Vacation (14 page)

But the pencil falls over, lifeless once again.

And I’m asleep.

Jack chews at a serving of vegetables for breakfast, and no normal person eats just vegetables for breakfast. He’s not fooling me for a second.

I join him at his table, and say, “You’ve probably been informed of this already, but Noh’s going to be executed. Blackbeard seems to think that I can save her, so I’m going to try.”

Jack drops his fork. “Why would you want to save that bitch?”

“She’s not a bitch. She’s a good person.”

He laughs. “Krow rejects you, and now you’re so desperate, you’re going after some crazy fucked-up cunt?”

“Shut up!”

“Noh deserves to fry!”

I stand and shove him hard.

He falls back in his chair, but in a blink or two, he’s back on his feet. “Alright, Bernard. If this is really what you want, I’ll help you.”

“It is.”

Hours later, I find myself parked at the front of a fucking mental hospital. “What is this?”

“It’s for your own good,” Jack says, opening his door. “Let’s go.”

“No.”

“Listen, Bernard. You attacked me. There are witnesses. And under the rules of Vacation, I have certain rights over your civil liberties. I can force you to stay here, but I’d rather you signed in voluntarily. You don’t belong in my Tour Group. We both know that.” He looks me in the eyes. “You’re going to have to trust me.”

And what he really means is, what I hope he means is, I have to trust myself.

I have to trust that he’s a Gardener like me, and that everything that’s happened since my hospitalization is real.

By kissing Krow, I kissed my weakness goodbye. Now I’m ready to be courageous and selfish enough to change my life, and find my happiness.

So I sign myself in.

Part 19

Ordinary people own ordinary things. I have ordinary things. Though mine are covered and caged and bolted down, so that I can’t smash them or slice myself or eat glass.

Here are the pills that will keep me tame. Thousands of years of human devolution in a bite sized package. Artificial weaponry.

The people outside these walls, they’re beings of the future. They work for the future and plan for the future and ruin the future. But the people inside these walls are beings of the past. Their futures are stripped away. And what is insanity other than the mind’s defense mechanism to the past? There’s nothing abnormal about the self-proclaimed cannibal in the next room who deals with his life by eating invisible leprechauns. We all deal. We’re all crazy. The mind shapes reality when it doesn’t like the shape reality’s in.

The people inside these walls are society’s failures. And since human beings have an uncanny ability to deny and forget, we don’t want anyone reminding us of our mistakes. Therefore, the insane, the criminals, anyone whose reality contradicts the delusions of society as a whole are packaged in a box that reads: Forget these sick fuckers. We’re dealing with them.

In not so many words, this is what Aubrey tells me in my dream.

My first dream dream in a long while.

Piss Holes and Shit Holes.

Today, there’s an eye and a toe gazing and wiggling at me from opposite walls.

“You’d be wise to stay here,” the Toe says. His voice is soft, but I can tell he’s yelling. He has to, because the toe blocks most of the noise. “It’s a dangerous world out there.”

“Dangerous?” the Eye says. “We can only die once.”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“It means there’s only one thing in the entire Universe that can kill you.”

“Which is even worse.” The Toe wiggles up and down, nodding. “There’s no way to know what that one thing is. Now we have to fear everything.”

“No. We fear nothing.”

“If you really fear nothing, then what are you doing here?”

“I’m not hiding, that’s for sure. My problem is that I like to be that one final thing in people’s lives.”

And if I were forced to stay here, the question is, which one of these men would I become?

Would my fear overwhelm me? Or my hatred?

Which is worse, I never want to find out.

The next time I open my eyes, I’m in the forest, sleepwalking with the customary backpack and ooze-gushing tubes. Someone in the mental hospital must have gotten me out during the night. Someone Garden.

Before long, I’m heading towards a man dressed in white. Soon, I recognize his face. He’s the pirate who brought me and Odin to Blackbeard. “Matt?”

“What did you just call me?” he says.

The change comes over me, and I’m awake again. Blackbeard must have released control.

“I said Matt,” I say. “Isn’t that your name?”

“Matek,” he says. “Come on.”

“Did Blackbeard send you?”

“No, I just happened to be standing here by the river.” He waves his gun at me, and heads across the water.

I follow.

“Thank you for doing this,” I say.

“It was an order,” he says. “This is a shit job. I should kill you now and tell Blackbeard some Tics got you.”

“You could, but Blackbeard would probably blame you for Noh’s death.”

“Noh? Who said anything about her?”

“I’m here to save her. That’s why Blackbeard’s helping me.”

“Oh.” He slows down so that we’re walking side by side. “You’re really with the Garden, huh?”

“I suppose so.”

He sighs. “What I wouldn’t give to get in there. I guess my dick, but other than that, I’d give anything.”

“What’s so special about the Garden?”

“I don’t know the details, but the way Blackbeard talks about it. It’s important.”

“And what you’re doing for Blackbeard, it’s not?”

“Don’t get me wrong. We’re doing good work. I get to kill some Tics. At least watch them suffer. I’m a lot better off than I was with those fucking priests, that’s for sure. Always preaching at me about God. I should’ve gutted one of them while I had the chance. Teach them to keep their opinions to their fucking selves. I’m not religious.” He pauses. “They were attacked not too long ago. The priests. You probably heard about it. That’s where Weis’ girl got blasted.”

“I was there.”

He glances over. “Seriously?”

“Yeah.”

He grips the weapon hanging at his side. “Really, the priests got what they deserved working for those Agency Tics, but what I wouldn’t give to blast away that Black Tide asshole who ordered the attack. Weis’d probably give his dick for the chance to take him out, seeing as he’s the one responsible for what happened to Amina.”

“What’s stopping him?”

“From what?”

“From going after the Black Tide asshole.”

“Are you sure you’re with the Garden, cause that’s a stupid question.”

I don’t respond.

So he says, “It’s suicide. I don’t think Weis is ready to die yet.”

In a while, we’re out of the forest, in the part of the desert where Blackbeard dropped us off in his copter.

“Well, this is where the boss told me to split,” he says. “You know the way to the Garden from here, right?”

“Yeah,” I say. “Thanks for doing this.”

“It was an order.”

“Thank Blackbeard for me. He could’ve used the device to bring me here, but he didn’t. I appreciate it.”

“I don’t know what device you’re talking about, but I’ll tell him. Good luck saving the girl.” He waves goodbye with a swing of his gun and heads back toward the trees.

The security door doesn’t make a sound when I kick it. But I don’t need to knock. There’re probably some sensors and at least a camera fixed on me.

“Mr. Johnson,” Noh says through a speaker I can’t see. “What are you doing here?”

“I heard about the execution,” I say.

“What reason could Jack possible have to inform you?”

“He didn’t. He denied the truth about everything. Why?”

She sighs in a harsh crackle. “Even when faced with adversity, those with the Garden must be dedicated to the Meek reality. In other words, we need to know that you’re not going to retract yourself from the truth even when you feel alone.”

“Fine. Are you going to let me in or not?”

Silence, then the door pops open.

I descend into the catacombs, and Noh meets me by a pillar in the garden chamber, where Amina’s clay head looks down on us.

“Who wants to kill you?” I say. “If you know about it, what are you still doing here? Why aren’t you hiding somewhere they can’t find you?”

“I appreciate what you’re doing here, Mr. Johnson, however—”

“Call me Bernard.”

“Bernard. However, I fear you’ve returned under false pretenses.”

“You’re not being executed?”

“If all goes well, yes, I am. What you fail to understand is that this execution is part of a Garden operation.”

It’s worse than I expected. “You’re going to execute yourself?”

“In a manner of speaking.”

“This is ridiculous.”

“Let me explain. One of our operatives—”

“If this is another one of your tests or your tricks, tell me right now.”

“I could promise you, but I find it unlikely that an assurance from me would convince you of anything.”

“You’ve only lied to me in my dreams. Promise me.”

“Very well. I promise this is neither a test nor a trick.”

“Thank you.”

She winces. “As I was saying, one of our operatives is a citizen in one of the more affluent Tic countries. This operative is the boyfriend of President Dominik. Due to these circumstances, President Dominik has had a change of heart, and now wishes to aid the Garden in any way he can. The President isn’t a powerful man by any means, but as a figurehead, he does have certain opportunities to influence society. He’s agreed to stray from his prescribed script when addressing his country, and announce that the leader of a terrorist organization known the Garden has been captured, and will be executed.”

“What good will that do?”

“All the good we’ve ever hoped to do. Through execution, I’ll be given the chance to become a martyr.”

“I don’t understand.”

“After my death, all of our whistleblowers will speak out in every Tic country. They’ll inform the public of the truth about the Garden and the Vacation and the Meek. The public eye produced by my execution will keep the whistleblowers safe. If our operatives start dying, the citizenry will become that much more curious and suspicious. In the end, the Garden will be viewed, not as a terrorist group, but as a champion of truth in a world of lies. My death will stand for the atrocities committed by the Tic world. And when someone dies for you, you’re more likely to fight for the lives of others.”

Now I do understand, and I wish that I didn’t.

Marionettes dangle from strings strung across the room. With the air blowing inside, they rock back and forth together. I spot one that looks like Odin. Then I see Noh. Pari. There’re other faces I recognize. And most, I don’t.

“They’re the characters of my life,” Laetitia says, on her coffin. She’s sanding away at a marionette in her lap. “I’m guessing you’re not here for another joke.”

“No,” I say. All the way to the coffin, I’m bumping against body after body. They’re so close together. Finally, I sit beside her, and the tiny people settle down in my wake. “I don’t know what to do.”

“There may not be anything you can do.”

“I can’t give up on her.”

“Of course not. I just don’t want you to blame yourself if she ends up accomplishing her mission. And I’m afraid she will. The way I see it, she’s too stubborn to change her mind. The story she’s written for her life, it’s set in stone.”

A tomb stone, I think. And that’s sort of a joke, but I don’t laugh or smile.

She says, “God knows I’ve tried to talk her out of the way she lives her life, but she can hardly stand to be around me. We’re a close-knit bunch here in the Garden. We put on plays. We have sing-a-longs. But Noh won’t play in the reindeer games. She may have tried to disconnect herself from me, but she failed. She’s an important person in my life, and even if she dies, she’ll always be a part of me. You will too, honey.” She twirls the marionette on her lap and he looks at me. He’s me, with a big head, and a long skinny body, and long skinny limbs. The cross-eyed caricature she drew of me, now in wood form.

All I can think to say is, “Thank you,” so I do.

The first time I enter Odin’s room, he’s straddled by Pari. The second time, after Pari speeds by me a few minutes later, he’s fully wrapped and sitting on his coffin.

“Man, you’re supposed to knock,” he says.

“You don’t have a door,” I say.

“You know what I mean. Announce yourself or something.”

“Sorry.”

“By the way, dude, what the fuck are you doing here? I thought you got put back in the Vacation system.”

“I was. I got out.”

“How?”

“Jack.”

“Cool.” He tugs at the knots in his hair. “Why’d you come back?”

“I heard about the execution.”

“Yeah, isn’t it great?” He swats the thought away. “Not great that she’s dying, but you know.”

“I want to stop her. I don’t know how. I thought you could help me think of something.”

He shakes his head. “Dude, this has been her dream for a long time. Even if I could take this away from her, I don’t think I’d want to. People have died to make this possible. My friends have died.”

“I don’t want to keep her from doing the right thing, but I don’t want her to die.”

“Dude, sometimes dying is the right thing.”

Now I realize why Odin and the others never eat with Noh or talk with Noh when they don’t have to.

To them, she’s already a ghost.

This is a trauma they’re prepared for.

Part 20

Noh rests with her back against the wall, inches from the dead animals curled up inside. Her hands lie on the cold ground, upward and curled like two flowers. Two wilted flowers, that you want to save, but there isn’t any water. She stares at the black in front of her, and when you focus on darkness, your expression never changes.

I sit beside her. This is the part when I’m supposed to give up. When I beg Noh to send me home again.