the opportunity?
—Of course not. That isn’t really the point.
—I’m waiting for the point, Dr. Rathbone.
—My point, Mr. Reed, is that my superiors don’t even know you exist. They don’t make an effort to notice your sort. I, however, make it my mission to notice. There is a continual, ever-dwindling list of employees who have not yet taken the plunge, so to speak. That list is larger than you alone, I assure you. But, the names alongside yours on that list are neophytes. New employees, still frightened by the prospect of what the procedure may entail. You are the only one who has worked here for a decade.
—Eleven years, actually.
—Yes. Since you were sixteen. You experienced our work with your mother and years later joined our mission. What is unsettling about you, Conrad, is that you appear on the surface to support what it is we do here while never committing to take part yourself. That seems, if you will excuse the term, nothing short of intentional.
—You are accusing me of—let me get this straight—seizing less than my fair share here.
—I’m not accusing you at all. I’m here to help. And I would be remiss to allow you to set foot out of those doors at five o’clock this evening without giving you the opportunity to purge yourself of whatever haunts you.
—Nothing haunts me.
—Something haunts everyone, Conrad. It is why XtraX exists.
Soon after the test subject triumphs became publicized, the line wrapped around the Extraction Specialists, Ltd. building for days. A despairing campsite of individuals with the desperate hope that the wait for this miracle would not outlast the days they had remaining to survive. Conrad had to walk past the line every day in order to get to school. It was strange. The attitude of the people in line as a whole never really felt like hope as much as desperation, like someone pulling the arm of a slot machine over and over though their bowl of coins is nearing empty.
The company could hardly keep up with the clientele. Demand was extraordinary. So again, diversification became necessary. They changed their name to XtraX (less procedural, more accessible to the common man) as they simultaneously hired a more complicated series of experts and began to utilize their secret extrication technology on, well, everything.
If an individual wanted an addiction removed, that was pos- sible. An anger issue. An out-of-control emotion, a memory—if you could pinpoint it with their team of professional counselors, XtraX could remove it. The procedure, however, was too psychologically and emotionally taxing for anyone to undergo its breadth more than once. That was the limit. If you were human—if you were alive, you had one and only one shot at XtraXion. One thing to be extricated. It became the ad campaign: what do you most desire to live without? And the customers flooded in. The town boomed. And Conrad Reed counted the days until he could become a ground-floor employee.
—Have you been all that unhappy here? She asked it knowing the answer.
—Sometimes.
—Perhaps we could remove that.
—Remove unhappiness?
—Why not?
—Because if you removed unhappiness, I wouldn’t know what happiness feels like any more.
—You would know it well. You would feel it all the time.
—All the time. Really. Elation and euphoria—all the time? Isn’t the whole idea of elation that it is more—more—than whatever I felt right before?
—Dissatisfaction, then. We could remove whatever you prefer.
—I prefer having nothing removed.
—Or we could remove your fear.
He stared at her. Now would be a good time for that frittata.
—You think I’m afraid of the extraction process.
—Of course you are. Isn’t that the heart of what is at hand here? You first came to work for this organization because of what happened to your mother. True?
—True, Conrad admitted.
—So many individuals apply and are rejected, but you gained entrance because ... well, why don’t you finish the story?
—I’d rather hear your version.
—Let’s have that coffee now. She tapped a button on a device affixed to her temple.—Dijon, bring in a cup—make that two cups of espresso. Conrad heard a brief um huh muttered faintly in Ariel’s ear and attempted unsuccessfully to keep his nervous ring finger from tapping against the hard object in his pocket.—Where were we? Dr. Rathbone persisted.
—You were trying to remove my unhappiness.
—No. You were going to answer my question.
Conrad tilted his head in thought. —I’m curious, Dr. Rathbone, All I’ve done is save your company money by not taking a bonus. Where is all the antagonism coming from?
—Antagonism?
—You have to agree you’re coming on a bit strong.
—Well, many say I’m a strong woman.
—I suppose you’re certain what you want in life.
—This meeting isn’t about me, Conrad.
—I’m just trying to figure out why you think you need to bring me down a notch to get whatever it is you want.
—I would think it clear that all I want is the truth.
—A little kindness might get you there quicker.
—Not in my experience.
Conrad relented. —It was a gift.
—That’s right. This job offer was a gift—or rather, a prize. At your high school. A raffle on behalf of XtraX. Your name was drawn, but you declined the prize of a $25,000 college grant.
—You could say I had it removed.
—Cute. You asked for something else instead. You asked if you could exchange it for something of equal or lesser value.
—An internship.
—Exactly. You willfully gave up a substantial head start on a college education—a start at life—for a chance to get your foot in the XtraX door. The press was marvelous: a local boy whose mother was one of our very first test subjects. A miracle—the one of our own creation—healed her and you desired to repay the gratitude. It was delicious. Of course, I knew there was more to it. I knew there must be something you were desperate to have removed.
—Is it too late to get cream with that espresso?
—You grew up with a stutter, a nervous child. You didn’t expect that sort of emotion to kick in when it came time to have the procedure done to yourself. So, you stalled. You neglected to choose—which is a choice in and of itself, of course. All these years, remaining in a menial job, getting very little compensation, all the time waiting to have your mother’s miracle happen to you. But, you never could do it, could you? You never could summon the courage. It all would have made perfect sense.
—Would have?
—I was stuck on that theory for years—for a decade. And, then suddenly one detail disproved the fable.
—I resigned.
—Yes. And no one was more disappointed than I was. I wrote the news story that completes your journey years ago, waiting for it to come true. Waiting patiently for the little stuttering boy who gave up his schooling and career in a trade of gratitude for what had been done to his mother. Waiting for that young man to follow through with his own miracle. Now, that would have been quite a story.
—A story is a good word for it, Conrad said.
—And then you resigned.
—Sorry to disappoint.
—You don’t disappoint. You confuse. But, I am nothing if not eagerly adaptable.
Dijon entered, carrying in a small tray with two tiny espresso cups. He was engaged in a phone call and stirred up the tension in the room with his lack of candor. He threw some significant and well-rehearsed hand gestures her way. The clatter of the tray appeared to agitate Dr. Rathbone and she bid him exit with a motion of her hand. He set the tray down beside Conrad and exited in a similar whirlwind.
—Go easy on the cream, she instructed Conrad.
—You want me to fix your coffee?
—I believe you are still an employee, are you not?
He didn’t hide his distaste for the request. —How many sugars?
—Surprise me.
Begrudgingly, Conrad stepped over to the small table and began preparing both cups. He felt like an eight-year-old in the kitchen with his aunts.
He would stand, stirring milk into their tea, and the yelling would begin. The yelling that would cause his stutter to flare, the yelling that would make him retreat to a corner of his bedroom and face the wall while imagining a better life with an imaginary girl named Eleanore. Days were rife, filled with all the hurtful words that could be mustered. Needless to say, Conrad did not like to stir things.
—You didn’t ask what I meant when I said that I am adaptable, she stated self-congratulatory.
—That’s because I knew what you meant.
—Of course. Because you think you know what I really want.
—I think you’ve decided that I—like everyone else in your world—am some sort of enemy and that you cannot win without me—or again, everyone else—losing. The world isn’t your enemy. I don’t think the whole world is anyone’s enemy.
She smiled. He set her cup before her and returned to his seat. She assessed him without moving her head.—I wouldn’t say that I consider everyone an enemy, Conrad.
—No?
—But, I am certainly on the fence about you.
—Because?
—Just this morning, I had an unusual headache from all these years of preposterous thinking concerning your story.
—My story, Conrad stated deadpan. —That is preposterous.
—And it suddenly dawned on me.
—Perhaps the whole story is a lie?
—Exactly.
—Not that any of it is untrue, but the heart of it, the motivation you assumed was behind it. Perhaps it was never true, Conrad said.
—Precisely my thinking.
—Aren’t you clever.
—I assumed you came to work here because you wanted something removed, but then grew fearful and couldn’t follow through. But, I had it backwards. You never wanted the procedure to begin with. Am I correct?
—You are.
—I knew it. You’ve never wanted anything removed.
—Oh, Conrad said—I’ve wanted something removed.
—The love of Eleanore?
He almost spit out his coffee.—What?
—Rod Perk spoke of a time you mentioned her name. Who is she?
—There is no Eleanore.
—Ah. So it is love indeed. The pain of a broken heart.
—No. You don’t understand. She isn’t real.
—You spoke her name while asleep. That seems fairly real.
—She’s real to me.
—She’s a delusion? A psychosis?
—She’s—she’s just a thought. Hope I’m holding on to. Just a single idea that I certainly do not want removed.
—Then, I don’t understand, Conrad. I legitimately do not understand. If there is something you indeed want removed, when did you plan on having it eliminated?
—Isn’t that obvious, Dr. Rathbone? I’m having it removed tonight.
The look on Dr. Rathbone’s face was astounding. She was completely perplexed. Of course she was. She didn’t know. How could she? How could any of them know? Wasn’t that the point? They were all so consumed with themselves that they couldn’t possibly notice the truth. They were in the business of recognizing the one thing each individual wants removed. They were not trained in the art of revealing what filled in the gaping hole its absence left behind.
Mrs. Reed remained in that wheelchair for a year, not out of necessity but of paranoia. The things that had been done to her, the extrication process, had seemed to her less than human. Yes, she had wanted the thing—the mass—out, but it had all been so disruptive, so brutal. Conrad would ask her if they hurt her. She would always answer the same—not my body. But, she had been changed. Gone were the warm touches to his forehead—the very thought of him at all. She didn’t even call him by name any more—only the meaningless whippersnapper. The name meant nothing because it is what Conrad had become to her: nothing. She was no longer a mother, but a thing. When they spoke, Conrad considered his voice landing upon her ears as a diversion might, an echo. She always seemed elsewhere.
And the worry, oh the worry. The knowledge that she had used up her one chance to have something removed made her paranoid that she would grow ill again—or go mad. She could not bear the thought of a second sickness. She obsessed over the thought that per- haps she had made the wrong choice—had the wrong thing removed. She could have had them extract her fear—or her pessimism—or her hopelessness—or a thousand other things than just the cancer—only the cancer, not the cause.
And the paranoia turned to anger and the anger rage. Her words were short, her eye contact slim. She was pervasively disappointed in Conrad, and why wouldn’t she be? She was disappointed in herself. The company thought they had removed his mother’s sickness, but they had in fact removed his mother completely.
Conrad knew he must leave the house. In the middle of the night, he shoved his meager belongings into a pillowcase and began to work his way through the streets of town. And then, just as he was crossing Mobrigger Bridge, he saw it: the top of XtraX tower. The highlife being lived by those who did this to his family. Those who did this—this awful thing to their town—to their community. That night, Conrad raged against the establishment, shouting platitudes into the night nothingness. Screaming so hard in the cold mist that he eventually coughed up blood.
Within an hour, he knew that it was not his mother that he hated, for his mother had at one time been the only one to show him love. No. He hated those who had changed her. Those who had taken her one thing away.
That night, he forged a plan.
—You would hold us accountable for attempting to do good?
—Who said anything about good? Your motive was profit. Always profit.
—Our bottom line—yes, but our motive was to extricate wrong.
—There it is, right there.
—Oh? Enlighten me.
—You can’t extricate wrong. You can’t rub it out with an eraser or wish it out or yank it out with a chain. Wrong must be kneaded out. Slowly, persistently, intentionally, painfully. It’s got to be worked out like a muscle wedged between vertebrae.
—And how do you propose we do that?
—You don’t do it. Only I can do it for myself. But that’s not what you’re really after.
—And what am I after?
—Who knows? Power—security—vindication to correct something someone labeled you when you were young? Maybe you’re just trying to convince yourself you’ve won. But whatever it is that you are at war against mankind over, it’s a phantom—and you are making things worse for others and yourself by your continual unconscio- nable actions within this company.
—You are angry, Dr. Rathbone stated.
—I’ve been angry for a very long time.
—We can have that removed.
—Oh, you’re funny.
—You think you’re our first dissatisfied customer? Get over yourself, Mr. Reed. We have done mountains of good for humanity. Mountains. You do not have a full grasp on the importance of what we do here. It would be a shame for you to waste your efforts, not to mention your career, on attempting to bring us down. You would have very little impact, I assure you.
They stared, eye-to-eye. Dr. Rathbone took the smallest sip of the cooling espresso, and then Conrad finally played his hand— allowing himself the smallest wrinkle of a smile.—I don’t know. I think perhaps my impact will be significant.
—What could you possibly mean?
—You’ll know soon enough. If Dijon is thorough enough with his search of my bedroom, he’ll find the blueprints to this building taped underneath my T-shirt drawer.
Espresso went up her nose. She coughed a hot, sputtering cough.—That’s—that’s absurd, Dr. Rathbone said.
—It’s all right. I’ve expected it. Planned for it, actually.
—Planned for what?
—You’ve removed enough, Dr. Rathbone. Please don’t add my dignity to the list. You called me into your office to keep me busy the exact same hour that my mother has her monthly health review by your doctors. You know my home is empty—and your gestures to Dijon gave him the go-ahead to scope out my room—to uncover my plans.
—Why on earth would I imagine you have plans?
—Because it is what I have wanted you to imagine. It is why I have encrypted emails and buried strange blueprints deep in my hard drive. I know I’m being observed. I know how to make you paranoid. But, I assure you. Everything you have found has nothing to do with what I really want.
It was Dr. Rathbone’s turn to smile. —Nicely played, Mr. Reed.
—Thank you, Ariel.
—But, if it all means nothing—if it is all a manipulative ruse—then why would you need the stolen keycard in your right pocket?
—In my—you don’t know what you’re talking about.
—You think all we are capable of is a backdoor into your hard drive—of searching your bedroom? We have intercepted several off-site calls, garbled though they were, where you clearly expressed interest in obtaining a high-level security keycard.
—That’s why you brought me up here.
—I don’t know what you have planned, but I know that you have a very skewed perception of what this company has done for you. So, here is what is going to happen. You are going to hand me the keycard and I am going to have security escort you out of the building forever. No need for us to press charges. You’ll just be on your way.
—And where would I keep this keycard?
—As I stated: your right pocket.
—You mean this?
He pulled out what was clearly a metal flask of some sort. His ring finger had tapped against it repeatedly, scratching the side. —Empty your pockets.
He did. Nothing but the flask, save some coins and a mint for later.
—That’s it? That’s what this is all about? You’re drinking on the job? You’re merely depressed?
—Oh, I would never drink what is in this flask.
—Why?
—Because it’s only for you.
She stared. He continued.
—If I were to drink this, I wouldn’t be able to move my legs, then my arms, all the way up my body until I couldn’t even yell for help anymore. Dr. Rathbone squinted in bewilderment. Understanding did not become clear until she glanced down at the espresso that Conrad had prepared. She attempted to stand—and could not.—What have you done to me?!
—Surprise.
Her arms were immovable now. Panic set in.—You—what have you—what have you—
—Relax. You’ll be able to move again come sunrise.
—But, the security card— Her voice began to trail off, her vocal chords numb.
—Yes. Thank you for reminding me.
Conrad slipped around the desk and carefully removed Dr. Ariel Rathbone’s security keycard from the zipline on her belt.—My apologies, but I didn’t expect you would see things my way. You see, you’re one of only three people alive who have the kind of clearance I need. And before you panic, I’m not going to rob you. I’m just going to walk out of this building and fetch my friends. Then, tonight, we’re going to come back and use this card to get into the third sub-basement while you sit immovable in your office closet.
Her eyes were fried eggs.
—I know. I had to hack the system for ten years before I finally learned about the third sub-basement. But, it makes sense. I was just trying to bring XtraX down—find some sort of incriminating evidence that what you are doing wounds people deeply. I just kept obsess- ing about my mother and how you robbed her of a true healing. You jerked her problem away, and she came up on the other side wanting, lacking. She’s never been the same—because though she wanted the thing gone, she didn’t realize how much she needed to push it out herself. I would weep—I’m telling you, weep. And then, it dawned on me: if there is a gaping hole left in my mother, then what used to be there must have gone somewhere. I mean, these XtraXions. They can’t possibly just evaporate. These cancers, these infirmities and addictions and thorns and sins—they must be stored somewhere. That became my new mission. And I’ve found them. In the third sub-basement. I gathered the support. I made a plan. All I needed was a key. And that meant I needed to get close to you. And that meant I needed you to invite me to your office. So, I resigned. The irony is that it took leaving this job to accomplish what I took the job for in the first place.
Dr. Rathbone no longer had the ability to speak. A tear ran down her cheek as Conrad quietly wheeled her into the closet atop her office chair.
—Like I said: sunrise, you’ll be fine. Until then, the hallucinogens in this concoction should grant you some thought-provoking dreams— a real deep dig into your psyche. Same with Dijon. My friends were waiting for him. Don’t worry. I know you’ve had your grief removed. I would hate for you to suffer all of that again—even though losing it this way made you half a person. But, I’ll make certain it is destroyed.
Conrad gripped the closet doorknob as he gave her one last linger.—As for the rest of it—a decade-and-a-half of sins never truly dealt with? Simply shoved in the basement while leaving gaping holes across town? This company is going to have a lot of explaining to do for never killing all of its extracted transgressions.
Especially tonight—when I let them all loose into the wild.
Next: Read "S K U L L D U G G E R Y" Short Story #5 from Mark Steele’s Novel in Stories “The Most Important Thing Happening” (2013)
©2013 Mark Steele / Published & Permissions by David C. Cook Publishing - “The Most Important Thing Happening: A Novel In Stories” is available HERE in paperback.