As Greta Brandt led them over to the nearest food line, Garrick reflected on the odd exchange between Miss Brandt and Obadiah McKeen. As with Dr. Crippen, he sensed something vaguely off-key about them, something he just couldn’t put a finger to. For one thing, McKeen had an odd accent, sounding vaguely Irish and vaguely Bostonian, and yet not like either one. And the manner in which he strung his words together had a peculiarly old-fashioned ring to them–which also seemed strange, since Obadiah McKeen appeared no older than thirty-five.
As
for Miss Brandt, Garrick sensed she was somehow different too, though
in a more subtle, indefinable way. He tried to put a name to it, if
only to push aside a nagging feeling that something about The
Institute for Advanced Reconstructive Surgery wasn’t quite right.
“What
would you like?” Miss Brandt cheerily inquired, as they looked over
the array of food being dispensed along the line.
“I’m
still trying to decide,” Garrick replied, overwhelmed by the
variety of foods being served along the way–everything from simple
sandwiches to meals as exquisite as anything he’d ever seen.
“As
you can see, you can have any kind of food you desire.” Her eyes
twinkled. “Anything at all.”
Garrick
managed a chuckle.
“Funny
you should mention it. I was just standing here thinking about a
place I used to eat at when I was a kid.”
“What
place was that?” Greta asked, passing a hand over a glowing light,
in the peculiar shape of an amoeba, and ejecting a serving of
steaming minestrone soup onto her tray.
“Oh,
just an old hot dog stand back in Houston. One I used to go to with
my brothers when we were kids.” He nodded reflectively over the old
memory, of times gone by, vaguely wondering why he should suddenly
think of it. “Anyway, it’s gone now, torn down years ago. But I
swear Old Man Hooper used to make the best-tasting chili dogs you
ever ate, all smothered in onions and diced red bell peppers and‒”
Garrick shrugged. “Sometimes I get a bit carried away,” he said,
looking a little embarrassed.
“Not
at all,” she replied sweetly, smiling at Garrick’s boyhood
recollection as she waved a hand over another peculiarly-shaped
light, ejecting two freshly-baked French rolls onto her tray.
Strangely, she found herself increasingly drawn to this newcomer,
almost as if she had always known him. Oh silly me, she thought,
trying to ignore the sudden flutter in her heart.
But
the palpitation remained insistent, even as she leaned in closer to
the intriguing stranger with the alluring green eyes: “Please, tell
me more,” she encouraged, enjoying the sound of his voice.
Garrick
smiled too, all too happy to speak of the familiar even as they moved
on down the line. “Well, those hot dogs were uncommonly good...big,
meaty ones like you seldom see anymore. Two for a buck back then and
more than enough for any twelve year old kid. And every order
included one of those little chocolate-covered mints, so you wouldn’t
smell of onions afterward. Somehow, those mints always made Hooper’s
Hot Dogs seem kind of special. Anyway,” Garrick finished, glancing
over at Greta Brandt, “you can tell I only ate at classy joints
when I was a kid.”
Greta
Brandt smiled attractively. “How would you like to have a couple of
genuine Hooper’s hot dogs right this instant?”
“Sure,”
Garrick replied, “whip me up a couple. And while you’re at it,
toss in the key to Fort Knox.”
“You
don’t believe I’m serious, do you?”
Garrick
shrugged, moving on down the line. “Hey, this cafeteria may be
high-tech, but there’s no way some fancy machine can recreate one
of Hooper’s masterpieces.”
Greta
suddenly paused, directing her eyes toward a trapezoid-shaped device
embedded in the wall. “Hooper’s Hot Dogs, did you say?”
“Yeah.”
“In
Houston, Texas?”
“That’s
right. But Hooper’s doesn’t exist anymore–”
Greta
Brandt seemed to ignore Garrick’s last remark as she stared
intently at the device, her deep blue eyes momentarily transfixed. An
instant later two hot dogs popped out, all smothered in onions,
sliced red bell peppers, and piping-hot chili, each nestled in two
crenellated white paper trays stamped in old-fashioned red script:
‘Hooper’s Hot Dogs’.
Garrick
looked down at the familiar chili dogs, at the fondly remembered
logo, and at something else: a foil-wrapped chocolate-covered mint,
of the same brand he remembered from childhood.
“Well,
I’ll be damned...”
Slowly,
he looked up at Greta Brandt, once again sensing an eerie distance
separating himself and the young woman, as if some invisible, but
nonetheless real, barrier stood between them.
“Aren’t
you going to take them?”
A
deadly glint came into Garrick’s eyes. “I want to know what’s
going on here. No machine I know of can perform tricks like that.”
Greta
seemed not to hear a word as she gaily reached over and placed
Garrick’s platter of hot dogs on her own tray. “Oh, but they
smell so delicious!”
Before
Garrick could protest, she led him out of the line and toward a
nearby table, “Well, I’m not really one to explain these sorts of
things. All I know is that The Colony has some sort of contrivance
that can reproduce any kind of food you want. It’s recorded the
menus of thousands and thousands of bygone restaurants, cafes, and
diners from all over the world. It’s absolutely aces!”
As
they took seats at a table, Garrick glanced down at the chili dogs
again, two frightening replications of something that shouldn’t
have been possible to replicate. At least, not by any known
technology. He reached over and retrieved the mint, flipping it over.
All the details where there, down to the last printed word. Yet, the
mint company, like Hooper’s Hot Dogs, had long been defunct. That
anyone would have taken the time to dredge up the menu of some
long-vanished hot dog stand, or go to the trouble of recreating an
exact duplicate of a foil-wrapped mint from an equally defunct candy
maker, just so one patient out of a million could order them from a
cafeteria line seemed disquietingly absurd.
If
so–
Suddenly
seized by an unnameable fear, Garrick grabbed hold of Greta Brandt’s
arm. “What is this place–exactly!”
“But
Mr. Fenstad–Garrick–surely everything was explained to you at
Orientation.”
Garrick
swallowed, trying hard to hold down a rising tide of fear. “No... I
mean, yes... It’s just that I can’t remember everything that was
said.” He rubbed his forehead, feigning a headache. Then he
glanced again at the disturbingly familiar food on the tray. “I
just want to know what’s going on here, is all. Nothing I’ve seen
so far makes a bit of sense. All I know is that I woke up from a car
crash and found myself here. A car crash that should have killed me
six times over. And yet here I am, good as new. Not a scratch on me.
At the very least, I should be sitting in a wheelchair right now
bandaged from head to toe.” Garrick glanced about him, at all the
milling faces. “In fact, nobody in this place shows any sign of
injury.”
“You’ve
had a terrible accident, Garrick. For some of us, full recovery can
be...upsetting. Trust me, I know.”
Garrick
swallowed again, realizing now that he was frightened.
Frightened of something just beyond the horizon of his perception,
something he sensed all around him, huge and maw-like, waiting to
swallow him. Something he sensed he didn’t want to know–yet must.
“Is
that how you ended up here–because of some terrible accident?”
He
saw Greta Brandt’s eyes momentarily deepen, as if a shadow had
passed over.
“In
the beginning, yes,” she finally whispered, turning slightly away.
Whatever
it was, Garrick had obviously struck a nerve.
“What
happened?”
Greta
lowered her eyes.
“I’d
rather not talk about it...not just yet.”
Reluctantly,
Garrick released his grip on her, and grew silent once more. He
sensed something horrible had happened to Greta Brandt, something
even beyond that which had happened to him. Yet, here she was, young
and pretty and so full of life.
“When
will you be released?” he quietly asked.
Greta
regarded him very curiously now.
“Are
you absolutely certain you’ve attended Orientation, Garrick?”
“I–”
She
fluttered her eyes at him.
“Oh,
how rude of me. Of course you have. After all, no one is ever
released into the general population until they’ve been to
Orientation. Otherwise, I just can’t imagine how anyone could
accept the truth of this place.”
Garrick
grew quiet once more as Greta dipped into her minestrone soup. As she
ate, he quietly studied the people seated around him, searching their
faces for any sign of the peculiar remoteness he sensed in
her.
Yes,
he thought, there was something...
Only–what
was it?
“You
really must eat something, Garrick.”
Garrick
looked down at his food. Slowly, he reached for one of the hot dogs
and took a bite.
Greta
smiled at him.
“Anything
like you remember?”
Garrick
glanced up at her.
“More
than you know.”
He
took another bite of the chili dog, savoring tastes he hadn’t known
since boyhood. And yet, each new bite brought him closer to the brink
of some unnameable fear, some sixth sense of understanding that lay
just beyond a shadowy boundary in his mind.
There
was a scampering of feet past their table as a group of children
rushed by, and for a moment Garrick’s fears receded like a dark
tide. The sound of their laughing shouts and giggled retorts all
seemed so normal, he thought, so everyday. But something kept
nagging at the perimeter of his mind, gnawing at the raw
nerve-endings of his sanity.
“Dr.
Crippen...” Garrick started to say, then hesitated.
Greta
looked up from her minestrone soup, her spoon poised between delicate
fingers.
“Yes?”
“It’s
the strangest thing–but I’m sure I know him from somewhere.”
“Oh?
Really?”
“Yes...
Only I can’t quite remember where.”
She
took a bite of her French roll. “Well, he’s certainly a strange
little man, Dr. Crippen is.”
“It’s
not just that. His face...I’m positive I’ve seen it
somewhere...in an old photograph, maybe. Or a book.” He hesitated.
“A book about,” he looked up at her. “famous crimes...”
“How
interesting.”
Garrick
finished his second hot dog in grim silence, fearing every remembered
taste. Yet, deep down, an anger was building. He didn’t like
mysteries. He didn’t like being kept in the dark when it came to
one all important subject–his life. Where was he–really?
Was he even conscious, or was he actually strapped to a bed inside
some hospital burn unit, pumped full of pain-killers and
mind-altering drugs? Somehow, he had to find out.
“I
don’t feel as if I’ve been told the truth,” Garrick said.
After
a long period of silence, Greta finally replied, “All I know is
that we were all very fortunate to end up here, Garrick. In time,
you’ll come to see that.”
Garrick
looked across at her, his eyes a quiet plea.
“But
where is ‘here’, Greta? What city are we in? Damn it, what state
even?”
Greta
lowered her eyes.
“It’s
difficult to accept the truth, I know. To realize you’ll never see
your loved ones again...”
On
hearing that, Garrick thought again of Obadiah McKeen and the man in
the Orientation line, who had spoken to him about being shot. Was
that the truth? he wondered. Was he actually locked inside
some sort of experimental insane asylum, full of deranged patients
who believed they had been victims of imaginary street thugs and
tomahawk attacks by Comanches? Had he lost his mind too, believing
himself the victim of a terrible car crash when in reality it had
never happened?
Could
I be hallucinating? he silently asked himself.
Yes...that
had to be it!
And
yet, his mind refused to accept it.
Reluctantly,
Garrick ceased his probing, knowing now it was hopeless. Greta Brandt
wasn’t about to tell him anything more than Dr. Crippen had. Yet,
somehow–someway–he’d been whisked away from the burning
wreckage of an automobile crash and transported to this clandestine
facility, which was probably located in some remote region of the
United States, if not a foreign country altogether.
As
to what branch of the government might be behind this kind of
experimental facility he could not even begin to guess. At the
moment, all he had to go on was the evidence of his own eyes and
whatever he could learn from Greta Brandt–which was next to
nothing. Whatever the case, the Institute was obviously a massive
project, possibly run by the military, and involved untold thousands
of personnel, government funding, and top secrecy.
But–all
to what end?
Garrick
looked again at Greta.
“Was
it hard for you?”
“Hard?”
“To
accept,” he glanced around him, “‘the truth’?”
She
nodded sadly.
“Oh,
yes. Terribly so. As it was for most of us. But attending Orientation
made it so much easier, knowing you’re not alone. That, and the
Serenity medication, which we’re given daily. And, in my particular
case...” she gazed off into the distance, “quite a few years of
mental health counseling...”
Garrick
started to ask what she meant by that when he stopped in
mid-sentence, his eye suddenly transfixed on a nearby table.
“Is
something wrong?”
He
slowly parted his lips, as if to answer. But no sound came forth.
“Mr.
Fenstad–Garrick–are you feeling alright?”
“That
woman over there...”
Greta
turned and looked.
“I’m
certain I’ve seen her before,” Garrick muttered. “And those
three children sitting with her. Something about them. In a newspaper
I read…”
“That’s
not really unusual. Everyone here says that about someone, sooner or
later.”
“No,
you don’t understand. I’ve seen them before. Not long ago.
On television...”
Greta
shot a warning glance toward Obadiah McKeen, as if to alert him. But
he was looking elsewhere, and failed to notice.
“Please,
Garrick. You really mustn’t get yourself excited. Perhaps I should
escort you back to Dr. Crippen.” She reached for his arm, but he
rudely shook if off.
“Wait
a minute. It’s all coming back now... Two weeks ago, just before my
accident, there was a story about a woman and her three young
daughters. They were driving east to meet up with the woman’s
husband, who had taken a job as a construction worker in another
state. And then–and then somewhere along the way...they vanished.”
“Please,
Garrick...”
“It’s
all coming back now. There was a nationwide manhunt for them...”
“Garrick,
I really think you should come along with me.”
Slowly,
Garrick turned around, his face ashen with fear.
“Five
days later they found them in an abandoned barn...dangling
upside-down from the rafters. All four...raped, tortured, and shot in
the head.”
“Garrick–”
Garrick
Fenstad rose abruptly from the table, knocking his chair over.
“They’re dead...”
Greta
motioned toward Obadiah McKeen, who had now taken notice of the
situation.
“They’re
dead!”
Abruptly,
the burly man started toward them, followed by two other men.
Garrick
suddenly whirled, his eyes wild.
Uprighting
a table in a fury of fear, he dashed across the cafeteria,
frantically searching for escape. A moment later he fled through the
open doorway just as Greta Brandt jabbed a metallic device affixed to
her uniform: “Cafeteria 137 to Security! We’ve got a Runner in
Corridor Q-19! Repeat: we’ve got a Runner in Corridor Q-19!”
