บท 16: Chapter 16: Garris
Fresco closed the door behind him before turning to look around. He felt instantly overwhelmed. The large, high-ceilinged office was crammed with stuff. Piles of old newspapers and magazines and books were everywhere, bowing the bookshelves and stacked in unsteady piles in corners, often leaning against each other for support. The rug on the floor, what was visible of it, used to be a rich red, but was faded with time to a pinky-orange with a heavy shag pile. Across the mountains of paper he spotted a path to a large wooden desk and a gray haired man hunched over it.
The man looked up through his round glasses, long hair falling around him, squinting at Fresco.
"Yes?" His voice emerged in the quiet, warm and rich. "What is it?"
Fresco took one step forward, toes encountering the shag rug. Even through his socks it felt marvelous.
"Parker told me you wanted to see me?" Embarrassment tweaked when his voice broke. He cleared his throat and tried again. "I'm Fresco."
The man's face lit up. He surged to his feet, easing around the stack of books next to the desk, the space between them just enough for him to make it. He held out his lean hand, his tall, skinny frame slightly slumped from years of reading. He smiled a big, genuine smile, contagious. Fresco found himself grinning back.
"Yes, of course, well now, nice to see you up and around," the man said, one hand on Fresco's shoulder, guiding him to a chair. He sat on the edge of it, the only space remaining from the pile of papers stacked on the cushion behind him. The man perched on his desk, long arms crossing over his faded plaid shirt, worn denims brushing his bare toes.
Despite his new untrusting ways, Fresco liked him immediately.
"Thanks," he said. "I feel..."
"Not exactly better, right?" The man nodded in sympathy. "I understand. But with any luck, you will. You all will." His eyes drifted away as he lost himself in a train of thought. Fresco waited for the man's attention to return.
"Sorry." He shrugged with a grin. "Lots on my mind. You too, I bet. Questions and more questions." He shook his head. "Serves me right, getting myself involved with a bunch of kids. All you have are questions." He laughed.
"I do have a few," Fresco said.
"Fire away." The man threw his arms wide. "I'm all yours."
"Who are you?"
The man stared at him, arms dropping. For a moment, Fresco worried. Then, the man laughed with his whole body, making Fresco grin again.
"I'm sorry," he said, eyes sparkling as he continued to chuckle. "Of course. I know who you are, but you have no clue except what Parker has told you. We'll get to that. John Garris. But please," he spoke with some pain in his voice, "if you ever address me as mister, you and I will have words. Just call me Garris. All the other impudent children do."
"Garris," Fresco said, trying it out. "Okay."
Garris grinned and pulled off his glasses, examining them before beginning to polish them on his dangling shirttail.
"Now, Fresco my friend, ask your questions." He settled the glasses back on his nose and crossed his arms over his chest again.
"What is this place?" Fresco shied from the tougher questions, deciding to ease his way into it. Garris didn't comment on it, but plunged in.
"We call it Last Stand," he said. "The only stop between you kids and the blue enemy. I bought this place about ten years ago, been trying to save you all ever since."
"Trying?" Fresco slumped slightly, the hope built from the refuge of the house fading a little. "Failing?"
Garris sighed, his shoulders slumped. "The honest truth? Every single kid I've rescued has ended up back in the arms of Wasteland before turning up dead, and there's been nothing I've been able to do to stop it." His voice sounded very sad, but Fresco wasn't with Garris. He was thinking about lying under the bridge with eight vials of the drug in his system, trying to smother the horror of ever ending up in that place again.
Might as well just go back there now, Justin's cruel voice whispered.
Garris obviously saw where Fresco's mind was going. "I'm not giving up," he said, soft but firm. "Every day we make inroads, improvements on a possible treatment. We're going to beat this thing, Fresco, and I'm hoping you can help."
Fresco pulled himself out of the dark and fought to focus. He needed to know everything.
"Why is this happening? Why us?"
Garris retreated and collapsed his long frame into his chair, stretching his legs out under the desk.
"I don't know," he said. "That's one of the big questions. But let me ask you this first. Before, in your old life, did anything weird happen? Like, right before the shit hit the fan?"
Fresco hesitated before nodding. Garris waited for him to pull the memories together.
"An accident," Fresco whispered.
the blaring of the radio, Justin answering the text
Garris listened. Fresco concentrated, trying to remember.
"I should be dead."
time slowing down in the gray, the terror of the woman, the toddler in the back seat
"I couldn't let him die..."
his mind reaching for the boy
"I did something. With my mind. There was a headache, and fire. We were on the sidewalk. Watching the accident I already saw happen. But we were safe." Fresco rubbed his temples with shaking fingertips. "How did I save us?"
"The impossible, unrepeatable, is often the trigger." Garris didn't offer more information, instead asked another question. "That wasn't the only incident?"
Fresco shivered as the reality of it crawled down his spine, followed by a jab of the hunger.
"They were whispering," he said.
the girl with the damaged life who was going home to kill herself
"I saw them, who they really were."
Justin's truth superimposed over his mask of friendship
"They were all around me."
the man and woman, so loving on the outside, so full of hate on the inside
"And I dreamed of the City."
the gorgeous City, his home, how he loved its glittering streets
"Then it all went to hell."
the attack, the seizure, feeling the pressure build, Daniel calling to him
Fresco hugged himself, hunkering down on the edge of the chair. He looked up at Garris. "They came."
"The Garbagemen," Garris said in a breath.
"My parents!" Fresco slammed both hands down on the arms of the chair, fury surging, making the need worse. "They let them take me! My father called them! He knew them, knew this would happen to me..."
He trailed off as Garris nodded, not a trace of surprise on his face.
"I'm not the only one," Fresco said, knowing it. "You've heard this story before."
Garris sighed. "Versions of it. Please, go on."
Under the steady, gentle gaze of his savior, he finally went where he was so afraid to go.
The City. The glory of the Diamond City. The man with the honey smile behind the shining glasses. His sweet voice.
The pain.
painandpainandpainandpain-
Fresco was shaking by the time he was through. Garris said nothing, offered nothing. At long last, Fresco straightened a little. "I woke up in the park near my house. The yearning was there, but I didn't know what it was. I went home. My parents were gone. I tried to find out what happened. My best friend, no," Fresco stopped himself, the hissing hum of his guilt haunting him as he thought it through, "he was never my friend. Justin told me my parents were dead and that everyone thought I killed them. That I was a junkie and killed them. Did I?" Tears threatened, but understanding what he was capable of, how Wasteland consumed him utterly, he needed to know.
Garris shook his head. "I highly doubt it," he said. "Those who made you this way created that story to isolate you."
Fresco so wanted to believe. Chose to. Garris must have seen it in him because he shrugged. "Can you see them releasing a murderer back into the streets? No, this was a ploy, my young friend. So no one would trust you, force you to turn to Wasteland and the street."
Fresco stilled inside, relief washing over him, the truth of it penetrating his deep self-doubt. It left room for the anger to return. Anger was definitely better.
"Why? Why would my parents do this to me?"
"I hate to have to tell you this," Garris said, "but it's quite likely they weren't your parents at all."
As soon as he heard it, he knew it was true.
tell him this is the last one we'll take... we're done doing his dirty work... either the plan works on what he's done or it fails
Ray's voice was so clear in Fresco's head. He repeated what he heard to Garris who sat up in his chair.
"Did he say who?" He was suddenly intense. "Think, Fresco. This is very important. Did he mention a name?"
Fresco shook his head. Garris fell back into his chair again, his disappointment obvious on his face.
"Sorry," Fresco whispered.
"Not your fault, kiddo," Garris said. "I've been trying for years to get close to this bastard. Years!" Garris climbed to his feet and began to pace in the short corridor behind his desk, the only area free of papers and books.
"Why are you helping us?" Fresco's need to trust was as powerful as his fear of it, his faith in his whole life shattered and crumbling around him. Garris stopped pacing, resting his hands on the back of his chair, leaning into it.
"My daughter," he said. "Gina. One day she was a beautiful, wonderful young woman with dreams and a life and the next she suffered a psychic breakout and disappeared. She came back to me Wasted."
Fresco waited while Garris pulled himself together and went on. "As far as I can tell, she was the first. I've tried to figure out how they modified her, but it could have happened anywhere."
"Modified?" Fresco shivered at the term.
Garris nodded. "You and your psychic abilities aren't natural, Fresco," Garris said. "Yes, humans have them, but they are latent, unused. I think we will evolve to a point where everyone has them, but someone has been augmenting them artificially, using Wasteland as a trigger."
"So, we're an experiment?" Fresco's anger shifted focus from his fake parents to the Garbagemen.
"Yes," Garris said. "But to what end, I have no answers. They are trying to create some superhuman, Fresco. But so far, all of their efforts accomplished only the death of you kids."
either the plan works on what he's done or it fails
Fresco looked up at Garris. "They modify us somehow, wait for our first psychic breakout and get us hooked on the drug. But, what does Wasteland do? Build up our power just to have it kill us?"
"You have a firm grasp of it, my friend." Garris sank back into his chair. "From what we can tell, Wasteland is a test of some kind. Trouble is, everyone who goes through it ends up dead. No one survives. At least, no one has yet."
It was supposed to make him feel better, but it didn't. Still, it kept the guilt away so he'd take it over the alternative.
"What happened to your daughter?"
Garris shrugged. "She died," he said. "Horribly and in great pain. I tried going to the police, to the authorities, but no one would listen. I knew she wasn't an addict, not a real addict. I witnessed her psychic outburst. I knew something more was happening, as huge and improbable as it was."
"So why do you think my parents weren't my parents?" Fresco and Daniel had played at such a scenario years before. Did they know somehow it was truth even then? "If your daughter had it..."
"My daughter died fifteen years ago, Fresco." Garris's eyes brimmed with tears. "She was sixteen. This program has been running for a quite a while. How old are you now, eighteen?" Fresco nodded. Garris removed his glasses, rubbing his fingers into his eyes, the traces of moisture leaving imprints behind. "They must have realized early on it would be much more convenient to put kids with fake families so when it came time for their change there would be no one for them to turn to and no pesky parents to ask questions.
"I tried to help her, but the hold of the drug was so strong, hit her so hard. They've made refinements to it since those days. The old Wasteland tore the kids apart. I went looking for help, but instead found more kids and a wall of silence. Finally, I pushed so hard, they pushed back." Garris adjusted his glasses as his voice cracked. "My daughter disappeared one last time, and I was personally and professionally destroyed. My wife left me shortly after they found Gina's body in a dumpster." He sighed again. "I had no one and nothing. But there were you kids. The least I could do was try to help you all where I failed with Gina."
"Thanks." Fresco pushed it out around the lump in his throat.
"You're welcome. In the mean time, I've been studying Wasteland and its effects. In my former life, I was a research scientist. Biology." Garris made a face. "At least I know my way around a microscope. I've been at this so long, I'm an expert. That is, as much of one as I can be on the outside of it." Garris's face was filled with sympathy. "I've been around Wasted kids forever, I forget sometimes what normal kids are like. Not nearly as fun, I bet."
"Not hardly," Fresco said. He was amazed at his ability to joke, even a little.
Garris chuckled.
Fresco thought of one last question. "What about the Diamond City? Where does it come from? And why do we all dream about it? End up in it?"
Garris started nodding as soon as Fresco mentioned it.
"Yes, it's one of the common threads, something every one of you knows, talks about. In fact, it's the same for each and every one. I've sat down with ten kids and had them draw a map of the City, and they are all identical." Garris shook his head. "I don't know, Fresco. It's obviously important, but I don't have an answer."
They both fell into silence, each of them lost in their own thoughts. Fresco was the first to shake himself free.
"Will they come after me?"
"No. More likely, the hunger will take you over again and you will go to the blue enemy. But," Garris held up one hand, "I plan to make sure it doesn't happen. I don't know who is responsible," Garris stood and came around his desk to sit in front of Fresco. "CIA? FBI? Aliens? But I do know this is a created thing and if it is man made, it can be unmade by man. And I plan to do everything I can to make sure it is."
"How long? Can we survive?"
Garris didn't answer right away, but when he did, his voice was careful.
"It depends. Why?"
"My brother, Daniel," Fresco said. His parents lied to him all along. Did they lie about Daniel, too?
"And he was taken...?" Garris left it hanging.
"Two years," Fresco said, watching Garris's face. It was too long. The man's look confirmed it. But Garris just shrugged.
"I'll have some of the kids ask around," he said. "But, two years... Fresco, I've never met a kid that lasted so long. I'm sorry."
He nodded, knowing Garris was probably right.
"In the meantime, you need to rest up and eat up." The man stood. "I'll have you back in the morning, do some blood tests and see if we can find out any more about you."
Fresco stood as well, knowing a dismissal when he heard one. He went to the door and opened it, but paused when Garris called after him.
"By the way, for my records, how much time are you missing?" Garris sat back down, looking at Fresco over his glasses. "From your breakout to finding yourself on the street."
"I was told it was three months," he said.
Garris gasped, pulling off his glasses to stare. "Are you sure?"
"What's the date?"
Garris glanced at his desk and the calendar there. "March 15th."
Fresco paled, realizing Justin told him the truth about his extended disappearance.
"I was taken November 24th," Fresco said before closing the door behind him.
***
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