The Price of a Car
The most famous actor in this particular universe drove his Maserati into the maw of a tangerine horizon pocked with purple clouds. Steep cocoa-colored cliffs contained a lapping sea stirring foam waves as the car streaked down a newly paved highway. Verdant trees blooming with pink and purple appendages mingled joyfully with forest green metal signs that pointed you in whichever direction you wanted to go. His earpiece buzzed blue.
“Talk to me.”
It was his agent. It was almost always his agent. They wanted him to play a superhero in what was sure to be next summer’s most successful box office smash. He was almost always playing a superhero in what was sure to be next summer’s most successful box office smash.
“Will it intervene with my beach trip with Valerie?”
His agent assured him it wouldn’t.
The actor pressed a button on his earpiece and the incessant jabbering of the nasally man on the other line ceased. The ochre sky opened wider as he punched the pedal and the Maserati flew further down the empty road.
He’d never get sick of this feeling.
The actor’s life had been about as good as it could possibly be for a long time, as long as he could remember, really. At least the past eight years or so. Anything before that came to him only in foggy, ephemeral flakes that fluttered through his synapses and faded gently into the black. They were the type of memories you couldn’t dwell on too long because you couldn’t quite make out what they were and it was almost impossible to tell them apart from dreams.
Not that he didn’t want to remember. It was almost like he couldn’t, like the inundation of good luck thrust them away and scattered them like the flailing embers of a dying fire.
He was earning gobs of money working on projects he himself hand-selected, and if there was a more esteemed actor in the business they’d still get booted from a corner table at Providence so he could sit down to tie his shoes. Money doesn’t solve all your problems, and neither does fame, but money and fame laced together make a neat little bow you can wrap around most of them.
He could not remember the last time he cried.
The actor talked to himself about how beautiful the sunset looked, about how each day he waited to see what kind of new and colorful gloam would speckle the shores of his oceanic town and shorten his breath a skip. It always hit him when he took it in from a luxury car, or a five-star restaurant, or the full-length glass windows of his bedroom as he hurried a model or an actress or a cocktail waitress out the door to his luxury car to head to a five-star restaurant.
Each vesper seemed hand-painted and hand-picked just for him. No two the same, never a dull gray sky in his ever-growing expanse on the edge of the sea and quite possibly time itself.
His earpiece buzzed again.
“Talk to me.”
It was his best friend. But not just his best friend. The person streaming into his ear canal from a few miles away was the most famous musician in this particular universe. A ticket to see him would cost more than your car, if the pop star ever decided to tour again. Right now the two enjoyed the lives of the idle rich while they waited on their next great project to begin, which they of course could choose at any time. When you’re as wealthy and well-known as they were, you tend to be able to make your own reality.
“What’s up, A1!”
Their names were Andrew and Bradley, respectively, but they had given each other nicknames, though they could never remember the origin of them. The randomness of the names made them even funnier, especially in public or at a press junket when they referenced each other to a reporter’s barefaced glee.
“You finally answered me.”
“You act like we don’t talk enough.”
“You coming over tonight? Francesca is doing a Spanish Iberian ham before she clocks out for the night and I remember how much you liked it last time.”
“I was supposed to go into work today but the shoot got pushed back. Cruising home now. These sunsets are incredible.”
“You and your fucking sunsets. You shoulda been a writer. They’re always daydreaming about the weather.”
“Yeah and you shoulda been a musician. But I guess pop is cool, too.”
“Fuck you. And see you soon?”
“You know it.”
“Later, B2.”
The engine roared and the cherry red Maserati shot past the staggered white lines of the black asphalt that pointed the way to anywhere at all depending on where you wanted to go. The dimming orange sun was making its daily disappearance into The Beyond, but its effervescent rays airbrushed the sky in brilliant color. The actor smiled and lit a cigarette.
The car entered an idyllic neighborhood coated in tawny hues at approximately 5:37 p.m. He was early, which gave him time to mix a drink before his chauffeur took him in the golf cart over to B2’s house for the evening. He pulled into the eight-car parking garage of his well-appointed mansion in the hills and eased the Maserati next to the Lamborghini and switched off the car.
The tangerine sunset he left behind flickered and turned a bright green.
***
They always cherished alone time together because they were always with people who wanted something–an autograph on a poster, a recitation of that famous line, or money for a new business venture sure to triple the investment. When they were by themselves they didn’t have to pretend to be anyone else aside from two guys of average intelligence who hit the genetic and professional jackpot.
It helped that they had more money than God, and probably Satan, too.
The balcony of B2’s mansion was resplendent and hung directly over the sea, giving them a clear-cut look at Mother Nature’s portraits.
They drank because they always drank, and they talked about nothing because they had the privilege to talk about nothing since they were both so much of something.
A mauve moon hanging in the sky like a foreign coin was the first hint that something wasn’t quite right in their universe. Andrew figured they had taken mushrooms that he’d forgotten about, and he asked B2 in a rather coy and charming way.
“Did you slip me mushrooms again, you rat-faced fuck?”
B2 assured him that he had not.
“I told you bro, that was Tonya, and she apologized like twice.”
“I’m serious, man.”
“I didn’t slip you shit, dude. I swear to God.”
A1 stared at him in haughty disbelief.
“Look up.”
B2 shot a glance toward the purple satellite and looked back at his best friend again from his seat on the balcony. The moon was glowing purple like a neon sign on Bourbon Street.
“Holy shit.”
“Are you fucking with me?”
“Dude, I swear to God I didn’t give you shit. Why would I waste my good stuff on you? And you know I’ve been sober for two days straight. Drug sober, that is.”
He cracked a sly smile and sipped his Cognac while his finger rimmed the surface of the glass.
“Are you not freaking out about this?”
“Why would I freak out about it? It’s kinda cool.”
A1 was impressed with his complete lack of disregard. It was something he tried to mirror but couldn’t quite capture, no matter how many greenbacks floated in his bank account or how many models told him he was their world.
B2 continued.
“Check online. I bet it’s some kind of eclipse or something. It looks pretty damn cool, actually. Like something from that documentary..”
A1 pulled out his phone and scrolled his fingers quickly across the sleek Gorilla Glass while his tongue slightly poked through his thick pink lips. They were lips that helped make him one of the sexiest men in their universe, and he had the framed magazine articles to prove it.
“I’m not seeing jack shit, man. It’s not anywhere.”
He continued his determined scrolling. They were only half drunk tonight and the ham was sitting peacefully in their stomachs. They knew it wasn’t some kind of stupid hallucination from a handful of mushrooms or mescaline. This was real life, the material reality in which they so thrived.
“It has to be some weird weather shit. Nobody mentioned it to you?”
“Not a word. I didn’t even hear anything on the radio today and those fuckers are always trying to fill time.”
B2 pondered this phenomenon between gulps of Cognac. He started to laugh.
“This feels like a dream I need to pinch myself out of.”
He reached over and slapped A1 in the back of the neck, the sound jarring his compadre almost as much as the pain.
He rubbed his neck in incredulity after a slight yelp.
“What the fuck, dude?”
“Okay, so we’re not dreaming.”
“I ought to beat your ass.”
“You ain’t fightin’ in the movies, boss. This is real life. I don’t want to embarrass you and besides, I can’t pinch myself. It might hurt.”
They were almost to the point where they could forget about the oddity before them, sitting like an out-of-place painting amid their pitch perfect world. A1 tapped the buttons on his new phone and B2 stared into the horizon while his highball slowly dwindled.
It would be the last time they would ever remember what it was like to almost forget.
At 11:57 p.m., the moon distended and puffed itself up like a beach ball slowly filling with air. Its purple circumference widened until it could inflate no more. The moon exploded into a beam of purple light that spilled out of the hole where it once stood. The rays pouring forth like a cosmic waterfall and surging methodically down into the sky where it glittered and disappeared. The beam of light undulated down further into the sky, winding its way across the canvas of the universe and flowing down into a smaller chasm that drank the streaking beams like Mother Nature herself was dying of dehydration. A blinding stream of purple luminescence erupted in its place. It slowed and then died down, the hole quickly closing and a circle just black enough to contrast the already Stygian sky formed where their trusted moon once sat.
Their blank stares belied the rush of terror that bubbled inside of them. They could only watch. Neither spoke while the light beam rushed and eventually puttered out into the abyss from whence it appeared.
The moon was now gone.
It was no more a part of their world anymore as was disco or Debbie Reynolds.
Timetables in third grade might make you confused. This was a case of being utterly dumbfounded beyond galactic comprehension. It was like someone had cranked their brains into a knot and then twisted them up and spun them around so the gyri and sulci could unwind themselves quickly from the thick loop.
A1 turned toward B2.
“What the fuck?”
“What the hell?”
“What the fucking hell?
“Hell! What the fuck!”
Their lives had changed forever as the ham began to re-emerge into the world courtesy of A1’s burbling mouth.
They sat for a long time in utter stupefaction.
“Check and see if there’s something about it online,” A1 finally said, through mouths of hot vomit.
***
The moon came back. That very night, in fact. But the two still could not figure out what they saw and it ate at them like a flesh-consuming virus that burrows deep into your organs. They searched for any sign that they weren’t crazy and could find none. They were sure they weren’t on drugs, at least any they knew of, and every single person they spoke with after that night assured them that they saw nothing of the sort and that they were just being insane. Or drunk. Or both.
So the two most famous people of their time hiked together up a scree at the base of a rocky cliff in search of a tree on fire with viridescent flames.
They saw it from their balcony, but Francesca said it looked like a normal tree to her and the chauffeur never spoke as he dropped them off at the footpath.
Things were different in the world and it was like they were slowly falling out of reality. The sky flickered. Was it real? It had to be.
B2 was sure it was aliens, a notion that made A1 scoff in indignation.
At first.
Now he wasn’t so sure. He saw a beam of red oval float across the sky and disappear. Was it his mind? It could be. But he knew it wasn’t.
The tree seemed like it had to be a part of their shifting reality. It was like a beacon that called to them, magnetized them to its crackling branches that glowed in green.
“What if we died out here,” B2 said. “The whole world would think we were lovers or something. On a hike to nowhere just the two of us. The papers will love that.”
“You’d love that, wouldn’t you?”
Their feet continued in silence as they reached the top and the plains flattened into a gorgeous row of purple lilies and pink wildflowers. Massive trees of various ilk cast long shadows over them. It was a perfect 67 degrees and neither of them were tired.
The tree sat but a few yards out now. A1 gulped and took a sip from his fancy water bottle, the one he got in a gift bag at an awards show a few years back. It was the first time he had ever used it.
“What if it’s toxic?”
“What if we’re crazy?”
They slowly approached the flaming branches. Looking back they could see the entire expanse of their neighborhood, with beautiful mansions dotting the steep cliffs that surrounded a sea so blue it almost seemed surreal itself, had they not known its color prior to the start of their adventure.
“You first.”
“Fuck off.”
“You’re the one who wanted to do this.”
“OK fine.”
A1 broke from his best friend and jogged up to it. No heat emitted from it and he looked back at B2.
He was nervous and terrified, but he couldn’t let B2 know that. He did his own stunts, for God’s sake. It’s a stupid tree. He approached with cautious reverence. He looked into its branches but nothing seemed out of the ordinary aside from the silent green flame.
Before he could touch the base of the trunk, though, it happened.
You never have time for the unexpected. It just trips and falls into your lap with the weight of a cinder block tumbling from the 10th story.
They both looked up as the roar of a rushing sea pierced their ears.
A swirl of cosmic deformity swooped over their head and spun across the sky, a cascading rainbow of color that whipped through the air like a coin slowly circling a drain. It dipped down into the ground and a large black hole replaced its position in the sky. The ground turned a bright yellow color and the flowers that lined their path flew up and into the hole as if magnetized by its presence. The world around them slowly dimmed to a deep red. They were frozen and shaking. A tiny scream emitted from A1’s mouth. B2 stood in shocked silence.
The colors spilled out and down the cliff, a menagerie that remained more beautiful than anything they had seen before or since. The hole in the sky opened wider and a hand reached out, a deformed monstrosity caked in yellow that pulled the hole back further until the entire arm was totally visible.
“God! It’s God!”
“What the fuck!”
The alien hand reached back and scooped up the sun. It was gone almost as quickly as it appeared. The colors slowly dripped down the edge of the cliff and stopped. They flickered and rose and suspended in mid-air.
A square of bright orange pounded the horizon and shook the entire world. It zipped past the black hole where the sun used to be and hovered directly over them. A1 pissed his pants. Fire of a color they did not comprehend poured out of the box. Light beams from each direction, each one a mesmerizing magenta, shot forth and into them both.
You always think aliens come in oval saucers. Funny that they prefer squares.
A1 was slowly lifted off the ground and a green flame engulfed him entirely.
B2 screamed for his friend, who was grabbed into the air by some force unknown and unseen. He flailed around and floated inside their hollow universe twinkling red.
Was this the apocalypse? Was it aliens? It was aliens, wasn’t it?
He tried to move but he could not. The lights were pure but they were not blinding. His body suspended in time itself.
The hand reached out of the glowing black hole in the sky once more and dipped back into the unknown where it originated. An earth-shattering noise erupted from nowhere and everywhere all at once. The sound of the universe collapsing within itself. Do you even hear it? They heard it that day.
The green flames grew around A1 and he lay motionless within them, a speck of dust floating harmlessly in a living room made visible by sunlight slicing through the open blinds.
The red hue slowly left the earth. The sun popped back into its place from the shadows of the abyss.
Colors receded and rescinded.
The green flames burst and expired.
A1 was gone.
His friend wept.
***
He awoke in a vat of bubbling goo that ran almost up to his neck. A stabilizing contraption that looked like a hubcap sat on his head with wires and tubes snaking their way out to connect to somewhere or some thing he couldn't see. His neck would not move. He was naked as a jaybird. He was much less free than one.
A1’s eyes slowly came back to life and he was blinking and searching like a newborn. His arms were not held down inside the tube of ooze but he could no more move them than he could move the Taj Mahal. His legs floated, stiff and immobile, his feet inches from the bottom of the foreign vessel he was apparently trapped within.
He was trying to speak but his mouth seemed paralyzed.
When his eyes finally adjusted he tried to scream. Silence enveloped him.
There were others.
Lots of them.
They were stacked on top of each other like suitcases in an airplane cargo, each tub placed carefully on top of the next and rising interminably into a ceiling that seemed to stretch a mile wide. He tried to scream again but nothing came out and his mouth barely moved. The room was freezing and stark white. The green ooze wrapped him in a feeling of warmth despite the cold temperatures of the human warehouse.
He was trying to move his appendages and they weren’t cooperating, but he would soon have some help in that regard. A creature with enormous bug eyes popped out of the abyss and slowly began reaching for him. The hand of God once more.
He could do nothing but blink and widen his terrified eyes. The creature’s bug eyes were paired with a hole where the nose was supposed to be and a triangular mouth with braided mesh where the lips and teeth would be. It was light brown at the head and white everywhere else.
“We got us an awoken one,” the alien said as he went to flip a switch near the base of the tube. “Poor guy’s staring right at me.”
He went to futz with another switch near the tube and another creature that looked nearly identical walked up to double the aliens present.
“This whole side’s been fuckin’ up for two days now. There’s yer problem.” The creature nodded up at a wire that was fraying and hanging haphazardly from the top of the tube, with a small entanglement at its base.
They both looked up and chuckled. The one disappeared and the other stayed put in front of the tube, ignoring A1 altogether. The prisoner was gradually able to move his lips and let out a deep moan that rattled the tube and almost made the umber-headed alien scream himself.
“Holy shit!”
The alien jumped back and slipped off his mask to take a closer look.
A1 realized that he was human.
He moaned again.
“Jim, get in here right now!”
Nothing happened for a minute as the two stared at each other in mutual disbelief.
“This thing musta been off for days now if he’s moving his mouth. Holy shit. I can’t say I’ve ever seen nothing like this.”
He went to twist yet another dial but A1 could speak for the first time.
“Please,” he groaned. “Help me.”
“Calm down there buddy, we’ll get you some help. Jim, get the fuck in here right now! He’s talking!”
“Wha–What happened?”
“JIM!”
“Where am I?”
Another human alien appeared and, with his mask still on, spoke to A1 for the first time.
“Do you know where you are?”
A1 coughed.
“I–I have no idea. We were just hiking and then I felt faint and then I woke up here and I just wanna go back to my house.”
“He thinks he’s still in there.”
“Holy fuck,” the first human alien said. “I can’t say I ever seen something like this.”
“Where am I?”
Jim sighed. He knew he had to say something and it had to be the truth. It was in their contract.
“You’re, um, you’re in Quantico, Virginia.”
“Do what?”
“You’re in Quantico, Virginia. At a facility. We must let you know something before anything else can be said. You have agreed to this. You signed a contract and this was a voluntary program that you entered into. Let’s make that clear from the start.”
“What?”
“OK, shut it off, Scooter. Gonna have to wheel him to Thomas on the fifth floor. He’s wide awake now and this thing is gonna need repairs.”
The human alien tapped the tube with his gloved hand. He looked out at the warehouse filled with naked floating bodies and back at the naked man in front of him.
“I’ve heard of these cases but by God this is my first time seeing it in person. Breaks the heart, really. Come on.”
Jim pressed a green button on the tub and the goo slowly dwindled away. To where, A1 did not know. The human alien who was actually just a regular human named Scooter disappeared and came back holding a white robe and dragging an old wheelchair toward A1, who began screaming before they could calm him down with hushed “shhhhs” that rocked him almost hypnotically back into a state of calm. He threw the robe over his still-wet body and climbed gingerly into the wheelchair. Scooter walked behind him.
“Let’s go.”
They wheeled him past the rows of floating human carcasses and into a vast hallway. He twisted his head back and looked at the tube he was floating in. It was labeled “A1.” A wire connected straight into the vessel next to his, where etched in gold the words “B2” shone bright, encasing a fat, hairless man floating inside.
At the fourteenth door they stopped and knocked quickly before opening it.
They dumped A1 at the foot of a large mahogany desk where a human in a dark gray suit and half-crescent glasses looked up from a contraption in which A1 did not recognize.
“Well hello there. I would say take a seat but it looks like you beat me to it.”
He smiled a warm fatherly smile.
“You must be confused beyond reason, my good man. Just plum bewildered. Would you like something to drink?
A1 was out of the tube, yet he still couldn’t bring himself to speak. His strength was coming back but his arms and legs felt like they were papier-mâché add-ons to a doll. He stared blankly ahead while the man in front of him banged on the contraption until a digital card appeared on his desk beneath it.
“Do you remember what this is?”
He held it up.
“Can you speak, or do you need some nourishment?”
The man buzzed a button on the machine and shortly after another man appeared and handed him a cup filled with water and some floating debris inside of it.
“Drink that and you’ll feel a lot better almost instantly. I’d love to talk with you. You’re the first person this has happened to in quite some time.”
A1 sipped the beverage. It tasted like how he imagined a copper penny did. He slugged it down without question and his limbs loosened. His tongue began working again and he could feel the cogs in his brain begin to rumble.
“Where am I?”
“You’re in a facility in Quantico, Virginia, my good man. I can’t say it’s the best one we have, as you are living proof of, but it works and we get by pretty well.”
“What the hell is going on?”
“Ah yes, I should probably let you know since it’s in the contract.”
He held up the digital card again and A1 could see words scrolling past a black screen.
“You’re at the National Organ Sharing Network facility based here in Quantico. I’m glad you’re sitting because this can come as a shock, seeing as how you don’t yet remember yet. You’ve been here for about seven years now. It’s completely voluntary and you were not brought here against your will. Do you understand?
A1 sputtered and coughed.
“Do you remember your life? Life before this?”
“I have a movie shoot in less than a week.”
The man stared at him.
“Sir, do you understand what I’m saying to you?
“Can you take me back to my house?”
“Sir, it doesn’t seem I’m getting through to you. Can you tell me your job before this? Not the actor stuff. Your real job?”
He thought. His brain was completely blank, like mulling over purgatory.
“What you remember simply is not where you came from. You were, um, how do I put this gently? Playing a game, if you will. Simulating your experiences within the vectors, as we do with all our patients.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
It came out in a whisper.
“In your previous life, do you recall strange things happening? Maybe even paranormal?”
“Yes! I knew it. This is where they brought me. I remember lights going off. Big shit, like aliens. It was almost surreal. Are they here? Are the aliens here?”
“Bingo! I’m glad you remember. That makes this a little bit easier, though not easy, I’m sure.”
He leaned back in his chair.
“Those seemingly otherworldly phenomena were actually just a trip in the ol’ wire. This facility isn’t the most technologically up-to-date that we run and your unit, being one of the oldest to exist, sometimes gets, well, its wires crossed, if you’ll pardon the pun. That can ultimately affect the, let’s say, simulation that you are peacefully living within.”
A1’s mouth fell, but the man continued.
“Yes, yes, I hate to say it to you, but the unexplained circumstances you experienced were simply a product of our beyond faulty technology. I’m so glad you didn’t perish. Your donation schedule has already run its course and Mr. and Mrs. Burnson have unfortunately already passed. You were merely a backup at this point and now you’re alive and well again! It’s truly a miracle. When the transcathic subfluctuation frays it’s almost surely a death sentence. You were alive and simulating for days and we didn’t even know it! A modern miracle I’d say.”
“Simulation? Trans catheter? What the fuck are you talking about?”
“We usually don’t have to explain these things to our patients, so forgive me if I’m going a little fast. But yes, a simulation, for lack of a better term. The world you were living in was a product of the 13 wires routed carefully into your brain.”
A1 tried to get up and run but he could barely shift in his wheelchair.
“OK, here’s the deal. I’ll give it to you as straight as I can because that’s my job, though they still don’t pay me enough for it. You are an organ donor. A volunteer, if you will. You signed a contract stating that you would agree to be put into this very facility to live out your days in blissful unawareness while your sponsor lived out their days here in the mean ol’ real world. You toured this facility with me personally and everything.”
“What?”
The man continued.
“You signed on the virtual dotted line and you donated your body to a sponsor. That’s pretty much it. The beauty of this particular service is that you get to choose how you want to live out your remaining years before donation. You’ll remember soon, I’m sure of it.”
“I’m–”
“You’re a movie star in there, Andrew. You drive a fast car, no doubt, and you live the life of supreme luxury. That’s the beauty! When this world feels like you’re sinking into oblivion, inside this facility you’re the king of whatever castle you want to build yourself. It’s all right here.”
He handed over the digital card and A1 scrolled thoughtlessly while the words exploded off the page and into his heart.
“Now here’s the deal. Your time isn’t quite over yet but both of your sponsors have passed on and they didn’t need your services. You’re a backup now but you’re awake, by God, and I want to be fair.”
“Get me the fuck out of here. Now.”
“Wait wait, I’m not finished yet. You still don’t remember anything about your former life, do you?”
His eyes fixed on the man before him with a look of complete hatred. But he was right. He could not remember anything past the fireball that brought him to this chair.
“We have an adjacent facility for patients in recovery, those whose services are complete or who need to be revitalized. We can help you get back on your feet and our counselors work with you to re-insert yourself back into material society. It’s hard work, Andrew, but it’s been done. Hell, there’s a senator now who once sat where you did. But you can’t just leave. It’s in the contract.”
“So you just let people do this, huh? Just trick them them into this shit? You think you’re fucking God? What the fuck is happening? I want to go home!”
“I’m not God, Andrew. The difference between me and God, my good man, is that I’m real. When you want a Maserati out here you have to do it yourself, or beg and plead and hope for a miracle from this God you speak of. When you want a Maserati in there, my good man, I give it to you. That’s the difference between me and God.”
A crooked smile formed on the man’s face. It was a line he had no doubt practiced. He moved on.
“You can live in our facility for a week while we integrate you back into material reality. If after a week in the real world you want to go back in as a donor reinforcement we can make that happen, as well. There are contract templates we can easily go over as you move toward material reality once again.We’ll bring you back to where you were in the simulation before the trans catheter, as you so eloquently put it, glitched. You’re a lucky man, Andrew. Most people would be deceased from this type of mistake. ”
“You’re a monster.”
“Monsters aren’t real, Andrew. You’re back with us now. This is the reality you left. If there are any monsters here, my good man, they look like you and me.”
A1 could feel the cogs generating once more in his brain. Floating wisps of memories began falling again like snowflakes.
The apartment he rarely ever left. The crying in bed. Little vignettes from a life that failed to live up to what his parents told him it would be.
“What’s happening to me?”
The man crossed the desk and patted Andrew on the back.
“You’re alive, Andrew. Don’t you see? Your life out here was too unbearable for you so you decided to come to us and do some good in the process. But you have a second chance! It’s as rare an opportunity as you’ll find in material reality. The chance to do it again. It simply doesn’t happen often, and when it does, you can grab it and make it yours again.”
“I wasn’t a movie star?”
“You WERE, Andrew! You were! You have the memories, right? Those things really happened. They just weren’t happening to you here. It was there. Now you’re here again. You aren’t a movie star here, that much is true. But you were a movie star, my good man. And that’s what makes what we do so special.”
“I feel sick.”
“That’s to be expected. But while our technology might not be the best, I assure you the people working here are. We’ll make sure you’re feeling better shortly.”
“Let me go.”
“We’ll talk again once your material reality regenerates. It will only take a few days, tops.”
“Please.”
“This is exciting, Andrew. You really are a lucky man.”
The two alien humans he now knew were just regular ol’ bureaucratic humans entered again. They gently placed a shot between his shoulder blades but he did not feel it. The two men wheeled him out into the hall and away from the warehouse of horrors from whence he came.
“A lucky man, indeed,” he heard as he nodded off to sleep.
***
It took less than a week for his decision. He remembered everything after two days. He watched the videos and took the tests and he learned what he had missed and what he did not know. He didn’t awaken into a dystopian hellscape. The world he re-entered looked much the same as the one he remembered leaving.
Which is what made the decision so much easier than he could ever imagine.
A1 walked with the man back into the medical unit and sat in the waiting room. After a few tests and a slurry that tasted like coconut-flavored mud, he stood back up and greeted the man in the office with a firm handshake.
A new car awaited.