Linda knew the interrogation would clear things up. Earlier, in the van, she had protested as she was strip-searched, but the agents were so polite and apologetic that they overcame the fact that some potholes were making for a series of blunders with the speculum.
All they needed, they said, was proof she was a good citizen. Understanding the necessity of this degradation made it bearable.
Since the incident, the Agency expected every citizen to put up with certain inconveniences—some more than others—until the crisis passed.
She noticed the rain had stopped. Had it been three weeks? Raymond played his piano, coughing all over the keys, haunting the road’s centerline. What if he were seriously ill? What kind of mother was she?
The trip was nothing, as usual, a quick jaunt south of town into the foothills where she pulled down the usual, unmarked road up the side of a weathered mountain, slithering between birch and beech stands, then two-needle pine. The road seemed to end at a honeysuckle-splattered hedgerow, but as she approached, it gave way, revealing a tunnel.
She touched the brakes entering the tube, which descended about a quarter mile at a thirty-degree angle with her vehicle’s headlights being the only illumination. Others might have found this journey claustrophobic, but she was used to it. It was during the uphill drive, on her way home to Raymond and light, that she felt uneasy. The bottom of the tube appeared, as usual, with the appearance of a dim pink light outlining a portal that vanished, a parking lot materializing in its place. Slowing, she parked in the usual spot.
The elevator doors on the far side of the garage opened as her toe touched pavement, and as she approached them, a voice on the intercom said:
Good morning, 8P5, you have two persons of interest today. Their dossiers are in your in-box. You have one message, from 6R9: Hey P, just letting you know I’ve got a hot one this morning. We’ll compare notes at lunch. Level 1 or 2? Text me. No other messages. Would you like me to repeat that?
No.
OK then.
Is anything on my schedule besides the interrogations? Have I made any special notes to myself?
No.
OK. Nothing else then.
Very well. God bless our Tribal Agency…God bless our Tribal Agency.
Yes, yes. God bless The Agency.
She entered the elevator, eyeing the security camera as she began her ascent into the mountain. She could see her unflattering reflection in the lens. Feeling groggy, she wouldn’t be fully awake until she’d drank two more cups of coffee and smoked the day’s only cigarette. She can never wake up without help. She hoped she wasn’t sick like Raymond, and felt guilty for setting him loose on the world.
The doors parted, exposing a large, well-lit yet empty office. 8P5 sauntered between two rows of desks to the last one at the far end of the room where she began pawing files and papers from her in-box, and read the name Jonah Carson on the top dossier. Carson was committed for an unspecified psychotic breakdown that had resulted in a baby’s disappearance. He also had regular contact with another person of interest, especially during his breakdown. It was likely he would reveal something if charmed, or so his profile said. Carson, transferred from the county hospital late last night, was coming out of sedation. The Agency told him he was in the discharge unit in the hospital basement. He would be going home today, they told him. She would question him in the lounge, posing as another patient.
The side door slid open when the van stopped, and Linda once again found herself in an underground parking ramp. She had tried to figure out where they were going after her arrest, but when the bouncy cavity search began, she lost track of their direction. She assumed they were underground because the van went downward quite a distance before stopping. She noticed there was only one other vehicle—a dark, late model sedan, a Chevy Impala perhaps—parked in the lot. As the elevator doors parted, Linda shuddered and was escorted in. When the doors re-opened some distance below, the squad veered right, marching down a narrow corridor to a door that opened, like the elevator, as they neared the end of the hall.
Leading Linda inside, they plunked her into a chair and, removing her handcuffs, gave her a can of Coke. Then they left, turning out the light before locking the door behind them. She was alone in the dark, somewhere deep underground in an undisclosed location, deposited there by seemingly friendly, hooded agents who gave her an ice-cold can of Coca-Cola.
Though her lower orifices were somewhat sore from the search, the darkness proved kind. She closed her eyes, feeling her invaded space to be just that…space. She wasn’t in there, but elsewhere, a loyalist, a good wife, loving mother, hard worker. Linda paid taxes. Prayed for the warrior society. Supported the struggle. They were being nice to her. They were doing what was necessary to protect The Tribe. Her body was born into that nation, of the people, and The Agency claimed sovereignty over it. All the claims The Agency made regarding her person proved its right to eminent domain over her flesh. If her incarceration weren’t enough evidence, the death penalty proved it, or so she thought.
Time passed, but nothing moved. In the stillness, Linda began imagining the outlines of things in the room. Were they real?
The lights came on. The door swung open, and two hooded women dressed in dark business suits entered the room.
Disrobe. Take off all your clothes, said the short one.
Please, said the taller one, who sounded older.
Linda took off her clothes and the short agent threw them in a paper shopping bag while the tall one listed them into a logbook. Linda looked around to see what clothes they were going to make her wear, but didn’t see any. Then, as abruptly as they arrived they left, turning out the light, leaving Linda standing, alone and naked. Then the whir and caress of air conditioning to her right, and the snap crackle of a heat vent blowing to her left made her feel anxious. She finished the Coke, in an effort to calm herself, but the last sip was warm and flat. She began sweating, her imagination shutting down, leaving her to feel a dreadful tingle of something that was far, far away.
Avoiding the clash of hot and cold air, Linda folded herself onto the heated floor tiles, praying…
Jonah sat in an overstuffed green armchair next to a plastic dieffenbachia plant. His feet were propped on a dark, wooden coffee table, crossed at the ankles. She, like Jonah, was wearing a terry cloth robe over her hospital gown as she shuffled into the room.
Good morning, said Jonah, smiling.
Without thinking, she responded: I don’t think I’m happy anymore.
Smiling back, she couldn’t help but feel this act was routine.
What’s wrong? said Jonah, looking concerned.
They’re letting me out today, but I have no place to go, she said.
She sat on the sofa adjacent to Jonah, crossing her legs at the knees, twirling her ankle in the air.
You got a smoke? she yawned.
I don’t smoke.
Good for you. What they get you for?
I went kaput. Thought I was somebody and something I wasn’t. Got all worked up and shit and I guess somebody got hurt. I’m better now. They’re letting me go today, too. What happened to you?
It’s a long story. Did they ask you all sorts of fucked up questions?
Only about my daughter, the person who got hurt. They were necessary questions.
How’s your daughter?
Nobody knows. They can’t find her.
How old is she?
Nine months.
That’s terrible. I lost a baby once. I was involved with the wrong people. How about you?
Jonah straightened in his chair, fur rising on his neck.
What do you mean the wrong people?
I was hanging out with a bunch of crack dealers. One day I woke up and my baby was gone. That’s when all this shit started. Were you hanging out with crackheads?
No. Actors and temps.
Even worse.
Jonah laughed. She pulled two cigarettes from her robe pocket, offered one to Jonah, who took it. She lit her cigarette then his and pulled up her gown to expose her thigh. Jonah felt her eyes, as he took a long drag looking at her fine, meaty gam…
Our Father, who art in heaven
Hallowed be thy name…
The words that always followed did not flow into her mind. Linda had to repeat the lines twice before she was able to silence herself and remember:
Thy kingdom come, thy will be done
On Earth as it is in heaven.
It took more effort now to squeeze the noise from her mind, to quiet it, put it back in prayer mode…to keep it there unquestioning:
Give us this day our daily bread
And forgive us our trespasses
As we forgive those who trespass against us
Linda found concentrating under these circumstances a daunting task. Was the floor growing warmer? The air conditioning and heat duct had grown silent. She rose from the floor and groped for the chair. Finding it, she sat down and marveled at how warm the seat was relative to the backrest, which seemed cold in comparison. Panic illuminated the room…Linda remembered.
And lead us not into temptation,
But deliver us from evil,
For thine is the kingdom,
And the power,
And the glory,
Forever and ever.
That’s a long time.
Amen.
Indeed. She fell asleep until the sound of the door opening awakened her. Light pressed her eyes. The two guards who stripped her were present, along with a small yet stocky man who, rather than wearing a hood, wore a Richard Nixon mask. A fourth person, wearing Rosemary Woods, entered the room pushing a cart, upon which appeared to be very thin, transparent wires and several strange mechanisms. Between the wires and mechanisms lay seven hypodermic needles, or so it seemed.
The short woman got down on her knees and applied ankle straps, fastening Linda to the chair. Rosemary Woods flipped a switch on the wall and the chair began straightening itself, Linda rising with it. The woman who clasped her ankles did the same to her wrists as the tall woman heightened the backrest up to her head. She then put a strap around Linda’s torso at the shoulders. Meanwhile, Nixon and his secretary prepared the enigmatic apparatus for operation, threading the razor thin wires through diverse orifices in their apparently plastic bodies.
Relax. You’re not going to feel a thing, said the tall one, whispering in her ear from behind.
Well, you might, but it won’t hurt too much, said the shorter one, a dark eye twinkling under her hood.
President Nixon gestured for Linda’s handlers to leave the room. The friendly banter was over. He approached her, and when he looked up into her eyes, she felt a surge of recognition, or déjà vu. Rosemary Woods, meanwhile, pushed the cart with the needles and wired mechanisms to his side.
I’m not a crook, said Nixon, reaching for one of the needles.
The people have a right to know, he said, threading one of the wires protruding from the nearest mechanism through the needle, that their President is not a crook. But the Jews are damn near running the whole shebang.
He disappeared behind Linda, who felt Nixon’s fingers spreading her ass cheeks, exposed by a gap in the chair. Her body stiffened.
Relax. You won’t feel a thing if you relax. The more you fight it, the more you’ll feel it. What I’m doing to you is no different from what I do to Liddy every day just for the hell of it. He loves it.
Linda felt the tip of the needle against her anus, and through sheer force of will forced her body to relax. Resistance was pointless. No sooner had she accomplished this than Nixon was once again standing in front of her and looking into her eyes.
We’re going to bomb the bastards into submission. The goddamned fucking traitors here at home will just have to live with it. I know who they are.
Who are you? Linda asked.
Pipe down, be-utch! shouted Nixon, who then squatted, performing the same procedure to Linda’s pussy he’d performed on her anus. Now, her body tensed, and she felt the needle slithering a wire up her cervix, stopping whereabouts she imagined her womb might be.
We need to get all the bastards. The Jews, the niggers, the communists, the rat bastard hippies and other terrorists. We’re gonna do what’s necessary to win. I’ve got a list of enemies and dirt on all of them. This is how I got it.
Nixon, injecting a wire into Linda’s navel, leaned his plastic forehead against her cold, sweaty breast. She noticed the instrument the wire was attached to glowing pale yellow, and the mechanism attached to her pussy was a pallid, pulsating orange. The one linked to her ass was a steady yet pasty red, or pink. Rosemary Woods tapped the orange device, as if erasing something with her middle finger, steadying the contraption’s gleam.
We’re going to save this country, but the cure’s going to hurt. Change is always painful. The good guys are going to win, said Nixon, needling a wire in an upward trajectory from below Linda’s sternum.
The gadget it was attached to lit green.
We need to find out who’s for us and who’s against us. Certain tests must be made. We’ll find out what you love, what you’re devoted to, what you feel for, and what it is you would heal in the world, then sculpt you from there.
He was no longer Nixon, but once again whoever he was beneath his mask. Linda found herself relaxing even more as the short, stocky man inserted a wire into her throat near her voice box. The implement attached to that wire lit icy blue.
We must find out if you’re worthy of free speech, or not. Most aren’t. C’est la vie, he said, injecting a wire up Linda’s nose, where she felt it take root in the roof of her nasal cavity. Its contraption lit royal blue.
But those who are worthy always seem to have an intuitive sense. We can act with a certain foresight, and exercise free speech out of necessity.
Finally, he grasped the last needle, climbed atop a stool that Linda hadn’t noticed before, and inserted a wire under her scalp.
And when we’re aware enough to act with a certain degree of perspective and intuition that proves accurate and constructive to our experience of life, we find ourselves connected to the divine. Only those who are truly connected to the divine have a right to free speech and power.
This last mechanism lit violet. Linda watched as the man stepped down from the stool and, with the help of his assistant, attached the seven doohickeys, whose lights extinguished one-by-one as they integrated into a single apparatus. Once finished, Nixon and Woods left the room, turning out the lights and locking the door behind them, leaving Linda alone again and in the dark, still naked, except now unable to move and feeling her anxiety was no longer hers alone.
Seeking detachment, her mind journeyed elsewhere…
Jonah revealed nothing, and as the elevator doors parted, 8P5 tiptoed into the constricted hallway. This level made her uneasy, and the door at the end of the corridor to her right was always ominous. Her anxiety grew until she opened the door and turned on the lights.
Bon jour, she said, stirring Linda from an awkward, fitful sleep as she turned on the apparatus Nixon had prepared.
Or, should I say Buenos dias? said the agent, now extinguishing the lights, making the room smolder with the equipment’s illuminated string.
Violet light filled the room as Linda opened her eyes and saw the agent, a petite Semitic-looking woman in a loose-fitting navy blue business suit. She was attractive, not overwhelming like the others. Perhaps being unhooded contributed to that feeling.
Now the room’s light evolved from violet to yellow, passing first through royal and ice blue then green, each color bleeding into the next, fuzzing the passage of time.
Linda became nervous when the agent did not seem surprised by this dynamic rainbow. The fact the room was now a strengthening vortex of spectral luminosity heightened her concern, while the agent’s amusement grew.
Who are you? What’s this about? Linda said.
8P5. And I can’t tell you what this is about, she said, smiling and choking down laughter. That’s what I’m hoping you’ll tell me. You could help Jonah.
You know Jonah? said Linda, the room’s dominant glow turning pink.
We’ve met. He’s a nice man. You’re lucky. Tell you what, I’m going to explain what’s going on so you can relax. The sooner you relax the sooner we can finish. If things go well, we’ll give you back your clothes and take you home. How’s that sound? 8P5 said.
OK.
Good. Our tech support agents have hooked you up to a machine that combines internal acupuncture, string theory and quantum mechanics, as well as your body’s natural energies to emit light relating to whatever power center, or chakra, is dominant in your body at any given moment. That makes the room’s light something of a mood ring. Remember those? And it’s also something like a lie detector test, but better. This apparatus allows us to gauge your being’s overall responses to our questions, giving us a more nuanced view of your answers. We actually feel what you feel by using it. We call it an electroempathy spectrometer. We’re looking for the overall vibrational patterns of your soul. Do you understand?
Linda’s head spun with shifting colors. She closed her eyes and took three four-second breaths through her nose, exhaling for seven seconds through her mouth each time, and slowly opened her eyes.
Light yellow was now the predominant color.
Yes, I understand. But I don’t know why I’ve been selected. I don’t know anything, she said.
I’ll be the judge of that. You might be surprised. Are you ready?
Yes.
Linda continued her breathing exercise, feeling best in yellow light.
Do you know a man named Ziggy? 8P5 said.
No. I don’t know anybody by that name. It’s a funny name, said Linda, the light shifting from yellow toward violet.
How many times have you had contact with him?
I told you, I’ve never heard of anyone by that name.
The room’s light danced from lime green to pasty pink.
Do you go by any aliases? Irene or Patty?
Why would I?
The room is now pink, similar to what one sees under one’s eyelids in a well-lit stadium at dusk.
Do you know a Carlos Castaneda?
My father went by that name, but I haven’t seen him in years. There’s a man by that name in our apartment building, but he’s not my father. Maybe that’s what this is all about. Is he the man you’re looking for? Did he take Jenna?
Now, imagine rubbing those eyelids, and seeing an electric green circle with floating blue neon squares.
What’s your relationship with Jonah like? Does he manipulate you? Is he demanding?
Electric green now morphing into yellow.
No, he’s a good husband. A bit stressed out. But he tries hard. Too hard. He gets delusions of grandeur. But he’s older than me, somewhat ideal for a woman of my temperament. And he’s an actor and I write plays. We’ve been saving money to get to Chicago.
And the light changed course from an intensifying yellow to a darkening orange.
Is it possible, asked 8P5, that Castaneda could really be your father? It’s been a long time.
And the light, shifting again, now becoming more violet, red replacing yellow.
I don’t know, said Linda, pausing. I doubt it, but anything’s possible.
The questioning ended in violet and 8P5 turned off the machine. In the instant of darkness before she turned on the light, Linda began to suspect her husband of something. When the light came on, Linda was convinced Jonah had fooled her. He was an actor after all. He played her. For an instant, she imagined the room pulsating yellow-orange-red, a flaming blob of vengeance.