Brooks & Smith, page 3
The other women groaned.
“That’s such bullshit,” Foster said.
“Right?” Burroughs said. “This idiot should be dead, but he gets off on a technicality because he’s a loveless scrub?”
Smirnova rolled her eyes. “Men can get away with anything.”
The women simultaneously drank to that.
“What did you do with the Rusalka?” Cook asked.
“Oh. You’ll love this,” Burroughs said. “It got so depressed about its performance issues that it killed itself.”
Foster nearly choked on her martini. “What?”
“I don’t know. Maybe when it became a man, it started thinking like a man,” Burroughs replied. “All I know is, Agent Smith is the luckiest idiot on the planet.”
“I’ll say,” Cook said.
“It’s infuriating.” Burroughs finished, “And on the way out the door, he took the damn tracksuit. I don’t know what for. I don’t want to know what for.”
“Probably something kinky,” Foster said.
“I don’t want to know,” Burroughs repeated.
“I think you do,” Smirnova teased.
The others laughed.
Foster shot Burroughs a sly look. “You gonna let him tickle you?”
Burroughs responded so enthusiastically that she spilled a bit of her drink. “No!”
“Come on,” Smirnova said. “Everyone breaks Rule 1.14.9.”
“Not everyone,” Cook offered.
“I haven’t!” Burroughs insisted. “And if I were going to, it certainly wouldn’t be for a maniac who sleeps with Russian tickle monsters.”
No one found her protests convincing.
Code Fourteen
Date: 3 August 2004
This transcript has been compared with the audio recording submitted and is an accurate transcription. Signed, Agent Keiki Harris.
Q1: Agent Aaron Moreno (ID#6213459)
Q2: Agent Lori Griffin (ID#6994127)
A: Agent Edward Smith (ID#7717812)
==BEGINNING OF RECORDING==
Q1: Agent Smith...
A: It’s about god**** time someone showed up.
Q2: There’s no smoking in here.
A: I’ve been sitting here for four hours.
Q1: Is it going to bother you?
Q2: Not really. You?
Q1: No. We’ll let it go, I guess... Agent Smith, you reported a Code Fourteen taking place the evening of August 4, 2004. Correct?
A: That last night?
Q1: Yes.
A: Then yeah.
Q2: You understand that the information you’re going to share with us cannot be shared outside of this room. Correct?
A: Yeah. I know. I’m not f***ing stupid.
Q1: Tell us what you saw.
A: I was on my way back from Trenton. Got the call for Willowbrook Park, so I headed over.
Q2: What were you doing in Trenton?
A: None of your business.
Q2: Not making a drug deal?
A: (laughing) I don’t have to go all the way to god**** Trenton for drugs. Anyway, the wraiths were pretty much under control by the time I got there. I think I got to kill three... four, maybe? Saved one twink.
Q2: Arturo Brooks?
A: Are those words?
Q2: That’s the name of the man you saved.
A: Sure. If you say so. In any case, the wraiths were a total waste of time. But then I saw a Code Fourteen.
Q1: Explain.
A: Everyone was doing cleanup and I f***ing hate that s***. I saw a few survivors in the distance, so I headed that way. Then they were me.
Q2: I beg your pardon?
A: I saw two guys. One of them was me.
Q1: And the other?
A: Didn’t know him.
Q1: Can you describe him?
A: He was dead.
Q1: Anything else?
A: It was night. I couldn’t see s***.
Q2: But you’re sure the other man was you?
A: Yeah. Turns out it’s pretty easy to identify yourself.
Q1: Can you be more specific? Was the other you the same age as you? Older? Younger?
A: Older. Future me, I guess.
Q2: What was he doing?
A: I don’t know.
Q2: How can you not know?
A: I skedaddled because it’s a Code Fourteen. Time travel. Oooga booga. You drill it into our heads that there’s s*** we’re not supposed to see. Now you’re surprised I didn’t want to see it?
Q1: Agent Smith... you have a reputation for bending rules. I find it difficult to believe that you’d follow them to a tee in this one specific instance.
A: Well, I did. I don’t know what to tell you.
Q2: Why?
A: Why what?
Q2: Why follow them this time?
A: Because it’s freaky s***. Someday I’m gonna time travel? No thanks. I’ve watched enough sci-fi. I know not to meet myself. (Brief silence) Okay. Fine. The other me said not to talk about it.
Q1: You spoke to him?
A: Not exactly. I saw him, said “what the f***.” He saw me. Said not to tell anyone I saw him.
Q1: Were those his exact words? “Don’t tell anyone”?
A: What am I, a tape recorder?
Q2: You just finished a cigarette.
A: Yeah, and now I’m starting a new one.
Q2: Are you nervous about something, Agent Smith?
A: Why would I be nervous? Because I saw something I shouldn’t? Because Reticent agents sometimes... disappear?
Q1: Nothing’s going to happen to you. You’ve been with us for six years, and in spite of your... everything... you’re one of our better agents. We just need a complete record of the incident.
A: Cool. You have it. Can I go?
(Unintelligible)
Q2: Do you think the man you saw with your future self might have been Arturo Brooks?
A: I’m really not good with faces.
Q1: Even ones you’ve just met?
A: Even your mom’s.
Q2: Is there anything you’re leaving out?
(Brief silence)
A: No.
Q2: Then you can go.
(Shuffling, door slamming)
Q1: Think he knows something he’s not telling us?
Q2: I know he is.
==END OF RECORDING==
Willowbrook Park
Arturo Brooks had never been to the SUNY Staten Island Counseling Center, but his grades were slipping and an academic advisor assured him that seeking counseling could help him get a mulligan on the fall semester and preserve his 4.0 GPA. The young man let out a loud sigh, then extended a hand to pull open the heavy door to the basement-level waiting room.
The room was empty of people, but full of peeling vinyl chairs and chipped end tables—each covered in staple magazines like Vehicles, Wine Aficionado, and Pretend You Like Sports. Stock photos on the wall featured diverse people smiling in fields, eating salads, and giving each other high fives in a library. Each photo was faded, thanks to years’ worth of exposure to buzzing fluorescent tubes. In short, it was a pretty depressing place for a place that treated depression.
Arturo approached a reception window. It slid open with a HRRRRCH, bringing him a depth of plexiglass closer to a smiling, chubby receptionist in oversized, purple-framed glasses. He was tall and she was seated, so he bent down a bit to make eye contact.
The receptionist’s fingers hovered over the keys, ready for action.
“Name?” she asked.
“Um... Arturo Brooks.”
She spoke as she typed. “Do you need a Spanish language counselor today?”
“No.” Arturo squinted. “Not sure why you’d assume that.”
“These are just standard intake questions,” she said.
Arturo wasn’t sure he believed that, given his name and tanned complexion. He responded with a curt “’kay.”
“Do you need to speak with a gender and sexual orientation specialist?” she asked.
“Um. No.”
“Are you sure?” she asked, with a serious look.
Arturo tilted his head. “I’m sure.”
“What can we help you with today then?” she asked.
Arturo didn’t know the best way to explain. He settled on, “I was at Willowbrook Park.”
The receptionist seemed to understand. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Yeah. Everyone is.” Arturo’s response came out bitter.
A clipboard slid through the window, with a pen attached by a springy plastic string. Arturo took the board and glanced down at the paperwork. Primary Care Physician... allergies... emergency contacts...
“I... uh... I don’t have any,” he said.
“If you don’t have a Primary Care doctor or allergies, just leave them blank.”
“I mean any of it...” He slid the clipboard back through without writing anything.
The stock photo salad eaters looked on, judging him. Arturo took a squeaky seat and buried his head in his hands, unable to pretend he liked sports. Three months earlier, everything had been fine. The young man hadn’t had plans for his life, and he hadn’t needed any. But his live-in-the-moment attitude became untenable in the face of death. Several faces of death. Dozens, actually. He looked through his fingers at the people eating salad, and his mind distorted the image. They were pale monsters. Their salad was human skin. He stopped looking and buried his head deeper.
It didn’t take long for Arturo Brooks to be welcomed into the office of Dr. Wendy Santos.
Her voice beckoned. “Ven, for favor.”
Arturo entered with a sigh. “Dije que no necesito un hispanohablante.”
“Sorry. Our receptionist is a little racist,” Dr. Santos said.
Arturo sighed again, then took a seat in a slightly inclined armchair that he’d definitely seen at IKEA. Kläppsta or Klackbö or something like that. It wasn’t comfortable. He would have nervously tapped his fingernails on the end table next to it, if he had any fingernails left.
Dr. Santos’s office was still in the basement, but at least the lighting came from a warm lamp on her laminate desk. Instead of stock photo people, there was abstract art. Instead of sticky magazines, a fake potted plant. It was an office that said, ‘I’m trying my best on a state school’s mental health budget.’
“What’s going on?” Dr. Santos asked.
“I’m probably going to flunk out.” Arturo despaired. “I don’t know why I care. Nobody else does. My dad did, but...”
The doctor waited for him to finish. When he didn’t, she asked, “He doesn’t care now?”
Arturo explained. “He’s dead. Willowbrook Park.”
“I’m sorry,” Dr. Santos said.
Arturo shut his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. After a moment, he opened his eyes and ranted to the doctor’s face. “No offense, but I am so tired of hearing people say they’re sorry. Or that it’ll get better. Or that they understand what I’m going through. And then I never see them again because they don’t want to hang out with someone who’s a bummer, or we were never that close in the first place.”
She acknowledged that. “You feel like you’re alone.”
“I am alone. My mom is dead. My dad is dead. My sister is dead. And I have to go to work and pass biochem and pretend I’m fine,” Arturo said.
“Why?” she asked.
“Someone has to, but... I’m only twenty-two. I don’t know what to say to... to funeral homes, or insurance agents, or... debt collectors...” His voice became bitter. “I shouldn’t have to know.” Arturo sank deeper into his seat. “I don’t know how to give a eulogy to a room full of people I barely know. I’m... I’m living in my childhood home, and it’s just me. And I don’t even know how to make the stupid kitchen sink stop dripping. Or who to call. Or how to pick up enough hours between the student union and Subway to pay the bills until the insurance people do whatever they do. And... and if I even find the time to study, I can’t focus. I can’t even bring myself to set foot on campus because Willowbrook Park is right there. Just behind the treeline.” He made a vague gesture toward the wall, which became a vague gesture at himself and the tears that were now flowing from his eyes. “I do this now. All the time.”
“You have a lot to deal with,” Dr. Santos said.
“You think?” Arturo shook his head. “Sorry. I just... don’t know how long I can do this. The grades are the first thing to go, but it’s... there’s gonna be more. I can’t do everything. Either the house, or my job, or I’m gonna starve to death because I can’t eat without thinking about crunching noises.” His left eye twitched as he remembered something from that night.
“It’s good to recognize your own limits,” Dr. Santos said.
Arturo sniffled. “What am I supposed to do?”
“That’s the question, isn’t it? You know all the things you want to do, and you know you don’t have time or energy for everything. Only you can choose what to prioritize.”
“Super helpful,” Arturo scoffed.
“What do you value most? Is it school? Your childhood home...?”
Arturo pondered that. “My sister and I were gonna be the first generation of our family to earn a degree... that’s all on me now, but... I don’t really care. I mean, my dad’s not here to care, so who am I doing it for?” He bit his lip. “I don’t want to live in that house. It makes me feel miserable. But I don’t want to clean it out either, because then I’d have to throw their things away. What I really want...” He trailed off.
“What?” Dr. Santos asked.
“I want revenge,” he said.
“That’s understandable, but—”
“But I can’t,” Arturo said. “Because they’re dead. I mean, they were already dead when they attacked, right? Now they’re super dead—”
Dr. Santos tried to keep her face neutral. She failed, and her eyes narrowed. “Arturo...”
“What?” he snapped.
“Do you ever see things that aren’t real?”
Arturo glowered. “No.”
“It’s okay if you do. There are ways to manage that.”
“I’m not crazy. I watched entire families get murdered, and now you and everyone else are pretending like I wasn’t there. Like I didn’t see what happened.”
“What happened?” Dr. Santos asked.
Arturo leaned forward in his seat, and his voice took on a ranting quality. “There were monsters. They looked like dead people. Like skeletons. Their skin was so thin you could almost see through them. They moved like wild animals, and they had razor-sharp teeth. I mean, they tore people apart like it was nothing. Their eyes were glowing yellow. Once it got dark, that was the only thing I could see...” He saw her scribbling something on a notepad. “You don’t believe me.”
“I believe you believe it,” Dr. Santos said.
“No.” Arturo clenched his fist. “There’s an objective reality. There is.”
“Did you have anything to drink that evening?” Dr. Santos asked.
“Maybe two beers,” Arturo said, and he countered her insinuation. “I wasn’t drunk.”
“Have you ever used any psychedelic drugs?” the doctor asked.
“What? No. Never,” Arturo said, with scorn.
At just the wrong moment, something on the doctor’s desk caught his eye. A staple remover, lying there with four ultra-sharp prongs facing him. He fell back in his Kläppsta and gripped the chair’s arms, tight. “Monsters got everyone.” The fangs glistened in the glow of her lamp. “They’re gonna come back and get me.”
Dr. Santos dismissed that. “The people who attacked were on bath salts. Every one of them was either killed or arrested, Arturo.”
Arturo was no longer focused on her. He could see the fangs, hear the crunching. He was pulling his sister by her hand until he was holding nothing but half an arm. Gunshots fired all around. People screamed. Bodies. Blood. Screaming. Fangs. Crunching. Over and over.
Half aware of where he was and half reliving the worst day of his life, Arturo snapped. “Everyone’s acting like the world is normal, and it’s not. It’s not! How can it be? If there are wraiths, who knows what else is out there? There could be aliens. There could be demons. And I’m supposed to focus on biochem?” He leapt from his seat and began pacing. “People should be arming themselves. The government should be doing something. Why isn’t anyone doing anything? There’s one pharmaceutical company handling all this? What the hell is wrong with the world?”
“A lot,” said the doctor, with a tone that seemed almost pleased about it.
Arturo stopped pacing and looked at Dr. Santos. At the sight of her face, he took a step backward. The woman’s eyes had gone completely black, and thick, black tears oozed from their corners.
“What are you?” Arturo asked. “What’s going on?”
The doctor pushed a button under her desk. Behind him, a door locked.
❦
Arturo awoke in his own bed, in his family home, with no idea how he got there and no idea why it smelled like cigarettes. He shot up into a seated position to find the shadows of a man and woman sitting at the foot of his bed, observing him. He reached toward his nightstand and flicked on a lamp, revealing the college dorm-style posters tacked to his walls as well as the identities of the two people.
They’d met before. Two of the Reticent agents who did cleanup at Willowbrook Park.
The man—Edward Smith—spoke first. “Hey, kid. Haven’t seen you since—”
“Since my family got massacred?” Arturo wondered.
“Yeah. You look like you’ve done time at Auschwitz,” Smith said.
“Haven’t been eating well. Thanks,” Arturo said.
Smith reached down into a pocket and handed over a granola bar that—judging from the wrinkles on its wrapper—had been in that pocket through at least one wash cycle. “Here.”
“I’m not hungry,” Arturo said.
“Either you get hungry or I’m gonna shove it down your throat,” Smith said.
Smith’s partner—Erin Burroughs—didn’t like that. Her voice took a condemnatory tone. “Agent Smith—”
Though she didn’t like it, Smith’s threat had worked. Arturo nibbled at the stale granola bar, but the crunching nauseated him. He set the bar down, as if he’d come back to it. “What are you doing here?”
