Chapter Thirty-four -- Community of Fools

At the bottom of the stairs, I heard too late Trent yelling for us to get out. Sid called out behind me as I felt a pinch in my chest. I looked down; the red end of the hypodermic stuck there. Pulling it out was the last I remembered until I woke staring at the white ceilings of the Community.

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The room was bare. All stark white walls, ceiling, door. The floor tiles were cold. I had my clothes on at least. Sid was there in the room with me, still unconscious sprawled in the other corner. I crawled across the room to him. I watched as a white video camera mounted in another corner of the room slowly followed my movement. Before I could reach Sid, the door opened. Three figures came in. My head pounded, but my vision was hypersensitive. I knew what they were thinking without a touch. I saw greed. I saw need. I saw that they didn't care how they got it.

I saw how they intended to get it. I looked at Sid. Fuck.

It took me two tries to get to my feet. But when I did, I looked the tallest one in chest and said, "Just leave him alone-- I'll go with you."

He nodded. The other two got on either side of me, grabbing me by the arms and lead me out the door.

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At least they let me sit in a chair, even though it was hard and rigid. They wanted to talk. Well, ok, I thought, I'll talk. The trick was to tell them enough to make them happy but not enough to do any damage. I decided the best way was to give them some hocus-pocus.

First they asked me stupid simple questions. I went along-- at first. What's my favorite color? What I did I do on my eighteenth birthday? What's my favorite cereal?  It occurred to me that these simple questions weren't so simple. The tall guy had a hand held computer, reading and entering data of some type. Asking me when I lost my virginity was going too far.

"Is this some hidden camera game show?" I asked.

"No, the camera isn't so hidden," the tallest guy answered, pointing to the corner of the room. How had I missed that? I thought. Too many distractions, I guessed. They must know something, comparing answers.

 I had to do something before I gave away that I wasn't the other Wes. On to the magic show.

I started by making the chair the big dumb looking one was in collapse. Just so they wouldn't think it was a coincidence, I made the ones the two other jerks were sitting on do the same. That seemed to impress them. 

But not enough.

"Psychokinetic..." 

"You can't keep me here," I said, reaching. "You know it's likely I'll be missed... I have a concert in Chicago in two days."

"Mr. Rockstar thinks his fans will save him," the tall one said. "You don't matter here. The Community can make anyone disappear. Remember Jimmy Hoffa? Amelia Earhart?"

"That's crazy," I laughed. "Are you serious? Next thing you'll be saying Paul McCartney's really dead, and you replaced him."

"Who told him?" the tall one joked.

"What else can you do?" the big dumb one asked.

"Can you disappear Mr. Grant?"

"I don't know, Donald." He was too stupid to realize I knew his name without him telling me, but it wasn't lost on his other two buddies.

"Telepathic, too. Interesting."

"Sure, Alfred." 

"Smart ass. Let's see if you're clairvoyant too," he said, hitting me in the face. "Guess not..."  I spat the blood out on Alfred's nice white shirt. 

"Shit, that hurt," I swore.

"Feels pain," the tallest one with the palm pilot noted. I noticed the video camera following the action in the room. 

"Smart observation," I said sarcastically. Then I made the lamp fly off the table and bust against the back of Alfred's head. That was messy. Also scared him. And pissed Alfred off. Really pissed him off-- so Alfred decided to see how much pain I really felt. He kicked the chair out from under me and stomped on my hand with the end of his boot heal then kicked me in the face. Damn stupid jerks who think they're urban cowboys with their steel tipped boots. The blood spurting from under my eye stopped immediately. I think the speed of how quickly I healed scared them the most.

It still fucking hurt though. 

"You really need to be more cooperative," the one with the palm pilot said. "You need to do better than that, or we'll experiment on your friend." For some reason, I couldn't get this third guy's name-- I couldn't read him like the other two. He was either a lot smarter or a lot dumber. Either way, he was the one I knew I had to worry about most. Him and whoever else was watching through that camera.

"You need to do a lot better than that if you want to keep your friend safe," the tall one said.

"Alright, what do you want me to do next?"

"Tell me what Albert is thinking."

"Easy, he wants to stomp my head. Can I sit up? The floor is cramping my style."

"Stand," he said, giving me his hand and pulling me to my feet. That was all it took. Frank. His name was Frank. Seems he didn't know much more than the other two. I guess they were on a need to know basis.

"Can we cut off his head next?" asked Donald. 

Christ, he was serious! 

"I don't think that's the best idea," I said. "It might limit how much information you can get out of me."

Donald looked at me stupidly.

"I'd be dead, Donald." Well, maybe not, but I didn't really want to find out...

"Well, if we can't do that, then at least do that injection thingy..." Donald suggested.

"Thingy?" I laughed, staring at Frank. "Thingy? The Community really scraped the bottom of the barrel to find this blind follower.

Frank laughed along with me. Then he pulled the syringe from his white lab coat as dumb and dumber stepped up on either side of me.

I stopped laughing just before Donald hit me in the face again. He was getting too good at that. Big and dumb can come in handy.

I wasn't in a hurry to find out what was in the syringe. I was reading from them it wasn't the serum, although it was a clear fluid, like the serum. Tweedle Dumb and Tweedle Dee seemed to believe it was lethal. I couldn't read any indication from my good friend Frank. I still had a nasty headache from whatever they knocked me out at the house. I didn't look forward to being their guinea pig one more time.

"We've noticed that toxins given intravenously are difficult, if not impossible, for many immortals to reverse," Frank said. "You revived from the sedative quickly. You should have been out a good day not a couple hours. We wanted to see what this would do..."

I figured, why make it easy for them? I started struggling against Alfred and Donald, elbowing Alfred hard in the nose. The crunch was satisfying even after Donald twisted my arm, wrenching me to the floor on my knees. 

"What is it?" I asked. "Drano?" 

"No," Frank answered. "Strychnine." 

"Are you crazy?" Talking to these three wasn't working. I looked right into the fucking video camera.  "What if it kills me?" I asked it. "That's a bit counterproductive, don't you think?"

Frank came closer, jabbing it in my arm. That stung. 

"Missed lab the day your instructor went over injections, right Frank?"

"I'm not a fucking nurse... I'm a doctor." He tossed the syringe in the waste basket. A long shot and right in. Not bad. I took another close look at him. He didn't know shit about why they were doing this. Neither did his buddies. 

"What about that Hippocratic oath?" I asked.

Frank planted his foot in the middle of my back and shoved me face first into the floor. 

"Well, your bedside manner sucks big, Frank."

I tried pushing myself up with my arms and his foot came down in the middle of my back-- my chin bit the floor. 

"Floor's good," I mumbled. "I'll stay on the floor..."

He stepped back next to the other two, leaning against the stainless steel cart and watched. I recalled the effects of strychnine poisoning, remembering that it was pretty painful. Something about muscle spasms so severe you suffocate. Not that I could suffocate. Even if I didn't die, it would hurt like a bitch. I started getting anxious, recalling that was the first sign. Actually, I was already anxious. More like twitchy. Not good. 

As my stomach began to bunch up, I thought aloud, "This is bull shit." I expected the Community to do the same thing as they did the last time-- drain my blood, analyze it, run some kind of mad scientist experiment. I just didn't see the logic in trying to kill me. 

"Why?" I asked, looking into the fucking camera. Whoever was watching knew exactly what they were doing. 

I reached to figure out the purpose only to have it slam me in the face. "If I could just get out of here..."  I mumbled under my breath. That's what they wanted! Jump. Leave. Change. I almost laughed. Almost. Joke was on them, I couldn't depart this universe. Not without Sid or the sand. Especially not in front of them. Unfortunately, the joke was on me too. 

I knew nervous agitation was another symptom-- but I had that long before Frank gave me that injection. How long had it been? My muscles in my arms and legs were tightening. That and I was sweating buckets. Odd... I didn't remember profuse sweating being part of the symptoms. The fact that I was coherent didn't make sense either. Actually, the floor was starting to feel nice-- so cool, so smooth against my cheek. Thick wax, high gloss, I ran my hand across it. Fuck, the floor was getting me aroused. I could smell their sweat in the room, and I had a familiar taste in the back of my mouth. 

Lights sparked in my brain. The smell of my own blood and Mica from my pores. This wasn't strychnine poisoning.

 Fool the fools to fool me. Nice trick.

Then Peter Deal walked in.

I didn't know if I should feel relief or apprehension. I couldn't help but feel hope. Peter got me out of this place once before.

By now my heart was pounding and blood was rushing to my groin. Thank you God I'm on my stomach. 

Peter kneeled down my head and whispered in my ear, "I guess by now you know what we gave you..."

"Yeah, I do."

"It was my idea to give you serum instead-- make you think it was strychnine. I didn't think it would work, and you're far too handsome to die."

"Fuck you Peter."

"Well now, since we've never been formally introduced, you either read my mind or you've known me before... which is it?" he whispered.

"You're so smart-- you guess."

"How well did you know me?" he said licking my ear. That was bad. I started scooting away from temptation. "Not that well? Maybe we could get acquainted?"  He pushed me over onto my back. "Is that growing exponentially or are you just happy to see me?"

"Get away."  

"What? You don't want me to talk nerdy to you?"

I couldn't focus my eyes. 

"You don't sound so sure..." he said, I strained my head to look into his face. It looked jumbled, like some cubist Picasso painting.  

"I'm sure. Fuck, what else was in that?"

"Well an interesting concoction-- we added etorphine-- used to knock out elephants, you should have been out by now. Amazing..."

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I woke up. Life was fuzzy but I could see Sid clearly enough, sitting next to me, legs crossed. Back in the same white room. I wondered why anyone would want an all white room. What the hell was John Lennon thinking? Too bright. It felt like my brain was trying to push its way out of my skull while my cock was trying to push its way out of my pants.

Being injected with that shit is like being in heat. And Sid was right next to me just realizing I was conscious. 

"I was worried. You've been out for so long," he said, leaning toward me.

"Not as long as you think."

"What?" 

"I woke before you and had the pleasure of meeting some of our gracious hosts."

I know he was just rubbing my back innocently, but it felt like the most erotic back rub I ever had.

"We gotta get out of here," he said, fingers moving up under my shirt. I turned over. It was easy to pull him down on top of me. I had my tongue down his throat before he knew what hit him. 

He pulled away, breathing hard. "Christ Wes, did you forget the video camera?"

I looked into it. Shit. 

"I can smell it," he said, gasping. "What did they do?"

I grabbed him and pulled him on top of me again, his ear pressed against my mouth. "They shot me full of serum and tranquillizer," I whispered. "Made me believe it was poison. They were trying to force me to do it."

"Have sex?"

"No, well yes maybe. I don't know. But their main intent was to get me to switch..."

It was all I could do not to rock my hips and thrust up into him. I could feel his cock through my jeans, pressed against mine. He was almost as hard as I was.

"They want to find out how you jump universes?" he whispered back. 

"Yes," I whispered. I couldn't help myself-- I nipped his earlobe. "Peter is here." 

"Christ," he moaned. "Stop talking dirty."

"Peter Deal is here."

"That Peter?" His eyes widened. "Maybe he can get us out of here."

"I wouldn't count on it. He's not the same person he was in our universe." I closed my eyes and put my arms around him. He felt so warm, so good. "I want you..."

I mashed my mouth into his. God, he started sucking my tongue. I went from semi-hard to rigid in one second. 

Sid pulled back. "I want you too, but I don't think that's such a good idea..." his breathing ragged--  "Besides the camera... you see I forgot to tell you something..." I ground my crotch into his. "I've got it... it's in my pocket..."

"God," I moaned into his ear, "you're such a tease. I've got something in my pocket too..." I squirmed harder against him-- his cock rolled over mine and butterflies danced in my stomach. Wanted more-- so I started reaching inside his front pocket...almost there... What's this? 

Then my mind shorted out.

"No,"  he rasped, grabbing my wrist. "I don't mean my dick, you idiot... The sand. I have it."

My hand flew back like a child burned by a hot stove. He rolled off me. 

"You're just telling me this now?" was all I could say.

"They have to know," he said. "I mean, that I have the sand. They must have searched us. They must have wondered."

"Yeah," I said stupidly.

"They probably haven't connected it completely or else they wouldn't have done that to you earlier,"  he whispered. "Wes? Are you ok?"

"Yeah," I tried focusing in on his eyes. Such beautiful eyes. Why couldn't I see them? Just a few moments before, I was fine. 

"Are you sure?"

"No."

"What's wrong?"

"Everything's blurry, jumbled. I can't think... must have put something else in that hypo."

Sid went quiet. His hand brushed my forehead. 

"I don't think that's it..." he said. "It's the sand. You almost touched it. It was like you were leaving me for a second there. Like you were fading. Do me a favor, try to sit up."

"Ok." I was dizzy, but I managed.

"Listen," he said, sitting up close next to me, "what if you did it? I mean, got us out of here?"

"To where? I can't help but think we'd still be in the Community in the other universe-- we might be worse off than here."

"Are you sure?"

"No, but then there's them," I said lamely.

"You mean the other Sid and Wes?" 

I nodded. 

"Chances are the Sid and Wes in our universe are having the same conversation right now," he whispered. "But you're right, we can't-- at least not now. The camera. We can't let them know. They can't see." 

Sid tensed. Shoes clicking against tile in other hallway echoed into our room. The door slowly opened. Dr. Peter Deal, Frank and a young woman came into the room. Her face was down, and I held my breath as I watched her chin slowly rise. I looked into her eyes, and I knew we would have a way out.

"Angela," I whispered.