It's been two days of driving now, and the aching hasn't gone away. 
| look at myself in the bathroom mirror (this time of the Village Inn of 
Redsfield) and see myself about ten years older. There are bags 
under my eyes and my face is crisscrossed with tiny wrinkles. | feel 
like shit, too. Inside my head there's a low constant buzzing, and I'm 
starting to feel nauseous. Seeing a doctor crosses my mind, but I'm 
not really sure if I'm /ike other people. Inside-wise, that is. And the 
last thing | want is to be found out. Besides, I'm pretty sure | just 
need a drink. 


The clerk has told me that there's a nice little liquor store just down 
the way. | walk there in a half hour and walk back to my room with a 
plastic bottle of gin. | flop onto the bed and turn on the TV, flipping 
through the channels until settling on a show about a boy and his 
monkey. The bottle's cap comes off with a satisfying snap as the 
plastic anchors holding it down come apart. 


| remember when we used to do this, just sitting side by side with a 
bottle between us, watching TV or sometimes just the outdoors. 
When the bottle got low, our fingers would become intertwined. Her 
mouth would always taste sweet and mellow like damp grass, even 
with the gin and the old food taste and even with the cigarettes. God 
damn, | think, where did those good times go? How did it get to be 
like this? 


Then | remember those times were never good. Even then we 
fought constantly, over dishes or money or anything else we could 
use as an excuse. Maybe we just hadn't known each other long 
enough; her quirks still lovable instead of aggravating. Maybe | was 
less insufferable then, too. | tip the plastic jug to my lips and start to 


drink as the case of the week begins to unfold on TV. 


In the morning, | wake to a sensation of dampness on the bed. | look 
to my feet and see the gin lying on its side, soaking through my 
clothing and the mattress. "Nnnmmm...dammit," | groan as | begin 
to sit up. Little by little, my other senses begin to awake. The soft 
humming of the muted TV set. The sharp smell of gin cutting the 
slightly moldy smell of the room. The roofing tar taste in my mouth. 
And, of course, the pounding in my joints. | run a tongue over teeth 
which feel like sandpaper. Midway through, | stop and go back a 
tooth or two. Bottom row. Right canine. Even with a gentle probe, it 
starts to wobble. | put a hand to my mouth and feel it between my 
fingers. Without even a tug, it comes out. | let it fall into my palm and 
stare at it. 


Nothing for it, then. The only way forward is forward, | tell myself. I'm 
never going back to her. To that house. | just want a fresh start 
somewhere far away, so far I'll never remember her or think of her 
again. | get in the car and drive west for the rest of the day. Along 
the way, | lose another tooth. 


The next morning, | wake up and barely make it to the bathroom 
before | vomit. Two more teeth are dislodged and bob in the toilet. | 
study it fora moment before flushing it down. Amongst the yellows 
and greens, there are swirls of dark red. | don't remember eating 
anything red-looking the past few days. 


As | rinse out my mouth, | remember the times when we would both 
wake up hung over. By silent agreement, we wouldn't talk or plan or 
anything. Just go to the kitchen and sit and eat pickle spears. | 
remember a composite of all of those mornings, her with her short 
brown hair jutting out in a dozen different places. Wearing just an 
oversize t-shirt as she squinted at me from across the table, even 
then still so beautiful in some way. 


But still, | get in the car and keep driving. This time, though, there a 
lots of stops at gas stations and rest stops and empty parking lots. | 
vomit twice, each time colored with more and more red, leaving a 

coppery taste in my mouth. A couple of times, | sit in the car and tell 


myself to keep going. Just a little further. | listen and | don't turn 
back. 


That night, | find myself covered in rashes. Each arm ringed at the 
armpit, each leg ringed at the crotch, and a nice huge one in a thin 
line going along my collar bone and looping around the back of my 
neck. Like a splotchy necklace, | laugh to myself. 


Then | remember her laughs. Her laughs from before, when they 
were honest and full of light rather than spiteful or sarcastic. They 
were gorgeous, from her shrill ticklish shrieks to her open laughs of 
happiness. Even her unladylike snorts at a really good joke seem 
beautiful. | go to bed with her laughter ringing in my mind. 


The following morning, | wake up and find that the rashes have split 
the skin, the edges curling upwards like little scrolls. | gently touch 
one with a finger and wince as the pain shoots through me. 


| sit on the bed and try not to think about what this means. | go 
through the check list, my brain coming up with an instant 
counterargument. She's a horrible person. How much of that is my 
fault? Besides, | am too. You deserve better. No, | don't. She brings 
out the worst in you. She brings out the real me. She's the only one 
who understands me, even if she doesn't. You'll just be as miserable 
as you were before if you go back. No, this time will be different. 
Probably. Don't go back. / can't live without her. 


| get in the car and drive and drive and drive. 


For three straight days | drive, stopping only for gas and food and 
the occasional drink. As | drive, | feel the wounds start to close up. 
By the end of the second day, | angle the rear view mirror towards 
my face and notice that the wrinkles have started to fade slightly. 
The bottom right canine is back in its proper place as well. 


When | pull into the driveway, the sun has just fallen below the 
horizon. | don't feel much of anything except for tired. Outside there 
are crickets and cicadas and God knows what else chirping, looking 


for mates. | grab the ring from the glove compartment. It doesn't feel 
right to put it back on yet, so | slip it into my front pocket. | jog to the 
door and fumble with the keys. Before | can find the right one, the 
door opens and she's standing there in front of me. 


"Hey," she says, a slight smile on a face now lined with minute 
wrinkles. For a split second between her lips, | can see a dark gap 
were a tooth used to be. 


"Hi. Can | come in?" | give an awkward wave. Without a word, she 
opens the door and lets me through. | sit down in one of the two 
chairs in the house. She takes her seat opposite me. A candle on 
the table illuminates us both. 


"I..." | flap my mouth silently, trying to think of the right things to say, 
knowing she already knows them, but wanting to say them, as much 
for my own benefit as for hers. Ours. "I really missed you, | guess." 


She gives a weak smile and under the neckline of her shirt | catch a 
glimpse of a healing rash running over her collar bone. "I... yeah, | 
missed you too." 


There's promises that some would want to be made, lines to be 
drawn, so that we never do this again. But what's the point? 
Promises were made to be broken, lines to be crossed. | take her 
hand in mine and gently kiss her knuckle. My mouth makes its way 
up her hand, her arm, her neck, her face. Then we're kissing and | 
taste wet grass again as the night wraps around us both. 


We lay naked on the mattress, only a thin bedsheet between us and 
the rest of the world. Even before the night was up, we both knew 
that the truce would never hold, that peace was at best temporary. 
But maybe the good will outweigh the bad this time; maybe we'll 
somehow come out ahead or at least less behind. Her face, against 
the pillow, looks younger already; the wrinkles are gone, and so is 
the rash. | run over my teeth with my tongue, just to be sure all of 
the teeth are back. They are. 


A square of light falls on her bare leg, and | can make out the tattoo. 
| trace the letters lightly with the tip of my finger, and she shifts 


slightly. Just like mine, it reads "Mr. and Mrs. Love, from Little 
Misters® by Dr. Wondertainment." What a sick joke. | don't 
remember a time when we weren't with one another. There's a 
paper we had once, long since gone, that listed all of us, telling the 
reader to find us all. Christ, | think, why would you ever want to do 
that? 


The heat is everywhere in the silent, still house, and my arms are 
slick with sweat. | look out the window and know that | have to get 
out into that cool night air. | leave the mattress slowly, trying not to 
wake her. | open the back door and walk naked into the moonlight. 
As soon as | cross the threshold, | realize that it's worse out here 
with the cicadas and crickets. Still, | linger outside for a moment, 
hoping for a breeze, one strong enough to carry me far away. 


What Ever Happened? 


D-13279 had long ago learned how to tell death from dreaming. 


Every month, it happened like this, and there was a moment of 
uncertainty. When the drugs have finished pumping their way 
through the circulatory system, there's nothingness. 


And it's almost a moment of relief. But then it ends. 


That's not what death feels like, they knew. Death doesn't have the 
hunger pangs, the hollowness of being that comes from want and 
need. That's not death. 


D-13279 knew how to use dreams. They didn't know how they 
knew, but they remembered a distant time when there were others 
in their dreams. When their dreams could take them to meet other 
people, to feel like they were greater than themself. 


Dreaming is lonelier, now. But it has still made the mind resilient. 
Each month, the guards and scientists try to kill the mind, flush the 
memories, but in dreams the mind can hide. And D-13279 can 
survive another month with their head intact. 


Thirty days go by. D-13279's service is done. They get put under. 
The guards and scientists try to kill the mind, but in dreams the mind 
hides. And it repeats. Always the exact same. 


"You've committed a crime. It's very important that you pay your 
debt to society." 


They squirm in the chair. Wrists bound in glistening manacles. The 
room is disgustingly white, and against that backdrop the labcoat is 
almost invisible, a floating head and clipboard seated in a cheap 
chair. She continues. 


"We're not here to judge or to punish you. We're not your wardens, 
just guides. Follow us and your debt will be repaid. Society will thank 
you. After a month, you will be done." She's reading from a paper. 
Well-rehearsed. 


D-13279 nodded. They had lost track of how many times this had 
happened. 


Society, as she called it, was not something D-13279 had ever 
known. Not anything they remembered. The rote transactions of 
daily life. The give and take of tokens and goods and services. 
Utilization by a greater whole, for the good of each cog. D-13279 did 
not know it. 


Each time they slept, and a day ticked by, adding one onto another, 
D-13279 was able to go somewhere else. Somewhere not here, not 
in the four walls and a roof, the magnetically sealed door with two 
slits, one for the eyes and one for trays of food. In their mind, 
D-13279 went beyond. 


In that beyond, there are rows of sleeping people in jumpsuits. The 
D-class do not move or react. Each night, the D-class grow more 
like each other. Each month, the D-class grow into the mold the 
organization wishes to fit them in. The mold the organization has 
prepared for all the world. And D-13279 can only watch. 


But at least it wasn't a cell. It was a community, a community of 
unconscious souls. Except for one. D-13279 was more awake in 
their dreams than during the day. 


There was a different scientist. This room was longer than it was 
wide. Each wall held a door, and the longer walls held two large 
windows into observation rooms filled with technicians. Atop each 
window was a warning light. The light was green. 


D-13279 was holding a briefcase. It was handcuffed to their wrist, 
but in the opposite hand they held the key. The scientist, satisfied 
with their latent posing, retreated to an observation room. D-13279 
faced the door on the far end, on a narrow wall. 


The door opened. A person in a grey jumpsuit walked out. A 
nametag read "D-13280". 


"Hello. | am here to receive your briefcase." 


D-13279 nodded furtively, reaching down to unlock their own 
restraints. Gingerly, they handed the briefcase over. The other D- 
class nodded, affixing it to their own wrist. They exited the room. 


Behind D-13279, the second door opened. A person in a grey 
jumpsuit walked out. A nametag read "D-13278". They hada 
briefcase handcuffed to their wrist. 


"| have a briefcase here." 


This person unlocked their restraints, gingerly handing the briefcase 
to the waiting D-13279. And then the person left, same way they 
came. 


The warning light above the windows faded from green into red. The 
mission was over. 


Inside the briefcase: 
N REPORTING TO N+1 


CLEAR: EXISTENTIAL THREATS CLEAR. 
TRANSUNIVERSAL THREATS CLEAR. LOCALIZED 
THREATS CLEAR. NORMALCY CLEAR. 


NOTES: THE OLD WORLD MEN ARE FALLING. THE 
WAY IS BEING PAVED. WE'LL GET THERE SOON. 
NEED MORE AMNESTICS, MORE THAN CAN FIT INA 
BRIEFCASE. SPECIFICS FOLLOW: 


57983 
46809 
05791 
21680 
13279 


The rest is just numbers. 


D-13279 knows the world is changing. Every night, it grows more 
clear. The Foundation is not alone in the multiverse. Each 
Foundation could reach out, speak to itself in other worlds. 
Collaborate. Cooperate. Contain. 


And eventually, the goal would change. The higher-ups could never 
be satisfied with just keeping the world the way it was. Not when the 
world was so fundamentally broken. 


It needed to be fixed. The cancer must be excised. And now the 
organization has the power to do it. 


D-13279 feels like they're constantly growing, growing into a mind 
too large for this body. This can't be allowed to continue, can it? 


Who can stop it when the Foundation becomes the foundation for 
everything? 


They can feel it. Each passing day. Every dose of mindkill. Every 
soul living this far underground. Their mind becomes smaller, their 
profile slimmer. The mold becomes more attractive. D-13279 cannot 
hold out forever. Eventually they will be gone, and a new one will 
take their place. A new person, for this new world. 


Some months ago, there was a large room, size of a gymnasium. 
The ground was covered by fake grass and black rubber bits. In the 
center, crude structures of drywall for buildings. 


Each single-story abode held two to three mattresses on the ground. 
There were just enough mattresses for the two dozen D-class that 
lived there during the test. A single structure was set aside, where 
one D-class would cook food for the rest twice a day. 


The raw food came from a hatch in the ceiling, once every three 
days. The scientists could have dropped ready-made meals, but 
they didn't. Maybe they thought they could reinforce teamwork by 
forcing meal preparation. 


Twenty days in, when the lights in the room were out, to simulate the 
night, and only fake torches lit the room, they released a creature 
into the enclosure. A tall beast, with a face like a sieve and limbs like 
knives. 


When the D-class saw it, the group cowered and hid, and banged on 
the walls for help. 


The test was aborted. The creature was recovered. The minds were 
wiped, and the subjects were administered a fierce regimen of drugs 
and altered images. 


The test began again. Twenty days in, the creature was released. 


When the D-class saw it, the group banded together and struck it 
with hands and feet. It let out a chitter when it died. 


Unsatisfactory. The test was aborted. The creature was reanimated. 
The minds were wiped, and the subjects were administered a fierce 
regimen of retraining noises and memetic ciphers. 


The test began again. Twenty days in, the creature was released.