I must be cracking up (Wine Valley heat). This is the correct installment for this week.
“Excuse me, miss,” I say to a female passenger in an aisle seat with her back to me gazing out the window. “Is that seat taken?”
The red-haired passenger turns to face me.
I freeze, astonished, feeling blood draining from my face.
“Emma?”
“Look!” Emma points at the porthole window. She had been gazing at a shiny black Suburban with tinted windows alongside the jet. Four human figures clad in white hazmat suits emerge from the SUV. “So,” she mutters, “do you still think you were hallucinating?”
“Holy Catfish!” I hiss, not believing my own eyes. “This is the hallucination that won’t quit!”
The pilot’s voice crackles through the aircraft’s intercom. “Ladies and gentlemen, we apologize for the slight delay. We’re expecting a maintenance crew to come aboard and address a minor technical issue. We should be on our way shortly.”
The door to the aircraft, which had been shut for departure, is unbolted and four hazmat suits enter. They trudge down the aisle, causing a stir of titters and whispers.
I hunch down in my seat mustering the little camouflage available to me—and they move past us.
False alarm. I breathe a sigh of relief.
Short-lived.
A few rows later, the foursome execute an about face and retrace their steps to our row, where they come to a halt. Behind plastic face-covers, their eyes fixate on Emma and me.
The lead figure raises a gloved hand, gesturing us to rise and follow.
“Can you tell me what this is about?” I say.
The figure wordlessly gestures for us to accompany them. no explanation forthcoming.
I look around for Oscar, see if they’re here for him too. But I don’t see him anywhere.
Sandwiched between the four hazmat suits—two in front, two behind—Emma and I are escorted down the aisle, out the door and down a stairway from the jetway bridge. On the tarmac, we are guided into a hazmat van behind the Suburban.
A suited figure points to a pair of seats. We sit and they securely belt us in before disappearing to the driver’s cabin. The rest of the van is filled with an assortment of equipment including a panel of highly active computer terminals.
The vehicle launches with a screech and the scenery outside becomes a blur. My fingers instinctively reach for the door handle—not that I’d consider jumping out, just curious. As I suspected, it’s locked.
Invoking the spirit of Oliver Hardy, I grumble to Emma, “Well, here’s another fine mess you’ve gotten me into.”
“You?” says Emma, “What about me? Imagine my shock when I woke up in Las Vegas. That’s where you said you were when you fell up into this AI paradigm, right?”
“Good memory,” I say. “Would you have preferred Bengaluru?”
“It depends,” says Emma, pensively.
“On what?”
“On where they’re taking us.”
“By the way, how did you happen to be on my flight to Santa Barbara?”
“After our ordeal in the AI Nexus, I was on my way to see my parents in the Santa Ynez Valley. That’s where I’m from.”
“But how did you come to awaken in Vegas instead of where you started from?”
Emma throws up her arms. “I don’t know! An emoji exit emergency glitch? All I know is I open my eyes and I’m in an immersive playground called Area 15 at a very bizarre attraction called Omega Mart. For a couple of minutes I thought I was still embedded in AI.”
A muffled voice from below our seats interrupts our chatter. “Lemme out, lemme outta here!
“Did you hear that?” Emma’s voice hints of alarm.
“Uh-oh…” I consider the possibilities. “Yeah. And I have a sneaking suspicion it’s coming from your carry-on bag.”
“What?” Emma glances down at her hold-all. “This?”
I shake my head, sort of knowing what’s about to happen—and after what I’ve been through I’m way beyond surprise or disbelief.
Emma unzips the bag, just a tad, and the voice becomes clearer. “Hey, lemme outta here!”
This time I recognize the voice even though Emma seems to be in denial. Slowly, unzipping the bag, she braces herself.
An orb floats out, its single eye darting this way and that. “Wow, are we in beehive-land?”
“Quirk-bot?” Emma is wide-eyed and astounded. “How,” she asks, wide-eyed, “did you get out of the AI Nexus?”
Quirk-bot retorts: “You thought you could leave me in the digital dust? Just as you both did, I took the Emergency Exit Emoji. I meant to go where I was the last time. I guess I got rerouted and rode with you instead.” Quirk-bot’s cyborg eye gazes out the window and vibrates. “It’s awfully strange here.”
A few moments later the van abruptly turns and rolls into the forecourt of a one-story concrete block structure. It grinds to a halt in front of the glass entranceway. These words are emblazoned on the façade: Spring Mountain Treatment Center.
I google them into my smart phone. Shaking my head in dread, I groan, “Check this out.”
She scans the site. “Really? A psychiatric institution?”
I take a moment to digest the repercussions. “I guess it’s true what they say.”
“What?”
“What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.”
“Are you saying,” says Quirk-bot, “we traded one loony bin for another?”
I say to Emma, “You know, the first thing they’re going to do is separate us. It’s a classic interrogation technique to see if they can corroborate our stories. So let’s get out story straight. What are you going to tell them?”
Emma looks at me like I’ve lost my mind. “The truth?”
I shoot Emma a look of incredulity. “Be careful with what you refer to as the truth. First off, we don’t even know who these people are. We can guess, but we may be wrong. Second, telling the truth about what we just experienced may get us committed to this place. And that might suit their objective.”
Emma nods grimly. “We need to strategize.”
“We’ll get through this, just like we navigated everything else.” I feel a bond growing stronger between us because now I understand I’m not hallucinating on magic mushrooms. This is really happening.
“What about me?” asks Quirk-bot.
I shrug. “You’re free to do whatever you want.”
“Hmmm.” Quirk-bot closes its one eye in concentration. “You needed a guide in the AI environment,” it says brightly. “That’s me! So it makes sense that I need a guide in beehive-land. You!”
“The best guidance I can give you,” I say, “is to stay as invisible as possible. If human beings don’t understand something, their tendency is to kill it. This is especially true for American human beings. A talking orb with a butt-face definitely qualifies as something they would not understand.”
“How can I be invisible?”
“For a start, don’t speak. No jokes. Try to blend in with your surroundings.”