Wheeled cranes waited at the edge of the gravel parking lot, while others were positioned on a parallel lot across the street. If the trucks moved forward about a hundred yards, their goods could be swept up by the hookers.
The camera guy waved them over. “Come on! We need your help to film the unloading process. This is the most dangerous part.”
Numerous men in black uniforms stood around the cranes with rifles slung over their backs, suggesting he and Emily wouldn’t be out of place. However, no matter how curious he was about their operation, he knew it would be dangerous to get out of the truck.
“We have to go,” Emily said, adjusting her kerchief.
“We do?” he asked with surprise.
“They’ll expect us to hop out and help protect them. At the same time, I think we’ll have an opportunity to get in front of a camera, like we wanted. They’re pulling out the video equipment now. This may be our big chance to become famous.”
He laughed. “Says the woman who will probably end up on cereal boxes and have her name assigned to middle schools across America.”
She cracked up with him. “This is how we strike back, right? Just follow my lead and act like stupid mercenaries.”
“Oh, trust me, it won’t be hard to act.”
NORAD Black Site Sierra 7, CO
Back in his cell, Dwight sat on the floor and rolled into a ball under the desk. It was his normal defense mechanism when he was ill. Back home, well, where he called home, he would have hung out in the basement of the high-rise, sleeping the sickness away on his cardboard bed, along with all his cats. In the office prison, he did have a cot, but he preferred being able to lay sideways and curl up. The darkness under there also gave him comfort.
He opened his good eye. Poppy hopped across the carpet, not five feet from him. If he’d been so inclined, he might have been able to reach out and stroke her feathers. However, he couldn’t even lift his arm to coax her closer.
“I’m sorry, Poppy. You can have my soggy cereal. It’s all I’ve got to offer.”
The bird chirped.
“What? I was gone? What are you saying?”
He had a vague recollection of a bright light, but his memory of what happened inside the glow was washed out and vague, much as his eyes still hadn’t recovered from the bright glare. Dwight was certain he felt wonderful when he emerged from the light. Better than he’d been in decades. His arthritis pain was gone. His intestines didn’t have that tight twist, which always made timing his bathroom stops akin to Russian roulette. And he no longer experienced the deep-seated need to have alcohol on his tongue.
But that was hours ago. Or days. He couldn’t say for sure. All he knew was that the euphoria had changed into a laundry list of ailments troubling him at that moment. Hunched over sideways while lying in a ball was the only position that seemed to make him feel halfway decent.
The worst, however, was not remembering what he’d been doing before the light. The last thing he could recall with absolute clarity was a telephone pole falling from the sky and crashing into a dam. Before that, his memory was spotty about living in San Francisco. Walking the streets, looking for handouts. And surviving as a homeless man in a homeless utopia.
The bird cawed.
“No, I don’t remember what I had for dinner yesterday. Why don’t you tell me, Ms. Smarty Beak?”
Poppy cackled as she filled him in.
“A barbeque? I don’t remember anything of the sort.”
He assumed she was lying, as she often did when she wanted him to do unpleasant acts, such as staying away from the hooch for a whole weekend.
“Why can I remember your mean self back in our home, but I can’t remember you this morning?”
Poppy didn’t respond, but he heard her talking. When he looked to where she’d been a second ago, the brightly-colored bird wasn’t there. She’d taken flight and was near the front door. She was talking to someone else. He could barely see her while peeking from beneath the desk.
“Poppy? Don’t talk to strangers. Someone might steal you.”
Eyes already open, he noticed his hand was misshapen. Most of the hair on his lower arm had fallen out, leaving a sallow white layer of skin that was almost translucent. When he turned it to see the padding below his thumb, he was shocked to see a huge boil growing there.
“P-Poppy!”
Scared, he realized the boil was painful to the touch, but it also came to him he had other sores on his body. Those were flaming with extreme pain as well.
He curled up tighter.
Sometime later, he thought he heard Poppy talking nonsense. He listened for a short time, until it became clear one of his ears wasn’t working anymore. At that point, he freaked out—screaming, yelling, and cussing. Sometimes at the white-haired man who’d been there when he came out of the box. Sometimes at the dark-clad men who’d brought him back to his cell. Once he had a vision of a girl dressed in blue. He cursed her for the hell of it.
Poppy kept telling him stories about the white light she’d learned from nearby prisoners, but he didn’t like his bird talking to other people.
“They can’t even see you,” he shouted. “So, how can they talk to you?”
The bird repeated herself over and over. He understood her words as telling him he was in danger of being extremely sick and possibly a candidate to go on a long trip. After the tenth time,
