12

Act 2:

Desert

There was a sense of falling, bu no up or down. Chris just floated aimlessly through a blue void. He felt relaxed, calm. There was something soothing about the sensation, a sense of being free for which he had longed for ages. He turned around, facing the direction he felt he was falling to, but there was no ground, just an infinite sky. He knew that he could fall like this forever, and he liked it.

Then Dianne appeared. She was wearing a cut tee shirt that barely covered her shoulders. Her hair was on one side, and she was looking at him directly, with those huge hazel eyes he had loved so much. She was sitting on a blue faded couch, similar to the one he used to own, but he knew this one was different somehow. Her jeans were the same colour as the sofa, and in fact melted into it, leaving her strangely legless, looking like a mermaid.

“I never meant to hurt you,” she said.

“Then why did you do it?”

The sky slowly turned into a big version of his living room. The walls were enormous, and he felt small and unimportant. The couch and Dianne were also growing out of proportion, and he regretted speaking right after he had done it.

“I just wanted you to be happy,” she said.

“I was happy with you.”

Dianne laughed.

“You weren’t happy. You were content, comfortable. That’s not how you should e, you should be happy.”

“Is there a difference?”

She laughed again. Chris was tiny now, and scared that he would not be heard if he talked. Dianne’s head was getting further and further away. The feeling of freedom he had at the beginning was now lost. He felt trapped. Even with the walls being so far away, he felt like he could never leave them. He was stuck in the same place forever. He looked out the windows, only to see feral faces slobbering over the glass, licking it and getting it dirty. Some of them wore microphones.

“You need to understand, Chris, I made you free so you could find happiness.”

Chris spoke, knowing he would be not be heard.

“And on whose authority did you decide that this was the best for me?”

Suddenly, there was a knock on the door, and the room grew back to it’s normal size. Dianne disappeared into the couch and h was once again alone. The door opened by itself, and he saw a woman, dressed in biker gear and with crazy dark hair looking at him.

“Chris, you need to wake up.”

***

Chris woke up and saw the man that had taken him from his home sitting in front of him. The helicopter blades were making a lot noise, and he wondered why he hadn’t woken up earlier. He looked at his side and saw the biker woman deep asleep to his right. He rubbed his eyes trying to clear his mind, but it really didn’t work at all. He looked through the window and saw a large and empty space right below them. It seemed that they were riding deep into the desert. He looked to the man again, who had a smile like he meant it.

“Who are you,” asked Chris.

“A friend.”

“A friend of whom?”

The man’s smile broadened a bit.

“Are you enjoying the view, Mr. Barnett?”

“Not really,” he said. He considered saying something else, but he didn’t want to ask questions. The situation was too strange and he was scared of asking the wrong ones.

“We will reach our destination in about twenty minutes, don’t worry. I am pretty sure you’ll like the retreat we’ve set up for you.”

“Is that so?”

The man in black leaned to the front and crossed his hands.

“I trust you slept well? You were slightly restless, as if dreaming something you didn’t enjoy.”

“I don’t remember going to sleep,” said Chris.

“We drugged you,” said the man without losing his smile. “We want to keep the retreat secret for the moment, so we didn’t want you to know where it was.”

“Did you drug her too?” asked Chris. The prospect of having a fellow hostage in this situation made him somewhat less upset. The woman didn’t seem like she fitted with the man, the helicopter and the situation. Her jacket wasn’t black enough, and her hair was too crazy.

“We didn’t, my colleague fell asleep after we left the city. I believe she hadn’t slept the night before.”

There was a moment of silence. The man never stopped smiling, but Chris noticed that if he didn’t speak, the man grew nervous. He took advantage of it, until the man spoke again.

“Have you ever been to France, Mr. Barnett?”

“Please call me Chris.”

“France is a really interesting country, Mr. Barnett. People either love or hate France, but everybody has a strong opinion about them. It's the same thing with the US, but not many other countries get that kind of respect or attention.”

“So, you're taking me to France?” said Chris.

“No, I am simply making conversation. Small talk, as they say.”

Chris remained silent.

“The point is that most people just don't care about countries anymore. Ask someone about Germany, about Ghana or about Guatemala, and most of them would just shrug and get that 'so what?' look in their eyes.”

“Is this actually relevant?”

“Not really, but ask them about France, or about China, or about South Africa... They're like international politics celebrities. Have you ever been to China?”

“No.”

“My wife and I are going there next year, if you're still alive and everything is solved, maybe you could come with us.”

“What is all this about?”

“I'm just trying to make you comfortable, Mr. Barnett.”

“Then please shut up.”

“Right.”

Chris leaned his back against the wall and looked at the ceiling. He tried to relax and let his mind drift. He started counting back from a thousand mentally to try and focus. When he had gotten to nine hundred ninety-six, the man in black spoke again.

“I know you are under a lot of stress at the moment, Mr. Barnett, but I am sure we would have liked each other if we had met socially, instead of in this dire circumstances.”

“I'm not very social,” said Chris.

“Neither am I, that's why I am so good at it.”

Chris managed to sound interested for a fraction of a second when he said “how come?”

“I am not very good naturally, so I need to rehearse. I need to prepare myself, to study things that most people take for granted, and then I can imitate them quite well. Like the bit about celebrity countries. Imagine someone came to you at a party and asked you that question. Wouldn't you think they are great talkers?”

“Probably not.”

“No need for irony or sarcasm, Mr. Barnett. I happen to imagine these situations all the time. I ask my wife to roleplay about it. I would tell her 'Imagine you are an important ambassador of France and I told you about how it's funny that everyone has a strong opinion about your country. Would you think it is funny?' You know what she says? She says it's hilarious.”

Chris rolled his eyes.

“You’re kidding me, right?”

“I am not. I do not kid.”

“Wow,” said Chris, looking disinterested and through the window. He could now see a big building in the distance. It gleamed from the sand, as if made of glass.

“What countries have you been to, Mr. Barnett?”

Chris finally flipped. He turned to the man in black and looked straight into his eye.

“OK, tell me straight, are you going to kill me to stop the end of the world?”

“Don’t you think we would have done so already?”

“Then what is this all about?”

“We want you to live. We want to welcome this end, this change. We think that this is just what the world needs.”

“Who is ‘we’?”

“General Dynamics.”

“And who the fuck is General Dynamics?”

“We are,” said the man in black and smiled again.

Chris felt frustrated and leaned back. He let out an audible sigh and looked up. Right then, the woman woke up with a jump. She looked around her nervously, and focused on Chris for a few seconds with a crazy look.

“Here, drink some water,” said the man handing her a bottle of water that Chris was seeing for the first time. She took the bottle and gulped it all down in one go. She coughed a couple of times before finally speaking.

“How long have I been asleep?”

“A few hours at most,” said the man. “We will be arriving very soon. You will have your rooms ready so you can rest as much as you like.”

She stretched her back for a while. She looked at Chris when she was done with interest. He felt worried until she lend him her hand.

“My name is Avril, Mr. Barnett, Avril Smith.”

He took her hand and shook it. It felt good, like a breath of normality in a stenching pool of weird.

“Please call me Chris, Mr. Barnett was my father,” she smiled at that, and Chris was surprised to notice the difference between her smile and the one from the suited man. Hers was open, honest and comforting. The man’s was supposed to be all that, but somehow it didn’t work, like creeping out at the sight of a humanoid right. There was something that wasn’t right, something fake about it.

“Chris,” repeated Avril. “Would you mind if I interviewed you? I want to write a book about you.” He blushed at that.

“There’s not much to say. My life is quite normal, I grew up and lived in a small town, moved to a city far away later looking for work.”

“And now you are in a helicopter heading for a secret base in the desert and the fate of the world lies on your survival.”