My thigh vibrated.
You have arrived!
Please meet Mister Cunningham at the door.
I shook my head, cursed under my breath.
“Would’ve been good to know that an hour ago...when I was lost in a maze of palm trees and billion-dollar mansions and—”
I let out a cough.
Then another.
Then I coughed some blood into some tissue.
I put the tissue in my pocket and pulled out a small orange bottle. Dozens of colorful pills fell into my palm. I gagged them down, and when my stomach settled, I caught my breath. The doorbell felt far, heavy.
My thigh vibrated. Again.
This time, harder.
⚠️ Warning!
Your body has not fully recovered from your previous trans—
The double doors swung open.
Standing below an enormous diamond chandelier was a tall middle-aged man with perfect posture. He wore a tuxedo and pencil-thin mustache. “Welcome,” he said. “Mister Cunningham is eager to see you. Please come inside. I will escort you to him.”
I nodded, slipped off my sneakers, and followed the back of his neatly combed head down a long and narrow hallway decorated with massive paintings. The first was an image of a climber on a summit posing while a Sherpa struggled to carry the ropes and gear. The second was an image of a king’s coronation with three young boys straining beneath a never-ending train of velvet. The third was two men carrying a stretcher, moving a blanketed body past seven officers smoking in the shade.
The tuxedo picked up the pace.
I tried to walk faster, but a sharp pain had sliced through my chest. I pressed my lips, swallowed it down, forced a smile.
I pulled out my phone.
I scrolled through endless photos of Nadia and me.
I stopped on the photo of us in front of a castle with Princess Jasmine, and forced all my attention on that little pink bow between Nadia’s pig tails. Five minutes after we took this photo, Nadia begged me to ride the teacups with her. She was afraid. And when the ride stopped, I threw up three times in a Buzz-Lightyear-themed trash can. All while Nadia stood there, laughing with a mouthful of Rainbow Ice Dippin’ Dots.
The pictures weren’t working.
I pressed my hand against my ribs, and kept going.
“Would you like a beverage?” the tuxedo asked. “Water? Coffee? Coca-Cola?”
“No. Thanks, though.”
“Tylenol? OxyContin? Fentanyl? We’ve got more options than Walgreens.”
“Nope. Thanks.”
The tuxedo stopped, turned, smiled.
“We have black-market products, too.”
“I’m fine. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
The tuxedo rounded a corner and headed up a spiral staircase.
Hung on the wall was a long row of golden plaques:
2023 Excellence in Shareholder Value: International Business Forum
2024 Titan of Global Industry: World CEO Council
2025 Visionary of HealthTech Innovation: HealthTech Review
Every step was another shot of white-hot pain.
When I reached the top, I couldn’t breathe. I was dizzy, wobbly, about to collapse. Meanwhile the tuxedo was three doors down another narrow hallway, standing in front of a room with a golden doorknob. His smile widened as he opened the door and gestured inside.
I hobbled forward.
The room was dark, thick with humidity, and reeking of something dead.
In the center was a double-king-size mattress, and in the middle of the mattress was an old, hairless man. He was buried under dozens of layers of creme-colored bedsheets. He had an IV plugged into his left wrist. Two nose tubes connected to a large metal tank beside the nightstand.
I sat in a chair next to the bed.
The man had deep wrinkles under his eyes. Cracks in his lips. His breath was shallow, and barely there.
“Hello Mister Cunningham.” I held back a cough. “My name’s Miles. I’ll be your Carrier.”
“Mister Cunningham cannot speak,” said the tuxedo. “But he can hear.” The tuxedo dropped a stack of papers on my lap. “Before you begin,” he continued, “you must sign these documents per Mister Cunningham’s request.”
I took them, flipped through them.
“This is an NDA,” I said.
The tuxedo nodded. “Correct. You see, Mister Cunningham must have one-hundred-percent certainty that you will not utter anything to anyone about today’s events. He is not proud of what is about to happen. It was simply the only option he had left. And if anyone were to discover Dick Cunningham III had...collaborated...with someone like you, his reputation would be greatly harmed. Have I been clear?”
I nodded, squinted. The words were small and blurry. I skipped to the end, signed everything, handed the papers back.
“Thank you.” The tuxedo smiled. “Please proceed.”
I dropped my backpack on the carpet, unzipped it, pulled out the device.
It was still a little warm.
I plugged the power cord into the wall and untangled the secondary electrodes, unpeeling the tips and connecting them to my neck below my lymph nodes. Then I took the primary electrodes and stuck them in the same place on Mister Cunningham’s paper-thin throat, covered in dark spots and purple veins.
I looked at the tuxedo. “We good?”
“Indeed.”
I took a deep breath, pinched another cough, and pressed the big red button.
The bright white light flickered on and off and the device began to hum and whirr as the blood drained from my face and my stomach twisted like a rag being wrung out to dry. My skin turned clammy. My chest caved in. I tried to scream but all that came out was a hoarse groan, and a broken: “Oh God...fuck...shit...”
Through the blur, I saw pieces of Mister Cunningham.
The hiss from the nose tubes thinned. The IV drip slowed. His gray lips were getting pinker by the second, and the wrinkles in his eyes started to soften. The dark spots faded, and faded, until his skin had become clear and supple.
The device wound down, clicked off.
Mister Cunningham opened his eyes.
He sat up, cleared his throat.
“Efficient,” he said.
Then he waved his hand.
The door burst open. Two large men barged inside carrying a stretcher. They tossed me onto it, brought me downstairs, and slid me into the back of my Corolla.
One of them got in the driver’s seat.
The other reached in my pocket and took my phone.
“St. Peter’s,” he said. “Seventeenth floor. Thirty-two B.”
The driver nodded. They slid my phone into my pocket and slammed the door.
While we drove, my thigh vibrated.
I could barely make out the words on screen.
Congratulations!
You just met your #moneygoals! 🥂
Tap to see your balance.
I tapped.
$2,001,382.96
We arrived around three in the morning.
The men lifted me out and passed me to a nurse who dropped me in a wheelchair and carted me across the lobby into a freezing cold elevator. It shook a little, which hurt a lot. The doors slid open, revealing a hallway filled with dozens of hairless people getting pushed around on wheelchairs.
We stopped at room 32B.
Inside were two small beds.
Nadia had the one with the view.
“Great news,” I whispered, as the nurse tucked me into the open bed, and disappeared.
Nadia didn’t blink.
Her mouth hung open. A quiet whistle came and went as her empty eyes stared at the pale white light above us. A bead of drool spilled onto her gown.
“You’re gonna beat this, baby girl.”
My thigh vibrated.
My hand trembled as I tapped the tiny blue square labeled, Carry Me.
After that, I don’t remember much.
Just a little pink bow, and the two most beautiful words in the American vocabulary:
Payment received! 🥳
Please hold while Nadia is matched with her perfectly compatible Carrier…
oh. my. wow.
This is a very very good read, drop it smack down in the new season of Black Mirror and it would fit right in.
Scary,unfortunate, riveting but fucking good.
Great story Jake! Damned dark in the best way