Quantum nightmares, p.24
Quantum Nightmares, page 24
Golf? Jack thought. What an asshole.
“Take two steps and face forward,” the ACO said, its eyes zooming out. “Comply.”
Jack took two steps, staring into Father Rodgers’s eyes, which were bloodshot and shrink-wrapped in a haze of tears, his face frozen in a perfect depiction of anguish and regret.
“Face forward.” The mechanical twirling slapped against the walls as the camera lens zoomed in and out, making appropriate readings. When Jack did not comply after three seconds, then came the noise all prisoners feared: the loud, resonating charge of the small particle accelerator stored inside all ACOs’ chests. It started with a high-pitched charging tone, then plateaued quickly before stopping abruptly. From beginning to end, the charge only took three seconds. The Androids were programed to give the prisoners another three-second allotment before they took the full brunt of the charge: 4444 volts, delivering just enough pain that you’ll be in the infirmary for a few weeks, relearning basic functions such as walking, brushing your teeth. But you’ll survive. It was the best means of nonlethal combatants. More of a deterrent than anything else.
The prisoners called it “The Bolt of Zeus,” as in “Yo, get ya ass down before you get The Bolt of Zeus all up in that ass.”
Fear is a healthy motivator and in the twenty years since androids became correctional officers, it had only been used twice. The charging sound sends a bolt of fear down the body of anyone in its vicinity, and like a choreographed prank on some Japanese television show, everyone hits the deck.
Despite the certainty of death in his immediate future, Jack was no different. He turned slowly but his head remained fixed. He looked funny as his body turned against the neck like an owl, big wet eyes locked on Father Rodgers.
The lead ACO extended its hand and the pointing finger opened, swirling in a small, pinpoint vortex. Then a spring-loaded key popped out. He stuck the key in a slit on the wall and the door opened.
The silence was unnerving as Jack walked into the hallway and took his appropriate place in the middle of the ACOs, which used their survey technology to calculate distance and form a perfect four-foot square around Jack. The warden checked his watch again and then started down the hall toward the chair that would soon end Jack’s life. The convoy of hissing machines followed, Jack in the middle.
Suddenly aware that this was the last walk he’d ever take, Jack decided to practice the advice his wife was always going on about. “It’s such a beautiful world,” she would always say. “Don’t take it for granted, ya hear.”
He felt nostalgic as he thought, I won’t, my love.
Jack closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He noticed the odd no-fragrance smell of the prison, neither liking it nor disliking it—just noticing it. His mouth was dry, his throat sore. He opened his eyes. The lights seemed unusually bright, forcing him to squint through the thick blanket of tears that refused to drip. They just congealed there, wet, blurry. He took another deep breath, this time appreciating the no fragrance. Don’t take it for granted. His neck was tight, his stomach grumbling. He noted that his legs seemed heavier than usual and that his mind had to override the body’s typically autonomous act of walking, for the body seemed to know where it was walking and Jack had the feeling if he didn’t consciously move his legs, they would plant themselves and grow roots and there he would remain until his dying day, right there in the middle of the hallway, vegetation growing around him, death springing forth life. Janey would’ve loved that. Jack smiled at the thought.
He started thinking of his life: a dizzying kaleidoscope panorama of images. He thought of the wins, the losses, the good times and the bad. He thought of barbecues and picnics, anthills and clouds. But mostly, he thought of his family. I’ll be joining you guys soon enough. The thought was like a cup of hot cocoa for his soul, warm, inviting.
Halfway down the corridor, Father Rodgers interrupted their journey, delaying Jack’s death for thirty seconds more. Deep down, he was grateful.
The padre had an awkward limp to his walk, favoring the right side more than the left. Jack imagined the man of cloth as a renegade pirate with a splintered wooden stub for a leg, heroically coming to aid in his rescue. Except, of course, Father Rodgers was sniffling like a child, and renegade pirates with splintered wooden stubs for a leg were of a different breed than most, tough as nails and full of piss and vinegar, as they say.
Father Rodgers stopped, his face glowing like a small puddle on a moonlit night as he attempted to free his face of tears and snot, but only served to spread it.
“I’m so sorry, Jack,” Father Rodgers cried. “Please forgive me.”
Jack scoffed and bit his lip, agitating a recently opened scab. He felt the heat rise in his chest and was certain if the ACOs scanned him right then, they’d think him to be hostile and he’d get the bolt of Zeus all up in that ass.
“What’re you going on about, now?” the warden said.
Unless you were a politician, a booster, or an eighteen-year-old blonde with throbbing breasts, it was hard to catch and keep Warden Fitzgerald’s attention. Jack saw the moment when the warden looked at the padre for the first time—really looked at him—and he knew what he was thinking because he had thought the same thing: that padre is a fucking child.
There is no programing in the ACOs hardware that dictates how to handle civilians, so they let Father Rodgers enter the forbidden area between them and their con.
Jack and the padre locked eyes and for an instant they were one person, connected at the roots of their tragic lives, bound together for the remainder of their lives, however long that may be.
Father Rodgers threw his cane aside then prostrated himself at Jack’s feet and begged for forgiveness. Jack could have refused. He could have told him to get fucked and rot in hell, and perhaps he should have, but Jack had just recently found God. And with his newfound faith, he accepted the apology, forcing a smile, nodding.
“Good grief, Father, compose yourself.” The warden looked at his watch again, annoyed. He nodded at Jack and the ACOs split them up. Father Rodgers clung to Jack’s leg, pulling, hugging, crying. After a brief struggle, the ACOs finally succeeded at their task of separation, then they continued the walk toward the chair.
One could relive their entire life in the three-minute walk from their lonely cell to the electric chair. As for Jack, he relived the last two hours of his life. For in that span of time was his absolute salvation.
Two hours ago
Anyone slated to die by lethal methods doesn’t have to die on an empty stomach, but “It’ll make my job a hellava lot easier,” the city coroner argued, “and cleaner.” Prior to the scheduled death, the prison offered an accommodation the prisoners dubbed “the last supper.” It was a much-appreciated amends for the subpar meals the prisoners had to endure over the years. The AI replicator machines made anything a prisoner desired. Although it was 3D printed food it looked, tasted, and even smelled like the real deal. Jack’s best friend, Samuel Holmes, picked cotton candy as his last meal. The other prisoners poked and made fun, but he did not waver. No. Not Sam. He stuck to his conviction to the moment they pulled the switch, arguing that it reminded him of the happiest moments of his childhood. He was executed a few months prior. Jack missed him dearly.
Unlike Sam, Jack opted to die on a full stomach. For his last meal he ordered a nice, hearty T-bone steak, medium rare, of course, with a side of sunny-side-up eggs and fried hashbrowns “crispier than a thirteen-year-old’s nut rag,” he instructed the ACO that took his order. Rounding out the plate was two slices of buttered wheat toast. Jack laughed at himself as he bit into a corner, realizing the indoctrination into a healthy lifestyle instilled by his wife had been rooted deeply. I’ll be dead in a few hours, he thought, and I’m worried about my cholesterol? He acknowledged the irony, shrugged, then mopped up a swath of steak sauce and threw the slice in his mouth.
He was licking what remained on the plate—a delightful concoction of steak sauce mixed with egg yolk—when the padre entered his cell. He was so preoccupied with the task he didn’t even hear the door open. What first caught his attention was the song the man of cloth was humming: You are my sunshine. It was the same song his wife used to hum to their daughter whenever she was scared or sick. The same song, the same tone and tempo, soft, majestic, beautiful.
The man cleared his throat. Jack looked up, embarrassed. The stranger introduced himself as Father Rodgers, extending his hand, waiting to be reciprocated. Jack unpacked the man before him. If you can even call him a man, he thought.
Father Rodgers didn’t carry himself with much authority, he lacked that innate confidence and glowing aura about him that most believers harbored. Timid and frail, was Jack’s first impression. A fraud. He had the wan, tired face of a holocaust survivor. His cheeks sucked in. And his shifty eyes didn’t instill much faith or trust in Jack.
His hand stood suspended in the air, shaking nervously, seemingly afraid of the embarrassment if Jack did not take it.
Jack smirked and used the palm of his hand to wipe his mouth free of dinner. Then he stood and mirrored the awkward pose: hand suspended in midair, solid, unshaking, looking into Father Rodgers’s eyes—which shifted from Jack’s eyes to his hand full of steak sauce and yolk—genuinely curious what a man of faith would do when presented with such blatant disrespect. Turn the other cheek? Jack thought. He wasn’t a cruel man by nature. It was prison that’d turned him that way.
After having his fun, he wiped his hand on his pants, stepped forward, grabbed Father Rodgers’s hand firmly then shook his hand with the respect a man of position deserves.
“Jack the Ripper,” he said, giving the name his fellow prisoners had taken to calling him. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Padre.” Father retracted his arm as soon as was appropriately possible, seemingly afraid that murder was contagious and that touching the hand of a convicted murderer for more than three seconds was how it spread, a number that was as arbitrary as twenty seconds to wash hands or six feet to stop the spread of germs.
In a past life, Jack would’ve felt snubbed, offended. But that was long ago. His uptight personality had been reshaped, molded by the dark happenings of prison life. Now instead of being offended, he rather enjoyed making people feel uncomfortable, their reactions, the way they cowered into themselves absently. He laughed and leapt onto the magnetic levitating bedframe. It hovered over the ground forty-two inches precisely, with nothing under it but light and shadows. The mattress itself was only an inch thick, made of a metamaterial that absorbed the contact of his falling body perfectly. The material had since been used to create military and police grade Kevlar. It was lighter, stronger, and there was a massive gulf between it and its competitors in terms of efficiency. NASA and car manufacturers used it as the inner lining of insulation, the latter also using it for air bags, too.
Warden Fitzgerald’s research laboratory was at the forefront of the burgeoning interstellar mining industry. While androids policed convicts down on earth, he had several teams on the moon, mining Helium3, and they had just started their second colony on Mars. Every nine months, a shuttle full of precious metals and ores was shipped back to earth for the inventive genius to tinker with.
Father Rodgers examined the room. Jack enjoyed watching him make for the bed, think better of it, look around the room, contemplate sitting on the ground, then make for the bed again only to stop short.
Within the wall, like every cell in the nation, hid the typical furnishings.
Jack laughed lightly and said to the ceiling, “Can a brotha getta chair?”
A mechanical ticking within the walls startled Father Rodgers as unseen wheels and gears grinded and shifted. He went about in circles, searching for the source, when a retractable arm attached to the wall that was adjacent to the bed extended and a foldable chair was presented to him. Jack motioned for him to sit, and he obliged. He settled in the chair and with steady eyes, he looked at Jack, suddenly carrying himself with more confidence than before. There was a tenderness to his eyes, an apologetic sincerity cultivated by years of practice that Jack imagined every veterinarian has prior to euthanizing a family pet. He didn’t say it, but then, he didn’t have to. Jack could tell he felt bad for him.
Jack studied the young padre, who stood his ground.
It was Jack who finally looked away.
Father Rodgers’s gaze crawled up the floor to the walls. He wondered what secret technology laid hidden within.
His eyes gravitated to the only other mass in the room save for the levitating bed—on the ceiling was a mechanical device with two arms and layered extensions that were retracted. On the end of the two arms was a netted device in the shape of a skull and dangling from the net was a breathing apparatus used to deliver sleeping gas. It looked like a cross between dentist equipment and a pilot’s breathing apparatus. Jack followed Father Rodgers’s bewildered stare.
“Is that it?” Father Rodgers asked, gesturing toward the hanging contraption.
Warden Fitzgerald’s metamaterials paved the road into a new age, “an upgrade into the world of tomorrow” as it was advertised, far exceeding the industrial revolution or the information wave. Flying cars, drone delivery systems, 3D printed homes, Warden Fitzgerald’s company had a hand in them all, pushing the envelope, leading the changing future by making the change.
“Sure is,” Jack said, enjoying the novelty of someone new to play with. A new toy.
“So, every night when you go to sleep, you relive your crimes?”
Jack nodded and glared at Father Rodgers, who seemed extremely young to be a priest. Jack was clueless on the process it took to become ordained, but from the looks of it, all you needed was a high school diploma.
“How old are you?” Jack asked, shifting on the maglift bed. He was suddenly intrigued by the young man before him. Who was this young man? he thought. And what gives him the authority to forgive me? Even when I can’t forgive myself?
“Twenty-five.” Father Rodgers seemed a little too proud of his tender age.
“Huh,” was all Jack could think of saying. He racked his memory, filtering through the mess of useless knowledge he’d accumulated over a lifetime of scholarly interest, trying to recollect something he’d read in a National Geographic article years prior about the reason most men of the cloth were old, and most women of the cloth were much younger. But his memory failed him.
And as he would soon discover, not for the first time.
“How old is the average priest?”
“I don’t know,” Father Rodgers said in earnest. He shrugged, then guessed, “Thirty-five?”
With the weight of certain death crushing down on him, guilt squeezing his chest into fearsome knots, Jack let out a loud rambunctious laugh. It was a nervous laugh, timid, like when the dentist tells you he ran out of Novocain just moments prior to digging in for a root canal. Jack was suddenly mad. Irate, even. Not for the young father before him, but for how his life turned out, for how his life would end. He projected that anger on Father Rodgers.
“What in the fuck could you possibly know about life, about death?” he said. “You’re a goddamn child.” The words felt like hot venom coming out of his mouth. He instantly regretted them.
Father Rodgers twitched suddenly and without cause. It was more of a jerk than a twitch. A violent jerk. Unordinary. Ominous. His slouched posture straightened, shoulders back, head held high as if he had a book perched on it, a malevolent grin tugging at the corner of his lips. But it was his eyes that worried Jack the most, for something had changed in his eyes, something subtle, but equally profound. Whereas before his eyes shifted timidly about the room like a nervous teenager about to steal a CD, now he projected utter confidence, pure and untapped.
Jack was mighty curious. He had met his wife at Stanford his senior year. She was a sophomore and an esteemed member of the drama club. He fell in love with her the moment he saw her, that day, so long ago, reading the horror classic The Outsider by Stephen King under the weeping willow in the middle of campus square. It would take him years to admit that he did in fact stalk her to the drama building, running, crawling, hiding behind trees and garbage cans. So smitten was he that he forgot his aversion to sweat, and as he lay between two bags of trash, breathing laboriously, sweating admirably, he vowed to produce the bravery to speak with her. He scarcely slept that night. The next morning, he signed up to be stagehand even though he had a massive workload writing his dissertation. He watched from the shadows her ritual preparation, memorizing every curve of her face, the way the skylights accentuated her high cheekbones and made the blue in her eyes pop. She did this funny thing right before she went on stage: she closed her eyes and shook her body (the same way Rodgers did just then) and when she opened her eyes, they seemed different, as if she were shedding her identity and assuming another. “It’s how I get in character,” she’d always say.
That’s the impression Jack got just then—that Father Rodgers was shedding his identity and assuming another, switching roles, getting into character.
“I was an orphan, but I grew up in the church,” Father Rodgers said. “In many ways, I have been training for this my whole life. I can assure you with the utmost of sentiment that I am more than enough qualified for the task at hand.” He paused, squinted, then smirked slyly. “In fact, I may be the only person on this blessed planet that can forgive you of your crimes.”
“Crimes?” Jack never attended church but for the two big holidays (Easter and Christmas) when his wife dragged him along like a captured slave. And even when he did attend, he surely didn’t pay attention to the sermon. But he was quite certain that sins were forgiven by the church and crimes were forgiven by the state.
Father Rodgers seemed to catch onto this. “Sins.” He corrected himself. “I’m the only person on the planet that can forgive you of your sins.”
