Puppets

Tom smiled as he heard his friend knock on the door. “Rod! Thanks for coming over, I was worried that you wouldn’t make it, we only have a few minutes before it begins.” He needed an escape from all the conspiracy stories filling his social media. It would be nice to sit back and chill with his high school buddy.

“Thanks for inviting me man, sorry, traffic was nuts.” Rod reached into the fridge and helped himself to a beer. “You’re a smart dude, I know you understand all that tech stuff. What do you think of 5g? Are they trying to contr-”

Tom exploded. “Rod! Please! I just need a break from that crap. Everyone at work is going on and on about the government trying to control us. Can we please just not talk about that kind of thing?”

Rod leaned back as if he dodged a punch. “Ok, ok, man, chill out!”, then walked out onto the patio. Tom followed, feeling bad about blowing up, “it just never stops” he thought to himself. Every time he turned around people were saying that someone was out to get them.

“It’s starting. Here, put these on.” Tom handed Rod a pair of dark lensed glasses.

Tom enjoyed the easy banter with Rod as they watched the eclipse. With their backs to the apartment and their focus on the sky, neither heard the men approach. He felt a hand cover his mouth and nose with a rag, gasped and before he could move and the world went dark.

It felt as though he was waking up after a long sleep, he struggled against light that created a red haze through his closed eyelids, tried to rub his eyes and realized that although he was sitting in a chair, he couldn’t move.

A large man stepped into his field of vision. “Oh good, looks like you are waking up. We don’t have a lot of time, I’d like to be gone by the time the eclipse ends.”

“Who are you? Why can’t I move? What’s happening?” asked Tom in a quavering voice, fear grabbing his gut like a vise.

“I’ll take those in order. Who I am is not important. You can’t move because I have immobilized you via the cell phone attached to your head. And as to what’s happening…you are a test subject.” The cold, methodical cadence of his voice made Tom even more uncomfortable as he tried to wrap his mind around what was happening.

“You see, we plan these tests and choose our subjects pretty carefully. You and your friend fit our profile perfectly. We like to do this during events that give us some additional coverage in case we miss a detail in the cover up. You wouldn’t believe the stories that people tell about what happened during an eclipse. If we miss anything or you somehow manage to remember any of this it will almost certainly be chalked up to eclipse mania and filed away with the reports of aliens, angels and other craziness.”

He felt the phone next to his right ear in a harness of some kind on his head. Tom wanted to move, wanted to run, but he was absolutely frozen in place. The man tapped something on his tablet and suddenly Tom couldn’t even talk.

The man continued fiddling with the tablet as he continued in a calm, clinical tone. “This test will not permanently harm you, it will go more easily if you relax and cooperate. Your friend will be taken care of as well. We’ll progress through a series of exercises now.”

With a shock he saw his right hand lift off the chair and hold his fingers splayed. One by one his fingers curled as though he was counting down.

The man smiled as he watched Tom’s hand. “This is very encouraging. We are in the final stages of a long term testing program. Not only can we reliably immobilize muscle groups, we can exert fairly fine control over them!”

Tom watched in horror as both his arms and hands went through a series of motions before finally settling back onto the arms of the chair. The terror grew as he asked himself how this might all end, he didn’t believe the man’s assurances.

“Almost done” said the man cheerfully. “The icing on the cake is that we think we may even have the ability to clear portions of your short term memory. There is some risk of course, but that is to be expected with cutting edge technology like this.”

“In our last round of tests we ended up essentially scrambling their brains. Tragic really, those subjects had to be liquidated, but I think we have worked out the kinks now.” He said with a chilling smile.

There was no way they could just let him go, they wouldn’t allow him to go to the police. Was he about to die?

“Goodbye. Thank you for your help.” The world closed in on him, his vision started to roll and he felt himself going numb, the world closing in to a pin point then nothing.

Tom shook his head and heard Rod quietly ask “Tom, next time you spike the beer can you please let me know before I get zombified?” Rod sat there rubbing his temples. Tom’s head felt like it would explode.

Apart from a headache, Tom hadn’t felt this relaxed in as long as he could remember. It bothered him a little that he didn’t remember how he got into the living room…weren’t they trying to do something? Tom saw the telescope on the patio through the sliding glass door, of course the eclipse!

“Rod, come on, we’ll miss it.” As he leapt to the door and glanced at his watch he knew they were too late.

“Bummer man. Well whatever, we’ll catch it next time.” Rod took a look at his unfinished beer on the table but didn’t reach for it. “I’m gonna roll Tom. Let’s catch up Saturday and see what’s biting up at the lake.” Tom raised his hand but didn’t reply.

In a large, well appointed office, The Director looked up from his laptop as The Interviewer walked in, his large frame filling the doorway. The Director leaned back and laced his fingers behind his head and thought how stoic The Interviewer always appear. It would be unpleasant to be one of his subjects.

“The last test was very successful. The memory wipe was effective based on the telemetry we are getting from his phone. I added a little something extra to remove his fixation on conspiracy theories, it was the least we could do for him.”, The Director smiled and nodded his head.

“One more round of tests and we will be able to execute the full rollout.”, said The Interviewer. “I am surprised at how smoothly operations have gone. We have managed to camouflage our testing more effectively than I expected.”

“Thank you, please let me know once they are complete.” said the Director as he leaned forward and focused on his screen. As The Interviewer took the cue, turned and left, The Director considered the bonus he would receive for delivering such solid results.

The world had no idea what was coming, he sighed, relieved, knowing that he would be on the winning side this time.