The Mind Virus

Chapter 8 - Part 2

Terry's head was spinning. "W-what are you talking about? I haven't held any weapons. I've never even fired a gun."

"This isn't anything like any gun. Our little job, Terrence. The mail you had to sort through. Why do you think you had to filter out that one specific item and make sure it didn't get to the client?"

"That letter? But I thought it was just a –"

"Unassuming, isn't it? The perfect weapon to assassinate someone with, and as we had predicted, someone tried to use it on our client whose mail you looked through. You saved a life, Terrence. You're a hero. A worthy sacrifice."

"I don't want to sacrifice myself for some rich prick! The job description didn't say anything about that!" Tears stung Terry's eyes as he wrestled with the unfairness of his predicament.

"No shit. Would anyone have applied if it did?"

Terry stared at him with insurmountable hatred.

"If it's any consolation, the favor you did us didn't end there," the man continued. "You also returned the weapon to us. It had been stolen, you see. An 'act of industrial sabotage,' as my boss calls it."

"So you guys build this 'weapon' and then lose it?"

"Not just 'it,' Terrence. There are several."

"How many?"

"What does it matter? Only one was in danger of being used against our clients. The other is lost in the wind and probably floating between people who have no idea what it is."

"The other? So there's one other that's been lost?"

"Yes, yes, good catch, genius." The man rolled his eyes, seemingly unfazed by his own slip-up. "Anyway, like I said, it doesn't matter. There's nothing you can do about that."

"I can go to the authorities."

"And tell them what?"

Terry knew he had a point.

"Are you going to tell them that you tracked me down, choked me out, and tied me up?" the man continued. "How did you track me down anyway?"

"Isn't it obvious?"

"Your phone?"

"I had yours and you had mine, which meant I could track my own GPS and it would take me right to you, and so it did."

"Obvious indeed. It's a pity you're not more popular, Mr. Howell. If one of your friends had texted you earlier, I could have seen it was your phone and switched it off."

"Being a nobody has its advantages, sir."

The man only stared at him.

"I still don't understand," Terry continued. "How did the item infect me? Was it covered in something? Some powder, like anthrax or something? Is that why I had to put it in that weird black plastic envelope to send it back?"

"Let's use our brains and think for a moment, Terrence. If it was some powder that infected you, it could have been put on anything and sent in. No, it's the item itself. You were infected the moment you looked at it."

"How? I don't understand."

"You keep saying that you don't understand. That's to be expected. You'll never understand. Hell, even I don't understand."

"You don't?"

"I was just responsible for retrieval, Mr. Howell. I have nothing to do with the eggheads who made it. But I do know one thing, and that is that one look at the item reprograms your brain or some shit, and after that, your mind quickly deteriorates until you're simply unable to cope anymore."

"Unable to cope with what?"

The man ignored Terry's question. "Every one of our test subjects that was exposed to it took their own lives, and since the other weapon went missing, it seems like everyone who had gotten exposed to that one took their own lives too."

"How can you tell? I thought you said it was lost."

"We picked up a spike in suicides in Cedar Grove and the surrounding areas. All of them were connected, and the person responsible for stealing the weapon is known to have passed through the area. So, you know, putting two and two together, and all that."

"So wait, I'm going to die by... taking my own life?"

"Yes, you are."

"So I can not die by simply not killing myself."

"In theory, yes. In practice, no, you will kill yourself."

"Or I could just not."

"You grossly underestimate how this weapon works, Mr. Howell. No one has survived it so far, and it's unlikely that anyone ever will."