Submitted for the September 2024 prompt: The Bogeyman Cometh

He leapt to the edge of the cliff, a sheer rock face a hundred yards down into a dusty, bloody basin. He’d been running for a reason he could no longer remember, like a heavy fog settled deep inside his memory.

 

“Hey,” a familiar voice said. “Looking for me?”

 

Suddenly, like a dam breaking in his head, he remembered. A rush of warm saline pooled at the base of his eyelids, then–

 

Zak opened his eyes. Straight down, below the radius of steel cylinders, the westernmost stretch of Europe emerged from an expanse of empty atmosphere. Its webs of electric light pulsed like veins in the dark.

 

The sight of it suppressed the digital orange indicator flashing menacingly near his left eye, his increasing cortisol levels the culprit. Something whirred into life behind him, a warm hand on the back of his neck. It wasn’t until the drifting sensation of sleep hit him that he remembered how heavily sedated the injector module preferred him to be.

 

“Damn you, SpaceCell,” he slurred.

 

His tank’s cloudy projection screen activated, dissolving the cortisol indicator in exchange for a pixelated cursor and scrolling neon words.

 

>> LOT J67. ZAKARI NEILSEN.

 

The text bled into a resonating click click across the tank walls. Brief bursts of air massaged the skin of his immobile arms and legs.

 

>> PAIN?

 

“No,” Zak rasped.

 

Stale air pushed from his throat as he answered, crackling his windpipe as it escaped through his teeth. He glimpsed the surrounding chamber while he waited. Sleeping bodies lay motionless inside rows of neighboring steel tanks. The sight of them forced a soundless gasp from his throat. He wondered if he looked as inhuman as they did.

 

>> SCANNING BIOLOGICALS… 44%

 

He felt the prickly heat of laser light running upward from his ankles to his neck, a wash of discomfort disguised in burnt discarded skin.

 

>> SCANNING COMPLETE… 100%

 

It’s never complete. Always scanning.

 

>> DO YOU REMEMBER?

 

Zak sighed. The constructed dreamscapes of his artificial sleep had ventured into intrepid territory — lost, abandoned cities stretching for miles through empty memory. He replied with the first words that entered his mind.

 

“Ren’s my wife.”

 

The system clicked, revving gently at the cords in his neck.

 

More hormones.

 

“Can you get a message to her?” he asked, vision blurring deeper into slumber. “Tell her I wish I could hold her, that I love her. I see her when I dream. Every time.”

 

>> OUTGOING MESSAGE FAILED.

 

Yeah, he thought. Sure.

 

The system silenced, air ventilation dying somewhere near the outer edges of his collarbone.

 

>> LOT J67. ZAKARI NEILSEN. GUILTY. SENTENCE: SLEEP REHABILITATION. SPACECELL, INC. TIME LEFT: 9011 DAYS.

 

Guilty? he thought. Of what?

 

Zak clamped his eyes shut, desperate for recall. Nothing surfaced.

 

>> DO YOU REMEMBER?

 

“Remember what?” Zak screamed. “Where’s Ren?”

 

>> INITIATING SLEEP CYCLE NO. 278…

 

The whirring filled the tank’s inner shell until it became unbearable. Zak ground his teeth to fight it, but the newest influx of hormones had already flooded his bloodstream enough to break his consciousness completely.

 

He leapt to the edge of the cliff, a sheer rock face a hundred yards down into a dusty, bloody basin. He’d been running for a reason he could no longer remember, like a heavy fog settled deep inside his memory.

 

“Hey,” a familiar voice said. “Why me?”

 

The stranger stared back at him through amorphous eyes, an apparition hovering just beyond the cliff. He backed away and–

 

Zak woke up.

 

* * *

 

Ren lifted her eyes to the night sky, to the band of metal orbiting the planet like a ring. The cell in question — Lot J — blinked away remnants of light as it disappeared beyond the horizon.

 

“He thinks you’re still married,” Paneem said. “Rehabilitation’s working.”

 

Paneem’s presence alone made her flinch, suddenly aware of how distant her thoughts had been. She shook away her farsight in exchange for the nearer.

 

“Zak was a man of circumstance, Paneem. He thought he knew what was best for us, but—”

 

“We shouldn’t be talking about this here,” Paneem interrupted. “Employees are monitored…”

 

“What he did was wrong,” Ren continued, ignoring the warning, “but he shouldn’t be up there.”

 

Paneem sighed, but Ren expected it. He was a believer in SpaceCell’s biological algorithms. He believed they never lied, never predicted incorrectly, a flawless matrix of risk/reward societal outcomes. Ultimate, sheer perfection.

 

She despised him for that.

 

“Look around,” Paneem said. “Crime’s almost nonexistent. People are happier. All of our problems are up there now, away from us.”

 

There was pride in the way he talked about SpaceCell, despite his having had nothing to do with its inception.

 

“It was a petty crime,” Ren said. “Who knows what the tanks are doing to him.”

 

Paneem scoffed.

 

“Come on, Ren. Zak made his bed. Now he’s sleeping in it,” he said. “Plus, it’s not forever.”

 

Ren stood smileless, Paneem’s words sending a series of shivers down her spine. These hidden-away moments only led to annoyances beyond annoyances, little biases igniting the conformist fires the machines required of their foot soldiers.

 

They took him from me and I fell for it, she thought, but never again. Never.

 

“You’re right,” Ren said. “One day, all of this will end.”

 

She reached for the back of her neck, her fingers probing the pinprick holes where her own intravenous cords had once been. They were a reminder of the real Zak, the man she’d fallen for years ago, before her own stint in the tanks. Somewhere deep in her memories, he’d been snuffed out by her own SpaceCell chemical fog.

 

She ripped the handgun from her waist and pointed, finger quivering against the trigger.

 

“Wait,” Paneem said. “Wait!”

 

The corner of Ren’s mouth twitched, a pseudo-smile.

 

Hold on, Zak, she thought. I’m coming.

 

The sound of the bullet casing clanked across floor tiles, masking the crumpling flesh at her feet. No remorse. No guilt.

 

It just felt right.