Idol Tongue by B Drew Collier continued...
Foxx: What's wrong with the audio?
Rodman: Sounds like an Abrams tank over a bad cell phone connection.
Chow: That's his voice sir. Um. He does explain it in a moment.
My life is truly misspent. Not just down here in the dark heart of your secret base, but from the start. You all know my father was an alchemist with metal, although I didn't realize that until he was gone. Pops always told me I was alive as any human, that I was more than steel and wire, but I didn't…couldn't realize what he meant back then. I looked like them, but knew I didn't work the same, didn't eat, didn't sleep.
And the voice.
No one else heard it. This man singing, the music ringing day and night. You ever get a song caught in your head? I had them all caught in mine. Never gave me a single minute of silence. By the time I discovered who he was, Pops was long gone, so I couldn't ask him why he put Billy in my head.
I don't know if he would have told me anyway. Pops wanted me to discover things for myself. It took me over ten years to realize I could tear the music apart from the voice, break open the words and use them to talk like a man instead of a child.
It's still ugly, but I didn't have much help to work on it. Give me a few years and I'll have it cool as peppermint.
You might call me the prodigal son--impatient, stupid, out of control-but all I had was a black hole where my father should be, and an idle tongue in my brain. My life was just a cold black storm, so I turned to the devil. I broke into houses. I sold Quaaludes, crack, ecstasy, smack, you name it. In a world of corruption, I fit right into a life of crime…apart from one catch, I could not tell a lie.
Well, I could lie, but everyone knew.
I'm still not sure how. I mean, I know there's something in my face--they told me--but I don't understand it. I've lied to myself in the mirror, watched my eyes, my lips, everything for some sign. My face looks, to me, like an angel's, but this one girl, couldn't have been more than sixteen, she told me, "it's like looking into the shadows and finding a reflection of myself with my soul torn out."
Soul, she says. She may as well say blood or bone because I got none of that.
What do you boys think?
I don't want to see every human dead.
Can you tell?
Foxx: Jesus. What kind of maniac creates something like that?
Rodman: Don't be so dramatic, Foxx.
Foxx: Dramatic? You saw its face. It's...inhuman.
Chow: Precisely.
I used to think it was just part of the whole curse of being me, but over the years I've come to think maybe Pops put it in my face like some kind of cap on my evil. But I wonder, how did he know?
I have so many questions.
And thanks to my new friend the command computer here, I have one less question now--how to call you. I still have to dig a little deeper to find out where you are, but I'm sure it's in the system somewhere.
Talk to you soon.
--end transmission--
Foxx: Any idea why it called us, Ross?
Chow: I think you should ask the Colonel.
Rodman: (pause) We have…something he wants.
Foxx: What could it possibly want with us? We're mostly civilian. The only military presence is for security. We don't even have a helicopter.
Rodman: Can't you figure it out, Foxx? We've got Susnovy here.
Foxx: In the population?
Rodman: No. Down the shaft. There's a reason that area's restricted.
Foxx: But, why?
Rodman: (pause) We offered that son of a bitch anything he cared to ask for if he'd just come work for us, but he wouldn't play ball. We couldn't leave him out there where the Russians could get him…so we brought him in.
Foxx: Why didn't anyone tell me we were running a POW camp?
Rodman: Because we don't have to tell you. You're here because we can protect you, but you need to remember that this was a military base before you moved in.
Foxx: Yes, sir.
Chow: Um. We received several messages over the next 48 hours. Most of them were songs, so I won't play them all unless you want to hear them.
Rodman: No. That's fine.
Chow: The next pertinent communication came two days later.
Video Transmission Playback
As I was saying, I ran a pretty good con, but a life of crime doesn't last long when you can't lie. So I turned myself in to the police to get away from a Russian crime boss. Of course, no one knew what to do with me. They'd move me from one government cell to the next until I ended up in a deep-black program that put me in this underground hole.
Here's the funny part: they loved my face. Couldn't look me in the eye when I lied, but they figured I was the perfect lie detector. I couldn't tell you personally if a person was lying, but someone figured out that if they had me read what the person said, my face would know. I was still a kid, so I figure I'm heading for some kind of redemption, helping save you all from World War Three. I didn't understand how meaning is a chameleon, reality is a snake, and "truth" is a shadow in the dark.
Of course, they tried to open me up. Several times. Pops' old music toys would crack open easy enough, but he made me of harder stuff. Nobody knows what, but they tried to cut it, burn it, and break it so they could get inside my brain.
Whenever tech came up with some new tool they'd try it on me.
They didn't ask if it hurt.
It didn't--I don't feel pain--but the noise…
Pretend you're going under the knife. The GHB hits you like the hand of God knocking you into a deep, black sea where you can't feel but you smell your own blood, hear them peel away the skin, hear the saw tear into your bone.
I think it's fair to say I hate people.
Over time I put together all the little pieces they gave me to read, filled in the holes until I built a map of the world. I even worked out a way to control my face. I never learned to make a lie look like the truth, but I could make the truth look like a lie.
They made so many choices just because of how my face changed. Does that make me the bad boy? Anyone could see the bullet in the gun, the noose in the tree, the devil on the playground. Can you condemn me when it was plain as the nose on my face?
I've been out there. Walked under the dirt colored sky. It's a lonely place now, cold and quiet, ain't much light. I can deal with a silent future, but I'd like a few answers before I walk down that road.
Lucky for me, the command computer gave me a line right to your door, and there ain't no reason to wait around here.
Leave the light on for me.
--end transmission--
Rodman: So, why all the fuss over this…boy? He's in Dulce.
Chow: Was in Dulce.
Rodman: Son of a bitch. Where is he now?
Chow: Outside.
Rodman: You mean, on his way?
Chow: No, at the front door.
Local Video Transmission Playback
Knock knock, boys.
Look, I know you don't want to let me in, but I had access before I ever got here. I figure my father will be nice and safe under all that concrete, but you can't get everyone else far enough from the doors, so I'm offering you a chance to give me what I want before I open them up and let the rancid air in.
You know I'm not lying.
Make it easy and give me my father back, or someone else can piece together the story of how you all died.
