2011
Psychiatric observation. My minimum security vacation was over. Strapped down, in a smaller room than before, I tried to explain everything to them, but I couldn't remembering all the details. I didn't have any proof to show. I wrote things down in this notebook so I wouldn't have to remember them, but if anyone is reading it, you know I'm not crazy, right?
I told them the fragments I could remember, how the programs can infiltrate other systems, how they're more advanced than anything they would know about. I explained, I know all this because I worked for the company run by those pieces of software for almost a year, and I'm the only one outside the system who knows enough to stop it from getting completely out of control. They listened to all this totally true information, and somehow they still believed I was crazy.
Now that I think about it, I might have also said some stuff from Terminator.
Aug 8 | 9:27am |
When some guy in a suit walked in, it took me a second to recognize him. He saw my hands in restraints and stood over me grinning. "I'm glad to see you awake, buddy. Worried you might not be able to come back and see what happened."
"What's going on, buddy?" The words didn't come out as sarcastic as I wanted.
"What?" Harry cupped his hand over his ear and leaned forward, pretending not to hear. If he was trying to make fun of me, I didn't think it was funny.
I talked louder, in case he actually wasn't fucking with me. "Tell them I'm not crazy."
"You ready to come back to work?"
"Just tell them the programs are real and get me out of here."
Harry shook his head. "I can't actually tell them about the project, nondisclosure and everything. There's spies everywhere, and we're not ready to go public yet." He paced at the foot of my bed. "I forgive you for what happened on the roof. You were afraid of the fire, not thinking about the consequences of your actions. We expect that kind of stuff from you, but you and I accomplished something great that night. I'm Hans again. When you come back, you can be whoever you want."
That's the guy I needed to convince the doctors I was sane, but I couldn't go back and become nothing but a part of his schemes. "I'm out, HARRY." I could see the hurt in his eyes when I leaned on his name. Good.
"Then you can talk to the cops."
"What cops?"
He shrugged. "They had questions. I said there was chaos, the fire was an accident, but I can always go back and tell them I REMEMBER who shot the Dude."
"Your word against mine."
"True, the Dude couldn't really explain things, but you're in a hospital under psychiatric observation, and I'm in a suit running a company. Plus, we've got plenty more of your illegal activities on record." He leaned in close. "History is written by the victors, and only the strong survive."
I knew that was from somewhere but didn't have the strength to wonder what shit he was quoting. "What happened to the Dude?"
"He's gone. I'm running the system now. I can see everything again, issue orders like I used to when we were first designing the Hans program."
I shuddered. "No, you just sat in the office, like I did. The programmers made Hans."
"I did a lot more than that. The system needed guidance when it was just being born. That program learned how to interact with the world by copying me. It is me." Anger flared up in his eyes. "When the Dude took that away, he said 'the orders were for your protection,' like he really cared what happened to me, but you don't put someone like that on toilet detail."
"Toilet detail?" He creeped me out too much to laugh, and it made me realize I had to pee.
"I drove to everyone's houses and ran the robots to keep their places clean, all so those nerds wouldn't have to lift a finger."
I knew that feeling, but I was distracted. "The Dude has robots?" The mattress got warm. That was exactly what I was afraid of. I wished they kept the bedpan closer.
"No, stupid, I have the robots, but every time they broke down, I had to scrub the toilets or vacuum or dust myself. I had to take them to Dumont to get fixed, and he explained how things were all set up." Harry finally sat down in the chair next to me, but his knee was jostling. "Before I ever met you, I had a janitorial job. It was Casimir and the band that finally got me out of that kind of work. Then the Dude put me back there."
I nodded. I wouldn't go back to where I was before the band either. "I didn't know you were doing that." I didn't know anyone was.
"That's exactly my point. People only notice when shit gets dirty. If I did that job right, nobody even knew I existed. The surveillance log was even programmed to ignore the cleaning bots, like we didn't matter at all. Man, I hit bottom out there. I had to do something, and when the time came, you helped. Now come work for me instead."
"Work my ass off again while you take this out of my paychecks?" I lifted my hand as far as the wrist restraint would let me. "I'm not falling for that one twice." I could already feel the bed getting sticky and cold.
"You already owe us for all of this. Coming back is your only chance to work that off." His face was hard, but then he chuckled, and I recognized my old buddy the stoner for a second. "Under the Dude, when people got injured or sick, the system took them off the project with full pay." He shook his head. "Now the business angels are abandoning us, so I'm going through and cutting that kind of waste, concentrating the last of the money on restructuring the project and bringing it to the market." He got up to leave, probably getting away from the smell of the piss. "Have them let me know when you're ready to come back."
I tried to sit up, but I couldn't. "Wait." I had too many questions. I never thought of the company running out of money before, but that's not what I asked him. "What market?"
He turned back with a smile. "Everyone needs new technologies. Everyone's buying, and that's how this project could change the world."
Changing the world was the kind of stuff Casimir used to talk about, but Harry's ideas of what to change it into looked different than I remembered. "Then what do you need me for, man?"
"You know how to live on a budget. You have to be a part of making things right. You're still the only one I trust. We have a history. I ran around getting everyone back in the tour van, but you spent more miles behind the wheel of that thing than anyone."
Lying in a pool of my own piss with Harry standing over me did remind me of the mornings after our shows. "You wanna go back to that?"
"No, it's different. You wouldn't even recognize the company now. You don't have to rebel anymore." He took a step closer. "You don't have to worry about the Dude telling you what to do or the surveillance log keeping track of you."
I frowned. "You killed Sarah?"
"I shut it down. I'm changing the project. From now on, the only notes about you will be the ones you keep yourself." He threw my notebook on the bed with me.
Holy fuck. That FREAKED me the fuck out. Harry must have read everything in here, all my secrets, the last things I had left to hide. I closed my eyes and kept my emotions under control. "Just get me out of here, Hans."
"That's what I want to hear. I'll have them release you when you're up to it. Call me up. I'll give you the keys to the new van." He got up and walked out of the room. "Feel better, champ."
That catches everything up to now. I went through the notebook, filled in all the recent events. It looks like everything is still here, everything I remember anyway, but I have to be careful what I write from now on.
I trusted the wrong man and ended up here. I can't let that happen again. I made notes about everyone I know who's involved in the system, so I don't lose track. I don't have pictures, but maybe I'll do something else when I get out of here, like put in who would play them in a movie version of all this.
Actually, I did that.
Harry reading the notebook changes everything. I have to keep writing things now in case something else happens to me, but I need a new hiding place, and if he finds it again, I don't want him to be sure what I'm doing. I might have to write extra things, make stuff up to throw off the wrong people, but if it's me reading it or someone I trust, we'll know what's real.
Everyone else, assume nothing.
