Bus Stop

Thank you.

were joined by a very special guest. A few weeks back, I received an email from a strange address. From the moment I opened it, I've been absolutely captivated by what I found inside. Some of you out there in greater radio land may know of who I am speaking when I say the Fresno 9, but I suspect a great majority of you may not. Well, back... gosh, when was it now? Seven years ago?

Eight years, gosh. Eight years ago, and please stop me if I make a mistake, but as far as I understand it, eight years ago, a group of completely normal everyday people, civilians, volunteer for a medical study. Very, very well compensated. But they won't detail any specifics until after you've passed the initial screening process. Well, as it turns out, the study was taking place in space.

on the space station, isn't that right? Participants would have to undergo almost a month of training just to make the trip up there, is that correct? But some undisclosed event occurs while they're up there, which causes them to end the study early and bring everyone home at significant cost. And a lot of internet sleuths and amateur astronomers have speculated over the years as to what exactly that event was. So, like a solar flare?

do you think there's a chance whatever it was also hit earth as well and was perhaps deflected or blunted by the atmosphere sure must have there have been closed congressional hearings on the incident You guys were even offered preliminary cash settlements before any lawsuit had been filed. I imagine you guys were interviewed by the Fed six weeks from Tuesday.

We are of course bearing the lead a bit here, I fear, which is that they kept you all quarantined and isolated and kept studying you when you returned Earthside for how long? Three years. Three years. Holy cow. Three years of your life gone just because you signed up for a medical study. Just trying to make a buck. And they never told you what was wrong with you?

If they thought something was wrong with you, that is? Or any explanation as to just what the hell you guys experienced up there? That's right. Is there something wrong with you all, in your estimation?

It was just after midnight, December, 40 miles west of Tacoma. Bianca Blankenship was alone in the bus station. without even an attendant old man behind the ticket window for company. She'd bought her ticket from a machine. The ticket window was dark. The note taped there was many years old. She would have liked an old man for company, with a cap and a watch on a chain that stretched around his belly and a reassuring face, maybe a full white beard.

Where were all the reassuring old men these days? What were they doing for work? The rain thumped the metal roof like it was raining potatoes. A night like this, she sure would have liked to have been in her own bed, in her pajamas. To think that she had been only a couple hours earlier. The posted timetable looked almost as old as the ticket window note. Plenty old enough to be cause for concern.

There was allegedly a 1230 bus coming on the blue line that would take her to the city, where she could buy a ticket to see her sister in San Diego. That was it until they began running again at 5.50 the next morning. She sat with her elbows tucked between the armrests. watching the water wash over the windows which wrapped around the humble illegal structure, her thumb and forefingers playing a tiny violin on the collar of her coat as if possessed.

Her cherished mink was a puzzling choice for a downpour, but then she hadn't exactly given it much thought. Decisions made in haste. She stopped herself. Haste had had nothing to do with it. She'd fantasized this moment more than a year ago. Maybe fantasy wasn't the right word for it. She'd spent hours contemplating it. listening to him yell at the television, yeasty beer smell emanating from every pour when he darkened the bedroom door at two in the morning.

He'd bought her the jacket their first Christmas together, ice skating in Central Park. They were both staying in the city over the holiday, avoiding their families. At night it snowed and they walked down the street together outside of his apartment and it was like they were the only people in the entire city.

Before another Christmas would pass, he would take the job in Seattle and she'd follow him across the country. Every ten seconds, the light on the ticket machine blinked on and off three times. She looked at the awning outside and the space on the pavement where the bus soon would be, with bright shining windows, and she closed her eyes and counted to thirty and imagined when she opened them it would be there.

But it was not. She stood and paced the length of the place. There was a bathroom, but it was dark and locked by a security screen rolled down from the ceiling as if it were a jewelry store in a mall. She felt swamped by her coat and realized that for the past nine years she'd worn it almost exclusively with heels. Heels wouldn't do tonight. She laid down on a bench and could not find a comfortable position. She went to the window that looked out on the road, steaming up like a shower door.

It was dead dark in either direction. A foot beyond either shoulder of the road and you were standing in dark, rich loam, a furry, redwood jungle, entirely unaltered, dating back to Jurassic times.

and there was someone walking down the road. Bianca's stomach sank. She saw the look of concern that she wore in the sickly half-reflection in the glass. A man, she judged by his gait. It was a long approach, and it was nearly two minutes before she could say for sure that he was coming straight for her. She went and sat in a chair facing the door in the far corner of the waiting room.

She looked down and realized that she was pulling tufts of fur from the cuff of her sleeve and crossed her arms like they'd done it on their own and would do it again if left to their own devices. the man crossed the parking lot beneath the lone street light he wore a long overcoat and a big broad-brimmed hat wilting beneath the onslaught she shivered when he opened the door

He stepped inside, and when the door closed, she could hear him dripping onto the tile. He sized her up, and she saw in his face that he saw no threat in her. He sat on the bench she'd been laying on a few minutes earlier and shook his hat. A few of the droplets landed near her feet and he apologized. She smiled enough to say that it was all right. She was relieved to find that she seemed to be as much an annoyance to him as he was to her.

He hung his jacket on a nearby chair and removed his shoes and turned them over beneath the bench to dry. She saw him sneak one last look over at her before turning onto his side with his back hunched toward her. He drew his legs up a bit and hugged himself. Would you like me to wake you? she asked. For a moment, she thought he might already have fallen asleep.

but then he tilted his head up and back so that she could just see his right eye. When it arrives, she said. No, thank you, came the reply. then nearly a minute later safe travels she had thought him already to sleep but two minutes later she heard light snoring and knew for certain She looked at the clock feeling that it ought to be nearly time and found that only a few minutes had passed since she'd last checked.

He was much younger than the reassuring ticket man she'd imagined and she found the fact that he'd seemingly materialized out of the primeval forest less than comforting. She wished She'd have thought to bring her knitting. The minute hand inched ahead. She couldn't remember agonizing over a clock like this since high school. Finally, the appointed time drew nigh.

When the bus was due in five minutes, she gathered up her few belongings. At two, she went and stood near the door, and at one, she opened the door and went and stood under the awning. The time came. The bus did not. Minutes passed. The wind blew, and it was very cold, even in her coat. She craned her neck as far as she could while still staying dry and tried to look down the road in both directions and saw only darkness. She felt her ankle growing tired and realized she'd been tapping her foot.

You don't draw up a plan B for a Hail Mary. If there was no bus, then where was she? In a little shelter in the middle of the woods, in the middle of nowhere. How could it fall apart here, because of a bus? They were supposed to be a piece of the environment, as dependable as the rising sun. She waited. Perhaps it was delayed by the weather. five, ten more minutes. She clenched her jaw so hard, searching for headlights that she gave herself a headache. She went inside to warm up and cry.

The man was not snoring, though he still appeared to be asleep. She tapped him on the shoulder and he stirred. Excuse me. You know if it's normal for the bus to be so late. Maybe the driver fell asleep, he mumbled into the back of the bench. She thought about it. Does that really happen often? She asked. Not that I've ever heard of.

But everyone's got to sleep, right? He stretched and then curled deeper into the bench with a few dove-like adjustments of his head and neck until he found an acceptable position. I'm sorry.

she said. I've never ridden the bus before and I'm very concerned. He rolled over and sat up and cracked his neck. He squinted at the nearest schedule. Which one now? 12.30. He rubbed his eyes and checked his watch. It was nearly one. That's not good, he said. He scratched the back of his neck. Do you have somewhere to go?

she did she could go back where she came from that was always an option he hadn't hit her after all only raised his hand like he'd meant to no she said not that i mind sharing he said if you don't she shook her head a little he was not handsome but nor was he unhandsome I admit if you'd have wanted to kick me out, I was prepared to ask to see your deed. She smiled politely. She hadn't meant for this to become a friendship. But he was not unhandsome.

the rain threw streetlights dappled shadows across his face good night he said she fidgeted in her chair unable to find a comfortable position stewing in her impotence, growing only more despondent, more fidgety by the minute. Five hours. every ounce of her concentration could not will a bus to come roaring around that bend she was stuck between a situation which seemed impossible to comprehend

passing the night in a bus station, and the reality of having no other options. So stuck she could almost feel the air being pressed from her lungs as she sat there. When she could no longer sit still, she rose and began to pace. Always before, it had been about him, scaring him, teaching him a lesson, reforming him. A weekend in a motel, no phone call. The email to the divorce lawyer. This time had to be for her. She couldn't flinch. The bus station, she realized,

sometime over the last few minutes, had begun to feel safe and almost, almost homey. It gave her pause. in a momentarily renewed pit in her stomach, that this was due to the presence of the strange man sleeping on the bench. What did she really know about him? He had not stormed in and slashed her to pieces on sight, had not torn her jacket and clothing from her the second she'd had her back turned. But that only meant that he, perhaps, was not

That kind of maniac. There are lots of different kinds of maniacs, she thought. She watched him sleep, his chest rising and falling in easy rhythm. His hat was tilted forward to cover his eyes and his hands were folded over his stomach. What choice did she have? Despite the vast variety of maniacs on offer in the world, they still made up a vanishingly thin slice of the population. If his only crime was being in this bus station all alone after midnight.

Then she was just as guilty and suspect as he. There was a row of seats without armrests where she could lay down. If there would be no bus, If this would be her shelter for one night of her life. The rain on the windows was rather cozy. She wrapped her coat around herself like a blanket. Things always looked More optimistic in the morning. She'd get to Tacoma. She'd get to San Diego.

She woke up, gasping for breath, and nearly fell out of her seats. His scream was echoing around the airy structure. She was facing the other way but could hear him trying to catch his breath. He cleared his throat and spoke barely above a whisper. Was I screaming? he asked. I believe so, she said. She'd had one foot in the realm of the dreaming and one in the waking, and for a moment hadn't been sure in which one the screaming had originated. Sorry, he said. Really, uh...

Really sorry. Bad dream, she asked. How much time have you got, he asked. About four and a half hours by the looks of it, she said. Would you believe me if I told you that I don't even know what I was dreaming about? He said. Probably your mother or your brother or a grade school teacher in a big geography test you didn't study for. He laughed once. If that were it, we wouldn't be having this conversation right now. Those are some of my scariest dreams, she said.

Have you ever heard of the cult of the new? He asked. She had not. I haven't remembered any of my dreams for almost a year now. But I wake up like this almost every night. Make that make sense. Me and what master's degree? He noted that the rain was slowing, and it was. Bianca turned over and closed her eyes. I don't think I'm going to be getting much sleep tonight, she said.

The man said that there was an all-night diner about two miles up the road. They'd been walking for less than five minutes when the rain stopped, as if they'd called its bluff. He asked, where she was from, and she said Connecticut. She didn't ask where he was from. Do you work? he asked. I did, for a while.

My husband and I both agreed it would be nice if I took a little part-time job doing data entry at our friend's law office. Get me out of the house, around other folks, make a little spending money. She didn't know why she was bringing him up, bringing him with her. But after a while, it made me feel like I was becoming a computer myself. Does that make any sense? I think so, he said. Some people seem to be able to relate. Others, not so much. So you quit?

He asked. She turned to look at him and found he was looking at her, and their eyes met for the first time since he'd woken them both up with his screaming. yes she said clouds of mist crept among the towering redwood trunks the ground ferns shivered with every frigid blast of wind The nocturnal chorus was still hiding from the rain and the night was unnaturally quiet. What did your husband think about that? he asked.

She didn't know if this was intended as a barb, or if, in her current state, everything simply felt like one. He didn't, she said. He still thinks I work there. Where does he think you're going tonight? asked the man. It doesn't look like I'm going much of anywhere.

Do you like patty melts? They make a mean patty melt where you're headed. Are you from around here? No. I ate there for dinner about six hours ago. She felt the smoothness of the painted white line on the soles of her shoes. The gravel of the shoulder crunched and scraped and popped beneath his feet, hands in his pockets. She could just see his breath in the scant light of the moon which had recently emerged from behind the clouds, looking gaunt.

The wind picked up and blew their coats back and they leaned against it, and soon his hat was gone. He clutched at air, was left with his hands on his head like he'd forgotten an important birthday. There was a neat patch of hair missing above his ear and a fresh, jagged scar running halfway up his scalp. Bianca could not hide her noticing in time. The greater the abnormality, the longer the honest initial response lingers.

He jogged back for his hat, and caught up dusting it off and straightening the brim, and they walked, and for what felt like a long time, neither spoke. But it was very, very... very dark, and the stars which were appearing overhead did little to help, only made Bianca feel very small and vulnerable and alone. What was it that you mentioned earlier? About the cult? The cult of the new? I'm surprised you haven't heard of them.

It seemed like there were a dozen articles a week coming out about them over the summer. She shook her head and shrugged. It's mostly Silicon Valley people, or at least it was at the start. I'm not much of a tech girl. Yeah. He scratched the scruff on his chin. Fair enough. What does that mean? A cult? They're all going to go kill themselves in the jungle? The man chuckled. I wouldn't put it past some of them. A faint glow appeared in the sky just above the horizon.

It grew stronger as they walked. It's funny that you should say that. I actually know the guy who is credited with founding the whole movement. Oh, she said. I'm sorry. I just... No, no, he said. It's nothing like that. Not a friend. More of a professional colleague, I suppose. though even that description what is it she asked a long story a tall glowing sign rose into view maybe a mile down the road

The come-on-in diner, like a flag planted against the night. Have you heard of the Fresno Nine? he asked. She had not, so he told her. That was when the dreams started, he explained. For all of us. And not just the volunteers, but the scientists and the astronauts. Everyone on board. What dreams, she asked. He shook his head. Have you ever had a dream so real and so awful that you wake up convinced? The dream is reality and your waking life is just some escapist fantasy? I don't think so.

Let it happen to you every time you shut your eyes for six years while everyone tells you you're crazy and every doctor says there's nothing wrong with you. Let's just say... that I remain unconvinced that that hunch is not the truth at the bottom of it all. So we die, and... The fantasy ends, and we wake up in hell, said Bianca, and I get to say I knew it.

There was one car in the parking lot of the diner. Through the plate glass windows they could see no diners at the counter or in the booths. The buzzing of the neon bordering the roof line. was the loudest thing they could hear. There was a little bell on the door that summoned the waitress when they opened it. They sat in the corner booth, farthest from the entrance.

Back again so soon? Did you forget something? She was on them with menus and silverware and water. I brought a friend. What'll she have? Patty melt? the tip of her nose and cheeks were flushed where the wind had stung her the man nodded two patty melts please she didn't bother with her pad Anything to drink? The root beer was really something. Two root beers? Bianca shrugged and nodded and handed back her menu, and then they looked out the window until the waitress returned.

with their root beers. One of the lab assistants, a year after we came back to Earth to the day, put a shotgun in his mouth. Bianca put down her glass. The vinyl of the seat was glossy and purple opalescent. You wanted to know about the dreams, he said. The point is... The guy who started the whole thing. Gail McNamara. He was up there with me. He's one of the nine. You see.

I'd been out on my own for a couple of years after the whole thing was said and done. No more tests, no more interviews, no more follow-ups. But the dreams persisted. Eventually, everyone gives up and falls away. They don't have to live with it. I tried whatever I could, of course, drinking drugs, over-the-counter cocktails. I mean, it was really ruining my life.

It's hard to hold down anything normal when you're terrified to go to sleep, job, relationship, or otherwise. I was bouncing around between women. finding girlfriends whose apartments I could live in, crashing with friends between stints and halfway houses, when one day I got a phone call from a number I didn't recognize. It was Gail. He'd been having the dreams, too.

Of course. And he invited me over to his house for dinner. There was something he wanted to talk to me about. All he would say on the phone was, I've found the solution. The waitress arrived with the food, and the two spent a few minutes eating in silence. Bianca took a sip of soda to wash down the fries. What was his? solution he looked up at her just enough to let her know he heard her and then hunched back over his plate and took another bite of his sandwich

He took his time chewing, gulping it down. He wiped his hands with his napkin and then lifted his hat enough to reveal the shaved patch. You should have seen this house. He had a chef in his kitchen cooking us dinner. He showed me his wine cellar. Little did I know when I went up to space with him, the guy is an inventor, an inveterate tinkerer.

and apparently has a PhD in philosophy and a bachelor's in computer science. When the dreams wouldn't quit, he read a few books on neuroscience. Somewhere along the way he had an idea. A chip. Basically. Tap into the hippocampus to borrow some of your memories and then tell you a dream of their writing. Let us do the dreaming for you. He got rich as hell on that slogan.

He never expected it to have any kind of wide appeal outside of those of us from the study. Maybe a few specific odd cases here and there. But all of a sudden, he said, there was an entire new ideology. springing up around his invention. And it seemed so simple in his head. A direct solution to a problem. And... Some manufacturer or distributor would need to be convinced in order to produce the thing at a scale that would make it viable.

so other uses would have to be discovered or invented, other markets spun up by marketing. But these were second-order problems. He did not realize until after it was too late that... at least for some people, he had shifted the paradigm in a way that technology does once every couple of centuries. Sure, plenty of people saw it like a parlor trick. or a band-aid for the brain, the way Gale himself did. There were charts going around about

How much energy your brain used to dream. How much of it lit up when you were dreaming. I've heard people say our brains spend 30% of the electricity it generates to create dreams. People started daydreaming about how much more optimized their brains could be. If you let someone else do your dreaming, what could your brain accomplish in the background in the meantime?

Bianca had stopped picking at her fries while she listened. Does it work? Do you know what I was dreaming when I woke up? Apparently screaming. for God knows what reason, the last thing I remember, an insurance commercial starring my great-aunt Caroline. The waitress came out to check on them and then disappeared back into the kitchen. But is it the solution? I'll say this, he said.

They run a professional operation with licensed surgeons. There are more than a couple of very famous people they've operated on by now. They don't leave people looking like this. He pointed to his own scalp. Bianca was glad she had already eaten most of her meal. The waitress returned with the check and the man paid. Bianca thanked him. Say, miss, the late bus never showed for the evening, and my friend here is now plum out of luck till the sun rises on tomorrow.

What's there to do around this part of town for a couple of free spirits such as ourselves? Any farmers markets? Good bands in town? The waitress picked up the tray containing the bill and his money. You can tip me and go home. The self-assured smile lingered on his lips a half second longer than in his eyes. She put the money in the register. returned his change and then disappeared back into the kitchen before reappearing a moment later in the doorway or she said

There's always the river. She gave a demure service worker smile and then slipped once more out of sight.

A few moments later, the lights in the kitchen turned off. The man could see the anxiety creeping into Bianca's expression. It was still several hours till sunrise. He took a quarter from the small pile of change left on the counter and popped it into the jukebox and selected a song. He returned to the booth with a polite smile, and they both watched the kitchen to see if the waitress would reappear.

They watched for a long time since there was little else to do and a long time to wait, and they did not see the waitress. Then there were headlights on the road. and a gray astrovan came gliding over the wet pavement it pulled into the parking lot and sat idling in a space by the door headlights blasting the vestibule

Its windows were too dark to see anyone inside. Bianca watched because there was little else to look at, but became alarmed upon looking at the man. He was sweating. His eyes were... fixed on the van with the cold focus of an all-consuming terror. She could hear him breathing through his nose. What's wrong? His jaw twitched and he bit his lip hard. That's them, he said. What? Who? Why?

The man took a deep breath to try and steady his nerves. His hand was trembling. Because he rapped on his skull. I've got their $30,000 proprietary piece of hardware humming away inside of me. The little cloud of white exhaust continued rising red through the van taillights. Bianca shivered and pulled her coat tighter over her and could not bring herself to turn back to look at the idling van again.

But it was worse to look at the man's eyes, his face growing somehow gaunter and almost green. He began drumming on the tabletop with his fingers. What are they going to do, she said. He just shook his head. Well, I won't leave you, she said. I won't let them hurt you. They were crazy fucking meth heads. he said. His lip was bleeding where he'd been biting it, and his skin looked clammy. He kept flexing his jaw in and out. Will they take it back?

He just shook his head and shrugged. He would not look away from the van, even for a moment. But you tried to remove it yourself, isn't that what you said? He looked at her now. His eyes were shimmering with the faint beginnings of tears. Do you know where I was before I met you? I was visiting a man named Marvin Lee.

He's the last of the nine who haven't signed up for the chip or offed themselves. He lives in a rent-controlled apartment, collects Social Security, has his groceries delivered, hardly sees the light of day. He sits around and waits to die and wakes up every morning screaming and resentful and scared for his life. Do you know what he said? The worst part of it. is that you can't look away. You're the one creating it. In dreams you can't close your eyes.

Bianca heard a car door shut and turned around to see four men in matching simple black tunics emerge from the van. They filed silently into the diner. Now that they were inside the man could not bear to look at them He stared down at the table where his arms were crossed fiendishly tapping his toe Bianca thought she heard a whimper

When they arrived in front of the table, the one nearest her companion held out his hand. He held it there without a word for over a minute. They behaved as if Bianca were invisible. without looking at her he eventually reached out and took the man's hand his eyes were red and puffy bianca watched as they escorted him to the door hoping for some reason that he would look back at her. He did not. They led him through the vestibule and opened the van door for him. On the precipice, he tore away.

their grasping hands clutched at him and ripped his jacket from his person beneath he wore a matching simple black tunic he ran two of his captors chased him into the darkness a minute later Through her own reflection, Bianca watched them haul him back. They stood him up at the precipice and he climbed in. They climbed in behind him and shut the door. The brake lights came on as the van was put into reverse.

scattering the cloud of exhaust, and then they were off, and it was in drive, and within ten seconds the vehicle had vanished completely. Bianca looked at the crust of the patty melt still on the man's plate, the next song he'd selected, cued in the jukebox. She found the waitress out back smoking and bummed a cigarette from her.

She said that she could give her a ride when her shift was over in a few hours. She made her coffee while she waited but Bianca fell asleep in one of the booths instead, using her coat for a blanket. The sun was orange and fresh risen when the waitress nudged her awake, already in her own jacket. They drove to the bus station. It looked less desolate in the daylight. Conceivable that a bus could arrive...

in half an hour, bearing real live humans per the schedule. At Bianca's request, they drove past. It's just a few minutes up the road, if you don't mind. Turn by turn, she gave her the directions home, which from here she knew by heart.