Sandy Price; Interrogator

The Blackwater Files, Part 1

Nightmares haunt a once-unflinching detective, in the wake of a brutal case. With sleeplessness and paranoia taking their toll, his partner suggests that an experimental drug from a shadowy pharmaceutical company may be just what the doctor ordered.

Welcome to the Blackwater Files, a collaborative writing project started by

The Chronicler

. Each piece follows the trials of the various individuals desperate enough to seek out help from Elysium, a company searching for immortality in the darkest recesses of our minds. I hope you’ll enjoy my entry, and consider checking out a few others!

I stood on the landing of a sweeping, ornate staircase with no memory of how I arrived there. The room looked like it belonged on the Titanic: elegant deco designs embedded into the walls. Was that swing music playing in the background?

“Good! It’s worked!” A voice boomed from the walls themsleves. He sounded familiar. Who was he? Where was I?

“Sandy, try to remember,” the voice instructed. “Your friend referred you. You came to my office…” My brain retraced the last few days, filling in the gaps: insomnia, confusion, performance problems at work, and the looming hearing.

There was an experiment; a dream experiment. Alan referred me. Tried to help me fix myself. I remembered a profound desire to be here, and a name.

“Doctor Karasevdas,” I said.

“Excellent.”

“This is a dream?”

“And a powerful one at that, yes.”

“How—wait, why can I hear you?” I asked.

“During the experiment, sounds that would normally wake you are instead perceived as part of the environment. Handy for communication. But it means there’s no way for us to rouse you.”

I didn’t like the sound of that.

“The exit behind you is what you’ll use to return to consciousness.”

I looked over my shoulder at the opaque double doors. Blurred silhouettes moved behind them.

I took the stairs down to the checkerboard floor, counting all 14 of them. If there really only was one exit, I wanted to be damn sure I knew where it was.

“The room you’re in is a Shared Unconscious Manifestation, or SUM. We’ve taken to calling ‘the Lobby,’” the doctor explained. “It exists in every subject’s mind as a kind of go-between, or loading area, if you like. Isn’t that fascinating?”

Creepy, more like. The music, atmosphere, and emptiness of it all set my hair on end. For the time being, I was more interested in the doctor’s casual use of the word subject. But that would need to wait. With some difficulty, I tugged open the enormous door on the far side of the foyer.

The adjoining room was a library with cathedral ceilings. Soaring, curved windows let in shafts of sunlight from some imagined outside place. A musty smell hung in my throat. The door shut behind me, and the music ended.

“A library? Fascinating. I did have you pegged for the analytical type,” the doctor quipped. His voice wasn’t quite so loud in here. “Look here—how neatly all his memories are catalogued: nothing ridiculous and abstract. A neat little library. Man after my own heart.”

I cleared my throat, interrupting him. “I can’t hear you quite as well in here, doctor.” I felt stupid speaking to the empty room, but wanted to be sure the experiment was working as intended.

“Yes, well; the deeper you travel, the more diminished your conscious perception will be, and the softer I’ll sound. Nothing to be alarmed about,” he said. After a few motionless moments, he added: “Well, get to it, have a poke around.”

I did just that. The library was meticulously organized. A brass placard on the end of each shelf denoted a year, month, and a range of days. I turned down the first aisle, in search of a recent memory.

“Ah, testing the waters I see? Something current.”

What was he prattling on about? The doctor’s voice was beginning to get on my nerves. I ignored him, and focused on the shelves. They were crammed with an endless set of matching books, reminiscent of the encyclopedia I kept in my office at the precinct. Just below eye level, there was a gap between the spines of the books, like a missing tooth.

I stepped closer. No, not missing; the book had been pushed back, away from view. Curious, I pried it out, and flipped it open.

One moment, my fingers were holding the edge of the book, the next,

the precinct podium.

The long, skinny briefing room stank of burnt coffee. All the seats were empty, save for the first row. Alan, my partner sat on the far left, straightening his cardigan. Beside him was our boss, Edgar Parish—a white-maned lion in a police captain’s uniform. Two beat cops sat beside him.

They were all staring at me.

“The victim’s fiancé?” Edgar looked up at me with cold blue eyes. “Go on.”

I’d stopped in the middle of my presentation. But I couldn’t quite remember why I paused to begin with.

“Yes, of course. Michael Dorsey.” I clicked the slide projector. “He sold us this sob-story about a stalker ex who couldn’t stand to see Cassidy move on. Got real tight lipped when we started asking follow up questions.”

Click. Another slide and I was hitting my stride once more.

“Over the course of the interrogation, I learned—”

“Sorry to jump in, but why are you briefing us on the O’Shea case?” Edgar asked. “Is it connected somehow?”

“Pardon?”

“To the O’Malley case. Is it connected?”

“I don’t…” I trailed off, looking to Alan for a cue, a clue. He just covered his eyes and turned his head away.

“Did you mix up your briefings?” Edgar asked.

“No, I—” I felt naked behind the podium, rifling through my notes. They were smudged with drool, from when I’d passed out at my desk. “The O’Malley case is next week. The O’Shea hearing is tomorrow.”

“You have it exactly backwards. Have you even interrogated our suspect? Jesus, Sandy.” He turned to the other officers. “Get out.”

Alan started to stand.

“Not you.”

Edgar waited for the beat cops to leave.

“Did you put Sandy up to this? Why am I asking you?” Edgar turned to face me. “Did he put you up to this?”

Alan met my gaze and gave the tiniest of nods. He was seriously ready to take the fall?

I shook my head. “No sir. This is my mistake.”

“Mistake? No. It’s your fuck up.” His carried on in his perpetually calm tone. “Now I have to explain to the DA why his case won’t be ready for trial. How is this going to play at your hearing? How in God’s name are you going to convince—you know what, you’re on leave. Effective immediately, until you get your shit together.”

He slammed the door on his way out.

“That’s the closest I’ve seen the Captain to actually losing it.”

“He’s right,” Alan said. “This sleep thing is gonna end your career if you don’t figure it out.”

“You know it doesn’t work like that.”

“Well, I may have a guy who can make it work like that.” Alan scribbled something on his note pad.

“You always have a guy.”

“I do always have a guy.” Alan straightened up, tore off the sheet of paper and held it out to me. “…assuming you’re desperate enough.”

I squinted at the page. “Blackwater?”

“Go to that address, at that time. That’s as close to a quick fix as you can hope for.”

A nagging thought prickled in the back of my brain. How could I be holding the paper? I was already holding a book. I could still feel the leatherbound edges, back in—

My perspective shunted a few feet backward. I was no longer holding the scrap of paper, talking to my partner. I was back in the dream library, holding the tome, watching my memory like a movie.

So, I could use the books to re-watch my thoughts — but especially engrossing moments pulled me all the way in — is that how this worked?

I needed to test a theory. I headed back up the aisle toward the exit.

“Leaving, already?” The doctor sounded wounded, like a child at the end of recess. “I can’t stop you, but I must say, I’d hoped you’d venture a little farther…”

I plucked the first book from the first shelf, and opened it. This time, I tightened my grip on the edges, and tried to resist being pulled into the memory as

the LeviTaxi dropped me on the private hospital’s dizzying landing pad.

A pre-programmed message ushered me out of the passenger pod: “We have arrived at your destination. Keep your head low until you have cleared the rotors.”

I watched the craft lift off and dart back into the bloodstream of airborne vehicles that circulating through the dreary city.

The airy atrium felt more like a ritzy hotel than a hospital; certainly nothing like the filthy street clinics.

I filled out my an intake form beneath the watchful gaze of Elysium’s logo: an enormous eye with a red iris.

I breezed through the page.

Name? Sandy Price.

Occupation? Interrogator.

Known/diagnosed mental disorders? I hovered my pen over the choices, hesitant. This question still felt far too personal to me. Fresh. I suppose it made sense that they needed to know if anything was lurking in my subconscious if they were going to send me into it.

Wait. No. This was wrong. I’d done this before.

Again, my perspective pulled me back, with the memory playing out on the page. My recollection of events skipped ahead like a video on fast forward. There were snippets of the hall, and the medical chamber with its spider-like amalgamation of mechanical arms, hanging over a leather chair.

Standing beside the strange apparatus, stood a man in a tweed jacket.

“Ah, Welcome. I’m Doctor Rob Karasevdas.” He reached out and shook my hand.

His skin felt weirdly smooth, without wrinkles, callouses or hair.

I tried not to focus on it. “Sandy.”

The man was deep in the Uncanny Valley. I recognized he had conventionally handsome features, but they looked ever-so-slightly off. Doll-like, almost.

He flashed a smile that worsened the effect; like he was wearing a mask over his real face. “Take a seat.” His tone was enthusiastic. Friendly, even.

I didn’t move.

His smile faltered, but he pressed on. “I’m glad to have you in the experiment.”

“Experiment? No, I—sorry, I’ve made a mistake. I thought you had some kind of insomnia treatment.”

He laughed. Friendly, friendly, friendly. So why were my legs screaming at me to run? “Alan called ahead. Explained your situation. I don’t have a treatment, per se. But I was able to help him, too.

“I—”

“You can think of Blackwater as a kind of tool for navigating your subconscious, poking around under the hood a bit at stuff you wouldn’t normally perceive. Very therapeutic, I’m told.”

“And you get?”

“Data,” he explained with fanatical fervor in his voice. “Mapping the subconscious. The similarities that exist between individual minds are striking. And the chance to study a mind like yours, well, I wanted to meet you personally.”

He ushered me toward the chair.

I saw the needles and flinched myself right back out of the memory.

So, strong stimuli like touch, smell, and feel pulled me in. Negative, cringey stimuli jolted me out.

Makes sense.

I watched the rest of the scene in third person. When I reached the moment I swallowed the unremarkable little pill Doctor K had given me, the ultra-realistic scene faded into a still image, reminiscent of an illustration in a children’s book.

This was the last memory my brain created. Did that mean I stopped making new memories once the experiment began? Logic dictated that was the case. The better question would be whether I would actually remember my visit after I woke.

This was a dream, after all. And I remember my dreams… at least parts of them. Perhaps they were stored somewhere else? Maybe deeper?

Deeper in the library, I noticed more and more gaps in the shelves. These books really were missing, not just tucked out of sight. A yellow notecard marked each gap, all bearing the same message:

“Relocated to Cold Storage for Cognitive Decluttering.”

Each row held fewer memories. By the time I reached my early childhood years, there were hardly any left to speak of.

At the far end of the hall stood a lone book on a plinth, marked “First Memory. Beyond it was a door beneath an ornate archway, labeled: “Archives.”

I was a dozen or so paces from the door when a hollow, metallic knocking caught my attention. It was coming from my left, somewhere.

“Nurse, can you check the electrodes? I think I may be getting some background noise,” the doctor said.

The knocking came again. Rhythmic. I followed the source of the noise down one of the rows. At the end of the aisle, it looked like someone had taken a sledgehammer to the shelves and brickwork beyond. Cracked mortar and splintered wood littered the floor. On the other side of the rough hole in the wall, stood what looked like an upright torpedo with a curved hatch cut into the side.

The knocking repeated, coming from within.

“That’s definitely not topside. I’m running a diagnostic,” the doctor said. He muttered something I couldn’t make out, presumably to his assistant, before offering another scrap of encouragement. “You’re doing terrific Sandy, press on!” He sounded disengaged, distracted even.

I drew closer to the breach. This was no torpedo, it was a pod. I recognized its design from an old documentary from the 20-teens. It was a kind of elevator, designed to rescue trapped miners from a collapse in Peru. Or was it Chile?

The knocking repeated. Now that I was closer, I could properly make it out: this wasn’t just a pattern, it was Morse Code. I pressed my ear to the cold metal, and counted the taps. The pattern of dots and dashes spelled out a single word, repeated over and over:

Did I dare open it? That was the point of the experiment wasn’t it? And for all I knew, this pod was the mechanism by which Blackwater actually worked. What better vehicle to plumb the depths of my subconscious?

I pulled open the hatch open to reveal an empty compartment, big enough for one passenger. I clambered aboard, and strapped myself into the safety harness.

“That’s—my God. Shit, Sandy, no!”

The hatch slammed shut on the doctor’s warning. It was too late. My stomach dropped; the pod was in free-fall, plummeting into the depths of my mind.

---

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