The Nothing (33 page)

“I’m going to be honest with you James.
Please be understanding of me and know that I need you to be here for me. The truth is that I did it to myself. I cut several lines on my side with a razor. There are several more in other places. And a few scars.” James’ eyes became wide and watery. The thought of Martha hurting herself bothered him. James put his arms around her. He was familiar with cutting. Issues dealing with self-abuse like this were discussed from time to time in the news.

It was an embrace that neither of them wanted out of. Such emotional and physical safety
filled both of them when they were in each other’s arms. Five minutes later James released from the hug and wiped a few of the many tears from Martha’s face. She looked at him and continued, “Remember when we first met? You were sitting on the stairs leading up the prostitute's apartment.”

“Yes
I remember.”

“Well, I didn’t tell you how upset I was when that guy walked out and the
hooker called you in. I had wanted to have you come with me at that moment. But for a long time before I came across you, I was beginning to really struggle with loneliness. I don’t want you to think that this is all because of you. I sought comfort in the church. Night after night I would dream of finding love again. But it was so difficult because I felt like no one could measure up to the man that my late husband was. Believe me, this isn’t because of what happened back on that evening. It had been brewing for along time. The cutting would calm me believe it or not. At my most upsetting times, I would cut myself. One line, then two or however many it took to calm myself down. This afternoon, I was so scared. Jenna and Scarlett worked in the building that I cleaned and offered me a ride home if they could use my phone. The area around the building was chaotic. I was having anxiety. Before I met them in the parking garage, I cut myself to try and calm down. Usually the most I would have to do is three, often one cut would work. This time I cut myself seven times and I guess I cut pretty deep because of all the blood.”

Martha sat there for a moment and cleared her throat
. He wanted her to finish. “What I need from you James, is if we are going to do this, is to keep me from getting to the point where I feel like cutting. If you see me nervous, upset, anxious or scared. All you need to do is calm me down. Talk to me and hold me. I’m hoping we can take care of each other.”

James took her face in his hands.
“I understand everything you have told me. It makes me feel closer to you because you felt comfortable enough to tell me this. Thank you. I promise you that anything you need from me, I will provide. You will never get to the point that you need to cut again. And if you feel like you do, I will do everything in my power to find a way to make you feel better. I promise.” This made Martha smile.

They
both hugged each other tightly. After a short while, they had both settled back into their seats. James was ready to turn the ignition key and get going. The engine rumbled loudly but smooth like a lion. The air-conditioning blasted on, which was a welcomed relief in the August heat. The song Zeros by David Bowie blasted from the stereo in the truck. Martha lowered the volume while laughing. “My Raymond is a huge David Bowie fan. He really must have an influence on people if Roy and Tom were listening to David Bowie music!” James leaned over, “I hate David Bowie, but for you, I will give him a chance.”

“That’s a deal mister!”

They both sat there mesmerized and enjoying the music as if they hadn’t listened to music in a very long time. Music invoked a different feeling in them than it did before everything happened that day. It brought a newfound appreciation that wasn't there before. Subconsciously they both realized that music might eventually become hard to come by. Neither of them knew what lies ahead. James turned to Martha, “Where to miss?” Martha sat back and thought for a minute. She squeezed his hand and said, “Lets go to that cabin. If we don’t like it, there will be other places. We should not stay in the city. And besides, I really don’t want anyone else around except you for while. Do you know where Wimberley is?”

“All I know is that it is in the Hill Country.
For now the best thing to do is to get to Interstate 10 and head west. We’ll find it. But first, if it is ok with you, I want to stop by to see if my mother and Bentley’s wife are ok. If they are ok and want to come, I want to bring them.”

“
No problem James, I think we should. No more waiting, lets ship out!”

“Aye Aye Madam!”

Martha and James set out on their journey. What they will find along the way, or when they get there, was unknown to either of them. It was a different world now. And for the long road ahead of them, they will see and experience just how different things have become.

As James put the Humvee into drive, Martha pulled a small duffle back from behind the driver’s seat.
She unzipped the bag and saw stacks of bundled one hundred dollar bills crammed inside. On top, was a hand written note.

Dear Mother,

              You finding this bag means you are safe and protected. I hope Roy and Tom served you well. I know you won’t understand everything and I will explain it all in detail when I arrive. I have sent this money to you in the hopes that it will help you survive the transitions that are going to be taking place over the next several months in our country. This money, weapons, and Humvee should provide you with what you need until my arrival. I will find you easily; there is a GPS tracker on the truck. Don’t worry; we have a way to use GPS. Roy and Tom know what to do and will take care of you. I trust them with my life. I will meet you soon.

Your Loving Son,

Sergeant Raymond Diaz

Mad science

“
Everyone gather around. There are a few things I would like to say before I leave on this final trip. I would like to start of by addressing my friends, colleagues, and supporters. I cannot thank you enough for all that you have done. Each of you made sacrifices to be here. A few have sacrificed everything. A few gave up their identities, wealth and even their families. You were chosen because you were ready to change the future. I chose each and every one of you because of your high capacity to affect the world around you. The researchers who designed the software, the kitchen personnel that kept us healthy, the engine mechanics that built and maintain our facilities, the therapists who helped keep us in check and focused, the highly trained security officers who kept us safe, and finally the former government agents who provided us with the technology and tools necessary to accomplish this task.

My
philosophy titled ‘The Nothing,’ is the driving force behind this study. It is what influenced our methodology. The Nothing represents the things that humans have implemented into their lives that have inhibited their growth and prosperity. They mean nothing, accomplish nothing and have caused the value of life to be nothing. And what are these things I speak of? They include wireless technologies, artificial social interaction such as Facebook and Twitter, the many thousands of cable channels, millions of websites, and many other false tools of leisure that represent what I view as the nothings of our species. Before all of this wireless this and wireless that, there were somethings. But those somethings have become nothings. A few of you here are around the same age as me; you remember what life was like before cell phones and computers. We all agree it was better and simpler. And you may also ask, what are these something’s that I speak of? They include time spent with family and friends. As kids we played outside more. Games were played on a board with plastic and wooden pieces that went with it. And games were also played outside in a baseball diamond, empty sandlot, and amongst the trees and birds. Remember hide and seek? We accomplished more, studied more and were happier. We sought after the preservation of our species, not the pleasure of our species. Our minds fueled our creativity and imagination. Not a preprogrammed video game or cable channel with mind rotting advertisements. We didn’t sit around with our faces planted on a laptop or smartphone. We looked both ways when crossing the street and were more aware of our surroundings. The wireless this and wireless that have distracted us, and stolen our quality of life that existed in the past. Too many have more friends on the internet than real life. People compromise their self-esteem because of the safety of finding love anonymously on the internet. That self-esteem gets even more damaged by the deception that the internet makes so easy to facilitate. And then there is the beloved cell phones so many have become addicted to. So many people have caused car wrecks by talking on their cell phones. Many have died. I would like to have texting while driving in the same sentence as felony. But don’t get me wrong; I don’t believe these things should be eliminated. I for one like computers. But I think they could be better placed within a human’s daily existence. Technology is highly misplaced on people’s priorities. This project will help people re-organize their priorities. It will help people learn what they are really made of. It will help people learn their weaknesses and strengths. Some will not be affected but most will. By getting rid of the nothings in society, many somethings will return and replace them.                            

Each of you
has a desire to establish a new culture. Not a culture like the ones that have divided our species from the birth of man; but a culture that encompasses every human that walks this planet. A human culture. To all of you that are here today, know that what we will accomplish in the upcoming days will change the face of the human culture forever. It is a call that could only be made once everyone was listening. In one week, that call is going to be made. And everyone will receive it. They will have no choice but to listen. All of my life, personally and professionally, I have studied my surroundings. I have studied the many cultures that inhabit this planet and have found that the vast differences have created darker similarities. All humans share cultural characteristics that cause them to steal, lie and kill. All humans bear the responsibility of what will result from the final stage of this study. Their addictions to the nothings, such as technology and their wonderful smartphones, will be their Achilles’ heel during the final stage.

Throughout this, all of you have struggled with the moral burden of what we are doing.
I too have asked the question; is there another way to educate people? And yes there are so many ways for people to learn. My problem has been that by giving people the choice to learn and what to learn is unproductive as a whole. It benefits a specific geographical or ethnic culture, but not the human culture as a whole. That is the target of what I have been trying to do my whole life. Forcing education, forcing learning is what will benefit the human culture. If a child accepts the education and submits to the authority that provides it, then that child will be successful. If a child resists or denies education, then they will have to submit to and be at the mercy of those that don’t resist or deny education. Lets focus on human needs, not wants. That is the culture that must survive, learn, rebuild and persevere.

You will
see the breakdown of organized religion. People will finally get the answer to who, and where whatever God they worship is. For the first time, for many, the answer will be provided. They will find God in the human culture! The human culture will become their new God. The human culture will ultimately decide who lives and who perishes. It will decide who succeeds and who fails. It will decide who is happy and who is not. The fact is that the human culture is all of us. The gods that people around the world ask for love, money, guidance, help and happiness will not help them. The God of human culture will. The responsibility will shift from a mythical deity to us. The human race will become the only culture everyone needs.

In my essay, The Nothing, I portray
our existence as a trial, or it could be looked at as a study. Unfortunately we don’t know if there are second chances like the one in my essay. A second chance for the atom? A second chance for every single cell ever created? Mankind hasn’t received enough information to verify that there will be a new trial if this one fails. Without information to complete the story, we have to fabricate, patch, invent, and create. Hence mankind’s invention of religion and the many gods that have come with it. This time, here in this lab, we will do the job of fabrication, patching and creation. We will invent something, an idea, or a philosophy that will do the job. Without the cell signals and communication people have grown accustomed to, they won’t have the information they need to function as they had. When the convenience of our wireless world disappears, our reactions become based on our human nature. People will lose their way of life. It will be the only way they can re-learn and re-grow.

You will see results that you have never seen come from any
scientific study. You will see the emotional breakdown of the common man when the tools of convenience and leisure are gone. You will see the mental breakdown of the common man who is unable to adjust and adapt to a new way of social interaction. You will see a higher capacity for anger when the new world isn’t as convenient as the last. You will see a new breed of people that encompass all of the sins that religion has identified. Horrible things will happen. People that you would never expect any immoral behavior from, will commit the most horrendous acts against one other. You will see opportunists, people who see the breakdown of the common man as something to take advantage of and exploit.

How all of this bene
fits or inhibits the human culture will be solved by the end of the last phase. Two weeks after the last phase has begun, we will remove the virus program from the satellites and restore all wireless communication by sending out a unlock program. At that time, there should be enough data to establish for all humans, a new path and perspective. Remember the plan and your duties. I thank you all for being a part of this most historical study. This will be the one study that changes everything. For the better I believe, because mankind will realize they have no choice. And only then will there be a new Eden.”

***

Only a week’s worth of cloths are needed. Whether he would be there one week, two weeks or a month, Dr. Abernathy wasn’t sure. But his personal assistant Jeff insisted on one week’s worth of cloths for the trip. “Maybe you should take a couple pairs of shorts, this horrible August heat is country wide my friend.”

“Oh Jeff, I have to keep up appearances.
The President won’t even acknowledge me if I am not wearing a tie!” This was the most important trip that Dr. Zachariah Abernathy will ever take.

“Jeff, remember that you are to wait until I have checked in at my hotel and called before you have
Jung input the software codes.”

“
I’m sorry Doctor, I still wish you could to be here when he does that.”

Jeff Mitchell was worried.
Dr. Abernathy initially hesitated when hiring Jeff to work for him. Yet his loyalty was guaranteed. Outside the walls of the Endonite Institute of Human Behavior and Practices, Jeff was a failure that had lost everything during the recession of 2008. It was discovered that his wife was only in love with the money he made from being an executive at AT&T. At least until they laid him off. Plus she had been secretly sleeping with a man she met through a smartphone dating app. Jeff protested the company’s massive layoffs in the media the next year when they accumulated record profits. He knew the company only made the profits because they laid off forty thousand employees. Unfortunately Jeff was blackballed due to his vocal stance and would never be able to work in a similar industry again. Even the government won’t mess with a corporation’s profits. It has been discovered that many American politicians have holdings in most large corporations and were probably the very ones who voted for the layoffs. Eventually Jeff became a bum on the street who couldn’t find a job or enough food to eat. But since Jeff wasn’t an addict, and avoided others, he was a true fit for Dr. Abernathy.

“
Listen Jeff, I don’t need to be here to start the final phase. I do however need to be here to shut it down. So I will be back in a week or so, hopefully. They will have no choice but to bring me back.”

Dr. Abernathy grabbed a few books from his bookshelf to read on the flight to Washington D.C.
His sleeping quarters at the institute were small. All eighty-five quarters were the same size. Everyone had the same of everything. The only thing Dr. Abernathy had more of than anyone was responsibility. “Doctor, what is the President like?” Dr. Abernathy liked how Jeff was interested in relevant things. It pleased him that he asks questions like this; questions Jeff can learn from. Jeff lives at the institute and rarely leaves.

Sev
eral years earlier, his daughter Paige committed suicide when classmates at her high school distributed a nude photo of her online. It was a cell phone picture she took of herself in the bathroom mirror while exposing her breasts. Paige didn’t share or tell anyone about the picture. A few days later, a friend of hers was playing with her phone, found the picture, and texted it to herself. Then that friend’s boyfriend found it and texted it to himself, as well as a couple of his friends. From there it went viral. She was bullied, her boyfriend dumped her because everyone was calling her a slut, and boys would run up and try to rip off her shirt. Paige was only seventeen. She took Jeff’s shotgun that his Grandfather had left him, and shot herself in the face. In her suicide note, Paige wrote that she wanted a closed casket because no one wants to look at a dead slut. Two days after the funeral, Jeff was laid off from AT&T.

“President Moore is an upstanding individual.
His intentions are more for the people than any President before him. He has initiated discussions and thoughts on what can improve the lot of every American and everyone else around the world. He wants the shootings to stop. He wants the families to stay together. He wants everyone to have enough money. He still has political ambitions that cloud his judgment like every other politician. But he still has a heart for the people.”

“Sounds like a good guy.
But how can he be so different than any other President. You know, saying what everyone wants to hear. That is all they can do right? Four, or eight years in office, isn’t long enough to accomplish or fail anything. It’s another way for the government to pull the wool over our eyes.”

“Yes Jeff you are correct.
When America won it’s independence from England, everyone was full of hope and had visions of prosperity. Unfortunately, all anyone ever knew was living under the control of a monarchy and inequitable distribution of opportunity and wealth. Any true thinker could see that America killed one beast and immediately gave birth to another. The variable that is constant throughout the history of the human species is our nature. We can’t help it; we all have natural bloodlusts and desires. We are naturally competitive and seek opportunities to dominate one another. We fear and hate what is individually different and respond with violence. President Moore sees this, but is powerless to do anything about it. Short presidential terms were the so-called solution to the absolute rule that the former Englishmen had lived with for centuries. In their new country, instead of having an indefinite ruler with absolute power, they have a procession of one every four or eight years that uses the entire presidency to undermine the guy before him. Each new President wants to make a name for himself, pass that landmark legislation, win a major war, or bring a foreign dictator to justice. Tyranny was replaced by ambition.”