Lost In Thought by Dan Bell

An urgent knock on the apartment door woke him.  He lay there, waiting for his mind to coalesce around a coherent thought. The knock turned into a thump, which soon became a rapid hammering, accompanied by yelling. Gustald recognized the voice. It was Gerti, a work colleague from Concept Compliance. He only vaguely knew her. Enough to give a polite greeting as they passed each other in the corridor, but certainly not sufficiently well to expect her to be banging on his door in the middle of the night. Why is she hitting the door with her fists at all? he wondered. Is the access sentry inoperative?

‘Lights on,’ Gustald requested, before calling on Gerti to quit hammering the door. Grabbing a cloak, he swung it around him as he marched to the entrance. Fully awake now, a flicker of annoyance touched him as he pressed his palm to the scanner. No sooner had the door slid aside than Gerti tumbled into the room, eyes darting around wildly.

‘Are you alone?’ she asked in a hushed tone which amused Gustald as he considered the amount of noise she had already made to gain his attention.

‘What is the matter?’ Gustald spoke in a clipped tone, not bothering to hide his irritation. Gerti didn’t answer right away. Instead, she dashed about the apartment, checking behind every door and cupboard. Any space sizeable enough, Gustald guessed, to conceal another person. Once satisfied they were alone, Gerti spoke.

‘You need to get out. Now!’ She maintained the hushed tone but with an added note of desperation. As if to reinforce her words, Gerti grabbed a satchel and threw it to Gustald. Until now, his only feeling was bewilderment, but a cold, churning sensation in his stomach signaled the emergence of fear.

‘Look, just wait a moment,’ he stammered.

‘You don’t have a moment!’ Gerti hissed. ‘Do you want to live?’

‘What?’

‘Do you want to live?’ She was in his face now. He could feel her breath as she spat out the words.

‘Yes, but…’

‘Then listen well,’ Gerti cut across him speaking deliberately. ‘You need to leave this place. Grab some things. Don’t plan on returning. Just go.’ The intensity in her eyes convinced him. The fledgling fear rapidly escalating to full-blown panic. He would leave. As much to escape this situation as for any other rational reason he could fathom. Gustald tore around cramming random items into the satchel. ‘What should I take?’ he queried but the only response was repeated exhortations to flee. Soon, the bag was too full to take anymore. Gerti flung a tunic at him. It was gray and plain. She removed the cloak he had pulled around him, exchanging it for a charcoal colored equivalent. It wasn’t glamorous clothing. The sort of thing one might wear on a non-work day when expecting to see nobody of consequence.

Gustald changed clothing without question, not even daring to ask Gerti to step out of the room. He got it. Speed was everything right now. Gerti pushed him toward the door, following him out. The gravi-lift took them to street level where she thrust the satchel into his hands.

‘Where shall I go?’ Gustald asked.

‘Front right pocket,” Gerti replied, turning to walk away. Gustald glanced down at the bag before calling after her.

‘Gerti!’ She stopped but didn’t look back.

‘Why is this happening?’ he pleaded.

‘Your thoughts, Gustald. You didn’t guard your thoughts.’

The hood of her cloak was up, but even so, he could discern her head shaking in disappointment as she walked. Gerti’s parting words were like a gut punch, causing a retching deep inside. His breath came in short gasps. ‘It can’t be,’ he thought, brow furrowed as he urgently searched his memories.

A thrumming caught his attention. One hundred meters from him, a community vehicle pulled onto the street. It turned toward him. The lights were out. Four shadowy figures could be made out inside. There was no doubt they were agents. Gustald backed into the shadows. Feeling with his hands he found a small nook which he pressed himself into. If he had been seen already, he was done for.  It took an age for the vehicle to halt. All four figures emerged, heading straight into the residential block. ‘Run!’ Gustald urged himself to move. Imagining four pairs of eyes watching as his feet pounded the street only served to quicken his pace.

Long after his muscles screamed for oxygen, Gustald stuttered to a halt. Resting against a wall, listening intently for signs of pursuit, he waited for his circulatory system to regain equilibrium. His hand slid into the front right pocket and drew out a note. It contained just three letters, ‘ETS.’ The lids of his eyes fell heavily as he tried to block the image out. The note was an answer to both questions he had asked Gerti. ‘Where should I go?’ and ‘Why is this happening?’ And he didn’t even know what ‘ETS’ stood for! Only that it was a shadowy group with a tenuous underground connection.

It was no easy task, making a plan whilst guarding his mind’s activity against the Concept Compliance Division. Not even for him, as one of the Division’s compliance monitors. Gustald continuously switched thoughts between his current situation and his favorite recipe. It diluted the signals. ‘ETS!’ He winced at his error. And the thought had only been fleeting, as he withheld an alert. A thrill of excitement imagining what it would be like to join them. Well, now he had no choice. It was his only hope of avoiding reassessment. As he started the journey, he wondered about Gerti. A spy? If so, for whom? Was this a setup? Gathering himself, he fell back on his only certainty. He had no other choice. Already lamenting the life he was leaving behind, Gustald trudged forward, haunted by Gerti’s words. ‘Your thoughts, Gustald. You didn’t guard your thoughts.’ 

Dan Bell

Image: cross section of a brain from Pixabay.com cells highlighted in brown against the grey matter.