BZRK Reloaded Read online

  “Zoob, I’m just saying . . .” the one they’d called KimKim said.

  They wound the tape efficiently around her wrists. The one named Zoob searched her pockets, found the cell phone, switched it off, and stuck it in his jacket pocket.

  The Russian laughed. “You’re just saying? Listen, stupid boy: we grab a villager, that’s what they want, yes? Good. So if the mate finds out that we also picked up cigarettes and Cognac on the way, well, we can make him happy, da? ‘Here, Dragoslav, have a bottle, have two packs.’ No problem, right? But you don’t mess with the villagers.”

  Zoob hauled Minako up off the sand as if she weighed nothing. He casually tossed her over one shoulder and walked to the Zodiac. He set her in the bottom where water sloshed several inches deep.

  “Get this straight, KimKim, before dig your own grave. This isn’t the merchant marine,” Zoob said as they gunned the outboard engine. “This is the Doll Ship. There are rules that you can break … and maybe you get some extra punishment duty. But. But there are other rules that if you break, you find yourself trying to swim ashore from twenty miles out with six feet of chain around your ankles.”

  The young one thought that over. Then said, “Nah.”

  But nevertheless, Minako had made it to the ship unharmed.

  What they had done instead was ignore her outraged protests and pleas. For six days she had been in this place, and all they had done was show her videos from some group called Nexus Humanus. And she’d been given reading materials, also from Nexus Humanus. Mostly she’d been told about her benefactors—Charles and Benjamin Armstrong, the Great Souls.

  And she had been assigned a “lodge” in Benjaminia.

  The steel sphere that was Benjaminia had nine levels. Each level was a steel catwalk that went all the way around the sphere. Level 5 was the largest. The circumference of the sphere was 125 meters at that point.

  But Minako was not assigned to level 5—a prime number. She was given a lodge on level 4. Four was not a good number for her. Worse yet, her lodge was one of fourteen lodges on her level. Each lodge was a slightly wedge-shaped space—wider at the outer edge where it met the nickel sphere and narrower where it opened onto the connecting catwalk.

  There was a raised metal IKEA bunk bolted down. Beneath that bunk, a desk and chair. There was the sort of tiny bathroom you might find on a boat—a toilet, a sink you could barely fit your hands into, and a shower that used the entire bathroom as a stall.

  The bathroom was the only place where there was any privacy. The rest of the lodge was open metal grille below and above. Minako could look up and see the soles of the shoes of the man who lived up there. When she looked down, she saw the girl who lived beneath her on level 3.

  She was not allowed to talk to either. Talking was done only out on the connecting catwalk or down on the assembly floor. And there was no point.

  Every conversation:

  “I’ve been kidnapped. I want to go home. I want my mother!”

  “You’ve been liberated, freed! Wait until you see. Wait until you understand!”

  “I don’t want to be here. What is this awful place?”

  “We call it the Doll Ship. We’re like the beloved toys of the Great Souls. It’s so happy here!”

  The words would change, but never the conclusion, never the message, never the smiling acceptance.

  They loved her. She was going to be so happy.

  The top of the sphere was the big painting, the one that showed God the Father and Charles Darwin. Between those two was a disturbing creature that could only be meant as some sort of metaphor. It showed a completely—embarrassingly—nude man with what amounted to two heads. The two heads were seemingly joined together, allowing for a third eye.

  Minako figured the third eye was meant to evoke wisdom and knowledge. The possibility that this painting—and that third eye— was anything other than a metaphor did not occur to her. It simply never occurred to her that the sky painting was of a real person.

  There were seventy-six people in Benjaminia, but there were lodges for more. The residents of the sphere—the town—ranged in age from ten or eleven, on up to middle age. And all of them she had encountered—all of them—were happy.

  Very happy.

  Consistently, sustainably, happy. It was a madhouse. A floating insane asylum. A lunatic cult hidden inside a liquefied natural gas ship.

  At the announcement that the Great Souls would be coming for a visit, the residents were more than happy. Word had come over the public address system and everyone had come rushing from their lodges and raced down the spiral staircases to the assembly floor to hug and cry tears of joy. It reminded Minako in some way of a nightmare version of The Wizard of Oz. No Munchkins or witches, but a terrible falseness and suppressed hysteria in everything.

  They said she would understand soon. Someone they called Toblerone—like the chocolate bar—had taken sick, so they were without an adjustor until he recovered. But don’t worry, Minako, they said, Toblerone will be back, or someone just like him, and your happiness will be assured.

  You will be as happy as any of us.

  Have you watched the third video? Wasn’t it the best ever?

  Have you read the pamphlet titled “Youth and Happiness: They Really Do Go Together”? Didn’t you find it amazing?

  But Minako overheard two of the proctors—those in charge of the village of Benjaminia—talking in hushed voices. Toblerone had died. Meningitis, they said. And now, in the wake of a suicide by someone called Joe Carpenter, there was no “twitcher” on board, no adjustor.

  That left her, Minako, the only unadjusted person aboard, aside from much of the crew.

  All of this was mysterious to Minako, who spent her days worrying about her mother and her little brother. And sketching on the paper they supplied her. And pretending to read the boring Nexus Humanus pamphlets.

  And counting.

  And crying.

  And plotting escape.

  Helen Falkenhym Morales lay in her bed alone. So strange. She had spent nights without MoMo while on overseas trips. Rare, but it happened. But in the three years she had slept in this room in the private portion of the White House, she had never been alone.

  Now, alone.

  Her staff was walking on eggshells with her. They were keeping things from her, trying to give her time to come to grips with the tragic death of her husband.

  Morales saw the moment in memory, saw her own hands as they grabbed MoMo’s head and SLAM!

  It had made a sound like a cracking walnut. That was how hard his head hit the tile.

  Crack.

  She’d been lucky the tile didn’t break.

  As it was, everyone had bought her story of finding MoMo dead in the bathtub when she got up in the night to relieve herself.

  Now she had a cover for any strange behavior. People would say, Oh, she’s coping with the grief.

  But what she was coping with was the question: What in God’s name had happened to her? How could she have done that terrible deed? She was not a murderer.

  Her heart was broken. She had killed him. She had bashed in the head of the only man she had ever loved.

  Something …a gear had slipped. Like when she was little and riding her bicycle and suddenly the chain would fall off the sprockets and the pedals were no longer connected and the bike would wobble as she tried to regain control.

  That’s how she felt.

  She was scared. The pain in her heart was so terrible it had to be physical, it couldn’t just be her emotion squeezing her like that, like an iron fist that wanted to stop the beating.

  Reality did not leave the president alone to grieve. She wasn’t the only one who seemed to have slipped a gear, the entire country had gone nuts: the bizarre death of Grey McLure and the indescribable horror at the stadium; the UN massacre; a terrible mass murder in a house on Capitol Hill; and now early reports were coming in that some of Rios’s ETA people had lost it and shot up a bookstore, sup
posedly in a gun battle with a terrorist.

  The thing on Capitol Hill was at least a local matter. So far. The rest was all on her plate. She was getting hourly updates on the investigation into the UN terror attack, each report amounting to the same thing: we don’t know. Now she was getting word that there was a fullscale turf war going on over the bookstore massacre, with FBI and Washington police fighting over witnesses.

  She had picked a very bad time to lose her mind.

  There was Cognac in the nightstand, very high-end Cognac, a gift from the French president. She’d already had one snifter. Now she had a second one. She downed it in a gulp.

  No one would blame her for having a drink.

  Except of course that she didn’t drink. Never had liked the stuff.

  The White House

  Office of the Press Secretary

  For Immediate Release

  Summary: White House Releases details of memorial service for First Gentleman Monte Morales.

  WASHINGTON, DC, Today: The White House office of protocol announced today that the funeral for First Gentleman Monte Morales will take place on Saturday. It will be a strictly private event. Mr Morales, a U.S. Air Force veteran with service in the Iraq Theater of Operations, will be interred at Arlington National Cemetery.

  Following the funeral service and interment, a public memorial service will be held at the National Cathedral.

  In addition to the POTUS, foreign dignitaries will include British Prime Minister Bowen and Mrs. Victoria Poplak-Bowen; Hanna Ellstrom, First Lady of Canada; Claude Dehaye, First Gentleman of France, and Mexico’s First Lady, Sofia Soto.

  The full list of dignitaries is appended.

  Notes for book proposal: Billionaire Freak Show by Jan DeVoor Lengthy prelim interview with Carmela Fazenda. Claims she was a maid working at the Armstrong household NYC yrs, 1982 to 2008. Cuban native hired by Arthur Armstrong. Worked as general downstairs maid later assigned to work specifically for C and B. Later, subsequent to AA’s death, worked for C & B.

  Much talk of Arthur’s fanatic anti-communism. Fazenda sympathized as a Cuban expat. Liked C & B much pity etc. C was the cool calculating one. B maybe smarter but volatile.

  Says twins raised in near-total isolation. Attempts to intro them to staff children generally disastrous. An attic space was eventually set up as a sort of artificial environment. Mannequins dressed and posed in artificial environments. Twins would pretend they were real. (Note: mannequins believed purchased from Bloomingdale’s. May have searchable records.)

  The attic space was called the doll house.

  Relations betw AA and C & B were good. AA fascinated by his grandchildren. Believed them a sign from god.

  Fazenda says things changed when AA became ill. Twins panicked. What would become of them etc. Spent more time in attic mannequin menagerie. AA orders them out of attic to focus on business.

  AA disease degenerative ups and downs and C & B start to use the time to learn more. Take to business.

  Fazenda believes C & B may have assisted AA suicide. Fazenda witnesses conversation between C & B. “This dies with us, brother. As dead as him.”

  Fazenda retired, replaced by woman Ling (last name? first name?) Warned not to speak to press. But now terminal herself she is talking.

  Second interview sched for Monday.

  Update: Fazenda dead after fall on subway tracks.

  ELEVEN

  “The attic,” Benjamin said. “I was thinking of the attic.” “I often remember it,” Charles admitted, but he didn’t like talking

  about their childhood.

  The Twins traveled by private jet. There was no other practical

  way. Their jet had a specially built seat, and handrails bolted to the

  overhead so they could hold themselves upright for the trip back and

  forth to the specially built bathroom.

  They stayed aboard the plane during refueling in Novosibirsk,

  Russia. They did not get off until the plane had landed and taxied into

  a secure hangar at Hong Kong International.

  The Twins had traveled with three bodyguards, a personal assistant named Samuel, and an old Vietnamese woman named Ling. Ling

  was a piece of work—ancient, wrinkled, short but squat and amazingly strong. There would never be a need to wire Ling to ensure her

  loyalty—the Twins owned her body and soul after they had bribed

  the communist authorities in Hanoi to release Ling’s son from prison. At the airport Charles and Benjamin transferred to a helicopter. It, too, was specially equipped. It belonged to the Doll Ship and had been flown to shore to accommodate them. The only problem with the helicopter was that it was too small to take all three of the bodyguards. There was room for only the Twins, Ling and a single AmericaStrong operative whom everyone called Altoona after his

  hometown.

  The helicopter whined its way to full power and tilted out through

  the doors of the hangar. The weather had turned nasty, with low

  clouds and gusting winds. Rain and worse wind was ahead. Already

  the flight conditions were less than optimum for a landing on a pitching ship. But they hadn’t come all this way to be denied now. “Our friends were mannequins,” Benjamin said bitterly, spitting

  the words.

  “Listen, brother, you must fight these memories. She wired you,

  that McLure girl. You know that. You know that these memories are

  given too much prominence because she wired you.”

  Benjamin stared dully ahead. “My best friend was Poppy. Do

  you remember her, brother? I imagined going out to the movies with

  her. With a mannequin. With a thing. A thing made of plaster over a

  metal frame, topped with a yellow wig.”

  The helicopter lifted off with a lurch that upset the stomach they

  shared. The city stabbed up at them with a hundred bright skyscrapers. Then the busy harbor. And finally they were out over gray water. “I wanted to look under her dress,” Benjamin said. “A mannequin.” “For God’s sake, let it go. We aren’t those children anymore, Benjamin.” The words were painful. The memories were painful. Worse

  than painful, shameful. Humiliating.

  “Aren’t we those children, Charles? And yet we are en route to the

  Doll Ship, and what is the Doll Ship but the doll house with anatomically correct mannequins?”

  “The whole world will change, Benjamin. We are going to change

  the whole world. Do you understand that? I know you do. All of that,

  all the …all the past, will be a prologue and everything will be—” “We will still be what we are, though, won’t we?”

  “If the world changes, how can we be the same?” Charles asked.

  “It’s going to be better, Benjamin. It will be better. And soon. For now,

  there’s the Doll Ship.”

  The Doll Ship had passed from the Philippine Sea into the South China Sea. Minako, in the nickel steel bubble of Benjaminia, knew nothing of it. All that could be noticed inside that eerie pressure cooker was that the swell of the ocean now had a shorter interval—smaller, faster waves, and sometimes the whole place would sink into a trough before taking a hard slap that would have people reaching for handrails.

  “They are on their way!” the public address system blared. “The Great Souls are in the air and on their way!”

  English was the language of the Doll Ship. But Minako heard cries of pleasure and excitement in half a dozen languages. The girl downstairs—her name was Fatima—spoke Spanish and despite being aboard the Doll Ship for six months had not acquired much English.

  What she did know were mostly slogans from the endless Nexus Humanus books and pamphlets and videos.

  She was happy. “Sustainably happy,” although Minako doubted she understood the words.

  Minako was not happy. She had wondered if she should climb up to the highest level
and leap off the railing. The fall would be something close to a hundred feet, more than enough to kill her.

  How long a fall? Two seconds? Three?

  If only she could be sure it was not four seconds . . .

  The loneliness choked her sometimes. Choked the air from her lungs. Her mother. Her friends. Her bedroom. Her things. All of it gone. All of everything that had ever seemed normal had been traded for this floating madhouse, these bright-eyed lunatics.

  Fatima had seen her crying and come to stand outside Minako’s quarters, speaking from the catwalk outside. “No be sadness, Minako. Be happy. Be joy!” She pronounced that last word “yoy.”

  “I don’t feel joy,” Minako had said. “Why would I? I’ve been kidnapped. My mother cries every night, I am sure. I can see her in my mind, I can see her crying for her daughter. I can see her eyes all red.”

  “No, no, Minako. The world entire will be happy. Tu mama she is happy you. Happy you.”

  “Don’t you miss your parents?” Minako had asked.

  And a bleak, hollow look had come into Fatima’s dark eyes. “No?” She had said it as a question. Then, more confidently, “No. They are come, the Great Souls.”

  “Who are these Great Souls?” Minako had asked.

  “You have not look at photos?”

  Minako shook her head. “No.”

  “Yes. Toblerone, this is why. His sicking.”

  “What is so special about these people?” Minako asked.

  Fatima smiled mysteriously. “Very beauty. Most beauty men.” Then she said, “I have photo in my lodge.”

  And if only the timing had worked out a bit better Minako might have had a chance to see what Fatima could show her. But before that could happen, the announcement came.

  “Everyone assemble in the commons, wearing your cleanest clothing and happiest face!”

  Fatima had yelped and run off, forgetting entirely her offer to Minako.

  Minako had only one change of clothing, the Doll Ship was not known for its style. Women wore black slacks and powder-blue blouses. Men wore khakis and white shirts. Young girls wore a sort of school uniform: pleated skirt and white blouse. There were no young boys, a fact that only at that very moment dawned on Minako.