THE WAY IT WENT DOWN: WE GO ON (Patreon)

People can't understand this world. What we are. Why we're here. I really thought that once. I really believed it. I really, truly did.

I thought we were meat bags that boiled like a tea kettle, and then, when we went cold, rotted. That the entire measure of a person existed inside that time like a sudden shriek from a badly tuned radio. Something that rose up, all at once, dwindled, and then just as soon, was gone forever.

Pretty straightforward.

Then I took the job at Ankistro LLC.

Looking back on it, my life up until that point had been...pointless. Entirely. I did nothing. I knew no one. I took everything. I absorbed nothing. What I thought was my life was just a preamble.

I met Dr. Braunaeur on the first day of Fall. It went like this: I woke in my parent's basement, showered, and got ready. I wore a suit. I don't know why (the last time I had, it was for my brother's wedding) and then I took my bike down to the address from the ad.

The ad caught my eye the week before in my job hunt.

ANKISTRO LLC

ASSISTANT
$21.50/hr, bonuses possible
-MUST BE PROFESSIONAL, PUNCTUAL AND DISCRETE
-MUST FOLLOW INSTRUCTIONS
RT. 113, Dagsboro, DE 19939, United States

 No listing of what the job was, but that wasn't strange. I was used to that. I don't know, something about it felt interesting. I pictured eyeless businessmen delivering locked briefcases in abandoned airports. I expected sleek hallways and office chairs.

When I got there what I found was a strip-mall. MAXI-NAILS, H&R BLOCK, an empty storefront which was once a pizza joint, and a paper sign declared, ANKISTRO. Inside, I found sixteen other people waiting. The room was one, long rectangle that went all the way back to a back door — with no indication of what might go on here. The rug was half pulled up. The lights were flickering fluorescents. The chairs were a mish-mash of folding chairs, old wrought iron chairs, and some wooden deck chairs.

Everyone looked up at me and I thought, shit, I overdressed. Dr. Braunaeur blew in a few minutes later, fifty-something, in a suit, with long grey hair pulled back in a rubber-banded ponytail, and said, "you," pointing at me.

It took a few uncomfortable minutes for everyone else to file out. When they all did, he asked me some questions. Nothing weird. Name and socials. Former jobs. Education level. He didn't seem to care about the things I said, really, only that I said them. "If you're wondering it's because of the suit," he smirked.  

From there, it was a ride.

The first month was getting the place ready. I didn't ask any questions and just did as I was told. I went out of my way to be meticulous, and the doctor seemed pleased with me. I received a $500 bonus for Christmas. And more and more, he began to talk to me. Not about what we were doing (it seemed like something to do with electronics), but who he was.

Braunaeur was a bachelor and a transplant to this place. He was a fan of the Dead. He had grown up in California and had gone to Cal-Tech in the 1970s.  He had money and I got it in my head that he was born rich, though I couldn't really say why.

Two more months.    

Most of my time was spent at Fry's buying components, or running bank errands. The doctor seemed pleased that I knew my way around electronics. Who says a year and a half at a technical college is a waste? Later, near the end of those two months, a lot of my time was spent with lawyers, incorporating the business, filing paperwork, and setting up a trust in Braunaeur's name.

Four months of standing next to Braunaeur while the soldered boards, tested voltage, or wrote code. Just there to hand him something, or to fetch something, or to write something down. I didn't mind. I had worse jobs.

Then, seven months in, the men showed up. They talked with Braunaeur, while I waited outside. When they left, one walked up to me and said, "name?" He said it like a cop. I think he was a cop. Anyway, I told him my name. He wrote it down in one of those flip-books and walked away. I didn't see him again.
   
Braunaeur told me everything then. He had worked with his mentor, a man named Tornou in the 1980s on a machine that could...catch the minds of the dead. That research had been subsidized by the government. The project was now over. There had been a falling out between agencies. Tornou was dead, so the research was his now.

It was his. 

And he told me: consciousness isn't a biological product, precisely the same way that a fish on a hook is not the product of the fisherman. Living creatures hooked consciousness from...somewhere else...and dragged it along with them. When their biological body died, the consciousness drifted away.

But it did not end.

I didn't believe him, of course. At first. But let's just say he was convincing. For three more months my life was filled with wonders. Day after day after day. Something new and amazing each day. I talked to the dead. I talked to the dead in a way that could not be denied or dismissed as fraud.  

All of this and good pay? It was too good to last. He knew it, too.

One day, after a particularly nasty phone call from someone in our contacts listed only as DIRECTOR, Braunaeur took me aside and told me I could go home for the day. When he did so, he put something in my hand. We had worked so closely for so long I knew he didn't want me to acknowledge it.

I left. Later, I read the note: FRIENDSHIP CORNER STORAGE Unit 31. CODE: 1191718.

Braunaeur was dead, of course. A carjacking and a body in a marsh. His car dumped in the ocean. But I knew what happened, I think. He had a disagreement with the agency that had won out.

At Friendship Corner Storage I found a lot of things. Plans. Money. A lot of files from something called MAJESTIC. And a will of sorts. Instructions. Meticulous instructions drawn on blue-squared graph paper in pilot marker.

So, I'm here now. It will take me a long time. But I will build his machine.

We still have a lot to talk about.