Project Archangel Book One: The Conspiracy Project

Chapter 3 (TW: Animal death)

 
I felt slightly awkward as I followed Michael out to the parking lot and took a seat inside his flashy car. It was like everyone's eyes were on me and me alone. What were they saying? Were they whispering about where I might be going with that weird kid with black hair? Were they starting rumors about what we were planning to do when we got to our destination? Were they running to Lance, my psycho ex boyfriend, to tell him all about Michael and me?
I shifted uncomfortably in my spot as Michael started the car.
“You okay?” he inquired.
“Fine. Can we just go?”
“Scared people are going to start saying stuff about us?”
“My ex boyfriend is crazy,” I muttered.
Michael smirked. “I could take him.”
I shook my head. “You won't have to. We aren't dating.”
“Well then, that's good for him.” He shrugged and backed out of the parking lot, pulling out onto the road.
---
When we pulled into his four car garage, I wasn't surprised to see a Porsche on one side of us and a Mercedes on the other. The inside of his house was almost exactly the way I remembered it: spacious and very modern. The garage entered into the kitchen which had all marble counter tops and cabinets as well as a silver metal fridge and an island and juice bar in the middle that matched the counters with several bar stools in front. There was a table for four dead ahead. To the left was a glass door that opened to a patio. In front of the patio door was the living room with a large screen TV, coffee table, and lounge sofa, and at the back of the living room was the actual dining room. It had a long rectangular wooden table with a glass top and Victorian style chairs with cushioned seats. Entering the dining room from the living room, the front door was to the right, at the bottom of a flight of carpeted stairs, and underneath those stairs was a room that led to more carpeted stairs, going down into the basement.
Michael led me to the room with the stairs and down into the basement, which appeared to be used as a rec room. There were 3 large curved TVs side by side at the front, the newest version of every console that was out, another lounge sofa in front of the TVs, and a bar with stools at the back of the room. Behind that and to the left, there was a set of double doors with a pin pad combination lock to the right. To the right of the TV and sofa was a Foosball table, and beyond that was another glass patio door with a screen. A pool table was to the left of the sofa, and underneath the stairs was the same closet we had used to play Seven Minutes in Heaven at Michael's eleventh birthday. If my memory served well, it was where they kept their older consoles, games, and Blu-Rays.
He walked up to the locked door and punched in a number on the keypad. The lock clicked. He opened the door to reveal an office. There were two desks like a teacher would have facing each other in the center of the room. Against the left hand wall was a line of file cabinets, out of which I assumed he had gotten the folders. On the right hand wall was a library bookshelf, filled with books, and directly across the room was a waist-high shelf filled with thick binders, full of paperwork. Covering the wall above it were various degrees, diplomas, and awards as well as a couple of inspirational posters. Michael walked to the desks and dug around in several drawers before pulling out a flash drive and walking back to me in the doorway. He shooed me back into the rec room and closed the doors.
“That's my parents' office,” he muttered. “I'll show you my room.”
 
The upstairs was by far the simplest floor. When you came up on the landing, there was a bedroom. As you walked down the hall along the stair railing, there was another room. After that, the hall turned left and led past another door into the same room and then came to another bedroom. Both bedrooms were large in size with walk in closets and bathrooms with spa tubs. The middle room was set up like a hobby room with an easel, two computers, and some work out equipment and a TV to watch while working out, as well as a stereo, just in case you preferred music.
Michael led me into the first bedroom and closed the door. He flopped onto his fluffy black comforter over red satin sheets, his feet coming to rest on the red satin pillowcases. He reached under the bed and pulled out a nice laptop, complete with light up keys.
“You can sit down...” he muttered, opening the laptop.
Hesitantly, I took a seat on the edge of the bed.
He raised an eyebrow. “I won't bite, I promise.” His expression changed to a smirk. “Unless you want me to.”
I felt my face heat up, and I inched closer to him so that I could see the screen as he inserted the flash drive he'd gotten from his parents' office. His desktop was a photograph from his eleventh birthday party. All the popular kids were surrounding him and doing bunny ears and peace signs, but I was standing with a small but obvious gap between myself and the other children, with an obviously forced smile on my face. I hadn't wanted to go, but my parents pressured me into it.
“Your eleventh birthday...” I muttered.
He shrugged. “It's the most recent picture I've got.”
“Didn't you take any at boarding school?” I asked in surprise.
“Boarding school?”
“Yeah, didn't you take any pictures while you were there?”
“Oh. Yeah. Of myself.”
“You didn't take any with your friends?”
“What friends?”
“When you said you didn't have many, I didn't think you meant none at all.”
“I don't really fit in with normal people very well.”
“You used to.”
“People change. Some grow up, some don't. Some get tired of dealing with everyone else.”
“That's kind of sad...”
“Not really.” He shrugged carelessly. “I usually prefer the solitude.”
The flash drive had downloaded and installed by now, and he opened the menu to reveal several folders. He clicked on one with the name Frequency, and it pulled up several videos. He turned to me with a serious look on his face.
“I'm telling you now, some of this is pretty disturbing. If you get uncomfortable, tell me and I'll turn it off.”
“What exactly are you showing me?” I demanded skeptically.
“I told you. Evidence.”
“You're not letting this go, are you?”
“Project or no project, people should know what their government is trying to do.”
I sighed and lay down next to him, facing the screen. “Let's see this ‘evidence' then.” I made air quotes with my fingers.
The first video was a woman discussing how years ago a scientist named Putarich had performed experiments about radio frequencies and their effects on people. Now she and her research group were taking it one step further: mind control.
I watched as test subjects A through E were introduced. There were two young boys, two young girls, two men, and two women. The control group had all been implanted with what she called an RFID chip while the other had not, simply to see which group was more sensitive to each frequency. There were seperate video interviews for each, but we didn't look at those. After that the real experiments began.
I saw people being forced to stay awake, even on the brink of exhaustion, because of a silent sound. I watched a little girl go through a psychotic episode equivalent to that of a schizophrenic who had never been given medication and a man who hadn't had a drop of alcohol acting drunk just because of a frequency. I saw one of the women become neurotic and extremely jumpy like she had overdosed on caffeine for what seemed like no reason, and a man become violent and angry without any clear triggers, while another woman acted exactly like an infant. I was done when I witnessed the little boy break a rabbit's neck and kill it just seconds after being so happy to see it and pet it and cuddle it.
“Oh my god!” My hand covered my mouth as my stomach churned. “Turn it off.”
Michael paused the video and closed his laptop. I heard the ding as it ejected the flash drive, and he pulled it out. We were silent for a moment before he mumbled “I'll take you home.”
“Why did he kill the bunny?” I squeaked, still staring in horror at the now closed laptop.
“Because they told him to,” Michael answered, his expression blank. “They use animals like rabbits in experiments all the time. Didn't you ever hear about the one where they shocked the kid every time he went to pet the rabbit until he was scared of rabbits?”
“But they didn't kill it!”
“He had no control of his actions. That's what they do. They train children to be ruthless killers for some B.S. thing going on somewhere else. These people are nothing but experiments to them. Each one is expendable, even the children. That's why I want other people to know about it, but without proof, people just say you're a crazy conspiracy theorist.”
“That's what I thought too,” I admitted. “But that video... He was just a child.”
“If it makes you feel any better, he's older now and has absolutely no memory of killing his pet.”
“It still happened.”
He shrugged. “There’s a lot of things happening in the world right now that no one knows or cares about. You want to go grab some dinner or something? I'll pay. Food makes everything better."
I blinked, surprised by the sudden change in Michael's demeanor. “Um... Okay...”
The truth was that I was still nauseous from the bunny incident, and I didn't really know if I could eat, but I didn't want to be rude. Michael didn't have to help me out with our science project, but he was. He didn't have to give me a ride home or buy me food either, but he was doing that too. I also still felt kind of bad that he didn't have a lot of friends, but I could kind of see why. Either way, it wouldn't kill me to go to a restaurant with him.
 ---
“Where do you want to go?” he asked as we left his house. He had one arm outstretched with his hand on the wheel and the other elbow resting against the window.
“You're asking me? I thought you already had a place in mind.”
“I haven't been in town the last six years, remember? I don't know what's still here and what isn't. Plus I thought there might be a place that went up recently that you liked.”
“You're surprisingly considerate.”
“I try to be.”
“Well, there's this fifties style diner... A lot of kids from our school hang out there. It's called Danny's.”
“Danny's Diner?”
“Yeah.”
“Love the alliteration.”
 ---
We pulled up into the parking lot at Danny's shortly after five thirty, so it was crowded. Of course, everyone had to stare at the flashy car that pulled up and the rich boy that got out. While I was trying to shrink into the ground and disappear, Michael seemed to be enjoying everyone's eyes on him. He strolled on ahead of me while I followed by a few feet. Things got even more awkward when he held the door for me. We slipped inside and took a seat as a waitress appeared to take our drink orders.
As we sat at the table sipping our sodas, I heard a familiar voice from the doorway, and my blood ran cold.
I tried to duck my head and hide my face, but it wasn't that easy. Why did he have to be here? Why now?
“You alright?” Michael asked.
“Yeah, fine, why?”
“Because you're kind of trying to hide your face.”
“Trust me, you do not want to be seen with me right now.”
“Are you sure it's not the other way around?”
“Positive.”
“You sure? Because, I mean, it's cool if you feel that way.”
“I promise. It has nothing to do with you.”
“Then why?”
“Kelsey?” I heard a mocking voice speak from behind me.
“That's why...” I groaned and buried my face in my arms on the table as Lance approached us and stopped.
“Is this your new boyfriend? You can do so much better, Kelsey.”
I sighed and lifted my head to see my ex's familiar face and his brown hair with frosted tips. He looked exactly like the frat boy wannabe he was. “He's not my boyfriend, Lance.”
Lance ignored me and faced Michael. “What's with the perfect black hair? You some kind of goth? There's no way that's real.”
He reached out as if to touch Michael's hair, but he slapped away Lance's hand with the speed and dexterity of a trained soldier.
“Don't touch me,” he said in a low voice, eyeing my ex warily.
Lance's eyes narrowed, but I could still see the hateful fire burning within them. He turned back to me. “Why don't you ditch this loser and come to my place, Kelsey? You won't regret it, I promise.”
I sighed in irritation. “No thanks.”
“Come on, Kelsey.” He smirked. “You know you miss me.”
He reached for my hand, but Michael acted quickly just like before, but this time he took a hold of Lance's wrist and held on tight. Their eyes burned into each other. “Don't touch her either.”
Lance glared at Michael and pulled hard on his arm just as Michael let go, causing him to jerk and almost lose his balance. I was shocked to see that Michael had left a red hand print on Lance's wrist.
“This isn't over,” my ex mumbled. He faced me once more. “You'll come crawling back to me with tears in your eyes when this jackass breaks your heart. I just have to be patient.”
With that, he turned on his heel and went to join his friends at a table on the other side of the restaurant where they could all be as loud and obnoxious as possible.
I looked at Michael. His normally ocean blue eyes were now more of an icy blue as they met my green eyes.
“What was that?” I demanded.
He feigned innocence. “What was what?”
“That!” I gestured towards Lance.
Michael shrugged. “I didn't want him touching me, and you didn't seem to either. Who was that jerk anyway? He was irritating.”
“That was Lance.”
“Who?”
“Remember the ex boyfriend I told you about?”
“Wait. That guy? Wow. Ew.”
I sighed and shook my head. “We had a thing last summer, but he broke up with me when I told him I wasn't going to sleep with him. I guess he didn't take it so well because he's always doing stuff like that."
“I'll say. Seems like he's still wanting something from you.”
“Yeah, not happening. Ever. Lance is an ass.”