Sam was barely able to stagger in to the receptionist’s lobby.
He reeked something awful. His stench was the result of a long stretch of methamphetamine, cocaine, cigarettes, booze, filthy unprotected sex, and any other sinful pleasure that you can possibly imagine. The attempts at missed veins with a needle were obvious on his forearms. He probably had track marks on parts of his body that most would not consider as a receptor point for substance abuse. Sam lived hard, fast, and recklessly, with no regard to consequences whatsoever. That’s because he was rich, and it when it came right down to it, he could always find his way back here.
Sam would never admit it to anyone, but he had about three or four sexually transmitted diseases, including the most lethal one of all. He wasn’t exactly worried about it, though. That would all be taken care of, very soon.
It usually took about five or six months for him to completely burn out and make every possible bad decision. He was the trust fund baby of a corporate empire, and his family had left him with the wealth to thoroughly destroy himself. So far, he’d succeeded in that endeavor eight times. They were all gone, but he was still around, enjoying himself to the fullest, living the life that the biggest rock stars in the world couldn’t even dream of. The ones that did were already dead.
Only a select few could afford it, but those who’d discovered that this place existed had returned faithfully to it, one year after another. He knew he looked like hell, but Janet was always impartial. She was slightly overweight, but she had a great face and pretty eyes.
“Hey, Janet. The usual, please.”
“Ah, Mr. Clark, we were expecting you. They’re ready, actually. You can go ahead and go in.”
“Thanks, Janet. How about dinner later tonight?”
She smiled, tapping her nails on the desk for a moment before delivering a witty response.
“That’s funny, Sam. You always ask me that on the way in, but never on the way out.”
He laughed as he headed through the sliding glass archway that she’d activated with a press of a button under her desk. He filled a plastic cup from the water cooler as he waited for Jamus to come greet him. He felt like shit and he looked like shit, but in five minutes, he’d be fine. He was looking forward to starting all over again. His fingers were beginning to twitch from withdrawal and his head felt like it was splitting in two. He needed to get this done. He had a killer party planned for that night, with more drugs and women than Wilt Chamberlain could handle.
Jamus, the coordinator, brought Sam in, and as he looked at himself through the glass, he couldn’t help but marvel at the perfection of the man standing before him. He was not looking in the mirror, but he was looking at himself. A healthy, perfectly charming version of himself that hadn’t thoroughly wrecked his existence. The man before him was lean, muscular, attractive, and dressed impeccably to the point of perfection.
“Ah, Jamus, you did well as always, my good man.”
The guy had always been a man of few words, and as he motioned for junkie-Sam to step forward in to the chamber, the new Sam walked out, a smirk overtaking his features. As of five seconds ago, Sam Clark no longer held the visage of a burnout, but the commanding presence of a wealthy businessman.
Sam stood within the chamber, and as he watched himself walk out the door, he realized that something was wrong.
Was this what they did every time he came here? He was one of a handful of paying customers, after all. Jamus offered nothing but a thin smile as the airlock on the glass slammed shut, and as his form disappeared around the corner, Sam felt a pang of unease. The opposite metal wall at the rear of the chamber was opening, and fresh oxygen came pouring in as he turned around. Two men in black suits stood waiting, their faces stern and serious. All business.
“Right this way, L.”
L blinked, and he was beginning to shake from withdrawal and the consequences of his actions in the past half year. He didn’t feel better. He’d come where they told him, but that wasn’t SAM that had left the building. Did the other Sam ask Janet out on his way back to the party?
They escorted L to a chopper on the helipad outside, and as they began to rise, he felt himself drifting in and out of consciousness.
When he awoke, he was lying on a cot in the middle of what appeared to be a shack in the middle of an arid desert. The sun seared in to his skin and he was sweating profusely. He felt terrible, like he was going to die of dehydration. A rough, calloused hand jerked him up by his collar, and he wailed in agony as it came across his face with a vicious smack. He felt one of his teeth go loose, jarred by the blow. His body was screaming for drugs, for some kind of gratification.
“What the fuck! Who are—”
WHACK.
His eyes filled with blinding white stars as the intense sting of pain shot up his back. He’d just been whipped, and he felt fresh blood dripping down his upper body as he turned to face his tormentor. He was an old man, one of the most rough looking elderly people that L had ever seen, but the fury that burned within his eyes suggested that he wasn’t fucking around.
“L, I have decided that you will not die just yet. You will go outside and work. I am your master now. You will do what I say, when I say it, and if you do not obey, I will whip you in to a bloody pulp until you are dead, rotting in the sand as carrion for the vultures. Do you understand me?”
L could only blink, but the searing burn of another whip lash on his skin caused him to manage an agonized “Yes.”
He watered vegetables and plants that would wilt and die to the heat of the sun outside of the dilapidated shack, and the man would whip his soft body even when he worked hardest, scarring him again and again. He hated the old man and desired nothing more than to pick up his shovel and ram it through his skull. But the man held the whip, and he held the power. The men in black suits stopped by every now and again to reinforce the old man’s actions with their ominous presence.
Day after day, for months, L labored in the heat. He slowly attuned himself to a diet of bread and water, and his withdrawal symptoms ceased. He struggled with sleep, and the work drove his body to extreme limits. He was aging faster than he could have possibly imagined. He knew something was coming, because the black suited employees for the company were showing up more and more frequently.
The last day that L spent with the old man, he was whipped so thoroughly, with such ferocity, that his entire body was numb with pain. He didn’t feel his own blood streaming from the ripped wounds, opened over and over again by the bite of the old man’s whip. The old man drove his foot in to L’s gut as he collapsed to his knees, and soon the Suits were there again. L couldn’t guess how long he’d been here.
As they ushered L in to the helicopter, they tied the noose around his neck with relative deftness. As he stood on the edge of the precipitous edge of open sky, the thought of death had an odd, welcoming feeling to it. He spotted the next version of himself as they passed another helicopter with the company logo on its side. They were dropping him at the mercy of the old man.
Jamus came from the rear of the chopper, and he offered one final effort at condolence for L’s soul.
“M has arrived, and you are now useless to us. We can no longer profit from your existence. Any last words?”
“Only one.” L said. “I want to know who the old man is. Why does he hate me so much?”
As Jamus moved forward to kick L out of the chopper, his scoff had a sinister quality to it.
“In west philadelfia born and raised, on the playground where I spent most of my days. Chilling out, maxing, relaxing all cool, and all shooting some b-ball outside of the school. When a couple of guys said were up in no good, started making trouble in my neighbourhood, I got in one little fight and my mom got scared, and said "you're moving with your aunte and uncle in bel-air"”
