Welcome back to The Listening Room for the next installment of “Hypnotic”. If you’re just joining, we met David Fuller, a man being housed in a sleep research facility while Dr. Vincent Vogel and his assistant Molly Fitzgerald, examine David’s dreams. Tobias Mancuso sits at the helm recording those dreams and monitoring David during test runs.
In chapter four, we got a glimpse of David’s life before the facility and of what triggers his rage. We continue in this chapter with a major breakthrough.
5.
Molly ran as fast as her pencil skirt would allow with her strawberry waves bouncing behind her. She zipped around the corner, gripping the wall to steady herself, then down a long corridor. This was it and she could barely contain her excitement.
Molly thought about the span of this experiment, of when it first occurred to her to use dream states to implant information back in graduate school. It was no more than a sci fi movie fantasy but she told Vincent about her idea. He pondered on it, as he usually did, rocking in a high back chair with his fanned out fingers pressed together and his sloped nose planted between them like a knock off Sherlock Holmes. Vincent was tall, gangly, and brilliant, so at least he looked the part.
She knew that in his hands, the idea would be sculpted into something well beyond her capability, but she had to be careful. Unlike the famous detective, who refused credit once a case concluded, Vincent had a way of intertwining himself in a project until the two could not be distinguished. He became the project and everyone who didn’t think so made their way out. She wouldn’t do that so easily.
What one had to do was pay close attention and map the direction Vincent was headed so he could be carefully diverted. He had to believe he was driving and that everyone else was a passenger. If he thought he was fighting for control, he got aggressive and that’s when things got uncomfortable. So far the polite deception had worked and he trusted her. It took longer than she wanted to for him to accept suggestions, but things had a way of failing when he didn’t listen.
While brilliant, Vincent was just another arrogant prick convinced of his own specialness, but what was actually special was the seed, her ideas and her direction. He was an overgrown drone.
She threw open Vincent’s office door without knocking.
“You have to see this,” she said panting.
Back in her office, she scrubbed through surveillance video. Vincent sat down quietly behind her.
“I usually check the video before we wipe it and I caught something.”
The video paused on a seated David in his room with an empty food tray on the table. His head was leaned back against the wall. His eyes were open. She pressed play. He jerked his head and upper body as if propelled by some force in the wall, then rocked back and forth on the chair. He scanned the room with the wondrous look of someone discovering a new and interesting place. He looked to his left and squinted. His lips mouthed the words to something he read from thin air.
“What’s he doing?” Vincent asked.
Molly didn’t answer.
David looked to his right and appeared to speak with someone. The exchange ended and David stared off into the opposite wall above his bed. Molly scrubbed forward. David stood up and mimicked a short stair climb as his right hand rested on a railing no one could see.
“Molly, what the fuck kind of charade is this? Molly!”
“I think he’s acting out a dream. Most times he dozes off after breakfast but he started miming things. I’ve watched this like fifteen times and there’s a moment when his eyes close and his body loses some muscle tone. Then his eyes open and he starts this shit.”
Vincent gaped. One puzzle had already been solved under his nose and he felt a tangle of emotions swelling inside him. He could not decide which parts were pleasant but his heart was ready to thud straight out of his chest. He scooted closer to the screen. The revelation was dizzying: the project would be able to move to the final stage.
“David is probably ready for the field. We can get Toby to create some mission with only a few rooms. Wheel him into the big room after he’s sedated?” Molly ventured.
“No, not yet. We should start changing things. We need to develop his senses now,” Vincent said. More acute senses meant the dreams would be more real and in themselves, become a reality. It could then be manipulated at will.
Molly turned to the video and smirked, satisfied by where the experiment was heading next. David was seated on his bed talking to thin air, but really, he was at a bagel shop, meeting with Carmine for the first time.
The gray walls of David’s room were warmed by a dull amber light, but David remained asleep, exhausted from his test runs. He had been tasked with a number of odd missions, from changing the colors of flowers in a field with his mind to finding his way through mazes. Vincent said he was honing skills in his dream world and they were making good progress. David was taking control, he said, and would have more satisfying sleep. He would finally figure his life out and stop self sabotaging. The insomnia would be gone.
Still, it made him uncomfortable to think how he was whittled down to a stump in Vincent’s presence. It wasn’t a matter of physical strength because David could easily take him down, but of that crushing influence that manipulated his will in the dream room. He would only recall it much later and feel ashamed.
In his quiet hours, of which there were many, in between reading and the occasional wank, he thought about his fire. He thought about how angry he could get when someone pecked at him and the heat rose from his belly and into his chest. He hadn’t felt that since coming to facility. Maybe it was good to be calm so he could be prepared for the outside, for when a boss sassed him or maybe he encountered some assholes on the highway—
He rubbed his face briskly with both hands. He never got angry without a reason and he never made the first strike, that was for sure. It might be time to call up the fire and resist.
David’s breakfast came as usual with the slide of the pass through and clack of a metal tray being laid on it. He was sprawled on his bed, disinterested in the meal for the moment until something caught his attention: the smell. He perked up and leaned on his elbow. Pale yellow eggs speckled with black pepper practically gleamed from his vantage point, but it was merely the centerpiece. He scooted out of bed and grabbed the tray, folding down his table and setting it on top.
To the right of the eggs were lumps of dark green spinach with pops of red from cubed bell pepper. He wafted garlic off the spinach and a vinegary heat from the eggs. At the top left was a spongy square of bread, probably challah he thought, with a thin film of butter on top. At the top right were slick slices of peaches in a small pool of juice.
He stared at the tray for a few minutes. He took in every color, shape, and scent. The memories burned into a brain that had been starved of stimuli for five months. He could hardly believe how heightened his senses were. He was aquiver with interest but was barely hungry.
David’s hand met the smooth sides of the tray and it was warm. He ran his fingers across the rim and exhaled deeply.
The taste was another experience altogether. He let each morsel linger on his tongue before chewing with his eyes closed. The crust of the bread crunched under his teeth and the slivers of peaches practically slipped down his throat whole.
He leaned his head against the wall after finishing and though he didn’t smoke, a menthol was probably due right then. That and a cocktail made especially for him by Sam. Maybe something with pineapple juice, coconut rum, and blue curaçao in one of those curvy glasses. It sounded so good he could taste it.
David drifted off into his thoughts and could not tell if he had been asleep until a knock came at the door.
“David!” the voice whispered. “It’s me, Sam. Can you hear me?”
David jolted forward and strained his ears to hear what was most certainly carryover from a dream. That happened sometimes. His eyes creaked open in the dark and the outline of an object followed him into the waking world. After a few blinks, the apparition was gone. Sam was a friend who visited again and again after he closed his eyes and existed nowhere else.
“I can’t stay, but we’ll have to get you out. I’ll be by after your next test run. Good luck.”
David was dumbstruck. His limbs were heavy and he couldn’t move. His mouth was still agape when the usual voice announced it was time for the gym. Had two hours passed? He slid his tray through the opening and sprawled onto the bed. He ran his hand along the blanket and realized it was soft like a sheep’s coat. He’d never noticed that before.
He thought about where Sam could be hiding and whether he had access to all those locked doors. Did the cameras see him and mistake him for someone else? He rummaged through his memories and could not find Sam. He knew him so well and yet he didn’t entirely exist.
“David, this will feel different from the usual tests. I want you to pay closer attention to your senses, really interact with your environment.”
Vincent’s hand was on David’s shoulder and his face was close enough to smell candy on his breath. There was something else too, maybe sandalwood and bergamot, he thought. He could not believe how good his sense of smell had become.
David shook Vincent’s hand off his shoulder and looked away. He always felt his will slip away into those deep and penetrating eyes. They were a rich brown with pupils that were a swallowing abyss. They seemed to spread like oil over the whites of his eyes until you were overtaken completely.
Vincent’s hand hung in the air as he studied David. It could have been crankiness from the continued schedule disruption or something else, he wondered. A subject pulling away was nothing to be alarmed about, but to watch. He had noticed David’s resistance growing in tiny increments. Easy, number seven. All will be revealed in time, Vincent thought.
This was just the indication he needed to push David further. The man was hungry now, truly ravenous for something other than his gray walls. He must be tired of being forced into a descent, so he would make those descents on his own with just a nudge. Vincent would create the nudge and ever so gently apply it.
He straightened up and crossed his arms on his chest.
“David,” he said in a scolding tone. “You know It doesn’t make me happy when you’re like this.”
He watched for a reaction but David was surprisingly stoic.
“You don’t want to upset me, do you? That’s not a good idea.”
He walked around the chair to look David in the face.
“I’m not the one to fuck with, believe that.”
Something inside slipped and folded like playing cards. David’s face was a penitent whine. Vincent looked on but said nothing, withholding any morsel of approval until he was sure he had complete surrender.
“That’s better,” he said. “Now, the yellow square, David. Look at it.”
David’s neck creaked over to the color block in the blank wall. His body went slack and his eyes hovered above closing.
“You have a difficult target this time but you need to use what you’ve learned.”
“Yes, Dr. Vogel,” he said plainly.
Vincent smirked. “Descend.”
David stretched his hands over stiff but soft sheets. He was groggy as if an afternoon nap had gone on too long. Beyond the sheer curtains and floor to ceiling windows were lights of some bustling city. It was nearing evening and he had to get up. The hotel room had two queen sized beds, a round dining table in the left corner by the window and a large television to the right.
A suit lay on the other bed. He got dressed and grabbed his key card on the way out.
The elevator opened to a swank lobby with guest enjoying live music. Beyond it were rows and rows of slot machines. They weren’t the modern kind with touchscreens, but ones where you could hear the gears turning inside. Each crank of the side handle spun the colorful symbols round while upbeat instrumentals tinkled through the air. Cherry, cherry, gold coin. Maybe next time.
Step right up and try your hand at blackjack, baccarat, or poker where each hand is a loser and the house always wins. He smiled to himself watching old ladies balance their dwindling cigarettes between two fingers. One long drag, one more pull, maybe this time will be a winner.
The ping and jangle of coins plonking into metal trays were base notes in a symphony of laughs and flashing lights. The stench of cigarette smoke mixed with the sting of cheap perfume and floor cleaner.
David stood at the edge of one cluster of card tables taking it all in. He rubbed a thumb against a neatly trimmed beard. Someone gripped his elbow. It was Sam.
“My god, you and Carmine really need to stop doing that. Send a text or something. Fuck.”
“Sorry. It’s more discrete if we’re not hovering over our phones.”
“Who’s hovering? I could literally glance at it for two seconds instead of needing a pacemaker.”
“The drama…” Sam said rolling his eyes. They were dressed in identical black suits. Sam perched an arm on his shoulder as they watched the rise and fall of riches minute by minute.
“All right, all right. So this guy is a hit from a private payer,” David said.
“Yeah. He’s on a high stakes baccarat table. Carmine isn’t dealing but just—“
“Hovering,” David cut in. “Very discreet.”
Sam barely hid his amusement but continued.
“Carmine loves a good poison. That’s his specialty. We haven’t settled on a name that didn’t sound like a comic book villain.”
“How about The Alchemist?”
Sam turned down the sides of his mouth and considered it.
“Might grow on me. He definitely turns shit situations into gold.”
He held his palms out to weigh the balance of David’s suggestion against his own but it looked like neither made the grade. Sam placed a hand on David’s shoulder and they both stared out at the gambling floor.
David peered over to see Sam’s six tapping fingers on his shoulder. An inconsistency. He breathed out. It was becoming hard to tell. The visual resolution, sound, even the bite of cold air conditioning was so convincing. He often awoke in his room and it took minutes at a time before he realized he wasn’t dreaming. Sam had come to him at his room door back at the facility. How long had he been cycling through REM sleep?
He looked over again and there were five fingers. He blinked rapidly. Five fingers.
“There’s cameras absolutely everywhere so our best bet is getting him in a bathroom. For that, we have to make sure a camera is turned away from the men’s room entrance and we get a large rolling bin. We’ve gotta ride in the blindspots though so no one even sees us transporting him,” Sam said.
“That’s how we’re disposing of him?”
“Not really. I have a panel truck around the side of the building. No cameras. We’ll drive him out to a spot.”
David considered this as his eyes scanned the lively casino. He had a different take.
“You know, I was a funeral director for like three months. I go to pick up a body from the morgue and I ask the guy, joking obviously, what’s the best way to get rid of a body.”
Sam turned his head and the two faced each other.
“He said to do a drive by. Day or night doesn’t really matter, just needs to be the right setting. Happens so quick that witnesses don’t get details correct or they’re too scared to snitch. The county government does the cleanup.
Sam gave an open mouthed smile showing a set of gorgeous teeth. David smiled back, then recovered himself and turned back to the slots.
“Can we just leave him right there?”
“That might work for another type of job, just not this one. Appreciate your contribution to the team, though,” Sam said with a rising tone.
“There’s someone else you should know about: Mother.”
“Who’s that?” David scoffed.
“She coordinates all of this. Without her, nothing would be possible.”
“Will I meet her?”
“Not likely. She’s an unseen hand,” Sam said, wiggling his fingers. There were six.
“Pity,” David said absently. “We should get started.”
They parted to opposite directions.
Their target was a man in his 50s, Gamal Rashad, who was impressively fit and sharp. He looked like an experienced gambler whose movements were smooth and confident at a table. He checked in alone tonight, which meant no companions would be looking for him if he didn’t return to his room. Even in the casino, no one latched onto his arm, so he was riding steady and solo.
His wide shoulders and thin waist suggested a consistent workout routine, but he still took diuretics for high blood pressure. That would be their in. Carmine had already slipped him a higher dose. Racing to the bathroom in no time, David thought. Gamal eventually cashed out of a table and set down a few chips for the dealer. He nodded his goodbye.
Gamal went to the same bathroom for the fourth time that evening and positioned himself in front of a urinal. David noiselessly emerged from a stall behind him and clapped a hand over the man’s mouth with his left hand. He pressed a knife against his right flank.
“Don’t move.”
[end of audio]
Author’s note:
Thanks for sticking with me during this intermission. I admit I didn’t even look at The FLARE while I was away, didn’t mull over new subscribers, just tried to sit in stillness. I appreciate you for following along or simply showing up for the first time. I look forward to continuing this journey with you.
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