Project Purple

46 - Groucho

"I can't feel my legs! - Is that what you want?"

"There is no need to shout," a calm, male voice replied, "we can hear your every breath. Just speak normally, economize your strength."

Groucho moaned and looked through the tough bamboo poles. It was raining; he could see very little other than the side of the dock that led out to the square basket-type cage they had placed him in. He had to stand, because the cool river water was up to his waste and rising.

The tide was coming in.

A small snake wriggled by him and then out again, not bound by the incarcerating bars of the bamboo prison.

"What you did with Wikileaks really impressed us."

"Oh, yeah?" Groucho tried to sound casual, but the panic in his voice made him sound like a high-strung child.

"Your tracking, tracing, data basing skills are beyong proficient. You can go into RFID's, biometrics, DNA, predictive behavior technology. Take your pick."

Groucho giggled, never more frightened, "Brave new world."

He had inspected his cage earlier, when the tide was low. If they hadn't removed his shoes, he may have been able to kick his way out. The door to the cage was in the roof, a hinged slat, like his cappuccino maker at home, secured by a hefty, steel lock.

"What you've accomplished is small time compared with what you'll be doing for us."

"Sounds good," he answered, nearly treading water, "does your health insurance cover pets?"

Now he no longer had traction with which to even try battering open the plywood roof.

"Pets? You had rats when you were a kid-and that's charming."

The idea of kicking his way out through the roof was ludicrous; besides, he really couldn't feel his legs. "I'm a charmer, all right-That's what they say."

"No one says that," the voice corrected, "You work alone, you have poor social skills, and you'd probably say anything now, because your present situation is compromised ... The Chinese military paid you well-That little strike shut down the Pentagon computer network for a month, didn't it?"

They were right about everything, especially the part on his situation being compromised - He couldn't stop shivering. Another hour in this water and he'd either drown or lose his legs.

"Nanotech is a dead-end!" He shouted it, though he knew he didn't have to.

There was a glum silence from the speaker somewhere on the dock. Groucho could feel the disappointment on the other end.

"That's what I told them," the voice said. The guy sounded weary.

"Maybe it's my DNA-I don't respond well to authority."

"Your great country, descending to such ignominious depths, your souls so profoundly poisoned, so shamefully crushed by fear that even the decent Americans among you no longer dare express their revulsion..."

"I don't suppose I get a phone call?" The water was past his big stomach now. "You see, in my country..."

"In your country," the voice, angry now, cut him off, "you subvert the education of your youth by clouding their notion of right and wrong. Where no one is punished, no one is guilty. How can you expect the young to acquire moral discernment when they've been fed corrupting lies ... They needed light and you gave them darkness."

The water level rose; another couple of minutes and he'd drown. "Do you rent snorkel gear?"

The man sighed. "You are diseased, I'm afraid. It's of this vile disease that you shall soon die, unless those who govern you, those who know, restore truth and justice to your nation. And even then, it'll most likely be too late, even if you deal with the iniquity."

Groucho giggled, "Where is Superman when you need him, huh?"

Something bumped him, floating in through the poles from the back of the bamboo cage. Groucho turned and looked at it, bobbing there like a hairy coconut.

But it wasn't a coconut, because it turned and looked up at him.

"The nightmares are therapeutic, cathartic. Otherwise you'll go on burying the truth. It germinates underground, and only that'll be your respite ... Because then you'll spring forth in flowers of healthy, healing repentance."

Groucho wasn't listening. Instead, he was screaming, flailing in the water to escape the spongy head of Felix, the face staring upwards at the roof, and into the heavens, as if in Sunday prayer.

"You've been solicited for an important project. May I suggest you accept?"