Free The End of Marking Time by CJ West Page A

taxes because I’d never filed, but I didn’t consider myself a hassle. She told me not to take it personally for the third time and then she started showing me government apartments from her folder. She had four available units. Every one was about the same size as my old apartment, but they were in square brick buildings that reminded me of the projects.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN
     
     
    Two days later I moved into my apartment. The place had an eerie, foreign feeling and I was even more uncomfortable than I had been at home after my mother put the gun to my head. The apartment looked empty, but eventually I learned how every inch of my place could be watched by Wendell and his people. My subconscious was warning me of the danger, that’s why I was nervous, but I wasn’t smart enough to listen yet.
    The Berniers had thrown out my old furniture, so I had to buy a couch, a bed, and a television. I had some things in boxes, mostly clothes and a few amusements. I lugged them up the stairs, but the bulk of the moving was done by delivery people. I felt like a duke or something. Morris Farnsworth created an account for me and the government filled it with enough money to buy furniture and rent the apartment. All I did was collect my boxes from storage and unpack. Charlotte even drove me.
    I made myself a frozen pizza, opened a Coke, and turned on my new television. Nothing but static. The delivery guys plugged everything where it was supposed to go, but I hadn’t ordered cable because Charlotte wouldn’t let me. I’d stolen a signal for years by paying a guy to splice into the Berniers’ feed. I decided to see if I could do it myself, but the wall plate was locked down. It took me twenty minutes to pick the lock without my tools. I got it open, but the conduit had been cemented to stop me from fishing another cable up. There was no telling how much concrete was down there, so I didn’t try breaking it up. The brick construction and the blocked conduit made getting service impossible unless I hung a cable out the window. Probably not a good idea on my first day.
    I was still kneeling behind my television when Wendell Cummings walked in. He didn’t knock. Didn’t say anything. Just came right in.
    “That won’t do you any good,” he said.
    “What do you mean?”
    “The way to your normal stations is through this case.” He held up a black case filled with DVDs. He set it down on the center of the couch without waiting for me to get up. Then he walked over to the front of the television, plugged a little box into one of the ports and inserted the first disc. The television immediately came to life.
    He motioned me to sit on the couch and pressed a few buttons on the remote control. “This is where I want you to sit whenever you are working on the program.”
    I didn’t argue. Sitting on the couch directly in front of the TV made perfect sense. It was the only seat in the room.
    “This first disc is easy,” he said.
    “It really is,” came a voice from the television. The voice was coming from a miniature figure that looked exactly like me. It was dressed in the same jeans and Red Sox T-shirt I had on. If it was possible, the voice was mine, too. I don’t know how he did it. He must have recorded my voice and image while I was in the infirmary, but I hadn’t see him with any equipment.
    A miniature Wendell Cummings appeared on screen, wearing the same boat shoes Wendell wore, but a different button-down shirt. “Since the real Wendell can’t be here with you all the time, I’ll be here, right in your television, to be your guide. Let’s get started. What do you think, Michael?”
    The real-life Wendell placed a keyboard on my lap and handed me the remote control. When he did, the miniature Wendell and the miniature Michael started telling me about the buttons on the remote control. They hopped on top of a gigantic controller exactly like mine and explained the buttons in such numbing detail a four year old could