Previously published in Scifantastic

The cat let out a strangled yowl and leaped straight into the air.  Dan froze, staring.  It had jumped straight up and didn’t come down.  To him it looked more like the cat fell upwards into the tree.  He searched the dark, leafless branches but could only see deep black with faint traces of medium gray.  The whole area was dark.  It looked like someone had taken a gun to half the streetlights on the block.

Dan unconsciously slipped his right hand into his jacket pocket.  His fingers touched the stiff, smooth paper, folded once in the middle, right where he’d put it.  It hadn’t fallen out, he hadn’t lost it, and he hadn’t forgotten to put it there in the first place.  He took a few deep breaths to calm himself.  The subway station was several blocks behind him, and the Sony Plaza Artists Co-op was on the main street several blocks ahead.  His choice had been between waiting 45 minutes for the bus or taking a 25 minute walk.  Dan had no idea the route would take him through such a dark, dismal area.

The cat was making noises in the tree, and sounded angry.  Puzzled, Dan took a few more steps forward, standing in the exact spot the cat had been.  Looking up, he thought he caught a glimpse of the cat, and suddenly he felt light on his feet.  He felt himself falling and saw branches coming at him.  He couldn’t make sense of it; he thought the tree was tipping over and he was falling backwards.  He flailed his arms, body tumbling, and the branches raked across his face and clothes.  For a brief second he was facing the ground, and saw with dreamlike clarity the cracks in the sidewalk, the bits of litter, and the tree itself as it all dropped away from him.  Then he hit something hard, like a metal plate, and felt his consciousness fading.  The last thing he saw was the cat entangled in the upper tree branches, hissing and spitting, it’s ears flat across the back of its head.

#

A baleful black lens stared down at the sprawled figure.  The presence behind the lens extended a phantom feeler and dipped it into the thought-stream.  “This one was found in collection bin three-hundred-nine,” the thoughts said.  “Specimen was previously tagged as an adolescent and monitored.  Behavior patterns fall within normalcy.  Health indicators do not raise concerns.”

The presence behind the lens sent a thought-signal back down the feeler and into the stream.  “Continue,” it said.

“Urge we consider this one for testing.”

“Yes,” it replied.  Pulling the feeler out of the thought-stream, the dark lens turned to other matters.  The specimen in collection bin 309 was moved to the next stage.  Progress continued.

#

Dan Faible saw himself painting.  In front of him was the unfinished portrait of a plump, nude woman.  She sat in a plush naphthamide maroon chair with a coy smile on her face; parts of her that weren’t finished yet were softly outlined in pencil.

The television was on behind him, bathing the room in shifting colors and the sounds of commercials, talk shows and soap operas.  They shifted randomly, the television changing channels by itself.  Dan thought this odd but tried to ignore it.  He was too interested in watching himself paint.

All around him were his other paintings.  They were everywhere.  The garish paintings hung on walls, leaned against furniture, and were even stacked on top of the refrigerator.  The tiny, rat-hole of an apartment was cluttered with them.

It occurred to Dan that they were all crap.  They weren’t even good enough to be called primitive.  He wanted to tap himself on the shoulder, tell himself to paint something good, something inspired.  Somehow he couldn’t find his voice, and he realized it was because his voice was in the figure in front of him.  This was just a dream.  With the realization he was dreaming, the whole thing began to fade.

Dan awoke slowly, cautiously, as if his consciousness was being pulled from a mass of wreckage.  He opened one eye, then the other, but was unable to focus.  He saw light and darkness intermingled into vague shapes.

When he closed his eyes he could see clearly.  He could see a primary gray cat clinging for dear life to a tree limb, and the ground was dropping away.  More dream images, he thought.  Dan pushed himself up, sitting, his eyes still closed.  Then something occurred to him - what time was it?  He blinked his eyes, trying to clear them, but he couldn’t see his clock.  He had to get to work, then the bank, then he had rush over to Sony Plaza with the check for the artist’s co-op.  After years on a waiting list he was finally in.  A whole year where could do nothing but paint and be surrounded by other artists, people he could relate to, people who would understand him.  Dan was quitting his thankless and mind-numbing day job; no more senseless abuse from chronic jerks working out their Napoleon complexes in Corporate America.  Getting out of the whole situation was a dream come true.

Dan made it to his feet and stumbled around, lost.  Where was the clock?  Where was the door?  The answer came to him in a nightmarish rush:  he was not in his apartment.  It was followed by another immediate realization, that he was still dressed and wearing a jacket.  Reaching into his jacket pocket he felt a familiar piece of heavy paper, folded once in the middle.  He pulled it out and unfolded it, staring at it in disbelief.  It was the certified check that he’d gotten at the bank to take to the artist’s co-op.

Dan looked around himself with a new feeling of dread, wondering where in the hell he was.  It was a jumble of rooms with only partial walls.  It looked somewhat like a furniture store.

For a split second Dan entertained the notion that the memory of falling upwards through the tree was not a dream.  Then he dismissed it as nonsense, and picked a direction and started walking.  It was clearly a large building, and the spaces were all separated by partial rooms.  He found a bedroom, a kitchen, a living room, and a bathroom.  After fifteen minutes he’d explored the whole setup and found - much to his dismay - that there was no door.

#

The baleful dark lens watched the test subject as it meandered aimlessly through the habitat, its explorations and actions chaotic.  This species was one of the most frightening ever studied.  The difference in behavior between one individual and another was complete.  Most actions could not be predicted at all.  Just as with the universe itself, these creatures could only be predicted in terms of probabilities.  That coupled with their meteoric rise in intelligence made them dangerous, and steps were being taken to limit them.  The priority for this project was very high.

The presence behind the dark lens listened to the thought stream coming in.  “One constant that is observed is a conditioned response,” it said.  “This race is still so primitive that the biological response will overpower the intellectual willpower of most specimens tested.  This one device has a high percentage of reliability and is exploitable.”

“Proceed.”  The dark lens, with inhuman patience, focused its attention and watched.

#

In the kitchen with only two walls, Dan opened the refrigerator for the third time.  He stared into it, frowning, and closed it again.  There were glass bottles inside, one clear and the other gray and opaque.  The label on the clear one read “Pure Water.”  The opaque bottle was labeled “Flavorful Drink” and had a list of ingredients.  With resignation he pulled out a bottle of the flavored drink.  Twisting off the cap he raised it to his lips and took a taste.

It wasn’t bad.  In fact it was really good.  Dan took another sip, then another.  It was like soda pop on steroids.

He took his drink and went walking around again.  The walls sectioning off the rooms made it nearly impossible to follow the outline of the room.  The perimeter wall seemed harder, and definitely felt colder.  When he pounded on it, it was solid, like drywall over metal.

Dan sat in chair in the dining room and took a long guzzle of the drink.  His watch told him it was 7:00AM Saturday morning.  He wondered once more if the dream of falling upward had been real, or if he’d actually fallen downward and - upon hitting his head - it scrambled his memory.  This place was probably a basement of one of the derelict buildings he’d walked past the night before.

Wherever or whatever it was, he had to get out of it before tomorrow evening or he was going to lose his option at the co-op.  Dan slipped his hand back into his pocket, feeling for the check.  It was still there, still safe.  He finished the flavorful drink and stood, walking back to the kitchen to get more.

The food provided for him was much the same.  There were bland, stale tasting pellets - dog food came to mind - in boxes labeled “Enriched Nutritional Food.”  The overhead cabinets were full of them.  Then there was plastic-wrapped triangles labeled “Flavorful Snack Treat.”  They looked a lot like fudge brownies.  Whole cases of them filled the lower cabinets.

Dan unwrapped one of the snack treats and took a bite.  It was sweet, but not too sweet, and the taste slowly built in power, in pleasure, so that it nearly rivaled an orgasm.  He took another bite, then another, savoring it as the flavor built to a climax and then ebbed, leaving him with a craving for another bite.  He took one last bite, finishing the bar.  His tongue felt unfulfilled, his mouth continued to salivate.  Well damn, he thought.  He pulled out another and hurriedly unwrapped it, and took half in one large bite.  The sensation hit him again, the pleasure swelling, taking him to an edge but never over it, subsiding again and leaving him with a craving for more.

Lord God, he thought.  What in the hell is this stuff?  He finished his second and opened a third.

#

Dan searched everywhere, across pressed wood tables with plastic finish, couches and easy chairs of colorful Naugahyde, in bins and cabinets and drawers - all empty - he found no phones, no books, no radios, nothing.  The burners on the kitchen stove did not work, and neither did the oven.  The only things powered by electricity were lights, the refrigerator, and the television.

The television was on.  It played nothing but music videos.  He hadn’t really watched them before, but as time wore on the jazzy music and flashes of color caught his interest.  They were fascinating and full of erotic imagery.  There was no actual nudity, but the people were always almost nude, on the verge of becoming naked, always moments away from lovemaking.  The images were quick flashes; scenes rarely lasted a whole second.  The videos were endlessly heading toward a conclusion yet never arriving.  The songs didn’t end, they blended into the next song.  There were no breaks.  Dan kept hoping for a break, a pause, something boring, anything to release his attention.

Thirst finally overpowered his fascination and he grudgingly got up out of the overstuffed chair and headed toward the kitchen.  He quickly gathered as much as he could carry and headed back.  He carried water and enriched food along with the snacks and drink.  A bit of reason told him he should try to eat more of the bland stuff.  The floor around the living room was littered with the food pellets and half-full bottles of water.  It was like eating cardboard, he had to force himself to swallow it.

Dan watched the almost-sex on TV, and ate and drank the things that tasted so good it was almost an orgasm.  He drifted off to sleep, dreamed of sex, and awoke to find the television still playing the endless almost-sex.  Looking around with bleary eyes he thought, I’m still here?

He took care of his bathroom needs.  There was a toilet but no shower.  He longed for a shower and a change of clothes, but resigned himself to go without.  Instead he began another careful walk around to see if he’d missed anything, specifically seams on the outer walls that might indicate a hidden doorway.  He had no idea what this place was, but he was getting tired of it.  There had to be a way out.  It was getting ridiculous.

His walk brought him back to the kitchen and he stopped to load up again, and he found to his dismay that the cabinets had been restocked.  The snack packages and drink bottles looked different now, and bore a warning label:

CAUTION:  THIS SUBSTANCE CONTAINS INGREDIENTS THAT WILL DAMAGE YOUR HEALTH.

Dan examined the ingredient lists.  The drink bottle stated it contained:  water, high fructose corn syrup, sodium benzoate, artificial flavor, red 40, gum acacia, and blue 1.  The snack package listed:  sugar, enriched flour, partially hydrogenated soybean oil, cocoa, high fructose corn syrup, corn flour, corn starch, whey, baking soda, salt, soy lecithin, vanillin, chocolate, and artificial flavor.

He snorted.  It didn’t sound very poisonous to him.  He gathered up as much as he could carry and headed back toward the television so he could watch some more almost-sex.

#

Dan opened his eyes and saw colors and shadows playing across the false ceiling, and heard a passionate acoustic guitar strummed slowly, haltingly.  The singer was almost chanting, his voice breathless and halting, and Dan couldn’t understand a word of it.  It was a mish-mash of almost-words.  It occurred to him as he listened that it sounded computer generated.  Unreal.

An electric guitar came burning up out of the distance, replacing the acoustic one, and Dan sat up to see pale, moving shapes, almost nude, almost copulating.  It somehow fit the mood of the music.  As he was being pulled into the imagery Dan caught himself, closed his eyes and turned away.  He felt sick, drained, and hungry.  And thirsty.  He needed a shower and a change of clothes.  Looking at his watch, Dan discovered it was Sunday afternoon.

He stood up with sudden anger and shouted out, “Why am I here?  Huh?  Am I in prison?  Am I being punished?  What did I do?”  He figured someone must be watching, otherwise why was he there?  “Who are you?!” he yelled.  “What do you want from me?”

Nothing happened.  The television continued blaring the music, displaying the images.  Dan walked with angry determination over to the dining room and picked up a heavy metal chair with vinyl padding.  He carried it to the nearest outside wall and began smashing the chair into it with all his strength.  He struck it once, twice, grunting with the effort, powered by his rage, and succeeded in making a dent in the surface.  Encouraged, he continued the attack, redoubling his efforts.  The metal chair was bending out of shape, deforming under the violence, and chunks of white plaster erupted from the wall.  “You see that, you bastards!” Dan shouted.  “I’m going to go right through this god … damn … wall!”

The chair flew to pieces, stinging his hands, but a large section of the wall had been cleared.  The plaster was gone from a circle roughly the size of a pizza.  There was another surface underneath, and Dan wiped at it with his hands.  It was cold and very hard.  Midnight black, with specks of white.  He peered at it, struggling to focus his eyes.  It was transparent, and the specks of light were beyond the wall.  If he didn’t know better Dan would have thought they were stars.

It was like waking up from a nightmare to find himself in an even worse nightmare.  Nothing around him changed, but it all looked different.  There were stars outside.

Dan cried out in wordless anguish and fell to his knees, and started sobbing.  “Why am I here?  Why?  Why?”

There was no answer.

#

Dan tried several more times to find a way out, but each time he managed to bash his way through the inner layers of the walls or flooring he found the same thing.  It wasn’t encouraging.  Besides, the TV was calling him with its music, and he seemed to have an endless supply of food.

And it tasted so good.

Dan settled in, giving himself over to the sensations of sight and taste.  Part of him knew it was wrong, that it was unhealthy.  He still planned to try to get out, but he put it off.  The burst of flavor that hit him right in the pleasure center of his brain took the edge off his situation, and in combination with the television made the situation easy to forget.  Besides, he told himself, there were people who would call this the good life.

#

The dark lens watched the test subject while listening to the constant discussions in the thought stream.  The presence behind the lens came to a decision.  “Our testing objectives seem to have been achieved,” it injected into the stream.  “No more will be learned from this subject.  Release it.”

The lens watched as a remote unit was injected into the habitat.  It floated through the air toward the test subject, armed with a mind-disruptive sedative.  Uninterested in the outcome, the baleful lens turned to other matters.  It had already concluded the project would be a success.

#

Dan opened the refrigerator to get more drink, then turned and saw movement.  There was a floating bubble-like apparition, all shiny and lit from within.  He shouted out, startled, and scrambled backward away from it.  It advanced on him and emitted a fine spray of something smelling distinctly of sour apples, and he began coughing and gasping.

Sure he’d just been poisoned, Dan turned and took stumbling steps away from it, tripping over broken furniture and falling headlong across an overturned table.  The light began to fade around him, and he thought that this was it, he was dying.  It was confusing and pointless.  He felt light, his arms and legs loose like rubber, but he could still move them.  He crawled off the overturned table and up onto a couch, but his arms seemed to be going through it, like it was made of cotton.  His body stretched and bent, and lights moved passed him, around him.  Something, somewhere, seemed to be on fire.  Cadmium Red, he thought, with perhaps a touch of Alizarin Crimson.  The horizon was on fire, low and distant.

Pillars of light came and went, like white columns lit by a slow strobe light.  His arms stretched and wobbled and his head lolled from side to side.  There was music from somewhere, like heavy drums beating, and after a while he realized it was his heart.  There were dots in front of his eyes, and something furry pushed against him.  It was a cat, purring and butting its little head against his.  The dots in front of his eyes were stars.

Dan was lying on his back on something hard and cold.  With a terrific effort he managed to pull himself into a sitting position.  The cat backed away, but didn’t run.  There were cardboard boxes around him, and overturned garbage cans.  He was lying on a sidewalk under a bare tree.

Looking at his watch, struggling to focus, he found it was 2:38 AM Thursday morning.  He reached into his jacket pocket with numb fingers and pulled out the check.  He crumpled it up and shoved it back into his pocket.  It had been a stupid pipe dream anyway.

Muttering a low, constant stream of obscenities, he forced his sore body to its feet and shuffled down the dark street, abandoning the cat, heading somewhere, anywhere, or nowhere at all.  It just didn’t seem to matter anymore.

#

Dan’s neighbors in the run down little apartment complex looked on with concern as he carried the last of his paintings along with his painting supplies and tossed them into the big, stinky dumpster.  He took a final look at the unfinished picture of the plump, smiling nude woman, the canvas now scraped and torn, and turned away.  Inside his apartment was a big, new flat screen television, and bulk cases of Twinkies and Oreo cookies from MegaMart.  On the television played one of the new music video channels, one that never had any breaks or commercials.  He had seemed to find something in it somewhere, what or where he couldn’t say, but he felt compelled to somehow get back to where it was.

Down the street at the local convenience store, a mother and her kids came back in from their car to get some more of the new soda and snack cakes they’d just discovered, which were so good they couldn’t resist getting seconds.

Unseen and nearly omniscient, a baleful dark lens watched, waiting with inhuman patience, plotting the inevitable outcome.

Tags: aliens, conspiracy, gluttony, invasion, poison, sugary snacks