The Entity

This is the story of love lost, love explored, and love found in a place least expected. It is also a mystery that involves power, money, greed, and lust. While not as graphic as most here at Literotica I hope you find it an entertaining read. I apologize for the state of the work. It still needs proofing. Please vote and comment.

JPMMURPHY

Prologue

It was a slow process. The labored hiss of an old steam engine seemed to seep like muddy water around a blanket of darkness. The clicks and clacks of the huge machine picked up speed like a record picking up speed on an old Edison Gramophone.

The sound slowly transformed into a faster, rhythmic, hissing sound with a soft clunk between each wheeze.

A respirator?

The sensation of nothingness overwhelmed. There was no hot or cold, only a soft numbness.

He tried to speak - a simple thought.

Where am I?

He had no feeling of chest or throat, no corporal response to guide his effort as he tried to form words and push them from his mouth. They just echoed in his mind each time he tried to speak them. Then they throbbed into a primal scream that dropped into a black abyss.

Then he tried to shrug and stretch. His terror was renewed when commands to his limbs seemed to dribble off the end of an old wooden pier into an ocean of nothingness. There were no reassuring responses from his muscles as he tried to pull ligaments tight across bones or stretch into his surroundings; no protective caress of clothing or warm sheath of sheets holding him to a bed.

A hospital.

It must be a hospital, he thought, and felt a slight easing of his anxiety in knowing where he was.

A respirator. Yes! The sound is a respirator, and I'm in a hospital.

The anxiety returned with a rush as he realized he couldn't feel the rise and fall of his chest.

And my heart? Am I alive? Have I died?

The questions came in a rush and carried him to the edge of a black open maw waiting to consume him.

Just then, the sound of the respirator stopped and that final thought of dying settled in his mind. Oddly, it was comforting.

It was like the high fidelity sound of nothingness found at the end of a record just before the popping sound of the needle being lifted.

I have died was his final thought.

*****

Another man watched the words scroll across a computer screen.

Where; my heart; respirator, hospital; died.

Fingers moved swiftly across a keyboard as commands were sent.

Glancing up, he looked through the glass wall at the naked body lying on a stainless steel gurney and took note of its complacency - the total lack of response as the processor stopped in mid-stride, halting all communication yet keeping its instructions in memory.

Reaching for the phone he hit the speed dial and waited.

"It's started," was all he said before returning the phone to its cradle.

Looking at the computer screen, he stared in fascination at the words once more.

Yes, I bet you do wonder where you are,

he thought with a smirk. Turning to another keyboard, he typed a command. The recorded sound of a respirator stopped coming from the small set of speakers mounted on the wall inside the room where the man lay.

Standing, he stretched and arched his back, pushing his hands toward the ceiling, trying to blink away a sudden feeling of exhaustion. It had been a long haul, one of many 24-hour cycles he'd spent going through code and searching for the entry point. Searching for the human mind's Rosetta stone.

Walking to the wall of glass, he raised his right hand, palm open, and placed it on the smooth, cool surface. Staring at the passive expression of the final victim, he wondered what was happening now, now that all activity had been suspended. Theory and previous experiments said nothing, but he still wondered.

The hiss of an automatic door opening brought him out of his reverie.

"What is it? What have you done, Kevin?"

The wizened old woman pushed the joystick on the armrest of her wheelchair and rolled forward. Her skin was a powdery white with blotchy liver spots forming a constellation every few inches. One eye shone a brilliant emerald green hinting at beauty long past while the other looked repugnant, un-natural, with its dull bluish covering of cataracts from edge to edge. The few wisps of hair still on her head were a dead, dry, gray. Her fingers, curled and fat - locked in the permanent clutch of an arthritic.

When the wheelchair stopped, a little quicker than she expected, she leaned forward dangerously, as if she might topple to the floor.

Bending her neck sharply to compensate for the deep curvature and painful stoop of her back, she fixed Kevin with a gaze that was far stronger than expected from the feeble excuse of a body her 116 years had left her with.

"So," she commanded in a scratchy, grating voice, "get on with it, you half-wit; tell me what you've done."

Kevin's face reddened as he pulled nervously on the lapel of his lab coat before moving to the main computer terminal pointing at the document he'd used to store the final words of a soon to be dead man.

With a few pushes and pulls on her joystick, she was able to lean in close to stare at the screen with her good eye. "What's this? You writing your life's story?" Her dry cackle cut like a knife as Kevin cringed under the hammer blow of the old hag's tongue. But the urge to lash out was throttled by a recollection of the size of his bank account.

"I've opened communications. Or more importantly, I woke him up."

He thought he detected an upturning at the corners of her mouth among the spider web of wrinkles that defined her face. Pulling back on the joystick, she rolled a foot from the screen and turned to face Kevin. Yes, the smile was complete and filled with triumph. She made a moaning sound that seemed to emanate from the whole of her body, more like a cat purring than human sound. With her emotions in check, she demanded the details of his achievement.

"I finished the final tests and debugging this morning. I was even able to find the audio gateway and give him some input," laughing nervously, he continued, "He's concluded he's in a hospital on a respirator."

"Good. This is good."

Her good eye shined with excitement as she pulled on her joystick and maneuvered to the wall of glass to stare at the young body of the man she had captured in her web. "Good. Call Gerald and tell him what's happening. Tell him it's time to begin."

*****

It didn't seem like a dream. It seemed more like real life. Sadly, some part of his mind knew these things had happened to him during a life that had already come and gone. At first, he didn't understand. At first, he thought he had finally rejoined the living as he saw a pair of eyes watch him intently above a surgical mask. Being held upside down, he was astounded when he tried to contemplate what manner of normal human being was tall enough, or strong enough, to hold a grown man up by his ankles, several feet above the floor. The smack on his bottom, which released a banshee scream, told him the truth.

What a strange thing for a grown man to dream, he thought. How odd to dream yourself a baby – not a toddler or small child, but a newborn baby, falling from your mother's womb into the hands of a doctor - a doctor that looked very much like a blurry, young, Doc Jones, his childhood pediatrician. A man that died a few years back at the ripe old age of 83.

His mother's voice caught his attention as she pulled him to her bosom and pressed her warm, swollen breast to his mouth. He suckled, contentment washing over him as the dream droned on.

It was an incredible gift from God, he thought, as he watched every second of every day of his life unfold in real time. Things he had never recalled before, but somehow knew to be true. Dirty diapers, the first meal that came from some place other than his mother's breast, Doc Jones pulling and poking as he received his first vaccination shot, teeth coming in and diapers coming off to be replaced by his first pair of underwear.

By the time he reached five years old melancholy set in as he listened to his mother tell him how big he'd become and how important next year was. He would be leaving kindergarten and going to the first grade. Surely, this was it – the answer to the big question.

There was no long tunnel with a bright, welcoming, light shining at the end of a tunnel. No hands of loved ones reaching for him. Not even an accusing God to send him on his way.

One thing was certain; his life continued to flash before his mind's eye. There was no stopping it. True to form and full of all the richness and detail of life itself. He was certain his life had ended, and this was his reward. He was surer still that when the inevitable final seconds of his dream arrived, so would the final second's his life. That he would drift off into nothingness - his life's energy absorbed by the cosmos.

*****

"How's he doing?" Kevin asked as he returned from a nap in his office. He tried to determine if it had been one or two months since he'd last visited his small apartment just down the hall, but decided it really didn't matter. He would be long gone once the old hag's plan was carried out.

Gerald made a quick sweep of the computer screens, "Looks good," he replied without looking up, "I wonder if he's enjoying the show?"

Glancing at another monitor, Kevin noted a higher than normal amount of supplemental brain activity and knew this victim certainly had some thoughts concerning his life's show.

*****

There was no sense of time other than the occasional reference made in his dream to a watch or clock as he moved from link to link, his id slowly unraveling.

He had no opportunity to change or interject in any particular situation as he stood by the side of the lane he grew up on and watched as his childhood dog was struck again by the garbage truck and left to die in his arms.

He smelled the freshly cut grass, mixed with chlorinated water, as he swam with his high school buddy once more, and they commented as only teenage boys can on the comings and goings of swimsuit-clad females they knew.

Then it was on to those sweaty moments in the backseat of mom and dad's old Chevy as he and Sue discovered the wonderful pleasures of each other's body.

The sadness was overwhelming as he watched his father's eyes fade once again, and his mother pulled a wadded Kleenex to her mouth and sobbed. No, there had been no chance to ask the questions he had so wanted to and still contemplated to this day - no chance to take advantage of the moment which was so real he could touch it. He was still bound to the decisions and steps he'd taken all those years ago as he shrugged on the coat of manhood at a much earlier age than most.

_____

"Do you know where we are?" Gerald asked, leaning over Kevin's shoulder to look at the computer screens.

Kevin shifted in his chair and consulted the note pad he'd been scribbling on. It contained key words and occurrences that gave him hints about what part of the man's life they were in. "I think we'll need at least four more storage units and another 6 hours to get it all," he said. As an afterthought, he asked, "How far do we take him?"

"All the way," Gerald said, "He thinks he's had a catastrophic accident and we staged it well enough. Let's let him relive it so he can get his bearings."

*****

Looking over, he saw her, sitting in the passenger seat, seatbelt snug as it pressed her sweater down between her breasts, one foot shoeless, tucked up on the seat under her thigh. The windshield wipers moved back and forth clearing as much rain as possible, leaving him with a cold grey view of the two-lane highway that lay ahead.

He felt the front right wheel as it slipped off the pavement and relived the relief he had felt when he tapped the brake to slow the car some before pulling back on the pavement.

Enjoying the conversation once more, he was glad he had turned to see her smile. Knowing, as he did now, that it would be his last living moment of joy, he soaked it up, reveled in the radiance and truth found in the moment even as he felt the steering wheel jerk in his hands again. The inevitable happened, and the car swerved when the right front wheel fell off the pavement. This time, the engine suddenly stopped. Pulling the wheel to the left, he yelled when it skidded right and hit a rock before striking a telephone pole. With a loud cracking sound, the pole broke in two, the top half crushing the roof of the car between them and blocking his view of paradise, strapped in the seat to his right.

He relived his frantic movements as he tried to keep it from happening. Once again, he saw her hand reach from beneath the crushed roof to frantically try to find his.

He heard the solid thud and felt the crunch of metal as the front of the car was crushed like an accordion against the limestone wall on the side of the road.

Then, for a second time, his world went black.

*****

Gerald rechecked the data and glanced over his shoulder at the equipment room behind another wall of glass. Amazing, he thought. Considering they took a reading for each of the five senses as well as the enzyme and protein levels provoked by each '

thought

' or '

memory

', it was even more amazing that it could all be converted to a simple, digital signal, and stored on a computer hard drive.

That every aspect of a person, including the chemical makeup to reproduce personality, reasoning, judgment

and their life

, could be stored in an electronic storage device of any size at all, was overwhelming.

"What do you think she'll want to do with the, ah, body this time?" Gerald fidgeted with the mouse and typed something.

"The incinerator," Kevin answered, "but we're not supposed go all the way to ash this time. It has to look like he burned up in his car."

A few key strokes and the victim lay in suspended animation again - no thoughts or thought processes.

"One other thing," added Kevin, "He has to be alive when we burn him. He needs to breath in the flames so the autopsy discovers what we want. Then we have to get the body to the morgue as soon as possible."

Gerald actually grinned wickedly at Kevin's latest revelation.

Chapter 1

CNN – Today both candidates are on the campaign trail. The Richards campaign continues its sweep through the south, focusing on Florida and Georgia. A former senior Senator from Michigan, many people think Kerry Richards has neglected his northern vote while working to bolster his weaker, southern following. In a very public show of party unrest, some Republicans have expressed concern for Richards's possibilities this November. All this might be a problem if it were not for campaign finance woes that continue to plague Democratic presidential hopeful, Arthur Wright. Thought to be a shoe in early on, recent questions concerning 'soft contributions', amounts that fall below required disclosure levels, have tarnished Wright's previous untarnished image.

*****

Downshifting to second, Linda Woo, second generation Japanese American and department head at the Internet Crime Bureau, braked lightly just before accelerating through the tight, right hand turn. The sun glinted off the strip of hood chrome that ran from grill to split windshield on the British racing green, 1957 Jaguar XK 140. Just as she passed apex and accelerated hard into the straight stretch of deserted road that ran along the California coast, a rabbit skittered from left to right, crossing the road, causing her heart to beat a little harder in response to the adrenalin dumped into her system. Topping out at ninety she worked her way back down through the gears finding second again as she drifted into a tight right hander which brought the sun back into view.

She found release in the hum of the engine, the feel of the pavement, as she sped along with no time for superfluous thought processes. In the morning she'd felt jumbled and stormy, but pushing the sleek sports car to its limit quelled those thoughts and brought something akin to peace.

Coming out of the turn she slowed, coasted off the pavement and rolled to a stop beside a concrete retaining wall that defined a quiet beach overlook on US 101 somewhere between San Francisco and Los Angeles on the California coast.

Linda let the engine idle a minute as she sat in the drivers seat listening to the tick of metal cooling and watched the orange red ball dip closer to the rippled, green mat of ocean waiting patiently below. Finally, shutting the engine off, she climbed up and out of the low slung vehicle, walking around to lean on one of bulbous front bumpers while glancing at her watch.

A year to the day, she thought. They'd stood here, in a gentle embrace, leaning on the front of his car, waiting for the sun.

The rain was to blame. The rain had taken those last few moments away from them. A silly, summer squall that came so quickly; there had been no real cloud cover to give warning. No gusty winds or rumbling thunder; a smattering of water that seemed to fall from nowhere and lasted only 15 minutes. But 15 minutes had been enough to take him away.

She looked at the sun and judged the distance deciding it was about now they had broken their embrace to scurry to the car and take refuge.

"It's just a few miles up the road," he'd said.

Linda shivered recalling how Michael had reached across, wiping water from her face. The touch of his fingers still tingled on her skin.

If only they'd stayed. If only they'd wrapped up in each other for warmth instead of finding refuge in the car. If only they'd kissed in the rain and let their hands wander.

They'd done it before. They'd kissed once in the rain at an overlook on a trip they'd made through the Rockies, letting their hands wander, laughing as their clothes dropped by the front wheel of the car. That had taken 45 minutes. Minutes that flew by like seconds as they'd made love on the hood of his car.

Their bodies and clothes had been soaked after, but as with most young lovers, there were more important things in life than a little water.

Returning from her reverie, she realized she'd missed it again. A year later they were cheated once again from the hiss that only lovers could hear as the sun dropped into the sea for the night.

The distant blue sky had turned to red and the breakers below chased shadows to the sandy beach. The gulls were leaving, heading for refuge from the night.

Linda pulled the white convertible top from behind the seats, unfolding it until the front tip rested on the chrome windshield surround. Opening the door, she slid behind the wheel and reached across to latch the passenger side top latch, then the one over the steering wheel.

The engine purred as she turned the car around to take the road. She sat a minute contemplating. Left and north would take her home; to refuge for the night along with the gulls. Right and south would take her to a point of departure.

His

point of departure. The last place on earth they'd visited together. Beyond that was another refuge of sorts. Beyond that was the completion of a journey a year in the making.

With resolution, her foot pressed the gas pedal as the clutch came up. Pulling on the oversize steering wheel, she turned right deciding with a lover's determination, to complete the journey.

Their journey.

Chapter 2

It felt odd. He enjoyed an awareness that held no pain but offered no other feeling. The memory of death, falling into the dark abyss after the last few notes of his life's song played out, was very vivid.