Rectifier - The Electric Man: After the Crash, #2

Chapter 1

Sunday November 6th, Three Years After the Crash

Ollie? Wake up, Ollie.

Oliver Stewart woke up in a dark pit. The gray sky above, lit enough by twilight to just blot out the stars, formed a long rectangle above him. The musty scent of wet earth hung like a gas settling low to the ground. He’d certainly woken up in his share of odd places. Stale urine and vomit he was used to, but this smelled like fresh-dug dirt.

Grace? Was she here, too?

A weight pressed down on him until he wriggled out from under an uneven blanket of gravel half covering him. Rows of bars rose in both directions, giant U shapes like enormous staples not punched all the way in. He blinked over and over, waiting for the shapes to turn into something he recognized. It wasn’t a pit, but some kind of...trench? Was he in another alley, looking up at the sky between buildings? No, that wasn’t it...

The bottom of the trench was lumpy, and shadows made it difficult to see why. Some spots gave beneath his hand when he felt around. He swept at the gravel and a familiar pale face stared out at him, unblinking eyes open, the face a twisted grimace of pain. He yanked his hand back with a yelp and shuddered.

Where did he know her from? What was her name? It wasn’t Grace, this woman was older and patches of rough, leathery skin spread across half her face. Wha’s gonna happen t’us? the woman had asked. Where was that? When?

She wore a pale hospital gown—the same gown was all he wore. What was going on? His sluggish mind couldn’t make sense of it; his body ached. He’d been staying clean, so he shouldn’t be detoxing again. How many months since he last relapsed and woke in an alley? His head didn’t hurt this time.

Other bodies lay around him. At least four he made out, now that he understood the lumpy contours in the surrounding gravel that covered some more than others. White teeth stood out in a black man’s face. He shook shoulders around him, but found only cold, lifeless corpses.

A grave. He was in some kind of mass grave. What?! He scrambled around, finding nothing but the bodies and ribbed metal bars and dirt. His shoulder banged against one of the metal bars as he scrambled to his feet, desperate to get away.

Why was he in a grave? It wasn’t a cemetery grave, this was something more, something more chilling. He shuddered again, a whole-body thing that triggered waves of shivering. Cold surged through his veins. His stomach lurched, and he heaved but nothing came. The shivering stopped, but he had to grab one of the ribbed bars for balance. No, he hadn’t OD'd on something. If these other people had, they wouldn’t be in hospital gowns, would they? No, that wouldn’t make sense.

Organ farming? Sometimes people disappeared only to end up discarded somewhere, cut open and missing parts. He patted himself down. Everything seemed to be there. There was no blood on the gown. If someone hacked out his liver or spleen or something he wouldn’t be in a clean gown. As clean as one dumped into a dirt trench and half-buried with gravel could be. He let his panting breathing slow.

Calm down. It’s okay, Grace. We’re gonna be okay.

A low rumble and a distant grating, metal-on-metal squeal grabbed his attention with a choking grip. Down the trench, some kind of machine poured something bathed in multiple large lights. He couldn’t see details past the glaring light, but it headed towards him.

He pulled on one of the cold, ribbed metal bars for support to get himself up to kneeling in gravel that bit his knees. The trench wasn’t much wider than his shoulders. The bar arches—rebar—stretched away at about four-foot intervals. Rough plywood lined the sides of the trench.

No. Not a trench. This wasn’t a grave. Not just a grave anyway.

It was a foundation.

And that machine was filling it.

With concrete.

Oh God, oh God, oh God! He scrambled to his feet, his heart pounding in his chest and the sides of his skull. Dust hung in the chilly, humid air, somewhat clouding the approaching glare from the creeping death machine. The machine that would bury bodies in the concrete foundation never to be found. Even at nearly six feet tall he needed to hop up to see over the plywood walls

He grabbed the top edge and tried to pull himself up, reminiscent of pull-ups in gym class in school. He'd hated gym class and that pudgy Mr. Reirden who mocked the kids who weren't able to do exercises the jerk never had to do himself. His bare feet slipped against the wood sides and splinters from the rough edge dug into his fingers. The rumble of the machine drawing nearer grew as he scrambled against the coarse wood.

He pulled and pulled until he got his elbow up but his grip and weight shifted and he slipped. He fell, banging first against the rebar and then against a woman’s torso. Ribs crunched beneath him. At least her eyes were closed, he saw now that the concrete-pouring machine’s lights were closer.

He still couldn’t make out much about the creeping machine behind the glare, but he did see the falling concrete, saw it spreading ahead of the machine. It oozed towards him just minutes away.

He couldn’t see any people. Did he dare call out for them? Maybe they didn’t t know there were bodies—and a living person—being buried here. Or maybe they did and letting them know he was alive was the worst thing to do.

He had to get out. Now. Sore and raw fingers grabbed at the edge once more. He pushed against the cold rebar with bare feet until he heaved himself out of the foundation trench. Now he saw an operator atop the machine, a hard-hatted head looking down but probably not seeing anything outside the pools of light.

Once on his feet he took in his surroundings. Machines poured in several areas. Trucks fed the machines through thick pipes. Each truck or machine sported its own lights. A semi rolled over uneven ground, headlights bobbing and weaving through the sprawling construction site. He ran towards a pile of gravel big enough bury a school bus and he hid behind it, letting himself fall back against the pile that slid and scooted under him, cold against his exposed backside.

Hospital gown? He shook his head. It was clearer now, but things still didn’t make sense. It wasn’t drugs, at least. As much as staying clean sucked sometimes, he stuck with it. He’d done enough damage to himself and others and ended up where he had. He just couldn’t explain ending up here.

Orange spread across the sky. Daylight was coming. He couldn’t stay here.

A chain-link fence surrounded what he could make out. He would have to get over that. Trucks would enter and leave through a gate or opening somewhere, but someone would see him. He pushed himself up, gulped, took a deep breath, and ran for the fence as if it were prison break.

He jumped at the fence, grabbing the top with his hands and getting a foot into one of the diamond-shaped openings about halfway up. With a heave he propelled himself up, vaulting one leg over, feeling very vulnerable naked under the green gown. He got himself over, keeping anything from snagging horrifically at the top of the fence, only to have his footing slip on the other side. His shoulders smacked the ground first.

He struggled, panicked, until he gasped a breath in to replace the wind knocked out by the fall. Just a little to the left and a large rock would’ve split his head. He shuddered again as tears welled up and told himself the shaking was just shivering.

A few more feet of patchy dead grass ran along the fence before sidewalk and a street beyond. A tall brick windowless building a block long loomed across the street. Dead streetlights lined the empty street. Shouldn’t they still be on? The glass was shattered out of the closest one. A concrete slab underneath was the right dimensions for a bus stop, but the signpost was cut off not far above the ground. There were several parts of the city that Bay Transit stopped serving. None of them good.

His body quivered in the chilling air. The ground under his feet was cold, but at least dry. Where was he? He headed right, as good a direction as any, and followed the street to an intersection. Neither street name sounded familiar. Spray painted gang tags covered half of the stop sign. Still no sign of traffic. Or people.

It took three more blocks to get his bearings: somewhere in lower Southporte. That explained the dead streetlights, the removed bus stop, the lack of traffic. Southporte was a struggling area even before the alien ship crashed in the bay, what... three years ago? Other parts of the city were repaired and rebuilt; not so much here.

Wonderful. He was at least a mile south of I-80, and somewhere east of I-75, in the worst part of the city. Half of the district was vacant. The poor congregated in slums that either were, or should be, condemned. Southporte Police Department was an oxymoron. Finding help was unlikely at best. He’d need to cross both expressways before he could consider himself remotely safe. Wind picked up, making the chilled air even colder. He shivered harder. His stomach tried to eat him from the inside.

But there’s construction going on, a pretty big project, he whispered. What’s up with that? Cheap land, perhaps. Even cheaper permits, if they even used permits. Silence from Grace. Whatever. Not my problem.

He needed to get somewhere else, but Southporte, especially the lower half, wasn’t safe to travel at night. Gangs ruled the night. Gangs that mugged and raped anyone and killed the homeless for sport or for their initiations. Was daytime any better in nothing but a hospital gown? Standing out could be the worst thing. Even during the day gangs would prey on the weak, and nothing screamed weak and vulnerable like wearing nothing but a green hospital gown.

The first car he saw was the burned-out husk of an Explorer. Few parts of it weren't broken or ruined by fire. He'd lived on the streets for a few years now and knew nobody would pay any attention to it unless something about it changed. He'd hide in there while he figured out what to do, where to go. Somewhere he could feel safe, or even pretend to feel safe.

He climbed in through the hole where the back window once was and crawled under as much of the litter inside as he could. At least there wasn’t already a body here. Waking up with them was bad enough. It would have been just his luck to find a half-rotted skeleton. Instead it looked like an animal made this its den at some point. Hopefully it wouldn’t come back. The ripe stench of stale piss was brutal. He wasn’t the first one to shelter there.

For several hours he curled up as small as he could, shivering in the filthy back of the Explorer, trying not to breathe more than he had to. The sun came up, and he kept himself in the shadow against what framework and wiring remained of the back seat. Not a single car passed. No laughing gangers swaggered by. A crow perched on one of the streetlight corpses undisturbed, cawing now and then.

Memories came back to him in pieces. Waking up under harsh white lights feeling more awful than he recalled ever feeling. Everything hurting and his throat and chest on fire for perhaps a minute before it all went black again. Voices, cold and emotionless saying things like condition worsening, and, not taking. He remembered a clutching pain in his chest, a heart attack, maybe?

Hospital, maybe? he muttered. Grace didn’t offer an alternative suggestion, but a hospital wouldn’t dispose of dead bodies at a construction site in the worst part of the city. Maybe the construction at least meant that some rebuilding was going on. About damn time.

He was cold, and hungry, and thirsty. His dry throat hurt when he swallowed. He also needed clothes. There were donation bins in several areas throughout the city, but he did now know Southporte well enough. With good reason. Southporte was a shitty place to be. Even more so as a homeless bum. Wearing nothing but a hospital gown? Yeah, that wasn’t going to help. He needed to get away.

Moving was a risk he needed to take. Staying here wouldn’t get him anywhere. He peeked around before lowering himself back down to the pavement. He stretched stiffened limbs. The bottom of his gown was torn, and a scrape on his shin looked fresh. That stupid fence, probably.

The day had warmed a few degrees but was still jacket weather. Wind tugged at his flimsy gown. He tried to hold it closed behind him.

He moved from cover to cover, worried at any moment someone would see him and hordes of gangers would descend on him like ravenous zombies. Fast ones, not the slow lumbering ones.

Some cars drove past. Older luxury cars that could’ve been antiques in the hands of someone less abusive to them. Pickup trucks lowered until their bellies hovered over the pavement. Import hatchbacks with thumping bass far louder than stock speakers ever accomplished.

One police cruiser crept by. He hid behind a parked station wagon with no hubcaps, peeking through just enough to see the two cops inside turning their heads, scanning as they drove.

Were they looking for him? Had someone seen him and called in a suspicious person? Maybe someone thought he was a serial killer escaped from one of the lockdown psychiatric facilities. But he was no serial killer. And he’d never stayed at either of those wards. The cruiser rounded a corner and disappeared. He still crouched there several more minutes before moving on.

One group of perhaps a dozen black men, maybe just teens, stalked down the street like predatory and territorial giant cats patrolling their home turf. All wore the same red bandanas under ball caps worn sideways. He ducked into an alley and sprinted, the uneven pavement smacking at his feet as he ran.

A more commercial area stretched out spattered with small shopping centers where grates covered windows and neon signs were never intact. He snuck into the alley behind one and dug through the garbage bins and one small dumpster behind them.

One store was a hole-in-the-wall Mexican place. It was the kind of place he used to look for, albeit in much better neighborhoods. The kind of place he took Grace on some of their early dates as a junior software developer for RanTech. His feast today wasn’t anything like his dinners with her though. He lucked out finding a half-full Diet Coke towards the top and chugged that first. He hurried too much and choked on some that ended up spilling down his chest. The quarter-full bottle of Corona he found unbroken further down he drank more leisurely. Some things he passed on because they didn’t smell edible anymore. He did find a large lump of refried beans he dug into, eating more from the center of the mass than the edges. None of it grossed him out. It all stopped doing that a couple of years ago.

Eventually he found a dumpster set close to a U-Haul trailer missing both wheels. He still needed clothes and shivered. At least behind the dumpster was out of the wind. Shelter and concealment, old friends both.

He leaned against the brick wall—not as cold as leaning against the metal dumpster would be. Rust showed through where faded blue paint chipped, a dingy wall for his little pretend room. Not like the other metal room, Ollie.

He remembered. He woke up in a room with steel walls; they were gray instead of blue. The floor was also metal, cold and sloped towards a drain in the center. Cool lights in the ceiling gave everything a slight blue tint. There were other people there, all homeless like him. Three—there were three others in the beginning. Now and then another one or two or three would be dumped into the room, unconscious. They’d all wake up complaining of the same headache he first woke up with.

Every day, as best they could estimate with no clocks and nothing to indicate night versus day—none of them had a watch or phone—men in gray hospital scrubs would come in and select one or two to drag away. The third day it was the one woman he ever saw there. She was a wreck, shaking from drug withdrawal. Dispose of that one, someone in the hall suggested. That was where he'd seen the woman in the foundation-grave!

The first time the men picked up a tough but wiry looking black man with a shaved head and a denim jacket at least three sizes too big. He stood up and approached the door, asking what was going on, what was happening to them. No, don’t, a fellow prisoner warned. A man dressed all in black toting an assault rifle shoved him back from the door with a stern, "Stay away from the door!"

Food came at regular intervals, bland, hard to identify slop that made him miss hospital food. But it wasn't worse than he ate on the streets before. It seemed they were getting fed twice per day. Somewhere after each second feeding the door opened again and they were all hosed off with enough water to flush their collective waste further down the floor drain. The metal walls and floor made sense after that, at least.

The fourth day was his turn. The door opened as usual and four scrub-wearing men came in. One of them pointed him out and the rest grabbed him and dragged him from the room. He tried to resist, tried to fight and demanded to know what was happening to him. But he was tired and weak and they clearly worked out. The guard with the rifle was there again, so he struggled less in the hallway. What could he do?

They dragged him along through linoleum-tiled hallways, always keeping him from his feet enough he couldn’t walk of his own power. They passed doorways marked with numbers that didn’t seem to be consecutive, some with keypads, and even a few large windows with white plastic blinds drawn on the other side.

They dragged him into an operating room. Now he struggled again, but the rifle butt hit him in the back and he fell to his knees. They pushed him onto a table and strapped him down before he could recover.

Three men in white lab coats and surgical masks and short black hair surrounded him. One of them shoved a shaped funnel onto his face and a sweet gas knocked him out.

After that came waking up a few times feeling more sick than he ever had. Then a heart attack or seizure or something, and then the foundation mass grave. Whatever it was they were doing, many people obviously didn't survive. Maybe they thought him dead as well, but he recovered at the last minute? Or maybe they decided to dispose of him as well and didn’t count on him waking up when he did.

I guess we’ll never know. Maybe it didn’t matter. He was back on the streets again. At least this he knew how to do. He would wait for it to get dark and head west until he got under I-75. He could hide better in the dark than during the day.

It didn’t seem like a long distance, but took a surprising amount of time. He made slow progress, often waiting in frustration until things seemed clear enough to sprint to another piece of cover. He saw little foot or vehicle traffic, but he wanted to avoid all of it to be safe. Sometimes he was forced to move a block or more sideways or even back, avoiding encounters with people or dogs.

Being homeless was never easy. Bottles and epithets had been thrown at him plenty. Often people ignored him. Comfort was an elusive luxury rarely found. He missed his life before—before losing Grace.