Arnesto Modesto: The World's Most Ineffectual Time Traveler

Mementos

Arnesto's Apartment

Silicon Valley, California

Sunday, April 28, 2013

Afternoon

Arnesto froze. This was it. He always knew this day would come, but that didn't make it any easier. He covered the mouthpiece and took a deep breath.

"Mr. Modesto? I know you can hear me."

"Who is this?" he asked. He looked out a side window and noticed a sturdy-looking man in a suit standing across the street. He looked out another window and saw another suit standing by a tree.

"We're not hiding from you, Mr. Modesto. We want to do this the easy way, and we know you do, too. In thirty seconds, you're going to hear a knock on your door, or you can come out on your own." The female voice was starting to sound more firm and less pleasant.

Arnesto looked around the apartment for answers, but his possessions seemed inconsequential all of a sudden. He went to the door and looked out the peephole. He saw another suit standing by one of the cars in the parking lot. After a quick sigh, he opened the door and locked it from the outside before walking down the stairs.

"Thank you, Mr. Modesto," said the woman on the phone. Please walk over to the street. We have a limo waiting for you."

Arnesto looked at his car and saw another suit standing next to it and still another walking toward him on the sidewalk.

"There's even more of them that you don't see," the woman said. "I suggest you not make them pursue you." He agreed; escape was not a viable option. "We appreciate your cooperation. I'll see you in the limo." She hung up.

As he approached the road and the suits closed around him, a limo pulled up alongside them. One of the three suits opened the passenger door for him, and Arnesto got in. There were four more suits inside, one in each corner, and Arnesto had no choice but to sit between two of them in the back seat.

Arnesto tried to figure out who they were. They weren't the police or FBI; they hadn't shown him any identification. CIA? They looked American, at least. He probably wasn't being kidnapped by the KGB, and they definitely weren't ISIS or members of the Yakuza. But they were all stocky men. How dangerous did they think he was, and where was the woman from the phone?

The man on his immediate left said, "Thank you for not kicking and screaming."

As Arnesto turned to face him, he felt a prick on the right side of his neck and fell unconscious.

When he awoke, he was in a cell. He felt disoriented and a little nauseous, more from whatever they had given him than the anxiety. He tried to take note of his surroundings. There was nothing in his cell except for himself, his cot, and a small, metal toilet. His clothes were different now: he was in a gray t-shirt, gray sweatpants, and white boxers, but nothing else. None of the clothes were his. This made him shudder. He had neither socks nor shoes nor any other possessions.

His cell looked out at a wall. Pushing his face into the bars, he could tell by looking left his cell was at the end of a hall, but looking right, he could only see more wall. There was also a camera in a protective bubble in the ceiling just outside his cell; they could see everything.

As he walked around his cell barefoot, he became acutely aware of his footsteps. He realized they were the only thing he heard. He coughed and snapped his fingers to make sure he wasn't losing his mind. He heard these fine, but otherwise, the hallway was perfectly quiet. Perhaps he was alone in this hall.

"Hello?" he asked. "Hello?! Is anyone there?"

There was no reply. Maybe an apocalypse had happened, leaving him the only survivor. Nah, he would've remembered that. Where was he anyway? Was he even in the United States?