Letter 1
3 August 2052

Dearest Emeline,

I have made it 784 kilometers since I left home. Some by hitchhike, some by rail, much by walking. I have not found anything about where they took Timor. Information is scarce, trust between humans is even scarcer. I want to ramshackle the COrE, I want to take my fists and pound them into the metal cages keeping people like me out, bend them with my bare hands. No one can understand the pain, Em, except you. Your own child ripped from your arms.

I am rash. You always said that but I see now I really am. The first person I saw on my journey I immediately distrusted. I went at him with flying fists. I can’t help that I see red. My anger is untouchable, it expands out from me like the smell of a dead badger, pushing everyone and everything away. Fortunately for me, he was more even-keeled. He grabbed my hands and said, “Whoooa, man, easy, easy, easy. Nothing but peace here my friend. No need to knucklebust without a hello first.” The man put me at ease, his eyes were calm. The adrenaline rush settled, I felt nauseous and a bit ashamed. The man was not phased.

He asked for no details, just assumed I was looking for someone and asked how it was going. I said I didn’t know and his eyes clouded over. Me too, he said. I felt I could trust him. I said they took my son. He said they took his daughter, the only one left, one had already been taken, years ago and they never heard anything about her. I guess we will walk together for a spell. The pain of two fathers is palpable between us. I can’t stop fantasizing about taking a wrecking ball to the doctor’s face. I don’t even know what that would look like but my anger is a torch, guiding me forward. Propelling me into tomorrow.

It is brutal to be away from you. It’s brutal to be out here. I just want my Timor back. He is just a four year old little boy. He can’t fend for himself, he must wonder where I am. Where are all the promises I made about keeping him safe? I can barely stand to be in my skin.

The man’s name is Sam. He has some information about G-IA, but just pieces and snippets. Nothing cohesive to pull any of this together. I am lost, Em, lost. And all I can see is that wrecking ball and it will feel so good to smash something to a pulp.

All of my love,

Axle


 
Letter 2
07 August 2052

Emeline,

Your letters were a balm, a salve. I salute your bravery and humor. Only you would find something to crack jokes at in the middle of all this turmoil. Obviously if I received your letters I have reached the first Outpost: Terrexus Minor. It’s dusty and barren. It’s hot and nothing you can do offers any relief. It’s teeming with people using every way they have to get cool and hydrated. In a cruel twist of fate the employment guild told me they are over-run with scientists, that they have no need for innovative technology. I said I would work in the lab as a tech; they said they were filled to capacity. I said I would work outside my field. So I landed in hard labor working on the docks behind the Research Institute lifting huge metal boxes. There are hundreds of them, day in and day out. Thousands of them in a week’s time. The boxes keep coming down the conveyor belt and they have to be put in the shipping containers just so until a container is filled and it is closed up, slapped with a serial number and shipped off to wherever they go from here. Perplexing. I did write down one of the serial numbers from the container. See if you can find anything on it behind the interlinks if you still have access.

ADX04856274-4356

It’s hard work. We are guarded as if we are prisoners even though we are there voluntarily and get paid for our work (a pittance, though). The system is based on output so you get paid per container you fill. The trick is you have a quota based on the number you regularly produce plus 10% increase. So you can never quite fill the quota; if you do, the number of containers you have to fill will immediately increase. If you don’t, you are penalized. It’s impossible to get ahead.

The days drone on. Despite the sixteen hour days I desperately search for our answers. I have loosely connected with the outskirts of G-IA. They do exist - at least that’s what I have been assured - but they have to run all kinds of tests to be sure you are who you say you are. Blood, genetic, mental scans. They match them against what they have of Tartarus’ databases. They say they are searching for records on Timor. I ran into Sam at the G-IA compound (built into the rock just north of the outpost, an awe inspiring structure of engineering genius). He said they were looking into his kids as well.

I don’t know if this is all a bunch of crap or what. I am distrustful of everything. Even Sam’s tears I sometimes question. I wonder if he works for the Ministry or the COrE or if he is simply a truly broken man finding nothing to keep him going.

My sixteen hour day starts in four hours. I need sleep. Keep sending me your words, I live for them. As I live for you, my love, my bright star.

Exhausted, but getting some pretty fly muscles to show off for you,

Axel

 
Letter 3
15 August 2052

Emeline,


There is a name for the children they have taken. Addonexus. These are the children of the experiments. The Addonexus come from all over the world. The plan is not just a part of the United COrE; the Tartarus Defense Force (TDF) - the troops under the Ministry of Order - are a sub operation of the COrE, which has no limits by country or border or language. What faces the public is a small, humble group whose mission goes back to the first era of the crisis: find a cure to humans’ water dependence, the original unattainable endpoint solved only with the hydration implants we all wear. But no further headway has been made in many years.

What is actually going on, beneath the deception, is a tangled web of experiments. With science as a mask, they made genetic mutations, viruses that didn’t exist before and now they experiment on cures to those viruses. Viruses that didn’t exist before the experiments began. Despite the destruction that all this meddling has done they proceed forward, reaching deeper, past viruses, past blood, into genes, into neurotransmitters. Searching for the one, the one perfect strain that both stops the replication of the virus and enables a lower hydration endurance threshold (HET). The goal seems completely unattainable.

Once the hydrograph systems[1] became standardized, the use of implants became more and more common in the experiments. Why use a hand held computer if you can just implant the components into the human being, honing beacons under the skin, microscopic receivers to pull in data, microprocessors to process them. You see some of the results of these experiments every once in awhile. Some amazingly cool, and others just technimedical casualties.  Who knows what they are experimenting on now, what implants, what thresholds, what new violations.

All around, everywhere I go, there is the COrE and there is squalor. Nothing in between. The world they showed us was a con, a gimmick, no – a diversion to keep our eyes away from reality. Its funny, all the science fiction written up until the Distribution Wars[2] wrote about the future with Big Brother or through massive social control. We trumped all that when it turns out when the earth is dying, resources are scarce and everyone is half hydrated there is no need for such top down control. Everyone is too busy trying to survive.

I have this intel because they finally processed me into G-IA. I am an accepted participant. I have the mark (they laser etch it on your bone, not on the skin). They can track me now without being detected. Their cloaking technology is blowing my mind. I thought my lab back home had some cutting edge technology but we look like kids’ stuff compared to what they have. It’s impressive.

I am a mule here, maybe worse than a mule, a slave. A voluntary slave since I can leave whenever I want. Once you are in the labor system it’s a cyclical process: the more you work the more they demand from you. Being sick or injured is no excuse, there is no flexibility on your quota. It’s killing me. I crave your insight and homemade bread. And once my belly is full, pulling you close to me and stealing a kiss.

Axel

 

Letter 4
16 August 2052

Emeline,

The work is hard, harder than any I have ever done. You know I have never been afraid of hard work. I am starting to think the containers are empty, or full of dirt. That we are moving them from point A to point B. Who knows, maybe the trucks ride away and come back through a secret entrance to put the same boxes back on the conveyor belt. It’s pointless.

I am tired. My search is slow. I can only get out to the G-IA compound every week or so. The COrE changed their requirements for me and decided I needed to add to my quota. The only way I can possibly meet it is to work an extra day, making my work week seven days. I did put in my formal request to resume my employment at my lab back home, but they did not approve or deny it. They said I would know my work release date closer to the time.

My hope diminishes concurrent with the amount of time I spend here. G-IA is doing what they can but it’s just not fast enough for my hot blood. I work in silence but inside I am rending my clothing and screaming out, “Timor, Timor.”

You mentioned that the neighbor has been swinging by and helping out around the house. Keep your eye on him, he would bed you if you gave him half a chance! Remember me, my love. It is all I have left.

Axel
 
Letter 5
21 August 2052

Eme,


G-IA is holding a Town Hall meeting, I must attend. They hold one of these meetings every four to six weeks, as needed. They bring all the parents together looking for children and do some kind of a workshop. They asked me to save a block of four hours, I can’t imagine what will take that long. I don’t even know if I will learn any new information but it is all I got to hold on to right now. And I am a man needing something to keep from drowning.

You had some questions for G-IA in your last letter. I will try to get answers. They have a necessarily cautious approach to disseminating information. You can’t just ask and get an answer, they have to get it approved and determined how much you need to know. I guess they have been burned before, both by disingenuous people and spies sent from COrE.

My request to transfer is approved pending confirmation from the lab Director that my position is still open. I was too fed up with them to remind them that I am the Director so I guess I can transfer any time I want. I just have to approve my own return to work.

Everything is easier to survive knowing I may get answers and that I may come home soon. Even the kapo is easier to take knowing the end is in sight. I didn’t want to worry you, but they have no compunction with whipping you for the slightest infraction on the job. I am convinced our kapo is a sadist, a sadist who has found the perfect job. He can get paid to torture.

I will be a changed man when you see me, Eme. I will be a changed man. But my heart will still be yours and I can be strong and brave with you by my side.

I am holding your hand in my mind and will keep it there tightly until I make it home.

Axel

 
Letter 6
Emeline,

This will be my last letter.


My anger is destroying me, its blistering my skin like acid. It threatens to burn right down to bone, right past my heart which is nothing but a vacant shell now. It’s gone. He’s gone. I am most likely gone too.

I can hardly write this but I know I have to. I wish I was there to hold you, but I can’t look at you right now, I will only see him and I can’t bear it. I am a weak, weak man. Everything I have to put down on this page will break your heart. I am wrecked. I am now the one being crushed by the wrecking ball.


I went to the Town Hall. There were hundreds, possibly thousands, of parents in attendance. All with the same desperate, hopeful look on their face. It was a kind of freak show of pain. A woman got on stage and hushed the crowd. She told us she welcomed us there by all that makes up G-IA; she said these were not pleasant meetings so it’s best to just get through it. The process may feel cold, but we have worked out a system for getting you through this and that is what we are committed to doing.

Then she launched into a fifteen minute description of what G-IA calls the Deception, and the Ministry calls the Solution. It’s horrific, worse than any of our imaginings. It’s impossible to even write it down. Experimentations turned to torture, torture turned to death, death renewed with another wave of children and the process goes on and on. I was not the only one who wailed in sadness as she spoke. The room emanated pain, mushrooming up like a nuclear bomb. She asked for silence, she said the worst was yet to come. There were only four outcomes for children who were not returned to their families within the allotted time period, for those of us who were lucky enough to find out the fate of our kids we received the attached report. Many of them were told it was unknown, which most likely meant they were deceased. So many little bodies, dead. My mind couldn't wrap around it. Then they said the COrE burned them and disposed of their ashes in large metal cubes stamped with a serial number beginning with ADX, for Addonexus. You know what that means. I have a stone of shame around me for being complicit with them, hauling their boxes day in day out for the last seven weeks.

I will let you read the pages they gave me about Timor. You can feel what I felt digesting this horror. Take in the heartache, the moment of realization of the truth, the reality, all that was inside me congealed, turned to liquid, exited my body to leave only a shell where a man once was. And that is all you have left of me, a shell. The only thing I hold together with you is the emptiness we now share. I have to fight them, I have to find a way to disrupt their Solution, a way to stop the next little Timor from going through what he went through. I want to find him if he is still to be found, regardless how difficult that will be. Until then I must fight, I fight until every last experiment is terminated.  I will be home when that happens.

The G-IA symbol is a weeping willow. Look for it. Find them, they can help you. I can’t help you anymore.

Forget about me cuz I am already gone.

Axel



 

 FORM LETTER GIVEN TO PARENTS OF THE DISAPPEARED

SOLUTION RESULTS                                                                   

NAME: TIMOR ROSENCRANS                                                                  2052October 4

We know this is a difficult time, please try to make it through this report. You are receiving this report because your child has been identified as being a subject of one of the TDF’s experiments. This means your child has been altered in some way; below are some of the most common (ways). You will see a checkbox by the one your child most likely endured. We cannot guarantee this 100%. We have people working on the inside of the Ministry, some working at the bedside of the experiments getting us as much data as they can. But it’s hard work, emotionally charged work, risky work, - all of which is brought to us in pieces and parts. It’s the best we have right now.

We found:

individual information ___X__   
lot information_____   
estimates based on date of  entry _______

 

Your child most likely fell into the following category:
⏮ Died in first wave of experiments, usually involving injection of some variation of viruses, toxins or microscopic life form. Died quickly.
⏮ Died in second wave of experiments, moving beyond injections to transplants, enhancements and genetic transfers based on success of earlier therapeutic interventions. Died slowly (between 2 months and up to years).
X Survived Wave I and Wave II and went one of two directions. Successful interventions went on to live in halfway houses where subjects can be closely monitored indefinitely over long periods of time (with or without parental consent). Or if unsuccessful in Wave II they can be used in the “general pool” for innovation and discovery (most of them are tortured excessively). May or may not survive, may or may not be returned to families.
⏮ Unknown outcomes. Unknown location.

We know this is devastating. We have teams of social workers on site for your two hour required therapy. Your time slot is: 0734

[1] Systems used in experiments to maximize how the body harnesses and preserves its internal supply of water. They are implants that are located near the kidneys and help humans go longer without water. They are standard

[2] Series of decade long wars over water that began in the late 2030’s. “Distributing” the control of water into the hands of the few globally.Type your paragraph here.

Thicker Than Water.

Axel and Emeline