-1-

Everything is beautiful and nothing hurts.

I read that somewhere and I never understood what it meant until now.

It’s what happens when you realize you should be screaming in pain.

Right now I am absence of everything.

I’m aware of landing in grass, on the long glorious way down I braced my body to its inevitable impact. My head is on fire for only a second before it is just small vibrations in the back of my skull and the beautiful translucent white light shimmering over the sky.

The stars.

“ALAN!” carries through the air and breaks the peace.

“ALAN !”

The voice is Minnow’s but it’s from up above in heaven.

Another thing I’ve read about.

I slowly blink in my vision and I can see the darkness of the sky and the very edges of the houses next door. I see a pair of legs.

Sara is standing over me.

For a second I think about the Tempus New Year’s Party and how I hit my head and she was there standing over me and for a brief second I wonder if all of this has been a hallucination. But it’s not.

Her hands are all over my body and she looks tired, pissed off and also….something…scared ?

“Don’t move,” she mutters

I want to tell her I wasn’t planning on it.

More footsteps and Minnow is standing over me and her eyes are wet and her hand is over her mouth.

“ALA-”

But before she can get her words out Sara shoves her away from me.

“What did you take ?,” she screams into Minnie’s face.  Her tone is ferocious.

“We were just--”

“What did you take ?,” she repeats.

Minnie doesn’t say anything and just looks from Sara to me.

The scene is getting farther away from me, but I will it to stay.

Without warning Sara slaps Minnow across the face so hard, so hard she stumbles back and lets out an audible sound like a choked cry. Then she is sobbing and talking in a blubbering mess.

“Sara, I’m so sorry, I--”

“Call Rayne.” Sara orders her.

“Oh, Sara. No. Please, Rayne will kill me for using chrome please Sara, oh God, Sara no--”

“Just do it.” 

I never find out if she does or not. I just black out and I’m lost in this void where I can clearly see things I shouldn’t be able to see.

Like memories.

They roll past my eyes as vivid hallucinations.

I see older memories like when my parents where younger and I was just starting school and we first moved into the penthouse. We had a set of private elevators I liked to play in.

I see a drawing of a man, frozen mid sprint with fire for hands. It’s a logo that I knew. A television show or a toy brand.

I see the night in my dorm room when Dad and I slept on the cold muted floor because of some kind of Border threat. It all seems so funny now. There is jazz music in the background and I forgot my mom needed that to sleep at night.

She wanted me to play the saxophone when I was young and I refused and she was sad.

I remember that my parents love me and suddenly all the happiness is sadness and I’m just crying because I miss them, but they don’t miss me and I’ve never been good enough. From day one when one of my eyes was just a little too pale.

***

-2-

The  brilliance of my high is only experienced after I wake up. This must be only a taste of what actual withdrawal is like because after only one use, I miss it. I want to bring back those sweet memories and  the fuzziness and the created contentment and the ability not to care.

The longing is so strong it takes a few minutes before I realize I have no clue where I am . My body is throbbing and sore from being contorted and thrown into  this small dark box. I recognize this space.

I close my eyes and I can hear the rhythms and it doesn’t take me long to realize I am in the trunk of the car. 

We hit a bump and my stomach threatening to come out of my body through my throat. Being in the trunk doesn’t help, because I can  feel every  turn, every quick brake, every bump in the road.

I twist myself as best as I can so that I am on my side and a whole new pain radiates through my body and it seems to emanate from my right hand. I put myself back where I was with my back on the ground.

 I lay my left hand on the velvety trunk ceiling before balling my shaking fingers into a fist. With whatever  energy I think I have left, I pound on the roof, fighting back the jerking nausea.

The car slows down to half speed and I keep pounding harder, which makes the car speed up. I don’t know what game the driver is playing  so I just keep knocking. The skin on my knuckles is wearing thin and I know it will start to bleed, but I want to get out of here.

Abruptly, the car comes to a jarring holt and I can feel bile rising in my throat. I hear footsteps and the top of the trunk flies open and all I see is a pale luminescent white. Like a sheet of LED thrown across the world.

The fresh air calms my stomach at once and I fill my lungs with it. I can swear I feel it moving into my blood vessels and my blood vessels giving big sighs of relief.

“Don’t move,” I hear Sara say, but I don’t see her. All I see is white.

“Your wrist is broken and your neck may be sprained. Step out legs first,” the invisible Sara says.

“Why can’t I see anything--”

“You can see. Your brain just isn’t perceiving it because the chrome eroded something in your brain, you lucky bastard.  If you think about my voice and that I’m here, it will come back.”

“I’m tired,” I say. It just falls out of my mouth.

“Get out of the car.” 

Being cautious of my neck and wrist, I swing my legs out of the trunk and touch what feels like desert. I imagine the car and it slowly shimmers into my vision. Holding on the edge with my good hand I pull myself out of the trunk and fall to the ground on my sleeping legs.

I throw up everything that has ever entered my body and a good amount of blood.

“You fucking deserve that,” Sara sneers at me.

I look in the direction of her voice and she appears more clearly to me finally. As my brain begins to perceive what is around me I take in the landscape.

We are pulled over in the middle of the desert. I can’t even see the main road or the outline of the Sprawl anymore. Just dry earth for miles.

“Why are we in the desert ?” I ask.

“We are going for a little walk,” she smiles.

She holds a bottle of water in her hands and holds it above me.

“Stand up, let’s get started.” She barks.

Using the car for leverage I stand up and snatch the water from her. It takes swishing most of it to get the taste of blood out of my mouth, but when I take down the rest I start to feel human again. Crushing the bottle in my hand I follow her around the car to where a seemingly lucid Luce is sitting on the hood with his arms crossed

“This is child abuse,” he mutters as his mother walks up to him.

“Shut up,” she says, pulling him off the car.

He puts his arm around her and she helps him gain his balance as they hobble together across the sand.  I step in line behind them.

We walk for miles like that, Sara looking determined and completely nonchalant the entire time. But I can tell she is suffering, her breaths are ragged and sweat is pouring down her face and over her body. Luce is fairing worse, he is  barely holding on to her and exhaustion causes him to collapse in the sand a few times.

I’d devoured most of the water and after pausing to throw up for the third time I can’t take it anymore.

“Where are we going ?,” I finally ask, getting frustrated.

“You’ll see,” She says in a clipped voice.

“No,” Luce says. He gives me the briefest glance and for a second we are in alliance.  “I can’t do this anymore. I want my painkillers. Why  are we walking ? The car was still running.”

Sara looks like she is going to laugh.

“What part of shut the hell up do you idiots not understand ?,” she responds. “We’re almost there. Come on.”

We walk for another 40 minutes before I can make out the road. It’s a single lane black road that looks new. The road leads to a gate and behind the gate I can see a neighborhood of pavement and townhouses.

I don’t expect to see it out here in the middle of nowhere.

Sara pulls us along  to the gate and enters a code into an  holopad sitting at the gate. A quiet beep sounds and the screen switches to a sound  wave pattern.

“Blackbird…it’s…me.” Sara spits out while catching her breath. The sound wave jumps and breaks to her voice.

There is silence on the other end before the gate opens allowing us in.

The neighborhood behind the gate is small, I suspect it may have been bigger, but right now it looked like something out of a storybook. All these ivory covered townhouses just standing in the middle of nowhere.

Sara leads us to a green  roofed house that has a 2089 Lincoln Cruiser sitting outside. The car is brand new and still has the factory plastic on the windows and doors. She knocks on the house door and when it swings open I think for a second we are in the wrong place.

The man behind the door---Blackbird, I assume--is just a little too normal looking in a white polo shirt and wrinkled khakis. He’s in his late thirties or early 40’s and pale with thinning brown hair. He wears glasses, something I’ve never seen anyone wear for real. He doesn’t have any tattoos, isn’t wearing black and doesn’t appear to be carrying a weapon.

 “Well ?,” Sara asks him and he gives us the biggest grin.

My vision is getting blurry again and I feel like my legs aren’t going to hold me up, I’m suddenly gasping for air and Blackbird’s eyes dart to me—

“ Brace yourself. You’re probably going to pass out.”

“No, I just need water and to sit down,” I slur.

Then I pass out.

****

-3-

I’m 0-4 or maybe even 0-5 on the passing out so, I'm used to it. It’s the waking up that scares me because I never know what I’m going to wake up with.

This time, when I wake up I’m heavy and liquid and being tortured. A searing pain is cutting into my right wrist and my head feels like  someone is cutting into it with a burning knife. I can’t help it, I scream. With my left hand I try  to feel the back of my head.

I feel my scalp where my hair has been shaved and the rough patch where stitches have been sewn. I feel a liquid  dripping down my hand and I’m afraid it’s blood or my own brain. When I bring my hand around I see it’s a clear fragrant liquid. A needle attached to  5 inches of ragged plastic tube is sticking out of my hand

Getting my screaming under control, I turn to see a  morphine drip that was most likely once attached to me has been crudely severed.

Taking a few breaths to calm myself I survey the room. It looks like a large sterile lab.Medical equipment and piles of drugs spread over the metal countertops that line the room. In the center of the room are a dozen or so single beds on wheels with black comforters like the one I'm in.

I turn to my left to see Luce is sitting up in the bed directly next to mine with a morphine drip attached to him. His eyes look sleepy and lethargic and his leg is still gone. Unlike me, who is still wearing my normal clothes, he’s wearing a hospital gown. From this angle I can the dressing is off the stump of his leg. The skin on his thigh is violently red  and cracked where metallic wires protrude out.

“Did you cut this ?,” I ask gesturing to my morphine line.

“Fuck you,” he spits at me.

I don’t know if it’s the pain or whatever they did to my head, but I’m sick of taking shit from a kid.

“What is your problem with me ?,” I ask. “Your mom told me you’re the one who started shooting at the party ! You’re the reason I’m  even here you know.”

“I was trying to kill you,” he shot back at me.

“I never did anything to you--,”

“My dad never trusted people like you,” he interrupts.  “People who had everything. Tempus killed him and I saw you at that party, dancing with that bitch and having fun. You get to be okay with what they do to people they don’t like and how they use people--”

The door creaks open and to my surprise Rayne Washington walks in. His head rests just inches from the top of the door. Luce shuts up immediately and just lies down on his back, decidedly ignoring Rayne.

“Alan Gray,” he smiles at me.

I have a faint memory of the terror in Minnow’s voice when Sara told her to call Rayne. I hope he hasn’t done anything to her and that he doesn’t have anything planned for me.

“Can you walk ?,” he asks me.

“I think so,” I say as I test my legs for the first time. “I’m just in a lot of pain.”

Rayne observes the cut morphine line and opens one of the drawers takes out a an empty syringe and sticks it into the dripping bag before putting it into my arm. The pain vanishes within seconds, leaving me feeling warm and peaceful.

“Thanks,” I mutter.

“I take care of my own,” he says and the words send a shiver through me.

I follow him out the of the lab and up a series of stairs that give way to a  bare living room. As we step from the living room into the roomy kitchen, it becomes impossible to comprehend there is a lab just downstairs.

The kitchen looks like it belongs in a storybook farmhouse, it’s quaintly decorated with matching patterned curtains and rugs. Blackbird is wearing gray scrubs and stands over a hot stove wiping butter over a piece of bread.

“Nice and even, that’s the trick.” He says to no one in particular.

Rayne sits at the wooden kitchen table and I sit across from him. I never expected to be this close to him in my life.  I can smell a mix of amber and something burnt coming off of him.

“Why am I here ? Where is Sara ?,” I ask.

“Sara is working, she has a lot of work to catch up on since her little walk out."

There is a sizzle behind us as Blackbird puts the bread on the hot pan. He curses and  says something about it being too hot.

“Alan, as I’m sure  you’ve realized that little chrome experimentation got you pretty banged up--”

“I was fine,” I interrupted and I immediately knew that was a mistake, but it was too late to stop now.”Sara made me walk here. I'm mostly dehydrated.”

“Alan, you fell of a roof. Not to mention that the chrome was still eating away at your brain, that’s what the drug does when you take too much. You would have been brain damaged if Sara hadn’t gotten you to Blackbird.”

“I’m grateful, I know it was a mistake---,”

“Don’t be grateful,” Rayne says. “ Blackbird charges for that operation. I’ve paid him that and know you owe me.”

Blackbird chimes in. “I  had to set the wrist and neck too.”

I’m dumbstruck, but I think fast.

“Look, when I get home I can have my parents--,”

They both laugh at me. It’s creepy.

“It doesn’t work like that, Alan,” Rayne says. “You are going to work for me to pay your debt and before you say anything else stupid you should know that refusal or disobedience to me will result in your death.”

A cold dread works its way through my body and I can’t breathe. I hear Blackbird’s pan sizzle again and then a grated cutting sound.

“But, I didn’t ask for this.” I lash out at him. “No one asked me. She just threw me in the trunk and brought me here… If I had known--I wouldn’t have agreed ! ”

He looks calmly at me in response to my strained screams and I feel like a toddler who is throwing a tantrum that no one cares about.

Blackbird sets a plate in front of us with uniform squares of grilled cheese sandwiches. They are perfect and immaculate.

“They’re a bit dark, the oven was too hot. Maybe bring a thicker cut cheese next time, Rayne.” he says. I notice for the first time that Blackbird has a ring like Sara and Jean’s.

Fall down seven times. Stand up eight.

“Beggers can’t be choosers,” Rayne says to him and takes a bite of one of the sandwiches before turning back to me.

“Now, you will continue to stay with Sara and work for her,  but you will primarily work for me. You will do as I say and keep in mind what’s yours is mine. I own you. The Shy Cartel owns you.”

Rayne slides a small metal box over to me. I just stare.

“Open it.” He orders

I slowly remove the lid to see a thin silver card with Alan Gray etched on it, a solid black ring with a silver pattern and a syndicate.

“There is money on the card for your needs. Anything you purchase over that will be credit and added to your debt. You will wear this ring at all times, it tells people  you work for the Shy Cartel. If you prove to be useful, faithful and a survivor  I will issue you a crested ring, which means you are not only loyal to me but have  have my full protection. Now, put the ring on your finger.”

I hesitantly shove the ring on my finger and he looks on approvingly.

"I'm going to ask a lot of you from now on, but I want you to remember two of my most important rules; Never disobey me and never do Chrome. Drugs are for the weak and people we prey on. Not the people who work for me. I don't tolerate it. Understand ?"

"Yes." I say. "If I can ask, Will I still get to go home ?,”

“It’s not out of the question once you work off the debt. Or depending on how things go you may be able to fill your debt while living in the East” He responds. “But for right now don't make any plans. Sara and I starting on a new venture and an extra pair of hands is always helpful.”

Rayne stands up and presses his hand into my shoulder.

“Blackbird, how is Alan’s prognosis ?

“A few more surgeries and scans and  he’ll be fine. He’s lucky, 4 days and he would have been a zombie.”

I hate that their talking about me like I’m not there, but I’m preoccupied by the ring that feels like it is burning into my finger.

“And your other patient ?,” Rayne asks

Blackbird seems annoyed at this question.

“Well, first I need to measure him for a new leg. I’m afraid I won’t be able to  craft the surgery like I did the first time. I had an assistant the first time, but his number got called. Not to mention I need to wait for the swelling and infection to go down. It may be  quite an undertaking--.”

“You’ll manage”, Rayne tells him.

“Oh, of course, sir…nothing I can’t fix,” Blackbird adds quickly.

***

Of all the people who have Rayne’s protection, Blackbird is the one I find the least intimidating. He always seems nervous and his need for sense and order makes him easy to manipulate.

When Rayne leaves us, I question him  about where Sara is and if there is any way out of this deal she forced me into.

“Don’t run,” he says to me as he guides me back down to the lab.

“I have nowhere to run to.”

I hear static-y music coming from the basement and when I pass through the lab doors I spot Luce struggling to lean against the cabinets where he has turned on an old FM radio.

“Mr. Gray, if you could help Mr. Grace back to bed.” Blackbird says as he opens a cabinet full of IV bags and takes out a handful.

“Don’t you dare touch me.” Luce sneers at me. He makes his way back to the bed, and when he’s only inches away he loses his balance and collapses on to the floor face first.

Using the rolling bed for balance, he pushes himself back into bed and I see a smear of blood coming from his nose.

Blackbird scurries over with the IV bags and a wet washcloth that he hands to Luce. Blackbird methodically hooks the IV bags up to Luce and then to the pole.

“What's in those?,” Luce asks. He doesn't bother wiping his bloody nose with the cloth.

“Just some antibiotics for your infections. Now count to ten please.”

“Why ?”

“Please, Mr. Grace.”

Luce sighs and begins to count, before he gets to seven he is knocked out. Blackbird wipes the blood off his nose with the washcloth.

“Mr. Gray, please turn him over...He’s  may vomit.”

I do what he says without thinking. Luce’s skin is cold against my touch. I unfold his crossed arms and let them hang to their sides, Freedom on one side. Chaos on the other. Despite his slight tan from the walking earlier his tattoos are still stark against his eerily smooth skin.

He's knocked out cold. “Antibiotics, huh ?”

“Well, antibiotics and a little bit of something else. I just need a second alone with you down here,” Blackbird mumbles. “Now, please take your shirt off.”

I turn to him. Blackbird has this just-unsettling -enough-to-be-trustworthy look about him, so I obey. He guides me to a chair in front of a mirror. There is also a mirror behind me and I can see the reflection of my bare back in it. A row of stitches stretches from the back of my head down to my neck.

“I’m going to show you how to take stitches out. Watch carefully."

“Why--”

“Please, Mr. Gray. One step at a time. Now you just carefully pick the strings.”

I watch as he uses tweezers to gently pull the stitches out of my neck, a little bit of blood seeps out, to my horror he cleans it up with the same washcloth he used to clean up Luce’s bloody nose. Then he stitches me back up. When he is done he gives me the tweezers.

“Take these with you and in a week you do just what I did to the stitches in your arm. It shouldn’t leave a scar. My work never leaves scars. I imagine you don’t want Sara to see the incision I made there.”

“Why ?”

Blackbird puts on a glove, opens a cabinet and pulls out a bloodied bio chip. It’s a small circle with a graph pattern and an elegant “P” emblem on it followed by a series of numbers.

“I took this out of your arm. It’s you System ID from the East. It has all your information on it. I was just going  to study it and put it back, but I noticed it doesn’t match anything Rayne or Sara know told me about you--”

“I can explain--”

“You don’t have to explain shit to me. I’m allegiant to Rayne and the Shy Cartel, but I also know what it’s like to have an identity you don’t want to carry with you in this life.  You think my real name is Blackbird ? You think I let any of these people know who I was before ?"

I realize he means to help me.

“What...what are you going to do with that chip ?,” I ask hesitantly.

He picks up a beaker  and holds the chip over it.

“Let me keep it.” I hold out my hand.

“No. You’ll have to go back with Sara, she may find it and who knows what she'll do if she discovers the kind of connections you have. Your address, your family. Then they'll really own you.”

“I don't care. It’s mine, right ?,” I say. “Give it to me.”

I hold out my hand and he drops it in.

“No one will tell you this, but I will. Make Rayne need you. Stay on his good side. It’s how you’ll survive. From what I saw on the chip you seemed to have a nice life waiting for you and I hope you get back to it.”

I nod as I close my hand around the only part of my identity I had left.

***

I think sleep is impossible with all this new information but my newly reinstated morphine drip has calmed me into a nice coherent sleep. The silence helps.

It’s quiet and still  in Blackbird’s abandoned  neighborhood. Just like at home.

My blissful sleep is interrupted by the sound of Luce waking up and feeling around the side table. It's nearly 6AM. He clumsily pours some water and the drinking glass smashes to the floor. It’s dark in the lab, so I know he can’t see a thing.

After that it's silent for a while.

I wake a few minutes later to the sound of Luce falling out of bed followed by a string of expletives.  I hear the soft plastic stretching and harsh intakes of breath as he pulls all of his IVs out. He tries to stand up again and I hear him fall.

It’s completely pathetic and part of me finds it entertaining.  I don’t know where he is trying to go, but I hope he knocks himself unconscious.

I pretend to turn in my sleep and catch a glimpse of him sitting in the corner on the floor. He hurls the water pitcher against the wall near my head. “You son of a bitch. Stop being a pussy for 10 seconds and help me!”

I ignore him.

“I know you’re awake. “

I stay very still.

“You think you’re so much better than all of us. What ? Are you  scared of me ? Do I scare you ?”

I was so sick of them thinking I thought I was better than them.

“Shut the fuck up, I'm trying to sleep,” I finally call out.

“Help me up.”

“What happened to 'don't touch me  or I'll kill you' ”

“Help me," he demands again.

“Call Blackbird, or your mother.”

“If I could, I would,” he spits. “I’m not going to shut up, asshole. Just help me to the door. This is all your fault anyway you know. She only left me with Rayne and his psychopathic wife because you were around. I don’t know why she wanted you and not me. You’re a fucking nobody. And clearly selfish--”

The bed makes an audible noise as I roll out of it. He goes quiet.

I walk over to where he is sitting up on the floor,  pulling a thin cardigan over his shoulders. I see a good sized red bump in his forehead. I have the urge to kick the shit of out of  him, just  for the hell of it, just like he did to me but I think better of it. Or rather, I’m better than that.

Maybe.

“I’m only doing this so you’ll shut the fuck up.” I remind him. "Where are we going ?"

"Bathroom."

I bend down and hook my right arm under his and lift him up. We struggle for a bit, but finally we are both balanced. He takes  a step and I’m not expecting  half of his dead weight to suddenly push on my arm and I lose my balance. He slips from my grasp and slams head first into the wall.

It’s an accident, I swear.

I apologize instantly and he calls me every name possible.

At this point I consider leaving him to fend for himself.

“You did than on purpose--”

“Shut up or I’m done helping you.”

I hook my arm back around his and I brace myself for his weight.

The bathroom is down a hallway outside of the lab. We get to the  lab door with no incident. I kick open the door with my foot and venture into the hallway. The floor of the  hallway is made of waxier tile and I’m cautious of either one of us slipping. We move in an agreed silence, until I feel my socked foot slip against the tile.

We both fall down this time and I instinctively grip the wall and the front of his hospital gown, so he doesn’t collapse on me.  The strings on the front of the gown pull loose from my grip  and the it falls open to his waist.

And that’s when I freak out. 

He doesn’t react, but gets up, adjusts his clothes and keeps going.

My brain is going a thousand miles a minutes.  I don’t remember the rest of the walk, I don’t remember coming to the bathroom door  as my mind is too busy overplaying what are probably overblown scenarios. He reaches for one of the rails lining the bathroom wall and closes the  door behind him.

There was always something wrong with Luce.

His always cool blemish free skin, his uncaring eyes, his lack of emotion.

And my newest discovery

His lack of a navel.

It all makes sense

He wasn’t human, but very carefully

Fabricated.

 

--------

A/N

DUN DUN DUN

Also this

- The things I Googled to try and write a person on drugs...it's just research, NSA.

- This section has a couple of lines from Hidden, because I needed to re-remember Blackbird's character. He was supposed to be an intergral character in the very beggining (Minnie mentions him to Alan during their first conversation) but only has one scene in the entire Veritas.