The Devil's Dream: Waking Up

M
atthew parked
his van in the middle of the road. He opened the door and stepped out, not bothering to look behind him. There wasn't anything to look at back there that he couldn't see in front of him. He closed the door of his van and stood alone on Boylston Street in downtown Boston. It was noon, and on any day during the past fifty years, Boylston Street would have been busy. It would have been packed with people walking up and down the sidewalks, with cars waiting in traffic, perhaps honking, perhaps only idling. Shops would have been open with people entering and exiting at an almost constant rate. Hot or cold, rain or shine, Boylston Street would have been busy.

Not now, though.

Now, Boylston Street, for lack of a better term, was dead.

The blood cells of the street no longer flowed; a few cars were parallel parked, but the vast majority, the cars that filled the roads day in and day out, were gone. Where to? Probably driven to family members, to friends, all in other states. South, most likely, because nothing north would be any different than this. No cars sat at stop lights, none made rights or lefts, no taxis available to pick up pedestrians. The streets were devoid of the machinery that had filled them since Henry Ford's time.

Matthew turned around slowly, taking in everything around him. Had he done this? Had he really taken an entire city and moved it?

The people that should have populated the sidewalks and the businesses were missing as well, gone with the cars. The sidewalks were empty of life, holding only shards of broken glass from the looted shops above them. Matthew looked up toward the window of an electronics store, a huge window that had once stretched across the entire second story, showing all of the merchandise for sale. Now, there was no window, only a hole in the side of the building, and whatever merchandise once glittered in the sunlight was gone. Directly below the store sat the remnants of a television, though difficult to tell as the pieces were scattered across the pavement. Someone had accidentally pushed it off the ledge in their attempt to steal it, though in this city, how did they plan to plug it in? Not a single outlet anywhere in Boston worked, anywhere in Massachusetts for that matter. Maybe this final resting place was the appropriate spot for the television because nothing in Boston would ever 'work' again. No televisions, no computers, no light bulbs, no nothing. Matthew imagined that if he walked into a few of these empty stores, he would end up finding someone: the homeless, the mentally deranged, the people that had literally nowhere else in the world they could go. If given enough time though, Matthew imagined they too would leave the city. That or die off. There was nothing here for them either, now that they couldn't panhandle any longer. No money to be given out and nothing left to be taken. Unfortunately, none of those people would have the time to migrate somewhere else. In two weeks, everything would be in darkness. Boston. New York. London. Antarctica.

Maybe not. You don't have to make that decision yet, not until you've met him. Then you can make it. You need to meet him though; you need to see if he's your son, if he's our son.

Rally again. No invitation necessary anymore; those days were long past. No, she came and went as she pleased, giving her thoughts and listening to his. She was right though, even if he didn't want to admit it. Matthew wasn't going to pull the trigger if his son was out there, not until they met. Then, maybe he would and maybe he wouldn't, but there was a lot to think about. The FBI knew of this kid, his son, and if they somehow tried to connect the two of them, it was only to apprehend Matthew. They wouldn’t let Matthew meet his blood and then go on his merry way. No, if they met, and the FBI knew about it, Brand was as good as dead, most likely through a new hole in the side of his head.

There’ll be time for that later,
he told the voice in his head. He wasn't sure if he was talking to himself or to Rally anymore. Not the actual Rally, not the one in the ground, but the only one that still lived. Just as he had copied himself into Morgant, maybe he had copied Rally into himself, so maybe she
was
talking to him. Or maybe his brain was continuing to shutdown and her voice only the sparks of misfiring synapses. He was finding, more and more, that he didn't care either way. He wasn't trying to block her out, wasn't trying to deny her—he appreciated the conversations because he knew they would be the last he ever had with anyone.

Matthew came to Boston to see his accomplishments. He could read about them online or hear about them on the news, but he had wanted to witness it himself. His goal was to throw the world into darkness, and here he had a small glimpse of what that might look like. The sun still shown from above, but inside the buildings surrounding him, blackness lived. There was only death and a world coming undone. Matthew would see about his son and then see about ending the world.

* * *

J
oe Welch's
whole body shivered. Not once, not like a chill had overcome him, but constantly. His stomach muscles flexed and released so many times that they had finally cramped an hour ago. Now he was curled up on his bed, unable to straighten his body because of the cramping; goosebumps and sweat covered his skin. A blanket lay over him, but still he shivered. Constant shivering.

His body was dirty. Piss covered his sheets. Most of the time he could make it to the bathroom for the diarrhea, but not always. A pile of sheets lay in the corner, covered in shit; he shoved them off his bed during one of the moments when he could actually move. This wasn’t one of those moments, however. Really, he couldn't remember the last time he had been able to straighten up, to walk, to move. He pissed himself at will now, not caring about the smell or how the urine felt when it finally cooled on his leg.

He didn't know how many days he'd been in this room, shivering and soiling himself. Three? Twenty? He knew that someone came in from time to time with water and food, but that was all. They didn't make any effort to help him, to clean him, to do anything besides provide the bare essentials. The light in the ceiling remained on, even at night. Joe didn't care. He barely noticed. His world was dark, so dark, and his body wrecked with pain. Electric shocks came in waves, starting in his hands and feet and moving up through his appendages. Headaches tore through his thoughts, rendering him unable to recognize the people dropping off food and water. Sometimes he scurried over on hands and knees, like a rat, and downed the water—only to throw it back up all over the white bread sandwich sitting on the tray beneath him. Nothing stayed down, and the stuff that came out, no matter what hole, was little more than water.

Sometimes when the fever faded for a minute, Joe would think. Or, at least, he would try to think. Why was he here? Why was this happening? And he could remember if he tried hard. This was years of cocaine leaving his body. This was his central nervous system, which had grown dependent on the white substance, realizing there was no more. This was a fever wracking his brain because he denied his body a substance it demanded, a substance that someone downstairs said he couldn't have anymore. AND WHY WHY WHY WHY COULD HE NOT HAVE IT?

Patricia. Jason.

Those two names floated through sometimes, when his body relented for a second from its seemingly eternal agony. He would remember those two people, the beautiful woman he lay with and the young son he fathered. It was for them, the reason he couldn't have any more powder. Not because the man downstairs with the gun said he couldn't, but because if he used anymore, the man downstairs would kill him. Which, on its own was fine, but he hadn't come to this old house and been locked in this room to die. He had come because all he wanted in this life was to avenge those names. So if he didn't go through this, if he didn't face this pain and dirt, then his death meant no vengeance.

Sometimes he could focus on that, but most of the time, he shook and shivered on the bed, his body out of his control and his mind boiling with fever.

* * *

"
H
e's heard you
?" Gyle asked.

"He had to. He's heard everything Jake said over the past few weeks, and there's no reason to think he would have missed this one."

"But he hasn't contacted you about it?"

"No, but that doesn't mean anything either. He knows what we said, without a doubt, we just need to make sure he believes us."

Art, Jake, and Gyle sat at a large conference table, meant for twelve people rather than the three currently using it. A large, flat screen television hung on the wall, showing a picture of a young, white male.

"I know you guys want to continue going through these photos, but I'm not even certain this is the right path to take,” Gyle said. “I don't want to send someone at Brand only to have that someone end up dead. This has to work. Brand has to believe us and right now, we don't have any indication that he does."

Jake leaned his elbows onto the table, turning his chair away from the television screen and to Gyle at the other end of the room. "What's the best way to make him believe us? Have his kid call him. If he talks to someone he thinks is his offspring, it's going to trigger a whole host of emotions. Think about it, Gyle. A large portion of Brand's adult life has been an attempt to reclaim his family. We're presenting him with a piece of family that he didn't even know existed. It could change everything about this, just one phone call. We don't have to make the guy operative; we just need a phone call to test the waters. From there, we can figure the rest out."

Gyle sighed and leaned back in his chair. "Fine. Who's this guy?" He motioned to the television.

"His name is Henry Werzen," Art said. "He's twenty-four years old and this is his first year with the FBI. He has his law degree from Duke, but never took the bar, instead simply applied to us."

"Where's he live?" Gyle asked.

"He's currently in southern California. He lives with his brother who is twenty-two and finishing up college. Werzen's smart. Graduated top five in his law class and apparently got a perfect score on his SAT."

"More," Jake said, "he could pass for eighteen years old. We've mapped out the time line, and if Brand conceived a child five years into his original search to bring Hilman back, right now the kid would be eighteen. So we need someone that looks young."

Art turned to the picture on the screen. The kid did appear young, much younger than Jake. He wore glasses and his hair was tossed over to the side, messy like. He could pass for eighteen, easy.

"Have you talked to him?" Gyle asked.

"No. We haven't reached out to any of these potentials yet. We wanted to vet them by you first, but we think he might be our best shot," Art answered.

"Why?"

"He's smart. He's not married. And reading up on him, it seems like he's a goddamn patriot. Kid goes to law school with the only intention of signing up to work with the FBI after. He’s put two cases in the black during his first year, so he's working hard. Plus, he looks the part. Look at his face; he looks like a nerd, just like Brand at the same age. Same color blue eyes too, which is huge. Brand sees those, the psycho is going to melt."

Art watched Gyle nod, seeming to take it all in. "Alright, if we put him on this, do you guys have a plan lined up?"

Jake smiled. "Yeah, kind of."

"What is it?"

"You sure you want to hear this, Gyle?" Art asked. "If you ask what we're about to do, there goes plausible deniability."

Art looked on as Gyle's eyes bore down onto him. His face was stoic, his lips set. Art could tell him their plan and the whole thing might be shut down, because really, the plan wasn't something a rocket scientist would create during his down time. The plan involved a great deal of risk, a great deal of luck, and it involved this young kid—Henry—playing his part perfectly. It also meant that the kid could end up dead pretty quick, with Jake and Art standing around holding their dicks. If Gyle knew about this and shit went bad, then he would be standing there with them, all three jerking off in front of the nation.